VanPortlander

This is the sixth in a series of weekly interviews/profiles of various local bloggers (links to all interviews). It’s good to learn a bit about the people behind the websites and I hope that you find the responses interesting.

This week’s featured blogger is Adron B. Hall.

1. Start off by telling us a bit about your current blog project(s)… where do you write?
   I write a few blogs:
   • Transit Sleuth – All about transit history, politics, trip journals, railroads, streetcars, costs, infrastructure construction, and other related topics.
   • Contributor at Dogcaught – I write the random trip log, commuting log (if it is on rails), and will soon be writing about photography efforts.
   • Loosely Coupled Human Code Factory - Is a blog about my love for my occupation and all the technically related facets of that occupation. The name is a play on software architecture design patterns.
   • Music & Other Metal Meanderings – My non-frequent blog of musical writings, musical compositions, musical jamming, musical listening, concert goings, and other such things.
   • Adron’s Daytona Blue 350Z –This blog covers the events I attend, the road trips I take, and the oft mischievous driving I undertake. Kick it sideways.
   • Entrepreneurial Leviathan – These writings are related to business practice, ethics, business plans, and various economic activities.
   • …and I write one more that I don’t usually share… but what the hell. Politics of the Productive – Read it if you like US history, political quotes, the economic intertwining of politics, and the ongoing battle between the producers and looters. It also helps if you have a very strong, outgoing, pervasive dose of individuality.
2. How did you get started? What was your first online blog or journal about?
   I started writing on LiveJournal about 5 or 6 years ago. I literally wrote my own “blog engine”, but then found the maintenance troublesome and picked up Community Server for my own site. I started initially because I needed rant space, I’ve slowly become more creative, inventive, informative, and useful in general as a blogger/journal writer.
3. What’s your favorite part of blogging about local issues?
   I love every part of Portland. Even the parts I kind of hate I still love more than I hate them. The politics are often stupid and nonsensical, but they’re interesting and in some odd way almost fun. It is, truly, one of the more open cities in this country (if not the most open). The level of individual involvement is massive in this city. Still, I’d like to see even more involvement. Blogging is one of my ways that I stay involved and up to date.
4. On the flip side, what do you find most challenging when blogging about Portland?
   The fact that even though the city is open to all sorts of ideas and such, the city is actually – unless you’re a freak or trendster, extremely closed to logical and technical conversations about what is going on. The excessive and ongoing cost of the Streetcar is a prime example. There are so many things wrong with it, yet there could be so many more things right about it. I could go on for days about that one topic, but as I wrote above, “I love every part of Portland. Even the parts I kind of hate I still love more than I hate them.”
5. What has been your favorite moment while blogging? Do any particular posts or reactions/coverage of posts stand out in your mind?
   I absolutely dig it whenever I get linked and actually get some conversation going. I like people tossing in their respective ideas, writing to me about what they think and more importantly why they think what they do.
6. Let’s get technical for a moment. Do you have any favorite blogging tools? Platforms? Online or offline editors? Anything you use to make your blogging easier?
   I like Community Server because it is a lot more than just a blog tool. It is also mostly open source and free for individuals. I use Windows Live Writer almost exclusively to write blog entries. Absolutely wonderful tool… Beyond that I use Wordpress for some of the other efforts I undertake.
7. Finally, what bit of advice or words of wisdom would you give to someone considering starting their own blog? What do you wish you’d known from the start?
   First and foremost, the same thing others have said, I’d like to reiterate. Do NOT write your blog for others, write for yourself first. Only write things for others if it particularly is interesting to you. In addition to that, learn to write properly. Try not to be too wordy. Write more than a paragraph at a time, but don’t go on 30 page diatribes. I’m sure I could think of some more, but that is it for now.

Thanks to Adron for his participation in this effort. I first ran into him via some rail and transit blogs I follow and it’s interesting to see his views on other topics as well.

Will the last one out please turn out the lights?

Someone apparently thought they should offer up some helpful advice to those who might check the bus schedule at a bus stop in inner Southeast:

For what it’s worth, my bus was about 10 minutes late.

Last week I mentioned how absurd it was that the Streetcar was truncated for several days due to a broken switch.  Adron over at Transit Sleuth seems to have discovered the reason for the delay.

The switches for the Portland Streetcar use parts from Germany, so it takes a while to get things fixed.

Never mind that it runs on standard gauge railroad track.  Never mind the fact that there are half a dozen rail organizations doing business in Portland.

Adron comments this is “another absurdity to add to the list of absurdities.”  That sums it up nicely.

The feds have the Sky Marshal program to place armed agents on board planes. I wonder if Portland should be looking at something similar, since it appears there’s still an issue with transit-oriented shootings.

It seems that a week doesn’t go by when we hear of some sort of “suspicious” package being found, several city blocks evacuated, a bomb squad response, and the resulting determination that the package contained food, or stuffed animals, or books, or some other non-explosive device. Yesterday it was on a bus in the Couve.

When did forgetfulness become terrorism? Was it 9/11? If so… why? How many of the deaths on 9/11 were caused by a package left somewhere?

Are we overreacting? Is a bomb squad response necessary for every abandoned bag?

And when do we get an apology for TOPOFF shutting down a huge chunk of the city in a panic?

On Thursday at Ignite Portland (photos) there was a presentation about raising chickens in the city.  I know it’s legal, and there was some discussion about it on Metroblogging a few months ago.

Are we just really farm-tolerant?

How common is this practice?

This is nagging me enough that I’m posting this in hopes of some folks who live in the city limits to tell me… do your neighbors have chickens?

As I have used TriMet as a commuter over the past eight months, I have made observations which lead to Aaron ’s Laws of TriMet:

1. With the right kind of whining, someone will ride for free.
2. The pushy person who HAS to be stand at the door on MAX and be the first one off the train will always then slowly waddle up the platform, thus delaying those whom she pushed out of her way.
3. Service disruptions are timed to occur when I have dinner plans.
4. Late buses only get later.

So tonight Tom Potter decided that his role as the leader of the city is to simply walk out when an uncomfortable topic comes up and folks call you on the carpet for ignoring city code and trying to do things against the will of the community.

Wow.

I bet if I did that at my job, my boss would have little chat with me about professionalism.

Sounds like somebody is just going to take his ball, go home, and pout.

It’s ridiculous.

This time it’s the cyclist’s fault… which results in a citation, as opposed to when someone gets killed.

I do have to wonder if a minor-injury collision is even news at all?  Are they going to start reporting every auto vs. auto fender-bender?  It might’ve been a news story if they were reporting on the disconnect in citation issuance, but to simply report the accident?  Is that news?