Mark your calendar.

Apologies if you were trying to get onto this site earlier today, only to see a blank screen. It's more fallout of my account being sold from one web host to another. The phrase "out of the frying pan" comes to mind.

Looks like the munchkin party is back on.

I heard during Nice Week that Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, a Democrat, was giving independent gubernatorial candidate Ben Westlund a hard time about how he's gathering signatures to get his name placed on the ballot. Westlund, who until now was a Republican, is taking signatures from everyone, including members of the two major political parties, even though under a new state law passed last summer, a person can't both sign his petition and vote in a primary.

Westlund says that if any of his signers go ahead and vote in their party primary in May, their signatures won't count toward his total (can you believe he needs only 18,000?), but there's no harm in getting their signatures now, even if there's no way of knowing for sure whether they'll vote in the primary or not. If they vote in the primary, they'll just be crossed off his list.

I don't know what Bradbury's beef is -- I've read the new law, and it sure sounds to me like Westlund's interpretation is correct. Here's what it says in relevant part:

Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:

SECTION 1. Section 2 of this 2005 Act is added to and made a part of ORS chapter 254.

SECTION 2. (1) An elector may not participate in more than one nominating process for each partisan public office to be filled at the general election.

(2) An elector is considered to have participated in the nominating process for each partisan public office listed on the ballot at a primary election if the elector returned a ballot of a major political party at the primary election.

(3) An elector is considered to have participated in the nominating process for a
partisan public office listed on the ballot at the general election if:

(a) A minor political party nominated a candidate for that office in the manner
specified by the party in documents filed under ORS 248.009 and the elector participated in the nominating process; or

(b) The elector participated in the nominating process for that office by signing the minutes of an assembly of electors under ORS 249.735 or by signing a certificate of nomination made by individual electors under ORS 249.740.

(4) If a filing officer described in ORS 249.722 determines that an elector who has signed the minutes of an assembly of electors under ORS 249.735 or a certificate of nomination under ORS 249.740 has attempted to participate in more than one nominating process for the same office to be filled at the general election, the signature of the elector may not be considered for purposes of ORS 249.735 or 249.740.

* * * * *

I'm a registered Democrat, and I'd sign a petition for Westlund in a minute. And my signature would count. There's no chance I'd care enough about the Three Demo Amigos -- TR Cool-long, Not Ted Sorenson, and Jim "Over the" Hill -- to bother with any of them.

I hope and pray that we aren't limited to a battle of the Goldschmidt cronies -- Teddy vs. Saxton -- in November. Signing for Ben looks like our only alternative.

UPDATE, 1:47 p.m.: If you sign for Ben, however, does that mean that you can't vote on any candidate or any issue in May? See the comments.

The New York Times' Metropolitan Diary column is one of my favorites. Formerly a Sunday feature, it now runs on Mondays. Actual letters from actual readers. Here's a nice one from yesterday:

Dear Diary:

While walking to work, I overheard the following conversation between a 6-year-old and his father just after they had gotten out of a cab at the Cathedral School.

Father: "If someone gives you the wrong change you should always let them know, even if they give you back too much money." Several seconds pass and the father adds, "You should never profit or take advantage of someone else's mistake." There is a much longer pause and the father continues, "Except in business."

Andrew Leifer

The NBA front office confirmed today that Paul Allen actually thinks he's going to buy the Rose Garden back at a bargain price. As a beneficiary of the pension trust that now owns that facility, let me just say I hope that doesn't happen. And given the way the Allen people behaved with the pension fund, I seriously doubt that it will. Even cold-blooded business people don't forgive some things.

Ladies and gentlemen, your! Las Vegas! Traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaillll Blazers!

And the caucuses are up.

The Portland City Council has now cancelled two consecutive "work sessions" that it had previously announced on the OHSU Medical Group aerial tram [rim shot].

Do you smell something? What is that -- a rat?

I switched on the computer this afternoon to find that my site had reverted to its state before the weekend started. Egad! I believe this is because the server on which it resides was falling apart, and the host "migrated" us to a new one. In the process, a weekend's worth of stuff was lost.

Nice Week is definitely over.

By 3:00, I had the main entries back up, but the comments are still missing. I'll do what I can to get those back up this evening. Meanwhile, comments on the last several posts will be turned off temporarily.

UPDATE, 5:02 p.m.: Comments are now functional on all posts, but a few comments on older posts must still be restored. If you see anything that's amiss on this site (from a technical standpoint, that is), please send me an e-mail message. Thanks for your patience, everybody.

The festivities in Muchkinland over the failure of the "clean money" repeal to make the ballot have been called to a halt. The people who were in charge of checking the signatures were using a defective computer database to do the verification work, and so now it's got to be done all over. Nobody knows if the proposed repeal of Portland's controversial new public campaign finance system is going to make it onto the ballot or not.

Oh, the irony. We've got millions to pay for politicians' junk mailings, but we don't have enough to afford a computer system that can accurately count signatures on ballot measure petitions. How positively Stennesque.

But anyway, now all the little folks who popped up last week to chirp out their insults to the Downtown Rich Guys have fallen silent while we await the true outcome of the signature count. The best one I heard was "The people of Portland have spoken." And several other munchkins chimed in, "Yes, the people of Portland have spoken."

When people don't get a chance to vote on something, they've "spoken"? Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more.

(Note: Time stamps on the comments for this post were changed due to a server migration.)

A year ago about this time, I suggested that the Portland Trail Blazers were for sale. Their owner, Paul Allen, had obviously lost interest in the team, and this indicated to me that he wouldn't be owning it for much longer.

Now comes his utterly ridiculous attempt to get public subsidies, and maybe it is turning out that I was right. There's obvious desperation in the latest move, which is being conducted with typical Allen ham-handedness. Mr. Bilionaire thinks his thinly veiled threats are going to enflame the team's fan base and get him a deal of some kind from Salem or City Hall. The problem is that he's so alienated that base that there are nowhere near enough fans left to generate any meaningful heat.

Let's face it, it's going nowhere. Public sentiment against a taxpayer bailout of the Blazers seems to be running about 9 to 1, and so DOS Boy ought to have his minions drop that one right now. Paul, old buddy, get real. It ain't gonna happen, so forget about it.

The fact that he's even asking for it shows you what a serious reality disconnect this fellow has. It's a weird, weird little world he's in, and never has such a misfit person inspired so little sympathy.

Which means only one of two things can happen: Allen can either sell the Blazers or move them. The former would be preferable for Portland, of course, but the latter wouldn't be so bad for most of the population. Within three or four years, the league would have another team here. And given the motley crew that's been assembled on the current Blazer roster, they're going to be lousy for the next three or four years anyway. I'd take an expansion-type team three years from now, if it meant parting company with the current expansion-type team plus Allen now.

Except for the obvious hit to the livelihoods of the people who make a living around Blazer games, I think it might be good for Portland to have a few years without a major league sport in town. We can all see what it feels like not to have it here, and decide how badly we want it.

There are other possibilities, but none seem realistic. The Blazers could genuinely rebuild, improve, and become an inspiration again in the short term. Unlikely. Or they could continue to muddle along, hemorraging money, stinking up the league, and endangering the safety of their Portland neighbors. I think the word from the yacht is that that's not going to happen.

So it's sell it or move it. Sell it to whom? Beats me. Nike's too smart to get involved in that business, and as I've said here several times, the only local people I know of who could do a decent job of it would be the McMenamins.

Move it to where? I'm sure there's some other town somewhere that would like a Paul Allen franchise with all its glitz and latent loserdom. Maybe Las Vegas.

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Rumors are swirling around Portland tonight that Mayor Tom Potter has been rushed to a hospital in Southern California for emergency treatment of a severe injury he suffered earlier in the week. The official word from City Hall is "no comment," but sources say that the 65-year-old mayor is resting comfortably and taking pain medication for a serious lower abdominal ailment that is believed to be a torn muscle aggravated by a groin pull.

According to eyewitnesses, Potter injured himself in a prolonged fit of hysterical laughter on Wednesday, when he learned that Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen was sending a representative to request a taxpayer bailout of the struggling NBA team. "I've never seen anything like it," said one person who was present when the phone call came in from officers of Allen's corporation, Vulcan, Inc. "Right after the Chief hung up, there was this long howl coming out of his office. It was like that Vincent Price laugh from 'Thriller,' but it went on for like two minutes. Then it died down to this steady, slight whimpering, and that kept up for what seemed like an eternity."

Startled aides sensed that something was wrong and entered Potter's office to check on him. When they saw him lying under his desk, in convulsions and with tears rolling down his cheeks, they pressed the emergency call button that summons Commissioner Randy Leonard to the scene of any security breaches in the building. "Grampy kept saying, 'I'm o.k., I'm o.k.,' but you could tell he was delirious," the source recalled. "Finally he sat up and looked around, and started laughing all over again, and coughing. Then he quieted down, and it was obvious he had hurt something."

Although the mayor apparently recovered well enough to meet with Blazers president Steve Patterson on Friday morning, by midday he had cancelled the rest of his appointments for the week. "After Patterson left, the Chief had another fit-like episode, and this time he really reinjured it," said a staff member who requested anonymity. "We drove him home after lunch, and he just kept moaning, 'I can't believe this job. I can't believe this job.'"

Saturday morning, Potter was flown to a clinic in Lake Arrowhead, California, for a diagnosis. He was seen by the same physicians who are treating figure skating champion Michelle Kwan, who suffered a similar injury before withdrawing from the Olympics in Italy. "It's a pretty nasty tear," said a source. "They checked him into a nearby hospital just to play it safe." Potter and Kwan met briefly at the clinic, where they arranged to spend time together on their upcoming goodwill ambassador missions to Outer Mongolia.

Potter's private jet flight to the California medical facility was reportedly delayed by two hours for a last-minute meeting with Commissioner Erik Sten. "Erik came out to the airport to talk with Potter about having the city buy the Blazers," one witness recounted. "You know the mayor, always being nice to people. It took him the better part of an hour to talk the kid down."

It was the second clandestine trip to the hospital for Potter in a little more than a month. On Jan. 19, he was treated at Providence Good Samaritan Hospital for a flesh wound to the hand suffered at a lunch at the London Grill at the Benson Hotel. Accounts of the incident vary, but one waitperson at the swank restaurant told reporters that the mayor was stabbed with a fork in an altercation with "a white-bearded guy who came in on one of them Segway deals."

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There are only six and a half hours left in Nice Week on this blog. After midnight, we're gonna let it all hang out... And there will be some issues to address. Boy, do we have issues. So if you've got something nice to say on a Saturday evening, now's your chance.

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Here -- here's what it's all about.

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Karin Hansen, the wife of Portland Mayor Tom Potter, has started blogging. She's posted an entry on the city's official Women's History Month blog.

All together now: That's nice.

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A reader writes:

I thought this photo might make you smile. Someone is tying little plastic ponies to the old "sidewalk horse rings" (don't know what else to call them) in the Pearl. They are in locations all over the neighborhood. It's pretty amusing to see them. Most of the time, only the kids notice them (or the people with child-like imagination!).

UPDATE, 4:31 p.m.: Now the reader writes: I sent you the photo a bit prematurely... it is being considered for publication (soon) and should not have been released to the public. I'm glad that you liked it enough to add to your blog, but would you mind removing it?

O.k., I guess. Good thing for you it's Nice Week.

UPDATE, 2/25, 2:50 a.m.: Another alert reader has a photo of this that he's willing to share. Not as artsy, but more illustrative of the setup:

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Brandon over at Welcome to Blog (a.k.a. laurabush.info) gets what he wants, but then feels remorse:

It was always there when I got home from work, kind of like a reliable dog. A 2,000 pound steel dog with a broken windshield and a torn up driver's side seat.

But of course, we've come to expect no less than greatness from WTB.

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Congratulations to all those who survived this week's state bar exams around the country. Here in Oregon, they even asked a two-part question on federal income tax law!

Now the waiting for results begins, but let's hope all the test takers give themselves at least a short time to bask in the glow of having gotten it done.

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Most of my work has to do with reading and writing. Read, read, read; write, write, write; all day long. About 20 percent of the time, I stand up in front of a group and talk, but the job is mostly about the written word. Then there's my internet hobby -- more of the same. When I take a break from all that, I don't find myself reading a book for pleasure as much as I probably should.

Lately when I do get around to recreational reading, I've been consuming books written by people I know. My current read was penned by my friend and multi-talented colleague, Ron Lansing. It's called "Nimrod," and it's written around the capture and trial of Oregon's first accused murderer, a crusty, old, early Willamette Valley settler by the name of Nimrod O'Kelly.

Now, right off the bat, the title of the book is going to cause a few titters. I had a California-born-and-raised girlfriend for a short while some years ago. She spoke fluent Valley Girl, and she was always calling some person she thought was stupid a "nimrod." I think the dictionary definition is "hunter," but not in her dictionary. (As I recall, she might also brand a slow person as a "nimbus.")

Anyway, once you get past the title (if you need to), Lansing's history of the O'Kelly affair is quite interesting. Picture a western Oregon that was just being settled, in 1852, only about a decade after the very first wagon made it over the Rockies and out to Oregon territory. Everything was being done by the seat of the pants, including law and criminal justice. And old Nimrod was quite the character, having made it over the divide, hopping from wagon train to wagon train, alone at the age of 65. Years later, he got into a beef with a neighbor, and, well, there were no Office of Neighborhood Involvement mediators back then to help work things out. Next thing you know he was being tried for allegedly killing the guy.

I'm not as up on my Oregon history as I should be. I read through Kimbark McColl's books on Portland when they came out decades ago, but a lot of it went in one eye and out the other. Lansing's book will surely get me back up to speed on the early days of the white man in our neck of the woods, and give me some interesting angles on law and civilization to think about.

But now that that's out of the way, let me tell you why this is such a great read: It's pure Ron. Every couple of pages or so, he drops in a sage observation that connects his story to a much larger truth. "It is one thing to pester government about its empty head," he writes, "but quite another to carp on its full heart." Introducing O'Kelly, he says, "There was more past than future in him, more memories than dreams." You hit one of these, and you have to smile. Ron has thought a lot of things all the way through. It's poetry amidst the history. Inspiring stuff.

At the rate of a few pages a night, it takes me forever to get through a book any more. With this one, that's a good thing. I'll be savoring every page.

I've mentioned here before that I don't really "get" most of Bruce Springsteen's solo acoustic stuff. Given the incredibly high highs and low lows Bruce has brought to us over the years, to me the quiet, Guthrie-esque material just sort of shuffles along.

On his latest album in this line, however, there's a song that really speaks to me. The lyrics are here. Now there's the young poet who walked the streets of Asbury and the City 35 years ago.

We have officially reached the halfway point in Nice Week. Like the week when I turned off comments, it's been beneficial so far. A different perspective always helps. And people like these guys.

Travis Hall, who drops by this blog from time to time, was telling me the other day about a former co-worker of his who recently passed away. They worked together in the military, in Iraq. You may have heard of the guy. If you haven't, here's a sweet story written about him last year. Here, alas, is the recent obituary.

Gretchen is saying nice things about me over on her blog, Radio Gretchen.

My friend Doug the Mountain Climber sends along this photo, and writes:

Yesterday [Sunday] was glorious up in the Cascades. Several friends and I did about 12 miles on snowshoes to Jeff's west slopes via frozen Pamelia Lake. Didn't see another soul all day. Nice, really nice.

A wise friend writes:

it's a pleasure to be sitting down and writing to you all again. it seems clear to every newspaper reading person i know that we are living in dark days. i'm always trying to explain why i'm so interested in all-ages music. i know that that music brings people together and any time we gather to sing and dance with each other inspiring things happen. spirits are rejuvenated, a feeling of community is created, hearts are filled with a sense of life's possibilities and, of course, everyone has fun. tired of the divisive political climate? break into song at the drop of a hat! now's a good time.

One of the things you get when you play the lottery -- come to think of it, the only thing -- is the chance to fantasize about what you'd do if you won. As I picked up my Powerball tickets on Saturday, trying to explain my conduct to my impressionable daughter ("Dopey Daddy!"), I gave myself a good taste of that.

Some solitary soul in Lincoln, Nebraska just won the $365 million jackpot. Even when you get past the fine print, that's still way more dough than I would know what to do with. Let's see: If you took it all in cash, they'd cut it in half, so now you're down to $182.5 million. And then there's the income tax hit -- let's say it's 44 percent total -- federal, state and local. That still leaves $102.2 million hitting your bank account 60 days from now. Happy Orthodox Easter, baby!

Where would my $102.2 million go? You start with your charities, I guess. Put 10 percent aside for contributions -- probably in some sort of private foundation, now that I'm a rich s.o.b. So now we're down to $92 million. Next, let's peel off $20 million for worthy family members -- but not all at once, we'd like to avoid gift taxes as much as possible.

That leaves $72 million. Seventy-two very large in the bank. You ought to be able to get 5 percent a year return on that, even if you put it into something really conservative (and that would be me). $3.6 million a year before taxes -- let's say you clear $2 million after all taxes. A monthly allowance of $166,667. Two million a year to play with, forever, and there's still $72 million to leave to the kids at the end.

I could handle it. Crank up the Jimmy Buffett, people, I'd be on the next plane to the beach. Somewhere like this.

Out on a late afternoon errand, I saw a couple of snowflakes.

Alan over at Blue Hole has declared this "Mean Week" on his blog.

That's nice.

One of the best parts of writing this blog has been the chance I've gotten to wax nostalgic. I've been able to write down some of the stories of my younger days that all people of a certain age carry around with them. Unlike prior generations, however, nowadays you can post your Memory Lane meanderings on the internet, and sometimes get instant feedback.

Some of my nostalgia posts have evoked responses of the most gratifying kind. Google searches landing on these posts have led to my getting back in touch with several of the very people I have written about. Such intense blasts from the past are great fun.

The other day, I got a new kind of input. A stranger from the same neck of the woods as mine sent me a photo of herself and some of her friends in Bayside Park in the Greenville section of Jersey City. She also e-mailed some remembrances of her days growing up in that town. Her name is Carol Saba. Here is the picture, and here is her story:

Well, sure you could use the picture -- my intention was to post it. I don't know what happened to most of the girls, though. Some went on to St. Aloysius Academy before college. Most of my friends moved away from the City. All of my cousins moved to the Shore, upper New York State, California. My immediate family moved to Florida.

Okay, enough! Sorry to rattle on so, but really, I'm just scratching the surface!

Thanks, Carol. Great to hear from you.

"Dan Saltzman is beaming secrets to the Venutians! Randy Leonard is really a robot built by Charlie Hales!"

You open the mailbox, and there it is: a notice from the IRS. They say you owe them several thousand dollars of back taxes, which you don't have, from a couple of years ago. The revenuers are coming at you with some highly technical and complicated legal arguments. They say you owe penalties. And every day, the interest on your newly discovered debt is piling up -- as it has been for a couple of years since you filed the tax return in question.

Maybe the bill is because of something your ex-spouse did or didn't do back when you were together. Like just about all married couples, you filed a joint tax return because it was cheaper. But the fine print says that y