Any predictions on the NBA Finals? I am pulling for Dallas (maybe the Clips), but think Detroit (if they decide to play) has the inside track.

I forgot one other thing, too bad Mr Adams will miss the high temps this week. I guess he had to sub for Big Daddy and enjoy spring in Lyons to establish a crucial presence for the City of Portland.

I've been around this country and there is no place like Portland (or Oregon, or the NW) in the spring and summer. Fall is pretty damn nice too. We put up with 6 months of crap weather because for the other 6 months, it's heaven on earth. I really believe that, and folks I know who have moved here from all over the country feel the same way. Welcome to where I grew up, where the little, simple pleasures still matter.

I wish, for all the cynicism we hear in this town, there would be an equal dose of pride and resolve to make this place everything it can be.

I agree TK; I love the flora and even the rain. But to make Portland all it can be, I think we have to focus on the problems so they can be defined and solved. I don't think we have yet become cynical enough about the good ole boy system and its appalling jaw dropping abuses. I would like to see that kind of resolve, because,otherwise, changes will be cosmetic at best.

The cynicism that I speak of is usually directed at the ways Portland (and Oregon to a lesser degree) conducts itself differently. It's an attack on the brand of idealism that natives, and transplants who 'get it', have used to shape the laws and landscape of our area for the past 50+ years. That idealism isn't borne of the modern-day liberalism/conservatism paradigm, but of a unique political hybrid from folks who survived the depression and WWII. People who valued conservation AND logging, long-term vision and planning over our wingin'-it ways, hunting and fishing as a bridge to valuing our natural resources, and developing built-to-last neighborhoods and infrustructure for more sure future. I call them Tightwad Progressives.

I just fear we as people have crossed into the everyone-for-himself political culture, where the role of government has been marginalized by punditry. No government has ever commanded our complete trust, but we must trust that it does what none of us could do on our own, and that's ensure all of us have access to basic services and civil rights for all. I'm less concerned with government than I am with people who work tirelessly to bend the system to exclude or favor. Of course, more of a federal than state problem here, but...

Oh Oregon, where art thou?

It seems to me that that unique Oregon political hybrid and idealism still exist: one can get glimpses of them in the truly alternative media such as cable TV and here in the blogoshere; where people are being themselves and trying to talk to each other. MSM and "insiders" are perverting politics in a way that I haven't quite figured out, so that we have a two-headed monster like Kulongoski/Saxton tying up the governor's race while neither really represents the sensibilities of the average Oregonian.