May 2, 2023: Can We Come Out Now?

Before the pandemic, there was a wonderful website called Is a Train Blocking 11^th?   This is important trip-planning info for Inner Southeast Portland. If you clicked on it, you got a full screen answer, either YES (white on black) or NO (black on white), plus a little timer showing, if YES, how long the train had been there. (That last was interesting but useless, since it couldn’t predict when it would clear. Sometimes, 11^th was blocked for 45 minutes.)

What I liked best was that it was maintained by humans whose office window overlooked the intersection. It wasn’t a sensor, or a traffic cam. 

I miss it. Nowadays, I skip 11th entirely, if I am in a rush, and go all the way to Powell on 21^st. Seems like the long way, until it isn’t.

My Seattle friend told me there is a similar Washington site called Is The Mountain Out? I went looking, and it seems there are at least three versions:  webcam at https://ismtrainierout.com/, crowdsourced map at https://ismtrainierout.com/, and a Twitter account, “updated 1-2 times a day,” and yet with no postings since April 29, at https://twitter.com/IsMtRainierOut?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor.

The crowdsourced map is the most entertaining. You can become one of the crowd, and post the mountain’s status from your location, with options like:

From Bellevue – Not Out

From Bonney Lake – Kinda Out

From Tacoma – Mountain OUT!

These are all valid designations, and there are more to choose from.

Today I got several headlines in my feed that teased: Is the Banking Crisis Over? (or Really Over, or Almost Over, or …). I would appreciate a one-screen YES or NO, though I will settle for Kindof Over, or Mostly Over. But I’m impatient with reading ten paragraphs to get there. Also, I don’t know how to take the long way around. Mattress?