Oh, that's a relief, Ginger.

ION, I have succumbed to all the talk, and have downloaded the Angry Birds app on my Android phone.

Consuela,

I hope you don't have any pressing commitments for the next 2-3 weeks.

Wow, le n, I see what you mean. That's horribly addictive.

Oh Connie. Luckiy I go through stages of not playing as well as playing

I just got to the Community ep about Abed and the girl with the Spanish book. I think Vampire Abed is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Can't stop laughing.

Cass (and anyone else in the Portland area)- in the future, any road hazard on a freeway is totes an emergency and a 911 situation. Potential for multi-car pileup at highway speeds=immediate response.

What you describe is odd. I'm guessing that if you were getting Mult Co (and not, say, Vancouver or Clackamas or wherever the closest cell phone tower is) and calling from a cell phone there is a feature that tries to weed out butt dials by forcing the caller to say something or press a button...if you don't it assumes your phone is in your purse or pocket and disconnects. But you get through that hoop by pressing *any* button or saying pretty much *anything* so we still talk to lots of pockets and purses. If it makes you feel any better, there are usually 5-15 calls on every freeway hazard, so it likely got reported by someone else.

The weekend is not going quite as planned. We had an exciting tire blow-out on the freeway, with bonus "What is that cable from under the car attached to?" questions. We made it back home safely, Pete has an appointment to take the car in on Monday, and Cass kindly booked me a train ticket for tomorrow.

So new plan: I go to Portland on the train tomorrow, get all fancied up, go to the Vampire Ball! Then I stay in PDX all week, because I'm taking the work laptop and can work remotely. Then next Friday, MCR concert!

(Pete heartily endorses me staying w/ Cass for a week, because he thinks the decompression time will be VERY VERY good for me. My husband, a clever guy!)

Apparently he feared police might be a bit testy about his having shot two officers when they pulled him over.

Yeah, cops don't take kindly to suspects who have already shot their colleagues. That much adrenaline+anger+loaded weapons=potential for target practice.

Yay for extended Jilli visit! I would offer to give you a super exciting tour of the 911 facility but it's full of bad juju right now due to a new computer system going into place. Might have to substitute drinks and baked goods instead.

Potential for multi-car pileup at highway speeds=immediate response.

That is actually good to know. I was weighing the harm of a car hitting it (bad but it'd hurt the car and not likely people and probably thus not a 911 call) to a motorcycle (badddddd) but I just didn't want to overstress a system that was hard hit already.

Now I know and have other numbers programmed.

I did call in a really dangerous driver on the 5N in Washington once and they'd had a lot of calls but I could give them good information, so I really value the service. I just don't want to abuse it.

They really were likely weeding out the butt dial but I didn't want to *say* emergency until I was certain...

Then I stay in PDX all week, because I'm taking the work laptop and can work remotely. Then next Friday, MCR concert!

Welcome to my lair...

NYC has 311 for non-emergency info and its the best thing in the world.

First of all, they're amazingly helpful. Second, they'll toss you to 911 when you end up in that "I'm not sure" sitch.