Friday, March 02, 2007

Dangerous Gas Filled Fun Times

I was able to squeeze a few more moments of fun out of the end of my stay in Portland. I took advantage of my rental car and did a few tourist laps around town. I was able to check out the Portlandia statue, which is second only to the Statue of Liberty in terms of giant, copper women. Took a cruise around Chinatown, and generally bounced back and forth over the bridges that connect the two halves of Portland together. The maps of the city that I did have kinda sucked, so I just ditched them and roamed around aimlessly. I've been really impressed by what I've seen of Portland. I wouldn't object to living there someday.

All that driving around meant that I had to stop for gas. Waiting for me at the station was a trained gas dispensing technician happy to take all the responsibility. Oregon is one of two states in the union where it is illegal for consumers to pump their own gas (the other is New Jersey). Both states enacted the laws in the 40's to protect the apparently completely helpless motorists living in these states. I had no idea about all the dangers that I've been exposing myself to all these years. Not to mention the environmental drawbacks of me spraying gas all over the place like I usually do. Complete weirdness.


The sort of tragedy that Oregonians will not abide.

I had to take a break from traveling, otherwise I would be in West Virginia already. A different trip got moved way up on really short notice, so now I'm going on a drive trip to Galesburg on Monday. Pretty hectic these days.

Today I got to go to a coin show and AND a used book sale, which is pretty much the best day ever. Hurray.

2 comments:

  1. Appropriate video and sarcasm regarding gas pumping.

    Good stuff.

    When I saw the preview screenshot of the video though, I thought it was an actual video you took while you helpless watched professionals fill your tank.

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  2. No.. that probably would've got me slapped in the face with a gas nozzle.

    ReplyDelete