Scenes from the Waterfront Blues Festival

Photos from Friday, July 3, at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Ore.

If you need me, why do you treat me so bad?

If the corporate community and federal and state governments are expecting me to help lift the country out of this recession/depression, they are all in for a long wait. If it's consumers like me, in similar circumstances, that will eventually signal a return to financial prosperity, then we are in for a few more years of rough sledding.

It's not that I am opposed to spending money and wouldn't be willing to do my part, but I've got nothing left to give. Every bit of my income out goes every month. I won't be further mortgaging my future with credit cards to stimulate the economy either. The banks have jacked up my interest rates so high and dropped my credit limits so far that there is not enough spare credit available to pay attention.

I am one of the fortunate ones. I still have a job, unlike an estimated 1 in 10 people in the country who are unemployed.

There is certainly stuff on my wish list of purchases to make. I could use a newer, more fuel efficient car, but that's way out of the budget. My daughter starts college in the fall, which strikes terror in my heart and my bank account.

Even more modest things are out of reach or have to be prioritized. My work and weekend wardrobes are getting threadbare. I need new shoes. Those are the type of purchases I used to put on a credit card.

To cope, I've made some lifestyle changes. I used to eat out for virtually every meal, spending about $70 to $90 a week on food. Now I try to eat at home whenever possible, eating as little as one meal a week outside the home. Of course my food budget was pretty modest before, so I'm not eating a lot of premium cuts or name-brand products and I try to not to let any food go to waste. I've also downgraded my cable service (and may still drop cable altogether. I'm also debating a change in cell phone and Internet services to reduce those bills every month and dropping my landline completely. But those will only leave a few more dollars available every month. Other unattractive, but increasingly prudent options include either seeking out a roommate or downsizing to a smaller apartment.

And those are just to get through the next few months or so.

So don't count on me to spend more, Uncle Sam. I am still looking for ways to spend less. I like to think I've learned the lesson of easy credit and getting over extended. I mean, this is what I'm supposed to do, right? Only spend the money I have?

I'm trying. But it's not going to help put my neighbors back to work so their paychecks can eventually come back to help ensure I will still have a job for the foreseeable future.

Maybe some of those banks that were too big should have failed and taken their bank records with them to oblivion. I would be willing to try living without the credit cards. I'm trying to now. But it would sure help to do without the bills too.

Sadly, to the banks, I'm not too big to fail. They seem to be betting on it. But it's a bet they win either way, because they are charging rates so high they have already made back their money, and then some.

GM and Bing saturate the airwaves

Either I watch too much TV or GM and Microsoft are spending some serious money on their new TV campaigns.

In the case of General Motors, about every other commercial break seems to feature GM's "Chapter 1" commercial, putting a positive spin on the company's bankruptcy filing.

As a print/online journalist, I hope they funnel some money to newspapers and their websites too. But the cynic in me wonders how long it will be before some politician throws a hissy fix and complains about how much money the company is spending on advertising now that taxpayers own most of the company after the latest bailout. So I expect the ads to be pulled in short order. But media companies can sure use the money, especially as so many of those local dealers, which aren't selling many cars for either GM and Chrysler and thousands of them are about to get their signage pulled. Many of them may not be around when American car buyers return to the showrooms.

Come to think of it, with FCC control of the airwaves and government ownership of GM, maybe their new commercial actually qualify as a donated airtime PSA.

The other commercial assaulting the airwaves right now is the one for Microsoft's new search engine, Bing.com.

Will Microsoft's new search engine pose a threat to the Google colossus? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, have you Binged yourself?

I did. So far I like it. But maybe that's because on Google, there is a millionaire with the same name as me who shows up first on the search. My work blog profile comes up second. I come up No. 2 on Bing too, but the No. 3 item is also a reference to me. The millionaire dude doesn't show up until No. 5.

I have to like a search engine where I outrang someone on the Forbes 400.

But in the interest of full disclose there is an obvious flaw to Bing. The No. 1 person on the search is a reference to a neurologist named Gary L. Miller. WTF? I searched for Gary L. West.

So keep working on it Microsoft. But I have already found something to like there. But I do have a question, does Matthew Perry get a residual for the use of his "Friends" character's last name? I sawy his recent appearance on Kevin Pollak's Chat Show. Perry seemed like he might be looking for work. At least hire the guy for a frickin' commercial.

And thanks GM and Microsoft for eating up some of those commercial spots that probably would have been filled by Viagra and Cialis ads.

I heard a god today

To say I didn't like country music when I was young would be the ultimate understatement. I hated it. I was a rocker. I was a head banger. I like AC/DC and Van Halen. I liked Ozzy Osbourne, Cinderella, Queensryche and the like.

Country was my parents' music.

But one summer when I was in college I met a guy from Texas. Our musical tastes were not directly compatible. Tom's musical tastes tended more toward alternative music. It was music I was somewhat familiar with, since some friends at the college radio station had similar tastes. But it's wasn't stuff in my personal musical catalog.

Tom and I were both interning at the Corvallis newspaper. (I wrote some about Tom and Texas in this post.) One day we had no particular assignment, so we were just cruising around the city and talking. We got talking about music and both expressed a dislike for country music. But Tom surprised me by saying there was one guy who's stuff he liked. The artist's name was George Strait.

I'd never heard of this George Strait guy. We ended up going to a record store and bought a couple of cassette tapes "Ocean Front Property" and "Greatest Hits". We drove around Corvallis with the music playing and before I knew it I was singing along. Good thing we weren't on the normal payroll because we were not working. As we listened to those tapes, the music got into my head. It shouldn't have. It contained all the things I thought I hated about country music -- those steel guitars and that twangy sound. When Tom left town, he left the tapes with me and I kept listening. The music was infectious and I grew not just to like it, but to love it.

I've been listening to George Strait music for nearly 22 years now and have seen him in concert more than any other artist. I saw him perform first at the Pendleton Round-Up at at his country music festivals featuring other up-and coming artists in San Bernardino, Anaheim and Las Vegas and with another artist at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

CBS broadcast the all-start concert tribute to George Strait as the Academy of Country Music's Artist of the Decade tonight. Congratulations Mr. Strait and thank you for decades of great music. And thanks, Tom, for introducing me to the King of Country Music. Fifty-seven No. 1 songs, and he's not done yet.

Now, in this digital music age, I don't buy as many full albums as I used to. But George Strait's music I will continue to buy by the album because each one is well worth the price. Here's to many many more years of George Strait music.

Read and watch news with a critical eye

I am proud to be a journalist. I am also pleased, in this difficult journalistic climate, to still be a full-time employed journalist. But sometimes people need to realize that the things that get reported as big news isn't necessarily important news.

This current swine flu static is a good example. What's largely missing from this story is context. People obviously care about this story. It's resonating with the public. But should people care? Probably not, at least not as much as they the media and general public seems to right now.

As of this writing, Mexican health officials say there have been 159 deaths and 2,498 illnesses so far in that country. Mexico has a population of just under 110 million people. That means that 0.0024 percent of the population afflicted, sick or killed by swine flu in Mexico.

My dad told me something once that put some of what I -- and my media brethren -- do into context. My dad is a pilot. One time he had a problem with the landing gear on a plane he was flying. I don't remember all the details, but I think the nose wheel on the plane didn't come down. So he made an emergency landing at the Hillsboro, Ore., airport. To him it was no big deal, other than it caused some minor, but expensive, damage to the plane.

A TV crew showed up at the airport to cover the "story." He didn't see what made that a story at all. No one was injured. As he put it, it was the aviation equivalent of a non-injury traffic accident. A fender-bender really.

TV stations and newspapers don't show up for non-injury fender-bender accidents. They pay no notice really, unless of course it ties up a freeway during rush out. In that case the collision isn't the story, the story is that large numbers of people are stuck in traffic.

Fifty-five people have died this season of the plain-old flu in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and more than 24,000 have gotten sick from one of the non-swine flu strains. The CDC also estimates that each and every year 36,000 people in the U.S. die from some sort of flu related cause.

Where are the screaming front page headlines over that one? Why don't the stock or commodity markets react to that?

Why? Because it's normal. It's ordinary. News isn't always just what's big or what's important. A critical component of news is often just what's new or different. The old journalism saying is that when a dog bites a man, that's not news, but when a man bites a dog, that's news. Why, because it's unusual.

People are getting sick from something called swine flu. That's new and different. Of course people are getting sick and dying from regular ol' flu too. But that's normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill life and death.

It's sort of like reality TV. Just because everyone is talking about it doesn't mean it's important. It's a distraction for a while from the economic recession, high unemployment and layoffs.

So buckle your seatbelt tight. You are at more risk driving your own car than riding in a plane or from swine flu. There's far more important stuff to worry about. The Blazers have to go back to Houston and play the Rockets on their home floor, after all.

Prom night

Tonight is prom night for my daughter and her boyfriend. Here are some pictures of them getting ready for the big night with a little help from my daughter's mom.

Spring in Salem

Every year, I seem to miss the peak of the spring cherry blossoms on the Capitol Mall. Either the weather's not right, or about the time the trees are reaching optimum bloom, we get rain and the blossoms are decimated by a spring storm. But this year, I timed it right.

Last week, the weather was great on Monday. The skies were clear and blue and I ventured down to the Oregon Capitol, which is only about a mile or so from where I work, to get some pictures. I wish I had borrowed a camera from work, but got a few pictures I liked anyway.

By midweek, the weather turned gray and rainy and conditions have not been as good since.

Timing is everything, particularly with photography. You have to be in the right place at the right time. There's only one right time around here every year. I think I got the timing just about right.

We now return to our previously schedule clouds, rain and gray-skied gloom.