Ok, you all knew it was coming. Since I did my “Portland Differences” series, you had to expect I would start a “Madison Differences” series. Well, here is #1.. Parking Meters..
So, in Portland, the parking meters are like high tech. You can put your debit/credit card in, pick some time, it prints a sticker, you put it on your window, all the meters are clearly labeled like 90 minutes, 2 hours, etc. I heard in the near future you will be able to add more money via your cell using TXT message to keep the meter running, just .. wonderful.
Now, Madison. “Capital City” (reminds me of the Simpsons) – you think it would be on the cutting edge? No. Like St. Cloud, its manual feed coin meters. Like everyone carries around coins? Reminds me of the toll roads on the drive to Madison. Pay $1.20 – exact change…WTF? The meters only take 25 cent max, have they ever heard of Sacagawea coins? 🙂
Well, that was the first difference, there are a few more I have up my sleeve, and I am sure there will be more as I go explore the city. One thing I will say though, it is weird now because I hear the Minnesota accent in people when the talk, yaaaaa?
In Portland, in some places of the city, you can get free wi-fi through MetroFi or Personal Telco. MetroFi has a free and paid service, as you can see from the screenshot, when you are on the free one, you get a nice iframe ad and basically every link you click there is a 5 second ad in between that and the next site you hit, kind of sucks and it doesn’t cover well, but in a pinch, I suppose it works. Personal Telco on the other hand is just a group of people that are setting up wi-fi nodes all over, free ones, or mapping out the other ones that are free, pretty cool. Definitely pretty easy to get online. Or I suppose you could be like most people in my apartment building and sit on the back stairs on the first floor to pick up the free wi-fi at Wired on Burnside… until they close at 6:30 PM 🙂
Anyone notice a pattern? You could bet there would be rain tomorrow, and it would probably be a pretty good bet.
Rain, everyday! Wow, but it isn’t like totally cold out, might even get to the 60’s. Take some of that rain and spread it around the country huh?
I don’t mind it at all, better than snow. The biggest difference I notice right now is that the cars make different noises driving past my apartment, because of the rain 🙂
Seriously. Every other place I have been, usually they frown on people writing on the walls, marking up stuff, writing obscenities (“Here I sit broken hearted, tried to…”)
In Portland, bathroom graffiti is an art form. Either that or bars and restaurants just stopped caring and figured it looks cool enough, lets just leave it. I have been to multiple places, and the bathrooms are just covered in graffiti, just odd 🙂
No matter what you do around town in Portland, it always seems there is beer involved. I blogged about getting shoes before, where they had beer. Today I went to get a haircut at Bishops Barbershop, they had beer. Of course there is beer everywhere else, microbrews flowing, within 10-15 min walking distance from my house there are two breweries, probably more.
As Homer would say.. “Ah, beer. The cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems. “
Minnesota is known for its “unofficial” state bird, the mosquito. One thing nice about Portland. No bugs!! It is so nice to walk around town, the woods, anywhere and not be bothered by mosquitos. People out here don’t even know what bug spray is. Wood ticks and deer ticks aren’t as much of an issue either. Just awesome!
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