Tram Meeting At Portland State

In case I forgot why I hate meetings, the tram thing at Portland State brought it all back home. Plus, my ears hurt from all the audio-visual meltdowns. Picture three nervous city workers trying to get a computer presentation going and floundering. I got it on videotape so we will all be able to share the incompetence close up on cable access. Remember the movie, “The Right Stuff” when they were trying to show Sputnik footage to the President but their projector wasn’t plugged in? Same sort of deal. One bureaucratic project manager after another talked with squealing feedback a constant threat. A voice towards the back said, “I hope the tram works better than this.”
The questions from the audience were written down, and then the long presentations began. One guy talked about financing and nearly put a mind lock on my head. I looked right at Mayor Potter when I asked my question about security: Has there been any study of the security concerns, and I mentioned global security: What would it take to bring this beast down? The worse case scenarios. By the time the question was addressed, the answer for my global security concerns was that there would be surveillance cameras on the tram with OHSU guards looking at the monitors, and an attendant onboard.
Afterwards we got to follow up and I asked my real question. I even turned and addressed the crowd and I felt good about it, as if my conscience is now clear. Look, I didn’t get a horrible feeling about Sam and the Mayor. I went up to them as they stood together chatting, before it started and shook their hands. I said I’ve been taking a lot of shots at them on my blog and I wanted to owe up to it. They didn't seem awful or anything, but this project is a joke.
The meeting was like wading through molasses but I was sort of proud to participate even though I came off as a little bit of a psycho. I never will fit in with this sort of society. Never.
The city government is a mess. I wouldn’t put this group of presentors in charge of a popcorn stand, much less our economic futures. I wanted to ask them how they could pull off the tram, when they couldn’t even get their audio-visual stuff working.