March 2026 – Life of Brian

Tax And Accounting Day

Wednesday, March 4, 2026 Leave a Comment

I used to file income taxes as soon as possible, like the first week of February, and in the early days, middle of January. I’m slipping, as it is early March and I’m just now filing for 2025. Looking back at last year, I was even later; it was the middle of this month. The way I have the taxes taken out, I can usually keep my refund in the two-figure range, but this year it is a huge $110. 🙂

I also did a little accounting. I have separate maps (by having separate Gmail addresses), and the post offices I have to find are associated with brian.the.red and the ones found are linked to mr.miata. After this past weekend’s 13 finds, I am down to needing just 63 post offices. That figure is coming from the Excel spreadsheet I have to keep track of my progress. The trouble came when I updated the Google Maps for each category; they were saying I needed to find 62, and I had already found 326. So I was one short in finds and one too many in founds. Should be easy.

The web will tell you that you can download your Google Maps Lists, but I couldn’t get that feature to work. I ended up opening the list and copy-and-pasting the list into a text editor. I picked the need-to-find list first because it was the smallest. I opened the modified .txt file in Excel and compared it to my master spreadsheet. I was missing the town of Ophir. I then attacked the much larger need-to-find list. First I looked to see if Ophir was on there; it wasn’t, darn. Fortunately, I found the extra item within the first couple dozen town I sorted through.

The Gordon House

Monday, March 2, 2026 Leave a Comment

The Gordon House

I knew of this house as I had seen signs mentioning it on my previous passes through this part of the Willamette Valley looking for post offices. And I’ve always been interested in Frank Lloyd Wright, as I kind of wanted to be an architect in high school. When one of the Moss Motoring Challenge points was a famous piece of architecture, I wanted to go to Fallingwater in Pennsylvania to get that. And we did; I took several from the parking lot, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get the car, flyer, and house in the same shot.

And today, after seeing the second sign for the Frank Lloyd Wright House, I decided to follow them to its conclusion. Cool house, and had I wanted to, I could have toured the inside of the home for twenty bucks if I had only been there on a weekend afternoon and had made a reservation a long time ago. Basically the same scenario as Fallingwater back in 2015.

Before I got to Silverton to see the Gordon House I did grab these two small post offices along OR-34

: Tidewater – I’m not sure who the customers are for this post office. It seemed to have been plopped down in the middle of nowhere. Yet after taking the photo of the place while sitting in the GTI checking if I had a usable image, a car pulled in next to me and went inside to mail a letter. (3/2/26)

: Alsea – Unlike like the earlier in the morning Tidewater post office, this one made more sense as it was in an actual community. (3/2/26)

Eleven Equals Thirteen

Sunday, March 1, 2026 Leave a Comment

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

I took eleven post office photos today, and eliminated two more because there were two post offices that have been shuttered since I made the jumbo spreadsheet back in 2019. They were the one called South Beach that is just south of Newport and the one further down US101 for Seal Rock that have been decommissioned. Thus the total number of post offices for the state now stands at 388 instead of 390. This is not to say that once I have finished the rest of them, there might be 2 new ones added that I don’t know about. Once I get the two tomorrow on the way home, I will be down to just 63 left.

: Hebo – My first stop of the day along US-101 and the skies were a pretty blue. Later post offices were photographed under cloudy or foggy or misty conditions. (3/1/26)

: Cloverdale – While most post offices are rather drab in color, the blue here in Cloverdale rivaled the green of the GTI for saturation. (3/1/26)

: Pacific City – This town was a few miles closer to the Pacific Ocean than US-101, so it had a nice quiet feel to it. (3/1/26)

: Otis – Is that front plate on straight? (3/1/26)

: Neotsu – The community of Neostu is on the 45th parallel north, which is halfway from the North Pole to the equator. (3/1/26)

: Lincoln City – The name “Lincoln City” was chosen from contest entries submitted by local schoolchildren. The contest was held when it was determined that using one of the five communities’ names that made up the city would be too controversial. (3/1/26)

: Gleneden Beach – See those two blue doors above the roof of the GTI? That is the entrance to the post office and there is a sign saying so but it is in the shadow. (3/1/26)

: Depoe Bay – Somehow I expected Depoe Bay to have a grander post office building. (3/1/26)

: Yachats – Even though it was Sunday, this post office’s parking lot was very full. Apparently the restaurant to the right was a popular after-church dining spot. (3/1/26)

: Waldport – Even though this was right on my route home for Monday morning, I stopped and grabbed it while I was passing through on the way to Yachats. (3/1/26)

: Newport – This was the town I was overnighting in, but before I snapped this photo I continued down the coast another 25 miles to get a couple more post office photos first. (3/1/26)

Life of Brian

Almost One Tenth As Old As America

Month: March 2026

Tax And Accounting Day

The Gordon House

Eleven Equals Thirteen