Due to inclement weather, Portland will be closed until further notice.

In Portland, we like to complain that we never see any snow.  Now we like to complain that the freakin' snow won't stop.  We have about a foot so far and it's still coming down pretty strong.  Everything is pretty much shut down.  Unless you're an EMT or a snowplow driver or a television reporter, there's no need to be anywhere, and no good way to get there.  After everybody on the street put our trash cans out last night, they decided that they won't be coming to pick them up until further notice.  Although Tri-met was official driving buses on most routes, I watched a guy at the stop outside my house for at least an hour.  I don't know if he ever got his ride.

I'm actually enjoying all this.  It's easily the most snow I've seen since we moved here, and since everybody is inconvenienced the same, I don't feel too bad about missing work.  It's been pretty cold (~20 degrees), so we don't spend much time outside, but it's beautiful, especially since it's mostly been snow and not so much ice lately.  Mizz loves playing outside and would stay until he froze to death if we let him.  D is not as impressed with the cold, but he loves staring out the window and watching snow fall with me.  Our main downfall to being outside is that we don't own much cold weather gear.  I dug out old ski pants and gloves for Franny and me, but the Mizz is playing outside in two layers of pants and fleece mittens.  We had to borrow a snow suit for D.  The Mizz has a pair of snow boots that we picked up somewhere, but Franny and I only have hiking boots and heavy socks.  But we're so enthralled with big snow that we go out and freeze anyway.

I noticed not long after we got here that weather reports on the west coast contain much more guess work the back east.  In Virginia, we got to watch the weather coming for days before it got to us.  Here, we have a dockworker 60 miles west squinting at the horizon, saying, "Weather's comin'."  Last weekend, they got it right on Sunday and the snow matched pretty well with what was predicted.  For the rest of the week, however, they predicted snow and ice everyday, and pretty much we just got wet roads that steadily improved all week.  Most area kids got the week off school, and lots of businesses were closed or limited.  Then Friday night, it was snowing, and for the most part, it hasn't stopped since.  Now I just heard that we might expect 5 more inches for some new records.  The National Weather Service updates/advisories/warnings have been changing every few hours and quite often don't match the last one very well.  Now, what was supposed to be rain by tomorrow afternoon has been changed to rain/snow and then more snow.  We'll see what actually happens, but for the moment, we're not going anywhere.

The best part though is that we're going to see the first white Christmas I've had in a long time.  Christmas lights look so much better in the snow.

Arctic Blast '08!!!

"This just in from our 24/7 Storm Tracker Team Coverage of Arctic Blast '08. We take you live to the corner of 36th and Yada Yada, where, for some reason, Susie the Weather Chick is reporting live from a gas station at 4:30 in the morning."

"As you can see behind me, the station is pretty much empty now, but is was busy last night as people prepared to hunker down for this winter storm. We talked to the clerk inside and he said it was slightly busier than normal last night and that people were buying Doritos to stock up. I want you to see something. Can we pan out and show the truck. [Pan out to see open delivery truck, probably delivering Doritos.] Well he's not there right now, but the driver was wearing shorts! Isn't that crazy? [Pan back to overexcited reporter.] Anyway, we thought we saw a few flakes earlier and we got pretty excited, but as you can see, it's just rain right now. The roads appear to be getting a little slick though. [Pan to show car driving by with no trouble whatsoever.]  It's looking like it going to get pretty interesting out here today.  Live from a gas station, this is Susie the Weather Chick.  Back to you."

"Thank you Susie.  Our [big breath] 24/7 Storm Tracker Team Coverage Arctic Blast '08 Storm Coverage Weather Center is just showing rain right now as well, but the National Weather Service forecasts that if the temperature drops below freezing, the rain could turn into sleet or snow and the roads would likely freeze over.  In other news, one source reports that if a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump it's ass when it hopped."

----------

Seriously, Arctic Blast '08 is what one station is calling our weather.  We did have a bit of snow and some ice, but it's hardly as newsworthy as everybody's pretending.  It's been raining only for most of the last 20 hours or so and does not look like it's going to be below freezing until this evening, but we're still under a winter weather advisory.  For the record, the preceding report was not near as fictional as it should have been.  Most of that is only slightly edited versions of what was actually reported.

On the fun side, the few flakes that were dropping yesterday morning were huge (1/8 inch) perfect snowflake shapes.  I'd never actually seen snowflakes that looked like snowflakes are supposed to look before.  I felt like a little kid for a moment.

Stupid music in my head

On the road again,
Wish I wasn't on the road again,
Rather be back home with my kids and my best friend,
Wish I wasn't on the road again.

Yeah, I'm on the road working again. It's the first time since D Money was born, so it's an experiment for all of us. I know it's necessary, at least for now, but I still feel like I'm ditching the fam'. I did the best I could for Franny. My folks will be there part of the time, and her folks part of the time, but she'll still have a couple days by herself with two little tyrants demanding the world. Good luck, F. I wish I was there to help you.

I'm back in Montana this time. I've made this trip a few times, but the last was February. It occurred to me maybe half way here that I took off without a map and without looking up any directions. Apparently I've been here enough to find it familiar. I must have been right since I didn't get lost.

The trip to Missoula took about nine hours, and at least it was decent weather. I was worried about 4th of July Pass in Idaho, since I've found poor road conditions there in the past, but all was clear yesterday, so it was pretty smooth. Today I continued on to Bozeman over the Continental Divide. 6,380 feet up if you're interested. The weather wasn't so hot although it certainly could have been worse. It sleeted part of time and I'm sure the pass is pretty icy at night. There's melting snow all day and 20's at night, so I'm sure it gets slick. I guess it's supposed to get more wintery later this week. It is Montana, I suppose.

I did find that the last hour or two in the dark last night was a lot less fun. I knew I had been driving too long when I realized the I was emphatically (and loudly) singing that I am indeed a redneck woman. I was half right anyway. Actually, although I don't even know any Tanya Tucker songs (much less all the words), and I'm hardly the girl next door in my neck of the woods, the song wasn't entirely wrong. I would rather drink beer all night than swig that sweet champagne. I definitely ain't no high class broad. My Christmas lights weren't on the front poor all year, but they did make it to March or April. And most importantly, I can certainly buy that same damn thing on a Wal*Mart shelf half price. Hell Yeah.

It looks like I should drive less and sleep more. Sounds like a plan. Good night.

Slo-Mo Lightning

This is just cool!

I'm still out here

I'm still running around out here on the far side of the Rockies. I'm not exactly absorbing the local flavor this time around. I'm at the 6th hotel in 8 days (Kalispell, Missoula, Helena, Bozeman, Billings, and now back to Bozeman again). That kind of sucks, in case you're wondering. Moving in and out every morning isn't exactly fun, and it's especially annoying considering the cart full of work crap that I can't leave out in the car due to the fact that it's something like 20 degrees out at night.

Enough with the complaining. I got some sad news from home today. Not personal news, but somebody close enough. Just a reminder that there are people out there with bigger problems than my traveling woes.

I woke up to a couple inches of snow this morning. It wasn't enough to cause any problems, but it looked nice anyway. Despite the snow, Montanans consider winter to be about over. It's above freezing most days, at least in the populated areas, so it's almost business as usual.

I got to go clothes shopping yesterday. I say "got to," but "had to" is more appropriate. As usual, I managed to get away from Portland without something critical. In the past, I've left without sneakers, jeans, work pants, work shoes, underwear, and about every third time, sunglasses. This time, I found that I was the only person in Montana without a coat. I had a raincoat (Go PDX!), but nothing warmer than a fleece (Go PDX again!). Given the weather, that's not so good. I was going to buy a cheap winter coat and donate it to Goodwill when I got home, but I couldn't bring myself to buy something that I already have at home, especially something that hardly ever gets used. My other option was finding something unlike anything I own, but I am inherently thrifty (pronounced "cheap") when it comes to clothes, plus I lack a sense of style. I usually figure I'm pretty safe with something from Old Navy. I may not look stellar, but I probably won't look too bad. Anyway, as luck would have it, it's late in the season, so coats are on sale all over the place. More specifically, some pretty nice leather coats are on sale at Macy's. So, without assistance, I managed both to spend money on clothes for myself and to get something that actually improves my wardrobe. Now if I can only get some decent pants, shirts, and shoes, I can go out with Franny without embarrassing her.

Enough rambling. My laundry's done, so it's time to go.

On the road again

I'm a couple days into what should be my last long work trip for a long time. Montana this time. This is a busy trip. I'll be in 6 different hotels in two weeks this time, although I'm cooling my heels for four nights in Helena right now.

The weather's been beautiful out here. It's a bit cold at night, but it's been totally clear. On my way out on Monday, the night was clear enough and the moon bright enough that I was still able to see all the mountains around me, which makes for much better night driving.

Speaking of the moon, I've monitored the eclipse from my window this evening. It looks like the moon is going to make it. I tried to check out Saturn's rings too, but my little binoculars were no match for the distance.

I'm pleasantly impressed with the radio on the new minivan they gave me for this trip. I've been able to find something to listen to for almost all of the trip, even picking through the mountains. I do admit, however, that at one point I had to choose between James Dobson of Focus on the Family yammering on about something and loud angry music. I went with Metallica, Ministry, and Tool, along with a bunch of more recent bands I'm too old to recognize.

All in all, this isn't too bad a trip, as far as trips go. Montana has some beautiful scenery, and if you have to travel, this isn't too bad a choice. Plus, unlike Hawaii, I appear to be healthy this time. That helps a lot.

Bad blogger. No soup for you, one year!

OK. So I obviously made it back to to land of easy internet access, but then I got lazy. Apparently, I spent enough time in Hawaii to catch a case of the "paradise paralysis" that afflicts most people who live there. I keep meaning to post something, but then it would be, "Hey, I can always do it later." A week and a half later -- pathetic. I can't say it's the worst problem to have, though, at least not for us poor souls afflicted with it. People who have to deal with us, well...

Anyway, I'm back in the land of normal working and not being sick and toddlers underfoot and whatnot. I have to say that between being ill and the monsoon rains, this wasn't my favorite trip to Hawaii, but it beats having a day job, I guess.

I missed mentioning Valentine's Day too. I remembered it at home, which I guess is the important part. I used to see it as a cheesy Hallmark day, but Franny and I took it back for ourselves the day nine years ago when she said "Yes." It's still cheesy, but now it's our own special brand of cheesy. The Mizz got a valentine from his cousin with a couple stickers in it. He thought that was great, and keeps mentioning that "I got a card from Baby J." (I'm curious how long his cousin, who is less than a year younger, will continue to be "Baby J.") I feel kind of bad that a card didn't go the other way too, but the Mizz is lucky "he" remembered to get his mother a card.

One other Mizz note. He's brilliant. I was gone just long enough to notice a marked improvement in his speech. He's hardly completely clear or anything, but it's noticeably better than when I left. Plus, he now understands the concept of zero. If he has one thing, and you take it away, he knows that he has zero now. In hundreds of years of civilization, the Romans never even figured that one out, although they might have him beat with the roads and aqueducts and empires and such.

Gotta build an ark

Greeting from the Big Island. It's soggy to say the least. It's not a surprise that it rains in Hilo in the winter. It's kind of annoying that it's trying to set some kind of record while we're here. We had another epic downpour today, flash floods and all, despite the predicitons that the storm was moving out to sea and things should be quieting down. They're worse at predicting weather here than in Portland, which is kind of weak as it is. I'm aware of the technological limits, but I figure the paid professionals should be able to do at least as well as the tourists looking out their hotel windows. Just sayin'.

Yesterday, we took a drive up the northeast coast of the island just to see something different. We also saw Rainbow Falls right in Hilo, which was very impressive given all the water on the island right now.

We did get up to see the volcano today, including some dry spells so we didn't have to see the whole thing through rain-streaked windows. Even in the rain, it's still very impressive. There is no vantage point on the ground to see the current lava flow. It's over a ridge and is only visible safely from the air. However, the rain soaks into the older flows and the still-hot tube that was carrying lava last year was an obvious steak of steam down the side of the mountain. The stil-hot older flows are the reason it's not safe to view the current active area. It's all fun and games until somebody breaks through the crust and vaporizes in a molten rock puddle.

Incidentally, I once again had to pay for internet access. I'm sitting in Starbucks right now for $10/24 hours of service. Anywhere else, I'd feel totally ripped off, but there doesn't seem to be free access anywhere on this island, so I take what I can get. Even the hotel wants to charge you for plugging into the wall.

Also, congratulations to the Giants. You can tell the kind of fan I am these days. The game had just started when we got on the plane Sunday, and we forgot about it until dinner last night. We had to ask a waitress who won. Very sad. Very disconnected.

Back in action in aloha land

I gave up writing this week for a while. I felt awful and since nobody wants to hear someone just complaining about being sick, I just decided to keep quiet, since feeling awful was pretty much all I was thinking about. To paraphrase all mothers, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Or the governator, "You whine like a girly-man."

Anyway, I've pretty much gotten over whatever it was, although it made for a long couple weeks. Last night I actually went out wandering around Waikiki for a while, and even enjoyed some Cold Stone Creamery.

Other than feeling crappy, I've had a decent stay here. It's been a bit rainy, as is more or less normal this time of year, but other than that, it's been okay. The hotel I got put up in this time is pretty nice; a lot nicer than the Super 8's and such that I normally travel to. I also did pretty good on the car. My boss reserved a compact car, in the hopes that they would be out and have to upgrade me. However, they had several Toyota Yaris's, which wouldn't remotely hold two people's stuff. So I had to upgrade, and the next step up that was available was a full size, which in this case, means a brand new (244 miles) bright red Dodge Charger. I like this car. The only downside is that this island is maybe 30 miles across and choked with traffic, so I haven't really opened it up much. But it's still fun. I could get used to this car. I like it a lot better than the Chrylser 300 we rented that's basically the same thing with different styling. I'm not sure what exactly is different, but this one handles much better and seems to have more kick. I wish Franny had been here for that. She's been waiting to drive one of these for ages.

Waikiki is a trip. The area is pretty much entirely dedicated to tourists. There is a long strip of mainly high-end shops and really nice hotels. Along the strip, there are a number of regular street performers looking for tips. There're the silver guy, a bronze cowboy guy, two different gold guys (one of which wasn't even trying), a robot, a rastaman with a steel drum, a regular stoned guy with plastic buckets, a seriously tarted-up psychic with prominently displayed cleavage, a couple magicians, some missionaries being ignored, a spray paint artist who was wearing a respirator while everyone around him sucked noxious fumes, a group of capoeira performers, and someone calling himself "The Basketball Guy". I don't really know what he did. He was dressed in orange and black and there were several basketballs on the ground, but he just pretty much wandered around the sidewalk in a circle dancing like a mental patient. There are some back streets of not-quite-as-high-end shops and other hotels. Lots of restaurants and souvenier shops and convenience stores and nightclubs and, for some reason, indoor gun ranges. There's a public golf course right behind Waikiki that claims to be the busiest course in the world. I can't verify that claim, but it's had people on it every time I've looked out my window. Waikiki is is oppresively touristy as far as I'm concerned. When I come over here, it's interesting to wander through the mayhem once, and then I'm done. Yesterday was it. It was mildly amusing, but later in the evening, when the prostitutes came out and inquired into my need for "company," I figured I had seen enough and it was time to get out of here. So today I leave.

The best part about it is that Franny is on her way here right now. I'm meeting her at the airport and we're flying to Hilo for a few days of vacation. Without the Mizz. I miss him a ton, but my folks are sitting for a few days so Franny and I can get some much-needed alone time. It's been almost three years and I'm guessing after the second one, it's going to be even tougher.

I know that complaining about the weather is not usually interesting, but Hilo's going to be a bit soggy, even by Hawaii standards. I expected showers here and there, given that we're here during the wet season, but the last week's been extreme for the state. Everybody got excited Tuesday because there was snow on three different volcanos: Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island, which is normal, and Haleakala on Maui, which is not. Yesterday, they had epic rains on much of the Big Island. Hilo had 11 inches of rain and there were several major roads closed due to flooding, although it looks like not the ones near our hotel. Another place on the island had over 17 inches of rain yesterday. It's even rained some in the Kona area, which doesn't happen all that much. The entire Hawaiian island chain is under a flash flood watch through today. How's that for timing your vacation? It's supposed to lighten up tomorrow to a more normal level, but I'm not really holding my breath. Oh, well. We'll have a rental car. If there's a sunny spot on the island, we'll find it. And even if there's not, we'll still sleep in tomorrow morning, which will be nice regardless.

Merry Christmas!

Between the holidays and the toddler, it's been busy, but I had to post a Merry Christmas to everybody out there. Ours was fairly low key. Most of my family was in Colorado, but we couldn't make that trip unfortunately. Only so much leave to go around. We did get a chance to see them on the webcam, and although the Mizz has about a one minute tolerance for sitting still, we still got to see family on the appropriate day.

We actually started Christmas Thursday when my folks came through on their way to the Colorado festivities. They brought along a winner -- a tent and tunnel combo. The Mizz loves it, although it does pretty much fill up the living room. We're down to the tent right now, which is still plenty big for him. It's full of legos rights now. He keeps inviting me inside, but I can only fit about halfway in laying down. He keeps telling me to wake up.

We ducked away Saturday night to Newport, Oregon. It's not exactly prime beach season, but we figured, if you're going to be cooped up out of the rain with a toddler, you might as well be somewhere cool. As we rolled into town, the rain stopped, so we were able to run around on the beach for a while. The Mizz has never really seen the beach, so rain drenched sand in the cold was still pretty cool to him. He did a lot of playing with kelp and sand and just running around. He kept saying that he wanted to go the beach. When we pointed out the fact that he was at the beach, he said, "No, I want to go to the beach of the water." He then ran directly for the surf. Luckily, we had seen this coming and we were a good hundred yards from the waves and the sharks and whatnot so he was easy to catch. We also caught a glimpse of some harbor seal napping on rocks. The next morning, we checked out the historic bayside, specifically to take the Mizz to the Undersea Garden. It wasn't that cool. It was a good sized aquarium, but unlike the brightly colored brochures, it was pretty drab. A whole green and brown aquarium full of green and gray and brown fish. Somewhat interesting, but only for a short time. The Mizz did get to touch a starfish and was pretty pleased about that. More interesting were the sea lions lounging on the dock outside. They were a little wary of us, but stood their ground. After all that, we decided that although getting away was nice, cooped up in a hotel with a toddler isn't that great. We wandered up the coast a way, with a quick stop in Depot Bay (world's smallest harbor) to observe the storm action in the blowholes. The water was shooting maybe 30 feet above the roadway, which was already quite a bit above the water. Very cool. After that, we'd had our fill of driving in the rain, so we called it a trip and headed home.

Today was pretty relaxed. The Mizz got a few things, but he's still pretty young to really understand the whole day. He has fun opening presents, but if they hadn't been there, he wouldn't have noticed. Waiting for him under the tree this morning was an old Tonka dump truck of mine, circa 1974(?). It is labelled as "hydraulic." "Spring loaded" or "catapult" might have been a better description. We'll show the Mizz that feature some other time. He also got a bunch of new legos, as I was feeling limited in my creative possibilities with his old ones. Now we can build much taller towers and much more complicated castles. We even built a house, because the Mizz wanted one to put a flower on. I'm just the builder, not the designer.

We got a taste of white Christmas. We got a good bit of heavy wet snow that made everything pretty, although it didn't stick around for long. We were going to go for a walk in it, but it was already raining again by the time we got moving.

To end the day, some friends brought over Chinese food, and unbeknownst to us, some more gifts for the Mizz. The best was four eggs worth of Silly Putty. The Mizz got four plastic eggs, WITH the original wrapping, and the rest of us got a lump of nostalgia to play with.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas, whether it was a big family holiday, or just another day off.

Back West

We made it home yesterday. The Mizz likes to kick airplane seats, but other than that, he's an awesome traveller. On just about every flight we take with him, we get an unsolicited compliment about how well he behaved. I always imagine the compliments to be sarcastic, but on the other hand, people who really had a problem with him probably wouldn't bother to say anything at all, at least not directly to us. I attribute his positive public response to exceptional parenting.

It was odd to get back to Portland to find that it was dry. When we left DC, grass and whatnot was covered in snow and it was sleeting on us. In Portland, it's obviously been raining lately, but today, it's clear as a bell and much milder. Franny bundled the Mizz up in the airport and put on her own hat and gloves before we went outside, not realizing that it was almost 50 degrees. I kind of chuckled inside, but it was fun to watch.

Another fun thing about this trip was rediscovering video games. Specifically, by brother-in-law brought Guitar Hero, or more specifically, Rock Band. I always thought this game looked ridiculous and couldn't possibly fun for very long. That was before I played it. My rudimentary guitar experience was irrelevant, since although the controller is shaped like a guitar, it's still pretty much just a video game controller. However, picking up this guitar is much easier than the real thing, so it's easy to feel like you're really making killer music. Even Franny thought it was awesome. Add in Scene It, a movie trivia game with individual buzzers (as all trivia games should have), and Franny and I were actually having a serious conversation about getting an Xbox for Christmas. Perhaps I'm not be as old or mature as I feel sometimes. Knowing how we are, one of us will probably look at a price tag or something and decide that maybe there are better ways to waste money, but it must have been fun if we were actually having the discussion.

We had a good time back East, but it's good to be home. We were in our regular bed and the Mizz seems glad to be back in familiar territory. At the very least, our house is somewhat childproofed, so we can comfortably let him play at his own convenience for minutes at a time. That's worth a ton right there.

Now if I could get him to sleep later than 4:30...

Northwest Storm

If you haven't seen it yet, this is I-5 near Centralia, Washington. I believe the water has subsided somewhat since this picture, but the road is still covered in a lot of mud that has to be removed before it can be reopened this weekend.

If you're interested in seeing some details of the storm, The Oregonian newspaper has put up an interactive map of various pictures, weather satation reports, etc. I especially like the rain guage and wind speed reports, such as 129 mph in Bay City, Oregon (near Tillamook, of cheese fame). It also shows road closures, but those are current, so some previously closed roads are not shown. Yesterday, the roads from Portland to Astoria, Seaside, and Tillamook were all closed.

I'm not sad we missed this one.

I did it again

There I go again, wandering off and forgetting the blog. For three days I was travelling without the internet, but no excuse otherwise. Lazy? Probably.

The internetless travelling was a whirlwind work trip to Bend, Oregon. Lotsa work, long days, whine, whine, whine. Actually, it wasn't horrible. The guy I was working with has a timeshare membership that scored us what amounted to a two bedroom condo for $30 a night (total). No internet, but that per diem is going to feel great for this one. The real problem was coming home. We had to get home Wednesday evening, but Bend is on the other side of the Cascade mountain range from Portland, and as luck would have it, there had been a boatload of snow on the Cascades the night before, with more on the way. Both of the reasonable passes through the mountains had lots of snow and chain requirements. Although we had chains and some snow driving skill between us, we decided to be prudent and go straight north to The Dalles on the road that only had a weather warning rather than the severe weather alert on the passes. This might have added and hour and a half to our trip on a normal day, but due to the snow that happened during the trip, it added more like three. So a trip that's normally about three hours ended up taking us six, although we found that my van, loaded down as it was, actually held the road rather well and we never even had to put on the chains. But still, nine o'clock at night is no time to roll in if you haven't been out doing something fun.

Non sequiter FYI: my capitalization of The Dalles is correct. "The Dalles" is the actual name of the city. Why the mix of the French "Dalles" with the English "The" I have no idea. I was thinking you might see this type of thing in Canada, but then I figured that there, it would probably say "The Falls/Les Dalles" with some kind of legal fight as to which part should be listed first. This is the main reason this country should never officially declare an "official" language, god forbid two of them. We are still free to call things whatever we please, as long as we can convince other people to call them the same thing. Freedom fries, anyone?

Now we're travelling again, this time back east to see family. I wouldn't say the Mizz was a complete joy to travel with, but he could have been so much worse. He got to ride in a taxicab, two airplanes, a bus, a black car, and some escalators, all equally fun to him. He took a good bit of entertaining on the planes, but for the most part, we were able to keep his feet off the chair in front of us and he only cried one in the Chicago airport, mainly from being way overtired and cooped up. Due to a kindly jet stream, we actually got to Chicago about an hour early. However, due to an unkindly winter storm through the Midwest, there were delays all over the place and our next plane took off an hour and a half late. O'Hare is not cool enough to justify four of my hours. The flight from Chicago to DC was pretty bumpy -- not so bumpy as to frighten you, but bumpy enough that the captain kept the seatbelt sign on for the whole flight and wouldn't let the flight attendants up either. Not scary, but miserable for lots of people, especially the Mizz, who kept wanting to "come see Daddy" or "come lay on Daddy". We talked a lot about the signs with the arrows (seatbelt signs) and the fact that Mommy and Daddy both have to wear their seatbelts too. He wasn't buying any of it, but we all survived. The plane was late enough getting in that they were in a rush to get the next set of passengers boarded as quickly as possible so they could get off the ground before 10 pm, as there is a hard and fast curfew at Reagan National. We finally rolled in about midnight, much later than planned, but luckily we have nice relatives, and they were up waiting for us. Thanks guys, you're awesome.

The funnest part of the trip so far has been the car Franny scored for us. She had a couple free upgrades from Enterprise, so she tried to get us a Dodge Charger. They were out of them, but we're running around suburban Maryland in a Chrysler 300. It feels a little wrong. This is quite a bit more car than we're used to driving, but it's kind of fun. It's not the top of the line version, but then, I don't think I've ever driven a top of the line anything, so I don't really know what I'm missing anyway. This one has 250 hp and handles wonderfully, so we can certainly have a little fun. Franny's main gripe is that, since it's not the really nice version, there aren't nearly enough gadgets and buttons for the passenger to play with. The Mizz is fine with it though, as the dash is full of blue lights at night. We could drive him around on a tractor if there were enough lights on it.

Under a log?

I must have been under a log; I haven't posted in two weeks. I have been busy though. I'll try to be brief. We all know how that'll work out, I'm sure.

I had started a work trip almost two weeks ago. I went out to Bend for a few days of work before continuing on to Southern Oregon. However, a day into it, I had to run back to Portland to spend the night in the hospital with the Mizz. When Franny called me from the doctor's office, it was very clear to me that I had to get back there. I missed the worst of it, as the Mizz was finally asleep by the time I got there. That was the longest three hour drive I've ever taken. I have a very good imagination.

The problem was that the Mizz had a bad reaction to a shot he had received the day before for the croup. It was a normal enough prescription for his issue, but he experienced a rare side effect. Rare enough that it is not a warning you normally get with it, but common enough that the folks at the childrens' hospital understood what was happening. Luckily it seems to have caused him no lasting issues and he seems to be back to his normal toddler antics now.

When we felt that he was going in the right direction, I had to return to my previously scheduled job responsibilities. Friday night, it was down to Roseburg to be ready to work first thing Saturday morning. Worked on and on and on through today. Tomorrow is almost a day off, just a couple of hours of driving to be further down the road for Monday morning.

I spent several days on the Southern Oregon coast, even stretching down into California. I thought I was going to get rainy weather all week, but it was beautiful on Sunday when I went out to the coast. Then Monday is was raining with gale force winds. Then it was beautiful, then drizzly, then sunny, and then rainy again, with rain heavy enough to make even Oregonians complain. Most of the time, our rain is just a drizzle. I have a raincoat, but I almost never put it on. With this stuff, however, you could actually get wet.

Lots of places (including Portland) like to make the claim that, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes." This is intended to help you understand just how unpredictable the weather is in the speaker's particular part of the world. Most people act like they invented the phrase, and hey, aren't they witty. However, although it may actually apply to other places too, the Oregon coast in the Fall is the place I've been that most deserves to say it.

Thursday evening, I made my way down to Eureka, California. It's not super far, maybe 100 miles south of the border, but it was a pretty long trip down US-101. It was slow and twisty, drizzly, foggy, and since that section of road is called the Redwood Highway and goes through Redwood National Park, there were giant freakin' trees right up to the edge of the road. "Elk Crossing" signs too. Somewhat stressful. It was much better on the trip back north the next day. Beautiful, with either huge trees in the mist or ocean vistas. I found the elk. They were lounging on a lawn in front of some cabins by the side of the road. These ones seemed to know about the lack of hunting on national parks. I also passed the "life-size" statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at Trees of Mystery. It's a side-of-the-road attraction in the middle of the park that has a tour through the redwoods to show you just how interesting 1000 year old trees can be. I remembered the statues like it was yesterday, even though I was only 9 or 10 the last time I saw them.

Eureka is in the middle of Humbolt county. It's reputation preceded it. On my way through the redwoods, the only radio station I could get for a while was playing 2 straight hours of the Grateful Dead. It was interrupted only by commercials for greenhouse and hydroponic equipment dealers. However, despite being in town for almost 14 hours, not one person offered to sell me pot. Luckily, I live in Portland, so if it's ever an issue, I'll just roll down Belmont or something.

I spent today with one of the crassest individuals I've had the privilege of meeting. They customer is always right though, I hear. He has several small locations, so I got to follow him around the mountains all day. I'm done with him though, so tomorrow it's a little further south, and then home by Tuesday. I've put on something like 1,400 miles so far this trip, and I have another 500 or so left. I'm sick of the road.

So much for brief, but you didn't really expect that, did you?

What's the matter with you people?

OK, maybe it's not your fault, but I'm so glad we don't live in the Southeast anymore. Actually, the whole East. I just heard on the radio this morning that there were tornado warnings in Staten Island! Oh, yeah, and flooding in the New York subways, where, now that the rain has stopped, it's supposed to get over 100 degrees later today. It's weird when the desert Southwest, at 101 degrees, is cooler than about a third of the country.

Just for the record, Portland is supposed to be 74 and partly cloudy today. We might get to 80 later in the week.

The Northwest's not so wet after all

I came across an article about rainfall in various cities. Apparently, the Northwest isn't that wet after all. The wettest cities in the country are mainly in the Southeast. They don't rain as often, but they do it really well when they do. The first Northwest city on the list is Olympia, WA at number 24. Seattle and Portland don't show up until 41 and 42, respectively. The northwest is well represented in number of rainy days, however. But if you've ever been here in the winter, you know that. The study didn't even get into number of gray days. For any statistics nerds, the actual report from Weatherbill is here.

Things on My Mind

Heavy things lately. Last week wasn't exactly all roses, and now Virginia Tech. I'm actually somewhat familiar with the campus and I know the buildings involved, although it's been some time since I was there. Still, listening to the news reports all morning Monday, I had very vivid images of where they were talking about. What an awful day, although I really don't have sufficient words for it all. A sister of a friend who is a VT alumna now living in Australia had a better take on it all. Very eloquently put.

They released a bunch more details about the guy today. What a lunatic. The radio was making a big stink (on a BBC program) about whether it mattered that he was South Korean. Nobody here seems to care too much, but I guess the South Koreans are taking it pretty hard. Apparently, they have a far more collective idea of guilt and responsibility than we do. The show pointed out that the Koreans made a huge international incident out of a traffic accident a little while back where a US serviceman in Korea killed a couple kids. They held the US responsible for that incident and we didn't understand why. Now they are collectively grieving and feeling somewhat responsible for this tragedy and we don't understand why. Unexpected culture clash.

Also, I'm already tired of the gun-control discussion that will rage forever and go nowhere. The first quote I saw from Bush on Monday noted that he was sending his prayers to the families and community and, oh, yeah, he still supported the 2nd Amendment. Good thing he pointed that out. I've already heard from one side that we are the only gun-happy industrialized country and that should end immediately. I've also heard from the other side that if more law-abiding citizens had been armed, this would have ended much quicker. As usual, not much middle ground.

I was working at the US Forest Service laboratory at OSU this week. We only actually got the contract because the guy that has been calibrating their stuff for the last 25 years of so just passed away last month. He was about 85-90 years old and has been working this area longer than my boss. He was apparently a nice guy who like to tell stories going back even before his time on an aircraft carrier in World War II. Usually when I work a new place, it's because whoever was doing it before annoyed them too much so they are happy to see change. This was different because everyone seemed to like him a lot, so I felt like the runner up that they didn't really want to see. It didn't help that every time I replaced one of his stickers with my own, I felt like I was erasing a piece of history. I can look forward to doing this a lot in the next year since his daughter has been giving us a referral for all his old customers.

There's been some light stuff too. I had a dream the other night. Usually I don't care much to hear other people's dreams. They tend to be much more interesting to the person who dreamt them, and then often only until they say them out loud. But this was different (yeah, right), and anyway, this blog has no point. Anyway, it was loosely based on the end of I, Robot, although way more apocalyptic. For some reason, Will Ferrel was working with the robots, and in an odd twist, was not acting like his normal stupid-but-lovable buffoon self. He was actually very mean and evil, including a black leather jacket, head scarf and a couple guns. I reached for one of his guns, and he noted that he had another one pointed at me, so I took that one too. He laughed because when I shot him with it, I found that it was a water pistol. So I choked him with it. Apparently, I don't like Will Ferrel very much.

Franny and I took the Mizz to the tulip festival this weekend and met a couple other people with kid of the same name and only a couple days younger. We've been there before, but not with him. Not the same thing. We took him away from the flowers pretty quickly since he mainly wanted to pick petals off. I thought this seemed like excellent babysitting since they had several acres of flowers, but reluctantly decided against it. Luckily, there were lots of kid-friendly activities that we walked right by last time. The Mizz had more stimulation than he knew what to do with. He especially liked the roller slide, which was about 15 feet high, so I went with him. I apparently don't have enough padding on my behind, as it was pretty bumpy. None of the kids seemed to mind though.

The Mizz got to experience hail this evening. It was coming down in about 1/4 inch balls, so we went out on the front porch to watch. I caught one for him, and he thought that was great. He held it until it melted and then wanted another one. I caught several more until my feet got too cold. He didn't want to go back inside, but I distracted him with the doorbell. At least that's still easy.

I should write smaller things more often. Sorry for the rambling.

Where's my freakin' snow?

Once again, the weather forecasters have failed me. Instead of the 4-8 inches of snow promised, we got just a hair under 0 inches. Not just less snow, but not a single flake hit the ground. We did have a few flurries out here, but I'm very disappointed.

It is crazy cold though. And windy as hell.

I took a walk out today, trudging through the bone dry and climbing huge drifts of nothing to check out the feature for which Idaho Falls is named. They looked pretty cool, and again, due to forgetting the camera cable, you don't get to see them. The original falls have been augmented with a concrete wall that stretches about a quarter mile along the length of the river to divert some of the water through a power plant. There's also the remains of an old fish hatchery under one of the bridges that is now a graffiti gallery. And in an odd twist, I found the only non-redneck thing I've seen here in the park along the river. Right next to the falls, in a very picturesque location, was a pagoda-style pillar with some Chinese writing on it. It might have been Japanese, but I don't think so. Anyway, there was no other plaque or anything to tell me what it said or why it was there. Odd.

I'm outta here in the morning. After I finish working in town, I'll head out to Burley, Idaho. Friday, I'll be working there and Heyburn and then hitting the road as far as I can stand and then home Saturday. Finally.

What's new in Idaho?

Saturday, I moved from Pocatello up the road an hour to Idaho Falls. On the way, I stopped at a rest stop that had a sign for a point of geological interest. Turns out it was Hell's Half Acre. Unlike Eastern Oregon's entire canyon, Hell couldn't afford as much in Eastern Idaho. It was actually an area of fairly recent lava flow (4000 years old) that was only lightly covered in soil and vegetation. It was fun to see lava in the middle of Idaho and an interesting stop on a day when I wasn't in a hurry. It was also fun to know that even here, they use the term pahoehoe. What did white people call ropy lava before they found Hawaii?

Had I known how close I was to Craters of the Moon, I would have gone there instead, but I didn't know it was so close until Sunday, and by then I was working. Maybe next time out here.

When I was working on Sunday in Rexburg, I had some time to kill at lunch so I took a ride around town. It took about 9 minutes total. Anyway, I found that they had a BYU campus, and everyone was on the way to the temple. I've seen Mormons before, nothing special there. It just amused me to realize that the entire campus was going to church at the same time. At every other college I've ever been to, the Sunday exodus usually involved a bunch of people with their shirts inside out stumbling home squinting and holding their heads. Not quite the same thing.

I'm in potato land up here. Further down the Snake River Valley, there are also sugar beets, cattle and corn, but up here, it's pretty much just spuds. The place I was working on Monday was in Dubois. (Doo-boys, not Doo-bwah, what are you, foreign? Seriously, that's how they say it.) Dubois had exactly two places to eat. On one side of the road was the Exxon food mart, but on the other side was the Phillips 66 food mart. 66 was much bigger, but not as good as you'd expect. Potato processing plants are interesting. Most food processors work very seasonally, but potatoes can be stored almost a year, so they can be done anytime. Fresh french fries and hash browns all year round. That might mean more if most everything wasn't either dried or frozen before it left the plants.

Today I was working for the nukes at the Idaho National Lab. During the cold war, that place was making bomb parts, but I don't know what they are doing these days. Mainly cleaning up and closing building it looks like, but I'm sure there's something else that I wasn't invited to. Driving out there, you can see the Three Buttes. They're three huge cinder cones that grew up out of an otherwise flat landscape. It was pretty cloudy today though, so I'm guessing it would have been cooler on the weekend when it was sunny and 70 degrees.

It's supposed to snow tonight. 4-8 inches. It snowed a little this afternoon, but then went back to rain. But it's been getting colder all day and should be down below freezing tonight, so we'll see what happens. I'll still probably be able to get around, but the guy working with me was supposed to get over the mountains into Wyoming tonight, and I'm wondering how far he got or whether he'll make it back tomorrow if he did get there.

It's late. I was tired when I got back to the room this evening and took a nap. For 3 hours. So now I'm awake at the wrong time. But morning will still come, so I should at least try to sleep. We'll see how that works out.

Some More Travel Notes

We eventually got back to my folks' house before we left. We had to return the minivan. That's actually a pretty good vehicle, despite it minivan-ness. Does that make me old or just boring? I got to dig through a bunch of old stuff with Mom and Dad to help with the sorting and packing and such before they move. Over the years I've grabbed or gotten rid of most of my stuff, but I still had a few things there, mostly toys.

Mom and I went through my old Adventure People, our old-school Fisher Price Little People stuff, and my Matchbox Cars. (Incidentally, I've always called them that. Some people use Hot Wheels. I know both are brand names, but are they regionally preferred?) Looking through this stuff, I wonder if we didn't chew on stuff as much or if our parents just didn't like us. Lots of small parts and breakable things, most of which were broken.

Dad and I looked through what was left of our camping gear. Again, I've already taken most of what I wanted, but there were a few things left. It really brought me back to my old Boy Scout days. Some of that stuff seemed cool at the time, but from what I've seen of Firefly's Appalachian Trail gear, camping technology has improved quite a bit. Dad was able to give what we didn't want to some current Boy Scouts, who were apparently very appreciative. I remember using a bunch of stuff that was older than me and now it's my turn to continue the trend. Back to my previous question, I guess I'm old.

Travelling home turned out to be quite an adventure. Due to ice falling off trucks causing accidents, we were much too late to catch our flight out of BWI last Friday. And due to the ice earlier in the week, the best we could do was a three-legged trip the next day. (THE ST. VALENTINE'S DAY STORM! Seriously. That's what the papers called it. Slow news cycle I guess. It was pretty bad further in the Northeast, but it wasn't THAT bad around DC. Wimps.) Our second flight out of Detroit (where it was actually snowing) was delayed about 45 minutes for deicing. This meant that after taking 3 different trams to get from one end of Seatac to the other, we missed the hop to Portland. And again due to the ice storm of the friggin' century, the flights were full for several more hours (which wasn't apparently normal). So instead, we decided to eat a few more dollars and rent a car for the rest of the trip. Even with a stop for dinner on the way, we still got home a little faster than if we had sat around the airport trying to entertain the Mizz for hours after he was supposed to be asleep. He slept in that car instead, and we got some quiet time. In the end, we got to claim planes, trains, and automobiles for the trip home, and we've decided that we definitely want to drive to the Family Reunion this summer.

The only good thing about renting the car was that we found we didn't really want a Subaru Forrester after all. That was one of the cars we had been looking at last summer, but after driving one, it's not as cool as we thought. It's pretty noisy, and although it hugs the road like a sports car, you feel the road like a sports car. It also didn't seem to have enough legroom, and neither Franny nor I really need much in that department. Franny was cramped in the front passenger seat and neither of us would have been comfortable in the back seat. It's a fine performing car, but it's not for us.