Well, I made it back to civilization, at least compared to Montana. No offense, but there're more people in Portland than in the entire state of Montana. The biggest city in Montana (Billings, I think) still doesn't even have 100,000 people. (I sure hope nobody from Chicago or New York reads this and decides to start spouting statistics at me. I'm guessing that New York probably has more people than the whole Northwest. And don't even get me started on Tokyo and Mumbai and whatnot.)
I actually got back a day earlier than I expected. One of our customers declined service, so I could speed things up a little bit. They never said it explicitly, but I got the idea that money was tight, so they decided to forgo calibration this year. I'm not sure that's such a great plan. It's a little like deciding to do oil changes every 10,000 miles to save a few bucks. You'll probably still spend the money later and then some. It worked out for me though, so whatever.
I make a lot of noise, but I actually like travelling to Montana as far as travelling for work goes. People are friendly. The scenery is beautiful. This time around, there was some winter weather, but nothing that slowed me down. Lots of the rivers and lakes were frozen over, which is always cool. Lots of miles though. I think I put on about 2,400 miles in two weeks and stayed in 8 hotels, which is at least 6 too many. I have to give a shout out to La Quinta Inns though. Their rates are usually decent ($49.00 in Missoula for a single king room), the rooms are equipped well enough, and the beds I've had have always been extremely soft, which is a nice change from the ultra-firm plywood beds of the Super 8's and such.
I did have to be amused with Rock Creek, a little town near Missoula. Much of Montana is ranch land. Part of beef ranching is the annual activity of turning bulls into steers. Long story short -- you drive east from Missoula and see billboards for the Rock Creek Testicle Festival. That's all I'm about to say about that. I'll let the fine folks at TestyFesty.com deal with any further details.
On the way home, I happened to catch a radio story about a barge that hit and damaged the locks at the John Day Dam on the Columbia River last Friday. This is somewhat interesting in its own right, but it struck me because I was driving by the dam when I heard to story not too long after it happened. The lock was actually out of service for a few days, but the Corps of Engineers has since installed a temporary gate to restore passage to vital river traffic. The broken gate is floating on a barge until they can figure out how to make a permanent repair.
If this post sounds little random, it's because it's taken me almost a week to write in tiny bursts. I came back home to a sick toddler and last night was the first real good night's sleep this house has seen since I came home. Fun.
In penance for taking so stinking long, here're some interesting/funny videos that are not remotely related to Montana.
Showing posts with label Columbia Gorge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Columbia Gorge. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Happy Solstice
What did your hippies do to celebrate the Summer Solstice? I'm guessing ours were dancing naked around Stonehenge.
No, not that busted old thing...
...This newer and more improved Northwest Stonehenge. See? Our Stonehenge has all the appropriate rocks and everything. Although from what I hear, it doesn't line up right with the celestial events due to the difference in latitude, but unless you're a druid trying to locate the moon or whatever, big deal.
From Maryhill Museum, who now cares for it:
Just for fun, here's a Google Maps view of it. This has now cemented for me that Google Maps are currently better than Yahoo! Maps, at least for looking at satellite pictures anyway. The best Yahoo! could do was half the size and blurry. Google is much quicker too. I haven't compared directions yet, but Google does say "Do no evil," so how bad could they be?
For more fun, see this somewhat related spectacle.
With the longer days, I got to looking at Portland's location and what that means relative to sunlight. The sun was officially up here at 5:22 am, which of course means so was the son. Not so thrilled about that. However, the fact that the sun didn't set until 9:03 pm is pretty cool. That means it was light until almost 9:30. (I got these times from the Old Farmer's Almanac. It still amuses me that this publication has been in continuous production since 1792, 215 years ago. George Washington was president. How many other institutions can say that?)
The long days got me thinking about our latitude. We are north of most of the major cities in the county, Seattle being the noted exception. We are completely north of 39 states, and north of at least part of 8 others, including Oregon. We're even north of four of the Great Lakes and part of Canada. Which makes it all the more fun watching all of you freezing your butts off all Winter while we notice that it's a little chilly when our drizzle dips down to 40 degrees. Suckaz!
No, not that busted old thing...
...This newer and more improved Northwest Stonehenge. See? Our Stonehenge has all the appropriate rocks and everything. Although from what I hear, it doesn't line up right with the celestial events due to the difference in latitude, but unless you're a druid trying to locate the moon or whatever, big deal.
From Maryhill Museum, who now cares for it:
Built by Sam Hill as a tribute to the soldiers of Klickitat County who lost their lives, Maryhill's Stonehenge is the first monument in our nation to honor the dead of World War I. The structure is a full-scale replica of England's famous neolithic Stonehenge. A Quaker pacifist, Hill was mistakenly informed that the original Stonehenge had been used as a sacrificial site, and thus constructed the replica to remind us that ''humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war.'' The location now also includes monuments to the soldiers of Klickitat County who died in World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam.
Just for fun, here's a Google Maps view of it. This has now cemented for me that Google Maps are currently better than Yahoo! Maps, at least for looking at satellite pictures anyway. The best Yahoo! could do was half the size and blurry. Google is much quicker too. I haven't compared directions yet, but Google does say "Do no evil," so how bad could they be?
For more fun, see this somewhat related spectacle.
With the longer days, I got to looking at Portland's location and what that means relative to sunlight. The sun was officially up here at 5:22 am, which of course means so was the son. Not so thrilled about that. However, the fact that the sun didn't set until 9:03 pm is pretty cool. That means it was light until almost 9:30. (I got these times from the Old Farmer's Almanac. It still amuses me that this publication has been in continuous production since 1792, 215 years ago. George Washington was president. How many other institutions can say that?)
The long days got me thinking about our latitude. We are north of most of the major cities in the county, Seattle being the noted exception. We are completely north of 39 states, and north of at least part of 8 others, including Oregon. We're even north of four of the Great Lakes and part of Canada. Which makes it all the more fun watching all of you freezing your butts off all Winter while we notice that it's a little chilly when our drizzle dips down to 40 degrees. Suckaz!
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Wind Power is Big II: The Proof
Not very good proof, but proof nonetheless. As I've mentioned before, wind turbine parts are HUGE. While I was travelling up and down the Columbia Gorge this week, I saw several of them heading east and several empty trailers heading west. According to the people I was working with, they've seen hundreds of these things. So those folks are jaded, but I still think big machines are cool. Although I saw lots of these things, I was taking pictures while I was driving, so I necessarily didn't put much effort into aiming. It was pure point and shoot. I mainly got photos of parts of my van including the dead bugs on the windshield, a few pics of blurry trees and an off ramp that was maybe 100 feet in front of the truck I was trying to get. Oh, well. I did however manage to capture a couple pics that give an idea of the size involved. Unfortunately, due to angles and such, the perspective distorts things a bit.
This is a truck I passed that was carrying two of the turbine blades. These things are about 150 feet long. I can't imagine what kind of planning has to go into transporting these things, since I'm pretty sure that wouldn't make it through most intersections.
To put the blades into perspective, this is a normal truck from about the same perspective and you can see how much closer the cab is. A typical trailer is a maximum of 53 feet long, so imagine three of these things strung together, and not those stubby ones that are actually strung together. It would take four or five of those.
This is a picture of the blades from the side. It's the best I could do passing the truck at a combined 120 mph or so.
I'm guessing the wind turbine business will only be picking up. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski is waiting to sign Senate Bill 838, which will require 25% of Oregon's power to be generated from green sources like wind and geothermal by 2025, and apparently our existing hydropower doesn't count. It has passed our State Senate and is likely to pass the house soon. This probably means rate hikes in the short term, but the way things are going, we'll probably break even or better eventually.
This waterfall is not related to wind power at all, but I caught it by accident and I like it. It's from what is called a hanging valley. It is a remnant of the Missoula floods that shaped the Gorge during the last ice age. It was a normal valley at some point until half of Montana drained through it all at once (a bunch of times) and ripped out the end of it.
This is just a nice picture of the Gorge. I stopped at a rest stop/view point close to Portland just for fun since I had never done so and I liked the view. It was a beautiful day.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
It's been a busy week
I haven't posted much of substance lately, as I haven't felt like I had two consecutive minutes to do it with. Probably not true, but we've been busy lately.
Last week we painted two walls. One bright blue monstrosity in the Mizz's bathroom. He was very excited, since "blue" is one of his stronger words. Franny was excited too, since it meant she could get rid of the Hawaii shower curtain and replace it with the fish one and then get out all the other new decorative and functional fish stuff that Target forced on her. I personally liked the old shower curtain better, but it definitely doesn't go with the blue.
The other wall was in the living room and was a far more extensive project. Not the painting specifically, but the picking of the color. And the wall. We'd been tossing color ideas around for a while, but we finally settled on a tan/taupe/sand/dirt color that seemed to go well with the trim and with the black tree sculpture over the fireplace. So, while I was gone in Bend, I got a call, "Guess what the Mizz and I just did. There's paint on the wall." When I got home, I found that this meant two swaths of paint beside one of the posters we have. It wasn't a very representative idea of what it would really look like, so the poster came down and it widened into a three foot square. Needless to say, after much wrangling, we decided that it really wasn't the color we were after. Or the right wall. So there's now a patch of not-quite-the-right white that will eventually have to be dealt with. But in the end, we decided on a sage color and a whole different and much larger wall. I spent three nights painting and edging and 2nd coating and such, but in the end, it came out great.
I got to remember again that I hate edging. It's not that I'm terrible at it. I usually end up with a better job than lots of others I've seen. The problem is that I am a perfectionist about stuff like that, and I don't have the skill to do it as well as I think it should be done. This is mainly only a problem while I am doing it; after the fact it usually seems fine. But it makes for a very irritating experience.
I also found that I'm very impressed with Sherwin-Williams paints. Their Duration line of paint (top of the line) was on sale, and now I know that I will probably buy it again even if I have to pay full price. It went on very smoothly with almost no splattering, was very easy to clean up, and has a much better than normal container with a handle and pour-spout. They also did a great job of matching the color we had chosen from the Home Depot paint chips.
I also clipped the Mizz's hair one evening. I say clipped since cut would imply a thorough job. Mostly, I cut off the curls/rat tail from the back and over his ears, although I though the latter was going to get me divorced. I left a little more over the ears to placate the wife, but I had to get some of it off so he didn't look like a Kewpie Doll. Between the Mizz's distress and the Mama's distress, I did the most complete job I could in two minutes with maybe 8 or 10 cuts. I think he came out okay though.
Saturday, I finished the garden digging that I started a couple weeks ago. We also planted a bunch of flowers and a couple tomato plants. So far the only thing coming out of the garden has been sprouts from the squash seeds in the composter. A couple years ago, we tossed in a few decorative gourds that we no longer wanted. From what I hear, everybody knows you don't put squash seeds in the composter. That wasn't true then, but it sure is now. Small composters rarely get hot enough to destroy those tough little suckers. Anyway, those are the only real sprouts that seem to be doing very well. I'm ripping them out and hoping the other tiny little things I'm seeing are flowers and not weeds.
Also on Saturday, we invited some friends over for a Memorial Day weekend cookout/potluck. Unlike my usual burger and dog thing, I made Lemon-Rosemary Chicken Skewers from a recipe Franny found. I followed the preparation/marinating directions, but I grilled instead of baked. And since we cooked after everyone was there, we skipped the dipping sauce part. By all accounts, they were excellent. Franny also found some cool flat skewers. They are thin strips of bamboo maybe 1/4" wide with one pointed end. I'm not sure whether it made much difference for the chicken since that sticks pretty quickly, but it was awesome for grilling the vegetable slices. No more rolling around and only cooking one side. Everything turns just like you want. Good find, Franny.
Sunday, Franny and I got to go out. Without the Mizz. We left him with a sitter to go to a friend's sushi party. Lucky for me, there was stir-fry beef too. It was actually a surprise birthday party for her too, and we took a couple cakes that I made. Nothing fancy, just from the box, although I did mix Bailey's into the frosting on one of them. Mmmm. I wasn't impressed with my rushed decorating, but nobody else seemed to mind. The only reason I got to make the cakes was that Gina is the baker and her boyfriend was having trouble finding any of her friends that knew how to make a cake. Since I can follow directions, that apparently makes me the most capable. Kinda sad.
Monday was much more relaxed, what with all the Mango-tinis at the party. We did make it out to visit some friend and the other little Mizz. I don't get to see my Mizz interacting with other kids all that often, and it's fun to see them play together even if neither one of them quite understands what the other is trying to do all the time. It was especially cute watching our Mizz push the other one around in a wagon. Each of them seemed pretty happy with his part of the deal.
Back to work has actually seemed like kind of a break, although with a bit of driving. For the last three days, I've been travelling up and down the Columbia Gorge working at an aluminum plant, a couple wastewater plants, a water plant, a brewery (smelled great), and a couple other labs. It's been a beautiful couple days for that trip. The aluminum plant is actually kind of interesting, as it's the only one left in the Northwest that's doing much. They are actually only melting down scrap aluminum and recycling it, but at least that's something. There used to be something like 20 aluminum plants in the Northwest mainly due to the cheap hydropower we used to have. However with the power crunch a few years ago (thanks again, Enron), the days of cheap electricity are gone, and so too the aluminum industry in this country. We can no longer compete with developing countries with little or no environmental and labor regulations.
Sorry. Not trying to start a rant there. Not in the mood today. You see, I got an unplanned massage this evening. Franny had one scheduled, but ended up with plans that were going to end too late. So, rather than deal with a cancellation, I took advantage of it. After driving 600 miles in the last three days, it was welcome, and now I feel great. Thanks again, Franny.
Last week we painted two walls. One bright blue monstrosity in the Mizz's bathroom. He was very excited, since "blue" is one of his stronger words. Franny was excited too, since it meant she could get rid of the Hawaii shower curtain and replace it with the fish one and then get out all the other new decorative and functional fish stuff that Target forced on her. I personally liked the old shower curtain better, but it definitely doesn't go with the blue.
The other wall was in the living room and was a far more extensive project. Not the painting specifically, but the picking of the color. And the wall. We'd been tossing color ideas around for a while, but we finally settled on a tan/taupe/sand/dirt color that seemed to go well with the trim and with the black tree sculpture over the fireplace. So, while I was gone in Bend, I got a call, "Guess what the Mizz and I just did. There's paint on the wall." When I got home, I found that this meant two swaths of paint beside one of the posters we have. It wasn't a very representative idea of what it would really look like, so the poster came down and it widened into a three foot square. Needless to say, after much wrangling, we decided that it really wasn't the color we were after. Or the right wall. So there's now a patch of not-quite-the-right white that will eventually have to be dealt with. But in the end, we decided on a sage color and a whole different and much larger wall. I spent three nights painting and edging and 2nd coating and such, but in the end, it came out great.
I got to remember again that I hate edging. It's not that I'm terrible at it. I usually end up with a better job than lots of others I've seen. The problem is that I am a perfectionist about stuff like that, and I don't have the skill to do it as well as I think it should be done. This is mainly only a problem while I am doing it; after the fact it usually seems fine. But it makes for a very irritating experience.
I also found that I'm very impressed with Sherwin-Williams paints. Their Duration line of paint (top of the line) was on sale, and now I know that I will probably buy it again even if I have to pay full price. It went on very smoothly with almost no splattering, was very easy to clean up, and has a much better than normal container with a handle and pour-spout. They also did a great job of matching the color we had chosen from the Home Depot paint chips.
I also clipped the Mizz's hair one evening. I say clipped since cut would imply a thorough job. Mostly, I cut off the curls/rat tail from the back and over his ears, although I though the latter was going to get me divorced. I left a little more over the ears to placate the wife, but I had to get some of it off so he didn't look like a Kewpie Doll. Between the Mizz's distress and the Mama's distress, I did the most complete job I could in two minutes with maybe 8 or 10 cuts. I think he came out okay though.
Saturday, I finished the garden digging that I started a couple weeks ago. We also planted a bunch of flowers and a couple tomato plants. So far the only thing coming out of the garden has been sprouts from the squash seeds in the composter. A couple years ago, we tossed in a few decorative gourds that we no longer wanted. From what I hear, everybody knows you don't put squash seeds in the composter. That wasn't true then, but it sure is now. Small composters rarely get hot enough to destroy those tough little suckers. Anyway, those are the only real sprouts that seem to be doing very well. I'm ripping them out and hoping the other tiny little things I'm seeing are flowers and not weeds.
Also on Saturday, we invited some friends over for a Memorial Day weekend cookout/potluck. Unlike my usual burger and dog thing, I made Lemon-Rosemary Chicken Skewers from a recipe Franny found. I followed the preparation/marinating directions, but I grilled instead of baked. And since we cooked after everyone was there, we skipped the dipping sauce part. By all accounts, they were excellent. Franny also found some cool flat skewers. They are thin strips of bamboo maybe 1/4" wide with one pointed end. I'm not sure whether it made much difference for the chicken since that sticks pretty quickly, but it was awesome for grilling the vegetable slices. No more rolling around and only cooking one side. Everything turns just like you want. Good find, Franny.
Sunday, Franny and I got to go out. Without the Mizz. We left him with a sitter to go to a friend's sushi party. Lucky for me, there was stir-fry beef too. It was actually a surprise birthday party for her too, and we took a couple cakes that I made. Nothing fancy, just from the box, although I did mix Bailey's into the frosting on one of them. Mmmm. I wasn't impressed with my rushed decorating, but nobody else seemed to mind. The only reason I got to make the cakes was that Gina is the baker and her boyfriend was having trouble finding any of her friends that knew how to make a cake. Since I can follow directions, that apparently makes me the most capable. Kinda sad.
Monday was much more relaxed, what with all the Mango-tinis at the party. We did make it out to visit some friend and the other little Mizz. I don't get to see my Mizz interacting with other kids all that often, and it's fun to see them play together even if neither one of them quite understands what the other is trying to do all the time. It was especially cute watching our Mizz push the other one around in a wagon. Each of them seemed pretty happy with his part of the deal.
Back to work has actually seemed like kind of a break, although with a bit of driving. For the last three days, I've been travelling up and down the Columbia Gorge working at an aluminum plant, a couple wastewater plants, a water plant, a brewery (smelled great), and a couple other labs. It's been a beautiful couple days for that trip. The aluminum plant is actually kind of interesting, as it's the only one left in the Northwest that's doing much. They are actually only melting down scrap aluminum and recycling it, but at least that's something. There used to be something like 20 aluminum plants in the Northwest mainly due to the cheap hydropower we used to have. However with the power crunch a few years ago (thanks again, Enron), the days of cheap electricity are gone, and so too the aluminum industry in this country. We can no longer compete with developing countries with little or no environmental and labor regulations.
Sorry. Not trying to start a rant there. Not in the mood today. You see, I got an unplanned massage this evening. Franny had one scheduled, but ended up with plans that were going to end too late. So, rather than deal with a cancellation, I took advantage of it. After driving 600 miles in the last three days, it was welcome, and now I feel great. Thanks again, Franny.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Where have I been?
I've been out of touch for a few days. Not long after I posted that last video, I found out that my great aunt had passed away. I spent a couple days moping around a bit. It wasn't a sudden thing, but it was still unpleasant. I'm going down to Colorado in a couple days for the funeral. :(
I have been doing a few things in the meantime though...
Franny and I watched Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I didn't have too high an expectation for this film, but I was still disappointed. What a bore. There were a couple of funny moments (the "interview" with Alan Keyes comes to mind), but for the most part we just sat there waiting for something funny to happen. This movie was billed as using a boorish character to bring out the worst traits in people. What could have been a clever way to expose prejudices and hypocrisy mostly just degenerated into poop jokes. I imagined more. He did have a good time poking fun at antisemitism though. The actor is Jewish (In fact, his "Khazak" dialogue is actually Hebrew.), and had a field day bringing out the most outrageous stereotypes. "One of them had taken the form of an old woman. You could barely see her horns." Mainly though, the movie just wasn't worth the effort.
Since I worked two straight weeks in Idaho, I took a couple days off this week. I accompanied Franny to the rhododendron garden on what turned out to be a meeting of her moms' group. It was exactly what I always expected. It took almost five minutes to get down to discussing the latest birth story and nipple pain. Apparently I can't be disturbed anymore. Joys of parenting. Actually, Mizz and I had a good time wandering around chasing geese and ducks and identifying every tree, rock, and pine cone. I also got the job of steering him through the goose-poop minefield. The rhoddies were nice too.
Franny showed me an interesting article. It claims that Jews as a group are demonstrably smarter than average, and attempts to explain why. Um.....nuh uh. (Mizz will be at least half smart anyway.)
Alma had this great video on her blog. I liked it mainly because I see too many of these shows when I'm travelling. There's Pimp My Ride (the MTV original), Overhaulin' (a similar show with a joke's-on-you twist), and something on CMT where they do the same thing to semi rigs. Anyway, this video does a pretty good parody of the characters that seem to be represented in all of them.
(I just realized; I should really expand my blog reading beyond my wife, her friend, and occasionally her friend's husband. From what I hear, there's a lot of stuff out there on the internets.)
Working at home isn't as interesting as travelling, since I see this stuff a lot. I did get to take a new route through the Columbia Gorge yesterday though, since they have closed an exit I really need for a few months. Something about the bridge cracking and starting to slide down the hillside. Anyway, the detour took me along the old road that FDR christened the Columbia Highway long before the interstate bypassed most of it. I had no idea how many falls there were right near the road; more remnants of the Missoula floods, I suppose. Now I have to go back sometime when I have the time to take the family and stop and see things.
I have been doing a few things in the meantime though...
Franny and I watched Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I didn't have too high an expectation for this film, but I was still disappointed. What a bore. There were a couple of funny moments (the "interview" with Alan Keyes comes to mind), but for the most part we just sat there waiting for something funny to happen. This movie was billed as using a boorish character to bring out the worst traits in people. What could have been a clever way to expose prejudices and hypocrisy mostly just degenerated into poop jokes. I imagined more. He did have a good time poking fun at antisemitism though. The actor is Jewish (In fact, his "Khazak" dialogue is actually Hebrew.), and had a field day bringing out the most outrageous stereotypes. "One of them had taken the form of an old woman. You could barely see her horns." Mainly though, the movie just wasn't worth the effort.
Since I worked two straight weeks in Idaho, I took a couple days off this week. I accompanied Franny to the rhododendron garden on what turned out to be a meeting of her moms' group. It was exactly what I always expected. It took almost five minutes to get down to discussing the latest birth story and nipple pain. Apparently I can't be disturbed anymore. Joys of parenting. Actually, Mizz and I had a good time wandering around chasing geese and ducks and identifying every tree, rock, and pine cone. I also got the job of steering him through the goose-poop minefield. The rhoddies were nice too.
Franny showed me an interesting article. It claims that Jews as a group are demonstrably smarter than average, and attempts to explain why. Um.....nuh uh. (Mizz will be at least half smart anyway.)
Alma had this great video on her blog. I liked it mainly because I see too many of these shows when I'm travelling. There's Pimp My Ride (the MTV original), Overhaulin' (a similar show with a joke's-on-you twist), and something on CMT where they do the same thing to semi rigs. Anyway, this video does a pretty good parody of the characters that seem to be represented in all of them.
(I just realized; I should really expand my blog reading beyond my wife, her friend, and occasionally her friend's husband. From what I hear, there's a lot of stuff out there on the internets.)
Working at home isn't as interesting as travelling, since I see this stuff a lot. I did get to take a new route through the Columbia Gorge yesterday though, since they have closed an exit I really need for a few months. Something about the bridge cracking and starting to slide down the hillside. Anyway, the detour took me along the old road that FDR christened the Columbia Highway long before the interstate bypassed most of it. I had no idea how many falls there were right near the road; more remnants of the Missoula floods, I suppose. Now I have to go back sometime when I have the time to take the family and stop and see things.
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