Goodbye 2008

I think I speak for all members of the Typhoon that we'll not miss 2008 much. Oh, sure, there was a LOT of good in the year. I could count our blessings all day. We ARE ready, though, to set a better course and move on.

Tonight we have a houseful of lovely people. Our god-children are here, as are their parents, L and H. We also have the Johnstons here. As I write this, a rousing game of Partini is underway in the living room. The two eight year old girls are upstairs playing as girls do. The two eleven year old boys are playing a Nintendo game here in the master bedroom while I hang out with them.

I'd rather be in the living room, but I'm struggling with a little physical challenge that's going to require a visit to the doctor after the holiday. It's not a big deal. But if my hunch is right, a hernia I've lived with for a number of years has just become acutely uncomfortable and a bit painful. Coincident with the increase in discomfort has come a sudden decrease in my overall energy level.

A hernia really is not that big a deal, but it is a drain. If bad enough, a little outpatient surgery fixes it right up. It just takes requires stopping and attending to the issue. Like a lot of things in the Johnson Family. Time and attention, one at a time, understanding that for every two we resolve, one new one will come on to the end of the queue. Resolve a house issue, resolve an insurance claim; add a hernia issue to the list; resolve the 2008 taxes; get all our healthcare checkups done by the end of the year; add potential orthodontia to the list of things to prepare for. See what I mean?

2009 will start with further cleanup. It is our supreme wish that we can keep the list ever-shortening throughout 2009. We want things to be much, much less stressful in 2009.

Transporters

I decided to have a little fun over the snow-in. A little self-indulgence, I guess. Over on the right side of the blog is a series of photos, titled 'Transporters.' I'm attempting to create a gallery of photos of every automobile I've ever owned. I've tried to find examples that match as closely as possible to the one I drove*. So far, though, that isn't entirely possible. The 1972 Ford Galaxy I drove was seafoam green, not the lemon yellow I have posted in the gallery. Most of them are pretty close, though.

If you click on the gallery, I did include comments and captions with each car. I also attempted to place them in chronological order.

I'll be working on this little documentary as time allows. It might change a bit as time goes on. I also expect that the gallery will slowly filter itself, like sediment, to the bottom of the blog, as do the bits of ferrous metal that comprise some of the cars are already disposed. Still, its fun to be had!

 

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* I don't seem to have any surviving photos of any of the vehicles I owned prior to 2005. Not sure what that says about me, but there it is. If any of my long-term friends/readers just happen to have a photo of one of my old cars, I'd appreciate a copy...but don't knock yourself out looking for it.

Intriguing Weaponry - Thanks MAKE and Instructables!

Build A Net Gun - More DIY How To Projects

The Dash, The Barre and The Mushroom

We spent five days at the beach, starting the 23rd and ending with our return today. Our original plan was to drive to the beach in the late afternoon on the 24th, but the snowstorms lined up such that we had to make the trip when the weather allowed.

All the highways to the Oregon Coast were closed on the 21st and 22nd. They opened for the 23rd, but with the threat that they'd close again on the 24th.

So we darted for the beach at around 7pm. The thinking was that we'd let the roads get as passable as possible, then scamper over before the roads could get icy again. The tactic worked. We had to use chains almost 70 miles, but we got through uneventfully.

Before we left, though, we had to make a quick trip to WL May Appliance Parts to get a part for the fridge in our garage. Turns out that some refrigerators get all 'backwards' in their operation when the room ambient is actually colder than the inside target temp. Our fridge is one of those; it stayed in the defrost cycle once the temperatures go below freezing, resulting in defrosted food during a blizzard. Imagine! It's easily fixed, however, with a 'garage kit.' The garage kit is just a resistance heater that wraps around the defrost timer. With that little bit of heat, the fridge snaps back to proper operation again.

The highways weren't closed on the 24th afterall, but they had accidents and traffic delays throughout the day. Others who drove to the beach on Christmas Eve reported that it was a long, miserable trip.

So the Typhoon got to the beach for Christmas. Aunt P, however, was completely snowed in. She was without power, too. Those conditions left her farm animals too exposed for her to make the trip to the beach for Christmas. So it was five days with the six of us all getting along nicely in a small beach house in the December rain.

Back in Portland, things warmed up and snow started melting. By the time we got home this afternoon, our two foot accumulation was already gone. Since I'd shoveled the sidewalk before we left, ours was already clear when we returned. No puddles or flooding in the back yard; no leak in the basement; no roof failures; no frozen pipes; no backed-up sewer lines; no broken refrigerator... nothing. Just a well-running house, warm and dry.

Grandma and Grandpa put on a fine show. The tree was lovely. The food was great. We played LOTS of games. Board games. Wii games. Cribbage. We read a lot of books, too. Interestingly, there were lots of board games and books under that tree on Christmas morning!

Santa brought M a ballet barre. He brought R a pommelhorse mushroom, too. Great tools for them to work with.

DePoe Bay, 1965

How's this for a blast from the past? A September day in 1965. A two-and-a-half year old ME. I have a memory of this day, though it's a fleeting one.

 

 

Here's a photo of the same bluff forty years later...

 

That's my Christmas Eve post for this year.  Reporting from, well... reporting from the beach!

Please Say Some Prayers

C's oncologist has called her in for the dreaded 'further tests.' Seems there's some funny-looking stuff on the ultrasound around her original cancer site. Its in amongst the suture scars, where its hard to distinguish. So, C does a short-notice MRI tomorrow. C's Oncologist doesn't mess around with stuff like this.

Statistically speaking, this will be a non-event. But then again, the 'further tests' in 2005 should have been non-events, statistically speaking, too. They weren't, of course. They were defy-the-odds life-changers, those.

We don't want any more of those life-changers. We've had enough of those. Come to think of it, we've had more than our share of could-have-been-a-life-changer moments lately.  The two car-totaling, not-my-fault, non-injury accidents I had in 2008 come immediately to mind.

While we're all at it, saying prayers for C, let's say some prayers for S, too.

S isn't a direct member of our family, but she is one of C's cancer sisters. In S's case, its a brain tumor that seems to have come back. S is something like 22 years old. It's just not fair. Let's say some prayers for S and C together, that they may benefit from healing and protecting energies.

Peacock Lane Rarities

Here's a stitched-together panorama from our dining room window. Let's put this into context:

In this picture, it's 8PM the Saturday night before Christmas. Peacock Lane is directly in front, in the center of the frame, behind the tree. On the Saturday before Christmas, Peacock Lane should look like a shopping mall on Black Friday. There should be carolers. There should be crowds.

Except...

When it's 18 degrees, with sustained winds of 20+mph. That's what you're looking at, here.

It's beautiful. You just don't get much of a chance to see Peacock Lane like this unless you just happen to live staked out at the top of the street like we do. Not that I'm bragging. Just sayin'.

Today, two days later, the snow has accumulated so as to fill the streets up to the curb. I worked today from the dining room table. The VPN to work is running much better than in the past. I was able to do almost everything I would normally do from the office, but from home. In the picture here, you can see people walking down the center of what should be Peacock Lane itself...if it weren't buried in the snow.

This morning I did some work on the Odyssey. Installed the chains, tested the battery and charged it when I couldn't get the engine to turn over. Once it did start, I idled it for a good half hour to defrost the windows. Not because we needed to go anywhere, but just so -- if we did need to drive today, we could. Just being prepared.

Other people today were prepared for work as well, Until almost dusk today, the most common form of transport on Stark Street was cross country skis. The most common mode of travel this morning, for people who were obviously commuting to downtown, were their skis. Really. Here's one of the half-dozen sets of ski tracks they were creating in the process. This set of tracks ran over the sidewalk in front of our house.

Our plan has been to travel "over the hill and through the woods" to grandmother's house on Christmas eve. At this moment, all those highways are closed. We could, in theory, drive along the Columbia River to Astoria, then down Hwy 101 to get there. That's a 200-mile, four-hour drive...but it gets us there

Better than using the cross country skis to get to Grandma's!

Blizzard Adventures!

There's no denying it - it's cold in Portland. Right at this moment, early on a Sunday morning, it's 21 degrees F. Last night, it was 17 degrees with sustained 20+ mph winds. We've go a good six to eight inches of show across the Laurelhurst neighborhood, with drifts as much as two feet high. I haven't seen powder snow like this since Montana or Utah. The Willamette valley just does NOT get powder like this. And if we do, it doesn't stay around long, that's for sure.

A long, protracted week of sub-freezing has taught us quite a bit about how weather tight the Cottage is. An 85 year old home has the potential to be pretty drafty if it still hasn't been retrofitted with insulation. The news is pretty good about this house. Overall, the windows and doors are pretty draft-free. I notice that the cupboards along the exterior wall of the kitchen and dining room are noticeably colder inside than the ambient of the house. These cupboards are on the eastern wall, where the exposure to the wind is higher. It's not a cold spot, just noticeable that the air cools down inside. The furnace doesn't run overly hard to keep the house warm - it seems to be turned off more than 50% of the time, even while keeping the house 60 degrees warmer than the outside temp. Upstairs has some 'cooler' spots. A little electric space heater usage, though, and everything seems to be fine. The biggest change to normal living is that we close the door from the kitchen to the basement when it's this cold. The basement stays warm within reason, but right now the temperature differential is enough to create a convection draft when the door is open. If that's our big compromise for all this snow, that's not bad at all.

Last night was just a little different, though. With the wind blowing at 20mph sustained, from the east, and ambient temps already in the teens, windchill was extreme. The wind absolutely howled across the rooftops. People trying to walk Peacock Lane bent into the wind like walking uphill. No one stayed long.

I worried for a while last night that the Chestnut tree in our front yard might lose a limb or two overnight. I reassured myself that the tree has withstood similar storms for many years. Still, those aged branches - full of now frozen rain seepage - could snap under these conditions. A tree that mature is allowed to have a couple weak points in its branches. In the morning light, however, I see we've lost none and my worry was - however justified - not required this time.

Through a couple circumstances, I ended up falling asleep on the couch in the upstairs family room last night. The rest of the family was having a 'nightowl' session in the downstairs bedroom, making use of the TV. Needing some time away, I curled up with Michener's Hawaii, and read for a while. The wind was definitely sucking heat through the window panes, but really nothing different than we experienced even in the 21st century construction of the Lesser Way house. I did wake up early this morning, however, because of the cold. But then, I was sleeping on the couch with just one throw blanket over me, six hours after the thermostat had switched to nighttime temperatures. It would be unfair to think my morning chill was any different today than on any winter day.

Nevertheless, here I am, sitting in the home office at 7am on Sunday morning, blogging. Not sleeping. Setting up the Vista environment on C's PC now that she uses the computer much more regularly as a communications device. Watching the perceived source of light shift from the snow (as it always seems that the night is lit from below by the snow) to the grey, hazy morning sky. Thinking.

I've a night photo of Peacock Lane that I took last night. It's a stitched panorama showing the full view from our dining room. I'll post it later.

Knocking Off the Ninjas

Remember back in September when my S-Class was rear-ended and declared a total loss? Would it surprise you to learn that I still haven't been paid for the damages?

Looks like that's about to change. I've got final paperwork and a settlement value I can live with. I'm not coming out ahead; not really coming out even either. But it'll do.

A couple months ago, someone asked me how I was doing. "I'm fighting too many ninjas" I found myself saying."I can fight quite a few ninjas at one time, but right now, there are more than I can keep up with." The car insurance settlement was one of the more persistent ninjas from that time. It's good to have that one handled. On to some other ninjas, yeah?

I don't particularly care for the ninjas and am glad to be rid of them. I've really been more of a pirate kinda' guy anyway...

Thinking of Grandma

I'm wearing my ski sweater that my Grandmother made for me before she died. I think I've had this sweater since the late '80s. She made this sweater for me when I started skiing.  It's wool, and grey with a pattern of snow flakes and shapes that make it look like snow's piling up on the window panes. It has a monsterous and functional turtleneck. Grandma made this sweater to be my primary under-coat layer, so she designed the turtleneck so it can be pulled up to act as a face gaiter in pinch. I know, I've had to use it that way before.

On cold days like today, it's nice to wear it, feel warm and think of her...a chance to honor her.

The Normally Dynamic Typhoons Morph into Hibernating Bears

I got to work today. Roads are clear, but the snow/sleet is still forecast to arrive this afternoon. Drove the Jag (chains safely stowed in the trunk) and found that the cat handles nicely indeed on slippery surfaces. I just drive smooth, and steady on the pedals, then let the traction control computer handle the rest of the stuff. So for, it's working just fine, thanks.

My family is hibernating. Last night C and the kids made it to SW Portland for R's gymnastics workout. It was slow going. So, when they got back home at about 7PM, I had the dinner mostly ready to eat (C had put it in the oven to cook while she was gone). M, however, had fallen asleep in the car. I carried her in, and put her on our bed downstairs. I didn't even take her coat off her, just gently placed her there. She's eight; normally she wakes up from this sort of nap after a half-hour or so.

Not last night, she didn't. She claimed C's half of the bed until morning.

The awake members of the family ate together. C shared that she had a big headache and preferred to go straight to bed after eating.

That sounded like a good idea. So that's what she did.

With M already sleeping on the downstairs bed, C claimed my side of the bed.

R took seriously his new job* as official family dishwasher technician and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher with my assistance. We checked the news and discovered that Portland Public Schools had already announced a school closure for the next morning. With that news, he headed off to bed too. He read a while and had his light out well before 9:30.

So, everyone but me was in bed or sleeping by 8:30. And why not? They're tired, it's cold outside, and the bed is toasty warm.

I stayed up until about 11. First I did some computer work, then I crawled into a bed myself to read a bit of a book I've just started. I opted to just sleep in M's bed upstairs instead of disturbing the ladies downstairs. It was fine.

I got up this morning, and disturbed no one. C was up at about the same time. We let the kids sleep. C went back to bed after seeing me off. M and R were both still sleeping. At 10:30 this morning, R was still sleeping. For him, that's a good 13+ hours. M - having gotten started earlier - slept more like 14 or 15 hours.

The family needs this quiet time. Thanks to the weather for giving them the opportunity to have it now.

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* R has been a vocal critic of the 'cleanliness' of our dishes coming out of the dishwasher. Sometimes rightly so, but nevertheless he's been relentless. Our response was to suggest he take over being the family's dishwasher technician. That way, he can have complete ownership of the situation. His response? "Yeah!" He was glad to be put in charge!

The Global Petroleum Economy and Oregon

Note:  I blogged this to another site yesterday. But it bears reposting to the family site as well. Just as a data point, I bought gas today at $1.58.

 

 

This chart is sourced from GasBuddy.com. I used their tools to plot the Portland area average gas price against the US national average. We're all pretty acutely aware of the rapid run-up, followed by the plunge in gas prices. What's on this chart really just confirms what we all know already, right? As the head of a household, I look at the 2008 chart and I breathe a sigh of relief. I felt the pain in June when it cost $100/tank and my family spent almost $800/month just on gasoline. I shake my head a little and chuckle when I realize that our family road trip to southern California coincided with gasoline's all-time high (figures...) I feel better knowing that our gasoline, food, and part of our utilities now fit inside July's gasoline bill. That's how this graph affects me.

But the gas data takes on some new meaning, when charted on a six-year scale. From this vantage point, you can start to see how gas prices affect us all. It becomes a larger issue than my own pocketbook. Here's what I mean:

Imagine if this graph represented your paycheck. I don't care whether you were overpaid or not, if your family income went through this sort of change, it would be destabilizing to say the least.

Now, what if this were the income stream for a company? Or the income stream for a country? For Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, et. al, this in fact, is their country's main revenue stream. Viewed from a long-term perspective, the plunge in the price of oil is probably going to do us more harm than good as a global economy. So, what's good for my family checkbook right now may be worse for lots of families globally (again, mine included) over the longer term.

Oregon's state plan, as led by Governor Kulongoski, to increase Oregon's sustainable energy programs is intended to reduce the impact of oil in our local economy by reducing our need for oil to run our region's economic machine. With our oil dependence reduced, whipsaw changes in petrochemical markets don't transfer so easily into our economy. In the short term, we may pay a premium (in the form of reduced tax revenues) in order to encurage the building of the infrastructure. That investment comes in the form of Business Energy Tax Credits (BETC's) in which the state trades short term monies for long-term stability in the economic machine.

It starts to make sense, doesn't it, when you see it all from the right vantage point?

The Simulation was Pretty Close

About a week ago, I posted the text from a Weather Service bulletin that predicted snow the following weekend. Well, that weekend has just passed, and the Weather Service got the basics of the warning exactly right, didn't they? Take this shot from a friend in Lake Oswego:

Last night was the 'preview night' for Peacock Lane. The plan was to close the street to traffic and create a special pedestrian mall. It was a great idea, and seemed to play out well. The snow on the street made it even MORE poignant to look at. But M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E to experience directly. I didn't see more than a couple dozen people on the entire street at any one time. For what should have been a crowded place with a constant flow of a couple hundred visitors every half hour of so, the cold took the attendance way down.

C and the kids took the dog for a walk to enjoy the closed street. They didn't go all the way to the end. It was too bitingly cold. Instead, we sat in the dining room, played Carcassone, and watched the lights from our warm and cozy dining table. R did a nice Boy Scout thing and took cocoa to the Lane staffers manning the barricades across the street from our house. That was a gesture that went over well.

What are YOUR plans for the holidays?

Previously in this blog...

One Year Ago, Typhoon Johnson noted the following news:

• 1992 Mercedes 300E clears 200,000 miles.
• M performs her second Nutcracker with Mother Ginger
• Cottage rehab work in process includes M's closet, R's closet, finish details to main bathroom, and baseboard trim throughout.

Two Years Ago:

• Yosemite for Christmas
• N now working at Sunstone
  

Three Years Ago:

• C finished chemo and radiation.
• N working at Clarity Visual Systems
  

Is Winter White Coming?

We have a company holiday party on Friday night. It could be quite 'holiday' indeed. Here's what the local weather service is saying today about our upcoming weekend weather:

...TURNING EXTREMELY COLD WITH VERY LOW SNOW LEVELS THIS WEEKEND OVER SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON...



THE COLDEST AIR OF THE WINTER SEASON WILL BE SETTLING IN OVER SOUTHWEST
WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON THIS WEEKEND...BRINGING VERY COLD
TEMPERATURES TO THE REGION AND SNOW LEVELS POSSIBLY NEAR THE VALLEY
FLOOR.



THE INITIAL SURGE OF COLD AIR WILL SPREAD INTO SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND
NORTHWEST OREGON FRIDAY NIGHT AS A STRONG COLD FRONT MOVES THROUGH.
WHILE AIR AHEAD OF THIS FRONT WILL BE RELATIVELY MILD...VERY COLD AIR
BEHIND THIS FRONT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO DROP SNOW LEVELS QUITE LOW...NOT
UNLIKE A SNOW EVENT THAT OCCURRED IN MID NOVEMBER OF 2003 WHICH DROPPED
SEVERAL INCHES

OF SNOW IN THE PORTLAND METRO AREA. WHILE THIS KIND OF DETAIL IS NOT
CERTAIN AT THIS POINT...THE SNOW LEVEL AT THE BACK EDGE OF THE COLD
FRONT FRIDAY NIGHT COULD TURN OUT TO BE QUITE LOW.

After Friday, Saturday is a Boy Scout service project for R, and gym session mid-day. M has the day off, I believe. That evening is also a party at our friends, the Andersons.

Sunday night, the 14th, is an unofficial sneak-peek night on Peacock Lane. The neighborhood's going to close the street to all vehicular traffic and kick off the display season with a 'pedestrians only' evening. We'll certainly be lit for that event at our house!

Reading Material

This link is for R, an article with one of the key designers at Nintendo. Games and robotics will only continue to expand their overlap. And why not?

Mental Snapshots

One of R:

He's in his Boy Scout uniform, on the indoor basketball court at the church where the meetings are held. Impulsively, he does a front handspring, just missing sticking the landing. I had seen him do the front, but only on a trampoline or tumbletrack, not on a solid floor without any spring to it.


One of M:

She's playing the piano. Two handed. It's a simple piece, but it has chords sprinkled throughout the mostly single-note melody. She has to switch modes and rapidly move her hands to chords. It's hard work, learning that transition. But with each time through the piece, her transition time shortens and the tempo of the piece improves. The energy wrapped around her as she does this exercise? calm and satisfaction. Learning new skills on the piano seems to relax her, not make her tense. Because of this, I love it when she practices; her calmness spreads to me whenever she plays.


I'm overdue to post some video pieces. I'd better fix that.

Writer for Hire

C is working. She's writing freelance for a friend and colleague. It's ideal work for her: technical writing on an as-needed basis, for a woman owned & staffed company that intentionally structures its operations around the scheduling needs that moms have. In other words, work from home and pick your own hours.

This on top of her own cancer book project.

She seems happier. Full-time stay-at-home Mom will not be C's profession for the rest of her life. Now that we have our youngest in second grade, and we're past cancer, and the house remodel, she has mental bandwidth to spend the pursuit of a skilled craft that contributes to the family income. Her rhythm this week has been to write in the evenings. It makes for a lovely vignette, really.

See, I come home late enough that its already dark in the winter. I pull the car into the garage on the alley, and approach the house from from the back yard. From that angle, the double-wide window in C's office frames her beautifully as she sits at her desk, writing. It looks peaceful. It looks homey. It looks...safe and happy. Each evening, I find myself stopped on the steps down to the patio, looking at her while she works. Last night, I gently tapped on her window and waved to her from outside.

There are times - over and over again, really - when we experience asking God in our prayers to PLEASE help, provide, open a door, something. It's surprising how often, when it really counts, God does exactly that. Answer our prayers, I mean. C had been asking God for something to do that paid. Two days later, she had it. Imagine.

Maybe we'll need the money. Maybe we won't. Doesn't matter. I can't speak for what happens inside C's head, but on the outside she does seem happier being Mom when she also knows she has monetary value.

I'm thinking that an increased feeling of self worth can only be good for any of us Johnsons.

How Was YOUR Thanksgiving?

Ours was good.

We had the Thanksgiving holiday at my sister's house. Her boyfriend's family (two brothers & their SO's), along with Mom & Dad and the Typhoon. My sis lives in the hills outside the metro area. It was misty and foggy up there, but that helped set the tone of the holiday.

Sis raised quite a bird for the event: a home-grown, range fed 50-pounder! The cooks opted to cut the bird in half and *only* serve up 25 pounds of roasted bird.  And it was GOOD!

R and M were the only children present. They spent most of the afternoon playing in the pole barn with my sister's barn cat (really, just a very socialized kitten) and rough-housing with the four dogs. But then there were the horses.

See, my sister built her horse paddock in such a way that three sides of her house are contained within the paddock.  That's not such a big deal,except that the horses and my sister have developed a trait in which the horses feel safe sticking their head inside one of the windows, looking for a treat. Sort of a horse-based fast food drive-up. The kids really got a kick out of that!

Football was on, naturally. That took up the attention for the three brothers, and Grandpa. I watched some, but took the opportunity to take a nap as well. M brought her Whoonuu game, which got a lot of play with the ladies.

The kids got to play some Nintendo Wii for the first time in almost four months (ours has been put away until just this weekend - parents had to make a statement) after all the football games were done. So, we didn't leave on the 30 mile drive home until almost 11pm.

It was fun, though. It was a good time. Thanks for hosting a nice, jovial, harmonious event, Sis. We sure appreciated it.