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!