Archive for category Oregon
Threat Of Snow and A Small TV
It seems the weather men are at it again. The threat of “snow” is in the air. There is a small chance that it might actually be below freezing somewhere near the ground in the next 24 hours. I’m certain “Stormwatch 2005″ will be in full swing on the evening news, although I never watch it.
I remember the last “big” storm we encountered, the newscasters were reporting that there was snow falling in Salem. That made the news. Almost as exciting as this entry.
Next week is a big one for our household. Lisa and I are going in for the next ultrasound, and we should find out the gender of the baby! Once we know the gender, name selection should be a little bit easier. It will at least cut down on the potential search parameters.
Work has been time consuming, and we had a slight reprieve with the Thanskgiving break. It would have been nice to have a few more days off before the chaos of the end of year holidays begin, but such is life.
Our television stopped working a few weeks ago, and we have been forced to use Lisa’s 13″ television. The color reproduction on her 13″ is a lot better than the 27″ we had before. I’d like to replace the 13″ with a 32″ LCD HD television, but I have run into complications. First is the expense. I can’t justify spending that much money for a new TV right now. The second is the cabinet. The TV must be 32″ wide to fit into the cabinet that Lisa bought a while back. The interior of the cabinet is actually 38″, but the doors on the cabinet push in when they are open, to be out of the way. Unfortunately this leaves us with 32″ of space. It has been a bit difficult to find a 32″ LCD that doesn’t have speakers on the side.
On that note, shopping for a TV is at best frustrating. I’ve read reviews online. I’ve been to Best Buy, and Costco to compare. The problem with Best Buy is that they don’t seem to care what the TVs look like. Half of them are out of adjustment, one of them even had the cables swapped, so all the colors were inverted. Its nearly impossible to make a sane decision about what is good and bad in those environments. The sales people could seem to care less.
I’ll just keep saving my pennies, and perhaps someday soon I can replace the 13″ with something more, well, visible.
Back From Florence…
We went to Florence this last weekend. I don’t like posting about our trips before we leave… too much information on a public forum. We went to do some fishing for Chinook, and spend some time decompressing. We did a bit of both. Lisa’s father and I went salmon fishing on the Siuslaw river on Thursday and Friday afternoon. It is a tidal river (at least in the sections we were fishing). Here is a picture I took from the boat before the battery on the camera went dead:
We were fishing with sand shrimp and salmon roe on a bobber, with weights below. The river was full of fish, and plenty of them were eating the bait. Unfortunately those that we landed were not quite the size we expected:
The whole group of us also went crabbing off of a dock, and brought in a couple of nice crab for dinner. Chicken seemed to be the preferred bait. The local sea lion population left it alone.
A guy salmon fishing off the dock also had the misfortune of hooking a seagull while casting his bait out. The seagull took a dive for it, and hooked itself in the mouth. It took two guys and a pair of pliers to free it.
It finally started raining on Saturday while we were on the dock, which made it an opportune time to leave the dock.
All in all, it was a nice to get away from town for a few days.
Oregon biotech could get defense spending funding…
AVI Biopharma could get some defense spending dollars to research some potential treatments for “terror-oriented” diseases. I have been following this company for quite a while and it is interesting to watch the attempts to get a product to market.
They have struggled for years to get recognition of the technology they hold, and to find someone to help them bring a drug to a Phase III trial. It is my understanding that a Phase III trial is very expensive.
The press releases about past trials are usually impressive to the biotech naive (like myself). I wonder why they haven’t been helped by any big pharma company…
Lame Nose Owner
I have noticed my nose isn’t quite as sensitive as Lisa or other people I have gone wine tasting with. This translates into experiences where people smell and taste things in wine that I just can’t. I wonder if this is due to nasal abuse caused by previous employment. One summer job I had used bleach to kill mold and mildew. Every night, the floors and equipment would be hosed down (they processed berries and fruit in the place). Once a week using bug type sprayers, the cleaning crew would walk around and spray the equipment and the floors until the whole place reeked of bleach. I can’t image this helped my nose, or tastebuds.
A group of us went to the Noble Rot recently. I had the Italian Wine Flight (among other foods and wine). The “middle” wine’s nose (I was foolish enough not to write down the name of it and the lists on the website are old) was amazingly fruity. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I’ve been working my way through chardonnay of various regions and preparations. I can say that it varies a tremendous amount based on climate. I have found that some taste like green apples, others like a big stick of butter. The difference is pretty amazing. Lisa says they all smell like vomit to her. She doesn’t like them. 
I’m still bummed about my nose though.
New Years Party
Ok, where did I leave off. The party. There was music from The Cool Breeze Band. They were appropriate, and played a lot of music that Lisa enjoys. I could really care less what they played. Lisa and I don’t see eye to eye on music — she likes disco, and Yanni among other things. I much prefer music with some semblance of thought behind it. Music with something to say. Tom Waits, David Byrne, Robyn Hitchcock are all relatively recent music purchases for me. I don’t buy music very often, but when I do, I listen to it until I know it back to front. Anyway, back to the band. Lisa took this picture of them playing.
The night was fun, with stuff to eat, and drinks as well.
Long time no post…
With the holidays behind us, I have a few minutes to post some of the goings on. Most recently, we returned from our journey Eastward to Kah Nee Tah. We left Portland on New Year’s Eve. The road conditions over the pass weren’t bad at all.
The drive took about 2 and a half hours. It seemed to go more quickly than that though. The desert (the GPS said 2000 feet, so I wouldn’t call it high desert), was quite pretty shrouded in clouds.
Our arrival was uneventful.
The room was unspectacular, but had a good view of the valley.
There is a year round pool at the resort. Supposedly they keep the temperature of the water at 82 degrees. There weren’t many people using it while we were there. No one was all that interested in going down to it, as it was pretty close to freezing outside most of the time.
Lisa’s parents hadn’t arrived yet, so I played around with the camera for a bit. Eventually they made it. We changed, and had dinner at the buffet provided in the package. Later we went to the party.
I’ll add more when I have more time.
I voted!
I mailed my ballot this morning. My vote is cast! Perhaps this will relieve our house from the barrage of phone calls and knocks at the door we have been getting in the past week. Lisa thinks I should ignore all the political information I browse through daily, and I have to admit, it might be a good idea. I’ll be glad when I can focus my idle time on something that aggravates me less.
There are only a couple of weeks to go, and we will see what we will see. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Measure 36 goes down in flames. I still can’t believe we have so many ignorant bigots in this state. Yes, if you support measure 36, you are no better than those that support racism.
Dissenting Viewpoints not allowed in a Bush democracy?
Jack Bog’s Blog links to two separate news stories that describe the experience of three teachers at a Bush rally in Oregon. They were removed from the rally for wearing shirts that said “Protect Our Civil Liberties”.
This quote, from the The Bugle’s article sums it up:
“Thursday’s event in Oregon sets a new bar for a Bush/Cheney campaign that has taken extraordinary measures to screen the opinions of those who attend Bush and Cheney speeches. For months, the Bush/Cheney campaign has limited event access to those willing to volunteer in Bush/Cheney campaign offices. In recent weeks, the Bush/Cheney campaign has gone so far as to have those who voice dissenting viewpoints at their events arrested and charged as criminals.”
Jack is right. It is disgusting. I would add that the conduct of the Bush/Cheney campaign is un-American!
Photos from Classical Chinese Garden in Portland
We went to the Portland Classical Chinese Garden on Sunday. It was raining a bit, but it didn’t dampen our spirits at all. I was surprised to see gardenias in the garden. I didn’t think they were hardy enough to survive the Oregon winters. According to the plant pamphlet we were given at the garden, there are two types of hardy Gardenias present: Gardenia ‘Kleim’s Hardy’ and Gardenia ‘Chuck Hayes’. We were also told that the gardenias are heavily mulched over the winter. I’ll have to go looking to see if I can find some of them so we can plant them outside with our daphne. Anyone know where I might find them?
Here are a some of the best pictures… and here is a link to all of them.
We each enjoyed a cup of tea at The Tao of Tea located in the garden. It was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of daily life.
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