Heh...

I was looking through some Flickr photostreams and saw this:

Kids

In the car, on the way back from our trip to Jackson County, USA:

The Trip South

We decided to make the trip to Medford/Ashland about 90 minutes before we left Portland. We had hotel reservations in Roseburg, a sort-of halfway mark that we've adopted in the last few years as our first stop on the way, just for the heck of it. It's very nice to get up the next day and only have a couple of hours to drive.

Driving down was not too much of a problem, but it was slow. There was certainly plenty of potential for a problem -- the freeway was pretty busy and mixed with cars without chains (us) and cars with chains (struggling on the sometimes bare pavement of the interstate highway). The worst section by far was between the I-205 junction north of Wilsonville and the rest area that is just south of the Willamette River, past Wilsonville. That last hill had big trucks slippin' this way and that, and traffic was just c r e e e e e p i n g along.

Three hours after leaving Portland we stopped in Albany (70 miles) and had potato soup at Mom and Dad's house. I think I set Dad straight and he will no longer have wacky opinions and crazy ideas. No time to work on Mom, however, as we had to hit the road.

South of Albany it was fine, easy travelling. The snow abruptly disappeared just south of Salem, and from there to Roseburg it was clear and dry (some snow on the sides of the road at the higher elevations).

We checked in to our rooms, we later ordered some pretty darn mediocre pizza from Abbey's -- the guy delivered it to our room, and he first handed me a lunch-sack sized paper bag, saying "here you go." I said, "what is it?" and he said, "Ranch. Some people like it." I took the pizzas, gave him the money and he left.

I looked into the paper bag... and found this:


There are ten 2 oz. containers of ranch dressing in the bag. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do with ranch dressing and pizza.

Ah, but 20 ounces of ranch dressing must be worth something.

And, for now, good night from Roseburg, Oregon.

The Week of Christmas

It snowed a bunch in the last week, maybe a total of ten to twelve inches at our house. It started with just a couple of inches, then that iced over, then it snowed on top of that and kept coming. I don't know what happened on what day because it all became a slow, white blur.

This is a neighbor's truck, the morning after the ice came:


Here's the bench in the back yard:



Here's Amy on our sidewalk out front, where the streets are snowpacked:



This Anna's Hummingbird stayed pretty close to the feeder, which we were taking in at night to thaw and periodically thawing it during the day (there's a closer photo here):


Our canoe got a little bit of snow on it:

Elf Dance

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A Man's Kind of Mildness

From a 1957 interview with Kirk Douglas:

And It Snowed

We stayed at the Hotel Monaco Saturday night (in celebration of Amy's upcoming birthday), and when we woke up this morning it was snowing. It didn't look like much downtown, but on the way home the roads were snow-covered and it was pretty slick. No problems, though. It was pretty cold, but I got out late this afternoon and took a few photos.

The Coconut

Spray Paint Issues, Vol. 2

I've been painting this funky old table we've had around the house for at least a dozen years:



I had planned on painting 20+ coats. I got tired of that action after about 12 coats. I needed some polyurethane and decided to use spray (like I said, I was tired of the project).

I went to Miller Paints, knowing I'd probably find the polyurethane with the spray paint, and sure enough...

... I had to show my ID and sign my name and they logged my info into a book: Grafitti Materials Catalog was on the cover. The woman who sold it to me was well aware of the irony -- that to "prevent" grafitti in my community I had to register my purchase of INVISIBLE-colored paint.

And even funnier -- Miller Paints has the practice of carrying your purchases to your vehicle, no matter what. It's nice, but when it's a single can of spray polyurethane, it's a little silly.

More House Lights

More House Lights, originally uploaded by Paul Hehn.

The house is lit!

Laptops

Hummingbird Snapshot

I was outside with the camera, about to try a set up to take photos of the hummingbirds, when one flew right up, about thirty and a half inches from my head. I snapped a bunch of shots, but I'm not too familiar with this particular camera, and this is the only one that really came out:

Southwest Portland Walk

It was a sunny morning with a good east wind. I went to Greg and Dana's place in Multnomah Village around 9 a.m. -- I drove through the tail-end of rush-hour traffic. A lot of cars, but they moved pretty fast for the most part.

I listened to sports radio on the little Radio Shack crapradio I have in the van, plugged into the cigarette lighter socket. I have no idea who they were talking about and rarely do, but they get so excited about whatever it is, and I am amused by that.

Greg and I walked from his house up over Taylor's Ferry Road, through the end of Tryon Creek Park and up through the campus of Lewis & Clark College (University?). On the other side of campus is a trail we found last week.

That was accidental, and we were coming up the other way. This time we went down the trail, which is #5 of the SW Trail system, but after you hit Tryon Creek Park, the trail isn't marked.

Greg suspects this is because the people in that neighborhood don't want tramps like us hiking through their very fancy turf. There are some nice homes there, between the college campus and Highway 43. Radcliffe Court is one of the streets... big, older (mostly) homes in the Dunthorpe neighborhood.

We crossed the highway and got onto the train tracks that run along the Willamette River. We went north to the Corbett area, stopped briefly at Greg and Dana's place, the Corbett Fish House, where I pounded a cup of coffee and Greg paused to undermine the societal goals of untold thousands.

From there we went up the hill via the Iowa St. trail, which goes up (up!) under Interstate 5 and on up to Terwilliger. From there it was up over Hillsdale, right by Wilson High School, and back on down to Multnomah Village and Greg and Dana's again.

I think we probably went over eight miles, and it was a very nice day.

Left-handed Sketching

Tonight I drew Cleo with my left hand (my non-dominant hand or "evil" hand), then Cleo and Iris, also right-handed in real life, sketched with their left hand(s) also. We tried to get Amy to draw Iris, but she opted for couch-slumber rather than try her (evil) hand at ART:

A Trip to Willamette

Yesterday Amy and I went with Cleo to a visit to Willamette University, one of the schools she is considering for next year.

Amy (WU '81) and I (WU '82) had a good time. Cleo liked it. We saw old (and former) professors, new things on the campus -- and it was a sunny morning and very pleasant. Here Amy and Cleo stand by the Mill Stream:



Here's a spider in the sun:



And here I am, in front of Waller Hall, the oldest building on campus:


(And yes, I know you young viewers are thinking "does having so many ideas always make your cheeks that fat?" And I know you older viewers are thinking "he has a remarkably beautiful head of hair for an amateur genius.")

Thanksgiving 2008

Click on the title to go to a Picasa gallery of photos at Mom and Dad's house.

How?

Bruce Lee playing ping-pong in a mindblowing display:

Ghost Story

Today at the local grocery store the clerk asked me out of the blue, "do you like ghost stories?"

I said yes, I do. She then told me of her mother's recent visit to their old family home in California, the home this clerk lived in as a kid. She said her mom was outside the old house looking around when a neighbor came up and excitedly told her about the house having become a famous haunted house since the family had moved away.

The clerk told me the ghosts had something to do with stabbing, knives -- I forget exactly because at this point she mentioned "my sister was murdered twenty years ago -- stabbed to death. Now, I know the ghost isn't HER. I know my sister is all right. I KNOW this. I KNOW where my sister is, I've talked to her several times, but that's another story."

Indeed. She told me a theory that the murderer was the ghost. Or something.

I asked where this house was. She said "oh, in California." I asked where in California. She said "in Santa Rosa."

I told her I knew of Santa Rosa, home of Charles Schulz and Luther Burbank. She didn't really know what I was talking about, because she obviously hasn't read The Santa Rosa Connection.

Coincidentally, my pal from Who2, Adam Duvander is from... Santa Rosa, California.

Meow Meow Meow Meow

Whoa!

This little video of girls going nuts after an American Idol announcement is intense!

The Who2 Blog Widget

My pal Mike Duffy (from Who2) created this nifty gadget that you can paste into your site -- I've slapped it over there on the left column. With this tool I can keep up on what Fritz Holznagel has to say about today's wacky world. Here's the widget:

A Sunny Day

Cleo's Intro

Cleo had a solo with the choir the other night:

Weekend Retreat

Weekend Retreat, originally uploaded by Paul Hehn.

"Mountain Man Weekend" (aka "Middle-Aged Man Weekend") in Vancouver, BC.

Toy Shelf

Toy Shelf, originally uploaded by Paul Hehn.

Some of the dolls and puppets we still have around the house.

Caught in B.C.

I told Mark it wouldn't make any difference -- he thought for sure the president's reputation would be ruined if the press knew Bush was "in his cups" at a sports bar in Vancouver, BC, watching a hockey game and drunkenly shouting "touchdown!" every few minutes. Mark insisted we get some photos. I told him I didn't think it would hurt the president's reputation one bit.

Pipe Down!

Last Friday night our shower broke. Now we're having the entire house re-piped, from the street on up to the shower. It's not unexpected. It's expensive. Casey's Plumbing is doing the job -- "the picky people's plumber" or something like that. If you go to their website you can see a little video starring Linda Gray, former star of Dallas.

Here are some photos of the plumbing action going on today:


Andrea the Plumber.


Justin the Plumber and Andrea the Plumber.


Digging around the water main.


The boring machine.

Vancouver BC Trip Slideshow

Ha!

I paid a guy ten bucks (Canadian) to do this, in the Gastown district of Vancouver, B.C.

My Airplane Glider Ride

This morning I drove out to McMinnville, to an airfield run by Cascade Soaring. I had an 11 a.m. appointment for an airplane glider ride.

This is the "tower" for their airfield:


This was the airplane that towed the glider up into the airspace (aka "sky"):


You can see the pilot in there. She was nice. The guy who piloted my glider was an old curmudgeon named Joe. His second sentence to me today was "who told you you had a ride out here at eleven a.m.?" He told me to come over to his mud-battered car because "there's all kinds of papers 'n' shit you gotta sign." He had me sign one thing, that's it.

Here's the little area where I waited for them to ready the planes:


Joe left to go do something for a moment, and when he came back he barked at me, "You gotta stay behind the orange plastic fence!" I said, "Okay."

He softened a little and said, "I didn't tell ya that." Pause. "But then I didn't figure you'd go wandering around on your own."

Ha! My wandering around had taken me all of about six feet past the orange fence. He wouldn't let me take my camera up in the glider. That was a disappointment. He told me it was because too many people had scratched the inside of the plastic cockpit cover with their cameras. I said, "Aw, c'mon, I can be a good boy!" But he wasn't buying it.

Here's Joe and his mute (and possibly deaf) pal, fetching the glider from the fleet:


Here are the tow ropes that tethered us to the plane on the way up:


Here's the plane we glid through the air in:


The cockpit:


I sat behind Joe. Because I weigh more than him, although apparently not by much. The ride itself was great. Beautiful, serene, etc. Great views of Yamhill Valley acreage. I didn't say much. Joe didn't either. By the end of it he was much friendlier and joking around with me. He told me if I lost a couple of pounds I could go up in the other glider and sit in the front. "How much is a couple?" I asked. "Three or four," he said.

Epiphany #1,749

From the Tripod

Iris and I this afternoon, sticking the tripod out the kitchen window for a selves-portrait:

I Love the Modern World

This is a screenshot from iTunes.

I'm not a huge Radiohead fan -- I like 'em fine and we have a few records -- but I love this kind of thing. I spent ninety-nine of my cents to get these six tracks. I don't know if I'll use them or not. This week I began making some music tracks for the first time in about five weeks, a long layoff from messing around with GarageBand and Audacity, the two software programs I use most.

But I don't think I'd go so far as to use all of the Radiohead tracks to re-do this particular song. That seems wacky -- to do the song again. If I'm going to go to THAT much trouble, I'd rather make a whole new song.

Now you know why I don't record covers. I once did a slowed-down version of the theme song to Sailor Moon, but other than that I've never spent my time learning how to play a song by someone else.

Headlines!

But... wha-?

Oh... it was fixed: