Snow patrol

Light Snow
Light Snow

May I direct your attention to the weather box in the left sidebar, it’s presently:

Temperature: -3°C, Conditions: Light Snow, Wind Chill: -10°C

It’s been a strange old week, in the good way of course. Lewis & Clark was open when it snowed, closed when it wasn’t, things were cancelled, meetings postponed and I got out and took a fair few photos. Yesterday it seemed like the ‘inclement weather’ was over and we took a friend to the airport and on the way home decided to drop into the DMV to get our Oregon licenses. 

This involved presenting various bits of paperwork that I didn’t have on me and taking the computerised theory test. It was a touch-screen multiple choice affair and would have been quite challenging were it not for the “Skip this question” option on each question. The theory is that your skipped questions return at the end of the test, however the vast majority didn’t come back at all (we knew this would probably happen thanks to sage advice from Abraham). So I didn’t have to know driving trivia like “What is the maximum speed of vehicles with a ‘Slow Vehicle’ sign on them? 15mph, 20mph, 25mph or 30mph.” Anyroad, I got 93% which is a pass. Same as Dr.Sita.

Another question I should have got right but didn’t was along these lines: You’re driving along and feeling very tired, what should you do?

a) Open the windows and turn the AC on

b) Put on loud music

c) Find a safe area to park the car and take a nap

d) Drink something caffeinated

I reckoned they all sounded good. Only one of them is right.

Another was a question about why there are more accidents in the evening rush hour. a) because of the dark b) people are tired and irritable c) there’s more traffic d) I forget. I got the feeling there was a book we probably should have read beforehand. And it’s amazing how conditioned we are now by Who Wants to be a Millionaire; for nearly every question I was looking for the 50-50 button, or Phone-a-friend.

Strange questions… Anyroad, we’re now the proud owners of temporary Oregon licenses which, when presented in Washington state, for example, mean we don’t have to pay any sales tax. Good times.

I’m considering sledging today. I’m looking round for suitable snow vehicles. I’ve already ruled out Nanny’s scrabble board lazy-susan rotator thing… dustbin lids? Photos as and when. Stay warm, folks.

Siberia, 1963

Or Portland, 2008 through a Kodak Duaflex II from 1963(ish)…
Looks like the temperatures have risen and from today on there’ll no snow at the metro level. It were good while it lasted.

The Fugitive

Taken surreptitiously as I wandered through a very pretty golf course that was 100% free of golfers for a change. Hope they don’t mind the size 11 foot prints across their well-tended putting greens…

Eyes Removed

I thought this picture from JGG’s photostream deserved a wider audience… and also wanted to test posting from Flickr to the blog in WordPress 2.7. It still doesn’t work right.

Back to school tomorrow :(

Atticus channels his inner huskie (a video experiment, let me know if it works)
The battery in me little camera doesn’t do well at the best of times, but the cold and ‘Cus managed to shut the video down at 45 seconds or so. The bit when it jerks away is when his lead went tight as he tried to maul the sliding car…

I’ve 3 days worth of internet to catch up on cos I’ve either been out with the camera or recovering from being out with the camera.

Photos abound over at Flickr…

inter-seasonal

A turn for the cold

I reckon I walked about 8 miles altogether today over treacherous roads and pavements. I nearly fell about a dozen times. When I came back I found that yesterday’s picture of the train had got to #10 on Flickr Explore, which means it made fleeting appearances on the front page and has got favourited to within an inch of its life. I’m well chuffed…

Anyroad, this one is from West Moreland Park (I think). It was deserted because if you had moist hands you’d probably stick to the metal. I spun the roundabout a bit, went for a tiny aperture, user the polariser filter and managed to hold it steady enough an eighth of a second exposure or so to get the varying degrees of blur.

I’m happy how it turned out.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Antarctica

me and the missus
Minutes before my fisheye lens frosted over completely...

I woke up at 7.30, ran to the window to see if it had snowed yet, saw it hadn’t and went back to bed feeling thoroughly crestfallen. An hour later I put the coffee on and saw that flakes of snow the size of old pennies were coming thick and fast and there was at least an inch covering the garden. I waited for DrSita to surface so she could share the sight of Atticus’ first encounter with the elements and then played around for 10 minutes in the garden. La Doctora shot a fair few photos of us which I made into a collage… I chucked a snowball and he pretty much swallowed it whole then started trying to munch through the rest of the garden. Hope he didn’t bury his bone from yesterday too deep ‘cos he’s going to need a pickaxe/ pneumatic drill to get through the earth again.

It was still snowing an hour or so later so I thought, sod it and headed out on me own with me camera, two pairs of socks, pajama bottoms and trousers and two jackets and still got cold. But it was more than worth it, lots of people were out with dogs/ sledges/ kids/ combinations thereof and then I chanced upon a steam train pulling into the station and got a few nice shots. I took a LOT of photos today and don’t want to flood Flickr just yet so I’ll upload them in drips and drabs over the next few days.

We took Atticus out for a walk and let him off the lead in a park which is usually full of squirrels and has cars driving past, today it was perfect because there was nothing whatsoever to chase so he just ran around investigating where the other dogs had been. We fancied another coffee so we dropped ‘Cus back at the house and nipped off to Twin Paradox, the physics-themed coffee shop near our house.

I had to return a couple of DVDs (Man on Wire & Wanted) so I made another trek outside and it’s bloody freezing. Really freezing. Montreal freezing. The news says with the windchill it’s zero F at the moment. Which is… hang on I’ll google it… -17°C (¿¡?!) . Well that would explain why I couldn’t feel my fingers when I got home.  I really should have bought gloves… It’s worth it though. I loves the snow see.

Righty, time to do tomorrow’s Atticalendar…

The Polar Express

This shot was a happy accident. I was walking along the railway track and saw a light in the distance coming out of the blizzard, gradually it became obvious it was the train I saw stationed there t’other day and it was belching out steam and making a fair old racket. As it went past, Santa (the American Father Christmas) leaned out and all in all it was a pretty special moment.

I am extremely happy about all the snow that arrived today…

The lambshank redemption

Shanked
DrPablov and the lamb shank

DrSita got a doggy bag of the leftovers of her meal last night. This morning we had the handover ceremony… He took it straight away to his ‘secret’ lair underneath the pine trees outside… We’ll probably not see young ‘Cus for a while…

There’s always his advent calendar though… Today’s is pretty poor (I’ve had a lot of work on), but tomorrow’s should see a return to form. You’re honour bound not to click on it till midnight though.

No snow yet.

Forecasting

From the Assistant Dean…

In case you have not heard there is a forecast for the possibility of snow this coming weekend. In case of inclement weather please be sure to check the following sources:

Snow Line 503-768-SNOW (7669)  -OR- 503-768-7965
The College Web Page http://www.lclark.edu/

SNOW! Bring it on!

asparagus
The nearest he's been to snow...

(PS. I’m still updating the Advent Calendar…)

Sellwood Sunset

I just happened to have the right camera, the right lens and a sufficiently tired dog to take some photos of the spectacular sunset yesterday. Rain today…

New neighbours dropped in overnight

A couple of pix from this morning’s excitement in our street:

That'll be why there was no parking along the street last night
That'll be why there was no parking along the street last night
Hope it fits
Hope it fits

You have 1,001 posts

A Windows into my life
A Windows into my life

This is post One Thousand and One, I’m glad 1000 wasn’t another ‘sorry I haven’t been posting much’ type entry but instead a handy guide to kale and slugs. I only logged in today to post that I’ve added an Archives page to my photoblog and that it was lovely and frosty this morning.

The screenshot will also serve as a reminder of what my desktop looked like in December 2008 with WP 2.6.5. It’s a typical day. I like looking at screenshots of other people’s PCs, just to see what’s installed, what the background is, what OS, what programs are open, what they’ve been searching for… Okay, so I’m as nosey as the next nerd.

Righty, that does it. I’m starting a new meme. Consider yourselves tagged, Flash, Mario and Ale and anyone else who fancies it. Upload a screengrab of your desktop as it is when you read this. Then tell 3 other people to do likewise. Hopefully it will have an infinite cat project feel to it eventually 😀

Happy Millennial Post!

Escarcha

Escarcha

There was frost in the garden, and probably if I’d been inclined to go further afield, it was elsewhere too. Couldn’t resist a few pictures… Here’s one 😀

In other news, I’m starting to make navigating this phlog a bit easier. Phase one is an archives page which will display 77 day’s worth of thumbnails for your viewing pleasure.

Slugz

So far my little tract of land has yielded about half a dozen edible radishes. Lots of kale** and today, the tiniest little cauliflower ever. I’ve failed to break even with the original cost of the seeds (about 6 of your Earth ‘dollars’ altogether). The slugs are having a field day though. I posted the problem on Facebook, and I’ve been inundated with slug serving suggestions from slug salad to mezcal with a slug in the bottom. I’m going to try putting a tin can of beer in the garden and luring them away to their boozy deaths. Nanny would have just put a dusting of slug pellets down and salted the stragglers to within an inch of their lives. That’s Welsh practicality for you.

Your 0.005 a day
Your 0.005 a day

I went on a nice walk this morning though to take my mind off molluscs and am slowly flooding Flickr with pictures of wintery trees reflected in the Willamette. There was a steam train too, if you’re into that kind of thing. Bloody huge it were. My camera sensor is still giving me gip, I think I’ll have to get it professionally cleaned but I don’t want to be cameraless for 3 days at the weekend, so it’s a good thing that Picasa 3 has a very simple ‘retouch’ button perfect for removing dark areas of dust from your pictures. You only see them in the pictures of sky and water, which is 80% of what I seem to shoot…

** (though I don’t like kale, so it’s purely ornamental. I don’t think I encountered it before coming to the US and I’m not sure it’s available in the Youkay… Anyroad, it was one of the designs I put together for  Nourishing Nutrition’s T-Shirts t’other day, get them while they’re hot… The “I dig beets” is my favourite…)