Friday, 12 October 2007
We took the nephews to the park today, and the weather turned from slightly marginal to bright and sunny. The guys had great fun on slides and swings, but the beach was altogether too windy and cold.
When we reached the hilltop on the way back, the younguns got fruit leather as a treat.
And made it their own….
Thursday, 11 October 2007
Whereas Portland people, judging by those we saw in the airport the other day, trend toward the frumpy, the casualness here in Seattle (relative to Atlanta or NYC) trends more, it seems to me, toward odd juxtapositions.
On my walk, I found this well-tended yard with an interplanting of roses and pumpkins along the front wall.
Lovely.
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Overnight, we kept our window open to temper the heat of our room. [Old hotels; you know the drill.]
5 am: Through the cracked window all I could hear was night-silence.
5:45 am: Rain sounds begin. Drip drip.
7:00 am: Rain has turned to snow.
7:45 am: Slow-drifting snow flakes are huge (shown above).
8:30 am: We descend below the snowline, about 10 minutes below the Lodge parking lot.
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
I’m proud to say JCB and I walked a piece of the Pacific Crest Trail, up above 6K feet even!
I admit we got not quite a mile away from Timberline Lodge (or the Wikipedia link), but for flat-landers from the Deep South, slogging through soft snow in sneakies was hard walking, as in soft sand!
Fortunately the rotten snow (maybe fresh last week?) wasn’t very deep, and my feet stayed dry. (Gore-tex in the shoes may have helped, too!)
I’m composing this sitting in front of the huge plate glass windows in the second floor bar looking up at the mountain. Life is darned good.
Monday, 8 October 2007
This evening, I really can’t think of anything finer than watching a campfire through the bubbles in a glass of prosecco with the best of friends.
Today was simply perfect. We hiked upstream along the west bank of the Deschutes, with glittering views of fall color, glimpses of the kayakers, great places to watch and listen to the tumbling river, tasty daypack snacks, lots of companionable silences and some fine conversation. I could have posted any one of over a hundred shots of the river, the flume, the leaves, or a bird or two, and what I came back to as iconic for today were the glistening bubbles.
Many thanks to today’s companions….
Sunday, 7 October 2007
Today’s wander included an early morning stroll through the last day of one of those street fairs that bring out folks of all types to stop by booths with attractive displays of food, clothing, knickknacks, and the like. In fact, we arrived so early that most people were still setting up. This pizza vendor had the oven going, perhaps for a bit of extra warmth, and someone we did not see left a mink(?) purse on the counter….
The following has no connection to the fine day we had, which also included a great blue heron, several deer, Canada geese, mallards, wonderful views of old lava flows, an extended trip to REI (sale for another week), and the Deschutes itself.
Just had to note this from James Lee Burke’s Crusader’s Cross (2005, p. 87):
…the thoughts of a worldly police officer (character)….
Saturday, 6 October 2007
We saw snow today at Santiam Pass, although the cloud cover’s precipitation was rotting it away.
Yes, Grasshopper, Dorothy’s not in Kansas (alternately, me/Georgia) anymore.
Friday, 5 October 2007
Finally we had over twenty-four hours of off-and-on rain, some of it rather drizzly, so the plants are renewed. This afternoon during a break, we walked over to the bank and PO, only it was more like swimming through the humidity!
I liked this panorama from the Hudson River Valley that JCB brought back from his trip this week to Montreal, which he drove to from the Newburgh NY airport. While he didn’t compose his itinerary with this in mind, it turned out to be extremely wise ’cause his passport’s expired, and he could drive across the border with it, but wouldn’t have been able to fly out of the country.
I know it’s a major change of topic, but I couldn’t keep from commenting on this article that discusses the argument that keeping old ladies around conferred evolutionary advantage. It kinda misses the point that larger family groups, or larger groups with significant social bonds have an evolutionary advantage—if the higher head count is in productive adults rather than children or ailing adults—over smaller social units competing in the same social landscape.
Thursday, 4 October 2007
I’m not the techno-person my husband is, but I have to admit I think our new Prius is a fun machine. And it drives well!
Now, more on this new needy-kid-laptop (by David Pogue, NYT) suggests I might find it fun, too.*
After all, it’s fanless (I’m sure they mean the kind with blades), you can dump a drink on it, and it’s name is XO, which in my personal symbolic dictionary relates to hugs and kisses. All fine things!
What may put me off was Pogue’s comment that “the membrane-sealed, spillproof keyboard is too small for touch-typing by an adult.” Whaaaa?
Then I looked at the picture, and it seems entirely serviceable for my hands.
Besides, have you heard of anyone who’s thrown away their cell phone ’cause the keys are too small (for either dialing or texting)? And some of them have teeny keys!
Grumphhhhhhh.
Oh, here’s the link to order yours—and one to be shipped out. The program lasts for two weeks in November beginning the 12th.
* Plus Pogue explains the $200 each cost (discussed previously), which would drop if production ramped up, although probably not to the $100 levels that promoters long touted—I guess before they really looked at their financial statements, or maybe it was just a strategy to talk up the product by talking down the prices (I hope not).
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
Love the white gloves….
When I delved into Tom Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999), I was impressed by how he roped together complex and disparate information to generate a well-rounded picture of the intricacies of globalization. Not that I totally agreed with him (plus he’s a bit too preachy for me).
In his column today in the NYT (now free!), Friedman asserts that Toyota may be attempting to “slow down innovation in Detroit” by uniting with the Big Three US auto manufacturers to keep “shielding Detroit from pressure to innovate on higher mileage standards”.
Tut tut. Friedman’s capable of more complex, robust, and insightful analyses than this.
Since, as Friedman notes, Asian and European MPG standards favor far more energy-efficiency than US standards, all these manufacturers must have staff working on high-efficiency compliance (engineering, etc.) willy-nilly. So, it would seem to me, the issue is not what the US law says, so much as allying with other manufacturers. Toyota achieves more by standing together with its automaker brethern, rather than, at this point, seeking to “enhance its own reputation and spur the whole U.S. auto industry to become more globally competitive,” as Friedman puts it.
But, really, that’s not up to Toyota. Globalization (remember the Lexus in his book’s title?) is already doing that. Regardless of the US laws.
The marketplace overrules US standards in this matter, but only as far as engineering and innovation. Meanwhile the world loses ’cause we pollute more than we should here, because we’ve got a lotta vehicles running a lot of miles across this nation.
Speaking of preachy, lemme move on….