An Englishman in Eugene

Wet and Windy

2012-01-18T15:40:00.000-08:00

We seem to be getting the edge of the major storms that are dropping snow in Seattle and Portland, and causing authorities in Corvallis, just 50 miles away, to delay or close classes in schools and universities. Here it's just a lot of rain the last two days, nearly an inch yesterday, and 1.38" so far today (at 3pm).

We did have some snow over the weekend, and I had fun driving my RC vehicles around outside the house.

Twelfth Night

2012-01-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

Following the madness of pre- and post-Christmas shopping which required longer and harder work hours, I'm now entering a period of relative inactivity, with reduced hours. I'm off four of the next five days, and this comes as a welcome opportunity to recharge my batteries, reorganise my sleeping times, clean and tidy the house a bit, take down and pack away the Christmas decorations, and dispose of the tree.

I also have the opportunity to enjoy some of my Christmas presents. Beth puts a lot of thought into her gifts, and she got me several wonderful (and hard to acquire) books about automobiles, and particularly the history of motoring in America, plus a book entitled "Rivals of Sherlock Holmes", a collection of detective short stories by contemporaries of Conan Doyle, that did not acquire the same eminence as Sherlock Holmes.

My brother Richard sent me a boardgame which is going to take some study to understand but looks a lot of fun. My brother Brian sent me an Amazon voucher, and with it I bought the book of "A History of the World in 100 Objects", a wonderful podcast which I enjoyed listening to in 2011.

Nature and Nutria invading our garden

2011-12-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had the treat of watching this little fellow wandering around our garden for about half an hour. I say little, but an adult nutria (or Coypu is some continents) weighs in at anything up to 20 pounds, the size of a large cat.

After munching on grass for a while, watched from a distance by two of our cats, he found this fallen pear more to his taste and tucked in with relish.

Those orange teeth are natural, and quite capable of giving nasty bite if roused. Fortunately this one was quite docile and didn't seem scared of me at all, as long as I stayed five feet away.

We've recently lost a willow tree down in the creek due to animal activity, and our neighbor blames a beaver, but these nutrias burrow and undermine the banks too, so much as I enjoy having nature on my doorstep, we may have to take steps to discourage them. The previous owner shored up the bank, and filled in their holes, with cement, and we may eventually have to adopt the same approach. For now though, I'll enjoy the show.

Butte-iful

2011-12-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

A week ago my Brother-in-Law Chris and I hiked up Spencer Butte, the biggest Butte (hill) near Eugene, offering spectacular views when the weather is right. We hadn't expected much view when we left the house, as the top was hidden by cloud, but only a few minutes after we left the car park the sun came out, and we were treated to a rare clear winter day.

That's me, celebrating our 3/4 hour hike. Autzen Stadium, home of the Oregon Ducks, is visible down in the valley. The Butte is 2055 ft high.

This group of antennae is visible from most of Eugene, but you don't normally get to look down on it. (I think) the antennae provide radio, TV and cell phone coverage for the valley.

Looking southwest towards the coastal mountain range. Lots of farmland that way and not many townships.

I'm pretty sure these snowy peaks to the southeast are the ones around Crater Lake. The bearing and distance are right anyway.

Chris's camera was much better than mine, and these are all his shots. This is Mount Hood, 11,240 odd feet in height, and another unofficially inactive volcano. The odds of an eruption in the next 30 years are estimated to be 3-7%. If it goes pop I'm going to be up here watching it.

The sprawl of buildings west of Downtown, centred around West11th Avenue, with the radio masts in the foreground. You can see the mountains from WalMart's parking lot, a sight I enjoy all too frequently.

The smoking chimney behind the masts is just south of our old apartment at Heron Meadows, and used to get odd smells if the wind was from the south. Happy as we were to be in the apartment, we are a lot happier not to be in that apartment now.

How to Ruin Thanksgiving and Annoy People

2011-11-17T14:39:00.000-08:00

Last year I worked on Thanskgiving Day morning, then returned for a midnight start to coincide with the official "doors opening" at WalMart for their Black Friday sale, officially called "The Event" at WalMart. I posted about last year's experiences, so you can refer back to that post on 11/30/10 if you wish to refresh your memory.

This year Target, a competing department store right across the main road, have announced a Midnight start on their their sale, and WalMart is starting their sale at 10pm on Thanksgiving Day. This of course means that anyone wishing to shop for a bargain is going to have to cut short their Thanksgiving evening celebrations and get along to the shops. It also means that some staff are working that evening, then returning for more madness on the Friday. I'm lucky this year, I'm working 7 to 4 on the Thursday, setting up for but not involved in the sale, then back for 2pm on the Friday, by which time the red-eyed glaze of bargain-maddened shoppers will have mostly worn off.

The 10pm start is allegedly in response to customer request, but it feels that the sales start earlier each year. Thanksgiving used to be a bookend that kept Christmas from interfering with the rest of the year, but this year sales of Christmas ornaments and Christmas-targeted gifts started before we had celebrated Halloween.

So for most of the WalMart staff, at least at my store, this year is going to be even more unpleasant than last. I shall be giving thanks that due to a good schedule (and a considerate Manager), I shall be able to have a joyously unhurried Thanksgiving dinner with my wife and neighbors, a full night's sleep, and a relatively quiet shift on Black Friday afternoon. I shall also be giving thanks for three healthy contented cats, generous neighbors who are hosting and feeding us, everything going well with all the projects that Beth and I are working on, and being happy very with my life as a whole.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

For Halloween 2010 we kept things very simple, but for 2011 now we were fully settled in the house I was determined to do something bigger. My original concept (which I had in 2010 but had not the means to create) was a maze, with spooky things you have to go past, before coming out the other end to a candy reward. The maze concept transformed into a Haunted Castle, when I discovered a folding castle at Toys 'R' Us. I bought two sets of this castle, which formed the frame for my 2011 Halloween experience.

Here's the castle assembled to test for size. It didn't completely fill the garage, but it was good to have some space round the edges anyway. My idea was that kids would go in the front door, wander around a bit spooking themselves, until the found the back door and exited, where I would be sitting (in last year's Grim Reaper costume) with a bowl of candy. Then they would exit the side door to the garage and head back to the street. It didn't quite work that way on the night (I think I got one child to follow correct procedure).

During construction I came up with the idea of filling the castle with dry leaves. Free stage dressing, better than the bare concrete floor, and they added smell, sound and texture to the experience. We gathered up fallen leaves (which had helpfully already been swept into piles) in a tarpaulin, and it took a lot to cover the floor.

Stage dressing included this ex-trick-or-treater, complete with candy bowl with last year's candy still in it. The bones got somewhat lost in the leaves, and many kids on seeing the candy bowl helped themselves from it. That's OK, Halloween candy lasts forever anyway.

I also had this "ground rising" ghoul, colored lightball (not switched on here), and a few mini-pumpkins to add atmosphere, plus a couple of bats hanging on wires.

I also got a fog machine this year, and attempted to chill the fog to have it hug the ground, with mixed results. The problem with fake fog is that it has to be heated to start with, but then chilled if it is to stay low to the ground as intended. The chilling was attempted with a cooler box full of ice, with the fog blowing through it in a metal tube (with holes spiked in it).

Initial fog tests were encouraging, but the fog soon started rising and drifting. Well, it all added to the atmosphere, and it was definitely worth the $25 or so it cost. I'll be playing around with it to see if I can improve it for next year.

For spooky lighting, in addition to the colored spinning ball at ground level, I had a mirrorball hung from the ceiling, with a green-filtered light shining on it. Ball, light and four different filters (green, red, blue, yellow) all came as a kit. I chose green for ghastly ghostliness.

We had three artificial pumpkins in the front window, survivors from last year, but I wanted to carve my own too. This big pumpkin was remarkably empty inside, so there wasn't too much scraping to do.

Set and ready to go. The hanging ghost caused me a lot of trouble, as it was designed to rise up and down on a fishing line, making creepy howlings, when a sensor was tripped. The first time it rose it stuck at the top, and I had to disassemble it and fix the cogwheel which had broken. The sounds were far too loud, so I stuck tape over the speaker holes which muted it to acceptable levels. In my mind the ghost is the spirit of last year's trick-or-treater, but I don't know of anyone caught that subtlety. I can be vaguely seen in this picture in my grim reaper get up. I got a new mask this year, a Ghostface from the Scream movies, but it was very hot under the extra hood so I soon went back to the old one that only covered the front of my head. It worked well enough. The solid plastic chestplate of bones had a habit of bashing me on the chin, and next year I'll get something more flexible to replace it.

Finally set up and everything running. I had to keep adjusting the hanging ghost who insisted on turning to face the wrong way, and used a remote control tucked into my glove to puff extra fog when it got too thin. I dropped the remote in the leaves a couple of times, which was fun to try to find with a mask on. I also had ghostly noises playing from a CD I bought (and edited out the annoying or inappropriate sounds before putting the tracks on my mp3 player), so the visitor got the full range of senses.

One stage dressing I had intended for inside the castle was a big hairy spider, but in a flash of genius (that's mine used for this year) I decided to strap it to one of our RC trucks with elastic bands. Beth drove this round the circle of our road throughout the evening, to great effect. The truck has headlights, which worked well to draw attention before people realised it was actually a spider.

The full ensemble, RC spider, jack'o'lantern, castle, Ghost, Mirrorball, old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. The lights to either side of the garage door are only 4 watts each, and the lantern has just one tealight inside, so you can see that the camera has adjusted for poor lighting and made this scene much brighter than it appeared to the human eye.

Curious heads peering into the Haunted Castle. We had around 50 children visit, most with an adult or teenage chaparone, and the word "awesome" was used several times, if I may say so without appearing boastful. I was inside or behind the castle much of the time so didn't get to hear all the comments, but Beth as Front of House Manager had a few chats with parents and visitors. In addition to working the spider and encouraging people to go in, she was also handing out glowsticks to any children who were too scared to enter the castle alone or without company. We had maybe three or four who wouldn't brave the Castle even with a glowstick, and got their candy at the Castle Gates instead. It's as well that the castle was under cover, as we had a smattering of rain during the evening, with a consequent dropoff of visitors until it stopped. This also enabled me to close the garage door and leave packing away until today.

Altogether a fun evening was had by all, over a period of two to three hours between dusk and 8:30pm. I probably spent $250 on new stuff this year, but apart from fog liquid, candy, and ice, it'll alll last for years to come, and I'll add a new thing ot two each year to keep things fresh.

Jury Duty... not

2011-10-06T08:15:00.000-07:00

I received a letter recently summoning me to attend Jury Duty at the local Circuit Court. Unfortunately I am ineligible to serve as I am not a US Citizen.

The standard forms included, confirming eligibility to serve (where I fail on the first count), claims for travel costs, a one-day bus pass should one not have a car etc., did not anticipate that a recipient could possibly not be a Citizen. They allowed for excusion from duty for age and infirmity, or for reasons of having been involved in a crime, but not on the first and most telling point, not being a citizen.

I tried calling the phone number on the forms, but no luck, it was an automated line with no way to talk to a human or leave a message. I had the option of faxing a form in, but I haven't used a fax machine for ten years when email attachments made them almost obsolete. The final try was mailing back the form with my objection written in the "other reasons for not serving that you may wish us to take into account" box, where I wrote "I am not a US Citizen. I am a Permanent Resident, and unfortunately not qualified to serve as a Juror" or something to that effect.

Yesterday I received the response letter confirming that as a non-Citizen I am excused duty.

I'm wondering what database they chose my name from, as anywhere where I officially exist, it should be pretty clear that I am an non-Citizen. Beth suggested the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) provide data, as most adults in the State would have a driving license, and that is quite possible.

My suggestion for an improvement in local Government efficiency is to use the Register of Electors (or whatever the equivalent form is called), though Beth pointed out that some people do not bother registering to vote, while they would still want to be able to drive a car. Should non-voters get to stand on a jury? I suspect that people who so not exercise their Democratic right to vote would not make the best jury members anyway.

Whatever, until I qualify as a Citizen (in another year or so) and take the test and oath, I will not be turning up at a courthouse to pass judgement on my fellow Eugenians.

Change of Season

2011-10-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

October heralded a distinct change of Season, with the temperature dropping and proper rain, our first decent precipitation since sometime in mid-June. We had over half an inch yesterday, and though I was at work through most of it, it was lovely to hear the rain on the roof when I was back home.

The dropping temperature has made a single layer, t-shirt or polo shirt, just too little except at work where the temperature is regulated. At home I'm adding a button-down shirt or hoodie as an extra layer, though with the buttons or zip open for now. We haven't had to use the heating system yet since Spring, we'd rather add layers of clothes.

The cats are spending more time indoors, though Elbie has caught two mice in three days, and brought them in for me, and Ghost, not to be outdone, brought a mouse into the bedroom in the middle of the night and proceeded to crunch on it in the middle of the floor. I removed it as soon as I realised what he had, and he happily switched to the dry food bowl we keep in the master bathroom.

Our "third" cat Simon is gaining confidence around the house, snoozing on a front room couch in daytime, and hopping silently up on the bed when we wake in the mornings for a few moments of attention. He's very gentle and purrs a lot, and must have been starved of affection at his real home one road down from us. He and Ghost have occasional standoffs, mostly when they encounter each other unexpectedly, but no actual fights have occurred.

A potential shake-up at work came to naught. A co-Manager (second highest rank in the building) left to manage a different store, resulting in various openings in the management structure as people shifted around. There was a brief possibility (at least in my mind) that I might be offered a Department Manager position, but our own Department Manager didn't get promoted so our department remained unchanged. We do have two new associates though.

Kayaking on the McKenzie

2011-09-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

A free Saturday provided the opportunity for my next kayaking adventure. Having paddled the Willamette River from close below the I5 bridge (currently closed to river traffic) to Corvallis, my next step was to explore the convergence of the McKenzie River with the Willamette. The McKenzie meanders North of Springfield, joining the Willamette outside of town.

For this adventure we parked up my Mazda at Brown's Landing, went home for breakfast, and then at a leisurely 9am~ish headed to Armitage Park. This Park, off the Coburg Road between Eugene and Coburg, has a great landing for boats to lauch, and is just west of the I5 bridge across the McKenzie.

Putting on the splashdeck is the worst part of preparation, requiring at least three hands or use of a knee as a clamp.

Phew, at last the splashdeck is on, paddle is ready, and everything loaded.

Using Beth's GPS for a rough guide. I'm not walking so it's more than 8.3 miles, but I'll be travelling faster than walking pace so I'll get there before 12:34, hopefully.

I try to keep my feet dry while getting in, but it's not very dignified. Fortunately nobody saw me except Beth, and the ~~millions of~~ ~~dozens of~~ three people following this blog.

Getting waterborne requires some joggling to shift the kayak forward, but at last I'm afloat.

Just to test the current I start off upriver...

paddling furiously to gain the bridge

and confusing Beth who tries to follow me upstream. As soon as I turn back downstream I am carried away, and this was Beth's last view of me for a few hours.

Looking under a footbridge, I spot some interesting lumps

closer inspection proving them to be House Martin nests, or whatever the USA footbridge version of a House Martin is.

slightly weird and alien-looking without evidence of the birds, but I know they are there.

Somehow I never recognised the point where the two rivers join. In fact they join twice, as there's an island between them, and I missed both spots. Nice view of the mountains though.

Various birds as usual, I think this was an Osprey.

Sod it

2011-09-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking for some time about getting rid of our "flowerbeds" in the front and replacing them with sod (aka turf). The flowerbeds are a nuisance when mowing the lawn, look terrible for 90% of the year, and need constant weeding which they don't get and thus look terrible. What's been stopping me is that Jerry's, our local DIY store, never has sod (5' x 2' rolls of turf) in stock, so you need to pre-order or get up really early on delivery day to have a chance to get some.

Then on Sunday, during a trip to Home Depot for a different project, we saw sod stacked up on pallets, at exactly the same price ($3.19 a roll), so on the spur of the moment I bought six rolls and piled them in the trunk, despite having no tarp to protect the lining, and having done no preparation of the flowerbeds.

Thus at six pm on a Sunday evening I could be found digging out the flowerbeds and laying strips of sod in their place. This was actually the best time of day to do the work, as the area was in shade. A claw-on-stick tool made short work of the scrubby dry bedding, and soon I was piling the loose dirt and debris in a wheelbarrow and laying down the strips of sod.

Beth kept me supplied with cups of tea while I worked, recorded the event for blogsterity, and vacuumed out my car boot for me. This is the front corner of the flowerbed, partly clawed ready for removal of loose plant matter and the bigger stones. The soil is moderately stony here, and there are roots from a mega-Lupin near the surface. A few weeks ago I chopped down a monster Lupin as a beginning to the re-lawning process, and in a few places the roots had put up new shoots. These proto-Lupins have been donated to our neighbor who plants them in his riverbank.

My main concern was to get the sod down quickly so we could water it thoroughly, and it still needs more levelling. This can be achieved by lifting the sod like a rug and filling underneath while it's still liftable, or by scattering loose soil on top once the grass has sprouted a bit.

The debris I lifted partly with a spade and partly by hand, piling it first in the wheelbarrow before dumping this out onto a tarpaulin round the side of the house. This I will sort through once it has dried a bit to remove the plant matter for the yard waste bin, while sifting out the soil to level up the lawn.

Our two black cats found all this unexpected activity fascinating, and watched from our neighbor's lawn. Robert relaid his whole front lawn earlier this year, and I hope mine will look as good in time.

Having got six strips laid, I still need another three or four to finish across the front, but now I know where I can pick up sod easily it's not so daunting. I've always found a big lawn easier to mow than a small one, apart from emptying the grass box more, so adding 100 square foot of lawn is no bother as far as mowing goes.

All our near neighbors have similar front lawns, so it'll look more uniform. We're watering the new strips and the lawn itself liberally until the Fall rains come, and I'm looking forward to easier garden maintainance from now on. The sod is a mixture of local grasses, a Summer and Winter blend, so if we can keep it alive it should look great.

New Freezer

2011-08-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

Because I'm often working on weekends and in the evening, Beth and I often eat meals at different times, and buy our food separately. This led to a minor contretemps over the use of space in the garage chest freezer, in so much as I filled it with my food, and Beth wanted to use it too. I overlooked the unreasonableness of her request, and we solved the problem by ordering a second, identical chest freezer from Sears. This arrived last week, and now we use one each, supplemented by the kitchen freezer for things that are opened.

Sears, by the way, give a 2-hour delivery window, but not until the night before the delivery is due, so you have to take a day off work anyway, but at least you can use some of that day for other purposes. Fortunately with my varying schedule it is no trouble finding a midweek day for a delivery, without having to lose hours or vacation time. In London we got our appliances from Currys, who wouldn't even give a delivery time of morning or afternoon (as far as I recall), so you'd have to book a whole day off work.

Last night we went to WinCo and stocked up on frozen and other foods, and both enjoyed the ease of stuffing our respective chest freezers to the brim (actually Beth's is still half empty). It is a rare luxury in London to have the space to put a chest freezer, let alone two, but our double garage is the ideal location.

Our double garage, featuring my Little Red ~~Corvette~~ Mazda, recycling bin, garbage bin and two chest freezers to your left, Beth's reclining bicycle and my kayak to the right, bicycles and furnace on the back wall.

Bats, birds, cats, spiders, water, washing line.

2011-08-24T08:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening we had reason to go out in the garden after dark, and spotted a couple of bats swooping about catching insects. After a few minutes they vanished, but whether our presence disturbed them (unlikely), they had cleared this area of food, or they were full for now, we couldn't tell. Nice to know that there are bats in the area.

We've spotted hummingbirds again this year, and the Fuschia bush in the back garden seems to be a favorite feeding place, though it is untidy to look at most of the year. Beth has even a seen a pair doing a mating flight, flying in a corkscrew pattern, so maybe they are nesting nearby.

Our young cat Ghost had another trip to the vet recently, this time with an abscess on the lower left side of his jaw. At first we thought it might be a blocked gland, but for the third time in less than a year he'd managed to get an infected bite, probably from a strange cat, resulting in a trip to the vet and a bill for us. We looked into pet insurance, but it isn't much cheaper than just paying for his visits as they occur. He was in and out within a day, but had to have a drain left in to keep the wound open, like Lieutenant Bush in the Hornblower story "Flying Colours". The same evening he came back from the vet he was out and about exploring, not showing the least concern for or sensitivity from his wound, but we had to flush it with antiseptic twice daily for two days, and then remove the drain. The two holes where the drain went in and out are scabbed but clean, and he had an antibiotic injetion that will last two weeks.

That blue collar cost us $12 and didn't stay on more than a few hours. It was supposed to stop him scratching the drain but he wasn't trying to anyway, it stopped him washing and got in the way while eating, which is one of his favorite activities.

Spiders are busy everywhere, with the most industrious building their webs across the sidewalk every night. This morning there's one suspended right across the side of our driveway, the threads streching six or more feet, though the actual web is the size of my face, with which I usually inadvertantly break the webs.

We experimented with not watering our lawns this Summer, but after six weeks of very hot days the lawns were brown, and netted an anonymous written complaint from a neighbor. Ironically we'd just started watering the lawns again a couple of days earlier, so if they'd been paying attention they needn't have complained. We've got a pretty good idea who it is, which is as well as we prefer to stay on good (or at least neutral) terms with everyone. The reason for not watering is that it adds about $40 a month to the water bill, though this is balanced by a comparable reduction in the electricity bill, and also that we had a leak in the front lawn sprinkler system, so the bulk of the water to the front lawn was running across the driveway and straight into the drain, and we don't like pouring money down the drain. After a week of watering (using hose sprinklers for the front and the timed sprinkler system for the back) the lawns are greener, though full recovery will probably not occur until the Autumn rains set in.

We've recently put up a washing line in the back garden (out of sight of nosy neighbors), the sort that looks like a string umbrella on a central pole, to reduce our use of the tumble dryer in the hotter months. We had to dig a hole and fill it with concrete, sink a plastic tube into it, and let it set for 24 hours before use, but it seems to be holding well, and our clothes dry in a few hours and smell fresher. We are not near any busy roads, so the air is clean and no dirt gets on the washing. In London we used to get black smuts on the clothes if left out too long, especially if it rained, which it did frequently.

Coburg Car Classic 2011

2011-08-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

On the first Saturday in August, every year for the past 20 years, the town Coburg, not far to the North of Eugene, has hosted a classic car event.

This was the first year I attended, and with the delightful sunshine and the wonderful cars, I really enjoyed it.

I've included my photos below, first as a direct link slideshow, which by the perversity of Photobucket show in reverse of the order I took them in, and second as a link. For the better view and bigger pictures, click on the link, and then on view as slideshow, to see the pictures in the order I intended, organised by year, make and model.

http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd97/Martin_Milner/Coburg%20Car%20Show%202011/

No, I didn't recognise all the cars, but the ones which had been registered had a card in the window with their details on.

There is one more local car show this year that I shall be attending, in Florence, on 9-10th September.

Small Objects of Desire: 1/64th DieCast Model Cars

2011-08-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

Since attending the Function 4 Junction Car Show, I've started collecting 1/64th scale diecast model cars. I happened across a few under the brand name M2 Machines, and one thing led to another. The model cars help me recognise the real thing when I see it, and I'm enjoying studying up on the various cars, makers and the history of US Auto manufacture on the internet, supplemented by TV shows, and should soon receive a book, the Ultimate Car Spotters Guide 1946-69.

M2 Machines are the newest entrant on the Diecast scene, having been around since 2008. Though the actual models are made in China, the designs and distribution is done by a small company in California. I soon discovered that the M2 machines are the best fit for my purposes, spanning the years 1949-1972 (so far). They have two main quality ranges, Drivers, with solid bodies and plastic undersides which retail @ around $3, and Premium which have opening doors and hoods, @ $5-6.

My primary interest is the 50s cars, but I'm also interested in the development through the 60s into muscle cars, which are still going strong today in the guise of the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, and their ilk. Whether Driver or Premium, the M2 Machines come on a display stand with the car year, maker and model printed thereon, and these can be augmented with plastic cases to keep the dust off. Both body types are screwed together, which allows the collector to customise them or make adjustments more easily.

A basic Hot Wheels or Matchbox toy car retails around $1.10, so the M2s are very much aimed at the adult collector rather than a ten-year-old boy. I've added some Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars to my growing collection where they interest me, and also other brands including Maisto, Greenlight and Johnny Lightning, but M2 Machines form the bulk of it.

I've got a lot of cataloguing to do, so I don't keep buying the same models. Fortunately M2 have a reference number for each vehicle release, so I just need to get down to it.

Kayaking to Corvallis

2011-08-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

Having paddled from central Eugene to Whiteley's Landing, and from Whiteley's to Brown's, the next obvious step was to kayak from Brown's to Corvallis, the next big city up the river.

This then was my plan for Sunday, with Beth's able support as driver to drop me off at Brown's and meet me at Corvallis. There are a couple of different official landing places in Corvallis, and I had planned on using the nearer one, but Beth suggested the further one because the river's current was supposedly less and it would be easier to land a kayak.

I awoke before 5am, partly helped by our cat Ghost, and was too excited to get to sleep again, so I left Beth asleep and went downstairs to check over my kit. We'd got the kayak up on Beth's car the previous evening, but the straps needed tightening, and I had to prepare some snacks for the trip. I packed a cooler with some sodas, and made a couple of tuna & mayo finger rolls. I was too excited for my stomach to want anything major, so a cup of tea and a donut sufficed.

By 6am it was bright enough to drive without headlights and I was hopping to get started, so went and woke Beth who had said she could be on the road within ten minutes of waking.

The landing at Brown's requires sliding the kayak down a grassy slope to the water.

I struggle into my wetsuit...

Beth's view before the off

and mine.

To keep dry feet as long as possible, I try to get into the kayak while it's still partly aground, and then jerk it into the water with body and paddle movements.

Properly afloat now, and judging how to get into the main current

I don't want to end up against one of those bits of tree, and the current always wants to make me do just that.

Past the danger point, and Beth's last view of me for many hours...

Afloat and alone, on a glassy river, the Coastal mountain range visible in the distance. There are long periods in any kayaking trip when one is completely alone, and apart from the blue plastic kayak and white plastic paddles, it could be any decade, or indeed any time since the dawn of man. These are my favorite moments.

The distance by road from start to finish is 29 miles, but the river is far less direct, and by water I judged it could be as much as 50 miles. I had hoped I'd catch a 5mph current, so that without any paddling I'd take 10 hours to get there, and any paddling on top of that was just gravy. Starting at 7am (I actually hit the water at 6:50), I should be in Corvallis by 5pm at the latest.

I had Beth's GPS with me this trip as it is waterproof, and also has a better battery life than my bigger screen GPS. What it didn't have (and neither does mine) was a "by water" option. I was able to set it to offroad mode, and for travel by foot, which gave me a reasonable idea of how I was doing, but it expected me to progress in a straight line towards my destination, and at a constant pace. Depending on the current, my speed of paddling, and whether I was headed directly towards my destination or at an angle to it (or even sometimes away from it), I was getting an estimated time of arrival of between 12:45pm and 5pm. Hmmm. I really wanted to be there before 5pm, and anyway I needed a better estimate of arrival time so Beth wouldn't have to wait for me for hours. She had returned home after dropping me off, and I called a few times on my cellphone, when I had network coverage, with updates on my progress and ETA.

Early on I passed a couple of rail bridges. These carry the two rail lines that connect Junction City to Harrisburg, and after Harrisburg the lines run almost due North until they reach Albany, and so on further North. One of the bridges looked pretty rusty and unkempt, and it may be that only one is still in use.

The next bridge carries the 99E highway from Junction City to Harrisburg. 99W goes to Corvallis, the split occuring at the North edge of Junction City. Harrisburg is one of those towns that has nothing of interest unless you live there, and I passed it quickly and unnoticed.

This nesting platform has been occupied by an Osprey. Poles like this one, and nesting platforms on the top of telegraph poles, dot the riverside. It's good to see the platforms in use, and I saw a couple of Bald Eagles and several Ospreys on this trip, but wasn't close enough to get a good photograph.

The river is much shallower than I had expected, often less than thigh deep, occasionally not much more than ankle deep. Shortly after taking this picture I grounded, having inattentively allowed myself to get washed towards a gravel island in midstream. The river meanders a good deal between Eugene and Corvallis, and the banks alternate between deep cut cliffs on one side and low gravel banks on the other. The deeper water and faster current are found on the outer side of each curve, and very shallow water with almost no current on the inner curve. I had to get out and drag my kayak back to deeper water, getting my feet wet in the process, not surprising really in a river. Then I "broke" my paddle and used the two ends to punt myself into the current again.

I passed a couple of camping groups in this stretch, one lot getting ready to set out again in inflatable canoes, the other group still fast asleep in their tents. It might be fun to do a two-day trip, taking a sleeping bag and maybe a small tent, and enjoying the river at night, setting out at dawn to finish the trip. Or it might be a nightmare of stiff muscles, hard gravel for a bed, and outdoor ablutions.

This stranded tree was a reminder that the river is not always so gentle as it was today.

A couple of birds. The smaller one is something very like a Turnstone, the larger one I have yet to identify.

That, as it turned out, was the last picture I took on this trip. I was much occupied with paddling and judging my rate of progress, and nothing else turned up to make me take out my camera. The current, which I had counted on to be around 5mph, was being very lazy and only running at 2-3mph in places. I should probably be talking in knots, so we'll say the current was two knots, when I had hoped for at least four. The result of this was more paddling than I had planned on, as at times I seemed to hardly be moving at all without paddling, with sorer arms, stiffer shoulders, and a stiff and sore back, extra sore where my wetsuit zipper was rubbed into the small of my back by the seat.

These distractions aside, I was still having fun, and having adventures. Shortly after my grounding I had a near-capsize, when the current ran me onto a submerged tree. I saw the tree and tried to avoid it, but the naughty river saw what I was at and went that bit faster to frustrate me. I rammed the tree like a D-Day beach obstacle, though happily for me no mine was attached to this one. A thrill of panic ran through me, and a chill of water getting into the boat as I tipped, but then I righted myself and got off the tree - without my paddle. In the confusion I had let it go, and I could see it now drifting away on the current. Fortunately I had planned for such an eventuality and quickly whipped out my emergency paddle, clipped the two halves together, and within a minute had caught up with my errant main paddle and recovered it. What I would have down without the emergency paddle doesn't bear thinking about. I suppose I'd have hand-paddled as fast as possible to get back to my main paddle. That would have taken several minutes, and might have proved impossible. The emergency paddle paid for itself on this occasion (about $20), and I was very glad I had carried it with me on every trip.

I came across a wide stretch of river frequented by fishing boats, and must have passed a dozen, singly or in small groups. The last one I saw was occupied by two young men who hailed me and asked for directions to Peoria Landing. I was unable to help them, having not seen it on any maps. Peoria Road runs on the East bank of the river all the way from Harrisburg to Corvallis, soccasionally close enough to see the vehicles passing, so the Landing could be pretty much anywhere.

Later I came across another group of kayakers, just getting ready to launch. One lady called to me "How's the water?", which no doubt if I was more experienced I would be able to answer with something useful and possibly technical. On this occasion I was only able to reply that it was wet.

Around 12:45pm I was able to call Beth with an updated ETA of 2pm, at the nearer landing site I had chosen. I really didn't want to add another couple of river miles to my paddling at this stage, and she was happy to confirm a pickup. I'd been on the river for six hours so far, three times longer than any of my previous trips, and the heat of the day had really set in. I'd watched the miles click down very slowly on my GPS, starting around 25, now under 10, and I was eager to get finished, be able to stand up and straighten my back, stretch my legs, and generally use different muscles again. Apart from the one short interval when I grounded, I had been sitting in the same position since 6:50am.

Shortly after calling Beth I saw a couple of jet skis up ahead, and thought "Uh oh, hullabaloos." I'd had a couple of fast boats already pass me going upstream, and had to steady myself against their wash, so what mischief a jet ski could do I didn't like to think. As I neared them however they had already stopped, and as I got closer still I discovered that they were Sheriffs, talking to someone on the bank. I wondered briefly if they'd want to see my invasive species permit, which I carry in the front waterproof compartment in a ziplock bag, but they didn't ask. One came alongside me to say hi, and I asked him how far to Willamette Boat Landing, which was my planned landing, as chosen from Google maps. He startled me a little by saying there wasn't a boat landing there (then why is it on the map???), but there was one at Crystal Lake a little further on, and I had about another hour afloat to get there. This unsettled me, as Beth was now headed to a map location that apparently didn't exist in the real world.

As I got to the outskirts of Corvallis I could see houses not far away on the West bank, and the Willamette Park edging onto the river, with people floating about in rubber rings and in small paddle boats. I kept to the East bank and the faster current, bypassing them with a silent sneer. They hadn't paddled half the day to get here.

As the river curved to the left round this park, I saw a possible landing spot with people again messing about on the land and in the water, and made a very neat turn in to this spot, only to be informed that there was a proper landing ramp further on. That was hopefully where Beth would be meeting me, and I set out again.

Phew.

I unbent myself out of the kayak, and Beth helped me get my various clobber out and into the car, before we carried the kayak up the ramp and loaded it onto the car roof. It was very hot by now, and Beth stood in the shade while I changed into fresh clothes, and then we set off to do a little shopping, and have meal out at McMenamin's Pub.

If I do this trip again, I now know what to expect on the river, and how long it should take. I could have gone slower and arrived by 4pm, and more likely if I did it in a day I'd take a break for lunch and a stretch. The worst discomfort came from being bent in half for seven hours.

My arms and shoulders were stiff and sore the rest of that day, but surprisingly were back to normal by Monday morning, when I had to be up at 5:45am to start work at 7am. Before repeating this section of the Willamette though, I'll explore the McKenzie, where there are several landing places I've scouted out, from all of which I would reach Brown's Landing as my ending spot. There are more rapids on the McKenzie so I'd plan for more chance of an upset, and wear my bike helmet again.

Kayaking: Whitely's to Brown's Landing

2011-07-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed my Sunday morning outing so much I determined to go again during the week, as I had three days off work. On Tuesday I did a scouting mission, checking out various official landing places on the McKenzie and Willamette. Be aware that you can zoom in on any of the picture by clicking on them, and use the back button on your browser to return to this blog.

I found the above map at Taylor Landing, quite a way up the McKenzie. I like its pared-down nature, showing just the major roads, the rivers, and the landings.

In the evening Beth and I prepared for an early start. Beth starts work at 7:30am in the Summer, and she was very kindly giving me a lift to Whitely's Landing on her way to work, so I had an even earlier start to set things up. I drove North to Brown's Landing with my bike on its rack, parked in a prominent spot visible from the river, put the bike rack in the trunk and cycled the 7.5 miles back home before 6:30am. I had estimated 5 miles, but my bike computer told me 7.5. I saw the sun rise twice, once in a gap in the Cascade Mountains, and a second time over the top of them. My legs were pretty tired by the time I got home, but fortunately I wouldn't be using them again for a while. At 6:45 we headed out to Whitely's where Beth dropped me, plus my Kayak and assorted clobber around 7am.

My attempted self portrait before setting out.

Most Landings have this substantial concrete ramp, though Brown's does not as we shall see later. Fortunately my Tuesday scouting had shown me exactly where I could safely land there without wetting a foot.

I'm off! That little wier/rapid caused my worst moment of the day. Not yet ready to paddle after pushing off, the current pushed me sideways into it and I nearly capsized. In fact I grounded and had to push off backwards. paddle backwards some more to get room, and then forwards to shoot the rapid. I'll be ready quicker next time, and not be fooling about with the camera.

Not far on I found a still backwater to explore. Cotton seeds had drifted down to float on the surface, and the lack of current left a glassy surface. The water pressure from the main stream keeps this section full, but without any current, and I saw water boatmen scooting about on the surface.

This fallen tree blocked the way, but I was able to scooch under the end in my kayak. Any larger craft would be stuck unless it could ram over the tree, which is not recommended.

Heading back downstream, I soon came to the convergence of the McKenzie and Willamette. The McKenzie is just to the right of the gravel spit. The conjoined river widens dramatically, the converging currents causing eddies, backflows, undercurrents, upcurrents and other sorts of fun, though the picture totally fails to convey this.

Along the river from this point on I frequently came across fallen trees that had washed up on the shore. This particular tangle looked quite menacing and I gave it a wide berth, lest I should get washed onto it and skewered or otherwise had my day spoilt. Mostly the trees lay on the gravel shores, parallel to the river, like huge dinosaur bones. A good rise in the water height might lift them and carry them downstream, or they may now be stranded until they rot.

This leaning tree will no doubt be washed out of the bank in the next few years.

Woah. The best moment of the day, by several spade-fulls of bestness. An (American) Bald Eagle, just for me. This picture actually looks upstream, and I'd already passed him and paddled back towards him, just awestruck by his majesty and complete ignorance of some puny blue humanoid. Eventually I got too close and he flew off, but golly gosh, he was big.

Not so majestic, but another oooh moment. A pair of raccoons came waddling down to the bank for a drink and a wash as I floated up to them, trying not to splash or otherwise startle them. By the time I got close enough for a decent picture one had left, and the other was watching me suspiciously, before turning and vanishing into the undergrowth.

More stranded trees.

In the UK Herons will normally be seen singly, as they each stake a claim to a section of river for their hunting, so I was quite surprised to come across four at once. You can see another tipping tree, and just to the left of the patch of grass at the turn of the spit is a bird that turned out to be an Osprey. It took no notice of me, or the herons flying off in herony panic, and continued to munch on the fish it had caught.

Three of the herons landed on this tangle of fallen trees and pretended they hadn't taken fright at nothing. The fourth messed up the pose by flying about in herony panic.

I could be wrong, but I rather think this is an Eagle or Osprey nest at the top of a telegraph pole.

My first sight opf my car from the river, telling my it's time to start steering across to the left.

Reverse perspective, imaging a blue blob on the river as far as you can see, and that's me. The car was parked next to this little tree, and from here you can see that if I fail to make the right choice of stream, I'm going to miss my landing altogether. My course took me across that little rapid between the bank and the island, past the stranded trees, then paddlign mightily back up in the slower current along the bank until I reached a soft muddy bit under a tree.

Here's the soft muddy bit, as scouted on Tuesday. Just right for a kayak, hopeless for anything bigger, and having landed here I needed to drag the kayak up a near-45 degree slope to gain the top of the bank and my car.

Kit laid out to ensure I have everything I started with. Helmet (my bike helmet, just in case of a capsize in rapids), lifevest, main paddle (white blades), emergency paddle in case I lose hold of the main ones (yellow blades), splashdeck (which does keep some water out and warmth in on windy stretches), lunch (half a Subway roll and some trail mix), bottle of Mountain Dew for energy. An old towel is already on the car (to prevent scratches when lifting the kayak), and the mounting straps and rubber wedges too. Nobody was about so I was able to brazenly strip off my wetsuit and climb into dry jeans & t-shirt, though there was a portaloo where I could change if there was a crowd.

Kayak all mounted, and ready to roll.

My next planned expedition in a couple of weeks' time will take me all the way from Brown's to Corvallis, and looks to be about 8 hours in duration. The most I've done in one day so far is about two hours, so it'll be quite step up. My ever-supportive Beth will act as my support team, seeing me off at Brown's and meeting me in Corvallis for a meal out and ride home.

More Kayaking Adventures on the Willamette River

2011-07-18T17:50:00.000-07:00

In the last week I've had a couple of outings on the river. I had a day off last Wednesday, so decided to take my kayak to a spot I'd found, right where Beltline Road crosses the Willamette River.

This pebble spit runs under the bridge, and provides parking space for those who wish to access the river. It also creates a natural harbor downstream, ideal for launching a kayak or other shallow draft boat.

Looking downstream before launching, you can see how clear and calm the water is.

The main stream runs fast under the bridge's central span, but to the left this calmer water offered a possible route upstream. Those big rocks up ahead looked menacing though, and I had to get out and carry the kayak over. The water was only ankle deep.

Just upstream of the rocks, I found I needn't have bothered because the water was flowing much too fast for me to make any more progress. I got in and tried to paddle, but with my weight added the kayak was grounded, and as soon as I got out the water carried the empty kayak back downstream. I could have waded further, but then I'd have had trouble getting into the kayak.

Back in the little lagoon, I found a fellow kayaker. His kayak is a sit-upon style, great for calm water paddling, but not so good for keeping the drips off you. He didn't care, and was just enjoying a quiet paddle around on this blisteringly hot day.

I enjoyed my outing and determined then and there to do a longer trip, with Beth's assistance, on Sunday before an early evening shift. Thus after my Saturday shift was over we loaded the kayak onto Beth's car, ready for an early start on Sunday.

Our cats very considerately woke us at 5:30am, so despite the rain we were able to set out around 7:30am in a two car convoy. The kayak rests on two foam rubber rests, and has four straps to secure it, one to the front, one to the back and two running right over the top and through the inside of the car.

We parked my car next to the river at my planned egress point, in as visible a spot from the water as I could devise. I didn't want to miss it and drift too far downstream.

We then took the kayak on forther upstream to a spot I'd scouted out where I knew I could launch safely. This did require a drag across the grass from the car to the water's edge of a hundred yards or so, but with wet grass and gravity aiding me it wsasn't bad. I am trying to look nonchalent.

Having reached the bank, I had to lower the kayak down about 12 feet using the strap, but this was all part of the plan. The straps and foam rubber rests come with me in the kayak, ready to remount it on my car roof. I also have a spare set of paddles in case I lose hold of my main pair, a helmet on in case I tip over in rocks, and a lifevest over my wetsuit. I cleverly chose a lifevest and wetsuit that matched the color of the kayak, so it looks like I thought about it. I have my car keys, cell phone, and wallet in a waterproof box, and some snacks and drinks in case of hunger or thirst.

The view straight across the river prior to launch. It all looks very calm and innocent. I bade adieu to Beth and took a brief turn upstream, to look at a couple of rapids, or wiers. There are several points along the river where rocks and stones have formed a natural wier across the river, and as I suspected, these bar upstream progress to all but the most determined paddler. I was right to choose to go with the flow.

Turning back downstream, this was my first bridge to negotiate. Most of the bridges are no problem, but after seeing the wier at Beltline I wasn't sure what to expect. This is a roadbridge and carries Interstate 105 and route 126, which are the same road at this point.

Through that bridge and in sight of the next, the rain which had been falling steadily all morning decided to fall a bit steadier. I could not have been better prepared than I was in my wetsuit, with the padding from my lifevest adding extra insulation, though my glasses were useless and I soon zipped them into the pocket of my splashdeck. My eyesight is not so bad that I wasn't able to progress quite happily without them from here on.

My second bridge, this time for bicylists and pedestrians, carries people across to from a park on the West bank to the Valley River Center Shopping Mall on the East bank. Both banks of the river all along this stretch have a cycle and footpath; not some thin gravel ribbon decorated with dog dirt, plastic bags, dog dirt in plastic bags, and broken glass along which one's progress is regularly blocked by fishermens' poles as one might expect in London, but a substantial twelve foot wide concrete path. The path itself is not very picturesque it is true, but it gives access to several miles of public parks. A week or so before this trip, I cycled with my Brother-in-Law Chris along most of the length of both banks in hot sunshine, and we grealy enjoyed our afteroon, and especially the beer and cider at our lunchtime stop.

The footbridge in the distance marks the most Northerly crossing point between the East and West Bank paths. You can see that the rain had eased off, and I'm enjoying the glassy smoothness of the water. By this point I was getting practised at reading the river, and judging from the surface where the fast flow was, and which direction to take for best speed and safety. You can see the rougher water crossing from left to right in front of me, which indicates another small wier. I want to cross this at as close an angle to 90 degrees as possible to avoid an upset.

Mmmm, glassy smoothness. Oh, and now the rain's coming back.

From the muted traffic noise, plus my study of the maps, I knew this next bridge was Beltline, the biggest road in Eugene. The left arch is blocked by the pebble spit, the right one by rocks, but the middle arch is fast flowing and it's possible to capsize if I'm careless. I decided to shoot it anyway, as I knew that just beyond I could always make the bank if I had to swim.

Phew. It was exciting, but actually no problem at all to shoot the Beltline Bridge. My kayak is very stable, and built to go in a straight line; all I have to do is stay calm and keep the nose pointed the right way. An interesting thing about the river and wiers, is that above the wier the river works with you, guiding you towards the fastest flow and deepest water - effectively the safest route. All you have to do is make sure you go into it nose first. Below the wier is a different matter. As the flow slows again it eddies back and to the sides, and will carry you to the bank or spin you round unless you paddle to stay midstream. Now, not far below Beltline, the river forks, and I need to stay left or I'll miss my landing.

Left means another small wier. Another odd thing about these wiers, from river level you can't see how far they drop, so unless you know the river intimately, you have to trust that you can make it through OK. It's still raining.

This bridge caught me by surprise, as it doesn't appear on the maps. I think it's a private bridge owned by a farmer.

At last, and far too soon, I spot my bright red car on the left bank. From the last bridge on I had been wondering if I'd missed my turn and was halfway to Portland, but now I had my car in sight, and it was reasonably easy to land and carry my kayak up to the car, strap it on the roof, and get home, pausing only to call Beth to let her know I hadn't drowned myself yet.

My kayak weights over 40 pounds, so it's a bit of a humph to get it up onto the car and down again, and it would be nice if it were lighter, but I wouldn't change anything else about it right now. It's heavy because it's plastic, but it's also cheap and durable. Fibreglass is lighter but more fragile, and costs at least three times as much.

I enjoyed this trip enough to immediately start planning for the next. There is another landing point called Browns Landing about 5 miles North of us, and I scouted it out today as a possible destination. There are several other "Landings" along both the Willamette and McKenzie, so I have plenty of different rooutes to explore over the coming years.

Function 4 Junction Part 2 - The 50s

2011-06-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

Around 1950 the technology (or design) improved enough to allow front widscreen glass to be curved - but not enough to make a full curved windscreen. The cars of these years thus still retained split windscreens, but the two sides were now made from curved sections. The rear windscreen was always smaller, and thus could be mouded in one curved piece.

This was the decade of Rock'n'Roll, teenagers, crusing to the soda fountain and dancing to music on a Wurlitzer jukebox. American car makers started to add more and more gadgets and designs to their vehicles, competing for a growing market.

Factories that had been built to produce bombs and tanks now pumped out cars, fridges, and other luxuries that we now take for granted. America had suffered nearly zero infrastructural damage in WW2, and 5% of the world's population enjoyed 95% of the luxuries it could produce. It was a good time to be American, and the cars show it.

In 53 the split windscreen was finally replaced with a one piece screen. A exterior sun visor was available (presumably at an optional extra cost), before makers realised that putting the visors inside made them easier to adjust.

The car above is a remarkable find, bought in 1953 and more or less put straight into storage, it has just 16,000 miles on the clock, and is in near-mint condition with almost no restoration. Two-tone exterior paint jobs (and two-tone interior trim), white wall tires, and bright chrome trim are typical of this era.

The dashboards of this era start to look like jukeboxes too. Compare with the muted tones in the 40s vehicle below.

I do like the design of the door panel here, with the door handle and window winder matching the lines of the handle and trim. There is an art deco feel to it.

Bench seats were also common at this time, and lots of chrome on the inside as well as out.

They didn't have built-in GPS units in the 50s, that's a later addition. This car is in beautiful condition, yet clearly used a lot if it's worth putting the GPS in.

The 55 Chevrolet Bel Air seemed to be the most heavily represented car in the show. I think the cars above and below are both 55s, the one above has the GPS and modified interior.

The 56 Chevrolet Bel Air (above) was much like the 55 but with a light redesign. Nowadays car manufacturers do a redesign every 2-3 years, so to do one every year shows how popular it was to buy a new car during the 50s.

Not sure what make this one is. The paint is a modern custom, so I'm not sure how much else is original.

A rare Ford (in this show). I doubt that Chevrolets outsold Fords to a huge extent, but maybe they made better collector cars. There's less visible chrome on this late 50s Ford than on the Chevys.

I'm pretty sure this is a 56 Chevrolet Bel Air.

I know this is a Chevrolet (the bird/plane on the hod proves that), but I can't find any online images that match it. The glass roof may thus be original, or a very good later addition.

This is a Ford F100 Pickup, I think from 1955. Running boards lasted longer on pickups because they were still necessary for getting into the cab, and even modern pickups have to have some form of step for a high cab.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It's a Chevrolet hood ornament from the mid-50s.

Towards the end of the decade the manufacturers started lowering rooflines and lengthening the bodies, adding fins to the rear wheel arches, and strange taillights and curves on the rear end. Curves were squared off, straight lines held sway.

To my eye, the golden age of American Motoring was coming to an end. The Interstate Highway system was developing, and more and more people were driving further from home.

Next Blog Post:

The 60s and 70s

Function 4 Junction: Part 1

2011-06-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Junction City is a conurbation a few miles north of Eugene. It was named in the hope that it would be chosen as a major site for trains in the Pacific Northwest to stop for delivering and collecting freight, but lost out to Eugene for reasons I have mentioned previously in this blog.

As a consequence it's a bit of a backwater for most people, somewhere to travel through on the road from Eugene to Corvallis or Newport.

The tracks run straight South towards Eugene...

and straight North towards Albany.

This bit was left over when they finished laying the tracks.

Once a year Junction City hosts the Function 4 Junction Car Show, when owners of "interesting" vehicles for miles round gather together to show their vehicles throughout the day, and have a drive up and down the strip in the evening. The joy for an outsider is that the owners pay to show their vehicles, while the general public (i.e. me) pays nothing - not even to park.

An area was cordoned off around a crossroads just off the main road (Highway 99), and here the show took place. I estimate there were nearly 100 vehicles on show, and more attended the evening cruise. The show is not limited to any specific decade, make, model or anything else, so there was a tremendous cross section of American Vehicular Splendor to be seen.

I'd like to have seen the vehicles organised a little more myself, so that one could walk through the decades and see the development in styles and ideas. Thus in my rough and dirty guide to Function 4 Junction I am organising my photos into groupings that make sense to me.

1920s and 30s

This car (I don't recall the make, but it's not a Model A Ford) was actually parked a little outside the official show area, but probably the oldest I saw that day. The boxy body, flat windscreen, running boards, and substantial spring-mounted fenders (bumpers) all mark it out as a late 1920s car.

Five pedals? Yowsers. The functional rather than styled dashboard at least has most of the instruments considered necessary for modern driving.

Another 20s car here has been heavily customised, yet is still clearly showing its pedigree.

A customised pickup rounds out the 20s for me. I found that I prefer seeing a restored car rather than a customised car, though I appreciate the skill and work required for both branches of show cars.

Behind the engine and wheel replacement this custom hotrod shows its pedigree.

This wonderful restoration from 1938 is perhaps my favorite from the show. It retains the running board, but the windscreen has now been split and angled in a nod to aerodynamics. The headlights are still housed separately and the engine accessed from the sides of the vehicle, the nose being almost entirely radiator. This style of car remained throughout WW2, as factories were busy with bombs, tanks and areoplanes, and had no time for redesigning vehicles. Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower would not have looked out of place in the back of this car.

1940s

This customised milk float shows its 1940s roots in the split flat windscreen, flared wheel arches and vestigial running board.

Still with a split flat windscreen, the headlights have now been absorbed into the main bodywork of the car, and the running board remains only as a slight flaring out of the doors and panels.

You cold be forgiven for thinking this is the same vehicle as in the previous picture, but check the radiator grille. At $7,500 for the pink slip I was tempted!

Not sure the bright yellow was a popular 40s color, but the split windscreen and hint of a running board at the bottom of the door confirm this pickup's vintage. The pickup in the USA became the popular vehicle for farmers and is still a popular style.

The station wagon too makes its appearance, though I'm not sure whether the lack of a front fender is original.

This may be late 30s or early 40s, with the running board still functional and the split windscreen. I found the vast unrelieved expanses of paint somewhat dull, but Beth liked the clean lines.

More custom than original I think, but the split windscreen and running board put this in the 30s to 40s era.

Hidden behind the hood (bonnet) the windscreen is still split flat panes, but the running board has vanished entirely. With a different paint job this vehicle could almost be Doc Hudson Hornet from Disney's "Cars"

Next blog post, goodbye 40s, hello 50s !

A Weekend in Newport

2011-05-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

Due to a rare bit of benevolent scheduling I recently had a weekend free, so Beth and I decided to treat ourselves to a weekend by the sea. We booked two nights at the Grand Victorian B&B, in the Victoria Suite which covers the whole of the top floor.

The building is not Victorian at all, built only 10 years ago bit in a Victorian style. Thus it has all the modern comforts in terms of heating and hot water, while being decorated with old photographs, paintings and artifacts. It was comfy, and we were well looked after by the owner Terry who cooked us a huge breakfast each day and supplied muffins, cookies and ice cream if we got peckish.

We arrived in bright sunshine, and after unpacking took a stroll along Coast Street through the heart of the Nye Beach district of Newport. The red Mazda 2 in the foreground caught my eye (I drive a Mazda 3), but you can see the top of our B&B in the distance. On the opposite side of the road is a purpose built row of shops with apartments above - whether rented or owner-occupied we did not ascertain. The population of Newport is only around 10,000, doubling in the busy tourist season. Nye Beach is one of four delinated areas of Newport, three north of the Yaquina Bay Bridge and one to the south.

After buying a new windcheater at one of the stores we strolled down to the beach. There are several parking areas with beach access; this one we visited several times during the weekend. We dropped in at a secondhand book shop where I bought some old detective novels, and an art gallery where I didn't buy a driftwood walking stick.

A lighthouse is visible on the end of the promontary to the North. It can be visited, though we've both seen lighthouses before so didn't bother.

Some carved sculptures are dotted around Nye Beach, adding a nice touch of interest. I'm not quite sure what this one is supposed to represent, but I liked it.

The beach in May is still not a great draw, being chilly and windy. We had a couple of brief strolls on the beach, but just seeing the sea and smelling the ozone was enough. The sun went in soon after we arrived and never reappeared during our stay.

Near our B&B we found a curiously dilapidated block of houses, this one in the worst repair but all of them clearly abandoned and in need of attention. Nearby new houses are being built with sea and beach views, and presumably available for a pretty penny, but these ones, whence you'd need to walk 10 yards to get a sea view, are falling down. Hmmm.

Same block of houses from Coast Street. I asked the B&B owner Terry about these, and he told me that they're on commercial land, and are in the process of being bulldozed and replaced, but like everywhere else the global economic crash has slowed progress. Hopefully something attractive and profitable will fill this block eventually.

After a rest in our room we went for a night time stroll on the beach, and a meal at the Chowder Bowl. We loooked in at a couple of different restaurants before settlign on this, but they were too noisy and crowded for our taste. The Chowder Bowl was half full, the staff welcoming but not stifling, the prices reasonable and the menu sufficient without being overwhelming. We ate here again the next night.

The near-constant wind had carved the packed layers of sand into sculptures and patterns. I liked this oil-on-water effect and have it as my current desktop.

Next day we dropped in on the Saturday Farmers Market. My need for cheeses, bread, jewellery and tie-dye clothing having been fulfilled, I diverted to Sandcastle Toys Toys Toys Toys, A splendid old-fashioned toyshop that we had visited during our Summer 2009 pre-move trip. I bought a few small Playmobil pieces to encourage trade.

On to the Bay area, a distinctive mix of shops, restaurants and tourist attractions on the North side of Yaquina Bay, interspersed with fishing industry infrastructure. Several times during the day we stopped to watch shrimp being dribbled out of a hopper into an open truck, and eventually spilling over onto the tarmac as nobody seemed to be supervising the process.

This picture shows the notches formed by generations of crablines, looking west towards the bridge. The feel of this bay area, and indeed Nye Beach as a whole, reminded me of holidays on the Norfolk Coast.

Lobster pots piled next to the road.

Sealions bask on the docks, and a seal is swimming around, denied access to the dock by the barking sealions. These three gentlemen had a group of admirers all day long.

We didn't bother with the Ocean Life displays, Wax Works or Ripley's Believe it or Not on this trip but did stock up on Taffy. Salt Water taffy is to Newport what sticks of rock are to the English coast, and there are two taffy shops on the Boulevard, both of which we visited. This one has the taffy machine in the window to show that the taffy is made fresh on site.

I bought a pound of taffy in each shop, Beth's haul being much more modest.

In the evening we strolled right to the north end of Coast Street, and noted the sad state of several other buildings in Nye Beach. Many American houses are wood framed, wood panelled and cheaply built, so they presumably fall apart quicker when left empty. The quick and cheap building system used at least means that when an owner can be bothered, repairs are also quick and cheap, with many repairs being somethign the owner could tackle themselves if so inclined.

My small bowl of chowder at the Chowder Bowl. We weren't especially hungry on Saturday evening, so stuck to small helpings.

A last look out from our room's balcony before we headed home. Nye Beach is a curious mixture of neglect and obvious money, with a couple of big hotels dominating the view to the South, fantastic homes with great views on every rise or clifftop, but patches of neglect and disarray tucked away in odd corners. The US tourist industry must be hurting in the current economic climate, and the NW Pacific climate will eat away at buildings quickly if given a toehold.

We chose to live in Eugene so we would be within easy reach of the coast at a reasonable cost in time and money. Newport is slightly further than Florence in straight miles but a much easier drive, and a slightly bigger more vibrant community. They offer different entertainments, and I'm sure we'll revisit both many times over the coming years.

iPod Touch

2011-05-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

I recently treated myself to an iPod Touch, which is halfway between an iPhone and a traditional iPod.

"Traditional" iPod may sound weird for something that has only been around for a few years, but by that I mean a device (made by Apple) designed to store audio and video recordings digitally, and allow access thereto and playing thereof.

The iPod touch does everything that iPhone does except it's not a phone, and works on regular wi-fi, not 3G connectivity (3G is the phone network). It has an internet browser, and direct connection to the iTunes store, and especially the Apps store. You can also download books, and while the screen is a lot smaller than a regular book page, there are thousands of free titles, and a free book is still a free book.

Apps. Short for applications, thse are akin to a shortcut on your laptop or desktop computer screen. Everything on the iPod Touch is accessed through an app; playing your stored music, web surfing, playing games, checking the news or weather (really just a special internet connection), using the built-in camera, updating your diary, reading a book, it's all accessed via an app.

All interaction on the iPod Touch is via the touch screen, except adjusting volume, turning it on and off, and returning to the home screen (i.e. desktop) from an app. Thus the apps have to be friendly to one finger control, games are based on touching, tapping, and sliding your finger across the screen, and so on. That makes for some simple games and gameplay, but fun time wasters nonethless. There are hundreds of free apps, and websites telling you which apps are free that once used to be charged for.

Right now Beth and I are playing a free game called Pocket Frogs. You collect frogs of different colors and patterns, cross-breed them to get new combinations, take them to a pond to catch dragonflies, find gifts and potential new mates. It's all very simple in concept but an enormous game in scope, and fun to dip in and out of in short bursts. Your app keeps track of frog growth even when you're not playing, and you can set alerts to tell you when certain events occur.

Games like Pocket Frogs are the main reason I got my iPod Touch, so I can while way a few minutes relaxing during my break periods and quiet times. It won't replace my iPod Classic, which I've used for years and has a lot more storage capacity, but it's fun to play with and helps me become more knowledgeable for my job.

Tie-Dye Funday

2011-05-02T12:20:00.000-07:00

Eugene is a city still inhabited by Hippies, so we have the perfect excuse to indulge in some tie-dye t-shirt fun.
Beth and I bought a couple of tie-dye kits ($15 each) and some white t-shirts ($3 each) at WalMart, and our friend Nicholas came round to join us for a Festival of dyeing.

Our kits had 3 colors each and enough dye between them to complete twenty t-shirts, but we decided to do three each to start with and see how they went. The kit gives plans on how to do the ties, using rubber bands to create circles, spirals, splotches, scrunches and other ideas. We rinsed the t-shirts to remove any residue chemicals and shop marks, and tied the damp shirts into various patterns. The damp helps the dye penetrate the fibres.

Nick and I enthusiastically grabbed the bottles of dye almost before Beth had finished mixing them (the bottles contain powdered dye to be mixed in the bottle), and started squirting.

Beth's more controlled approach allowed her to see our mess-ups, and plan her moves carefully.

Determinedly not following the instructions, Nick took off his rubber bands as soon as he'd finished applying the dyes. You're supposed to wait until the dyes have set more, several hours later. We wrapped our t-shirts in plastic wrap to prevent unintentional cross-dyeing, and placed them in the sun to bake.

Beth carefully tidied up the plastic sheets we had placed to protect our patio table. Just as well, as there were several dye dribbles.

The longer you leave them the better the dye will take. Nick took his home, while Beth and I left ours overnight in the plastic wrap. In the morning I we unwrapped our efforts, rinsed and washed an enormous quantity of unfixed dye out of the t-shirts, and then washed them again with a little detergent and dried them. Here are our efforts.

My best effort, a simple bull's eye pattern. This was the long sausage-shaped bundle in the earlier pictures.

Beth's sunburst design. I like the "multiple suns in a blue sky "effect.

Beth's bull's eye had less dye than mine, but has a nice sun's rays effect.

This was my attempt at a scrunch pattern. My mistake was too tie it up with rubber bands, it's supposed to be left loose. For all that, not bad for my first attempt.

I got a bit too clever with my spiral design, and tried to put three different spirals in. I should have stuck with one or two. I also went too lightly with the dye.

Beth's spiral came out really well, much better than mine. I put the score at 2:1 to Beth, with my bull's eye beating Beth's, but Beth's sunburst beating my scrunch, and her spiral beating mine hands down.

Lots of fun all round, and we have six unique t-shirts that we will never meet anyone else wearing. We've got dye and t-shirts left over, and lots of ideas for other designs. I can see how this could be come addictive.

Other dye colors are available in other kits, and you can mix dyes to make unique colors. You can use any color t-shirt as a base, but white is easiest to show the dye colors as they are originally designed. Be sure to rinse and wash thoroughly several times, and wash separately at first, so as to not have the dyes run into each other or other clothes in the wash.

Betting on my Hedge

2011-05-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

On Sunday morning Beth and I drove to Bloomers Nursery to select something for the garden. A couple of months ago I dug up a lavender bush which frankly neither of us liked, and this left a bit of a bare area in front of our porch. My ideas was a small evergreen hedge, and Beth couldn't come up with anything she liked better so that was the plan. On my previous visit to Bloomers (for the apple tree) I'd spotted a couple of pallets of evergreens that would work, labelled $2.50 each, and a sign saying 50% off. $1.25 for a small evergreen seemed like a bargain, so after a wander round the nursery to examine their stock and enjoy the sunshine we loaded up 16 on a cart and went to pay.

It turned out they'd already taken the 50% off so the plants were $2.50 each. Hmm, to me that's false advertising, but we decided to put 4 back and get 12 for the hedge.

I lined up the plants beforehand to see how the spacing would work. Just as well we only got 12, as 16 would have been too many. I tried digging a hole for the first one with a spade, but soon discovered that a claw tool to loosen the earth followed by a trowel to fetch it out worked better. On my hands and knees, with a foam mat for knee padding, I set to.

An hour or so and a couple of mugs of tea later, all twelve are planted. I judged the line purely by eye, and I think it came out as good as could be hoped. Even if I'd laid a string line and dug holes at fixed spacings, the variation between the plants would have prevented a 100% uniform line. There's loose topsoil down to about eight inches, beneath which there is clay~ish soil and pebbles. I had to did a little way into the clay each time, but hopefully the topsoil is deep enough for happy plants.

By 3pm the hedge is in full sunlight, which it will get until sunset. I wanted evergreens as they should do better in this, the shadiest area in the garden, barring the north side of the house around the toolshed which is a loose pebble surface with nothing planted anyway. This is a dwarf variety, and should retain a rounded shape for each plant, while not growing too tall. I'm hoping they'll grow together over time, but even like this I think they look good.

Easter Weekend

2011-04-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Lots of little things going on this last couple of weeks:
Last Friday (Good Friday in the UK) we had our new bedroom windows fitted, which required me to be ready to receive the workmen at 8am despite finishing my Thursday's work shift at midnight, though they did not actually appear until near nine. The windows went in within four hours with minimual fuss, and we now have two sash windows with bug screens to allow more air to circulate which will be a boon in hot weather. I had a short evening shift ending at 10:30pm.

On Saturday we had an ant exterminator visit at seven am, as we have had an influx of ants through various parts of the house. I had an afternoon/evening shift at work ending at 11pm, and it was quiet until around 9:30pm, when we had a sudden influx of customers. I had just one colleague keeping me company, so we were pretty rushed just at the time when things are normally quieting down and we start working the day's freight.

Easter Sunday was a chance for a lie in to catch up on sleep, but our cats woke us at 5:30am, hungry after a night's explorations and excitements. Sadly for any egg hunters it had started raining late Saturday night and carried on most of the morning. As I was working again that day (2:30-11:30pm), I totally forgot to eat a chocolate egg or bunny, and they still languish unattended.

On the way to work on Easter Sunday my engine warning light came on... again. The engine light has first come on the previous Monday, prompting a visit to Oil Can Henry's to see what the problem was. After $160 of servicing, including a change of transmission fluid, the light turned out to be a warning about evaporation from the fuel tank, usually caused by the filler cap not being put on properly by the pump attendant. As you may recall we are not allowed to pump our own gas in Oregon, so I have little control over the filler cap. OCH reset the light and we unscrewed and rescrewed the filler cap, but the light came on again about 50 miles later. Thus I took the car in again on Wednesday, and they reset the light. If it comes on again I'll go to Autozone for their diagnosis.

Also on Wednesday I went to Bloomer's, a Garden Center that had been recommended to us by our neighbor Robert. The Center has a lovely view of the Cascade Mountains, but the peace is ruined by the traffic noise from the I5. It reminds me how lucky (or sensible) we are to live nowhere near any major roads. I bought an apple tree to replace the one we planted last year that expired in the hot June weather when we had a 10 day road trip. This new tree has multiple grafted branches and should grow four different apple varieties.

Robert had previously helped me trim our vines which had grown out of control, and with the space afforded by this trimming I was finally able to remove most of the biggest brambles from the bank, some branches turning out to be over 20 foot long and thicker at their base than my thumb. The cuttings from the vines and brambles are still piled in the garden, being reduced steadily as I feed the clippings into our garden waste bin, and also Robert's which he has lent me.

My laptop started acting up on Saturday but seems OK now. The USB ports failed to recognise my iPod, which can only have been plugged in 50-100 times previously so you can understand its confusion. Happily Beth was able to get it fixed while I was at work, so for now I am able to update my favorite podcasts. Microsoft have also messed about with Internet Explorer and I have had a new version foisted on me on the laptop. They have moved some of the regular buttons from the left to the right of the toolbar, which is like switching the accelerator and brake pedals in a car. Why they felt the need to do this is beyond me, and I wish I could switch back.

Yesterday President Obama released a copy of his long form birth certificate, which ought to finally shut up those people who have been trying to claim he is not legally qualified to be president, such as that sad clown Donald Trump. Of course it didn't, and they just moved onto their next whine, that he didn't get great school grades in 3rd Grade or something. It's all rather sad that the big issues of the day are sidelined for this pantomime.

Tomorrow is Royal Wedding Day, and I can't finish without giving it a mention. BBC America has been running Royal related stuff for a couple of weeks for hours every day, and tomorrow (starting at midnight tonight in fact) there will be many channels showing nothing else. I'll watch some of it (recorded), and would like to have been able to join my family in the UK who are having a viewing party, but time and funds did not allow. The Royal couple seem well suited from everything I've seen, and I wish them every happiness.

One Year in our Sweetwater Home

2011-04-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

Today marks the first anniversary of moving into our home in Sweetwater Lane. The weather for our move was better than this year and we have had several wet days, so we were very lucky to have warm dry weather for the move. It really helped, not the least in drying out the carpets after their steam cleaning. Of course we had the garages to pile boxes and other items during the move, so we could have coped with wet weather if necessary.

After our initial rush of purchases for the house and garden we have added very little, the replacement dishwasher and new bedroom windows (yet to be installed) aside. The house is wonderful and rarely a day goes by that we do not remind ourselves how lucky and comfortable we are.

We have kept the house quite sparsely furnished, enjoying the roominess, and our occasional fits of tidying have kept it neat, at least by our standards. Having so much space makes it much easier to clean, tidy and organise than our London home, and having managed this for a year I think we will be able to continue the trend.

Over the next week I'll add some more observations and pictures, but I am in the middle of a six-day week at work, so I'm preserving my energies for that.

Werewolf Attack

2011-04-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Actuually it's just some scratches I suffered while mounting TVs on the wall at work, and they're not as bad as they look, though I do have another crop on the other arm. A metal mounting bars must have had a burr on it, and unnoticed I rubbed my arms across it several times.

It's new TV season, so we've been busy putting the new models on the wall and taking down the discontinued models. It's a two man, sometimes three man job, as the 55" screens weigh up to 35 pounds, and have to be lifted over shoulder height (and not dropped), hooked onto a bar that we can't see and hence sometimes require a spotter, and when it's all fixed and at the right height (which can take two or three tries) connected to the signal and power feed cables.

That last step is what caused me trouble last night, and led to the scratches. The signal cables we use have five separate connections, two for audio and three for the video feed, and these are not always in the same order on the back of the TV as they are on the cable. The cables are color coded, red and white for audio, and red (again), bluey-green and greeny-blue for the video. In good light I have no problem, but 10pm at night under fluorescent strips, with TVs all around you still playing their feed and blaring in your ears, fiddling behind a dusty panel and looking at everything through a mirror is not good light. Whilst hooking up one TV three others lost their feed, and it took a frustrating five minutes, right at the end of my shift, to figure out that just because the signal box power light was on, it did not mean the signal box was actually receiving power.

The bulk of the work is now complete and we have a finished TV wall, and have stocks of matching TVs to sell, and can get to those TVs quickly and efficiently without performing simultaneous gymnastics and weightlifting at the top of a wobbly ten foot ladder. Hopefully.

A Trip to Cost Plus World Market

2011-04-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

It all started with the desire for a decent bacon roll.

I didn't often eat bacon rolls in the UK, but when I did, I wanted a tangy brown sauce to complement the crisp bacon and chewy roll. Unfortunately tangy sauce is not easily found in the US, and after trying various barbeque and steak sauces (mostly liquid sugars with a little coloring), I voiced my desire for some proper HP Sauce to Beth. She immediately got online and found a store in Eugene that carried said HP Sauce.

Cost Plus World Market caters (at a cost) to palates that respond to tastes other than sickly-sweet. You can get Asian, Indian and British foods, as well as many non-edible things. I zoned in on the British aisle, and picked out the HP Sauce ($6 a bottle), adding digestive biscuits, Branston Pickle and some Haywards pickled onions. Again, I'm not a huge consumer of pickled onions or Branston Pickle, but there's nothing quite like these produced or widely available in the US.

Is this the pangs of homesickness? I don't think so, though many ex-pats yearn for various foods or beverages. I haven't really missed any specific tastes or textures much, but it's nice to know I have somewhere I can get a digestive biscuit or a tangy sauce if the inclination is upon me.

Spring has Sprung

2011-04-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

In the last week we've seen a decided change in the season, with several dry and sunny days, though occasional rain still keeps the lawns green and plants growing. Flowers sprung up, Daffs, Hyacinth, Narcissi and other unidentified things, and our pear trees and cherry trees have blossom starting. Other cherry trees have been in full blossom in other gardens, but ours is a little late. The frogs have been chorusing, and we've heard a woodpecker in the stand of conifers in the field to the North.

We've taken the patio furniture out from its winter home in the gazebo, and even had a brief barebeque on Sunday. The cats are occasionally using the sun loungers. Weeds are springing up everywhere and being tugged out almost as fast, and we have been preparing the raised beds for peas, pumpkins and other vegetables. Beth had grown two sets of seedlings so far and put them out, though the slugs and snails have had their munches on them.

Our biggest disappointment gardenwise is the apple tree we bought and planted last year. Due to the wrong sort of attention or neglect we managed to kill it stone dead, so we plan to get another fruit tree to replace it soon, probably another apple tree but with mixed varieties grafted on the same trunk.

Tghe rainy season is definitely easing and before long we'll miss it, as we'll have to do a lot of watering to keep everything green, with a water bill to match. Fortunately the heating bill will be dropping at the same time, so our monthly expenses even themselves out.

My Handheld Game Consoles over the years

2011-03-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

Behold my collection of Nintendo and Sony handheld game consoles. The original grey Gameboy from 1989 with several of the original games I bought at the time is at the top left. There was a Gameboy Pocket, smaller and lighter, but I never got one as it played the same games.

The Gameboy Color added (guess what) color to the display in 1998, but the graphics and cartridges were otherwise very similar. It wasn't long before the Gameboy Advance was released in 2000, so the Color had a short shelf life. The original Advance was an ugly shape, and fortunately an upgrade was on the way.

Nintendo launched the Gameboy SP, an improved version of the Advance console in 2002 and the SP was a tremendous improvement on the original. With a back-lit screen, built-in rechargeable battery, and folding to protect the screen so carry cases were unnecessary, this is my favorite of all the Nintendos, which is probably why I acquired multiples.

The Micro was a sidebranch to the Gameboy tree in 2005, playing the same Advance games as the SP. It couldn't play the original or Color games, which was annoying. The screen was smaller than the SP screen, and as the SP wasn't that large to begin with it wasn't a big success. I bought one fon an impulse, but it never got much use.

The Nintendo DS dropped the Gameboy name in 2004, substituting two screens, one a touchscreen activated with a stylus, and another rather ugly design. It also reduced the size of the cartridge to something not much bigger than a camera SD card. Some games work really well with the stylus, but in many it's an annoying nuisance, and actually rendered a few unplayabe to me. Fortunately the DS lite came out in 2006, a much tidier design, with the same size screen. The DS Lite could still play all previous games right back to the original titles too, thanks to having two cartridge slots.

The DSi added a camera, which I've never used on my DSi XL, but got rid of the second cartridge slot so it could only play DS games. The XL has a 93% bigger screen than the DS, and importantly for me the battery light goes from green to blue instead of red when the power is low. In almost every previous generation (except the Micro) I've either had warnign from beth when the power was dying, or a sudden blank screen, very annoying when you haven't saved your game recently.

The Sony PSP at the front is not the first generation of this unit, though there are far fewer games available for this unit, and most of the ones I want I buy online as they are not usually titles carried in stores. I resisted buying one until Final Fantasy Tactics "The War of the Lions" came out for this, as tactical RPGs are my favorite style of game for handhelds. Thus my library of Sony PSP games is much smaller than my library of DS games, but there are some gems there which I could not play any other way. The UMD disk is a rather clumpy device to load and I broke the back on one PSP when I dropped it while putting in the disk. You can buy movie disks to watch on the PSP, but I've never bothered.

Buying into the Digital R-Evolution

2011-03-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago at work I processed the contract for a Smartphone for a young gentleman, whose bill was going to be around $80 a month. My total talk and text usage last year cost me $30, about $2.50 a month, and my phone cost $20. This got me thinking about the various digital consumer technologies that have appeared in my lifetime, and my relationship with and adoption of them.

Cellphones aka Mobile phones: I've had four cellphones in my life. The first, a Phillips, I soon sold on to my parents and got another. I was on a Orange plan, because it was the only Pay-as-you-Go plan that did not delete your unused minutes after a certain time period had elapsed. My initial £50 of airtime lasted over a year. My second phone, a Nokia, set the pattern for getting Nokia phones, and every phone I've had since was a Nokia.

That first Nokia phone had the fun feature of being able to compose your own ringtones using a special shorthand, but unfortunately didn't have a vibrate function, and the ring was very quiet. I missed most of the few calls people made to me, simply because I didn't hear the ring when the phone was stashed in an inside coat pocket. This ultimately led to the loss of this phone when I couldn't find it, and couldn't hear it ringing anywhere in the house. Just before we moved to America I found it in the a boardgame box, where I must have tidied it away. The loss of this phone led to my third cellphone purchase, a very similar Nokia 3210, much slimmer and lighter (technology had moved on), with a louder ring and a vibrate feature (hurrah) but also no compose ringtones feature.

That phone I still have, but needed a new one when we moved to the US, and Beth found a T-Mobile plan where you get 1 year's airtime and 1,000 minutes for $100. The phone was a separate purchase, and I got the cheapest lightest $20 Nokia I could find. 1,000 minutes doesn't sound a lot to people who go through more than that in a month, but I used around 300 minutes (total talk and text) in a year. By adding $10 to my account I was able to carry over the unused minutes, so I started 2011 with 800 minutes of available talk and text time.

I use my phone, as I have always used cellphones, for emergency contact only. I can't talk on the phone at work or driving, don't need to at home, and it's main use is so Beth can text me if something comes up (e.g. need to buy milk or cat food).

Smartphones: A smartphone is a cellphone with internet access provided through a 3G cellphone network. Some people love them, such as the $80 a month gentleman, but I haven't seen the need as I have internet access at home. 3G is defined as a certain speed of information transfer, and 4G is already on the way in.

Video Games: I fondly remember the day (sometime in 1977?) my father came home with a videogame console. He is prone to spontaneous bursts of generosity like this, for I can't recall either myself or my brothers asking for one (he may remember differently), but we spent many happy hours playing Pong, Hockey, Skeet Shooting and the like. The games were all built in, and limited to white graphics on black background. A year or two later I saw my first Space Invaders ArcadeGame at a Youth Hostel on the shores of Loch Lomond, in color, though the colors were just colored filters stuck to the screen.

Home Computers: Sometime soon after, still in the early 80s, my mother bought us a BBC micro computer, one of the first generation of home computers. The idea was, I suppose, that we would learn to program computers, but as I recall we mostly played text-based adventure games like Snowball, and a fantastic open-ended space adventure game called Elite, with wire-frame graphics. At school I was just too old to learn on the first generation of PCs, and my early computer experience came on the school's mainframe accounts computer, far from ideal but a lot better than nothing.

At University my access to computers was mostly limited to using the Library's system to access Reuters for news stories. In my final year someone bought a computer to write their essays and assignments on, but for personal organisation the FiloFax was the thing, not a laptop or smartphone.

After University I grew closer to my eldest brother Richard as we shared an interest in gaming, comics and Manga, and we spent most Saturdays together, the mornings at comic shops, the afternoons and evenings at a Roleplaying club. We also worked together as he got me a job where he worked at a small magazine publishing company, which used Apple computers. He it was who introduced my to the Internet, and got me my first email account through a company called compuserve.

Nothing has impacted the way we run our lives more than the home computer. Apart from video games, I use mine for spreadsheets, organising my digital photos, music, video files, and of course internet access, without which you would not be reading this. The fact that you are reading this suggests you have also adopted a computer as a regular part of your life.

Portable Game Systems: One Saturday in the early 90s my eldest brother and I went to a game shop and bought ourselves Nintendo Gameboys, with 4 or 5 games each. In addition to Tetris that came with the unit, I recall Battle Bull and Nobunaga's Ambition as two of those initial purchases, and I still have those games and all their packaging. Other friends had gone for the Atari Lynx and Sega Gamegear, but these burnt through batteries at an eye-watering rate, and we were happy with the simpler graphics but better battery life. My middle brother had a handheld space invaders style game some years before, and at the time it was a great unit, but it only played one game. The Gameboy allowed different games to be played with different cartridges, and the latest Nintendo handheld console, released earlier this week, now sports 3D graphics.

I've continued my interest with videogames mostly through Nintendo handheld devices over the intervening years, and also have a Sony PSP (short for Play Station Portable). I used to have a Sony Play Station, followed by a Play Sation 2, and for a year we had a Nintendo Wii, but all these consoles had to go when we moved to the US and have not been replaced. We play PC games at home, and I use my Nintendo DSi and Sony PSP, and Beth has a Nintendo DSi and uses her iPod Touch to play solitaire.

eBooks: An eBook is a dedicated device for downloading electronic books. There are various ones about, the Nook and Kindle being popular, but I've not bothered to buy into this technology. I have shelves full of books already when I want to read, and prefer the feel of paper in my hand and turning real pages. Besides this most of the books I read are for reference, and not available as digital copies anyway.

HDTV: I'm old enough to recall when a TV which had a dial for tuning to the three available channels, and when I bought my own TV in London, had the same ex-rental 24" screen cathode ray tube TV for over 15 years. Arriving in the US we needed a new TV, and by 2009 you couldn't buy a non-HDTV flatscreen even if you wanted to.

HDTV stands for high definition, which means the TV displays more horizontal lines (720 or 1080) than a conventional tube TV (which had around 525 lines for NTSC, the US standard, and 625 for PAL, the UK system). However unless you have an HD input (via terrestrial broadcasts, cable, satellite or Blu-Ray player) the picture you see is not HD. At present the cable and satellite companies charge extra for HD channels so we don't bother, and Blu-Rays are still generally more expensive than DVDs, so we haven't invested in one of those either. I'm sure that in time HD will become the standard, but until it does we may have an HDTV, but we're not usually watching HDTV. When we watch DVDs the picture is upscaled to near-HD quality by some technical wizardry in our DVD players.

Cable and Satellite Broadcasting: Alongside HDTV, the way we receive broadcasts has changed. In the UK I had cable for a while, but felt I was paying a lot for not watching much and eventually dropped it. Beth and I lived with a Freeview box for the rest of our time in the UK. A Freeview box is a set-top box purchased for around £30 that is capable of receiving many more channels (around 30) than the terrestrial broadcasts alone (five channels by the time we left the UK). Once you've paid for the box your viewing is free, except for the annual TV license fee. We had a freeview box with built in hard drive, so we could record hours of TV and watch at our leisure. We found that we recorded more than we had time to watch, but it was a very useful device.

In the US there is no Freeview system, but unless you are happy with the basic 6-8 local digital broadcast accessible through a digital antenna, you need to subscribe to cable or satellite TV. This is going to cost you an arm, and if you want HD channels a leg too.

3D TV: This is starting to come in, and customers ask me about it occasionally at work, but there are very few 3D sources, so there's not much you can watch in 3D. There's currently about 60 3D films available, and a handful of channels. To me it's a gimmick, and when a movie comes out in 3D I only watch the 2D version at the cinema anyway. You still have to put on special eyewear to watch 3D (also assuming you have a 3D TV and a 3D source), but the technology is being developed to do away with this annoyance. Will 3D become the standard some day? I hope not, but if it does it's years away yet. Yesterday one of my colleagues proudly told me about his 3DTV purchase, and his library of eight 3D titles.

Record Players, Audio Cassettes, CDs, Mini-Disks, Sony Walkman, MP3 players, iPod, and iTouch: I never had many vinyl records of my own (though my parents had a family record player and collection), because by the time I had money to spend on such things tapes has already taken over. At University I used audiotapes to both play and record, and bought my first tape-to-tape cassette recorder with a win from the Premium Bonds in my first year away from home, but CDs and other audio options were already coming in. Prior to cassette tapes I mostly listened to the radio for aural entertainment, on a clock radio that woke me every day for school.

I resisted CDs for a long time, mostly because I had invested so much in audiotapes, but also because CDs were very expensive. The Walkman was a portable cassette playing device, and later models had radio receivers as well, so now we could have music and audio entertainment on the move. I went through several Walkmen (and similar devices) in my post-University years, because they received a lot of knocks. One problem was that, though the player was not much bigger than the cassette inside, you would need several cassettes to have listening options.

Car stereos have developed alongside Walkmans and portable CD players, illustrated by the fact that my wife's 2002 car has a cassette player, while my 2007 car has a CD player with auxiliary input. This means I can plug an MP3 player straight into my stereo, while Beth uses a device like a cassette tape with an audio jack hanging out of it on a wire.

Alongside CDs, my wife and I both briefly and independantly (as we didn't know each other at the time) had Mini-disk players. The advantage of these over CD players was that you could record your own (until home computers gave that option for CDs), and indeed few commercially available pre-recorded minidisks ever existed. The disks were smaller and better protected than CDs, so easier to carry around.

I recorded many of my old cassette tapes onto minidisk to preserve them and make them more portable, but before long another option became available - MP3. Actually MP3 is only one form or digitally recorded audio file, but has become the quick reference name for any form of digital audio file. Digital media has the massive advantages of reproduceability and portability, though some say the audio quality is not as good as CD, and CD is not as good as vinyl. I really can't hear any difference.

When I invested in my first MP3 player I wanted one that could record as well as play, as I am an amateur musician. This wrote off all the iPod offerings, but (after a friend's recommendation) in 2002-3 I bought an iRiver iHP-140. This machine had a 40GB hard drive, a massive amount at the time, so it could hold a LOT of recordings, but more importantly I could transfer my cassettes, minidisks, and CDs onto it, and after a little editing, have them in an even more portable and robust form. I spent much of the next 5 years copying my precious tape, CD and mini-disk collection via the iRiver, editing and saving the tracks on my PC, plus a back-up external hard drive.

This wasn't part of any bigger plan, other than saving material in digital (and thus more transportable) format, but when Beth and I decided to move to the US it was much easier to carry my entire audio collection in a device that fit in my pocket, or clipped onto my belt. By that time I had replaced the iRiver with an iPod (though I still have the iRiver as a backup), and I carried the data in three places, the iPod, an external hard drive, and my PC's hard drive. I chose 160GB iPod Classic for its storage capacity, and I use it every day.

Digital Cameras and Camcorders: Digital photography has greatly impacted my photographic habits. It used to cost about 25p to print a single picture, and until it was printed there was no knowing if it was worth printing. I spent several years in the '90s and '00s doing long distance walks and conservation holidays, and during these years a digital camera would have been very welcome. Unfortunately I didn't have one, but soon after Meeting Beth for the first time (June 2003) I was converted to the idea, and bought my first digital camera, a Pentax Optio S4 (after seeing Beth's one). The delight of this model was that it fit into a shirt pocket, so there was rarely an excuse NOT to have a camera handy.

After a few years and several drops the S4 started playing up and was replaced by a Pentax S6, and when that started playing up a year ago, Beth and I bought Sony Cybershots. That is, Beth decided to get one, after weeks of painstaking online research, and I jumped on the bandwagon. Thus we have matching cameras (one black, one silver) which also act as camcorders. I bought a separate Panasonic camcorder in 2009 for a trip to France, but have never been good at making videos except for special occasions.

VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray: I was probably fortunate that I never had time to build up an expensive library of VHS videotapes before DVDs took over as the primary medium for purchasing films and TV shows. It was no real hardship to shed the few videotapes I had when we started planning our move, and copy the special ones to DVD. DVDs are artificially regionalized (via codes on the DVD and software in the DVD player) to prevent the global marketplace from being truly free (because truly free markets apparently don't really work), but it is easy to either buy a de-regionalised DVD player, or de-regionalize one yourself. We've done both in our time, because our DVD library has always been a mix of US and UK titles.

Blu-Ray is another matter, and we haven't yet made the step up. Just as people who have an extensive VHS library hate having to upgrade to DVD and resist the cost, trouble and frustration, so we are for now ignoring Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray does give better picture sharpness, but at present there's still an additional cost of around 15-20% over the cost of the same movie on DVD, and in any case we don't buy many new titles. No doubt we will one day buy a Blu-Ray player and start buying Blu-Rays, but as long as DVDs are still freely available and cheaper we'll stick with those.
GPS: We didn't buy a GPS navigation system until we arrived in the US to stay, but after that we both bought units for our cars and use them for many non-standard trips. Having experience of Garmin from a trip to Scotland, sharing the driving with my brother, we stuck with what we knew and both got Garmin units. You can pick up a GPS for a car for $79, though we invested a little more to get more features, and the units have served us well and features in this blog several times.

Streetlighting

2011-03-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

We enjoy seeing the stars at night, and London has two disadvantages for the casual stargazer. First, the tall buildings physically blocked the view, and second the street lights blinded the eye. There is also the indirect glare of badly designed street lights throwing light up into the night sky.

Eugene is far, far darker than London, both on the main roads I drive regularly like River Road, Beltline and Northwest Expressway, and on the local suburban streets, but light pollution is still a problem. In our cul-de-sac the street lighting is provided by the houses themselves, with no lamp posts. This was a canny move by the city to make the residents pay for street lighting, but it affords us the opportunity to reduce the problem.

Our house has two lanterns, one either side of the garage door, which happily for us were set to hold three small bulbs each. This was probably a modification by the previous owners so they could use colored bulbs at Christmas, as other houses in the street can only fit one normal-sized bulb in each of their 2-3 lanterns. We recently switched to leaving just one bulb on in each lantern, and the total 8 Watts of light is ample to light the house at night - particularly as my car is fitted with lights anyway, and I've never yet failed to find my way home for lack of light.

That fixed our problem, and our neighbors on one side have taken their bulbs out entirely as a trial, and their house is still visible at night too. The other neighbors haven't yet been approached, and they have a couple of hundred watts burning away all night.

A quick calculation shows that using 3 x 60 watt bulbs to light a house for 8 hours a night for a year uses 520 KWhours more electricity than our 8 watt glare. From EWEB's website (our energy provider) this would be about $62 a year. That's not going to break the bank alone, but adding up savings like this by turning off unnecessary lighting and other appliances all helps.

Our primary motivation is not really the cost, of course, but cutting down on light pollution.

Monsterous Trucks

2011-03-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

Americans love a big vehicle. I took these photos back in early April 2010 just before we moved house but never got round to posting them.

This truly monsterous truck caught my eye, as I trust it has now caught yours. The owner was sitting on his balcony as we took photos and we chatted a while. On one level I admire these sorts of trucks, but with gas now topping $3.70 at the pumps in Eugene, this one burns a dollar of gas every 3 miles. If I drove one of these, my first hour at work each day would just pay for the commute. The car behind is a normal-sized saloon, and barely comes up to the top of the bumpers.

A side effect of over-bigging your truck is that it won't fit in the garage. We like to park a car in the garage, and it's easier for unloading shopping. Not everyone uses their garage as a garage of course, but it's nice to have the option. This picture and the two below were taken on a walk round a subdivision north of our old apartment complex.

The advertisements for trucks such as these emphasise their ability to pull tree stumps out of the ground, or haul huge rocks or a spare truck engine with minimal effort, but these are not common endeavours for most owners. For daily life, commuting, shopping trips and so on, I can't help feeling that they're impractical and unnecessary. The pick-up bed is usually empty, and as it's also open to the elements in most cases, still isn't used in bad weather for hauling furniture or a new 55" flat screen TV. Far cheaper and more practical to hire a U-Haul van for those rare occasions when a big haulage space is required.

The covered pickup such as this one is slightly more useful, at the cost of hauling around yet more weight, converting the truck into a big station wagon (estate car). This one looks too long for the garage.

Shoes

2011-03-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

Bunions, corns, cracked heels, athlete's foot, hammer toes, in-grown toenails.

Modern shoes, and particularly women's high-heeled shoes, are sadly more a product of fashion than practicality or necessity, and are rather bad for feet, reducing them to clumping appendages rather than moving muscled pieces of nature's sculptured engineering. Who has not enjoyed the feeling of walking barefoot in grass or sand, and regretted having to don some hateful stiff-soled footwear afterwards? Or slipped off their day shoes and put on soft slippers with a sigh of relief?

Actually the problem goes further, as poor fitting or designed shoes affect balance and posture, and cramping feet inhibits development. You can read more about the medical research here , and the effects of shoes on your feet and the benefits of going barefoot, or as near as is practical, here, here, here, and here .

I once worked with a South African girl who spent her youth playing and running barefoot on a farm. As a consequence her toes were spaced out rather than curled and clumped together as toes become in shoes. She wore open sandals when she had to wear anything, and would slip those off under her desk at the first opportunity. However it's not really safe to walk around barefoot in a city environment, especially if one hasn't been accustomed to do so from birth, so some form of foot covering is still desireable - some alternative to traditional shoes that offers protection from cuts and scratches, but allows the foot to move as nature intended, for the toes to spread and grip, the arch to be supported by muscles, the ball and heel to work together as cushions, your toes to push you forward rather than the curve of your shoes.

It is in the slightly-Hippy nature of Oregon that an alternative to traditional shoes should be manufactured locally, and in the open-minded nature of Beth that she should learn about this and give it a try. A couple of months ago we visited Soft Star Shoes, about an hour's drive North in Corvallis. Here over 25 years ago they started making soft moccasin-style shoes for toddlers and children, and due to public demand expanded the range to include adult sizes. Beth bought one pair on the spot and ordered a second pair (which they didn't have in stock).

Behold the soft star shoes, which Beth has worn almost every day since. These moccasins are soft and pliable, allowing your feet to breathe and do more of the work of walking. It takes a week or so to adjust, but Beth stuck with it and now only wears normal shoes for gardening and in the woodshop, and then only to save her Soft Star Shoes from excessive wear and tear.

Where Beth leads I often follow, and yesterday I drove up to Corvallis and bought a pair for myself, ordering a second pair (with slightly thicker soles for trail walking) to be posted to me when ready.

Karate

2011-03-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

Since September last year Beth has been attending a twice-weekly hour-long class at the Eugene School of Karate, located perversely in Springfield, but only fifteen to twenty minutes drive from her office and our house.

Beth was first introduced to Karate when she, her mother and brother all started together when she was around ten, but she was on her own in the kids' class while her brother and mother were together in the adult class. As a result she dropped it before gaining any belts.

She started again in College, and gained a yellow belt in six months, but stopped at that point when academic studies and other interests took precedence.

She's been wanting to get back into Karate ever since, but the discomforts of travel and timing in London prevented her while we lived there. Her two options were a school in Southall which would have required leaving work early, or in King's Cross which would have resulted in getting home very late. The curse of trying to do extra-curricular activities in London is the combination of hanging around for the class to start while everybody arrives, and the discomfort of getting home again afterwards by public transport which can take a couple of hours on a bad day.

Karate has many different branches, but they all start with a White Belt for novices. Beth's previous Yellow Belt was in a different style so she started again at White in September. Here she is sparring with a regular partner, before getting her new Yellow Belt in December.

A couple of weeks ago I was available to go along with her and take some photos and video of her training, and Beth was able to use these to help with technique. This evening she taked the exam for her Blue Belt, but unfortunately I'll be at work and consequently unable to watch.

Beth's Woodshop

2011-03-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons we fell in love with this house was the extra double garage building it offered. The first owner was a builder, and when the plots were still being drawn up he managed to extend the property to allow space for the extra garage, which he then built around 2005. The extra building adds a little more privacy to our garden, and houses Beth's Woodshop below and a spare room above which houses my Playmobil collection.

Most Americans who want a woodshop or workshop, including our immediate neighbors and others in the subdivision, have to sacrifice their regular garage or some part of it. Our separate building keeps the noise and dust away from the main house, and frees up the regular garage to be... a garage.

With her usual premeditation and efficiency Beth started planning the shop layout from the day we moved in. Using cardboard from our packing she laid out the pattern of where machines would go for maximum access and ease of moving pieces from one machine to another. In the picture above there's just one machine in place, a lathe generously donated by our friend Mack, and driven home from Grand Junction in Colorado.

Beth added new machines as they became affordable (there are always sales and offers going on), checking out garage sales as well for possible additions, until the woodshop is now fully equipped. There's a drill press, joiner, planer, scrollsaw, tablesaw, band saw, mitre saw, grinding wheel, air filter, dust collector, the big lathe and a mini lathe, router, a belt/disc sander, oscillating spindle sander, shop vac, and two workbenches, and some shelves for storing wood pieces and projects.

All this makes it much easier to put together a quick project. One of Beth's early ones was this bottle balancer, a bit of fun and a conversation piece for dinner parties.

Of more practical use to us (as we don't drink wine) is this cap stand, made entirely from scrap wood in four hours. Beth looked one up on the internet and designed this from the pictures.

New Kenmore Dishwasher

2011-03-03T16:31:00.000-08:00

For the last year we've been living with a Frigidaire Ultraquiet 111 dishwasher, that came with the house and was no doubt the standard fit ten years ago when the house was built. It's never been impressive, occasionally leaving gritty deposits on glasses and plates, and it's hard to recognise when rinseaid needs to be topped up as there's no visible indicator. A small orange LED is always on no matter what the machine is doing. It may be that the fitted appliances in the house are starting to wear out (our neighbour's microwave gave out recently), or it may be that this was never a very good model. I read some online reviews and have never seen so many damning comments on an appliance before.

Thus we went to Sears to check out their dishwasher options. Beth, as usual, had done some prior online research, so it didn't take long to select a Kenmore Elite that suited our needs and pocket. Sears have regular sales, and we time our purchases to match. We bumped into our neighbours there, choosing a replacement microwave, which I helped fit last week. With the current sale prices , and a points reward from last year's purchases (chest freezer, mini-fridge, washer and dryer) it came to around $685 including installation and removal of the old dishwasher.

Today is the great installation day, and having been woken soon after six am by a playful young cat, I decided to uninstall the Frigidaire myself and get things ready. Two screws held the the dishwasher to the underside of the counter, and once those were removed it was easy to slide the old unit most of the way out of its niche. There are three connections for a dishwasher; electric, hot water, and waste water. The first was hard-wired which surprised me as in the UK I'd expected a plug and socket, but maybe the power required is too much for the regular ring main. It was easy to locate the specific trip fuse for the dishwasher (our fuses are tucked in a garage wall), and at last the light on the front went out. Then I needed to remove a baseplate from the front of the washer to access the mains wire, but once I could see what to do it was quickly disconnected.

The hoses for hot water and waste water were simpler, being connected under the sink. Hot water comes in via a steel wrapped hose which has a shut off valve and required a 5/8" wrench (spanner) to undo. The waste water goes out through a translucent white hose connected with jubilee clips (not sure what the US term is) each end. I removed both hoses and stored them in the sink for possible re-use.

At this point Beth came down ready for work and helped me carry the unit into the garage. I wanted to check whether we'd need to remove any doors in the utility room, but at a standard 24" width and depth there was plenty of room. A dishwasher is mostly an empty box, much lighter than a fridge or stove of the same dimensions would be, so we got it out without too much fuss, though there are no handholds at the back of the unit and Beth had a little trouble gripping it. A bit of water also spilled out on the kitchen floor as we moved it, but with some paper towels we were able to prevent it running into the dining room carpet.

An hour or so later the installer arrived with the new machine. He was very pleased to see the outstallation already done, and had the new machine in and connected up within an hour.

Our new dishwasher is a Kenmore Elite, with a better washing action, better water and energy efficiency, and no stupid light except when it's running. The old unit had a dial to activate but this one has buttons, one button to select standard cycle, and toggle buttons for the various options.

Doing a Blinding Job

2011-03-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

Our dining room has a 6' wide patio window which allows in a huge amount of light, but a little too much in the Summer, so we wanted to fit some blinds. There was already a track fitted, but the previous owner had taken the actual blinds with them, so I needed to find some new ones that would fit.

A quick trip to Jerry's, our local family-owned DIY superstore, and I found the variety I needed. These plastic blinds come in packets of 9, but oddly our blind track had 29 hooks, so I'd need 4 packets to do every hook. I decided to get 3 packets and leave one hook empty at each end instead. There were two plain versions at $9.99 a packet, white and alabaster, and a number of more fancy textured ones, but as the textures tripled the price again my decision was simple. White or Alabaster? White would show every speck of dust, so (with Beth's advice) I chose Alabaster.

The next decision was whether to have the blinds cut down. Jerry's offer this service onsite so you can have the blinds fit any length of window. The packet specified 84" long, but I'd already measured the drop on our blinds at a little over 82". Aha, but these blinds are not really 84" long, they're designed to fit an 84" window frame. No need to cut them down then, so I purchased 3 packets and tootled home.

After a little puzzlement over how to remove the blinds from the aluminium hook of the packaging, I got the blinds free and started hanging them. The job couldn't have been easier, just push each blind into the hook fitting until it clicks into place and onto the next one. In less than 5 minutes the job was finished.

Blinds fully closed

drawn but open

tucked away

Half drawn

And that was that. I should have done this a year ago, but I was expecting the job to be harder.

Kayaking III

2011-02-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

My third Kayak outing took me to the Fern Ridge Reservoir a few miles West of Eugene. This is a very quick and easy drive from our house, so despite some lousy weather I set out a few days ago to try it out.

By now I'd got my preparation routine sorted. With car in garage, put kayak on top and strap down (straps and roof-cushioning system stored in kayak when not required). Lifejacket and paddle in trunk. Get any snacks/refreshments ready in backpack. Squeeze into wetsuit, wetsocks, new speedo footwear, and put a loose button down shirt over the top (for disguise). Hop in car and drive to location carefully. The roof-securing system is excellent, but the straps do vibrate in the wind so there's an exciting buzzing noise at anything much above 20mph.

I was headed to Orchard Point recreation area on the NE corner of the reservoir, but was foiled briefly by a closed gate. However the next gate along was open, so I drove in and parked in my preferred position near a wooden footbridge. The ticket machine was sealed in black plastic bags but with no sign, so it was unclear whether parking was currently free or forbidden. I chose to believe the former, and unstrapped the kayak and started heaving it towards the water. Here my inexperience kicked in. I was about 50 yards from the water's edge, and hadn't realised that most of those 50 yards were sucking mud.

I struggled along for about 10 yards, then realised I would never cover the whole fifty without losing a shoe or myself to the mud spirits, so I changed direction and headed for some wooden landing stages instead. These were resting a couple of feet above the water's surface, but afforded me a solid surface from which to launch. The water was only inches deep however, so as soon as I sat in the kayak I was stuck on the mud again. A minute or two of adjustment, mostly putting my feet in the icy water and shoving the kayak forward, got me moving. Still in only a foot or two of water, my paddles were pushing on the muddy bottom as much as paddling, but eventually I cleared the bottom and was able to paddle normally.

My launching site was sheltered behind an island, and I could see slightly choppy waves where the wind was whipping across the lake from the south. I headed into that regardless, put the nose into the wind, and paddled away. The waves occasionally sloshed over the nose and dumped a cupful of water into my lap, and the paddles dripped further lakewater across my legs. I've already ordered a splashdeck to relieve this problem, but for now I had to accept some dampness. The waves here were nothign compared to sea waves, but they were a good test for my paddling skills and the kayak's wave-worthiness. The trick here is to time your paddle strokes with the waves so you aren't paddling thin air, and to keep the kayak headed into the waves for minimum splash.

I paddled out into the wind for a few minutes, then turned about (happily with no feeling of even a possibility of capsizing) and went back to the shelter of the island, then repeated the process. That was enough for today, as my hands were getting numb in the chilly wind and wet, so I headed back and looked for a place to land.

Viewed from the lake it was now obvious that the best place to launch and land was a slipway some 200 yards from where I had parked, so I paddled across to that, but found myself stuck on the bottom about 15 yards from the shore. Stepping gingerly into the water I dragged the kayak to dry land and a few feet up the slipway, then feeling a trifle foolish walked self-consciously back to the car. First off I wasn't sure if I should really be there at all, and a bright blue lifevest with blue and black wetsuit underneath does not make one blend in, but there was nobody around (or at least nobody came to shout at me), and I quickly got the car up to the top of the slipway and loaded up the kayak. Now with numb hands and frozen feet I sat in the car for a few minutes and guzzled some tomato soup which I had brought in a thermos flask, also letting the car engine warm up and blow some hot air onto me. A wetsuit is so snug that it's difficult to get out of in a dignified way, especially as one is naked underneath. You peel it off and it turns inside out while you do so, and part way through you are starkers with you feet still trapped in the suit. So far I have chosen to sit on a towel to drive home and change there, where a hot shower and dry fresh clothes complete the process.

Back home I discovered that my annual parking pass had arrived, so I am now displaying that on my windscreen, and can park at any of the Lane County Parking places without worrying about day fees. The lake is much more hospitable, and much fuller, in the Spring and Summer, so once we have the worst of the Winter behind us I will revisit the site for a longer exploration.

Kayaking II

2011-02-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

Eager to try my kayak on the Willamette River, on my next free day I loaded up the car and drove to Whitely Landing, a small carpark with river access just a couple of miles away. It was fairly cold, but a wetsuit keeps you warm and a lifevest on top cuts out most wind. The carpark was deserted (good), so I was able to unload the kayak and get ready without feeling judged. This was my first live attempt at getting the kayak onto and off the car for real, and it's not the most dignified activity.

After a little huffing and puffing the kayak was ready to get on the river.

Once out on the water it became obvious that I wouldn't be able to make much headway against the current. At this time of year there is a huge volume of water coming downriver, and as soon as I left shelter of the bank I started drifing downstream too. Paddling hard and staying as close to the right-hand bank as possible, I was able to get about 100 yards upstream. Here a tree leant out over the water, forcing me to go back towards the fast-flowing center of the river, and paddle as fast as I could, I couldn't make headway. As soon as I put the side of the kayak to the current I would start drifting downriver again.

Holding onto a branch I took this picture to show I'd at least been on the water. Then it was time to drift back down to the landing ramp.

Back on dry land, ready to pack up. When the water level is lower the river should run slower, and allow me to get past that tree and explore further upstream. An alternative is to have Beth drop me off upstream and paddle down to this landing ramp, having previously parked my car here so I can load up and drive home without Beth having to come and fetch me.

Apart from the Wilammete and McKenzie rivers with all their park and lauch locations, there is also the Fern Ridge Reservoir (aka Fern Ridge Lake) not far to our west, and this was destined to be the site of my next kayaking adventure.

Terwilliger Hot Spring

2011-02-27T09:16:00.000-08:00

There are several hot springs in Oregon, a reminder if one is needed that we have volcanic activity in the mountain ranges nearby. A couple are only an hour's drive from Eugene, so having a mid-week day free I set off to investigate Terwilliger (aka Cougar) Hot Spring.

The road for the last 200 yards is badly potholed. I hope my parking fee helps pay for some roadmending.

A Ranger Booth at the start of the trail leading to the pools is manned in the Summer, but empty in January. There is a $5 fee which goes towards maintaining the pools and parking lot (and the potholed road, please). When the Ranger isn't there you are supposed to put the money in an envelope and down a chute, but there were no envelopes either, so I wrote a description of my car and the date on a $5 bill and put that down the chute.

I had forewarning of potential nudity at the springs, having checked out the website. I packed swim trunks with my towel anyway. There were a couple of other vehicles in the car park, so I didn't expect to have the pool to myself.

The air is so clean at 2000 ft in the mountains that the trees are draped with moss and lichen. The path to the spring is much like any other trail through the woods, and maybe 1/4 mile long. As I approached the spring I could see water vapor rising through the trees, and a small changing hut. I could also see a young couple in their mid-20s bathing naked in the pool. Respecting their privacy I took one quick photo of the pools and then put my camera in my backpack.

There are a series of pools at Terwilliger, each lower one cooler than the one above, as water spills down the rocks. I stripped to my birthday suit and went initially to a lower pool, but it was no more than tepid so I soon came back up and joined the couple in the top pool.

This was my first experience of shared public nudity, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I said good morning but left it at that, and that was all the conversation as it turned out. The pool was slightly cooler than a bath might initially be run, but with hot water pouring in continuously from the spring at the top end, which came out of a small cave mouth. It was very relaxing, lying looking up at the vapor rising through the trees, absolute silence apart from running water and occasional birdsong. I hadn't brought any refreshments or entertainment, but the young couple had bottles of water which they occasionally sipped.

One problem with a natural spring is that there are bits of leaf, moss, and wood floating around in the pool, so every movement stirs up a cloud of debris which then settles on your body. This is at first fun, but makes it desireable to swish off the detritus before exiting the pool.

After maybe 3/4 of an hour I was wrinkling, and starting to feel light-headed as if I had spent too long in a sauna, so I called it a a day, got out and dried off quickly as it was chilly out of the water. While I was dressing a middle-aged man came along and joined the couple in the pool. I dressed rapidly before I cooled off, and still slightly damp, headed back to my car.

I stopped off at a couple of interesting places on the route back, including the nearby Cougar Dam.

This concrete tower, which reminded me of nothing more than a WW2 German bunker, is actually a temperature control station built in 2005, ensuring that warm water from the top of the reservoir is vented downstream. The reason for this is explained below.

Looking over Cougar Dam towards a small hydroelectric power station, a relatively green way Oregon can generate electricity.

At a small viewpoint next to the temperature station I learnt about the measures taken to ensure that water released downstream is at the correct temperature to encourage salmon. As you can see from the logo, the dam was built and is maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The reservoir level above the dam was much lower than I expected, and the highwater mark is shown by the twigs and branches that escaped the catch net.

Kayaking

2011-02-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

One of the big benefits of living in Oregon is the opportunity to get into some outdoor sports. Beth is keen on skiing and rock climbing, while my wish was to get into kayaking. I had a taste of kayaking many years ago through school expeditions, and have been thinking about trying it again since we arrived.

Seeing a kayak on sale at Costco was the tipping point. I'd been eyeing kayaks at the various sports shops in town, Dick's Sporting Goods, Sports Authority and others, but the Costco one offered several advantages to the beginner. Yesterday I bought a wetsuit ($100 Bodyglove) and lifevest ($40 Stearns), and looked again at the kayaks on offer, but nothing offered better features than the Costco option, so in the evening Beth and I went and picked one up.

For those into kayaking, it is an Equinox 10.4. This offers good tracking (the ability to go in a straight line) and stability (the ability not to tip over), and the package included a decent paddle and a roof mounting system into the bargain (total $330). The kayak weights about 50 lbs, just enough for me to be able to get it on the car roof alone, but not something I'd want to hump around all day.

We had to secure it to the roof of Beth's car in the dark, but the straps and padding worked and we got home safely. Another big benefit of living in Oregon is having a two-car garage where the canoe can be stored and still fit a car alongside. Beth usually parks outside unless it's likely to frost and I have a late start, in which case I park outside and she gets the garage. Thus we unstrapped the canoe and left it in the garage alongside Beth's Mercury.

In the morning after Beth had gone to work the kayak was calling to me, so I sprang into action. Another big benefit of living in our house is that we have a creek running right past our garden. We actually own the creek for about thirty yards, until it passes our property line and becomes our neighbor's creek.

I rapidly donned my wetsuit. I only put it on backwards once (in a test yesterday) before realising that the zip goes in the back. I haven't worn a wetsuit since cave diving in the Mendip Hills, so I think my mistake was forgiveable. Cave diving, by the way, is not something I intend to repeat, as being soaking wet, freezing cold, claustrophobic (it's hard not to think of the thousands of tons of rock waiting to fall on you from above) and in imminent danger of being plunged into utter darkness if your lamp fails is not my cup of tea.

I also have special wetsuit socks, and sacrificed a $5 pair of deckshops to the water gods as my footwear for kayaking. Wetsuits should really be called sweatsuits, at least when worn indoors. They are snug as a second skin, so any thought of wearing underclothes more bulky than y-fronts can be abandoned. With a lifevest on top it gets even warmer, so I was happy to get outside into the cool February air.

Passing out of the garage, across the driveway and lawn and out onto the creek bank, it was a bit of a scramble getting the kayak down into the creek but eventually I was sitting in it, wondering how to adjust the footrests. I probably should have done this on dry land. I got one about right and couldn't even feel the other, so off I paddled anyway. Sort of. The creek is certainly deep enough at present for kayaking, but tufts of grass, fallen branches and overhanging trees and bushes all reduce the navigable width, so while I was afloat and paddling I could rarely get in more than a couple of strokes before changing direction.

Nevertheless this proved a good initial test. I hadn't forgotten how to paddle, steer and even go backwards when necessary, and I paddled up and down happily for about half an hour. My progress downstream was arrested two houses down by overgrown weeds, and two houses upstream there was a fallen tree blocking the creek, but I had about 150 yards to play with, and I justified my technical trespass by collecting lost balls, plastic bottles, and other floating debris.

Eventually I got tired and backed my kayak as close as I could to my initial embarcation point. I couldn't get ashore without putting at least one foot in the water so my deck shoes got a soaking, but that was expected. Scrambling up the bank dragging the kayak was even more fun than scrambling down, especially with a cargo of jetsam and flotsam and a couple of pints of creekwater that had dribbled off the paddles and into the bilge via my legs.

Half an hour later I had showered and dressed, emailed Beth to let her know I hadn't drowned myself, and was able to admire my haul as I fetched bottle after ball out of the kayak. One bit struck me as odd, and then it was that I discovered a problem. The footrest I couldn't feel had broken off and turned itself into debris. the footrest slid in a track, and once beyond the end of the track (and there was no stop) it had snapped off completely.

I rang Costco, and after some discussion (and three different calls) I decided to take the kayak back and exchange it. To wait for a replacement part would stop me using the kayak in the meantime. I emailed Beth to let her know, as I firmly believe that a problem shared is a problem two people have got, strapped the kayak to my car roof and set off.

At Costco a couple of staff helped me bring in the old kayak and I got a shop card refund. Then immediately I got another kayak off the stack and wheeled that one out. This time nobody helped me, but having humped various kayaks around all day I was man enough for the task and got it to the car and out of the box. Then it started to rain. Then it started to hail. I secured all the padding and straps (getting quite good at this) and got in, just as the sun came out.

Back home the sun was still shining, and I was quite tempted to go straight off to the river and have another paddle, but decided I was probably more tired than I realised and it would be better to save that for another day.

Superbowl XLV

2011-02-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

Not every American watches the Superbowl and that's OK, but most do, and it's the biggest sporting event in the US Calendar, watched around the world, and the focus for many get-togethers.

This year thanks to WalMart refusing me the day off, I was unable to watch the game live as I have done most of the last 25 years, nor have a get-together. I have often stayed up late into the night, and on one memorable occasion ignored the pain of a broken toe for several hours before cycling to hospital and spending another several hours waiting to be given a couple of pain killer tablets and some toe strapping.

This was only my third Superbowl watched while in the USA, at least I able to get home and watch the recording before game was finished, and thus avoid all the Facebook updates telling me who won and spoiling my fun.

This year it was a close game, coming down to the last two minutes which many of Superbowls have failed to do. There is more supposed parity in the NFL (the governing body for Football in the US) than in the British Premier League, but the big game is still dominated by a handful of teams. You can share out the money equally, and try to share out the talented players equally, but you'll still get teams that draft better, coach better, and motivate better.

This year the game was won by the Green Bay Packers, the only team in the NFL owned by the fans rather than some billionaire businessman or the heir(s) of an original owner, so in a way it's a victory for the common man.

Censored for your Convenience

2011-01-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

In the UK we have a simple system of TV censorship called The Watershed. Programmes shown before 9pm are designated suitable for family viewing, while after 9pm children should not be permitted to watch without their parents' consent and supervision. Constant public feedback helps program makers and schedulers determine if they have judge things correctly.

In the US there is no such watershed. It would be impossible, since programmes shown at 9pm on the East Coast are showing at 6pm on the West Coast. Instead there is a blanket ban on all swear words which are censored out of broadcasts, regardless of when those broads are cast. Nudity is banned, sex scenes discreetly trimmed.

So far so good. Unfortunately the censoring is done very poorly, possibly because there's so much of it to do. Swearing is, after all, a part of life, distasteful though it may be. Sometimes a word will be bleeped out, sometimes cut out altogether (leaving an awkward sound gap), sometimes replaced with a "suitable alternative". This is all done so it is nearly always possible to recognise the original word and mentally replace it. The cuts and beeps are so obvious that it draws more attention to the censored word than leaving it in.

WARNING: THE PARAGRAPH IN RED CONTAINS A SWEAR WORD

AND GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE

IF THIS IS NOT TO YOUR TASTE, PLEASE SKIP TO THE ASTERISK

Context doesn't matter. I'm currently watching a gory horror movie. The opening scene shows a man being run over; then the driver rolls the car wheel onto the victim's chest until his ribs break. A few minutes later the driver carries the victim's severed head into his "workshop", with other severed and bloody heads are stacked everywhere you look. Nasty stuff, but not apparently as disturbing to children as the word "shit" which is beeped out a few moments later...

* sweartime over

It all seems a bit silly to censor in such circumstances, though I understand that American parents don't want their kids learning swear words off the TV. Yet surely the children's viewing should be determined by the parents, not the broadcasters? I can only assume that blanket censorship is done to take the burden of parenting away from the actual parents.

It would make more sense to me to have the censoring option left to the discretion of the viewer, so you could block channels and programmes that you do not want your children to watch, surely not impossible with current technology, or simply not let them watch TV unsupervised.

Martin Roofer King Day

2011-01-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago we noticed some dirty streaks running down the siding of the house inside our porch, and determined to investigate as soon as we could. Today we were both home, as Beth gets Martin Luther King Jr. Day off as a Federal Holiday and I don't start my shift at WalMart until 5pm, so the time was ripe.

Having conquered the heights of Sweetwater Mountain it is obligatory to strike The Titanic Pose before further work can commence.

The problem was caused (we think) by an excessive buildup of dirt under one of the eaves. All the rain falling on the roof over the bedroom (immediately under my right hand in the photo) runs into a gutter which drains at one end onto the roof below, running down further into another gutter and finally into a downpipe. Because this section of roof is overhung by the eaves it does not get much direct rainfall, so all the tiny specks of dirt washing down had built up over time. You couldn't grow tomatoes in it, but there was plenty of soil that needed brushing and washing away into the gutter, and then scooshing with a hose to clear the gutters. Supposedly the previous owner had been on the roof back in April, but I don't think he could have cleaned this section at that time, as this seemed more like ten years' soil than ten months.

The skylight over our loft had been getting dirty too, so I gave that a scrub.

The accumulated dirt cleared away, it was time to dust the ridges with Moss-B-Gone. The idea is that the powder washes down both sides and kills any mossy growth, which in turn washes away in subsequent rain. The roof material is a composite and has a rough texture, so it is not nearly as treacherous or breakable as a tile or slate roof.

Nonetheless you will note that I stayed on the side of the roof that does not offer a juicy 30 foot drop onto concrete to the careless or slippery-footed. It had been warm and dry when we started, but a light rain began as I progressed. I checked the various chimneys and roof vents while I was up there, as occasionally in a high wind one of them rattles. We shall soon hear if my ministrations have made any difference.

My Moss-B-Gone depleted, there was time to strike one more manly pose before returning to ground level. Hopefully the scrubbing and washing will have stopped the dirty dribbles, and when we have a warmer drier day in the Summer I'll go up again to check, and take some photos from the roof. In the meantime I feel I have earned a cup of tea and some biscuits.

Go Ducks!

2011-01-10T10:42:00.000-08:00

A quick shout for my local college team the Oregon Ducks, who play their BCS Title Bowl game later today against Auburn. This is a big deal, the Superbowl of College Football, and I booked the day off work to ensure I can watch the whole game live.

Above is my collection of Ducks T-Shirts, lying on my Ducks snuggie. I forgot to put in my Ducks lei, a necklace made from hazelnuts painted alternately yellow and green with the yellow ones having the Oregon O on them in green, and my Ducks Baseball cap, but I'm wearing them today, plus the t-shirt on the bottom left. If the Ducks play in white tonight I'll switch to the bottom right t-shirt.

As you can see from my spread, there are a LOT of Oregon t-shirt designs available. The official colors are green and yellow, but the Ducks are sponsored by Nike and have a wide variety of uniforms, not merely a white and a colored (green) strip, but also black, white with carbon numbers, and yellow, and that's just the shirts. For greater detail on the following link to see the 160 uniform variations possible - assuming they don't add more!

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2009/09/oregon_ducks_uniforms_what_sho_2.html

Foreclosures in Lane County

2011-01-03T12:02:00.000-08:00

A few streets east of us, this house (which we've dubbed the Clown House) exemplifies the anger and frustration that grips many ex-homeowners in Eugene. Maybe since we moved to Eugene we are seeing things with fresh eyes, or maybe because we bought and sold a house last year, we are very aware of houses going up for sale in the area, and pick up fliers about houses that draw our interest.

There seem to be more houses for sale than we might expect, and some are for sale due to foreclosures. The irony is that the dispossessed and evicted residents, pushed out by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other major mortgage lenders, are usually in trouble due to unemployment, indirectly caused by the dubious business practises of the past decade of...Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So the people whose lives are being destroyed doubly blame these institutions for their plight, first for costing them their jobs and then for taking their houses. Meanwhile the government bailout of the FMs are likely to cost the US taxpayer $154 billion.

Back to the Clown House, we first noticed it before the clown face was painted, and it stuck out as the "undesireable neighbour" due to the litter in the garden, the unkempt grass, and the dark and dingy aspect of the house itself. Maybe the owners were already under the hammer and awaiting eviction. The house now stands empty as you see it, dragging down the value of any house in the neighbourhood. A select band of Realtors and their agents have the task of surveying such properties, cleaning them out, and getting them back into a saleable condition. It's a messy job as the houses have often been vandalised by their former owners, but according to a recent article in the Register-Guard, the workers are glad to still have a job. Many people don't.

Tuesday Night Football !?!

2010-12-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

This week for the first time since 1946 an NFL game was played on a Tuesday night. The scheduled Sunday Night game between my Philadelphia Eagles and the Minnesota Vikings was postponed due to severe snow storms on the East coast, and concerns over crowd safety, not at the stadium (though it is open to the elements) but on their journeys to and from the game. As a result I'm typing and watching the game recorded last night while I was working.

Since Black Friday it's felt like a War Zone at WalMart with the sales kicking off, and Christmas shoppers hitting us from every angle since. On several occasions I'd had one customer at the till with two or more queuing behind them, the phone ringing and a call already on hold, and more customers trying to attract my attention from behind me. The first two days following Christmas were just as busy with people returning unwanted gifts and spending their Christmas gift cards and money, while we tried to serve customers while simultaneously dealing with carts full of returns and restocking the shelves with new merchandise. On Monday we had the added fun of setting the new modules for DVDs, Blu-Rays and games, which requires moving almost every film and game title in the store, approximately 1500 titles.

Yesterday it was marginally quieter as many people returned to work, but suddenly the store turned into a Ghost Town around 8pm. I think there might actually have been more staff in the building than customers, and I had the luxury of doing the tasks of cleaning and clearing the decks without being interrupted every 15 seconds. This sudden quietude may have been due to the Football game, or might just have been a return to normalcy; I'm hoping the latter. We've also had two new associates assigned to the Electronics team to ease the burden, though one is currently signed off work with two sprained wrists after falling downstairs so I haven't met her yet. There were no evening truck deliveries yesterday either, so the overnight backroom staff were tasked with emptying many bins to see what could be stocked to the shelves.

I have a short shift today and a day off tomorrow, before a couple of lighter weeks scheduled. I have yet to see if my reduced hours will continue, or are a January blip. I aready have days booked off to watch the Ducks Bowl game on 10th January and the Superbowl in early February.

Critters

2010-12-29T10:55:00.000-08:00

A number of creatures are seeking out the warmth of our house this winter. A couple of weeks ago Beth found this lizard snuggled up in our cat litterbox. The cats don't use the litter often as they prefer to go al fresco, so Eddie Lizard probably found its own way in.

A week or so later we found this salamander on our front drive. I moved it to the lawn, but it came back the next evening. It enjoyed the warmth from my hands and got quite lively before we put it out by the creek in back.

Brother Snuggie

2010-12-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

Even our cosy house can feel chilly at times and it take time (and money) to heat up, so while watching TV we both make occasional use of blankets, electric and otherwise. On a recent trip to Fred Meyer I invested ~$15 in a Snuggie and matching Snuggie Boots.

Not the color I would have chosen given a choice, but they were on sale and all in this color. The various box pictures show people cuddled up reading, watching TV, or playing board games, and even suggests you could take them to an outdoor sporting event.

However, as the back is completely open, I think this last is a tad unlikely. No point having a toasty front if your back is still exposed to the inclement elements.

The Snuggie is in fact just a 6' x 3' rectangular blanket with arms sewn in. Mine is made from microfleece material. However it is very cosy, and the boots are warmer than slippers as they keep my ankles warm.

Griswoldry Part 2 - The Excess

2010-12-23T11:34:00.000-08:00

Nodding Polar Bear, and illuminated candy canes. People hang candy cane on their trees here in the US, but the habit has not fully caught on in the UK. Any that remain uneated (i.e. all of them in our house) can be reused next year.

Santa or possibly snowman, with sleigh and reindeer.

Herd of reindeer grazing in a Christmas tree forest.

Single Reindeer, with illuminated snowmen in back.

Motorised 6' inflated snowglobe.

Motorised inflated reindeer alternately stuffing Santa down the chimney and pulling him out.

Countdown clock with Snowman.

This forms the centerpiece to a huge display with lights flashing in time to jingly christmas tunes.

Our Tree.

A Merry Christmas to all my readers!

Griswoldry

2010-12-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

For sometime my family have referred to excessive private Christmas light displays as Griswoldry, after the Griswolds Christmas Vacation movie. In the UK it's hard to put up an exterior Christmas display on most houses as there are no provisions made for external electric hookups, so anyone who does has gone to a lot of trouble, but in the US most houses come with external sockets purely for Xmas lights.

Here's our house, with 400 white LED lights, in four sets of 100 dangling icicles. That may sounds like a lot but actually it's restained, as you might expect from an Englishman surrounded by American excesses. The lights are plugged into two exterior sockets, 2 sets coming from right to left across the garage, 2 sets from left to right across the porch, with a switch in the garage controlling everything. We switch them on from dark until bedtime. There are more plug points, and given a few hours up a long ladder it would be easy to add more lights across the upper eaves, as some of our neighbors have. For our first year in the house this, plus a tree inside (now installed, 6-7ft with 400 colored lights), is enough.

The Ghost of Christmas Present, relaxing in a way only he seems to understand.

These houses are all within walking distance of ours. So far so good. Lights on the eaves, an occasional tree or bush in the front garden light with a string or net of LED lights. Maybe a wreath, star or other display in a window or on the front wall of the house. Next time we will move onto some more... exuberant... offerings.

Cell Phones

2010-12-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

Americans love their cell phones (mobile phones to my British readers). At least I assume they must, or they wouldn't be prepared to lock themselves into 2-year contracts at $60-80 a month per phone in order to possess one. Bought without a 2-year contract attached, some phones cost up to $700.

Of course cell phones these days may also incorporate cameras (but not very good ones), MP3 players (but not very good ones), radios (but not very good ones), and GPS satellite navigation systems (but not very good ones), internet access (but not very good access). They may also include (or allow you to purchase) applications (apps) to do a myriad of other things from telling you the weather to translating into Spanish.

I don't require any those things in my phone as I already have a digital camera, iPod, radio, Garmin GPS, and broadband access (in the house). I just want to be able to talk and occasionally text, so my current phone is the cheapest lightest Pay-as-you-Go phone Beth could find for me. which I mostly use as a portable alarm clock.

I've owned four different mobile phones in my life. The first was a Philips, and I signed up with Orange (on my eldest brother's advice) as it was the only Pay-as-you-Go system that didn't steal my unused minutes at the end of each "billing" period. You bought minutes, and used them until you ran out, when you bought some more. In the UK then (and quite possibly now) you got charged less for calls on the same network, so I soon gave the Philips to my parents (they used it for years) and switched to a Nokia 3210, which was very nice but didn't ring very loudly and had no vibrate alarm, so I missed calls on the rare occasions I ever got one. You could write your own ringtone using Nokio shorthand, a feature I made great use of, and miss. I had that phone for years until I lost it (it turned up years later in the box of a boardgame), and replaced it with the closest thing I couild find, another Nokia, with vibrate and a louder ring. I used that until I left the UK, and I was still on only my second minutes top-up in years.

The phone and "non-contract" contract Beth found for me here is another Nokia, with service provided by T-Mobile. I paid $20 for the phone and an initial $100 for airtime, which gave me 1 year of service without further topping up and approximately 1000 minutes. Note that 1000 minutes is considered miserly by some users, and is the minimum offered by some non-contract providers for a month. A month. I used 300 minutes (combined talk and text charges) in a year.

I've just topped up my phone minutes, not because I needed more minutes but because my year's service was going to end, and added $10. That extends my coverage for another year, and leaves me $80 airtime (about 700 minutes)

On our arrival in Eugene just over a year ago Beth chose to get a Pay-as-you-Go through Fred Meyer, because when we first arrived we bought a lot of stuff there (including our kitchen table & chairs and our reclining chairs), and that gave her loads of free minutes. Unfortunately the service provider was Sprint, and their coverage didn't quite reach our Sweetwater house, limiting the usefulness of the phone, so Beth recently bought a new phone and switched to T-Mobil. That is the third phone she has ever owned.

I should also mention that in the US, in some mis-directed Victorian Throwback way that I still can't quite fathom, you are charged for both calls you make and calls you receive. In the UK it is a long established tradition that the person who intiates a call pays for it. Quite how the mighty US public (and the Govermnet that protects them against big business bullies) allowed the phone giants to inflict this scam is a mystery, but the result is that when you receive a "junk mail" phone call, it is using up your precious airtime, and families who call each other a lot (presumably because they don't meet at any time) use up their minutes at double the rate.

1st Anniversary

2010-12-09T08:10:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 1st Anniversary of our arrival on US soil and my becoming a legal resident of the United States of America, with all the legal rights to live and work that entails.

It's been an unusual and fun year, and Beth and I are greatly enjoying our life in Eugene. There are lots of things we haven't done yet (e.g. skiing, kayaking) that we still intend to do, mostly held back until we had full health insurance (via Beth's job), but we have plenty of time.

Yesterday I had my annual evaluation at WalMart, and my overall rating of "Exceeds Expectations" results in a 50c an hour payrise starting from 2nd Feb 2011, which will be the anniversary of my start at WalMart, and also our 5th wedding anniversary. 50c may not sound a lot, but it converts to $1,000 a year, a bigger payrise than I ever got year on year in my old London job, and will be very welcome. It's also good to know that I'm doing all the right things as far as management are concerned, and that my efforts have been noticed.

Yesterday President Obama backed down to the Republicans and, as part of a deal to extend unemployment benefits, agreed to retain the "Tax Cuts for the Insanely Wealthy" enacted by Bush in 2001 and 2003. America is wallowing in debt and needs to start to think about paying off some of its creditors, and sadly this isn't going to help. It is astonishing to me that a handful of super-wealthy Republicans can hold the country to ransom like this and get away with it, convincing their supporters that millions retained privately will somehow trickle down into the pockets of the poor and create more jobs. Yup, just like it hasn't been doing for the last 8-10 years. On a more positive note, a number of multi-Billionaires are pledging to give away large chunks of their fortunes to Charities. Once you've got a certain amount of ready cash at your fingertips, multiplying iteself through financial investments, any more is superfluous, and people such as Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) have the wisdom to realise that they can shake out a few millions in loose change and not feel one jot poorer. I applaud their generous actions, and am sure they sleep more soundly at night.

There is a continuing slow upswing in retail sales, as many people, who have for a couple of years managed to tighten their belts, are now feeling like spending more on life's little luxuries. Of course a retail upswing is good for the country, but it's a shame that people have forgotten that saving a little every month is better than spending every last cent.

In another week I will need to add some minutes to my pre-paid cell phone. A year ago, on Beth's advice, I bought a $20 phone and $100 of calling time. I still have $70 of calling time unused, which I can carry over by adding $10 more, and extend my service another 3 months. In comparison one of my colleagues spends $80 a month on her contract phone plan, and many WalMart customers buy a monthly calling card for $30-$45 and think they are being parsimonious. I guess I'm just not a phone person.

Black Friday

2010-11-30T07:57:00.000-08:00

Arriving at 11:50pm to start my Black Friday shift, I was unable to park anywhere near my usual location, and ended up in a far flung lot usually occupied by RVs. I've never seen the carpark so full; clearly this was not going to be a normal day's work.

I walked in chatting with another employee who had similarly parked, and passing a line of people queuing inside the door. The store is open 24 hours, so there was no need for them to queue, but I needed to clock in and meet my supervisor, so I passed on. My shift had originally been scheduled for a 2am start, but a couple of days earlier it was changed (verbally) to midnight, along with all the other 2am starts. That suited me as I would be out earlier, and I wasn't going to get any rest between midnight and 2am anyway. Management had failed to update our shifts on the timeclock, so it took ten times longer than usual to clock in. I then joined the rest of the midnight starters in a brief meeting, and my "A Team" set off for our queue line.

Our WalMart is open 24 hours, so in order to try to calm things down some sales items weren't available until later in the day, 5am in the case of the Electronics department. We also had a dozen or so "Hot Items", for which people would have to queue, and my assignment was the first hot item, which turned out to be a 32" Emerson HDTV, on sale for $198. Customers were already waiting when we set up the queue start point, and within five minutes we had thirty people lined up waiting. They rapidly and calmly passed along to the queue area, which was between two freezer units of ice cream and frozen dinners. My duty was to ensure people didn't skip across some caution tape and try to queue jump.

It soon became clear that I had very little to do. A new person would join the line every few minutes, but I was able to inform people that we had 82 TVs, so everyone so far in line would get theirs, and there was no need for concern. In fact we would allow up to six TV sets to a person, and my supervisor passed along the line handing out queue tickets with a number circled to indicate how many TVs everyone wanted. Some customers who had come in teams were able to release all but one queueholder, and go shopping elsewhere. A few aisles up from me, within sight but outside of speaking distance, the "B Team" were having a quieter time. Their item was a 32" Samsung TV at $328, and it was clear that most people prefer price over quality, because they only had four people in their queue. An Emerson is an OK TV, but a cursory examination of the TVs on offer shows anyone who cares that they occupy the lower end of the spectrum.

Thus passed the first quarter of my shift. One member of our team from the night crew (who start at ten) had to leave around 1:30am for their lunch break, and I moved further up the line to maintain order. Nobody was misbehaving and I chatted amiably with several customers, waiting for 2am when we would hand out wristbands and disperse the queue. 2am arrived, we handed out wristbands, the queue dispersed, and I was free to take a short break. I looked in briefly on my colleagues in Electronics, where it had been two hours of near-chaos. Several PDQs (temporary display units) had been set up with DVDs and Blu-Rays at bargain prices, but due to the average shopper's inability to put an item back where they found it if they decide not to purchase, the DVDs were wandering everywhere. I spent a few minutes trying to zone (i.e. tidy up), but I was fighting the tide, and having learnt from King Cnut I decided to retreat to the relative calm of the break room.

Returning to my station, we had the task of handing out the remaining wristbands (we had plenty left) to any latecomers, and guarding several pallets of Emerson TVs which were wheeled out at about 3am ready for distribution to the customers. As nobody else was stepping up to the plate I went back to guard the TVs. This was the most boring part of the day for me, as the TVs were not going anywhere and I had nobody to talk to, apart from the odd shopper who thought that 3am on Black Friday was the perfect time to buy bananas. I was relieved about 4:20am so I could take my 1/2 hour lunch break and be ready for the handout to start at 5am. Normally we get an hour (off the clock) for lunch, but this time it was shortened, so I stayed in the break room and chatted with colleagues about our day so far. I learnt that the C Team had had a much harder time. Their item was a laptop computer for around $200, and they had less than 20 to allocate, so many customers were disappointed. Moreover, some of these were the people I had seen queuing, who thought (had been told?) they had to wait for a map before progressing to their chosen item. There was a general ruckus, and Management had to come mob-handed and sort it out.

5am, and the time came to hand out the TVs. I alternated with my supervisor cutting off wristbands with blunt-nosed scizzors, and a team of three manouvered the TVs off the pallets and into people's shopping carts. I tried to ensude they put them in with the UPC and serial number visible for the cashiers to scan. A few people had not brought a cart (d'uh), or only one and needed a second, but we had prepared for that by lining up a few spares, so no worries. As an aside, if you go to a WalMart to buy a TV, think about how that TV is going to exit the store, get to, and fit into your vehicle. It is astounding how many people don't.

In the queue for TV pickup were a few people who had not got wristbands so we had to turn them away, with the understanding that if by 6:30am any TVs were unclaimed by wristbandees, they were up for grabs again. I could not fully blame these latecomers, as the wristband system was not widely explained to customers (I never saw a poster or other information source except a sheet I had been given at a meeting several weeks earlier), while TV adverts had been proclaiming a 5am start for the Electronics sale. Most of these people accepted that they would have to wait quietly, but one especially obnoxious lady insisted she was first in the queue, marched up to the front of the queueing area, partly blocking the aisle for others, and then yammered on about how she was first. She wasn't as it happens, and the man who was naturally came forward and got in front of her, and they went at it for a while. We more or less left them to it, and the matter resolved itself without fisticuffs.

We continued to hand out TVs to wristbandees, while the half a dozen non-wristbandees stood waiting in the hopes of a TV. We only had seven or eight left to allocate by this time, and as there were already four other staff present I suggested to my supervisor that I should return to my department to help my colleagues there, and she concurred. Thus I missed the denouement, but learnt later that enough people with wristbands failed to return that everyone present when I left got a TV, so that was lucky. Why anyone would queue for a wristband and NOT come back for the TV is beyond me, but there you go.

Back on my home turf in Electronics, my Department Manager was now present so I reported to her for orders. My first task was to get some more store gift cards which were running low. As part of the sale many items were offering a gift card with the purchase (e.g. an 8GB iPod Touch, normally $225, was still $225 but now came with a $50 gift card. Thus we keep the money in store). I zoomed up to the front registers, collected about 200 gift cards, and took them back to our registers. My next task was to help TV purchasers at the TV Wall, and we had a particular 32" Vizio TV that everyone was asking for. After my boss and I sold six in quick succession, alternately serving customers, a backroom colleage suggested we bring out the whole pallet and set it on the floor, so after checking with management I did just that, with a bit of rearrangement of the existing displays.

Time for my last break, and then to plunge into the remainder of my shift. Having had about two hours sleep in the last 26 hours, and 13 hours worked of the last 21, this passed in an exhausted blur fuelled mostly by adrenaline. One lady bought a 37" Vizio TV that she could have had the following day for $130 less, as we had another sale coming (more on that below), but as she was leaving the area she couldn't wait. I helped her get it into her car (we do this with the bigger TVs and more fragile customers) and she offered me a $5 tip which I refused gently, asking her to give it to charity. I'm not sure if WalMart have a policy against tips but they probably do. That trip to the parking lot gave me a chance for a breath of fresh air and to see some daylight, and it took about 20 minutes to complete the sale. At 9am I bid my colleagues a cheery and weary farewell, and headed home for a shower and couple of hours sleep.

Now, my apologies to people who have been waiting for this report, but my Black Friday was followed by a 7am start on Grey Saturday (a second smaller sale for those who missed Black Friday), another 7am start on Off-White Sunday, and a 10am start on Almost Normal Monday, all full 8-hour shifts, so I haven't had much time or energy for my blog. Shortly before I left work at 7pm yesterday things still weren't 100% straight after BF, and I was informed that the Regional Manager would be coming round Tuesday for a walk round and we had to have everything shop shape. We had been trying to get straight since Saturday morning, but even Monday was far busier with customers than usual, and it's the day we have to reset a number of DVD, Blu-Ray and games modules ready for new titles that come out at Midnight. When it comes to customer service vs. anything else we are supposed to do, customer service always comes first, even if I'm on my hands and knees trying to rescue DVDs that have fallen behind the stacks and the enquiry is for some obscure film that hasn't been seen by more than three people not directly involved in its production. ahem.

I'll be in again this evening, my 6th consecutive day with a shift, but by then the regional visit will be over, and Tuesday evenings are not known for their extreme liveliness.

Black Friday, by the way, is NOT the official WalMart term for this day of shopping madness, but it is the name everyone uses, shoppers and staff, across the country. It refers to the fact that most shopping occurs before sunrise, and is not in any way a racial slur, though some people think that the word Black used in any context is inherently bad. It isn't. WalMart officially referred to this day as "The Event", but that term is neither especially descriptive nor understood, nor is this term passed on to the customers and is thus inevitably ignored.

Tea

2010-11-25T10:08:00.000-08:00

Late April 2004

A young man is wandering the hallways of O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. It is his first visit to the USA. After a long flight, and further period processing through immigration, he is very thirsty and desperate for a cup of tea in the fast-vanishing minutes before boarding another flight to Seattle. He is about to discover two inconvenient truths.

1) Sales Tax* messes up every retail purchase for someone used to paying the price shown on an item.
2) Americans don't understand tea.

I was that young man.

As soon as possible after landing in Seattle and meeting up with Beth, I bought a small travel kettle at a Target store. I already had my own teabags in my suitcase, so for the rest of that trip and further visits over the next five years, with Beth passing through the stages of friend, girlfriend, fiance and eventually wife, I was able to brew my own tea, though slowly as the travel kettle would take many minutes to boil. Milk was occasionally a problem, as pints are nearly unheard of, quarts and gallons being the more usual US measure. Just once I was able to get a 1/4 pint of skimmed milk at McDonalds. Most US motels and hotels have a mini-fridge, but I'd usually have to discard unused milk in the morning and get a fresh carton the next evening when we were on roadtrips.

Fast forward to Autumn 2009, and I'm preparing for a permanent move to the US, so I stock up on Typhoo Teabags from the local Pound Store, at 1p a bag. I buy about 25 GBP of tea, most going in our shipped supplies, and enough packed in my suitcase to last until the shipping arrives. It's not that you can't buy tea in the US, but it is more expensive, presumably due to some form of tax. I calculated that at my usual rate of use, I'd have about six months supply, and then I'd have to fall back on the local offerings.

Oops. Due to a slight miscalculation, or maybe a reduction in my tea drinking, I still have about 1,000 bags remaining which are too stale to make a good cuppa. These are how I packed them for shipping, 50 bags in a foil wrap, each in a separate ziplock bag.

So now I have to buy tea in the US, and I've discovered the option most similar to my UK preference. These retail at around $2.50 a box of 80.

* There is no Sales Tax in Oregon.

Beth's Bench

2010-11-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

For several weeks Beth has been attending a woodworking class, and a couple of days ago she brough home her finished project.

We wanted a small bench to put in the hallway, so we had something to sit on while putting on or taking off shoes and boots. We worked out the dimensions, and Beth had to make small adjustments to the original plan.

The bench also has a storage compartment inside, useful for gloves and scarves.

We still need to oil the wood to seal it, and it will darken over time through exposure to sunlight.

Winterizing

2010-11-19T10:57:00.000-08:00

Eugene is not subject to the extremes of cold and snow that can be found further north in the US, or indeed higher in the hills and mountains nearby, but it's as well to be prepared for the occasional freeze, and this winter is predicted to be a cold one.

Thus yesterday my neighbour Robert showed me how to cut off the water supply to our garden sprinklers, and drain down the system.

At the front corner of every property in the neighbourhood is a clutch of service points. I can't call them manhole covers because they're too small for a man.

The larger cover reveals the mains cut off for water supply to the whole house, with a yellow handle, and the water meter.

Last year while still in London Beth and I saw an unoccupied house for sale or rent at the corner of my parents' road which had flooded, with a huge icicle down the side of the house, and water cascading down the stairs (we looked through the letterbox). Luckily we were able to shut off the mains water from outside to prevent further flooding and inform the Estate Agency responsible for the property, but a lot of damage had already been done.

The next cover reveals the cutoff for the garden sprinkler system, and two one-way valves to prevent backflow of water into the mains system. These valves are checked annually to ensure they care still functioning. The tap at the top of the white pipe drains down the system. These are sometimes tucked underground, but ours also acts as a hose connection point.

Soil has washed down into these and other water service holes, so I need to dig them clean at some point. In addition to cutting off the water, we should stuff the holes with cloth or other insulation. Our outside taps we have already covered with specially designed expanded polystyrene boxes, which can be bought at any gardening outlet for a couple of dollars.

Another task we need to tackle is clearing moss off the roof, especially the north facing areas. This is the roof of the toolshed, and you can see the moss collecting at the joints of the composite tiling. The tile is 20-year grade and the roof only 10 years old, but it is wise to keep it in good condition with bi-annual moss clearing. A lot of houses under tall trees have a buildup of leaves and twigs on their roofs, so we're lucky to have no tall trees near the house.

Near the top right of the last photo you might just make out a grey box, which is another outside electric point. This one is placed ready for Christmas lights to be strung round the porch, and though I don't want to go into massive Griswoldry, I think we'll have some outside lights this year.

A Visit to Springfield Museum

2010-11-18T11:50:00.000-08:00

Springfield is Eugene's smaller neighbor, with about 1/3 the population. Nowadays Eugene-Springfield forms one big metropolis, and the two cities share some amenities, but there is a long-standing rivalry between the two, as I discovered during my visit.

Eugene's first settler was Eugene Skinner who built his cabin on the West side of the Willamette in 1846 near what became known as Skinner's Butte, while Elias Briggs built his cabin on the East side of the Willamette river in 1848, next to a natural spring in a field, and so the town that grew up round his plot became Springfield.

Eugene was founded in 1862, when the town plan was laid out and the roads paved (I think), with Skinner and several other landowners donating land to form the city center, which is now the Downtown area. Springfield was not paved until 1872, and incorporated in 1885 when their first Mayor, Albert Walker, a local blacksmith, was elected.

In 1871 the Oregon and California Railroad wanted to lay their tracks through the Willamette Valley, and a group of Eugene businessmen allegedly bribed the leading financier to put the rails on their side of the river. The increased connectivity caused Eugene to begin to grow faster, and Springfield to become a slight backwater.

Nevertheless Springfield continued to prosper in a slightly sleepy way, with lumber being the main industry, employing half the town's male population by 1911. Hazelnuts (known locally as Filberts) were another major industry, and 98% of the USA's homegrown hazelnuts are still grown here in the Willamette valley.

The main downtown streets in Springfield were paved in 1872, with Main street running East/West. Showing a shocking lack of imagination, the streets to the north were labelled A Street, B Street, C street etc, and to the south, South A Street, South B street etc. The road nearest the river were Water Street, Garden Street and Mill Street, and then once again imagination flagged and they went with 2nd Street, 3rd street etc numbering from West to East. etc.

A modern map of Downtown Springfield shows this mostly unchanged, with alleys running East-West across the blocks to serve the backdoors of businesses, just as they did in 1872. Looking at a Google Map, 2nd and 3rd Street have become Pioneer Parkway West and East for most of their length, while the street numbers to the East now reach 79th Street. South A Street and its companions are much diminished, with most development pushing to the North and East of Downtown. The Western edge of Springfield is fixed by the river and the I5 Interstate which separates it from Eugene.

Returning to our history lesson, by 1911 half the City was working for the Booth-Kelly lumber mill, so it was an unparalleled tragedy when it burned to the ground. This could have destroyed the City, but the company swiftly rebuilt the mill, and Springfield survived.

Between 1908 and 1913 a major contribution to the city's coffers was sale of alcohol. Eugene went "dry" in 1908, so Eugenians travelled to Springfield, often on the trains that now ran there, to get their cheers. There were more bars in Springfield than churches for a few years, until in 1913 Springfield also went dry. I can only assume that the city was getting a bad reputation, or maybe too much property damage, to continue acting as Eugene's nightclub.

In the 1920s those sharp practising Eugenians pulled another fast one when they sold a plot of land to become a Southern Pacific train terminal for $1 - it had cost local businessmen $250,000. This pretty much killed Junction City to the North of Eugene, which had named iteself for the rail junction it never got, and Springfieldians were't too chipper about it either.

Sprignfield has retained a degree of that small town feel that Eugene has mostly lost, and during a walk along Main Street in the Fall sunshine I came across several Antique and Junk shops, remeniscent of Hungerford in Berkshire. Springfield has its own shopping Mall, the Gateway Mall, and several large bog box stores, all nestled against the I5 to grab passing trade, but it retains a certain charm that Eugene's Downtown area is currently struggling to regain.

Springfield has one great claim to fame - it is the (unofficial) home of The Simpsons.

The Fog

2010-11-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

Fog is a very common event in Eugene during the damper months, and more often than not over the last few weeks we've woken to 100 yard visibility. This burns off if as the sun gets to it, usually between 10am and 1pm, and we have a few golden hours before darkness falls and the fog starts to enclose us again.

This picture taken on a joint cycle ride shows some of the gorgeous colors of the trees in Fall. The fallen leaves, as in London, can become a nuisance and block gutters and drains, so residents are encouraged to rake them up or use leaf blowers to assemble them in piles, which are collected by the city at intervals. Luckily we don't get high winds often, so the piles of damp leaves have mostly remained piles.

Two other features of a walk or cycle ride in the morning are the spider webs and the fungi. The spiders are busy overnight stringing their webs everywhere on trees and bushes, and especially on cars and trucks parked under the trees. We have several large and handsome webs hanging off lamps and eaves, and the spiders are encouraged to remain outside.

This mushroom (or is it a toadstool?) provides another splash of color a couple of houses along from us, and I've taken pictures of several other types on my walks with the vague hope of later identification. Eventually I'll do a post just about the mushrooms (and possibly the spiders), which people can skip if it's boring to them. My aunt Susan is a keen botanist and I've absorbed a fascination for fungi from her, though in my case it is backed by a refreshingly broad absense of knowledge. I like their colors and shapes. The keys are for scale.

The Restraint of Beasts

2010-11-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

The next US Holiday in the Calender after Halloween is Thanksgiving, which falls on the 4th Thursday in November. This won't be my first Thanksgiving in the US, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday at my BIL Chris and and SIL Maureen's house in Texas, but it'll be the first in my own US home.

I like Thanksgiving as a Holiday. The focus is not gifts or chocolate, carols or cheesy songs, greetings cards or decorations, but simply getting together with family and friends, eating a meal and spending time together and being grateful for the good things we have, celebrating a (hopefully) successful harvest and surviving another year. The Retail industry can't make much money out of that however, even American families can only eat so much roast turkey and pumpkin pie, so they invented Black Friday, the day following Thanksgiving, a day of Sales mayhem and misery for retail staff.

Two years ago a WalMart employee was killed by a stampeding crowd, while protecting a pregnant customer who had been knocked to the floor. As a consequence of this, WalMart has employed crowd control specialists (who have worked the Superbowl for years as well as thousands of smaller events) to organise and assist in "The Event", as this sales day is dubbed at WalMart.

All this is of particular relevence to me, as I have been selected to be on the Crowd Management A Team in my store. Our store is open 24 hours so we don't have quite the same mad rush and panic when the doors open, but there's still potential for injury to customers and staff, so our job is to guide customers through the store, ensure orderly queuing, controlled but steady movement along the designated queuing aisles, and to keep customers calm and moderately happy while they queue.

The store will have "Hot Items" on sale, such as big screen TVs and other expensive items, and the A Team get the hottest item of the lot. When that's sold out we split up and reinforce the other teams (B through J), and so on. Queuing starts at midnight and ends at 5am, so I'll most likely be starting my shift at midnight, which is bound to put a dent in my Thanksgiving dinner - assuming I'm not working that day anyway.

Large items that cannot safely be manouvered through the crowd and out of the store will be collected at a special pick-up point between 5am and 6am. If I start my shift at midnight I'll be done by 9am, by which time the second rush of customers starts, those people who were at other stores for their initial purchases.

It may all sound a bit of a grind, but I'm looking forward to it with interest. Part of my enjoyment of living as an immigrant in the US comes from doing new things and having new experiences, and this will certainly be a new experience. I know that I've been selected for my track record of reliability, responsibility and maturity, and willingness to take on any task set for me with enthusiasm, and I'm determined to perform at my best.

Halloween

2010-11-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was 31st October, and the day I finally got to dress up and scare the local kids.

Actually very few were scared, though I did get a compliments from the various pirates, Transformers, clowns, fairies, superheroes, cats, crayons (!), sharks, and whomever and whatever else came round.

Our first visitors came round just before 5pm, before dark, and that set the trend for a few visitors every hour. We had plenty of time in between visits, during which I practised my spooking routine and adjusted my uncomfortable costume, and we took occasional walks up the road to see if we could drum up any more interest.

My $20 Walmart costume was supplemented by black jeans, sneakers and t-shirt. The bony chestplate had a "dripping blood" pump, but it didn't really work, and trying to fill it I got red dye all over my hands. Another time I'll ignore the pump and just leave it dry.

I invite ~~victims~~ visitors to "reach into the bowl of death".

Sometimes Beth had candy duty and sometimes I did. Beth wore her "Budget Ninja" t-shirt, which glowed in the dark. Overall we had a lot of fun, though it was quieter than some years. Today our neighbour Judy told me she had 31 visitors (in groups of 2 or more), compared to over 70 last year. We think that being a Sunday evening quietened things down, as the kids had to be in school the next day.

In the 'hood

2010-10-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

My wardrobe has been absorbing US styles and items since 2004, my first visit Stateside and discovery that US clothing is much cheaper and more comfortable than UK equivalents. In fact I've had US items in my wardrobe since 1984 when I first got a baseball jacket (red with white sleeves and a M sewn on), football jacket (Philadelphia Eagles), and Philadelphia Eagles cap, at great expense as they were imported, but since 2004 I've been adding American jeans, t-shirts, and boxer shorts (mostly made in China or Bangladesh).

One item of US apparel worn by almost all ages here in Eugene is the hoodie, a long sleeved thin jacket with a hood attached. I had one or two in the UK, but have added four or five more. The hood is very useful now that we are subject to heavy Fall showers, to keep rain from dropping down the back of one's neck. A hoodie can be washed at home, doesn't require ironing as a shirt usually does, and can be layered between a t-shirt and jacket. I still have a number of button-down shirts in my wardrobe, but the hoodie is thicker and easier to maintain.

Cat Nipped

2010-10-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, as soon as we came downstairs in the morning, Beth noticed that our younger cat Ghost had a slight limp. It was very slight, so we checked for a possible burr or thorn stuck in there. Uh oh, I though I felt something move, possibly a broken toe, and he grumbled (but only slightly).

Fortunately it was my day off, so as soon as the Vet opened (7:30am) I rang them and booked an appointment, and took him in at 10am. He didn't want to go, and it took three goes to get him into the cat basket, even with a sore foot. The vet examined him, shaved his foot in a couple of places, and discovered matching puncture wounds that suggest he was bitten, probably by another cat. A bite from a raccoon or nutria would have been much worse, she told me. There was no break (checked by x-ray) but a fair bit of swelling. He got an antibiotic shot, and two other treatments we do at home. Both the Vet and Nurse said he was a very well behaved cat, submitting to treatment quietly, perhaps resignedly.

The first treatment is a twice daily dose of painkiller, just 0.15ml squirted into his cheeks, which is absorbed through the mucus membranes. Of course he doesn't like that either, but with Beth holding and me squirting the syringe it's soon over. The second part of the treatment is supposed to be an Epsom Salt bath of the foot, to reduce the swelling. So far we are batting zero on that one, as he is still lively, with several sharp extremities. The painkiller makes him sleepy, but not comatose. Beth and I will be trying again tonight.

Two days on, and he's been kept indoors all this time to reduce risk of further infection. He wants to go out, being such an active outdoors cat, but with our various cat flaps and screen doors we have so far managed to keep him confined, and he seems to be accepting of his lot. I'll be taking him back to the Vet for a check up next week.

A Walk in the Woods

2010-10-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

Commercial Pumpkin Patch

Go Ducks!

2010-10-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Our local College Football Team, the Oregon Ducks, are currently ranked #2 by BCS computer ranking, and #1 by USA Today Coaches Poll, and #1 in the Harris Poll, in the whole of the USA, with a 6-0 record.

That's a very big deal as there are 119 college teams, organised into dozens of different leagues, and this is the first time in Oregon's 115 year history that they have come #1 in two of the four main polls.

It only takes one loss to fall from the top of the tree, but for now we're very happy in Eugene to have such a successful team.

Go Ducks!

Heating

2010-10-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

As we reach mid-October the nights have started to become chillier, with sub-40F for the first time since we've been in this house. As a consequence we've started using the central heating, which leads me to make a few comparisons with UK heating systems.

The majority of UK houses are heated via a boiler and radiators. The boiler (usually fuelled by gas or sometimes oil) heats water is a semi-enclosed system, which then circulates round the various radiators in the house. The radiators slowly heat up from the water, and whenb theyv are good and hot (hot enough to be uncomfortable to touch) transmit heat to the air in contact with them. The heated air then circulates by convection, and eventually the whole room is warmed. Some heat is transmitted directly to the room by radiation (hence the name), but not much.

All that takes time, so it takes 20 minutes to half an hour before the air in the room starts to feel warmer.

In a typical US house, a furnace (usually located in the basement or garage) heats air directly, which is then circulated round the house via hidden ducts under the floors, behind walls and ceilings. Instead of radiators, which take up space and prevent the placement of furniture against walls where a radiator is located, there are flat grills on the floor, wall or ceiling, which vent air into the room. In strategic locations there are also exhaust vents which carry air out of the room to ensure good circulation.

As the final target is to have warm air in the house, it seems a much more efficient method to heat the air directly, than to heat water to heat radiators to heat the air.

At Home with Martin Milner 2

2010-10-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

Chapter 4: The Garage

My car usually goes in the garage, unless I'm home after 11pm on a weekday and Beth's already in bed, in which case I park on the drive. The Master bedroom is above the garage, and opening the garage door would wake her up. To the left is our chest freezer, with my bikes behind it and Beth's recliner bike on the right. The white cupboards on the right wall and end wall hold various outdoor stuff like sports equipment and bicycle gear. In the top right corner is a door to the side driveway, and top left is the door to the utility room. We have catflaps in these doors so Elbie and Ghost can come and go whenever they like. A friend asked if we ever have problems with racoons trying to get in, but we haven't yet. The furnace that heats the house and hot water in at the back of the garage, with air filters we are supposed to clean every month or two.

Chapter 5: The Utility Room

This small T-shaped room forms a link between the garage and the kitchen, the top of the T being a passageway, while the leg holds the washer, dryer, bottom of the laundry chute, and several cupboards and drawers. We store odds and ends like batteries in the drawers, and washing liquid and other cleaning materials in the cupboards. It may be that this is intended to act as a dry larder as well, being just off the kitchen, but we haven't used it for that yet. This area has its own extractor fan to remove any warm moist air created the washerm, while the dryer vents to the outside through a pipe that runs under the house. There are a surprising three different light sources in this small room, because it's also set up as a place to grow seedlings.

At Home with Martin Milner

2010-10-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1: The Driveway and Front Garden

Our front drive is a familiar sight by now. All the houses in our area have parking for at least two vehicles out front, but with our house set back a little further from the road than many we could fit more, if necessary. The lawn is still patchy despite my efforts to feed weed & seed, though you can only see the patches when it's been mowed.

Chapter 2: The Porch

Tucked behind the lawn is our front porch. A lavender bush gives a little added privacy, though front porches aren't really designed to be private. Beth's tomato and cucumber plants are past their best now, but just hanging onto their last fruit. To the left is our flagpole, and I rotate a Union Flag, US Flag, and England Flag whenever I think of it. Just to the left of the house is an arched door, which we use when gardening, as it's the easiest route to get the mower onto the front lawn.

I sit on this porch some evenings when I'm home earlier than Beth and she's due soon, and we'll be using it on Halloween. The pumpkin is not one of mine, though mine are starting to develop and there's still hope at least one will be good for a Jack-o-Lantern. From the porch we can see all the way to the end of the road, so it's a great place to wait for deliveries, the mailman or visitors.

Chapter 3: The Side Driveway

Beth parks her Mercury here when she's home, and there's parking for a bunch more cars or even an RV if we had one. The post in the left foreground is there in case we wanted to hang a gate on it, but for now we like the open space. There is a slope on this driveway to help drain off rainwater, and from the change of surface we deduced that the area nearer the 2nd garage is newer, probably laid after the garage was completed. The big flat side of the house soaks up a lot of heat in the Summer, warming the Family Room, Master Bedroom and Office.

At Home by Bill Bryson

2010-10-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

Ever since my brother Brian introduced me to Notes on a Small Island I've been an avid follower and reader of Bill Bryson's books. Those that were published before NoaSI I have in paperback, and those after in hardback. All of them I have in digitalised audio book form on my iPod, some copied from tapes.

So I was delighted to learn on Monday (via my wife and PBS radio) that he had a new book out, entitled At Home: A Short History of Private Life. I immediately bought the book and Audio Book, and have been listening and reading all week.

I can thoroughly recommend this latest effort, but for the purposes of this blog I'll stop there. However it has reminded me that Beth and I are coming up to a six month Anniversary of settling into our new home (officially 15th October), so I thought I'd celebrate with another phototour round the various rooms and outdoor areas, to see how we've settled in, and if we're keeping it tidy.

Our Water Feature

2010-10-07T16:14:00.000-07:00

We're heading into Fall, my first experience of Fall in the US, and Beth's first since 2003. At present we're still getting hot afternoons occasionally, our Fuscia is still flowering, and barely a leaf has fallen on our property, but in an adjoining street some trees have started dropping their leaves. Pictures below.

This temporary fountain appeared in our front garden a few days ago. It used to be a sprinkler but the sprinkler broke, so off I went to Jerry's, our local DIY store, to get a new sprinkler head.

Ta-daa. Back again, and the part was only about $2.50, so not bad at all. The sprinkler heads come in 1/4, 1/2 and full circle patterns, this one being a half circle.

I dug down around the old sprinkler head and unscrewed it, revealing the top of the underground tube. I screwed the new one in place, replaced all the mud and dirt round the sprinkler, and then it was time to test it.

Ta-Daa again. No problem. I was really expecting this to be a much trickier job, or at least more expensive, but in fact it took about ten minutes and $2.50, so I had time for a cycle ride.

Early October, and at last the leaves are starting to fall. The Willamette Valley is a very lush and fertile area, and we are blessed with a lot of trees. This also means a lot of leaves come Fall, and the first leaves are falling. This seems a little late compared to London, but I think the seasons here have been running late generally, possibly due to Global Warming.

Trickle Down Economy?

2010-09-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

We're facing State Govenor and Senatorial elections in November, and a bunch of others I can't remember, so campaigning is rife. I don't get to vote as I'm not a citizen, but I can watch and wonder what is going to happen.

Obama and the Democrats are facing what has been called The Enthusiasm Gap. As I recall, what Obama promised in his campaigning and post-election speeches was a long, hard haul to get out of the economic recession, and that it would take years, probably longer than his longest possible 8-year period of office. Somehow people took this to mean a short, easy haul, and as we're still in the recession two years on they are losing enthusiasm. To be dreadfully generalistic, Americans are very much about instant gratification, and if they can't have it NOW with chocolate sprinkles on top then it isn't worth waiting and someone needs to be blamed.

For two years the Republicans have been on a platform of just saying no to every Democratic effort, but they've realised that you have to actually have some policies of your own for an election, so they are now campaigning on a platform of tax cuts for the rich, and reducing "Big Government".

The idea of the former is that richer rich people will create jobs for everyone else, so the more money they have the better for everyone (eventually). The tax cuts would result in a budget deficit of $70,000,000,000 (that's $70 billion) over ten years, so naturally that can only be balanced by a reduction of "Big Government" which translates in reversing the new health system initiatives that for me are key to a better America.

The problem with the Republican plans are that they've already been tried, and failed. Bush already intiated tax cuts for the super rich, and it didn't stimulate the Economy. The question now is whether they are allowed to continue, or we go back to higher rate taxes for the rich. What the economy needs is money in the hands of people who spend it on goods and services within the country, and that is the middle and lower income families.

"Big Government" is not something that Obama invented or created, but something that has been developing for decades. The idea is that the Government has grown too big and pries too much into private affairs, thus spending tax dollars on matters in which it should not be involved. I'm all for reducing Government spending, but not at the cost of a 100% privatised medical system. I know people who have been financially wiped out by a single medical bill, and I see a lot of people who are not getting the treatment they need because they can't afford it and haven't got the insurance to pay for it.

What I'm really hoping is that as the country climbs out of recession (and it might take another ten years), regardless of who is in charge, that the average American has learnt that living on credit is a bad idea. If you haven't got the money for it, don't buy it. Save up for it and then buy it. Chances are by the time you've saved for it, you won't want it anymore. I'm also hoping that the changes to the medical system are allowed to come to fruition, and people see that they are an improvement on the "I'm all right Jack" era.

The problem is that people like to have lots of nice things around them, even if they are paying through the nose. They want a big car, even if they can barely pay for the gasoline. They want a big house, even if they can only just manage the monthly mortgage payments. They want their own skis, a kayak, a quadbike, a kitchen full of gadgets, you name it, they want it and NOW.

Halloween Preparations

2010-09-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

I can hear you thinking "Halloween, isn't that at the end of October?", but in the US preparations start early. We've had decorations and candy choking the seasonal aisles at WalMart for weeks already, and now people have started decorating their houses and gardens.

I presume the idea is to allow all the local ragamuffins the opportunity to scope out the neighbourhood and work out where the best candy haul is to be found. It's an Oregon State Law that all children must collect their own weight in candy on Halloween, and with the average plot at least thrice as wide as in London, there's a lot of walking ahead of them. There's a danger they might get too much exercise and end up thinner than they started.

A few days ago Beth and I visited a huge temporary Halloween store to check out their wares. Halloween in the US is really just an excuse to dress up, for both children and adults, and the costumes range from traditional ghosts, witches and wizards, vampires and werewolves to pirates, doctors & nurses, Policemen and Firemen (and women), Romans and Egyptians, superheroes, military uniforms, and ninjas. There are bizarre options like a hamburger, cup and ball toy, cellphone, or beer keg. Pretty much anything goes, even clowns, which are frankly too scary and likely to give the kids nightmares.The wierdness is that most of the ladies' costumes had a distinctly sexy vibe, with short skirts and plunging necklines. Moreover this wasn't restricted to an "adult" age range, but started appearing in the teenagers and tweens costumes. If you're a girl and over 7 you can start dressing in a provocative manner.

These store bought costumes aren't cheap. They start around $30, but that's just for the basics. If, say, your child wants to be a pirate, you'll need to add an eyepatch, hook hand, hat or headscarf, boots, maybe a flintlock pistol and cutlass. A knight will still need a sword and shield. I thought briefly about being a werewolf, which would just require a mask for face and hairy hands, with otherwise normal clothing. I might still go for that, as it's about the simplest and cheapest option I could find.

There are also many ways to decorate a house and lawn, with spiderwebs and fake spiders, plastic gravestones, dry ice machines, ghosts, corpse and zombie figures, bones, witches' cauldrons and much more. It would be easy to spend several hundred dollars.

I've been entertaining ideas since our arrival of a massive maze set up in the garage and driveway, with spiderwebs, spooky noises and all the works, through which ~~victims~~ visitors would wind their way to a big bucket of candy treats. I even started working out dimensions, possible construction methods and costs, but eventually my desire to keep money in the bank rather than invested in "stuff", resulted in a downgrading of the plan. The ideas are there for another year, but for this year we're keeping it simple.

In the end, and I'm sure much to the disgust of the store owner, we bought one item for $7 which will decorate the house, and to which we will be adding some of our own touches. We can't set it up until near the actual day as it'll block the garage. We think it's innovative but understated.

My pumpkin patch, by the way, is in flower, but it's going to be far too late for any useable pumpkins.

Nestled in the midst of the stalks and leaves is one proto-pumpkin the size of a small egg. It has a month to grow enough to be made into a jack-o-lantern, probably the size of a big egg.

Hi, do you need any help?

2010-09-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

I've been working in my new role in the Electronics Department at Wal*Mart for two weeks, and am fitting in well with the existing team and learning more and feeling increasingly comfortable with every passing shift.

I have a lot more customer interaction in this department, and a lot less mopping up of chemical spills, dipping dead fish out of the aquaria, and heaving 50 pound bags of dog food. There's also less "zoning" (i.e. tidying the shelves) because most of our merchandise is either locked away, hung on locked peghooks, or housed on better designed display units. We do have to dust more, as the TVs in particular attract dust motes from the surrounding air.

My very first day was interesting as I had no opportunity to complete any of the "pre-requisite" training, but had to grasp the bull by the horns and start serving customers with no understanding of our stock beyond my own personal experience. A couple of days later I was able to run through cashier training (which took about 5 hours), so I could at least complete a sale from the "Hi, do you need any help?" to the "Have a nice day."

Apart from cashier training, the pre-requisite training comprises a very long series of fairly short multiple choice tests, with a bit of blurb about particular products in between to base your answers on. Unfortunately this appears to have been written several years ago, and in the fast-moving world of consumer technology much of it is misleading, irrelevent or obsolete. No matter, I have to go through it, and occasionally I find something that I can use to expand my knowledge or improve my sales technique.

This past couple of weeks we've had a lot of business from new students arriving at the University, and looking to kit themselves out with all the necessities of student life. Many have come from out of state with a parent in tow wielding a credit card, and a couple have been blocked by their banks, so a word of warning. If you plan to travel to another state (or country) and spend several hundred (or thousand) dollars in one day, contact your bank beforehand and tell them of yor travel plans, or they may think your card has been stolen. Fortunately most people have alternate cards, but it's embarrassing for all concerned.

Late yesterday evening I was on my own in the department acting as closer, and thankfully it was quiet as the local University Football Team (Oregon Ducks, ranked #5 in the country) were on TV. A group of five Chinese students were in the store trying to furnish their new accommodation, and asking a lot of questions about desks, tables, chairs, futons etc. With no associate assigned to the Furniture Department it fell to me to assist them, mostly talking to the one girl who spoke good English. After assembling a huge pile of flat-packed furniture on a cart, they revealed that they had no transport and needed to call a taxi to get them back home. First though, they had to go to a couple of other stores to get the things we were out of.
To cut a long story short, I had to leave the quintet at the front checkouts, where they (hopefully) paid for their items and parked them at Customer Services until they could collect them. I nearly called Beth to come with her station wagon and give them some help, as it's 4-5 miles from our store back to the University, and no taxi would be big enough to carry everything they had bought in one trip, but it looked like they were in for a long night and I still had a couple of hours of my shift before I would be free to help.