BLOGGING IS LIGHT, RAIN IS NOT

Yes, I've been slacking with this blog. I last posted 15 days ago, enough has been happening - nothing too exciting - but still, I've disappointed my throngs of loyal readers. I apologize.

So, I'll start with Monday driving from Portland to Seattle and back in the worst day of rain in Seattle's history. That's sort of like saying the hottest day in Hell, isn't it? Folks in the know realize Seattle days aren't that rainy per se. It's the fact that it never stops days on end. 364 days of rain at 1/2 inch each day still adds up!

But Monday, the Puget Sound region posted record rainfall, many places in the neighborhood of 7" or more in 24 hours. Their stormwater drainage systems are not used to a concentrated downpour, so many parts of the region flooded out. Below is a photo of me driving back home from my meeting in Seattle.



Just kidding. Actually, this is an actual photo from the Seattle Times. Apparently jet skis are now the only way to get around up there.

Meanwhile, Portland has enjoyed a string of Hawaii-like weather. Balmy, light humidity with low to mid-70s. That will all change soon because as I type this, a gray canvas of clouds is the only thing visible in the sky - until July 2004.

ME-MA's BIRTHDAY PHOTOS

I just uploaded all of them to my computer and I hope to burn some CDs soon. YES.. I realize that's what I said about our vacation photos, but there's roughly 500 of them and many had to be altered because they are sideways, dark, or whatever. Give me time.

For either, I'm taking orders. Put in your requests to wer@johnson-gardner.com ASAP.

NEW INSTALLMENT: WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DAVE REID?

I have an irregular feature on here I like to call Where In the World is Dave Reid? - it's been a while since the last installment.
So, without further ado: Dave Reid is in BAGGS, WYOMING.

I can already hear it - Where on earth is Baggs, Wyoming? Well, just west of Savory, Wyoming of course! That is, just north of the Colorado border in southcentral Wyoming, Carbon County to be exact. Baggs is located in the Little Snake River Valley.

To be perfectly honest, Dad has outdone himself with regard to working in an obscure location. There is nothing interesting about this little burg on the internet. Normally I try to give him some tips about what to visit wherever he is. But frankly, with a drought of interesting information about Baggs online, I simply recommend he finish that job up ASAP and go back to Rusk County, Texas for its historic outhouses.

The best I can find is townofbaggs.com. No tourism bureau, no visitor information. By the looks of their URL, you'd think they made purses and misspelled their name. Even their city attractions, as they describe them, are an insomniac's miracle cure:

About Us

Population 348 Elevation 6245
Latitude: 41.03 degrees north of the equator
Longitude: 107.65 degrees west of the prime meridian

Baggs is 76 miles from Rawlins, Wyoming and 41 miles from Craig, Colorado. The distance to Cheyenne, the state capitol, is 152 miles as the crow flies. We are part of Carbon County.

Wyoming highway 789 running through Baggs was commissioned in 1954 as part of a multi-state route that traveled through Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. The highway goes over the Continental Divide between Creston Junction and Baggs.

Baggs was reputed to be the a former home of one of the most notorious outlaw bands of the old west: Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and their 'Wild Bunch". The Gaddis/Matthews cabin on Highway 789 in Baggs was a local hangout of Butch Cassidy.

The Bank Club Bar is listed on the National Historic Register and is located on old main street.

The Dad stage stop site is 24 miles north of Baggs on the west side of the highway.

Baggs is the home of the Rattlers, the mascot of the Little Snake River Valley school.

On the Little Snake River you will find the towns of Dixon, Wyoming 7 miles east, Savery, Wyoming 11 miles east and Slater, Colorado 18 miles east, of Baggs.

How's that for thrilling? Well, for your enjoyment, here are a couple of photos of the area:


Pretty country this time of year.


Baggs' "Wild Bunch" - Butch Cassidy's gang re-enactors or unfortunate new country music group?

Well, I don't mean to be too tough on Baggs. But honestly, they need to fire their economic development director. They clearly have pretty country and recreation to advertise, but you'd never really know it by searching on the web!

TOM AND KATE'S SAN FRANCISCO ADVENTURE

Tom called Saturday to let me know he and Kate were headed to San Francisco for the weekend - her law firm, Hanna Brophy, was celebrating its 50th anniversary. They apparently had a major blow-out planned at one of the nice hotels downtown. "Open bar!!" according to Tom.

I haven't heard since, so I assume they had a lot of fun. But I have to ask - what kind of a hotel would allow dozens of lawyers to converge there and drink themselves into belligerence? It was either foam-padded wall to wall, top to bottom or it enforced a strict liability waiver form.. kinda like a sanitarium!

TOM GAINFULLY EMPLOYED

Tom emailed yesterday the 6th to say that he had won a position with E*Trade, the on-line stock brokerage house. Unfortunately, I use Ameritrade so I personally have absolutely nothing to gain from his new assignment.

Congratulations! Now Tom and Kate are DINKS just like Jill and me. Welcome to the club, you two!

So, let's put Tom to the test.. Is this his new uniform and can I get sued for posting this picture?



I'll post Tom's reply as soon as I get it!

HEMINGWAY'S BIG ADVENTURE

We also learned recently that Hemingway, Tom and Kate's furry grey cat, decided to go on a roadtrip of sorts last week. It seems he left the house on the 30th without telling anyone where he was going. He turned up three days later about seven houses down in Tom & Kate's new neighborhood.

Naughty Kitty...


He's home safe and sound now, so all is well.

BELLY FLOPS

Well, it appears I'm way behind the times with regard to my ignorance of "belly flops." I posted that Tom & Kate were providing almonds and belly flops for Me-Ma's birthday but had absolutely no clue what a belly flop was in this context. I didn't think it could be the following, but that might have been fun, too:


OR


But, Kate, Tom and Leigh clarified that Belly Flops are in fact defective Jelly Belly's.. the ones that don't quite look right and so can't officially be called a Jelly Belly.

So, I went over to the Jelly Belly website and entered Belly Flop in the Search box. NOTHING about belly flops came up, but I scrolled down a little and there was information about Sugar Free Jelly Bellies. At the bottom of their description, I found these words:

WARNING: Consumption may cause stomach discomfort and/or a laxative effect. Individual tolerance will vary; we suggest starting with a single serving size of 8 beans or less.

Now, do you really think that the average consumer of sugar free Jelly Bellies is going to call it quits at 8 beans?! But then again, gorging yourself on these things makes for an interesting weight loss plan on its own.

CALIFORNIANS VOTING FOR NEW CAPTAIN OF U.S.S. TITANIC

Well, I haven't blogged about it in some time, but the day has come for southern Californians to peel themselves from their tanning beds and for northern Californians to get up without spilling bong water and VOTE.

So, on this very important day for our neighbor to the south, I have just two things to say:

You're voting for Governor, not Chief Executive Choir Boy

If you can't follow simple directions about how to use a punch card (the same one you used to elect Gray Davis in the first place), you have no business deciding who should lead the most economically powerful state in the most powerful country on the planet

Good luck to you. And with that, I'll end with comments from Jimmy Kimmel Live last night after he showed a clip of Ahnuld holding up a broom and threatening to clean house in Sacramento:

I suppose it's only appropriate that Californians should elect a foreigner to clean house

Ah, but you can't threaten him with deportation if he asks for a raise.

BACK TO BLOGGING... HOPEFULLY

The past few weeks have again been a bit hectic, so I've not been able to blog much. Plus, at home, we've been having connectivity problems with the internet so we've not been online there. We hope to get high-speed internet soon, so that will seriously help things. Then I'll be able to update this site far more frequently with the tedious, inconsequential information you've grown to love.

ANNIVERSARY TRIP A SMASHING SUCCESS

Jill and I travelled to British Columbia for our 6th anniversary. Most of you already know that BC is our absolutely favorite place for long weekends and Vancouver is arguably our favorite city - though Queretaro and Guanajuato in Mexico are up there. The diversity of recreation, cuisine, the scenic beauty and the overall international atmosphere is a lot of fun to dive into.

After a long drive the first night (Thursday), we spent the night in Surrey just across the border from Washington. Then we headed up to Hope, BC along the famous Fraser River east of Vancouver.



Hope is an old mining and lumber town at a large, undisturbed elbow of the Fraser River. The town is not that impressive, filled with nothing more than old motor lodges from the 1950s and decaying restaurants "Chinese and Canadian Food -- Down Home Cooking", but the town is surrounded by imposing mountains rising steeply for hundreds of feet from the river valley floor. It's quite a sight to behold.



About half an hour south of town are both the Harrison Hot Springs and Harrison Lake. We visited both, the latter during the day for stunning views of the mountains and a Canadian air show - largely fire-fighting planes that dropped water into the lake near the viewing area to thrill the locals. The only military planes were transport and old biplanes, largely because Canada hasn't had to spend their own money on defense for the last 90 years. But that's another story.

Harrison Hot Springs used to run into the lake, but now they're funneled into a public soaking pool (covered, unfortunately) that was very warm and pleasant for an hour or so. No overwhelming stench of sulphur characteristic of hot springs further north in Canada.

The next day we drove through the Fraser River gorge north to Lytton.



The climate grew warmer as we ventured north and higher in elevation. Douglas Fir, cedar and ferns were replaced by pine and sagebrush. The climate was naturally warmer, but less scenic in many ways given the lack of deciduous trees and their presently changing colors. The views were still gorgeous all the same. Here we turned around and headed back south on Highway 1 for Vancouver.

I won't go into details of Vancouver because we pretty much stuck to old haunts. Here's a link to an old entry about Vancouver and a host of links to information about places we enjoy visiting, including on this trip Van Dusen Gardens and Granville Island market.

JOHN AND JUDY SETTLING INTO NEW HOME

The Korynasz's are getting their new home in order now that we've moved most of their belongings up to Hillsboro. Their new place larger than the home in Eagle Point, so they'll better be able to utilize their furniture and decorations, etc. It's slow-going for them, however, as they've not been feeling well of late.

I think the move really exhausted them this time given that it was a long-distance affair rather than cross-town. Besides, both of Judy's feet now are deteriorating so it looks like she's going to need two surgeries instead of one. It's getting to be excruciating for her to stand on her feet for very long, possibly even worse than it was for her knees before she had both of them replaced. But, they seem to be pleased by Hillsboro's warmer climate and the fact that we're nearby has been a big plus for them. Come time for surgeries, that will be even more important.

Plus, I get to borrow their second car quite a bit for trips to the vet with Sundaye and odd trips for work...

EMAIL FROM OUR MEXICAN FAMILY

Pepe and Hilda Munoz, from Queretaro, QRO in Mexico emailed us last week to say hello. We have been terrible about emailing them back (or anyone really, for that matter) so they were concerned about whether or not we had received their last message. Jill is planning a long email soon.

Pepe and Hilda are our Mexican family. Jill stayed at Hilda's house in Queretaro back in 1994 when she was an exchange student learning Spanish. Hilda owns a women's clothing store that she and her sister, Licia, manage. The store is located next to Licia's beautiful house, which was designed by her son, an architect.

Pepe is an appraiser, musician, raconteur and all-around great fellow. When he's not busy with work, he's busy recording and archiving traditional music played and sung by members of his family. We have two of his recordings, one by his late uncle with Pepe and a second with vocal tracks by his late aunt. I have some digital photos of the family that I'll put on here soon from our 2001 trip. Meanwhile, here's a map of Queretaro relative to the rest of Central Mexico and then a great shot of Queretaro, the birthplace of Mexican independence.. kinda like the Boston of Mexico.





A la familia mexicana: se miran este website, Hola y Saludos desde Oregon! de Bill y Jill y nuestras familias gringas! (y lo ciento para mi Espanol malo!)

BILL REID, TV STAR

Monday night, I was on TV in Josephine County, Oregon. I testified before the Josephine County Planning Commission regarding potential new revenue sources (read: taxes and fees) to pay for maintenance of their sadly underfunded rural roads. I felt good about my performance, but it was a bit of a distraction speaking while on the wall to the right of the commission members was the broadcast itself. Try talking to a group of policy-makers about a boring topic while being self-conscious about keeping them awake AND seeing your own ugly mug the size of computer monitor up on the wall simultaneously. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.

As soon as the recording goes on-line, I'll try to have a link posted!