Monday, February 27, 2006

Leaving For China

Well I am off again to the Far East. I will post as often as I can and keep you all up to date on my journey. I will be back March 11th, and sleep until March 14th, so until then watch the blog for news.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Crazy Basketball Story!

Superbowl Faces!

February 5th, 2006 was the day of Superbowl, and some people were more excited than others! I submit the photos of those who agreed to the question... "Give me your Game Face!" Why the delay in posting this collage of photos? Hey, it takes time to do this kind of stuff!

The Sisters

Cold and clear! This shot taken on a day when it was pouring down rain at home. Leaving this and heading back over the mountains into the rain was not easy.

Back From Central Oregon

We are back from our time off in Central Oregon. There was snow on the ground when we arrived a week ago, but all had melted by the time we headed back to Portland. Very cold, -3 on the first night! Much wood was cast into the fireplace during this vacation I can assure you! This panoramic was shot from the highway between Redmond, Oregon and Black Butte Ranch.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Sunriver Adventure

We arrived last night at 9:00pm with the Jeep reporting an outside temperature of 1 degree! After a long day we went straight to bed. All was well until about 4:00am when I noticed that there was no water!

I spent the morning making phone calls and long story short, we are now repacking the Jeep and heading to Black Butte.

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Friday, February 17, 2006

Country Living Adventure #256

"Honey, the Jeep alarm is going off." So started yet another Country Living Adventure. As I made my way across the house to disable the jeep alarm, I noticed that none of the light switches were producing any light. After shutting off the alarm I ventured out with a flashlight and immediately saw the powerline draped over the rig.

I called the proper authorities and made my way down the drive to the expected and almost routine now... Downed tree. Only 5 days earlier Deb and I had walked to this very tree and speculated that it would be the next to fall. The tree took out all of the electrical lines during it's decent and knocked out power to 4 houses.

Unhappy Jeep!

As you can see the cable landed just perfectly on top of the Jeep!

I Assume...

This is bad?

Yup, Another Downed Tree!

The first guys showed up pretty quickly and started clearing off the fallen tree. I was warned many times to not touch the wires, which made it hard because I really wanted to touch them so badly!

Large Response

After the clean up crew was done, many trucks arrived for the electrical work. (Three more trucks are not in the photo.) Note: Real men huddled together planning their attack and discussing the strange man with a camera in the distance! I heard one of them say, "Did anyone tell that guy not to touch the wires?"

Hooking Up The Lines

It took quite awhile for all of the pieces to come together so the actual hook-up could begin. Power was restored around 9:30am. Yea!

Friday, February 10, 2006

Not Us This Time!

I thought you all would find it interesting to hear how bad the wind was last night. All of the damaging wind that has rocked the house for the last month has blown up from the South. The savage winds of the last two days are now coming out of the East, and for some strange reason that changes things here dramatically at the house.

I could have placed a cotton ball out on the deck yesterday and it would still be there today! In other words... not a hint of wind, while 1 mile in any direction it is blowing at 40 mph! Pretty strange eh?

Xbox In The Bedroom?

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Every Super Bowl Ad!

Yup, every one of them back to back. It will take 20 minutes, but you won't miss even one!

Happy The Rain Has Stopped!

These two spent half and hour walking around right below the deck and endured me up above snapping their photos.

Deer Off Of The Deck


Posted by Picasa Freezing cold did not stop me from creeping out onto the deck and getting this shot of one of our resident deer. Note: Cloud of breath drifting away to the left.

Jeopardy!

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Steve, Don't Eat It!

This is a great site where the writer (I assume his name is Steve) selects and consumes some of the foulest food on the planet while describing every tasty bite!

Professional Regurgitator

You will be Amazed and Disgusted at the same time!

He Was Injured, Injured Bad...

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams

LiveScience.com - Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams: "After 145 years, Western Union has quietly stopped sending telegrams.

On the company's web site, if you click on 'Telegrams' in the left-side navigation bar, you're taken to a page that ends a technological era with about as little fanfare as possible:

'Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a customer service representative.'"

Microsoft Won't Issue Advance Kama Sutra Fix

InformationWeek | Security | Microsoft Won't Issue Advance Kama Sutra Fix | January 31, 2006: "Microsoft Monday posted a security advisory on the Kama Sutra/Blackworm/MyWife worm that's set to overwrite Office documents on infected PCs Friday, but the company has decided against updating its Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool before the next regularly-scheduled release of Feb. 14.

The security advisory -- a mechanism Microsoft uses to both alert users of impending threats and give them advice or workarounds to apply -- repeats recommendations that most security vendors have been offering since the worm debuted two weeks ago.

It also notes that infected PCs will be in danger on Friday, Feb. 3, when the worm will overwrite several popular file formats, including those of Microsoft Office, with useless data.

But according to the team in charge of Microsoft's Windows Software Removal Tool, that program won't be updated until after the Friday deadline passes.Microsoft Monday posted a security advisory on the Kama Sutra/Blackworm/MyWife worm that's set to overwrite Office documents on infected PCs Friday, but the company has decided against updating its Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool before the next regularly-scheduled release of Feb. 14.

The security advisory -- a mechanism Microsoft uses to both alert users of impending threats and give them advice or workarounds to apply -- repeats recommendations that most security vendors have been offering since the worm debuted two weeks ago.

It also notes that infected PCs will be in danger on Friday, Feb. 3, when the worm will overwrite several popular file formats, including those of Microsoft Office, with useless data.

But according to the team in charge of Microsoft's Windows Software Removal "

Note: This worm is a very nasty piece of code! Please scroll down to Blog Entry: "Computer Worm Threatens Major Destruction Friday", and run the fix!

Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 2

If you feel brave and want to try the latest Internet Explorer here is the link. WARNING: This software IS BETA and I have run into several bugs already just working on the creation of the blog.

If the Microsoft Genuine Advantage Security check gives you any problems for some strange reason...

pre-SP2 just run this in the address bar "javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')" at the screen where you select Express or custom.

SP2 or later: In IE, you can bypass the Windows Genuine Advantage check by going into Tools --> Internet Options --> Programs Tab --> Manage Add-ons --> Disable Windows Genuine Advantage.

P.S. If there is ANYONE out there not updated to SP2 yet, get on it! This update address MANY security issues and you are really quite exposed without it.