City shut down

The past two weeks Portland has seen snow like it has never seen before. You get 10 inches in Wisconsin and they have the roads plowed and salted by the end of the day. Here they have about 5 plows for the entire metro area and no salt or sand trucks to speak of. No one owns shovels. In short, it's the Snowpocalypse. Click this and scroll down for some awesome headlines.

The upsides of the Snowpocalypse are unshoveled sidewalks for classical skiing and roads packed down by cars into perfectly groomed skate skiing lanes.

Kathryn skiing on the east bank esplanade:


Ski tracks in front of the science museum:


Skiing by the Willamette:


Skating in the streets:



Classical on the bike path:


Fellow skier on the Steel Bridge:

Friday

Cannon Beach

My dad and his ladyfriend were in town last weekend and we took a couple days to head west and check out the ocean. The weather wasn't ideal for walking along the shore, what with the 60 mph winds that whipped sand and hail to assault you horizontally, but hiking in the deciduous rain forest was beautiful and shielded us from the weather.

Haystack Rock:


Sandstorm:



Kathryn:


Kathryn after being caught unaware by a "sneaker wave." Wellington boots are great unless the water gets over the top... then they just hold the water in:


Shortly before getting gaffled by the sneaker wave:


Lots of big trees in the cut:



Me, my dad and ferns:


I liked the look of this mossy guy:


Misty shoreline:


There's a lighthouse out there perched on a rock but I don't understand how one would land a boat there:

Offices

PDW now has an office and warehouse. Behold:

Cold

Portland, you are not Wisconsin. Stop being cold and icy.

Bad luck

Bad luck for one DP:

Sterling

The Sterling gas heater in our office reminded us of a certain Packers wide receiver:

Thanksgiving

Like all my posts, this one is a few weeks tardy. Thanksgiving this year was like an Irondale High School 11 year reunion with Mark, Andy and Dave in attendance. The theme of the reunion was beer, wine, food and football.

No turkey was consumed, but we did have delicious homemade pizzas that Kathryn put together. A few pics:


Kathryn with a pizza:

Man Power

My main man DP had this first Errol Morris ad posted on his site and I liked it so much I thought I'd post it here as well:

Taroko

When in Taiwan I had the chance to visit Taroko Gorge National Park. Taroko Gorge is a narrow gorge with 1,500 foot cliffs of pure marble that shoot straight up. I've never seen anything like it:

0 to 10,000

For the first time ever I had a weekend to get out and see some scenery while in Taiwan. On Saturday Lucas, Heath and I drove from sea level straight up into the mountains to about 8,500 feet. From there Heath and I decided to ride tiny folding bikes the remaining 1,500 vertical feet to the summit, which was about 7km.

We figured this would take about a half an hour. It took an hour and a half with around 20 rest breaks. Apparently the body doesn't like going from o to 10,000 feet in the space of a few hours and then engage in intense cardiovascular activity.


Start of the climb:


Climbing:


One of many rest breaks:


Nearing the top:


Summit:


Summit marker:

Apple picking

A bunch of us went apple picking just before Halloween, but my sloth has prevented me from posting pictures until now. The plan was to drive to the orchard and feast upon whatever tasty baked-goods they had for breakfast, but whoever was responsible for the baking at Kiyokawa Orchards was sick that day so we went elsewhere in search of food.

This orchard had a beautiful view, but no baked goods other than cookies and by this time we needed something more substantial:


Luckily this little town had a train-themed diner called the "Trails End" that had plenty of greasy fare AND there was a Halloween parade about to begin.



After the parade we picked apples... lots of 'em:

'Bama