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: