Well that was. . .fun

In case you didn't hear, we had a little snowstorm up here in the Puget Sound area. After a brief snowfall on Sunday, and some light snowy conditions early in the week, we woke up Wednesday morning to a foot of snow covering everything.

It was beautiful. It was wonderful. It was a nice day to take the kids sledding at the local elementary school, followed by hot chocolate at a friend's house.

Thursday's when it all got interesting. The snow was followed by freezing rain. Everything was covered by 1/2 an inch of ice. The Jeep looked like it was encased in crystal. Plants and trees glistened as if dipped in glass. It was breathtaking.

It was also dangerous. All that extra weight was more than many trees could bear. Water seeped into trees, and, freezing, expanded outward. Soon branches large and small, and, in many cases, whole trees were crashing to the ground. The road below our house was raining large branches and heavy chunks of ice. We wandered down to the marina and saw many trees broken over. Our driveway was blocked by a 16-inch oak branch. There was a boat broken loose at the marina. Everything was a mess.

Then the power went out. We were out about 24 hours, which isn't so bad, considering many are still in the dark. The woodstove kept us warm, and candles offered light for playing and reading. Inside, it was cozy.

But I wandered out Thursday night and stood in the middle of our driveway. It sounded like a war zone, between the constant popping of trees snapping off and the flash/bang of transformers blowing up over by the highway. For the first time in 6 years I actually felt a little worried about living in the woods. The night was restless, as sleep was punctuated by the sound of falling trees, and chainsaws clearing the road below.

Friday we got the Jeep out and went for a drive, checking on people and shooting some video footage. Trees were down everywhere. Power and phone lines dangled down from poles onto the ground. Ice chunks continued to rain down from on high. More branches lay across our driveway.

And yet, everywhere we went people seemed in a good mood. There was laughter and joy in the sharing of survival stories. We had lunch at the local Mexican restaurant, and saw a dozen or so friends there. Across the street at the market cars were slipping and sliding through the parking lot, but everybody was helping each other out. While people in more civilized areas seemed to be angry and offended at the weather (based on the tone of callers to local radio programs), those out here on the KP just got down to making it work.

And now it's melting, and life is returning to normal, and the kids are getting restless, and 'mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again." I think we can even get the Kia out of the driveway. And last night I told the girls "now when you're old you can say 'I remember back to the great storm of '12, when school was closed for a week and all the trees fell down and we had to use a Jeep to get out and we all camped in the living room to stay warm by the fire.'"

Good times.

To all our east coast friends

I was feeling a little invigorated this morning - maybe it was the beautiful sunrise over top a cloudless blue sky. So I went out and chopped some firewood, working up a sweat in the warm, spring-like weather. A few clouds rolled in, but still the sun shone brightly, revealing a small clump of crocuses poking their heads through. The kids joined some friends at the local play park where they ran around for hours in the warm weather. Everywhere we went, people were out and about, walking along the shoreline or greeting friends down in our little town.

I know it's early February, but it sure feels like spring. Did I mention all the finches that were playing in the driveway? They think it's spring, too.

So sorry about that whole snowstorm thing. Rest assured that we'll be thinking about you when we're tossing a football around, outside, during the game tomorrow.

Cold in the Woods

A month or so ago, Karina put a cast iron pot out on the deck. I'm not sure why, but that's beside the point. A few weeks ago it filled up with rainwater. And there it's been sitting ever since.

Yesterday I walked out onto the deck to discover the water in the cast iron pot had frozen solid. All the way from top to bottom. And that the kids' red wagon, also filled with rainwater, was frozen solid. Even the driveway is frozen in that way that makes it say 'crunch, crunch' as you walk over it.

A few days ago I was splitting some firewood, and found a large termite queen - a thumb-sized grub. After showing it to the family, I left it on top of a log, thinking a bird might come along and appreciate a free lunch. That grub is now frozen solid. Sort of a grub-sicle, if you were a bird.

It's cold out here in the woods. Too cold to get to that yard work, the final clean-up of the garden, the chopping up of the tree we pulled up from the gully last month. Nights are cold, in spite of the roaring fire I build in the wood stove, and the electric blankets. I took Pepe out for his nightly business on Monday night and had to run back inside, as that piercing wind cut right through my winter pajamas.

It's cold here in the woods. Although the sky is clear, a piercing blue; the stars are certainly twinkling at night. The cold is beautiful in its own austere way. I'm not complaining. The stark winter beauty is a magical opposition to the extravagance of summer that surrounded us such a short time ago. I can finally see the holly tree, loaded with bright red berries, a reminder that Christmas is upon us. We all snuggle more closely together, thankful for the warmth of proximity.

But it is cold. With predicted snow by the weekend, possibly. And it seems awfully sudden. Fall just sort of came and went, and now the deep-freeze of winter is at hand, for a month or two or three. In two weeks we'll reach that equinox, that 'longest night of the year,' and then we'll be back on the downside to spring, and summer beyond.

It all comes too quickly. So, for now, I'm simply going to put on that scarf and those gloves, and enjoy the cold. So long as I have my cup of coffee, I'm good to go.

Random Tuesday

- Some are forecasting that tomorrow will be the hottest day ever recorded in the Seattle area. I suppose it's too late to get my pool put in.

- While the temperature has been rising, the Mariners are in the midst of an uncontrollable plummet. Surely one of the nice surprises of this year's baseball season, they seem, sadly, to have returned back to earth.

- Tomorrow morning, around 10:00, Lakebay Community Church has our meeting with the Pierce County planning folks, as we continue the process of acquiring the conditional use permit on our KP Highway property.

- Yeah, I know. We're way behind the times. But Karina and I finally watched Slumdog Millionaire last night.

- In case you missed it, William Shatner reciting Sarah Palin's farewell speech.

- Speaking of politics. . .Remember back in the 90s, when a certain type of conservative spent way too much time and energy trying to uncover supposed hidden crimes of then-President Clinton? It all started with Whitewater, then went on to many supposed rapes, and ended up wasting how much money and time in a failed impeachment, all because he lied under oath about a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky? And so, rather than accomplishing anything positive, instead of moving ahead and setting out a worthwhile agenda, the Republicans spent their time acting out of spite and bitterness in an ill-fated attempt to besmirch Clinton. You know, the classic junior high game of "If I can't beat you, I'll call you names." Right. And now we're at it all over again, with this "birther" movement. Rather than actually doing something positive for this country, we're simply going to sling mud at the rightfully-elected president. Listen, folks. We have two options. We can be adults, and move forward on fixing this country, or we can behave like petulant children who would rather pout over in the corner, complaining about "how unfair it all is." And no, I'm not necessarily a fan of Obama; I'd just rather see us focusing on More Important Issues, and not becoming bogged down in mud-slinging.

- Finally, from the Covenant Website: "Annette Knofel, 59, wife of Evangelical Covenant Church Pastor Bruce Knofel, was killed Sunday evening in a traffic accident near Anchorage. . ." Lord, have mercy.

Friday Randomness

- Since we live on a narrow peninsula surrounded by the Puget Sound, flooding is never much of a problem for us, like it is for the folks over in Carnation and Puyallup and Centralia. Still, all the wet weather has affected us. Our church chair and his wife have been trying to get home from Canada since early this week, and are still stuck on the other side of freeways that have been closed. The roof of a gym at Vaughn Elementary School collapsed just before Christmas. And on Wednesday we had 1/2 an inch of water in our church basement, coming up through a "previously unknown fault line" in the concrete. Thankfully, we have wonderful, servant-hearted people in our church, and by last night that mess was pretty much cleaned up.

- The first job I ever had was delivering papers for the Seattle P-I. I began around junior high, and carried the job on through high school, eventually handing it off to my brother. Before that, my grandfather worked as an ad man for the P-I for 39 years. So we've always been a newspaper family, and we've always been a P-I family. Yesterday, the story broke that the P-I may be put up for sale, with the thought that nobody will purchase it, and thus, within 30 days, will close for good, leaving Seattle with The Times as its sole major newspaper (The Stranger doesn't count). I would be sad to see it go.

- A headline just appeared stating that sometime today Boeing is going to anounce a plan to lay off 4,000 people. My brother-in-law works for Boeing. This might not be good.

- That obnoxious photo box on the local paper's website leads me to believe it must be awards season again. Pictures of Paris Hilton (are people still enthralled by her?), Ann Hathaway (did I mention how much I didn't like "Rachel Getting Married"?) and the rest. A couple years ago I made a conscious effort to distance myself from celebrity culture. And I resent the way it keeps trying to push its way back into my life. But. . .if you're interested in some reviews of the movies that seem to be getting all the awards buzz, go check out the blog of Barbara Nicolosi. She doesn't shy away from having an opinion.

- What I've been listening to lately:


She may just be the successor to Alison Krauss' crown. To be so talented at 16. . .and from all reports, she's a sweet kid, too. Why is it that artists like Sierra get scant attention, while MixMaster Sledge and the Sexual Perverts get the multi-million dollar contracts and MTV airtime? Rhetorical question, there. If you want a taste, go watch this.

- Good Quote: "Indeed, having people who walk and work and live alongside us, people whom we call 'holy friends,' is indispensable to resurrecting excellence in Christian life. We all need holy friends in our own lives, and we are called to be holy friends to others. We are also called to show hospitality to strangers and to love our enemies, practices that help us discover the grace of navigating relationships in the light of God's friendship with the world, and with each of us, in Jesus Christ. In the midst of sin and brokenness, we discover through hospitality and searching love that strangers and even enemies can become holy friends." L. Gregory Jones and Kevin r. Armstrong, in Resurrecting Excellence

A brief word for the scoffers

It is common for non-northwesterners to scoff at us Puget Sound dwellers and the way we respond to snow. For much of the country (think Chicago, New York, Denver), life goes on after the snow; whereas here in Seattle (as it is in Portland), the slightest dusting of snow paralyzes the cities. Schools close, the government shuts down, buses stop running. Cars are abandoned on the freeways and side streets, trash isn't picked up, everyone stays home or wishes they had.

"Ha!" say those who live elsewhere. "A bunch of ninnies who can't handle a little snow!"

If you find yourself in that crowd, let me explain a couple things.

1. Hills. Steep hills. Seattle has a lot of them. And a lot of roads that go up and down them. Chicago, Denver, Calgary. . .all those snowy cities are flat. But Seattle has virtually no flat ground. If you're not going up, then you're going down. Flat snow compacts under your tires while you go merrily on your way. But on hills, it becomes like little ball bearings under your tires, causing you to lose control and slam into things. That's not bad driving, that's gravity.

2. Temperature. It never really gets that cold in Seattle. It always hovers around the freezing point. Which means things begin to melt, then freeze again. During the day all that snow warms up and turns to slush, and then at night it freezes as a solid sheen of ice. It's not the snow that's a problem, it's the ice underneath. And if you take all this ice and put it on the hills mentioned in #1, it creates real problems. You hit ice, you lose all hope of control. Again, that's not bad driving, that's gravity.

3. It's not a big enough problem to make it an issue. If you live in a place where it snows 6 months out of the year, you have chains or snow tires or studs. If you live in Seattle, where it snows one or two days a year (if you're lucky) you're just not going to put that much time and money into buying chains and snow tires and studs.

4. Californians. They're the ones who move up here and then have no clue how to drive in the snow. Seriously. Or the midwesterners who assume that they can handle snow because they used to drive in Nebraska in the snow, but who don't take into consideration #1 and 2.

So quit your scoffing. It's probably all so much jealousy, anyway, since you all wish you could live here.

The current view outside

And now, over to the sports desk

Last night, a group from Lakebay Community Church drove over to Tacoma to see the Rainiers take on the Colorado Springs Sky Sox in a battle of AAA baseball. It was my first time to see the Rainiers, and I believe my first AAA baseball game.

The Tacoma Rainiers are the AA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. If you've been paying attention, the Mariners are having one of their worst seasons ever. And, among all their ineptness, two of their major downfalls have been 1)bad starting pitching, leading to too many huge deficits early on in games; and 2) not being able to score runners on base, thus leaving many runners stranded out there when the inning comes to an end.

Apparently, the little boys have learned from their big brothers. By the end of the second inning, the Rainiers were down 7-1, and eventually lost 9-2. And over the course of the game, the Rainiers left 10 men on base. Twice they had bases loaded with only one out, and failed to score a run. A couple other times they had men on base with no outs and failed to score a run. It was, by all accounts, an excellent exercise in futility.

Ah, well. It's always a fun night at the park, regardless of whether you win or lose. I was somewhat surprised at the sparse attendence - I think the park wasn't even 25% full. But our group had fun, and got to cheer when our name went up on the scoreboard (twice), we got to enjoy a warm summer night at the ballpark, and we even got a fireworks show - our eastern-facing seats gave us a front-row view of a thunderstorm moving in over Puyallup and Auburn. So while the Rainiers weren't lighting the park up much, we were able to sit back and watch the lightning show as it moved in. Which, by the second inning, was about all the drama we could expect.

So about that storm

Drove up to Kingston on Friday, took the ferry across to Edmonds. Got off the ferry, noticed some of the cars had snow on them. Climbed the hill out of town and noticed snow falling from the sky. Met my parents for dinner at Kafe Neo (Greek food - yum!). All during dinner kept commenting "Wow - it's snowing outside."

Drove over to my brother's place in Lynwood through a blinding snowstorm. Imagine "Over the River and Through the Woods," or your favorite Christmas card. Only remember this is in late April.

Spent the night at Mike's house. The kids went out and built a snowman. All night long the power came and went as snow-laden branches fell on power lines and transformers blew.

By Saturday morning, 6-8 inches of snow covered everything. Most beautiful were the maple trees all abloom, and the tulips sticking up through the snow. So much color, laying underneath the covering white.

As Saturday progressed, snow turned to hail, which brought with it thunder and lightning. The kids did find more time to go out and play.

Eventually, we drove back to Lakebay where, alas, there is no snow. Although it's supposed to be in the 20s tonight.

So, imagine that one. April 20. 8 inches of snow, as in deepest winter. I think we'll remember this weekend for years to come.

Now, hopefully back to our regular programming.

The following weather brought to you by the Council for Global Warming

Scot is complaining about the snow in Chicago.

Randall is complaining about the snow in Saskatchewan.

And yes, we got snow and hail yesterday, with the lows tonight and tomorrow below freezing.

Didn't spring arrive last week?

A word on Chicago

Went downtown for pizza last night. When we left it was 40. When we got downtown it was 30 and beginning to snow. When we finished the pizza it was about 20 and blowing hard. When we got home it was 6 and the snow was blowing sideways. Our ears almost froze off.

How do people live with this?

Friday Stuff

It's been unseasonably cool up here in the Puget Sound Area. They've already had an early snowstorm in the Cascades. This is what Mt. Rainier currently looks like:

The ski areas must be salivating. For the moment, we're just enjoying lighting a fire in the woodstove every evening, and curling up with a good book or DVD.

+++++++++++++

About 6 years ago I bought a guitar. It was the first guitar I'd ever purchased for myself. I told the guy "I use this for youth work, so I want one that sounds okay, but one I won't be afraid to take on a beach trip, or down to Mexico to play in the dirt." So he sold me the $100 special. And it served its purpose well, although I sure seemed to break a lot of strings on it. And it is impossible to keep in tune - usually after 10 minutes or so, it's no longer in tune. But I was using it for leading worship at youth group, where tuning is less important than loud. So, yes, it did what it was supposed to.

But, it's time for something new. I've developed as a player since then. And my desire to get better has only grown. So, like the day I turned in my $100 trumpet for the $300 one, it's time to upgrade.

Yesterday I went to my favorite online music store, and purchased this:


It's a Fender acoustic/electric, in case you can't tell. The Sonoran SCE, to be exact. Granted, it's not their top-of-the-line; the fender website still uses the word "Value" regarding this one. But it's certainly a step up, and, being a Fender, ought to be much better quality than the old Sunlight. So, yes, I'm excited.

Now, the day came when I traded in the $300 trumpet for the $1800 trumpet, so perhaps this won't be the final guitar along the road. But we'll let that day come of its own accord.

+++++++++
Friday Random 10

If anything, this list shows just how eclectic my music tastes are. . .a couple jazz standards, 1950s television, a hymn and a classical masterpiece, a folk tune and a pop song. Somehow, the bluegrass didn't show up this week.

1. Room Song – Silers Bald
2. Sanctus (from the Verdi Requiem) - Coro e Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
3. Know My Heart – Sara Groves
4. Sing to Jesus – Fernando Ortega
5. Barney’s Hoe-Down – Original Television Soundtrack for the Andy Griffith Show
6. Cheek to Cheek – Steve Tyrell
7. Children of the Heavenly Father – St. Olaf Choir
8. Let’s Fall in Love – Diana Krall
9. Michelangelo – Emmylou Harris
10. Cold, Cold Heart – Norah Jones

+++++++++++++++++

I'm still having trouble getting these blog posts to post the 1st time, what with that word verification thing. Yesterday I entered in the letters, exactly as shown in the picture, and it still rejected it three times before accepting it on the fourth. But I had to wonder - usually the letters are random combinations ("zlixhfzz," for instance). Yesterday, after the third try, the new list of letters came up as "dumazz." I had to wonder if it was trying to tell me something.

Hey Brad

Remember that Typhoon that brushed by you guys in Guam last week?

Apparently it's shown up here in the Puget Sound area.

"the dreary weather likely is a remnant of Typhoon Man-yi, which went through Japan last week, [the weather expert] said."

Seattle could break a record today for most rain ever recorded on July 22. Flooding in the lowlands, campers fleeing rampaging rivers. . .

and we had a huge family picnic planned for this afternoon.