The Great Office War

The Great Office War -- enjoy.

Why I Sneeze

I'm sneezing - a lot. The white stuff ya see on the bay isn't whitewater or waves -- tis a mass of pollen that has fallen onto the bay and has been pushed together by the waves and tides. Today's high tide pushed only a wee bit of the mass into the cove -- there is a lot more of it up at the north end of the bay.

Another day with overcast skies and only the faintest hint of the sun. Still, temps are in the mid to high 60's -- tis warmer than it looks. Meanwhile, I'm sneezing like one of them characters in a Disney cartoon.

A couple more photos of the rose that tries to eat the stairs. In the first, you can see why it gets called that; the second is a closeup.


The last photo is the rose outside my bedroom window.


If I remember correctly, that is pink columbine behind it.

Good Morning Starshine

Oliver -- Good Morning Starshine.

The Ladies Call Me Pinetop

Pinetop Perkins' 95th Birthday Bash with Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Jerome Godboo, and Jack de Keyzer at the Sound Academy in Toronto, Ontario, Canada -- The Ladies Call Me Pinetop

M-Word Day

The bay today:


It was overcast all day -- the ocean breezes aren't breezing so the marine layer is abundant.

I played around a wee bit with the macro function on the camera -- most were too crappy to show but I did have a few shots I liked -- especially fond of these two photos of the rose that tries to eat the stairs.



These are some geraniums in pots -- the first one has a blue lobelia volunteer next to some new shoots of the geranium. Nice to see even the wee plants blooming *and* growing.


This one is a gorgeous color but my photography skills need work:


My pal Dana has a post up at her blog about Oregon geology that focuses on the area just north of me, starting at Tillamook Head up to Ecola. Gorgeous eye candy photos and an easy to understand explanation of why it looks the way it does now. Fascinating stuff!

The Day

Was a changeable day today on the bay. The stiff breeze blowing from the north was trying to push the low clouds towards Cape Lookout with varying degrees of success until late afternoon when the fog-like clouds were finally chased away. The breeze is, however, still quite brisk.

The first picture was taken around 2pm.


This next picture was taken about an hour later -- I figured the clouds had won and the bay would be wrapped in their mists for the rest of the day.


I was wrong.


The marine layer is staying off the coast and the strong breeze is continuing to blow any stragglers south before they can come inland.

One of my fuchsias thinks it is spring again and has a bud that is starting to open. I played around with the macro function on the camera and was able to snag this:


As always, click on any picture to make it larger.

Misc. Eye Candy

The bay was gorgeous today:


Out and about around the front deck.


The rose that tries to eat the stairs (and has made its way onto the deck) is getting ready to have a bazillion blooms on it. It's gonna lose some when the front deck and stairs get rebuilt.



And, of course, the obligatory photo of Token looking grumpy as he guards the driveway:

Overcast

Overcast with high clouds for most of the day. Took the first picture early afternoon when the tide was out.



The second was after dinner when I noticed the boat on the bay as high tide approached. They approached the far point, circled the area for a bit and then headed back behind the point.


Didn't see much of the sun today -- but as you can tell, the day was just as pretty. Stayed in the high 60's today and I was able to run around barefoot most of the day.

Drove into Netarts and picked up some delicious prawn scampi from The Three Capes Cafe -- yummy yummy for my tummy. Was my treat to myself for the month. All in all, a good day off spent lounging about and doing nothing -- magnificently I might add.

No Words Needed

No words needed.

Whoops

Sorry I've been neglectful -- just realized that a week had passed since my last post. Really don't have much to say -- no news is good news, right?

A couple pictures -- the sunset at high tide is from Friday night.

If ya click on the picture above (makes it bigger) you can see the two birds (one at center above the spit and one further away near the top left). Had lots of eagle sightings this week.


The birds are from today as are the clouds trying to sneak in from Cape Lookout. Temps are back to summer norms -- high 60's and low 70's during the day and in the mid 50's at night. The clouds try to play hide and seek with the sun -- some days the sun wins but the clouds are persistant. Portland has only received 0.62" of rain in the last 4 weeks -- we could use some rain since it is fire season. No lightning tho, please.

95

95 forking degrees outside this afternoon. Not a whisper of a breeze until around 3pm and it didn't stay around long.

The good news is a finger of fog is creeping northward -- you can see the low clouds gathering on the other side of the spit. I don't think I've been happy to see fog clouds gather before...

88

Netarts Bay was 88 degrees today. Hottest it has been since I've been here and tomorrow and Thursday are forecast to be even hotter. Drove into town to run some errands today and it was stinking hot. The weather doodette said on the 4pm news that it got up into the 90's in Tillamook this afternoon and I can believe it.

I discovered that the a/c in the car needs to be recharged -- am adding that to the list of things to be checked out at the mechanics. Did some grocery shopping and stopped and made an appointment for a haircut on Friday -- am way overdue and quite shaggy looking and hightailed it back home before I melted.

Picture up top is of low tide this afternoon. As always, check on the picture to biggafy it.

Hella Week

Its been one hella week. I came home Monday from spending the day with Jen The Birthday Girl to all sorta electrical fuckery. Of course, I didn't know that when I walked in the door.

I had stopped and picked up Burger King on the way home because I didn't feel like cooking after being pampered all afternoon. So I plopped the bag down at the desk, turn on the tv and start to munch while catching up on email. My internet connection was wonky and I had to reset the modem several times. Was starting to wonder WFT when the tv popped off. Aha -- the cable is out and they will fix it soon.

Wrong.

A little bit later, I noticed the lights were either very bright or very dim. The microwave didn't work nor did the stovetop. Shit, the ghost in the wiring was back. The only appliance not affected was my coffee maker plugged into a GFI plug -- thank goodness -- I hate making coffee by heating water on the wood stove and then using the french press.

My internet connection came back up around 11pm, I sent off an email to my landlord describing the problem. The tv would not turn back on but I had tubes so it was ok. I went to bed hoping that since the wifi was now working, whatever had woke up the ghost in the wires was settling down and I would wake up in the morning all would be back to normal.

Wrong.

Tuesday I had neither tv nor internet -- the modem and wifi router, which had been working when I went to bed had no lights -- but the landlord was on his way so I waited patiently. He got here mid-afternoon and figured out that it wasn't an internal to the house error -- there were wild voltage swings from 156 to 33 on the 110 circuits -- he shut down all power to the house and called the electric company (PUD).

The PUD guy showed up and discovered a broken neutral ground wire where the PUD cable connects to the roof jack. He made a temporary fix, got the power restored and said that PUD would send out a crew in the morning (it was almost 6pm when he left). I checked and everything was working again except for the one year old 32" flat screen tv and the cable modem and wifi router -- all of which had been plugged into power strip surge protectors and all of which were fried.

Oy.

Wednesday morning the landlord picked up a new cable modem from the cable company, a new wifi router from the store, and got me connected again. He also had stopped by PUD and picked up a claim form for me to fill out for the now only good to use as a doorstop flatscreen tv. PUD sent a crew and a couple trucks around 1pm and they completely replaced the electrical cable from the street to the house. Of course, they had to turn off the power while they restrung new cable and redid the connection to the house but had everything reconnected by mid-afternoon. Luckily, I ended up only missing work Tues night.

I have hauled out the little tv from the bedroom (it had survived) and have been slowly catching up on all that I missed online. I have learned that if given a choice between no tv and no internet, I would choose to have internet *if* I was given a choice. Monday night was less stressful with no tv and having the internet than Tuesday night with no internet and a working tv.

Picture up top is of the result of Monday's fun getting spa manicures and pedicures.