35 reasons to be thankful / weekend notebook
This is the seventh time I tried to write this blog, starting back last Tuesday when I turned 35 and spanning Thanksgiving and a long weekend in Kennewick for work.
And all of them, maybe including this one, went nowhere.
It isn't as if I don't have things to be thankful for - family, friends (those who are left), football and work (for allowing me to watch sports for a living - but to come up with 35 items (without being tripe or sarcastic) was too much to come up with.
Hey, at least I'm honest about it. I've read some very bad Thanksgiving lists lately. Just Google them and enjoy the hilarity... (Ed's note: That was sarcasm. He couldn't resist.)
* Snowy weather: Because my job deemed it possible for me to drive to Kennewick and back over a Thanksgiving weekend during a snow storm to go to work on Monday morning, I found myself on I-84 in Oregon at 7 a.m. on Sunday.
Yeah, not the best time to be on the road, but with the storm coming in that day, the earlier I hit it, the better I'll be. Driving a Scion xB, I needed as much clear road as possible beforehand.
I got about 20 minutes of it before the snow hit and stayed from Umatilla to west of the Cascade Locks. Most of the time, I found grooves from the 18-wheelers plowing through the snow and stayed at a safe speed. Only on one occasion did I believe I'll be spending the day in a ditch, waiting for emergency personnel to show up.
Just east of the John Day dam, I came across a bridge with a slight bend to the right, enough to put a good turn on the wheel and enough to send the light car into a slight skid. How slight? Enough for my traction sensor to beep and to fishtail at 35 miles per hour (yes, 35 on a highway that is 65 max) across the bridge and in front of two speeding 18-wheel trucks.
Turning slightly right, the car fished to the left and I saved it. A fish to the right, save it. And so on - eight times, enough to send me into a barrier or a revine at any time with any over/under steer. I didn't. I stayed on the road and left a pretty impressive slide/skid mark on the highway in the snow along the length of the bridge.
The two 18-wheelers, one carrying flat hauling trailers, slowed down considerably and were in both lanes - to keep traffic from getting by them and into my way. They ran a virtual rolling roadblock to give me enough room to save - or kill - myself on the bridge. If I had to worry about other traffic as well, that would have been bad.
After the skidding, I stayed slow, kept it in the grooves and got through The Dalles and upper Oregon all the way to Portland. From there, I-205 to I-5 North and home.
For the 18-wheel drivers and some good luck and skill, I'm thankful I'm not in a ditch - or worse.
* Kennewick: The Tri-Cities are a nice place, with good people and a sense of community. It is also in the middle of nowhere that I just can't handle.
After a 11-month sojourn to Bend, Ore., I realized that I need an ocean nearby or a chance to get away to some nature and green trees where I live. I'm a West Coast guy and I haven't lived far away from an ocean or a forest in my life and I don't believe I can do it ever.
Now, if the Harbor had a hockey team, like the Tri-City Americans, of the Western Hockey League, then I'd truly be happy here. I missed a chance to catch the Ams play on Friday night, but I'll work to see a game soon - I hope - in Portland.
* High school football: Saturday afternoon's state 1A semifinal between Montesano and Connell was the final game of the year for us to cover as the Bulldogs fell to the state's No. 1 1A team, 28-21.
Football season is my favorite time of the year on the sports calendar, especially covering high school games. Most of the contests are competitive and the kids are all good for a quote or three and are appreciative of everything - the chance to play, their teammates and the support of their school.
Now it is just the end of the college season and the NFL, which is getting good now. I'll have a chance to go to a few more Seahawks games, including Monday's game against Green Bay. Always fun and always good for a story or two. (More Monday/Tuesday)
* Thanksgiving: A good day, with a 21-pound turkey done up right and on time this time around. I've been known for cooking those birds too early before dinner and it would sit longer than it usually should for the dinner.
The little girl was an angel, playing with her turkey, mashed taters and dressing dinner throughout our dinner and leaving more on the floor and on the tray than in her. She was then treated to Grandma's pumpkin pie later and went to bed happy.
Not much else to tell. Plenty of food, football and beer, at least for me. Kris' family came over and were cool. None of them like sports, but they allow me to keep football on the TV. Hey, not bad.
* Random thoughts: Can I bury John Cougar Mellencamp next to the pink house he built a long, long time ago with that over played song on those Chevy commercials? No really, please... If you catch Dwayne Wade riding a bike on a busy avenue, please, stop and give him a ride. If he's going to give up an Escalade to an inter-city basketball coach, he deserves a lift. Now, does he really do that? Don't know, but hey, at least that's a commercial that isn't burned into your memory like an over played pop song... The new Bond movie "Casino Royale" was very good. Daniel Craig makes for a good Bond, the action in the film kept you interested and the story (not true to the book) was true to the formula that Bond movies have followed in the past. And, since it is being touted as a reset for the series, I'd like to know how they're going to take the series into the 21st Century. There are no more Ian Fleming books to adapt onto the big screen... Ran into a mall Santa in a bathroom on Saturday morning. Both of us were washing our hands when I smelled a faint whiff of whiskey on the guy. "Hey, Billy Bob Thornton, where's your midget?" I asked, giving into an impulse with a "Bad Santa" reference. He didn't answer me, so I'll assume he didn't get the reference. I'm pretty proud of that reference... If there's a film adaptation of "The Birdman" in the works, the McDonalds "$1 party guy" (the one with the can and the curly afro) would be perfect... And the sooner the local or national news programs stop trying to scare people in beliving that terrorists/fake psychics/water will kill us,the better.
(c) R. Burns
And all of them, maybe including this one, went nowhere.
It isn't as if I don't have things to be thankful for - family, friends (those who are left), football and work (for allowing me to watch sports for a living - but to come up with 35 items (without being tripe or sarcastic) was too much to come up with.
Hey, at least I'm honest about it. I've read some very bad Thanksgiving lists lately. Just Google them and enjoy the hilarity... (Ed's note: That was sarcasm. He couldn't resist.)
* Snowy weather: Because my job deemed it possible for me to drive to Kennewick and back over a Thanksgiving weekend during a snow storm to go to work on Monday morning, I found myself on I-84 in Oregon at 7 a.m. on Sunday.
Yeah, not the best time to be on the road, but with the storm coming in that day, the earlier I hit it, the better I'll be. Driving a Scion xB, I needed as much clear road as possible beforehand.
I got about 20 minutes of it before the snow hit and stayed from Umatilla to west of the Cascade Locks. Most of the time, I found grooves from the 18-wheelers plowing through the snow and stayed at a safe speed. Only on one occasion did I believe I'll be spending the day in a ditch, waiting for emergency personnel to show up.
Just east of the John Day dam, I came across a bridge with a slight bend to the right, enough to put a good turn on the wheel and enough to send the light car into a slight skid. How slight? Enough for my traction sensor to beep and to fishtail at 35 miles per hour (yes, 35 on a highway that is 65 max) across the bridge and in front of two speeding 18-wheel trucks.
Turning slightly right, the car fished to the left and I saved it. A fish to the right, save it. And so on - eight times, enough to send me into a barrier or a revine at any time with any over/under steer. I didn't. I stayed on the road and left a pretty impressive slide/skid mark on the highway in the snow along the length of the bridge.
The two 18-wheelers, one carrying flat hauling trailers, slowed down considerably and were in both lanes - to keep traffic from getting by them and into my way. They ran a virtual rolling roadblock to give me enough room to save - or kill - myself on the bridge. If I had to worry about other traffic as well, that would have been bad.
After the skidding, I stayed slow, kept it in the grooves and got through The Dalles and upper Oregon all the way to Portland. From there, I-205 to I-5 North and home.
For the 18-wheel drivers and some good luck and skill, I'm thankful I'm not in a ditch - or worse.
* Kennewick: The Tri-Cities are a nice place, with good people and a sense of community. It is also in the middle of nowhere that I just can't handle.
After a 11-month sojourn to Bend, Ore., I realized that I need an ocean nearby or a chance to get away to some nature and green trees where I live. I'm a West Coast guy and I haven't lived far away from an ocean or a forest in my life and I don't believe I can do it ever.
Now, if the Harbor had a hockey team, like the Tri-City Americans, of the Western Hockey League, then I'd truly be happy here. I missed a chance to catch the Ams play on Friday night, but I'll work to see a game soon - I hope - in Portland.
* High school football: Saturday afternoon's state 1A semifinal between Montesano and Connell was the final game of the year for us to cover as the Bulldogs fell to the state's No. 1 1A team, 28-21.
Football season is my favorite time of the year on the sports calendar, especially covering high school games. Most of the contests are competitive and the kids are all good for a quote or three and are appreciative of everything - the chance to play, their teammates and the support of their school.
Now it is just the end of the college season and the NFL, which is getting good now. I'll have a chance to go to a few more Seahawks games, including Monday's game against Green Bay. Always fun and always good for a story or two. (More Monday/Tuesday)
* Thanksgiving: A good day, with a 21-pound turkey done up right and on time this time around. I've been known for cooking those birds too early before dinner and it would sit longer than it usually should for the dinner.
The little girl was an angel, playing with her turkey, mashed taters and dressing dinner throughout our dinner and leaving more on the floor and on the tray than in her. She was then treated to Grandma's pumpkin pie later and went to bed happy.
Not much else to tell. Plenty of food, football and beer, at least for me. Kris' family came over and were cool. None of them like sports, but they allow me to keep football on the TV. Hey, not bad.
* Random thoughts: Can I bury John Cougar Mellencamp next to the pink house he built a long, long time ago with that over played song on those Chevy commercials? No really, please... If you catch Dwayne Wade riding a bike on a busy avenue, please, stop and give him a ride. If he's going to give up an Escalade to an inter-city basketball coach, he deserves a lift. Now, does he really do that? Don't know, but hey, at least that's a commercial that isn't burned into your memory like an over played pop song... The new Bond movie "Casino Royale" was very good. Daniel Craig makes for a good Bond, the action in the film kept you interested and the story (not true to the book) was true to the formula that Bond movies have followed in the past. And, since it is being touted as a reset for the series, I'd like to know how they're going to take the series into the 21st Century. There are no more Ian Fleming books to adapt onto the big screen... Ran into a mall Santa in a bathroom on Saturday morning. Both of us were washing our hands when I smelled a faint whiff of whiskey on the guy. "Hey, Billy Bob Thornton, where's your midget?" I asked, giving into an impulse with a "Bad Santa" reference. He didn't answer me, so I'll assume he didn't get the reference. I'm pretty proud of that reference... If there's a film adaptation of "The Birdman" in the works, the McDonalds "$1 party guy" (the one with the can and the curly afro) would be perfect... And the sooner the local or national news programs stop trying to scare people in beliving that terrorists/fake psychics/water will kill us,the better.
(c) R. Burns
posted by R. Burns at 11/26/2006 07:33:00 PM
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