Winter Blast hits the Northwest

A winter blast has covered from Salem north to Seattle in snow and ice. It's not as bad as some years I remember, but it's fun to be stuck together in the house. Yesterday, we got about 6" of snow at our house and overnight about an inch of freezing rain (ice).

Thursday (12/18/2008) I was in Bellevue, WA when the first storm hit there. It effectively shut the city down. Seattle wasn't much better off. Just driving 4 blocks to work required 4-wheel drive. The roads were icy and not well kept by the city. It snowed all day and accumulation was over 8" where I worked. Friday the temperature was in the teens from Portland to Seattle. The roads were mostly dry and conditions good south of Olympia to Portland. A truck jack-knifed south of Olympia and held traffic for quite some time. Total commute south - 4.5 hours.

The boys have spent a couple days sledding nearby. Ethan braved the frozen snow cold and let me take some pictures of him playing on our playground. We got another dusting of snow after the boys came in and we're all waiting for what's next. The weather forecast is predicting more freezing rain this evening and some snow tomorrow.

Priscila's been cleaning the upstairs, while I've been cleaning the kitchen. It never gets really clean.... I've been carrying Andrew in the baby backpack most of the day. Combined with shoveling snow with the boys - I'm completely beat.

Now we're going to enjoy Aunt Mel's Popcorn balls and some Monopoly. Happy early Christmas!

Catching up with blogging & home repairs

My wife continually asks me 2 questions:

1. Did you read my blog????
2. When are you going to blog???

As a computer consultant, it's hard to find things to blog about that wouldn't reflect on my customers or repeat what's already being said by industry pundits. How many stories about bizarre IT occurrences with unnamed people can this world take?? Hopefully the few times I do blog make them gems instead of just more blogosphere noise.

So now that Thanksgiving is near, I have a moment to pause and reflect. When not at work, I've been fixing things around the house. The door that leads into the garage has been making a hole in the wall so I got that fixed. I found a "fancy" doorstop with a magnet to hold the door open and patched the wall with one of those stainless-steel pro patches. Best drywall work I've done yet. After doing the drywall around a window we had put in, I swore I'd always call a pro. It got done, but I always wonder what it looks like now (can't be good).

The Oven Story
My wife called me a couple weeks ago to complain the broiler stopped working. No biggie. We don't use it too much anyway, so I drug my feet to get a new element. Good thing I did.

A couple days ago, while baking, I smelled burning food. Yum, there goes dinner. The broiler element was on and the baking element was not. Every time I tried to bake - there was the broiler. So I told Priscila the control/computer/brain/whatever was fried and to call a repair guy. $40 later he said, "The computer is fried. It'll be another $300 to fix it." Thanks buddy. A new one is around $450.

After spending an evening shopping for new and slightly used on Craig's List, we were on the verge of spending a bunch more for a REALLY NICE, FULLY LOADED, HIGH END oven/range. I love to cook, but I don't bake fancy cakes (except for this one) so I can't really justify a high-end model. We put cold or uncooked food in our regular one, and it comes out hot and cooked. It does what we need it to do.

I asked Priscila to make one last call in the morning to find out how much the part cost and we'd try to install it. The local appliance store had the part for around $150. Before I got home Priscila had it replace. The cables pop right off and the whole display/computer pops off the back. Easy fix. Thanks Baby. Now I got cool spare parts for my microcontroller projects. Yipee!!!!

The Leaky Fridge or How to Save $1200
We'd had a bunch of ice collecting at the bottom of the freezer. Priscila would chip it out, but it kept coming back. This fridge was a Craig's List purchase, and we both feel the seller wasn't on the level. Priscila started shopping for fridges.

I found a little tray where the defrost water would collect and run into a drain tube. It was full and overflowing. I grabbed a $2 piece of wire and gently snaked it down the drain tube. A little wiggling and ---- SSSSSLLLUURRRPPPP ---- the water is gone and it's all working again. That $2 wire saved me $1200. Figure in financing charges and it's kinda like winning the lottery. :)

No bailout of the auto industry

This is a letter I sent out to my Representative and Congress ladies. Never done it before. This is probably the most significant political thing I've ever done.

I think the letter leave LOTS to be desired, but I'm sick and tired of being on the sidelines. Gotta get off my rear and start somewhere.

If you read this and feel motivated either way - write your legislators. Google write your congress or write your senator to find 'em. State your opinion!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rep/Congress person,

As a citizen, I want to express my concern over the consideration of a bailout package for the auto industry. Please vote AGAINST any proposed bailout package for the auto industry.

1) All levels of the government representing me have FAILED to deal with the banking industry's problems. I can't imagine any funds allocated to the auto industry would be used responsibly or wisely. As far as I'm concerned, both the current legislative and executive branches of the government have earned my vote of "no confidence" when it comes to financial matters. Business, not government, should be left to resolve this, very unfortunate, situation.

2) I believe the US auto industry has failed to be a willing partner with consumers and the government in the areas of:
* air quality
* fuel consumption standards
* alternative energy options
* others I probably couldn't know about

3) My high school economics class taught me that when companies fail their assets don't simply disappear. The "big 3"'s properties, technologies, dollars, research and other assets will evolve into new relationships, be acquired by competitors and move into other industries.

4) The bloat of "big 3" needs to be curbed. It's time for that bubble to pop. This bloat can also be extended to those immediately around the big 3: unions, suppliers, subsidiaries, etc.

I am not one of the people who will be directly impacted by the so-called collapse. My industry (high-end computing sales/consulting) is employed by the auto industry and will feel an impact. Nevertheless, it is irresponsible for the taxpayers to hold up an industry so bloated and unwilling to make change. It's in the natural business cycle for companies to fail and their assets to evolve.

Letting the big 3 fail will probably hurt a lot of people in the process. Shoring them up may not hut so much now, but will probably hurt a lot more people in the long run. Don't sell our future generations down the river for short term gains.

In the event you actually read this email and decide to vote against a bailout of the auto industry, please do whatever you can to help save pensions of retired autoworkers. There's no sense punishing "the guy on the assembly line" for the poor decisions of corporate management.

Davin and Priscila Petersen

Weekend cooking

made a tart this weekend. will post pictures. http://www.latartinegourmande.com/2006/08/31/tarte-aux-nectarines-et-framboises-nectarine-and-raspberry-tart/

Salty Cheetos

A couple days ago Ethan asked what we were having for dinner. I replied, "Salchichitas" (sal-chi-chi-tas).

It's a dish from Priscila's childhood - cut up hotdogs simmered in pasta (tomato) sauce for a good while. Priscila's mom would make the sauce from scratch. In Argentina back then, you couldn't find a jar of pasta sauce in the store. Everyone made sauce from scratch.

Ethan asked what we were having for dinner and I told him. With a curious, inquisitive and confused look on his face he replied, "Salty Cheetos?!?!?"

Soup needs time

I made soup tonight from a random selection: ground beef, green beans, spinach, carrots, onions, white and red beans, bell pepper, and tomatoes. The beans and tomatoes were canned - everything else was fresh. Liquids were (by quantity) chicken stock, beef stock, water, and a little beer. Seasonings were some Kirkland no-salt seasoning, my house seasoning, worcestershire, garlic & parsley.

My house seasoning is shamelessly stolen from Paula Dean's recipes at foodnetwork.com. It's one part black pepper, one part garlic powder, and 4 parts salt. Just a little goes good on most any veggie, fish, meat, soups, etc.

Make a mireproix. Brown the meat, throw in the liquids, veggies (add extra carrots and celery), seasonings and let cook. When cooking the meat, it just smelled nasty. Not sure why. After more seasonings and time, it started coming together. Not the best soup I've ever made, but it's better than tossing all the goodies when they spoil.

Conference is done

So the conference is over and it was pretty good. Tomorrow will be hanging out at Harold's house. Tonight will be learning how to navigate our new PSA system and cleaning up my computer.

Fun.

Getting the train started

So.... Finally I'm getting this train rolling. This week I'm in San Diego at the IBM System Storage & Storage Networking Symposium. I'm here to get updated on new IBM products/technologies, update skills, pass tests and connect with the co-workers I never see.

I'll be Twittering this week at the conference and I've added my twitter RSS feed to this blog. You can check out what's going on with my travels. It's updated whenever I send a text message or web entry from my phone. Pretty cool.

On the 3rd of July, Isaac took a dump off his bike and ended up with 7 stitches. There's some photos at my flickr account.

First post

This is my first post to get this crazy blogging train started. I'll be "migrating" pages over from my wetpaint wiki. I figure blogging might outlast it, or something... Or maybe I should leave content there for static, non-stream-of-consciousness, stuff.

My wife's blog is over at my5boyz.blogspot.com - which show's her perspective on raising 5 boys. My perspective is pretty simple. It's hard. Discipline reigns supreme. Maybe a little too much some days. God grant me the strength to be as kind and gentile as You have been.

What might appear on these entries? Tech interests, food, personal achievements, the usual nonsense that most people won't read.