Seasonal Warning
Don't. I mean, just do not climb high into the tree that has electrical wires running near or through it and toss a string of Christmas lights into the tree. Don't.

Fire crews arrived to find the man hanging about 60 feet from the ground, apparently fused to the tree by electricity, and smoking from his feet, Schapelhouman said. -San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 16, 2007

'One of the Great Natural Disasters in the Pacific Northwest'


See the full report on the storm from the Office of the Washington State Climatologist, which created this graphic.

En Route
At the Sac airport heading back to Portland. These smaller-market airports, competing for traffic with the big boys, are great for the free WiFi. None of that at LAX or SFO. But PDX and SMF? You bet.

Hmm. Woman to my right meditating, somehow, amid the chatter and whoops of the Central Catholic Raiders of Modesto football team, on their way to Southern California to play in the state Division III championship game against the St. Boneventure Seraphs of Ventura. Letter jackets and much youthful testosterone on display here. These boys need no 'roids and I hope they aren’t taking them.

Worst Person in the World
Olbermann ought to check out this John Davies. From all appearances, he's had nothing to do with the success of Schramsberg Vineyards, built by his parents, Jack and Jamie, and maintained by one of his brothers, Hugh. Jack died in 1998. Jamie is still with us. Yet this character John is apparently nervous that he's not going to get a big piece of the Schramsberg pie when Mom kicks. So he's suing for a third of the estate--now. Just in case. "If there is no provision for inheritance in the trust [for John Davies], there should be," his attorney tells the Wine Spectator.

Property Taxes in Oregon
Thinking about moving to Oregon and wondering how we do property taxes? Here's how: "Outside experts call it a perfect example of how not to design a tax code, because it’s fundamentally inequitable." Read more.

The Rain Report
We had 15 days with measureable precipitation in November – nine days over a tenth of an inch, three days over half an inch. How many days over an inch? Zippo. In fact, at the station I like to use, Portland hadn’t topped an inch in a day since March 2 -- until today. As of 10 p.m., we’re at 1.50 inches and it's still coming down. In the land of a million drips, today the spigots have been open.

Yeah, I ran in it. I waited all morning and into the afternoon for the break in the weather that would never come. When I finally gave up hope and got out around 2, the rain was light but charging into gusts and sloshing through puddles, I was pretty wet after an hour going up, down and around the trails on Mount Tabor. At least this is tropical moisture, so not too cold. After mid-40s high today, it's heading up another 10 degrees tomorrow, with more rain and big winds in the forecast.

UPDATE: Make it two days in a row over an inch. As of 9 a.m. Monday, we're already measuring 1.09 inches of rain and it continues to fall steadily. For the storm that started late Saturday, we're now talking 3.05 inches. That's impressive, but realize that Portland is in something of a rain shadow, with the coast range getting multiples of what we get. Flooding becoming a real concern in some areas.

Speaking of Missed Deliveries
I guess the cake I ordered sent down to Jeff Tedford on the sidelines yesterday didn't make it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We did the Turkey Trot. Wind chills below freezing. Cold turkey! (Cool kid.)

Not Crap
Marketing and shoddy journalism dominate our lives, making it difficult to distinguish reality from crap, especially when it comes to health issues. Studies are manufactured and/or spun by companies looking to sell products, while media are often too lazy or inept to look closely or smartly at research and claims. And then there's the more innocent tendency for information to morph as it gets passed along the communication chain. Add it all up and before long, the facts we know are too often nothing more than the myths we've accepted. For the endurance athlete, this can be frustrating, even dangerous. Enter: the boys at The Science of Sport. They delve into what's really known at the intersection of performance and health. Take, for instance, that old saw, "If you wait to drink until you're thirsty, it's too late." Science of Sports demonstrates pretty conclusively that his is BS. Check it out. Become a regular reader. (And thanks to Dan for tipping me to this great site.)

Running Again
I’ve been in recovery, a no-step kind of program, at least at the beginning.

After running 50-miles on November 3, I spent a couple of days icing and resting and doing very little except grimacing and eating. The day after the run, I walked to Fred Meyer, all of four or five blocks down the road. It took me maybe 20 minutes each way, and the pain was constant and intense. Day 2, the pain fell from 10 to 7 on the 1-10 scale. Then on day 3, about mid-afternoon, I suddenly (really, it was that abrupt) noticed I could get up without bracing myself. From there, I began to take longer walks, first just a mile or two, then three or four, then a seven-miler the other night. Tightness and aches were diminishing. Today, after work, it was time to run.

Darkness and rain falling, I put on my tights, jacket and headlamp and set out. Some things hurt a bit at first: knees, feet, a shin. It wasn’t too bad, though, and after a mile or so the joints and stuff began to loosen up. My favorite runs are up in Mount Tabor Park, but climbing and descending didn’t seem like a good idea on this post-Autumn Leaves maiden voyage. So I kept it flat and shuffled along Davis and Everett,an east-west route to Laurelhurst Park that's marked for bikes and pretty quiet when it comes to traffic. But the cars were screaming along 39th Avenue, racing to beat the light at Burnside, then backing up for a couple of blocks when it turned red. It was red for me too, and a few cyclist. We waited for green and go. The cyclists had rear lights blinking red; when the signal turned green and they took off in front of me, I turned my headlamp to blinking too. It seemed like the thing to do.

In the park I was able to relax and cruise. I was cold and wet but enjoying the surroundings. The loop is lit but not brightly, just some ancient short lamps every 20 or 30 yards or so. They gave off enough light to show how empty and quiet the park was, heightening the sense of adventure. My blinking light would illuminate the rain from above as I ran into it. I did a couple of loops. My legs were fine but hardly spry. OK but kind of lifeless.

I guess I ran about four miles in all, in about 40 minutes. On Thanksgiving, Niko and I will do the Turkey Trot at the Zoo, another ORRC production. That’s four miles for me, 1K for Niko. I should be able to go a good deal faster six days from now, but I’ll want to make sure not to get too stupid and run too fast. There’s still some recovery to go.