Fishing in Central Oregon

Keith and me on the Crooked River, Oregon

Originally uploaded by MediumTall

Keith and I had a great weekend fishing in Central Oregon. We started out loading up the gear at my place at 4:30AM on Saturday. I was totally amazed how light it was at that hour, but it was mid June in the Northwest. We arrived in Madras at about 7:00AM, we did make a quick stop at Joe’s Donut in Sandy for a sugar and caffeine fix.

“Hey, There” took us a few miles east to Little Willow for a great day on the lake. I landed a few big trout and Keith fought a few more than I. It was a weird day. The fishing was best at about 2:00 and again around 5:00. Usually it is day break and twilight that yields the best results. Pack it up at 8:30 right as the mountain shadow covered the lake. We needed to make sure that we cleared out before dark incase we did not make it across the small stream in the minivan. Late dinner at the Black Bear Diner (kitsch retro diner, good food, friendly staff). Spent the night at The Inn at Cross Keys Station - very nice place, reasonable priced, included breakfast.
Up the next morning at 5:00AM to spend the morning on the Crooked River. Beautiful river, reasonable to wade across. No fish caught. We then headed down the Crooked and then down to Warm Springs to fish the Deschutes river. I landed a few small ones and Keith worked extra hard to land a red side. The temperature at the car was over 105. We worked the river few a few hours, called it a day and headed back home. The weekend was exhilarating, exhausting and a total change of pace.

Next weekend I’ll have a fly rod in my hand again on the Wilson River then the 12th I hope to head back to central Oregon with Bill for some time on the Clackamas, Lost Lake and/or Timothy Lake. More photos to come!

Carefree Commuter Challenge: July 2008

My office is 25 miles from my home. It takes about 45min for me to drive there in the AM and about 1:10 for me to get home. If I drive during non-peek hours the I can drive each way in about 35min.

My car gets about 27mpg. Gas is about $4.40/gal for plus since I have turbo. It cost me about $8.15 to drove to work and back. If I drive to work 5 times a week for 52 then I’m spending $2,119 just in gas ($176.45/month). This does not take into account maintenance, insurance or other side trips. 

I’ve been trying to work from home about two days a week, with limited success. Not driving two days a week saves me $847.60 or about ($70.63/month). But the amazing thing to note here is that if I work from home two days a week for a year I save my self from sitting in a car for 200 hours per year. (If I drive 5 days a week then it is almost 500 hours per year!) Imagine what I could get done in what in that amount of time! This is the real tipping point for working from home.

Sitting in a car is dead time. There is very few productive and safe things that you can do. I do books on tape and catch up with friends on the phone while I’m pushing the clutch in and out. I take the bus/train when it is convenient. I’m able to use the time to read, work on the computer or just relax and clear my mind. Rarely have I had Mass Transit Rage. 

So July is the Carefree Commuter Challenge. So I plan to step up to the plate and track how often I REALLY drive into work. I’m going to double my efforts to take mass transit if I must go in and try to go into the office a little as possible. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Let me know your story with cars. I’d be interested to hear about your relationship with your car and what you might be able to do to reduce your time behind the wheel.

Community is the people you know

 
I’m interested in what is going on in my neighborhood, city, state, country and the world. I try to read about economic issues and support ideas, people and open communication as best I can. With my job as a community manager I work to reach out and start conversation. It’s not always about high tech and software development (but that’s what I get paid to do). As often as I can I try to attend local civic event. Today was one of those days.A great event in Portland is the Business Journal’s Power Breakfast. It’s a monthly event where a influential business leader is interviews by the journal’s publisher. Today’s conversation was with Tim Boyle from Columbia Sportswear. I like the brand. Know many people who work there. Have done a sales pitch over there with a previous company and have a few of their great products. 

I go to these events to meet people. I love meeting new people. Hearing their stories. Getting a feel for what the local climate it like. It’s always interesting to see how many people are looking for jobs, selling services, sharing ideas and even running for office.

It’s election season and the candidates are out in force. Looking over the name badges coming in this morning I saw more than a few that said “candidate for …”.

The event is a breakfast so finding a seat with some interesting people is important. I try to find tables that have verity of people, not just everyone from the same company. I sat down with a few folks introduced myself. Two bankers and two professionals looking for jobs. Right before the meal starts Allen Alley sits down to my left.

I met Allen for the first time in about 5 years ago at an event where he was telling the story of taking his company public. I’ve casually met him a few more times at networking events and have always found him to well informed and a good listener. He is currently running for Oregon State Treasurer. I’m a moderate that thinks we should work more in a bipartisan fashion to build a stronger Oregon. I’ve signed up to follow his daily tweets and think that he will get my vote.

What’s clogging the pipes?

We live in a house that was built in the 1930’s. It’s a great house, we love it. But every once in a while it needs a little TLC. On Monday my wife called me when I was on a business trip to Santa Clara notifying me that the sink in the kitchen was clogged. We’ve live in the house for 7 years and have dealt with a few clogged toilets and a clog in the main drain. The main drain required the super rooter. I just haven’t had any interest in getting a 40 foot drain snake when for the cost of a snake I could get someone to do the work for me.

For some reason the kitchen sink was different. Maybe it’s because it’s food waste rather than the truly stinky stuff. I called Bernie, my handy man engineering buddy, to discuss creative solutions. The first step was a plunger. Push it down…. no go. Then I disconnected the trap to see if the clog was close to the plunger. I drained the sink into two wash tubs. No clog in the trap. Today after work I stopped by the hardware store to pick up a 20′ snake. I think that I got about 10 feet down the pipe. No clog. Pulling the snake back out I noticed that it was pretty greasy. I guess with the oil, butter, cooking grease and other food stuff it gets stuck to the pipes. So much of it not being a gross job.

The next step was heading down to the basement to open up an access pipe. We have an unfinished basement so it is easy to get to the pipes. The cap was rusted shut. So off to the hardware store for some liquid wrench to break up the corrosion. While I was there I picked up a pipe wrench as well. I figured that I would need the leverage. I got home, applied the liquid on the seam and waited. After a while I gave it a go to get the cap off. Even with a hammer it was a no go!

The plumber will be here tomorrow at 7:30AM. What a pain in the ass!

Take Care Down There

I had dinner with friend of mine works for Planned Parenthood and of the Columbia Willamette in Oregon. I was talking with him about social media and connecting with customer. He was excited about a new project he just launched called Take Care Down There. It is a fun sexual education website, including videos about condoms, abstinence, STDs and other sexual health topics, sex ed links and sex education resources. It is simple, to the point and easy for kids to understand. I like the guy with the mustache.

Memories of SecondLife

Last year my company ramped up a big effort to reach out to customer in Second Life. It was an interesting experiment that yielded some curious results. I was catching up on a few feeds and caught this on Web Strategy by Jeremiah.  If you are an ex-SLer then you will find great humor in this little movie.

Back Yard Garden

Plants for the garden

Originally uploaded by MediumTall

This year we are late with the whole putting in the garden. Going to Europe and then just riding a mellow vibe kept us from getting it done. This past Saturday was a great day and we decide that it was time. The nursery that we went to had a lot of big starters so with a few extra dollars we are back in action and right on schedule. The crop this year includes tomatoes, eggplant, lettuce, acorn squash, zucchini, corn, peas, spinach and basil. The soaker hose is hooked up but with all the rain I have yet to set a schedule. Looking forward to the fresh veggies.

Taking a break from Firefox

I need a clean break. I need to start from scratch. My bookmarks and plug-ins are out of control. I need a faster browser. I waited for Firefox 3.0 hoping that it would do the trick. But the pain still lingers. Work is conspiring against me with the new intranet that does not support web standards. Password management is an issue. No google gears yet…WTF?!? Since gears is build into web kit I’m thinking it is time to take on Safari. I exported all my plug-ins as html so I have them if i need them but the goal is to keep the list very light. Only what I need to get things done.

42,000 BTUs of Power!

42,000 BTUs of Power!

Originally uploaded by MediumTall

After 10 years it was time. Yesterday after over a year of planning and research we pulled the trigger and upgraded to a new grill. There are tons of options on the market (side burner or no side burner). But for us it came down to quality of construction, ease of use, serviceability and raw power. We settled on the Weber Genesis E-310. It is going to be a good summer!

The newspaper

I’ve been a subscriber to The Oregonian (our local paper) since 2001.

It’s a pretty good paper for local event,politics, business and entertainment. Almost all the national news is from the AP or other syndicated sources. We even clipped a coupon or two before we started using Trader Joes as our primary source of staple foods. Since we don’t watch very much TV it has been our first source of information regarding all things local. For my previous job it was essential that I was aware of the local business and political scene for great networking conversation and client relationships. Most of the time I skimmed the headlines, read a few articles and recycled. During the past 7 years we have recycled ALOT of newspapers.

During our trip to Europe it gave us some time to reflect on our life and our priorities. Our life is very much about the journey and I’d really like to focus more on quality rather than quantity. You can’t do everything and the things that you choose to do should be done with attention to detail and at a high quality. So the plan is to only get the local paper on Sunday and also get the New York Times. Spend time reading the issues more in depth, learn about new things and have deeper conversation with friends about the issues. I’ll let you know how it goes….