It’s early. We don’t know what the day will bring, but the sun is shining so it can’t be bad. We had a good soaking of rain from the extreme fringe of hurricane Matthew but nothing beyond the capabilities of professional Oregonians to handle. Just a little rain. I say that not meaning to minimize the impact Matthew has had on its journey up the coast of Florida. That was pretty devastating for thousands of folks. Those where we are were fortunate. It could have been far worse.

This is the view from our window, looking almost due south. There’s a bit of a breeze but no rain in the foreseeable future. That means things are looking up for a nice few days in Virginia Beach later this week.

Our friend Nancy, in Georgia, whom I’ve never talked about, had to evacuate her house because it was in the path of Matthew. I don’t know how far she had to go to reach safety, but she is safe. Yesterday she returned home to find that it was OK. Lots of trees down in her area but none hit her house. Just wind-blown tree debris all over the place. We’re happy for that.

Also, cousin Karen from Clyo, GA had to pack up, too. She went to Atlanta but don’t have any updates yet.

The really sad news from yesterday, from a sports perspective, is that the Oregon Ducks were thoroughly dominated by the Washington Huskies 70-21. It was bound to happen eventually. Now I’ll have to shift my fickle allegiance to the winner and root for Washington to make it to the championship game. That will maintain my PAC-12 affiliation but sever my mental ties to the home state team. Second on my list is the Oregon Beavers who won yesterday against California.

Enough about college sports. Lets move on to the NFL. Cam is out with a concussion for tomorrow nights game which means our very own Derek Anderson, who is from Scappoose, will be the QB. We look forward to watching him play. His grandpa lives just around the corner from Diane’s Mom, Jean, in St. Helens. I actually had lunch with him at the St. Helens Senior Center a few weeks ago. Nice guy.

On the high school football scene, St. Helens High beat Parkrose 42-0 at the St. Helens home-coming game on Friday. The boys in appear to have a handle on how the game is played. We go to all the games when we’re home. Same with soccer, as you may have noticed from previous posts.

Everyone who cares will be happy to know that I’ve decided to quit adding sugar and cream to my coffee because my BS levels have been bouncing around a little. Not terribly high, but higher than normal. So, I’m just going cold turkey, back to the way I drank my coffee during my Navy days – black and bitter. Doing this will also lower my caffeine intake because I’ll only drink 2 cups instead of 7.

We haven’t heard from Cedric yet about how his day will go, or if I’ll be allowed to sign him out again. So, we decided that if nothing is heard by noon we’ll head off base to see what’s out there. The sun is shining bright and almost all the clouds have dissipated so exploring should be fun. If we get Cedric, we may be able to take him with us. That remains to be seen. He has duty tomorrow so that will be a free day to explore for us, too.

I’ll end this segment now since I’m not really sharing anything of significance and leave you breathless, waiting for Part 2 this evening.

Stay safe.