Last weekend Diane and I participated in a sports extravaganza the likes of which we haven’t enjoyed in a while. Soccer has been ruling our lives for most of the winter months, but now softball has reared it’s head, demanding to be noticed. So, we noticed. To help us along that path, Niece Steffani and her significant other paid us a visit because their daughter, Maryssa, was playing a softball tournament in Happy Valley. Maryssa plays for Eastern Oregon University out of La Grande, Oregon.

Steff and Bob arrived around 10:30 pm Thursday night to kick the weekend off. Maryssa wasn’t scheduled to play until Saturday and Sunday so we had a fun day catching up on all the Idaho gossip. There’s always Idaho gossip. Oregon gossip, too. It’s a family thing and not limited to just our family, I’m sure.

On Saturday Diane and I already had plans to ferry Daniel and Lydia to Springfield, Oregon for Lydia’s participation in a game with her tournament team which plays out of Hillsboro, Oregon. They didn’t get a very good start to the season, losing their first three games, so we had hopes that her teams’ defense would perk up and make the long drive worth it.

They did, winning their match 1-0 against a very active team. It was the team’s first goal of the season, and their first win, so the trip was definitely worth it. Lydia, the goalie, did an exemplary job stopping numerous kicks on goal, helping to maintain the shutout.

That little bumblebee smudge in the middle of the field is our Lydia. It’s where she spent a lot of the game, watching all the activity around the opponent’s goal. It was a good game.

While the soccer match was in progress, Maryssa’s team was getting beat up, losing a couple of games during the course of the day. It was a tough start to their season, too. We kept track of each other via texting during the games, and to announce our whereabouts with regard to home.

After leaving Springfield, since it was lunchtime, and Lydia hadn’t had anything to eat for a while, we stopped at Coburg Pizza Company for a bite. Daniel selected it from many choices offered by SIRI, and it was an excellent choice. When we arrived, it was pretty quiet, but by the time our food appeared on the table, the joint was jumping. Because we were early, Lydia was able to snag the table closest to the fire-place which was good because we had all been standing around in a frigid breeze all morning.

It’s a bad selfie, but gives you an idea of the ambience to which we were subjected. We highly recommend the Coburg Pizza Company if you’re ever in the area. Good food.

Sunday, the tables turned a bit as Jennifer was able to ferry Lydia and Cedric to their next game in Wilsonville, Oregon, allowing Diane and I to attend Maryssa’s game in Happy Valley. As before, we kept each other up to date via texting as the games progress. Lydia’s team won 2-0 which means they are on a streak, and doing far better now that they have some games under their belts.

At Maryssa’s game things turned a corner in a dramatic way when EOU was down 6-0 to a college team out of Canada. It was the bottom of the 7th and Maryssa was going to bat first in the inning so wanted to make sure I was sitting down to watch when it started. She hadn’t been able to produce a hit yet, so we had high hopes. Then, as the girls were warming up, I thought it would be a good idea to go to the truck for something I didn’t really need. About the time I got there it hit me that Maryssa is batting! So, I quickly turned around and hoofed it back to the field as quickly as I could, in cowboy boots. When I arrived the count on Maryssa was 1-2, leaving one strike away from a trip back to the dugout. As I walked up she took a pitch and drove it down the 3rd base line but it was foul by about 2 inches. Then I was seated for the next pitch which she sent over the fence in right center field. What a hit. She really nailed it, and scored the first run for her team. That got things started, because during that inning her team had more base hits, and a total of 3 HRs, the last of which tied the score at 6-6. Wow! That was Maryssa’s first collegiate home run, and we were there to see it. What a thrill. I’m sure that she was saving that hit for us.

The 8th inning found them tied again, so it was on to the 9th with the use of International tie breaker rules. That’s where the team at bat gets to send their last out to 2nd base to start. The other team scored a couple of runs making it 8-6, putting EOU in a do or die position. At their last up they were able to get one run in, with 2 outs, for a 8-7 deficit with the tying run on 2nd. Then Cheyenne came to bat. She took a few pitches then smoked one over the fence for the 4th HR of the game, ending it with a 10-8 win for EOU. It was pretty awesome.

During the break between games, Jennifer, Lydia, and Cedric arrived and were able to visit a bit, and have lunch with Bob, Steff, and Maryssa. The snack shack at the Hood View Park sports complex had surprisingly good food prompting us to just remain in place for lunch instead of venturing out into town.

Here’s Maryssa (left), and Lydia enjoying lunch in the sun which was nice, because almost the entire first game was played in cold rain.

Maryssa was put into the lineup for the afternoon game so we stuck around to watch. The EOU coach, to this point, had been alternating Maryssa with another contender for 2nd base, but finally saw the light and played her two in a row. Unfortunately, they faced an exemplary freshman pitcher from a British Columbia team and couldn’t dig out a win. It wasn’t for lack of effort on Maryssa’s part, however because she went 1 for 3, driving in 2 RBIs on a double.

During the first part of the game, Jennie, Cedric, and Lydia said their goodbyes because they had to make it back to the MODA Center in downtown Portland where they had tickets to a concert.

After the game we said our goodbyes to Bob, Steff, and Maryssa as they were all headed east, and we were going west. It was a good visit and we had a lot of fun watching the games.

During one leg of our trip, we saw this interesting cloud formation and I felt compelled to capture it for posterity, and to share it with you. Make of it what you wish, as we did. If we were in Kansas, we would have been concerned. Here in Oregon it was just interesting.

After making hundreds of posts of the past years, I believe it’s time to quit. The reason is mainly because I find myself trying to think of something witty to write that I think someone may find humorous. It used to be that I wrote simply to purge my brain but now days I fear that purging my brain may result in serious complications regarding personal hygiene. So, I’m not going to do it any more.

In the future, if I feel compelled to share something, I will do so via Facebook.

Farewell

It’s December 27th, our 7th day without benefit of a functioning furnace and a fully functional kitchen stove.It’s almost 2 pm and it’s been snowing pretty much all day. Thankfully, the temperature which started out around 37 is still hovering above freezing at 34. But, it’s going down, and the snow has started to stick.

Perhaps you’re wondering what’s going on. Since you asked, I will be happy to tell you.

Last Monday, December 21st, we experienced a very exciting wind storm that nearly blew me away while attempting to secure the portable storage thing we have. Our neighbor, Scott, was helping me because he’s not sure I should be doing anything physical  by myself, as does Diane. During the securing process, which amounted to taking all 8 legs off the sides to get it as low as possible, we heard trees snapping and falling, then there was a very loud explosion nearby. My first thought was that a transformer had exploded, but investigation revealed that it was probably an arc caused when the top half of a 50 foot pine tree snapped off and was deposited neatly, upside down, on top of all the power lines directly across the street from our house. It would have dropped all the way to the ground had not one of the top branches hooked the line to our house, bending our weather head, and parting the tension cable which also serves as the neutral side of our power from the power company. Scott figured out that we didn’t have the neutral line by applying his electrician skills.

The investigation was begun because we only had 50-100+ vac at our outlets which isn’t enough to run most anything that required electricity. Oddly, however, it was enough to charge our phones, and to keep the wifi running so we weren’t totally destitute in the technology department. We were connected, and our phone worked.

When the explosion occurred outside, Diane was in the kitchen and was subjected to an explosion of her own when the electronics in our stove blew up causing the unmistakable smell of fried electronics to fill the house. Fortunately, the stove has gas burners so the fried electronics aspect simply meant we couldn’t use the oven and the little igniters for the burners didn’t function. But, we have matches so we were able to use the stove stop.

Another loss was the furnace. It didn’t work. But, we have a gas fireplace so we were warm in the living room. Freezing in the bedrooms, but warm in the living room. As of today, the fireplace has been burning pretty much non-stop for 5 days. I’m sure NW Natural Gas will be very happy about that.

Full power was finally restored Friday around 7:30 pm. They finally responded to my third call for assistance, but with the fancy new meters we have, they could tell it was still running so deemed that we had electricity so marked us as OK. Finally, after watching Facebook for restoration updates – yes, the power company was communicating with customers via Facebook – they were down to the last 10 customers a couple hours previously and asked that those still without power to call. So I called, and explained our situation, in detail, for the third time. I had also submitted photos of the damage, and an explanation about the loss of neutral which were acknowledged. Finally, on the last call, linemen were dispatched to check us out and discovered that they couldn’t do it alone. So another bucket truck was called in to assist. Between the two of them they got the tree removed from the lines without further damage, and they spliced the neutral line which provided us with full power. Finally.

Tomorrow we’ll contact the furnace people, and someone to look at the stove so we can find out what the damages are.

During this power outage I had only  one occasion where I needed to get out of my pajamas. That was Christmas Eve when we attended the candle lite service at our church. Diane and I sang in the choir, as did Jennifer and Lydia. We all wore choir robes but Diane failed to see the logic in allowing me to attend in my PJ’s even though no one would have known. So, I wore jeans. I even shaved, and everything.

Our neighbors, Scott & Whitney, helped save our refrigerator by running an extremely long extension cord from their garage to ours so that it had full power. With that exception, we managed to eke through a couple of nights watching TV on 50-117 vac which kinda amazed me. I expected that the TV would implode any minute, but i didn’t. Seems to be just fine.

Another big deal that happened is that we got Ziva back from Jeff and family. She’s been having some issues with the other dogs in his house so we thought it would be best if we took her back to see what would happen. Turns out she’s all calmed down now, and doesn’t have the wanderlust to leave the yard. That’s really good because I’m sure it would have been really cold out there chasing her in my jammies. All is well.

This afternoon around 1:30 pm Diane deserted me to go get Jennifer so they could go to Portland to see the “So You Think You Can Dance” tour. They go whenever it comes to Portland which is a good Mother Daughter event. It was OK because I was invited to go see the new Star Wars movie with Daniel, Cedric, Larry, Lydia, Jeran, and Mason at 4:00 pm in Scappoose. I as going to pick up Jeff on the way to the Walters’ home but he was still out in the forest somewhere playing in the snow with the girls. So, it was just the seven of us.

It was a terrific movie and I can’t wait to see the next one.

Now I’m back home and must wait patiently for Diane’s return. The roads are nasty, it’s snowing, it’s freezing, and they won’t be home until 10 pm or so, 2.5 hours away.  I trust Diane’s driving, but not the driving of those with whom she must share the road. Not all of them are driving with a full awareness of how to drive in inclement weather, or that they, gee, aren’t the only ones on the road. Until she safely returns all I must do is refrain from eating a bunch of stuff I really don’t need. I already did that at the movie by ingesting the lions portion of a very large popcorn.

Now I wait.

What I did today:

1. Resurrected an old battery-powered train engine for the train that runs around our Christmas tree.
2. Emptied my suitcase of all the stuff I brought back from Hawaii yesterday.
3. Paid all the bills that were waiting for us.
4. Got a virus, or two, on my Apple computer. Ran a never ending virus scan to isolate and remove them using CLAMX. I don’t know how I wound up with that but it seems to work pretty good.
5. Cleaned all the hair out of Diane’s shower drain. This is something I should put on my monthly to-do list. Considering how much hair I get out of her drain each time I can only wonder why she isn’t bald yet. It’s pretty amazing.
6. Worked on wood projects by sanding things that I’ve glued together.
7. Installed electric Christmas Penguins on and by the front porch.
8. On my handy dandy Bing home page I read the news about Ash Carter using his personal email to conduct official business, just like Hillary did.

#9 brings me to the topic noted in the title of this post. Are these people just stupid, or arrogant enough to feel they are above he law? Why would any of us tax paying citizens elect someone who chooses to make their own rules when it comes to conducting business supposedly to benefit those who elected them?

Sadly, in the case of Ash Carter, we can’t hold him to the same standards because he was appointed by the president, not elected. Therefore, I can only conclude that the Appointer must bear the burden Ash’s inability to follow some pretty simple rules.

Further more, while watching all of the on-going commotion amongst the candidates vying for the honor of being the Top Dog of this amazing country we have, I’ve decided that, since I’m too late to jump into the race this time, in 2020 I’m going to lie about my age, my military and work history, and tons my hat into the proverbial ring. I can hear all of you saying to yourselves, “where will you get the millions, and millions of dollars necessary to properly represent the country?”

Well, I’m counting on whichever candidate wins to make that easy peasy for us peons by allowing Crowd Funding to cover the charges. Maybe that’s legal already, I really don’t know. If it is, I’ve not heard of anyone using it although some may be using it and just aren’t telling anyone about it.

My qualifications speak for themselves.

1. As I’ve already mentioned, the first thing I’m going to do is lie about my age. This puts me ahead of most candidates because I’m accomplished liar who isn’t afraid to admit it and I won’t claim it was an oversight. I actually do it on purpose.
2. I already have gray hair so there’s no way that anything happening on my watch will make me look any older than the age I’m going to give on my filing papers. Those watching will perceive that I handle stress in an amazing way which will allow them to consider that I’m the ideal candidate to have in bad situations
3. My main platform will be that I will strive to eliminate all borders surrounding our country by working with the Canadian and Mexican governments to align with the US and form a new country that includes all properties of our three countries. My suggestion for the new name will is MexiCanUs. I haven’t worked out the details of what the flag will look like but feel that it would be OK if each former country continued to fly current flag. Eliminating the borders will, I know, cause a problem for all companies concerned with making chain link fences, those who are employe to protect our respective  borders, and all DMV offices.
4. I will campaign for a flat 10% tax for all residents of the new nation. No deductions will be allowed. Just straight 10% for everyone based on how much they earn during the year regardless of where they earned it or where they hide it. There will be no need to refund overpayments because there won’t be anything to refund right away.
5. The current IRS employees will be released. They will be replaced by one of the small CPA firms who wish to add their names to the pool from which a winner will be drawn at random. This new firm will be responsible for managing the budgets for all departments of the government which themselves will be cleaned up and minimized to make them more functional.
6. At the end of each year the chosen CPA firm will refund all excess funds to those who paid taxes. Each filer will receive the same amount of refund.

That’s just a little bit of what I plan to do. There will be more once I determine which one of my friends will be the vice president. I’m sure he or she will have some good ideas. I’ll probably ask all of the possible choices what they think we should do.

Hey! Since this is published to Facebook, and I have almost 300 friends there, perhaps some of you would like to chime in with ideas. Couldn’t hurt.

Now I must stop and let my brain rest.