Happy Birthday Ben Konosky!

I know you're out there prowling around on the web today. And hopefully not working!
Happy Birthday!

Very foggy this morning. Can't-see-a-stoplight-half-a-block-away-foggy kind of foggy. The lack of visibility made me completely paranoid on the ride in to work today. If I could barely see the headlights of the cars then they certainly had a hard time spotting me. So I just made myself as hard to hit as possible while staying on the paved surface. And I got here all right.

Dev and I had a wonderful time with many of our Portlandian friends here at home. You can check the pictures here.

How does Olliver North have a goddamn talk show?!

Oh right, he's on Faux (Fox) News Network. Seriously people! The man is a traitor and a liar. Why do we let him have a public forum?

Dammit!

Oh Halloween. Dev has done a bang up job of decorating for our Halloween party this year. Hogwarts halloween. I'm Mad Eye Moody (complete with crazy eye. Dev's Tonks with purple hair and big boots. Can't wait too see what everyone else comes to the party as. I promise to have pictures after Saturday.

Still flirting with Facebook a little bit. One of my friends from high school reached out and said hi through it. Complete surprise. And a good one. Just trying to determine how useful it is for other stuff. Guess I'm not sold on it yet. Maybe I'm nit an ideal social networker. -grin-

Nate and Sue introduced me to crack climbing this weekend at Tieton River Rocks in Washington state. Lots of fun. I got to lead my first traditional pitch ever on an easy 5.3 grade rock climb named "The Western Front." Of course, Sue and I both missed an important but hidden hold on the route that caused us to both think that the route had been mis-graded.

Nate has posted pictures of the weekend. Only two distant shots of me, but they give an idea of what the climbing is like.

Skiing or snowboarding?

Dev and I tried snowboarding last year. Fun. Easy on the body. Floating on top of puffy snow and gliding down the mounting like a surfer on a big wave. Skiing exacts a greater toll. Legs more tired. Feet and shins more sore. But every time I think I've decided that snowboarding is for me for sure I get hooked by an image.

A silhouette sticker for back country skiing.

Or a ski video of some big mountain with an itty bitty skier making turns..

And then I want to ski. I mean, I know it's harder to master. I know it beats me up worse. But something about it grabs me the way snowboarding doesn't.

Scott will be happy to read this post. He's constantly barraging me with the "skiing is superior" position whenever the topic comes up.

Besides, you all know I'm fickle. I may change my mind again. -grin-

Jon Gruber at Daring Fireball really hits it on the head again. I enjoy reading his stuff because he's incisive, concise and makes good design easy to understand for non-designers like me. See the shared item over on the right about the iPhone as an example of some of his writing and reasoning.

Fantastic quote:
From 342 Hours on the Grandes Jorasses: "It's so difficult to accept nothingness... You would like to know how things really are beyond life, be sure it's not all a big joke, but, as big as it may be, how can a joke survive for millenia? Look how beautiful are the stars in the coal black sky, those little twinkling gems, those little fantastic worlds. You've got Creation before your eyes, here, on this same mountain that's taking your life and you can't hate, not even now. And what if truth is really here, amongst these pyramids of granite?"

The rain is here. Sunday saw rain all day long except the 10 minutes I used for the dogwalk in the afternoon. Yesterday rained about half the day. Today will have more rain. And so on to the end of the week. Oregon officially enters Autumn.

The good news: rain here in the city means snow up on the mountain. I'm still torn between skiing (versatility) and snowboarding (ease of fun). I'm not torn about wanting to go and play in the snow.