Lights Out and Other Random Disasters
I'd say it's been a wacky couple weeks for the state of Oregon. Three times and counting have we made the national news this month from all our recent disasters. First, the tragic story of James Kim and his family lost in the mountains of southwestern Oregon. Then came the more recent story of three hikers who remain missing even now on Mount Hood, only 60 miles east of here. Let's not forget Thursday night which saw the most powerful wind storm to hit Oregon in thirteen years. It cut power to 70% of Portland, blasted hurricane force winds (100mph gusts), left tree debris EVERYWHERE and has killed four people. Yea, Oregon seems to just be made to challenge people. When you really think about it, the vast majority of this state is untamed wilderness.
We lost power here Thursday evening as the wind storm was kicking up. I love it when the power goes out and the world goes dark and quiet. iturtle and I got out at around 2 AM early Friday morning to take some photographs of the stinging darkness of suburbia sans electricity. Here a few are behind a JL cut:
Keep in mind that all these photos were taken at 2 in the morning in near total darkness. We used iturtle's parents' special (And probably expensive) digital camera that allowed us to leave the shutter open as long as we wanted to capture light (Much like a Bulb Exposure). Like I said, when the power goes out, the whole world changes and all our technology and the designs of civilization are left to stand alone and silent. It's mysterious and beautiful. We did eventually get power back in the middle of the night but the power went out again late Saturday evening when a transformer substation a few miles east of here exploded into flames and sent a fireball 500 feet into the air. Once again, we spent several hours in the dark. Thankfully, power was rerouted around the lost substation and I'm back in business. Local fire crews are being forced to let the fire burn itself out which could take up to a day. I bet people closer to the substation will be without power for several days...
In more cosmic/karmic news, I won a Zune... Sorta. Amazon.com has been having a series of lottery contests to earn passes to buy hot ticket items for ridiculous prices. Last week, the item of the week was a Zune, Microsoft's new MP3 player designed to compete with Apple's unstoppable iPod. Amazon had 1,000 to sell at $90 (Down from the normal retail price of $250) and, since there was nothing to lose, I entered the contest. Well, much to my shock and surprise, I won a pass to buy one! So, in the mail right now is a $90 Zune headed to me. I plan on selling it because I need the money more than a substandard Microsoft piece of garbage. What's more, the Zune doesn't work with Macintosh computers, so I can't use it anyway.
Just a little while ago, Amazon released the actual odds of my winning the Zune- 122 to 1. I feel like I won the lotto.
We lost power here Thursday evening as the wind storm was kicking up. I love it when the power goes out and the world goes dark and quiet. iturtle and I got out at around 2 AM early Friday morning to take some photographs of the stinging darkness of suburbia sans electricity. Here a few are behind a JL cut:
Keep in mind that all these photos were taken at 2 in the morning in near total darkness. We used iturtle's parents' special (And probably expensive) digital camera that allowed us to leave the shutter open as long as we wanted to capture light (Much like a Bulb Exposure). Like I said, when the power goes out, the whole world changes and all our technology and the designs of civilization are left to stand alone and silent. It's mysterious and beautiful. We did eventually get power back in the middle of the night but the power went out again late Saturday evening when a transformer substation a few miles east of here exploded into flames and sent a fireball 500 feet into the air. Once again, we spent several hours in the dark. Thankfully, power was rerouted around the lost substation and I'm back in business. Local fire crews are being forced to let the fire burn itself out which could take up to a day. I bet people closer to the substation will be without power for several days...
In more cosmic/karmic news, I won a Zune... Sorta. Amazon.com has been having a series of lottery contests to earn passes to buy hot ticket items for ridiculous prices. Last week, the item of the week was a Zune, Microsoft's new MP3 player designed to compete with Apple's unstoppable iPod. Amazon had 1,000 to sell at $90 (Down from the normal retail price of $250) and, since there was nothing to lose, I entered the contest. Well, much to my shock and surprise, I won a pass to buy one! So, in the mail right now is a $90 Zune headed to me. I plan on selling it because I need the money more than a substandard Microsoft piece of garbage. What's more, the Zune doesn't work with Macintosh computers, so I can't use it anyway.
Just a little while ago, Amazon released the actual odds of my winning the Zune- 122 to 1. I feel like I won the lotto.