Nom de guerre: Rivrdog

Happy New Year!

It's time to pack my duffel and ship out for the Yacht Club, where we are to have a party tonight, it seems.

At least it won't be the usual plummet down the steep ramp from the levee to the docks: the river is up, way up. The river level will be just a few feet below flood stage.

We will have a Piling Test. I expect mine to pass as they are all new steel pilings, driven during the reconstruction last year, or are older steel, checked during the rebuilding. Some moorages will probably fail the piling test though, and they will be hollering all night for tugs to help them drop emergency anchors to help relieve the strain on failing pilings. This happens every high water episode, and this is the first high water in almost 10 years.

Captain's Orders: Have a Happy New Year and stay out of the brig!

A rainy night in Oregon

...where we are supposed to be used to this sort of thing. Check out this storm-total graphic. Out where I live, in the foothills of the Cascades, there appears to be 6-8" of RECENT rain.

All that water flows downhill, and here is the plot for the mainstem Willamette river, on which my marina is located. For the first time in ten years, since the Great Flood of '96, the hydrograph has the Flood Stage line on it. The river will crest below flood stage, but not much below.

We'll get light rain in showers until Sunday, then another soaker.

Not good for the rifle range, which is down in a river valley and must be a quagmire by now. Was pretty soupy earlier in the week when I was last there.

So, I'm busy with my newest geeky toy. This Pocket-PC - Smartphone does it all, and has three wireless methods of accessing the Internet, 2 are CDMA-based, including the very cutting edge EVDO at 600K baud, and Verizon's National Access at 70-200K baud. This is the ONLY current Smartphone with actual, by-God Wi-Fi capability, with Wireless-G running at 54M baud and Pre-N at 108M baud. Actually, anything over a megabaud is wasted (just like anything in titage over a cubic mouthful is wasted), since the phone has the RAM and clock speed of a computer of about 6 years ago. A future upgrade to Windows Mobile 5.0 and the use of an integrated SD card of 1.0gb will give me the capability of a late Pentium 3 or early Pentium 4 machine though, and it goes into my pocket!

Eat your hearts out, Mr. Completely and Jerry The Geek!

Oh yeah, I forgot: it has decent little speakers in it, and an equalizer as well, so it functions as an MP3 player in small spaces, and with Bluetooth to a speaker set, in bigger spaces. So, eat your heart out AK!

Slow learning curve though, I've got about 12 hours in on this equipment so far, and haven't learned a tenth of it's functions well yet.

Almost as much fun as getting a new lead-slinging machine!

Sooners boomed, Ducks doomed

This one goes to Bitter's side. Yes, she posted the Sooner fight song in all caps, and yes, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, sort of like a, errrm, bad lollipop, yes.

It boils down to this: the Ducks started the season with an outstanding QB, Kellen Clemens, and had the team to play for the title, but when he was torpedoed in the 8th game, and the two back-ups had to play, it was clear that they weren't ready for prime time.

The outstanding Duck Defense kept the team in those last 3 games, and they won out, 11-1, made it to the Holiday Bowl and had to face a team that they would have blown out with their #1 QB, who watched the Ducks lose the game from the sidelines, on crutches.

Too many missed opportunities. The score wouldn't have been as close as it was, 17-14 Sooners, except that the Sooners were using a backup QB as well. Plucky kid, got his nose hammered into the turf too many times to count by the Duck blitzers, but kept getting back up to keep his team on the field, and scoring. With some intense coaching to lose his bad habits, he has the heart and guts to play on Sunday. Oregon's two QBs, Dixon and Leaf, don't.

The Ducks are hurting for next season, for sure.

Coach Mike Belotti is riding the crest of a wave, and his name is getting discussed for an NFL Head Coaching job. He'd be smart to take the first good offer that comes along. His goal of staying at Oregon until they carry off a National Championship is way, way off in the distance.

Here's another tip for Coach Belotti: if you've got some outstanding seniors who are going high in the NFL draft, and they don't want to play with 100% effort for fear of getting hurt and hurting their bottom lines, you need to prepare not only the team for that possibility but the fans as well. I expected Whitehead to pound out his usual 120-150 yards, and he could have but didn't, and I expected Haloti Ngata to be the wall he has been. Neither played at half their ability. That's a shame. That wouldn't have happened in my generation, when athletes played every game as if it meant the world, and when they had played their last minute of eligibility for their college, THEN they looked to the NFL. Doesn't work that way anymore, I guess.

Carnival of the Curmudgeons, Mark One

OK, ready or not, here it comes: the first issue of Carnival of the Curmudgeons, better known as Mark One (if Marks are good enough designators for Lincolns and nuclear bombs, they are good enough for Curmudgeons).

In case you forgot what a Curmudgeon is, go here and read my introduction.

Since I'm the CCWIC (Chief Curmudgeon what's In Charge), I'll post MY contribution for this week first, then a Guest Curmudgeon will appear. That's right ONE, EACH and ONLY post was submitted. What's the matter with all you curmudgeons out there? This is some serious shit we're posting here. If you think that the world, especially the blogosphere, is going to change for the better while you sit there like lumps on a log, you're wrong.

Anyway, on to this week's Curmudgeonly goodness.

Public Employee Pensions

This subject has been on my no-post list for too long (almost two years now).

The Analog Kid, a very good personal friend of mine, wrote a major opus on the subject in his blog, Random Nuclear Strikes, today. I responded in the comments, but since then, I have decided to post on the subject here.

I've avoided the subject because of personal conflict. I'm a conservative, and conservatives have, as part of their political fabric, ingrained opposition to the "lavishness" of job perks in the public sector. If I discuss this subject, it creates a huge conflict because I had two public sector careers, police and military, and draw pensions from both of them.

Pensions that most of my conservative friends think are excessive. No matter that I put well over 40 years of my life into both careers, which overlapped some (I was a Reservist in the USAF). No matter that I risked my life on MANY occasions doing both jobs. No matter that the ultimate job goal in both cases was THE DEFENSE OF THE CONSTITUTION. No matter that I suffered irreversible physical deformities while doing both jobs.

No matter any of that. I am a public pensioner, and therefor am to be reviled. I am one of the "hogs at the trough".

I made it my project today to list a few facts about public pensions, in an effort to cut the rhetoric out of the issue, which is really a subset of the greater issue of the direction of government.

Read on, but it's lengthy.

Beach weather

...but not this time of year. In case you've seen the travel videos of the long, rugged coastline of Oregon and Washington in the winter, and have heard tales of snug little beach cabins where you build a great roaring driftwood fire while the storm rages outside, take it from me, you don't want to be there this week.

First, there is a storm coming. It will be windy. VERY WINDY. Then there is the little matter of storm surge on top of high tides. According to this, there might be 28 foot ocean swells coming ashore.

Fine, you give up. Not beach weather for you.

How about a snug little ski cabin for a spot of cross-country skiing or snowshoeing or snowmobile riding. Plenty of snow in the mountains. Too much, it says here. Might come down on your head. Avalanche.

I seem to have forgotten why I live here. Will someone please remind me why I didn't move there?

BTW, when I took this photo last year, I was sitting on the clubhouse patio, sipping a cocktail and having a light lunch. It was just cool enough for a golf sweater over my polo shirt. About 72 degrees at noon.

I wore a Gore-Tex storm parka over my heavy sweater this morning, and still got wet walking from the coffee shop across the street to my car. I usually go to the range Tuesday afternoons, but since I don't want to have to wear full raingear and fishing waders to post my targets, I'll pass today, thank you.

<Weather snivel /off>

In a row...

On a cold and gray December morn, a quarrelsome flock of cormorants takes a break from flying and fishing to sit in a perfect row on a semi-submerged dredge pipe in the South Channel of the Columbia River, near Portland Airport.

Geezer Tuesday

This is Geezer Tuesday. I get in the Geezer frame of mind this morning by challenging the proto-doctor daughter to a race.

Really.

She was disparaging my committment to health improvement as we lugged a treadmill I had just bought into the house. I told her that at the end of March, I would meet her at the track of the local high school, and we would start off. The race would score total laps made (run/walk) and time for those laps, and fastest lap (have to give the young jackrabbit something she can beat me on).

She gloats in advance. She gloated even more when I told her that I would be racing in combat boots.

Then I read my email, and found this geezer gem, sent to me by Mad Ernie, a retired cop friend, and one of the Chosin Few (look it up).

Geezer joke follows:

In Memoriam, "Seven"

Go here and read SondraK's final report on her happy cat, "Seven", who she had to humanely destroy yesterday.

It filled me with great sadness to read that story, because it reminded me of my own Snowflake, who left the company of his crew-mates year before last.

The most amazing thing about SondraK's cat is that it left sick, went off to the wilds for three days, but returned on Christmas to seek the final succor of it's owner. On the same day, separated by 2,005 calendars, one child was born in the world to save mankind, and one cat gave up it's life, having served it's owner for years.

God Bless you, Seven, but I don't have to say that, you're already standing beside Him. Now scamper over and find my Snowflake. He'll be the one hanging out in the company of all the fine ship's cats. Please tell Snowflake that I miss him, and to have patience, I'll be back with him again, I know.

Carnival of the Curmudgeons

Bugler, sound Curmudgeon Call.

"But Sir, I've never heard it and they didn't teach it in Bugle School".

(Fumes) Don't know what the Army is going to do about bugle calls, they can't even get Curmudgeon Call right.

Bugler, sound "Stand To".

(The bugler sounds it, and the quadrangle is soon full of troops with rifles, some still trying to get into their boots, and bleary-eyed officers and NCOs who were not expecting an attack).

The Adjutant runs up and salutes, yelling "Orders, Sir?"

"Have the Curmudgeons fall out, then dismiss the men. Very good response to the Stand To, Mister Adjutant."

"Sir, the Curmudgeons?"

"Give the order, Mister. The Curmudgeons will know who they are."