Xmas 2008

We have a white Christmas today. Thanks Doug and Kristen for a wonderful Xmas eve party last night.

Beginning a tradition of holiday photo shoots, here's two pictures of Speedy enjoying Xmas with me. Merry Christmas everybody!

Storm Preparations

NOTE, THIS IS IN DRAFT FORM, BUT PUBLISHING ANYWAY. This post may be updated several times in the next two months, too much to write at one sitting.

Well, here in Snoqualmie we've had some terrible weather, very high winds of 40-60 MPH sustained, and gusts as high as 87 MPH reported. Lots of reports of frozen pipes, a cracked window, power outages, and garage doors blown in. This posting lists some of the things I did to prepare for the storms, some things I should do.

One thing to remember, if you have time, it may be your last chance for a while. Last chance for a hot bath, wash clothes, cook, wash dishes, vacuum, so better do it while you can.

SAFETY FIRST / COMMON SENSE THINGS...
Smoke detector working
Carbon monoxide detectors working
Fire extinguisher in kitchen and/or garage. Recently charged.
Clean the house, you never know who will need a place to stay :). Especially clean near potential problem areas for ease of access and to ensure it stays dry in case of failure, example is to ensure cutoff valve is not blocked by household items, garage door may leak so don't have things on the floor that would be damaged if they get wet.

PREPARATIONS FOR COLD TEMPERATURES / SNOW
Primary concern is for frozed water pipes.

DONE
Check the crawlspace for insulation around all water pipes.
Open all cabinet doors to allow heat under sinks
Block exterier crawlspace vents with cardboard (consider styrofoam in future)
Temperature inside house steady 69F, even at night. Waste of energy, but cheaper than frozen pipes.
Slow but steady drip to prevent freezing.
Disconnect hoses, including any adapters which may void the frost free feature
Insulate exterier faucets.
Some people have option to drain hose line, I don't, but is good if you can.

SHOULD DO
Insulate around pressure relief valve.
Tape a few water lines that are semi-exposed.
Buy humidity meter with thermometer for crawlspace.
Anti-humidity pellets for crawlspace
Sweep crawlspace of garbage, vacuum later.

PREPARATIONS FOR POWER OUTAGES
Recharge flashlights or buy batteries for them.
Keep cell phone charged.
Stock up on food / water for a few days
Ensure generator works, refamiliarize with starting procedures
Generator hookup to house with special switchbox and 40 Foot high voltage power cord.
Have cables and locks handy to secure generator (theft is a big issue!)
Fill spare gas tanks for generator
Fill gas tanks for car, as power outages affect gas pumps
CO Carbon Monoxide detectors (2 minimum) - check batteries and test!!!
Turn pilot light on for gas fireplace, so easier to have backup heat.
Clean particles in gas fireplace to reduce asthma.

PREPARATIONS FOR CAR OR OTHER TRAVEL
Car - Hand pump to adjust for lower pressure due to cold
Car - sand in back in plastic bucket (cat litter container optimal, as it has a pour spout).
Car - shovel in back
Car - Chains - check if they fit and test putting them on.
Car - fully fueled up
Bus - see if bus service is an option, likely unreliable in icy conditions

KNOW YOUR SYSTEM
This section to include graphics of where to find things, such as emergency shut off for gas and / or water and electricity. Obviously, a work in progress...

PREPARATIONS FOR HOUSEHOLD REPAIRS IN CASE OF DAMAGE.
Note: personal notes below, not an endorsement or disparagement of anybody, just my experiences.

List of plumbers
Beacon Plumbing. I think I'm going to use them next, I heard good things about them, and I've seen their trucks driving on the Ridge a lot after the last storm, so they seem to be favored locally.
Clifford Knopp - don't like him. He was unprepared with parts, so I had to pay him hourly rate as he went shopping for basic plumbing parts. He did not insulate PRV after completion. He started the process of applying cement to the pipes after shopping, so had to pay him to wait even longer, he should have started that and then gone shopping, to minimize down time. Expected bill around a hundred dollars, was triple that due to charging me for his wait time. Would have been nice if he could have scheduled other clients to service while waiting for the cement to dry.

List of general contractors

List of furnace / hot water technicians
Bob's heating - they seem fine, somewhat lukewarm about them. May try a different company next just for comparison, but overall I would hire them again.
Fast - their name is on the hot water heater.

List of electricians

List of locksmiths
OK, kind of unrelated, but I really like Brian of Big Brian's Locksmithing.

http://www.govlink.org/storm/prepare.asp

Dog bite day

I was mountain bike riding on a fire road just past the power substation when a dog bit me at 1:30 PM.

I was climbing up and saw a woman (Margo, last name withheld) who was walking five dogs - 3 small dogs, a medium sized one, and a large dog. I think she had the small dogs on leashes, the medium dog stayed back with her, but the large dog walked ahead of them. She was trying to call the large one back. As it was a fairly steep climb, I was biking slow, and the large dog (Red) walked past me. It seemed non-agressive at the time, it was not growling, and did not pay much attention to me.

As Red dog got a couple feet past me, he (she?) suddenly turned around and bit me on my left calf. This stunned me, it was a completely unprovoked attack from a dog which appeared friendly.

Fortunately, I was wearing tights, which may have buffered some of the germs from the dog and maybe lessened the potential for bigger injury. There were several teeth marks on me, the largest was evaluated by the doctor as being a puncture wound 2 cm (almost an inch) in length. This left a very visible chunk missing from my leg. Margo and I did a quick inspection of my leg, realized it was not too bad, so all we did for first aid was to wash it with some of my water and just let it continue to bleed.

I called my friend / neighbor Erik for a ride to the hospital, but he was out in the woods at the time so unable to give me a ride. Margo said she could give me a ride, which I reluctantly accepted, because she was on foot and probably a 2 mile hike back to her car. As I just had to ride my bike downhill, I went ahead and waited over a half hour for her. During that time I gave the leg a couple more washes with the water from my camelback.

While waiting, I saw a car in the parking lot with a sticker saying "woof", so I figured that must be her car, so I took a photo of her license plate. I was fairly certain she was playing honest, because she had some kind of ID on her vest which I read the name Margo on it, so I believe I have the true name and cell phone number which she gave me. Also, she sounded pretty level headed and acting decently, apologetic for the incident, so I had no need to doubt her sincerity.

Margo drove me and my bike to my house, just a mile up the road, and her dogs were well behaved in the back with my bike. I then gave her my phone number, and she promised to pay for my medical bills. After she departed, I washed my leg several times with soap and water, and then drove myself to the Snoquamie hospital ER.

At the ER, they examined the wound and advised me that they will not be giving me Rabies shots, but this is on condition that the dog be observed for 7-10 days. If the dog gets sick, it could impact my treatment. I was discharged from the hospital around 3:30 PM.

Next stop, Snoqualmie PD at 4PM. The officer on duty took down the license and contact info for Margo for the record only, but said he likely will not follow up as this fell in King County (unincorporated?) jurisdiction, not Snoqualmie. He gave me the contact for animal control, and asked that I contact them on Monday morning. Things to discuss is how to monitor the dog for 10 days as my injury recovers. The officer stressed that although the dog handler may have been nice, that they are responsible for the actions of their animals, and therefore they consider the dog attack as an assault from the owner. Hmm, very sobering way to look at it. The dog handler is definitely someone I consider to be a very nice person of good intent.

Personally, I'd like this incident to just go away, but the police officer advised me it is not that simple. I need to pay the deductible from the ER visit that insurance doesn't pay. Also, he said it is common for insurance to deny my claim, as they expect the responsible party (Margo the dog handler or Red's owner) to pay for it. I hope this is not curtains for Red, that would be sad, but the reality is that a dog which bites people without being provoked is likely to attack others. I'll leave the judgement up to animal control.

Everybody lost something today. Me, Margo, Red, real dog owner. Wish Red would have not bitten me.

Speedy Pics

Some cute pics of Speedy taken on Thanksgiving day.

Vermont Biking Middlebury Mt & Texas Falls

Below are pictures from my bike ride in the Rochester / Hancock area of central Vermont. The ride was up Middlebury Mt and then a trail in the Texas Falls area. Roughly 27 miles of road riding and 2 miles of trail. I'll let the pictures do the talking and just a few commentary in the hovertext of the images.

Vermont Home

Below are pictures taken from my family's house in Rochester Vermont.
Lower field



Mt Cushman


Barn


Upper Field

Speedy

Esmeralda ride

This Saturday, Ellen led a ride at Esmeralda. The weather was perfect, a bit overcast was nice because it kept us cool on the tough climbs. I really enjoyed riding with Ellen, Ethan, and Ken, everybody was in great spirits and having fun. Below are a few of my favorite shots from our ride on Saturday.

After the climb, we had lunch on the top, then descended some loose rocky switchbacks which were very fun. We then climbed up the jeep road from hell up to Gallagher lake. The thrill ride then began with a long fast descent back to the trailhead.

Ken M. on the switchbacks.


Ethan on the switchbacks


Ellen on the switchbacks


Ken M. at the creek crossing



Ethan tempting fate at the creek crossing


Ellen at the creek crossing.


More pictures posted by Ethan are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/-ethan-/sets/72157606659677193/

Thanks everybody for making it fun!

Mt St Helens - Friends of Forest Work Party

I worked on another trailwork party with the Mount Saint Helens Institute last weekend (Aug 2&3). Details for this event were posted at BBTC . This time I had posted it a couple weeks in advance, yet I was unable to get any takers.

Mount Saint Helens - Coldwater Trail work party

On Saturday (July 12), my sister Sandi and I joined 26 other volunteers for a trail work party at Mount Saint Helens (MSH). The plan was to work entirely on the Boundary Trail starting from Johnston Ridge Observatory (JRO), which is a hiker only trail. I was motivated to do trail work here in part because it was near the Coldwater Trail, which leads up to Mount Margaret. This trail was opened up to mountain bikers in 2004 on an experimental basis - on the condition that mountain bikers maintain the trail. The word from JRO was that Coldwater Trail was in serious disrepair, a situation I wish to be part of correcting, in partnership with Mount Saint Helens Institute or other organizations working on behalf of trails at MSH.

Once we finished morning registration / check-in at the JRO parking lot, we were lucky enough that so many people had registered for the work party that we needed to split the party in two, in part to be more manageable, so we were given the option to work on the Coldwater Trail or the Boundary Trail. Sandi and I jumped at the chance to work on Coldwater because we knew we would be hiking Boundary Trail the next day. Hailey and August led the work party at Boundary Trail for half the group, Bob and Adam led the work party for the other half at Coldwater.

In all, around 28 volunteers plus MSHI staff were working on the trails. It seemed a lot of people were from Portland, but quite a few people had travelled from the Seattle area as well. I thought Sandi would get the award for most effort to get there, as she is from Eugene, however one of the rangers, Hazel, had come from Southern England to get a tourist visa so she could volunteer for three months at MSHI. Also impressive, a family living in Portland borrowed a car so they could make the trip to the work party, and a couple moved from Florida just 6 weeks prior chose to donate their time.

At Coldwater, the first mile and a half were in great shape due to a recent work party whereby MSHI partnered with WTA. After hiking in, our group cleared a couple miles further from overgrowth. This is in preparation for the next MSHI work party at Coldwater Trail on August 2 and 3, which will work on the tread surface primarily. Most people operated loppers to clip brush up to an inch thick. I started with a bow saw for bigger stuff, later traded tools to use a pulaski. Due to the nature of the growth being fairly new (guess why?), the most efficient tool for overgrowth was loppers. For people intending to bike this trail, I suggest you bring a small handheld set of clippers for the trail past where we finished. A little bit of effort would really go a long way to influence continued access to this trail for mountain bikers.

At the Boundary Trail, they split the group, which was OK because they had two leaders. One group filled an eroded part of the trail that was reported to be extremely hazardous scramble. The rest worked on the trail tread.

At the end of the day, we had a barbeque pot luck at the camp site. This camp site was special because it was near Coldwater, which gave us a great view of the volcano. Nothing beats waking up having slept in a field overlooking Mount Saint Helens!

The next day, Pat Pringle gave us a guided hike at the Boundary Trail to a point overlooking Spirit Lake, Windy Ridge, Mt Adams, and of course Mt St Helens. Pat is a professor of geology, and an author of the geology at Mt St Helens. Pat had a great sense of humor and knowledge of the area, which made for a unique and fun experience.




















While having lunch overlooking Mt Adams, a forest fire broke out. Fortunately it was far away.

Special thanks to all the staff at MSHI.

Mt Adams Fire on July 12

I was hiking the Boundary Trail on Mt St Helens with my sister Sandi and the Mt St Helens Institute on July 12. We were having lunch while overlooking Spirit Lake and Windy Ridge and Mt Adams shortly before and during the beginning of a forest fire.

The first two pictures were during the hike, the last couple pictures were taken from Johnston Ridge Observatory after we returned from the hike.

11:11 AM before the fire


11:25 AM fire just starting


1:07 PM from Johnston Ridge Observatory


1:08 PM


1:19 PM