Happy Birthday Kit !!

We started celebrating Kit's second birthday yesterday. She's not really going to be two until January 9th but we wanted to have a birthday party for her while she was here with everyone.

We got her a cool little art set that she seems to really enjoy. The easel folds down to make a small desk that she can use to color in coloring books or play with play dough and stuff like that.

Unfortunately the present Aunt Debbie bought for her did not get delivered yet. UPS is running really behind on deliveries due to the snow storm we've had here. The birthday present I bought for myself was due to be delivered on the 19th and it still hasn't arrived either.


I hope both arrive before Kit leaves for sunny California!

Merry Christmas

Well, Christmas is over. It was a really nice Christmas this year though. Having Kit here was really fun. She's not really aware of what this is all about yet but she's enjoying all the attention anyway.
We've had a very white Christmas this year and though I know many have enjoyed it, I for one will be happy when all the snow is gone! I long for a California Christmas where we took out our old cars for the Christmas parade and enjoyed half way decent weather during December.




At this point, we've had about two feet of snow dumped on us out here in Duvall. That's way more than I ever expected to get here in the Puget Sound. This is more like the winters I used to experience in Ohio and they're the reason I never returned to Ohio!!!

Good news though. The weather reports say that the temperature will be warming up and we'll be getting plenty of rain. That will melt the snow and produce flooding!!!

Winter Snowstorm

Wow!!! What more can I say. We had 7-8 inches of snow in Duvall overnight and it's still snowing. I did make it to work today (Jeeps Rule!) and hopefully I'll be able to make it home tonight.  The photo above is a panoramic I stitched together from four photos of our back yard.

Here's a screen shot from the King County Traffic camera of the roundabout near Duvall. Fun stuff!

Here's a photo I took coming into work this morning of the street leading up to my office.

And it's still snowing !!!!

It's Christmastime!

Well, winter has arrived in Duvall in a big way!  We had four to five inches of snow Saturday night and most of it is still on the ground!   The photo at the left is what our back yard looked like this afternoon.

I left town briefly today to run some errands and found that once I was over the hill into Redmond there was pretty much no snow.  I guess we're just lucky over here in Duvall.

After much back and forth, we decided to go with an artificial tree this year.   We picked up one of those new fangled pre-lit trees from Home Depot.  It  went up really easy and all that was left was to put on the decorations.  I think I kind of like this pre-lit concept.

While we were at Home Depot we also picked up the cute little Mickey and Minnie Mouse figures that are all decked out for Christmas.   After Christmas we'll remove the santa hat from Minnie and Carole will make a new dress for her so we can use her at car shows with Minnie the Metropolitan.

Against my better judgement, I decided to put up a few outdoor lights this year.  Mostly because the Xmas tree has white lights and I thought it would look better if we put some colored lights on the outside to help set it off.   Now the house just looks like it needs a lot more lights.   Sigh....

Carole took care of setting up the nativity out in the front yard and plugged in the lights that are in our trees out by the road.    Not a very good photo, but you get the idea.    

So, except for wrapping all the presents, things are pretty much ready for Kit's arrival on Sunday.  

Leavenworth

I wanted a little christmas spirit this weekend. Saturday we decided that maybe a trip to the mall would be the ticket. Turned out that the malls just aren't into christmas. Oh, they're into having people shop but they just didn't decorate for christmas except where Santa was availabe for photos.

Today, I figured a trip to Leavenworth would be the best option. Unfortunately, there was no snow in Leavenworth but there was plenty up at Stevens pass but not enough to require chains or anything like that.

We had a real nice time today. Kind of rainy but not too cold. It wasn't even real crowded until it got close to time to light up the town. If you've never seen Leavenworth lit up, you've missed something pretty spectacular. It's really a Christmas winter wonderland.

There are always interesting people and pets wandering around Leavenworth too, like the pair of chihuahuas in a stroller. There were a couple of other dogs with reindeer antlers on as well.

Then there's the popular horse and carriage rides that are available around the town.

We headed home right after the lighting of the town but all in all, a great day and now I actually kind of feel like it's Christmas time.

Cars, Car Companies and Congress

Seems like Detroit is in a world of hurt right now. All the liberal lefties want to blame it the product line they produce. While the big three are in Washington lobbying congress for their share of the bailout pie, the left is crying that "they should be building hybrids and electric cars" or saying the reason they're in dire straits is that they build cars that "nobody wants".

Detroit builds the cars everybody wants. They don't have just a single line of cars, they build big, small and in between. Contrary to the perception the media and congress would have you believe, GM has more cars that get over 30 mpg than Toyota does. Yes, Toyota builds the Prius. A nice little hybrid car that meets the needs of some people. Toyota also builds the15/19 mpg Tundra, a huge full size pickup truck, and a line of seven SUVs that includes the 13/18 mpg Land Cruiser. All total, the Prius only accounts for about 5% of the units sold for Toyota.

A lot of things have led to the problems Detroit has, but building SUVs isn't one of them. SUV's are the one area where they really made money. Yes, the marketing people in the big three could do a much better job of market research and understanding what Americans want to drive but if they're guilty of anything it's trying to please everyone. In fact, Detroit probably will have to reduce the variety of choices it gives consumers in order to gain some efficiency.

Most lawmakers are lawyers, not engineers or businessmen. They're not the least bit qualified to provide management consulting to any business, let alone a business as complex as automobile manufacturing. They live in a world where the value of the product or service you produce has no direct correlation to the income received. Let's face it, nobody wants what congress produces. According to Rasmussen, only 12% of Americans think congress is doing a good job. The American auto industry on the other hand is actually getting pretty high marks from the American consumer. The Ford Expedition get's a 9.1 on a ten point scale, same for the Chrysler 300. The Corvette gets a 9.3. So now, we have lawyers who are getting a 12% rating advising companies who produce products that get 90% plus ratings that they need to change the products they produce. Now, the government wants all the automakers to move in the direction of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles but they're very cars that make the least amount of money. Like I said, they're lawyers, not businessmen.

The big three CEO's will do their pandering to congress though. They'll present plans that focus on new lines of fuel efficient cars. The bozos in congress (sorry Bozo, no disrespect intended) will probably even buy the proposals. The average consumer of cars is going to be a tougher sell. In spite of all the buzz around the Toyota Prius, it's not really a huge seller and it's not a profitable car for Toyota. Toyota sells two to three times as many Camry's as they do Prius's.

If the American auto industry is going to survive it's going to need to continue to produce products that American drivers want and they're going to need to do it for a price Americans are willing to pay.

And they're going have to work extra hard to keep the left wing liberals in congress from running their car companies for them.

Year End Review

Well, 2009 is fast approaching so I figured it was time for a little review. Last year I made some new year's resolutions, something I rarely do. Upon further review, I now know why. Here are my 2008 resolutions and my comments about them.

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#1. This is the year I'll finally ride my motorcycle cross country. Taking a motorcycle trip across the U.S. is something I've wanted to do since I was a teenager. This year is the year!

NOT !! I didn’t even take a long trip on the bike in 2008. Even though I had the vacation time accrued, I wasn’t permitted to take a month off for a cross country trip because of the work schedule.

#2. Play golf. Yes, I know it's been 10 or 15 years since I played but I think it's time to start again. Back when I used to play, the game became a serious addiction that threatened to ruin my life. Now I think I'm old enough to handle it without becoming addicted.

Nope! I never even touched a golf club. They’re still up in the storage area above my shop.

#3. Shoot more. I don't spend nearly enough time at the range. This year I want to compete in some IDPA matches and maybe take up sporting clays.

Don’t I wish!! While I may have actually shot more rounds of ammo than I did in 2007, I never did compete in any IDPA or IPSC matches and haven’t shot a single clay target with my shotgun.

#4. Sell a vehicle. I don't know which one, but we have too much stuff and it's time to start getting rid of some of it. I think probably the camper will go, and maybe the boat.

Now isn’t this one funny. Not only did I not sell a vehicle, I bought a 1972 corvette and a 1961 Metropolitan! I did try to sell the camper and the boat but was unsuccessful.

#5. Finish the interior of the '57 Chevy. I made some real progress in 2007 and 2008 is the year I finally finish it!

OK!!! I may actually be able to claim success on this one. Although the interior still doesn’t have center console, it is effectively “done”. New carpet, new front seats, new upholstery front and rear with matching door panels, new steering wheel & shifter. It’s looking really “done”.

On the plus side, there's really no need to make new resolutions for 2009. I can just recycle the 2008 resolutions and see if I have more luck with them next year.