The Pacific is amazing during a storm. There's a congregation of wise gulls outside my hotel room; neither man nor beast should fly in this weather.

Up at 5:30AM this morning in Eugene to drive over the Coast Range before the worst of the wind and rain hit. Some places were without electrical power, but that seems to have been a planned brief outage. Only a little bit of rain, but by the time I reached the coast, it was either hard to open the car door or hard to close it. Winds are predicted to reach record highs for the past 30 years up the coast a bit, but here we will just have 63 mph gusts. 3 1/2 inches of rain tonight. Since I love storms when I am safe from them, this is great. Sitting by the fireplace in my room watching the waves break on the rocks not very far away is wonderful.

Things have advanced since I was last here. This resort has WiFi, and AT&T is happy as a clam with five bars. Very good possibility that we will lose some of that overnight, but everybody says the Cooperative repairs power lines very quickly.

The President of CL&P has resigned, and there appear to be five separate investigations going on in Connecticut or the larger region. The one involving the regulatory commission is asking why the work force of CL&P has steadily declined over the past ten years when the Commission has been told that CL&P is adding line crews.

And you couldn't zip up to Salem and buy me lunch? You would have had a 40 mph wind behind you the entire distance.

It would have been getting back that would be challenging -- against that 40 mph wind. The Coast Range was actually easy. Highway 101 is (as for most of its length) serpentine before the tunnel and up to Waldport, which made driving more fun than usual. The Camry only got buffeted by the wind once. It was, however, a two-hands drive. You folks have exciting weather out here!

Almost everything here is closed but for the winter, not for the storm. I like the shops that announce that they will be open "by chance" during the winter.

Re. wind gusts:

An empty semi-trailer truck was blown over onto its side while crossing the Alsea Bay Bridge in Waldport, OR, on Tuesday afternoon. No one was hurt, and spilled diesel fuel was cleaned up before it got into the Bay. As I am probably lighter than an empty semi, this may explain why I had trouble crossing 101 yesterday on foot. First time in my life I have ever had to be driven across a road.

Have fun, Tollie.

You old fart.

I've been DENINED!

For the first time in 25 years, my application for a Peoples Republic of China visa has been denined

Why?

Cuz the photo that accompanied my latest visa application was identical to the photo on my passport. They want a different photo.

Doh

Send 'em your avatar.

I am off for a day to visit a supposedly Vietnamese restaurant in the old city of Norwich, CT. My companions will include a Puerto Rican, an Italian, and a Vietnamese-American with an amazing story. His family escaped from Vietnam by sea when he was a small child. The North Vietnamese raked the boat, and his father was killed. The rest of the family made it and ended up in California. Now he has just been through his first New England winter. It turned out that his convertible could not quite do the job even in the extraordinarily mild winter we have been having (temperature is now 68 degrees).

Boys and I are headed to D.C. for a few days. Nothing too exciting ... a few routine meetings in the Oval Office, a briefing with Mr. Soros, a tour of the soon-to-be-completed Museum of the Birthers, a couple rounds of meet-and-greets on the Hill ...

Let's just say September and October are still in the planning stages.

Safe travels, mi Amigo.

Wowzer! You got advance passes to preview the Birther Museum? Wow, am I ever envious! Your boys will never forget it.

Meh, fuggedabout the Gridiron Dinner; that was last week. I hear the BM is the toughest ticket in town -- it memorializes a massive movement.

Enjoy!

Gonna mosey by the National Archives and put the missing reels of microfilm back?

While visiting the Birther Museum be sure to stop by the White House and give your regards to Teresa Cao

I will be out for the next two weeks or so. Paris? London? Tokyo? Alas, no. Chained to a desk for a corporate merger.

Can you give me the inside info so I don't have to rely on my Nigerian friends to get rich?

Sure! My firm encourages insider trading. Just as long as only obots share in the info.

Wow!

Thanks for the PM, Maru.

The W's are hitting the rails for a week-long vacation, sans Ellie-dog (we're VERY NERVOUS ABOUT THAT!). Armed only with 2 suitcases, clothes for a month, iPhone, iPad, Kindle, MacBookPro, digital camera, duffle full of meds and supplements, sunscreen, bug spray, adapters for all the electronics, and 20 lbs of other crap, we're ready to brave the tropical wilderness that is Del Aware. I'm informed that there will be alcohol, boating, and a deep-fried turkey, so you know things are going to end well.

See you on the flip-flop.

If you have to take that much stuff, it doesn't really sound like a vacation to me. It sounds like work!

I hope you took enough to survive. Double check before you leave.

Ellie will be fine. Think of it as her vacation too.

Have a great time.

It's much less than I see parents packing for their kids, or when we take Ellie to P'Town. You never know what you might need for a beach vacation. (Once we forgot underwear for W2.) I'm not certain the Del Aware shore has actual stores.

Be careful around Wilmington - the local radio station mentioned today that it was # 3 on some magazine's list of the top 100 smuttiest cities.

I missed a good part of the discussion, so I'm not sure how that was determined, but from what I heard it didn't sound great.

I do an annual vacation every May. Well, June this year... July if my new car doesn't hurry up and get here. I remember ONE time when I forgot to pack my underwear. I did not pack a single item of underwear. I realized my mistake the next morning after my first nights stop. I quickly headed for a shopping mall as I left that town. I felt grubby and unclean all day, though.

Have safe and trouble-free trip. I, for one, will miss your posts while you're gone. A word of warning, wear lots of sun screen. It would be tragic if you ended up like that tanning mom -- you know the one, kind of looks like a chocolate Easter bunny. I'd add don't do anything I wouldn't do, but at our ages, getting wild is staying awake after 10 pm.

I'm on the Acela Express zipping by Stamford, CT and the coastal towns. The Acela is posh, but the population is heavily skewed towards white businessmen in suits. Every seat in every car is taken. High ratio of men/women. Everyone has at least 2 electronic devices out, some have 3-4. This means the Amtrak Wifi is slower on the Acela than on the Regional!

(I'm not a regular Acela passenger, but I had the frequent train miles to cash in and W2 has a class tonight.)

Catching up with Orly & Co. is tough when you can't download the zibits!