Snow!

While Michaela is enjoying the balmy, sunny weather at the University of Arizona this weekend, Pepper and I are frolicking in the snow in chilly Wilsonville:

Happy 2017!

As every recent New Years Day, I made my way to Mt. Hood. While last year was sunny and windy, this year was very, very snowy. Vision wasn't too hot, but lot's of fresh powder (I didn't take the time to take pictures of the pristine slopes I got to enjoy...sorry, was busy) and as per usual, no lift lines and very few people out on the slopes - good times! Given the downpour of snow, today was actually the first time that I used chains...like ever. On the way up it probably wasn't strictly necessary, but on the way out of the parking spot and down the mountain, I was happy to have them. Happy New Year everyone!

Another winter break tradition

As last year (and the year before?), we made one last trip to the Oregon coast. The weather in Wilsonville was frightful - foggy and bleak. The weather in Neskowin - delightful!

Boxing day

It's been a while since we've been in Molalla - swampy, but always beautiful...

Christmas 2016

It's Christmas time and we have Maggie and Sailor visiting.
Taking a 'family' Christmas picture in front of the tree with all seven of us in 10 seconds (the timer on the camera) turned out to be rather tricky - this is as close as we got:

But for most of the day, things were very relaxed.

This year's presents were very much coffee centric: Michaela got me a fancy 'Vertuo Line' Nespresso maker and she got a burr grinder (until now, we have still been using our blade grinder from Rochester days) and bean storage container. Now we are all set for weekends (French press coffee) and work weeks (Nespresso coffee)!

 

 


Dinner was the obligatory fondue, of course.









We started out with some Lego afterwards...

Michaela enjoyed her new ring...

... and I more comfortable ear plugs (which are brilliant!)!

More Lego happened on Christmas Day, everyone was trying to help:

The collection is starting to grow:

 (This one is obviously not done, yet.)

October, November, December...

Last update has been a while. Time flies when you are having fun...
On September 19th Neil deGrasse Tysson visited Portland and gave a lecture on Physics in the movies, from classics like '2001' and 'Back to the Future' to recent block busters like 'Gravity'. Good fun! He is one of the very few Physicists who made it into pop culture (he made it into DC Comic's Superman) and embraced it:


Less than two weeks later, Trevor Noah of 'The Daily Show' fame was in town - not to be missed, either! He found a very receptive audience in liberal, hipster Portland, of course. At that point, everyone was still laughing, given how the election was expected to go...

And finally, in early October, Roxane Gay ('Bad Feminist', also the first black female lead writer for Marvel Comics) gave the Atkinson lecture at Willamette.

Michaela was dismayed that - once again - I missed Halloween: this year's excuse was an invitation to give a talk at the ASSL/LAC conference in Boston...

November - Thanksgiving! As in all of the past few years, Billie and Rod invited us to a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner at their place. Good times!


As winter is coming, Michaela and I have started playing with Lego again. Helps to decompress and we continue to be delighted by the smart building strategies and tricks of the new Lego Modular sets:

iFLY

Jan had another birthday present up his sleeve: A trip to iFLY in Portland for some indoor skydiving. Oh boy! It was SO MUCH FUN! Each of us got only 2 minutes in the wind tunnel (in two sessions), so there was a lot of waiting while others in our group had their turn, but it was definitely worth it. We had a blast!

As part of the package we could download two of the four videos. Here is us on our second minute in the wind tunnel. Since it was my birthday today I got a bonus high-fly for the last 30 seconds. Very cool!