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These photos were taken on Monday afternoon, after a full day of snow. Nolan was mostly interested in watching what the dog was doing in the yard behind him. Since then the weather has warmed up a bit and most of the snow has melted away in the rain. It was still technically a white Christmas, though!

I think we’ve gotten more snowy weather in the past week than in the past 5 winters combined. We got several inches last Sunday, and flurries on and off through the rest of last week. It was finals at Willamette, so the university didn’t close, but Jeremy worked half-days from home for a good portion of the week, and got to leave early the rest of the time. The majority of the snow was gone by the end of the week, thanks to temps that finally got just above freezing, but by Saturday night we were getting freezing rain, and we woke up yesterday to half an inch of ice coating everything. Freyja was very confused by the crackly crust covering the remaining inch or two of snow in our backyard.

As the day progressed, we got more snow flurries and lost power in the house for several hours, due (I believe) to downed power lines. When we woke up this morning, at least 4 or 5 inches of snow had fallen on top of the ice, and it is still falling. It looks like a winter wonderland in Oregon, and we may even have a white Christmas, of all things. Our poor bushes, however, may not survive the experience.

Freyja is going stircrazy in the house. Needless to say, we haven’t been out for the past two days, and not just because our car is buried under a shell of ice and snow. So she hasn’t had a walk for over a week, and she’s got mad energy. She doesn’t mind the snow at all, though, so whenever we give her the chance, she runs around the backyard with her stick, stumbling through the ice crust here and there.

Nolan Michael Sparks

Born 17 minutes past midnight in the early morning on March 22nd.
Weight: 7 pounds 2.3 oz
Length: 20 inches

Mom and baby are resting comfortable in the hospital and both are doing great.

If you look past the issues, there are a few solid heuristics for reaching the White House which have held since WWII.

The American South tends to vote as a block and vote Republican. This is devastating to any Democratic candidate, so to counteract this effect, a successful Democratic candidate needs to be from the South.

For Republicans, the biggest challenge is carrying one of the big three states. If they can do that, then success is much more likely (see Reagan ‘80), especially if the Democratic candidate is not from the South (see Reagan ‘84). New York is so firmly Democratic that it’s not even worth trying to take that state. So the best bet for the Republican party is to put forth the governor from either Texas or California.

Other interesting trends: It is difficult to be elected to the White House from the Senate, and even more so from the Vice Presidency. Moving from the Governor’s Mansion to the White House is more likely. Speculation on this is that nobody really remembers what governors do, but the Senate votes frequently and publicly on important matters.

Republican candidates are more likely to be elected during American involvement in a war, and it is almost unthinkable for them not to be re-elected if they are up for election during an American war.

The only real exception to these heuristics was JFK—and he didn’t win the popular vote, he won the electoral vote. Plus, there is some evidence that the Mob helped him to take Chicago and therefore Illinois, which was enough just enough to best Nixon.

This election would be remarkable even if there wasn’t a female or a minority front-runner. None of the front-runners from either camp fit with the established patterns for success. Obama and Clinton are both senators and neither is from the South. Arnold isn’t eligible to run and Rick Perry seems content to remain at the helm in Texas.
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So, Julie and I were in a pretty bad accident this past Sunday: a six-car pile-up on I-205, a little ways south of the Portland Airport. Fortunately, everyone involved seemed to be alright. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for our brand-new Prius.

Basically, it was a rainy day and a little Toyota pickup struck a GMC Envoy in the right-hand lane, which caused the pickup to spin out of its lane and into the center lane perpendicular to the flow of traffic in front of us. I slammed on the brakes and the Prius came to an abrupt stop. Actually, I was quite impressed with the way the Prius handled, especially considering the slick conditions. The anti-lock brakes and vehicle stability control no doubt helped. I was able to maintain control of the Prius and keep it in the center lane while coming to an emergency stop. Unfortunately, the Rav4 SUV behind us wasn’t able to respond as quickly.

No sooner had we come to a complete stop than the Rav4 plowed into the back of our Prius and pushed us into the Toyota pickup. I’m not entirely sure what happened after that, but there were two other vehicles involved in the accident after that point.

We are thankful that everyone involved in the crash was able to walk away from it, especially considering the road conditions on the freeway. Julie and I have been sore and achy since the crash, though not as much as we had expected to be. We took a trip to our physician just to be safe, and there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong that rest, anti-inflammatories and heating-pads won’t cure.

This past week has been spent getting a “crash-course” (sorry, bad pun) on how to work with the insurance industry. The claims adjuster just looked at our car and it seems that the repairs will be at least $10,000. There are always additional damages that aren’t apparent on the surface, so the end total could be upwards of $15,000, still shy of the 80% cost needed to total the car. The body shop is saying that it’s 19 business days of labor to repair the vehicle… so it’s going to be a good month before we get our car back.

Not to turn this into a Prius ad, but I would like to say how impressed Julie and I were with the Prius, not only with the job it did keeping us out of the accident that happened in front of us, but also with how well it protected us during the rear-end collision. The Rav4 was obviously totaled: frame damage, leaking fluid, in addition to the body damage. You’d figure, in an elastic collision like an automobile accident, that the damage would be pretty evenly split between the two vehicles. However, the Prius did an outstanding job of absorbing the energy of the impact and keeping Julie and me safe.

Apparently we had a 3.6 magnitude earthquake last night near Salem. It happened around 11:20pm, and we were in bed, but not yet asleep. We didn’t feel a thing, but we did hear one of the bedroom windows rattling and thought it might be the wind. Jeremy got up and closed the window, and that was that. I think this is the second or third earthquake in Salem since I started school at Willamette, but it’s the first time I noticed anything at all during the quake…not that we realized what had happened.

This is what we’ve been doing instead of updating the blog lately….

Freyja’s entrance on the scene was the death knell for our carpets, which were already the worse for wear thanks to the machinations of 5 ferrets over the course of 6 years. Actually, the ferret smells in the carpet were giving Freyja some difficulty with housebreaking, and we finally had enough of scrubbing at puppy piddle marks. We decided to install laminate flooring in the front rooms of the house, so Jeremy pulled up the carpet in the corner to see what condition the subfloor was in. Turns out it was actually a pretty nice hardwood floor, in need of refinishing.

The discovery was an exciting one, and Jeremy could hardly wait to start ripping out carpet. It and its tacking strips came out without too many problems, though Freyja was not exactly pleased by this development. She lay down wherever there was a bit of carpet left, looking on forlornly.

Jeremy did all the work of the refinishing himself. I wanted to help, but about all I could manage was helping move furniture and dogsitting. We rented a random orbital sander to use for the main stripping/sanding work, which took Jeremy all of a Saturday to complete (and many boxes of sandpaper). The floors, under their previous coats of varnish, turned out to be (we believe) Douglas fir, which isn’t exactly the hardest hardwood flooring, but was very commonly used in this area because of proximity.

Then Jeremy cleaned the floors and applied coats of clear poly to seal the floor, right at the end of the day so they could dry overnight and allow us to leave our bedroom in the morning. He did that twice, a few days apart, with some scuffing of the first coat to adhere the second better. Then we let the poly cure for a week before replacing some of the furniture, protecting the floor with felt furniture pads underneath everything.

The verdict? The floors are so much better than the carpets, even though they already have some doggie scratch marks on them. The house smells better, and is cleaner because now we can really see every drift of dog hair gathering in the corners; plus, it reduces some of our flea problems, which I am loving. We purchased a gorgeous hand-tufted wool area rug for the home theater room, and are currently reimagining the arrangement of the front room, which is a rather awkward space. When we can afford it, we’ll get some more rugs so that Freyja isn’t sliding all over the place.

Actually, the sliding is a little funny, and she has adapted the way she runs in the house to suit it, slowing down well before she approaches a wall, or aiming to end up on a carpet where she can get some traction. She loves the fact that the front room is so big and empty right now—perfect for puppy play. Plus, the floors are cooler in the summertime for hot dogs.

So now that we’ve had the Prius for a few days we’re starting to get a feel for it. Here’s a few thoughts…

We’ve rented many different vehicles over the past year and none have we enjoyed driving nearly as much as the VW Jetta we previously owned. There really is something to that German notion of fahrfignugen.

The Prius is different. It doesn’t respond or corner like the Jetta did, but that isn’t why one buys a Prius. In fact, I’d have to say that the Prius has really changed the way that I drive. Not that it won’t drive the way any other car would: it has a full internal combustion engine, so you can drive it just like any other gas-powered automobile. (Although it does use a more efficient Atkinson Cycle engine instead of the more ubiquitous Four-Stroke engine.) But the Prius gives you more information and presents it in a very visual, easy to understand manner.

Here’s a look at the most common screen on the Prius multi-function display…

These aren’t the most typical results, but are real numbers earned during a return trip from Silver Creek Falls. You can see that there was a fifteen minute period where we averaged 100 miles per gallon (even with the A/C blasting). Since we’ve taken possession of the car we’ve put 177 miles on the car including a round trip to Portland as well as a round trip to Silver Creek Falls. Lifetime we’ve averaged slightly more than 48 miles per gallon. That works out to just over three and a half gallons (about a quarter tank) of gas or about eleven dollars of gas.

Having that sort of instant information about current consumption really makes you want to drive in a more fuel-efficient (and no doubt safer) manner. You really start to notice where the road, that looks completely level, actually has a slight gradient… It’s almost like playing a video game where your high-score is a number based on your lifetime miles per gallon.

So, while the Prius may not make you yearn for those curvy mountain roads you only see in car commercials, it does make it fun to drive up I-5; which may be about the straightest bit of road in the country.

– Jeremy

So now that we’ve got a puppy who requires regular veterinary visits (and trips to the dog park), it has become necessary for us to find a regular means of transportation. Until now we’ve been making do with the occasional rental and ordering whatever we needed from the ‘net.

No more—three years without a car was enough.

For several months I examined the options: we would be remiss not to at least consider a hybrid model, and of those the best option at present is clearly the Toyota Prius. We’re probably the only family to purchase a hybrid vehicle and increase their net carbon emissions, but there it is.

After putting our name on a list and waiting three weeks, our very own Prius is finally in….

You can see that Freyja has already decided she likes the car. Fortunately, she hasn’t deemed it necessary to mark it as her own (at least yet), though the back windows are covered with doggie noseprints. We’ve ordered waterproof nylon seat covers in anticipation of regular excursions with the dog.

More to come, I’m sure…

- Jeremy