Packing Rant and House Projects

It has been a busy few days here in Oregon as we try to keep warm and off the streets when it has been foggy and icy.  All in all, it isn't so bad as we have had pretty good sunshine to go along with the foggy nights and sometimes freezing weather.  Last Saturday, Neil went out to Molalla to help Seth Finney with a carpet removal task as they are replacing all of their carpets and it was time for Neil to repay Seth for all of his hard work in getting our shop done this past summer.  It was a pretty simple job of pulling carpet and pad, pulling nails and filling some holes with  spackle.  We made pretty good progress in one of the bedrooms and will do another room this coming Saturday.  There was a price to pay for the time on hands and knees, as Neil was sore for a few days.  Pamela told him it was good for him, so there.

Sunday, Neil spent watching the NFL playoff games and was sorry to see the Patriots loose, but it is setting up to be an interesting Super Bowl.  I think that we have to root for the West Coast team--even if it is from California.  Once again this year, we will be going to Southern California to join Bruce and Sandi Hagadorn for the game and visit with family.  We are having to leave on Sunday morning as Pamela has a big Creative Memories event at the Portland Expo Center on Saturday.

Queen Mary in Long Beach, California

We hope to have some warm temperatures and maybe take in the Queen Mary exhibit in Long Beach that we haven't seen in many years.  In fact, the Spruce Goose was still there the last time, and that flying boat is now here in McMinnville near Portland.

Warning!  Rant is Coming:

Neil has found a replacement for the expensive Canon ink jet printer tanks that his printer and Pamela's printer uses.  He orders them from Amazon and gets free shipping.  They have been working great and are a lot cheaper:

$43.37 at Amazon (free shipping)

$9.37 at Amazon (free shipping)

The cartridges have been working great and come from Sophia Global, in case you are interested.  Now for the rant--pictured below is a copy of the box and the ink cartridges that came today.  Needless to say, the box was WAY BIGGER than it needed to be.  Since shipping was free, I guess I shouldn't worry too much about it, eh?

Whatcha Think--Is the Box Big Enough?

Today was a sunny day, so Neil decided to tackle a few outside projects and take some pictures.  Here is a picture of our RV up on leveling blocks next to the house.

Our Minnie Winnie (or Via)

One of the projects was some more "power gardening"--that's when Neil gets to use power tools to get things done outside.  It was a pretty simple matter of cutting down some of the ornamental grasses that we have off the deck.  Here are some before and after photos:

Before

After

The Ryobi hedge trimmer made short work of the grass clumps and off they went to the yard waste can for pickup on Wednesday.

Christmas Tree Boughs Used as Mulch

When we took the Christmas tree down a few weeks ago, Neil decided to cut off the branches and we used them to protect some of the plants around the house from freezing.  We have already noticed some new shoots on some plants, and hope that covering them will keep them from a hard freeze.

Lawn Mower Ready to Go for Another Season

Several weeks ago, Neil removed the lawn mower blade and used his bench grinder and a file to sharpen it.  Today, he went ahead and reinstalled it and got the mower ready to go for another season.  He actually used it in December to mow a part of the lawn that had a lot of leaves, and if we get some good, dry weather will probably do that for the BIG lawn as well. 

Here is the HagaFinn Homestead Today in the Sunshine

It is kinda hard to see in the photo below, but we think that this is a red-twig maple, and it sure is pretty in the winter time.  It is one of many nice plants that we got with the house.

Pamela has been keeping busy with her Creative Memories consultant business, and has been asked to teach a class at the big Creative Memories event in early February, so she is getting known for her expertise.

Pamela at Work in her Creative Memories Office

If you need help with photos, Creative Memories software of how to hints on creating memory books, contact her at finneypj@gmail.com.

Well, the days are getting longer and there are still lots of things to keep us busy, so all is well.  We hope you are having a good year 2013 so far.

Fair Winds and Calm Seas,

Neil and Pamela

A Week of Technical Stuff

This has been a week of technical stuff for us both.  Pamela has been working on updating her "how to" book on Creative Memories and design tips.  She has ordered it and expects to have it ready for the Creative Memories event next month at the Portland Expo Center.

Meanwhile, Neil has installed the new DirecTV Genie receiver and has it programmed for all of the TV shows that we like to watch (and then some).  Since it can record five things at once, we no longer have to make choices as to what to record.

Genie DVR Installed

Gas Furnace Burners

Neil also spent a lot of time with the furnace repairman as he worked on our over twenty year old gas furnace.  We have a home appliance warranty that came with the house, so all of the visits have been covered under one co-pay--a really good deal.  We had the water heater replaced under warranty last summer, so we are way ahead.  

We have had trouble with the furnace over the past several weeks as the weather got colder.  The furnace high limit temperature switch would trip and the furnace would shut down and then start up again after less than a minute.  The result was that the furnace was not able to keep the house warm.  It took three separate visits, but the technician finally diagnosed the problem.  It actually turned out to be several issues; one being that the burners were turned up too high, and there was also a fan control that was defective and not allowing enough air to pull the heat away from the firebox.  As a result of the visits and helping the tech, Neil now knows a lot more about the gas furnace than he did before, and how do basic trouble shooting on the furnace.

This weekend, Pamela has a Creative Events open house here, and Neil is going to replace some fuses on the RV as part of a recall from Winnebago.  Essentially, they have downsized the fuses for the fridge in our RV and have sent us a three-amp fuse to replace a five-amp, and a fifteen-amp to replace a twenty-amp fuse.  It should be an easy fix.

Three Amp Fuse

Fifteen Amp Fuse

We also took down the Christmas tree and decorations.  Neil cut off the limbs and we used them to cover plants to protect them from cold weather. The rest of this week, Pamela will be getting ready for the weekend event here, and Neil will be working on getting more "stuff" organized in the garage.

Weather has been cloudy and cold, with temperatures during the day in the mid thirties.  There is actually a temperature inversion here with the valley being cold and in the thirties, while the ski areas on Mount Hood are having sunshine and temperatures in the fifties and near sixty.  It is actually cooler here in West Linn than it is in Juneau, but it probably won't last long.

We are doing well and looking forward to longer days and some more travels here and Oregon.  Thanks for visiting!

Neil and Pamela

New Years Greetings

We have had a good couple of weeks of the New Year, with some cool weather, but no real snow on the ground, and little freezing temperatures.  We got the New Years newsletter out, so if you did not get one in the mail or via e-mail, please click the link below to get a PDF version, and if that does not work, please contact us.  

click here :  HagaFinn's 2013 New Year's Newsletter

We had a quiet New Years Eve and day here at home and stayed away from the crazy traffic.  Pamela had a Creative Memories event at the Oregon Garden in Silverton during the first weekend of the year, and we had a good dinner there after Neil dropped Pamela off for the event.  Neil returned home to deal with a furnace problem and to fight off a 24 hour stomach bug.  If we were on a cruise, we would have called it the "cruise flu", but at least it did not last long.

Pamela had a very successful Creative Memories event where she taught a class and had lots of interest in the book she has written about how to get more out of the software and some of her design tips.  She is going to update it and reprint it to meet the demand from the event in Silverton, and may teach at future workshops as well.

This week, Neil got the RV off the blocks and drove it to the Oregon DEQ station to get it inspected because the DMV license renewal paperwork said that it was required.  He drove into Clackamas to find out that because the vehicle is a heavy duty diesel, it is exempt!  Well at least he got the RV warmed up and running in the middle of the winter.  It is plugged back in and we plan to get the cover put over it this weekend.

Pamela has been busy working on some more of here Creative Memories books, and has documented our first year in Oregon, as well as our trips to England and Scotland.  It is fun to look back on these trips and to look back on what has been a fast year.  Neil has been working on getting the garage and shop sorted out and getting rid of some more "stuff".  

We are also updating our DirecTV DVR to the new Genie version.  It has twice as big of storage (1 Terabytes), and will allow you to record five things at one time.  Not that we ever think we will need that, but there have been times when we want to record two and watch a third.  The new Genie has arrived, and Neil will be needing to program it with all of the programs that we like to watch.  It is good to keep busy in retirement, eh?

This weekend, we might get a visit from our friends from Juneau, Jim and Judy as they bring their RV down on the ferry on their way to Arizona to get warm!  We will also celebrate Neil's birthday over the weekend.

We hope that you are all doing well on your New Year's Resolutions, and if not, at least having a good year so far.  We look forward to hearing from you or seeing you in 2013.

Thanks for visiting,

Neil and Pamela

Christmas Greetings

Merry Christmas from Neil and Pamela

A belated Merry Christmas to all of you who have visited this Blog.  We have had a good several weeks here in West Linn, and have the house all decorated for Christmas.  We also took a few days and drove up to Silverdale to visit Neil's Dad and his wife Neta.  We had a good visit and were able to help them with a few things before we returned home.  We woke up to several inches of wet snow in Silverdale, but were able to make the trip up to Silverdale and back on I-5 without any bad weather at all.

For the first time in many years, we actually had family over for a Christmas Eve dinner.  Seth and Cathy Finney joined us for a good dinner and gift exchange and then we joined them on Christmas Day for dinner with their family.

Grotto Catholic Christmas Lights

Today, after a short appointment, we went to the Canton Grill for dinner and then we made a trip in to the Grotto Christmas Lights and then drove down Peacock Lane in Portland to see the houses there with all their Christmas lights.  It was a great evening and a good wind down to the Christmas season.

Peacock Lane Christmas Lights

We are busy working on the Holiday Newsletter (too late to be a Christmas letter) and plan to send it out electronically soon and mailed to those who don't get e-mail.

We hope that this finds you all well and in good spirits.  Thanks for visiting,

Neil and Pamela

Pearl Harbor Remembrance and Christmas Decorations

Remembering Pearl Harbor Day on December 7th

While doing some reading recently about the start of World War II, we ran across an article that took us by surprise.  It was titled "Reflections on Pearl Harbor".  It goes like this:

 "Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. 

On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?" Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?"
Nimitz explained. 

Mistake number one:  the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800. 

Mistake number two:  when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow everyone of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships. 

Mistake number three:  every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America.

I've never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredricksburg, Texas--he was a born optimist. But anyway you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism. President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. 

We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.

Hard to Believe that Admiral Nimitz Saw Hope through All of This

Both Neil's Dad and Pamela's Dad entered the war and fought as a member of what Tom Brokaw described as the Greatest Generation.  Neil's Dad fought in the South Pacific in the US Coast Guard, and Pamela's Dad Wilbur was an artillery sergeant with the US Army with General Patton.  While neither of them talked much about their Service, we thought back about it last week and we honor their service and sacrifice.

Neil with Our Christmas Tree --  Doesn't He Look Happy?

We went to one of the local greenhouses to pick out a tree for our new house.  We haven't put up a tree in a long time, so it was time to go through all of the old Christmas boxes and decorate the tree and house.  Pamela did a wonderful job, and the house has Christmas decorations all over the place.

Neil Putting the Angel on Top of the Tree

More Christmas Decorations

Hard to See, But the Top of the Small Tree is a Fresnel Lens

Our Ornaments are a Mix of Finney Family, Hagadorn Family and Ours

Pamela also hosted a Creative Memories Open House and Workshop last Saturday and had several people working with her on Christmas and other projects.  Neil called it the Wine and Estrogen Workshop but it turns out that will only be an unofficial title.

Pamela's Creative Memories Workshop Partners

Our Christmas Living Room

The weather this week has been pretty mild--really mild compared to Juneau.  It has not been below freezing, and temperatures have been in the fifties.  Our friends in Juneau have had a Winter Wonderland of lots of snow and it is now warmed up and raining on top of it.  We do not miss it.

One of the Christmas Ships We Hope to See on Friday

This week, we plan to meet friends to view the Christmas Boat Parade on the Willamette River and have dinner afterwards.  Next week we plan to drive up to Silverdale, Washington to see Neil's Dad and his wife Waneta before Christmas, and take in the Space Needle and a Chihuly glass exhibition while we are there.

More Christmas Decorations

We hope that you have many blessings this Christmas season and that you enjoy health and good spirits.

Thanks for visiting,

Neil and Pamela

December Monsoon Season

Well, SKYFALL was the name of the James Bond movie we saw in Southern California last month while visiting Neil's brother Bruce and his wife Sandi.  Hard to believe that was in mid November and we are past Thanksgiving and headed into Christmas!  Skyfall now describes the heavy rain and wind that we are experiencing in the Portland/West Linn area.  Our new place is on high ground (about 550 feet) so no worries there, and Neil did get the gutters cleaned out (twice?) so the rain gutters are gurgling along as we get the bands of rain from the "Pineapple Express" rollling towards us.

Since we last posted to this Blog, we have taken our Winnebago Via down to Junction City and dropped it off to have some warranty work done.  We actually dropped it off before we went to Southern California and picked it up on November 20th.  Guaranty RV replaced a propane valve, defective LED light fixture, pull down curtain, and fixed an issue where when the water tank is full, it can slosh out of the overflow vent as you drive down the road.  Since we are like most RVers and try to travel with a half tank or less, it was not a big deal, but it was good to have it fixed.

On the way back from dropping off the Via, we stopped and had a late lunch in Corvallis at the old Tower of London pub that we visited thirty nine years ago when we were dating at Oregon State University.  Man, that is a long time ago.  The place is now a McMenniman's pub, but the place still looks the same; right down to the two sides (one for adults, one for families) and the signs on the rest room doors (see below).

We also drove around the OSU campus and looked at some old places, like the original Beaver Lodge house that Neil and his brother Bruce were at and lots of new stuff, like the big football stadium.

Speaking of football, just last week was the Civil War Football Game between Oregon State and our arch-rivals, the University of Oregon.  Or the Beavers versus the Ducks for you Oregonians.  Both teams have done well this year, especially Oregon who was in the hunt for the National BCS game until Stanford beat them.  It was a good game, but the Beavers just could not keep up with the Ducks, who won it handily.  Oh, well--maybe next year.  Both teams are going to bowl games; with the Ducks playing Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl, and the Beavers will be playing Texas in the Alamo Bowl.

We had a good Thanksgiving with Seth and Cathy Finney's and their families in Molalla.  Great food and visiting with the family.  Right now, we are planning on hosting the Finney clan on Christmas Eve at our home in West Linn.  That means that we will be putting up a tree for the first time in a long time.  When in Juneau, we flew out for Christmas almost every year so did not set up a tree.  Neil thinks that the Christmas decorating elves will be asking for help real soon!

Our Water Leak Wasn't this Small (or as Dry)

If you have ever wondered if things really come in threes, we are believers again.  When we were in the garden a couple of weeks ago, Pamela was planting bulbs and wanted Neil to did a hole for one of the trees we have had in a pot all summer.  Well he did--and found one of our irrigation lines and broke the PVC pipe.  We got it fixed and the tree planted in a different location, but it was our third water issue this year.  Here is hoping for no more in 2013.

Neil's Christmas, Birthday, and Every Other Gifts

Pamela went shopping for Christmas stuff at the Michael's craft shop in Oregon City, and Neil suggested that we stop at the nearby AT&T store to look at a new iPhone 5 that he has been wanting.  Big mistake for Pamela, but a wonderful windfall for Neil.  We took a look at the specials that they had for iPhones and iPads and wound up getting both!  They were able to take Neil's iPhone 4 in for a trade and we got over $100 off the iPad.  Neil is loving both of these, he is in technology heaven!  Now his biggest worry is what to get Pamela that she REALLY wants.

Pamela at Her Creative Memories Booth

Pamela has been keeping busy with her Creative Memories business, helping people to create books to save and share their memories.  She has worked on wedding books, travel books, family memory books, recipe books, and lots of others.  If you want to find out more, contact her at finneypj@gmail.com.  She does great work and has lots of examples to share.

West Linn Christmas Tree

Just last Friday, we attended the West Linn Christmas Tree Lighting at the city offices and shopping center about a mile from our house.  Santa arrived in an old fire truck and lit the tree.  It is now officially the shopping season around here.  There is even a full time Christmas music station that has been going for the past several weeks.  They are at www.k103.com and you can listen via the internet if you are so inclined.

Five Guys Burgers in Willamette, Oregon

After the tree lighting, we both felt like a burger for dinner so drove down the hill to the Willamette Area and had dinner at Five Guys Burgers.  Pamela told the workers that she was taking photos for the Blog, so here is their fifteen (five?) minutes of fame:

Workers at Five Guys Burgers in Willamette, Oregon

Last weekend, while Pamela and Cathy Finney were at a Creative Memories booth in downtown Portland, Seth Finney and Neil went to the Kershaw Knife Sale at Tualatin, Oregon factory.  Seth tries to go every year, and this was Neil's first time.  Wow!  Talk about every kind of knife at rock bottom prices--it was a bit overwhelming.  Neil went in not wanting or needing anything and came out with several knives for himself and others.  There were even some $5.00 kitchen knives and some nice lock back knives for less than $10.

There was a bit of a line getting into the factory floor where they hold the event, but it was worth it.  It will probably become an annual event for Neil as well.  His brother Bruce and friends Sam and Dave would really enjoy the selection of blades and the prices.

The Kershaw Knife Sale is Busy--But Worth It

Well, this long post kinda makes up for the last several short ones, we guess.  We will try to post more often and come up with interesting things, but probably won't.  Thanks for visiting.  Send Neil an email if you are enjoying these or just want to keep in touch.  Click here:  hagafinn@gmail.com

Have a safe and enjoyable Holiday Season,

Neil and Pamela