Deadline!

Deadline weeks are difficult. They take up a lot of time and throw off my schedule. Needless to say, I've allowed this to happen with my workout schedule too. I'll try to get back on the wagon on Thursday.

We've had a bit of a surprise snowfall this morning, so I've got a little bit of extra time. I'll use it for painting and correcting student projects that appear on semester grades.

You Gotta Change Yer Life!!

During Christmas break I promised myself I'd begin living more healthfully. Yeah, I get that. Everyone takes that pledge about the time of the New Year don't they. Number one resolution is to lose weight. So here I am doing the same thing-publicly.

I've had a hard time getting started. It doesn't do me much good to diet, I have to do the diet and exercise combo. On Sunday I started back to L.A. Fitness. I've had a membership at the new gym that opened near our house since May, and have found a way to regularly avoid it. I last went in October. Tells you something.

I've gone every day since Sunday (today is Wednesday the 14th), and set fairly moderate goals for myself-chiefly that I go each day for at least thirty minutes, or total three and a half hours of exercise per week. So far I'm off to a good start but I'll keep you posted on my progress.

In Search of Floodwaters

I set off on a little search this afternoon, to find the raging floodwaters of the Puyallup. School was closed today because of the danger of these waters, but I had a hard time finding 'em. Actually the decision to close came last night on the prediction of historically high flooding on the river which neatly bisects our district.

Fortunately, the river crested this morning slightly below flood level which is a very good thing. My travels through the valley to Orting didn't find roads closed this afternoon, or people hurriedly barricading their homes against the rising waters. However there was clear evidence that water had been there with fields inundated around Alderton and McMillan.

The picture is of I-5 which is the main interstate artery running north and south through Washington State at Centralia, about sixty miles south of here. It is underwater, by as much as ten feet. Currently the freeway is closed and will remain so, likely through at least Friday, and perhaps longer. All east west corridors through the mountains are also closed, so the state has effectively had road commerce shut off for the next few days until the nasty weather and its aftermath resolves itself.

Weather Doom

From December 16-23rd the Puget Sound area was hit by successive snow storms followed by unusually cold air. It didn't drop anything like huge snow quantities, but each probably piled several inches each atop one another, bringing the area to a standstill.

Hard on the snow's heels are some ferocious rainstorms. It isn't that we're unused to rain here, but not like this. We've had eight inches in the past 36 hours or so, and temperatures that have warmed up to well above freezing in the mountains. This means mucho rain (10-20 inches) in the mountains that has also led to rapid snow melt, filling virtually every river in Western Washington.

The two pictures, downloaded from MyNorthwest.com, show the Puyallup River rising. Though I live on the hill and am not threatened by flooding, tens of thousands of residents were evacuated from the town of Orting, which lies between two flooding rivers-the Carbon and the Puyallup.