Watching NHK live with my in-laws in Nara (we're in Oregon) as the new year rolls in. Looks like a live shot of a temple someplace in Japan.

This is the new year's card (Nen Ga Jyou) that my wife created and sent out in Japan. We were both born in the year of the cow. Hope you all have a fantastic 2009!

Ran into my old high school buddy (and Aquarium director) Keith Chandler as he was taking a shark and turtle off the Seaside beach back to the aquarium for study. Both were (obviously) dead. I think that is a Loggerhead turtle which are common in warmer waters down south (the winds switched strong from the south a few days ago and melted the snow). The poor guy seems to have gotten caught in the current (or had died already) and was washed up here on the north Oregon coast. The shark I think is a Salmon Shark. The odd thing is the hole in its side. Did he get caught in a fishing net? A strange puncture wound. The shark is about 1 meter long and very heavy for such a little guy. (Photos via iPhone.)

Think design but never decorate. (Snapped today in Cannon Beach, Oregon.) This can not help the MPG ;-)
 
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Home, 2 blocks off the beach.

After a long flight to San Francisco and a long layover there, we finally arrived in downtown Portland after taking the Max (light rail). A few pics outside our hotel in downtown Portland. More snow tonight and for Christmas eve and Christmas day...will I ever make it to the coast?

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Some nice reads here.
 
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Just in case you forget where you are?
 
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Kind of reminds me of "1984." Photo by Celio.