Greetings from Hawaii, everyone! Big fireworks display tonight here in Waikiki. Be safe! Here are a few iPhone pics. The first one shows a few of the Hawaiian Islands from our United Airlines flight yesterday. And my better half is enjoying Spam Musubi, one of my favorite snacks in Hawaii :-) (Actually, that is my musubi.) Happy New Year wherever you are!
Freeways cleared and we made it to PDX in 30 minutes. Love this airport -- and the coffee (Coffee People) is fantastic! I wish all airports could be this good (free wireless, polite staff, live classical music, etc.). Off to SFO.
We carefully checked the weather forecast before a scheduled 2-hour drive to the Portland International Airport from the beach today. No snow in the forecast at all. 10 hours later, here we are still a long way from the airport. Almost 2010 and we still can not predict snowy, dangerous driving conditions? Only about 1-2" of snow in most areas, but people -- like us -- were completely caught off guard. Though even if we had a 4WD it would have made little difference since all roads were a friggin' parking lot for hours all over the Portland metro area. This was not a heavy snow (even for Portland), but the complete lack of warning made this one of the worst Portland commutes in history, they are saying. My nephew and I got out of the car several times to push other cars and generally help people including our own driver. What a mess!
After spending 3-4 hours to go about 5 miles, we decide to hang it up here in Lake Oswego. Hope to try again about 3:30 AM to reach the airport.
At least we had a great Thai meal here. All the restaurants and hotels are packed.
Speaking of snow in Portland, here's an infamous Youtube video from 2007 that shows what snow does to some drivers in Portland.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Here's one snap from Christmas morning at home next to the Tree and then a few iPhone snaps from our afternoon playing around on the beautiful Seaside beach. Gorgeous weather on the North Oregon Coast. Enjoying cool (but sunny) morning runs with temps about 0 (32) but by afternoon the temps warm up to about 10 (50) with no wind.
Within hours of reaching the Oregon Coast (USA) — after three flights, starting in Osaka, Japan — a FedEx truck showed up today with a box of 12 PZD books. This is the first time I have ever seen the book in print. Yes, I wrote it and designed in on a computer, but I had not seen a printed version. I am happy with the book, but there are a few things that I can fix for the future printings. Nothing is ever perfect, and one always wishes they had more time to get it closer to perfect, but if this book is enjoyed by some and if it helps a few people, then it is worth it. Now that the book is done I can devote more time to sharing materials on the presentationzen.com website. The book on Amazon.com: http://snipurl.com/ttrv4 Thanks so much to all of you who were kind enough to pre-order the book. おおきに！
Here's our plane. Look at those mountains in the east. Gorgeous!
Sent from my iPhone
I can drink beer and listen on the phone at the sametime... That's about the extent of my abilities. Heading off to PDX via Seattle. Merry Christmas, everybody!
Sent from my iPhone
Just there on the left of the wing tip.
Sent from my iPhone
George is the "International Ambassador" for Omega. You can see his face everywhere here. But I'd never seen this poster before. It's a bit unusual. Faces grab our attention, and if you add an unusual element to the face it grabs your attention even more it seems. (I think he is the "Ambassador" for everywhere in the world *except* USA and Canada.)
Can you find the product in the poster? By not always hitting people over the head with the obvious, you can bring the viewer in to participate, in a sense, with the visual to complete the message or interpret the message in their own way. (Snapped on my iPhone in a subway station in Osaka, Japan.) Some data on the company: http://www.iichiko.co.jp/en/data/data.html
