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Sorry for the lack of updates but ... Apps
... in a travel episode that's beginning to resemble the John Candy/Steve Martin classic(?) "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," I'm still stuck in the San Jose area. First it was a "slightly delayed, but still Wednesday" departure. Then it was "sorry, we're wrong, it's going to be Thursday." Then this morning we heard "Portland's airport will be closed all day," so now it looks like I'm (hopefully!) headed home tomorrow. Since I abandoned the rental car on Wednesday, I'm effectively a hotel rat for the time being (though I at least finally have some internet access, as you can tell!).

Assuming Portland does, indeed, recover from its week-long Ice Age and I do get home tomorrow, I'll try to get an update out this weekend, and then we should be back to business as usual on Monday...

Friday afternoon update: I'm back home now, and in a fitting tribute to the movie, I actually used a plane (to get to San Jose originally), a train (to get to the actual expo from my buddy's house), and finally, an automobile -- yep, I rented a 4WD and drove home starting last night, after I heard of the flight cancellations on Friday.

The roads were fine everywhere (including the Siskiyous and Portland, (where the biggest problem was the occasional person with chains going 25mph while the rest of us zipped about at 60mph). Total driving time was about 10.5 hours, airport to airport. Not bad at all, but it feels very good to be home!

-rob.
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Sorry for the lack of updates but ... | 17 comments | Create New Account
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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: osxfan57 on Jan 08, '04 04:05:36PM

Hey, greetings from a fellow Portland Mac lover. Yup, our airports are a mess, as are our streets. The ice and snow are beautiful, but very dangerous. It looks like it may start to melt this afternoon so hopefully you'll be back soon. I'm glad to know this excellent website has a Portland connection!

---
iMac 17, OS 10.3



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: merlyn on Jan 08, '04 04:31:42PM
The local news just showed one of the field reporters ice-skating on a local pond. That may not mean anything to people from the midwest or northeast, but I can't recall any time in the past decade when it has ever been cold enough here in puddle/stump-town to support an iceskater outdoors!

The planes at the airport are coated in about 2 to 3 inches of ice, and the temperatures are hovering right at freezing. (Our airport is blasted constantly with cold air from the east making it about 5 to 10 degrees colder than the rest of the city.) They dumped half a truck of defroster on one plane ($3000 worth of the stuff) and managed to remove only a 10-foot-square of ice. That'll be prohibitively expensive to try again, so we have to wait for mother nature to warm up to about 40 before flights will resume.

I've been mostly stuck in my house for the past few days, writing magazine articles and watching the keynote broadcast.

Lucky for you to be stuck in the warmth! Enjoy it!

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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: TvE on Jan 08, '04 04:42:32PM

Trains, Planes and Automobiles - great movie :)

PS.: Sorry to hear that you're stuck though!



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: the_webmaestro on Jan 08, '04 04:58:05PM

If you asked me... I hope you'll take you time and get home safely. No sense riding in the back of a truck just to get home... You've got a little girl to think about now.

Have a beer/cola/tea/water and enjoy the lack of stress an unexpected layover can provide...

:-p

---
Father of Jeremy Logan Leeds



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: raider on Jan 08, '04 05:57:52PM
Sweet - I didn't know you were PDX based... Yeah, the weather here sucks today. It was nice Tuesday and Wednesday - but too much ice this morning. In my office building we had so many falls on the ice this morning they closed the building - including one fall causing a broken back and another a broken leg. Ouch...

MAX has been shut down for a couple days, opening just part of the east side MAX today, and I got stuck on a Bus downtown, that got stuck trying to go up 6th - WITH CHAINS ON... You can still see cars stuck all over the place - even Police cruisers!

It is warming up though, still snowpack and ice everywhere. We had about 8 inches of snow in Brooklyn - then came the freezing rain which capped the snow with a solid sheet of ice about an inch thick. I could jump up and down on it last night and not break it...

Good luck, safe journeys home, and if you need any web/java development for OSX hints let me know...

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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: mervTormel on Jan 08, '04 06:28:03PM

Those AREN'T PILLOWS!



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: ryanmathus on Jan 08, '04 10:59:43PM

I occasionally do the mess around on the dashboard late at night...


What a great movie :-)



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: swooshdave on Jan 08, '04 07:39:27PM

Alaskan just announced no flights in or out for Friday.

Planes on the ground will have to wait for the weather to warm so that the ice can melt.

Seriously, rent a car, buy some chains and drive back, 12-20hr or so in this weather. Point south are just wet. Don't know how bad I-5 is but you just ain't flyin' back anytime soon.



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: trinitrotoluene on Jan 09, '04 02:34:21PM

By now I-5 should be okay, but for a while I-5 was nearly completely closed. The Siskiyous, where I-5 passes through in southern Oregon/northern California, are not the place to be when Oregon gets snow, because it gets a lot.



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: yellow on Jan 08, '04 08:26:39PM

sudo rm -rf /Users/robg/home/snow_n_ice.out
sudo install -g oregonians /sbin/normal_weather/rain.out



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Snow
Authored by: mudhiker on Jan 08, '04 10:24:19PM

Well, I'm up the river quite a bit from Portland...that is up the Columbia, up the snake, and then up the Palouse (though I usually take the roads)

We got hit nasty cold for all week (I've been skiing all over Pullman) until today...it all melted. Which was nice, as the road-graders have been burying my car in ice and I needed to get some groceries. Stay warm & safe y'all!



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: rkchang on Jan 09, '04 11:11:56AM

Yep...messy roads, closed airports. Hell, yesterday I had to get someone to give my car a helpful push at my grocery store parking lot just so I could get going on my way home. The clinic I work at has been closed for 3 days, so it's been cabin fever for me. (And my girlfriend was scheduled to fly in to visit me for the weekend yesterday, so major bummer for me)

But there's good news! One of the local news stations just showed live footage of the first flight in 3 days taking off out of PDX.

Take care, Rob, and hope you make it back safely.

---
"I have seen the evils of procrastination, and I vow to change my ways tomorrow."



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Eugene is completely clear
Authored by: trinitrotoluene on Jan 09, '04 02:36:45PM

Has been since yesterday, so if you can get home through Eugene's airport that may be an option. 2 hour drive from Eugene to P-Town.



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Eugene is completely clear
Authored by: deling on Jan 10, '04 08:07:14PM

The airport in Eugene is so small that not too many planes were diverted there.

The real nightmare is not being stuck, but finding a way to remove the thick and hard ice all around the car, which had been sitting in the parking lot in PDX for a week.



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: doggkruse on Jan 10, '04 10:23:58PM

If they could just learn to PLOW the freaking roads when it snows, we wouldn't have a problem. I just drove 84 from Colorado to Portland and there is still like 6 inches ON THE ROAD 3 DAYS after it snowed.... wtf? Now we get to watch the snow melt and hear about the "deep freeze" for the next week on the news. After driving 1200 miles I sympathize with you about the folks with the chains. There is also the occasional pile of chains in the middle of the road.



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: echo on Jan 11, '04 12:03:06AM

Anticipating my second day of a canceled flight home to Eugene though Portland, I booked a backup flight through Seattle, and made it home Friday while Portland was still closed. Got to spend an extra fun day at the Expo and go to a party!

Consider this an airline hint.



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Sorry for the lack of updates but ...
Authored by: mthiel on Jan 12, '04 12:43:40PM

Excellent! I had no idea this site was run by a Portlander!

Makes me wonder... if there's a PDX area Mac club or anything. Although, I probably saw every local Mac guy in the area at the Apple Store opening already.




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