Drenched

No, not a reference to the weather. Though as long as I'm on the subject, the storm I mentioned a couple of days ago was a little disappointing- the scudding clouds were beautiful and dramatic, but the rain didn't start until early evening, and wasn't very energetic. Elsewhere though, it was a different story. They were predicting 30 foot waves at the coast yesterday, and apparently they got 'em- OregonLive described it (my paraphrase, the article is gone) as a series of near tragedies. A number of people were swept into the surf, one person got pinned by a driftwood log, a porch collapsed and dumped two people into the water... but miraculously, no one was killed or seriously injured. Freakin' 50 foot waves were predicted for today!

Surf’s up — way up — and that means danger on the coast.

The National Weather Service issued a high surf advisory for the Oregon Coast today, saying waves could tower 50 to 55 feet in spots.

“These large waves as they hit the coast are very energetic,” said Shawn Weagle, forecaster at the weather service office in Portland. “They can throw things like logs and any debris in the ocean and make it dangerous for anyone near the shore.”

Yeah, the equivalent of a tsunami rolling in several times a minute might just be a tad bit risky. In the mountains, 3 feet of snow are expected:

GOVERNMENT CAMP – Justin Larson of Parkdale and her friend, Scott Brown of Knoxville, Tenn. couldn't wait to hit the slopes today, awash in a fall snowstorm that ski area operators say has season opening potential.

The two clambered up a side slope just outside Timberline Lodge, just as another wave of heavy snow fell. By noon, the snow was shin-deep, with the promise of another two feet to fall by the end of Saturday. The two slowly moved down the mountain, gradually disappearing into fog and heavy snow.

The storm arrived overnight with wind gusts in the 60-, 70-, 80– and 90 mph range, with a peak gust of 91 mph recorded at Garibaldi.

However, the Willamette Valley gets a great deal of protection from strong winds by the Coast Range, and the trip up the coastal side of those mountains wrings much of the moisture out of the air. Annual precipitation at the coast and up to the crest of the range can be 100 to 150 inches; here in Corvallis we have an average of about 42 inches.

So I wasn't really surprised by the placidity of the storm. As one meteorologist commented, it's typical November weather.

No, "Drenched" refers to an addictive flash game I found a little while ago.The object of "Drench" is to covert the 14 X 14 grid to a single color, starting from the upper-left square. Click on the color of the paint pot to change the color of your home square, and subsume other squares of the new color. (The above are screen captures; click the link above to play the game.) My first choice was red...
which allowed me to get three (rather than just one) yellow squares on the next change.
The next three changes were blue, white, yellow.
I don't generally fool around with this sort of thing, but I do like strategy games that require you to think ahead a little rather than just react to (read: "shoot") the next boogieman that pops up.

There's a discussion going on amongst my old high school classmates that I'm trying to figure out how to chime in on regarding K-12 curricular choices. As a person who has taught age ranges from 1st grade to retirees (sometimes even getting paid for it!), the first and best thing to learn is that thinking is fun. What you think with (i.e. your starting facts), and about (i.e. to what ends) is the domain of curriculum decisions. Teachers have a big role in helping kids learn that thinking is fun, but parents have a much, much bigger one. And I'll leave it there for now.

P.S. In case you're wondering, my next choices were red, green, light blue, white, red, yellow.