I came across an interview with Tim Harfard on Weekday KUOW yesterday morning on my way to work. It was an interesting talk. He is the author of this book The Undercover Economist. I might want to get from some library.

Three climbers went missing last weekend on Mt Hood in an attempt of summiting. Search and rescue had been going all the whole week. But they were unable to reach the elevation where one of the climbers was believed to caved. The storm finally got over and they finally found one body today. The other two were still missing.

Mountaineering is a business of casualties. You have to respect mother Nature. When you challenge her, life is the price you pay in case you fail. Sigh.

Western Washington and Oregon were hit badly by last week’s storm. We were out of power for almost 36 hours, pretty miserable. We were lucky to have candles, gas cans and stoves handy so that we can still have a hot meal. There are still a lot of areas without power. It was said this is the worst storm in decades, even worse than the one in 1993. Seattle Times and PI missed one day due to the power outage at the plant. Last time they missed were in 1953 and 1936 respectively.

Fortunately the weather calmed down and there was some good snow on the mountains yesterday so that we can spend the day skiing. We got the power back some time during the day yesterday.

I came across this audio on YouTube. It’s absolutely hilarious. Even the managers cannot recognize there is a difference between 0.002 dollars and 0.002 cents. This is unbelieveable. I don’t know how this guy can be so patient.

I had some difficult time once trying to explain to college students that the squre root of 2 is actually a valid number. Compared to what this dude has gone through, my experiences were actually quite pleasant.

Seatac airport removed X’mas trees in respond to a Rabbi’s request to place equally big menorahs next to the Christmas trees. Frankly, I was a little offended by the Rabbi. Who the hell still regards Christmas trees as religious symbols? You can practice your freedom of religion in many ways. Ruining other’s holidays doesn’t have to be one of them.

I have been following the lost family story on Seattle Times for a couple of days. They were travelling along I-5 in Oregon. They missed the exit to Highway 42 and took a shortcut along the Rogue river. They got stuck in the snow near Bear Camp. The wife and kids stayed in the car while the father went out seeking help. The rescue team found the wife and kids safe. Unfortunately, the father, James Kim, was found dead yesterday. It’s a heart breaking story. Now the lession for the rest of us is to stay on main roads all the time, and whenever you get lost, stay in the car and wait for rescue.

It’s a brand new month. But the rain didn’t just stop for December. It looks like Northwest has a new record for November. The storm last week was incredible. So many people were stuck and stranded on their commute Monday afternoon. Some spent 9 hours. I was lucky enough to leave early and spent only 2 hours on the road. Microsoft campus was mostly closed for 2 days. Mt Baker has seen 12 feet of snow in the past week. They are looking forward to breaking their own world record set in 1998-1999 season.

I was listening to KUOW this morning in my car. It said that the storm made to New York Times. There was even a 2-minute feature on TV in Barcelona. The publicity was partly due to the Seahawk game televised nation wide. Our friend Sharon also knew about the storm from the game and emailed us asking about it (the storm hit Oregon a bit later). That was quite interesting. The federal government has declared three major weather disaster in Alaska since August, yet no one cares about it. Several inches of snow in Seattle and it’s hell.