“Chipper” the tiny tugboat prepares to haul off some flood debris in the Willamette River near U. S. S. Blueback at OMSI.

Yesterday I did not go for a bike ride. First it snowed. Then it iced up. Third, heading to Powell Butte meant a one mile ride through bacteria-infested flood water around SE Foster Road.

Today I got out for a bike ride in cloudy 39-degree weather. The pavement was bare and wet. The wind didn’t blow, which made the ride far more enjoyable.

The water was high in Johnson Creek and the Willamette River. Oaks Bottom wetland was flooded.

As I rode past OMSI, I spotted a tiny tugboat putting all its might and muscle into clearing a debris jam at the U. S. S. Blueback submarine dock.

A waterfall doesn’t quite make it down. It returned to the road instead.

Unbelievable! Driving along the old U.S. 30 east of Mosier, I spotted the blowing wind reversing a waterfall back onto the nearby roadway near Rowena Crest. This was remarkably cool, except now that I am soaking wet and so is my camera.

I dug up another whitewater rafting video. This video shows Chuck Dorr and Elliott Schofield riding through Rainie Falls on the Rogue River on October 1, 1991. Rainie Falls is a Class V rapid. I was shooting the video. This is fun stuff!

Both the Rogue and Snake rivers have jet boat tours. We wonder how many other peoples’ home movies we are on. Unfortunately, many cameras back then were analog cameras and online videos were nearly unheard of.

This is a short video of a flight my friend Elliott and I took around Mt. Hood back in 1992.

I found my Trojan implosion video from May 21, 2008 and decided to post it here. I shot this with an analog 8-mm video camera with mono sound. The highlight of the filming wasn’t so much as the implosion as it was with Murphy’s Law when my digital SLR camera malfunctioned two minutes prior to the implosion.

N8082U: The aft section of the United DC-8 fuselage in a lot near E Burnside and NE 157th Ave. My longtime friend, Elliott Schofield, shot this print photo. I was four years old when the crash occurred.

Thirty years ago on this day, United Airlines flight 173, a Douglas DC-8 aircraft departed from Denver and bounded for Portland. In the end, the flight would stop short from the Portland International Airport a few miles away after running out of fuel. The plane went down at 6:15 pm Pacific Time. Ten people died from the crash, mainly from impacting the trees.

I was four years old then when my Grandmother and I played a game of Solitaire at the kitchen table at her house in Southeast Portland near SE 168th Ave. and SE Stark Street.

The lights went out. We lit some candles and continued our card game.

This magnified and cropped shot from the previous photo shows the fuselage detail, tail number “N8082U” and the damaged tree bark. Photo courtesy of Elliott Schofield, December 1978.

A short time later, my grandfather saw several helicopters hovering overhead a short distance away. We had no idea why the helicopters were buzzing overhead, but we were curious.

My father arrived the following morning to pick me up from my grandparents’ house. We drove north on SE 162nd Ave. towards Marine Drive where we normally would cross back into Vancouver via the Interstate Bridge.

While we crossed the four-lane East Burnside intersection, I saw to my left an aircraft tail fin with a large U painted in red and blue and the power line poles with the triangular-shaped support arms lining Burnside.

Being four years old then, I thought it was a spectacular sight to see. I didn’t know or understood then why the plane crashed or knew that ten people died. One thing I knew for sure is that I have a photographic memory and it is still vivid, just as I still remember seeing the May 18, 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption when I was six years old.

Today, East Burnside near NE 157th Ave. is a two-lane road with a light rail train speeding down the center and bike lanes on the right shoulder. An apartment complex now sits at the crash site and there isn’t really much memorializing the deceased.

Thirty years later, I still remember that plane crash like it was only yesterday.

(Thanks Elliott for the photo!)

Merry Christmas to all and I wish you all a happy and safe holidays.

Mini mountain: Snow pile from shoveling snow off the driveway. That’s only half of it!

A total of 16 inches of snow fell at my house in Milwaukie this week. The good news is the temperature is now 40 degrees with light rain. The bad news is that the roads are sloppy slush.

I’ve been in Les Schwab since 10:30 this morning. Two and half hour of listening to their phones ringing off the hook. More so, there are many customers coming in that they are forgetting those waiting to be billed and go on their merry way.

Ice and snow are not the only road hazards. Tire chain remains lying on the roads are also a problem.

I found one of my tires with abnormally low air pressure. I also found a piece of tire chain embedded into the tread.

It seems that I have a long wait at Les Schwab Tires to have this tire repaired.