R.I.P. Varmint 1993-2001
R.I.P. Varmint 1993-2001
Forsberg reaching for his first programming manual.
Forsberg under supervision.
Chuck with father in Madison Wisconsin ca. 1950
Forsberg in trouble, ca. 1957
Forsberg in trouble, ca. 1977
Picture taken at the Protocol Shootout, 1994.
Varmint as a kitty.
Varmint in a fashion pose.
Note the change in eye color.
Entropy is so playful she just can't help increasing
the entropy of her surroundings.
Neighbor's cat "Pig" and a Mallard Drake face off. Ca. 1974
Varmint and Entropy engage in High Level Negotiations.
Left: One of many visitors to the bird feeder hanging outside my office.
Right: Early morning visitor.
Below: Bobcat
Coons and polecats visit the feeders in back.
A neighbor's houseboat, ca. 1977
Caddyshack: The Omen Technology World Corporate Headquarters
Below: aerial view showing approximate boundaries
Below: Late summer view. The green area is a growing mass of blackberries.
It doesn't snow very often in the Portland Oregon Rain Forest.
An Eastern view isn't much for sunsets,
but the rainbows are nice.
Electrical storms are rare in this area. When they do arrive, Caddyshack is a great place to experience them. The shape of the valley causes thunder to roll back and forth among the hills for up to 20 seconds.
The Caddyshack "Not so Grand Canyon" driveway during the Flood of '96.
First there was a windstorm in December. I watched some of the storm from my front porch. I could hear the crackling of trees as they lost branches or broke in two. I saw a pair of Canada geese blown a half mile off course by the wind. When power failed I went to bed.
The windstorm toppled many trees newly exposed by residential development, with some loss of life. This has changed attitudes about houses nestled in trees. At Caddyshack, serious damage was limited to trees falling across the driveway. The table visible in the previous picture was blown off the deck and smashed.
In Portland it rarely freezes when it rains, and it rarely rains when it freezes. But in Feburary 1996, cycles of snow and rain trapped an accumulation of moisture on the ground instead of allowing it to dissipate normally. Then heavy warm rains suddenly melted all this ice. The saturated ground could not absorb this water and the runoff caused the worst flooding since the early 60's.
Flood damage at Caddyshack was limited to the driveway, which required a few day's grading and several truckloads of gravel to put right.
Caddyshack and Comet Hale-Bopp.
This April 8 1997 time exposure
was taken near the southeast corner of the lot,
several hundred feet from the house,
making the comet appear larger than real life.
I retouched
the photo to remove blemishes
and reduce the relatively reddish kitchen light
reflected by the trees behind the house.
The light on the front of the house came from a
street lamp one half mile distant.
Even with strong binoculars, few saw
the blue in the comet's ionization tail,
yet the film caught it easily.
