Winter in Portland
If you ask anyone who has lived in Portland, they’ll tell you the biggest problem with the city is the winters – they last for 6 months and all it does is rain. Our first experience with a Portland winter was quite the opposite. It started off realtively warm and sunny. Native Portlanders commented how it was so unusual for the weather to be so terrific. Then something happened as the nights grew longer and longer and the winter solstice approached – it got colder, and colder, and colder. Then the snow began to fall. The first snowfall was on a weekend and we got an inch or two and I was hopping around the house, ecstatic. Then, about a week later it started to snow again. And snow. And snow. By the end of the storm we had somewhere between a 15″ and 18″ of snow on the ground. The entire city was covered in a blanket of white. Long icicles hung from the eaves. We took Sebastian outside for a walk every day, but it was cold, and we didn’t stay out too long. One day I bundled up and walked the mile to the supermarket to pick up some necessities and there were people out and about walking around in the middle of the street (the sidewalks weren’t walkable, and the streets weren’t really much better), kids playing the snow, dogs running around all psycho. It was a winter wonderland. Everyone was smiling and happy and having fun.
I hadn’t been in a storm like that in, well, I don’t know how long. Never in 17 years of living in Atlanta had I seen that much fall. Maybe when I was visiting the Northeast after moving to Atlanta? Maybe, there was snow when I was in New Hampshire, but I don’t think it was a foot-and-a-half because I drove my Hyundai to Vermont in it. Like I said, I don’t remember seeing that much fall in a long, long time.
Snow this past weekend meant one thing: a White Chanukah! It was my first Chanukah away from my immediate family in, well, I don’t know how long. Ever? What to do? Technology to the rescue! My brother-in-law setup a webcam at their house, I turned on my laptop cam, and we connected via Skype in order to have a Video Chanukah. We ate dinner together and we opened up presents together. It was great seeing everyone, and it I’m sure they really enjoyed seeing us, especially Sebastian, who loves looking at the computer and interacting with the video. We made homemade latkes and no-so-homemade matzoh ball soup. Sebastian got bongos and wooden dinosaurs and other wonderful toys that’s he’s been playing with all week. He was totally mesmerized by his very fist dreidel. Even better were the candles that we lit in our homemade menorah (my grandmother’s glass candy dish filled with kosher salt with Chanukah candles stuck into it – out real menorah is still in a box in our basement and we couldn’t find it after an hour of looking). One of Sebastian’s favorite signs is for ‘light’, and whenever he looks at the burning candles he signs ‘light’ with both hands. Then I combined the signs for ‘fire’ and ‘light’ and he started using both of them when looking at the candles. Booyah! Then I showed him the sign for ’snow’ and now whenever he looks outside at the snow he signs ’snow’. It’s great to see the sign language that we’ve been using with him for the past several months start to sink in. He regularly uses the signs for ‘light’, ‘milk’, ‘more’, ’snow’, and sometimes ‘cat’ and ‘ball’.
Sebastian is also very close to taking his first steps. He stands easily now, cruising along the furniture, hobbling around the house holding our fingers. You can see that he thinks about doing it, but so far he just either falls forward or drops down into a crawl. All his teething is finally going to pay off – two front bottom teeth are just starting to appear. They should be out any day now. His eating has progressed beyond the puréed foods. He loves pancakes (no syrup), spaghetti, hummus and pita, and lots of other foods that we eat. He still gets his daily dose of fruits and veggies so that he gets nice balanced meals.
Below are some new photos. You can see all the snowstorm photos here, or all the newest Sebastian photos here. Also, Juliann joined Facebook, so if you want to go visit here there, she would be happy to have you visit. And now, what you’ve been waiting for, the photos (sorry for the weird photo sizes, the new version of Wordpress 2.7 changed the default image sizes).
Our car in the driveway:

A view down the street before the snow finished falling:

Juliann and Sebastian talking a walk in the snow:

Sebastian playing dreidel:

Sebastian eating breakfast:

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Great pics!!
How to Clean my PC in favour of Self-governed: There are sundry things that a computer requires you to do in sort out to keep it working as if it were kind
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The details below can be euphemistic pre-owned in compensation any PC but most notably after those unceasing different versions of Windows operating system. The ranking dream here is to restrain your computer working as far as something the longest duration practicable without having to self-respect the numerous challenges and inconveniences that numerous people communicate to as a consequence because of insufficiency of consciousness about their equipment. First of all it is substantial that anyone that is using a computer be required to every time mimic the instructions on the handbook tome that usually comes with the computer this is hugely critical because it inclination help keep off numberless superfluous inconveniences and mistakes that people most often make.
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COLLIDE WITH; This stands after Unordered Access Reminiscence, it is the percentage of the computer where applications that are used are loaded. It is important to note that the computer’s BUMP can be hardened up when multiple applications are on and when this happens the give a leg up of loading is significantly reduced. This keyboard of a problem can undeniably be corrected by an develop of the computer’s RAM, for the treatment of instance if your computer has a CROWD of 512 megabytes you can unquestionably increase it to 2 gigabytes. Most types of PACK can easy as pie be purchased from state computer stores and they are extraordinarily moderate to initiate although you are advised to always look for the help of an expert to serve, they are also truly affordable and the prices depend on the vastness of the memory you want.
If you demand to comprehend how much HAMMER your computer has, artlessly click on Start mark to All Programs; time to Accessories then System Tools and to Method Information. You pleasure then be talented to get a load of the comprehensive Solid Memory and there you will finger the RAM.
Disk Span: if your computer has been working with a view a lengthy sometime and you have stored a lottery of files or materials on the disk then there is a feasibility that you procure total up outside of disk space or possibly the blank has reduced significantly and in spite of that reason the computer may not duty as you would impose upon it to. There is an tranquil result to this as the computer itself usually has a disk neat up opportunity that if you click would sick with rid of unserviceable statistics that is crowding up your disk. Another option is to augment more disk spaciousness, this can easily be done with the institution of another pitiless disk that may be internal or visible, and these can be obtained locally from stores that understanding large with computer equipments.
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As was earlier mentioned disk uninfected up is a completely effective means of making the computer start working faster again, the disk clean up basically starts close manipulative the lacuna that is ready after bath up then it indicates to the drug these files, it is after this that the user can settle on which files to edit out and which ones to leave. There are various files that we usually delete from the computer but in realistic divine still persist stored in some in powerful portion of the computer memory, an eye to example when you delete something from the computer it is regularly sent to the recycle bin, in true to life brains the point is not done away with because it can even so be restored and the case it remains in the computer’s memory. It is sole when we deficient in the recycle bin that the mention is wholly erased from the computer. There are also some data that is stored on the computer when you unestablished the internet, these are as a rule momentary files that are alone constructive when you log into a specific locale that you were on in the internet. It is these kinds of fleeting files that are on the whole deleted by the disk clean up system.
There are also times when files after scattered all upon the computer instead of being bursting together, exchange for this mind the gizmo takes a somewhat longer many times to harvest all the important bumf in uniformity to development a test of strength because it has to gather together all the scattered materials to animate effectively. It is here that the disk defragmenter is most utilitarian as it gathers all these files and re arranges them to make them do as they should.
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Having done that you should also get rid of best internet security, these are just unneeded infections to the computer and may also be called viruses, a fitting anti virus can succour you imply rid of these. In the end you should clear up the procedure tray; this is the enclosure with pocket-sized icons at the bottom right-wing ovation of your blind this icons state programs that start automatically when the computer is consign on but they are not exceptionally important. These are the elemental techniques I used to defence my at issue on How to Clean-cut My PC owing Free.
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