John Hoyle – Web Design and Consulting

I apologize to friends, family –  and even a few of my detractors – for being absent for so long and for failing to update this website since last August. I’ve been busy. Very busy. To say that my bucket has been full over the past year would be, at the minimum, a gross understatement.

So I’ve decided to toss up a few short postings to try to bring everyone who cares up-to-date who reads this blog on what’s going on in my life. I always look forward to hearing from all of my friends and family, past and present, so email me at contact@johnhoyle.com and keep in touch.

Don’t forget to check in from time to time at JustOneOpinion.com, the opinion and news site that I edit along with my close friend, Dick Kelly. If you need a website, or want to refer someone to me to discuss having a WordPress based blog or website set up for them, please send them to Hoyle-Consulting.com, my business site. I really enjoy working with artists, photographers, and writers whenever they need a quality website to display their work.

Yesterday was my birthday. Everything was great, good weather, nice lunch, and little trip to Macy’s for a pair of fancy flip-flops and a couple pairs of badly needed pants. Oh, yeah, and a quick stop at See’s Candy Store for a box of two-dozen truffles – dietetic, of course.

Now that I am older and more mature, I have to take a fresh look at my life and surroundings.  You simply can not  imagine what I am forced to endure almost every day – especially during the summer and fall.

Sometimes, way up here in the Great Green Pacific Northwest, I wonder if anyone cares what we have to suffer through in these barely livable surroundings: Sun blocked out by the tall evergreens; small birds eating our very valuable seed; vicious and out-of-control squirrels roaming around our backyard, running between houses, and jumping from tree to tree. All of that and the nosey neighbors who are always trying to loan us their tools or wanting to help us with some project.

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It’s been almost fifty years since I lived at home with my parents. In spite of the passage of all that time, I think that like most kids of my generation I can still remember some of the phrases that Mom would use frequently to try to teach me proper manners, eat my food, and threaten punishment, deserved or not.

Other than some references to IPods and computers, not that much has changed in fifty years. Mothers will still be mothers and the lectures they give don’t vary much over time.

This comedienne lays it out for us all. In fact, you might pick up few new ones to use on your own kids some day – or every day.

Enjoy…

What we first thought to be gunshots continued unabated throughout the day on Sunday. Our home is surrounded by very tall evergreens of every species and stately old oaks – and we soon realized that our own private forest was the source of those horrific sounds. Huge branches sounded like wounded elephants as they ripped away from their trunks. As they fell to earth they’d brush past lower branches, finally hitting the ground with the sound of a car crash.

On our own property in southeast Salem [Oregon], two stately old oaks suffered dearly from bearing their burden of ice. Nearly a dozen large branches fell to their premature deaths, meeting their end laying across the sidewalk and intruding dangerously into the street in front of our home.

In spite of the bitter cold, neighbors gathered together or stopped briefly to chat in the middle of the street where they were safely away from the tall trees, constantly being interrupted by the loud cracking sounds of huge limbs falling to their deaths off in the distance.

“Are you alright? Is your home OK? Do you want to borrow my chainsaw?” were phrases mixed within the conversations as everyone reached out to help and console each other. We watched in awe and sadness the virtual destruction of trees long protected by law from the axes and saws of contractors and uncaring homeowners, tall evergreens that were decades older than the eldest among us.

Although historic storms like this can be extremely damaging, creating some danger and inconvenience to many of us, we must understand that what we are watching is all a part of natural processes, somehow fitting into the grand plan for our own survival. We can do nothing but watch and listen in awe to the power of wind and water, realizing how helpless we really are against the unyielding will of Mother Nature.

I guess when it comes to weather, we just have to “go with the flow and enjoy the show.”