Wake-up call

A windstorm howled through last night, with gusts hitting 114 mph in the Coast Range, 97 on the coast itself, 80 in the valley and 63 here in little old Vancouver USA. For the better part of the evening Wiley wandered around with a confused look on his face as our 99-year-old house creaked and groaned.

And while hundreds of thousands of people in the Portland area and apparently 1 million in western Washington are without power this morning, here I sit, all electrified and online. All's fine here, minus some tree branches down around the neighborhood, best I can tell.

That said, I didn't sleep too terribly well. Until, of course, it was about time to get up this morning. And then, when the radio alarm clock went off at 6:30, a commercial for Mattress World blasted in my ear. Their jingle's catchphrase: "Sleep like a baby."

Jerks.