Think you can escape the Ocean Shores police by being outside the city gates? Think again: they’re all deputized to make arrests outside the city limits. In fact, Chief Mike Styner was driving home around 6 p.m. last Wednesday, when a driver going the other way almost hit him. He pulled over the driver, on Kirkpatrick Road in Copalis Crossing . . . and that fellow ended up being arrested, for DUI.

When you set a moon-high goal of recreating the old railroad depot as the site of the Museum of the North Beach, and along the way someone donates a historic caboose . . . well, this project just might be destined to happen. This weekend, the caboose made its way across Moclips, to its snug new home. Just add museum . . . 

Accident around 7:30 on Saturday night: The State Patrol reports the 19-year-old Hoquiam driver of a Chevy pickup “was traveling southbound on SR 109, attempting to make an unsafe U-turn.” A GMC pickup driven by an Aberdeen man “was traveling northbound SR 109, and struck” the Chevy pickup. The Aberdeen man was taken to Community Hospital with chest and neck injuires. The Hoquiam man was charged with “unsafe driving.” The Aberdeen man was charged with DUI.

Thanksgiving Day, I was on the phone with my dad, when I noticed my wife waving her arms frantically, with a look on her face that said “Mayday! Mayday!”

She was at her laptop, and it was doing bad, bad things. There was some “Rapid Anti Virus” message that kept popping up, saying such and such files were infected and required with a virus . . . turns out the “Rapid Anti Virus” was itself a virus. It pretty much tortured the little laptop, reducing the screen viewing size, putting some porno sites on the desktop, and with a constant stream of threatening notices popping up like Jack-in-the-box demons . . .

The next day, we contacted local computer wiz Bruce Richardson. For a reasonable fee, he was able to clean out the viruses (virusi?) and get things back to normal. He also agreed to write a column on “safe computing.” It turned into a two-parter, today’s on home to avoid virus attacks, next week’s on what to do if your computer is invaded.

By Bruce Richardson

Safe computing tips

Treat your email like snail mail

Some common sense applies to your email inbox.  Odds are if you received a letter in the mail from the Bank of Nigeria, you would not think twice about throwing it in the trash.  Treat your inbox the same way.  You can usually tell by the subject line that an email is junk.  If it is junk and also has an attachment – don’t even think about opening it.  It probably has a virus.

A concrete foundation has been poured, a path has been cleared . . . all systems are apparently “go” for a historic caboose to journey down Pacific Avenue to its new home, at the old depot (and future site of the Museum of the North Beach). The caboose’s final run could happen late this morning. Kelly Calhoun took this photo yesterday:

On Saturday, Dec. 6,  there will be a lighting contest on Main Street, Pacific Beach.

Winning businesses will receive a plaque, and winning homeowners will get a gift basket.  A tree lighting ceremony at 6 p.m. (“ish) at 44 Main St. in downtown Pacific Beach.  The winners of the decorating contests will be announced afterwards.

“During the hours of Noon & 6pm shoppers can go to any of the following shops and receive a gift bag and goodies.

From Ocean Shores Fire Department

Smoke Detectors:

If you have not checked your smoke detectors please do so. Replace your batteries and test the detector.

Cooking:

Be careful cooking and always place pot and pan handles away from the edge of the stove to prevent small children from grabbing them and getting burned. Always make sure your oven and stove is turned off after cooking. Never leave cooking food unattended. Use baking soda to extinguish grease fires NOT water. Water will spread the fire. If you are deep frying turkey make sure you do it safely and thaw out your Turkey first to prevent a potential grease fire.

Holiday Lighting:

Make sure all of your decorative lights are not damaged in any way. Make sure that your lights do not have any exposed wiring or corrosion that could start a fire. Check your lights and be sure that they have a tag on them that reads UL Underwriters Laboratories. All lights must have this tag to be safe for use. If you use multiple lights plug them into a POWER STRIP this avoids electrical power surges and protects against over use of a single power outlet. Also make sure that the POWERSTRIP has a UL underwriter’s laboratories label on it as well. Do not connect more than 3 strings of lights together. Take holiday lights down right after the holidays. These lights are not made for long periods of outdoor exposure.

from Lt. Brian Ritter, OSFD:

“From November 18th through December 4^th the Ocean Shores Fire Department has responded to a total of 83 emergency 911 calls. Of these responses 55 were emergency medical problems and 5 were emergency fire responses. During this time period the fire department had 10 occasions that 2 emergencies were going simultaneously (“DOUBLE”) .

The seem to  be everywhere, and particularly hard to see at dusk. A vehicle just hit one on Ocean Shores Blvd. near Butter Clam . . .