Category Archives: oregon

Kim Family search update as of 1:30pm Saturday

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Northwest news report as of Saturday afternoon.

A 1:27 report from local KTVL TV indicates the leads have not been of much help to the authorities, and searching continues in Bear Camp area.

Details from Oregonian

Here’s another item indicating the family was seen at a Roseburg, Oregon Denny’s restaurant. I’m not clear why this would suggest to the police a Highway 42 route more than strengthening the Bear Camp route likelihood. I’m not sure, but think it would not make sense for Kim to have passed by highway 38 and then take 42. If Kim was looking for a shortcut I think he would have (wrongly) tried Bear Camp road. I can’t see disappearing on 42 unless you went into the river where you can easily disappear up on Bear Camp road spurs without even making a serious miscalculation. [Sunday: I just ran several routes through Mapquest and it looks like they show the shortest distance as Roseburg to Powers to Agness to TuTuTun in Gold Beach.  It appears to be about 7 miles less than the Merlin route.   I’m not familiar with Powers route so I may be underestimating it, but my gut says if they reviewed a regular map they’d take the Merlin route].

Here’s a link to a Google map of the Merlin, Oregon to Gold Beach area. A hopeful scenario is that the Kim Family took the Merlin to Gold Beach route (aka Merlin Galice or Bear Camp Road) and got lost on a logging spur road and then stuck in snow and are surviving on meltwater and any food they had on board. They could be OK since temperatures have not dropped too low up there this past week. Several people are lost in thata area each year but most are found safe or find their way out. A worse possibility is that the car went over one of the steep dropoffs along this route and was then buried in the snow that has fallen in that region since last Saturday. This area is one of the most remote areas in the state and it’s full of steep slopes.

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Our local Medford, Oregon newspaper websites are starting to have the most detailed updates I can find this Saturday morning about the Kim Family search here in Southern Oregon. Here’s a similar report from Gold Beach. They report that the search continues along major roads and the Bear Camp Road and in the remote and dangerous “shortcut” to the coast from Interstate five:

From the Medford Mail Tribune Website:

Search-and-rescue teams from Coos, Curry and Josephine counties combed remote roads known for their winter impassability. Jackson County searchers joined in with a private helicopter and could send a Sno-Cat to travel snow-covered forest roads, Sheriff Mike Winters said.

Curry County sheriff’s deputies used 4×4 vehicles and were able to reach about milepost 18 on Bear Camp Road where the snow and ice stopped their advance, OSP reported Friday night. Josephine County authorities called for their Sno-Cat to respond to search the remaining 20 miles of road.

The Coos County Sheriff’s Office sent 4×4 vehicles to the Agness Pass area, and also sent 4×4 vehicles into the Eden Valley as far as they could get past Mount

Bolivar. The U.S. Forest Service roads through the remote area intersect with each other.

The Oregon Army National Guard sent a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from Salem to assist in the aerial search. California Highway Patrol and Coast Guard reportedly were assisting in the search, as well.

OSP, the agency coordinating Oregon search efforts and news releases, reported that relatives of the Kims have hired helicopter companies to fly the major roads from Interstate 5 to Highway 101, specifically Highway 42, Highway 38 and Highway 126.

Also note this new website supporting the Kim family. I don’t know who has created it but it appears to be legitimate and helpful.

Chico the Wonder Dog

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Chico the Wonder Dog

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck.
Chico the Wonder Dog is our lab mix. This is a photo of Chico when I informed him that there is an ANOTHER Chico the Wonder Dog out there on the web, and he is a male Chihuahua.   That fine Chico has passed away but you can visit his blog here: http://atimeandaplace.blogspot.com/

Well, maybe he’s not an imposter, but I bet that Chicohuahua the Wonder Dog can’t eat an Alpo Birthday Cake in 125 seconds flat.

Kim Family search moves to Bear Camp Road (aka Merlin Galice Road) area

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Most recent news here Kati and kids are safe, James missing but trackers on his trail as of 11pm Monday.

Our 6pm local news just reported that the search for the Kim family is now focusing on the Bear Camp Road (aka Merlin Galice Road). It appears the family hired some choppers to fly the area today but the search is on hold now due to darkness.

I’m glad this area is the new focus for the search because it would seem to be a more likely area than any other route from I-5 to the coast. Family members are heading up from the San Francisco area as well. The logical approach will be to have cars drive each of the many spurs along that route to look for signs of the family car and continue with flights over the area. Some in SF have wondered how you could get “lost” in the modern age but you need to realize this is a huge and remote area. Hundreds of square miles of forest and steep mountains with virtually no traffic and hundreds of miles of logging roads.

Mapquest *right now* gives a “looks easy” set of directions along Bear Camp Road when you search for the shortest time route from Merlin to Gold Beach, but this route is not advisable in winter. Google Maps shows this route as well.

Update: The map they showed on local news indicated they are searching to the west side of the mountains just north of Gold Beach.

Tomorrow (Saturday) they’ll hopefully have good weather to fly over the logging roads that wind all through that area.

James Kim family missing. Could they have taken the infamous Merlin / Galice road ?

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Most recent updates from this blog are HERE 

Update 6 is here and is later info than below

I heard about the missing Kim family [ more recent Kim family missing] over at Techmeme [police information is here], thinking it’s unlikely I could offer any reasonable insight but it appears they were heading from Portland to Gold Beach on the Southern Oregon coast, an area with which I’m very familiar.

Online and printed mapping is sometimes problematic here in Southern Oregon and there’s a road that appears on many maps as a “shortcut” to Gold Beach. But in fact in winter it can be treacherous and often closes with snow. It’s the Merlin to Galice to Gold Beach route. Cell phones don’t work in this mountainous remote area along the Rogue River valley and the coast. A few folks have been lost (many more just scared out of their wits in bad weather) along this tricky route through the Siskiyou National Forest.

The troopers are probably examining this possibility (I’d say likelihood), and hopefully they’ll find the Kim family soon safe and sound.

Update: I called the Galice USFS District Ranger office and it appears the news had not reached there yet. They are advising against that route due to snow drifts that may not be cleared and confirmed that the route is not regularly patrolled. I’m going to follow up more on this angle shortly.

Update II: I just called the Northern Police dispatch number listed below and they did not seem well informed about local road situation, but indicated that the (Southern?) dispatch is following up. I’m going to call the Gold Beach ranger district to make sure they are aware of the situation. TuTuTun lodge, where the Kim’s were staying, is along the route I’m talking about (Via Lobster Creek bridge to North Bank Road) making it even more likely they may have taken the dangerous Bear Camp Road “shortcut” which has many logging road turn offs.

Update III: Gold Beach district said they’d heard of this on the news but I could not reach the road engineer or District Ranger to find out if people had checked extensively up there.

I fear this is a case where spreading the word won’t help much – rather a search of the many logging roads off of the Merlin to Gold Beach route is called for here.

Update 4: Update: As of 9 a.m. PST Friday, investigators said they were narrowing their search to Oregon’s Highway 38 as the family’s most probable route to their destination of Gold Beach. The Kims last spoke to an innkeeper there by phone about five hours before they planned to arrive.

Highway 38 seems less likely to me than Merlin Galice road, but I don’t have enough info to know if the police are using more than just intuition about the route. 38 is not nearly as hazardous as Merlin Galice / Bear Camp route, is travelled regularly, and unless they drove into the river there’d be signs of a crash. Without local info Kim could have correctly concluded that I-5 to Merlin would be faster than going via 101, and could also have (wrongly) concluded that the Merlin Galice route was short and safe.

Update 5: Leslie at CNET tells me that the SF Police are aware of Bear Camp as a possible location and appear to be searching in that area as well, which is good. I’ve contacted a friend in Gold Beach who will help spread the word as well.

Update 6

From the news report:

James Kim is a senior editor at CNET and hosts the web site’s popular Crave blog.

Police said friends and family knew them to usually keep in daily contact.

According to Det. Angela Martin of the San Francisco Police Dept., the family had lunch with a friend in Portland on Saturday between 2-3 p.m., then left to travel to Gold Beach on the southern Oregon Coast.

According to San Francisco Police, the family made two phone calls to a Gold Beath hotel that afternoon, the second call at 5:45 p.m. On that second call, the family reportedly asked the hotel clerk to leave a key outside since they would be arriving late that night.

That phone call was the last reported contact with the family. The Gold Beach hotel did leave keys out for the Kim Family but the keys were still there the next morning.

According to the Kim’s cellular phone provider, the phone was last used after the lunch in Portland. Calls to the Kim’s cell phone later Saturday went straight to voice mail.

The Kims were driving a 2005 silver Saab station wagon with California personalized plates of DOESF.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Oregon State Police Northern Command Center Dispatch at 800-452-7888, or the San Francisco Police Department Missing Persons Unit at (415) 558-5508.

Real Estate or False Estate?

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I’d really like to buy some real estate this winter if the price gets right, but it’s a nervous time since prices appear to be on the way down for at least another several months and as I see it could fall or stay low for the next few years, even indefinitely if global tensions and US spending continue at the current levels.   This article suggests some really good deals in housing, though I think I’ll stick to the local market I know a lot better than these.

Medford Airport WIFI

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Sure is nice to have the WIFI going here at Medford Airport since my plane just got delayed by over 2 hours.   I’ll need to redo the SFO to LAS connection but hopefully there are many flights and I was getting in pretty early anyway.   Connectivity is somewhat flaky – not sure why but it’s been problematic all along, but it’s still good to have it and get a bit of work (or chess!) done while I sit here.

Senator Smith of Oregon. The President is wrong and you need to tell him.

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I just sent this off to Senator Smith. Here in Oregon we have excellent representation from Senators Smith (R) and Wyden (D). Both are bright, ethical guys with a global vision. This letter is about the reckless spending and the ill-concieved idea that terrorists should be treated with techniques that most of the world views as torture. Maybe they should, but both our current terror spending and terrorist interrogation practices appear to be counterproductive.

Dear Senator Smith,

First, thank you for your excellent efforts on behalf of our wonderful state. I want to express my opinion on two items related to the war on terror:

* The President is wrong about treatment of terrorists. They *deserve* death in most cases and he’s right we may have a right to harsh interrogations, but world opinion and the opinions of Sen. McCain and Powell should be respected by the President as we face even more global condemnation. We are not an imperial power but we are seen as such because the President has such poor sense of marketing and presentation. He’s leaving a legacy of mistrust and global condemnation we’ll feel for an entire generation, and you must stop this at the Senate level and stop it now.

* ROI is far too low and spending should decrease immediately and dramatically. All scenarios involve risk and we need to absorb more risk to save trillions over the next decade, trillions that can save millions of lives using high ROI means.

You (we) are spending at levels that cannot be sustained, and this “war”‘ will go on for decades. It’s not even clear the current spending has a positive ROI. I think the neoconservative mindset is “stuck” on the idea that the potential threat of a major attack justifies virtually all available resources. This is not true. The EPA and DOT make this type of decision all the time, and appropriately place monetary values on human lives of approximately 5 million per life saved, to justify spending on safety measures. This type of equation should also be used to determine spending on terrorism threats but I get the idea it is not.

Real Estate Heat Maps from Zillow

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Zillow is really a helpful application for real estate.  Check out this heat map of Silicon Valley Real Estate prices, giving you an idea of the most expensive areas here.   Zillow’s got them for several metro regions.

I’ve been looking at some houses to buy as investments in Ashland Oregon and Zillow’s been helpful, though I think it’s a mistake to put too much stock in their Zestimates.    For example Zillow estimates the value at a place offered at 429k to be 541k and another at 300k to be valued at 379k.   As much as I’d like to turn an instant profit of 100k and 79k I think the estimate is simply way out of whack with the prevailing Ashland Real Estate conditions which suggest that…. things are not selling well and prices are going to go down.

… Do I have a valuable PO Box or what?

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Funny – just after writing about Talent real estate in my post this morning I got a spam email from So. California lending place today that said:

There is a new lending program for homes such as yours on Po Box 141 that have become available based on the dramatic value increase in the Talent area …

Sure, I’ll borrow based on the new, huge value of my PO Box in Talent Oregon. Let’s be conservative and say $250,000. I need the money to remodel my PO Box so my kids don’t have to share a room.