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December 30, 2006
Convict Lake
We arrived at the Convict Lake Resort at the beginning of a snow storm. The buildings were all dark and not very welcoming in the late-afternoon twilight. I went into the office to check into our cabin and learned that the high winds had knocked out their power. So we spent the night in Mammoth instead.
The next morning, after digging out our car, eating breakfast, and stopping to buy candles and matches and extra batteries for our headlamps, we headed back out to Convict Lake. I walked into the resort's office-slash-store to see the beer refrigerators happily humming. We must have brought the power back with us, they said, because it came on just as we arrived. We checked into our cozy cabin and went out for a hike in the fresh powder that had fallen overnight.
It's just a few miles from Mammoth, but Convict Lake might as well be in the middle of nowhere. The lake itself is a glacial tarn, with a background of dramatic granite peaks. We were the first people to walk on the fresh snow covering the trail around the lake. We left the lake trail at the far side and hiked a mile or so up another trail that connects to the John Muir Trail. Exactly a year ago we did a little hike at the far north end of the Muir trail, which made us wonder how many trail miles Convict Lake is from the trail's end in Yosemite.
The resort is a cluster of cabins tucked amid aspen trees, plus an excellent restaurant. We spent the evening enjoying fresh-baked bread and roasted garlic, local trout and New Zealand wine, and cocktails in front of the fireplace before stumbling back through the snow to our warm little den.
Getting back to San Francisco the next day was hair-raising, as highway 395 tops out over 8000' in several places, and the ice and snow from the storm had not yet cleared. We are now experts at chain installation and removal. We are also, unfortunately, pretty good at half-assed chain repair. Which reminds me, I need to get some needle-nose pliers for the car. Never know when we might need 'em.
Many more photos on flickr.
December 29, 2006
Dinner at home
Food we ate at my parents' house in the last week: latkes, smoked salmon spread, guacamole, bean dip, roasted turkey, lingonberries, challah, more latkes, Swedish meatballs, homemade rye bread, Swedish mushroom soup (made with dried chanterelle mushrooms brought -- probably illegally -- from Sweden), latke hash, beets, asparagus, turkey bacon, Chinese chicken salad, panini, a thousand blue and white m&ms, and Swedish pancakes.
All made by my (Jewish/Swedish) mom.
Yum.
December 26, 2006
Somewhere along highway 395
December 23, 2006
Blood orange marmalade
I will never make marmalade again. I've wanted to make this stuff, with the blood oranges giving the spread a nice dramatic golden-red-orange color, since I first found the recipe. I have had an eye out for blood oranges since early November. But it was messy, backbreaking work.
I scored and removed the peels from 19 oranges, cooked the peels twice, scraped off the pith with a spoon (egads) and sliced the pithless peels paper thin. That alone took two hours. Then the fruit! Have you ever separated orange flesh from its membranes? Nineteen times? It's hard work.
I made fourteen jars, and only the first batch of six gelled correctly. So I have eight jars of runny marmalade. Sigh. I might try to re-gel them, I dunno, it seems like a lot of work. But the result is very pretty!
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December 22, 2006
Seventh night
Happy Hanukkah!
December 21, 2006
Lubricants
On my bedside table I have four kinds of eyedrops, hand lotion, two prescription creams, and several chapsticks. I can never find chapstick when I need one. My lips are always dry.
Dave has a bottle of ProLink next to his alarm clock. ProLink is bike chain lube.
Last night I pointed out the contrast between our bedside salves.
"And you wonder why you always have chapped lips?" he asked, holding up the ProLink. "This is what you need."
I'm pretty sure he was kidding.
December 19, 2006
Frost report
Book report: The Trader Joe's Adventure. This was the most boring book I've read in recent memory. The author managed to take a potentially interesting subject and make it really, really dull by beating a few key points into the ground over and over again. What I learned about Trader Joe's could have been summed up in four pages. Which is a shame, because I love TJ's, I shop there weekly, and I was excited to learn more about it. Should have read the Amazon reviews before spending my money.
Health report: Still sick. Six days of antibiotics so far and I'm no better than before.
Weather report: Still freaking cold.
Lab report: Have you ever had homemade ginger ale? It's excellent!
TPS report: Don't forget to back up your computers. I know I sound like a broken record, but consider this my holiday message of peace and good will. A nice big external drive would make a lovely holiday gift.
December 18, 2006
Shiver and snort
The bar on our thermostat that indicates the actual temperature in our apartment is hovering precariously close to "off." It's about 53 degrees inside, and it's colder outside here in San Francisco than it was in Chicago all weekend.
Dave and I are both sick now. We are bundled up in layers of fleece, clutching hot beverages and producing a constant chorus of nose blows. I have discovered the wonder of the neti pot for cleaning the gunk out of my sinuses.
Sounds like a real party, no?
December 14, 2006
He vuelto
I am back. I have a newfound respect for surfers, and a lot more freckles. I also learned many new yoga poses and picked up a sinus infection (unrelated, I hope). It was blissful to be away from the computer for a week, and to be in a place where the only drama all day came from getting tumbled by waves in 80-degree water.
So where am I going now? Somewhere cold. Just for the weekend, though. And it's one of my favorite places!
December 13, 2006
Etch A Sketch
Etch A Sketch, June, 1994.
I think I'll let Dave explain this one.
Dave?
By the way, I processed all this black & white film myself, and man, my quality standards were low. I'd like to salute Photoshop's healing tool for being so good at erasing dust and other crud.
December 11, 2006
Feet and ferns
Sculpture tucked away in a recessed garden at Deering Library at Northwestern. June, 1994.
December 9, 2006
Observatory
The old observatory at the north end of the lakefill, Northwestern University campus, Evanston, Illinois. Day after Thanksgiving, 1993. My first Thanksgiving away from home. Also my first winter in Chicago.
Bleeeeak! Now I know why I used grainy Tri-X film in college. I felt like it accurately portrayed the starkness of my soul. Or something.
This observatory was torn down a couple of years later. The light pollution from Chicago and the suburbs made it useless for stargazing.
December 7, 2006
Church
Somewhere in or near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, December, 1994. From my Tri-X film days.
What strikes me about this photo is how similar the overhead power lines are to the ones here in San Francisco.
December 6, 2006
Heading for warmer waters
I will be away for a few days without any technological doodads, but I'll be leaving some things for you to look at while I'm gone. Dave will still be here holding down the fort without me, so don't worry, the new hard drive won't get lonely.
The photo above was taken in Maui in June, 2004.
December 4, 2006
Another photo of little jars
Cleaning out my fridge, I found twenty-three jars of jam, jelly, chutney, marmalade, mustard, and spread. Can you spot five types of mustard?*
Not pictured: a dozen more jars of pickles, relishes, peppers, capers, and assorted vegetables in brine. Several jars of things made at home, mine or my mom's. And all the usual refrigerator-door stuff: ketchup, yellow mustard and honey mustard, BBQ sauce, salad dressing, aloe vera gel.
(OK, the gel is a cool treatment for sunburn, not intended to be eaten. But it looks like something you could squeeze onto a sandwich.)
Anyway, I think I have a condiment problem. The little jars, they call out to me in the store, and I cannot stop myself from buying them.
Also, who the hell keeps seven types of mustard?
*TJ's dijon, Grey Poupon country dijon, Auntie Lilikoi's passion-fruit mustard from Kauai, Hop Kiln crunchy cranberry dijon, Stonewall Kitchen bourbon molasses mustard -- which is hidden under another jar.
December 2, 2006
Better... stronger... faster.
After puttering around with my dead PowerBook for a week and a half, I finally went to Fry's and bought a new hard drive. I hadn't been into a Fry's for years, and now I remember why. Gadgets! Toys! Movies! Books! And all that computer stuff! Holy impulse shopping; it took all my willpower to get out just under $300 with only the essentials I needed to get my machine working again.
I asked the guy at their service desk how much they'd charge to swap out my drive. They wanted $130 for just the labor. The drive itself was only $99! Oy veh. I have some experience with tinkering, I thought, so I decided to try it myself. Even though the box clearly says "Professional installation highly recommended."
(I am also a fool and a total amateur, so don't try this at home, your mileage may vary, etc.)
Someone thoughtfully wrote up detailed instructions for this project. They left out one crucial set of screws to be removed, but I was able to figure it out. The instructions also listed the absolute wrong tool (a 6mm hex wrench is worlds away from a T6 torx), but thanks to my tinkering background, I figured that one out, too. It was pretty nerve-wracking, though, and at one point as I was elbow deep in screws the size of ticks, I realized that I would be thoroughly amazed if the machine worked when I was done with it.
After removing the RAM, 34 screws, four keys from the keyboard, two stickers and four ribbon connectors, and then the entire keyboard and face plate, I got to the hard drive and swapped it out. I took a breather to answer the phone and take some photos of the operating table.
I put the new drive in, carefully reassembled everything with shaky hands, and happily noted that no screws were left over when I was done. I formatted the new drive and installed the system and everything seems to work fine so far. Deep breath.
I also bought an external drive enclosure so I can continue my salvage efforts with the drive I removed. As I plugged the old drive into its new box, I realized that I had forgotten one thing. A couple of screws on the drive have tiny, removable rubber rings around them. They provide shock protection for the drive inside the PowerBook. And of course, to put them on the new internal drive, I'll have to remove all 34 screws again.
It's never easy, is it?
December 1, 2006
Wood and water
I know you folks in the midwest are buried in snow right now. And I know there's torrential rain and wind on the east coast. It may be sunny and moderate here in San Francisco, but it was 56 degrees in our apartment this morning. Fifty-six degrees indoors. BRRR!
Heating this apartment costs a fortune, so at night we just heat the bed. Sure makes it tough to get up in the morning.
