It Snooooooowed...

This last weekend I went to Yosemite to ski to Glacier Point with some old MDT friends and stay in the lodge for two nights. As you can tell by the pictures it snowed. Driving in at zero dark thirty on Friday I think I was the second car over Highway 120 through the park to the valley. It was snowing and about six inches of snow was on the road and no plow in sight. Needless to say the WRX with all wheel drive did great. We all meet at 9:00 at the Cross Country shop at Badger pass. By 9:30 everyone was ready to go and it was snowing very hard. Our guide Rick said it normally would take about 5 hours to ski the 10.25 miles to Glacier Point. Boy was he wrong. The last three people came in about 6:15 pm. Or almost 9 hours. In the summer Glacier Point is a zoo. Lots of people looking at the view of Half Dome and down into the valley. As you can see we had it to ourselves just 8 people, most of Saturday. Saturday morning was clear and cold when I got up. Only one other person got up as early as me. Rick our guide said he usually gets up and breaks a trail to the overlook but Kathy and I beat him to it. He did warn us that to not to get too close to the edge since he usually marked the line of death as he called it. In the winter there is a cornice on the point. As he told us go to far and the next stop is Curry village. But once we snow shoed out there you could see a faint line where the snow settled by the stone wall that in the summer is jammed with people.

Food was good and the other group that came up Saturday was nice so we had 17 in the lodge for Saturday. It snowed all night and when we got up Rick and the other guide were not sure we could get out. Highway 41 and the road to Badger pass were closed due to snow. But around 8:30 he got a call that they were going to groom the road to Glacier and that 41 was going to open in a couple of hours. So, off we went. Once the trail was groomed we had some perfect skiing until the storm filled in the track. A couple of us just put our heads down and pushed hard. Only 4 1/2 hours to ski out. Only to find the car buried up to the door handles with snow. About 1 1/4 hours later it was dug out with some help from a park ranger, a couple of guys from the ski area, and the snow cat with its nice big blade to move snow. We even got the other peoples cars dug out who were still on the trail. Hopefully I can stay in good shape etc so in 10 to 12 years I can do a Grandpa and Granddaughter trip. Time will tell.

The falls will be great come spring. I am headed back with WB on Mar 26 for some camping. Guests welcome.

Photos and Computers

I try and write on my Blog once a week but it seems to work out to once a month. Anyway this year I decided to organize my photos. I finally completed loading all the photo CD's I had into Photoshop. I now have almost 6,000 picutres on my hard drive. And they are all backed up on an external drive. WB was nice enough to let me use the dinning room table to short out the boxes of photos, negatives etc that I have. Still not sure how best to arange and store everything. This does not include 20 plus years of taking slides that are in slide boxes and those round trays for showing. That will be another day.

On to computers. Over Christmas I know three families who got new I-Macs for presents. Including Mr and Mrs H. Now that it has been a couple of months I have had a chance to use Mrs H's I-Mac and talk with the other users. It has been and interesting conversation. I think everyone including myself was taken in by the adds that I-Mac's are easy to use. But when I ask they all start with there is a learning curve. But once you learn it is nice. And than they say except for example the key board could be better (three comments), internet browser, loading drivers. For me I noticed there are no slots for your camera memory cards. A feature I really wanted.

So, is it really better? This weekend I went Sking with a couple who were one of the three. The Husband said yes some learning but great, the wife said Ok but a little hard to get used to. And when she commented that Turbo Tax did not work as well as on a Windows system I think that made up my mind that I will stick with Microsoft. I use Turbo Tax and it's brother Quciken. And if Turbo Tax does not work well Quicken will be a problem I fear. Plus being a really cheap guy I had a hard time coughing up an extra $500 to $700 to get a smaller hard drive and less memory the two things you really need these days. So it is off to Costco to look at a machine that is rated one of the top five by by cnet.com. And it has TV included.

Stay tuned a new machine is not in the budget for another month. Which is when I need to buy Quicken 2008, since they no longer will support Quicken 2005 and I will not beable to download to that old program. Something I do every week.

A new Year

Last year I rode my bike 6,278 miles or a little over 17 miles a day. I rode more miles than I drove my WRX. I think I can say I did my part to help Global Warming. At the beginning of each year I drive WB crazy by doing the annual budget. We are fairly cheap as anyone would tell you but WB hates thinking that we should budget things. So this year I decided I would budget some things I had been wanting. My bike had something like 15,000 miles on it since it's last really good tune up. So I went all out. When I went to pay my annual Gym bill I asked if I could save some money by coming at off peak hours. I pay once a year and you get 12 months for the price of 11 months. She said sure you can only come between 11:00am and 4:00pm. for a savings of $200.00 per year. Everything else stayed the same even the free coffee. I get a cup each time I go. At Starbucks that would be $1.35 I think. When I checked on how my bike was going the mechanic showed me the completely worn out bearing races on the old front wheel. He thought maybe he could still find those parts but not sure. Having just saved $200.00 I said how about a whole new wheel. $154.00. But it is soooo nice. I had been riding on the REI special $13.00 tires not bad but they are sized small and when installed they are not quite round so it made for a bumpy ride all the time. But I got over 4,000 miles on them. Still having some extra cash I opted for new tires the most expensive I have ever bought $39.95 each. It is so nice to have wheels that are now round and trued perfectly. Last but not least I wanted a new stem and bars. All the new bikes have black bars. I went to the Ritchey web site and picked out a ergonomically designed bar and new stem. Now that everything is installed and paid for today was my first ride with all the new parts, tune up including a new chain and brake pads. Rode like a brand new bike. The bars are great they are angled back to match the angle of your wrist when you ride with your hands on top, and the drops have an extra curve to match your palm to help relieve pressure. Oh so sweet.

I also budgeted for a new I-Mac. Mrs H received one from Santa and my two good friends that I still see got I-Mac's for Christmas. Now I need to decide which one. I know it will be the 20" screen but not sure if I want the $1,100 or the $1,400 one. Any suggestions? The main difference seems to be in the clock speed of the chip that runs the thing and some extra memory that I think runs the screen. Lastly I am going to get a good Digital SLR, I have finally decided on the Sony Alpha 700 body and have just started researching which lens to buy with it. And knowing me it will take a while. Given the melt down of the stock market mainly my good old employer MDT things could change.

Visiting Yosemite every month of the year was also on the list. So far that one is not being meet.

Enough for now off to fix dinner for WB.

Thirty Eight and counting...

Thirty eight years and counting. That is how long as of today WB and I have been married. Last year at year 37 I took in the paper to WB as I do each morning so she can read it in bed when she awakes. Last year when she woke up she looked at the paper and did not mention anything. So I took her card and present and than she realized she had completely forgotten our anniversary. This year she mentioned last week that she had a surprise for us on the Saturday before our anniversary and to not plan anything. Well we ended up having Biscuit and Mrs H visit. So WB said we would do our little trip on Sunday. On Sunday the weather was bad so we postponed our event until after Christmas. So this year I was sure WB would remember our anniversary. I even asked her if she wanted the good gift on our anniversary or at Christmas. As usual no answer. So when this morning arrived I got up first, got the paper put it on the pillow next to a sleeping WB. Found my card and gift and put it on the floor next to the bed. About an hour later I heard the sound of the paper being read so I went in to the bedroom. WB proceeded to say good morning and tell me about something in the paper. I made light conversation awaiting my happy anniversary and card. After a couple of minutes I produced my card and present. And WB looked puzzled for a moment and than realized she had forgotten for the second year in a row. I did get taken out for breakfast and we are going to a movies at the end of the day. We will see how next year goes.

Never to Old....

Now that the rainy season is here it is nice to have the window washer on the car to work. Just after the last rain the car ahead of me drove through a puddle and splashed dirt etc on my windshield. As you can see the little control arm says Pull Mist. I pulled, the wiper worked no mist. So when I got home I cleaned the windshield. And thought must be bad fuse. I checked all the fuses and they were good. So I came inside and went to www.Kragen.com knowing the the local Subaru dealer would get a small fortune for a washer pump. When I checked it asked do you need the pump for the rear or front wiper. Oh did not know there were two. Went out to the car and lifted the hood and looked. Low and behold two pumps. So I thought does the back washer work. So I got my keys turned the ignition to ACC. and pushed on the button at the end of the control arm. See the little symbol that looks like a wiper and says rear. And what happens the front washer sprays the window and the wipers wipe and clean off the water. So now I look in the glove box and check the owners manual. Never to Old to learn.

Off to arrange the new tricycle addition for Biscuit. We now have four trikes...

The Christmas Letter...

The Fall leaves are gone and in the compost pile in the backyard. Which means it is about time to start the annual Christmas Letter. Since I retired I have been assigned this task for the last couple of years. I have spent part of the day sorting through all the photos I took during the last year and putting them in one collection. I needed to do this so WB could select the best one or two photos to put on the top of the letter. The next task will be to make the first rough draft. I need to insure that all the highlights of the year are covered and that nothing important is omitted. Than comes the reviews by WB and a couple of rewrites. And than off to the kids for a final edit and comments. And than hopefully I can publish. Than comes the big decision should we include a sheet of pictures showing what we did all year. Usually that is omitted but each year we think about it. And finally the big, who gets the letter. It goes to all brothers and sisters, kids, cousins, and some selected friends. A couple of copies are always held in reserve to send to that person who sent us their letter so off goes our letter. Each year I hear comments from folks who do not like the annual Christmas letter since it is mostly about look at what we did. But it is kind of fun to see what other folks do and to keep up on things.

Next on the agenda is the Christmas wish list. WB said only two presents per person. We will see how long that lasts.

My Wish list:
Bike Gloves, Med My old ones are becoming mostly holes.
Bike inner tubes 25*700c Presta value, short. Used my last one last Saturday.
Picture Mat making kit. maybe some mat board also.
Steamer for cooking vegetables etc.
Fabric cutter thing that looks like a pizza cutter.
Sony Alpha 700 DSLR with 18-70mm zoom. If MDT does better I may get this one from Santa. (or me)

I just new...

This weekend we went over to Mrs H's and helped clean the Craft Room. I just knew when I saw it. That when I was done helping I would find 5 yards of orange 1.3 oz sil nylon somewhere in there. But after being assigned color sorting and folding I came up empty handed. Oh well. I an fairly good at organizing and cleaning and we did make a great difference. The youngest will have a place to sleep when she goes over on Wed for Turkey day at Mr and Mrs H's. And Grandma and Grandpa had a good time with Biscuit.

As you can see the leaves on the tree are almost gone. I found this tractor for sale while on one of my rides last week. If Mr and Mrs H had more land it would make a great fun thing to drive around with Biscuit. I could teach her how to plow. I did ride by and old barn being torn down. I told Mr and Mrs H that I could load up Mr H's truck with some fine old barn boards. I did not find too much interest there.

MDT reports earnings today I hope it is good. Later

Battle of the Hats

In my effort to post at least once a week here goes. I have two favorite hats. One is a UC Davis hat, and the other is a Cal Poly SLO hat. So each day I have to think about which one to wear when I go out. The reason is I have one daughter who went to one school and one who went to the other. When I am only visiting one daughter I wear their school hat. The problem comes when both are home or we are together somewhere else. Which hat do I wear. Do I bring both and split the time. Or do I wear one one time and than at the next get together the other. Such a problem. Oh well yesterday I wore the Cal Poly hat to the Gym so today it is the UC Davis hat when I go to lunch with some old work friends.

The tree is turning a nice color of red.

More often

Mrs H said it was national write in your Blog month. Since I have not posted anything for like two months. I thought I would try once a week as a good place to start over.

Mrs H suggested taking a picture each day and post it. I decided I would take a picture of the Maple tree out front once a week and post. As you can see it is changing color quite nicely.

I might also take a picture of the new stuff that grows in the garage from WB's garage sale adventures. We now have a baby cooler, and a new tall trash can full of stuff. I am not sure what is all in there. And I had just cleaned the garage last week for my sisters visit and could finally get to my weed whacker and blower without having to climb over stuff. Oh well.

My sister and brother-in-law from Florida visited and it was a good time. Mr an Mrs H, Biscuit and the youngest were home for a Sat of wine tasting and dinner. WB watched Biscuit during the outing and I cooked. I think a good time was had by all.

Was rather surprised how far my sister was to the right in the Republican party. Must be the water in Florida. Enough for this week.

I did it...

I did it as Biscuit says. I finished my camping quilt. The seams are not as nice and straight as Mrs H could do but they worked. Here I am trying it out on the floor of the living room. I must say I think it will work very well. It also fits in with the time of the year being orange with black ties for the quilting part. Now I think I can make my tarp tent. Off to see how much the materials will cost.

I did not know...

Two days ago before heading off to the gym I decided I needed to hard boil some eggs. I took a couple out of the container and put them in water and turned on the stove. I decided to go on line and read the news etc. I did that for a while and than started putting my stuff in my gym bag when I heard a muffled pop. I went into the kitchen and my hard boiled eggs had boiled dry. I did not know they could make such a mess when they pop from the heat. It took about an hour to clean the kitchen. I even mopped the floor. I guess I had always better set the timer.

Off to finish my project.

A new Project...

I started a new project making a camping quilt for backpacking. I also purchased the stuff bag kit for a project to do first. The stuff bag was fairly easy to do but the silicon coated nylon was really slick and a little hard to sew. But it came out OK and should function just fine. I have been going slow on the quilt so I don't goof up. I have only had to rip out one seam so far. Down to the last big step sewing it all together and turning it correct side out. I will do that later today.

I am looking forward to trying it out. The idea makes sense you crush the bottom part of the bag anyway and the pad insulates you from the ground. So why not do away with the bottom. Plus it gives you a little more wiggle room. Plus I like making my own stuff. My Pepsi can stove works great. Only weights 1/2 oz and the complete cook set only weights 7 oz. Over a pound saved off my old stove and cook set. If this project works well my next one is a tarp tent weighting in at about 12 oz.

Off to do some pinning and sewing:) I won't show any close up of my seams since I can't seem to sew as straight as Mrs H.

I can't every make up my mind...

I have been looking at the Sony Alpha 100 and the Nikon 40X for months just trying to get myself to buy one. I have after tooooooooo much thinking decided digital is the way to go.

But as my kids will tell you I take a long time to buy anything over $5.00. Went to Borders yesterday to get a magazine to help me decide on which camera. It was $6.95 so it is still at the store. Now today Sony now has a new DSLR the Alpha 700. It is soooooooo nice. And soooooooo pricey. Someday!!!! www.dpreview.com/ Click on link to see....

But on another note my next project arrived in the mail today. A little company called Ray-
Way has kits for ultralight backpackers. Well I decided to try his quilt kit as a replacement for a normal sleeping bag. Again I have been reading about this for, oh about a year and half. And finally decided to buy. So here it is still in kit form. I used to make Frostline kits all the time. They came with all the parts cut out. This came as a pattern, material, thread, and directions. With hand written corrections. Mrs H may get a few calls for advice.

In order to get to the sewing machine I had to clean out Biscuits room. I did not know she had that much stuff at our house. The hall way is full. Another project. She does have a nice little new bed. WB even found a new mattress for it a another garage sale. Along with a new kitchen batteries not included. And a neat trike with a push handle. Mrs and Mr H need to come and take home what you want......

I guess I was wrong...

I guess I was wrong about the garage starting to get cleaned out. On Saturday WB was off to her weekly garage sales. She is very good at finding things to buy at a good price. She had been gone about 30 minutes when she called and said she had found a great day bed for Biscuit. I told her I didn't think that we needed it. So an hour or so later she came home with the new trike. A good buy, I think Biscuit will enjoy riding it. A complete toy kitchen which needed batteries. In the trunk lots of plastic cooking, things and plastic food. Which we washed but I do not know where it is. For most of the day she kept telling me how great this bed was. Well around two I gave in and told her if if was still there to go get it. Well here it is. No mattress, the owner was keeping it for the $700.00 crib they had just bought. I would think for $700.00 you would get a mattress. Off to do some Biscuit room cleaning to make it all fit. Mr and Mrs H you are welcome to any of these great finds. We added the batteries and the kitchen works great even has sounds.

Don't try this at home....

Don't try this at home. You know those things that you see on TV when people do dumb things. Well two days ago after WB went to work and I was looking at all my files. I decided it was time to shred a few old things. So I made my pile which was quite large and started to shred away. The shredder I have is not known for doing large jobs so it slows down and and has to rest. It even stops if it gets to hot. Which did happen I let it cool while I cruised the Internet. After a while I thought that lube that I use on my bike cleats should help things run smoother. So I sprayed some in and it worked great. When the machine slowed down again I decided to spray some while it was going to spread the lube around better. I did and it worked much better but about a minute later flash, boom, and a large bit of hair on my forearm and leg disappeared in a flash. I thought just my luck now I have ruined the shredder. After having a car towed, now one more expense due to dumbness. But after pulling the machine apart finding nothing burnt, not even the shredded paper it came back to life. Now, I read the label on this great silicon based lube. Highly flammable!!!!! Don't try this at home.

JMT... People are Honest

I just returned on Saturday from another trip to Yosemite. Still my favorite place to go. With this Backpack trip I have now completed the High Sierra loop in Yosemite. It was a good four day trip. I did learn a couple of things on this trip. One people are very honest in the back country. On the first day after driving to Yosemite and hiking six miles I made it to Sunrise High Sierra camp. I was backpacking so I started to look for a good spot to camp for the night. I took off my pack and put my camera and hiking poles down on a stump. After looking around I found where I wanted to camp for the night. I went back picked up my pack, poles, and thought I had my camera. After starting to set up camp I noticed my camera was not there. As Panic started to over come me I remembered I had put it on the stump back where I sat my pack down. I went back about 20 yards to the stump no camera. Now panic did set in $300 bucks gone. I had just seen the bill on my CC for parking in a no parking zone if SF and having the car towed. It was becoming a bad month. I thought I must have not picked it up after my last rest stop about a mile up the trail I mean up. With no pack off I went covered that mile in less than 20 mins. Found the stump no camera. Now it was setting in no camera the rest of the trip someone had picked it up and it was now theirs. One last idea maybe someone turned it into the High Sierra camp office. Back down the trail to the lodge office. Really just a canvas covered frame. All there supplies, etc come in by Mule train each day. I asked the guy getting dinner ready for the guest and he said was that it on the shelf?? Yes it was the nice folks in tent #9 turned it in. I found tent 9 and thanked them. The lady thought it was a cell phone. She hated electronic things and did own a cell or digital camera. They had seen it on the stump and thought one of the guests had forgotten it. So people in the back country are honest.

Most people on this loop hike from HS camp to camp and stay in the tent cabins complete with food, bed, water and maybe a shower at two of the five camps. Each camp has a backpackers area so you can backpack the loop and stay for free. People told me if you volunteered to do breakfast dishes some of the camps would feed you breakfast. I stuck with my instant oatmeal. This year being so dry Sunrise was short of water and would not share with the backpackers their supply. So it took a little hunting up the dry stream to find a pool of water but it was only about a 150 feet up the hill.

I have been thinking about doing the JMT ( John Muir Trail ) sometime. At Sunrise camp I talked to a young guy from Ohio who had just completed the JMT a week faster than he planned. He did the 220 miles in 12 days. As he said once you get going all you really have to do is walk unless you bring a lot of books. After the four days not sure I could do 20 miles a day. I may have to rethink how I do it. I do need to make my own tarp tent. I have a plan off the Internet I just need to get the materials and sew it. That plus a couple of other changes should save about 3 more pounds out of my pack. My Pepsi can stove performed great again I can get by on 2.5 oz of fuel a day. And the REI pack I purchased with my saved pocket change and REI Dividend worked great. It is about 4 pound lighter than my Gregory. And with some planning has the needed room.

Enough for now I need to get out on the bike again.

Been a long time...

It has been a long time since I have written in my Blog so it is time to do a post. Summer has gone by very quickly with only a couple short camping trips. Two to Yosemite one with the youngest and one with WB's sister who does not camp but had never been there. Both were lots of fun. The tour guide thing was fun. I still don't know how folks think they can see Yosemite in a few hours. Did see two bears on the last trip. WB and her sister were excited along with lots of other folks in the valley.

The latest big event is the youngest has moved out after her brief stay she is moving to the city. I will miss my bike riding pal. Mr and Mrs H brought their truck over to help with the move and WB and myself watched Biscuit. When Biscuit is here she basically gets her way. As you can see it tired both her and WB out after and afternoon of playing and counting sprinklers.

Enough for my first long time post. Off to trim bushes and finish packing for a four day backpack in Yosemite!!!!

Only Hit my Thumb Once

I only hit my thumb once while the youngest and I finished the new fence. We were going to have Mr and Mrs H come over and help but after Mrs H OK'd our posts for straightness we decided to continue. I must say I think we did a fairly good job. As you can see the WRX made a good truck. We were able to get all of the lumber home. We had to make a couple of trips but that was OK. We still have the Trellis to build. I have most of the lumber except for the lattce for that we need Mr and Mrs H's truck. So I guess the trellis will be my B-day project. I think I can get most of it done except for the lattice and placement since it will take a few folks to hold while someone drills and bolts it in place.

By the looks of Biscuit's garden we should have our first harvest next week of garden fresh radishes.
I have also replaced the barbecue with a new gas fired one. As you can see I have placed it near nothing that will catch on fire like the fence or house.

When WB gets home today we just need to pick out the new kitchen window and get it ordered. Lowes' sells Pella windows which look they will work quite well. They even make a garden window that will fit.

Off to clean house since WB is coming home today.

I am never.....

I am never going to barbecue again. Last night I barbecued chicken and Salmon for dinner. After finishing I close the vent to the top onWeber. And about 4 am we woke up to this cracking sound WB got up and looked out the window. We had set the fence on fire. Not a huge amount of damage but it looks like a new kitchen window, fence and some plants and pond pump for the neighbor. Off to call the insurance company. So much for thinking the coals had gone out. :(

Biscuit's Garden

When Biscuit was over the last time we took some time and planted a garden together. She helped plant the radishes, beans, and squash. As you can see her little garden is doing quite well. We will not have radishes in time for Mothers day but close. She also has two tomatoes plants, Grandpa planted those. I must say her garden is doing better than mine. When I had the landscaping done seven years ago I remember trying to convince the landscaper to put my garden spot where Biscuit's is. But he did not want to ruin his design so it is on the other side of the lawn where there is less sun. Oh well.

I have always been around gardens. Growing up on a farm in Iowa you had a garden. A big garden. Sweat corn was planted in the end rows of a corn field close to the house. Needless to say there was lots of sweat corn. One of my first jobs I remember was shelling peas with my mom for canning. Let's just say it takes a lot of shelling to get enough peas to can. And when we canned it wasn't just a jar or two. There was always the local talk of who did the most quarts, pints and of what. And the always ever present warning from my dad to my mom do not to overheat the pressure cooker and blow it up. Which meant melt the safety plug out which I am sure would have made quite the noise.

As an adult I don't plant peas. And I can't grow sweat corn like we had in Iowa. My sister can, she has a garden that must cover and acre. And she still cans and freezes those peas. She still lives in Iowa.