Back to it

Working in higher ed has a lot of frustrations and aggravations that just come with the territory, but there are some definite perks. One is that my place of work basically shuts down for a little over a week every Christmas. That didn't prevent me getting called a couple times when the campus was "closed", but I still ended up with more than a week off.

It was a nice break: I made some beer, played the guitar and mandolin, cooked, read a little, and watched some movies.

I've been reading The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson: it's well worth the effort.

I might try and actually finish more books this year: it seems I'm about 75% done a dozen books at any given time, and most just end up back on my bookshelf without my actually crossing the finish line.

Every year, my sister Shan sends me something cool for Christmas. Shan's what I might call a very gifted giver. She has a knack for finding that perfect thing you didn't know you wanted. She made my Bodum Cozy, she gave me the CD of Dylan Thomas reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales," and she gave me her own copy of The Grand Sophy. This year she gave me a copy of the BBC's adaptation of North and South.

Yesterday one of the kids was sick and I wasn't feeling the best, so we popped the new DVDs into the player, expecting to watch one of the four episodes. We watched them all in one sitting. Shan describes the story as "Pride and Prejudice for grown-ups." Is it my favourite 19th Century book adaptation? I don't know... I'll need to watch it a couple more times. It's definitely in the running.

I think I prefer it to BBC's famous and brilliant Pride and Prejudice adaptation, solely on the grounds that it is visually more pleasing. The P&P miniseries was really very well done, but the DVDs are awful: they're washed out and colourless. (I hear the Blu-ray version really is much better.) But I'm very fond of the 2009 version of Emma. I don't know if the melancholy brilliance of N&S can possibly overcome the much more cheerful--- but not totally insipid--- E.

Here's a question, if it's not insipid, does that mean it's "sipid"?

Finally, my neighbour bought me the Lord of the Rings, Extended Edition on Blu-ray last summer. We had said we'd watch them together, and we're still not finished. It's hard finding times when we're both free. We've made it through The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. We were supposed to watch The Return of the King on New Year's Eve, but we got pre-empted.

This is a time when the "new and improved" really is. I watched the same sequences both on the older DVD version and the Blu-ray version, and I can actually see the difference. For example, the threads in Frodo's cloak are plainly visible.

Tomorrow it's back to work. Back to Perl and Java and Unix and Lisp and Spring and Hibernate and email and Oracle and GWT. I'm not really depressed by the thought, but it's been nice to get away from it for a while.

Dreaming

So we took the kids across the border to my parents' house for Christmas, and we got to be part of the Canadian coast-to-coast white Christmas of 2008.

We drove up I-5 through Washington, and enjoyed the long snowy drive:

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

The weather when we arrived didn't disappoint: there was a good deal more snow at home than at home, so to speak.

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

The kids got some sledding in, which was a nice bonus

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

And of course there was feasting and fun.

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

All in all, a good use of time and money to drive up here.

Hope everyone else had as good a time as we.

Happy Christmas!

Smoky Snowy

So it's been snowy here for a little over a week: there have been threats of melting, and in Tacoma it has already completely melted once, but here in Puyallup it's not really gone away. We've had several days of fresh powder, lots of accumulation.

The first snow was unexpected, so my grill was left uncovered in the snow. It's been snowing so much since, my grill's just been getting hammered.

I decided to light a fire in it to dry it out, and it started snowing no more than 5 minutes after I started...

From Grilling in the snow

From Grilling in the snow

In my zeal to dry out the grill, I put upwards of ten pounds of charcoal in there: probably closer to 15 (3/4 of a 20 lb. bag). It got hot. My eldest got some pictures of the grill when I opened it and combustion started for real:

From Grilling in the snow

From Grilling in the snow

The grill-mounted thermometer maxes out just around 500F (around 5 o'clock). It reads about 70F cooler than it is. I went a good sixth of a turn past that (about 7 o'clock), so it must have been in the 700F--800F range.

Ribeyes were on sale, so I cooked some steaks. They were seared on both sides in well under 5 minutes, and the bones were protruding an inch. I took them off, let them cool, and then put them back on uncovered out in the falling snow to finish them off.

They were really good, but a little overdone.

Of course I burned the seasoning off my cast-iron grates, and need to reseason them: I put some grease on there once the grill cooled a bit last night. That won't be enough, but it should stave off some rust for at least a couple weeks and get me through the holidays.

That was fun.

I have a dream

Many years ago, I saw my first telemark skier swishing down the slopes of Mt. Washington. It was a sight I've not forgotten: an older guy with a grey beard, a long red stocking cap, and knickerbockers; zooming past the great unwashed on their downhill skis.

Of course, that was back before telemarking was "cool": that was when it was arcane, perhaps even occult.

But I've finally decided I want to learn to telemark. Not because I want to hit the backcountry (although backcountry telemarking looks really cool), but because it seems like a really cool thing to be able to do.


So I've set a goal for myself. I've been losing weight and attempting to get more active in preparation for leaving Get-in-the-SUV-to-Cross-the-Parking-Lot Land. So I've added a measurable objective: when we settle in Up North, I intend to learn to telemark.

Maybe I'll eventually hit the backcountry, but even if all I ever do is swish down the ski runs with one heel up, I'll be happy.

The Ber Months

Well, today is September 1, the official start of the Ber months. These four months: September, October, November, December are my favourite months of the year. In actuality, I enjoy January too, but it's not quite a Ber month.

In the end, I like the Ber months because my favourite seasons are winter and autumn (in that order). Here in North Carolina, that doesn't mean much: the weather is always relatively warm and balmy, even in winter. But it's a respite, however slight, from the blazing heat of the sun, which is almost a constant in the South. Sure, it would be better if the Ber months were also the Brrrrr months; but here in the South that's a bit much to ask.

This summer has been brutal. We've broken a couple records: the heat went up past 100F any number of times in the last 6 weeks, we're on water restriction, and the grass is all dead.

Let the Ber months begin!

Better late than never...

Well, we woke up to snow in Charlotte!!!!!

If that don't beat all...

Charlotte Snow

The best is, Charlotte shuts down for snow. So time for coffee, hot chocolate, warm wintery food, and getting some work done via VPN.