Sculpture!

I made a little bolts and nuts and wire bird the other day at work. Timmy took some amazing photos of it. You should check out his latest photos!

Yay! Weekend!

I had a rather nice weekend. I was slightly discombobulated and did a few silly things that only I can do...but lets overlook that, shall we?

Yesterday, Timmy had his last final. We woke up and took Navi for a walk to the grocery store so that I could get buttermilk and satisfy yet another craving for waffles. When we got home, Timmy studied a little bit more while I made waffles. Then we enjoyed the waffles. After that, we biked over to REI so that I could pick up two new badly needed tires for my commuting bike. The clerk asked Tim if he was on east coast time because he looked so tired. It was around 11a! I said that I was the one who would be on east coast time, since I had just returned from Florida. Silly Timmy.

After that, Timmy biked to campus to take his final, and I pedaled home. I went to replace my tires, and I definitely had a few Perry moments. These tires were kind of hard to get onto my wheels so I spent a good amount of time struggling to get the tire on the wheel. Then I got the inner tube in, and spent another good portion of time getting the second side of the tire on. Then I realized I'd gotten the rotation wrong...so I had to do it all over again. Then, of course, I realized the rotation was correct the first time...so I had to do it again. I got the rear tire done..put it on my bike, and started on the front tire. This went without as many problems ... and then I popped the inner tube while putting the tire on. So I had to do it again.

After a long dysfunctional amount of time, my new tires are on my bike and doing very nicely. I decided to make my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough. I had another Perry moment when I managed to put in a very small amount of the flour mixture before I put the eggs in! Argh! It was a small amount, so I mixed in the eggs, then the vanilla extract. I then finished mixing in the flour mixture until just blended. I was nervous that the batter would be dry because of the first portion of flour being overmixed...but we'll have to see! Right as I put the dough in the fridge to stand, I got the missed call from Timmy signaling that it was time to meet him at the BART station! So I pedaled on over with my new shiny tires, and when I arrived, Timmy commented on my new shiny tires. When I started to describe the insane amount of trouble I had putting the tires on, he immediately asked whether I had gotten the rotation wrong. Right on target, bub. We rode the BART into the city while poring over discover magazine and bicycling magazine. Then we traded magazines, and read some more. When we arrived at the first stop in the city, we walked out and I saw the arts fair! I was so excited, and of course, I had to go poke around!! We wandered around all the tables and while we saw a few neat things, nothing much really piqued my fancy. There was a cute large pottery bowl with a fish on the bottom...but I have no use for it. I was ready to leave when Tim stopped at a candle table. I followed him over, and sniffed every candle on the table. I really liked the orange clove candle because it reminded me of the holidays. A lot of people stick whole cloves into oranges around the holidays. It was a nice scent, yet not cloying like cinnamon or other holiday candles. The candlemaker told me that the design of the candle was inspired by the aurora borealis...and I had to buy it because I work for a company called aurora! Funny thing is the candlemaker started out as a mechanical engineer...then went into industrial design..and now he's in fine arts!

Timmy and I then wandered over to chinatown and had a meal of dumplings. Some were delicious. Some were less so, but still quite scrumptious. There was one that made me want to cry.

After dinner, I got a coffee at Starbucks, and we wandered around waiting for dusk to fall. Timmy wanted to take some night photos, so we meandered over to a bright red Christmas tree that we had seen on our way through Chinatown. He took photos...and some more photos...and eventually I sat on some stairs and daydreamed for a while until he was done. He came clamoring over to me a long time later delightedly showing me photos, and we started moseying around again. At some point, I decided that I wanted to go to Williams-Sonoma and then of course when we were there I fell in love with a cookbook, and wanted it. It is a big cookbook for weeknights. I love to cook, but I seem to tire myself out so much cooking elaborate meals every weeknight. I needed some simpler recipes that didn't sacrifice in taste or imagination and this was it! So I got it. While we were walking back to the BART station, Timmy took me into Sur La Table, too, so I could see where he had taken his knife skills class. Then we wandered home. Timmy went to a ugly sweater party, and I was lazy and entertained myself at home with the dog.

This morning, I made some more waffles, and then I decided that we would walk the dog to the beach with our glass beadmaking supplies, and make some beads! We packed up, wandered over, and set everything up! Timmy looks at me and asks for a glass rod...and oh no! Silly Perry moment three! I had forgotten the most important thing of all!! ...So we wandered home instead. When we got home, I made a grocery list and we went grocery shopping. Then I baked my cookies that I had made yesterday.

They managed to escape the curse of being dry as a result of overmixing. Phew! After that, I tried making some expresso caramel. It was a very simple recipe. You simmered a cup of heavy cream, a tablespoon of instant expresso powder, and half a teaspoon of salt. I got my salt from my new salt bowl that I got at Annie's Pots in Princeton, IL when I was visiting my sister over Thanksgiving!

After you brought that mixture to a simmer, you added a cup of honey! Then I got to use my new candy thermometer and I simmered the mixture until it got up to 258 degrees F! Then I put it in the fridge to cool off a little and now it is spread across a piece of parchment paper. It is still setting, so I will see how that is later!!

After all this, I still wasn't done! I started making some Potato and Gruyere Tartletts from my new cookbook for dinner! Timmy got to demonstrate his new knife skills. First he cut up a potato in thin slices!


Then I had him cut up an onion!


After that, we grated the gruyere cheese!


I got some puff pastry ready by cutting halfway through the dough 1/2" from the border and stabbing the inside with a fork!


Then I loaded the puff pastry with the onion, potato, olive oil and rosemary mixture!

I baked them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I also made us some green beans. Dinner was delicious! Yum!

Looks like this cookbook is going to serve me well.

I got a chance to talk to my dad online today. I was telling him about the cookbook I had bought and how I really want to find more manageable meals for the week. I cook and cook and cook and then tire myself out and don't want to cook for a week. He managed to convince me to get my hands on yet another cookbook. This one is called the New York Times 60 Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey. My dad says it has an entre and a side dish on every page. He told me so many good things about it that I bought it off amazon in a heartbeat!! Every single cookbook that my dad has recommended has led me down a path of amazing food, so his opinion is one I have a high respect for. I am excited for the new cookbook to come!!

Silly Navi

A while ago, Tim and I got a steamer to clean our carpet with. It was really, really loud, so I tried to tie a shirt around Navi's head so that she couldn't hear it as well. In the end, Tim and Navi ended up vacating while silly deaf me steamed the carpets unable to hear a thing. I just found this photo I took of Navi and it made me laugh. Enjoy!

While we're on the topic of steamers and carpet stains, let me tell you something. Don't ever spill laundry detergent on the carpet. I don't know how it happened. My story is that Tim left a laundry detergent bottle sideways on the carpet. Tim's story is that I didn't put the top on correctly. The real story is probably both of our stories but lets put that aside. It took us probably 45 minutes or more to get the laundry detergent stain out of the carpet. It would not go away. We steamed it and it just suds up some more and refused to leave. If we ever buy a house, I'm ripping all the carpet up.

Salt and Pepper Grinders!

I got some salt and pepper grinders! Tim and I went to Sur La Table on 4th street to get a candy thermometer, and I saw these! I've been looking at Peugot Salt and Pepper grinders for a while now, and I've really wanted freshly ground pepper! So I caved, and now I own them!!!

Vero Beach!

For work, I had to travel to our site in Vero Beach, Florida last week. I flew out on Wednesday December 9th on a 6am flight, and got home on Wednesday December 15th. All my planes got really screwed up. When I got to SFO on Wednesday morning, I discovered that the plane had suffered a mechanical failure and was delayed an hour. Then it was delayed another hour. Then I had no chance of making my layover. The airport people were quite kind and they rescheduled me on a different flight. So I had to be sleepy and tired at SFO for quite a few hours before I even got to take off. Then I landed in Charlotte...and my next plane was stuck somewhere in the northeast storms. So I got to sit around in airports quite a bit that day. It wasn't as terrible as I thought because I had a good book to read, the airports all had free internet (thanks Google!) and I basically slept the entire plane rides. When I finally landed in Orlando, it was almost 10p and I still had to drive 2-3 hours to Vero! I was so tired when I arrived and I passed out on the bed. The return flights home were also delayed...but at least I got home!

Work was really tiring. We worked dawn to dusk, almost every day. I did get a nice break on Sunday though when the guy I was working with declared that he wanted to spend the day with his children. I couldn't do the work alone, so I went to my hotel and did some analytical work instead. After a while I felt that I deserved a little break too. So I went for a walk, and stumbled upon a little arts fair!

I wandered in, and the first thing my eyes saw was not art, but a DOG. A fuzzy, pleased looking rottweiler. I had been missing Navi something awful, so I went over and asked his owner if I could pet the dog. The owner was fine with it, and I must have hugged and kissed and played with the dog for 10 or 15 minutes. The owner asked if I was traveling and missing my own puppy, and I almost cried when I exlaimed, 'yes!' He was an older man sitting on a bench, so we had a nice conversation while I pet his dog. We talked about planes, mechanical engineering, foreign languages, Germany, art, dogs, and everything in between. It was a very nice conversation, and after a while I set off to wander around the art fair. I didn't really like many of the paintings, but I found this one pottery stall where everything was as bright as metal. It was called Raku. What you do is you make a pottery bowl or plate or anything. You glaze it with a compound that has metal in it. Then you fire that in a kiln and get it to 1800 degrees F. You remove it from the kiln, put it in a metal bucket full of newspaper or another combustible. The heat of the pottery lights the newspaper on fire, and you cover it with a lid. This creates a thick noxious smoke which brings out the luster in the metal. So the end result is a piece of pottery that shines like metal. I fell in love with a swirled bowl that shone like copper. Then I bought it.

I wandered off and found another pottery stall. This was more standard pottery, but it was nicely done. The older man was really proud of his work. As I wandered through his stall he would proudly declare, "I made that!" every time I picked something up. I felt terrible when I considered leaving without buying something. I found a mug I liked...so I bought it. Then he threw in a free toothpick holder! I actually hadn't noticed the toothpick holder and it's cute. It's got a lot of pizazz, and it's not perfect, so I love it even more.


After that, I wandered back to the hotel. I visited an ice cream store on the way. Then I went back to the beach. A boy accidentally skimboarded into me. While he was apologizing, I asked if he'd teach me to skimboard. So I got to learn to skimboard, and I had a few funny falls!

While I was in Vero, I found this little cafe called the Red Onion. It is fabulous. They had this grilled asparagus sandwich that put me in a permanent state of delight. It was on 8-grain bread with parmesan cheese, tomatos, grilled asparagus, grilled onions...and a honey key lime sauce. It was absolutely phenomenal. Later in the week I also had their bruschetta sandwich, which was almost as amazing. It is nice that I have finally found a place to enjoy the food while travelling for work to Vero.

Vero ended up being a pretty good success. I got what I needed done in the time I had. It was the first time I had been sent to Vero without being micromanaged, and it was the first trip that didn't end up in absolute catastrophe. A pat on the back for me!!!

Fused Glass!

Following the rousing success of taking a glass beadmaking class, I decided to take another! I've been seeing so many fused glass beads at crafts festivals and gosh, I love them all! I decided to take a fused glass class at the Stained Glass Workshop on 4th street, and today was the day! Timmy came along once again to interpret for the beginning. He had a lot of work to do, but he took a portion of his day to make my class easier for me.

The class was a lot different than the first class I took. The first big difference was that the teacher gave you a brief overview of the skills, and then let you free. In the first class, the teacher would teach you one skill, let you try it out, then call you back to teach you the next skill. In retrospect, both teaching methods worked perfectly for what was being taught. The techniques that we learned in the first glass beadmaking class require skill that you only get through lots of practice. Alternatively, fused glass seems simpler. You basically cut up sheets of glass and assemble them with glue before you stick them in a kiln to fuse them together. It still requires lots of practice to know what looks good and what doesn't, but anyone can make a fused glass bead. It just may or may not look pretty. There are two types of glass fusion; a tack fuse, or a full fuse. A tack fuse requires a lower temperature in a kiln, and the pieces of glass stick together, but don't meld together. A full fused piece is brought to a higher temperature in the kiln so that the entire piece of glass becomes one big piece of smooth glass. You have three tools, really...if you don't include glue. The first is a glass cutter. It has a little blade and you run it across the glass to score it. Then you use your second tool, which is kind of a ...set of pliers with one raised line. You put the line on the score, and then squeeze it together, and it makes the glass break along your scored lines. This works well for straight lines and slight curves. Then you have this interesting little scissor-ish tool where you can kind of hack whatever shape you want. It doesn't work very well. You end up with lots of sharp little shards. Then you end up with lots of little cuts, and lots of blood everywhere.

So once you give up the idea of making that perfect circle, or that perfect squiggly shape you had in your mind, fused glass is pretty fun. You can't fuse glass side by side, so you have to build in a tower like design. I mostly made small beads, but then I tried to make two coasters, too. One is lots of fun colors, and the other has a christmas tree! They couldn't fuse them while we were there, so I had to pick up the fused glass beads after I returned from Florida. I've included pictures of what I made here! To get these pictures, I had to use Tim's macro lens and Tim's tripod. We had to set the tripod so high up that I had to stand on a chair and I almost fell over.

Ultimate!!

After a lot of deliberation, I finally joined an ultimate frisbee league. I've been really missing a team sport, yet I wasn't happy with pickup. I found out about a lot of different pickup times and locations, yet every single time I planned my day around them, I'd arrive to find 2 or 3 people there. I really don't want to have to put Navi in daycare or rush around taking her for exercise only to show up with an hour free for an ultimate game and nobody's there. It got really irritating, and I stopped even trying.

Then I found this winter ultimate league that takes place really close by. It was pretty cheap as far as ultimate leagues go, and it was a draft league. You don't need a team; you just sign up and are drafted onto a team. So I signed up...and goodness...what took me so long?

Tonight was the first game, and I got home absolutely euphoric. I missed the game so much. I missed the wonderful spirits of the people who play the game. I missed meeting new people, playing with new people, sharing stories with them. My team is wonderful. Everyone is really happy. They all play very hard, yet don't get upset if something goes wrong. I'm really glad I've started playing again.

Likes shoes!

Then....


And now!

Fun Weekend!!

I had such a fun weekend!

Yesterday, I woke up and decided that I wanted waffles for breakfast. Buttermilk waffles. I didn't have any buttermilk in the fridge, but I really wanted those darn waffles. I hopped on my bike and pedaled over to Target only to discover that the entire refrigerator section at Target was down! They had all of the doors tied together so that nobody could open them in hopes of preserving enough cold that they didn't lose all of the food in their freezers. There were lots of women staring forlornly at the fridge doors. I don't think I will be getting anything from the freezer section at Target for a while.

Upon this discovery, I re-evaluated the waffle situation and decided that I still wanted those gosh darn waffles. I pedaled over to the supermarket and got buttermilk there. I also picked up two cartons of milk and some nilla wafers so that I could make some peanut butter banana cream pie. Turns out I forgot that I'd gotten milk earlier this week, so now we have a lot of milk, and I have to do some thinking about how I can use it all up! Then I pedaled home and we had a delicious waffle breakfast. After breakfast, I tried playing with Navi, but she wasn't in the mood! I threw every single toy she owns at her and covered her in toys, and she wasn't having any of it.



Timmy found an interesting computer program that simulates piano music using the theory of vibration and strings. He connected it to his piano and spent some time playing with it. Then some more. And a little more. Somewhere in there, I decided I wanted to try making buttered rum meltaways. Tim and I took the dog for a walk up over the hill and down the other side to BevMo! so that I could pick up some dark rum. Then we wandered back over the hill to our apartment, and I started making some buttered rum meltaways! I also made a fantastic peanut butter banana cream pie, and put it in the fridge to chill. The buttered rum meltaways came out really pretty!!


We had plans to go over to 805 to watch the "big game" between Cal and Stanford, so we showered, made some crabby-corn (popcorn with old bay seasoning!) and headed over with Navi in tow! Right before we left, I snapped a photo of the sunset.


We went over to 805, and the first thing Navi did was snatch a pork sandwich off Ashley's plate. Bad dog! We watched the game and chatted all night and suddenly, it was 10p. I didn't even know who had won the game. I went home, Tim came home later, and we all slept.

This morning, I woke up, took the dog out for a walk, and swang on the rope swing for a while. Navi sprinted around in circles stampeding the swing and then running away at the last instant. I would roar at her every time she got close and it got her all riled up. I had a glass beadmaking workshop, so around 9:45 Tim and I headed over after a snazzy breakfast consisting of clementines and peanut butter banana cream pie. We arrived, locked our bikes up, and started a day of fun! Timmy helped me understand everything that was going on, and he was very patient with me. We learned to use MAP gas torches with a special regulator to make glass beads! We made spherical beads, cylindrical beads, beads with two colors swirled around, beads with dots sticking out, beads with smooth dots, beads with big swirls, beads with candy cane-like twists, and in theory, we learned how to make hollow beads (although we haven't done one yet). Tim left earlier so that he could do some homework, and I stayed til 4:30p working with beads! It was so much fun! The class sent me home with all the tools I need to keep making them, including the MAP gas torch, the flame regulator, big tweezers, lots of glass rods, special eye glasses (I bought a second pair for Timmy!), a graphite paddle, a striker, mandrils, and a few other things. I also picked up a few more colors of glass and some mica powder so that I can keep making beads! On the bike ride home I stopped by the beach and met up with Tim and the doggy. We walked home blabbering excitedly to each other about glass beads. The sunset was gorgeous as usual but I didn't have my camera, so no photo for you.

When we got home, we whipped up some skillet enchiladas and ate them quite fast. Now we are tired after a fun weekend!

Now I'm really excited about our future classes. I've signed up for a glass fusion glass at the same place where you use glass powder and fuse beads together in a kiln. Fused glass beads are all over the arts and crafts fairs lately, and you can make very pretty things! I also signed up for a chocolate workshop class at sur la table in the city! I will be able to make more sweets for Timmy. I signed Timmy up for a knife skills class which also takes place at sur la table in the city. He really likes to chop things up, so he will learn all the fancy techniques and knife skills. Then he can teach me! How fun! I've also found a place in Oakland that has glass blowing, blacksmithing, welding, neon sculpture, and all sorts of other incredible classes! Yay!!

Pseudo-Thanksgiving!

Timmy went home this weekend to celebrate Pseudo-Thanksgiving with his family! He hadn't been home since Christmas of last year, so I think he had a lot of fun.

While Timmy was gone, Navi and I spent a lot of time with each other. She woke me up with cold, wet nose pokes in the morning and sprinted happily on our long morning walks. I spent a lot of time swinging on the rope swing at the top of the hill, and roaring at Navi. It was very peaceful.

Then, I decided to seize the moment, and clean the apartment. By clean, I mean really clean. The kind of clean where your apartment smells fresh for at least a week after, and where there is no dog hair anywhere or in anything. While I was at it, I decided to buy some nice bins so that we can put things away. Currently a lot of our furniture has open shelving, so you see every single thing we own. It lends to a lot of clutter, and isn't very attractive. Since nothing has a proper place to belong, we end up just shoving anything anywhere. I figured I'd spend some time thrifting around the Target home aisles. I found some cute canvas drawers that stand up on their own. I bought a few green ones, and I placed these inside some of the cubbyholes in our 3x3 cubicle shelf. In these, I placed a lot of small items that just lended to the clutter. I found lots of books that we have no purpose for, and donated them to the library. The only books I kept were useful books such as hiking guides or maps of California, textbooks, and cookbooks, of course! I also bought a little bin for paper. We had lots of colored paper, construction paper, scrapbook paper, and other sorts laying around. They had no place, and since some are oversized, I couldn't find a bin to put them in. I finally found one, and it was pretty, to boot! So all of those are tucked away in a pretty bin that is easy to access when you need the paper, but easy to put away. I also put our cabinet to use by putting away lots of things that don't need to be out in the open, including our fish supplies, music books, dvds, video games, and random papers and booklets from high school. I moved the bed, and vacuumed underneath it. Then I vacuumed everywhere else. I swept the balcony clean. I did all the laundry. I scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors by hand. Then I did it again. I scrubbed all the counters. I cleaned the cabinet doors. I rearranged the cabinets. I dusted every surface I could find. I went nuts cleaning the bathroom and the shower. I cleaned all the windows and mirrors. It looked fantastic when I was done! I was so proud every time I walked into the apartment and it smelled wonderful!

I can't wait for Tim to come home and see it!!

Bad Bike Day and Big Dog Bone!

Yesterday, Tim and I decided to go out for a nice bike ride. We started climbing, and my stomach felt terrible. I've felt a little sick, and while I was climbing, I felt like I was going to hurl all of my insides. When we got to the top, I decided that I was going to head back down and go home. Tim decided to keep going and dropped down the other side of the mountain. I pedaled home, and after relaxing for a while, I decided to walk the dog to the beach. We head out, and meander over to the beach. I feel my pocket vibrate, realize it is my phone, and take it out to make sure it's not Tim. Of course, it was. It was a garbled text along the lines of "I'm about to pass out I'm in Tilden can you come get me can you bring food?" Of course, this happens right when I've walked to the farthest point that I planned to walk. I called Navi back, who was super confused and sad because she hadn't even gotten to swim! We ran home, grabbed some food, dashed to the car, and took off in search of Tim.

Luckily, some of our friends who live up in the hills were out for a walk, and bumped into Tim. They took him home and pumped his hypoglycemic self up with tons of food. Tim text messaged me to let me know, and I redirected to where I vaguely remembered their house being. I just couldn't remember which door they lived in, so after knocking on the incorrect one, I found Timmy, safe and sound. Disaster averted.

Today, when we woke up, we decided to take Navi to the beach since it was almost cruel to snatch her away from her swimming glory yesterday. We also decided to stop at PetSmart on the way over to pick up some bones. Tim saw a huge rawhide bone, and told me that per weight, it was the best deal. He wanted it, and he suckered me into buying it. So we walked to the beach with this enormous bone. Everyone commented on it. Navi got to swim and run around, and after a while we wandered back home.

She spent the entire walk home sniffing the bone. When we got home, it took me all of an hour to convince her to try chewing it. She wasn't sure, since it was so large. I had to persist for the entire hour, and I'm pretty sure she only started gnawing on it because I was so insistent. After she realized that it WAS a bone and she COULD eat it, she went nuts.


We didn't let her eat it all at once, of course. She chewed and gnawed and chewed and drank lots of water. Then she started acting funny. She sat underneath Timmy's chair, rather than on her bed, which was next to Timmy.


Then she started panting up a storm. She looked and sounded like a steam train, yet it wasn't hot and she hadn't been running around recently. It got really weird, until the lightbulb went off over my head. Of course! I had had to refill the water bowl twice! She was about to explode with pee!

So I took her out, and she felt much better after that.

Halloween!

Last night, Tim and I went to two parties to celebrate halloween! We didn't have any costumes planned, so we whipped some up at the last minute. Tim wore his yellow shoes, yellow shorts, a yellow shirt, his yellow snowboarding helmet, tied a yellow towel to his neck for a cape, and went as the color yellow! I wore all red, including my red shoes, whipped up some antennas on a headband, and stuck black dots all over my back for my transformation into a lady bug! I took a piece of fabric and wrapped it around Navi's collar for a cape! We drew a big N using duct tape, and she morphed into Super Navi!! I was very surprised; I had expected Navi to throw a fuss over the cape, but after a few snaps at the fabric, she no longer cared!! Both parties we were going to had told us to feel free to bring Navi along, so we all headed off to LabJon's place first. I got to meet a lot of people at this party, and there was another woman with a herding dog at the party. The dog kept trying to herd Navi, which made for a few fiascos, but after we took them outside to play with each other for a while, things settled down. It was a rather nice party, and LabJon has two amazing balconies in his house with very nice views. I also got to meet LabJon's wife, who I have heard a lot about but never met before. After a while, we headed over to our second party, which was at the house at 805. Pam and I baked some double chocolate cookies, and they were quite yummy. Navi got a lot of loving attention from her fans, and I got to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in a while. It was very fun, and after a while we packed up into our car, went home, and stumbled into bed!

Cheddar Cheese Apple Pie

I made a very unique apple pie today. Instead of the traditional apple pie where the apples are covered in cinnamon and sugar and all sorts of wonderfulness, the apple slices in this pie were simply covered with a little bit of sugar.

To make up for the lack of cinnamon-y pizzazz, the crust had extra sharp cheddar cheese in it! It sounded weird to me, but I have heard that a lot of people really enjoy cheddar cheese with their apple pie, so it sounded like a fun twist on a classic!

It came out of the oven looking very pretty.


We had a few bites, and while it's pretty good...we missed our cinnamon-y pizzazz. I think this is a good twist for silly people like my dad and brother in law who don't like sweets. Yet for me, since I am addicted to cinnamon and everything good it brings, it didn't make the cut.

Backpacking Fail

This weekend, Tim and I decided that we were going to go backpacking. Instead of going north-east to the Sierras like usual, Tim suggested that we find a trail somewhere north of us. After investigating google maps and consulting our hiking with doggies book, we decided to try hiking to Magee Peak in Lassen National Forest. It looked like a really great trail! It was 15 miles round trip, and it had 3000 feet of climbing to the top of Magee peak! We would pass sub-alpine lakes on the way, and I was really excited to see the sights! We decided that we would go backpacking this weekend late on Thursday night. Friday night after we went for a swim at Cal, we packed our bags and I packed Navi's as well. We both noticed that we had sore throats and our noses were a little runny but we dismissed this because we've backpacked while sick plenty of times before! We had quite a drive in the morning of around 6 hours, so I headed off to bed and before I knew it morning swung around.

We woke up and we weren't feeling too well. Our noses were running a marathon, and our throats were very sore. My head was throbbing, but it was dull enough that I dismissed it. We hopped in our car, stopped for some coffee, and then we set off! I drove and chattered happily for some hours while Tim studied the gps and the directions in the book. He announced that he found a way that would save us 20 miles and while I had a feeling that even though it saved us in distance, it wouldn't save time, we decided that we were in no rush and decided to take the scenic route! We stopped along the way to grab some quick food and let Navi stretch her legs for a while. After a while we got back on the road and drove...and drove...and drove some more. The scenic route was really windy and hilly so it gave me a fun drive but it was a little time consuming. We still weren't in any rush, though, so we just had fun. Finally, we arrived at the road we were supposed to turn onto to get to the trailhead and we were surprised to discover that it was an unpaved logging road. It was really rocky, so we had to drive rather slowly to keep our car a happy camper, and we still had ten miles to go. It was a little disheartening to realize that the next ten miles would take an hour to drive rather than ten or twenty minutes. As we drove, all the signs seemed to match up well with our directions. After a while, the road conditions became worse, and the directions started to become rather hard to follow. The road forked every 50 feet, and we never had an idea of where to go. We would just pick one and go, discover it quickly became impassible, and turn around and try another way. This started to suck up a lot of time and our confidence that we would find our trailhead withered. We found a place that looked like it could have been a parking lot, but we weren't very confident. Tim found some places that looked like they could be trails, but we weren't sure. We weren't really interested in the idea of putting our packs on and just going because then nobody would know where we were. We also were starting to realize that we were in a region that had recently had wildfires, and apparently there were still hotspots around. We definitely learned our lesson to check the wildfire situation before heading backpacking. We asked some loggers for directions, and they said we were a long ways off from our destignation. We kept going and doggedly tried to follow their directions, but once again there were too many forks and we weren't sure which way to go. 3 pm came and went and after a while we decided that it was a lost cause. I found another trail in our book that followed a river that I had seen while we were still on the paved roads, so we decided that we head back, get back on the paved roads, find this new trail and decide what to do. It took another hour or maybe even longer to get back to the main road, and at this point we were kind of exhausted. We were feeling even worse than we had in the morning, and we weren't looking forward to camping while feeling crappy. We really did need to stretch our legs, though, so we decided we'd hike a mile or two around the river trail, and then just drive straight home. We parked at the campground that was close to this new trail, and let Navi out. She was very excited to be out of the car! The book said that there was a wooden bridge on the North side of the campground that we could walk across to get to the other side. We headed to the north side of the campground and we saw no bridge. We did see some big trees that had fallen across the river so we thought, why not climb across these? The first tree we found gave Navi some problems, so we decided we'd find another option. We found another tree that was quite big without many branches. The only problem was that there was a 3 foot gap between our side of the river and the tree. Easy for us...but what about Navi? Tim tried to pick her up and see if she would walk onto the log from his hands. He held her over the river, and she started to walk off his arms and suddenly plummeted into the river. It was quite fast moving at that point, but Tim had her leash, so he pulled her towards him until he could grab her collar. He then grabbed her collar and was in the process of pulling her back onto shore, but I got really nervous. Navi looked a little scared so I jumped into the river to push her out. It was a little deeper, and about as frigid as I had expected, but I helped to push Navi out, and she was soon safe and sound. I climbed out of the river soaking wet from the chest down, and I decided that since I was already soaked through, I would walk her across the river at a shallower spot while Tim walked across the log with the cameras. We got to the other side and walked south along the river, throwing pinecones for navi to catch. Along the hike, we discovered the mysterious wooden bridge on the south side of the campground. We hung out on it for a while watching the water rush underneath, and then got back to hiking. It was quite fun, but after a while I got tired of being wet and cold. We headed back to the car and I changed into dry clothes. Then we drove all the way home, stopping once along the way for food. It wasn't a terrible day, but it sure didn't go the way I expected it to.

After a lot of studying topo maps that we downloaded from the internet when we got home, we discovered that the directions in the book were completely wrong. For both trails. I don't think I'm a very big fan of this book any longer.

Navidoggy!!

Navi was sleeping in her favorite position on the couch! I though I'd try to take a photo, but she opened her eyes just as I walked up with my camera. I managed to get a decent photo before she started moving all over the place. I couldn't get any great photos though because I had no time before she started moving all over the place...and then she was moving all over the place, which made things even more difficult.

I also got some funny photographs as she was stretching and waking up, and thought this one was cute:

Sunset!!

The sunset tonight was especially captivating. It started out dark and somewhat muted, and as the sun slowly set, colors started to appear.


Over time, even more colors emerged!

For larger images, check my picasa here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/PerryLYoung/SunsetsFromOurBalcony#5393793089763255138

and here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/PerryLYoung/SunsetsFromOurBalcony#5393783027782804338

Or just click on the photos as shown in the blog for a larger look!! :)

Rain!!

We had a big rain storm today! During a pause in the rain, I decided to take Navi out for a walk and take some photos! I was really excited about the rain! Everyone at work complained and whined but I spent the day dashing through parking lots in the rain and stomping in puddles. The cars on the highway were all reduced to 25 mph because the wind was so strong and the rain was coming down in torrents. When Navi and I started on our walk, the world smelled like spearmint! There was no more dust because all the mud was packed down! The hill had many small rivers running downhill!

There were puddles everywhere!


I paused to take a photo of water droplets on a leaf.


Navi got curious and stuck her nose in.


She's lucky she's so adorable. :)

Silly Alarm

I'm pretty sure my alarm clock decided to self destruct this morning. It went off at 6:00 am as usual and I decided to snooze for a little while. I fell asleep again and woke up to the smell of burning plastic ten minutes later. The numbers were blinking like they do when the alarm is going off, but instead of shaking the bed, the clock was emitting burning plastic odors. I was in a stage of shock and disbelief, so I turned to my trusty Timmy and asked, "is it just me, or does my clock smell like burning plastic?" He signed "yes" and rolled over back to sleep. I wasn't in the mood to tolerate alarm clock problems in the dark morning so I turned the alarm off. Once I turned the alarm off, the vibrating unit engaged and the bed started shaking! I didn't know how to stop it because, technically, the alarm was off and this shouldn't have been happening in the first place, so I ended up unplugging all the wires and got ready for work instead.

Lizzie and Jonny visit!

Tim's older brother and sister, Jonny and Lizzie, came up from San Diego to visit this weekend! They both flew into Oakland on Saturday morning, so Tim and I woke up early to feed, love, and walk Navi to daycare and then we drove over to the airport to pick Lizzie and Jonny up. Lizzie has come to visit a few times before, but this was Jonny's first time visiting us in Berkeley, so after picking them up we drove over to campus so that Tim could give them a tour of Berkeley's campus, the labs he works in, and downtown Berkeley. We parked somewhat close to campus and we walked all around and we even showed them the dinosaur museum on campus that has a cast model of a T-Rex skeleton. We talked about whether a T-Rex was big enough to eat you up in a snap. The verdit was that yes, yes, they can. After showing them around, we wandered into downtown Berkeley and realized we were hungry! Jonny and Lizzie had been up very early in order to catch their plane, so after we realized that most restaurants weren't open yet for lunch, we decided breakfast was good, too! We sat down at a new restaurant on Shattuck Ave (I have forgotten the name) and had a delicious breakfast. After we were full, we wandered back through campus, toured around a little longer, then headed back to our car.

Then, we headed to the Berkeley Botanical Gardens to show them around, which was a lot of fun. I can't help it, but I always seem to fixate on animals rather than plants. We found two adorable frogs in the little humid greenhouse for tropical plants. There were also orange newts in the little lake, and a big water snake! We played with water skimmers for a little while. Oh, and there were plants, too! After wandering around the entire botanical gardens, we were hot, and tired of the sun. We got back into the car, and headed to the Sake factory for sake tasting! Neither Lizzie or Jonny had experienced sake tasting, so it was very new to them. I don't much like sake, so I just tried sips of Tim's drinks rather than suffering through entire glassfuls of sake. After the sake tasting, Jonny seemed pleased that now he will understand what to order for drinks when he is eating out at a sushi restaurant. When we wandered out of the factory, Tim decided that we had all enjoyed the frogs at the botanical garden so much that we should go to the reptile vivarium! So we wandered the 5 or 6 blocks to the reptile vivarium where we lost another hour or two raptly staring at all sorts of big frogs, little frogs, tiny frogs, bumpy toads, gross snakes, incredible lizards and newts that climb the glass, other disturbingly large reptiles, horrifying hairy spiders, and silly turtles of all sizes. When we emerged from this unique place, we were pretty hungry. After going home for a little break, we headed to dinner at Sweet Basil on Solano, which is a thai restaurant that Tim and I like. I was excited because the specials that night included the pumpkin curry that I've come to love! Dinner was very, very yummy. On the way home, we picked Navi up from doggy day care, and she was besides herself with delight to see Lizzie and Jonny again.

On Sunday, we had plans to go for a bike ride with their Uncle Doug. We woke up early, took Navi for a walk, and the four of us headed off with four of the six bikes Tim and I now own. Lizzie rode my commuting bike, Jonny rode Tim's commuting bike, and Tim and I rode our race bikes. We got onto the bart and headed towards the city and met Uncle Doug at the Ferry Building. Some of us wanted coffee (everyone but Tim) so we headed inside to pick up some coffee and some bread to eat before we started. This was unexpected, so we got off to a later start than we had expected. There were hordes of tourists so every time I checked, the line to the bathroom was far too long to be tolerated. We headed off, biking down Embarcadero around the city and to the Golden Gate Bridge. We biked over this and into Marin, where we biked along the shore and across the bike path Tim and I had seen numerous times on our drives down highway 101 in Marin, around lots of hilly roads, and finally arrived at Picco Pizzeria. We stopped for lunch, and had some yummy pizza and soft serve ice cream with a dark caramel sauce on top. After lunch, we headed back the way we came, and biked home. It was a really nice ride of about 40 miles or so, and I think Lizzie and Jonny had a lot of fun. It was also really nice to see Uncle Doug, and have fun with the lot of them. When we got home, we all showered and laid around for a while until it was time to take Jonny to the bart station so he could get to SFO and fly home. Lizzie is staying until Tuesday, so she has more time here with us!

Broccoli Quinoa Salad with Avocados!!

Ever since I moved out to CA, I've been hearing a lot about this grain called quinoa that is a complete protein. A lot of my co-workers are vegans, vegetarians, or some other type of odd diet, and they always have odd quinoa based salads for lunch. Over time, I started becoming more and more piqued by quinoa, and the final straw was when my friend Pam showed me a recipe she'd found online for a broccoli quinoa salad. She ended up really liking the final product so I put the ingredients on my grocery list. Well, today I went grocery shopping, so I stopped by Trader Joes to pick up some quinoa. When it came to deciding what to make for dinner, the broccoli quinoa recipe jumped to the top of the list!

The recipe can be found on this website, and I recommend that you try it! It is very simple to make, and it doesn't take long at all! When I took my first bite I was unsure as to whether or not I liked it. As I ate a little more I found myself really appreciating the meal. I was nervous that Tim wouldn't like it, but he did! The quinoa was pretty neutral, but it's nice to have another easy grain to whip up for a meal. The broccoli and garlic pesto ended up having a really nice flavor to it, and the avocado and pepper-y olive oil on top really finished the deal. I will make this again.

Broccoli Quinoa (adapted from 101 cookbooks)

Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups chicken broth (you can use water or a combination)
1 pinch salt

6 cups broccoli florets
3 medium garlic cloves
2/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 pinches salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup heavy cream

1 avocado, sliced

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Preparation:
Rinse the quinoa very well for 4 to 5 minutes in a fine mesh strainer. Place the quinoa in a medium saucepan with the chicken broth and pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat, and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the chicken broth is absorbed and the quinoa is fluffed up. The quinoa is done when you can see the curlique in each grain. Drain any excess liquid and set aside.

Make the fire oil by placing the 1/4 cup of olive oil in a small saucepan. Heat until hot, and add the crushed red pepper flakes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool so that the flavors can blend.

Barely cook the broccoli by placing 3/4 cup of water in a large pot and bringing it to a simmer. Add a pinch of salt and stir in the broccoli, cooking covered for one minute or until just barely cooked. Transfer to a strainer and run cold water over the broccoli to stop it from cooking further.

For the broccoli pesto, place 2 cups of the cooked broccoli in a food processor along with the toasted almonds, Parmesan, salt, lemon juice, and half the toasted almonds. Drizzle in the olive oil and cream and pulse until smooth.

When ready to serve, toss the quinoa and remaining broccoli in a large bowl. Add 3/4ths of the broccoli pesto and adjust according to taste. The mixture may need a little more lemon juice, or more salt and papper, or maybe more pesto. Mix in the remaining toasted almonds, as well. Portion the quinoa salad onto plates, and cover with the sliced avocado. Drizzle some fire oil on top, and feast!

Note: Timmy and I discovered that this recipe doesn't keep well, so don't make more than you can eat in one sitting! At least it's easy enough to make for a quick one night meal! This recipe made enough for Tim and I to eat for dinner with a decent amount left over. I think next time, I would try to either make 2/3rds of the recipe, or halve the recipe and serve with something on the side.

Some Drawings

Hey! Look at my new bike!!!

When I was at RIT, I realized I really loved to bike because I was always riding my silly hybrid bike around campus. My friends would get drunk, come over on Saturday night, and want me to go riding with them around campus. It was always a blast, and the combination of loving to bike and having friends that all were in the triathlon club and riding fancy bikes around ended up in my buying a quintana roo private reserve compact triathlon bike. I loved that bike. I loved it more than anything. When Tim and I decided to move out to Berkeley, we weren't completely sure what to do with our bikes. Then, we decided that our bikes wouldn't get us across the country, so we had to buy new bikes for the bike trip. I ended up selling the bike and moving on.

Now that we've been in CA for a while, I've really missed having a sweet bike to take on loooong road rides. Timmy still has his pretty pink carbon fiber bike, and he left me in the dust whenever he rode it. I couldn't really get my mind off of having a quintana roo again because I loved my first one so much. I always found really good deals in bike stores for really good parts and then a few weeks ago I saw a year old Quintana Roo Lucero frame on sale. I bought it without a moment's hesitation. After buying a few parts and gathering everything we needed, Timmy and I slowly started assembling the frame and building the bike. It was a lot of fun, but it involved a lot of clueless nights wondering why a piece of a bike part wasn't depicted in the part assembly directions anywhere. I can't even count how many flimsy plastic pieces we found and had no idea what to do with them. We could never tell whether they were just there so that the bike part arrived to its designation safely during shipping, or whether it had a purpose in the bike assembly. Half of them were completely unnecessary, and the other half were entirely essential. Then, we also had a fiasco because of the internal cabling of the bike! Instead of all the cabling for the shifters/derailleurs and brakes being on the outside of the frame, all the cabling for this bike is inside the frame! The bike came with some tubing and what we were supposed to do was thread the cabling through the tube, and remove the tube after threading the cabling through. What we actually did was yank the tube out. Then we had a lot of fun trying to re-thread the tube through the holes because the entire frame is hollow, and the inlet and exit holes are NOT a straight distance away from each other. We tried a lot of ways to rethread the tubing through, and the final solution was to stick a metal hangar inside of the tubing until 2" away from the end or so, stick it in one side of the bike, use a flashlight to find it on the other side, catch the loose side with the cable, and use the cable to guide the tubing out. It was a pain in the ass. While we were going through this, we also realized that a lot of the cabling would be rubbing on the internal curvatures of the bike frame. This bothered us, so we ended up having to spend a lot of time cutting the tubing to be exactly the length that it would fit inside and prevent cable rubbing. I have never appreciated external cabling before in my life, but hey, the internal cabling is really pretty now that the fiasco is over!! After two weeks of assembling this bike, it's almost done! We have to iron out a few kinks, but look at the final product! Isn't it beautiful?! I can't take my eyes off it. The photograph is a little sad, though, because you cannot see how beautiful the carbon fiber weave is unless you see it in person. All the more reason to visit us!

I've not ridden it much yet, because I just got my wisdom teeth out on Friday. My jaw is really sore, and I don't appreciate riding because of all the jolts I get. I'd rather just wait a little longer, and really enjoy the maiden voyage. We did bike it to Pam's house though to see if we could tell whether my bike or Timmy's bike is lighter by using Celeste's bathroom scale. Celeste's bathroom scale didn't like us, though, so the verdict is still undecided.

Happy Birthday, NeNe!

It's my sister's birthday! Yippee! :)

Grizzly Peak, Revisited!

I didn't realize how much I love biking until my road bike went out of commission. It's driving me insane that I can't just bike over to the nearby stores to pick something up. I have to walk with the dog and tie her up outside, or I have to drive. I don't mind walking with Navi because she loves to go for walks and I've even taken her on a few 4 mile walks to do a few errands, but sometimes it's not ideal. Sometimes it's too hot to leave the dog tied up to a post or in a car, so I end up not going because if I walk, I'll waste an hour while Navi sits at home all lonely. I'm still waiting for the new chain ring to arrive, and I hope it arrives soon. I was really going insane because on Sunday, Britt and George went on a ride through wildcat canyon. On Monday, a few of our friends decided to ride Grizzly Peak, and I decided that I was going to go road biking on my mountain bike. I locked out the shocks, put the road slicks on, and pedaled up a storm trying to keep up with Tim, who was on his fancy road bike. Given that I was riding a silly mountain bike on the road, I wasn't able to keep up with him, but I didn't do too bad. Not that I can ever keep up with him, but it was worse than usual. When we were halfway up the mountain, we passed a man and a woman who were stranded on the side of the road. The man had hit a ditch or a pothole, and his tire had gone way out of whack. He needed a spoke wrench, and hey! My tool has a spoke wrench, even though most don't! Yay for me! I got my tool out, gave him the spoke wrench, and we sat around for a bit while he tried to fix his wheel. We chatted for a while, but after a bit of time with no success at fixing his wheel, the man decided to give up. He gave us back our tools, his wife biked home to get the car, and we set off on our way up to the top of the mountain. I didn't do too bad with my mountain bike, but I do hope my road bike is up and running soon!

Cassie's Birthday!

Cassie's 25th birthday is around this time, though I'm not exactly sure when. Her mother figured that Cassie isn't going to get married anytime soon (those are her mother's words, not mine), so she decided to throw Cassie a big 25th birthday bash at her house. Cassie's parents live south of San Francisco in San Carlos, and Cassie invited a lot of her friends from high school, college (UC Davis), and Berkeley. The party had a catered dinner, a bartender, and a lot of friends, so Tim and I decided to go. We picked up George and Matt around 3 pm, and drove over to the party. When we arrived, all of Cassie's aunts were astonished about my bloody knee, which I got this morning when I was hopping around rocks at the beach on my mountain bike. I guess I didn't exactly stick that particular landing, and my knee came into contact with a very hard rock. Anyhow, a lot of our friends from Berkeley were already there, so we hung around and chatted for a while. The bartender had lemonade, which made me infintely happy. I must have drank his entire pitcher of lemonade. Oops. Eventually, dinner was served, and it was delicious! I was very impressed with the potato salad. Tim and I decided not to sit with the Berkeley crowd, so we could meet some new people. Cassie's neighbors ended up sitting with us, and we had a wonderful conversation. We talked about a million random things including biking, new (and ridiculous) bike laws in San Francisco, critical mass, RIT, NTID, UC Berkeley, the town of Berkeley, Tim's current projects, medical technology, other nearby towns, how beautiful CT is (some children in the neighbor's family went to Yale) and we even talked about Lancaster, PA. We talked about amish quilts, and amish pretzels (which Tim has yet to take me to try) and I was not once bored in what must have been an hour long conversation. It was wonderful, and I am so thankful that we sat at a random table. There's nothing like that; meeting people and having an incredible conversation for an hour. It is so much easier now that Tim helps me out by interpreting what I don't understand. After dinner, the neighbors headed home, and Tim played a game of beer pong. Cassie got a one way ticket to Europe from her parents, and her parents sang her a loud song about "she's got a ticket to flyyyyyyyy she's got a ticket to fllyyyyyyy she's got a ticket to flyyyyyyy but just one way!" or something along those lines. Cassie's mother is very crazy, and she is a painter. I liked her. The whole family was really nice, and around 9 pm, Tim and I headed home to play with the doggy.

Long Walk

Today, I was bored...and since I can't ride my bike, and I wanted to go to the library and to the hardware store, I decided to go on a very long walk with the dog. It looked to be about 4 miles, but that's ok...the doggy and I like our walks! We meandered up over the hill and down the other side. We wandered up Solano Ave, and people watched along the way. We skipped over to the library together, and I ran inside to pick up a few books that I had on hold. At this point, I was worried about how absolutely hot it was. I was worried that Navi was going to be really thirsty and not have a fun time. When I was checking out my books, I asked the librarian if she had any plastic cups or something I could have to fill with water for the dog. She took one last long gulp from her soda can, and handed me the coke bottle. I was a little thrown off at first, but why not! I took it to the bathroom to wash out and fill with water, walked outside and Navi was really excited that I had water. I poured it out and let her drink from it, and I noticed that several people were staring at me with horrified faces. "You're giving your dog coke? That stuff dehydrates you!" I explained that it was water, but they weren't so reassured. Navi was happy though, so I went back inside to fill the soda can up again, and then Navi and I meandered our way down the greenway. Along the way, she would poke the soda can with her nose and demand water! It was kind of embarrassing because of all the horrified faces I got when I poured water out of the soda can for her. To make things worse, sometimes when she drinks from pouring water, she gets a lot of air, or water goes down the wrong way, and she starts gagging. I'm pretty used to it, but it normally doesn't happen unless we're backpacking in the middle of nowhere. There were a LOT of people walking their children home from school, and they thought that my dog was gagging because I was giving her coke. I tried to explain that it was water, but in the end I gave up and yes, yes, my dog is gagging because I'm giving her a drink from a coca-cola bottle. Along the way, there was a water fountain, so I filled the coke bottle up again. Navi jumped up, and drank her fill from the water fountain. Then she gagged on the water fountain, and then wanted more water from it. She drank some more and then we wandered the rest of the way to the hardware store. At the hardware store, I tied her up outside, went in to grab what I needed, and also picked up a bag of old fashioned watermelon hard candies that I am currently incapable of not eating. I will have to go back and try all the other flavors, because they are incredible. Then Navi and I continued on our way home, and she continued to poke at the coke can for more water. It was a really hot day, so it was pretty understandable, but I am really surprised that I forgot to bring Navi's nalgene along. At least I found something for her, but it would have been nice not to get all the astounded, disgusted faces at the whole ordeal. I love the dog to smithereens. :)

Poor Sequoia

Well, when I tuned my bike on Sunday, I forgot one thing. My chain rings have about 10k miles on them, maybe even more. The middle chain ring gets most of these miles. The reason this is important is because the teeth on the chain rings are very worn, and the teeth on the middle chain ring are almost non-existent. When I was riding my bike before I cleaned it, the chain was also very old, very rusted, and stretched out. For this reason, it could still grip onto the middle chain ring. When I put the new chain on, my bike became unrideable because it slips like crazy when you're in the middle chain ring. The middle chain ring is most convenient for getting around town in, and I'm nervous that if I do try to ride, even if I only shift quickly through the middle chain ring to get to either the largest or the smallest chain rings, I will be damaging my chain. I ordered a new middle chain ring, and I guess my bike is out of commission until the new chain ring arrives.

Grizzly Peak Ride

One of our friends, Britt, just moved out from Alabama, and she used to love road biking. She hadn't biked in two years and wanted to start again. She asked us to go with her, and we were happy to obligue. We decided that for her maiden voyage, we'd summit Grizzly Peak. It's a nice taste of the hills, but you don't go down the other side, becuase that means you have to climb back up again to get back home. I'm not really sure what kind of a climb it is, but it's got to be somewhere between 1000 and 1500 feet. It's a good ride, and a hard ride for someone who is out of shape. Last night, George met a girl named Jamie at bible study who runs marathons and triathlons, so he asked if she wanted to come along. She did, so at 9 am on Sunday morning, Jamie, Britt, George, Tim and I all met up, and started biking up Tunnel Road. We wound our way up the mountain, which has some really beautiful views of East Bay and San Francisco and I guess the whole bay area, really. Britt really was a trooper, and she managed to climb the entire thing in her first ride of two years. I was very impressed, and she was very tired. When we got to the top, Britt was really happy, and we rode back down into town. We biked Britt home, and then Tim and I decided to grab some food on the way home. Tim ate a lot.

I have been meaning to take my bike apart, clean it up, clean all the parts, put them all back together, and re-cable everything. I have been pushing it off for far too long, so today I cut all the cables so that I couldn't ride until I cleaned it all up. I ended up taking everything apart, cleaning it with simple green and a toothbrush in the bathtub, and them reassembling everything. I also discovered that Tim can not, for the life of him, get my cassette off my wheel. That might be a problem someday, but it's not a problem right now. I guess I'll deal with that when I really need to. After everything was cleaned, I dried it all up, and put the bike back together, with Tim's help. Tim cut up the cable housing because our wire cutters are so bad that only someone with superhuman strength like Tim can use them, and then we re-cabled my bike together. I put a new chain on, and Tim also helped me tune everything, which was really nice of him. I hope it rides like a dream now.

Mt. Tam Ride!

I decided that Tim and I were going to pack our road bikes into the car, drive over into Marin, and bike from Stinson Beach to the summit of Mt. Tam. The map of the route is here and it is about 25 miles with something like 2800 or 2900 feet of climbing. We woke up early to beat the heat, took the dog for a nice walk, packed our bikes in our car, and set off! We drove over the Richmond-San Rafael bridge into Marin, and drove down a very windy set of roads to get to Stinson beach. It is so twisty turny that if I drove, we would never arrive, because I would be driving so slow. We found a nice place to park our car and the best part was there wasn't that much traffic. That area gets really crazy sometimes, so it was really good we got there early in the morning. We got on our bikes and rode through the town of Stinson and watched the waves on the beach. We found the road we had to turn onto, which was an umarked road with a metal gate, and we started our endless climb. We climbed up, and up, and were passed by many bikers on very fancy bikes. We passed a cop sitting on the side of the road. Then we were passed by many more bikers on fancy bikes. After a while, we got to the top of the ridge, and it was hot. It was so hot that I couldn't stand standing still for 5 minutes to take a decent photo. I felt like I was radiating heat. It was so bright, too. It was a wonderful ride, but it was just a little too hot. We biked along the ridge, which was pretty barren, and sweated a lot. We sweated our way up and up some more and then we managed to push ourselves to the summit of Mt. Tam. There are actually three peaks in Mt. Tam...so we had to climb over the first...down a little...over the second...down a little, and then up the third. The view was astounding. I will never tire of the view of the bay, but this was in a completely different angle than I've ever seen before. I could see all the way down Mt. Tam in Marin, I could see the Golden Gate Bridge from above, and I could see San Fransico at a completely different angle than from East Bay. It was astounding. It's a shame that it was so hot though, because I couldn't stand taking photos. What photos I did take didn't come out well because it was so bright and I was too hot to stand still and fuss with the camera to get a better photo. Some other time, we will summit Mt. Tam again, on a much cooler day. When we got to the top of the third peak, we were tired, but that wasn't much of a problem. It was just absolutely nauseating how hot it was; it was 103 degrees F at the top of Mt. Tam. We rested for a few minutes in the shade and ate melted trail mix, and then we headed down the mountain. Now, that was amazing. It was a screamin' downhill, and it was totally worth the climb. When we got back to our car, which was not much longer after we summited the mountain, we turned the AC on right away. Tim drove home along the curvy swervy road, we ate some In N Out for lunch, and then we drove the rest of the way home and laid around for the day.

"Bowling" Night

After having fun at the company bowl-off a few weeks ago, I suggested to the gang that we all go bowling every so often! There is a deal at the local bowling alley that games are $1.25 on Monday and Tuesday nights after 8:30 pm. I was really surprised by the amount of interest, and some of my friends suggested that we all get together to have dinner, white russians, and watch the Big Lebowski. I'm not all that into the Big Lebowski, nor am I interested in white russians or any other drinks, but I said I'd make dinner for everyone. I wasn't expecting 10 or 11 people to say they'd come, so it was a little more stress than I thought it would be. I rushed home from work to go to my dentist appointment for a general teeth cleaning and check-up, and of course I started stressing about everything. While I was driving home, I became more and more paranoid that I had looked up the wrong dentist's address, and wasn't going to the correct place. In my mind, I kept playing out this embarrassing scenario where I walked into the office right on time and found out I wasn't in their appointment list. I kept thinking about this and thinking about this and dwelling on it and finally I just drove straight home, RAN up the 8 floors of stairs, RAN into the apartment, frantically searched my dentist on google, found out that I'd been going to the right place all along, hopped onto my bike, pedaled furiously over, and arrived, thinking I was 20 minutes late. I was 5 minutes early. I got some strange looks because I was terribly out of breath, but the appointment went well and I emerged without any cavities! Yay!

I then headed over to the grocery store to pick up the supplies for pizza, morroccan cous-cous salad, and a vegetable salad. I paid much more than I wanted to pay for this sort of a dinner, packed it all onto my bike, and pedaled furiously home. Once I got home, I had another dilemma: I had no idea how much pizza to make. My friends are pretty famous for not RSVP-ing and just showing up, and they are also famous for eating a LOT. I ended up asking Pam and letting her decide, and the verdict was that I would make enough dough for seven 12 inch pizzas. Then the next problem began: when I looked at the pizza dough recipes, they didn't multiply linearly. The recipe for two doughs was NOT the same as the recipe for one doubled. The recipe for three doughs was also not some sort of a linear scale from one or two dough recipes. I didn't know what to do, so I ended up making a batch of 3 pizza doughs according to that recipe, and putting it aside. Then I did that again, and put it in the same bowl. Then I made one more recipe, and put that in the same bowl, and let those all rise together. In the end, I smushed them all together, and spent the whole night fretting that the pizzas would somehow blow up as a result of this. I'm sure I could have made it much easier on myself somehow.

Friends started flocking in much earlier than I expected. Then, I made much, much more cous-cous salad than I had expected the two boxes to make. The morroccan cous-cous salad is pretty good. It's very simple, and it just has cous cous, peppers, olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, chick peas...and I don't remember what else. I had Tim and Pam cut up all the vegetables for the garden salad, and then the three of us started to assemble pizzas and bake them. I was fretting up a storm that everyone would be angry that the food wasn't ready, until Tim made me realize that his friends had all they need: drinks and a movie. By that time, the pizzas were starting to come out of the oven, so I let people go for the food. They all seemed very happy, and I always love homemade pizza.

After dinner, we all wandered over to the bowling alley. When we got there, we were terribly surprised by how crowded it was! It's a bowling alley! They are supposed to be smokey and empty and dark. It turned out that you have to show up at 7:30 to get a ticket to a bowling alley for 8:30. We wouldn't be able to bowl til 10 pm, so we decided to go chill at a local bar instead. It ended up being a lot of fun, but I don't think I am going to be very interested in throwing another big dinner again. I'll stick to small, two person parties for now.