Selling the Civic

I got up the nerve to post a For Sale ad on Craigslist last night, for my trusty 16 year old Honda Civic. Now that we have the CR-V, we're a little short on garage space, and I'm not too excited about carrying insurance on both of them. This morning I found 9 replies in my email inbox! The first person I called came right over and left a deposit. She was driving practically the same car, but with double the mileage as mine. She's supposed to return on Monday with a friend to help her drive it away. The only other time I tried to sell something on Craigslist, my old aviation GPS-90, it didn't move for a long time, but I think maybe this time I got the "priced to sell" part right.

Home From LV

What a week. We got home after midnight this morning, and didn't get to bed until 3am, after emptying and removing our new rooftop cargo box, so I could park in the garage. The new CR-V did really well on the trip. Even with several stops, we got there in just twelve and a half hours. And there was enough room for everything we needed, even with the big 42 inch high liquid oxygen supply tank in the back. It's hard to believe that Joanie only left us a few days ago, with so much happening before and after. Her loss will leave a big hole in our lives, especially after losing Sal so recently, in October.

Our friend Gabe is due in at 2:30 today from San Francisco. Maybe hanging out with him will take some of the sadness out of this week.

Aunt Joan

K and I embarked Saturday on our first long distance trip in over a year, on short notice. K learned this week that her Aunt Joan was deathly ill, at home with hospice care. She'd been wanting to visit Joan for over a year, and especially so after Joan's health took several turns for the worse. With K's own health issues, it just seemed too difficult to achieve. This latest very serious news got us jumping through hoops to make a trip happen. Most of the usual options weren't available to us, because of K's need for bulky equipment to provide oxygen 7x24, and also because of the uncertain schedule. So we took advantage of this challenge, to buy the Honda CR-V model we were eying throughout the winter. I felt the need to stay in town to support the first launch attempt of AV-009 on Thursday morning, and then the actual launch on Friday morning. The mission was successful, but not without issues, and I had to stay a little later than expected. Then we stopped into Honda and spent several tedious hours getting the paperwork done. By that time, it was late enough, and we were tired enough, that we decided to grab some sleep before leaving. We headed for the highway in our new vehicle on 6am Saturday morning. The drive went really well, with some really beautiful scenery that we'd almost forgotten about. I got really sleepy about halfway, but that was no problem, with K available to take over the driving. We made it in a little over 12 hours, and found K's brother John waiting for us at the curb outside the house. Joanie was in bad shape, lying there with very labored breathing. We stayed until midnight, keeping her company. It seemed like she was reacting to our words and touches, with an occasional sigh or groan. We finally headed over to our hotel for a few hours sleep. Joan died just a few hours later, very early in the morning.

Ride to Racines

Ken and I took Jim on a post-birthday bike ride down the Platte River, and up Cherry Creek, heading for Racines. We had our first en route equipment failure - Ken's rear tire went flat, from green goo gumming up the tire valve. His emergency CO2 cartridge really saved the day, and got us to the restaurant in time to meet up with Katie and Kristan for breakfast. It was a gorgeous day, forecast to approach 90 degrees later in the afternoon. We had a nice big lunch, and it did get hot, so we took the easy way out, and rode the light rail back home, after stopping at Turin Bikes to fix Ken's tire valve. He liked some tires he saw there, and decided to replace his knobby high-friction tires with some much smoother tires, which will work much better for all riding that we do on hard paths.

Bear Creek, Joan

K found out today that her Aunt Joan is in the hospital after showing symptoms of disorientation, and may have something going on with a mass in her head. Now she's struggling with the urge to get out there to visit. I dread having to deal with those logistics. Our ex-Boeing friends launched a Delta-II rocket on Thursday 6/7, and we're hoping to launch an Atlas-V next week on Thursday 6/14. See spaceflightnow.com for details. I got in some more riding with friends on Saturday, to Bear Creek Dam. On the way home, I stopped at Abe's Deli in downtown Littleton, and had a really tasty Gyro sandwich and bottomless cup of iced tea, at a sidewalk table.

June's Here!

K and I went to her appointment at the transplant clinic on Friday, talked to an MSW and an MD about the "next steps" in the process of trying to qualify for, and how to deal with, a kidney transplant. I've been wondering about this for some time, so I finally asked straight out about a pancreas transplant, and though the doc was a little hesitant because of her age, he didn't rule out the possibility. Next, our HMO will have to decide what they want to pay for. Right now, her only kidney transplant possibility would be from a cadaver, since everyone who's volunteered as a donor so far, doesn't qualify for various reasons. This doc mentioned something interesting: a surprising number of people are living with only one usable kidney, but don't know it, I guess the point being that two healthy kidneys are truly redundant. If Kaiser decides to go for a dual Pancreas/Kidney transplant, then the only option would be a cadaver, and we're off to Chicago at some point, for an evaluation. The doc says the good news is, they only like to take a dual organ transplant from young cadavers, in which case both organs would be likely to last longer. However, he recommended jumping at the opportunity of a live kidney transplant, since they generally last far longer. Somewhat unpleasant considerations, but necessary for us.

I went bike riding Thursday afternoon to Chatfield Dam, Saturday morning around the Lee Gulch loop, and Sunday to Bear Creek Dam. The little flying bugs are really out, this time of year, and the Cottonwood trees are all dropping their big fluffy seeds, too. The air is full of stuff. We feel like the personification of that old joke about how you can tell a happy biker by the bugs in his teeth. It's interesting, collecting heart rate data for each ride, with my new exercise watch. K and I were at Costco this week, and picked up a specialized biking backpack for $19.95 that has a water bladder inside, with a little nozzle that goes over the shoulder. The main idea was to get all the biking support junk (rain jacket, tools, snacks, etc) off the bike, but the water thing is pretty cool too. I tried it out today, and it works pretty well.

K and I took a walk along the Platte River Sunday afternoon, from the Nature Center down to the wildlife preserve, round trip almost a mile. The bugs and cottonwood seeds had a real presence. I don't remember either of them being such a big deal. But the walk was fun and the sunset was very peaceful. We even saw a beaver swimming in the reeds in a shallow spot.

Memorial Day

Here's some information on Memorial Day that I found online, while taking a few moments this morning to observe this special day, before getting ready for a bike ride down the Platte River with Ken. We met K and Freddie at Racines for lunch, then rode down to the light rail station, and cheated by hitching a ride back to Littleton. That was a really nice option for a hot day, to avoid the long uphill ride home on a full stomach! Here are some pictures. Watch out for the three movies - they're big! You'll spot them as the second of a pair of apparently repeated pictures. K asked me to make more water movies, after seeing the one I made of the waterfall in Waterton Canyon on Saturday.

Rode up to Bear Creek Dam on Sunday. Was intending to ride with the guys, but missed them by a few minutes, and spent the entire ride trying to catch up. I guess that was good exercise for the heart, which is a lot of the reason I've gotten back into walking and bike riding. My exercise watch recorded a new peak at 90% of my recommended max rate. So we'll call that a good thing, since it was just a peak...

Ken and I rode up Waterton Canyon for the first time, on Saturday. I wasn't sure about my skinny wheel road bike, so I borrowed Freddie's bike for the ride. I think the lower part, up to the dam, would've been fine with my bike, but the rocky trail heading up into the woods definitely required a trail bike. We didn't get far, just to the first bench, but it was enough to get a sense of what kind of riding equipment I would need, if I wanted to venture off the flatland trails I've been enjoying the past year. We celebrated surviving our first "mountain" ride, by meeting the girls for lunch at Hacienda Colorado, and splurging on a Loco Sundae for dessert, splitting that monstrous dish four ways.

We had quite a crowd for our regular Thursday afternoon Lee Gulch bike ride.

More Rides

Rode on Thursday with the guys and Friday with Ken this week. Loved the new wrist GPS, which lets me review cardio and other data from each ride. This'll be helpful in knowing how hard I'm pushing myself. Not to mention the fun gadget factor...

Ride 'til you drop

I've been a bike riding demon this week. I rode the Lee Gulch loop on Wednesday evening, and had a beautiful ride, with just a few raindrops from a passing T-storm. Then we did the usual Thursday afternoon ride, and it was also great weather and company. We took advantage of a special opportunity to ride Friday afternoon. Saturday came knocking with beautiful weather and a mid-day ride to the Bear Creek Dam. K and I drove downtown on Saturday afternoon, for spaghetti dinner at OSF and a visit to REI for their big anniversary sale. They'd discounted the Garmin Forerunner 305 by almost half, which made it pretty much irresistible. I got a few other riding goodies too, including a safety helmet, which I've been avoiding for years, but after a little event with a bus and a tree on Saturday morning, I decided I'd better stop fighting and get one. Naturally, I had to go riding today too, just to try out everything. Ken and I took a leisurely (he disagrees :-) ride out to Bear Creek Dam. It was his first experience with this route, and our longest ride together to date - 30.5 miles.

Kidney Class

K and I went to Kidney transplant class on Tuesday afternoon, and dialysis class on Wednesday morning. Our neighbors came for moral support. We learned about Fistulas, and how they create one intentionally in the forearm, to assist with the hemodialysis process. We learned a little about peritoneal dialysis. We learned that a transplant is far more preferable than either kind of dialysis. We even learned that there are classes for learning (or getting up the nerve) to ask friends and family about the possibility of donating a kidney for a transplant. We learned that doing nothing would have fatal consequences. Here's a link to the NIH writeup on Chronic Kidney Disease. Having gone to the classes, she's now on track to proceed to the next steps in the process. As always, K was thinking ahead, and kept us entertained with a trip to the Museum of Nature and Science after the Tuesday class.

The usual Thursday afternoon Lee Gulch / Chatfield / Platte bike ride was well supported by nice weather. Here's a pic from one of the few moments when everyone was behind me... coming down the hill off Chatfield Dam. As usual, we had a great dinner afterwards at Platte River Bar and Grille.

I rode along as safety pilot with Mike on Friday afternoon, flying out of Front Range airport. It was just a bit bumpy for me, but I survived long enough for him to make it through the six instrument approaches he needed for his IFR currency.

Saturday started out with another ride to Bear Creek Dam with the guys from work. After that, K and I ran a few errands, picked up some meds at Kaiser, then took up temporary residence at Costco, long enough to load up on a pile of groceries, and pick out some new T-Mobile phones. I settled on a Blackberry Pearl and we got K a nice Nokia 6133 flip phone. Oh, and while we were at it, I picked out a new Dell computer to replace my desktop that's never worked quite right, after being slammed around by United Parcel Service, and even after replacing several major components. I think I sprained my wrist, trying to wrestle the big box into the back seat of K's car. The monitor on this thing is huge. If a screen can be too big, I think this might be the one.

K had the idea we should go to the Denver Zoo on Sunday. It was a beautiful day for it. As always, we were taken with the Lions and Tigers and Leopards. The giraffes were pretty cool, too. I think we had almost as much fun watching the kids going ga-ga over all the stuffed animals in the gift shop.

Bear Creek

What a difference a week makes. Last weekend we were out playing with the results of yet another snowfall. This week, the TV weather forecast called for a huge snowstorm on Friday, but it never materialized, at least not here in our area. They say it "wiggled by to the South." Instead, we've got a delightful weekend to enjoy.

This is so cool: Google recently introduced their "My Maps" feature, and I used it to capture the route of our regular Thursday afternoon Lee Gulch bike ride, an 18 mile loop. What makes this cooler than just posting a map image, is that you can zoom in and pan around on the map, and switch to satellite view to see all the geographical features. Fun!

I went on a bike ride on Sunday morning. This route was new to me - out to Bear Creek Dam and back, 33 miles round trip. This panorama picture is from on top of the dam - it's very wide, so you may have to do some scrolling to see it all. I find it truly amazing that, not unlike when flying somewhere, there was a headwind going both ways.

Snow Again

We got another 2-3 inches of snow last night. KD and I walked to breakfast at Neighborhood Grille, previously known as Boulevard Grille. Nice people, and a perfect little breakfast of silver dollar pancakes, a scrambled egg, and bacon. After I got home, I looked outside, and noticed our neighbor's dog Kona sprawled out in the snow, perkily looking around to keep an eye on the neighborhood. He clearly just plain loves the snow.

Spring Snow

We woke up to a light layer of Spring snow this morning. It's been drizzly and freezing so far this weekend, which caused JB to cancel our IFR practice flight on Friday morning. There's nothing like a little freezing rain, to put the big damper on our plans. K and I had gone out for breakfast at the Original Pancake House, so we took advantage of our unexpected free time together, to run a few errands.

When we got home, I fired up Flight Simulator X, and attempted the Yakutat challenge again. It's the FSX mission where you have a short hop from Burwash, Canada, over the coastal mountain range to Yakutat, Alaska, with an ILS approach at the end, and a few twists thrown into the mix, just for fun. This time I succeeded in getting the King Air on the ground in one piece, even with a failed vacuum system, the ground ATC radar out of service, the left engine on fire and not producing power, at night in low overcast and snow, and a black bear on the runway. What a great little program, for practicing my flying skills!

Lonely Ride

I did the usual Thursday afternoon bike ride without the guys. There was some talk about skipping the ride, due to cold (47F) temperature and threat of showers, but was I raring to go anyway, and it sounded like at least a couple of them were going. I got down to our usual meeting place a few minutes late, and didn't see anyone, so I took off and tried to catch up with them, racing around our 18 mile circuit, up Lee Gulch, along the Highline Canal and C-470, up and down the Chatfield Dam, and down the Platte River. About a mile from the end, my cell phone rang, and it was Dave - the three of them had just arrived at the Platte River Bar and Grille, after riding the entire circuit just behind me. They'd decided to skip doing the dam, so they beat me to the end. The last couple miles were cold and challenging with a good headwind. It was really nice to bask in the heat of those nice infrared heaters, especially the one right over our table!

Biking, Willow Hacking

Ken and I went for a bike ride this morning, out to Chatfield dam and back, 17 miles or so. We weren't quite ready to tackle climbing the front of the dam yet, so we took the back way up, then zoomed down the front, and headed back down the Platte River. We stopped for lunch at Panera Bread - their half sandwich/soup combo is perfect.

I thought I was going to just relax and maybe take a nap afterwards, but Ken's a real energizer. He remembered that I'd mentioned I wanted to rip out one of our two arctic willows, and came back up with a wheelbarrow full of tools to help get me going. We spent several hours hacking away at that 60-pound monster with a reciprocating saw, finally getting down to the roots under the stump, and finished with just a hole in the ground, which I refilled with the dirt we'd taken out, and covered up with some weed barrier. That was an amazing accomplishment -- I've been wanting to do that for several years. We celebrated by going out for dinner, then watched "The Dresden Files", a really fun show for taking our minds off anything important.

March goes out with a splat

It was feeling a lot like Spring on Tuesday, warm and sunny, as Roger and I got out for an afternoon of Tennis. It was a little too blustery for me, so we just batted the ball around, instead of trying to play our usual sets. It felt good to get out and swing a racket around in my usual wild uncontrolled manner. Then the reality of the Winter - Spring transition set in, and we got half a foot of snow on Wednesday, which pretty much ruled out the usual Thursday bike ride after work - too much goop still on the trails, and just a little too cold, at 40 degrees. So I wandered into the Buck Center for a half hour of riding on the exercise bike, and make good use of the water facilities. It's always a treat, to sit out in their jacuzzi, catching big soft snowflakes on my tongue. I found myself wondering how our G1000/TwinStar instructor was faring, on his flight back from Toronto.

I've posted a bunch of March photos at our Picasaweb photo gallery...

The story this week about the Littleton man biking along the Platte River was just a little too scary and close to home. He was on the same path I like to ride downtown, and came upon a 60 pound rock that some really stupid and malicious teenagers had dragged out into the middle of the path. The rock was just into the shadow of the Belleview Ave bridge, so he never saw it. He hit it squarely, and it stopped his bike cold, breaking the frame, and throwing him over the handlebars onto the concrete path. I think he survived with a broken collarbone and a scratched helmet. The article I read quoted him as saying he's biked thousands of miles, all around the world, and never seen anything like this. I guess this may be a sign that I need to get myself a biking helmet. I'd been thinking I would get one, as soon as I dared to venture up into the mountain biking territories, where the trails are steep and rocky, and it would be more necessary. But it seems I may already need one, even for those nice flat bike paths around town.

Ground School

On the lighter side, I attended an all day ground school at the flying club today. It was a nice rainy day - perfect for ground school. The morning was dedicated to the new G1000 glass instrument panel that we're starting to see in our new planes. I mentioned to the instructor that I'd been playing with the G1000 glass panel in the Microsoft Flight Simulator X software that I gave myself for Christmas last year, so then he went and appointed me the official simulator pilot, and had me demo the capabilities -- with his help, and the kibitzing of the 25 other students in the class. Man, was that a humbling experience, having all my instrument flying skills laid bare in front of all those other pilots and instructors.

The afternoon was dedicated to learning about the newest plane in our fleet, a Diamond DA-42 Twin Star, which has two turbocharged *diesel* engines, and a G1000 panel. I'm hoping to expand my skills, and include a checkout in the DA-42 in this year's list of fun things to do. The instructor mentioned that he was looking for a rider/student to share expenses for a flight to Toronto later in the week. That would've added perhaps 15 hours of multi-engine, G1000, TwinStar time to my logbook. I was so very tempted, but couldn't convince myself to go for it.

Back to Biking

It's finally warmed up enough to melt most of the snow around here. I've ventured out for a few walks, and more recently bike rides, and am looking forward to more of them throughout the year. Yesterday afternoon was the first ride of the year with "the guys" from work. They all go mountain biking on other days, so they're in much better shape, and I really struggle to keep up with them. I was so worn out by the time we got to the Chatfield dam, I had to skip it and head for the finish line instead. The after-ride dinner at the Platte River Bar and Grille capped it off nicely, with awesome fish tacos and fun company.

K's kidney function is down to around 15-20% these days. We're scheduled to attend a couple of kidney-related classes in a few weeks - one about dialysis, and the other about transplants. The good news, if there is any, is that she's been told she's a universal recipient, so she can accept a kidney from almost anyone.

St Paddy's Weekend

Spring is definitely 'round the corner. Ken and I went for a long overdue walk yesterday morning. It was a beautiful sunny day that started out a bit cool and warmed up nicely by the time we were done. The pic is of a new house being constructed where Windermere St meets the Highline Canal. We covered about six miles in a couple of hours, ending up at "The Egg and I" in Highlands Ranch. K and Freddie met us there for an awesome breakfast, then gave us a welcome ride home. I spent the rest of the afternoon hacking away at two arctic willows in our front yard, both of which had grown way too large. I took them all the way to the ground, and in the process, gave myself a nasty blister on my thumb from squeezing those clippers just a few hundred times too many.

Saturday night, I was careful to wear some green to our neighbor's St. Patrick's Day dinner/poker party with their extended family. She made corned beef, cabbage, potatoes - all delicious! Then they taught us greenhorns how to play Texas Hold 'Em. I generally don't gamble, but this was mostly a social event, so I went along with it, anteing up the $10 each, for a stake of chips. I went through my entire stake in practically no time, or so it seemed. Interestingly enough, K went bust on the same hand - when the nephew discovered he had a flush and bet his entire stake. I was clueless and thought he was bluffing, so I went all-in with my remaining pittance, and that was that. It was a good reminder of why I don't gamble (the clueless part).

Ken and I bounced back this morning, and got out for a bike ride around our usual 15 mile loop, Lee Gulch to C-470 to the Platte River trail to downtown Littleton and home. We saw a little snow still in the shadows, but not much, and the trail was clear all the way. We stopped for breakfast at Panera Bread in Aspen Grove. You're probably getting a sense of my general approach to outings - I like "destination" walks and rides :-)

The Shack

We launched our first Atlas V of the year on Thursday - with 5 separate payloads! See the writeup on spaceflightnow. It was the first time I can remember having multiple satellites - there were five of them, plus a sixth "mass simulator" (a big do-nothing brick that weighs the same as a satellite) which could've been a satellite, but no one signed up for that slot. The satellites were released one at a time, over a 40 minute period, so we had to wait extra long this time, until we knew for sure that we'd had a successful flight.

Ken and I walked on Friday, rode bikes on Saturday, and walked again on Monday. It felt really good to get out, and the weather was cooperative, too. We were disappointed yesterday to find that Tony's Deli at Mineral and Broadway had closed, but we enjoyed our lunches at the nearby sports bar "The Shack" instead - great burgers! Sad news - we learned Sunday that a dead fox was found in our neighbor's front yard. The police had come and bagged it, in preparation for animal control to remove it during the week. We looked in the bag, and it was our dear friend the fox who had visited our deck. We think she was probably hit by a car. So sad. We'll have a difficult time breaking our habit of occasionally checking our deck for another delightful visit from this friend.

Out for a walk

I walked down to the Buck Center on Saturday - that's me at the "Official Cupola Cam Greeting Site", picture courtesy of my sister. It was a bit brisk out there, with the air temperature just below freezing, and with the breeze blowing, I was glad it was just a short walk. I used the exercycle to get my legs to remembering what it was like to be on a bicycle. The pool as always was fun, but the steam room was really great for my breathing, and the Jacuzzi did wonders for that sore spot in my back that's been bugging me all week. I walked over to IHOP and discovered they've closed the one on Littleton Blvd. It's disappointing to lose that walking destination, but it's also nice to have options - I headed over to Cafe Terracotta and met K for breakfast. We ran a few errands after breakfast, and even though we got home by noon, I felt like I'd already had a full day.

Dad and Adele returned safely to Florida from their month-long New York adventure. They were glad to be away from the big snowstorm there. He says her surgery was completely successful, and she's recovering well.

Foxy Kind of Morning

I wandered out this morning, to find just an inch of fresh snow from last night on the deck. I noticed some more fox tracks in the snow, leading to a small round melted spot in the corner, that suggested a little fox had been sleeping on our deck. The tracks led directly from the fox bed to our back door, then down the stairs off the deck. After waking up, the fox had come near the glass door to check us out, before leaving! That was a cool thought. It was a beautiful morning anyway, but that got me into an even better mood. A few minutes later, I looked out again, and noticed a rusty brown furry lump in the same corner. The fox had returned to continue her nap in the morning sun! It was worth waking K for this. She loved the idea of a fox feeling comfortable enough to sunbathe nearby. I'm afraid I captured far too many pictures of this event, which in the overall scheme of things probably isn't that big a deal, but it really made our day. I hope you enjoy the pictures too.

Friday Fox

K and I went for a walk along the South Platte River last Friday. It was nice to find the river trail all melted off and in good condition for a pleasant little walk.

I noticed a fox on our deck this morning, about the same time she saw me. She'd been sleeping on the last remnants of snow on the deck, and was rushing to hurry downstairs, but hesitated when she heard me exclaim, "What a beautiful fox!", which gave K time to come over and share the view. It was a nice way to start the Friday.

So... we did get 8 snows in 8 weeks, although we've had some warmer weather in between lately, and the massive accumulation has finally started to melt away. If it gets as warm as predicted this weekend, there's the possibility our local streets will be completely clear.

K's still dependent on oxygen, and her kidneys are still not doing well. Both of us have had stomach stuff going on this past few weeks, but not peanut butter poisoning, thankfully. The guys at work are talking about a bike ride on Sunday, but I doubt my street bike would make it through the patches of snow that are still making it difficult to navigate in places, so I'll probably pass.

6 in 6

This has to be an all-time record for the Denver area. Six snows in six weekends, back-to-back! Saturday morning's snow only left an inch or so of light fluffy stuff, which melted off the streets by the time our HOA annual and board meetings had finished at noon. Sunday was awesome - clear and sunny - it got warm enough to be able to comfortably soak up a little vitamin D on the deck. It didn't last, though. This morning it was 9 degrees, and I'm reading that the forecast is for snow on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week.

5 in 5 - Fox, Snow, Health

It's a beautiful day today, blue sky with no clouds in sight, and warming up through 45 degrees. I just watched a fox wander across our neighbor's back yard and into ours, disappearing onto the patio under our deck. They're such beautiful wild animals. Speaking of the wild, however, the news article about a mountain lion attack in California on Thursday was unsettling. It happened not far from where Otamay lives, and Mikele is visiting right now. I hope they're being careful to keep their eyes open when they're out walking. Probably they wouldn't have a problem, since between them they have four dogs that would scare most anything away.

I posted some new neighborhood snow pics from two weekends ago at http://picasaweb.google.com/shushing3/0114Snow

I guess I've fallen off the riding/walking exercise wagon, after all these weekend snowfalls. I still do my stretching and minimal exercises in the mornings, but I've let the inconvenience of walking through snow, slush, and ice in subfreezing temperatures and gusty winds, keep me from my appointed rounds for the past several weekends. We've had five weekends in a row of significant snow, and just about all that time it's been below freezing. I was glad to have the new snowblower last Sunday, after the forecast 1-2 inches of snow accumulation turned into an actual 9-12 inches. This snowy weather pattern is very unusual for here. And there's more snow forecast for tomorrow, and then again later in the week. Yikes! It must be Winter! Global warming... bah, humbug!

Work's been busy - supporting our existing software installations, talking to our new partners, and starting some new projects. I'm finally getting to work/play with some Linux systems, although we're on a pretty tight schedule, so it's not the relaxed kind of playing we all yearn for. I won't say this is a new lesson, but I've quickly relearned the old "unix is not unix" lesson with regards to Linux. Red Hat and SUSE present quite different interfaces to the system admin. I hope our developers won't see as much difference between them, or we'll never get done in time.

K's been dizzy, nauseous, and out of breath a lot, the past few weeks. Her pulse has been low - in the 40s - and BP has been high. It's probably due to a medication switch, but the symptoms are real and troubling, even if the cause might be known. The cardiology office just called to offer her an earlier appointment, which she accepted.

Dad says Adele's surgery went well yesterday. It was bigger than they thought, so they couldn't do the arthroscopic approach. They say she'll be recovering in the hospital for five days. Here's the info for the hospital:

  Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

  1275 York Avenue

  New York, NY 10021

  212-639-2000

Also see http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/5365.cfm

And that's all for now, folks...
-

3 snows in 3 weeks

We had another gorgeous sunny day today, reflecting off the bright white landscape, after getting yet another dump of snow on Friday. I spent the day working from home, since the news was reporting that the roads were miserable. After three major snowfalls in as many weeks, I'm certainly tired of hefting snow and ice from the driveway and paths, and throwing it into the yard. The News is reporting that this has been the most snow in repeated snowfalls in a such a short time, since 1913.

Our neighbor Mika got tired of all the shoveling, and ordered an Ariens model 5524E Sno Thro from Home Depot. We and 3 other neighbors split the cost with her, which made the cost of this 5.5 HP compact snow removal device affordable. I spent some time with it today, going over our driveway, and knocking down strategic parts of the big berms alongside the driveway, and in the street, that had grown to almost my height. The results were very gratifying. I looked up "rewarding" in the Webster thesaurus, and almost every word they suggested seemed appropriate: cheering, comforting, encouraging, fulfilling, gladdening, gratifying, heartening, rewarding, satisfying, affecting, inspiring, moving, edifying, elevating, uplifting, exciting, exhilarating, rousing, stimulating, thrilling, pleasing. Oh, yeah!

New Year's Walk

Ken and I took a (short?!) New Year's Day walk down to mail some letters and pick up some milk, then head back home via the Platte River and Lee Gulch trails. We found it a somewhat more strenuous than usual walk, since for most of the way, every step was in crunchy snow that gave way to the layer a few inches below it. Then, once we found the milk at the Phillips 66 station on Santa Fe, we found ourselves bushwacking our way through quite a lot of deep virgin snow as we took a "shortcut" to the Platte River from where we were through Hudson Gardens. We came out at the Oasis on the Platte. It was a beautiful day for a walk, though, and as tired as we were afterwards, we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Fox Snow Bed

K thought she saw a fox on the deck last night. It turns out, she did. They must've been sleeping in a little bed they'd made in the deep snow at the far corner of the deck. Not seeing any fox prints in the deck snow, we were confused about how they got down off the deck, but when we went down on the patio, there were definitely fox prints in the snow on the deck stairs. Tricky little devil. And oh by the way, what a breathtaking view we got from the patio! This is the first time this year that we've checked out the view of the snow from down there. This photo shows the little fox hole in the corner of the deck.

Gorgeous Day

We woke up to a gorgeous blue sky, and bright bright white snow on the ground - I needed sunglasses to just look outside. We couldn't ask for a more beautiful day. Even though I'd gotten most of the snow off the driveway last night, I spent some more time nibbling away at the excess frozen-on layer this afternoon. Then Ken saw me, and came by to help chip away at the really serious glacier in the gutter, with his big heavy post hold digger. We made great some progress.

Even More Snow

We're getting another dump of snow! This new storm is supposed to deliver 18-30 inches to the Denver area, and so far we've seen almost a foot. We slept in late this morning, another lazy day in this wonderful holiday week off that I get from work. Then we headed out for a little adventure in the snow. We ran a few errands, then stopped by the Honda dealer, to try out their new 2007 CRV on a serious snow day. Our salesman friend was up for it, but was busy with another customer, so he dropped the keys and magnetic license plate in my hand, and said "good luck finding it out there - should be on the East side of the building, or maybe across the street at the high school." Sure enough, all the cars were starting to look a lot alike, with several inches of snow frosting on them. We tromped around the entire parking lot in the heavy snowfall looking for it, then tried the high school, and still didn't find it. We enjoyed the romp in the heavily falling snow, though. With a little help, the demo CRV was found parked way down at the end of the street, and we were on our way. We motored over to the Starbucks a few miles away, taking the scenic route via Rio Grande Drive, one of the more slippery frontage roads along the railroad tracks near downtown Littleton. I really liked the way the real-time four wheel drive and anti-lock brakes worked in the slippery conditions. One thing I did learn the hard way - when there's a bunch of snow on the roof, don't be playing with the switches on the ceiling! While we were sitting in the Starbucks parking lot, getting ready to head out on the rest of our test drive, I was looking for the light switch up on the ceiling, and instead found the sunroof actuator. I saw it start to open, and said, "uh, oh..." and shortly thereafter, several inches of snow dumped down on top of us! Luckily we were both in an adventurous mood, and laughed it off, as we climbed out of the car to shake ourselves off, and pull handfuls of snow out of the various places it had lodged in the car. The heated seats were a big bonus at this point, since they helped to dry the car's (and our) seats in record time. Overall, we were very happy with the performance and comfort.