excitement!

Dearest readers,

How is THIS for a scintillating, edge of your seat, come back again and again blog post ?

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TEDIOUS KEYBOARD TESTING:

why did some keys suddenly stop working on my crappy little Acer Aspire One netbook?


Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

does my Q key work? how about r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z?

e? e is a really important key, as any wheel of fortune fan can tell you.

123456789
!@#$%^&*()
QWERTYUIOP[]\
ASDFGHJKL;'
ZXCVBNM,./

okay, the stupid little piece of shit seems to be working better.

seems that unplugging it, removing the battery, holding down the power key for more than five seconds, then letting it sit for a few minutes without plugging it back in worked.

i wonder what will happen when i plug the battery back in. we'll see. trying that now.

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG.

now with with a/c unplugged, and running on battery power.

a/c is unplugged. can the quick brown fox still jump over the lazy dog? yes, evidently, it can.

now i'll restart and try this whole annoying bit of testing again.

Festive tofu!

I bought some Christmas-themed cookie cutters for $2 at Grocery Outlet, mostly because I wanted the star one.

Here is the unexpectedly festive (super firm) tofu that resulted in their first use!

Tofu stars!

Bluebird Kirkwood!

Curry in a Hurry!

SLC second dinner, after a long day of skiing and walking.

Unquestionably:

The absolute fucking worst Whole Foods hot bar I've ever seen. In Park City, Utah.

Fortunately, the skiing just down the road at Canyons was pretty great. Tomorrow is Snowbird, last night was Brighton.

Now getting hopefully delicious vegan food at Vertical Diner in SLC. WIZARD is WEAK!

French fries and peppers

Seems like a theme lately. Maybe it's winter comfort food?

food porn!

Time for some good ol' fashioned food porn. And, um, other stuff.

Chocolate dipped candied Meyer lemons (which J made.) Yes, we've decided that we do indeed think they are Meyers, or at least a hybrid with Meyers.

A tofu breakfast scramble at Orphan Breakfast House in Sacramento, with my mom, after my derm appointment. (All good!)

Skies over Lake Tahoe (on the Gun Barrel lift coming down from Heavenly.) Vertical feet skied today: 9,163. Vertical feet skied this season: 113,043.

Homemade vegan onion rings! (There were also delicious poblano pepper rings.)

Burgers at Simple Bliss vegan cafe in South Lake Tahoe. They were very tasty, but very little food for the money ($15 left, $14 right.) Lovely little place if you're eating out and vegan in South Lake Tahoe, but the prices are steep.

Chocolate dipped candied lemons!

The birds are blue!

Swamp soup!

And since i had an extra small half head of green cabbage, sauerkraut!

Skiing and sandwich!

I rarely make the images in this blog "extra large" but even doing this doesn't really show the gorgeous view you get at the top of the Ridge Run at Heavenly. The snow is a mixed bag, as it's been almost a month since a decent snowstorm, and it was somewhat crowded, but it was a solid day of skiing. I went up the California base lodge side, and skied all over the mountain, including the Stagecoach (Nevada) side, and the Gondola.

When I got home, despite the fact that I'm way early for National Grilled Cheese Day, I decided they probably don't much care about veganized versions anyway. This is open faced, but it ultimately got folded and cut. That's homemade sauerkraut on top, and fried anahiem peppers, veggie pups, daiya cheeze, and toasted sourdough. Solid comfort food for a ski day lunch!

eighteen years, seven months

The rope bracelet I've had on my right ankle almost nonstop since May 1995 finally broke last night:

I tied it on while about 75 feet up in a tree in Idyllwild, California, hanging parachutes for shade. Some of you know the whole story, some of you probably don't. I'm going to write more about it, but not here. You can ask me if you're interested.

The only time I took it off for any extended period of time in the last eighteen and a half years was a couple weeks in Fall 1995 when I had really bad poison ivy on that ankle. Since then, I've taken it off fewer than ten times, and then only to wash it / decontaminate it. (Many readers know my long, difficult history with poison ivy and poison oak.)

When I ski, I had to loosen it completely to get it up above my ski boot, so the knots didn't dig into my leg. When I went to do a court appearance or somewhere else where formal dress was expected or required, I made a calculated decision whether I was going to wear it on the outside or inside of my sock. Almost every time, I decided to wear it outside of the sock, the few exceptions including job interviews, and jury trials. I wore it on the outside of the sock for everything from outdoor activities to weddings to being in court.

Normal wear and tear, showering with it, getting it filthy hundreds and thousands of time, and loosening and tightening every time I took socks on or off finally did it in.

J and I are considering what kind of special end it might get. Suggestions are welcome!

Seems apropos that it would break now, up here in South Lake Tahoe.

World's most scenic Taco Bell?

Literally on the beach, in Pacifica, California.

Fancypants christmas morning breakfast!

Microwave vegan quiche!

Pacifica!

Our hotel is the sort of mustard yellow building in the bottom third of the screen, just off of the ocean:

With an ocean view. Pretty nice.

We had pretty good Burmese food in Daly City last night, but as I told E in an email, it was no Burma Superstar. More like Burma Young Upstart.

Today = hiking, and dinner at Millennium. Yum!

Winter gardening!

Most things survived unseasonably cold weather for Sacramento. I doubt the brussels sprouts will produce, but the radishes are showing fruit!

Empty slopes

At Kirkwood. Been so long since we had snow that the runs are getting pretty bare, but empty slopes, doing laps: hard to complain!

Snow biking on the Powerline Trail

Is harder than it looks.

More random vegan food porn

It just made a pretty picture.