Survived Another Commute

I decided to keep riding my bike to work each day. Rode in again this morning but I've heard it is supposed to rain on my way back. That should be fun. I've got to admit that the fun of riding to and from work each day is definitely addicting. I'm much more awake, if not a little sweaty, in the morning and able to relax a little as I dodge tons of moving steel on the way home. My greatest gripe though is the large amount of glass thrown by the numerous drunks that inhabit this town. Unfortunately, Carson City attracts a lot of scummy people that love to show their trashy lack of intelligence by throwing debris onto the roads, leaving large dogs to roam around, and piles of junk in their yards. Anyway, here are some pics that I took on my way home.

The sadness of Dilbertville in Cubicland

One of the problems with working where I do is the cubicle set up. It is loud, irritating, and pretty much adds to the drudgery around here. The moral is some of the lowest I've seen and I've seen some pretty bad places. There are only about seven people under 50 in this office and they do anything they can to try and add some life to the place. Under the office's policy we are "prevented" from buying cakes for people's b-days and it is up to the individual having the b-day to bring in their own cake. What kind of horrible BS is that? And they wonder why no one wants to work here. Anyway, the young folks here have formed a sort of bond that has led to a rebellion of sorts. Part of that rebellion is to hold B-day surprises for people such as decorating their cubes and buying them cake and presents. Here are a couple of the recent b-day celebrations that have taken place. Viva la Revolucion!!

Even more snow pics

Went skiing again on Wednesday. The area was covered in about 18" of fresh powder. Started out great but got really chopped up by mid afternoon. As I'm a lousy skier on this stuff my knees were getting pretty worn out by the end of the day. The first shots are to show the amount of snow up on top of the Mt. Rose Highway. The last shots are pics I took while skiing the runs. In the ski shots the first one is showing the huge amount of people on the freshly groomed trails. Note the groomer still working the slopes. The next shot is of the fresh powder in Kit Carson Bowl. Then a shot of Mt. Rose in the distance. If you look at the bottom of the picture you can barely make out the ski lifts at the bottom of the hill. Then we go to a shot of a poor woman who went down hard in the chopped up stuff. Very difficult to ski this if you've never done it before. Last shot is looking down Sunrise Bowl into Washoe Lake. I still have problems on this hill for some reason. Must be the fact it looks like you could fall 5000' into the lake below if you crash. I have crashed here and I think I fell something closer to 5 feet.

Another House Report

Just thought I'd post some more pics of the house. Probably boring to most people but we think it's pretty cool how quickly they are putting everything up. Now we just have to sell the home we're in right now before they get it 100% done and we'll be all right.

And yet, another storm

Lots of snow falling this morning. Pretty cool to watch but the roads are a mess. Only going to get a couple of inches at most down here but a couple of feet is falling in the mountains. Can't wait until we can hit the slopes again. Anyway, here's even more snow pictures. Sure been a lot of them this year.

The house continues to grow and the snow continues to fall

Well, we are on our third continuous week of light snow, clouds, and cold. We got a couple inches over the weekend all added up. It was snowing so hard in the mountains on Saturday that we had to abandon our attempts at skiing at Mt. Rose. We couldn't see anything and it was coming down like crazy. Got up on Sunday morning and it was snowing again in Carson City and the mountains were hidden in a veil of gray snow clouds. So, ended up working on cleaning up the house in Carson. Oh, the joy and fun. Did get to buy a new shop vac though and went around sucking up spiders and webs in the garage. Die little suckers, die.

We also went by the house again to see how it was coming along. They had the roof framed in and the houses on either side are getting all framed in also. The darn snow was covering all the exposed wood. I'm hoping we don't have future drywall problems. I'm not thrilled about all the moisture on the framing, but what can you do? You can see the two story home starting to dominate the southern side of our place. That's going to be annoying I think. There's another two story to the south of us also but it will only be looking into one of our windows. Ahh, California style construction.

The White Stuff is Falling Again

Drive In



























Woke up in the middle of the night last night to a blizzard. Seems that Lake Tahoe is creating a lake effect snowfall that is dumping right down on top of our neighborhood. The low point in the Sierras is directly between us and Tahoe and the stuff was really coming down. Eight or so inches fell last night and did a good job of plugging up the roads. With only one 4x4 in the household Debra drove it and dropped me off at work. I love the white stuff though and am looking forward to a weekend of skiing! First two pics are the view from my office window and the last two are my drive in this morning. Go Snow!

Feline Antics

Our cats are professionals at keeping us up at night. They have a certain pattern which they love to follow to lull us into a sense of complacency right before striking out to disrupt, if not outright destroy, our sleep cycle. The routine is predictable but we still fall for it time and time again. It's easy to thwart the looming attack, but like the French facing the Germans in the early part of WWII we are always content to believe our small line of defenses will hold them back. Speaking of France, our defensive system is quite similar. But, before we get to that point let me explain the battlefield. Key areas of concern involve the large sliding glass window with its plastic vertical blinds, the bed itself with it's down comforter covered in a noisy wine colored material, the hallway with its long runway for gaining speed, and the kitchen with its myriad of noise making devices ready to produce lots of kitty fun. Anyway, back to France. Like France we hardly ever take the initiative and actually do something before it is too late. Yes, we do have minor defenses such as the wall of pillows stacked each night along the blinds to help limit access to their noisy rattling, shutting doors somewhat to limit the speed of the kitties, and trying to put away the more obvious fun items to knock onto the floor. So, like the French we have a lousy, weak attempt at first line defense that the kitties will be sure to blitzkrieg over as if they don't really exist. If we were to take the initiative and place the kitties in a secure room we could probably stop all chances of their attacking our sleep, but like the French, night after night we convince ourselves the kitties will be thwarted by our weak attempts at placation and defense. The kitties attack capabilities consist of running through the blinds creating a horrible ruckus of plastic blades crashing against one another. If done right this creates a sound similar to Freddy from Nightmare on Elm street crashing through the glass door to slice open our chests and to rip our still beating hearts out so we can stare in horror until life fades from our eyes. Muffin is especially good at this technique. A second operation involves their chasing, wrestling, and assaulting one another up and down the hallway creating a sound of two wolverines attempting to rip each others throats apart. But, you must understand that this is a ruse to prevent us from understanding their true objective. It's more like a training maneuver for them. Lots of smoke and fake fire but little harm. Their true objective is to keep us up, wondering when the attack is going to come, shaking in our beds expecting little claws and teeth to rise up from underneath to pierce our skin and cover our sheets in a fine line of bloody drops. Brilliant maneuver on their part if I may say so. Another commonly used tactic involves locating large, often fragile, items hanging precariously close to the edge of countertops and tables. Upon their knowing we are finally entering a deep REM sleep they will send the item crashing onto the lino floor below to bring a horrendous crash and resounding echoes flying into the master bedroom. The net result is usually our jumping out of bed, or at least being shocked and awaken in a cold sweat, expecting the roof to be collapsing down upon our heads. They love this one but only deploy it at the most opportune times. They are also experts at guerilla warfare and special ops tactics. A more common and easily provided example utilizes the dreaded "HAIRBALL". This weapon is deployed with a horrible coughing, retching, gurgling sound that pierces the soul and sends the victims who happen to hear into shivers in their bed. The most insidious part of the whole process involves the leaving of a carpet mine to just wait until an unsuspecting individual gets up in the middle of the night to step upon the gooey mix of hair, food, and water. The result is predictable as the mine squishes up between the victim's toes to lodge solidly. The victim often dances around screaming something like "disgusting", "oh my god, gross" or other more penetrating language we shall not mention here.

Ah yes, they look so cute in the pictures. Harmless, innocent. . .how could someone not love them? Just like the German's in 1939. Well dressed, well kept, well organized. But, underneath sharp teeth and claws ready to sprint out and destroy yet another night of blissful sleep to turn their prey into walking zombies for another day. Thank god for coffee.

Commuting to Work by Bike in Carson City

I decided to start biking to work again after a long layoff from it. I used to love doing it but the traffic and lousy roads (lots of glass from the trashy population pitching their liquor bottles out the window of their cars) have kept me resisting it somewhat. One of the ladies here at work commutes about 95% of the time and has been harrassing me so much that I decided to get off my rear end and start up again. My old commuter bike was a Cannodale 2000 with a Lefty shock. The brakes died though and I have to do about 500.00 in upgrades to make it adaptable for new brakes. Since I don't have the money right now I'm riding my trail bike. It's like riding an underpowered Lincoln Towncar. Lots of comfort on the bumps but very slow on the go. But, what the heck. It works. Here are some shots of me coming home last night. Notice the large storm clouds. It was breezy and 37 degrees out with light snow now and again. I was so bundled up though that the only thing that was bothering me was my bladder being overfilled.

Our Future Home is Being Framed

After skiing on Sunday we cruised by our future home to see how it was coming along and to take some pics of it. The wind was howling with yet another snow storm rocking in over the mountains so the entire structure was leaning slightly to the right. Looks pretty scarey but I'm sure they'll straighten it out all right. As can be seen in the picture, there isn't a lot of space between the homes. This is something that unfortunately has become all too common in the more affordable Reno homes on the south side of the city. We looked at homes with larger lots and the prices jump 200 grand easily. Also, as can be seen in the first picture, the house to our right is two story and will be looking right over our home. The good news is that the majority of the home is lined up with our garage and not the main part of the home so they won't be looking down into our home directly. Also leaves 1/2 our home exposed to the light which will be really nice in the winter. Only ten feet between the homes. Tight! I know Debra would have liked a home on better land as far as space and location, but with the prices the way they are right now in Reno and Carson (at least in the areas we want to live in) it wasn't possible at this time. We're hoping we can sell in three to five years and move up to a larger lot somewhere. Anyway, here's the pics. First shot is Debra standing in the garage with the walls leaning to the right. Note the two story home on the left. Second shot is Debra walking in the garage. It is a 3 car tandem which will provide us with a great workspace and bike storage area. The 3rd shot is the view from the master bedroom. There will be a fence 25 foot out and more homes where you can see the pads being put in. We should still be able to see the mountains though. Last shot is Debra standing in the living room. Lots of big windows along this side.

Skiing and Wine

Debra and decided to see how much we could pack into one day of fun and excitement. So, Wednesday morning we woke up and decided the beautiful weather just needed be taken advantage of. We went to Mt. Rose Ski Resort first so we could take some private lessons to help tweak our skiing a little to improve our speed and abilities. The instructor was first class and helped us out quite a bit by the end of the lesson. We were dropping down the mountain faster and smoother than before and I could tell that Debra's confidence was up quite a bit on the steep stuff. We were very happy with Reinier (the instructor) and have nothign but good things to say about the time he spent with us. About 11:30 we decided to head over to El Dorado County and Amador County to hit some wineries, pick up some wine from our wine club, and then get a good Italian style meal before coming back to Carson City. The weather in California was perfect. Warm, sunny, and all the plants are starting to really green up. Being a Wednesday, there was almost no one down there and it was fun to look around without the normal groups of people wandering around the area. This area is known for its high quality Zinfandel Wines and there truely are some great ones in the area. We ended the day with some great food and then made the trip back to good ol' Carson. Yeah.

Dad, if you are reading this we got you two bottles of Zinzabar.