Happy Toad Eating

The snow finally stopped, so I’ve been learning how to run a pool.  Not swimmable yet, but getting there.   To help manage the solar water heater on the roof, I’ve started instrumenting the house.  I put a weather station by the bird feeder so the birds can help me keep an eye on it:   

And the neighborhood cats keep an eye on the birds:

And I keep an eye on the mountains!  This is a view of our house from our neighbors deck across the street:

Nick came for a visit, on his way to a summer in CA:

We hiked 22 miles on his new 5 fingered shoes, including a trip to an observation deck at the top of an LDS building downtown:

The temple is closed to outsiders, but they have a model of it in a visitor’s center.  If you look close in the lower left, you will see 12 oxen under a basin used for proxy Baptisms, allowing after death Baptisms to relatives who never had a chance to learn the LDS gospel:

One of our hikes was up a mountain just north our house.  It was a beautiful sunny day, so sunglasses were out in full force:

The snow slowed us down about 5 miles in:

The 5 fingered shoes require periodic stops to thaw out the toes:

Here is another toe thawing strategy Nick tried:

Nick found a happy toady, and he was hungry:

But the toad remained happy even in ‘face’ of almost certain death.    So he let him go.   

We invented bouncy ball on a Congo drum chess:

 

We had a nice visit with Tim, Abby, and Luke:

As well as a visit from friend Philadelphia Helen:

Helen’s co-worker Pega showed us wonderful swimming pool on top of a hotel at Alta, one of the nearby ski resorts:

For you iphone users, you gotta try Microsoft’s PhotoSynth app.  It allows you to easily create 3d’ish panoramas.   Here are a couple:

•  Living room 
•  Backyard 

Here are the less exciting but still fun 2d versions:

Bruce

8 foot Muenster cheese

We had a couple of pretty snowfalls this month:

It melted fast.   Here the camera caught snow falling from the power line:

Our backyard is remarkably private.  This is one of the few places in town I found where you can see it, about 3 miles away.   You need a high res monitor, middle, 1/3 from the left:

Power lines do have one nice feature (other than delivering power I suppose) … birds like them:

California Quail is pretty common all around Salt Lake:

This bird is admiring a jet landing at the SLC airport, upper right:

We setup a motion activated night camera to inventory our various nighttime visitors.   Helen posted a 2 minute picture video here:

 http://www.youtube.com/user/mollybloom756

The raccoon keeps stealing the cat food … he is insatiable!  We switched to daytime only cat food, to discourage hoards of midnight masked bandits.

Aya came for a weekend visit:

She brought her friend Aria.  They made me delete the music video I took of their drum/ukulele concert:

This is Helen’s office … note the cactus garden … they are everywhere!

Aria only brought thin/low shoes, so I gave her a tour of some nice snowbanks:

Se was happy to get back to dry land:

This morning the sunrise was really pretty on the Kennecott open pit copper mine across the valley (2002 Olympic Speed skating oval in the lower right):

In 100+ years, it (the mine, not the oval) has produced more copper than any other mine (over $1 billion a year of various metals), is also the deepest open pit mine in the world at 3/4 mile deep.

Here are a few more scenic photos from our backyard:

I’m having fun hiking up nearby trails.  I coaxed Helen up one last weekend:

I’ll close with a challenge and a mystery photo.   The challenge is to beat this 8 foot Muenster cheese string (I’m standing on the kitchen counter):

The mystery photo:

Bruce

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Photo mystery: 

Actually, I’m not sure what it is either.  I found it in our backyard, rotated 90 degrees, hanging on a spider web.  My best guess is it was made by a dog loving, ice saw wielding, artistically gifted, ice sculpting spider.

Sexually aroused skyscraper

We got a new power pole installed near our back yard.  The old one was crooked and would spectacularly short wires in wind storms:

I took a 1/2 day vacation while the power was out and we walked up one of the trails that starts a few blocks from our house:

Helen enjoyed her month off.   She developed a habit of buying a few cactus whenever she ventured out, so we now have a fun collection:

The theory is we will have a hard time killing these cactus.  That theory doesn’t apply to this 20 year old Bonsai tree …

Helen bravely and lovingly cares for it.   I’m too scared to touch it.

We have a variety of animals visit our back yard.   There is a small family of deer that live between our house and an unfenced stretch of house next to us:

And this guy shows up every few days, but is very elusive.  Helen thinks he is feral, I think he is a neighbor’s cat who likes to watch birds around our bird feeders.   Helen is attempting to befriend it with goodies so she can ask him.

We went on a few bike rides, in search of a bike route to work without killer hills (no luck there):

Boris and Irena arrived last week to close on their house.   Their car and moving van came a few days later, along with their personal master plumber and carpenter from NH!   They are renovating the kitchen and bathrooms:

Boris and Helen try to keep them fed, a challenge after a long day of work:

This is Boris disapproving of Helen’s ‘flatten the meat’ instrument.   Unlike Boris, who has a kitchen implement for every conceivable occasion, like a meat hammer, we are minimalists who like to improvise:

Nick, Scott, and George are having a good time running Skitter from Costa Rica.  Nick has some photos here:

  http://picasaweb.google.com/livelily

And Scott has a fun blog of activities here:

  http://scott-travel.blogspot.com

I close this month with the standard ‘Helicopter landing on heads’ and ’sexually aroused skyscraper next to a fire’ photos:

Bruce

The Mormon Trail

We made it! We survived our cross-country, mid-Winter migration with some stress but minimal damage.   Icy roads and nasty viruses (I discovered you can develop Asthma late in life, given the right conditions), but I reckon that’s nothing compared to what the first Mormon’s dealt with when they migrated West. 

We stopped in MN to visit Zach, Tiffany,  and co-workers.  Z&T had the house in great shape, transforming the living room into a great computer/study area:

Mac and Cheese love the back yard, but they haven’t figured out MN cold and snow yet.  Zach plows them highways, but they sometimes overextend themselves and only make it part way back before their poor shivering bodies quit.    Zach then grabs his trusty slippers and dashes out on rescue missions:

Tiffany's slippers were smart slippers, choosing a sensible owner.  Zach’s slippers are ready for spring:

When it gets cold enough (in this case 20 below, before wind chill), Zach will just skip the slippers all together.  He loaded and started our car for us, as I was still a barely functioning wheezing Asthmatic:

Next stop was MT for a nice visit with Mom and Dad, and lots of fun visitors:

We joined the daily dog walk, here by the Yellowstone:

And I went to Kiwanis, where Dad did his weekly Medical tip:

Finally, we got to Salt Lake the night before we closed on the house.   The next morning, I did one billion signatures at the title company, then we got our first on site tour.   Turns out to be a really nice place, just like what we saw in the photos and videos:

The loan was processed by the next day, just as  the mover got there.   We set up our computer desks next to the windows, Helen’s a bit more adventurously close than mine:

The views of the city at night are just as amazing as the views of the mountains in the day:

We did this move at the peak of a busy IBM project I’ve been working on.    So I was happy to get the cable guy to get us our Internet fix right away:

As time permits, I’ve been having fun being a handyman again, fixing some minor electrical issues, replacing broken washer valves after waking up to a wet garage, and here sawing off the fridge door handle (it was loose, but wouldn’t come off like it should … I found a new one on the internets):

Helen’s parents came for a visit last weekend and decided right away to buy a small (1400 sq foot) bungalow about 15 minutes from our house:

They will be back next month to close.   They have their lake house in NH up for sale and just contacted a local downsizing specialist to help them sell stuff.   Helen decided to try renting her lake house:

  http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p370638

Within one week she has it booked for 5 weeks this summer!  

Bruce