jade Beach at Big Sur

Bear Valley and

... remembering how to ski.

Andrew and I left the Bay before dawn to get to Bear Valley sometime around 9. I immediately rediscovered that snow is quite slippery by falling in profound slow motion ... right on to my a**. We bought a pass for the cross-country sky trails and set out -- me on my new skis and Andrew on snowshoes. He had a distinct advantage because I haven't skied in 15 years, and really didn't know that much about it then. Additionally -- I waxed my skis ... so they really didn't work all that well. So we were pretty evenly matched in pace initially -- only occassionally did he have to wait for me.

I learned a few things ... however ... aside from the obvious truth that I am not in skiing shape. Waxing skis is a bit mysterious and difficult ... and begs for either training from some one who's done it, or twenty to thirty lifetimes of trial and error. I am a quick learn though. When my skis didn't perform as I expected -- I didn't give up -- I kept skiing on them until I was exhausted. At some point I actually stopped and adjusted my kick wax up in temperature and polished the glide surfaces of the skis again. Things improved ... I wasn't able to zip around like all those skate skiers .. but I was able to kick and glide, and climbing was still difficult, go figure.

It was a pretty awesome day. Overnight about a foot of snow fell -- adding to a foot or so that had recently fallen. Although it snowed all day, it was never hard, and the temperature was reasonably 22 or 25 degress F. or so. Even after it warmed up a bit -- my guess is it was resoundly below freezing.

I skied about 7 km, or 4 something miles on flat terrain. My first ski since 1994? and I skied 4 plus miles. I'm good with that. It took a while and we ended up stopping around noon-thirty to eat.

We had lunch here, at the grocery store in Bear Valley. Yum, but ... there wasn't enough.

It wasn't all that great of a day for nature photography, being all grey and snowing ... but maybe it was. The cloudyness was great, the amount of snow was huge, it was gorgeuos ... and it was good.

White Pelicans in Mayfield Slough

WildFlowers at McNee Ranch

We saw quite a few wildflowers on the hike in McNee Ranch State Park.







View the entire set.

Sobriety Checkpoint

Last night at about 10:50, I spun through the Burlingame PD's sobriety checkpoint on California Ave. at about 18 miles an hour. It was strange and odd. They didn't stop me or even seem to notice me.





This afternoon I rode out to San Carlos Airport and back on the Bay Trail and it was about 30 miles round trip. On the way back we took the frontage road from the Airport to Oracle and my Red-Headed Riding Buddy blew a tire. I had a spare that was not right, that bought him an additional 10 miles. At the bridge my Presta tube on his Schrader rim gave out at the valve, leaving him on foot. I rode to get a car and came back for him, cutting his trip down to about 23 for the day, and leaving me with about 28 all day.


Site of the Blowout.


The interesting bit is this; from my house the bridge is five miles, Oracle is ten, Holly street is fifteen, and where is twenty? Round trip, these are 10, 20, and 30 miles respectively.

Date: 17 March 2007
Mileage for the week: 85.54
March total: 245.23
Max: 29.8
On the Ipod: Neil Young: Rockin' the Free World

Another Day in Paradise.

Today was characterized primarily by time spent with my parents. With a 1:30 hair appointment, then an early dinner at Fernando's in San Mateo, it was a great day. If you are one of those people who might want to be jealous of those of us that live in California, today would be a good day to express your emotions. It was incredible out in Pacifica today, at least for a couple of hours. Everyone was out, not just the surfers. Surf's up. This photo is of Linda Mar.

This person is riding his bike backwards while sitting on the handlebars. During the hair appointment, the sun just went away, being changed to fog, leaving a bunch of people in shorts standing out in the cold. It was summer for a split second -- then it was winter again.

Here's a photo of the guitar's headstock veneer being glued into place on the neck blank. This is not the clamping technique mentioned in the book.

Here's the guitar's neck after yet another -- albeit short -- day at the project. The truss rod is now inserted into a routed slot in the neck and a tenon exists to attach to the body of the guitar. I added the Zebrawood veneer for the head and trimmed everything. I think I am about ready to carve the neck.

Nah, silly, that's my mother working a puzzle with her new do.