We bouldered at the Sads today -- lots of attempts but no glory on 'Molly', but good efforts and climbing by all. Even Zoe took the cue and crawled up some slabs. She also used some of the excellent tuff pockets to stand up. She's climbing before walking!
Thanks to Aunt Christa for spotting!
We drove to the Eureka Dunes in Death Valley. Death Valley Road was a bit snowy, but not too bad and we made the trip to the foot of the dunes fairly quickly. The road, despite being dirt for the final part, is very flat and once you get to the base of the dunes there's even an outhouse and picnic tables -- deluxe! As soon as we got there an F-18 buzzed the dunes
With Christa as Zoe-Sherpa, we all headed to what looked like the highest dune peak and hung out for a while. 
We jumped off the top
and discovered that Zoe loves to scoot herself down the dunes. 
Carrying her back up can be a bit tiring though. As Chloe slid down the dunes next to her, she triggered some of the famous "Booming" noises in the dunes.
From the top, we found a better place to jump and all took turns getting sandy
I landed badly and ended up with an ear full of sand
After a little more Zoe sand scooting, we headed back to the car
On the drive back, the CHP were dealing with a truck that had flipped over in the narrows. The truck was upside down in the ditch. There was snow on the road, so they probably just took the turn too fast.
Back at the Trees Motel, we split up and I headed up to the Buttermilks for a quick session in which I got shut down on Saigon AGAIN.
We dragged ZZN up to the Happy Boulders today, where Christa and Christine got a taste of bouldering and the lovely scene in the tablelands. Zoe enjoyed crawling along the rocks, playing with mini snowballs (and eating them) and picking up rocks.
I got flummoxed by Serengheti, despite doing it easily four years ago, and then we headed up the hill to get bewildered by 'Cueball' and finally ended up on Rio's Arete -- one of my favorites in the happys. Chloe was less enamored of it because she favors less technical thuggish climbs than I do, but she put in a good effort
After bouldering, we looked for the tablelands petroglyphs but gave up when we discovered that the road was covered in snow.
We had dinner and a pitcher of beer from Mammoth Mountain Brewing at a pizza joint in town. Bishop isn't exactly an epicurean wonderland, but pizza and beer are a pretty good cap to a day of bouldering.
We drove to Bishop today on mostly clear roads (89 was a little snowy out of south lake) and arrived in bishop around 3:30 ish. After checking into hotels, we walked
to Wilson's(awesome staff, not so great prices) to ogles shoes and laugh at their sale prices.
From there, it was a trip to Las Palmas for carne etc and Zoe's customary coveting and "ee, ee, ee"ing at the corona bottles
We also discovered that she likes sucking on lemon slices, despite making a very sour face 
I'm always amazed by the non-deals offered at MountainGear. Here we are in one of the worst holiday seasons for retailers in recent memory, and they are offering... half off overnight shipping? Mountain gear is a good shop with an excellent selection, but their "deals" are laughable. Sierra trading post is offering 20% off coupons left and right, and Mgear is offering us not-quite-free-shipping? pfft
A few weeks ago Chloe discovered a small nursery in a very un-commercial part of Montclair. It's called the Thornhill Nursery, and occupies a redwood shaded plot of land with a stream and a bridge. For months I've been searching for nurseries that stock interesting subtropicals, to no avail. Customers don't seem to be interested in them, so stores don't stock them. Some place can special order them, but those that do are either far from where we live or complete ripoffs. Berkeley Hort is an example of the latter. Anyway, I was interested in checking the nursery out, so we walked there and found that the staff are extremely helpful, friendly and knowledgeable and can order from Menlo Growers *without* a 400% markup! Even cooler: they had *four* grafted pineapple guavas in stock and three strawberry guava! I have an order in for a group buy to a wholesaler for both a Feijoa and a Strawberry Guava, but I couldn't resist picking up a red strawberry guava (psidium cattleianum) and planting it in the front yard. Growing these is marginal in our area and would perhaps have been a better choice for a guerilla planting chez mes parents, but I really wanted to get started planting things.
ASC is an NPR podcast which is available through various sources, including iTunes. The host -- Bob Boilen -- is kind of a goofy guy who isn't afraid to recommend artists like "The Flight of the Conchords", despite the fact that these recommendations are sometimes met with the stunned and embarrassed silence of his guests/co-presenters. He also has a kind of weird staccato delivery that I find distracting. Anyway, I like the show, particularly when Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney is on (she exudes an "I'm much cooler than you" vibe, but that's because she is). She was recently talking about a song and compared its style to that of Le Tigre, which reminded me that I went to school with Johanna Fateman and her sister Abby. More berkeley-ites in the entertainement industry!
My parents, and my dad in particular, are big Sees Candies fans. Chocolate lollipop detritus can usually be found in all of my dad's native habitats: next to his bed, in the kitchen drawers, in the drawers under the TV and in his studio. When he comes by our house, he usually has one in his mouth. It's perhaps not the smartest thing for a diabetic to be doing, but better than cigars I guess. In any event, Chloe and my recent decision that Charles Chocolates is overpriced bull has helped us to re-discover the joys of Sees. Their chocolates are unpretentious, delicious, and they use the same chocolate (Guittard) as Charles, at a fraction of the price. By far the most addictive treats that they make are the Toffee-ette which have seriously hurt my strength to weight ratio recently.
Stage 1: Injury is something that happens to your older climbing friends (you know, the guys with the good footwork), but does not register as an actual possibility as something that could happen to you.
Stage 2: First minor or major injury. Initial shock that injuries can happen to you, followed by literature (internet) consultation. Conclusion: this was a freak occurrence. No need for stretching or altering of ones program. Purchase of recommended rehab equipment (Therabands, Metolius squishy ball, etc). Once rehabbed, all of this gear can be given away to your older, more brittle friends. Re-commence dynos, weighted hangboard workouts and dime edged crimps without warming up.
Stage 3: Re-injury of #2. Annoyance at having more down time and having to re-buy the rehab gear. Troubling whispers in the back of your mind that #2 was not such an isolated incident after all.
Stage 4 (optional): New injury. Rationalization. It was cold out. And I grabbed that hold in a weird way. And I was climbing with a mutant. Rehab and ignore.
Stage 5: Re-re-injury of #3. Profound soul searching. Conclusion: I'm getting f#@$@# old! I'm one of the brittle old dudes! Re-purchase the Theraband. This time I'm keeping the damn thing. Begin crotchety and snarky posting about injuries on internet climbing fora. Aggressively attack the naivete of climbers in Stage 1 or earlier (don't bother -- did you listen to those old guys back then? no.). Start stretching.
Stage 6. Go to Stage 3, repeat.
Two variations to the no-knead recipe which are also delicious:
Zoe picked up another cold from daycare this week, which cancelled our big plans for a Jailhouse run on Friday and a trip to Alta today. Instead, we've been caring for our very whiny baby, who does not seem to want to be put down or sleep. She still has a decent appetite though, which brings me to the topic of natto. I stopped eating natto a long time ago because I find the texture and smell a bit... repulsive. Strangely, Zoe seems to LOVE natto, and will eat it with or without soy sauce or rice. We love to see her enjoying her meals, but our enjoyment is always tempered by the realization that we will soon be cleaning up a slimy and reeking baby. Here she is in natto heaven:
Here's one showing the somewhat rancid smelling slime strands that will soon coat her hands and face
I listen to the CBC's excellent "As it Happens" on the drive home now and then. Midway through the show there's a tech segment called "Future Tense", which always leaves me laughing and shaking my head. It might be a bit unfair, but the host sounds like he's about seventy years old (apparently not, judging from the show's web page!) and just doesn't seem like much of a technogeek. The part that usually leaves me smirking is their hopelessly outdated techno theme which sounds like it came from a mid 1990s rave -- THE FUTURE!
Also, one of their writers/producers must read MeFi, because a lot of their stories seem to come from there.
We had a fun half day at Castle Rock, playing on the Tree Problem, Hueco Wall and some other stuff.
At long last I had time to do some of the home improvement/preventative maintenance that I had been hoping to do for a while. The first order of business was to buy a fancy Japanese pole saw to saw off various tree branches that were brushing up against the house. The Japan Woodworker in Alameda is the place to go for things like this (i.e. sharp Japanese things) and along the way I noticed a warehouse overflowing with shiny cars. I pulled over to take a look and it turned out to be a private collection of hot rods and muscle cars. The owner graciously let me take a look inside and explained some of the history of the cars. He even let me snap a few photos. Once inside, I quickly realized that this was no ordinary collection... Even I, who know very little about hot rods or muscle cars could see that!
Dodge Challenger
Pontiac GTO
1935 Auburn Speedster. Supercharged! The owner told me that every car (only one hundred something produced) was certified to go 100 mph. You could return it if it didn't hit that speed. Pretty amazing for 1935!
One of these recently was sold at auction for almost $400k
Cord 821: Flip up lights and front wheel drive... in 1936!
Boss 429 1970?
Shelby GT500
Camaro SS
Another nice mustang
The front of the garage
Awesome!
