baby room!

baby talk alert
Before we left, we asked my mom to start her work in the baby's room. We had recently had our neighbor build a wall to make a little enclosed space for our soon to arrive daughter. The saga of the wall is a scandalous tale of trust betrayed, massive cost overruns, and general dismay. Privately, I now call this five inch thick structure the "multimilliondollar wall"; during the course of "the project", our room lost two windows and one wall, took two months to complete and increased in price by twofold. Awesome! Anyway, I had just painted the wall (no, not Gold, but tempting) so mom was ready to go. She worked the whole weekend and we came home to find that she had already finished a great mural!


We had a little extra wall space, so Chloe and I added a little bit as well:



and I installed the nice wool rug that mom bought for us and the baby.

hiking to the American River

On the recommendation of Russell Towle, Chloe and I took the Stevens trail down to the American River. The hike down was easy (isn't it always?!), if a little hot. If anything, the slow rate of decent in the last half was maddening. The sweeping views more than made up for that minor drawback though.


Once at the river, we waded in


and were both surprised by how warm it was. Schools of fish congreated around the small clouds of bugs hovering just above the water

The hike up was kind of painful. Even though we have happily and with relative ease hiked thousands of feet in elevation in not very much time, this felt like a real slog to us. The combination of the low to mid ninety degree temps, the lack of shade and the slow gradient, chloe being 7 months pregnant and my being in appalling shape made it seem more painful than it would normally I think! All in all it was a nice hike, but I can't really recommend it on a hot summer day -- even leaving the car at 9:30 AM as we did. 5.4 miles round trip according to the GPS.

Alta!

We drove up to Alta this morning and hung out for most of the day. After stopping in Colfax and almost (oh so close) buying a Stihl 270 chainsaw, Chloe and I reinforced the dryrotting pilings of the cabin with pressure and preservative treated wood,


and then I got down to the serious business of chopping up one of the felled incense cedars. The arborist had cut down two cedars -- one living and one long dead. I started on the wet wood and got rejected by the sap laden dense wood; it took all of my effort and a big lumberjack swing just o put a dent in these things! By contrast, the dead cedar was really fun to split -- the rounds were light and practically leapt apart with any of the axes. The best part was the strong cedar smell though; it felt like I was in a japanese Buddhist temple. Heres me getting into the spirit of things in a moment of Zen

more Choppin

After breakfast at the Dutch Flat Hotel, we took a walk around Dutch Flat, then headed back to the cabin, where Kenji was again directing all of us clueless workers.

I'm not sure what we'd do without him.

That's supposed to be a portrait of me on the left door by the way.
Chloe and I took a walk and finally met the neighbors, who told me that there's a fish farm upstream on the Bear Creek (which runs through our property), and sometimes fish escape. I haven't seen fish in there for years, but the guy we met told us that he's seen up to 18 inch trout down there!

After walking past scary pitbulls and along the canal, we ended up next to the PG&E Alta hydro-power office. They have a mini snowcat with a cab heater and plush seating which I covet:

A little googling reveals that it is a Pisten Bully -- "It’s like a sportscar, for snow". This particular model looks like a 100 flexmobil. Heres a video. I'm no linguistics expert, but judging from the title "Schneepistenpräparierfahrzeuge Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG BeachTech Strandreinigungsgeräte", I'm guessing they are made in Germany or Austria. I don't want to know how much they cost.

I also did some more wood choppin' which really isn't that exciting. We have enough wood for the winter now.


I did discover one useful thing though: When chopping wood, even if you get very hot, leave the damn shirt on. Otherwise irate spiders will swarm you, bite your back and stomach and leave large tomato colored itchy welts that make mosquito bites seem like the gentle nuzzling of kittens.

Heres are some shots of the painted doors and windows



We ran into traffic on the way home but got crazy good mileage

The Sierra

We drove up to Alta this morning in the new used Prius, and upon arriving I immediately got to work finishing the damn roof. It's been hanging over my head for a while and I just wanted to be done with it. With Kenji cutting the cap shingles and complaining vigorously about it, I was able to finish up in an hour or so.


Next came some wood choppin with my new Gransfors axe (I know, EXCITING!!)



I was a little disappointed to find that the old school low budget super heavy axe that we've had for 20 years actually seems to do a better job with the bigger rounds, just by virtue of its weight. I'm not sure what I would have done without Kenji's running commentary:


Later on that evening I grilled some steaks that Gail had brought up. This had two unintended consequences. The first was that the "meat bees" (not bees at all, but yellow jackets) came out in legions, which enraged Kenji, who began attacking them with the fly swatter, hats, napkins, forks (no I'm not kidding) and whatever else he could get his hands on. Here's a picture of him in between deadly swings, corn cob in one hand, broken fly swatter in the other

and some of his unlucky victims


The other unintended consequence was an abundance of smoke: these were fatty and well marbled steaks on a small, hot grill. The smoke easily cleared the trees. In the middle of our meal we heard the whine of turboprops and looked up to see the red and white markings of the CDF on an OV-10 Bronco, probably out of Grass Valley. We didn't really pay much attention, other than to collectivley notice that it was in a high speed banked turn. Shortly thereafter, a CDF Bell Ranger flew overhead. Hmmm. A few minutes later, the Bronco circled back around with the helicopter following. By the third circle, I was starting to get worried, despite knowing that there was no way they were spotting the small smoke trail from our Hibachi. Still, I half expected smoke jumpers to start parachuting in!

A birthday card for my dad

woot

We bought a used (2005, 42k miles) Prius!

Saving gas?

Chloe and I are probably going to buy a used Prius (an 05), and before you yell at me about it not being significantly more eco friendly (because of the eco-cost of manufacturing) or ultimately more economically sound (they are expensive) let me just say that I've heard most of the arguments for and against. There is one important variable which is a good tie-breaker though, and thats the HOV sticker. In any case, here are some back of the envelope calculations:

subie: 57.3 mile trip (cant take bay bridge in AM) / 22.8 mpg * 5 days = 12.56 gallons / week * 3.30 (prem.) = 41.40
prius: 50.3 mile trip / 50 mpg * 5 days = 5.03 gallons / week * 3.10 (reg.) = 15.59

for a savings of ~25 a work week.

Alta, roofing, Smart's Crossing

We headed up to Alta for some roof shingling, wood splitting with my new Gransfors Large Splitting Axe and hanging out with some of Chloe's friends from UCSD (Becky and Fred)




I decided to use the subie as a shingle carrying device since I was getting sick of the heavy 20 packs tipping the wheelbarrow over. You see, there is a magical moment in which gravity takes over, the shingle packs are expelled from the barrow and the barrow itself is dumped sideways. It's a remarkable phenomenon for which I have coined a term: "the Falling over point", and I expect to be writing more about this soon. Anyway, I got the car to within 30 feet of the cabin and even managed to drive it back up the hill without getting mired.



After a long day of laying down shingle and chopping a few rounds of oak (The arborist did a fantastic job, by the way) we all took Rotenburo baths. Unfortunately, a mouse had fallen into the bath right before Becky and Fred used it

But was saved from a nasty death by Fred.



We walked down the road to Smart's Crossing for a brief swim. The water was FREEZING, and made for a quick exit. Someone has made a nice rope ladder to get up onto the log with.





After heading back and eating lunch at the cabin, a very unwary deer and her two fawns came within seventy or so feet of the cabin.

=
I spent the rest of the day trying in vain to finish the roof. I got pretty far though.


It doesn't look like it in the first shot, but there are actually four more rows needed just to get to the top. The shingles around the chimney were also a big pain in the butt to get right.

Salt Lake City

I was at a conference for the whole week. Besides the conference itself and the oppressive heat, there isn't much to report about other than my being very grateful and relieved to have been scheduled to talk on the first day. I think the local mormons were excited for all of the fresh blood available for conversion (that's my theory for why the SLC convention center is so plush). Here they are working their wiles on an unsuspecting American Crystallographic Association attendee


I was also in town for Pioneer Day which is apparently the biggest holiday in Utah.

Guest Blog By Chloe-The Tipping Point

After much nagging, Max convinced me to read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. He did this not because he thought the book was good, but rather because he thought it wasn't and wanted a second (i.e. validating) opinion as the book was met with a great deal of acclaim and popularity.

There was a time when I would have attributed Max's dislike of a book to "uppitiness." This is based on his appreciation of fine literature, his favorite author being Nabokov, and his mild disdain for my trashy mystery novels (however I try to get trashy mystery novels written in french, thus they are really educational and not just trashy). However, this was before our encounter with a book called The Adirondack Detective. We were living in France and after much lamentation and whining about the necessity of care packages, I was sent one from my father and stepmother. With the care package was a book called The Adirondack Detective. A police mystery type book, judging by the blurb on the back jacket. Fun and innocuous I assumed. Well Max got first dibs on the book since he had read all the handy books in English, was desperate for something to read, and had grown tired of struggling through books in french. It was within maybe half an hour that the complaints started. Poor writing, poor grammar, was there even an editor for this, how could this have been published, etc etc etc. I just assumed he was too persnickity and told him something to that effect. Then I tried to read it. I have rather a high tolerance for lackluster writing and really only need the barest thread of a story and enough dead time to get through just about anything. The Adirondack Detective, however, completely defeated me. The writing was not just "poor" but rather schizophrenic/stream of consciousness first person narrative. It was like the rambling of your crazy old grandfather talking about a fishing trip twenty years ago where nothing much happened. I no longer have the book, but I will try and recreate the atmosphere. "I went into Betty's Diner for breakfast like I do Thursday and Sundays. The food is pretty good there and the muffins are chuck(sic) full of blueberries. I like dogs." So after this experience, when Max says a book isn't good with a particular level of vehemence, I tend to believe him...

Max had described "The Tipping Point" and it's apparently novel concept of a point after which things change quickly and dramatically brought about by something seemingly small and inconsequential. My response of " You mean like the straw that broke the camel's back? What's so novel about that?" was met with a withering stare and the demand that I read the book to better agree with his assertion that it was poorly written, not nearly as insightful as the author and popular wisdom claimed, and that the author was a smarmy toad or something to the effect. Not exactly a motivating force for me to read the book, but after much badgering I agreed to read at least part of the book so as to be able to write a review with at least some knowledge of the subject. I almost failed. Now I am a big fan of the illustrative anecdote and case study. However, it was within the first 20 pages that I became convinced that I had somehow lost my place and was re-reading the same section twice. Actually the same point was just re-iterated using the same words 3 pages apart. I asked if reading 20 pages was enough to write a review for the blog, but Max would only agree to at least 100 pages before I was off the hook and allowed to return to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (actually Harry Potter et le prince de sang mele, in french: so educational!). I dutifully read 132 pages, skimmed the rest, and feel that The Tipping Point is not a groundbreaking work; the concepts have all been around for quite awhile. And just to be snarky, the cover art with an unlit match and lit match reminds me of a old commercial for hemorrhoid medication where a guy strikes a match and then puts it out with a "medicated pad" to illustrate the benefits of Tucks. Perhaps an example of "stickiness" in advertising and a potential follow-up case study for any The Tipping Point sequels.