can't catch a ball or a bird

Yesterday FH saw a cat on the sidewalk trying to catch a bird that had a broken wing. The bird ran into the street and the cat didn't follow. A car came and the bird ran back to the sidewalk. The cat resumed the chase. The bird figured out as long as it stayed in the street the cat wouldn't come after it.

Today, while trying to play fetch with Mr. Nuts, I realized the wounded bird was in FH's back yard because Mr. Nuts went...nuts...barking and chasing it. Of course, he didn't really know what to do once he got close enough to catch it.

The bird ran under the boat and I brought Mr. Nuts inside. Hopefully the bird is clever enough to move to someone else's yard...

fetch

Have I spent my whole life fooling myself that all dogs like to play fetch?

Since I'm walking on my tread mill all day, and then walking to dinner, FH suggested I not take Mr. Nuts for a walk because that's excessive. So I thought it might be fun to play a game of fetch with Mr. Nuts in the back yard so he can get some exercise.

Silly me.

it's not halloween so why is my zombie knee dressed like Mr. Potato Head???

Guess the hut trip took its toll on my knee (maybe didn't help that when I got home Monday morning I walked an additional 8 miles on my treadmill - honestly, I thought it would make my hip flexors feel better). It looks like Mr. Potato Head.

are you fucking kidding me? like my right knee is competing with my left knee trying to be twice as big - what an asshole

Luckily I have my TENS and running my program for an hour greatly decreased the swelling. I love this thing and probably would not be able to walk if I didn't use it every day. Fuck medical marijuana or pain killers. TENS works and involves no drugs.

he's just jealous that chihuahuas can't use TENS

But, of more interest, here are some pics my dad sent me of Balboa Island. He's in Cali for a meeting (and of course they had an earth quake).

fitbit, my new bad influence

This is why I over train...

no, I can't make it to 200 because my hip flexors are about to explode

only a 1,000 more floors? how about you fuck off for a little bit and I'll send you a badge?

bonking to the jackal hut (pics at the bottom of the story)

This weekend FH and I did a back country ski trip up to the Jackal Hut. He has a friend who was invited to go but couldn't make it, so on Tuesday we decided to take his spots.

FH did some research and determined it was a 4 1/2 mile ski in. Looking at the topo it was obvious that it was a steep climb to the hut but we both assumed there would be a lot of switch backs since the trail up follows a road.

We got to the parking lot before most of the other people going to the hut (it was a group of 12 friends and us). Since the group was composed mostly of 25 year old guys we decided to head up to the hut while they waited for a few stragglers because, as FH said "we're old and slow".

The first mile or so of the route crosses a fairly flat plain, with no challenges except for having to go down a hill, cross a creek, and get up the other side without falling into the drink. I managed that with no mishaps and FH said "well, that's the hardest thing we're going to do today".

As we started up the mountain FH was still joking about how we'd be at the hut in 2 hours and then I would say "when are we going to do some skiing?" It turns out, the approach to the hut was a grueling 5.67 miles, not 4 1/2. And there were no switchbacks. It was just straight up. And up. And more up.

The group of 12 finally caught up with us, and then passed us. I realized that not eating breakfast and not tapering off on the distance I've been doing every day on my tread mill was a huge mistake. Also, I was wearing a 25 lb backpack (I weigh 115 lbs, so it doesn't seem like much just reading the weight, but to me it was a a lot of weight). I realized that my clumsy skiing got even worse with the backpack. The sun would come out and make us hot and two seconds later the snow would be blowing so hard that we couldn't see more than a few feet ahead.

We finally caught up with the group, who had stopped for a snack. I was exhausted. When one of the guys said "well, we're about half way there" I thought he was joking. I threw the pack down on the ground and sat on it, crushing 3 of the 6 little creamer packs FH had packed in our food bag. I felt them breaking but to be honest didn't care.

The trail went on and on, to the point where I was ready to just throw the pack on the ground, crawl into my sleeping bag, and wait to die. I have only once in my life ever felt the effects of altitude but I realized that was what was happening to me, on top of bonking, and having two inflamed hip flexors from walking too much on my tread mill (I thought, initially, that the skiing would make them feel better - WRONG).

After hours of just struggling to move forward we went around a bend and...there was the hut! Finally! And wouldn't you know it, we had to go up one last hill to get to it. I was like "FUCK YOU HILLS!"

I got to the porch, sat on a bench, contemplated puking, and then remembered we had beers and rallied enough to walk into the hut.

It ended up being a great weekend, and we beat the group record back to the car (they said 2 hours, it took us one). The ski down was epic because the snow had consolidated in the warm weather Sunday and iced over. I felt like one of those luge sleds in the olympics. Surprisingly, I only hit one tree.

Some pictures:

Jackal Hut - it's awesome!!!

View from the porch, including the hill you have to ski up, at sunset

Survived a short ski Sunday - my blisters from Jackson are back

the fun hog, and me, in the back, probably trying to figure out how to get my mitten through the strap on my ski pole

following tracks and trying to protect my blisters

you can see 6 fourteeners from the Jackal Hut

cit-e coyote

If you ever wondered how to get a hyper active chihuahua to behave on a walk, I'd suggested taking the dog to an urban city park in Denver around lunch time.

yes, that is a HUGE coyote, running around in a field at a city rec / park center

I'm not sure what, exactly, the coyote was doing in the city (great food, but they don't have money to pay for it so that can't be it). Perhaps it's all the construction that's going on around the city. The coyote was carrying something in its mouth which I hope was food foraged from the trash but which might have been a cat.

It was interesting to see Mr. Nuts, who thinks he's in charge where ever he goes, suddenly hunker down and walk as quickly as possible away from where the coyote was, like "nothing to see here, no, I'm not a chihuahua, I'm just a very small hairy person, looking to get away from you before you notice me". At 10 pounds Mr. Nuts would barely make a snack for a coyote but I don't think animals are that rational.

high altitude soda bread

Making my own bread has always appealed to me, mostly because people always told me making bread is "so easy". Since moving to Colorado and taking a stab at making bread I've been pretty unsuccessful, ending up with loaves that were burned on the outside and undercooked on the inside. I know this is because baking at altitude requires adjustments, but never knew what those adjustments were.

So after the ton cake I made, FH suggested, if I wanted to keep trying to bake, to make something he might want to eat, namely soda bread. Thinking of breads past, I was a little worried to try it, so decided to make it Friday night while he was out with a friend visiting from New Hampshire. I did a search and found this high altitude cooking blog with a recipe and went to the grocery to get the ingredients. That proved to be interesting because it was snowing and most of the homeless people in my neighborhood were wandering the aisles. Also, it took me 10 minutes to find the butter milk because I was looking in the butter aisle until redirected to the milk aisle by one of the aforementioned homeless people. And I was interrogated by the manager on check out because I had purchased 4 boxes of baking soda and salt for my neti pot and that set off some alarm that I might actually be cooking meth (FH said "well you do fit the profile, skinny and too much energy").

In any case, I got home and got started.

all the ingredients...wait...something's missing - oh yeah, need a glass of wine

the recipe said to mix the ingredients with a paddle attachment - I had no idea what that meant so just used the attachment I had, a kind of whisk looking thing

...which proved to not work so well as the batter formed a column up the whisk thing and then stopped turning

I finally turned the dough out to knead it and, as per the directions, it was unwieldy and sticky - I flopped it around in the flour for a few minutes and figured "fuck it, it must be done"

I was supposed to put an X on the top of the bread, which was not as easy as one might think, in fact, it looked less like an X and more like the distorted signatures you create on those store pads where you have to sign your name with your finger...the weird stuff on top is sugar and buttermilk, and yes, I was supposed to do that

the recipe said to tap the bread and if it sounded hollow it was done - I was not sure exactly what that meant so I tapped it, figured I had heard a hollow sound, and pulled it out

At this point panic ensued because the instructions ended with "pull it out of the oven". Nothing about how long to cool it, whether to take it out of the bread thingy, etc. So I sent a text to my friend Camile who said to let it cool an hour and then take it out of the tin. She also said the picture made the bread look yummy and that if it sucked just to put butter on it because butter can make anything taste good.

the bread cooked through! and was edible!

I ended up eating the end piece off the bread after it cooled to check that it cooked through and that it was not disgusting. It tasted good except I thought it was a bit floury. Turns out soda bread is supposed to taste like that. I brought it over to FH's house and he and his friend both ate a piece. They suffered no ill effects that I know of.

things I should be able to write off on taxes

Since other special interest groups get some crazy tax write offs (writing off purchased desserts as "research and development") I thought maybe I, a special interest group of one, should get some tax write offs too.

• Shoes I bought last year - I needed them for work, or at least the three times I went into my office. Otherwise I work from home and wear socks but in the interest of not being greedy I just want the shoe write off. Besides, have you seen the latest designs for the Adidas Sequence running shoe? Awful. They should be deductible.
• Beggin strips - Chihuahuas are kind of like a charity group since they are always unemployed. And if you give a chihuahua a beggin strip he will usually stop being a public menace for at least the 5 seconds it takes to eat the beggin strip.
• Ski equipment - I think about work and solving world hunger and shit while I'm skiing. So that should be an office or charity expense.
• Wine - I think about those things when I'm drinking as well. Or this could be a medical expense.
• Cleaning products - It's like research and development for house cleaning since I finally fired my maids for breaking shit. And mops are getting expensive these days. Yeah, maybe I do have an excessive number of mops (5) but each has a special functionality that I identified as part of my research and so I need them all.
• Any anyway it's not like I get any recognition for my mopping abilities so I should get a tax write off. 
• Pizzas I've ordered - Obviously an office expense.
• Groceries - Since I can't cook and every meal I've made with the aforementioned groceries is inedible I should get to write them off as "research and development".
• Soda stream - Making my own sodas is reducing waste on the planet, keeps me from having to go to the grocery store to buy cokes, and it doesn't require electricity, so it's like an "energy efficient" thing that I should get a deduction for.
• Not procreating - How come having a kid gives you a tax write off? Kids cost a lot of money and use up tax revenue for their schools and stuff. I should get money back for not having any kids.
• Dinners with people I don't like - Sometimes you invite a couple W and X to dinner, and they invite their friends Y and Z who are obnoxious assholes that like to air their marital discord in public. Or sometimes you talk to people at a party and they seem cool and then you invite them to dinner and realize that they are actually semi brain dead and unable to converse on topics that require more than 5 working brain cells. That is definitely a work dinner.

a pre-screening of Mr. Nuts' avant garde short film - "pretend it's bacon"

a film critic's reaction to the Oscars

NOTE: the author of this post did not watch the Oscars, has not seen any of the movies nominated, and is channeling a chihuahua.

A review of the Oscar winning films by Mr. Nuts.

film critic, lamb lover, and chihuahua

Dallas Buyer's Club: "I would have thought this movie worthy of an Oscar if it was about buying bacon. Otherwise I'm not sure why anyone would want to see this film."

Twelve Years a Slave: "I was hoping to see more cat chases by chihuahuas. And then after the chihuahuas catch the cats, they also catch some squirrels. And then they are fed steak and bacon. For those reasons I found the movie not very believable or reflective of real life and didn't really enjoy it so was shocked it won an Oscar."

Blue Jasmine: "Were those ladies carrying bacon around in their purses? If so, I liked it. If not, I didn't like it."

Frozen: "This movie made me sad because it made me think of frozen bacon, which is difficult (but not impossible) to eat."

Gravity: "Why would anyone want to go into outer space? There's no bacon."

20 Feet from Stardom: "I think this movie would have won more awards if it had been about being 20 feet from bacon."

...and the rumors are true! Mr. Nuts was asked to host next year's Oscars. Unfortunately, he won't be able to because he'll be busy eating bacon.

a rogue bassonist at the symphony

On friday night FH and I went to see There Will Be Beethoven at the Colorado Symphony. Granted, we haven't had the best of luck attending events there (I went to see swan lake there a few years ago and a woman sitting at the end of my row puked all over the place - yes, she was drunk - and when we went to the opera we had technical difficulties). But FH is a big fan of radiohead so we decided to take our chances.

The first part of the symphony was a replay of the score from There Will Be Blood. It's very dramatic and the conductor had the musicians pause for what felt like, to me, an excruciating amount of time between movements. We were seated between two elderly couples, which was fine, except that I was a little nervous about the drama of the music and the fact that, as we were entering the building, an ambulance was taking an elderly guy out who had apparently had a heart attack.

In any case, the second movement had just finished with a huge drum roll crash bang and the resonance of the music was hanging in the air when I heard a loud "BRUMP!" I turned to FH to ask what instrument had made the noise (I don't know that much about music) and realized, by his expression, that it was fart.

Now I admit to laughing at farts. The problem was there was dead silence in the room and I didn't want to make a scene. But not being able to laugh just makes me laugh harder. I managed to stifle my laugh for about a second and then made a noise that probably sounded like I was choking on my own tongue. Luckily the music started again and I buried my face in FH's arm. Just as I got my (silent) laughter under control the man sitting next to me burped and his wife, sitting next to him, let out three more farts. Just when I thought it couldn't get any funnier she pulled out a bottle of beano and took a few, with water.

By intermission I had stopped (silently) laughing but suggested to FH that we move to an empty row behind us. I couldn't sit next to that couple any longer because their digestive issues were distracting. As the first movement of the Beethoven symphony started I settled back to enjoy the music.

...and would have been fine EXCEPT that, at the end of the second movement, FH looked over at the farting woman, and put his fist in the air and pumped it, like we used to do as kids to get truck drivers to honk their horns at us. I'd never seen anyone use the hand signal for "let it rip" at the symphony before so that made me (silently) laugh all over again. I pinched FH on the arm pretty hard, and he didn't do anything else the rest of the symphony.

It was a nice evening all things considered, and the symphony was surprisingly not crowded, which ended up being a good thing because if I hadn't been able to switch seats I don't know what would have happened. On the walk home I laughed the entire time and FH lamented the number of cheap mexican restaurants around the Denver Performing Arts complex.

tread desk!

This weekend I bought a treadmill. I've wanted one since I was 12, and yeah, it DID take a long time to buy one.

FH managed to carry it into the house from his truck even though it weighs 215 lbs. And he got it put together in 15 minutes. I had one part to put on and I accidentally cross threaded the screw. Hope I'm not losing my skills.

One of the reasons I wanted a treadmill is so I can walk while I work. Most of the time I'm focusing on very technical shit and I found it helps to walk while thinking.

I figured if I walk at a 20 minute mile pace (not unreasonable) I can walk 24 miles a day. FH first reaction was "maybe walk at a 30 minute mile pace until you get the hang of it" and "why the fuck would you want to walk 24 miles a day?"

Um, doesn't everyone want to walk 24 miles a day?

In any case, after the treadmill was set up he found an old board in the garage that we were going to use for target practice and some screws and brackets. We used that to make my treadmill desk (a colleague paid $1,500 for his desk - mine was free). It's held on by a bungee cord, which doesn't sound stable but turns out to be quite stable.

The drink holders are perfect for all of my work things and help keep my desk clutter free.

i love my new desk!

and even though I only walked on the treadmill for 4 hours today (following FH's advice to start slowly) I still got my 20K fitbit badge - actually did 23,000 steps today - and I got a helicopter badge, what ever the fuck that is

The other thing FH did was create a spreadsheet to help a friend of his calculate how to jump his rzr. Personally, I think his friend should just ask for help building a tread desk...

chihuahua olympics - the lamby

Yesterday the lamby event kicked off in the chihuahua olympics.

Mr. Nuts started out looking rough in practice. The US was worried he might not be able to come through and medal.

"I just felt really distracted and not focused," he said. "All I could think about was bacon."

But he came through in the competition and easily took gold.

Congratulations Mr. Nuts for winning gold in lamby!

olympic sports I'd like to see

I have been slacking off on my blog lately, but I assure you it's because I'm busy. In the next few days I'm going to upload some vids of skiing taken with the gopro (unfortunately my best wreck was not caught on film).

In the mean time, and in the spirit of the olympics, here are some new sports that I thought up that might be more interesting than some of the sports they currently have:

• Hockey, except the puck is actually a rabid chihuahua and the sticks are made out of beggin strips
• Figure skating, but with pumpkin seeds on the ice and the Russian mafia holding a member of your family who will be tortured if you fall
• Ski slope, but instead of fake jumps and rails you have to navigate around and jump over homeless people
• Skeleton, but you have to drink 3 shots of russian vodka first, and your helmet is made out of peeps and your sled is recycled cardboard
• Speed skating, but combined with ice fishing on a pond that doesn't have smooth ice and the crappies are jumping out of the holes
• Half pipe, but besides tricks you have to avoid the drones that your competitors are controlling
• Super G, but instead of gates you have to ski through a tunnel of live wires the whole way down
• Baby sitting a drunk Bode Miller while also having to listen to his wife Morgan give him advice

Go athletes!

super bowl sweep

Sunday was my first ever "I'm actually watching it" football game super bowl. I was pretty excited because the broncos were playing. I even know the names of three guys who play on the team: Wes, Peyton, and Demaryius. Peyton throws the ball and the other two guys catch it.

I thought a great way to prep for the super bowl would be to vacuum and clean the floors. FH did some prep too. He has this special tv thing that lets you rewind the tv. He normally sets that up, somehow, so when we watch football we can fast forward over the commercials (and I've learned to ignore spoiler texts from my dad, who is also watching the game, because we're a few minutes behind on the live play).

Unfortunately FH's chihuahua stepped on the remote control for the tv right before the game started and changed the channel. That caused the tv to not be able to rewind because...if you switch the channel...the tv doesn't remember the old stuff on the original channel...or something. I think time travel is easier in theory to understand than tvs. At least now I know when my brother calls he isn't hacking the super bowl.

I was told at work on Monday morning that I picked the worst super bowl ever to watch. Oh well. I still like the broncos and I'm glad there wasn't a blizzard because I definitely wouldn't have been able to see/understand what was going on. Which, given the outcome of the game, doesn't seem like a bad thing actually.

At the end the announcer guy was like "and the seattle seahawks are receiving the Lombardi trophy". I was like "so they also won something else besides the super bowl?" and FH was like "no, you win the Lombardi trophy for winning the super bowl". I found that interesting because 1) it's not called the super bowl trophy so how would the average person know that the winning team isn't getting yet another award and 2) all anyone ever talks about are super bowl rings and no one was given those at least while we were watching on tv. Maybe they get them later at a dinner party or something.

I was pretty sad about the broncos losing which is weird. They're just a football team. When I told FH I was sad he said "congrats, you're a real fan now."

I was glad to see a sign on a local business when we were headed to the grocery yesterday that said "we still love you broncos!"

the evil pound cake

On Saturday, while waiting to pick FH up at the airport, I decided to make a lemon cream cheese pound cake. I saw a special on PBS with Martha Stewart and she made 3 different pound cakes in 10 minutes. Seemed easy.

I made the mistake of not reading the whole recipe before starting. It did seem like a lot of ingredients for something that had to fit into a bread tin, but I've never made a cake before so I just went with it. Then I realized, once I had everything ready to mix, that the recipe made 9 cups of batter and the pound cake only required 5 cups. I said "fuck the math" and decided to just split the 9 cups between two pound cakes. That might be what caused part of the problem...

wine was not one of the "official" ingredients

Note, I used a butter made of yogurt to grease the bread tins. The flour didn't stick to it very well. I should have used real butter. That might have also added to the disaster unfolding.

I couldn't get the tops smooth like Martha did. The top looked like it had some kind of skin disease.

 It said to cook the cake for 65 minutes or until a toothpick came out clean. This resulted in overcooking (later found out I was supposed to reduce certain ingredients and add other ingredients for cooking at altitude).

When I finally pulled the pound cakes out they looked great. For about 2 seconds. Then the top of the cakes suddenly sunk like the fucking Titanic.

They have a very distinctive V shaped top. Like V for "victory" or V like that show about aliens. The cake on the left sank dramatically, the one on the right took a few more seconds.

One of the contributing factors to the cake sinking might have been the temperature of the house. The battery had died in FH's thermostat and it was only 62 degrees inside the house.

Surprisingly, especially since the middle of the cake was undercooked (FH called it "moist", but really it was undercooked) and based on its weight (FH said he was surprised to find it weighed more than a brick of gold) it tasted pretty good. FH brought one of the cakes into work, where I assumed it would be thrown out after a reasonable amount of time had passed. But I got an email from one of his employees saying that the cake was "so good it's evil". Special thanks to WL who brought me vanilla extract from Mexico!

FH said maybe don't ever make a pound cake again...

BTW, Jake got his new eyes installed by FH on Sunday. Hooray!

I make a crappy cake for him and he fixes my car - no one said partnerships were equal

party wave videos

Here are the two party wave videos (where I crash right after I stand up on the board):

 

 In this vid I crash moments after take off.

In this vid I crash and my board tombstones

I'm not a role model, so probably shouldn't be a mentor either

FH has an assistant who also does technical work. I offered to mentor her by teaching her data modeling and process modeling. FH thought it was a great idea.

But, to be honest, the only useful mentoring advice I've given her is the following:

T: Went roller skating today. Bad idea, my knees hurt so bad.
Me: Try bio freeze. It's like crack cocaine for the knees.

As for career advice, probably not as useful:

T: FH gave me my own office!
Me: I'd recommend putting crime scene tape around your guest chair to keep the guys in line. I did that at my last office. HR drew the line at the fake blood though.
T: Maybe I can get some fake organs.
Me: They used to sell eye balls at the dollar store.

And she gave me some advice as well:

Me: Don't tell FH this. I just took his toilet apart. Replacing the innards to make it more efficient. Hope I don't fuck it up.
T: I have faith in you! Girls can do home improvement too!
Me: I'm using a hack saw now, which was not specified in the instructions. Oy vey.
T: That's just improvisation. If you have more screws left over than when you start then worry.
Me: Or when FH gets home and there's a taken apart toilet on his kitchen table.
T: I would come help before that point.
Me: It works! Go me! And go broncos! (was sort of watching the game while I was working)
T: Did you have any parts left over?
Me: Some screws. But I think they are just extras.
T: Uh oh. I won't tell if you don't.

(then I made a joke about a super bowl party since I was working on the toilet but there was no response)

some more pics surfing the party wave

Here's a pic from a video where I caught the same wave as FH. Of course, he surfed it in and I wrecked.

I surf goofy foot. Also, on most waves I managed to keep a safe distance from FH.

when the board shoots straight out of the water it's called tombstoning the board

the surf board fins are supposed to be IN the water

Two of my favorite still shots from the vid where I wreck into FH:

FH's board (left arrow) and my board (right arrow)

FH calmly surfs on while I flounder behind him

We saw three snowflake eels the past few days in the low tide. The marine biologist Tony said they're coming in because the water is unseasonably warm. Very cool!

damn women drivers

Today conditions were rough at Olas Altas. And then I accidentally wrecked my surf board into FH's board. I didn't just ding his board. I rode up the back of it.

When we got back to shore the "life guard" Mario was like "dude, is your board okay?" and I was like "yeah, fucking women drivers". The board, for the record, is more or less okay (minor repairs necessary).