For all you bicyclists!

We struggle with being safe and having fun everyday out on the roads. I know we would all appreciate it if drivers "saw us." I wonder how many people would pass this test!

I want a dog, clap, clap!

Sometimes when I'm stuck or just done with my school work I take a break and watch youtube videos. Well, I've really been craving a dog so I watch vids with Viszlas. There are some fantastic ones, but this one is BY FAR one of my favorites. Watch this all the way through...this pup is SO PRECIOUS!

US Open Snowboarding

Today I went up to Stratton to watch the US Open Snowboarding Championship. A friend of mine's sister is Torah Bright (picture on left). If you don't know who she is check out: http://www.torahbright.com/. To make a long story short, she'll pretty good. Which is actually a HUGE understatement! She won the halfpipe today along with Shawn White. (now there's a name most of you will know even if you don't know all that much about snowboarding...he's in a lot of commercials.) It was a cold, sunny day. What was so weird was that it was so quiet. Usually when we watch the X-games it is loud and crazy, not here. It was quiet and just a whole bunch of people watching. The announcer dudes were not helping either. They didn't announce until it was almost too late who was coming, what the score was, and they didn't even announce that Torah won. Uh, she won $100,000 and a new Volvo...it was kind of a big deal. Oh and Shawn (picture below) won $100,000 and a new Volvo too, and there wasn't a big scene with him either. Weird. OH well, it was still fun!

So they came a collecting

Sorry this photo isn't the greatest quality, but it was taken from my living room through a screen. I was sitting there Tuesday morning reading about genetics and I heard what sounded like a tractor driving in my back yard. Well, guess what, IT WAS! I was so bewildered, so I watched for a minute. Then I noticed all these men running around with buckets. They were collecting the maple sap stuff that is just flowing into the buckets hanging on the trees out back. You can kind of see on the trailer behind the tractor a large reservoirs that is whitish. Well it was about half full when they showed up to these trees and it was about 3/4s full when they left this grove! Ok, so they are obviously making a lot, but I am even more determined to do it next year. Soon, I will have a picture of this large catch basin hooked up to tubes that run from one tree to another that contains a VACUUM pump to SUCK all the maple out by one of these maple syrup stores in VT. It is amazing what people do around here to make real new england maple syrup!

Bike Haiku

I went for a ride.
It was nice to get outside.
I say, Go bike go!

Well..

...it's official. We can now stamp ski geek on my forehead. We all knew that I was a "tech head" but now I finally have my reward. I just got done with two very difficult, but fun days at Stratton resort in VT trying out for DCL in the east, and I made it. Here we have two tracks: the examiner track and the clinic leader, or DCL, track. They whipped the slate clean this year and they are starting over on the DCL side. There were 75 team members about two weeks ago and everyone had to tryout again. So, I decided to give it a try and well, I got it. They only took 15 from the north and 11 from the south. The 15 cover: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York and some of Pennsylvania. The south covers everything south NY to Virginia, West Virginia. So, there aren't very many of us to go around. In two years, they will have another tryout to add to the group, but for now, it is just us. 26 to cover a lot of ground. We are pretty spread out, which is good, but there is a lot of work to do. FUN FUN FUN. Well, since I've been "playing" for the last few days, I'm sort of behind with school. So, I better get going on my work, but I just wanted to let you all know. YEAH!

Oh my am I tired, and it is only Monday!

Well, this week has started off with a bang and I know it will only stay this active until Saturday night. So, while I worked like stink all day I took a few minutes before I went to bed as a break. And I found this old show on YouTube I used to watch on my mission at this one old funny member's house. I embedded some of my favorite episode parts. Some of the vids aren't that great, but you should all get the gist! Hope you laugh as I always do. This show "Takeshi's Castle" aired on Spike TV as MXC, but it was funnier in German. A Japanese TV show in German, how much funnier can it get?!?!?!?










Ok that is enough! I better get to bed! :) Enjoy

Call me Ishmael!

So, we are once again expecting a storm this weekend, but this one is coming from the south (wet and warm) and mixing with coastal moisture (wet and warm). So, I don't expect powder :(! But I thought i would include the snowfall map from accuweather.com. It looks like a whale. They even have articles that talk about how this is a "whale of a storm." But I thought the snowfall map was entertaining! Enjoy.

Look what the trees grew over night

Yep it is that time of year. Last night I went to bed after my glorious day of church and snow shoeing, slept amazingly well, woke up and looked out the window...WHAT? That was fast. These buckets showed up everywhere in the area, literally over night. Ok, next year March 1st I'm going out to claim MY trees. Seriously I'm going to try this out.

Thanks to Wikipedia:
Traditionally, maple syrup was harvested by tapping a maple tree through the bark and into the wood phloem, then letting the sap run into a bucket, which required daily collecting. (Ok, maybe not, DAILY, do I have time for this....mmmmm, but think of the syrup!)

Vermont is the biggest U.S. producer, with 450,000 US gallons in 2007, followed by Maine with 225,000 US gallons and New York with 224,000 US gallons. (Maybe I should just make some at my friends' houses in Vermont! ;)!)

Maple syrup Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 260 kcal 1090 kJ
Carbohydrates 67.09 g - Sugars 59.53 g - Dietary fiber 0 g Fat 0.20 g Protein 0 g Thiamin (Vit. B1) 0.006 mg 0% Riboflavin (Vit. B2) 0.01 mg 1% Niacin (Vit. B3) 0.03 mg 0% Pantothenic acid (B5) 0.036 mg 1% Vitamin B6 0.002 mg 0% Folate (Vit. B9) 0 μg 0% Vitamin C 0 mg 0% Calcium 67 mg 7% Iron 1.20 mg 10% Magnesium 14 mg 4% Phosphorus 2 mg 0% Potassium 204 mg 4% Zinc 4.16 mg 42%

Here are the nutritional facts on Maple syrup. 3.5 oz, that is about a half a glass of water... that seems like a lot of syrup. Oh well, maybe I just don't like my waffles swimming in syrup. But look at all the zinc and iron. What a lovely way to get your zinc and iron for the day! In the name of getting my minerals, I'll let my waffles swim! ;)

I'll have to let you all know what happens next year; if I get a spot in the maple monopoly!


Also, for those of you who have been anxiously waiting: the new pony has a name. We went out today for a lovely hour 20 minute ride today and it hit me. So, my mountain bike's name is Sir Issac, as in Newton, because when I got him I was working on my thesis and it was Newtonian physics I was using to figure things out, like muscle power. Well, now I think of Euler mechanics. The difference is that Leonhard Euler (pronounced 'oiler') agreed with Newton but rewrote Newtons laws (like an object stays at rest unless acted upon by an external force), which only are valid for particles, to apply to rigid bodies. So they are similar but have different application to the object defined. We derive the Euler equations of motion using the Lagrangian method, so if I am so lucky to get a cyclocross bike soon, I already have a name for him :)! So my mountain bike: Sir Issac, and my road stallion: Euler are going to be very good friends to me. See you get it, they seemingly do the same thing, the wheels go round because you push on the pedals but they have two different applications! OH yes, I am ever so clever.

So what did I do with all the new snow...

...I went snowshoeing! WOOHOO! It was so much fun. I just thought after church today I would go for a walk in the woods, so I strapped on the shoes and off I went. And ironically enough I was near the Robert Frost trail. I say near, because when it is winter and you have snow shoes on...what trail? I don't need no stinking trail! :)

ok, there is no need to feel sorry for me!

We got 14" in about 10 hours from 9pm to 7am last night. And it was light and fluffy. Any Utahn would be stoked. No really. I'm not sure yet why people bag on Eastern skiing. We have received 50" in the last week and not one day has been wet and heavy. Look at the pile outside the private ski school building! Today we started at 730am with fresh tracks that no words can describe. Oh yeah, and think about this. As I was walking in to work this morning with some of my friends, it dawned on me, there was something missing on such a wonderful dump morning...it was quiet. No loud bombs going off. We joke about how they should set some off just for the ambiance, but that means that EVERYTHING WAS OPEN right off the bat! So, how great was that! I took a few pics to share: check out my car! I drove up to VT last night before the storm hit. A friend suggested it last night and it was a good idea. So, I just drove up and "barged" in on some friends up there, slept in until 630 and was ready to ski at 730 and I didn't have to fight the traffic and the storm. What a great IDEA! What a great day!