Velouria

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Tonight, I'm a lone man, so I'm just chilling on the ground (since our computer sits on the ground). Thought I'd write about the latest mischief I'm causing.

It's been a long cold winter up here. We've been getting lots of snow. Much more than usual. Up at the Robbins' place, they've got at least 4 ft of the soft stuff on the ground. Down here, it snows, and partially melts, then snows, and partially melts. The lake has been frozen over since the beginning of January, here it is late February and it's still pretty solid. That's something. I'm itching to get back out on it on the paddleboard. I "borrowed" a pair of wetsuit booties from my parents and will use them with my wetsuit as soon as there's enough thawed water to paddle on.

On Saturday, we went for a drive out to Saratoga Springs, a growing community on the northwest side of Utah Lake. There's a bunch of natural hot springs and the community pool is kept at about 95 degrees Farenheit all winter long. We looked at it longingly. I brought a swimsuit (you can never be to careful when there's hot springs around) but Emily and Grace didn't. Some of the locals even offered to let us in. Siggggghhhhh. So we contented ourselves to walk around. I took a few pictures of the natural hot springs down the road. There's also a bunch out in the lake, and as soon as I get the paddleboard in the water and a free Saturday, I'm going exploring.
That's Mt. Timpanogos in the background.

I've also taken up Yogurt making. I've been tinkering with the idea for a looonnnnnggg time and at Good Earth they had a cheap, small, quart-sized yogurt maker. It's really just a mini crockpot that stays at about 110 degrees, to incubate the culture. Simple instructions: Scald the milk just below boiling. Let it cool to lukewarm (about 110 degrees), add culture/starter, incubate for 4-10 hrs, then refrigerate and flavor to your liking. We've done it twice now in a week and I'll make some more tomorrow. My sister-in-law has been making it for a while, so I asked how she does it. She goes a gallon at a time and sets it in the oven on "warm" for 3-4 hours and adds all the flavorings before she incubates it. I've read that for thicker "custard-style" yogurt, add dry milk to the mixture. We've just been using maple syrup and vanilla to flavor ours and it's delicious.

I got so hungry thinking about it, I went and got myself some to eat while waiting for the picture to upload. Mmmmmm.

I'll just keep adding to this post, since many of you catch up on several at a time and I'd just write them in the next post anyways.

This evening it was supposed to snow, but as I left class, the sun was shining, it was a warm 40 degrees and people were out running. Feeling antsy and gluttonous from eating a whole bag of Barbara's Jalapeno cheese puffs for lunch, I went for a bike ride with an hour of daylight to kill. I decided after I was on my way that I'd head down to the lake. About 4.2 miles each way in about 20 minutes (it's tricky getting under the freeway) down Center St. Yup, the lake's still pretty solid. Good if you like ice fishing (which many people have enjoyed this winter). I brought gloves and wore a sweatshirt, but was in basketball shorts and light shoes otherwise. The gloves were just enough. 5 minutes into the ride, I didn't notice the cold. I should be more careful next time though, what if I'd gotten a flat and had to walk back in the dark. Brrrrrr. It did take me a while to feel that cozy warm feeling after I got back.

Emily's in San Francisco with her mom, getting aquainted with the city. They're staying with Kitye's cousin who lives near San Rafael. He's a retired military doctor. He offered to drive them everywhere for the next two days. He sounds like a real nice guy. Kitye and Emily haven't seen him for about 15 years, they tell him they're coming, and he offers everything to them. To keep myself busy the rest of the night, I'm gonna do some homework (just a little) and practice on mah gee-tar, I bought a few weeks ago after doing some research and price checking. Got a great deal off of craigslist on an entry level Alvarez RD8 acoustic. Others worth looking at: Yamaha, Fender, and Ibanez. All have nice low-end guitars. I just liked the sound of the Alvarez the best, personally. That's Princess Aurora rocking out.

Several months ago, I decided I would have to get a guitar for dental school to keep myself busy in the evenings while Emily and Grace were still in Utah. When we had enough to buy one, I started looking around and found this in brand-new condition with a really nice bag being sold by a teenager in Salem, UT for much less than both are worth from the store. Thanks craigslist. Off to go practice "House of the Rising Sun" and "Rivers of Babylon."

Gouge Away

What happens when a cool euro-style car gets stung by a bee?

You get this:

Helpppffff, meeeee, I cammmm't breaafffffe!

Wave of Mutilation

I'd make this really full of links and stuff just to show you that I'm legit, but I'm feeling lazy right now.

I was scrounging around and been thinking, with all the babies born into and around the Lassen family, we should just buy an ultrasound system. I googled "ultrasound craigslist" and found one in Rhode Island in good working condition for $3000. Not bad. Brand new they're between $10,000 and $50,000 and even higher.

We're digging around all the utah craigslists and Ventura County's for cars lately. Looking for any Japanese car with under 90k miles on it. Acura TL's or Legends, Altimas, Galants, Accords, Camrys, and even Honda CR-Vs. Usually anything that looks like a steal turns out to be one "Oh I'm in the UK and can't drive my american car so I'm selling it for dirt cheap and shipping it for free if you use the 3rd party money handler I set up for you." FLAGGED for REMOVAL booyah.
I'm currently trying to find someway to easily save flash video files from the internet, there's a couple I've found but don't have the full capacity I'm looking for. There's an awesome YouTube video with the cast of SpongeBob Squarepants voicing over scenes from classic movies like Casablanca and the Godfather. Awesome.

I better go. Gotta get my nightly fix of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" with Emily. We used some Christmas gift cards and stuff to buy the whole first and second seasons and watch a couple of episodes a night. We did this a year ago when we first discovered Avatar and watched them all online. Excellent, excellent show. Anxiously awaiting episodes 14-21 of the third and final season. They took a break after episode 11 (December) while airing two more episodes in Canada, that we watched online (there's lots of copyright infringement occuring so everyone can watch).

Sometime before May they'll start airing 12-21 in the US on Nickelodeon as 10 Straight Weeks of Avatar. Oh man. Until then: where is Uncle Iroh? What's with the secrecy behind the Pai-sho game? Are there still other airbenders around? How is Azula and the Firelord going to get taken down? How cool is Zuko going to become now that he's changed his life around?

Mr. Grieves

This is just going to be a brief one.

I'm terribly disappointed in the American people for choosing John McCain over Romney. What on earth is appealing about this guy? I admit, reading the summary of his platform he sounds pretty decent. Except that underlying all of it is just a dumb guy with smart people working for him. He will not fix the foreign relations problems that we have right now, I think he'll only make them worse. He is just a "tough" guy who loses his temper easily and will only cause lots of problems. Despite his good intentions stated in his platform, I think he is too corrupt and conniving to do what's best for the country (just watch, he'll turn his back on Huckabee before this is all over, once he's done using him). I think he'll only do what's best for himself and his friends. (Note, these are some of the big criticisms of the Bush campaign, why elect someone who is going to perpetuate these and make them worse). Bottom line: I don't think he thinks very much except for how to serve himself.

Now, to be fair, there's definitely some of that in all of us, but the President of the United States is supposed to at least be better at hiding it.

I think much the same of Hillary Clinton.

But as for Barack Obama: here's a guy who I disagree with on many things, but I agree with on many things too. I like his stands on education, foreign policy, economics, health care, and most of the stuff on this page. His liberality concerning gay rights, I do disagree on, for moral and religious reasons. But he's smart, and he seems to think about what's best for the country. I'd trust him. (A good friend of mine says if a democrat makes it into office, he hopes it's Obama, because he'd be the least effective. This may be true, but also the damage control would be minor compared to someone like Hillary or McCain being in office).

I'm still praying and holding out for a good-sized miracle securing the bid for Romney. Keep the faith alive that something better will happen. But, as a plan B, pray and hope for Obama, not Hillary, to win the election. If it's McCain vs. Hillary, I think we're all in trouble. As my coworkers say, it's a contest between a douche-bag and a crap sandwich.

In the end, I guess it's good that the president is only in for 8 yrs max and has to contend with Congress anyways. Hopefully, one person can't bring the country to ruins. It was made that way on purpose.