Archive for December, 2009

The Silly Season

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

I’ve always wondered why people refer to this time of year as the “silly season.” I think I understand now…

I’m fully aware that the insanity of the holidays is totally manufactured by us all (as well as many a marketing executive). Here are some of the silly things we do:

1. We’re all rushing around sending out holiday cards when we probably all keep in touch via Facebook, Twitter or some other much more modern format
2. We force ourselves to buy presents for people because it’s the holidays and that’s what we’ve been conned into thinking we’re supposed to do
3. We indulge in desserts or other random but not often eaten foods…again part of the holiday tradition (some things are even questionable as to whether they ARE food…case in point, fruit cake!)
4. We spent more money and time trying to get to friends and relatives during arguably the crappiest time of year to travel

As with all downsides, there is an upside…

1. We get to see friends and relatives we don’t regularly visit
2. We have an excuse to watch all the Rankin/Bass claymation Christmas classics (who doesn’t know a few words to the Heat Miser song)
3. We can eat and drink whatever we want
4. We get presents

The holidays would be fine if that was the only craziness, but when you pile it on top of those year-end corporate goals people ridiculously push for when most of the world is on holiday it becomes, well…silly.

Given we’re still working on returning our plumbing/hot water heater to working order, we’ll be downright ready for the loony bin when the holidays are over.

Happy Holidays to all our friends and family!
Tom, Michelle, McKinley and Bodie

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Winter 1, Dirtkids 0

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Winter technically hasn’t started yet…but it has still handed us an early ass-kicking.

About a week ago, after postponing my trip to Bishop to hang with Tom in favor of staying at our cabin during single digit temperatures to make sure we didn’t lose appliances, crack pipes, etc. I was headed home to check on our house before THEN heading to Bishop. The nasty cold storm early in the week had produced snow down to the Sacramento Valley and significantly more in the Sierra foothills, but there was a break in the action. It sounded simple enough…head home, make sure everything is ok then finally down to Bishop to see Tom.

Excitement (to see Tom, not drive more) quickly dwindled when I flushed a toilet at home which somehow resulted in the hot water heater releasing water from it’s overflow (which was never to code and just dumped water on the garage floor.) Tables were turned and Tom was now quickly on his way home to assess the problem. As of Sunday around midnight, after 5 Home Depot trips, Tom working about 20 hours in two days in frigid 35-40 degrees temps, we still couldn’t get the hot water heater and new plumbing to work. A pressure problem still exists, which we think we can solve but we were out of time. We both chose to leave for Bishop together, knowing that we’ll be spending Christmas working on the plumbing.

After a 5+ hour drive to Bishop on Monday night in frigid temps and occasional icy and snowy roads, we finally arrived (to yet more snow, apparently not entirely common in Bishop.) Again up past midnight, we finally settled in to crash. It felt like we were barely asleep when both of our cell phones rang to alert us that the alarm had been triggered at our house. The sheriff was dispatched, apparently finding no problems. All this on top of the craziness of the holidays and both of us swamped with work.

The joys of warm, summer riding on dusty singletrack seem to be a distant memory covered by piles of snow and the call of the snowboard. Winter will be fun but so far has been a little nasty to us. And although I look forward to riding my new board on the slopes at Mammoth, don’t think I’m forgetting that in 5 days, the days start getting longer and we count down towards those dusty days of summer…

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Winter Wonderland

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

It happens in the blink of an eye…nothing transforms the landscape quite like the first major snowfall. I’m at our cabin as a precaution…so I got to witness the transformation first hand. Our cabin, built in the 50′s, was only recently modernized to include some insulation, siding, double-pane windows, etc. by the previous owner. The only heat sources are a small propane wall heater and a wood burning stove. The quality of work from the previous owner, although not up to Tom’s lofty standards, was good enough to sell us on the place. We’ve since seen pictures of it before the work was done…clearly this was a summer-only, seasonal cabin. Anyway, I digress…

The first major storm of the season was predicted to hit California this past weekend and promised to be unusually cold. I’m skeptical of weather forecasts like most but usually when nastiest is predicted the forecasters aren’t far off. Rather than join Tom in Bishop, I came here to warm the house up. Last winter, before we plumbed in low point drains for the water lines, we had a crack in the shower valve which eventually resulted in us remodeling the bathroom. Although we can drain the water now, we also have concern for appliances and a TV…how will they be affected by extreme cold? More than once last winter it was literally 32 degrees inside the cabin when we arrived. So as the pictures reflect (I really digressed!)…what was a snow-free landscape on Saturday transformed…

There is something so peaceful about the snow. Sound is dampened. The dusting of snow hanging on all the trees in the forest…the site of mountain tops slightly covered…watching dogs bury their faces in the snow like it’s the best thing they’ve ever done…all of it is what makes winter beautiful and distinct from the other seasons.

Final digression: It was a good thing I came…it was down to 5 degrees last night…and we’ll be looking at installing a heating system!

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