Skull-Shaped Africa

I saw a map of Africa tonight and realized it's skull shaped. A quick net search proved that better imaginations with art skills already discovered this about the dark continent.

A bike I liked

I tooled around the Alt Bike shop on a 56cm Kona Sutra Last night. Although I only circumnavigated the inside of the store twice, I was impressed with the comfort and ride. It's build with good components, and it includes many extras like fenders and racks.

The Long Haul Trucker Rolls Again

The LHT's a harbinger of Spring. I boasted last fall that I would ride this in the winter, saying "it's made to be ridden." But, just couldn't bring myself to ride it in the corrosive sludge of snow, dirt and salt.

Fortunately the Sun's increasing intensity has cleaned up the roads in my part of the city. Yesterday the temp. stayed well below freezing, high teens, yet liquid water ran across the road and puddled in multiple locations on my commute home. Further, the Sun's now up enough in the morning, so I can easily see and avoid the mini-ice rinks and ice flows solidified from the melt water after the Sun went down the night before.

The old Trek 950 with its WTB All-Terrain-asaurus tires has done well in snow and rides nicely on pavement. But, jumping to 700 wheels and road tires, 37mm Conti-Contacts, on the LHT felt buttery smooth and noticeably faster.

I expect to fall back to the 950 again for some trips until Springs' inevitable return.

Ling-Hui Back in the Day

I stumbled on these vintage photos of my wife. We only have a handful of photos of her as a child.


She's in the bottom row second from the right.

Night Ski at Afton State Park

My neighbor John and I donned headlamps and headed to Afton Park tonight. We had the entire place to ourselves. I was able to ski most sections sans light. This was more a need than a choice, as the newly charged rechargeable batteries in my headlamp lost power quickly. I saved power for downhill sections which were way more fun in the anemic light I cast.

Big Surf

I spent some time with Steve and Q tonight. Steve showed us his 45cal. air gun and Q and I tried to pull data off my fried laptop drive.

What did the Snail say when riding on the turtle's back?

Wheeeee! An old joke but the kids like it.

Harris' Discovery

This picture is best expanded. Click on it to see it full size.

Tiger Love

Today The family is celebrating both Valentines Day and the Chinese New year of the Tiger. We celebrated by going for our first ever whole family Nordic Ski outing, then stopped at Black Sheep for an outstanding cup of Burundi Coffee out of their Clover Machine.

Ethiopia DP Haile Selassie Sidamo

I just placed a 10lb order of green Halie Selassie Sidamo beans from Sweet Maria's. Foremost, this is an outstanding coffee from where coffee drinking originated. It's fruity, coffey goodness. The description below is far more articulate than I regarding flavor attributes.

This coffee also conjures memories of how and why I started roasting coffee. As I recall my brother Jared learn to roast coffee from a Rastafari man living in the mountains of Jamaica. Upon his return to Minnesota Jared showed me how simple of a process it is. Halie Selassie Sidamo is connected to this experience through the Rastafari worship of Selassie, Ethiopia's former leader, as God incarnate on Earth.
After I started home roasting, I learned, from Jared again, about a stunning coffee from the Harar region of Ethiopia. This coffee also had a fruity blueberry finish to it. And was of course linked to Ethiopia again. Also noteworthy is that my father was living in Ethiopia during this time period as well. This coffee is like going back and having a first date with my favorite high school sweetheart again. It reminds me of why I love roasting coffee.
Country: Ethiopia
Grade: 3
Region: Dara Woreda, Sidamo
Mark: Haile Selassie
Processing: Dry Process
Crop: November 2009 Arrival (GrainPro-Lined Bags)
Appearance: 1.2 d/300gr, 16-18 Screen
Varietal: Local Heirloom Types
Intensity/Prime Attribute: Bold intensity / Dried fruits, spice, body.
Roast: City+ roast will look awfully uneven, but has the most intense fruited notes. FC has the best balance of body and fruit, FC+ is full of intense anise/licorice/cardamom flavors.
Compare to: A very cleanly fruited take on dry-process coffees of Ethiopia (Harar and Sidamo)

Who decides what we wage war on?

If hunger was a scarier bogeyman that threatened rich fat people, then we'd use our tax money differently. We've spent almost $960,000,000.00 on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Think of how many lives would have been saved if we chose to buy burgers instead of bullets. Anyone else feeling manipulated?

Winter Kids

Claire and Harris build this shelter ala Survivor Man in the back yard out of an old pallet, holiday tree and other assorted back yard objects. The table has dinner laid out.

This is the Minnesota Youth Ski League Posse after a day on the trail at my school. They're having fun and doing very well.

Ghost Punch Pictures

I lost in a fist fight with a ghost. Here are a couple of the blow by blow photos.

Pugsley's Easy Enough for Kids.

Claire and Harris take a shine to Uncle Jared's Pugsley.

Ironfamily

Ling-Hui has agreed to join the kids and I for the 2010 Minnesota Ironman this year. We will be doing the 30 mile loop, so long as the weather is reasonable. The past two rides have been very challenging weather wise. Claire rocked last year in the low temperatures and pouring rain. The year before I did the 100 mile route and finished coated in snow.

We're going to ride it for fun this year.