Pie Crust

After all the relatives had left, Erin challenged herself to use up the leftover food. Part of her plan involved turkey pot pie, for which she needed a top crust (she already had a pre-made lower crust). It came out great!

Chocolate Old Fashioned

December 28. Chocolate old-fashioned. Daily Donuts.

SC trail north

Just before the Central overpass. Rained pretty hard Monday morning, but the sky was clear when I rode to work.

Barbecue chicken pizza

Seasons Greetings

Cheers! (1/2 second exposure to get this? geez!)

Water in the creek

Not much water, but more than last week!

Cake donut

Source: Daily Donuts
Date eaten: December 21
Location eaten: my kitchen
Coffee? Yes (stovetop espresso)

Old farm on Grant Road

In Mountain View. Farm now appears defunct, but I remember it was still active up until a few years ago.

Snow!

Down to 2000 feet yesterday. View of Mount Hamilton.

Crossed Palms

I'm not sure the significance of this.

groats

Don't know why I like these so much, as opposed to the more conventional rolled oats. I do think it was interesting the recent Straight Dope column discussing whether one could survive solely on potatoes and milk. The answer was that eventually, one would die of molybdenum deficiency. However, just a small amount of oatmeal in the diet would prevent that.

Xmas lights

Grumble grumble grumble.

Nishiki mixte

Seven dollars! At a thrift shop in some tiny mountain town in Colorado.

Sylvan Park

Rode through ice yesterday morning.

SJMA

I don't remember seeing this sculpture before.

Downtown Ice (San Jose)

Here's a cute puzzle: find the longest words you can type with just your left hand.

Solution:

#!/usr/bin/python2.4
import sys
import os

DICTIONARY = '/usr/share/dict/american-english'
left_hand_letters = set('qwertasdfgzxcvb')
list_of_words = os.popen("cat %s | tr [A-Z] [a-z]" % DICTIONARY)

longest = 0
for word in list_of_words:
  if (not [i for i in word.strip() if i not in left_hand_letters]
      and len(word) >= longest):
    longest = len(word)
    print word,

The new Steinhart Aquarium

There's no more fish-go-round. But it's still a fun place to visit.

Academy of Science

Inside the rainforest dome at the California Academy of Science in San Francisco.

Grrrr!

So... the geese don't actually seem scared of this. Go back to Canadia, hosers!

This coyote decoy is sold on Amazon specifically for scaring Canadian geese.

Plumbing

I don't know much about plumbing, but I do know that washers are replaceable, and you have to have access to replace them. The previous owner of the house completely caulked up access to the fixtures. I had to drill and chisel through it to replace the washers the last time.

Drip

These are the two washers I pulled out of the shower valve this weekend. They are flat when new, and grooved deeply when they finally need to be replaced. I wish I knew when I did this last, so I'd have an idea of when I'll have to do it again. A few years between replacements, I think.

Cross

We weren't able to actually reach the cross, so I don't know what it
was. In the satellite view in Google maps, it doesn't appear to be a
cemetery.

Coming of Winter

A light snow fell the night before we left Colorado. It was 70 degrees when we landed in San Jose.