Our “Slightly Delayed” Christmas

Friday - The “activity-of-the-day”, making the gingerbread house kit that Bridget had picked up for me last week sometime. It’s an activity that is fun though I’m not a fan of the gingerbread itself. Especially what comes in these kits.

The turkey is still in the sous vide and I’ll start into the grilled veggies that I was planning on making for the Christmas potluck. I do need to make some balsamic glaze as I had used up the store-bought stuff back in November. 

It is warmer today and not much humidity. Our Christmas dinner was pretty tasty! We have tons of veggies left over but it freezes well. The homemade balsamic glaze came out delicious. I probably used more of it than I should’ve but it is fantastic. 

Happy New Year!

Unlike many other blogs, I’m not going to do a year of pictures or a year in review. I looked through my photos and really couldn't think of anything that really stood out. Kinda sad, eh? Lots of pictures of the Ural in front of snow-covered trees or things that I thought were scenic at the time but now, not so scenic. When I took this picture, I kind of knew what I was looking for but wasn't quite able to get it. There was a minivan behind me so I couldn't get quite far enough back. The sun was shining under the clouds when I stepped outside but after getting the engine started and my phone dug out of my pocket, it was much less picturesque. Oh well...

We do have some rather loose plans for the coming year. In a week or so we will be heading back to AZ to pick up where we left off. Hopefully, there is no issue with either the truck or the trailer. I must admit that I have been more than a little worried about leaving the truck and trailer for an extended period in Arizona. Dom had driven by and checked it out in December and all was fine but I tend to worry about such things.

We have a reservation at the same RV park in Benson, AZ, then we plan to head to Quartzite, AZ, for a ham radio specialty convention known as Quartzfest. It is meeting on BLM land south of Quartzite and they schedule it to coincide with the huge RV show and the gem show. After Quartzfest, we have a week or so before our reserved campsite in Needles, CA. This is at the same RV park that we stayed at back in October. We are planning to stay there for the month of February.

After that, things are kind of open except for a mini-reunion in Murietta, CA, a small town southeast of Los Angeles. There is a Thousand Trails park near there that I was going to try and reserve for a week or so straddling the reunion date. We have no plans after that though I'm thinking of attending D2D in Dawson City, YT, in June and the Sidecar rally in Couer d'Alene, ID, in July. This would be a Ural trip complete with tent camping...

This morning brought dangerously warm temperatures. Dangerous due to the very slippery roads that usually accompanies warm temperatures. I’m sick today and waiting for a call from a plumber. I think that this cold has run through everyone else in the house and I’m the last victim. What a way to end the year. I’m looking forward to whatever 2019 brings!

BTW, the plumber came around 3:30 and cleared the clog which was about 35’ from the kitchen. And, my last batch of kimchi is almost spicy enough to melt the glass jars. Maybe I should’ve used the chili on the drain. The person at the Asian food store was right. Don't use as much of this chili powder.

Boxing Day

It’s been a while since I’ve cooked up a holiday meal for Christmas. If there are only a couple of people, there really is little reason. Since four of the five boys were here plus one spouse, there was more of a reason. Plus, I managed to avoid preparing a holiday meal on Thanksgiving. The turkey was brined for a couple of days, the dressing (not stuffing) has just about everything I could think of in it including one small batch with oysters (yum!), and the yams was a super simple recipe that I saw on YouTube. One large can of yams, one can of apple pie filling, one can (or equivalent homemade) cranberry sauce and chopped pecans. Then bake the whole thing at some random temperature for a random amount of time. In other words, it didn't really matter. My kind of recipe. Plus, I made some of the standard stuff and pie. I think it turned out pretty good but then again, I’m biased.

Today, it eventually warmed up to above 0°F so we went into town early in the afternoon. Not to look for any super sales but to try and avoid any store that might have a super sale or an item return line. For example, avoid Fred Meyer but Safeway should be pretty empty. There was some discussion of the origin of the term "boxing day" and none of them had anything to do with shopping. How things have gotten distorted with holiday commercialism.

Tonight, Bridget and I are visiting a colleague from the university and bringing the honeyberry pie. 

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all the best for this holiday season and hope you have (or had) a very merry Christmas.

Our local temperatures aren't that conducive to outdoor activities so no riding today. I did go to coffee this morning and there was a pretty good group there. I hadn't been back since being up north due to a busy schedule.

I started cooking for our Christmas dinner and some things are new. Such as a yam, apple pie filling, cranberry sauce, and pecan dish. I thought that the combination sounded pretty tasty. Or the honeyberry pie. These are some of them that we picked last summer at the Big M farm near Nenana. According to the Internet, it's best if the berries are frozen then allowed to thaw in a colander to allow them to lose some of their moisture.

From the Weather Underground graphic, you can see that the seasonally cold temperature will continue through Christmas. I hear that it's warmer in AZ. Only a couple more weeks...

'Tis the Season

It's that time of the year when ornaments are dug out for the Christmas tree. When I left for Barrow, there were no ornaments just lights. There are three motorcycle themed ornaments on the tree. But this is the only one with a sidecar. There are a couple with cruisers probably modeled after HD as that's really the largest market. At least in the U.S. though I'm not sure about the rest of the world.

Bridget had picked up the trailer ornament last year and, I believe, that it is the only RV ornament. This wasn't picked up on any of our trips but was found in Fairbanks last year. There are probably about 150 ornaments on the tree. Bridget seems to have gone all out on the Christmas decorations this year with decorations all over the living room.

Anyway, I arrived back from Barrow on Thursday afternoon. While in Barrow, I had received a message that the Surface Pro 6 that I had ordered had arrived. I picked it up that afternoon and started to get it set up. To be fair, I'm going to try to use it exclusively for the next couple of weeks.

My first impression, it looks just like Windows 10 on the Lenovo Helix. Some things work much better such as the touchscreen. The touch resolution of the Helix wasn't as accurate. Photo transfer through Google Photo seems to work great. Within minutes of taking a picture on my iPhone, it's available on the Surface. On the Helix, it took hours to sync and on iOS it wouldn't show up until the next day. Maybe there is a setting somewhere. The keyboard on the Surface is much nicer to use than the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard. So my first impression is that the functionality as a tablet is much better than any iOS device. It's a decent laptop though I still prefer OS X. There is only one USB-3 port. A USB-C port would have been much more functional. My son mentioned that a lot of the functionality is due to the stylus. I didn't get the stylus since I never really used the one on the Helix or the iPad Pro.

The best feature has to be the kickstand on the back. It is infinitely adjustable and holds in just about any position. The keyboard angle is close to ideal. About the same as a MacBook though the MacBook keyboard is terrible.