Sunday, January 27, 2013

All the Latest

So my blogging has been sub-par lately and I'm not happy about that. I actually really enjoy this on a personal level. With the introduction of Facebook, this suffered. But I don't really care for FB. Never did. It's neat to be able to keep tabs on people that I otherwise wouldn't but it seems that so many people equate being "FB friends" with being actual friends in life. I personally think that society has changed a lot and I see it more and more with my students with the advent of FB, texts, and that sort of thing. We have lost that personal touch. For the people that mean the most to me...I'd still prefer to hear their voice or sit with them face to face and actually conversate. Don't get me wrong. I have met quite a few people with the other social networks that now exist but even with them, I'm glad when we cross paths in real life. It saddens me a bit. Oh well. Can't stop that freight train. 

Yesterday I changed the oil on the White car. It's a 2011 Legacy. I was alarmed when I grabbed the tiny little box that contained the oil filter. Isn't this thing cute? I've seen bigger filters on lawn mowers. After removing all of the plastic from underneath the car (more on this in a second) I realized I didn't have a wrench small enough to remove the old filter. Normally my wrench is never big enough. I had to go buy a new filter wrench. It was small and also cute. I call all of the plastic underneath new cars "discouraging plastic". The only real purpose I think it serves is to discourage people from working on their own shit. Most of the time, I would remove and discard this but since it's Heather's car, I put it all back together. 


After cleaning up, Heather and I had plans to go check out the ice sculptures in Breckenridge. We've done this the last several years and it's always a fun day. I will say though that it feels like the sculptures are lacking in recent years. It's either that or I'm just not as impressed anymore. There are some sculptures that completely blow me away and then others that I just walk past. It's probably all Facebooks fault. This was one that I thought was cool because it just had so many different angles on it. For some reason they caught my eye. They were all perfectly flat. I can't recall the story on this one or who did it.


On the way over I made a stop at the South Platte to see how bad things were. Super low flows. If we don't get some moisture real soon, it's gonna be a really bad summer in terms of fishing and fires. Reservoirs are low. Snow pack is low. Just awful.


This was one of my favorite sculptures. I love the detail on the bear. This was done by some Inuits I believe. The story was something along the lines of a young boy who gets eaten by the bear. His father or Grandfather comes along and finds the bear and cuts it wide open to get the boy back out again. Notice the icicles dropping off the teeth that look like slobber?


Sometimes in Breck it feels like people are trying really hard to look cool. I get that these are boots. But they're pretty silly in my opinion. As I tell my students though, if every person in the world was the same it would be a pretty boring place. Not my cup of tea but Im glad she's confident enough to rock them in public.


I think about my father in-law often. Every day. This is what made me think of him yesterday. He would have loved to have seen this. I can still hear him, "I'll be darned...aint that somethin'?"


Thought this one was cool too.


This Mongolian sculpture was probably my favorite. Love the lines. Love the details.


Also saw this lovely Land Rover while leaving Breck. I think it's a mid 80's 90 model but not certain. I don't know much about these. I think they are super cool but I'm sure they are poorly insulated, noisy, and probably have a really piss poor ride with that short wheelbase. That's not to say that if I had an extra 35 grand in the couch cushions that I wouldn't try to buy one. All that's in my couch cushions is bits of milk bones and dried canine slobber though so I don't have to worry about that.


The drive home from Breck sucked. Dumping down snow. Even though the white car does not have snow tires on it, it drives completely differently than the green Subie does when it's got all seasons on it. I have not disabled the ABS on the white car yet and it doesn't seem to be as sensitive as it is on the green car so I may not have to. Climbing up Hoosier Pass out of Breck sucked. There was a guy in a new Camaro barely making it up and a line of cars behind him. We were about 5th back and there was a flat bed tow truck behind me and another 20 cars behind him. The Camaro pulled over at the top but the mini van that was next in line was doing 20 down the pass and all the way into Alma. The jackass in the flat bed was on my ass the whole way down and on his air horn too. At one point he wanted to get around me and probably the two cars in front of me but I closed the door because it seemed like a bad idea that could have put us at risk and I hate when people do that. Finally both cars turned off in Alma and I was able to get some distance on the flat bed but it took forever to get home. As nice as the new car is, the green one simply owns the snow.

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