Gingerbread House Party

I narrowly avoided a disaster this year. When I started baking the pieces for the houses a couple weeks ago, I read the recipe incorrectly and did not add enough sugar to the dough. I knew something was wrong, but I just couldn't figure it out. The dough was elastic. When I rolled it out it would shrink back. Consequently, the pieces were smaller than normal in the first batch, but they were perfect houses for the little kids. I compensated by cutting the pieces larger. That helped but they would still shrink inconsistently and make it difficult get the pieces to match up. It was so much easier once I realized my mistake with the sugar. In spite of my best efforts to mess it up, yesterday's gingerbread house party was another success.

All the houses assembled and ready to be made pretty. Notice the difference between the front center house and the one right behind it? Dat wus me.

 The kid's table...

...and the overrated adult table.

The first time we've had a deer hang. 

Excellent detail work on the window cut outs.

From flamboyant to humble - front view.

Back view. Putting your name on guarantees nobody 

gets confused and takes the wrong house.

My sister, Barb, had an idea and we merged our creative energies on this one. It has a garbage pit, blue tarps, slapped on siding, a successfully hunted animal mounted on the back of the house, duct tape on the windows, an overstuffed chair on the porch, an RV parked in the back with a stone patio and plastic grass walkway, and a free stained couch for the taking.

It's a gingerbread shotgun shack.

Please wipe your feet before coming inside.

Back In Operational Status

I did not intend to go shopping on Black Friday, but a crashed hard drive forced me to go to the store. After returning home from the Black Friday Bike Ride, I headed out and picked up a 2TB replacement drive. While having a hard drive crash is a bad thing, it was fortunate for me that Geoff was home. He replaced my hard drive three years ago and is far more familiar with the innards of my iMac than I am. He swapped out the drive and Time Machine took over after booting up. I don't care that it took almost seven hours to restore my system. It's such a relief that when the restore is complete, I am right back to where I left off when the other drive crashed. No loss of data or applications.

Here is what it looked like when Geoff swapped out the hard drive three years ago. Same as yesterday. Thank you, Geoff!

Way Better Than Shopping

The third annual Black Friday Bike Ride was graced with cool temps and no rain. Ten riders showed up to climb, jounce, slog, and rip down about 19 miles of trails. At one point they threw their bikes across the water and then leaped across. Pat has shots in his post.

John's pre-ride pep talk. "I'm going to take you places you may wish to never see again. Some of you may think you're going to die." Well, that's what he should have told us.

Warming up on the trails below High Drive.

I pulled my camera out of my backpack and thought my viewfinder was fogged, but it was the lens. That's Sean from Fairchild AFB being all shy for the paparazzi. Sean is new to the area and stumbled upon John's ride announcement on Thursday night. Not being familiar with Spokane's cycling scene he decided to show up and see what the BFBR was all about. He did not regret his decision.

Scott and his bloody leg. He took a spill early on, but Scott is unaffected by blood loss, pain, or open wounds exposed to the frigid air. Nor did his injury affect his leaping skills.

One of the several painful climbs John took us on. Not long after this particular climb, we were offered an alternate route to the "slippery cliffs". Well, you don't get this far into it and miss out on that, now do you? For those of use without suspension, the slippery cliffs consisted of wet basalt that shook our bones loose. There were branches to duck under and a pair of trees that are just wide enough for handlebars to pass through. As one rider discovered, you really should hit that at dead center. Nobody died on the climbs or the murderous terrain, but the thought may have occurred to a rider or two.

Three hours and 23 miles after leaving The Scoop, we stopped by David Blaine's Central Food restaurant where he graciously welcomed us hungry, sweaty cyclists. The food was delicious and from my observation of those who were partaking, the beer was too.

With the mileage and terrain we got in, this was an excellent Black Friday Bike Ride. Where did we go? I have a general idea. We started at The Scoop. From there we headed over to High Drive where we bombed down some exciting downhill. Then we followed High Drive trails south to Hatch Road. We swerved into a dead end road and through someone's driveway, and followed more trails that took us near the bottom of Hatch Road where we crossed Hwy 195. Traveling south for just a bit, we turned right on White Road where we immediately headed off into the wilderness. At some point we turned northward because we ended up back at Hwy 195 at Thorp Road. Crossing at Thorp, we cut through the neighborhood to High Bridge Park. From there we followed the "river trail", which I had no idea existed, and dodged huge rocks, ducked under fallen trees, and rode off-camber along the west side of the Spokane River to Meenach Bridge. From there it was up Pettit Drive and through the West Central neighborhood to refuel at Central Food.

Thanks again, John, for leading us on this fun and challenging ride.

Lacking A Scandal

In today's Spokesman Review, we have an op-ed by Dana Milbank in which we learn that the affair between General Petraeus and Paula Broadwell was just an affair between two consenting adults and the entirety of their behavior lacks scandal.

How comforting for Mrs Petraeus and Mr Broadwell to have one more thing to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving holiday.

No Posting For A Bit

The hard drive on my computer went bad tonight. Looks like I'm going shopping on Friday after the Black Friday Bike Ride.

Well That Was Worth Staying Home For

I got a phone call from the Conservative Majority Fund telling me that President Obama is going to close Guantanamo, give amnesty to all illegal aliens, and allow the United Nations to tax American citizens. Not only that, nobody has ever seen an authentic birth certificate so Obama isn't really an American citizen. On top of that, they believe he has committed impeachable offenses.

"Press 1 now to donate $5.00 to impeach Obama."

As a further enticement, if I donated they would send me a Don't Tread on Me flag.

"Press 1 now to donate $5.00 to impeach Obama."

I pulled up their web site while their nonsensical vitriol ran its course on the phone. It didn't take long to realize that a venom-spitting snake is an appropriate symbol for this group.