Flying Again

I brought The Flag out today and hung it towards the highway to celebrate the Great American Eclipse that’s about to roll through our Valley.

This is my grandfathers World War I funeral flag and the last time it flew was Sept 11.

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Nap View

Sometimes I like to take a morning power nap in the big chair in the corner of the living room. This is what I see when I open my eyes:

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First Snake

We’ve lived in this subdivision for many years and I’ve never seen a snake here before, must be the 6500 ft altitude I supposed. Until today, and it was dead…

I know it wasn’t me that ran over the poor thing (I don’t take any life willingly) because there’s no need to drive over the little bridge into the subdivision.

Speaking of snakes, my browser app Ghostery blocks all webpage trackers and the other day it blocked 40 on one site alone. If you’re not using this tool, along with a good VPN, you are at risk my friends.

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Tree Down

I came home for lunch today and found a tree down. This was a key young tree that helped block the view of Ski Hill Road and we’re sorry to see it go. What’s more concerning is that the base looks rotted out and definitely needs an autopsy by a specialist. I think we should just let her stay there until that happens…

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Butternut Chicken

I really don’t like cooking for myself, but today I figured I better whip up something I can eat for a couple of days, so here’s my new creation, Butternut Chicken:

I started with a large butternut squash that I cut in half, placed face down in a baking dish with water, and cooked at 350 for 1.3 hours. The free range organic expensive chicken breasts were cut into pieces, seasoned with sea salt and ground pepper, coated with a flour, cornmeal and flax seed mixture and then browned in grape seed oil.

I sauteed some onion, mushrooms and garlic up, which I overcooked a bit because I was busy flipping chicken, but they came out pretty tasty. When the squash was ready I stripped the skin off and mixed it up in a bowl with a little organic maple syrup. I put that mixture back in the baking dish, layered the chicken on top and then finished off with the saute. Then I baked it at 350 for 20 minutes. This is my own recipe btw…

It came out great! You can see more pictures by clicking on the photo below.

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Life Good

Life is good today. Steph’s in the South helping to bring in a new grand-daughter, the sun is shining here, a batch of all organic chicken chili is simmering, I’m dancing on the deck and working on a new app. And, I’ve got a paid day off tomorrow!

Actually it came out more like stew, but it’s delicious.

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Sleep Settings

I tweaked my sleeping arrangement today. My main pet peeve was that I couldn’t lay on my back and point my toes upward because the blankets were too heavy, so I built a foot bridge at the bottom.

My pet Piper’s peeve was that she’s getting too old and fat to easily jump up on to her bed (the blue thing) so I built her a launching pad next to the treadmill.

The shotgun is ready, the rope that pulls the door shut after Piper opens it, is set, and the electric blanket is on. We can’t wait to climb into bed tonight…

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Microslop

One day back in the very early nineties I was out on a charter boat in Puget Sound WA, salmon fishing with a couple of guys named Mark. One was the guy who wrote PC Paintbrush and the other was the CEO of his graphics company, ZSoft. They were in town for a big meeting with Microsoft over in Redmond and decided to grab their West Coast scanner developer (me) and get in some fishing beforehand.

The next day they dropped by my place in Kent after their meeting and installed some proprietary software on my computer, given to them by Microsoft. It was the beta version of Windows 3.1, the multitasking beauty that changed computing forever. I just wanted to establish my cred here before I start dissing Microsoft.

I initially went with the default Win 10 install on my new box but after a lot of crap uninstalls and heavy tweaking I broke their Store which meant I couldn’t download the new driving game (Forza Horizon 3) that I bought on sale from them. So, I just formatted the SID and installed a squeaky clean version of Windows 10, which I should have just done in the first place.

Two things have occurred which has prompted this post. First off, I used PayPal to buy the game. That’s my slush fund for incidentals and I use it a lot. This morning I discovered that Microsoft bypassed PayPal and went straight into my checking account (which is linked to PayPal) and deducted the money from there instead! Are you kidding me!!! I didn’t even know that was possible.

Than, while I was downloading the game, I noticed that they had slipped in a couple of other downloads that I didn’t request, CandyCrush and MineSweeper. Again, are you kidding me!!! Obviously I canceled them but what the hell is going on with Microsoft?

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Aegis 3

I had a very productive day yesterday porting my tools over to the new rig. I just grabbed Steph’s little camera (she’s got mine in Washington) and shot a quick video to test out my video editor, which you can watch here.

And yes, the computer is breathing…

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New Box

There’s nothing better in my little tech book than to setup a brand new computer and then do a blog post about it, with it.

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Puff Quilt

It’s a pretty colorful evening around the house tonight, Steph’s got her Puff Quilt project spread out across the dining room table and I’ve got my own weird stuff going on in my office.

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Last Vestige

The last vestige of a nasty Winter is clinging tenaciously to our deck. Steph brought the chairs and table out this evening and had to work around this block of leftover ice. Spring is right around the corner, but it’s long corner.

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Snow Meets

I know when Winter peaks around here, it’s when the deck snow meets the roof snow. When that moment arrives I like to strip naked and thrash around between the two and see if I can loosen up the roof snow so it comes crashing down. Steph thinks it’s funny as hell when all she can see is one arm sticking out and I can hear her laughing all the way to the garage as she goes for a shovel. Hey, it’s life in the Rockies!

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Snowed In

For the first time in all the years I’ve been driving the bus here, I can’t get out of my driveway this morning to perform that function. My little weighted down truck with it’s fine snow tires is no match for the dumping we got last night.

All of the roads out of our Valley are closed except Pine Creek Pass, school is closed, and my poor bus is probably buried, so I might as well just sit tight for a bit. Steph is fretting because three of her customers are out of propane, but what can you do?

And don’t even think about paying us a visit…

Update: TRPTA has canceled bus service here in Teton Valley today!

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Sunday Snack

I’m cooking stew and writing code today, hunkered down inside a mountain of snow protected by horizontally stacked logs. I picked up some local treats at the indoor Farmers Market inside MD Nursery yesterday and just now spread them out for a little mid-morning snack. Organic crackers, spicy hummus and carrot jalapeno extra hot salsa from my long bearded friend of the summer market, along with some Golden Glow Kraut, fermented personally by the Jackson Hole lady of Daily Roots (green cabbage, carrots, ginger, garlic, turmeric and sea salt). My taste buds are screaming Yummy!

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