29 Days of Hapiiness #4

Summiting Camel's Hump in the winter solo to reach the top in amazing time with stunning weather.

A shower and a sniffer of brandy.

Good conversation over good but delayed dinner, then green tea ice cream.

29 Days of Happiness #3

Getting a new work computer and finding that Pandora was not blocked by the web filters.

Unpacking then repacking all my gear for snowshoeing tomorrow where ever I go, it appeals to the OCD part of me to make sure everything is there and functional.

The sparkling of snow in highly focused moving spotlight on Church Street during a light show.  It really looked like diamonds dancing in the night sky.

29 Days of Happiness #2

Seriously, WTF podcast made my list again as I had to bite my lip from laughing out in the middle of my work cubicle.

My new monitor at work that is double the size of my previous one. 


Dinner with my next door neighbor and landlord involving enchiladas, some of my home brew and lots of good conversation.

29 Days of Happiness #1

Today while at work I listened to this podcast by Shawn Anchor (I highly recommend it).  While the talk was amusing there was something compelling in the whole thing.  My life, over the last couple of years, has been filled with a great deal of unhappiness and more recently depression.  I have been getting out of that depressive state and trying to make my way with my life but I think something Shawn says is very true: "The absence of disease is not health."

So per his lecture I am going to try something, if it works wonderful, if it doesn't maybe I will understand my life much better.  For the rest of the month I am going to write three things that bring me happiness in whatever gradients it may come each day.  I figure at the end of the month I can look back and realize that maybe my life is actually quite nice.  So here it goes:

Listening to the TED talk podcast and having to restrain myself from laughing out loud at work because I am listening to the whole thing over a single headphone plugged into my laptop.

Driving home in the rain, cold in the dark with warm of being in a car rather than a bike and pretending I am a fighter pilot navigating the traffic.

Glorious crunchy fatty crust from an oven baked ham that was delicious, unhealthy and will slowly make me more and more a vegetarian one delicious bite at a time because as I write this I feel way too full and rather gross at this point.

Little Man's Imperial Stout and The Red Scare

I have two new beers I have brewed, the details can be read on my website for homebrewing.  The first was a very high ABV of  9% Imperial Stout.  The etymology of the differences between the words "stout" and "porter" can be amusingly vague but an imperial stout is one with a high alcohol content.  This took a long to to brew and is taking even longer to develop any sort of carbonation.  Still tasty though.

The second was a copper ale I bottled last night.  I had fun making the label and given my initial tasting I will thoroughly enjoy drinking it as spring starts to swing around. 

1-28-12 Little River

The weather for this winter has been strange to say the least.  There has been little snow fall in Burlington, days that are unseasonably warm and rain in January.   Which means getting out on mountains is a bit more complicated because you are completely unsure if you will find ice, snow or mud.  Or all three.  I decide rather than hitting a mountain top to go to Little River and explore a bit.  There was about 4 inches of snow but it was so crusty on top due to recent rain I left my snowshoes in the car.

Sal was ecstatic to get out on the trails. 

It was good to see snow as well.  There hasn't been more than an inch in Burlington.

A trail sign that has seen better days.

I decided not to forge this icy stream to go up the cut off trail, who knows how solid the ice was adn dips in a stream where not what I was looking for.

There used to be a sawmill here but I didn't get far enough along the trail to find it. I did find this though, which I believe implies there once was a farm here.  Hardy folks.

12-27-12 Snake Mountain with Dani

A long time Vassar friend Dani came up to visit me.  In order to give her the full flavor of Vermont I took her to Snake Mountain.  There was some ice, some mud but as always a great view.

 The view...

 Dani, optimistic as always...

 And now the combination...