Hiking Mt. Monadnok

There's been lots of glorious snow.

Greg and I drove to New Hampshire yesterday to hike Mt. Monadnok, the second most hiked mountain in the world, behind Mt. Fiji. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem about it, called Monadnok, and Henry David Thoreau wrote the first serious naturalist inventory of the mountain.
When it snows, a group of snow plowing trucks will go to the highways and each one will be in a lane, staggered, so that they can push all of the snow from one lane to the next, and off the road. On our drive, we were stuck behind several herds of snow plows.

Someone said that the main purpose of picnic benches in New England is to measure the snow. It works pretty well. Back in town, below, I like how the snow piled on every surface, even if the surface is the tiny feet to a chair.

Icicles and snowfall.

Enjoying Winter

I'd hate for you to think that everything is perfect here in Boston. Check out this dirty road snow, for example. The snow gets plowed off the streets and off the sidewalks, mostly to the parkways. It's really important to take your boots off when you go inside someone's house. The boots track in snow, and no one wants to walk on the wet floor and get their socks wet. Also, the city puts down salt, sand, and chemicals to make the snow safer to drive and walk on. I regularly sweep up sand and pebbles from my front hallway. It's also illegal not to clear the snow off of your car. When you're driving, heat from the cab can melt the snow just enough to make the bottom of it icy and slide right off of your car, and onto the car behind you. That happened the other day, and a guy's windshield was pierced by the ice from the car in front of him. Thankfully, the fellow wasn't hurt.

I helped a coworker plan a retreat for all of the software developers in our department. The day before, he and I went to the Harvard Club, where the event was to take place, to check it out. Afterwards, he had to go to school while I returned to work. (He's working full time and getting a Masters, woah.) I knew I was close to work, and thought I had a good idea of where I was, so I decide to walk instead of taking the T or a cab. I got turned around and had to call another coworker for help getting back! Thankfully, I don't get lost too often, and thankfully I could call for help. The point of the story is that the next two photos are from my half-hour walk back to work. And the retreat, which was this past Friday, went smoothly and was fun.

Poor little kids; they have to ride bikes in the snow during winter. And below, here are some icicles.

Thanks for the awesome hat and scarf, Sunshine!
Billy is writing his memoirs. Actually, he's just picking out movies on Netflix. Milo and Otis should be coming in the mail soon...

My friend Britt said it was only a matter of time before I slipped on the ice. He said it was an inevitability. The other night when I was walking home from work, I tried to kick a bush to knock the snow off of it. I was standing on ice, I found out a fraction of a second later, and boom, down I went. Greg and I always walk home together, since we live so close, so I made him capture the moment.The next day, I put my face in the snow. It's really cold, but it feels kind of neat.
I wrote my name in the snow on the Quad at work. Earlier that morning, I'd seen some lewd snowmen, but they'd been knocked over by the time I grabbed a friend at lunch to play in the snow. There was ice beneath the snow, so we each cleared out a section, maybe two-foot circles, and we slid around like we were mini-ice skating.

If you check out the tracks through the Quad, you'll see mine aren't the only ones. Sometimes I feel a little silly tromping through the snow when other people walk on the cleared sections, but I'm not the only one. And I'm sure it's not only Californians who go out of their way to be in the snow here. Here's a picture of me getting up from making a snow angel.
And the geese, sleeping along Muddy River.

It's so hard being Billy.

Home for the Holidays - in Sunny San Diego

Being home was terrific. I got some wonderful family time in and was able to see most of the friends I'd wanted to see. I went to La Jolla Cove the day after Christmas with my friend Megan, and it was a great day for it - clear and windy. It's also harbor seal pupping season. If you look closely, the smaller lumps on the beach are the pups.

See, I told you it was windy.

Those are pelicans on top of the rock.

Here's a different kind of pup - my parents' golden retriever, Jackson Blue, with the remnants of a duck toy in his mouth.

As great as it was to be home, I did miss the cold. After having breakfast with some friends, I walked two miles to the Natural History Museum to catch up with friends. (Not having a car is so much easier in Boston...) I'd misplaced my sunglasses and was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. It was too hot and too sunny. Back in Boston, while I was waiting for Greg to pick me up from the airport, I stood outside, just to feel the crisp cold air again. I really like it here in Boston.

Can you see the geese prints in the snow? It hasn't snowed since New Year's and the snow has melted and refrozen a bit, so there's ice on the top. Some of the oak leaves were in the ice, too. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but some ice froze around the leaves. The effect is that there's nothing on top of the leaves, but if you pick one up, you see that there's ice around it, and a leaf print is left over. I didn't even try to photograph it, but I will next time. There's a 100% chance of snow tonight. It's supposed to snow from 8pm tonight to 11am tomorrow, dropping 3-7 inches of snow; I can't wait. It strikes me that San Diego rarely gets a 100% chance of precipitation. I always say that San Diego can't commit to bad weather. Well, Boston sure can, and I love it. I drove Greg to the airport last night, with his car. He went to Orlando to run the Disney World Marathon, so he can qualify for the Boston Marathon in April. The streets were plowed and there isn't much snow left on the ground, except in parkways and gutters. When I got home and parked the car - I mean, when I pahked the cah - I crunched up against the few inches of snow/ice on the edge of the street. It makes a grinding crunchy sound, which is perfectly acceptable here. This takes some getting used to for me, because if you are parking your car in San Diego, any grinding, crunchy noise is bad news.

Playing Catch-Up: December 21 and 22 Snow

Gordon Hall, Harvard Medical School.

Some kids were sledding down a hill. That's still on my to-do list.


I'll bet this jacket will keep me warm.
I love the stickiness that causes the snow to stick to the trees. There are so many different kinds of snow.

Snow Balls

Apparently, everyone knows you can't make snow balls with dry snow. Silly me.

Sunset today at 4:15pm. Welcome to Winter.

My First Snow Storm

Getting in the holiday spirit, a few days before the snow.


When I was working on cruise ships in Alaska, we would ask the (complaining) kids as we walked around the outer decks, "Are you cold, or are you tough?" Photo, above, indicates that I was cold.
The snow started around 1pm on Friday. We'd been released from work at noon and I got everyone who had been at work to go out for pizza together. They're all amused by my snow-glee, and they're taking bets on when I'll start to dread the cold and snow. Ha! I say.
Snow tip: Keep your hood up so the snow doesn't melt on your neck.
Mike the Bike is safely inside, but look at these poor bikes, left out in the snow.

A fun activity I discovered is pushing the snow off of cars. Ordinarily, you never touch someone else's car. You probably don't even touch your own car very often. But when the cars are piled high with snow, it's really cool to push it off. You know how destruction is fun, but we normally suppress the desire? Think about it - food fights, demolition derby, lighting stuff on fire. We realize that destroying things is counterproductive, so we normally don't do it. But pushing snow off of cars, that pristine white, the perfect smoothness. It's fun to mess that up. Before:

And after:

Just like apartment management companies kept on top of the fallen leaves in the autumn, so do they shovel or blow the snow. You can see that sidewalks in front of some apartment buildings are clearer than others. Also, in front of playgrounds or parking lots, the sidewalks aren't cleared at all. The roads are cleared nicely, but walking in the road is dangerous because the cars could accidentally slide into you. See the guy blowing snow?

I know I have all winter, but I wanted to get the stereotypes out of the way, so here I am catching snowflakes on my tongue.

My friend Greg and I had a snow fight. I wouldn't call it a snowBALL fight, since I was just grabbing snow and throwing it at him. The snow stuck to my gloves, making snowballs difficult to create. Some college kids were hanging around outside their apartment building and they started cheering for me, "Go Red!" Greg still won, but the kids told me I'd put up a good fight.

It's also fun to make a body print on the cars.

Greg put his face in the cold snow. Can you see the snow sparkling?

This is the view out my windows.

Billy's first big snow.

Right now in Blustery Boston, it's snowing and 33 degrees (but it feels like it's 19 degrees). Today's forecast for San Diego? Sunny, with a high of 64 degrees.

Happy Solstice, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Birthday to me!

My First Snow Day!!!

There's a severe weather alert for Boston and the surrounding areas today. The governor said all government employees could stay home, schools are closed, and several of my co-workers are working from home today. Those of us who are here got a nice treat - we get to go home (paid of course) at noon! Last year, there was a huge storm and employers all released their employees at the same time - my boss's car sat in one place on the road for four hours, and it took him six hours total to get home. As a happy walker, my one-mile commute will only be slowed by my playing in the snow and photographing the storm. I can't wait!

The following was taken from NOAA.org, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

...HEAVY SNOW THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING WILL RAPIDLY ACCUMULATE ON ROADWAYS AND TRAVEL IS HIGHLY DISCOURAGED...A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 3 AM EST SATURDAY...IT WILL QUICKLY BECOME HEAVY...RAPIDLY ACCUMULATE ON ROADWAYS...AND RESULT IN VERY POOR VISIBILITIES. SNOWFALL RATES OF 1 TO 2 INCHES PER HOUR ARE LIKELY FROM MID AFTERNOON INTO THE EVENING HOURS. ROADS DURING THE LATE AFTERNOON AND EVENING COMMUTE WILL BE SNOW COVERED AND TREACHEROUS. IN ADDITION...NORTHEAST WINDS WILL INCREASE LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT...THIS WILL RESULT IN CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW...RESULTING IN VERY POOR VISIBILITIES AT TIMES. AT THIS TIME...IT LOOKS AS THOUGH MOST OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND WILL RECEIVE 8 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOWFALL BY MIDNIGHT FRIDAY NIGHT...AGAIN...TRAVEL IS NOT RECOMMENDED THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT. ONLY VENTURE OUT IF ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.