My Mountain Trail

Pre-Storm Beauty

Friday, November 20th, 2009

They have been predicting storms for the last couple of days, but the weather just didn’t roll in.  Until today. 

Yesterday I flew home from Philadelphia after completing three morning meetings from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m.  It took me all day to get home because of the FAA computer problems (or whatever it was).  When I say all day, I mean I arrived at the airport at 11:15 a.m. Eastern Time and walked in the door at home at 11:58 p.m. Pacific Time.  All day.

Since I have been getting up so early all week, I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep when Lori got up to start her day.  So I got up and went for a run.  It felt great to be running on the mountain, and I managed to beat the storm — and even get a decent picture of San Francisco Bay to boot.  It started raining shortly after I finished my run, and it has been a blustery day since.

The predict better weather for the weekends.  I hope so.  I finally bought some crab pots, and it would be great to give them a try this weekend.  We’ll see!

Winter Rains

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Last weather-year was a semi-dry year for us. It wasn’t so bad in Marin County that we needed a formal rationing program, but people were encouraged to conserve. I’m all for that, even if it isn’t a dry year. You just never know how things are going to go. A ‘normal’ year can quickly become ‘the good ol’ days’ if you don’t conserve. Sometimes even if you do conserve — just look at central Australia right now.

This year is starting out much better for us. We have had two big storms so far, and are going through a small one the end of this week. The big storms dumped about 8″ of rain up here on the mountain. Those types of storms don’t water things very efficiently, but they do fill the reservoirs up here. That makes it possible for us to water efficiently enough. And take showers (very important), make coffee (also very important), etc.

I was able to take today off, and it is raining. I’m not complaining as you can see. I was going to do some computer stuff, but decided instead to do a little self-portrait project. I hadn’t put much effort in a SP in a while, so I figured it was time to document the aging process again. So, there you go, a couple of SPs in celebration of the rain.

Now it’s time to tidy up for the weekend. The weather is supposed to clear, and I’ve been warned that I will be spending some time on Eddy this weekend. A lot of time (at least for me these days). Ah yes, Ironman training is cranking up…

I Hope this Be More – Behmor 1600

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

The picture is of coffee roasting in my new Behmor 1600 home coffee roaster. Mmm, good!

A few weeks ago I gave up on my iRoast 2 coffee roaster. The replaced power base has been shutting down early for a couple of months. In fact, it only worked right for a month or two. I could get it to complete the roast if I continuously emptied the chaff while the roast was in progress. Finally, even that constant attention was not enough. And I gave up.

I could have called and requested a third iRoast power base, since I have about two months left in the warranty. But what is the point? I have wasted so much time fighting the other two units, it was time to try something else.

After researching my options, mostly at Sweet Maria’s, I decided to go with the Behmor 1600. It is reasonably priced and roasts a lot of coffee in comparison to the competing products. So, I went for it. So far I have roasted three batches of 400g each with not problems. I’m still learning the machine characteristics, but I can tell you that it roasts some fine coffee even with my limited experience. And, I can tell you, it is a joy to be able to roast a whole week’s worth of coffee in one batch.

Autumn

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

The last few days on Mt. Tam have seemed a lot like Autumn, and even a bit like Winter. On Monday we had a “gully warsher” as my OKFree friends might say. Oh, okay, I might say it too. Anyway, we had about 3″ of rain in no time flat, and all the trails turned into rushing streams — not to mention the small pond in the basement. Then things cleared up some and we had the crystal clear atmosphere that you only get after a good storm.

Even better (at least around here) is when you get a good storm and there is residual cloud and fog cover. This picture of San Francisco shows some of that going on as I ran on Mt. Tamalpais on Friday. It was beautiful, which is normal but always enjoyable. This picture was taken last Friday after the big storm (5″) on Wednesday.

This next picture was taken along Rock Springs trail, just below the Mountain Theater. The red leaves are on poison oak, which just flames all over the place this time of year. If someone didn’t know what poison oak looks like, all they have to do is come visit the mountain in late October and look for red leaves. THAT is what a poison oak leaf looks like.

Next up is some more fog as the sun set on Monday evening. It was glorious indeed.

Now I am in Pennsylvania, and it is Autumn here too. And the weather is warm. I doubt that will last much longer. Here is a picture of a playground and trees from across the street from the company I am working with.