Semi-word freaks

Played Scrabble with Mich last night for the first time in years. I didn't do nearly as terribly as I had feared. (She beat me by about 100 points, but I broke 200 - she's just scary good.) Kinda had a headache when it was done, though - my brain doesn't do the boggle/scrabble word unscramble/rearrange thing well. I'm more suited to the crossword type of challenge, puzzling things out from clues and a few letters. The interest in playing Scrabble came from watching Wordplay, a film about crossword competitions, which in turn reminded me of Word Freak, a great book on competitive Scrabble players. Both the film and movie highly recommended.

Reading kids

One of Juliens favorite books of a few years ago was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Just had him read it to Sofia. She was interested for a few pages, then was off to other things.

Couldn't pick one good photo from Mich and the kids' Chico trip; take a look at them here.

A little skiing

Got out kind of early to do some backcountry skiing this morning. Actually, snowboarding - funny how it seems natural to use those terms interchangably. The few people that I saw out on the hill (A couple snowboarders, maybe 6 skiers & telemarkers) all asked how the snow was, wished me a nice day - seems like people don't care what you're sliding on anymore, as long as you're out doing it. Probably backcountry folk are a little more accepting than the average resort-goer, too...

Anyway, a beautiful day, dazzling blue sky, and only a little flutter of wind, even at the summit where I rested. (For non-Nevadans reading this: No Wind = RARE.) Tahoe was beautiful, low clouds covering about half the lake. Wish I'd had the camera along - Mich has it with her to take pics of the new babies in Chico. Probably get a few of those up later today.

Here's the general area I was in - parking off the road at the lower right, hiking up toward the ridge on the upper left.

Jinx

Just got back from a coldish run, my 7th-McCarran-Keystone loop. Saw two separate accidents while I was out! In the parking lot of Raleys (our local grocery store), I saw an Explorer give a parked 4Runner a pretty good bump to the side, then back up and drive off. (I reported the plate # and descriptions to the store manager.) Continued my run, and near the top of 7th Street I saw a little fender-bender. A lady that had pulled kinda far out from a side street to turn left saw me and decided to back up out of my way. Yup, backed right into the car behind her. Didn't look too bad, though, and both drivers were there, so I didn't stop for that one. I was hoping things wouldn't come in threes - made it through the rest of my run without incident, though.

To do

Mich and the kids are going out of town for the weekend, and I'm hanging around to do some cleaning and some errands. Here's part of my To Do list, organized by room of the house...

New Snow @ Your Library

Nice little snowstorm in Reno last night - of course a little snowstorm here means total chaos on the roads, accidents everywhere, and twice as long a commute home. Fun trying out the AWD in the RAV4 last night; worked great in the snow and ice. And things sure were pretty at the library this morning. Here are a couple shots looking up toward Mt. Rose from our front windows. Wish I'd been skiing today...

New word

Made up a new word today, and it's so cool, I think the world needs to know. I have a coworker (Amber the anonymous commenter...) who has a habit of whistling at weird times during the day. Thing is, her whistle never sounds like it's coming from where she is - everyone looks around to try to figure out where the sound is coming from. So today I called her a ventriloquistler. Try to say it - cool, huh? No results from a google search, so I'm pretty sure that I coined it.