Weather = FAIL

Yeah, it totally snowed in Denver this weekend. I saw the one flake around 3:30 on Saturday afternoon. I have decided from here on out (as I should have anyways) not to put any stock in the weather forecast. I bet if they had "predicted" the time change, it wouldn't have happened either . . . jerks.

Taking my "chances" on Friday night, I rode my townie bike downtown for an evening at the symphony. I'm going to have to say, I am not a big fan of Bruckner. Symphony No. 7 is a sweeping work and heavy handed, making it a full swing slap to the face. Fortunately there was some good people watching at Boetcher Hall on Friday night.

I'll get to Saturday's "ride" in a few minutes, but I did get out in the perfect weather on Sunday for a nice long 75 mile jaunt. I rode from home to Chatfield to meet some of the guys on the team. We headed up Deer Creek and Highgrade, the standard route until Brenner and I turned off onto a road I always wondered about. It goes up and then up some more switching back and forth between paved and not, but everything was in good condition all the way up. The critical bits of the ride are below, but it was right around 5000' of climbing on the day in just over four hours or riding.


I finally got the chance Sunday evening to break out the fryer to see how it works. My only complaint is that the magnetic power cord is a little bit finicky and seemed to want to disconnect itself at the beginning. Once it got up to temperature, I got my fry on! On the menu last night was an impromptu variation on a combination eggplant parm and tomato, basil, mozzarella salad. I cut the eggplant into sticks, then breaded and fried them. I laid the sticks out in a sheet pan and started layering tomato, cheese, and more sticks, tossing the occasional bits of basil in. The concoction baked while the broccoli steamed and the steak cooked. All in all, it was pretty darn good. I will be making use of the fryer a little more often. It is nice having a great degree of control on oil temperature while making food crispy and golden brown.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent in the garage with the occasional trip around the neighborhood for a little activity I like to call "diagnostics" . . .