Wow, February 2013

How/why is it already more than half way through the second month of 2013?  Since my ghost writer has been slacking on my blog posts, I figured I better step in and type something on my own.

There are so many things that happened between October 2012 and today so I'll hit the photographed highlights in no particular order:

G and I have made lots of pastas, various pastas . . . flavored, stuffed, thick noodle, thin noodle, basic, exotic . . . the picture above was a red wine pasta.  It had lovely color, but tasted mostly like . . . pasta.

I bought a couple new to me espresso machines after selling the Nuova Simonelli I bought a couple years back for $100.  Not too surprising, the 2-group machine was less expensive than the 1-group, but the benefit of the single group machine is that I can physically pick it up and take it into either shop if something happens.  I nerded out and put a PID controller on the single group machine for "fun".  It provides some semblance of temperature stability, but no great benefit beyond that.

It did actually snow in Denver once, at some point during the winter . . .

Thanks to new Local Velo sponsor Sugarlicious, we had more gummy candies to play with.  We give gummy army people a solid two thumbs up!

We have been to Dim Sum at Super Star Asian more than once in the past few months.  Dumplings are good!

G found out why Dempsey likes his bed so much . . .

We planted more things to grow in the gardening off season.  The paperwhites seemed like a good way to go and since the above was taken, they have grown significantly.  The succulent in an old portafilter just seemed so . . . artsy . . .

We traveled to snowy and cold locations, fortunately there were hot springs for soaking.  Unfortunately it was so cold south of Salida that the car froze and didn't want to start until we hooked up to a very robust battery and cranked and cranked and cranked . . . -17 degrees is cold!

We went to Steamboat, and stopped at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass on the way to stretch the legs and snowshoe before a weekend of skiing/snowboarding.

G rented skis with authority!  This was her first official ski vacation, longer than a day trip . . . fortunately we were rewarded with healthy snowfall over the weekend and had about a foot of fresh powder the last day of skiing.

We made a handy cutting board rack on the inside of the kitchen cabinet.  Thanks the internet!  You are so full of good ideas!  More to come . . .