Friday, August 31, 2007

We've Got Curtains!

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, but I have had a technical problem. I can't seem to take a decent picture. The pictures I have taken of the curtains keep coming out with poor focus. I've tried taking them on several occasions, varying the parameters that I can, and finally just decided that they are blurry curtains, and that I can not photograph them properly. Hopefully, the size of picture here won't even show how bad the pictures are:)

Tim's mom, Barbara, made us these lovely curtains while she and Loren were here visiting at the beginning of the month. I am very pleased with them!

First is my workroom:

I am trying out this cool table, as a desk.

Below are the curtains in our bedroom:
Note that we have proper bedside tables now, instead of the boxes. Actually, We got our new bed, so I'll get some pictures of that up soon.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Fire is Out

The "Washoe Fire" near Sunnyside was 100% contained at 11pm last night and this morning we can't see any smoke at all. It looks to be out, and apparently it is now just a mop up operation. Local fire crews responded quickly and put up a huge effort yesterday to contain the fire. They were able to keep it to under 15 acres, with only 5 homes lost. It could have been much worse. One of the factors in minimizing the damage from this fire, was the fuel reduction the US Forest Service had recently performed in the area.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) is a bi-state (California and Nevada) regional planning agency created by the federal government in 1969 to protect the Lake Tahoe area. In order to remove a tree from one's property, permission from the TRPA is required (at homeowner's expense). They have a reputation for being rather stingy about it, too. They have been more amenable to tree removal in the last 10-years, but many believe that it is "too little, too late". We now have a basin filled with fuel just waiting for a fire. This week, at the 10th annual Lake Tahoe Forum, US Senators considered declaring an emergency in the area in order to allow the Forest Service to bypass TRPA's control and clean up the forest to reduce fuel. Rumor has it, Senator Diane Feinstein was among the Granlibakken Resort guests who had to be evacuated because of yesterday's fire. While I think she already understood the fire danger problem here, this experience may help underscore the severity of it. Fortunately, the winds blew yesterday's fire towards the US Forest Service land that had undergone fuel reduction work. That is when the fire behavior changed and the firefighters were able to contain it.

I understand that TRPA is concerned about people cutting down too many trees to improve their views. I also get their concern about soil erosion with larger projects and how the run-off could effect lake clarity. I just think that they are being rather short sighted. A large fire in the basin will do way more damage to this area than I can even comprehend. Hopefully the two fires this summer (so far) will encourage the TRPA to be more reasonable and property owners to take action and responsibility for taking care of their land. Myself included.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Another Fire


There is another fire in the Tahoe basin. This one is much closer to home, but not too close. Initial reports put the fire in Meek's Bay and even in the Homewood area, but those were incorrect. The fire is about 5 miles north of us. We've been listening to the fire trucks coming up from the south and watching the helicopters and fixed wing aircraft do their thing all afternoon. I I took this photo from the kitchen window. I don't think we are in any danger from this fire, but this is very close to home. Highway 89, the main road to get anywhere for us, is closed because of the fire. In the last hour, it appears to us that things have improved, so hopefully that is the case.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Spin Day

One of the many reasons I was looking forward to moving here, was to spend more time on my hobbies, especially the fiber activities. There is a spinner/weaver who has a booth at the local Farmer's Market (she has been there for years) and Valerie said she lives here on the West Shore. When I was in Auburn buying Noro Kureyon for my Lizard ridge (yes it is progressing) the shop owner mentioned that she thought there was a spinning guild up here. Or was it Judith McKenzie McCuin who said that at Madrona? Somebody said it, I'm sure. Well, I went to the first Farmer's Market this summer in search of fresh veggies and a spinning contact. I had spoken to her (and bought something) years ago, but didn't really remember her. Pat is a blast! She told me that there is no guild, but that a group of spinners get together once a month at her house and call it Spin Day. The Spin-Off Autumn Retreat (SOAR) has been held at Granlibakken Resort, not far from here many times in the past, including last fall. The Spin Day group took a field trip and went to the marketplace together last year, so that is probably how the whole guild rumor got started. Judith McKenzie McCuin was teaching at the 2006 SOAR, so maybe she was the source...

I was unable to go to the July Spin Day, but I did get to go to the August one, which was on Sunday. Pat makes a living selling her homespun yarn and her woven goods. She also does something with printing. She has a gorgeous (brand-new) studio with 4 looms and her printing press along with all the goodies that go with them. The attic above the studio is called the Candy Store, and contains her stash (which I got to see). Her husband, Erik, also spins and he bakes goodies for Spin Day. Three other ladies, besides myself and Pat and Erik, came to spin. They brought their dogs to play with the resident chocolate labs. I'll spare them my dogs until I'm in good :) It was really great to get to know these fun people and to get some spinning done. I hadn't used my wheel since we moved into the house in June, as my work room is not ready yet and all my stuff is in boxes. That isn't a good excuse, because the wheel isn't in a box, and my un-spun fiber stash is one of the few things that has been organized and put away and is accessible. I have had a lot of other stuff to do though. I decided to finish up the red stuff, as I had two full bobbins and the third was 1/4 full. I was able to fill up that final bobbin at Spin Day, and then began plying it last night. This is my first attempt at 3-ply, so it was a little trickier than 2-ply. I am quite pleased with the yarn I have made though.

Even though I don't have a Local Yarn Store, I do have a local fiber source, as Pat gets stuff wholesale from Ashland Bay and stocks a fair amount of fiber.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Unfinished Spaces

Here is our bedroom. Note the bedside tables (a matching set)! We bought a new bed for this bedroom, because it is big enough for a California King, which is big enough for Tim. First we tried a tempur-pedic mattress, which we didn't like, then we got a traditional mattress and boxspring. We were waiting to get a bedframe, depending on the type of mattress that we ended up with. Now that we've settle on the mattress, we have ordered a bed and matching bedside tables, that are made of wood rather than cardboard.
We also have makeshift curtains. The moon was shining in to our eyes, so Tim nailed up some old blackout curtains that we had. We looped them up during the day to get air to flow in.
Fabric has been purchased and proper drapes are being made by Tim's mom, Barbara. It should look like a proper bedroom soon!Below, is my work room, and the fabric I bought to make into curtains for this room. I haven't been able to get settled much, because we are waiting for the cabinets that we ordered to cover one wall. The room is basically a box storage room these days. I am very happy to have access to most of my stash, though!

August Views of the House

There have been requests for pictures of the hose, all settled. Not all of the rooms look settled yet, but here are pics of rooms that are.So there are some pictures of relatively settled rooms. The last one is a spare bedroom, sort of overflow guests or whatever. This room will probably change as we continue to settle. Stay tuned for upcoming pictures of the unfinished/settled spaces.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

I'm a slacker...

as a blog author. Well, there are more important things to do... like wake boarding. So, blame my dad for the nice birthday present! Actually, I hurt my knee that first day, and it hurt quite a bit for a couple of weeks ( even went to a doctor), so I waited for my knee to get better before I let Tim drag me behind the boat again. It's better now and we've been having fun playing in the water!

This blog is supposed to be about progress, and well, there hasn't been much of that. I have been working on the paper, which will be most of my doctoral thesis, but that isn't so exciting to blog about. For example, I went to Seattle in July, to pow-wow with my adviser, Dan, and it went quite well. I'm flying back up there next week, so there is real progress there. Who wants to hear that we've switched back to EndNote to manage the references? Dan wanted to use something else (web-based) that he thought was better, so we were using that, but then he realized that it wasn't as good as advertised, so now we are back to EndNote. I've added a bunch of references to the EndNote library for the paper. Whoop di doo. Are you fascinated to hear that when I was up in Seattle I got some info from my lab notebooks, so I was able to increase the detail on construction of a particular plasmid in the "Materials and Methods" section? And we've got a lot of data analyzed. Aren't you glad I haven't been blogging on this stuff? Most of all, writing a scientific paper just doesn't really make for good pictures.

The house is almost done, but things have been slow. I hear that is how it is at the end of a project. We finally got our front door, which was kind of a big deal, but I haven't got a picture of that yet. Now it is time for some decorating, which is happening slowly. I promise pictures of that soon.