The Entry With No Theme

Happy 2014 everyone.

Well, I made it to 43 entries last year. I didn't quite reach my goal, which was 52 -- Sam says that in order to be worth its salt, a blog needs to average an entry a week -- but at least I'm ahead of that pace so far this year, even if I can't think of a theme for this one beyond "what I've been up to the past few weeks."

I don't remember a lot from early December, though I remember the holiday colors.

Tallgrass Brewery has a fun open house every so often where one can wander around the brewery and drink. It's like a little bit of Portland in Manhattan. Not sure what Carla was holding me back from.

 

Velvet Rooster is my current Tallgrass favorite, though Brent's Belgian is just as good (and 8-Bit is pretty good, too). Forget about 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Think 9900 cans of beer on the wall.

Arriving in Salt Lake meant endless delectable Italian cookies by J.

And the Christmas week meant cioppino with the Maloneys, Sam and Carla's butternut squash and sage tart (pictured) with the Regehrs, puzzles with the Berrys, the absurdly decorated house in the Aves (what pollution?), and -- new baby alert! -- brunch with Ben.

But it was also time to get serious ... at least about the one and only skating race I'll do this season. As a training dork, I was extremely curious about how I'd do in the 15K given I haven't been running (whereas last ski season I was coming off the marathon). TUNA seemed to be all-knowing, however, as they seeded me and Gary right after one another ...

and, in fact, Gary and I finished right after one another. (Remember Senator Paul Simon and his bow tie? I am proud to wear the TUNA Lycra racing suit with the fish on it ...) More precisely, I doggedly pursued Gary during the final kilometer and then took him in a sprint during the final 100 meters, leaving the throngs of fans speechless (and look, who's counting the fact that he started two minutes after me?). The short answer to how I did was ... about the same as last year. My fitness was much worse -- all those running intervals do in fact do something -- but my skiing was better, thanks to West Yellowstone and Laurie, our former Olympian guru. Now the truncated classic race season starts.

While we're talking about ski racing, how cool is that an American male -- Simi Hamilton -- won a World Cup race for the first time in 30 years, with two bad ass moves in the final 30 seconds to boot? The EuroSport announcers suggested, correctly I think, that the margin of difference was shaving his Movember stache. Kristen and Jay, show Will the final starting at about 38:30:

http://vimeo.com/83061607

I miss Switzerland. Martin, do you have any friends in Lenzerheide we could stay with?

photo credit: noahhoffman.com, a great blog with tons of European dessert porn

I'm willing to go out on a limb and claim that the air in Lenzerheide is cleaner than ours even if, once in a while, we can muster a decent sunset.

Photo credit: John Regehr

Um, it's not like our esteemed legislators can't see the inversions

If anyone is frustrated by national politics and wants to do something local, head on over to Breath Utah. 

Sorry for the boring entry ... if J were the blogger, she could tell you about private showings of Winslow Homer paintings in Bermuda.

But you're stuck with me. Still, I promise in an interesting announcement soon.