The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

I will be moving back to Seattle very soon, and I hope to have more experiences like this one… 3 years ago I got to play a ski patroller at Winter Park in Colorado. My friends Keith and Lisl were real patrollers, so at the end of the day, Keith pulled Lisl and I up to the top of a few runs via a snow mobile and we all split off into different directions. The task was to “sweep” the runs to make sure nobody was left on the mountain as it was being closed down for the night. As you can see here, I “swept” the Gambler and Aces-n-Eights runs. What it really means is that I had two great runs all to myself at the end of a great day of skiing. That’s a great way to finish a day of skiing.  

Flying from Seattle to London today, I sat next to Richelle Mead who was coming to London for a book signing. OK, I had no idea who she was before or after she told me, but she explained that she writes vampire books for teens, which I know nothing about (vampires or teens). However, since she is a best selling author according to the New York Times and USA Today, I’d say her books are worth checking out. She tells me that her vampires aren’t scary, so if you are a teenager interested in some good fantasy books or you just like vampire books, then I suggest checking them out.

I am in Redmond/Seattle for a meeting with a bunch of people from around the world so Stephan from the Netherlands thought it would be a good cultural experience to go to a bar and watch the Superbowl game (apparently that’s American football). We had a small European mix there to watch it: Troels (Denmark), Christian and Henrik (Germany), Primo (Switzerland), Jani (Finland), Stephan (Netherlands), and me. I think that was everyone – sorry if I’m forgetting anyone. Thankfully Jani was up on the sport so he could explain what was happening to those of us who don’t follow it, even if he and the others thought it was funny that the American of the (me) group didn’t know as much as he did.

Last night I was out with a bunch of co-workers and one of them suggested that since it was January 25th, that I should have Haggis. Since this was from Fiona, who is Scottish, I considered it. She explained that on January 25, we celebrate Burns Night by eating haggis. No, we did not read Robert Burn’s poem "Ode Tae a Haggis", but I did end up having haggis on a bed of mashed neeps (so did Fiona, so it wasn’t just a trick). And yes, it was good! I think I got lucky thought, since it was thin patty, had mostly oats, and the meat flavor was minimal, which was good since none of us could figure out what “meat” was in it. Read this to understand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis

Today it was 1°C and felt like -4°C, but it wasn’t snowing or raining, so I decided to walk to and from work, which is about 2.5 miles each direction. This takes me from Cromwell Road in South Kensington to Victoria and through a neighbourhood called Belgravia, where many of the original Victorian style home have been turned into embassies and the horse stables (mews) are now single-family homes (as they are in all of London). In the 1700, the rural area was popular for robberies and for the aristocracy to engage in duels. Now though, there are high-end shops and very expensive places to live, which makes it an interesting walk. One embassy had police out front who carefully watched me walk past, as did a driver in a large black Mercedes Benz, but I was behaving myself (didn’t have Milo), so I didn’t get stopped for suspicious behaviour this time.

Unrelated: Lorie just spoke to the local Seattle government about neighbourhood development (that’s the South Lake Union neighbourhood in Seattle). You can see her in the video from the January 11th at the Seattle City Council meeting at 32 minutes into the video. Basically, she asked that people who live in the neighbourhood be included when new buildings get designed so we can end up with a nice neighbourhood, not a bunch of high-rises with no green-space around them. Unfortunately, the city council cares more about building for businesses than it does for making a great neighbourhood to live. The vote was 7-to-1.

Yes, it has been snowing a little bit in London (much more outside the city) and now it is pretty icy out there also. To fully enjoy it, I got off the tube a couple of stops early this morning so I could walk past Parliament (with Big Ben) and Westminster Abbey. As others freeze and bitch about the weather, I turn into a tourist! However, other than the grounds in front of each building being covered in a little bit of snow, there wasn’t much out of place. I think I should be in the Alps right now instead of the city.

The problems it causes in this unprepared-for-snow city is the biggest news item right now. This includes running out of grit, cancelled flights, bus routes being changed or some busses just not running, and a few tubes having delays (the ones that run above ground).

I missed last year’s ski season (first time ever) so thankfully my first time out this year was at Solitude with fresh snow and no crowds. We never had to wait in a single lift line and it snowed lightly all day, so I was still making fresh tracks at the end of the day. I was using a pair of fat skis (wide Rosignal Bandits), so even when I ran into crud snow, I did just fine. Hopefully we’ll hit Alta soon too.

And being the good uncle that I am, I also went sledding with Taylor and Haakon, plus the dog Ole of course.

My tailbone hurts from the sledding and my legs and back are sore from the skiing. I’m sure it’s the altitude, not my age!

I’m in Seattle for the month of December, and why not – Lorie and Milo live here. ;-)

So I now spend quite a bit of free time walking Milo again, but have run out of iconic places to walk him to. Yes, we walk in the cold rain since Seattle does get quite a bit of rain, but not as much as New York City (it must be true if Wikipedia says it). While hanging out in our loft, I do get to watch the King 5 helicopter take off and land once in a while (pictured).

Hopefully I can share some good skiing-related blog entries in the next few weeks!

This year for the US Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to get some lefsa since it has been a few years since I have been home to enjoy mom’s homemade potato goodness. What you see here is what I found and the store I bought it from, the Scandinavian Kitchen. Notice the bag of lefsa says “lomper” – apparently that’s a small lefsa (about 6 inches in diameter), which is designed to hold a sausage. I opted for my preferred butter and sugar instead, which tasted just fine to me. The store is mostly a cafe with a few shelves of Scandinavian foods in the back. I didn’t see lefsa as an option in the case with the prepared food for the cafe, so obviously they are confused. No dad, I didn’t see any rumagrout to purchase, but I wasn’t really looking either. 

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I had another good tourist weekend in London (added to this photo album), which included:

1. Buying lefsa at the Scandinavian Kitchen – it tasted OK, but it had been frozen for too long
2. Sampling some very good scotch at Milroy’s of Soho 
3. A tour of the Royal Albert Hall, which opened in 1871 with a bad echo that was never fixed until 1969 when they finally figured out how to get rid of the echo: hang mushroom-like things (acoustic discs) from the dome.  
4. Talking to two large men dressed in drag who were in full black Victorian-era dresses just to be out on the town – no real special reason. (sorry, no picture). I asked if it was difficult to get around with the large hoops at the bottom of the dresses and they said not really and that people really get out of their way when walking down the sidewalk.
5. Visiting the Science Museum, and specifically Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine (I saw it 3 years ago with Daniel and Angelina) and his brain, or at least the right side of it.  
6. Visiting the new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, where I learned about classifying bugs and plants 
7. And finally, a night of comedy with Anne.

Yes, it ended up being a rather educational and interesting weekend.