Another School Year

Another year has begun and I find myself wondering where exactly the time went.  About 3 years ago I was finishing up my master’s, unsure about anything.  Now I’m a fairly awesome teacher who’s looking forward to the next step in her life.  I’m kind of intimidated to begin my PhD studies, but I know if I don’t start now, I’ll never get it done.

New Blog

I have a new blog (yes, I know)… I have decided to make every single cookie in the Betty Crocker Cooky Book and will chronicle my baking adventure here: Sundays in the Kitchen with Betty.

Cooking is my boyfriend!

 

I have recently discovered the wonder that is TasteSpotting.  How I loved so long without it, I do not know.  So, of course, I have been trying all sorts of things.  So far, I’ve made these delicious Empanadas with shrimp, corn, egg, onion, cheese and spices, and of course, banana ones as well (YUM!).  I’ve also made some killer banana bread and lots of great marinated foods.  But I think the kicker may be what I made tonight!

 

What could it be?

 

 

 Jump for pictures!

 

Telluride Hilarity.

Got this story from The Daily Planet – thought it was too good to pass up.  BTW, it’s best if you know that the Bridal Veil Power Plant is ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN with a tiny dirt road leading to it.  It’s the white building next to the falls in the picture below.

Telluride, Colo. -

 

Somewhere along the way, Noah Grubb’s plan (if he had one) went awry. 

It was apparently going so well. Tuesday evening, he stole a Subaru from Town Park and got away clean. He rolled out of the parking lot, hit the county highway, and put the town in his rearview mirror. Then his getaway hit a couple of speed bumps.  
Because he headed east. 

The highway west is the only way out of town. Black Bear Pass is one-way, and closed.

And  so Grubb — a Steamboat Springs resident in his early 30s, in town for Bluegrass and staying a few extra days, his whereabouts unknown to his friend and his girlfriend — rolled to a stop at the Bridal Veil power plant, perhaps exhausted, and fell asleep. 

But before he landed softly in jail, his ride had a wild end, one detailed in interviews with police and witnesses. 

First of all, Grubb panicked John  Pattison Kane. Kane, from Paonia, was in town to work the Bluegrass festival, and was packing in the equipment Tuesday. He left his keys near the emergency brake of his unlocked 1993 green Subaru Legacy wagon and slept at a friend’s house, and came back in the morning to find the car stolen. 

He took the day off work to look for it. “I thought the guy’d be halfway across Nevada,” he said. His friend Dustin Bradshaw tried to cheer him up: “You know what this reminds me of? ‘Big Lebowski’ Maybe there’ll be some homework left in there. ‘Is this your homework, Larry? Is this your homework?’” 

Kane laughed. 

And Grubb annoyed — and scared — Eric Jacobson, who owns the Bridal Veil power plant. Wednesday was moving day for Jacobson; his family spends the winters elsewhere.  With his 6-year-old daughter and boxes full of stuff, he showed up to the house, miffed that a car was blocking his driveway. He worked for a few hours, trudging his way around the Subaru, then decided to tow it with his tractor. He called the Sheriff’s Office for permission. 

“It’s not a green Subaru, is it?” asked Commander Eric Berg. It was. “Don’t touch it,” Berg said. “It’s stolen. I’ll be right up.” 

When Berg arrived, Jacobson assured him the thief was nowhere to be found, but Berg asked him to make sure. So Jacobson casually checked all the room in his house, finding nothing, until he stepped into an upstairs bedroom and found a red shock of hair sticking out from under the covers. 

Jacobson hustled out and yelled for the deputy. Berg grabbed his taser and handcuffs and rushed in. He pointed his gun at the sleeping man. (He had reason to think Grubb had a gun.) Grubb didn’t move. When Grubb remained comatose, with cops from every jurisdiction a long way away, Berg put his taser on Grubb’s chest, threatened to zap him, and finally got the handcuffs on him. 

Grubb is being held on $25,000 bond. He will be charged with stealing a car, trespassing, criminal mischief and criminal tampering. 

Apparently, since the Jacobson family wasn’t home that night, Grubb sauntered in and made himself at home. He made his way down to the power generator and hit the emergency stop button. It ground the generator to halt. He climbed, muddy, into the hot tub. And, like a deadhead Goldilocks, he tried out all the beds in the house and “took the most humongous crap you could even imagine in one of them,” Jacobson said. “It was like half a bushel.” Then he settled into the bed upstairs and waited to be found. 
That afternoon, cops called Kane to tell him they’d found his car, unharmed. 

“At least everything’s been returned,” Kane said, relieved. “At least he didn’t drive it off Bridal Veil. It would have been a little green ball of Subaru-ness.” 

It’s not clear where or when Grubb’s time at the Bluegrass Festival went off the rails. Was it hanging around a few extra days, worrying his friend and girlfriend back in Steamboat Springs? 

Was it when tied a sarong onto Kane’s tent, left behind a Frisbee golf set, a camping chair and some deadhead stickers? And sat on the ground and quietly ate earthworms, as one witness told Kane? 

One thing’s for sure: by the time he was heading toward the east valley house of David Swanson, where he stopped to mumble “weird questions that didn’t make any sense,” Swanson said, such as, “Where can I get some of these?”, Grubb’s visit to Telluride had skipped off the rails, jumped the track, and was barreling its way toward Bridal Veil, to that very comfortable bed and those very uncomfortable cuffs.

 

Pictures from Telluride

Here are all the pictures from our Telluride Hikes.   Enjoy!

Telluride Bluegrass 2008 Pictures

Finally! Some pictures from Bluegrass!

Matt and Ryan Adams:

Matt and I with Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova from Once

Now Showing – Glen Hansard at Bluegrass

Here are the videos I took at the Glen Hansard workshop during Bluegrass.

Glen covers Astral Weeks by Van Morrison

 

Glen talks about the crappy altitude

 

Glen and Marketa cover the Pixie’s Levitate Me – Clip

 

Glen talks about being nominated for (and winning) the Oscar.

 

Bear Creek Pass

After much hemming and hawing on my part, we finally left the house and hiked up Bear Creek Preserve up to the falls.  

Here we are at the start of the trail:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the rest of the pictures from the hike.  As usual, click on thumbnail to enlarge!

       

Boredom leads to Baking

I’ve definitely done my fair share of cooking since we’ve been out here in God’s country.  I already talked about the Goat Cheese Pasta I made when Pat and Steph were here.

I have also made homemade calzones, my famous Raisin Swirl bread, and yesterday I made these Apple Crumble Bars Note: my pictures are not as pretty as hers. Click on the thumbnail for the full size:

 

I added raisins to half of them.  There are lots of crumbs because they fell on the counter! as I was transferring them to the tupperware.  They mostly stayed together, and were really delicious.

I also grilled for the first time yesterday, grilling some Buffalo steaks on the Weber Grill that hardly ever gets used.

And just for fun, here is me in my new Frames shirt:

Y’all are lucky I have my iPhone, otherwise you’d have no pictures at all.

 

Telluride Bluegrass Wrap-Up

Thursday, June 19th

We certainly had a memorable start to this year’s Bluegrass Festival.  We headed down to the park at around 11:30ish, arriving around Noon.  My dad had gone early to set up our blankets and chairs, and it was pretty easy to find.  We were pretty close to the front, right in the second section.  We had easy in and out because we were right on the line that marked off the walking paths.  Matt went off to explore, and I sat in one of the chairs reading Cat’s Cradle and listing to Cadillac Sky, who’s set included a kick-ass cover of Longview by Green Day.

 

 

 

 

During the set, I notice a lanky young man with bleach blond hair and a Black Sabbath t-shirt walking toward me.  My heart started palpatating a little bit as he sat down on the tarp next to me.  Immediately my eyes went to the tattoos on his arm: yep, I was sitting next to Ryan Adams.  I, being a chicken, just sat in my chair.  Soon, Matt returned, and introduced us to Ryan.  Shortly thereafter, he asked if he could join us on our blanket.  

Over the next few hours, we talked about everything from the setlist to what music he listens to (classical and death metal), his arthritis, his relationship status (single), other musicians (Bob Mould), Telluride, and more.  He even took a phone call and told the person on the other line that he was going to hang out with his friends (us) for a while longer and not to worry about him.  

He left shortly after Uncle Earl finished 

their set, but not before I got a picture. We definitely bumped heads in the process of taking this picture.  But that’s okay.  

He came back after an hour or so with Laura Meyer, an artist who was playing in between acts.  He introduced us to her and also gave us her CD’s – earlier he had talked about how much he liked her.  It was a pretty thoughtful gesture.

Also, Matt mentioned to him that we had used his version of Wonderwall in our wedding.  Apparently he thought that was pretty cool, and he played it during his set.  We’re kind of hoping it was for us.

In addition to all that excitement, we saw Arlo Gurthrie (who told more stories than sang songs) and Ani DiFranco.  Ani was great as always, and played a great mix of old and new.

Ryan was the last act of the day.  He opened with Peaceful Valley, and also played a pretty okay mix of songs.  I know a lot of people want

ed to hear more of Gold, but I was happy with what was played.

Friday, June 20

We really blew it out on Thursday, so we decided to take it easy on Friday.   So easy, in fact, that we only made it for one set, Paolo Nutini.

Paolo was pretty awesome – everyone seemed to dig it and everyone was dancing their asses off.

After that, we went to Smugglers for dinner and just hung around the house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday, June 21

I’m not going to lie, I was pretty effing happy about this day.  We went to a workshop in Elk’s Park help by Glen Hansard (of Frames and Once fame) and it was really just a really intimate concert. He played a few covers and a song he wrote when he was 16 or so.  Marketa (Once) was with him, as was the fiddle player from the Frames.  After their set, we stopped for a minute to get a picture with them.  I also got some videos.  All these are on my camera, which I neglected to bring the cord for, so those will come later.  Below are some pics that Matt took.  Click the thumbnail for the full size.

    

After dinner we headed back to the fest for the Frames.  I have been a HUGE Frames fan since around 2000, so I was VERY excited to see them play.  They did not disappoint, even though the next day Glen apologized for the bad energy – I thought they sounded wonderful.

Sunday, June 22

We had another easy day here.  We went into the fest to see The Swell Season – otherwise known as the band Marketa and Glen formed because of the movie Once.  They were just magical, playing almost every song from the movie, as well as some covers and a couple Frames songs.  They finished with a cover a Heyday (of Guinness commercial fame) with everyone singing along.  It was amazing.

 

 

Best. Bluegrass.  Ever.