Modern Vespa

You see I have this huge shovel in my car and it has been the subject of much envy at work.
This wonderful tool has ensured that I got to work everyday during the snow but today the After Sales Manager asked could he take it home to clear his driveway so I fired back with - how am I going to get to work if it snows again ?

That was my mistake because only a few days ago he lent me a rather nice Audi to do an airport run with so feeling overcome with guilt I handed it to him with an apology for being so selfish and short sighted.

Humble Bill X

Got home from work and got it to start - good times. Then got inside and discovered the power had run out (utter PITA left over from a previous owner - we'll get round to changing it out someday I'm sure) but that gave me an excuse to go somewhere and that I did. Great stuff.

Still being a bit careful on the sidestreets (that ice was thick) but it seems the process is more like riding a bike than most other things people compare to riding bikes.

Might be back to the quick way to work tomorrow: yay!

Argh, so near yet so far!

Everywhere is clear except my particular bit of my road, which is a frost pocket for some reason.

If the ET4 would start, I could easily push it over the icy patch (about 10 metres). But I don't want to risk it with the 800, because one tiny slip and it would go down.

Maybe tomorrow...

I commuted on mine this morning: cracking.

Still plenty ice around though so carefully does it for the moment.

As I was walking to the station I nearly fell over crossing one road, and saw a smashed bike indicator on the kerb, so I felt a little better about going in on the train...

i'm with alice on this one ... the scooter is not moving until i can get it from one end of my street to the other with confidence. as my parking process involves a short ride along the pavement [*cough*] i have to wait until that's clear as well

If this continues I will be on my hands and knees with a hairdryer clearing the road myself. I shared my train with a school outing this morning

Excellent image!

I think I should be riding - the milkman managed to get up the road this morning!

I am a bit sad but I am extremely happy to have my milk delivered to me after 14 years of trolling to the corner shop for some thin paltry moo juice, and even happier that it is full cream, unhomogenised.

I hate skimmed and semi skimmed milk. Work of the Devil.

Semi-skimmed FTW!

Less fat + more calcium = better than full coo.

Skimmed is one I've never tried. Sounds nasty by all accounts.

I got the shovel out and cleared the snow outside my flat, ( nature has cleared the whole street now) As I was working away, there was the ding of a bell and a cyclist expected me to move aside so he could ride down the pavement.

State of the art racing bike dressed head to toe in black and no lights.

When I pointed out he was probably not supposed to be riding down the pavement he got all huffy!

Ride down the road, or push it along the pavement. At least be deferent if you do ride it where you're not to supposed to.

Where do I get one of those 'T' shirts?

Fay

the skimming process turns lovely milk into a horrible watery substance that should not be used for any purpose other than the making of cheese sauce in dire emergencies. like low-fat yogurt and decaf coffee, it is a form of gustatory self-mortification fit only for monks and tightly wound manhattan housewives. decaf coffee with skimmed milk and sugar substitute is the food of the joyless. i'm aware i'll probably die with clogged arteries and a fatty liver but at least i'll die with a full-fat smile on my face.

lower clapton is full of youf (yooves?) riding on the pavement as a way of demonstrating their... uh... not sure.... their total lack of respect for anyone but their fick selves, as i understand it, but they probably have other reasons. however one does not question their motivations or seek to correct them for fear of being stabbed.

Yes! Another supporter of the "Because My Arteries Are Worth It".

Actually, the full fat badness thing is wrong. You need certain fats in your diet to stay healthy, and full fat milk consumers are thinner than their semi skimmed counterparts.

You'd never eat meat without fat to give it flavour, milk is the same. Drink while you can, before the health police kill it for good.

Looks rideable around here now, so hopefully only one more journey on public transport awaits.

My car, which is lovely and warm, gets collected to be scrapped tomorrow due to obscene servicing and insurance costs.

I'm considering spending the insurance money on Gerbing heated jacket and gloves to make up for it; I got rather cold a couple of weekends ago riding to Hampshire.

My boyfriend has the Gerbing jacket and bought himself the gloves for Christmas. He is a very happy customer indeed. (I have one of these, which are a hundred quid cheaper.)

I like full-fat milk marginally more than the other kinds, but I'm not a big fan of milk in general - I use the minimum needed to moisten my cereal or turn my coffee beige.

Apparently, Gerbing borrowed their ideas fromWarm and Safe. You may want to check it out.

Genie, is a no-fat, decaf coffee called a WhyBother?

Kinda like decaf, sugar-free soda and light beer. I can make my own light beer by drinking a real beer followed by a glass of water.

I'm a full fat milk fan and the bluer the top the better.

Yes it will probably kill me in the long term but tea and coffee just tastes so much better with it.

Semi skimmed milk is like low or no alcohol lager. What's the point ?

Bill X

plus were talking a cup of coffee jeeez, if your over wt dont blame it on the dollop of whole milk in the java

Do you know what, I'm getting a bit pissed off with the weather.

I'm pissed off with being cold and I'm pissed off with not being able to ride my scooter.

Roll on the day when I can have a nice dry open A road with not much on it and a full tank of fuel.

Not much to ask eh ?

Counting the days.

Bill X

I have been a whole milk drinker forever. Recently my daughter told me that adult mammals should not drink milk as it is intended for babies and that I should stop immediately...what am I gonna dunk my cookies in?

It has a M and a K and it rhymes with Dilk.

Full fat Dilk.

Bill X

HONESTY

I know what you mean... cookies dunked in beer are no where near as good as ice cold milk and cookie.

But Beer and Sports... that's a good match. Beer and camping (with or without scooters) is great!

Will you throw things at me Kate, if I admit that I like 2% milk more than whole milk? When I was a kid, you had two choices, whole or skim (which I think tastes watery and vile, BTW). And yes, not only did the nice milkman deliver it, we even had a Bond Bread guy deliver bread and pastries on his truck straight to our door. I miss the Bond Bread Man. *sigh*

For many years I've been drinking 2%, and now I find that whole milk has too much 'mouth feel' for me. I will drink it with cereal or tea if there is nothing else. but I really prefer the 2%. I save the cream for when I make flan. I love cow-juice for snacks when I am feeling peckish but don't want to ruin dinner plans.

Now butter is another subject. I grew up with margarine (butter was too expensive for a house with 6 kids) and it was vile. I lost my gallbladder to surgery recently, but I will never surrender butter for my toast or baking.
They will have to pry that stick from my cold dead hands!

Now, in America, we have a yogurt issue. It's crap. What happened to the tangy yogurt of yore without all the thickeners and starches?

Nah, just think skimming milk is rubbish. Everyone drinks it now, but its not milk as it comes and that's the reason to go for the CREAM.

Seriously, when you've been drinking corner shop milk for years, full cream that rises to the top of the bottle is like winning the lottery. Mmm.

Europe, home of lactose tolerance and beer.

You can get the tangy yogurt if you get the Greek or Mediterranean brands My "super" Wal-Mart stocks it. You should also be able to find markets that specialize in "ethnic" foods. My wife also makes something similar by taking plain yogurt and placing it in a coffee filter cone and setting that over a cup until it drains the extra water out. Great on falafel and with hummus and other such yummies. Here is a link to the process using bowls and cheesecloth but she has a special filter that works great.

That reminds me the falafel and hummus (the Hannah brand is better but not always available) at Costco are pretty good.

I'm watching CSI Miami with the most amazing actor alive - the sublime David Caruso.

Why do I watch this crap?

I think his Mum ate too many Cheesy Wotsits when she was pregnant.

Bill X

... at least he's not on some cheesy, windy billboard. But I heard he has an acting school.. Maybe I should enroll.

Same here Bill. We were doing an incredibly geeky thing today in attempting to work out when the Google Street View car did Glasgow (the morning of the 31st of July 2008 in case anyone's interested) and the place just looked so lovely in the sunshine. It was 16 degrees and the Sun was properly splitting the sky.

I can confirm that riding in the current conditions, although still riding, and stil way better than the bus, is not a patch on that Summer stuff.

It would almost make me sad if it wasn't for the fact it'll be like that again soon. This has totally surpassed Christmas for me in the excitement stakes.

Oh and Bluebelle*, I'm totally with you on the milk/butter thing. I've never had any need to worry about the waistline: it's a sensory choice for me.

ETA: *Sorry - Leia.

I'm sure he could teach you something about............acting.

Tired and cold Bill xx

one of the many advantages of living where i do is the fact that there is a well-stocked turkish shop on every corner - full fat everything, yogourt so thick you have to pry it out of the jar, a huge selection of olives and other little pickled things in jars, wonderful turkish feta cheese floating around in a tub, halva by the kilo, and fantastic freshly-baked spinach pastries.

I have wild turkeys roaming the parking lot in the suburban business park I work in.. somehow I don't this this is the same.

My building and surroundings

[img]http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=11101+White+Rock+Rd,+Rancho+Cordova,+Sacramento,+California+95670&sll=38.71768,-121.33835&sspn=0.009543,0.020535&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FWrYTAIdHpHF-A&split=0&hq=&hnear=11101+White+Rock+Rd,+Rancho+Cordova,+Sacramento,+California+95670&ll=38.590035,-121.269902&spn=0.001151,0.002567&z=19&layer=c&cbll=38.590035,-121.269902&panoid=pIAVmsecU2ivQEZck74Bkw&cbp=12,284.28,,0,15.37[/img]

[img]http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=11101+White+Rock+Rd,+Rancho+Cordova,+Sacramento,+California+95670&sll=38.71768,-121.33835&sspn=0.009543,0.020535&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FWrYTAIdHpHF-A&split=0&hq=&hnear=11101+White+Rock+Rd,+Rancho+Cordova,+Sacramento,+California+95670&ll=38.590035,-121.269902&spn=0.001151,0.002567&z=19&layer=c&cbll=38.590035,-121.269902&panoid=pIAVmsecU2ivQEZck74Bkw&cbp=12,284.28,,0,15.37[/img]

i've been playing around taking landscape photographs in Google street view. i like that location

Well, this time of year we have two or three full grown turkeys. In the spring, we will have turkey families with chicks that grow into awkward looking adolescent fugly birds... until they get themselves run-over by the traffic. The grass in the photo was likely dead due to a freeze. I will usually be green.

There is a group of turkeys up by a reservoir here that heckle me every time I ride past on my bike. They sit on a fence and cackle their little heads off and flutter wings and make a ruckus. But I consider them better neighbors than Canada geese.

dammit more snow. another day on the Damn Bus

Bah, just as I thought about riding home. It had all gone has last night before I went to bed.

Now it looks like an explosion in icing sugar factory.

I grew up on a dairy farm, so my milk was RAW (passed through a filter to make sure it was "clean") and was bottled in a mayonnaise jar.

Today, I can barely process some skim milk in my cereal and ice cream is a rare treat. I also shake the bottle out of habit. Thanks, lactose intolerance.

I'm a convert.........semi all the way! 8)