But I do like the cold. I didn't say anything bad about the cold...I just said it was cold. Very, very cold.

Granted, even for aficionados like me, -38 is a little extreme. It's warmed up considerably. We're going to break freezing today. It's actually shockingly, almost unpleasantly warm.

However, we do still have 3 feet of snow on the ground - we got about 4 more inches last night. The facilities people have sculpted the snow into elaborate hills and bunkers alongside all of the sidewalks and in the parking lots that make it seem more like 4-5 feet of snow.

Fortunately it doesn't deter our students from their hard-earned right to park on campus.

No really, I'm still here.

I'm just busy with the start of the new semester. And I've been a little under the weather with the Cold of Doom.

Speaking of cold, I now know what -30 F feels like...-38 F to be precise. (Conveniently -40 F = -40 C.)

It feels cold.

RIP Rugbread

For the first time in 2o years, I failed.

I just could not build a simple, 24" 3D model of a viking ship in gingerbread in time for the party. I think it comes down to a combination of the fat (margerine instead of Crisco) and the relatively high humidity (50%!) None of this was made easier by the approach I used - I made a mold of the ship out of salt dough, covered it in tin foil and draped the gingerbread over that for baking. But really! That's the same way I made the America back in '01, and it worked out just fine.

ARGH. The whole process was very frustrating. I'm hoping for better luck next year.

Fortunately, the year wasn't a total wash for baking. Here's my sideboard of cookies ready to be shipped out.

I've been working my way through Betty Crocker's Cooky Cookbook (that's Cooky not Cookie). I haven't been adjusting the recipes for the altitude, and usually it hasn't been a problem.


However, Mary's Sugar Cookies are a sea-level only affair. Believe it or not, the chocolate coated blobs on the cooling racks are supposed to be snowmen. My personal favorites were the super-puffy angels we called the Angel of Obesity.

Happy Rugbread Day!

I decree that today is Rugbread Day! Happy Rugbread Day!

No, I am not really important enough to create my own holiday - only the California Prune Promotion Board can do that. But I do have an annual tradition wherein I produce a blob of festively decorated gingerbread for the centerpiece of my parent's annual Christmas Eve party.



I'd say gingerbread house, but most of my blobs are only houses in the vaguest sense of the word and some just aren't at all. Like, say, this train that started it all back in 1987.

For a couple of years my Mom made a house and I made a train, but in 1989 I took over gingerbread-blob production entirely.

Now that Mr. & Mrs. Original PotatoHead are retired and do a lot of traveling, the blob's theme is usually wherever they've traveled that year. Usually Mrs. O.P. picks food from that country and the whole project takes on a veneer of useful enterprise, rather than a plot by Mrs. O.P. to keep me from getting eaten by a mountain lion.

This year they went to Norway, so I had my choice of a stave church or a Viking ship. Being a lazy wimp, I choose the ship. I have some experience in gingershipwrighting, as seen to the right.

In 2001, in a fit of patriotism, I made a gingerbread America - the first ship to win the race that gets you the big fancy cup now know as the (duh) America's Cup.

Anyway, to return to the subject of this post. There's alway one day that winds up mostly devoted to the blob, and today will be that day. I have decided I will give this little personal holiday a name, and I choose Rugbread Day.

The gingerbread that I use for this sort of thing has no leavening and I use cheap fat, so you wouldn't really want to eat it. It has spices, but otherwise is about as pleasant as eating the dining room rug on which I will inevitably get crumbs and jimmies. However, I was thinking more of the bread we bought in Iceland on the same trip when Mr. Potatohead and I visited Norway. The package read "Brown Bread" in Icelandic, but it looked like "Rug Bread" to me, and that's exactly what it tasted like. It also somehow lasted forever so that by the time we got to Norway I was eating it for breakfast with geitost, which is no errand for the faint hearted.

So in honor of darkish flat substances that aren't as good to eat as they should be and last for frickin' ever, I decree today to be Rugbread Day in the PotatoHead household!

Exam time!

Some of my loyal readers have pointed out that I don't seem to do much work.

Oh, but I do! I do! It's just that I think it would be pretty boring to read about the work part.

But, heck, I'm just sitting here proctoring an exam so let's go through my day:

This morning I wrote the exam for my AIDS class. Do you know how hard it is to come up with multiple choice questions about concurrent sexual networks? Essay question time! That means they'll be harder to grade. Ugh. I can blog about that tomorrow!

Then I went into the office for my "office hours" when theoretically students are supposed to come visit and ask me questions. Why is it that students email me from campus during my office hours to ask questions I can't answer over email?

Nevermind. Don't answer that.

Anyway, then I photocopied the exam. Whhhhoooooooo....photocopying! Should have snagged a picture of that.

Then I tried to finish grading my non major class papers. I knew a couple of students hadn't turned anything in, and I wasn't surprised. But when I went to enter the grades I realized I was missing 19 out of 120 papers (for the whole semester - but the final versions were due on Friday). The next in our series of unanswerable why questions is, "Why wouldn't you just turn something in?" A couple of students thought they had, but sent them in inscrutable formats. To give the others the benefit of the doubt, I have a little list of the missing papers and I'm planning to snag the students as they finish up the exam. Interestingly, of the 10 (out of 30) students who've finished the exam so far, none have missing papers.

Coincidence? I think not.

After this exam is over I have 30 minutes before I have to give my Cell bio exam. Then the grading begins!

Fortunately, I have beer left over from a little gathering I had over the weekend.

Cold Cold Cold Cold

One of the great things about an arid climate is that one doesn't feel the cold as much as in, say, Boston.

However, there's a point where it's just fricken' COLD.

I'd say that point is at about -10 degrees F.

I can't wait to find out what -30 feels like.

Things I'm not proud of

1) This morning I woke up at 8:45 and was standing at the bus stop by 8:52 with all of my ski gear and hot coffee.

2) I had a calzone and a beer for lunch whilst grading problem sets

3) When I wound up on the lift with the best student in one of my classes, I actually pointed out that he didn't need to take the final. (He says he's taking it anyway.)

4) I was so tired after skiing a whole day that I got home, took a shower and was dead to the world for an hour until Mr. PotatoHead called.

Well, okay, I'm kind of proud of #1.

But more importantly...the Headwall is open! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!