Month: December 2011

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My Lethbridge Winter, So Far

We are well into the end of December and thus far a Lethbridge winter has been about a gazillion times more pleasant than were any of my winters in British Columbia

We did have one cold snap of a few days, but every B.C. winter has had at least one of those. Thus far, I haven’t experienced anything that would have made me unduly comfortable in a properly prepared rig in the right place. I would have needed to be in an RV park with 30A power plus an extra 15A circuit where Miranda could have been skirted as well as sheltered from the wind.

The major difference here is that there is SUN, so the rig would have warmed up considerably inside even on the coldest of days. I went into Miranda during the cold snap where we hit about minus fifteen during the day and even with just one heater running, Miranda’s interior was well above the freezing mark so I don’t think I would have spent any more on heating here than I have in BC where I had to fight the damp.

Of course, it’s only December, but I landed here in late March last year when the weather was already much better than that on the western side of the Rockies, even with that April 1st snow storm. So we really are getting over the hump towards spring.

I frequently have to run between my buildings and not having to put on a coat is great. I just keep the heat down in the office so that I don’t experience a shock when I step outside. I wear fleece or wool and if the wind is particularly biting I’ll add a pashmina shawl. This is so much less cumbersome than what I expected; having to pull on boots and full winter gear each time I have to go outside!

As for snow, it has been negligible and has kept on melting. I decided to not get snow tires for the car and have avoided going out during inclement weather. The four season tires  I bought in Whitehorse have been more than adequate so far. I really agonized over this decision, but as the weeks marched on and I saw no need for them, I decided to spare myself the expense. If I had to drive every day regardless of the weather, then, of course, the tires would have been purchased.

 

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A Knock at the Door

I got a very late start this morning, so I was still in my PJs at 11, watching some Star Trek and working on my current embroidery project, when there came a knock at the door. Eep! I hoped it was Jody surprising me, but had a feeling it wouldn’t be, so I hurriedly threw on some clothes before checking the peephole. Sure enough, a tenant was on the other side. At least it’s a tenant I enjoy conversing with! I knew she wouldn’t be knocking on my door without a valid reason, so my irritation turned to concern as I opened the door.

So imagine my surprise when she handed me a card, two wrapped items, wished me a holiday season, told me she didn’t want to keep me, and made a graceful exit! One package was a lovely winter-themed tin filled with an assortment of baked goods, including shortbread, white chocolate cranberry bark, something with coconut, something with raisins, and another thing I haven’t identified yet. The other item was a cheese ball (which will go great on crackers with the soup I planned to have for dinner tonight!). I feel so appreciated. 😀

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Downtime

I have no transcription this weekend and I have decided to take a couple of days off. I might do a bit of Squidooing tomorrow, but today is all about fun. I spent some time in bed this morning with my iPad, checking email, watching Youtube videos, and organizing ebooks. I can’t wait for my case to arrive so that I can hold the iPad more comfortably.

The ebook organization project is going to take some time, but I am absolutely in love with the iBooks app, much to my surprise. I thought it would be a propriety Apple app, but nope. I can put any EPUB books on it. I’ve been reading ebooks on my iPod Touch since I got it, but iBooks makes ebooks look and feel like real books. My only quibble with it is that the in-book search function is terribly slow.

Here is a snapshot of part of my Sci-Fi/Fantasy collection:

Isn’t that lovely to browse through?

Now, let’s see… What am I in the mood for?

This is a page from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Noticed that I have a bookmark noting a page I go to often, that I highlighted my favourite passage from the book, and that there is a little sticky in the margin indicating that I have a note there.

Imagine if I had had this technology when I was downsizing my library! I got rid of so many annotated books that I just couldn’t make space for. I could have gotten e-copies of a lot of those and painstakingly transcribed my annotations into e-format.

I’ve been wanting to go digital for quite some time now and I think that the iPad will allow me to do that. My goal for 2012 is to not bring any more hard media, like DVDs and books, into the rig. I’ve done a complete conversion to digital for music, so I don’t think my goal is unrealistic.

Well, it’s about seven out there, perfect weather for spending time in the rig, so I’m going to assuage my homesickness for a bit and go get an early start on my spring cleaning. Yes, I consider this a fun project! 🙂

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Makisu All You Can Eat Japanese Restaurant, Lethbridge

I was dismayed to see this week that another sushi restaurant had opened up in Lethbridge, with this one being just around the corner from The Apartment! EEP! However, it is of the ‘all you can eat’ variety, so my expectations were low.  The ‘dinner buffet’, as they call it, is $26.99 plus tax. There is a huge assortment of things you can order, and you can place multiple orders. I took a fair sample of the menu, pleased that almost all portions were tiny. I ordered a mountain of food, but did not come anywhere near stuffing myself.

The offerings were really hit or miss. Let’s see if I can remember everything. 🙂

Terrible

The salmon nigiri tasted old.

The eel nigiri tasted like an aquarium. Eep!

Bad

The chicken teriyaki was icky. The flavour was good but the meat was gristly.

So-So

Presentation was a bit sloppy, but that’s par for the course for an all you can eat that goes through great volumes.

The shrimp tempura was a bit slimy.

The miso soup was bland and it had mushrooms in it.

The tuna handroll was bland. I had ordered spicy tuna, which would have been delicious, but they brought the wrong topping. The nigiri and rice were good though. With the right topping it would have fit in the next category.

The gyoza (dumplings) tasted more oily than anything else.

Green tea ice cream was okay, but I had ordered one scoop each of the red bean and mango!

Service was very slow an inattentive (I didn’t want to be there all night, so I didn’t reorder the mistakes).

Good/Delicious

I asked for more pickled ginger and got a mountain of it.

Once I was able to get someone’s attention, my water refill came quickly.

The yam and brocoli tempura were flawless.

The octopus nigiri was so awesome I ordered two pieces.

The ‘Toyko’ roll with salmon and mango was great; a very plain roll with the mango giving it a little something extra. Really glad I tried this.

The spicy salmon and spicy tuna were each delectable. I ordered tuna in the first round and it was so good I got both tuna and salmon in the second round!

The masago (roe) nigiri had perfect flavour and texture.

Awesome

I had given up on my ‘tuna pizza’ but am so glad it came and that I finished with it. It was a thick fluffy rice cake encased in fried panko topped with thin slices of tuna sashimi and drizzled with the sweet sauce that usually comes on eel rolls. Totally worth the wait!

I really got my money’s worth at Makisu. That said, I’ve decided that with sushi I prefer quality over quantity, so I am more likely to go to O-sho or Dono if I want to spend $30 on dinner, or Umi if I want something quick. I can’t believe how many sushi options there are in Lethbridge and that I still have one left to try!

The table next to mine had a group of sushi novices and they quickly figured out that, hey, the gal at the next table knows her way around the menu! And could you help us figure out these chopsticks? They wound up being rather unadventurous, but provided quite a bit of amusement.

I’ve been remiss in my Japanese studies, but I had one incredible moment tonight. I was gazing at the bowl that held the sweet dipping sauce for the tempura and thought “Oh, isn’t that cute! It says oishii!” It took a moment for me to realise that a) I had read the word  the way I read a word in English, that is as a word rather than individual letters and that b) I didn’t translate it into English. It means ‘delicious.’

Well, I sure hadn’t planned on spending three hours on dinner (although the time away from home did me some good), but I have work to finish for tomorrow, so back to the grindstone I go.

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I Hate a Mystery*

Last Thursday afternoon, I went to start the car to find that the battery was dead. Odd; it hadn’t been that cold out the night before. I tried to charge it on the Friday, but the charger wouldn’t even recognize it was hooked up to a battery. I literally have not had the time or energy to deal with the issue, plus I haven’t really needed the car, so I let it sit for a bit. Yesterday, I mentioned to my maintenance guy that I was having trouble. He asked me for my keys and to stay away from the car for an hour. When I went to check it, it was running fine and the charger said the battery was at 100%. My maintenance guy suggested I go have the battery load tested.

Well, I went to the car this afternoon and the battery was discharged again! I obviously had a bad battery or a phantom draw. And that’s when the solution hit me. On Thursday last, I went into the car after the staff party and turned on the overhead light. I turned it back off again… or so I thought. It turns out that even though the light was off and the button appeared to be at the ‘door’ setting, it hadn’t actually switched over!

A tenant gave me a boost and recommended the same battery place. Since the load test was free, I had the battery checked out just to be doubly sure, and yeah. Everything’s fine!

*(with credit to Hal Dresner for the title of this post)