Shutterfly Ski Trip - 2010 Edition

This last weekend was the 2010 edition of the Shutterfly Ski Tip. It was my fourth trip, each one I've been on occurred since I left Shutterfly. This year contained lots of the usual suspects (though this year the ex Shutterfly folks outnumbered the current employees due to folks changing jobs), and a couple of newbies to the trip - Lisa, my old partner in crime from the front end team at Shutterfly came along to have a go at snowboarding, and a current Shutterfly person I didn't know, Tiffany, came along too.

Folks such as Lisa and Roo who still work at Shutterfly were in charge of new folks coming into the fold and Tiffany was a welcome addition to the crew - she fitted right in with the rest of us.

There were seven of us in total and we had a great weekend, hitting the slopes at Northstar on Saturday, vegging at the house we normally stay at etc. and slowly making our way home Sunday afternoon.

Photos are on the Shutterfly share site (of course!) - viewable here.

A Condor Nest

Pinnacles National Monument announced last week that they have a pair of condors nesting within their park for the first time in 100 years. The nest is viewable from one of the hiking trails. Yes, it's time to go for a hike.

Ali and I head off to Pinnacles, which is half an extinct volcano on the San Andreas fault, it's location being the clue as to why it's only half a volcano - the other half is a couple of hundred miles south, on the other side of the fault.

You have to hike a couple of miles in and up to get to where you can see the nest, and even then, you're quite a way aways from the nest (you need at least binoculars to see it), though the rangers had a scope set up to view it through.

We got to see other condors on the hike up, and got really lucky in that we saw both condor parents too, as they take turns to look after their egg, and only swap places every three days or so - we got to see the mother coming back after three days away, then shortly after, the father flew low over our heads too - very cool.

Also got to see a bald eagle, still a rare sight in California.

Photos are here.

Pancake Tuesday Tim Style

Yes, after Mum mentioned the other week that it was pancake Tuesday, I
asked for the recipe as I miss that style of pancake.

She sent the recipe and I finally got the ingredients today and made
myself a couple.

I think I used a little too much flour but they were still tasty - and
as can (almost) be seen in the action self portrait, I tossed them
without incident - even though I had the phone in the other hand
during this shot.