DH applied for an SSN over two months ago. He was told in a letter given to him at time of application, in writing no less, that it would take four weeks to issue.
DH got his SSN three days ago. A day later he got a letter saying his SSN would be issued within about two weeks..... (love how precise that is!) Admittedly the letter was dated 31 August, but even so it took 10 days, not that far off two weeks, to travel approximately 2.5 miles to get to us! What on earth was it doing in the mean time? Holidaying in Havana? Hanging around waiting for the Official Stamp of the Issuing Officer to be brought out of the safe? Waiting in a back office for some poor monkey to fold it up and put it in an envelope?
Thursday, 13 September 2007
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
The Poudre Trail
On Saturday the forecast was for a nice day, temps in the mid-20s. Sunny and basically a good bike riding day as long as you ignored the possibility of "10-20mph northerly winds" in the afternoon.
So we set out on a ride along the Poudre Trail. The Cache La Poudre is of course the local river.
We found this old suspension bridge fascinating.
It seemed to carry a flume, most probably from the old reservoir behind the pics to the land on the other side. There is no information about it at the site - wonder what it was for?
After we had ridden about 10km, I was Hungry. We stopped off in Old Town at Nathan's fave cafe, Starry Night, where he had stuffed squash with pasta salad and I had plain brown rice with steamed vegies. Ah the fun of a GF/DF diet.
We heard trains tooting lots. It is very common around Fort Collins. Trains toot all day long. There is the train that goes through Old Town, the one that I raced the other day, that has to toot at every intersection, ie continuously. There is a shunting area that crosses two main roads (you oughta hear the fighting about how to fix the problem of cars being stuck for 20-odd minutes at a time! Like dooooods, build a bridge for the cars! Can't do an underpass as it is likely to flood). There is another shunting area that doesn't cross roads but does mean LOTS of tooting at every points.
So we rode along the Poudre Trail and suddenly came upon a train shunting. For the train nuffies out here, I give you one of the grottiest old unloved engines I've ever seen, along with a lovely, well painted one:
The driver hopped out of the cabin and adjusted some points, then the train crept backwards.
Then Nathan said there was another train coming! And there was! The above train was crawling backwards towards the south and this train came from the west:
After 10 minutes of staring at trains and taking a gazillion photos, I decided that it was time to keep riding.
We rode and rode and rode and rode. I forgot to take pics of the river - I thought I would do it on the way back. Best laid plans and all that. Eventually we pretty much cleared town and were out in open space,
surrounded by reservoirs, and with views of the uplift of the Rockies:
and a quarry:
(the conveyor belt was fascinating - about a mile long, no joke! The hole in the ground showed that the soils here must be in part glacial as there are layers of pebbles of varying sizes)
There were critters
and one place even had a red barn!
(I don't know why red barns are noice but they are)
Nathan was getting pretty tired by now but I could see a band of greenery about another mile up the trail, so I rode on ahead. Turns out there is an absolutely fantastic bridge across the Poudre:
I wish I could show you the "film" of riding along the bike bridge but I didn't think to do it as a movie, just as burst mode. The footway of the bridge is made of wooden planks which have curled a bit so the pictures bounce up and down in a most amusing way.
Finally, a picture of the Poudre itself:
We rode back to Old Town for Nathan's afternoon tea (an icecream in a waffle cone) and then home. All in all we rode over 30km, or more than 20 miles. For us that is a long ride!
So we set out on a ride along the Poudre Trail. The Cache La Poudre is of course the local river.
We found this old suspension bridge fascinating.
It seemed to carry a flume, most probably from the old reservoir behind the pics to the land on the other side. There is no information about it at the site - wonder what it was for?
After we had ridden about 10km, I was Hungry. We stopped off in Old Town at Nathan's fave cafe, Starry Night, where he had stuffed squash with pasta salad and I had plain brown rice with steamed vegies. Ah the fun of a GF/DF diet.
We heard trains tooting lots. It is very common around Fort Collins. Trains toot all day long. There is the train that goes through Old Town, the one that I raced the other day, that has to toot at every intersection, ie continuously. There is a shunting area that crosses two main roads (you oughta hear the fighting about how to fix the problem of cars being stuck for 20-odd minutes at a time! Like dooooods, build a bridge for the cars! Can't do an underpass as it is likely to flood). There is another shunting area that doesn't cross roads but does mean LOTS of tooting at every points.
So we rode along the Poudre Trail and suddenly came upon a train shunting. For the train nuffies out here, I give you one of the grottiest old unloved engines I've ever seen, along with a lovely, well painted one:
The driver hopped out of the cabin and adjusted some points, then the train crept backwards.
Then Nathan said there was another train coming! And there was! The above train was crawling backwards towards the south and this train came from the west:
After 10 minutes of staring at trains and taking a gazillion photos, I decided that it was time to keep riding.
We rode and rode and rode and rode. I forgot to take pics of the river - I thought I would do it on the way back. Best laid plans and all that. Eventually we pretty much cleared town and were out in open space,
surrounded by reservoirs, and with views of the uplift of the Rockies:
and a quarry:
(the conveyor belt was fascinating - about a mile long, no joke! The hole in the ground showed that the soils here must be in part glacial as there are layers of pebbles of varying sizes)
There were critters
and one place even had a red barn!
(I don't know why red barns are noice but they are)
Nathan was getting pretty tired by now but I could see a band of greenery about another mile up the trail, so I rode on ahead. Turns out there is an absolutely fantastic bridge across the Poudre:
I wish I could show you the "film" of riding along the bike bridge but I didn't think to do it as a movie, just as burst mode. The footway of the bridge is made of wooden planks which have curled a bit so the pictures bounce up and down in a most amusing way.
Finally, a picture of the Poudre itself:
We rode back to Old Town for Nathan's afternoon tea (an icecream in a waffle cone) and then home. All in all we rode over 30km, or more than 20 miles. For us that is a long ride!
Monday, 10 September 2007
A rather large canyon
Be warned, this picture is HUGE! But pretty, if a tad overexposed. It is a melange of pictures of the Black Gorge of the Gunnison taken with our teensy little Canon A430, the cheapest camera we could get a year ago. Nathan discovered burst mode and has been using it to create very large multilevel panoramas. Burst mode is helping us flog that little camera even more - we have not had it a year yet and have taken over 8,000 pics on it! Hooray for digital cameras! Imagine paying for the developing of more than 8,000 pics!
Friday, 7 September 2007
We need a car
and a convertible may be fun, but I think we'll pass on this one, thanks!
I'm not too keen on the colour nor on the fact it is a smoking car.
(seen on the I25 Denver bypass)
(BTW, you guys are funny - heh as if I would throw myself and my bike in front of a speeding train! How the heck could I knit and spin if I were dead or severely banged up in hospital? The ding dongs were not going, the train was over half a km away but it was fun trying to race it!)
I'm not too keen on the colour nor on the fact it is a smoking car.
(seen on the I25 Denver bypass)
(BTW, you guys are funny - heh as if I would throw myself and my bike in front of a speeding train! How the heck could I knit and spin if I were dead or severely banged up in hospital? The ding dongs were not going, the train was over half a km away but it was fun trying to race it!)
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Things I've learned
Number Two.
Trains are seemingly never-ending here. Each train must be about a mile or more long. Make sure you avoid level crossings when trains are nearby cos you will have to wait and wait and wait.
We drove up to this loco (plus a mate) outside Denver on the way to Colorado Springs
and past so many of these container thingos Nathan couldn't keep count
and eventually we found the other end of the train over a minute later (and we were in a 65 mph zone)
Five locos presumably all slaved together, three at one end, two at the other.
The BNSF line runs literally straight through Fort Collins. It goes down the middle of a street in Old Town. It runs through the university. The train has to do 15mph. It takes a VERY long time to get through the old town area and blasts its horn a very great deal. It is pretty obvious when it is about.
This is why last night when I heard the train hooting its horn frantically I rode like the clappers to get across the railway line before the train reached it. I had left the LYS knitty group a bit later than I meant to and it was full on dark, so I'm belting along in the dark with my lights on (but really they are not meant for lighting the street up, more to warn car/truck drivers of my presence. And other cyclists who don't have lights, but that is another story). I heard tooting of a train. Ack. Ride fast! Faster! Must beat the train!
I beat the train by three intersections. Then I kept pace with it despite riding away and then alongside it three roads across. It was fun!
Trains are seemingly never-ending here. Each train must be about a mile or more long. Make sure you avoid level crossings when trains are nearby cos you will have to wait and wait and wait.
We drove up to this loco (plus a mate) outside Denver on the way to Colorado Springs
and past so many of these container thingos Nathan couldn't keep count
and eventually we found the other end of the train over a minute later (and we were in a 65 mph zone)
Five locos presumably all slaved together, three at one end, two at the other.
The BNSF line runs literally straight through Fort Collins. It goes down the middle of a street in Old Town. It runs through the university. The train has to do 15mph. It takes a VERY long time to get through the old town area and blasts its horn a very great deal. It is pretty obvious when it is about.
This is why last night when I heard the train hooting its horn frantically I rode like the clappers to get across the railway line before the train reached it. I had left the LYS knitty group a bit later than I meant to and it was full on dark, so I'm belting along in the dark with my lights on (but really they are not meant for lighting the street up, more to warn car/truck drivers of my presence. And other cyclists who don't have lights, but that is another story). I heard tooting of a train. Ack. Ride fast! Faster! Must beat the train!
I beat the train by three intersections. Then I kept pace with it despite riding away and then alongside it three roads across. It was fun!
Amazing things I've learned
Number One.
Non-stick pans suddenly turn into stick pans when baking here in CO.
I don't grok it.
Pans that remained non-stick at home without use of any oil are stick-tight pans here. Guess I'll have to get me a can of oil-spray. Sounds so delicious! You guys know what I mean.
Non-stick pans suddenly turn into stick pans when baking here in CO.
I don't grok it.
Pans that remained non-stick at home without use of any oil are stick-tight pans here. Guess I'll have to get me a can of oil-spray. Sounds so delicious! You guys know what I mean.
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
A bit of a vertiginous drive
Ah, long weekends. Thanks for the holiday, USA!
We hired a car with cruise control. Oddly enough it got better mileage with my poor foot pumping the accelerator/gas pedal than it did with the cruise on. I figure that the cruise is all the time up, down, up, down and never just sitting in one spot. It felt like that....
Anyway, we drove down the I25 to Denver then around Denver to Colorado Springs, through the Garden of the Gods, up and around a "back way" to a waterfall (no parking! We couldn't even pay our $5 to see a waterfall, dangit), then a late lunch at a lake. The demographics of Colorado Springs are different to Fort Collins (ie I saw lots of Hispanics and blacks - Fort Collins is awfully white - I'd like to find some friends who aren't white cos they often have a different take on life).
Off we went to Canon City (that has a ~ over the n) and Royal Gorge. $23 per person to walk across the bridge. You are kidding me! OK, so you get to ride on the carnival stuff too but we just wanted to go out on the bridge. Let me put that another way, Nathan wanted to go out on the bridge, Lynne is too much of a wuss to get anywhere near the edge. Can you spell vertigo?
You want pics? I have to choose and edit them yet! We only took about a thousand pics on the weekend. Each place will have to have its own post I think.
We stayed in Salida overnight at a random motel that just so happened to have a fridge and microwave. Here starteth the rant.
Back 'ome, all motel rooms come with the basics. What we call the basics are:
Imagine our surprise when we discover that many motels in the USA do not have tea and coffee making facilities (they either have a coffee dripolator or you have to go to the lobby) and fridges in the room! What are they? Why do you need to keep anything cold in a fridge? You can buy *anything* you want from our overpriced fridge in the lobby! Except I can't because I have to have a different diet from 99% of the US population, so all that wheat based crap and the milk? Poison! And if you are travelling and want to keep stuff cold overnight so you can have it the next day?
So our motel was not the flashest but at least we could keep stuff cold in the fridge... and heat dinner up in the microwave. Salida's Safeway doesn't have a great selection of GF/DF foods but I got by.
On we went to Gunnison. Nathan had a lovely lunch at a nice little cafe/bakery. The lady at the tourist bureau helped us decide not to go to Crusty Butt (Crested Butte) but so we instead pushed on to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The landscape around the area is fascinating - we are well out of what I think of as Rocky Mountain scenery (big jagged mountains) and into mesa/butte country. DH made many bad Jar-Jar Binks references - mesa hungry! mesa sesa mesa! etc etc. This was all very new territory for us (the landscape, not the punning. Punning is normal). Very different to look at. Very very dry.
Oddly enough, the Black Canyon is up on a plateau that is higher than the local area. We had to drive up a large hill to get to it. The river cuts right through the plateau. Weird, huh? It is certainly worth a bit of vertigo for those of us inclined that way....
By the time we were done at the canyon, it was after 4pm. I drove a LOOOOONG way yesterday. 430 miles, and about 370 of that after 4pm. We got home at 11pm, and with very little speeding (it is hard to not speed whilst flogging down the I70 - there are many steep hills and I had a very new hire car whose brakes I didn't want to ruin). We had thought the holiday traffic would be terrible on the I70 and I25 but guess what? We were so late that it was fine! It was as light as I've ever seen it. Now we know the trick - get home so late everyone else has already gone home. Only it wrecks poor aged bodies the next day....
We hired a car with cruise control. Oddly enough it got better mileage with my poor foot pumping the accelerator/gas pedal than it did with the cruise on. I figure that the cruise is all the time up, down, up, down and never just sitting in one spot. It felt like that....
Anyway, we drove down the I25 to Denver then around Denver to Colorado Springs, through the Garden of the Gods, up and around a "back way" to a waterfall (no parking! We couldn't even pay our $5 to see a waterfall, dangit), then a late lunch at a lake. The demographics of Colorado Springs are different to Fort Collins (ie I saw lots of Hispanics and blacks - Fort Collins is awfully white - I'd like to find some friends who aren't white cos they often have a different take on life).
Off we went to Canon City (that has a ~ over the n) and Royal Gorge. $23 per person to walk across the bridge. You are kidding me! OK, so you get to ride on the carnival stuff too but we just wanted to go out on the bridge. Let me put that another way, Nathan wanted to go out on the bridge, Lynne is too much of a wuss to get anywhere near the edge. Can you spell vertigo?
You want pics? I have to choose and edit them yet! We only took about a thousand pics on the weekend. Each place will have to have its own post I think.
We stayed in Salida overnight at a random motel that just so happened to have a fridge and microwave. Here starteth the rant.
Back 'ome, all motel rooms come with the basics. What we call the basics are:
- a bed (duh!)
- a tv
- a bathroom and accoutrements (towels, soap, shampoo, etc)
- coffee and tea making stuff (ie a kettle/jug with instant coffee sachets, tea bags and sugar plus cups and saucers)
- a small fridge (we call them bar fridges)
Imagine our surprise when we discover that many motels in the USA do not have tea and coffee making facilities (they either have a coffee dripolator or you have to go to the lobby) and fridges in the room! What are they? Why do you need to keep anything cold in a fridge? You can buy *anything* you want from our overpriced fridge in the lobby! Except I can't because I have to have a different diet from 99% of the US population, so all that wheat based crap and the milk? Poison! And if you are travelling and want to keep stuff cold overnight so you can have it the next day?
So our motel was not the flashest but at least we could keep stuff cold in the fridge... and heat dinner up in the microwave. Salida's Safeway doesn't have a great selection of GF/DF foods but I got by.
On we went to Gunnison. Nathan had a lovely lunch at a nice little cafe/bakery. The lady at the tourist bureau helped us decide not to go to Crusty Butt (Crested Butte) but so we instead pushed on to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The landscape around the area is fascinating - we are well out of what I think of as Rocky Mountain scenery (big jagged mountains) and into mesa/butte country. DH made many bad Jar-Jar Binks references - mesa hungry! mesa sesa mesa! etc etc. This was all very new territory for us (the landscape, not the punning. Punning is normal). Very different to look at. Very very dry.
Oddly enough, the Black Canyon is up on a plateau that is higher than the local area. We had to drive up a large hill to get to it. The river cuts right through the plateau. Weird, huh? It is certainly worth a bit of vertigo for those of us inclined that way....
By the time we were done at the canyon, it was after 4pm. I drove a LOOOOONG way yesterday. 430 miles, and about 370 of that after 4pm. We got home at 11pm, and with very little speeding (it is hard to not speed whilst flogging down the I70 - there are many steep hills and I had a very new hire car whose brakes I didn't want to ruin). We had thought the holiday traffic would be terrible on the I70 and I25 but guess what? We were so late that it was fine! It was as light as I've ever seen it. Now we know the trick - get home so late everyone else has already gone home. Only it wrecks poor aged bodies the next day....
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