virtual advent 2019: macy’s windows, utah style
Last Friday, sprite wrote a post about the wonderful windows at Macy's flagship store in New York City. They are truly awesome. But if you grew up in Salt Lake City, the store now known as Macy's was once the Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, or ZCMI. Founded in 1868, it…
virtual advent 2019: merry little (melancholy? celebratory?) christmas
This holiday season is shaping up to be a challenging one for me. I'm currently underemployed (read: no budget for holiday shopping), and I'm dealing with family issues that have me traveling regularly across North America. It's draining and defeating. But I still have hope. And that's why the song…
coffeeneuring 2019: caffeinating underemployment one cup at a time
I love coffeeneuring season - I really do! Mary Gersemalina has been ably assembling a worldwide movement (cue Arlo Guthrie) of people on bikes (and in running shoes) going places, drinking coffee (or tea, or cider, or gluhwein, or beer, or...), and logging the adventure. And as with anything devised…
virtual advent 2018: festivus with a side of translation FAIL
Welcome back to yet another installment of sprite's Virtual Advent 2018! Today we will take a quick journey to the land of Festivus, the anti-commercial made-up holiday that falls on December 23. It's the product of a 1997 episode of Seinfeld. It's best explained by watching this compilation clip from…
virtual advent 2018: caja tio
Catalan Christmas traditions tend toward the weird. With that may I introduce... CAJA TIO - the pooping log! Also known as Tio de Nadal, Caja Tio is a staple of Catalan Christmas tradition. The basic gist is that a household has this wooden log sculpture, typically 30 centimeters long, in…
here’s to warren miller (r.i.p.)
Warren Miller died yesterday at the age of 93. To any alpine skier, his name brings to mind images of gorgeous alpine vistas, with good looking skiers performing extreme feats of derring do - or neophyte skiers battling their equipment as they crash getting off the chairlift. I was still…
virtual advent: random christmas trivia
Christmas is a weird holiday for me. I’m not really in on the religious aspect. I like the fact that it happens around the winter solstice, which heralds the arrival of my favorite season of the year. It snowed this morning in New York City, where I happened to be…
virtual advent: skiing santas!
Welcome to another stop in sprite's Virtual Advent 2017! I love that sprite carries on this tradition every year - and I try to provide something unique to the mix every year. This year I'm sharing the tradition of the skiing Santas. Many ski areas kick off their season in…
coffeeneuring 2017: new places aplenty
Another autumn means another of Mary G's Coffeeneuring Challenges! I've always enjoyed riding my bike in search of a cup of joe. Or an espresso. Possibly a flat white. Or maybe a cortado... Regardless, it's always fun. This year, I once again couldn't come up with a "theme within a…
a quick #hip2point0 update
Yes, I said I'd give more regular updates about the new hip. And I've not done so - at least not on this site. Bugger. Sorry about that. I'll make it brief and bulleted: I made it through the high-risk for deep-vein thrombosis time without incident. Yes, there was a…