Song

Today I was driving back from Amherst and not too far along the way I realized that the Irish ballad I was listening to had lyrics including "drunkenly struggling to undo his fly," and "the urinal cake stared at old Eddie Praeger, or maybe it would have if it had had eyes." I immediately put it on repeat for the duration of my drive home (some 1:10 typically) so that I could learn the lyrics, and next will work on the chords. Then I remembered that my plans for this (oh right, this, not next) summer did not include CTY. But then again, there is nothing preventing me from crashing Crabfest 2! *grin*

It wasn't until I got home that I looked up the artist - Paul and Storm, the successors to Da Vinci's Notebook. The Paul and Storm webpage includes a sample of The Ballad of Eddie Praeger, and amazingly iTunes actually sells them.

Lyrics

And after a non-trivial number of repeats, ( here's the lyrics to The Ballad of Eddie Praeger. )

Snowshoeing

Man, I am beat, in such a good way! I took my Christmas presents out for a spin around the block, and discovered some interesting things about snowshoes. Namely, there's a HUGE difference in ease of motion between tamped down trails, and 8" of fresh fluffy wet snow! On packed snow, or less than 4" of fresh snow, and snowshoes feel exactly like walking without any snow. I mean it. After around three steps you don't even notice the weight of the snowshoes, you float enough that you don't realize you're sinking, and the cleats prevent any slipping on icy patches. However, 6" or more of fresh snow, and it starts feeling more and more like wading through water up to your knees. Without snowshoes, or I suspect after around 12" of snow, it's more like wading through molasses up to your knees.

I also tried jogging to see what it was like. In the 6-8" we had, I really felt like a pretty pretty prancing pony, what with my high-stepping and all. I'm also glad I got ones with steel cleats (more durable than aluminum), as urban snowshoeing occasionally puts you over semi-plowed or shoveled roads and walkways. My car had its typical double the surrounding depth of snow. I didn't bother cleaning it off, but my landlord thoughtfully plowed quite well behind it.