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For the past week, we’ve had (relatively) warm days where the temperature soared to the high 30’s and low 40’s. The thick layer of snow outside has been slowly melting. Then at night, it generally drops below freezing again. The result: our driveway is quite literally a sheet of ice.

Sure, there’s some gravel peeking through, but the bulk of it is ice roughly an inch thick. And when it’s warm during the day, there’s a thin layer of water on it. As everyone knows, a thin layer of water atop a smooth layer of ice is about as close to frictionless as you can get.

Sooooo… driving up and down the driveway is fraught with peril. This morning, heading out at 6am, we just sort of glided down it. Now and then the wheels would catch on some gravel, or we’d intentionally drift over near the edge where there’s still some slushy snow which provides a bit more grip. But overall, it’s pretty freaky.

After returning home and barely making it back up, we decided to break up the ice. Pepper pulled out our industrial ice chipper, I grabbed a sledgehammer, we donned our crampons, and marched down the ice to see what we could do. The results were… not good.

I banged away on this little patch of ice with all my might, slamming the sledgehammer into it, and succeeded in making a few good-sized dents in the ice and blasting a few chips off. Pepper, meanwhile, toiled beside me, banging the ice chipper into the unyielding surface. We spent about fifteen minutes working, at various points along the driveway, before concluding that we simply weren’t going to make a dent in it.

I love my house, but wow do I hate my driveway.

So I guess “livestreams” are all the rage these days. That’s where people broadcast themselves doing mundane things, and other people watch them. In some cases, “other people” could be hundreds or thousands. Apparently you can make money livestreaming.

Dirk has been building a “channel” on YouTube over the past year or so, and has become pretty popular… I mean, as far as having nearly 2,000 subscribers could be called popular. (I was one of his first subscribers!) A few weeks ago he invited me to join him for a Star Wars “watch party” which he’d livestream. Basically, that means the two of us would get on a video chat call, watch the original movie, and talk about everything from the movie to our childhoods together. I’d never done something like that, but hey, what are friends for?

Tonight we did it, and basically just talked for two hours while anywhere from seven to ten people (!) watched and made comments in the YouTube chat section. Although I don’t pretend to understand why people do that, it was fun to “hang out” with my friend for a couple of hours, reminiscing about the many many times we watched the Star Wars movies together during sleepovers.

The best part was probably when someone named overlap618 made this comment:

“Nooch your friend is much funnier than you and better looking. What is his channel? UNSUBSCRIBE”

My screenshot above doesn’t exactly capture Dirk (aka Nooch) in a very flattering pose, but it does capture the comment on the right side of the video. Hilarious. I like this overlap618 character.

Anyway, it was a good time and apparently we’re going to do The Empire Strikes Back in a few weeks.

Also, he has some “notes” for me about how to do better on a livestream. Because apparently I’m now a YouTube sensation.

Last night I stumbled on the greatest web page I’ve seen all year: the Michigan Department of Transportation’s “Snowplow Names” page! Yes, apparently in the Great Lakes State they officially name their snowplows (and publish it for the world).

This screenshot really doesn’t do the list justice, because it goes on for hundreds more. Some of my favorites:

• Snowbegone Kenobi
• Plowasaurus Rex
• Truck Norris
• Darth Blader
• Edgar Allen Snow
• Gordie Plow
• Jon Bon Snowi
• Pillsbury Plowboy

Brilliant! If only I had more machinery around the house in need of names… I mean, we already have Nebula and Ruby, and our jet skis are named Trixie and Lil’ Pepe… and everyone tells us we need to get a plow for our driveway…

Our power went out the other night. When it returned a few hours later, we reset all the clocks that had dropped off. Later in the day, we noticed the oven and microwave in the kitchen were showing strange times. We reset them again. A few hours later, they were wrong again. But they weren’t wrong like “a few minutes fast”… instead, they were wrong like “many hours off, and completely different”.

For example, now it’s 7:52pm. I took a picture of these appliances, one of whom insists it’s 7:58am (so it’s now 12 hours off) and the other who says 1:45.

I don’t know what to make of it. They’re either really fast or really slow, but at different rates. How could a power outage cause something like this? And why in two different appliances? Are we in some kind of time vortex? Could it be aliens?

Well heck, whatever the cause, it would just be nice to have our clocks working. Argh.

Following up on the success of our Provo Thanksgiving, we had another family get-together in Provo for Christmas. We rented a townhouse– slightly larger than the one we had a month ago– and everyone gathered for a few days. And by “everyone” I mean “including Mom and Dad”. Or Grandma and Grandpa, if you’re our kids. Or Great-Grandma (“GG”) and Great-Grandpa, from Ollie’s perspective.

At nine months, Ollie is very fond of shoving things in his mouth.

He’s also fond of his Mickey doll, who he drags around and apparently punches when he’s in his crib just before naptime. Here he casts a wary eye at Great-Grandpa, who just wants to pick up the little bugger.

On Christmas morning there were piles of gifts, in a dizzying assortment of wrapping papers.

This year I enjoyed making labels that were more than just “To: You, From: Me”.

Everyone loved their gifts. Mom and Dad were delighted when they opened their box of “100% Authentic Flathead Lake Rocks”.

(In truth it was just a way to disguise the fact that I’d given them a gift card to Outback. Adding a bag of rocks made the wrapped present feel so much more intriguing, you know?)

New shirts were a thing.

After the boxes were opened and the wrapping was cleared, we sat down for some nice family portraits. This is the first time we’ve all been together in years!

Here’s a cool one: four generations of Schroeder men!

My amazing parents…

… and my beautiful offspring.

We played Sheephead and Skull King and Zackjongg (Zack’s mostly accurate but partly made-up version of Mahjongg). We watched a movie and went on walks and ate plenty of food. We talked and laughed and just thoroughly enjoyed a few days together. Good times all around.

As the sun was setting on a cold, foggy, grey day, I noticed the trees outside were coated with hoarfrost. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots of the magical spiky ice:

Kathy sent us some cool bear ornaments, but we don’t have a Christmas tree this year (other than the foot-tall one on my desk) since we’re not going to be here. So we put the bears with our little nativity scene, and they fit right in.

Even after this guy edged a bit closer to the middle, baby Jesus doesn’t seem concerned.

I actually think these are more fun in a nativity than on a tree! I guess we’ll see what happens next year, when we actually have a tree…

One good thing about our driveway is that it’s an awesome sledding track. Sure, it’s horrific to drive up when it’s hard-packed snow with a nice half-inch-thick layer of ice beneath it, but those very conditions make it a ton of fun to sled down. So today, Pepper and Kyra and I donned our coats and ski pants and headed outside. It’s been a while since we last used our alpine slide, but it seemed like it was time.

After a couple of runs, the wheel ruts had been smoothed out, and we were absolutely cruising.

We all agreed that the best stretch is the long straight run above the orchard, with a gentle curve about halfway down. You can really get moving on it. Of course, that presents a problem if you’re coming into the curve too hot…

Pepper bailed just after that shot above, because she was about to shoot off the side of the driveway into the ditch. Luckily the snow is pretty forgiving when you wipe out. Here’s Kyra, a few seconds later, rocketing past her.

One time I followed Kyra down, and despite her healthy head start, I caught up to her. I’d chalk it up to my superior driving skills, but one could argue it might just be an issue of weight. Regardless, I crashed into her as we both careened into the last switchback.

Hitting bumps at high speed is always an adventure, as Pepper demonstrates by catching some air:

This next picture looks completely staged and boring, but I’m pretty sure I was just about to break the sound barrier because I was going so fast. (This is the start of the cannonball run I mentioned.)

After an hour and a half, we were cold and wet, so the next order of business was a soak in the hot tub while snowflakes fell gently from the sky. What an awesome morning. Here’s a fun shot of my beautiful girl as we wrapped up.

Sometimes I miss doing full-time programming work. A comment I saw today reminded me of what it’s like.

It’s not exactly something to be proud of, but today I drove up and down highway 35 four times. I had different things throughout the day, none of which were spaced closely enough that I could be “efficient” and just stay up north. Sigh.