My last laptop died, well the screen did anyway. I’ll maybe turn it into a media centre, but for now I need something I don’t have to drag a monitor around with me for.
Enter the Surface Pro 3 with a nifty purple keypad cover (purple being my god-daughter’s colour of choice which makes this a hit with her too). I got the i5 with 128GB sold state drive option.

It came with Windows 8.1 but once I went through the initial setup it offered to upgrade to Windows 10.

So first on the surface. It’s nice. The 12″ screen is a little bigger than an iPad and but when it comes to using it as a laptop this is great. It’s a very clear screen with great resolution and I’m finding working in most applications it is big enough. It is a little prone to fingerprints though.

The keypad, built into a cover comes separately and isn’t that cheap. However it works really well. The keys feel solid enough and the keyboard is large enough that typing is easy. The scroll pad is ok, not great, not bad, just OK. It also comes with a loop that should stick to the cover to hold the pen but this can fall of easily.

Then there is the pen. This is great, one of the best features. It’s pressure sensitive, works on Bluetooth and you can just draw and write on the screen. Windows can read handwriting. My scrawl doesn’t count as handwriting unfortunately. It’s nice for playing with any design, I’ve been using the pen for web design and it works really well. Also Windows 10 comes with a 30 day trial of the New York Times crossword app. Tablet mode with a pen is the way to do a crossword. Even with Cortana I’m having trouble finishing it.

Cortana is the new search assistant in Windows, it will return results from your files, from the web and parse them like Siri in IOS. So a search for word.doc will return word.doc, word1.doc, word2.doc and all my other files. A search for “emperor who committed matricide” will return a web search and probably a link to the answers to todays crossword. A search for “What’s the weather like” will just return the weather. It’s nice but the mic on the surface pro 3 doesn’t work well with it.

Edge is the new browser in Windows 10 and it’s nice. Better than IE ever was and works well in tablet or desktop mode.

One note is a big feature here, double click the pen and one note opens and can copy from the Edge browser, just clip the page or just a part. It works well. Having the pen with One Note may be the thing that gets me to use the software.

Lastly Windows 10. It’s good. It’s as good an improvement over 8 as 7 was over Vista. With 8.1 somewhere in the middle. However it is a new OS. Don’t get it yet. Let idiots like me be the guinea pig while Microsoft sort out the bugs, and it still has bugs. Edge crashes often enough and when closing tabs they have an annoying habit of opening in a new window.

Other than that it seems pretty stable, it’s very fast to boot (about 6 Mississippi when I counted) to get to the logon screen. I’ve installed some software with no issues but have yet to install printers and start the search for drivers.

There are some scares on Facebook about the invasion of privacy of Windows 10 but nothing new to anyone who’s ever owned a Mac or iPhone.

Overall I’m loving the Surface Pro 3. It’s the nice combination of laptop and tablet that works well in Windows 10. It’s what Windows 8 promised but never delivered on.

Highway 20 runs across some of northern Washington through the Cascade mountains. It’s usually only open about six months of the year but it opened early this year as there wasn’t much snow. We left all that shit for the east coast. There’s the Cascade Loop, a road trip along this highway and it’s perfect for a motorcycle. Since herself was away, I could stay home, catch up on tv, mow the lawn and have a beer.

Or there is this option;
Driving through the town of Concrete on the way.

I wonder what that sign is made of?

I made it to the Skagit River Resort the first night and was the only tent there. Not sure why, I only needed 2 sleeping bags. Why was no one else camping? Woke up to lots of bunnies.

Nice empty campsite for the first night.

This guy kept running to me, looking for food. Found out later he had been someone’s pet.

Wake up in a field of bunnies and they have Eggs Bunnydict on the menu? Count me in,. (No bunnies were harmed in the making of this, it’s English muffin, poached egg, sausage patty and biscuits and gravy – very very very ‘Muirican).

Going through the Cascades the next morning it got a little chilly at the top of Washington Pass, 5,477′ above sea level.

I’m going to mount a snow plough on the bike.

Got to Leavenworth, a Bavarian town in the middle of the mountains.

After the snow, this is what I see? What month is it again?

Starbucks in Leavenworth.

There are worse places to wake up on a Sunday morning.

Maybe I should have used a smaller tent. I could have parked the bike in here.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Beautiful empty road.

Who’s that handsome guy on a bike?

Anyone watched You Gotta Eat Here?

There are quite a few in and around BC, and the ones I’ve tried so far have all been winners.
Anyone got a motorbike?

Well there are some great routes in BC. Let’s put them together.

Who’s up for a little trip either the weekend of 11/12 of April or 18/19 April depending on the weather.

All about the food and the ride. Stopping at restaurants from You Gotta Eat Here.

Start at the Tomahawk in North Van for breakfast.

On to Mile One Eating House in Pemberton for lunch a little later.

Ride on past Duffey Lake and into Hope for a slice of pie at the Home (this one isn’t on You Gotta Eat here, but I’ve never manged to squeeze in pie here).
Then either the Hilltop Cafe in Langley or Big Feast in Maple Ridge.
Google maps says it’s about 8 hours of driving.

Probably another 3 hours of eating. And a week of indigestion.

I’ve been catching up on Breaking Bad. A whole lot of people are getting shot, beaten up, run over and disposed of in tubs of acid.

Sitting alone in the house (just after a particularly violent shoot everyone scene) there’s a knock at the door.

It’s a quarter to nine. It’s dark outside.  I’m not expecting anyone. Someone’s head is bleeding on the TV. I nervously open the door, phone fingers poised to dial 911.

There are 3 guys. In suits.

Mafia?

“We’d like to talk to you about Jesus.”

Oh thank fuck I’m not going to die horribly.

“No thanks.”

They ask about my t shirt. It’s from the Big Bang Theory. I’m about to close the door.

“Can we all leave ya a picture of Jesus?”

I’m musically un-gifted, I don’t have a note in my head and have all the rhythm of radioactive decay. Most importantly I can’t play guitar, so as some one who obviously knows nothing about this I feel that it’s my right, nay my duty, to spout an expert opinion on the internet. That’s what Al Gore invented this for.

Why can’t you play guitar? Because you were taught in an ass backwards way. If you’re right handed you form the chords with your left hand and if you’re left handed you form them with your right. This is all wrong.

It’s all fine as you learn the basics. D is nice and close together, C is OK, nice and easy, G is a bit of a stretch. Am? A breeze. And then they throw it at you. The reason you can’t play guitar. The F word. Or in this case the F chord. As anyone who has ever taken guitar lessons will know, this is a the chord that stops you in your tracks. Hold down all the strings on the first fret with 1 finger, while using the other 3 fingers to hold down strings further up. Any sensible person would just stick a capo on and do an E chord. E, like the Am is an easy chord. You may have to pause mid verse to do put on the capo but it makes much more sense. If your sense of rhythm is anything like mine you probably won’t even notice the pause.

The F chord, it’s impossible, the grip strength needed is incredible. Probably about 4 million pounds per square inch. There’s no way to hold down all the strings like that properly. This is why you were taught guitar wrong. You’re right handed and trying to do this with your left. You’ll never have that grip strength.

My solution (Gerry’s Patent Pending Guitar School Trick)? A week before you start lessons just start wanking with your off hand. Grip strength skyrockets and that F chord? Sorted.

After watching the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead we have decided at the Hoefer-Gainford household to do a juice cleanse. Like the ones here.

This idea involves buying lots and lots of fruits and vegetables (and I do mean lots) and running them through a juicer and drinking the juice. And some water. And nothing else. This will cure all manner of ills and blah blah blah, cure everything.

On day 8 now (day 11 for Ursula) and it’s a terrible idea. One of us will kill the other one. And quite possibly eat the body. If you walk by me with a burger I may stab you. I’m jealous of the cats when I open a can of cat food in the morning. Those smug bastards getting to actually eat food.

It’s been recommended we go for 21 days. That may be only 18 for me but it’s still another 10 days. If you find my body (or quite possibly not my body, just a few bones with teeth marks) you know where to look. If Urs goes missing, in my defense, I am pretty darn hungry.

I like to cook, but recently (last few years) I’ve cooked less and less and am now down to repeating the same 2 or 3 recipies over and over. So this year, as we have 30 or 40 cook books, I thought I should try and make something new each week from them. Maybe I’ll end up expanding my rota of recipies to 4 or 5.

Bear in mind these are all gluten free vegetarian with no mushrooms. Made for me who likes meat and wheat. The mushrooms are still off the menu as they are the food of satan.

So I made vegan enchiladas yesterday. Just not actually vegan as I added cheese. They were from a vegan cookbook, The Oh She Glows Cookbook but I’m also not giving up on cheese. They were tasty. Like really tasty. The avocado – cilantro dressing worked a treat. Even though I was missing half the spices (onion powder?) these worked well.

Which comes to this morning. So happy I have left overs ready for lunch for work. Feeling all proud of myself that I have a delicious, healthy lunch just ready for the microwave. All smug about it until I arrive at work and go to put it in the fridge and find last weeks curry in my bag. With no rice, just about half a cup of too old curry in a large container.

I really need to clean out the fridge more.

Subway it is.

Herself won the Calor Housewife of the Year award with this advent calendar.

What better way to celebrate the season than by sampling a different craft beer each day?

I sampled some, Yoda sampled some and they went down very well.

There was one tiny problem, we’re flying to Mexico for Christmas and I’m not trying to bring beer with me so I had to finish up on the 21st. So I had 5 beers to drink over the weekend. That went fine, Saturday I had two of them, two very tasty beers. Yesterday though after my Christmas drink of choice (Baileys coffee) I had three of them. And they leave the strong ones to the end. The 9.5%, the 11% and who knows what the last one was.

A little tender this morning. Crafty brewers, they sneak up on you.

In one of the many online contests I won a DVD of the new Godzilla movie from The Province. Just one small catch, I have to pick it up from the newspaper office. Downtown. 40km from my house. During the hours of 9 – 5, Monday to Friday. So, should I take a few hours of work, travel down there or just buy it on Amazon? Decisions, decisions, decisions. I have a feeling the offices of the Province are littered with uncollected prizes.