Between little bouts of Eden on the PS3, I finally got around to a project I've been putting off - fixing the insulation around the attic skylight. Our attic (which serves as our TV room, among other uses) is super-insulated but does not exactly have a ceiling. I covered about 25% of the ceiling with attractive old barn wood the last time I was laid off for a significant period, but the rest of it is just plastic sheeting over sheets of insulation. This works better than you might think. It's ugly, but even without any heat except what rises from the house below, the attic stays warm all winter. However, due to a combination of air movement in the cold air space above the insulation and cavorting squirrels, the insulation has been shifting around and some of the plastic sheeting has torn or come loose. We keep stapling it back, but in the area around the skylight the plastic was so torn and brittle that there was no way to reattach it. Insulation was occasionally falling out into the attic, but mostly blowing away inside the roof, leaving actual holes into the unheated storage space at the back of the attic. It was ugly and unsanitary, and was starting to get significantly cold up there.

I kept hinting that "someone" should use the extra insulation and plastic in the back room to fix the problem, but somehow it didn't magically happen. So I spent several hours last weekend just cleaning out the storage room sufficiently to find the roll of plastic (there's no problem finding the insulation - it's all over the place back there). And yesterday I finally unfolded the small stepladder up there and spent about 3 hours repacking insulation into the holes and stapling new plastic over it. Whew. What an awkward and dirty job that is! It could use a few more sheets of plastic, but I got it to the point where at least that part of the roof is no longer leaking warm air out and bits of insulation in.

Then in the evening Richard and I embarked on a little adventure to participate in the City of Lakes Luminary Loppet. I signed up for the 7:30pm Luminary wave, hoping it would be slightly less crowded than the earlier waves, but I don't know - most of the City of Minneapolis seemed to be there. Richard dropped me off at the starting point (there was no chance of parking within a mile), and then made his way around the lake to meet me at the climactic IceCropolis/ Icehenge at the north end of the lake. Crowds being what they were, it took him longer to drive to the other end of the lake than it took me to ski there (about 2 miles of skiing). We found each other via cell phone and lighted staff, fortunately managing to make the crucial final connection just as the phone Richard had borrowed from Thorin ran out of juice.

Despite my uncomfortableness with crowds, I did enjoy this. Even when we were all shuffling along The Mall in a huge pack that sort of looked like an exodus of refugees from Norway, everybody was in such a jolly mood that it was fun. Everybody around me seemed to be doing this for the first time and were pretty excited. There were little surprises all along the way for us newbies, from the snow sculptures along the mall to firedancers and candle-lit ice pyramid. Coming out from under the bridge onto Lake of the Isles and seeing the panorama of lights spread out all over the lake was magical. Click through the link to see the pictures.

Bright sun on glittering new snow, temp between 10 and 20, no wind. This is what a January day should be. I hope we get more of them.
I went skiing at Wood Lake, one of the best-kept outdoor secrets in Minneapolis. Can you believe this is less than 1/2 mile from The Hub?

	Skiing at Wood Lake - beginning of the trail (Jan 15, 2011) Wood Lake Nature Center - a surprising little gem tucked away behind the condos near the intersection of Lyndale and 66th Street. Best free cross-country skiing in the city.
	Skiing at Wood Lake - end of the trail (Jan 15, 2011) Sweet little trail, just under 2 miles in length. This takes me 40 minutes, which is perfect for a quick exercise break.

I found my equipment and trundled over to the Hiawatha Golf Course. They hadn't bothered to groom a path, but there were some pretty good volunteer ski tracks. I skiied for all of 40 minutes and wore myself out so completely that I could barely move for the rest of the day. Oy. Kind of too bad, because the sun is out today and it might have been a nicer day to ski, but my legs haven't recovered from yesterday. I did go swimming at the Y, however.

I've got two weeks off from work, whether I like it or not. I'm not particularly thrilled with being forced to use my vacation to sit around the house for two weeks in the middle of the most depressing month of the year. I have no idea why the company thinks this is a good idea; they aren't really saving anything by it since they are forcing people to use PTO rather than making them take time off with no pay (as some companies are doing this year). They aren't even shutting down the building, since a small subset of people on hot projects are working random days throughout the shutdown period.

But anyway, here I am at home in December. So I'm trying to make the best of it by vowing to get out EVERY DAY and get some exercise. Since we had that big party to get ready for on the weekend, I didn't really start counting until Monday (technically the first vacation day). So far I'm 3 for 3. Not sure what to do about Christmas, though, since most everything is shut down. I wonder if the skating rink at Lake of the Isles will be open?

...that I'm having to fight the urge to find someplace to skate again today. No, really! I just poke along for weeks at my skating making no discernible progress and then I have these great little breakthrough that are so exciting that I skate until my feet hurt. Yesterday, after working on backward skating for the last month with no discernible progress, I suddenly found that I could do a back crossover to the left without hardly thinking about it! I still haven't done it on a circle, but that's just a nicety. I've found that it works better for me to develop a new move in "free-range skating" first and then reign it in to the requisite circle pattern. Most of the instructors want to start everything on the circle, but I tend to get too focused on the marks in the ice and lose track of what my body is doing.

( Anyway, the secret to back crossovers, which is probably of little interest to anybody but me, is  )

But also pretty, 'cause it's all about suspended ice crystals in the air. Here's a picture of sun dogs, although not the ones I actually saw today while driving west on the Crosstown.

I went skating, and then to CompUSA, conveniently close by. I skated backwards, although not very much. And I didn't fall down.

Slept 'till 10, ate breakfast, poked around on the computer for several hours, to no great effect. Went skating at Centennial Lakes, which was fun at the time, but now I'm really tired. I was on the ice for a little over an hour, but probably only 40 minutes actually skating. There are places to sit and rest all over the place, which I muchly appreciate. My legs are a little tired, but mostly I feel it in my lower back.

I still need something from my backlog list to accomplish today. I think I'll pick something easy.

So far, none of the outdoor skating rinks in the metro have opened (except for the one by Landmark Center that is artificially cooled). I just called all the weather hotlines, and most of them aren't even announcing any plans yet, just "closed." However, the absolutely FINE-looking Centennial Lakes Rink, which has an unusually chatty recorded message, is tentatively planning to open on Friday or Saturday if the colder weather continues.

I haven't skated there before, but from the picture it looks like the best outdoor rink in the area - even better than the (closed) Lake of the Isles rink. here, take a look!

Anybody want to try it out, assuming it stays cold? Unlike The Depot, this one is FREE.