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Head Radar Helmet vs Head Cinema Pro Helmet

I was intriuged by the HEAD integrated visor/google-replacement helmets, and used the HEAD Radar helmet all last season (23-24). I love the sphere fit, which is very comfortable since it conforms to your head shape. My head is 59cm and thus at the top of the range of the M/L size, and the Radar helmet was very comfortable. With the Radar, the way the visor/goggle-replacement works is that there is an clip mounted via an elastic cord to the helmet, that mechanically clicks into the visor/google-replacement. It can be raised and is held by a click stop on the helmet but because of the elastic at each side, needs two hands to bring up and down as it needs to be extended away from the helmet before being moved. The lens is big and provides good peripheral vision, but again because of the elastic, is pretty tight to your face, i.e. as tight as a google would be. This seals the visor pretty well, so that no wind gets behind the lens at speed. The visor padding is comfortable, but it is not...
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Staying at the Village Lodge Hotel at Sugar Bowl ski resort, Lake Tahoe

We spent a Sunday night at the Village Lodge at the Sugar Bowl ski resort in the Lake Tahoe area in California. What a great atmosphere it has. The Village Lodge has only 27 rooms, housed in the original ski lodge that was built in 1939. It's had plenty of renovations since then, transforming from the main base area, into the now upscale but yet old timey hotel that it now is. I went to Sugar Bowl back when the original gondola was usable by the general public, before they build the Judah lodge. Back then, the lodge building had rentals, a shop and the usual ski lodge cafeteria. Now, it houses the hotel, an upscale bar lounge, a formal dining room, and a more casual eatery. The outside tables remain from the original ski lodge days. The hotel has a formal dining room and a more casual bar area that also serves food. There is another bar/lounge area in between the two. We decided to get a meal at the dining room. The chef has a background working at some upscale restaurants in t...
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Wayb Pico car seat review

Got this seat as a latecomer to their Kickstarter, so didn't have to wait so long as some of the original backers, yay for me! As a result of the shorter wait, it came in time for a major European trip (to Switzerland, actually), and the seat saw action on the airplane and in cars, as well as being carried as luggage. We don't pack light, with a then 2 year old, and we had 2 rolling duffle bags, shoulder bags and this Wayb. The backpack supplied with the Wayb is very comfortable, as well as being very roomy, to fit not just the seat itself, but all sorts of soft packable other stuff. And it's not so bulky as to be unwieldy walking around. The seat itself is sturdily made with nice little touches everywhere, such as little elastic bands to keep the webbing tidy, and the latches click into places on the seat when not in use. The breathable seat material kept the kid much cooler. But here, I must note a big shortcoming compared to other seats -- there is no recline. The ...
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Banana apple bread recipe

I've used the recipe at https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/our-favorite-banana-bread/ with success, but once, I didn't have enough bananas and substituted apples + unsweetened apple sauce and it was very tasty, and now this is my preference for a less banana-y banana bread. This is the recipe: 1 cup sugar (I use 2/3 cup granulated sugar and unpacked 1/3 cup of brown sugar) 1/2 cup butter, softened Cream these two ingredients together, then add, one at a time, 2 eggs Separately, into a food processor go: 3 ripe bananas 2 peeled, cored apples, diced enough unsweetened apple sauce to make 1.5 cups total, including above bananas/apples Once pureed together, mix into the sugar/butter/eggs Separately, mix these dry ingredients 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon of: - baking powder - baking soda - salt (the salt I use is quite closely packed, fine and salty, so I use 3/4 teaspoon) - cinnamon dash of nutmeg Then dump the prior mixed wet ingredients into the dry and sti...
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Total Solar Eclipse 2017 in Oregon

We went to Oregon to see the Aug 21 2017 total eclipse of the sun. Although the location we saw it from gave us only 70s of totality, it was still spectacular and memorable. We stayed with friends for the week, in Tualatin, a bit south of Portland. Our original plan was to spend the weekend at their cabin in Sisters, from where we would drive north to get longer totality; however, there was a forest fire burning near there, with a pending evacuation order (which did come to pass) so we decided to stay in town. The reason for going to Sisters was for more reliably clear weather, but fortunately for millions of people, including us, it was forecast to be clear on eclipse morning in western Oregon. As it turned out, only the first morning of our trip and the last, were clouded over in the morning; the rest of the days were clear blue skies. We spent 2 day pre-eclipse doing some scouting. We wanted to find somewhere that had a view of the Willamette Valley looking west. The idea was ...
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Seoul recommendations

Hotels We stayed in a couple of tripadvisor reviewed hotels that got good ratings, both in the Myeong Dong area. (a) Prince Hotel: this is located on the southern edge of the main Myeong Dong shopping area. It's a newer hotel. Rooms are small-ish, but top floor rooms can have nice views through large windows. Beds are queens (as opposed to double/fulls at other hotels) and are pretty comfortable. Hardwood floors. Small bathroom. Small pot to boil water provided, as is wifi. (b) Metro Hotel: this is in the heart of Myeong Dong, and as such, being slightly less expensive than the Prince Hotel, a better deal. On the other hand, their beds are double/fulls. We chose to get a "deluxe", which was 2 separate full beds. Slightly better amenities at this hotel, compared to the Prince -- with two bottles of water provided daily, and included breakfast on the top floor, which is decent. Downside is that, at least for our room, we looked out through a small window to a narrow alle...
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Arches National Park, Delicate Arch hike

We did a very quick trip to Utah over a weekend in late September, mostly to take advantage of an early appointment for the Global Entry program available on a weekend day at SLC, and since we were there, we took a very quick trip to Arches National Park. It's a pretty long drive from Salt Lake City, down I15, across on US6 and then I70 to US191 to Moab. The interstates are the usual, but US6 is an interesting road that goes over a couple of mountain passes, but also with long flat stretches. It's well surfaced and has two lane passing sections regularly interspersed for those caught behind slow moving traffic -- lots of trucks and people with trailers on this road, at least on the weekend -- and otherwise pretty fast traffic flow. I was quite impressed with Utah roads and drivers, especially on US6 -- the road was well surfaced, and drivers kept good following distances and were pretty consciencious at keeping left except to pass on the passing sections. Would see that in Cal...
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