Terrie Miller, who was responsible for bringing me out to California to work at O’Reilly, which included a personalized orientation of Sonoma County and a place to sleep at her house, is retiring…from O’Reilly.

I’ve got to say, O’Reilly is a pretty cool company, and their Maker Media division run by Dale Dougherty is even cooler, so if you have any interest in taking over the online side of MAKE Magazine from Terrie, working with the likes of Phil Torrone and Bre Pettis, then go check out the deets here: MAKE is hiring an online manager.

p.s. I would happily recommend anyone I know for the job, and connect you with folks I know who work there.

After bidding our heated tent-cabin adieu, we had breakfast, and then drove up to Badger Pass, a small ski area in the park where they also rent snowshoes.

We all got suited up, and started towards Dewey Point on the recommendation of a park ranger. There are two ways to get to the point, one harder one easier, but the harder route forked off first, and everyone seemed cool with that. What did we know? So off we trudged into the forest.

As promised, it was a beautiful, diverse hike, with lots to see and photograph along the way. The snow was at least two feet deep. Aside from the well-trodden trail, it felt like we were very much in the wilderness, very much on our own. But it was also pretty hard going, with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns.

Given that we had to get the snowshoes back by 4, we were all well aware of our turnaround time—but it created a dilemma: how hard do we push ourselves, how far do we go, would we make it to Dewey Point? I did my fair share of cajoling, but once we reached that turnaround window, and with a reasonably expansive view in front of us, we all stopped to prepare the dinner we had conveniently been unable to enjoy the night before. Hot dogs never tasted so good!

Turns out Dewey Point was just a few hundred feet ahead (we learned from some cross country skiers), so we headed down for a quick look-see before beginning the trek back. The hot dogs were a great reward, but actually reaching our goal and standing on the edge of the world made all the difficulty getting there seem worth it.

By then we really had to get moving back. I was a little worried about the rental office closing on us, but we managed to reduce our return time by taking the less-strenuous meadow trail back (yay, a loop!), which we were all very glad for. It was still really freaking hard, and harder still knowing we had to get back at a specific time. But we all made it—and just in time.

On a Saturday about a month ago, Joy, Kyle, Marcia, Stephanie, and I got in a minivan (courtesy of Zipcar) and drove to Yosemite. We took pretty much the whole day getting there, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, picked up groceries, and stopped occasionally on the way to take pictures. By the time we got to our heated canvas tent cabin at Camp Curry, it was dark.

Upon discovering that cooking inside the tents was off limits—on account of the bears—we “went out for dinner” (for a national park, there are a surprising number of places to choose from). After some made-to-order, buffet-style fare, we called it a night. But before we went to bed, we broke the no-eating-in-the-tent rule and had a few beers.

Of course I made the same mistake of drinking too much on a full stomach right before bed, and sometime in the middle of the night my bladder woke up, begging for mercy. I tried to ignore it, fearing all the hungry bears I’d meet on the long icy walk between our tent and the communal bathhouse, but it was no use. I threw on some clothes in the dark and braved the freezing temperatures for my bladder. Next time: stadium buddy.

I’m not really a calendar kind of guy. I think that makes it easier for me to just live and adapt to things one day at a time. Had I a calendar this past weekend, I might not have felt as relaxed as I did in spite of a rather action-packed schedule.

Thursday night was FM’s holiday party at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco. I really wish it had been a Friday night because the drinks were free, the water far between, and I enjoyed myself to the point of not making it into work on Friday. Oops.

Saturday was Joy’s birthday, and she, Kyle, and Marcia came down to the city for a late reservation at Clementine. Before dinner we all caught up at our place over kirs, Jean-Claude’s vin de noix, and some Frigolet we’d brought back from France with Kyle in mind.

Dinner was great. I’ve really been enjoying rack of lamb lately, Stephanie and Kyle both had an interesting duck leg confit with duck breast, Joy had a honey glazed quail, and Marcia had seared scallops with lobster risotto—which she claimed was the winner. We also managed to put away multiple appetizers, including a torchon of fois gras, and multiple desserts, including a cheese plate. Kind of felt like I was celebrating my birthday too!

Then I completely forgot we had brunch plans on Sunday, though thankfully not till noon, at Deenie and Danny’s, who had both come to our ravioli party. (Deenie dances with Stephanie in Loose Change.) I got to lend a hand in the kitchen turning some temperamental pumpkin waffle batter into some pretty decent pancakes, meanwhile enjoying scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms and fresh chives.

Otherwise, there was some holiday gift preparation, but we’ve pretty much got that all sorted. Should be a quiet week work-wise (I hope). Then on Friday afternoon Stephanie and I fly to Austin for the holidays, for some time with the fam, including Grandmommy, and a chance to see my brother’s new house.

Friend (and coworker) Ivan Kanevski got props from the mainstream media last night for his work in creating the non-mainstream presidential candidate chooser, Glassbooth.

Totally rad!