2015 Feb 28 | skiing at June Lake

Cats sitting on the hood of this car for warmth.

Uh oh, slowdown ahead.

Even the carpool lane is backed up.

Here comes a firetruck along the side.

It can squeeze past everyone on the shoulder.

Must have been a pretty bad accident for someone to be out in the middle of the highway.

Sometimes these completely shut down traffic; this one only blocked a few lanes.

Another accident later on where someone drove into the side.

This kid was selling candy bars.

I think it's a part of a school fundraiser, but I don't think it's very safe for him to be walking around these gas stations with all of these cars driving around.

This cop stopped to arrest some people, but he's still kind of blocking traffic. I guess if he had to stop quickly and run out of his car it's fine, but if not, he should have parked a bit better.

This woman named Athena plays often on Live At The Bike and always wears low-cut shirts over her large breasts; the chat gets rather excited when the camera is on her.

It looks like we got a new laundry repair company; hopefully they do a better job than the old one.

Last time there was a patient who saw great after cataract surgery; in this case, the patient sees almost exactly the same.

That's because the patient has macular degeneration. It can be pretty hard to tell if a patient's vision will improve after cataract surgery when the patient has macular problems. You hope they do, and if not at least the retinal specialist can get a better view to treat the retina better, but it can be disappointing for the patient if they see the same after the surgery as before.

This is another possible problem. cataract surgery usually is calculated to make both eyes good for distance afterwards and the patient will need reading glasses, which is what most people are already used to. In this case, the patient was myopic before cataract surgery, so they could see up close fairly well but blurry far away. After surgery, it can be hard to adjust because now it's the opposite; they've been normalized. There are a couple of ways around this, including monovision, multifocal IOLs, and even just undercorrecting the patient a bit, but the patient has to agree to one of those, and if they don't, they're often frustrated afterwards. A good reminder for how important proper patient education is before a surgical procedure.

We ordered a colored opaque contact for a patient who has no light perception in one eye due to corneal scarring; the contact is just to make his eye look a bit more normal. The company included a Lifesaver in the box. Not a big deal, but kind of nice of them.

Not sure what this license plate means.

Or this one.

Accident on the street.

Thankfully it doesn't look too bad.

Driving up to June Lake on Friday afternoon to go skiing. Traffic out of LA can be bad in the afternoon, but we left a bit earlier to avoid most of it.

You know you need to turn when you start seeing all of these windmills.

Interesting sign, but it doesn't say who it's about.

Amazing malt at the little diner we stopped at.

We all shared one.

The gals.

Stopping for gas and snacks. Why are only these candies priced down? Maybe they expire soon or something.

Google Navigation said to take this weird little set of turns instead of the normal loop to the north. I guess it thought that road was closed or something.

My phone is on roaming there, so I don't get a signal. I still like how the ski runs show up on Google Maps, though.

A big rock at the edge of town.

The cabin that Marie Grace rented for all of us.

Nice wood-burning stove.

Plenty of alcohol.

We shared a room with Kat and Kendra.

We got Marie Grace's blow-up bed, which was really comfortable.

Although we turned the heat down a little too much at night; Ogii and I were both glued together on one side of the bed to stay warmer.

I don't think we're going to have to buy bread anytime soon.

Uh oh, a fuse blew from the microwave. We looked all over but couldn't find the fuse box. Someone mentioned they saw a box on the outside of the cabin so I went searching and sure enough, there it was.

Group breakfast.

You can see the mountain from our cabin.

Marie Grace making sandwiches for lunch.

And Ogii making snack bags.

On the lift up to the resort.

Dropping Ogii off for her lesson.

Kat coming down the mountain.

And turning.

Kendra following her.

Marie Grace flying by.

Spraying up some snow.

And posing with a nice background.

Dri was snowboarding.

Back at the bottom to make sure Ogii was still alive.

Then back up.

It's interesting they say, "not patrolled" rather than "off limits."

Headed down the other way.

Kat and Kendra with another mountain behind.

The four of us.

Time to take a couple of runs with the guys.

They were hitting the black diamonds.

Some of the easier runs.

You had a gorgeous view of lakes and mountains from the lodge.

Ogii was red and sweaty from her lesson.

Lenticular clouds over the mountains.

A kid in front of me dropped his ski getting on the lift, so I carried it up for him.

Scary.

It's warmer out; time to switch into swim trunks, although I still kept a shirt on.

Ogii and I checked out the lake after we got back to the cabin. There were some cool benches.

And cute bears cut from wood.

Some ducks.

They ate along the edges of the ice; there must be bugs or algae or small fish there. They would occasionally snap a flying bug out of the air, too.

They weren't scared of us at all and came really close. Too bad we didn't bring any bread.

One swimming towards us.

It looks like these bears used to hold a sign, but we'll hold their hands for a picture.

Pretty sunset.

Back to the cabin for dinner and we needed some meat. The only general store closed at 7pm and we were there at 6:59. There were a lot of other people in the store too, though.