Secession

I got this the other day and it was too funny. Funny because I live in a blue state, come from numerous red states, and am very appreciative of why living in a blue one feels so good!

Dear Red States:

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California , Hawaii , Oregon , Washington , Minnesota , Wisconsin , Michigan , Illinois and all the Northeast. It may even include Florida and Ohio , they are seriously considering it. We've given them until Nov. 4th to decide. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country. Since we're dropping the middle states we're calling it United America, or simply the U.A.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas , Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. You can take Ted Nugent. We're keeping Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. You get WorldCom. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Ole' Miss. We get Harvard and 85 percent of America 's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama . We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms, and the highest concentration of pregnant unwed teenagers. Please be aware that the U.A. will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs eventually turn up, really we do, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush/McCain's Quagmire. We'd rather spend it on taking care of sick people, and educating our children.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite , thank you.
Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy Redies believe you are people with higher morals then we Blues..

Peace out,Blue States

The Big Apple

On hearing of my grandmother's passing, I immediately bought some tickets back east for the Pirate and I and instead of the Grand Canyon we decided to spend a few days in The Big Apple. We spent the first few days in Connecticut and the family got introduced to the Pirate. From talking to the Pirate and my folks it seemed everyone was equally enchanted with the other. Being back east is always great! The people just seem less subdued by life and are definitely more quick to know. If they had big mountains I'd be living there right now! Course knowing about the ice in New Hampshire and Vermont is always intriguing.

Well after a few days we went down to New York and we stayed right downtown, 2 blocks from Times Square. We checked out all the big sites: Central Park, the Met, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Wall St., the World Trade Center and of course Ground Zero. Ground Zero was infamously impressive. It was really tough when walking through the visitor center to keep the tears back. What a horrific tragedy. I remember exactly when I heard about it. Fortunately, it's an amusing story, that I feel horribly guilty about now. I had just started my first second semester of graduate school and my biophysics class had just started with Dr. Climatologist. He opened the class by saying, "I understand that having class today may be hard for some of you and I won't mind if any of you feel the need to leave." I knew the Dr. fairly well so I said something dumb like, "What's the deal man, eat something bad last night and you don't want to share your gas?" Well, maybe not that dumb, but something close maybe. He asked, "Haven't you heard?" "Heard what," I replied. Then I got the scoop. I think we had class, but I'm doubting anyone rememberd anything that was said. I honestly don't remember anything after being told except spending the rest of the day in the Student Union building watching the news. I really thought I'd moved on, but going to ground zero was really tough. Fortunately, I had the Pirate, and she makes everything in my world easier to deal with. We finished up our trip to New York and came back to Denver for a real busy last few days. It would've been awesome had she stayed longer, but I'm going to Belgium for New Years to hang out for three weeks. The Pirate says Belgium is boring. My reply is that, how can some place famous for so much beer be boring?. She shrugs. Instead we're going to spend most of the three weeks in Italy. The plan is Venice, Rome, Pompei, Florence, Piza, and Cinque Terra. We'll also spend a few days in Paris, one in Chamonix, France and one in Switzerland: Zurich being the most likely city. Lots of driving, but at least we'll have a lot of freedom to do whatever. I like a pretty loose schedule when I travel, so we'll hit as many as we can. Well, this has certainly helped me escape my election anxiety. Now I'll have to go home and find another way to divert myself for the next few hours. Peace.

Loved one lost

Sadly, on the morning of our last day in South Dakota I got an email from the Hobstar letting me know, through a real round about way, that I needed to call my folks. My mother had told me my grandmother was in the hospital before I went on the trip, so I kind of knew it was something related to her. What I didn't expect though was that she'd passed away. She was great! She'd always been my favorite. She always seemed fair and ready to laugh. I will always remember her laugh. I didn't get to see her as often as I would've liked, or any of the Morris family for that matter, but I'm happy to have shared the time with her I did. Here's he obituary:

Olive A. Morris of Waterford, died on Sept. 27, 2008, at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital.
She was born on April 20, 1927, in Mass., and was the daughter of John and Elizabeth Burns Broderick.
She was the widow of William G. Morris whom she married on Nov. 16, 1947, in Rockland, Mass.
Mrs. Morris resided in Pembroke, Mass., until she moved to Waterford in 1968. She lived at Twin Haven in Waterford since 1985. She was a member of the Garden Bowling League and of the Senior Citizens Pinochle Club.
She is survived by her children, Jean Linard and her husband, Ed of Rupert, Idaho, David Morris and his wife, Janet of Niantic and Daniel Morris of Waterford; her grandchildren, Ben and Josh Linard and Jacob and Patrick Morris.
In addition to her husband, she was also predeceased by her son, William K. Morris.

I love you Grammy.

Back in the saddle

Ok, so it's been a long time since I've updated this thing. Good reasons, I promise! I'm too excited to work today so thought I'd catch up on the old blogging. Since September I've vacationed in 6 states and have planned a trip to visit 5 countries. At the end of September, the Pirate came to visit for 3 weeks. We immediately drove up to the Black Hills in South Dakota. What a wonderful place! A true hidden gem in all that nothingness in the middle of the country. Rushmore was really impressive. I didn't know anything about the logic behind the sculpture before I went. Basically, the four presidents (Washington, FD Roosevelt, Jefferson, and Lincoln, incidentally) were chose because they embody the best of what Americans have, are, and can do. I like the feeling of those guys watching over me and of trying to live up to what they were to our country. They're with me all the time now. We also went to Devils Tower, which I've wanted to see since I first watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind! It was totally cool, and I can't wait to go back and climb to the top. We went to the Badlands which was awesome too! Totally crazy geomorphology going on. I'll get some pics up, but they're pretty impressive. We also went to Custer State Park and drove through the Needles, which also beckoned me to do a little climbing. The coolest part of the South Dakota trip could've been the last morning and going to watch the buffalo round-up. Once a year, the state park herds all the buffalo in the park to give them immunizations. Luckily, that once a year was the day we were there. If you mentally blocked out all the trucks you could almost get a sense of what it would've been like back in the day. Truly a great experience. So great that the people behind us had travelled all the way from Australia just for the Round-Up. Pretty cool!

False advertisement

This post it totally about how the GOP is skewing facts to make it seem like Gov. Palin is anything but your standard self-righteous, manipulative conservative willing to crush anybody who thinks differently than her. That's all we need in Washington is more boneheaded stubborness. It continually amazes me how gullible and naive some Americans can be. What kind of idiot would vote for someone simply because of their sex without doing any research to figure out who they really were. Fortunately there are people out there who can voice thier opinions better than me so first I would ask that you Google Anne Kilkenny and hear from someone who's dealt with Palin first hand. The rest of this post is taken from a letter written by
Gloria Steinem: an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center.

"Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying,"Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that
he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their
children.

This could be huge."

Snot is dead!

Yep, it was a sad day when I showed up in Minneapolis a couple weeks ago. I'd gone up for work, but came in a weekend early to hang out with Kamath and his fam. We were trying to figure out what to do and the evening news mentioned that Joe Kudla, aka. Thomas Snot had died. There's an obit. at their webpage. Too bad for us.
On Saturday we went to the Walker Art Center to check out some sculptures, play a little mini-golf and generally not appreciate any of the art that was on display. The sculptures and low impact, low carbon buildings were cool. We watched put together by Sundance films talking about 3 ways to limit what goes in a landfill: 1) At the landfill, sort out all the stuff that has any value and make it available to the public: appliances, clothes, wood, compost, etc. 2) use all the misprinted food wrappers, and old billboards and posters and make clothes and accessories out of them: purses, bags, hats, etc. 3) recycle old computers: refurbish ones that can be refurbished or pick out the parts with valuable metals in them so they can be recycled. Personally, 1 and 3 are right on, but accessories! It's a good idea, but if you're making a movie and you want to pick 3 ways to improve the world through recycling I'm not sure if buying a handbag should make the list.

That night we decided to head downtown and Abi joined us. We hit up a real good pizzeria then went to Gameworks to play video games and have a few drinks. The four of us played a racing game and while Kamath and I fought for first S-works passed us to win. Kamath and I played your standard shooter; at the end 153 kills for the Lamestar, 5 for Kamath! Guess scoring expert on the pistol range back in the day payed off. After this we decided to go check out Tropic Thunder. Long story short, I don't think I'll see a Ben Stiller movie ever again. It had it's moments, but the comedy is just too blatant for me. It's like listening to a kid tell the same knock-knock joke over and over. The Sailor has assured me it was good and that I was just not in the right mood. Really though, I'm tired of having to be in the right mood for a movie. Ah well, $10 down the drain.
The next morning Kamath convinced me to go to Bootcamp with him at his local gym. It's one of these circuit courses that's supposed to keep you're heart rate up. I usually don't eat breakfast before something like this, but Kamath said I'd need it. As I'm unable to turn down food, I gorged my self. Not a good idea before any workout, let alone a Bootcamp thing. I had to walk away twice during the class so as not to throw up. I was pretty happy I was coming from altitude; I think it was the only thing keeping me from passing out!
During the work week Jacko and I were hugely successful. We were out measuring the depth to water in different residential and municipal wells around the Minneapolis metropolitan area. General results were that water could be found anywhere from 15 to 150 ft and Czech food is extremely good and filling! One day I had a bratwurst hamburger on a pretzel bun, on another goulash and dumplings, crazy soups, great beer, it was too fun trying to find a place that wasn't amazing! I gained 10 lbs! We worked through Saturday. Sunday Kamath and S-works went to the Renaissance fair for a few hours before I took off to Sioux Falls, SD. I picked up a Puke & Snot dvd and caught the new show. A new guy was filling in for the season. I'm not sure what'll happen next year.
I'd been dreading Sioux Falls since leaving Denver. Nothing like your "friends" telling your boss that you suck behind your back and then having to spend a week with them pretending like you don't know. Made for a great birthday you can guess. I made it a point to try and talk to the Pirate, which conveniently proved a very viable excuse for not going out with everybody. I was comfortable enough by mid-week to at least have dinner with them. On the last night I went out to the pub with everybody and felt like I'd really missed out. Who'd a thought a great pub with great microbrew and great imports could be found in Sioux Falls! Monks House of Ale Repute: pretty friggin awesome! Google it.
That's the scoop. I'll be back for a while and should be more regular again. Oh, Bobbo and I just saw Babylon A.D. and it was really good all up till the last 20 min. It still felt worth the money though.

Colorado burning

The big news this week was that Green Mountain received a bolt of lightning Monday and the half of the mountain closest to me burned away. It was pretty cool to watch the smoke boiling away. The other big news was that some of the Nebraska folks are in town for a conference, which always means there's some good drinking to be done. I haven't found any group of folks in Denver that are near as cool as the folks I met in Lincoln, so much props! I also found a cool job opening for the US AID, which could be very fun and would put me all over the world! I'm so excited about it I've been doing the application at work, which means I'll be in the office this weekend. That's OK because I've been going hard the last few weekends and could use a break!



Here's the recap from last weekend. Friday a water main blew at work and we were told to go home. Sweet! So, I took Sarama to Chatfield for a big walk and some swimming. I think she's finally given up thinking she can walk on water.




After I got back the Sailor and I took off after work to go to Copper mountain for the bike tour I've been talking about forever. After picking up our race packets we frantically searched for a place to eat. We found an Italian place to carbo-load, but they wanted $18 a plate! After a few tries we found a place with the kitchen still open and I still ended up paying $18. Beggars can't be choosers. After a sleepless night we got up about 5am and were supposed to meet the rest of the Sailor's friends with we were riding. At the start line I finally realized that of all the Sailor's friends, I'm the only guy! I'm thinking to myself, "if these chicks are half as cool as the ones I've met already then I'm in for a good day!" At about 6:30 we were on the road and starting up the first pass. It was crazy! Thousands of riders huffing and puffing up this thing with all kinds of wild bikes! The first aid station was at the top and it was like a huge party with everybody milling about eating and drinking as many fruits, cookies, and muffins as they could. After this we rode down to Leadville on which I got up to 50 mph according to the GPS. There was some road construction after town and we all got a little dirt on our tires. It wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be and I didn't flat so I was pretty happy. At the top of my next pass I had my rear brake looked at because it had started making a horrible squeak whenever I tried to slow down. The mechanics couldn't figure it out so I just barreled down to Vail. Somepoint at the top of this pass I must've hit the Stop button on the GPS so I don't have a speed for the descent, but I was going as fast or faster! In Vail we had a nice big break at that aid station. I think I ate an entire bag of Chips a'hoy and Oreos. Then there was Vail pass. At one point the grade got really steep and lots of people were walking. When I got out of the saddle to attack the guy in front of me swerved over and I had to hammer the brake to avoid collision. Then my rear tire wouldn't move! I barely unclipped before falling over and then tried to figure out what had happened. I couldn't figure it out and in the end just unhooked the rear cable and finished the ascent without a rear brake. With the adrenaline of the near crash I was able to really motor up the final climb. At the top of the pass I hit the aid station mechanic tent and had them sort out the problem. I figured I was way too spent at this point to be messing with my breaks before the most dangerous downhill (apparently they were already cleaning up the mess of a wreck down the trail!) Turns out when I hit the brakes I knocked the rear wheel out of alignment! I'm not sure how one could do such a thing, but somehow I managed it. Well we finished the ride had a big meal, looked at some pictures, then took off back to Denver.



On Sunday Bobbo and I hit up the Renaissance festival. We got there by catching a ride with one of Bobbo's friends. Sometimes I'm amazed at who is allowed to have a driver's license, or even how some people have stayed alive so long driving the way they do. Even at 80 mph I don't think we were more than 10 ft behind the car in front of us! Usually I'm okay with this kind of stuff, but gradually depressing either the brake or the gas pedals was an unknown concept. Wham! I'm thrown forward with the brake pedal on the floor! Wham! I'm thrown backward as the gas pedal seeks the pavement! You only got 160,00 miles out of your old Accord? Drive like this and I don't wonder why. OH! to top it off she was sending text messages the entire time! Yeah, I don't need to hang out with her ever again. Anybody who cares that little about the other people in the world is not worth my time.



Okay, now that that's out of me: the festival. As you'd expect all the crazies from crazy town come out to these things. Easily the best people watching I've found. Between Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean there's tons of different folks at this thing. Last year we missed the Joust so figuring out those show times were the first priority. Luckily there was one starting right away so we grabbed a pint, a patch of grass, and settled in for the spectacle. The debacle? Be happy the video is grainy because it looks more realistic:

After this we made our way up to the Puke and Snot stage. These guys are friggin hilarious! Definitely the most intelligent, witty act I've ever seen. Because of the election year they went really after it. It would not have been good to be a Republican in that crowd! Once again they brought me tears and stomach cramps! Ahh, they're too funny. I got to see them once when I was like 8 years old and remember really laughing although I'm sure I understood only half the jokes.

By the time we got home I was spent. Monday was a tough one.

Oddly shaped sunburns

We've all done it. Trying to put sunscreen on and there's those spots on your back you just can't reach. Yesterday, I thought I'd go for a 3.5 hour bike ride in a running singlet. Yeah, my shoulder blades are as pasty as they could be, but between there and my spine I'm thinking there'll be blisters. The ride was good though, the last big ride before the Copper Triangle this coming weekend. Yesterday I did 52 miles and about 4000 ft of elevation gain. I smoked the first half, but the last 10 miles was pretty much straight up 1000 ft. I'm very happy I've got the triple for next week. I think I'll be fine for race day. It's weird calling it 'race day' since there's no official start and I don't think there's official timing. It's more like a fun ride, I'll start calling it that. Anyway, I'll take big breaks in Leadville and Vail and should be fine.

Saw Batman last night and it totally lived up to the billing. Ol Bobbo said he like Ironman better, but it was no comparison for me. I like my stuff frivolously dark and serious and this was right on.

Yesterday I also did some Dragon Boating. The one race I did was fun, but the old style Good Ol'boy club was in full effect and as a newbie I was told to ride the pine. I've got better things to do with my time than watch a bunch of old, out of shape, has beens not even be able to go hard the whole 90 seconds of a race. Their logic was I didn't have enough boat time, but in the race I was in we were totally out of sync and still posted the fastest time of the day. Just goes to show that only at a very high level does technique ever really matter. I ditched and did the bike ride instead, what a great trade!

The week before I was in Minnesota doing some ground water sampling with Jacko. It was pretty fun if a little hectic. Things started off shitty the first night. I got to the hotel to learn my wireless wasn't working on the laptop. This was pretty crucial as I needed to send some data to guy back at the office for a presentation Friday. I took it in to the MN office and the IT guy didn't get a chance to look at it Monday. Tuesday I got it fixed and when the IT guy came to make sure I didn't really screw something up he told me that my hard drive was dying and I should back up before it really crashed. Conveniently all my external hard-drives were back in Denver, so basically I couldn't use my machine all week. Dude only got half the data and I got pretty far behind on some other stuff. I guess this week will be busy. On the plus side I got to hang out with Kamath a few nights while I was there. I first saw him at this restaurant called Good Earth, which was the best food I've had in a long, long time. His wife, son and brother all came and we had a great time. I went over to his place the next two nights and we just caught up and had fun.

The weekend before that the Sailor, the Damn Yankee, and I rode up Mt. Evans from Evergreen. Everyone did pretty well the first half, but then we started to break apart. It was about 36 miles round trip with about 3500 ft of climbing up to about 11,500 ft. The Sailor did awesome and really pushed hard. After the ride we went to the Colorado Music Festival for some music and volunteer work for Zero Hero. We caught Citizen Cope (put me to sleep), Adam Bird (dude can work a fiddle), JJ Grey and the Mofro (don't remember at all), Spoon (the best so far), and Tom Petty. Tom's show was as good as you'd expect, but he brought out Steve Winwood who'd played earlier that day! If I had wanted to see Steve Winwood I would've went and saw Steve Winwood! WTF! It was a good time.

long-short weekend

these things have kind of devolved into weekend updates. Yeah, it's pretty sad I know, but the monotony of the week is...well... monotonous to talk about. This last weekend the sailor and I figured out a good way to get around Chatfield and put in a casual 50 miles. Sunday we did Lookout mountain which is about 1500 ft elevation gain over our 7.5 miles. For the Copper triangle we'll have to do about 4 of these, although the first two are have a much lower average grade. Vail Pass though equates to two of these. Lookout was easy with a double chain ring. I'm starting to think maybe investing in the triple chain ring may not've been needed. Ah well, it'll now be a true touring bike. Have to start looking for a new roadie!!

The long weekend

The weekend started out Friday with Bobbo, his brother Ripped, a bunch of Ripped's friends and two 14ers, Grays and Torres. The plan was to bag Grays, cross a saddle, and do Torres. Ripped and two of his friends decided to do a more challenging route up Torres first. I would've like to've gone, but it was Sarama's first 14er and I think it would've been too much for her. Bobbo and the ladies decided to take my way, but Sarama and I ended up by ourselves quickly. I was at the summit pretty fast, but had to hang out on top a bit cuz of some pretty bad nausea. This has happened the last few times I've been up high and it's definitely a result of the activity and the food I've eaten or not eaten rather than anything related to altitude. After about a half-hour on top waiting for my stomach to settle down I decided that I'd walk down to the bottom of the saddle between the mountains. Luckily my stomach stopped bothering me by the bottom and I was able to ascend Torres without trouble. Whaddya know as soon as I top out there's Ripped and the fellas just putting their packs down (this is where the video is from. Just a little crowded up there). We got some pics, ate a snack, and then headed down. As you can tell from the pics Sarama had no troubles.
After we got back to town we had a quick nap and the Sailor came to meet us for fireworks. We hiked up Green Mountain and watched things blow up all over the horizon. In my opinion it's the best way to see fireworks on a holiday. The next day the Sailor and I got up early and knocked out a 45 mile bike ride to get ready for the Copper triangle. It was nice and casual and although we were both tired by the end there was still a little gas left in the tank. I think if we keep going at it we should be set by the first weekend of August.
Hobstar came into town that evening and after not eating all day dude inhaled two monstrous burritos. and still had room for more! After this we hit up Applejacks and found some of the Alaskan Smokehouse Porter! A day finished with a pint of that stuff is a good one indeed. The next morning I sent Hobza off and then finally rested. I was pretty beat up from the previous two days, but that's what weekends are for!
I'll try and get out on the rock this week. The finger is feeling better than it has in a long time so I'm pretty amped.

foot in the stirrup

Yep, not quite back in the saddle yet. I finally got on the rock again today with Boysenberry and his son, T-rex. Didn't tell Eight about it because I didn't want to say the finger was ready and then have it blow up again. So, I figured today'd be an easy day out; Boysenberry hadn't climbed in 20 years and his son, only since this winter. They said that they were both climbing 10's in the gym, but I still wasn't going to let someone I didn't know belay me on lead if I didn't know the real deal. I set up a little TR on an 8 (top pic) just to see where everybody was. Lucky for me nobody was boasting. We each flew up and then T-rex wanted a shot on a 5.7 lead that continued from our anchor. He'd led before, but never set an anchor. I walked him through it and then had him take apart the anchor we were using and he had no troubles setting his anchor. Anchoring to bolts is never hard, but your first anchor is always a fun one; you double, triple, quadrouple check everything as you set it and then do it all over again before coming down and even still look up at it hoping and praying you did everything right. Boysenberry cleaned from the bottom; so the 8 then the 7. I decided to take a more direct line under the 7. It's my favorite kind of climb; a frictioning 10b (the bolt line starting at the center of the top pic) and I made it up without a hitch, although the finger was starting to ache. As I finished and cleaned the anchor T-rex picked the next route; an 8+ with a nice crack through an overhang. He wanted the lead so we geared him up and he got on... for 2 bolts to the crux at the overhang. He almost got it, but just couldn't quite clip the bolt above the lip. This is where the kid showed true smarts; admitted he wasn't doing it that day and said he'd save it for another. He came down, we swapped gear and I rallied up to the anchor. A great first day back for me not having climbed at all in 3 months. Course I'm paying for it now; it's only been a couple hours and the finger has swelled up again. Ah well, the hand therapist wanted a story for tomorrow anyway.

Back on the water

This weekend started out pretty casual with some mindless gaming Saturday. Bobbo and I've been playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance. It's not great, but it's better than anything else I've got or new that I've found. Bobbo figured out how to play cooperative so that killed pretty much the whole day. Guilty over my slacker Saturday I started early Sunday and never stopped. I first got up and took the dog for a 4.5 mile run up green mtn. When I got back I got ready for a day of white water tubing with some folks from the office. In the video it doesn't look that big, but in your little tipsy tube it feels big! The helmets were a bit overkill, but I'm real happy I had my wetsuit in the 51 degree water. Boysenberry (in the middle) was the most daring; putting in just above some class 3 water. Nothing like a little effortless adrenaline rush. After they dropped me off at home, I grabbed a burger and a beer, then the Sailor and I took Bear and Sarama to the dog park so they could get their water fun. They played till dark and by then I was spent. I think I ate an ice cream and went to sleep. I'm gonna need it this week; Hobstar's coming to town and I'll need to be ready for anything.

Wet dog and pennies

Just and update today, nothing much is going on. Last week the Sailor didn't feel like Snugging so we opted to check out the dog park down at Chatfield State Park We didn't get very good directions so just pulled off to a beach and started throwing sticks out into the water. Luckily the Bear dog knew how to fetch and it only took a couple times watching before Sarama finally took the plunge. She loved it! For her first time she did about as good as I'd expect. She was kicking so hard with her rear legs she was basically swimming upright! The best was when she was tired and she was trying to drink the water she was splashing up; too hilarious. We eventually did find the real dog park (after a park ranger let us know we were illegal at the beach) and it was a good park. Not like the good ones in Seattle, but the best I've found in Denver.
Training for the Copper triangle is going slow. I'm not riding as much as I'd like during the week, but at least I'm going hard on weekends. I'm lighter than I've been since before college and I finally got my body fat less than 10% (course the Corredor will give me a hard time for using BIA). The shoulder's in good shape and I think my finger is finally almost healed. I've been cleared to test it out with some strength training, but I really think the season is blown at this point. This is the second time this has happened and recovery has been forever this time. I'm going to take it very slow I think. There's some good 5.7, 5.8 trad lines around I figure will be good practice for placing gear and not be too strenuous. Boysenberry wants to go this week although I think I'll probably just set an anchor and belay.
Lastly, the Pirate bought tickets to come visit for 3 weeks this fall! I figure we'll check out Mt. Rushmore first, then bounce down to the Grand Canyon and then travel out west. Should be a good time. Could kill the climbing trip to Europe this winter, but I'm being better about saving pennies. Before I talked about Ben Nevis, but now I'm thinking a winter summit of Mt. Blanc could be just as fun. I just have to watch those pennies.

behind the wheel

Some stats for the weekend: 1400 miles and 23 hrs driving. The weekend started Thursday night when Marinera and I drove to Steamboat Springs. Environmentally conscious as we are we carpooled and I got a free bed in a HUGE hotel room. You could've played half-court basketball in this thing! I snuck out the next morning and was on the road by 8:30. A few hours later the Thurminator called and we made plans to hang out that afternoon in Pocatello, ID. I hadn't seen him in over a year where we watched the awesome flick Children of Men. That day happened to be the the day his wife Natalie was due and we're all waiting anxiously. Fortunately, we made it through dinner with no surprises, although we were all looking for a reason to get out. FYI: if you're in Poky and you want Mexican food don't go to The Pilot House. It was real fun hanging out with them, but I'm not sure they were prepared for me being as opinionated as I am. It even surprised me!

The point of the weekend was a surprise visit to my folks place for Father's Day. I finally rolled into the driveway about 10pm. The surprise was totally a surprise! The next day I was tasked with building a few stairs to the top of a lateral, digging a ditch for a sprinkler system and vacuuming the pool. Done and done and done, mostly. One leg of the ditch was going through some pavement like dirt and we decided to wet it down before finishing. The next day the water was still going and I spent so much time playing with Sarama that I never got around to finishing. She took her first dip in over-her-head water, slipping into the pool while I was removing the cover. She did manage to swim to the side and somehow got herself out. The last weekend of the month I'll definitely take her out and teach her to swim. Took the fast way back straight across Wyoming. The only highlight was the Windmills and the gas at $3.89! I can't believe I need to put an exclamation point there.

Lastly, I want to give a shout out to Spring. I read an article today and am really happy she's in the U.S.

Finally Fruita

I made it out to Fruita, CO this last weekend for a little MTB action. I'd read about this place called 18 Road, or Bookcliffs, just north of Fruita and figured that was a good enough place to start exploring. We pulled in late Friday night, threw up the tent, and after a quick breakfast of blueberry muffins and bananas we were on the trail by 10 - 10:30. We started out the Frontside trail thinking we'd hit Zippity Do Dah for a short loop to start with. I brought one water bottle and my buddy Old'n Pohstie brought a full Camelbak (Oh yes, when I start out telling you what we're leaving with it turns out to be an epic) Well, we somehow missed Zippity and found Western Zippity. At this point we had a choice to either take this or continue on the trail we were on. We'd only been going about 30 min. and decided to carry on the Edge Loop. Long story short; our short loop ended up being about 30 miles. After about 3000 ft of climbing we finally started down some steep single track. At one point we had a 30 ft rappel down a pretty dry waterfall! We weren't lost it was officially part of the trail! Fortunately they had some ropes so we could lower the bikes down. This was all pretty fun, but like I said we only brought water and not much at that. Old'n Pohstie bonked... Hard... had to walk the last few hundred yards. I was pretty spent and managed it all with my one little bottle. Fortunately the weather was amazing and we were able to keep cool enough that dehydration wasn't a real problem. After a quick nap we made it down to Fiesta Guadalajara for dinner. Amazing! Best mexican food I've had in Colorado! Easy. Back to camp, a few beers, shooting stars and we were dead to the world quick like. The stars alone are worth an entire blogpost, but I'll just say they were spectacular. Sunday we stayed closer to camp and hit Chutes and Ladders, and Joe's Ridge. Both extremely fun and short... luckily: my ass was so sore from the long day before I didn't want to be in the saddle too long. That was it. All in all a pretty good weekend. It's getting to be a little discomforting though that whenever Old'n Pohstie and I get out one or both of us ends up in a bad state. Course if it was all seemless there'd be no story to tell!!! I'll get some pics up soon.

li'l su'm su'm

Things have slowed down a bit, the last 2 weeks so not much to report. Ultimate is over for the summer, my fingers are not getting any better even though I've been seeing a therapist specializing in hands for the past few weeks, and The New Hotness rides like an entirely different animal. I took her up to Buffalo Creek Saturday morning only to find they were holding a race in the area. I still was able to knock out a solid 18 miles of singletrack without getting on their course. Going for a road ride today to start prepping for the Copper triangle. Nothing fancy just a relatively flat, casual 30-40 miles. Marinera (formerly Soandso, but she thought that name was lame and wanted a new one, pfff, whatever) convinced a few folks in the office to do it. I don't know who convinced her? She may not even be here as chances are she'll go to Panama for a new job! Ah well, either way I get a nice jersey as part of the entry fee and probably some sweet shwag at the race.
Work is picking up. Our Grand Junction office is going to get me out to do some high precision GPS work this summer and is looking to keep me pretty busy over the next few years! Between them and NRP at least someone is looking out for me. NRP found a little more work for me this year and has talked about co-authoring me on some papers so that's good. I talked to a prof at the University of Colorado about a PhD looking at how (brace yourself non-scientists) the spatial and temporal variability of different physical parameters effect evapotranspiration from a riparian area and the importance of that variability at examining ET at coarser scales. Pretty sweet! Just gotta find some money. I'm actually reviewing a report from SuperD that should be pretty insightful on the subject. Actually, I should get back to it

Bolder

Euphoria! It's been a long time since I've done a fun run with lots of people. This morning I ran in the Bolder Boulder which is a 10K up in Boulder, CO. Folks east of the Rockies know it, but maybe only a few folks out west have heard of it. It's similar to Blooomsday in Spokane in that more than 50,000 people do it each year! For a race this size I was amazed at the organization. They send folks off in waves every 2 min. with qualifying racers getting to move to the front. The 5k I ran last weekend didn't count so I was stuck in section EE, leaving 22 minutes after the first folks. Like clockwork every two minutes another wave went (this may not sound like a big deal, but for those who've ever done a race like this it's amazing when anything happens when and how it should!) . When we got to go it was smooth sailing for about the first quarter mile, but thereafter it was a constant battle to find the good line through the crowd. The only downer I could find in the race was the lack of community support. If anybody's done Bloomsday they know how most of the course is lined with supporters cheering you on. Maybe it was the early start (7:22 am for me) or that it was a holiday weekend, but I was pretty appalled at how few people were out. In any case, didn't matter I'm running, at least there was a group of belly dancers to gawk at! Even through working the crowd I managed my fastest time in about 5 years: 41:01 officially, averaging a 6:37 mile. For my friends you know how big a part of my life running was before training for the marathon's took their toll. I can't describe how great it feels to be back in the game!

the bitch redux

ultimate was a bust. I got to the fields super early only to have our first opponent not show. All of our players who play for good teams showed and I thought we'd really have a shot. In my experience good players usually play pretty lackadaisical during league, but really step up on tourney day. Needless to say I was pretty excited to see our teams full game. Turns out our experienced players have complete meltdowns on tourney day. I don't think I've ever seen so many horrible decisions, poor throws, and abhorrent defense on any team I've ever been on. I'm not saying I don't share some of the blame; I did drop one pass, got scored on long and had trouble transitioning from a horizontal stack to a standard end zone offense. Positives: I really did get a chance to run some Ho-stack, which was fun. I learned that a dump won't cut unless you commit to them. Lastly, I'm slowly learning to not poach quite so much or another way; to trust that my teammates are covering their people and I don't need to worry about slackers anymore. I'm out of ultimate for a while. It's not worth it to me to drive 35 miles one way to a place my dog can't come and I can't drink beer. What's ultimate without dogs and beer??

Used what was left of the Gdumbya check to upgrade my bitch (now The New Hotness). She's 10 years old and stuff was just wearing out (the seat post at sea otter was the final indicator). The plan was to get her under 20 lbs and I thought I'd make up most of the weight in my new wheelset. I decided to go with an entirely new SRAM drivetrain and some mavic crosstrail wheels. The wheels were to replace my Bontrager Mustangs, which are at least 10 years old. The Mustangs are top of the line now just like they were then, but I figured in 10 years the advances in technology would make the old ones obsolete. Nope. If nothing else the new wheels weigh more! I weighed the old bike just before taking it all apart: 26.6 lbs. After upgrading: 26.6 lbs. I was a little disappointed, but finally got the bitch out today to see if the drivetrain was any better than the ancient XTR stuff I was running. Yes. OH YES! I'd read the SRAM stuff was solid, but I never expected to be as nice as it is. The all thumb shifting took a little while to get the hang of, but it shifts like a dream. Aside from the standard practice of setting the limits on the derailleur the parts required no adjustments. Zero. I once got to drive a Mitsubishi Eclipse and was amazed at the short throws between gears and how crisp and easy it went. I also in high school got to drive this beat up old tractor when pulling irrigation pipe; double clutch in, double clutch out, two handed shifting and then holding the stick to keep it in gear... horrible! The change from my ancient XTR to the SRAM X.0 is that significant! Should make for a fun summer!

fast found

Just finished up the Fed Cup 5k. This is a fun race made even more fun by all the shwag I come away with. For example: one race, 4 medals. This year was the 25th aniversary so every finisher got a medal, I got second in the 30-39 age division, and our office team won both the men's and the federal agency team divisions. The coolest part of the day was finish time. My hamstring's been really bothering me lately so I had to take the first half of the race pretty easy to get it warmed up. Finally it decided to let me go and I was able finish strong. It was the first time I've been under 20 minutes in 5 or 6 years! I think I was 6th or 7th overall. Having a good hammy I think would've only got me one place higher; the guy in 4th finished about 40 seconds faster. The race finish bodes well for the Boulder Bolder, but I'm not sure the endurance will hold up and I don't think I'm going to be able let the hamstring heal and increase mileage at the same time.

The Sunday frisbee league tourney is tomorrow. If we do well chances are all update tomorrow otherwise it could be a while.

Could somebody please tell Hillary to stop wasting our time?

Thanks to my folks

So lately I was feeling a little self-conscious about the color of my teeth and thought using the Gdumbya check for something as superficial as a whitening would totally be right in line with the GOP and their belief that a everything will be ok if you just make the surface pretty. I'd heard about Brightsmile and they were running a special so I had them set me up an appointment with a local dentist. Then I read an article that the whitening works better if you get your teeth cleaned first. I set that up and went yesterday. Firstoff, I haven't been to a dentist since maybe high school. Shocking! I brush daily and have never had any troubles so I just assumed I was fine. So, I'm in the chair and they want a full set of X-rays since I haven't had them in forever and the hygenist keeps tell me my teeth are beautiful. Course the entire time I figure she's buttering me up for something. Long story short; apparently my teeth are awesome and she says that usually they want to see patients every 6 months, but that I could probably go another 5 years using the same logic that if nothing bothers me there's probably not a problem. How cool is that, "Nah, we don't need your business, and it would be silly for you to think otherwise"!

I was still scheduled for the whitening though, which was the whole point. I was a little worried if it'd work because I was on tetracycline when I was a teenager and it was known to stain teeth. Luckily, I found out it will only stain if you're on the drug before the age of 9. Knowing this alone was reason enough to go. Today I'm in there and am surprised to find out that my teeth are only 3 shades away from the whitest I could get! Then they basically tell me it'd be a waste of money to do the brightsmile and I should stick with just some standard peroxide gel stuff! Again they cut themselves out of $300. If I needed to go back I definitely would! In the end I really have to say thanks to my parents. First for the genes to get me the good teeth and second for the pure luck that wherever we moved growing up had flourinated water and we did flouride swishes in school and third for the vibrating toothbrush. Yeah for stocking stuffers!

the streak is over

Until this last weekend we had not lost a Sunday game I'd played in. Oddly I have to blame our experienced players this week. These guys play on teams that routinely compete for and/or win the national title. With all their red zone turnovers I thought I was back on Cornfed! The ironic thing was they'd preach about not looking long and always look long. I didn't really care; I'm more worried about my hammy. I'll have to work on it all week to be ready for the tourney next weekend.



Friday was the ultimate season party with the theme "Don't be that guy/girl" As an excuse to get the hair client out the door Eight opted to come. I went as the guy wearing way too much cologne and Eight went as a mulleted redneck. Eight finds a way to amaze me everytime we hang out. Weds night I introduced the Flight of the Chonchords videos on YouTube and Eight couldn't get enough. On Thurs I went to the Snug with Soandso, Eight met us there and was just as friendly and cool as with everybody. Then on Friday at the party I found out that Eight can dance! We'd talked about being at raves before, but generally that doesn't mean much as far as having rythm or moves. Eight had both! Simply blew me away! Again! Incidentally, the cologne didn't wear off for two days and I purposefully bought horrible stuff. FYI: do not under any circumstance purchase JOOP! I got it because I remembered years ago in San Antonio some friends got. I remembered not liking it then and it's just as bad now. I can't keep my face from wrinkling just thinking about it!


Saturday I caught the movie Ironman, which was definitely good. Spent the rest of the day with Soandso studying math. Outside of Eight, Soandso is definitely my best friend in Denver. Whatever I can't talk about with one I can with the other. Since I'm a gabber it's great to have a couple places to vent. The blog gets the rest.

Spring rains and ice cream

This time of year is just too awesome! I'm sure at this point the Seattleites are bored with rain, but I'm very happy that our precipitation is finally not white. It's even better that everything is blooming. This morning on the way in we had a nice sprinkle, just enough to magnify all the colors and scents in the air. It's so great the season has finally turned.

With the frustration of the spring weather it seems like lots of my friends have turned to ice cream as a means of solace. Caught up in the mix I've found a couple new ones I'd recommend. The standards are B&Js Vanilla (or Coffee) Heath Bar Crunch and the Dublin Mudslide. The new tasty is Imagine Whirled Peace; the toffee cookie chunks are unreal! The other new one is Dove's Caramel Pecan Perfection, course no sane person buys it unless it's really, really on sale. The winner and still champion (first experienced after a dinner with Los Corredores) is Edy's Girl Scout Samoas. It's only available during Girl Scout cookie season, but it's totally worth the wait. After the dinner, a huge Jess dinner fit for a Jorge, the three of us somehow ate the entire half-gallon! It was too good!

quickies

Yep, another brutal day at ultimate. I don't know if my hamstring will ever forgive me. Nobody showed the first game so we forfeit. In the second game I think we had a legit team, but had to play savage. We still won. The endurance is finally there with the speed and I'm back to being a tough cover. On the way home I used my 20% REI discount and picked up a set of nuts. That pretty much fills out the rack except for big pieces (Nuts:4-13; tricams: 0.5-4; Cams:2-7, Hex:7 and 9). I also picked up the Dyna-flex grip strength toy. This thing is awesome! It'll be awesome at any party with an athletic crowd.

Saturday, was just J, Sarama, and I. Took a nice hike up to flatirons, had some great food at Breadworks, then tooled around REI. J wanted some gear and shopping for gear is almost as fun as using it so I was totally down. Doing anything on a full stomach is tough though and we yawned our way through it all. It's a shame California is calling and J is gone in about a week; my world will be a dimmer place.

fhqwhgads

Take it to the limit. This weekend was brutal! I don't think I've ever been this tired on a Monday. Most of it endured Sunday. Saturday I read 'Cannery Row' by John Steinbeck, which the Hobstar sent for Christmas, and it was awesome! Just a great read. I can't wait to go back to Monterey and see if I can find all the places talked about in the book. Also, finished off 'The Climb' by Anatoli Boukereev and some Walt guy, which basically recounts the tragic events of the 1996 Everest Climbing season. After reading it I'm convinced Krakauer's a total tool. Sure he's a great writer, but what a fucking reject when it comes to honestly telling a story. Anything to make a buck I guess.

On to Sunday. Had ultimate in the morning and basically played savage cuz our captain had a bum wheel. First throw: hammer for a score, and that's the how the day went for ol'Josh. After the first weekend, playing sick, it was nice to get some appreciation from the team and in the end I got MVP for the day. Some days folks don't want to play hard, which means somebody's gotta take it up a notch. So, two hard games, each to 15, two wins and I was pretty spent. No rest for the weary! J (previously known as The Cartographer, but that's way too friggin long for me to write over and over) wanted to ride due to the amazing weather and we went for a 26 mile ride and about 3000 ft of climbing. Normally no big deal, but after ultimate; damn. A 40 mile ride was proposed, but I declined after the first summit. At the last summit it was clear I'd made a very good decision! I also made the mistake of switching cassettes the previous week. Yeah, a 12-21 and a double chain ring is not an optimal setup for climbing a Colorado mountain pass after a 3 hour speed workout.

Luckily I got to see the chiropractor first thing this morning. I've never heard him use so many exclamations! Everytime he'd move to a new muscle, "OH", or "Wow", or "This is probably gonna hurt". I'll have to hit the yoga hard this week to be ready for next weekend. Sucks getting old.

Old runners

This week has been too weird. Two of my best friends from high school contacted me this week. The Thurminator who I haven't talked to in over a year and Dust'n today who I haven't talked to in I don't know how long and had very sparse email with (real names protected for the innocent). It's too great to have friends that still remember you after all the years apart. Both old running partners and both, in their prime, faster than me. If that weren't enough the fastest guy I've ever ran with got me into facebook; El Corredor. I think he ran sub 2:35 at one point. Course he pretty much helped to end my running career, hijo a puta ;-P What kind of partner convinces me it's okay to jump from 50-60 miles a week to 90-100. One I more than likely convinced I could do it. I must somehow come off way better than I really think I am. I need to figure out what it is that I do because I'm tired of digging myself out of the holes I dig. The diggin's even harder with a foot in your mouth at every phrase!

Also realized I blab way, way too much and need to add more pictures. I'll work on it.

Earth Day!

FYI: yesterday was earth day and I hope everyone did something to show their appreciation for the place we live. I did very well till I got home from work; didn't drive, only used electricity I had to, and ate natural organic foods. When I got home though I burned a ton of electricity gaming and watching '300' and was too lazy to cook so ordered out and they used styrofoam, first and secondly about 5 times as much as they needed to. Add to that the emissions from the POS the delivery guy had and I don't know if I ended up with less an impact or not. Every day should be Earth Day though so all I can do is try better today!

Stay Green!

Work conundrum

So while I was away I got to think a lot about where I am in life and where I'm going. Until now I've always made it a point to never have a job I didn't like and always work for people I like and respect. Because the Tacoma job didn't work out I'm stuck wondering what to do. If I didn't have the mortgage there would be no question: bail. I think about though all the jobs that people do and don't enjoy and I wonder if I'm letting myself miss out on an opportunity to see if I can stick it out through a crappy situation. Not only stick it out, but turn the lemons to lemonade. In the end I think the attraction to an opportunity to test myself is too alluring. The other question then is do I still have the will to test myself with something that could potentially be very hard? Actually, I guess my current state of mind is what will make it hard. The rough part is the crutch I used to use to get through tough times is less reliable than it used to be. Sport has always been the thing that brought me back in line, but seems I can't get after anything adrenaline pumping without the body breaking down. The most recent example is climbing. My finger tendons are shot. My climbing's done for a couple weeks easy. I'm motivated to ride, but it'll be at least a week till I get a new post. Road riding just doesn't require enough focus to give me what I'm looking for. Ah well, se la vie.

Sun times?

Made it back to CO today. At least it was somewhat warm upon arrival. California gave me a teaser on Thursday; it must've been mid 80's in San Jose. The rest of the weekend only got above 50 if you were out of the wind in the sun. Perfect weather for riding.



In classic Currie/Josh style we showed up for our 9am Friday race at 9am. Unfortunately the time required to get to registration, find out where they went, and then go to the race start left us pretty stranded. I forget what I was doing (most likely on the crapper), but Currie somehow talked our way into the Sport Class 20 miler at 7:30am Saturday. This was a little more than I was prepared to race, but since Currie had never really ridden a tough 20 miles we thought it best to have a chilax day with it. It was mostly fire roads, but where it was technical the sand made it that much more so. I realized real quick I've spent way too much time on the road the last few years. At least I didn't cause any major traffic jams and there were a few! Things were pretty uneventful till at about mile 12 I landed too hard off a jump and snapped my seat right off the post. If it weren't for the saddle bag I would've had a very interesting finish. Yep, it's time for a new ride.




The next obstacle was Currie and some pretty overwhelming leg cramps. Somehow he'd managed to drink all his electrolyte bottle, the rest of my water, and most of another electrolyte drink and still had cramps! The body is a mysterious thing. It really says a lot about how much a little training can do. Next year, we're definitely going to put in a little more time.

Outside of our race the Sea Otter was pretty impressive. Every kind of rider I could ever imagine was there: roadies, downhillers, BMXers, XCers, young, old, clean, dirty, the entire gambit! Every company, website, bike manufacturer, food maker were all there and all were willing to let you try out their stuff. It was pretty sweet. Even Eight may've been impressed. We spent most of Friday and a little time post-race and Sunday at the event, but there's only so much to look at.

Spent the rest of the time chilax'n with the curries. We tried watching "Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story," but it was bad enough that we couldn't finish it. Sunday we watched "Juno" and it was just as good as advertised, although different than I expected. As always with the Currie's ate some really good food. The newest Currie wasn't letting Bevo perpare any masterpieces, but on the California Coast it doesn't seem to matter. We hit a little taqueria Friday night and they gave us wild rice instead of some greased up, bleached white rice. Saturday was Thai food. Little Bella Currie was under the weather Sunday, so Bevo sent Currie and I off to this sweet restaurant down in Big Sur for breakfast. We were practically hanging over the ocean and could see forever into the blue. Pretty amazing. I was sad to go, especially knowing I probably won't make it back for a while.

Pandora

For those who don't know Pandora is pretty much the coolest music website I've found. Doc Engelmann introduced me about a year ago, but only recently have I really taken advantage. Basically, you enter a band you like and it makes a playlist for you. You can say yeah or nay to the songs it picks and it'll figure out what you like. Pretty sweet. For each band, or flavor of music it'll make a station and you can share your stations with your friends. If anybody it hooked in let me know where you are in it. I'm at lamestar21.

End of the season?

Went up to Copper Sautrday to enjoy the last weekend of business. I can't believe they're shutting down! They'v easily got enough snow to go another month. The plans to go came in a hurry and like most plans that get organized that way things didn't work out well for this coffee lover. As of Thursday the westside mafia and the The Captain and his friend had committed to going. The big reason to go was to catch George Clinton and the P Funk. Most everyone else had a pass and wasn't stressing getting there late, putting in a few runs, and then seeing the show. Not having a pass and having only gone 3 times prior this season I wanted as full a day as I could get and left out early. Just after buying my ticket Soandso calls and she's bagging. A good reason, but she's baggin. She also relates Bockenheimer is bagging because he's going to Vail Sunday. No worries, it's The Captain and his friend and they're supposed to roll in about 11. I finish a run about 11, grab a pint, and hunker down from the cold and listen to the opening band. I send a text and turns out they're already carving it up somewhere on the hill. Nice. I'm ditched twice in the same day. I polish off another pint and head for the double blacks; the board had been friendly and I was hitting some good stuff earlier so figured I'd turn it up a notch. I quickly found out how much reaction time disapates after a few adult beverages. After that I don't think I could ever drive even buzzing! I think I'll keep a pair of running shoes in the truck so I can sober up if necessary. In the end the show starts, it's as good as it can be considering I'm there alone. I did get an obligatory text from The Captain and listened to two songs by them, but in the end bailed because the snow was dumping and I-70 with, in the winter, with Colorado drivers is not a good place to be.

Sunday, the ultimate season was back on and it was pleasure to play without hacking mucus all over the field. Played much better having only 1 turnover per game, two huge D's, and most importantly wasn't scored on. Also found out sunscreen has expiration dates. After lunch at Famous Daves (conveniently blocks from the fields) I went up to Boulder for a hike with The Cartographer. The hike was good, conversation was good, and the dog minded. If that wasn't good enough we ate at the Dushanbe Teahouse, which was pretty amazing! Meals from everywhere and the goal was to have one from each continent. Failed, but it was fun trying; we got Africa, Asia, North America, and South America.

This weekend I'm off to California. I'll have to find some time to do some wrist curls; Eight is proving to be the much better face climber and I need some spider grip. I think I talked about that before so I'll stop before I ramble anymore.

catch up

First things first; I was asked to explain where each of the pics in the previous post were from. The first is Currie and I after the first Bearable adventure race, which took place at Bear Creek lake Park on the outskirts of Denver. This has since turned into an annual tradition for me. The second was from my first weekend after permanently moving to Denver. It's on the Arkansas River between Buena Vista and Salida; possibly the most commercialy rafted stretch of water in the country. Hobstar was the wingman and basically had to carry his whole side of the boat. Bobbo is in the third pic trying to finish before the snow really hit Golden Cliffs about 15 minutes from my place. The team in the next pic is my from my first Denver ultimate frisbee league team. Currie really got me into the sport and the quality of play in Denver is higher than anywhere I've been. The last pic is me on the job in Loch Vale, which is in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The next big thing was I finally got to play league ultimate sunday. I'm pretty excited. The fundamental ability of this team is higher than any I've ever played on. We've got the same huc problems most teams have at the beginning of the season, but still managed to win both games. I am, by far, the weakest link on the team. It should provide a nice learning environment as long as I can remember I'm not a total scrub. Expectations are high.

Climbed with Eight on Tues. I've really got to work on grip strength. I can do pullups all day, but can't hang long enough to do much. Took a big whipper leading a 10b traversing, roof route. Eight only got up half the moves. Promptly thereafter Eight flew up a 5.11 face route. I was convinced there was no way it was an 11; couldn't even do a few moves of 10b? I hopped on next and only got the first move. Fingers are useless. Seems I've always got at least one idle hand at work so brought in the grip strengtheners. After climbing we tied one on at the local pub and I got to have one of the most fun conversations I've ever had. Eight is by far the coolest climbing partner I've ever had.

idleness

For those who had any question about it; working weekends for people you don't like is not fun. I'm putting an end to this next week. No more am I working for an asshole who's chronically underfunding projects and scapegoating people. For those who just got an image of a greasy choir boy in thier heads; no worries it's not him. As I'm passing the time thought I'd blog and add some pics to remind that summer is almost here and Colorado has everything I need. Be sure to note a tired Currie, a giddy Hobstar, a cold Bob, and the Denver ultimate 2005 fall league undefeated champs.

Snuggin

So Eight had told me about this Irish pub downtown that hosts a 5k every thursday, with no entry fees, free food at the end and if you come 10 times you get a free wicking t-shirt! I'm thinking there's NO way they can get away with that so last night I went to check it out. Soandso came down to allegedly just have a fun run because she'd never done one before, but really it was to provide a little moral support because of some heavy stuff I'd been dealing with. In any case, great pub and the story from Eight was totally legit. Must've been about 100 people and apparently it was an off night. I made the mistake of starting early and the guys who looked like goats turned out to not be and I was pretty much left to find my own way. Luckily got passed at a stoplight and this dude was about the same speed. It was really just a group run, no official start, clock, or anything just a lot of good folks out, living healthy and doing something they enjoy. Wouldn't you know it we were next up inline for the food after and they ran out. Ah well. Soandso got The Captain to come down and we went out to a Mexican place that was having a tequila sampling night. Oh, Yes! Free shots of $60 tequila. Perty nice!

The Sea Otter Classic is coming up soon and I think I'll be ready. The real indicator was on Monday and I went down to the gym for a little pickup hoops. I only play about once a year during The Madness so I can't really dribble and can't shoot outside 18 ft, but that's not what wins pickup. The fun never ends when I show up to a court in business socks, some old canvas shorts and a crappy, holey long sleeve shirt. All the kiddies with their super shoes and nylony clown shorts. I always get picked last and always go undefeated. Was able to call an oop on the first play and the guard just looked at me quizzically. I called it again the next time down and he tossed me one about head high; what am I gonna do with that? Only after I followed a miss with a little tip in did I get any real love. The first game I took it easy thinking my lungs wouldn't be able to hack the pace. At the end I realized I wasn't even winded! The next game I went hard; hussle, hussle, hussle and ran the kiddies out the gym. It was gravy from then on and it only got better after the 4th game and I called it a night. I always would finish some ballin to see how high I could get on the rim. Honestly, I haven't touched it in about 5 years. Got all the way up to the palm. After 4 games! Yeah, I'm pretty stoked about getting fit again.

Auktyon

Damn!, Double Damn!, these guys were awesome! You can check out their website at www.auktyon.com . Friggin awesome! Best show since Robert Randolph in Lincoln and I've seen some good ones since. I'm not sure how to describe it really; jam band, surreal, melodic, punk and all the lyrics are in Russian. Wild. Just what I needed. Went out with the Westside mafia, short Bockenheimer. Soandso brought her new fella. Seemed like a nice guy, was confident and intelligent and he rides so that's pretty good qualifications, but he had this kind of half-assed, limp-wristed handshake. What the fuck is up with that nowadays? Seems like every guy I meet has some puss-ass hand shake. Personally, if you don't give me a firm hand shake and look me in the eye when we meet, then I feel pretty insulted. If anybody's got some more insight into why this kind of thing is more common, I've got open ears.

Anyway, great show. Bought a CD. They're not on Pandora yet, but maybe soon. These guys are apparently huge in Russia, obviously, and eastern Europe. The opening band was good to: The Tanukis out of Fort Collins, CO. Also very fluent in Russian. Seems like it's a requirement for the place we were at. The girl on the piano could wail! I thought she was going to pull a muscle she was so into it! Totally captivating. The rest of the band was good, and thier solos showed it, but she stole the show.

Ultimate didn't start again today. For some reason it always snows Saturday night? Beers!

lemons and lemonade

So, at the end of the day Friday the Tacoma office called. Denied. I knew the competition would be stiff, but I thought I'd at least make the first cut. S'what I get for tink'n. I didn't think I'd be as disappointed as I was; made me realize things in Colorado are more shitty than I thought. With Tacoma out of the picture it looks like I'll have to buckle down again to get myself out. Getting out of this hole could be a long time coming. I would just go, but I'm stuck with the damn house, which's already lost about $10K. Sometimes I think debt is the only thing that keeps me going. At least its Colorado. I definitely have enough passtimes to escape my laughable work environment and even more sadly, hilarious social life. One of these days Ultimate season will acutally start and hopefully that'll make things better. Of course that'll force me to be social with a whole different group of folks, but I definitely need the practice. The catch-22 of addressing the things that limit you in life is that focusing on them brings you down a lot quicker than if you just let your ego run rampant with things you're good at and failed. Somehow ego seems a lot more rubber-like than confidence. I'm definitely rambling now, on to something else.

Training for the Sea Otter Classic is picking up. Went for a 2 hour ride with Eight the other day, put in about 25 miles of running this week, and did a couple leg workouts at the gym in addition to the normal pilates and yoga classes. Psycho yoga teacher was there Tues. and I was glad I skipped class to lift when I saw the faces of the other regulars when the walked out. The climbing continues; rat climbed monday and weds. we went out and I lead a hole 5.6. I would've done it in the old earth shoes, but was denied a belay until donning the proper footwear. I later tried to lead a 5.9+, but it was pretty exposed and the wind was ripping so I bagged it one bolt in. Definitely need some bigger pro if I'm ever going to get more into trad.

I'm really wishing Hillary would drop out. One of my biggest beefs with ol'gdumbya is he preached unity over division and somehow managed the exact opposite. Seems to me old Hillary is capable of exactly the same. If I wasn't leaning hard for Obama before I definitely am now! I was also forwarded a link to http://www.thestoryofstuff.com/ for a 20 min. video on the problems associated with, and propagated by, throwing all the things away we do. I think the message is good and the information provided on the website is great, but the girl in the video is WAY to full of herself. Admittedly, I haven't watched the entire movie, but there were so many random comments initially that had nothing to do with what she was trying to say that I couldn't watch it anymore. She starts off and says something like, "I've been working on this kind of stuff for 10 years so I know what I'm talking about." When someone says that kind of crap to me I reach for the closest shovel and get ready to start shoveling shit. It's liberals like her, that make being liberal so hard to justify to people living conservatively. I've lately wondered which is worse for their political group: a dumb, redneck blindly following GOP policy or a self-righteous, independent person who doesn't know when and where to open their mouth. So, these kind of things are going through my head and Eight tells me I should see this movie called "The Secret". I was warned beforehand that it might seem a little preachy, but damn, it's practically an informercial. Again, I think they were trying to present a good message, but how is somebody whose professional title is Philosopher or Visionary supposed to convince me they're anything, but looney. Generally there are only two ways someone earns my respect: I meet them or someone I respect tells me they make the grade. Joe Schmoe on the street; sorry buddy you could be the beezneez and I don't give a rats ass. I'm very bitter today it turns out. This one always wears on me though. It probably started in the military where people would demand respect or maybe on a sports team with the one arrogant guy who says, "OK this is what we're doing" without a clue in the fucking world whether it's a good decision.

Well, I had fun today. Hope you did to. I'm off to see some Russian thingy that I know nothing about. My friend called and conned me to go. At first he thought it would be a night out with this girl he likes. Then he found out her boyfriend is coming and didn't want to be a third wheel. I said, "Dude, at least she doesn't know you like her. I'll invite a girl who knows I like her, won't have me, but still wants to hang out a lot, yeah, if you think your situation's messy check mine out." (She's actually super fun, so I just have to remember that hot chicks shouldn't have less friends just because most guys can't turn off their other brain). Se la vie

beer:30

Given the time of year I thought it a very apt time to discuss my affection for malty, adult beverages. It all started in the place we're celebrating Monday. I had never drank a drop until Ireland and even then not until after the first 5 months. I broke my arm on a ski trip and with no sport to occupy my time my irish friend was able to convince me to go to the uni-bar for a drink. It's a very nice thing learning to drink in Ireland. They've been doing it since they were at most 15 and by the time I got there drinking was a lot like now when drinking with friends. No competition. Just out, a beer an hour, good conversation, good times. The bitterness of the beer over there put me off at first. I couldn't even finish a half-pint of Guinness! At the end of my year there I forced (yes, pretty sad) myself to put down a whole pint.

Back in the states suddenly it was an entirely different world. As I'm sure I've told most of my friends, U.S. Guinness is way, way different than real Guinness. On my 21st, back in the states, I had a pint and it went down surprisingly smooth. From then on a great new world was opened to me. Amber's, brown's and porter's, oh my. I was of course pampered by all the fantastic brew pubs of the northwest. I was really into the flavor and after a few the uniqueness wore off and it was time to be done. I was really self-conscious about drinking too much because my pop had issues with alcholism. He was never mean, or loud, or any of the stereotypes associated with alcoholics, but I remember going to AA meetings as a kid, knew the problem was hereditary, and was a little freaked out. To his credit I totally attribute my seemingly inability to get a hangover to heredity. I'm not saying I never got drunk, but I was conscious of how much I had and the effects it had on me. With my paranoia, I found I couldn't drink at home. Even if people were over, just couldn't do it. I never could figure it out, in the end Nebraksa ridded me of this ailment.

In Nebraska there wasn't a great selection, but the brew pub they had put out some quality brews. I haven't found a vanilla porter yet that tops theirs. In Nebraska I was introduced to The Traveller, not that I've ever done it, but I've never felt unsafe with the folks who did. It was always something light and they'd not had more than a beer before we went. Since they could drink like fish I wasn't worried. Course this brings about the topic of driving drunk. I won't lie and say I've never done it. According to Eight, who wasn't there, I did it last night. For me drunk is way different than buzzing and the level of each is definitely a function of consumption over time. I'm sure (I hope) everybody's got their little checklist of things to make a smart decision (course if you're using the checklist at all you're probably already wrong). I have no trouble with handing over my keys, have taken the bus home, and one dumb night walked 6 miles in sub-20 degree weather. I don't think there's any good logic for driving after drinking, but it's a risk I'm willing to take now and again. In the end we can only try to be better.

What to drink. Personally, my general rule is that I won't drink anything I can see through (Goes for the hard stuff as well). In the Northwest there was no reason to drink light beer. In Nebraska the debate could get a little heated. Most prevalent was the Hobstar and his affinity for the Champagne of Beers. His arguments: better taste (to each his own), more bang for the buck (definitively true), and you could drink it year round (dark stuff just isn't as tasty when it 95 degrees and 90% humidity). Being the good sport I am I willingly tried some classics; the Champagne, PBR, probably a Busch, a Coors, and God forbid a Bud. For the verdict I'll rely on a story (which most've probably heard) posted at the recently gone Rattlesnake brewery in Kennewick, WA, "At a brewers convention a waiter went around the table asking what each brewer would like to drink. The guy from Coors asks for a Coors, when asked, the guy from Miller asks for a Miller, blah, blah, blah. When asked what he'd like the Rattlesnake brewer says, " water, since that what everyone else is having"." The light stuff just doesn't do it for me. to the credit of light beer brewers, they're supposed to be much harder to make and harder to make consistently palatable. With that said I commonly will drink Corona and this winter found that Foster's is very nice after a day on the ice. Generally thouigh, I like my beer malty, heavy bodied, and clean finishing. I'm not a huge fan of hops, but there's a few out there that'll do you right.

Okay, I'm bored, probably you too, if you got this far. Ultimate league starts tomorrow. Yeah!

For St. Paddies, drink tons and be safe. Find Green Beer. If not, make your own. Warn your boss: Tuesday will be a late start at work