Merry Christmas!

Kristen and I have survived another trip to Cody for the holidays. I headed out on the 23rd, and had a smooth trip out. The roads were 99% dry, and other than almost running out of gas near Casper, it was a pleasant drive. The folks were happy that I made it alive. I had to challenge Dad to the "Feats of Strength" at some point.


Kristen showed up the evening of the 24th fresh from England. She was a little jet-lagged, but overall she had a good trip and no snafus on the way to Cody. We drove around Cody to see the Christmas lights before heading back to the house.

For only having four people at the house, the number of gifts under the tree was a bit obscene. Mom had fun lighting the candles and watching them burn.


Christmas morning came, and we proceeded to open the gifts. The place looked like a bomb hit it, which is par for the course. Lena helped open a few of her gifts, but never got too crazy. She seemed a little confused to what all the commotion was about.


We all received a bounty of wonderful gifts. Of note was my Honduras key chain holder. I'm still debating exactly where to place it. I had fun trying to guess which of Becky and Jason's gifts was the one that didn't cost them any money.


At some point we fed Linda and Elijah's chickens. The turkey found Kristen's pants (or maybe butt) interesting, and kept pecking at it. I found it hilarious.


After a few days of taking it easy, Kristen and I headed back to Boulder. The roads weren't bad, there were a few slick spots. We watched a car load of teenagers pass us, then skid off the road after a few miles. We helped them get started up and pointed in the right direction again.


Back in Boulder, the harsh reality of going back to work loomed. It was lessened somewhat by the enjoyment of many of our gifts.

Last week was pretty busy trying to clean up the water mess and get things taken care of at work. I did manage to get all my Christmas shopping done, along with all the "leaving town for a while" errands.

On Friday a few friends and I played hooky to do some snowboarding. The mountains have really be getting hit hard with the snow, so it seemed like a good time to take a vacation day. We got 16 challenging runs in on Friday, and another 11 in on Saturday. I was pretty spent after Friday, Saturday was a lot rougher going. The snow conditions were great, and the crowds were non-existent. The high on Saturday was 6 degrees, which may have scared a few people off. We all got a bit of wind-burn on our faces, but it was worth it.

Sunday involved a little work, more trip and Christmas errands, and a lot of recovering from snowboarding. I tried petting the cats a bit extra since neither Kristen and I would be around for a bit.

Kristen did make it to England OK and has been sending me updates on the trip via e-mail. She just recently returned from a trip to Wales and took some great pictures.

I ended staying up until 4:30 fighting the various water issues coming through my ceiling. I think I used every pot, pan, bowl, and bucket that we own. Very little got on the carpet, but there is some drywall damage. Luckily the condo association will pay fix it, so other than some inconvenience, it wasn't too big of a deal.

I'm having a hard time keeping up with timely posts. Just not enough hours in the day.

Last week was pretty crazy. We had corporate visitors in town for the first half of the week, and the fallout of their visit kept us really busy through Friday. My brain was frazzled by the end of the week. Friday while brushing my teeth I thought I had dropped the toothpaste off of the toothbrush before it made it to my mouth. As I was brushing I looked around the floor to see if I could see where it dropped. Not finding it on the floor, I felt around in my mouth, thinking perhaps that it was hiding out in there somewhere. No luck there. I mentally retraced my steps, and came to the horrifying realization that I'd put face lotion on the toothbrush, not toothpaste. Yuck!

Kristen and I met up with her Dad and Step mom for dinner in Platteville. Bruce told a joke about a woman receiving a fax from her butt, which received a mixture of laughter and rolling of eyes. Later, Kristen and I headed out for a beer with a few of my coworkers to celebrate the end of the week. Unfortunately we were all so burnt that it was a pretty lackluster affair.

Saturday involved going to the mall to do yet more X-mas shopping. It seems to never end. Afterward Kristen and I headed to the mountains to celebrate her birthday. It snowed like crazy on Saturday night, which gave me more excuses to try out the new vehicle on icy roads. It's pretty sweet.

We got back to town early on Sunday. Most of Sunday was spent getting Kristen ready for her England trip. She got all packed up, and was ready to go.

Monday I drove her to the airport around noon. I haven't gotten the "I've arrived" e-mail yet, but I'm assuming she made it. Meanwhile the cats and I have been trying to stay warm. Cody's has had it worse, but we had a high of -4 on Monday.

I love technology. Here's a picture of Aida taken with my new camcorder. The resolution on the thing is crazy. Oops, it looks like this actually a quarter of the resolution that it normally is, I can't quite yet figure out how to get a full resolution picture off of the thing yet.



It can store about 2 hours of video at that resolution at 30 frames per second on a 16 gig SDHC card. Here's a picture of the card next to a quarter. To put things in perspective, our Commodore 64 we had in the early eighties had 64K of memory. That tiny card can store 262,144 times more data than that first computer could.




I was just about to hit "Publish Post" when a strange noise came from the other room. The vacant upstairs condo had a pipe bust, and apparently it just thawed out. The Fire Department was here, I have all my buckets and pots out trying to contain the deluge. Looks like I'll be up late tonight.

The doldrums of fall have passed, and we had yet another active weekend. Friday my boss was in town, we had a pretty exciting meeting. Meanwhile, Kristen picked up her date for the weekend, Maddock, and sister Allison was more than happy to pawn the guy off for a night. Luckily Katie showed up to help out, and between the two of them they kept him out of trouble.


The three of them slept on the pull out bed. I got up early to go snowboarding only to find Kristen and Katie wide awake with Maddock sleeping between them, snoring loudly. They quickly whispered that they had been up for hours, dealing with the kicking, punching, and weird noises that were emanating from the diminutive boy. Unfortunately I was too preoccupied with snowboarding to snap a picture.

My day was a lot of fun, the snow wasn't too bad, and Morrissey and I managed to find some runs that were challenging enough to keep us interested. We brought a new friend Josh with us who is new to snowboarding. He had a lot of fun, even through all the falls.

I returned home to the aftermath of a large cookie baking party. Allison and Cassie (and Ashley) had shown up to help bake cookies, it sounds like there was a bit of pandemonium. Maddock had fun helping.


Everyone left except for Katie. Kristen, Katie and myself were exhausted from our days activities, and went to bed pretty early. Katie took off early on Sunday. Kristen and I headed out for some Christmas shopping and lunch.

At various points during the day Kristen mocked me a bit for being so sore from my day of snowboarding. I heard things like "I HURT ALL OVER!" and "I'M AN OLD MAN AND CAN BARELY MOOOVE!". Hilarious, that girl.

We relaxed for the rest of the day, in preparation for the week ahead.

Finally, we've had a few active weekends. I took off to Indiana on Thursday the 20th. I arrived an hour or two late for Luther's funeral, but got to meet the 30+ people at the farm for the wake. I bet the last time that many people were there was for Hugh's wedding. It was fun re-meeting several people I hadn't seen since I was a wee lad.

I was amazed at all the wind damage on the farm. Much of the woods seemed impassible due to the large number of blown down trees.


Dad kept himself busy burning brush piles and cutting up fallen trees. I got a little practice in with a chainsaw one day when we cleared the trails to the treehouse.


The treehouse escaped unscathed, which I attribute more to luck and a good location than anything else. I did stay in the treehouse each night even though the temperatures were dropping into the teens. Luckily I had a good sleeping back and several wool blankets.



We visited Pat's Swamp Shack one evening. She'd just gotten a wood burning stove installed, which seemed quite luxurious. It was a lot of fun comparing notes on shack building and seeing where'd she'd made different decisions.


The treehouse saw a lot of visitors this trip. After Luther's funeral we had 9 people in it at one point. Granted, three of them were children, but I'm still counting it as the record. Sandy and Tata made it over one day, as did Tommy.



The weather was all over the map while I was there. There was one nice day, several cloudy days, it snowed one day, and rained the next. The creeks would freeze over during the night, and all the water I carried down to the treehouse slowly froze over a few nights.


Luckily the main house stayed warm, and Ma kept the stoves fed with firewood. Lena spent a lot of time staying close the warmth. She would venture out for walks occasionally, but if we were too boring she's head back to the house.



It was a fun trip, and I enjoyed hanging out with the folks. Getting a wood burning stove in the treehouse got bumped up in the priority list a bit, maybe one will go in this next year.


The trip back was uneventful. It's no longer possible to get a direct flight from Denver to Louisville, but all my travel went smoothly, even with the layovers. I was glad to get back to a warm shower and bed.

Last week was a short week at work, then Thanksgiving preparations started. Kristen put on a good thanksgiving meal, she successfully fed 8 people, the Pumpkin Pie ice cream being a favorite. With the new couch and chairs the place wasn't too crowded, and everyone had a place to sit. We unfortunately didn't take many pictures.


Life will get back to normal next week. I have work people in town toward the end of the week, and Kristen is planning a big cookie making party on Friday. The weather should warm up into the 50s which will be nice.

Happy Birthday Ma! I hope you had a good one!

Friday night Kristen and I headed out to see the annual Warren Miller movie with a few friends. It was a lot fun as always, and we'd finally gotten our first snow of the year earlier in the morning. It had melted by the time the movie started, but it still got everyone in the mood for some skiing or snowboarding. We missed breaking the record for the latest snow fall by one day.

Saturday involved laying around the house, and biking into work for a half day. I've almost made up the time for this upcoming trip, I still have half a day to sneak in somewhere. Kristen laid pretty low, doing some more Christmas planning.

Sunday morning was the annual Panicking Poultry run. A few of the same friends we saw on Friday night showed up, and we all enjoyed the beautiful 70+ degree weather. The food was good, although we passed this year on the early morning free beer. Kristen won a nice hoody sweatshirt that fits me quite well. I'll be using it keep warm this upcoming weekend.

Tuesday evening Kristen's office had a 5k race, I headed over there and we both ran it. I met a few of her coworkers, and generally enjoyed yet another record breaking day (78 degrees).

I'm heading to the airport early tomorrow, my flight leaves at 6:15 am. I'm excited to get back and see the folks, I haven't seen much of them this year.

There's been a whole lot of squat going on. It'd be easier to make weekly posts if we had anything interesting to post about.

I've been working 6 day weeks trying to bank up some time for the upcoming Indiana trip. This makes for a short weekend, and we've just been taking Saturday's slow so I can recuperate for the next week.

Speaking of preparations for the Indiana trip, I've tried convincing Kristen that we should sleep with all the windows open at night, in order to "simulate the treehouse experience". She didn't see the need for her to get a preview, since she's not going. Oh well.

Kristen has been doing various mysterious activities in preparation for Christmas. I've helped a little here and there, unfortunately I can't post much about that without ruining Christmas morning surprises.

Last Sunday the fox that we often see running by the office decided to take a nap right outside the office window. They really look like they should be a pet up close. I wonder if people have tried to raise them as pets...


The weather continued to be beautiful here up until last Wednesday or so. I've managed to ride the bike in to work 5 days a week for the last month or so. It's getting cold enough now that I may do a bit more driving from here on out.

We've been enjoying Becky's blog lately, since there's actually some activity over there. Steve's pictures are very impressive, they make us want to take photography classes.

Not much to report from this end. Kristen had her last class on Wednesday, so we went out Friday night to celebrate. We ate at a Scottish restaurant, the food was OK, the beer was better. We both passed on the haggis.

Saturday morning we biked in to town. The weather was great, in the 60s, although a bit windy. We checked out the farmers market and ate a little lunch on Pearl Street. Later in the day we picked up a few pumpkins to carve for Halloween. Back at the house we had a nap, then continued to laze around the house for the rest of the evening.

Sunday I went into work, trying to make up some time for the upcoming holidays and snowboarding season. Kristen headed off to see Allison and "The Bean" in order to do some pumpkin carving. Maddock had a creepy Halloween costume, and seemed to enjoy helping with the pumpkin.

Friday night Kristen and I packed our bags and headed to Katie and Jordan's for the yearly half-marathon trip. The drive to Grand Junction went smoothly, although Kristen had some kind of complicated coffee drink with three shots of espresso that livened things up a bit.

Saturday morning we dropped Rocco off at the dog kennel. He was initially excited to go for a drive, but then wasn't too happy when he discovered the destination. After a tearful farewell, we headed over to watch Jordan coach a football game. The weather was beautiful, and once again we got a little sunburned. Afterwards we grabbed some lunch, then headed to Moab.


It's not too far of a drive, and we drove over the race course on our way to the hotel. The scenery is truly amazing, it's still impressive every time we see it.


We stayed at Sorrel River Ranch this year, which is right at the finish line of the race. This saved us from having to take a shuttle to our lodge after the race, which isn't too much fun when you feel like you're going to die. The place was beautiful.


We headed into Moab to pick up our race packets, grab some groceries, and to eat dinner. Town was really packed. This is the best time of year in Moab, it's cool enough to be tolerable. It's the definitive mountain biking center of the universe, and an epicenter for Jeep enthusiasts. The weather was much nicer than it was last year, and town seemed to have about three times as many people in it. We got out of there as fast as we could, it was a little too crazy.

We played a round of board games, then headed to bed pretty early. The next morning we ate a quick bite, threw on our running clothes, filled our water bottles full of vital nutrients, and boarded the shuttle to the start line. While last year had overcast skies and snow on the nearby hills, this year saw clear skies and much warmer weather.

At 8:30 the gun went off and 1,200 people started down the canyon. Our group quickly split up, with each of us laboring toward the finish line at our own pace.


Afterwards the consensus was that we all enjoyed the race. I was about a minute slower than I was last year, but still did better than I expected. Kristen knocked off about 12 minutes from her time last year, Katie knocked off over 16 minutes, and Jordan shortened his time by over 20 minutes. Very impressive indeed.

We spent the rest of the day trying to recover, and eventually made it into town for dinner. We didn't hold back and had some very non-runner-friendly food. It sure tasted good. Back at the lodge, we tried to keep our eyes open, but turned in pretty early.


Monday involved driving back to Grand Junction, then on to Boulder. The aspen have mostly lost their leaves, but every once in a while we'd find a pocket of color. The drive went smoothly, and we arrived home to find two lonely and demanding cats.

Gah! Two weeks without a post!

That's mostly because not much has been happening around these parts. The weather is slowly getting cooler, and I can see the end of "shorts season" approaching. It may already be here.

Two weekends ago Kristen and I laid pretty low. She had school work on Saturday, and we went for a big 13 mile run on Sunday. We both survived it, so it looks like we'll likely cross the finish line at the half marathon this upcoming weekend. We really didn't do much other than relax.

This weekend Kristen and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. We're both pretty surprised we've lasted this long, what with her Tourette's syndrome and my constant Nam flashbacks. We grudgingly headed to the mountains on Friday, stopping in Boulder canyon for dinner at the Red Lion. Kristen claims her steak was the best she's ever had, so I'm counting that as a victory.

We stayed the first night in Nederland. The weather was supposed to be cold, so we gave up our plans for a run or a bike ride, and went for a hike on Saturday instead. The reservoir had quite a mist coming off of it, we hiked a good portion of the trail around it. There were a few guys fishing, but not too many people were out and about in the gray weather.


We also hiked around the town a bit, seeing the Wolf Tongue Mine, which we'd somehow failed to notice before. I really wanted to poke around inside, but the "No Trespassing" signs and vehicles parked nearby dissuaded us.


We ate lunch in town, then headed to Blackhawk for some gambling. We're pretty high rollers, but managed to survive on the penny machines for quite a while. Kristen and I both lost about $20 each after many long hours in front of the machines.

We took off fairly early on Sunday and took the long way back to Boulder. It had snowed during the night, making the aspens particularly colorful.


We looped up toward Gold Hill, taking a few side routes to check out various houses for sale. The fog was amazingly thick, limiting visibility to 10 feet or so in spots. At one point we ran across a few dear on the side of the road.


We stopped in Gold Hill for a quick lunch, then headed back to town. I managed to get the new vehicle pretty muddy in the process. The weather really made winter feel right around the corner.


The rest of Sunday involved installing a new garbage disposal, the old one had given up the ghost. Kristen did some schoolwork, I did some programming, and the cats spent some quality time with us.

We had a nice slow weekend. Kristen and I both had hectic weeks at work, so it was nice to not have any real plans for the weekend. Kristen did meet up with some classmates for homework on Saturday. I did a little cleanup around the house, and finally unpacked my tools from the June/July Indiana trip.

Sunday we went for a big run. Our half marathon is sneaking up on us, both of us are feeling unprepared for it. The run went smoothly, we both felt good after the 8 miles. It was hard to imagine having to run an additional 5 miles.

Since we have no interesting pictures from the weekend, I'll attach a bunch from the Indiana trip this summer.