Snowy Weather

After returning from Indiana, Kristen headed to Winter Park for the rest of the week.  Her friend Laura had given her the keys to Laura's condo through the weekend.  She spent the time writing, reading, and knitting.  I met up with her Friday night after work.

It lightly snowed for most of the weekend, but there was no significant accumulation.  I spent a bit of time updating this and the tree house blog.  We went to all our favorite places in town, it was definitely a little emptier than ski season, but a lot of the popular places were still full of people.

Boulder is seeing some significant snow right now.  It started snowing Tuesday night, and really snowed today.  Kristen's work was canceled, only a few of us showed up to my office.  Over two feet of snow has fallen in nearby Louisville, although we haven't been hit that hard.

Kristen and I went for a walk after I got back from work.  We went around our local lake, and down a few trails we're used to jogging on.  It was very pretty, and we're supposed to get quite a bit more snow over night.

Farm Trip

Kristen and I made it to the farm on Friday around midnight.  We were the first there, Ma & Pa hadn't made it yet. We got the ladder up to the tree house, but noticed a lot of splintered wood laying around.  We decided it'd be best to stay in the house that night.

Saturday morning we investigated further, and determined that a limb had landed on the roof at some point, punching a hole through the eave, and slightly buckling two walls.  That was better news than I had feared, I was afraid that the trunks of the trees had been crushing the structure.  Shortly afterward Ma & Pa & Lena showed up.  While they were getting unpacked, Kristen and I headed into Louisville to pick up our half-marathon packets.  We did a bit of shopping for some supplies we knew we'd need.

Sunday morning we headed back into Louisville before daylight.  The temperature was hovering in the mid-30s.  We parked, and walked past KingFish restaurant which I distinctly remember from my childhood.  The starting line for the race was at the Louisville Water Tower, and the course ran along the river into downtown.  The weather warmed up, and the day turned beautiful.  The nice weather stayed with us for the remainder of the trip.

We both achieved our fastest time ever.  There must be something to the whole low-altitude thing, we both felt amazingly great running the 13 miles.

Afterward I helped Dad put a larger hole in the shop roof for the wood burning stove he's installing in there.  I hammered the tree house back into shape, and we decided to spend the night there instead of up at the house.  Kristen got the bed all set up, and we did quite a bit of cleaning.  We stayed warm enough, but it was difficult to get out of bed the next morning.

Monday involved patching the tree house roof, and installing the chimney box.  This was a full day project, Kristen and I ran into town around 6 pm to pick up enough chimney to finish the job.  We got a good burn in done before bed, unfortunately leaving the place smelling a bit funky due to the paint/enamel fumes.

On Tuesday Ma & Pa swung by for sticky buns warmed on the newly functioning stove.  A little later we headed out to gather some firewood.  We all worked hard, and semi-joked about jumping into the lake to cool off.  Kristen and I stacked up a pretty good supply of firewood by the tree house.

At some point during the trip we headed over to Luther's and walked around a bit.  We also got a bit of fishing in, catching a few nice bluegills and several small bass.

We left Wednesday after packing up and closing up the tree house.  Once at the airport, our flight ended up being canceled.  Luckily we were able to reroute through Atlanta, and made it back to Boulder after 10pm.

We had a lot of fun on the trip.  Thanks again Ma & Pa for the hospitality and all the help and food.  We'll be back in a few months!

Brrrrr!

It was a cold, stay-hunkered-down-inside kind of weekend.  Boulder got 4 inches of snow on Friday night, although we didn't get that much at the condo.  The cats struggled to stay warm, but luckily Kristen helped out a bit.

We celebrated our 12th anniversary together Friday by going out to dinner with some friends.  We couldn't muster staying out much past nine, being the crazy kids that we are.  I worked a bit on Saturday, and did a bit more work on the tree house blog.

Sunday remained chilly.  Kristen made pancakes for breakfast.  It warmed up a little during the day, enough for us to walk to dinner.  Otherwise we laid pretty low, and did a few small tasks around the house.  We're getting excited for the Indiana trip on Friday, and have started packing and organizing ourselves  a bit.  After this cold spell, we're both a little worried about staying warm, especially until Ma & Pa show up with the sleeping bags!

Chilly!

It's really feeling like fall, and getting harder to go outside and stay active. Kristen and I had a very slow weekend. We went out on Friday night to see "ZombieLand", which I enjoyed very much. I think I even heard Kristen snickering a few times, so it wasn't a complete waste for her.

I worked a bit on Saturday, Kristen spent some time getting her hair worked on. We met up afterward on the mall for a late lunch. Sunday was laid back as well. We met up with our friend Tracy who was back in town after a summer adventuring in Alaska. She had a lot of stories to tell, and seemed to have fun on her trip.

At some point during the weekend I updated the tree house blog with a few details on the solar setup I'm putting together for the tree house. I'm not planning on taking it to the farm until December, but have been working on it pretty steady for a while. I've certainly thought of some of Jim Covert's charging systems up in Canada while building the control panel.

At one point while trying to attach a ring terminal, I realized I was going to have problems accessing the screw. I thought to myself "I wonder what ever happened to that 90 degree ratcheting screw driver that Aunt Linda gave me for Christmas when I was 9 or 10?" I distinctly remembered it. I always thought it was a cool tool, but could never find many excuses to use it. I looked up from my work bench, and there it was sitting on a shelf with a good layer of dust on it! I was pretty amazed, I remembered that thing sliding around some of my old childhood toolboxes for years. Somehow I'd manage to not lose it over 20 years, and it ended up at just the right place at just the right time. I dusted it off and screwed the ring terminal in with it.

With only two weeks left before we head to the farm, I've been reading up on tree houses. We've joked around in the past about putting a zip line from the hill side to the tree house. I found this video on You Tube that includes a pretty cool zip line into a tree house:




We "officially" finished the first phase of our first project on Friday. Realistically we still have a lot of bugs to find and fix, and a lot more testing to do before the thing goes out the door to be used. But, it was a nice relief to pass the final milestone nonetheless. We're looking to hire 2 or 3 more engineers shortly, as we have three more major projects waiting for us to start on them. Unfortunately it doesn't look like we'll get much of a break before we start on the next one.

Rockies Game

Saturday afternoon Kristen and I headed down to Denver to catch a Rockies game with Katie and Jordan. Luckily the weather has been nice for the last several days, and carried through the game and the rest of the weekend. We had a fun night out, even though the Rockies lost and Katie was sitting next to some passionate Cardinals fans.


We stayed out late (at least for us) that night. Katie and Jordan left early the next morning for Grand Junction. I'm proud to say that after 15 years in the Boulder area, I finally was able to drive to downtown Denver, find the hotel, then make it back to Boulder without a map or asking for directions. In another 10 years I might even be able to determine which direction is West without the help of the mountains.

Kristen and I went for a long run on Sunday. I made 11 miles, Kristen ran 10. Even though we took things pretty slow, we both were hurting pretty badly afterward. We spent the rest of Sunday re-hydrating and sleeping off the pain. We did make it into town for a low key dinner. I had some excellent crispy trout tacos. Way outside of what I'd normally order, but the post run hunger gave me the opportunity to try something new.

We learned last week at work that the entire Wabtec crew at the old office was laid off. Apparently they joked around a bit that the big boss was coming into town to fire them all, and then it actually happened. Maybe years later they will see the humor in that.

Work-free weekend

Finally a weekend without work.

I received an e-mail from Mom on Friday saying Dad was in town for a fraternity reunion, and would drop by on Saturday. Unfortunately several factors worked against us, and we never met up. It sounds like he was one door off. Oh well, next time we'll make it work.

Kristen and I spent a good part of the day in town. A big CU game was going on, making town a little crazier than usual. We stopped by my office, an electronics store, and ended up on Pearl Street for lunch. Kristen had a hair appointment that afternoon, I lazed around the mall and people watched while she got her hair cut. The football game made for some interesting touristy types.

Sunday involved a good 5 mile run around the reservoir. Colder weather is moving in, which made the run a bit windier than usual. We thought we started late enough to avoid the Boulder Marathon race, but we passed a few stragglers on the course. We guessed that they'd been on the course for 7+ hours, and looked like they were in some pain.

I worked on some of the tree house solar stuff, starting the "control panel" for the battery and charging system. I put as many switches on there as I could think up excuses for. What started as a fun project to use up a lot of spare robot-related parts in the garage has kind of spiraled out of control. I still need to box everything in, wire it up, and mount the charge controller internally. I'm having fun puttering around in the garage during the process.


Kristen started a new knitting project. She'd recently finished up her baby shower gift for Becky. Zack seemed to really like it, and thought that perhaps it was a blanket for him.


Less than a month to go before we're at the tree house installing the stove pipe/chimney for the Jotul. We're both looking forward to the trip, and are counting the days.

More slow posting

Not only did I let 3 weeks slip by without posting, I suspect there will be more of the same in the immediate future. We continue to near our deadline at work, working on the weekends is starting to feel pretty normal.

3 week ends ago I headed to Casper to meet up with the guys for our annual camping trip. Nate and I showed up a day later then Vince, Brent and Tony due to Nate just having his baby. By the time we showed up on Friday night everyone was already asleep. We managed to rouse Tony and Brent, we didn't see Vince until the next morning.

We stayed a little more reserved than usual, but still managed to have a lot of fun. It was our 8th or 9th consecutive year camping out together and telling the exact same stories. We did manage to locate a cave Nate had read about on the internet, so that was something new and exciting. It only went back 50 feet or so, but was still pretty cool.

Meanwhile Kristen headed to Nederland to experience Ned-Fest with her sister Allison and cousin Cassie. Unfortunately the weather was a bit cool, which curbed the attendance. It was also a little more granola-y than expected, they expected Phish to show up at any moment and start performing.

The next weekend was Labor Day weekend. We headed over to a barbecue at a friends house, and participated in a horseshoe tournament. Luckily I had three days of practice under my belt, which helped net us second place. I headed into work Sunday and Monday, Kristen got in an 11 mile run.

This weekend involved half a day of work on Saturday, which was followed up by going out for a few beers afterward. I'm seeing so much of my co-workers that it's amazing we're still getting along well. We'll see how the next month works out!

Sunday we got up early and headed to Nederland in order to run in the Neder-Nederland series of races. Kristen and Sharon ran in the 5k race, Morrissey and I ran in the 13k race. I hadn't looked at the map, and didn't realize what I was getting myself into by choosing the longer run. Instead of just tacking on a little addition at the end of the 10k course, we veered off of the normal route almost immediately and headed up the steep road to Eldora ski area. We climbed 1,000 feet in about 3.5 miles, and it was hell. I ended doing a fair amount of walking on the way up, but did really enjoy the downhill on the way back.

Afterward we limped over to Kristen's mothers place to meet up with her uncle Steve who was in town. Her aunt Penny is recovering from chemo, so there have been a lot of family visitors, with more to come. We ate some good barbecue chicken and beens, listened to uncle Steve's stories, then headed home.