Bikes, Boards, Blowouts and Shootouts

Yes, it has been a long time. Yes, there have been holidays, and visitors and all kinds of things going on. Now that I think about it, this thing should really only get updated when there isn’t anything going on. So if it were to be updated a lot it would be even more boring than in it’s current state. Think about that for a while….

I was on a holiday Shutdown from the 19th of Dec. till the 5th of Jan.. So that was a nice little vacation for me. I took the time to get out on some mid-week days on the slopes and get back into snowboarding. Monday I hit up Loveland Ski resort by myself to try and remember how to snowboard. That went pretty well, had a good time. Got up the next day and went to A-Basin with some friends. This was my first trip to A-Basin and I really liked it. There was a bunch of fresh deep powder to ride in. Below is the first real tree run I've done, look at all that snow.

It was the first time I’ve gotten to snowboard in snow that was knee deep! My fellow Fire Fighter, Brian Hastey went up with me, as did a few of his co-workers. All of them are in the medical industry, technicians to doctors; they are afforded a flexible schedule allowing them to get up the hill on the weekdays. Then it was time to make sure the house was in order for our guest. Here is me one of the last times up the lift, notice the helmet I also wear wrist guards to stay safe. Being able to wipe my own butt is still a high priority for me.

Emily’s Mom, Deb, came into town on Christmas day. Well, she was scheduled for Christmas Day but ended up getting here Christmas Night. We did the Christmas thing and had a good time. Emily and I would like to thank everyone for all the generous donations. We understand that things are tight and we appreciate all that everyone did! While Deb was in town we had a very nice dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill and took the factory tour at Celestial Seasonings. The tour was actually pretty interesting, more so than I expected. Don’t worry; I’d be willing to take it again. We also managed to take in hockey game. Not just any hockey game, my beloved Red Wings of Detroit were playing the dastardly Colorado Avalanche (Or “The Lanch” as I like to call them).

It’s one of the few times a year I get to see them play, TV included, so it’s a good time for me. I think Emily enjoys it as well. We also got to expose Deb to the NHL.

It was a good game! The “Lanch” came out firing and took an early lead. The maturity of the Wings showed through as they held their game and managed to send the game into overtime. After no scoring in overtime it went to a shoot out. Unfourtunately the “Lanch” are a much better shoot out team than the Wings. The good guys lost, what could you do.

Steve, Brooke, and now Tobin Galaty's dog Sonja got to stay with us for a while as Tobin made his debut in this world. Well live debut, he'd been seen on camera a few times prior. Brooke ended up needing a C-section so we got to hang out with Sonja for several days. As you can see her and Brewski got along just fine, even in the car. She's super easy to take care of and is a sweet dog. Brooke, Steve and Tobin are doing great and everyone is just as happy as a pig in slop!

Emily and I got a hike in and I exposed Emily to the Blue Dot trails up in Nederaland. There is a pretty good network of fun rolling hill trials that start by Nederalnd High School. We hiked around there for a little while and had a pretty good time.

There were a couple of nice warm days over the break and I managed to get out on my bike. The first ride was a short one but nice. The second ride was riddled with Karma. I called late the night before to bail on a buddy to go snowboarding to enjoy the 60+ degree day they were forecasting. About 2 miles from the house I dropped the chain and wrapped it around the crank arm, scratching it all up, as I was trying to cross a busy road and make a left turn. So I was stuck under an overpass on the left shoulder in a left turn lane trying to fix my bike. Got rolling again and noticed that the chain wouldn’t stay on so well, mostly because the chain ring it sits on was bent. I got to fight with that for the rest of the ride! Then about 4 miles from home I had a huge cut in my tire. The tube was flat before I could get the bike stopped. The cut was about an inch long. I called in the Sag wagon and made Emily come and get me.

I also got another first this weekend. I went backcountry snowboarding at Berthoud Pass. There were 7 of us in the group and we had two Avalanche beacons and some probes. The South side of Berthoud pass is supposed to be less avalanche-prone than other sections. We hiked about 500 vertical feet up from the parking lot and cut across and down to the road we drove up on. Then we sent the guy with the pickup to hitch back to the parking lot and come back for us in the truck. If you follow this link it will take you to the Motion Based GPS info from the trip. Below is a graph of the trip for elevation vs. time. So the flat parts are where we aren’t moving. Steep drops in elevation are snowboarding, steep gains in elevation are riding in the truck back to the top, and the shallower increases are the hiking sections. There should be 3 of each.

That is about it for now. Emily is getting back in the pool and has been hitting the gym pretty hard. Her shoulder is doing great and she is getting close to being better. Talk to ya soon!