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!

Weekend Before X-mas

Hey Folks,

Quick update here. I'm hoping that by making quick updates I won't have to spend a bunch of time that I'll put off.

So this weekend Emily and I had a pretty good time. Friday was the last day of work before a 2 week shutdown for me so my co-workers and I stopped at a cigar lounge and enjoyed some scotch, cigar, and good company. It was a nice way to wind down after a pretty busy work week. Emily and I went to dinner, it was too cold out to wait for the horse and carriage ride, so just dinner. The fire department got toned to a working mutual aid fire over in Lafayette. So I threw some cash on the table and ran out of dinner. We were done eating and Emily said it was OK. Turned out Lafayette had it handled, or so they thought, since it rekindled the next morning.

Saturday Emily and I got a bunch of stuff around the house taken care of then went to the Colorado Mammoth indoor Lacrosse game. There were about 20 of us in our group and we were having a pretty good time. Then one of our friends found out that some of her friends had room for about 20 people in their suite. Sweet! The seats were better and they had a better beer selection. The Mammoth lost in over time 12-11. We had a good time anyway.

Sunday I went snow shoeing with some buddies. We are looking for a place to build an igloo! If we build it, it'll get some air time here for sure. We hiked about 4.25 miles, about 1 of it was off trail bushwhacking in the Brainard Lake area. Emily got in a good work out at the gym and did some more chores around the house. There would probably be too much junk on the floor to open all the doors if she didn't live here. She really does a lot of the clean up work and I appreciate it. I was running late so I rushed to get ready and we went the Colorado Rage hockey game. Emily's company has a suite there., so we got free food and to watch the game. It was prety fun.

I'm off for snowboarding Monday and Tuesday, while Emily and a bunch of other suckers are at work! Hope everyone is doing well. Thanks for reading.

Snow Chains

I told you two posts ago to prepare for the barrage. I finally have some time and am getting these all banged out.

I made some home made snow chains for my bicycle. Version 2.0 is on the front wheel of my hard-tail mountain bike. Version 1.o did not clear the brake arms and had to be taken apart. It was pretty simple. I just stretched some little pieces of chain across the tire and held them in place with some plastic coated wire rope. Here are some pictures:


In this first picture you see the upgrade from 1.0 to 2.0. This is where the 1.0 version failed and hit the bike. That's bad. Anything that hits the frame as the wheel goes around is bad. It would be pretty safe in the snow, cause I'd be walking! In the foreground there you can see the chain wrapping around the edge of the tire.


This is how I connected the two ends of the loop of cable. Just used a crimping tool and locked them together. I think Version 2.1 will go on the back and the loops will be a tad smaller. I put the zip ties on to control the loose ends of the cable. There are some sharp edges there. Sharp and tubes don't go together well. 2.1 will probably get a heat shrink wrap over this whole joint as well.


Lastly here is the final product. I would like to see straighter lines from one piece of chain to the next. This will be accomplished by shortening the loops.

I only did the front wheel cause I ran out of chain, DOH! I figured no chain on the back would only slow me down. A wreck when the back wheel slides out at low speed isn't too bad. A higher speed wrek when the front wheel flies out from underneath you is worse. Thus front wheel first. Also getting the tension on the chains is more important on the back wheel delivering power over the front and these were a tiny bit loose. I tried them out in the snow and I couldn't get the front wheel to slide under heavy braking. I hope it gets me to work tomorrow!

The Christmas Spirit

I'm usually pretty laid back. There are some things that get me fired up. There are somethings that I have strong clear cut opinions about. Timing on holidays is one of those things. You can't start celebrating Valentines Day (my opinions of which I will keep to myself) before New Years. Also you can't start Christmas stuff till AFTER Thanksgiving day. Turkey day being over the Christmas spirit is growing here. We got some decorations up, and the lights on the outside of the house. We even listened to Christmas music while cleaning up today! We put some lighted garland around the fire place. Take a look!

We put up the tree. If you have copy of last years tree you'll notice an incredible similarity. Par for the course if you keep your tree in a cardboard box in the crawl space. It's up, lit and raring to go!
Emily organized a cookie exchange for today. Several ladies braved the bitter cold (teens) and snow to gather and trade cookies. I think I heard a rumor about some wine as well. Emily made Candy Cane Cookies. I DID help. See all those little balls of dough. It was my job to make them all and make them equal. Then Emily rolled them out and twists them together.


Then, into the oven. It was my job to pull them out of the oven and put them on the cooling rack. Sounds easy, and it is, but it's stressfull. Emily is very attached to every cookie and gets a little teary eyed if one is broken before it cools and is eaten. It is the most fragile point for the cookies short life. Here is the final product (before the oven).

Like I said. We are getting into to Christmas spirit here! With Christmas always comes the question about lists. Emily and I have decided that we would prefer you give to a charity in our, or your, name instead of presents for us. Here are some charities that we like:

Max Fund - No kill animal shelter in Denver
Leukemia and Lymphoma - something that has effected some folks close to us
The American Red Cross - It's like a savings plan if you loose your house

You can use the links above to learn more about these organizations and to donate.

The Gathering Place - A homeless women and children shelter. A co-worker of mine is collecting children's books and puzzles to donate. You can send the books to me by the 19th of December or to her by the 27th. Here is the flier with more info.


That's Cooper, her Son, in the picture! About as cute as a button! These are, of course, suggestions and you can donate where ever you would like. This way you save on shipping. Emily and I also understand that it is fun to give an actual gift. We both have "wish lists" on Amazon.com you can check out.

Jon
Emily

Hope this finds all of you well. Again, sorry for the long drought on the blog!

Thanks Giving

OK, yes, I know it's late but I've already told you that we are not good at this and it will be an irregular thing at best, prepare for a barrage. So here is the skinny on Turkey Day.

Mom and Dad, (Barb and Chuck) came out from Indy to visit. One of my old bosses only said one intelligent thing in my entire career working for him (2 years), "Deadlines force action." He was right. It seems like a bunch of ideas and half finished projects get taken on, and finished up, right before my parents get here. Guess you never grow out of trying to impress your parents, or it takes more than 30 years. I finally finished up the Dart area. I used an old piece of plywood in the garage and cut it into a half circle, about 2' in diameter. Then covered that and the backing board holding up the dart board with dark green duck cloth. I put the half circle on the floor below the dart board. They turned out pretty nice and the dinning room has a nice Irish Pub kind of feel, with out all the dirt and fighting. We also got a little wine bar to keep the bottles and glasses in. It's looking very nice and adult down there. Which is good, cause we spend all the time in the living room, instead.

We took Mom and Dad out to Red Rocks Amphitheater. It's a pretty neat site for an amphitheater. You are at the foot of the foot hills and look over the stage at Denver. I've heard it's especially cool when there is lightening out over Denver or East. This was also the site of the Red Bull Soap Box Derby, so we got to walk, up, the course. We got in some good climbing at altitude while we were there. It's probably 150 vertical feet from the gift shop to the parking lot!

For Turkey Day Dad and I smoked a 14lb turkey! It only took a few hours and turned out great! We had to finish it off in the electric roaster. It was pretty tasty. Also tried some garlic mashed potatoes. You bake them first then put like 1/2 the skins in and mash em all up. Turned out great as well. We also had some green been casserole as well as a pumpkin pie. More food than we needed, but it's Thanksgiving, not "international diet day!"

Over all it was a good time. Always good to see the family, and the family is always welcome!

Hello? Is anybody out there!?

Ok, it's Emily, and I've not been a good blogger. Jon has been doing a much better job at this than I have! Of course, I haven't had much excitement to blog about lately. Though the shoulder is getting better! I've been able to start running again, which is nice, and going well. Physical therapy continues, I'm still working on regaining the whole range of motion, but for the most part I can do all regular things.
It's been an amazing fall here, very warm, but dry. Today it will be around 60 again, and will stay this way until Thanksgiving Day. Jon is out for a bike ride and I just got home from a run. Yesterday we enjoyed a beautiful hike in Conifer with James and Hillary.
I've been busy with baby showers, Jon can tell you how fun one was! It was a couples shower, so he was lucky enough to attend. :) I'm excited for my friends Michelle and Brooke, they are both due Dec 18th!
Work has been very busy for me lately. I've been working overtime the last couple of weeks. I can't complain though, it helps with the job security!
Well, I need to go get ready for our Thanksgiving guests! And we should probably get a turkey.....

Oh.... in case you missed it... PURDUE 62 indiana 10. HAHAHAHAHHAHA

The Results are in!

Well, we had a ton of fun at the Red Bull Soap Box Derby! We didn't win but we did finish 13th out of 43, with the 15th place time. More updates and some video to come.