Its been about 2 weeks since my last post, and I feel I owe everyone some sort of update. Truth is, these last 2 weeks haven't been all that eventful, in terms of things to report. I suppose the most news worthy thing is that I have been "ticketed" for my Trip to Antarctica in March. I'll leave CONUS (Continental US, wouldn't be a gov't related job without acronyms!) March 19th and will arrive back April 20th. It's an understatement to say that I'm looking forward to the trip. I'll be flying to Santiago, Chili, and then onto Punta Arenas, Chili. From there I'll board the SSV Lawrence M. Gould and take the 4 day trip to Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula. I'll then spend 4 days there and then take a 4 day trip back to Chili. Once back in Chili, I get to wait about 6 days for the SSV Nathaniel B Palmer to arrive at port. Once it does, I'll conduct some business in it, while its in port. Once it leaves, I fly home. Thats about the extent of knowledge about my trip at this point. Hopefully I'll have lots of cool pics to share.

Went skiing last weekend too. I'm getting better, though I'm still highly humbled by what I can't do. I went down some black diamond terrain, correction, across some black diamond terrain. So I must be feeling a little more confident than I have in the past. Bumps / moguls don't seem to knock me around as much as they used to, but I still don't find them fun. Loveland has lift that takes you to the top of the Continental Divide as well, I believe at about 12,ooo feet. I have finally built up the nerve to go ride that lift as well. What a view! Sorry, no pics though. On the way home from skiing, I decided to take route 6 home out of the mountains. For the most part the road runs next too Clear Creek and Indian Creek through the mountains. I had spotted what looked like a trail that walked along the opposite side of the creek as well. The led to my hiking activities with the family yesterday.

I finally have in my possession a tripod as well. Its the Velbon Ultra Luxi. Overall I'm satisfied with the purchase. It's quite compact, but has decent extension and doesn't way a lot. Not having used the finer brands that utilize the carbon fiber, I can't say I know what I'm missing. I'm sure for the better :) Our hike ended short do to not finding the exact trail I was looking for and my son's desire to go home. The pics I did take were nothing to write home about. If you are interested, though, they are here.

I'm also excited to finally bet getting a new pair of hiking boots. I spent the afternoon dragging the family around to stores looking for the "perfect shoe." I believe I found them (The Kayland Vertigo High, for those of you not wanting to check out the link). Initial reaction on this shoe was a roomy toe box and a nice snug heel cup. Of course, this was the first shoe I tried on at the recommendation of the folks over at Bent Gate Mountaineering. I can honestly say its the best feeling hiking boot I've ever put on. Not wanting to jump the gun, I left and checked out some more shoes at REI as well. I have to say the difference in level of service I received at bent gate compared to REI is another thing that makes we want to go back and get the shoes I found there as well. I noticed there aren't many reviews of the boots (except by backpacking magazine) online, so maybe I'll post one in the future as I wear these things in. I intend on taking them south with me as well. Hopefully they'll provide a good platform for me to start attacking the 14ers this year.

Another weekend, another open space park

One thing I'm liking about Jefferson County, Coloardo, is they certianly seem to have no shortage of open space parks and trails to hike around. Today's adventure took us to White Ranch Open Space Park. We stayed on the rawhide trail for a 4.25 mile hike, according to the GPS.

At the beginning of the trail, on the west enterance, there is a bunch of old farm equipment on display, with descriptive signs. I actually managed to get, what is in my opinion, a pretty decent photo. Could be worthy of getting a print of it.

From White Ranch Park

It was Geoffrey's longest hike he's done to date. Beating his previous record by 6/10ths of a mile. The last half was really a struggle for him though. He spent a lot of time playing in the snow, mud and melted snow, so his feet were soaked. This lead to an unhappy miserable little boy with blistered feet. There's simply no way to reason with a 4 year old in that state. We eventually made it back though.

I'm looking forward to summer hiking, more things become accessible as many roads will no longer be closed, and the terrain won't provide so much of a challenge for 22 inch (approximate) legs.

Get Smart and Help the Hungry

I've run across a website yesterday, that I am enjoying quite a bit. Some might say I have even grown slightly addicted to it. This website helps you out with your vocabulary skills. It presents you with a word, and then gives you 4 other words that are synonyms for it. Your goal is to choose the correct one. For every 3 that you get right, you move up a level, and it starts presenting you with harder words, and some of them are certainly obscure. For every one you get wrong, it drops you down a level. Here's the best part though, for every word you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice through the UN to help stop world Hunger. I'm sure they don't actually count the grains. Its probably more like 100 grains = 1 gram or something like that, and they go by weight.

You can also set an option to let it save your statistics (through a cookie) so you can track how you are doing. I'm not sure why its so fun... I hated English class in school. Its interesting to see how high up in the levels you can get when you sit down with someone else and play together too. I encourage all of you to go over to freerice.com and start playing.

The last mile

Yesterday, My family and I went for a hike. Jess wanted to go somewhere where there were trees, and I wanted to find some place fun and new to hike... Through various searches, I stumbled across the Beaver Brook Trail. I had a hard time finding actual directions on how to get to a trail head for this thing. The description gave several generalizations as to popular access points, but that's about it. "It's near the Lookout Mountain Nature Center" was about the most useful information I found. I found directions to the nature center, and we drove there. Found a trail head, though not for the Beaver Brook Trail. Fortunately, there was a map of the area at that trail head that gave us a good sense of where we where, and where we needed to be. After driving around for a while, and asking a group of cyclists where Windy Saddle was (the supposed trail head to the trail that led to the trail ;). Anywho, all the driving around led us to a curvy windy road that goes up (and down) the side of Lookout mountain. I thought to myself, "I gotta ride my bike up this thing sometime, it looks like fun!"

So we commenced on our hike, and had a lot of fun. About 3 miles total in distance was hiked. I was surprised, some of the descriptions of this trail that I found said it was really poplular, so I figured it shouldn't be too challening... I guess in the summer time it might not be. Much of the trail this time of year still had plenty of snow on it, and the foot traffic had trampled the snow into some icy patches here and there. To top that off, the exposure of the trail was quite intimidating at times. One slip on the wrong spot and you're going for a ride! I don't suspect that the landing at the bottom is too soft either. Anyway, below are a few of my favorite photos. You can view the whole album here. I think my photo taking is getting a little better, but it still has a long way to go. I also bought a nice circular polarizing filter a while ago, and I keep forgetting to use the darn thing!




I thought this rock looked pretty cool. Kinda looks like there's a skull from some animal on top.





I was trying to be creative here... Not sure I succeed all that well. It looked better in real life I think. This might be another case where messing around with HDR imaging would come in handy. I really need a tripod before I can really make my attempts worth while though.

So anyway, on with the title of this post... The weather today was/is absolutely wonderful, crystal clear skies and 60+ degrees. I thought to myself, "self, why don't you go bike up that road you found yesterday." So that's what I did, and it felt great. I mapped out a route to get over to hill, made a course using the course creator developed by Brad Culberson, and uploaded it to my Garmin 305 GPS / bike computer. Sadly, I couldn't get my heart rate strap, or cadence sensor working. I think the batteries finally bit the dust in them. Oh well. That wasn't going to stop me from enjoying my ride.

I managed to navigate my way through Golden, avoiding most of the really busy roads, though, I also managed to go down a road that was gated at one end. Always fun to hop a fence in roadie shoes as cars and other bikers whiz by. Oh well. After a ten mile warm-up I made it to the base of the hill. I decided I was just going to go up at a pace I could handle, and knew I could sustain for a long time. Since the ride was new to me, I wasn't sure what kind of exertion I could put into it.

There were a ton of cars at the base, all with bike racks. We had seen a lot of riders yesterday while driving, and I think there were even more today. I managed to catch a couple people and pass them on my way up, but some managed to catch and pass me too. Unfortunately, I think more people passed me, than I passed. It was really tough to not hop on the wheel of others as they passed. Was probably a good thing though, I'm convinced that a bunch of people where at least semi-pro, or at least on some organized team of some sort. A couple groups had coaches talking to them out a car, etc. They probably woulda pushed harder just to drop me. I made it to the top, and took a 10 minute breather up at Buffalo Bill's grave.

At my rest, I had the chance to eat a Chocolate flavored PowerGel energy snack. All I have to say, is that if you really, really (and I mean really) like chocolate frosting, you just might be able to handle this stuff. The consistancy is that of a smooth creamy frosting, and the taste is quite chocolaty. It was just too much for me. I felt like all the sweet taste buds on my mouth where hyper stimulated. It took me most of the 10 minute break to choke the stuff down. All I had for a chaser was some Lemon / Lime Gatorade Endurance mix... Yack! The the Gatorade itself I thought was pretty good. Good flavor, not too sweet, and tart enough to keep the thirst working. The pouch I had made a quart, which I found kind of annoying, since my water bottles where 24 oz (as are most bike bottles).

At any rate, I made the wonderful decent back down the mountain feeling great about the climb. Good thing I brought arm warmers with me. I would have gotten cold without them. I haven't ridden since last November, not even on my trainer (I know, I've been bad), and here I was able to climb this thing. I thought I was crazy at the start of my ride, but I did it! Then it hit me... almost home.... Please, please remind me again why I decided to live in house at the top of no small hill, especially after what I had just been through. It was torture! I kept thinking to myself "how am I supposed to have a propper cool down when I have to go up this thing at the end of every ride? arrg" I sucked it up and finished, but not strong. Oh well.

Motionbased Stats are here.

It was a neat ride. Will certainly do it again. Great views, and I got to see some other people enjoying their hobbies. On some of the sharp turns on the climb up (switchbacks), I saw a group of people playing with remote control gliders, riding the wind currents coming up the mountain. I also had a paraglider person swoop over my head as well. That was cool.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography

So my friend Doug and I where chatting the other day, and he mentioned that he was wanting to try out some HDR photography... Typical of myself, being clueless to most things related to photography, (at least I still feel that way) I asked Doug what the heck he was talking about. He explained it well for me, and gave me a good idea of what it is, and how cool it can be. I've run across an example or two (okay, lots) as well as a good explination and tutorial. So I've given it a try. I can't say I felt all that inspired by anything around me today, so the shots aren't all that interesting. I did one indoors, and one outdoors. I suspect the outdoor shot would have been more interesting had it been closer to dusk. And all in all, it gives me further urgency to get a tripod (which has now moved to the top of my photo gear want list).



As you can see from the images, I used a application called Photomatix to do the processing. It seems to work pretty well, and gives you the ability to tweak things quite a bit before the final process is complete. It guides you through the workflow well, IMHO. Small fee required to get rid of the watermarks of course. For playing around and seeing what this stuff is all about though, I'll live through the watermarks. If you are curious what the images looked like before hand, I've sampled some of the image collection it takes to make these, and put them together below. The left being the most under exposed, middle being the average, and actually what my camera's "P mode" decided to use, and the right being the most over exposed. Essentially, I focused the camera and let the P mode decide stuff. Then I translated those settings to manual mode and took 4-5 pictures on each side, either increasing or decreasing shutter speed. (Click on the pictures to get more detail)


I haven't quite figured out what the green aberration is on the lower right portion of the couch is yet. I suspect it might be a reflection on the lens, or possibly the UV filter that's on the front. can't say I'm too pleased about it. Its the first I've ever seen of it though... odd, I got out the lens cleaner and polished stuff up. I have to try and recreate a few shots to see if I can get it to come back. Sigh.

It'll be interesting to see how useful this process because for antarctic photography. I suspect it might yield some nice stuff. I might be taking advantage of the free trial of photoshop CS3 for that though. I found tutorials of doing HDR processing in CS2, so I imagine CS3 has to do it too. Yet another thing to save my pennies for.

GeoTagging

So I've been playing with my Camera a little, trying to get used to it, before I deploy to the ice. I've come across what seems to be a relatively new thing to do with all the pictures you take. It's called geoTagging. There are lots of other discussions out there on what to use, how to do it, etc. Just google it up. I found one GPS tracker that actually will sit in the hot shoe of your camera and record your coordinates when you take each photograph, I thought that was neat, but it was yet another device to buy. I already have a few GPS units. One is old and antiquated, and the other is my Garmin edge 305... soon to be antiquated, I fear, with Garmin's release of the new spiffy edge 705. Darn technology, always getting better, LOL.

Anyhow, from what I've read the work flow for geoTagging seems to go like this... Take a hike, turn on a GPS device to track and record your positions. Take some photos. When you get home, download the photos, collect the data from the GPS device. Then use the software package of your choice to sync up the photos with your GPS data. What it does is look at the time stamp on the photo, and then finds the position where you where at, at that time. Then it adds the latitude and longitude to the EXIF data on the photo. There you have it... geoTagged photos. I have been using an app called PhotoMapper by COPIKS. It can only import jpeg images (I'd love something to tag RAW images), but it can use various formats of GPS data, including .gpx, .hst, and .tcx, as well as a few others. The .tcx is useful to me since I can export that right out of Garmin's Training center, the software that comes with the edge. Just a word of caution though, I've found out so far, if you save a RAW file from Picasa2 to jpeg, and then try to open the jpg up in PhotoMapper, it crashes... not sure why, so for now, I've been using the Canon Utilities to convert from RAW to jpeg. Anyone want to buy me photoshop CS3? :) pretty please?

As far as the results? Well, you can view them in google earth, and other various photo collection sites out on the web. I'm curious to see how well all this web app stuff handles data sourced from the antarctic. We'll find out soon enough I guess. I've uploaded some of the tagged pics to my picasa account if you want to see how it works. I think my favorite pic is of a wind blown tree:
I'm still not all that happy with most of my pictures mostly due to shadows and stuff. I think that its mostly because of the time of day and year though. The sun is low in the sky, and its mid-late afternoon, so the shadows are getting long. Oh well. Only way to get better at composition is to take more photos....

New Camera

So the new camera has finally arrived. I bought a used Canon Digital Rebel XTi off ebay. It came with a battery grip, extra battery, and 2 lenses, 18-55mm and a 100-300mm. Its gonna be a while before I get good at using it I think. Here's the first few shots so far.

I think Everest was getting annoyed at me shoving the camera in his face. I'm really sure he didn't enjoy having the flash go off in his face the night before either.... The next few pictures where taken from Green Mountain Park. The first is of the city of Denver, zoomed in. I was using a 100-300mm zoom lens here, it was probably around 175mm here. I was impressed how close the city seemed zoomed in to 300mm. I don't have a tripod yet, so I can't take any night photos. They'll come soon, I promise.

The next picture was just me trying to mess around with depth of field and stuff. Personally, I think the background is a little too out of focus. The subject here is a seed pod on yucca plant.

And the sign below I just think is amusing, given that it's less than 1/10 of a mile from our house. Its a fairly new addition to the park (the sign). I'd love to get a shot of one of those cats... From a distance of course. Not sure if you can make out the sign, but it basically goes on to say if you get attacked, fight back and don't give up.... walk loudly and carry a big stick.

As always, I'd love to hear your comments and criticism on the photos, or anything else you might have to say.

Post Holiday Update

Well, the holiday's are over, and its been quite a while since I've posted anything, so I figured I aught to at least put something in this here blog for y'all to read. I can't say I have much of interest to post though.

Let's see... The weekend before Christmas I went skiing up at Loveland again, and had a blast. I'm getting comfortable with pretty much any groomed terrain. No fancy tricks or anything, but I can handle things as fast or as slow as I want. Its a different story when you put bump/moguls in my way though. Gotta get better at them though, if I'm ever to join ski patrol, or S&R teams. Below is a picture of the parking lot, looking towards the main "consumer" area.

I wanted to take more pictures from the mountain that day, but it was a whopping 5 degrees Fahrenheit out there with an incredibly cold wind chill. You knew if you had skin showing (and I'm going to Antarctica? I must be nuts). Needless to say, the internal pockets in my coat where not in a good place for a camera, so it just sat in the locker all day.


Christmas Day came along and Geoffrey was very excited to see some presents under the tree. He also got his first sled too. We didn't have much opportunity for sleeding back in PA. We live a couple 100 feet down the street from a park with a nice hill on it here though. I'm not sure he knew what to make of the big blue plastic thing at first.



Geoffrey also got several different versions of building blocks. From the cardboard ones above, to Wooden blocks, to legos. I think he enjoys them all equally. Well, mostly he enjoys destroying anything the he builds up. I have fun playing the the cardboard ones. Its fun to apply simple engineering concepts to see what kind of structures you can build up.

A few of my Co-Workers have headed down to McMurdo Station, and then will be onto the South Pole towards the end of the month. One of them has a blog going... You can read more here about his travels here. I'll hopefully be doing this tour next season. The trip I have scheduled for March is the one he did last season.

My new (to me, thank-you ebay) Camera should be arriving this week (I hope) too. So maybe I'll be able to get some improved upon pictures soon. Though, for a while, they may be worse, LOL, as I have to figure out how all this SLR stuff works. I knew I should have taken that photography class in High School. Oh well. There's a Community College close by, so maybe someday I could take something there. There's plenty of info out on the web though, so hopefully that won't be necessary.

Well, I guess there's not much else to say, other than Happy New Year everyone. Say Hi or something once and a while! Cheers!

Geek Nerve

So at some point in the last year, I had taken a brave hop into the world of RC Helicopters. I got a "cheap" (its all relative) little electric RC helicopter (eFlite HoneyBee CPpro). Not having much space at home to play with it, I brought it into work (at my old job). Portions of our building where unfinished and had high ceiling (over 15 feet) in areas, so it was good for flying there. Several co-workers had taken interest in my flight attempts, so they'd often come and watch. One in particular was quite amusing in the beginning. He had this crazy giggle caused by every Geek Nerve in his psyche getting hit at once. I just found something that practically does the same thing to me. Its just cool. Some of you may have saw it, as it was a link of Digg. But this thing is great. Kudo's to the Geek Group for inventing and sharing this stuff.



And if you are curious as to how they do it, here's a great explanation.



I want to play!

Heavy Air?

So I figured that I would take some pictures from the open space park that is very close to where I live. The clouds where cooperating, as they often do around here. Interestingly enough though, the air wasn't.


If you look close at the picture above (you might have to click on it to see it in detail), the city of Denver is actually in that picture. That big gray line going across the screen isn't the horizon you are seeing, well I guess it is. I'm pretty sure the lack of clarity is caused by smog. On warmer days it looks better. I've noticed this view on other cold days like today too. Its like the mountains trap that stuff down there, and it has no where to go. Makes me glad I live about 1000' higher, thats fur sure. Though I may be in it too, just don't notice whats in my immediate area. Doing almost a 180 degree turn from where I'm standing yields the following image:


We can see here, another "foggy air mass" coming around the mountain I'm standing on and getting trapped by the mountain range to the west. This cloud seems much cleaner to me though, and I imagine its just moisture in the air from all the sublimating and melting snow ;) That's what I'll tell myself anyway.

So if you are wondering where exactly I live... here's a picture of my house...


Trust me it's in there. If you look bottom center of the image, you'll see a small street sign for a right hand curve... the house that my family and I occupy, is just after the sign.
And because I was bored and trying to make an attempt at being creative again, below is a picture of a snowy plant that I thought seemed kinda cool waving in the breeze. Sorry about the amateur hour photo composition... aka stupid shadow.

Pictures and Stuff

Hi folks, its been a productive week for us. Lots of boxes are being emptied (and then placed in the basement). Work is going well, and I'm really starting to feel welcome where I am at. My first week, and into the 2nd there were some events that really had me a bit concerned, but things are looking up. If you want to know details, catch me on IM sometime, and I'll share. Its not solid yet, but it sure looks like I'll be visiting Punta Arenas, Chili, taking a tour on both the Gould, and Palmer, with a brief layover at Palmer station, Antarctica next March. I'm looking forward to it. I really hope I can get a new camera before I leave though. What I'm getting from my 7 year old 1 MP point and shoot just isn't meeting my standards anymore.

I Finally got around to unboxing my road bike today too. Decided the weather was warm enough (50 degrees F) for a spin, so I took it out to see how lost I could get. Well, not really. I was looking for a way onto the famed Green belt around here. I think it may get me reasonably close to some other trails that will get me to work, should I decide to bike commute the 20 miles to my job when the weather warms a little. First and foremost, I have to give Kudos to the folks over at world cup ski and cycle. They did an absolutely awesome job packing my bike up. I was impressed. It took me longer to remove all the protective wrappings they put on the bike than it did to re-assemble the darn thing. Aside from needing a bath (next rainy day activity), the bike is running just like it did before it was packed up.

As far as the ride goes, what stats I did get from it, definitely shows a slower pace here. I wasn't pushing myself too hard though, but I'd say I can certainly notice the altitude here. Flats not so much, its when I get to climbing... Oh well. I always enjoyed climbing, and I can't say I feel like I'm geared too high, even with being out of shape and 5500 feet higher than elevation. I'm looking forward to finding some nice long rides. There certainly are plenty of opportunities around here. Tons of bike clubs, etc. I'm not sure I'll race again or not. Depends on the group of people I hook up with. So Motion Based stats of my first Colorado bike ride are here.

Okay, so now on with the pictures I've been talking about. Disclaimer. I'm blaming the poor quality on the cheap old camera, and also the idiot behind the camera not knowing how to compose shots very well thus, shadows in annoying places, and inconveniently positioned lens flairs. Anyhow, these are some pictures from one of the hikes we took through Rockey Mountain National Park I mentioned 2 posts ago.


This (above) is a picture looking downhill on the edge of a small ravine. Apparently the trail we are walking up has changed its look in the last 15 or less years. I don't quite remember the signs we read. But a lake higher in elevation apparently flooded out several years ago and carved this new ravine. Off in the distance of that picture you can see all the dirt and debris that formed a little delta of sorts. It was called the "Alluvial fan." Better pictures (or course) and more of the story here.


Another angle on the ravine probably from a different location.


This picture should've been better. I swear those shadows weren't there when I took the picture ;) Again, this is the fall river... I liked the snow capped mountain in the distance. This shot has potential (I think anyway).


Sorry about the poor contrast here, the shot seems a bit washed out, and there is a lens flare artifact in it too. I suspect its so washed out because of the sun that is just off the image... You can see the alluvial fan in the valley too.


Here's Geoffrey, being his 4 year old self, climbing on rocks, being hyperactive and worrying the heck (at times) out of his daddy. :) Stop running with that stick son!


Here's my wonderful wife, putting up with me, dragging them all out to Colorado and into crazy high altitude parks.

Suburban Wildlife?

So we've been here for about a week now, and I have to say I'm kind of impressed with the wildlife I've seen or heard around here. Our first day here, we had a fox run around in our backyard. We also found what looks to be fox scat in the yard too. Talking to our neighbors we found out that this house been vacant for about 2 years, so I suspect the fox might have been hanging out here. The fox had made visual contact with Jess that day, so it knows we're here. We haven't seen it since.

2 nights ago while going to sleep, we had some kind of bird hanging out near our house somewhere, making very loud calling noises. Perhaps an owl of some sort. We could't find it visually, so we were unable to make an ID on it.

Last night we had a pack of coyotes howl up a storm for a few minutes. It was almost intimidating. I can't say I've heard them before while sleeping in my own bed. I've heard them a few times before while backpacking in the high peaks region of the Adirondacks in New York state, but thats it. I suspect the pack lives over in the Green Mountain open space park, which we are less than 1/10 of a mile from. My wife likes to read through criags list on occasion, and in the pet section she's found warnings of coyotes attacking cats that people let go outdoors in this area. Needless to say, my cat's won't be going outdoors, not that they ever have.

On the not so suburban side of things, we've also seen Elk while visiting Rocky Mountain national park, and Estes Park, CO. Locally, we seen Mule Deer, and prairie dogs. On my way to skiing, I've seen bighorn sheep along side the road too. They are a little to close to the road for my comfort if you ask me. While skiing I saw some sort of weasel as well. It was white with a little black tip on its tail. Given the description, I suspect it was a long-tailed weasel. I was in the ski lift, probably about 40 feet off the ground, and I didn't have my glasses on. I suspect I would have been barely able to see the short-tailed weasel.

I've seen various new types of birds out here as well. I think my favorite being the Stellers Jay. Others include Magpies, and other small birds my wife is better at ID'ing and remembering than myself. Perhaps someday I'll be able to capture some photos and share. I'm slated to get deployed to Antarctica next March, so I'm saving my pennies for a decent digital SLR camera and lenses. Until then, I'll be using my really old (1 megapixel) Point and Shoot. I haven't unpacked anything to read the memory card yet, so the pictures I do have will be delayed until I can find it in the myriad of boxes around the house.

There's no place like home

So the new job is going well. I'm getting up to speed with things, albeit slowly, and have been able to make contributions back to the team and be slightly productive, so thats good. On the flip side of things, We've found a house to rent for at least year. It will probably end up being more like 2 years though, as we try and save for a down payment for some other place, etc. It kind of annoys me to be renting again, but given what we've learned, financially, in the last few years, its the best choice. The house is nice, and IMHO in a great location for our interests and needs. The work commute will be a little longer than I would have hoped, but thats okay. It's nice to have a place to call home. As of today though, we are still in a hotel since none of our property has arrived. In fact, I don't even know when its going to arrive, exactly. The moving company hasn't given us a hard date yet. Before Thanksgiving would be wonderful though. Restaurant food is getting old. As much as I love eating out and trying new things, its very difficult to take a 4 year old out every night who only ever wants macaroni and cheese, or hot dogs.

On another note, we visited Rocky Mountain National Park and the Garden of the Gods last weekend. Once again, I was reminded of why I love it out here so much. The Creation is so beautiful. Made me wish I had a decent camera though. I can't deside whether to get a really nice point and shoot, like the Canon Powershot G9, and be done with it, or get a decent, but not overkill for a photo newb like me, Digital SLR . If I did that, I'd still want a lower end point and shoot for times when its not so convenient to pull out the SLR. If you have any recommendations, I'm open to them.

The Adventure has begun.

Well, its the end of the first week since I've left the state of PA. I can't say it not been what I've expected. In fact, its been very much what I've expected so far. Not sure if thats totally good or not. I guess it's not bad though. We took 3 days to drive from PA to CO. The first day was okay. I put the wrong address in my GPS so I managed to get us into the wrong side of town in Columbus, OH. Fortunately, the hotel we were staying at was a "Point of Interest" in the GPS in my car, so we were able to quickly figure out where we needed to be.

From Columbus, we went on to Kansas City, KS. For some reason, I remember the Mississippi River being bigger. Maybe I crossed it at a more southern point last time. Who know. Also an uneventful drive. Up to this point its been pretty rolling terrain. I can't say that the Prius does all too well MPG wise cruising down the highway around 75 mph to stay with traffic, especially with a headwind. I averaged in the low 40's. Also not surprising.

From Kansas City, we pushed onto Denver the next day. I was surprised how long it took for Kansas to turn into the flat open fields that I remember from Sunrayce97. The moment I saw Pikes Peak appear out of the haze that was in the atmosphere that evening was I sight I was very glad to see.

The next day (Saturday) we visited several houses to rent. We think we've found something and have applied for it. Hopefully everything will work out. Its a little further from my job than I would really like, but my wife likes it, and thats more important than a few extra minutes of commute each day. I'll post pictures if/when we move in. Great views, mature landscaping, near mtn. biking trail, etc.

For those of you wondering about the new job. Well, the first day was full of orientation, and lots of introductions, and just getting to know how things work, filling out paper work for access, etc. Today I think I spent more of my day in meetings than anything else. I figured that would happen moving into a larger sized company like this, so again... nothing unexpected. I don't have enough exposure to everything yet to formulate any opinions on things, but all of my direct colleagues are smart and hard working.

I think thats all for now. Just wanted to give everyone an update.

Goodbye Cruel East coast

Well, I suppose its not all that bad. I'm gonna miss where I live now. It has a certain appeal that will always make it nice to come back to. I think if I ever do come back, it most definitely will not be the same. There's to much urban sprawl going on around here.

So for any of you folks who might actually read this to find out what I've been up to, I've accepted a new job Headquartered in Denver, CO, where I'll be working a majority of the time. I'll get the chance to travel to other various countries and continents for 4-6 weeks a year as well.

In retrospect, its been a good summer here. I've raced my bike in several races, was ranked 2nd in PA for Cat 5 Crits for a while, and overall had a ton of fun doing it. My work schedule caused my fitness to slack towards the end of the summer, and I didn't do so hot in the last races. I think my first race I did this summer, I was in peak condition, and it only got worse. Oh well.

I'd also say its been a good last 7 years, since I've graduated college. I found a good job that taught me a lot, and had some really awesome people to work with. I most certainly wouldn't be where I am today professionally, if it weren't for the people I've worked with and learned from. I just feel its time to move on to something different. The fact that I get to that in Denver is certainly a bonus. I told myself I'd at least retire in the front range some somewhere.

Probably the hardest thing about leaving though is giving up my Fire Dept. activity. I'm going to miss that. Long term, I hope to move to an area that at least has a combination Volly/Career dept. I'd also like to join the ski patrol at some point, but I've gotta get a lot better at skiing to pass their tests.

Oh well. I'll try and update this thing more, with my moving experience, and such as things get on. Here's to jumping into a new adventure! Cheers.

official results

I believe I said I would post the official results from my race last sunday, so here they are.

I also uploaded the data from my bike computer too. You can see that here.

Well Satisfied

Well, its one month and one race later. I raced yesterday, Sunday in the 2007 Cargas Criterium. I'd link to the site, detailing the race but there really isn't much to be seen there. It was held in Lancster, PA at the Greenfield Corporate Center. I was in the Cat 4/5 Race. I was initially VERY nervous about this race, being that it was my first major race of the year, really. I was also racing with Cat 4 folks, whom I was pretty sure would be able to put me into a world of hurt early on in the race. We had 5 folks from my team racing in this race, 2 of which had raced in earlier races. My goal was to just stick with 2 of my teammates who have done extensive racing this year already. I figured they certainly knew what they were doing, and by their results, they certainly did. Two of our guys got pulled out early in the race due to being near the rear. There was a decent climb (for a 1 mile Crit course) that I think hurt them pretty good. So it was just my 2 teammates and I. The other 2 guys also happen to be the ones that raced earlier in the day. The race was good, and I hung in there with them. Only scary thing was the wreck that happened next to me. When the went down, they kinda slid in front of me, and I ended up running over some guys bike. I was glad I stayed up. The only frustrating part was the constant breaking before 2 of the turns. The course was really only 2 90 degree turns and on sweeping downhill to round it out. So anyway, last lap comes around and I manage to roll in 12th out of 45+ riders. I'm very happy with that. My teammates placed 6 and 7. Money spots! Brilliant riding by both. I have the utmost respect for them. When results are posted online, I'll post a link.

Bring out your dead!

Sorry about such a long time since the last post. I have no excuses, and I won't try to make any up. I just haven't had the desire to post anything.

So to go along with some previous posts. I had my first bike race of the year this past Sunday, May 20th. It was the South Mountain Mass Start Hill Climb, which was near Shippensburg, PA. You can see my results here. Not a great time. I was hoping to be sub 30 minutes. Oh well. They run this race once a month, so I have a goal to work towards I guess. I was 4th in my Category, out of 12 people, so I'm happy with that. I thought I would be a lot worse. I can say I didn't have anything left at the top of the mountain though, and gave it 100% of what I had, so I can't be upset about that. Not sure what I'll be racing next, but I look forward to it. My work schedule has been chewing into a lot of personal time that I would normally have to ride, which doesn't make me very happy, but I race to have fun, not to make a career out of it, so I can't complain. I just doubt I'll be able to get all the races I need this year to be eligible for reimbursement from the team.

I'm in the Netherlands

Well, if any of you are wondering, yes, I've made it to the Netherlands safely, and have adjusted to the time zone change quicker than I have anticipated. The first day was hard, but I think forcing myself to stay awake in anticipation of a good nights sleep helped the most. I hope to post some pictures eventually of where I'm at (Amsterdam), but the weather has not made it very easy to go out and take pictures. Its rained here every day since I've gotten here, and hasn't made it much above 70 degrees. I'm glad I brought some long sleeve shirts, but I fear I did not bring enough.

Everything is about as I expected here, except that it seems a little more "run down" than I thought it would be. Perhaps because all the pictures I've seen are taken of the best parts, on bright sunny days in perfect settings. All in all though, thinking about the age of places such as this, I am reasonably impressed with it all still. Language barrier doesn't seem to be that much of a problem. Most everyone here knows at least some English, and a majority seem pretty fluent. That along with what some knowledge of the German language has helped a lot. A lot of the words sound the similar to the German equivalent. A quick read on how to pronounce the Dutch spellings has helped me out there. Hopefully the sun will come out soon, and I can get some pictures for you to see.

a few pictures of my race.

Well, MR was nice enough to share some of the pictures he took of me racing.... Enjoy.

Nice game face huh? Don't worry, he's all bark, no bite :)

And they're off.... In my usual style, I'm out in front in the beginning. Perhaps its a good thing. Avoid confusion, etc...


And here I am in the lead group, in the beginning, holding my own, for now at least...

And here I am finally, off the back, maybe I shouldn't have start out so fast, hehe.... ouch.