The stretch of vitality

Did a really fun ride up community ditch->doudy draw->spring brook loop (twice) with a big group of eight riders. Another fun, short, nearby ride. Hurray! We finished just before dark and spent the evening at Southern Sun. This is basically the quintessentially Boulder after work schedule. We were going to do Marshall Mesa but it was blowing strong winds so we opted for something somewhat sheltered.

Making progress on the current project at work, but probably not enough to make the next major release, at least not without some heroics on my part, but I think I still have what it takes to open up the code fire hose full blast. We’ll see. We haven’t yet got the big pieces done to the point where the rest of the system falls into place quickly. I’m looking forward to some good music and fun this weekend as well.

It’s nice being back home. I climbed in the gym Sunday and Wednesday. That is the end of my BRC punch pass so I won’t be going back much. It’s on to the shiny new Movement Climbing and Fitness. I’ve been doing yoga at home and enjoying that. Thursday I biked the great Betasso Loop trail and today I rode from my house around the Wurl wildlife preserve and around Davidson Mesa. I was just a few minutes late to see the sun dip behind the mountains from the mesa, but I’ll catch it sometime next week. Tomorrow is climbing outdoors in Clear Creek Canyon followed by a night on the town in Denver to see a Judy Tenuta comedy show. Sunday is my birthday and my Aunt is nice enough to cook me a yummy dairy-free breakfast and then take me hiking up in Indian Peaks. Hurray.

I have it! Imogen Heap’s new album is out and I own a physical copy. However, I’m exercising delayed gratification and won’t listen to it until I’m on a nice long stretch of highway on the drive out to Burning Man on Sunday. Speaking of which, I bought a funny BMX dirt bike for the burn that is probably going to be a lot of fun to ride around on and do wheelies. It has pegs!

In more serious cycling news, tonight I biked Betasso Pass with Erin. That thing is pretty much God’s gift to the intermediate mountain bike rider. Really fun. It’s a short loop, so we did it twice.

Wow. Super fun weekend. Friday Erin and I met up with Elise’s crew at Lazy Dog for the tail end of Happy Hour. Then we grabbed some quick but tasty Tibet dumplings and scooted into the theater just in time for Public Enemies. Sadly it was crowded so we ended up forced to take the only pair of seats left in the front row. I thought the movie was a bit blah and too long. Hard to comment otherwise since we were mostly craning our necks to look at pores – the cinematography featured a lot of extreme close-ups of faces.

Saturday morning I met up with two folks from CHAOS and we drove up to Estes Park and climbed the Jurassic Park area. It is really, really gorgeous up there right now. Beautiful black water of the mountain lake, lush green pines, alien rock formations. My partners were wondering if the drive was worthwhile for me since I had to be back in Boulder just after lunch to make it to the music festival, but I was really pleased just to spend a bit of time there. I did get three climbs in and we were in the shade for two of them, which was nice.

Then I drove back home for a quick shower and meal before driving out to the Mile High Music Festival. I wasn’t sure I was gung ho about an all day affair, but it actually turned out to be really great. The vibe in the crowd was a lot of fun. It was really hot, and the headliners were hard core bands Tool and Widespread Panic, so it was lots of heavily tattooed and pierced girls in bikini tops and cut off denim booty shorts. The festival had a waterworks thing that was spraying the crowd with water, which was nice. I stopped and kicked a hacky sack for a while with a group. We were joined by a girl in a white bikini top, tons of big tattoos on her back, booty shorts just barely staying up, and converse. Her friend was in a long black dress which she hoisted up a bit to expose her converse sneakers when it was her time to hack. Their guy companion could hack impressively without spilling his completely full beer.

I only caught the tail end of Galactic, which I wanted to hear and sounded good, but it was just so much driving and I wanted to eat a big lunch at home so I wouldn’t need to buy much expensive food at the festival, so I missed most of it. I did hear some of Greyboy All Stars, who had two great songs and the rest so-so, G Love and Special Sauce, and Incubus. However, the surprise hit was Indie Arie. I have her “video”/queen song that I really like and it’s her big hit, but the show was great. After a terrible and delayed sound check, they finally got rolling and she spoke for about five solid minutes (of a 45 minute set) because she was upset and needed to get through it in order to put on a good show. She grew up in Colorado and went to school in Denver, so it was a home town crowd, but apparently she doesn’t gig much in the area. Anyway, her family was there to see her but she said her brother had gone out to the parking lot to get his cell phone charger and been arrested for scalping tickets, so her mother was at the police booth trying to get him discharged so they could make the show. She was pretty upset. So she wanted to sing a brand new song she wrote yesterday called “Life Is Good”. The musical director and keyboardist knew it, but the rest of the band didn’t. So the two of them quickly taught the gist of the song to the band and backup singers and then they immediately performed it. Pretty gutsy for a huge festival show! Anyway, that song was good and the audience joined in and then she did her big hit song as she was now feeling better. The crowd really liked the show and the authenticity of her performance. It was a nice and unexpected treat.

Then I moseyed over to the big stage to claim some ground for the Tool show. I haven’t seen them live and I had heard they put on a great show, and they didn’t disappoint. Of course I was pretty darned far back, but at least I didn’t need earplugs, although it was still super loud. The visuals were great and of course the crowd was totally into it. By now it was dark and the heat had given way to a perfect temperature. They played basically a “greatest hits” type set list, which was cool. Maynard James Keenan also had a funny comment after the first song. “Tonight’s performance is brought to you by the cool, refreshing taste of …” then a long pause. Is he doing an endorsement? Man I thought Tool was way above that stuff. “… boobies. …. Say what you will. Everybody likes boobies”.

Today I went and again biked Sourdough Trail, but this time with just Erin. It was again very challenging but fun. We went just a bit farther than last time. The plan was to go until the point at which I had turned back last week, but focusing on the trail I rode right past it without noticing, and only on the way back was I like, oh, here’s last week’s turnaround spot. We probably did an extra mile or so. Then we grabbed some yummy Snarf’s sandwiches back in Boulder and sat on the grass behind Boulder High and enjoyed them after pedaling up those monster hills all morning.

This afternoon I finally got a much needed nap. I have acclimated to another Colorado lifestyle aspect: I now get up earlier on weekends (6:30) then I do during the week, and I generally play longer days than I work (I was out “playing” from 8am to 11pm on Saturday). Anyway, the new mountain bike and the bike rack are working out great. I’m also loving the Rogue car. I’ve made great use of the extra space for bikes, furniture, people, tubes for Boulder Creek, shopping until the cart is full at Target, etc. Overall I’m really pleased with it.

More photos are here.

Saturday I rode with some CHAOS folks on Sourdough Trail up between Nederland and Ward. It was a pretty challenging ride, but I stayed on the bike about 85% of the way I’d say. I even cruised over two log jumps, although I chickened out of a third that looked more like a log wall than a log jump. The new bike worked well. I am just learning to use pedal clips so I toppled over at zero MPH twice trying unsuccessfully to get my feet out in time to arrest the fall. The group was nice and all good riders so it was a good time. I have some tentative plans for a second attempt next weekend.

This morning I did another highly successful yard sale tour and got a bunch of great stuff. I loaded a computer desk, night table, small shelf unit, and watering can into my Rogue and put a big five foot tall wooden shelf on the roof rack. The Rogue is proving really handy for the outdoor sports toys and household chores. I’m really liking it.

I also met some of my neighbors. They all seem really nice and so far are all of similar age to me. My direct neighbor to the north is another single computer dude who bought his house just a few weeks after I bought mine.

I filled out the day with tweaking my lawn sprinkler, climbing at BRC, swimming (check out this Tim Ferriss blog post on total immersion swimming), and finally caving in and joining teh facebooks. So look out for friend requests coming your way. Oh and yesterday I bought a grill! I hold grills as a somewhat sacred object and so it is with much joy that I shopped, purchased, transported, and assembled mine. Sadly removing the liquid propane connection to install the natural gas line has proven impossible for me due to a bolt that refuses to loosen, so I have to admit defeat and get a handyman to do it on Tuesday. In any case, a celebratory grilling will be done Tuesday. I may bust out the chicken rotisserie next Thursday for a pot luck. We’ll see.

Tuesday morning I climbed my personal best: a 5.11-. w00t!

Thursday night I bought my fancy 3-figure mountain bike (as distinguished from my 2-figure mountain bike that was stolen last month). It’s still pretty much the cheapest thing stores in Boulder will sell, but at least it has hydraulic disc brakes and a shock lock-out. I also got real mountain biking shoes with clips and everything. Hopefully all this gear doesn’t backfire on me tomorrow when I ride with some CHAOS folks on a trail that will probably be way too hard for me.

So after I got the bike Thursday night and tested it out a bit I quickly grabbed a pre-show burrito at Illegal Pete’s. We saw some petty thief clutching what was presumably a purse being chased on foot by a policeman, who we cheered on even though it was clear with his bulky uniform and equipment belt he wasn’t going to be catching up with the nimble thief. However, he was barking coordinates into his radio so hopefully teamwork and technology prevailed. Then I went to Boulder Theater and heard the band Albino. It was a dual CD release party with The Motet. Albino is a great ten-piece afrobeat group from the bay area. This band played a very memorable concert at Burning Man last year on Wednesday in the saddle amphitheater that was right behind the Freedom Community camp. They will always have a special place in my heart for that. The Boulder crowd was of course way into it, so it was a good show. They played “Thriller” as an MJ tribute which was really fun. The horn section even did the zombie dance. At intermission the horn section joined up with the local Batteria Allegria and jammed while walking around amongst the crowd, which was a nice touch. Sadly I forgot my earplugs and even though I tried one gas station in the final minutes before curtain, I didn’t have enough time to buy some, so I had to leave shortly after The Motet’s set began because it was just too loud.

Today I began the process of meeting my new neighbors. I met three so far and hopefully tomorrow more of them will be home when I go ringing doorbells. It’s looking to be a good weekend overall.

Ah, much fun in Boulder was had today! But I see now that the blog has gone for a few weeks with no update, so here’s a quick summary.

I put an offer on a house that I very much liked, but the sale was contingent on the seller getting a new job and relocation package, which fell through the same day I made my offer, so they withdrew the house from the market. Bummer. So it’s back to square one essentially since there are no other offer-worthy homes on the market right now.

This has had significant impact on my other late October logistics. I canceled my trip home, partly because my moving logistics would be at that same time and partly to be around in case any last-chance-before-the-holiday-trough listings came up. So that meant I had to find other temporary housing. The good news there was that there were at least a few fairly good matches for temporary furnished rentals on the market. I almost rented one place a mile from the Boulder Rock Club, but eventually had second thoughts when their rental application asked for my bank account numbers and credit card numbers and they wanted to run a criminal background check. So I ended up renting a very comfy tri-level home in Gunbarrel, which is an area on the north east outskirts of Boulder. Overall, it’s a pretty convenient location. Man, what a difference 3500 ft of elevation makes! It has been in the low seventies here in the afternoons all week. Much nicer than the howling wind and cold up in Coal Creek Canyon.

The other nice thing about this place is I can stay as long as through the end of April if the house hunt is a complete disaster. So very hopefully this will be the last (#8 in a year!) temporary rental home before I move into my own place.

Sadly Halloween this year was a complete flop. I got a sore throat Wednesday night that was fairly annoying Thursday and by after lunch Thursday I stopped eating. So on Halloween I had a terrible sore throat, didn’t eat anything, and felt sick and tired. I tried to work a bit in the morning, but around 10:30 we lost power, and it ended up staying out for over three hours. On top of that, I ran the dishwasher for the first time in the new house that morning and for reasons yet to be determined it leaked into the basement. So I’m here on my cell phone calling plumbers, with a sore throat and no power on Halloween. Major bummer. I eventually called in sick/powerless to work and slept most of the day. My costume and make-up went unused. I bought two big bags of candy anticipating a horde of trick-or-treaters, and left it out in a bowl for them to avoid spreading my sore throat, but only a handful (if any, I’m not sure), came, so now I have to find some way to get rid of this candy or otherwise ration it out over like six months.

Yesterday was a day of intense car shopping. I test drove a Nissan Rogue, a Honda CR-V, and a Subaru Forester. It’s a very close decision. I think the expertise of the Pizzi boys will need to be called in. I’ve been flip-flopping between the Rogue and the CR-V as my top choice.

Today was awesome excercise day! I biked 5.5 miles to The Spot Bouldering gym. Did a pretty long bouldering workout, then biked back.

Soon, visitors! ikioi and aps101 will both be here to visit this month, even with about 4 days overlap! Fun will be had for sure.

Today I had a fantastic mountain bike excursion. I drove down Lone Tree Road as described in my guide book and hunted around for the right place to park, which I eventually found with some directions. I parked in a small lot next to the Flagstaff Urban Trails System trail. There was one other car in the lot. A young woman was sitting in her red truck with her bike on the rack. I was hoping she would get out and be able to help me find the trail I was looking for, but she just stayed in her truck. I figured she was meeting someone there or waiting for the weather to clear up as it was cloudy and threatening thunderstorms. I took off on my bike and eventually found my way onto one of the FUTS trails that I thought I could take around to the Fisher Point trailhead. As I cruised around it started to rain, as it does pretty much every afternoon here during the July/August monsoon season, so I took shelter under the I-40 overpass, queued up Mahler Symphony No. 2 and waited it out. It cleared up pretty quickly and I continued on in the trails that were now wet, muddy, slick, and dotted with puddles.

After not too long I was back at my car and realizing this trailhead was harder to find than I thought. The red truck was gone. I headed the other direction. I knew I had to cross through a golf course community to get to the trails, but exactly how and where I was to do that was not indicated in my guide book. As I rode up the road toward the entrace to the residential section, I spotted the same red truck parked across the street, bike still on the rack, driver still inside. So I figured I’d ask for directions. The driver said she and her girlfriend had just ridden that trail last week and that it was great riding and beautiful scenery. She gave me some directions and I asked if she wanted to come along for the ride as well, since she had been apparently somewhat hesitant about whether to ride or not. She agreed, threw together her gear, and off we went.

The weather cleared up on the way out. It was some fun riding. Muddy and puddlely at first but dryer as we gained elevation. We went past the beginning of Walnut Creek Canyon, which has some cool rock formations. The last two miles or so to the point is steep enough that you have to hike for the most part and ride when you can or you dare. It didn’t take Lisa long to notice my $70 Wal-Mart Mongoose bike. Of course I explained that it was just a beater that would take a lot of abuse at Burning Man, but when the chain on her fancy K2 bike started acting up and my Mongoose was working great I teased her about that.

We enjoyed the nice views and a rest at the top, and then did the fun downhill. There was some really fun terrain to coast down on. I almost crashed at one point but I managed to sort of let the bike fall out from under me and remain standing, so it doesn’t officially count. Pretty much as soon as we were back on level ground again, it began to rain and then thunder and lightning, so we waited it out under a tree, discussed lightning safety statistics, and then carried on in the now even muddier trail when the rain abated. There were some seriously slippery spots that caused me to fishtail all over the place, and by now we were both completely caked with mud, but it was a blast. The plan is hopefully week after next have Lisa show me some trails outside of Sedona.

I headed back to my car. I was so muddy that I had to strip down to my skivvies before getting into the car, and then when I got home had to spend some quality time hosing myself and my gear off. After a nice shower and a quick rest, I finished the evening with the amazing George St. Pierre defending his UFC title. Then I drove out to the Fort Valley trailhead, parked my car with Laura Viers playing, and laid on the windshield watching the stars for a while. I saw three shooting stars, including one that seemed really close and had lots of detail visible in the tail. A fantastic Saturday overall.

More photos here.

Pretty good Saturday today, given a late start. I left Quinn’s Restaurant in disgust at their “stop serving breakfast at 11am” policy, which is a heinous crime, and headed to the Downtown Diner, which has a proper policy regarding availability of pancakes. Then I headed across the street and did some hacky sack in heritage square. Shortly thereafter the local belly dance class Gypsy Chicks did a performance. There’s some less than impressive photos here. Then I ran a few errands around town. Late in the afternoon I went for my second ever mountain bike ride up Schultz Creek Trail, which is quite nice. I have a feeling I will really like mountain biking. It has many of the same appeals of skiing without the cold weather, bulky gear, expensive tickets, crowds, etc. However, on my way down I did experience my first mountain bike crash. In a way it was satisfying because unlike skiing where as a beginner you usually have a few silly topples before you are actually good enough to partake in a bona fide yard sale wipe out. However, this was a legitimate “la la la here I am coasting downhill on my bike” one second and “la la la I’m not on my bike anymore and the electronics in my backpack were probably just crushed” the next second type scenario.

OK, I have done my first official mountain bike ride ever. There are miles and miles of fantastic trails right near the house. It was a lot of fun even though I had no idea what I was doing. Allow me to introduce the Red Machine:

And yes, that’s the house I rented in the photo above.