The stretch of vitality

It’s been a good start to 2010 thus far. I’ve started personal training with Chris Wall at the Boulder Rock Club and so far so good. He’s got lots of fun and challenging exercises. I’ve also been to two of his level two group fitness classes entitled “Cry in the dojo”. He has 12 students, 12 exercise mats, 12 heart rate monitors. Everyone wears a heart rate monitor around their chest and they all transmit back to his computer which projects onto a big screen. Everyone has a big square that changes color based on how close to your max heart rate you are. He tries to get you to spend a lot of time in the red. The class has a reputation for a reason. It’s tough, but I’ve survived without puking twice so far. After the first time I needed about forty minutes to recover, but hopefully that will improve. I have already noticed the increased core and lower body strength in my last ski outing. I’ve also still been climbing a lot and setting new personal bests. I climbed another 5.11 at BRC on top rope and led my first 5.10, which was fun.

We had our second YouFilmFest party with the theme of TED talks. They are really amazing. We used youtube commercials as interludes between the talks. I still need to figure out the theme for next time.

I skied Copper with Big Wave Lew three weeks ago on a Friday. It was a gorgeous sunny and calm day and the snow was great. We got really lucky and had a great day. I’m working Sunday to Thursday now so I can ski on Fridays and avoid the weekend traffic and crowds. Two weeks later Les joined us and we had another good day. I was glad to have Les driving so I could rest up to go out that night to celebrate Michale’s birthday. We had Thai food in Denver (OK, well she did because I wasn’t feeling well as has been the case a lot recently), then went to see the play “Good Girls Don’t, But I Do” at the Packing House Center for the Arts. It’s really in an old packing house and deep into an industrial zone that made me question whether I had the right address. Michale says that makes it “fringy” though. The road narrowed as we approach the address and a group of scary looking biker dudes were there screening cars as they slowly passed through the narrow gap they had left. Apparently across the street is a biker club and these guys were making sure everyone was either A) a member of their motorcycle club or B) going to see the feminist comedy play across the street. It was funny, and the director of the theater mentioned that security was top notch. The play itself was well done, clever, and funny. There was a good mix of narrative, song, and dance. It was also refreshingly short which delighted Michale and I since we are hopeless 30-somethings who struggle valiently but unsuccessfully to make it to 11pm on a Friday.

Michale and I had a bunch of other fun dates as well, and now we’re in the final preparations for our trip to Belize in less than two weeks! We did a bowling birthday party as well as a trip to Denver’s weird Disneyworld type Mexican restaurant Casa Bonita. I’m taking a scuba refresher course Saturday. The winter does feel a bit long this year, so I’m looking forward to the hot weather and wearing sandals.

I haven’t blogged in a month because I’ve been going at pretty much full speed. I’ve been working very long and exhausting hours trying to get my biggest project to date ready for release and otherwise just hopping from one thing to another without very much time to unwind. But it’s fun to do that and a nice vacation is nearby.

And now for one of my rare touchy-feely paragraphs where I depart from the safety and comfort of mundane chronological narrative! So back in September I blogged some goals. Without much difficulty, I’ve achieved them all except for the “more music” one. I seem to still be in a “waiting for the muse” phase with regard to music, although I was still able to bust out the bari to seranade Michale for her birthday last week with an impromptu Happy Birthday meets bluesy funk noodling piece. So music is still simmering on the back burner. However, the rest are all in full effect. I’ve asked for a mentor at work and have had a few meetings with him and we’re starting to get beyond the initial information dump and into concrete action items, and it’s feeling good. Overall, I’m feeling a really nice balance of identifying goals, putting in some competent effort toward them, and seeing positive results pretty quickly. I think yoga has already made a noticeable improvement in the curvature of my spine and posture. I say “already” even though I’ve been doing it on and off for years, but I thought my posture was beyond repair when I started. However, the thing that was really great and palpable over the weekend was the feeling of having recently arrived at a new level and feeling immediately ready to go for another higher level without spending much time at the current one. I think my overall confidence at life in general is at its highest. I think I’ve also come full circle with my essence. By this I mean I’m deeply a left brained, type A, engineer. I’ve been this way from at least grammar school. For a while in my post-college years, I put a lot of effort into balancing this out and trying to grow in other directions. I feel now like I have an awareness of the places where I’m toward the edges of the bell curve. I feel a certain comfort level with enough non-type-A things, and now I’m ready to accept my talents and who I am more fully. I haven’t quite gotten clarity on what the means in concrete terms yet, but there are some inklings there.

OK, I think it’s time for a random stream of consciousness blog post! The bulk of December has passed and things have been humming along nicely. Work is very busy as I am at the helm of a big project and we’re running behind schedule, so I’ve been working long hours to try to keep things moving forward. But the project is “my baby” per say so I’m motivated to do it and get it out there, so I’m enjoying it. I went up and skied Breckenridge two weeks ago just to try out the resort early season. This is the first time I’ve had a full season pass, so I figured I might as well get out there. It was pretty good, but things will be better later in the season. Plus Lewis will be around this year and Elise has Friday’s off so I’m hoping to ask if I can work Sun-Thu during ski season so I can ski Fridays. We’ll see.

Climbing is going pretty well again. I’ve been to three different gyms this month with four different climbing partners and have been getting back up to my personal best. I attempted another 5.11a but was defeated. Hopefully I’ll conquer it next month. Speaking of which, I’m planning on doing some personal training next month, so hopefully I’ll make some fast progress with that extra help. Yoga has also been going pretty well and I’ve been practicing fairly steadily this month (except for a few days when I got sick), so that’s been nice. It’s time to learn a new set of asanas though.

I had a bunch of fun dates with Michale this month including a big breakfast I cooked here for her and the Pizzis, dinner at Bill’s, a birthday party at a friend’s house, a CHAOS pot luck, Avatar, and a few others. So that’s been fantastic. My dental woes are complete now I think and I’ll hopefully enjoy a full year before having to go back again. I’m still feeling some anesthetic wear off from today’s filling triple header.

All the stuff I shipped out here did make it out although it was an adventure getting it at the post office. I had to make three trips and wheel out a giant cart to my car to get it all. Much of it was pretty banged up but it all made it out here. I set Maggie to work on the big project of assembling somewhere on the order of 700 CDs where the discs, linear notes, and jewel cases were all separate. She and her husband worked on it for about fifteen hours. She’s researching some shelving options and I am very much looking forward to having full access to all my CDs once again.

Almost all of the Christmas shopping is done now and I fly out to NJ Wednesday for a brief visit, then back here on Saturday and on the slopes Sunday.

October 2009 was undoubtedly the best month of my life so far. Back in this September blog post I listed a bunch of goals to take my life up a notch. A month later, I’m making big strides on at least three or four of them. Some of them won’t kick into high gear until January, but it looks like it will be all systems go, so that’s really great.

Work has been going pretty well. We’re finishing up a release and also knee deep in code for the next major release. My team had a strong demo for our second phase (“sprint”) and although we’re behind on our estimates, we’ve delivered enough working code to keep most folks optimistic I think. Also on the work front I attended about half of the developer day they had in town, which was pretty amusing and informative. The really interesting part was it was held at the offices of a tech startup incubater company call Tech Stars. I didn’t know there was enough activity locally to have such a thing, but I guess there is, so that’s encouraging. Also on the same day I ran about 13 blocks in the snow to attend part of a Python Unconference at the Google Boulder office. They have a rock climbing wall in the freaking lobby for Christ’s sake. There was a cool vibe in there and it was clear that lots of the folks in the room were smart and technically sharp. I also got to meet and hang out with Bruce Eckel, who has some widely used books on computer programming out there and (including my first ever computer programming text book Thinking In Java) and a very popular blog that I enjoy. Plus, he’s a burner.

In terms of fitness, I hit two personal bests. I wanted to also add a third personal best run, but it didn’t fit into the month, partially due to 24″ of snow. But I swam 65 laps in a 25 meter pool and climbed a 5.11a route, so things are going well there. I deepend my yoga practice, as they would say, up to four or five sessions a week. That has been working really well. I enjoy my little yoga room I have set up and the consistency has made noticeable improvements to a few poses and my balance in general. I also got in one or two good mountain bike rides as the warm weather and evening sun were fading into winter, which I enjoyed a lot. I biked with a big group up around Dowdy Draw and Spring Brook loop, which was September 30 so technically not this month, but close enough.

On the music front, as previously blogged, I heard the Kronos Quartet perform early in the month. Also this month on the music scene was a very good Galactic show at the Fox Theater. I didn’t know this ahead of time, but Stanton Moore is their drummer. He’s a great funk drummer and I have some of his stuff as a leader and sideman, so it was a bonus treat to unexpectedly hear him live. He did a big solo where he took his snare drum off the stand and went up to the front of the stage, which, although gimmicky, was still pretty funky. It was fun to have Erin there too contributing her sarcastic remarks occasionally.

The main area of awesomeness this month was the social scene. I went with Erin to a family party since she’s got three family members that are all pregnant now. I did a CHAOS full moon hike with Mags, which was really pleasant (another one coming up tomorrow night). I met a really sweet and fun new friend named Michale and hung out with her quite a lot. We had tea and watched lots of Six Feet Under and had some yummy meals. I hosted a CHAOS pot luck that was pretty well attended and seemed to do a good job of introducing seven or eight new folks to the group. I also hosted the first YouFilmFest party where I asked some friends to choose a few favorite youtube videos and then we hung out and watched them all including introductory comments. It went over very well I think and I think most folks will come back for the second one, which I’ll probably plan for sometime in January.

Michale and I went to Elise and Josh’s for a fall festival party where we played Apples To Apples (well, everyone else played while I protested and grumbled about what a terrible pathetic game that is) and Cranium (yay). Josh melted some caramel and we dipped apple slices in it. Yum. Also had a few good family visits. Cousin Dr. Annie and her boyfriend Ryan flew in from Chicago and we had dinner with them, which was nice. Uncle Eddie came out for a visit which included a stop for dinner at my house and lunch at Lucile’s this afternoon. I’m writing this post from Eben G. Fine Park in gorgeous sunny 60 degree weather while Eddie reads his New York Times.

Halloween was a big deal this year. Jennifer and I researched some awesome costumes and had a fun evening a week or so ago driving around to costume stores, hobby stores, and Home Depot to get everything we needed. She ordered a few new items and I had some essentials shipped out from NJ. We dressed as the music group The Dresden Dolls in their costumes from the video Coin Operated Boy.

The costumes, when all put together worked great. Next time we’ll opt for a higher end white face paint since the cheap stuff doesn’t look properly opaque and smooth. We went to a party in Denver where we were mistaken for Charlie Chaplin, Marcel Marceau or generic mimes. Although I think two people knew of the band when we told them. We gave out little candies with the description so people could google it later if they liked. More Halloween photos are here.

I also had some fun home improvements this month. I hung a Metolius Slim Gym rock climbing exercise board over the door frame in my office. I’ve been enjoying working on pull-ups while gripping the slopers instead of a nice bar. I hoping to get some other cool equipment hung in my basement similar to what they have at The Spot. I hung the great big saxophone painting that my parents bought for me and kept in their house until I got my own place. You can see it behind the Halloweeen photos.

So yeah. It’s pretty cool to be sure you’ve just lived your best month yet. There was one minor bummer. I chipped a tooth (ironically while flossing) last Thursday and had to spend two and a half hours in the dentist chair getting a crown early Saturday morning, but overall it wasn’t too bad. Oh, and my lawn sprinkler exploded two hours before the guy showed up to winterize it, but that was just a minor busted part. I’m looking forward to a trip to Cupertino for work and a long trip back to NJ over Thanksgiving next month. Plus a live Imogen Heap show!