7 minutes, 12 seconds

that is how much i missed averaging 8 hrs of spinning time per week this year.   Not bad, considering I set out with the intention of getting 7 hrs a week, and i still managed about 3.5 hrs a week of lifting/yoga/hiking/swimming.   When I saw I was getting close, i thought i might just be able to pull it off with a late-game surge, but Wolf Creek and Xmas were too much to overcome.   409.75 hrs.   And really, i mean…big fucking deal.

Well the big deal is…i’m goal oriented, and anal retentive.   As fate would have it, I did much of the work on this post while spinning on the trainer, and as hand editing the table code took a while, it became a rather lengthy workout. And i planned to ride Hawes during my WFH day on Tuesday, and National on Wed. Just about enought for 416.   However, that would actually be 366 days since it was a leap year, and my weeks began last year on 12-31 with a 2.5 hr roadie ride, making 367 days.   Hmmm…it was all making my head hurt , and did not actually affect the 5lbs I heaped onto my ass this xmas season.

207 days on the bike, with an average ride being about 2 hrs.   National, Hawes, my commute and my trainer made up over half my rides, and if you threw in Usery on the roadie and Rocky Point you had almost 70%.   I loosely call anything on Somo that includes National to be National – 24th, Geronimo, Mormon, CL etc so it wasn’t like i was getting bored.   Same goes for Hawes.   And that left 60 more rides to do a whole lot more of more of everything else.   I did more everything else than I did last year, probably 30 different rides.   I did not get me enough Flagstaff, and missed Goat Camp, but the substituions were good ones like Hangover and Area 52.   Roadieing was a little less than last year, but not by much.   What I lacked in hrs I made up for in Tortilla Flat rides.   But not a single roadie event all year.

The commute was the obvious big difference from ’07, and, I stopped logging bullshit rides with G or Kila.   The only times the parks, Red Mtn Ranch or a trip to Indigo Joe’s got recorded was when I actually sweated and got my heart rate up – rides like that were generally ignored, used to make me feel good about a 1:40 ride getting logged at 1.75 hrs, or maybe add 15 minutes if I cruised 5 miles in an hour.

National 29
trainer 27
Longbow 2
Phon D 3
Pass Mtn 6
Javalina\Classic 1
Usery 15
Hawes 27
Quad Bypass 1
Saguaro Lake\Usery 5
genevieve 5
Saguaro Lake 2
East Mesa Epic 1
6 Shooter Canyon 1
Double Bypass 1
Bulldog Canyon 2
Squealer 1
Tortilla Flats 4
Rocky Point 13
Desert Classic 2
Black Canyon 2
Slickrock 1
Red Rock Park 2
Mt. Elden 1
Dreamy Draw 2
Canals 1
Somo Roadie 2
7 Springs 1
Area 52 1
24OP 1
Ragnar 1
Milagrosa 1
Porcupine Rim 1
Mary’s Loops 1
The Ribbon\Holy Cross 2
Zippity Do Day\Chutes and Ladders 1
commute 32
Crazy 88 1
Granite Basin 1
Bill Williams 1
TOWM 1
Hangover 1
Crown King 1
Grand Total 207

Night Light

Its Begun!

G’s had night lights of sorts for like…awhile now.   Many of them.   One stuck out of the socket, one hung in a string around her bed, one was a funny little spaceman head from IKEA that probably cost more than my snowboard.   She coulda cared less.   And thusly, i thought we would skip being scared of the dark.   Silly me.   She’s always been a little hinky about venturing off into the park at night, but that’s understandable – its big, and dark, and she knows for a fact there are coyotes nearby.   But darkness was just not a big deal.

No more.

The human brain stumbling along its growth-path from mush to precision thinking machine gets stuck in a phase that resembles Mac&Cheese:   its almost food, and its genius, and you could sorta survive if that’s all you had, if you could just figure out how to boil water.   Here is where little girls are afraid of the dark.

Some nights she isn’t, but more and more nights she is.   She’s being quite reasonable about it, asking politely for us to leave on the light.   There is at least one handshake and a SYN\ACK before she will throw a tantrum if its not on.   In Rocky Point recently, finding ourselves in need of a night light and faced with a bathroom light that inextricably lit both the bath area and the commode…well only passing out drunk each night got me to sleep.   I am very light sensitive.

Perhaps that spaceman head that costs more than my snowboard will prove its worth.

Next up: monsters under the bed.   <groan>

Xmas Gifts

new bikes!

Good riding friends

Good riding friends leading me down The Spine.   For the first time ever, i was calm…sort-of calm.   A few minutes later I had another first and nailed the high line on Bermuda Triangle.   Not bad after eyeing it for almost 5 years, and giving myself a mild concussion trying it last year.

Good riding friends with photo skills. Thanks Alex!

Things I do not know what they do, but am assured will be cool

Little girls taking delightful naps in the afternoon.

kites and stiff winds

$60 fix to my water heater, in 2 hrs, in a foreign country.   And a $5 tip para mas rapido.   It was f’ing cold down there.  

haberdashery

Stuff from Gallup,NM,   the Indian jewelry capital of the world

cookies

Beckie has developed a talent for cookie-making, that I can only assume is latent in all females and blossoms when children reach cookie-recognition age, right about when the Titty Fairy turns on them. Beckie swears it is nurture, not nature, as she learned about cookies in home ec, while guys were busy learning to hire guys to fix their water heaters.

Unicorns, is there a better symbol for imagination?

hours of entertainment

Me: Thanks for the game
Deb: not sure if you still played games
Me: I do, I mean, I sorta do, but not for a while since i decided to have a career
Deb: I hope you enjoy it, its supposed to be really good.
Me: I may need to buy a faster computer
Deb: That will be fun
Me: Do you remember that episode of LOST when Charlie finds the planeload of heroin in the middle of the jungle?

quiet times

Not-So-Quiet-Times

Pump it Up!

They never had toys like this when we were kids.

Nashville has this place called Pump it Up.   I think there’s a similar place here in Mesa near our house, but we haven’t been there.

Anyway, the deal at this place is that you pay $7 to come and let your kid go crazy on all these inflatable bouncers and slides.   The place is located in this industrial park next to shipping places and other boring stuff…who knew what fun was going on in such an unassuming locale?

G and Mac arrive on yet another rainy day in Nashville, dressed (now I realize) inappropriately in some very cute dresses.   G never wears dresses but wanted to cause her cousin was wearing one.   Thank god she had on clean underwear.

So we arrive.   And we pay. And we go inside a boring-looking door to reveal…

TWO HUGE ROOMS FULL OF SLIDES AND MAZES AND BOUNCERS AND CLIMBING WALLS AND OTHER FUN STUFF!!!

We take off our shoes and we are off.   We run to the first slide.   Mac crawls in the tiny entrance.   She’s done this before.   G looks nervous but follows.   She wants mom to follow.   I explain I am too big.   She goes without me.   She tries to clear the first obstacle…a 3-4 foot high wall.   She can’t make it.   She cries.   From outside the slide, I grab her butt and shove her over the wall.   She laughs and heads for the next obstacle…a 10 foot high wall with handholds and foot holds.   Mac is already most of the way up.   G tries, falls, tries again.   I start to wonder if she will manage.   After more encouragement, she figures it out and makes it to the top.   The reward….a HUGE sliding board!   She slides down, laughing and smiling.   She yells “AGAIN!”   Repeat.

Eventually, I see that other parents are helping their kids with the climbing, so on one of the more difficult maze-like toys, I decide to join G.   This IS fun.   We crawl, we climb, we slide, we run, we hide.   This is a better workout than I get at the gym.   G is tuckered out after just over an hour.   A record for G-exhaustion.   I need a membership to this place.

Kids are so lucky!   This has got to be reason #1 to have kids….a chance to relive childhood without people thinking you are crazy, lazy, or a pervert.

Dec 16, 2008 Nashville

Whee!

Dec 16, 2008 Nashville

I knew I should have worn pants!

Dec 16, 2008 Nashville

Me too!

Dec 16, 2008 Nashville

Falling!   I’m OK!

Early Xmas

The weather gods were generous! Powder Powder Powder!!!!

We rolled in about midnight, with only a little slop on the roads near Heber and again out of Durango – not bad considering Wolf Creek got about 7 feet during the prior week. Stopping for dinner in Gallup delayed our arrival, but perusing jewelry from the vendors who came to our table was a nice touch; it was just like Rocky Point, except their wares were nicer. Upon arrival, i moved my bindings back an inch to give me better control in the powder, and double-checked the new cables i installed and the new boots. It was almost 1:30 by the time i crashed.

Up at 6:30, only to find that Wolf Creek Pass was closed due to weather. We finally got riding about 10:30.

It was grey, windy, cold and snowing – typical primo day at Wolf Creek.   For the first time, I had no nervousness whatsoever about riding.   It had been since last year at Wolf Creek that I’d ridden powder, but the 3 days on ice in Tahoe and my own progress from season to season left me feeling very matter-of-fact about the day, and knowing falls wouldn’t hurt certainly helped.   Up Treasure Lift, and first run of the season both Byron and I dove right through our favorite shot in the trees onto the big black face.   It took a run or two to get my weight right with the bindings moved back, and a nice rolling endo under the lift.   Trying to convey to Byron how fun this can be on a board is like talking a foreign language to a skier – you just ball up, figure out which way is up while you’re tumbling, and if you hit it right come out of your tumble pointing downhill with momentum.   Skiers …if only they knew!

Two or 3 runs, and we hiked out to Glory Hole to make our way over to the Alberta Lift.   The entire cornice came off behind me as I floated down through the cloud of powder.

The next two days built quickly off the initial runs, with our legs and rhythm getting stronger. There was so much powder, and for the first time ever I was good enough to handle it, that i had total confidence on all the terrain.   There was nothing that phased me all weekend, and up through our last run we were shredding within inches of trees, hitting gaps between them just wide enough for our shoulders, and plunging down just about any pitch with complete calm.   The only problems came when a back edge kicked up so much powder I couldn’t see for a second or two.   The rest of the weekend was a combination of steep pitches followed by flow through a never-ending powder stash in the blue glades that make up the whole Alberta lift’s area.   The cats at the bottom sucked til mid-way through our second day when the snow finally stopped and they got packed in enough to finish without paddling, but it was a small price to pay.   The walking actually felt good, cause the powder required so little effort my legs were incredibly fresh up til our final few runs.

The greyness on the mountain contrasted with the sun over Pagosa Springs; there is just something about Wolf Creek Pass that holds onto all those storms and their precious booty.

Byron and I explored practically all of the Alberta lift side this trip, figuring out all the ridgelines and entrances that have thwarted us in years past.   So many good powder stashes were hidden deep in the woods, and even the ones that were hit stayed good with enough fresh lines or soft churn late into Sunday.   It felt like we never ran out of fresh terrain.   The cruising was sublime, even when it seemed easy, i could do this all day, day after day, flowing through the soft cushion of white and playing in the woods.

Late on Friday we tried climbing to Alberta Peak, and we met with the harshest wind I’ve ever encountered.   It caught my board and threatened to blow me off the mountain.   A few hundred yards in, and I looked back but no longer saw Byron.   I figured he bailed on the hike in his ill-suited ski boots, so we spent the rest of the afternoon alone before meeting up at the truck when the lifts closed. We skipped the sausage-fest in the hotel hot tub, opting for yoga and a long hot shower. Dinner at Kip’s again, and we were asleep by about 8:30.

Day 2 was much the same, but better – better legs, better runs, a better trip through the Waterfall where we did not get caught on any exposed rockfaces like the day before. (I saved the best of that for Sunday, when the same wrong turn forced me to shimmy across a rockface on my belly, using my board as a giant crampon to keep me from falling into the rocks below   .   And then later got caught on top of a 10 foot cliff, requiring one drop to a powder ledge between two rock outcroppings, and another slide over the lip to a short blind drop into what I only hoped would be powder).   When Byron was ready to quit around 2, I attempted the Alberta Peak hike again.   The wind was just as bad, but this time I followed two skiers out through the fog and used my board as a sail to push me up the hill.   The descent through the untouched deep powder was worth it.   We hit the Hot Springs that night, running from pool to pool in the cold, and it left us both feeling refreshed

Sunday the weather cleared, so I took a lot more pics.

Hello Rescue Dog

Do you have any brandy for me?

With the wind calm and the sun shining, I decided to give Alberta Peak one more try.   It took about 25-30 minutes of hiking to get all the way to the top.   One stretch I lost the trail and had to claw and crawl my way over the windblow on the shoulder below the final ascent.   I did it 50 steps and 30 second-rests at a time, finally arriving right behind two skiers – naturally, we took photos for each other.

Alberta Peak from the lift

all the zoom my little Canon offers – pretend that’s me!

The Summit: a cliff on one side, a bowl full of powder on the other

The descent was great, interrupted only by my having to stop and let the spray clear so I wouldn’t bash into a tree on the steep slope. I dropped the bowl, the next drop, then into the Waterfall and back to the lift in just over 45 minutes.

That’s great holiday spirit people!

Safety meeting

What would skiing in Colorado be without the Texans and the Okies in their hunting outfits?

What a cute couple! Tailgating before we hit the road home, finally getting in at 1am

Another cute couple

First Haircut

So G has strong feelings about her hair.   Mostly those feelings go something like this:   DON’T TOUCH IT.   If you choose to touch her hair, god love you, you will be treated to an assortment of shrieks, screams, wails, kicks, and crys that could test any person’s dedication to good grooming.   Morning hair-brusing rituals generally look something like this:

Me (chasing G around the house while holding a brush):   Come here!   We’re late!

G:   No!

Me (catching G):   It’s the soft brush!   See? It doesnt hurt!

G (wailing, kicking, and squirming):   No! Don’t brush me!   it hurts!

G then squirms away and the chase resumes again until I decide we have both suffered enough and give up.

G has had one or two previous “haircuts” in her life, which have consisted of bang-trimming using a pair of clippers with the only goal of getting her hair out of her face and not stabbing her with a pair of scissors as she struggels.   Her protestations to even this modest attempt at a haircut have led to some very poor results.     ( See our CO pictures from August 2008, on her bangs trimming).

So upon hearing that Deb has successfully gotten Mac’s hair cut by a professional a couple of times and that could use a trim now, I jumped on the opportunity to let someone else take a crack at her.       I really wanted to see if the pros had any secret formula to getting her to behave.   Turns out they don’t.

We go to the salon, which is a kid-centric place with bright colors and cartoons playing in the waiting room.   Luckily, they were slow so we didnt have to wait.   G and I go to one chair, and Mac and Deb go to another.   We strap G in, and the fun begins.

The hairdresser begins to spray and comb and try and get 2 years of tangles and dreadlocks out of her hair.   As you might imagine, this does not go well.   There is crying.   There is screaming (“She’s hurting me!”).   There is much wriggling.   There is begging (“please mommy no!”)   It is sad…very sad.   The hairdresser handles it like a pro.   She turns on a video.   This slows G down a little.   She gives G a lollypop.   This works for awhile, but she has a lot of tangles to deal with.   The hairdresser pins down G’s legs with her own…. G is now immobilized.   We get a second lollypop out.   Finally, the actual cutting begins.

The hairdresser politely admonishes me about the dismal state of G’s hair.   She points out that it will grow faster if it’s in good condition.   It will tangle less if it is in good condition.   It will be curlier if it is in good condition.   II feel like a dirtbag for not getting it cut sooner.   Finally, she finishes.     G is exhausted from the struggle.   The hairdresser is victorious.     G and Mackenzie get a souvenier rubber duckie as their prizes for being good girls (G’s is much undeserved)

I notice the next day that G’s hair is, in fact, less tangled, curlier, and easier to brush since the haircut.   The hairdresser was right.

Umbrellas

Somewhere along the line Genevieve became obsessed with umbrellas. Not sure how, not sure why, but there it is. A child of the desert with an obsession with a device that she rarely, if ever, will have the opportunity to use.

When I was a child, my grandmother would give me either an umbrella, a pair of gloves, a scarf, or an earmuff every Christmas; sometimes all three. I think my grandmother single-handedly kept the Totes company in business. Because of this, we always had an endless supply of those collapsible umbrellas around the house. Since her demise, I have bought precisely three umbrellas, and two of those three were bought with the primary purpose of keeping off the sun, not the rain. So needless to say, umbrellas are a bit of a novelty to G.

Anyway, one of my three adult umbrella purchases was an ultra-light collapsible we bought for hiking—to ward off rain and sun when G was in the backpack. It worked admirably for this purpose for a year or so, until G became old enough to realize it could also be a fun toy. After this, the poor umbrella was doomed. We made umbrella-chair (tie umbrella to a desk chair and sit at the desk watching Dora or eating breakfast). We had an umbrella-tent (hide under umbrella while sitting on the couch). We did umbrella dancing (run around house holding umbrella while parents pray nothing breaks). We even had umbrella bath. And yes, I think we may have used it once in a drizzle. Maybe.

After a spirited game of umbrella tent, the inevitable happened…one of the ribs broke on the umbrella. G was devastated. She told her Mom-mom that she needed a new umbrella. She told her mom. She told her Dad. We promised maybe for Christmas. We talked about getting her a bonafide kiddie umbrella, but of course, these aren’t easy to find in Arizona. Mom-mom promised to send one from slightly-wetter Florida. Crisis averted.

Then we went to Nashville. And it rained.

And she saw Granny’s umbrella collection. And she was impressed. Big ones, small ones, automatic ones, manual ones, collapsible ones, multicolored ones, ones with hooked handles, ones with sharp pointy tips. You name it, Granny had it. What gives? Is this the legacy of having a mother who gave her grandchildren umbrellas each year for Christmas or a little known genetic trait (psycho-umbrello-compulsion), or just the normal consequence of living for 6 or 7 decades in places where wet stuff falls from the sky regularly? Who knows, and who cares. All that matters was that G was in heaven. Did it matter that it was 30 degrees out? No! what was important was that when we did go outside, we would have our UMBRELLAS!!! YAAAY! But wait, there’s more! We could also wear….wait for it….yes…that’s right…A RAINCOAT!!! And not some modern-REI-faggy goretex windbreaker thing you might also wear on the slopes. No, a real, old-fashioned, no-other-use-but-wearing-in-the-rain RAINCOAT! Yellow, and everything. Does it get any cooler? G says no. What a happy girl.

Nashville

So we went to see the grandparents.   We hadn’t been to Nashville in what seemed like a long time, and G needed to meet her cousin.   On previous trips, she was too young to relate to another child, and Mac, for her part, was going through a bit of a “me” phase as well, so interaction between the two was either nonexistent or unpleasant, or both.   Hopes were running high on this trip that both had matured enough that it might actually be fun, and maybe they might <gasp> play together.   Could it happen?   A milestone.   No one was sure.

We prepped our respective monsters. Deb told Mackenzie her cousin Genevieve was visiting.   I told G we were going on the plane to see Granny and Grandad and Aunt Deb and Uncle Andy and Mackenzie.   She seemed to get the Granny and Mackenzie part pretty well.   She knew from previous Granny visits that Granny lives in someplace called Nashville that requires a plane ride to get to.   So I think she got it that we were going there.   We arrived, after a blissfully empty plane trip on Southwest marred only by the fact that the DVD crapped out with about 45 minutes left in the flight.   She handled it pretty gracefully after the initial bout of depression.   We looked out the window and got excited about trees.   We read books.   We were impressed how fast we were going.   We let our neighbors know we were impressed by squealing loudly.   We ate cookies.   We took a potty break in the tiny bathroom that I didn’t think could fit a toddler and her preggo mom, but we managed.   We were impressed by the blue flushy stuff in the toilet.   We finally touched down.   Whew.

Granny and granddad met us at baggage check.   This did not go as smoothly as previous reunions.   Last time G saw Granny, she remembered her instantly and ran right to her and gave her a kiss.   This time, she was scared.   She shivered and wanted mommy to hold her.   Hard to say if the fear was due to Granny and Granddad or bears.   For some reason, she has lately decided that bears are outside the window fairly often, and this is scary.   Apparently, bears like to hang around arrivals at the Nashville airport, but thanks to G’s warnings, we got to the car safely.   Here’s how the bear warnings typically go:

G   (visibly trembling):     I’m scared!

Me:   scared of what, baby?

G:   Bears!

Me:   (Giving her a hug) Bears! Oh no!   Where?

G:   Outside the window!

Me:   Don’t worry!   Bears are scared of mommy…they can’t hurt you now.     Hugs!

G   (trembling slightly less and holding on for dear life):     I love you mommy.

So sweet.   I wish someone would scare away my demons this easily.

We get to the car without getting eaten by any bears.   So far, the trip is going well.   G starts chatting about Mackenzie.   We tell her she is in Mackenzie’s booster seat.   From this, she extrapolates that everything, including the car, is Mac’s.   I am sure Mac would be pleased to hear that she now owns a very nice travel pillow and a late model Honda Accord.   Eventually, G accepts that maybe the car is Granddad’s and the pillow is Granny’s.   She still wants to meet Mac though.   So we call…maybe we can visit Mac on the way home.   But it turns out that Mac is asleep.   Oh the disappointment.   So we go home to Granny’s in search of snacks and rest. The much awaited meeting will wait.

A few hours later, we take a stroll around the block with G bundled up in snowpants, two jackets, a hat, socks on her hands, and her blankey.   It was chilly, but we wanted to see the luminaries, a one-night-a year Christmas tradition in Brentwood.   They were beautiful, but the stroller and the dark night worked it’s magic on G and she dozed off.   So we went home and rolled her into a bedroom and let her sleep.   Of course, this is when Mackenzie shows up.   So now, we must explain to yet another child that this much-built-up mystery cousin is not yet available.   More disappointment.   Will the meeting ever happen?   We eat dinner.   Mackenzie gives us regular reports on G.   (“She’s still asleep.”   “She rolled over.”   “She’s making funny noises”)   We finish dinner in peace.   Yaay.   Then we get the inevitable report:   “She woke up”   and the crying starts.   G has not woken in a good mood.   She’s cranky and scared and can’t figure out who all the people are who are staring at her.   She clings to me and cries for a few minutes.   We snuggle on a chair while she sorts things out.   Finally, she ventures out on her own, and Mac surrounds her.   This is not going well.   G panics.   More crying.   Hmmmmm.   We go find some toys.   Progress ensues.   We find more toys.   We find Granny’s stuffed animal birds.   We carry them all downstairs.   We bring down all the Fisher Price toys (one at a time).   We are all buried in toys now but the girls are finally doing something that resembles playing together.   Maybe this will work out OK after all.   Whew.

Rain at Longbow

Winter rain storms are perfect weather to take Kila running on the golf courses. Some call it trespassing, I call it watching her romp in the rain on a beautiful carpet of grass, with no one out to be bothered by our interloping.

Immersing myself in the wet and cold is an immensely refreshing change of pace, with the added benefit of getting me ready for the conditions we were about to face on the 4th Annual Low-Overhead Highly-Flexible Ski Trip.   Riding the canals in the rain a few times got me well prepared for Wolf Creek last year, and the powder-shock was likely to be the same this year with us driving in on top of 7 feet in the past week.

.

I aint complaining, just saying.   Watching Red Dye #5 choke away 2 winnable games at Nationals in 2000 in rainy Blaine, MN taught me to appreciate the disruptive affect cold weather has on Phoenicians.

Beckie and G out of town gave us time to play.   The tape gun tightened up the cuffs of my snowboard pants and kept them out of the drivetrain, the pockets of my $5 Coat held my beers; Monday it was Red Mtn Ranch and Tuesday back to Longbow for the first time in 6 months.   Unfortunately, two big days in a row was too much for Kila’s aging front right paw and she has been a little gimpy the last two days.   But it was fun while it happened!

Longbow is about 9 miles total, and other than the brief stretch over the 202, totally RocketDog friendly.   Kila sets her own direction on the golf course as I follow the tight rolling cart path up and back, synching up every so often at her or my whim.   No people, no houses, and only one entrance – nothing but Kila and me in a giant oasis playground.   Its flowy and serene, and even a bit of a workout on the bike.   With time and Kila’s endurance constantly in short supply, I forgot how much more fun it is than Red Mtn Rachn.   Kila can still handle it, but I need to take her after several easy days.   We’ll keep having fun together, I’ll be smarter for her.