Coming of age

I joined facebook tonight. You can find me there also. I still need to write up the Wallowa trip, the Jackson trip, and other random things. I'll get into the swing of blogging soon. I think it will help my writing skills. There, it can be a personal development task. I like things that make me better. Like today's bike ride for instance. First there was the 1 hour road ride. I think the movie theater is about 30 minutes at a normal pace, maybe 40. That will be enjoyment this summer. Biking to the movies. That makes it easier to ask for extra butter on the popcorn. Additionally today was the grocery shopping trip on the bike. Check out Trek and Bontrager's line of bike commuting accessories like the wire basket that snaps into the rack. They have numerous accessories like that, they are all part of the "interchange" system. I like the concept - if things are easy and work, people will adopt and use them. It's easy for me to use the basket. I carried it around the store, put my groceries in it, and had the checkout clerk load a canvas bag and put it all back in the basket. Snap it onto the rack and I rode home! All these years I've been using a backpack. This is MUCH easier! The big dilemma now is whether to have a road bike with the rack or keep the urban karate monkey as a city bike and have a road bike for longer rides. Honestly (and some readers will disagree) fewer bikes can be better.

For now, the Trek XO ala Pete Sandretto is for sale. 52cm, nice parts, ask if you read this and are interested.

The return of what never left

I guess I'm a little behind in the postings of fun times from far out places. January 20th was the last post. Since then I went on the annual WAH trip in Oregon, played more broomball than I thought I was capable of, caught some rays (but no powder) in Jackson Hole, bought a new car (same one - I know, real exciting Nick), and, currently in the works, bought a new mountain bike (to replaced the stolen Motolite).

So now it's time to really figure out the blog and get things up to date. I'll start at the beginning with the hut trip in the Wallowas. Catch it next post. First I'm going to finish tagging and uploading pictures.

Check back soon.

Why do I live somewhere with high temperatures below 0?

It's cold outside right now. Really cold. So cold your nose doesn't work. The hairs freeze, the smell receptors freeze yet somehow the snot flows freely. It doesn't actually get below zero all that often. This winter has been consistently cold though. We had snow in early December and it's still here. Therefore it hasn't gotten above freezing much in almost 2 months.

Broomball makes it bearable. It has to be cold for ice rinks to stay solid outside. And Minneapolis has a lot of outdoor public ice rinks in the winter. And even when it's -10, running on the rink makes you sweat. Of course when it's -10 and you stop for even 2 minutes, you get cold. You kind of have to keep running or wear to much clothing, and then you're hot and wet when you stop. Anyhow, broomball makes it bearable.

The results are in! I got passed my PE exam so I am now officially a Professional Engineer. Most people that know anything about it have told me it's a big deal and a great accomplishment. Honestly, my life hasn't changed yet, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. It's been a long term goal and now that it's done, I don't have a new goal so I'm somewhat lost. I'll regroup and get going on some new endeavor soon.

To followup with the last post, I did buy new skis. They are in the mail. I bought them from Mammoth Mountaineering - they had the best price and mounted the bindings for me (saving me the trouble). I'm psyched - next weekend I'll get to try them. Now if my knees only hold together. I have a troublesome partial MCL tear in my left knee (same knee as last years ACL tear). It's a broomball injury. The Doc says to manage the pain, it will heal on it's own - no surgery necessary. I haven't tried skiing with it yet...

This is a working weekend (again). Chenney's busy cleaning, the new drywall is in and that makes a huge mess of dust. I'm stuck on the computer working on a CAD model. The weekend work has to stop soon. It sucks the fun out of an already frustrating life in a place that is currently -4. It's a good weekend to be doing work I guess, I wouldn't be outside anyway.

Back from the Desert

New Year's Day - it barely made it above 0 in the great white north. I think the entire country past the Southern Colorado border was snow covered, judging from the flight home yesterday. We had 7 days in Sunny Southern California. Well, 2 1/2 days were in 'sunny' Mammoth Lakes at Mammoth Mountain. Funny how 10 degrees there feels OK and 10 degrees in Minnesota feels COLD. The ski trip was well worth it. I'm in the market for new skis this year and Mammoth Mountaineering rents AT and Tele equipment - boots, skis, skins - it's a great service they offer. So for $40 for 2 days, I figured out that I want to buy some new Atomic skis, not the Karhu's or Black Diamonds I was thinking. It turns out that though I'd like to think that I should ski a straight, stiffer ski, I just love carving. I've had carving skis for 10 years now, since the Elan SCX RP's I got in 1997. I don't know any other way to ski. Atomics have the most sidecut of the current breed of backcountry skis and the Tacora's I demoed were much more fun on hardpack than the BD Kilowatts. All the reviews and forums in the world won't tell you how YOU will feel on a particular ski. Try before you buy. Pictures are on my google photo site:

Today was the lazy post-vacation recover day that Chenney likes. We cleaned, we cooked breakfast. I used the computer (all day) looking deals on skis and calculating if I can afford skis (and ski trips to use them on). I listed items on Ebay (seller ID mturoamer). My new Scarpa Tornado Pro boots should take the place of both my old Garmont AT boots and my Nordica alpine boots. Scarpa has a real winner with that boot.

Back to work on Wednesday - and the start of Broomball! It's ice season here in Minnesota!