"Who wants to go skiing? Raise your hand!"*

*that's what my kids say when they have something nobody in their immediate circle of friends have and want to make sure-with perfect clarity-that that immediate circle of friends are 100% absent of that something. try it sometime, it'll make you feel...mmmmm...'bout seven or so years of age.
oh yeah. call me lazarus. i was dead (due to a super-nasty flu-type buggy-bug my brother in-law via my sweet melissa gave me), and now i'm alive (but it took 4not 3 days)! so what do you do the first day when you can leave your bed? that's right, you go skiing. skiing on a weekday nonetheless. skiing at copper mountain. i leave pretty early because i have this thing about being (one of the) first(s) in line when the lifts start running at 8:30. there was absolutely nobody there this morning so i warmed up mid-mountain back to base a couple of times to make sure my skis, legs, and brain were acting like a team. my lungs predicated the rest of my time on the mountain (unfortunately). i still have a boatload of phlegm sitting nicely in the bottommost chambers of my lungs...so!.. even though my pistons were willing to get abused, the limiting reagents were my lungs. i have residual fitness from cycling (i'd like to think. okay, i thought about it, and there's absolutely no crossover) in the legs but it felt as if i had a tracheal opening the size of a lilliputian's sphincter (coupled with da phlegm). not a good combination for anaerobic activities. i'd rip a good line, but when a quarter of the sequence i was visioning happened, i'd have to catch a nice, long breather (being proprietarily sound, i didn't exhibit behaviors of extruding liquid shrapnel from the naso-pharynx passageways either). that's when the octogenarians would pass me. i'm not busting on them, it's just the long time locals tearing it up too (i want to be skiing in my twilight years!). i hit the bowls before the crowds got nutty. the karmas love plowing through the semi-chunky, nougat-esque powder/packed powder. too bad i was slowing them down. i'll let you in on a secret: my skis, as well as my bikes (my mountain bike mostly), talk to me. they are the iconic devils that sit on an opposing shoulder to the angel when you have a choice between moderation and full-on indulgence. sadly, i had to stop in-between evil sessions in order to breathe properly. breathing's important for like, aerobic creatures.
on the way back-especially when you fly solo-i go through a mental debrief. what fosters the mental decompression is music. i've been on this wagner bender lately so i listen to his the ring of the nibelungs. to be precise, it's his first one: das rheingold (which, in german means, das rheingold-actually the nibelung is about 16 hours long). incidentally, i've been to the rhein river in wunderbar deutschland (but can honestly say that mosel wine is superior in taste and finish). and after sampling several of the rhine's best auslese (with french fries mit mayonnaise, yum!)i too have seen rheinmaidens in der rhein. wagner's music is large and in charge; but, his arias can be immensely impassioned. every time wotan busts a solo i'm getting chicken skin. including this, my outing to copper mountain was truly audio-visual.
ite den kids. have a lovely 2008 and if you see anybody in a vitamin cottage cycling kit, y'all wave to them with all your fingers, ite? ite.

Christmas break '07

here's the moose playing with his thomas the train, trainset-made of real wood (that's what the box said)! he was in the play zone. christmas was pretty cool this year. very mellow, we didn't have to travel anywhere and the kids were pretty happy with what they received (even though we try and enforce to them that receiving stuff isn't nearly as important as giving stuff-note to self: good luck with that!). the weather has been pretty typical december weather up at 8800'. had to run the atv with the blade attachment several times. no biggy. right now though, the weather forecasters are saying we might receive 8" of snow today. christmas day, my in-laws and brother in-law and melissa's uncle and niece came down. it was a lot of fun. i taught her niece how to operate the atv and she plowed our driveway (her idea of fun). for entertainment, we played with maricel's dance dance revolution. or as maura calls it, "dance dance elution". melissa's cousin put on a dancing demonstration as we were no where close to her high scores. grandma busted a jig too. it was pretty fun hanging out with them. today, melissa's home sick and we're chilling with single digit temperatures all around us. that's okay because i stocked up on wood the night before and yours truly already started a nice, rip-roaring fire this morning. my birthday's round the corner too, y'all got anything for me?

First ski of the season with Alec @ Keystone

woa. again, the holy trinity of skiing (christians, forgive me...) with my homey, alec. which is: no lines, blue skies, and fresh powder (i can't stand it when people call powder pow-pow, makes 'em sound like poseurs). we left 6'ish from the evergreen park and ride expecting some hellish road conditions. it was icy. some numnuts in an lx 470 was sitting shotgun in the center median, high curbed by the snow, before the eisenhower tunnel. so i never exceed 55 mph all the way from evergreen and we arrive at the lot, right next to the red river entrance, with an hour to spare. i couldda hokked a loogy from my truck and it would've hit the gondola we were so close. dats right. we had a small breakfast at a joint called inkspot before the breakfast crowd came in. while eating, we talked about how out-of-the-box-thinking and sonically eccentric russian composers were and alec revealed he was into stravinski. the only stravinski i knew were the rite of spring and the firebird suite. pretty erratic and uniquely russian, no sing-songy stuff here.
anyhoo my first day on my new skis, the volkl karma's, and we head straight over to the outback. my first run consisted of ungroomed, fluffy powder, where i fell straightaway and had to have alec help me up because it was kinda deep. not a good start to get your skiing legs to have the ski-feel.
alec's sick day is equal to my normal ski day and that was the case today. even then when we were hitting the runs he attacked it like fat albert in line at country buffet. i kinda make my s-turns in no particular haste but we arrive at the same place with aplomb usually. that boy can ski.
the slopes had a power outage so the lifts were running on diesel. not the normal.
okay my skis. i was pleasantly surprised. alec has the k2 analog (public enemy) to my ski, so he told me of her characteristics in certain conditions and what type of effort i need to put her on edge (which is little effort). she was awesome. alec also said that it's confident on icy patches. sho'nuff it was. it's an exceptional ski and for the quasi powder in the bumps it was bulldozer-like pushing the extraneous hydrogen hydroxide out of my fall line. amazingly maneuverable in the bumps, and is escalade-like in the groomers. lovely it was.
as the day progressed, we were in chill mode and we were practicing our backwards skiing taking advantage of the twin tips. around 12:30 with alec's aerobic capacity cut in half with his cold and my legs made of balsa wood we bailed after a spirited run down red river-icy patches and all.
i like hanging with alec, he's a young kid ahead of his peers' years, can hang with any conversational permutation, and the girls dig him. the trip back to evergreen was slow and we listened to new stuff from our ipods. i was particularly intrigued by his band called sea and cake.
pictured are my inner boots liberated from their shells so that everything can dry so no mold or dry rot'll occur once they sit again for another coon's age until i can go skiing again. i've never had a bad day with alec. check out my previous blog tomfoolering with alec last ski season in breck.

Global Warming?

it's the 17th of november and i just got back from a 3h screamin' off-road ride with my homies. maybe the accelerated warming due to man is delaying the usual cold fronts and precipitation totals associated with november, but jeez-i guess i'll take it for now. met hez-chilly, alec, kenny, kevin, and johnx2 at the lower parking lot at white ranch this morning for the long loop workout. it was the moab group part two. you know what the nice parts of the moab trip was for me? it's mostly the conversations we have going in-between rides; and post-ride debriefs. usually billy and i walk from the hotel to downtown and back and our spectrum of topics hit the range of nutty to spiritual to downright man-gossip. it's a good mix of personalities i'm telling ya! it was really nice seeing them again, and to ride, it was dee-luxe. if i was a snotnose twenty year-old competitive cyclist, with no familial or temporal obligations this would be another perfunctory ride (because i'd be riding 4 days/week), but most of us are married with pumpkins or in a committed relationship, so to congregate for the main purpose of riding, it truly is special (dare i say: magical?).
it was chilly so i left the leg and arm warmers on. alec led the way to the whippletree cutoff. he seemed to be going quicker than his usual pace, so he's reaching a new, physiological plateau. poor kenny was battling a fever and a rush to get home to finish painting irene-his 500 horsepowered volvo wagon. you should read his blog. check out links i frequent. there's actually two climbs to get to the backside of white ranch-to a trail called wrangler. so, after alec's legs say to the group wassup now, i guess it's billy's (legs) turn to say wassup now 'cept a wee bit louder. today, he was an exceptional cleaning machine. holy mackerel, it was like he was busting a textbook display on how to clean obstacles. it was to impressive, needless to say, watching billy pass me when i dab'd. on the backside i missed john (from moab) and kev take a digger. it's a pretty technical downhill where you have to thread the needle pretty carefully. the tree roots are all off camber and there's always a tree directly across big boulders. so if you take a bad line, or slide on a root you're going to be doing an impression of the human pinball. sometimes the collisions are elastic, sometimes they're not. drag. it's common courtesy that when i crash i would like to see somebody crash as well-at least for the free entertainment value. the other john crashed as wel and when we waited at a trail junction his knee was a nice, streaming crimson. i guess it's officially a ride now...
when we finally cross the upper parking lot and descend back into the lower parking area, kev takes off. it's mostly a fireroad down so the lines aren't too sketchy but boy the babyheads just flat out suck for hardtails. kev was supersonic but i was determined to keep him at least within three or four car lengths of yours truly. if there weren't any hikers i swear we would've broken our pr's down the hill. kev was launching off the little bumps and clear about 20 or so feet of ground everytime. it looked like fun so i did the same except i didn't bunnyhop (compress both my arms and legs) as aggressive as kevin, cleared about the same distance over the ground, but didn't get the cool, visual gap between tires and ground. nutty. at this point you never mentally think about crashing, only watching the person's line in front of you. kev takes some nasty lines and gets away with it seamlessly because he has a dual boinger as well as skill(s). i still have to thread the needle ever so often and it scrubs my speed (boohoo!). at the last creek crossing, it's billy, kev, and me. once the posse reforms, billy says, "you know the secret of the rock garden?". i say, "you hit it fast." truly that's 90 percent of mt biking. you hit the obstacle fast enough so that you roll over it; plus, low speed crashes hurt. a lot! so at the rock garden, billy picks his way while i dab. so now it's kev, billy, and me racing to the last cattle gate. billy hears me bearing down on him and he kicks it. i yell, "get him [kev]!" kev hears this and kicks it twice as hard and that's how it finishes. no one passed nobody. it was a great ride in the company of great people. like the saying goes: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. this groups elevates everybody else socially and physically. can't beat that...
afterwards alec and i bust a lunch in morrison. he eats a meatball sub; i, a phat piece o' greasy cheese pizza washed down with mt. dew. did i mention this ride was the shizzle?
the title picture represents the speed this group has whenever somebody gets a wild hair in their (downhill) a$$ (read: kev).

The More the Merrier

if the aphorism the more the merrier didn't apply to this iteration of moab i wouldn't know which would. usually it's just hez-billy, kev, and me. but as the years progress alec (see links i frequent in left sidebar) was added into the mix. now, john and julie (coincidental that their names start with the letter "j" don't you think?) and their unique brand of gregariousness were the latest addition. it was a stupendously personable trip.
it all started saturday morning at four, ante meridiem. for our posse, it was the evergreen park and ride; for billy's posse, it was the highlands ranch (bermuda) triangle. eventually we all met at the city market in breck, where everything's closed at 5 a.m. we eventually had starbucks and evacuated normal bodily functioning waste products in rifle (where, incidentally the wal-mart's open by six). julie was pretty much asleep (partied a wee bit too late) until we arrive at the parking lot at sovereign. alec's an unstoppable, damn-the-torpedoes destination kinda guy and we go sans break directly to the sovereign trail, whereas billy's posse actually has breakfast back in rifle. okay, here's the ride itinerary: sovereign, amasa back-pipeline (day one), and slickrock (day two-last day). let me preface this trip with: billy has only one useful hand on this trip and he absolutely slayed.
the trail finding part of sovereign's always tricky and to add to the geographically impaired scenario, at the trailhead junction some poor state workers were x-raying natural gas lines (for cracks) and told us to stay away so as not to get irradiated by radium. radium breaks down into radon (a problem for people with basements) and alpha particles. its symbol is Ra with 88 protons that don't like each other in the nucleus and whose atomic weight's 226, and yes, i'm a science geek.
the first day was a great re-introduction to moab with temps in the mid-70's and sun, sun, sun, all around. we rode pretty conservatively because we were going to do a second ride later that day. conservatively means chilly-chill on the ups while still trying to be squeaky clean on the technical stuff with letting the bike run free on the downs. and that's how it was, billy and his lobster-clawed hand was putting on a cleaning demonstration. in fact, alec was hypnotized by his smooth, clean uphill line(s) that he smacked a tree at speed telescoping his mesmerized mellon onto his cervical vertebrae. it was like the complete opposite of rock-em, sock-em robots if you can remember that far back. his helmet made a loud thwack as it got punctured by a rather pointy branch. yup. nutty. anyhoo, our gaggle of riders where all lined up roady style on the climbs cleaning (some walking) the techy stuff, making my roady self all proud and shtuff. julie said at one particularly technical uphill, "man, i wish we were going down this stuff!" and i told her it's an out-and-back so we will. on the back part, kev took off and i followed his line (he has a point and shoot style (dual boinger), whereas i thread the needle (hardtail)) and he was flying. we built a little lead at the part of this technical downhill where we could spectate and be entertained by our posse's downhill skill. we expected john to be good and he was. if billy dab'd, we'da goofed on him (because he is after all, mr. clean), and we didn't know what to expect from alec and julie. julie showed us her downhill skills and alec showed vast improvement from last year. after the ride we all wanted to nap and eat and we would start amasa back by 4:30. so hello mr. sandman...
back on the bike a second time was literally painful for all the body contact points with the saddle and primary movers. billy didn't join us because his post operative (lobster claw)hand was hurting. we moved pretty slow and kev and john gave us a downhill technical demonstration as we hit the trailhead. on the way up we saw some neat and/or busted looking tweaked-out 4wd crawlers (see pic) and blue, warring native americans strategically placed by our mt. biking predecessors (see pic). john laid down the gauntlet and flew up squeaky clean followed by kev, julie, and alec. near sundown we snapped some cool pics at a decent overlook and began looking for our landmark pipeline to go back down. i took the lead and as the sunlight diminished so did my trail finding abilities. i accidentally took them down some nutty a$$ed terrain, through some electrical posts and stopped because i ran out of trail. once we found it, it was pathetic trying to ride our bikes from this point forward. in fact, john was hitting a pretty technical descent where his front tire hit an obstacle, turned the bike (front wheel perpendicular to rest of bike), and he launched away from the uphill. he landed on a rock ledge just wide enough to support his body in the fetal position. he probably could've used a stitch or two on his left quad cut (see pic). if it were a few more inches to the left, he surely would've fallen off the 500 foot cliff where we were making our way down. alec and i were in awe in how close he was to walking towards the white light. he was truly inches away from death. it was like witnessing a car wreck, it's kinda ghastly but your hardwired, instinctual rubbernecking supersedes all logic and you stare, with your mouth and eyes wide-open like a silent nitwit. note to self: don't do cliff rides at night. my god it was awesome trying to get down. it was cloudy so no light whatsoever from above and we were trying to remember the way out from memory from earlier years. it was the blind leading the clueless. it was uber-nutty now. we were barely walking on the rocks and it was sooo dark. holding the bikes didn't help either. once down we had to portage our bike over the final obstacle-a creek. it was cold and kinda deep. on the other side of the crossing was a rather high embankment that made it difficult to get over. we did the fireman bucket brigade for our bikes and busted the human ladder-action to get out. once back at our cars, john selflessly shared his classic tasting beers and we inhaled it while our endorphins popped and our adrenaline subsided. yuck. wet shoes (and julie left her wet socks in alec's ride. you go girl!). yea! we exited amasa back with no permanent damage. dinner consisted of our usual: a trip to city market's salad bar. time for sleep and paraphrasing john a cacophony of snoring...
day two: slickrock (see pic o' julie climbing). we were pooped out from the first day but a trip to moab isn't complete without doing slickrock. alec's friends came out to ride this one. they didn't fare so well. on the flipside, alec really showed major improvement. again, we roadied up the climbs in our nice little group and lunched it at shrimp rock (see pic). after that, our legs couldn't hang with the anaerobic stuff. i gave it all i had on the really steep stuff and could barely mash the pedals, but everybody was feeling this empty too. knowing that the end was near, i pedaled my way to the front of the group and i could see billy jamming it. i put in my middle ring and floored it. i came on him and he said, "sounds like a mike mequi closing in." then he jammed it. at the last bend came the unofficial finish line (the cattle guard crossing), i was so close i could've gave him a wheel enema and i was calculating how to get around him. the centrifugal force was too much to pass on the inside and the left hand sweeper we were on was off-cambered. i figured i would do the classic brake-late-and-pass-him on-the-outside-apex. i guess he figured that out too and he held the line firm and i couldn't jam him on the holeshot. as a competitor, i can respect that billy outkicked me to the line (...bastidge...). we entertained the thought of riding top of the world later, but that left our synapses after 0.000001 seconds.
this latest version of extraordinarily cool people on and off the bike was 6.8 stars out of five. somebody pinch me, i must be dreaming; and to boot, i'm off the rest of the week (go teaching, go teaching, it's your birthday...). billy and i both agree that this episode of moab and the cast members (and what they brought to the mix physically, socially, sonically, intellectually, and spiritually) involved resulted in an extremely memorable experience. i'm probably going to suffer from post traumatic holiday blues...

here we go (again)!...

well folks, historically the first significant snowfall in the metro area's the 19th of october. today's the 21st, so no significant symptoms of the greenhouse effect at this zipcode (at least not yet!). okay, i missed the worldwide blogosphere day of blogging about something green (it was the 15th of october), so here it is belatedly: after evacuating your colon in the woods, don't wipe your butt with foliages of three, especially if there's a hint of red on it. 'nuff said.
it's been snowing since last night; and thankfully, there's like less than a foot up here, although now it's starting to pick up again. there's a couple of spots on our dirt road (did you read my last blog entry?-if you didn't, i'm now a hillbilly) where the drifts are maybe two feet high. nothing a pickup truck with factory clearance can't bust through. i say this now, hopefully i'll be able to get to work tomorrow.
looked at the nws (as opposed to n.w.a.) website for our moab trip this upcoming weekend, it said saturday was going to be in the 70s. ah yeauh. exactly 365 days ago billy, kevin, alec, and i would've been slogging through vail pass both directions. looks like a good sign so far forecastingly speaking.
my kids and i played briefly in the snow before sunset. it was fun. mason's slowly getting adjusted to the snow. he's not the daredevil like his sisters are when it comes to high speed sledding long distances. had to go to the barn and bust out my sorrels. these boots are far and away the best snow accessory i have. it's sad to say, that i use it more than my skis. hopefully that'll change.
finished colbert's book i'm american (and so can you!). i was completely saturated with his sense of humor by the third page. coming from me (and get this!), it was sophomoric. but, like a bad movie, i'll stay and finish it. so that's what i did. i forced myself to finish reading it. i'd say it was tolerable and thank goodness for my high school library (i wouldn't have paid for this). my media specialist friends at my high school are so awesome they order books worth their weight if you ask them nicely. so far, they've ordered (because, like i said, i asked them nicely, i've read it, and they're generally pretty open to enlightening material): the places in between by rory stewart, survival of the sickest (forgot his name), andthe world is flat by friedman(n?).
click on the link at my margin for my friend kenny's website (denverspeed.com) and read his latest entry about his car, irene. irene is a volvo that just posted 500 horses on the dynamometer. impressive isn't it?
above's a couple of snapshots of what's going on here currently...
ps. two of my most favorite former students visited me at my house on friday to hand deliver an invitation. but it wasn't special that they visited me (okay it was) but how they were dressed was unique. they were dressed in theme. and the theme is: roman. yup, they're going to be officially 21 in two weeks and they're having a roman-themed celebration hailing their legalness. to describe them would be...class. yup, they are unbelievably mature for their age, they both value education, laugh at my esoteric (read: lame) jokes, and have a good head upon their respective shoulders. so needless to say, i'ma show up in garb for their soiree (don't worry, it's at his folks' house).
pps. chip and i are having a tift due to differences of opinion.

Hillbilly Deluxe (sorry Dwight)

we've almost achieved the hillbilly trifecta (if we haven't already achieved it!). one: we purchased a truck to haul firewood; two: we live in the boonys; and three: we just purchased this lovely 4wd atv-the king quad! of course we don't have any helmets, we just ride it and if our kids are behaving, they ride shotgun on it with either melissa or i piloting like a 16 year-old kid first time on a moped. the reason we bought this is is because our awesome, former, next door neighbors have moved and this contraption is how they plowed our properties. since they're gone, we're going to have to do the plowing. our new neighbors are floridians and they just purchased our neighbors house as a summer retreat. that means we don't have to plow as much since their house'll be vacated during the winters. the aspens' turning is from our backyard. pretty isn't it?
i've been sitting on the fence about completing a trip to moab. so, now, i guess i'm going to go. here's why. yesterday a cycling teammate of mine and friend was having a realization that there might not be a future with his girlfriend of several years. on our ride, we talked about the possible combination/permutations of their relationship outcomes, and how to possibly heal one's self and shtuff like that. on the ride, out on the road, we slide up with a former pro from south america named fabio (outside of coors in golden), spontaneously formed a paceline, and chatted it up with him. coincidentally, he too, unsolicited, professed that he and his girly-girl (also from south america) was having a shit-or-get-off-the-pot issues (she was, not him he was committed). hmmmm. i'm sensing a theme here with my male, cycling friends/acquaintances. so after the ride, rashid and fabio exchange numbers. it's kind of nutty the conversations that originate in all male training rides. back at chris' place i offer an ear for him if he needs one and hope that it comes to a mutual resolution or a new chapter in his life. during my trip back to conifer, my pre-college and college friend hakim (not his real name) left me two messages during the weekday to call him for a ride today that i haven't returned. i return his call on my return trip and when he recognizes my phone number on his phone he begins with, "mike, i'm a man with a broken heart." yikes, it's lightning striking 3x. so after we talk a while on the phone i suggest that he come out with me on a trip to moab i've been pretty ambivalent about-to get out of his physical location to see something different to distract, clear the mind, and ride the sovereign and slick rock trails. now, do you see why i'm going to moab?
the digital thermometer said this to me this morning, better go light a fire...