Thoughts and Route Setting video

As many of you know I've driven a Tacoma for a long time, no longer. First it was a 1999 extended cab with a raised camper shell and a deck built in the back. After Dylan was born we needed to upgrade to 4 doors so I sold the '99 with 230,000 miles on it and got a 2009 4 door Tacoma to replace it, same style camera shell and the deck was rejigged to work in the larger bed. Everything was great until our house got broken into at the beginning of February and among the things that were taken was an extra key chain (it happened to be in a bag that was stolen). I looked into re-keying the truck and shell, it was going to cost close to $1000, so I checked with a Toyota dealership and I was able to trade my 2.5 year old Tacoma with over 40,000 miles on it for a brand new Prius and a check for $100. More thought on the change in another post.

That story and the new vehicle makes me more aware of other high milage/hybrid vehicles. Everyone is trying to get in on the HYBRID game. Listed at 20/23 mpg, and only $50,000 naturally it was in front of Whole Foods.

 Dylan getting his "team" picture taken, they don't actually play games yet at this age, just practice and drills.

 Dylan looking at fish in a circular tank that he was calling their elevator.

A little Route Setting 101, probably should be filled under, don't do it this way. Though we all have at one point or another. Impact drivers and ladders are much better, not sure why Anna was not using a ladder, we have about 10 of the short A frame ones. 

Spring is in the air, at least at the Zoo

Went to REI to replace a stolen piece of luggage the other day and figured out how to make those family trips a little cheaper. As you can see there is still a ton of extra space in the bag and on SouthWest you get 2 free bags per person.

Today Dylan and I headed for the Zoo. It was nice to get out in the beautiful weather after all the wind over the weekend. Spring is definitely in the air as evidenced by the animal behavior.

Here our lion tries to impress his new lady friend, she is new to the zoo as of this winter I think.

 This guy was out sniffing around, well, stuff you and I would not sniff, but getting ignored.

 Usually there is only one polar bear pacing on the wall, today it was both in tandem.

 The peacocks were out doing their thing. Dylan wanted to get a closer look, maybe not the best idea for a little guy. This peacock actually half charged or faked a charge at Dylan, it got him to back away.

 And the ever popular ducks with Dylan and his new trucker hat.

Easter and Christmas

We've gotten busy lately. Dylan started soccer on Wednesday evenings to go along with karate 2 days a week after school.

 Linda did not get injured like myself and is in her "peak" for climbing. After finishing off the route at Socorro she moved on to Straight on Till Morning which she sent 2 weekends ago. It is just her second 5.12c ever, her first coming when we were on a 2 month road trip, so not bad results for one training cycle. She has since moved on to this route, Rubber Mission.

 I've been bolting a few things down at the tower as well. Most still need a bit more cleaning, though one is finished and I lead another on one bolt and a couple of sketchy cams, just to get it done, it could use about 4 more bolts.

So since Easter rolled around we decided it would be a good time to take down...

 Christmas decorations.

Linda dressed Dylan up for the day and was quite pleased with results.

 I took Dylan to the aquarium so Linda could have some quiet time to work on taxes. They were feeding the animals in the shark tank while wearing rabbit ears.

 Later on Sunday we had a nice dinner with the Eckstein family. Dylan loves all of them and the dogs.

Trinity, their daughter set up an Easter egg hunt for him and they repeated the hiding and finding several times.

On another note, this past weekend was Open Nationals for route climbing in Boulder, CO. Our local hard woman, Page Brown headed out and made finals.

Nice day at the Zoo

The weather here has been crazy. On Monday or Sunday we had gusts of 75+mph in town and on Tuesday snow flurries. Today was 65-70 degrees and relatively calm, spring in New Mexico.

Today Dylan and I headed to the Zoo in the afternoon. We usually go in the mornings so it was different, including getting to see the polar bear feeding which was cool.

After the polar bears we checked out the seals and sea lions among other things.

Anyway, a nice day to be out. I have not been up to much outside of bolting a couple of routes, the latest being easier. I've been putting off the recovery from a slightly tweaked finger that happened while setting for the competition in Durango. So, I've not been climbing much and with the schizophrenic weather Lance and I have not been getting out to ride regularly, it's probably been 3 weeks since I've been on the bike. On the other hand I've started longboarding which is fun.

Some Interesting Photos from the Last Month

Wind blown snow attached to bare branches at Sandia Peak

Really cool reflection...
From the glass on the polar bear tank.

This sign is at the entrance to the cafe when you exit the Albuquerque Aquarium.
If you missed it, the second to last line is interesting...

Visit from Anna Jansen Deal and Clan

Anna and I were good friends in college and climbed a bunch together. We had not seen each other since Linda and I left Colorado Springs, but she and her family were on the road, running south away from winter in Palmer, Alaska. So they stopped by to meet the family and get a little climbing in. We managed to get them out on 5 different days to 5 different areas as well as two trips to the climbing gym for the mom's. Anna got to check out all of the Bio Park with the kids and they got a bike ride in, kind of along the Rio Grande, the bike path is under construction so it was more along Rio Grande Blvd than the actual river.

The first day we headed out to boulder at Ponderosa and Dylan and Alder, 27 months, had a blast playing with Dylan's sand toys in the dirt, Odin, all of 6 months on the road for 4 1/2 might have had some fun eating some dirt.

At some point we headed to the Taj Mahal to get diner, being only a few blocks away we walked and the kids shared the one child chariot.
Glen, Anna's husband and I went climbing in Diablo canyon on a cold and windy day but had a good time anyway while Anna took her pair to the zoo and Dylan was in school. Over the weekend I was gone for the 400km brevet in AZ. Linda got out with them to head to Socorro and climb at Dirt Wall. Here is Glen hiking down with Alder sitting on the rope.
And Linda was quite proud of herself for hiking Dylan up the hill without me around.
On Monday after my ride we headed to the Playground in White Rock with the whole crew to do some more craging. Again there was dirt play.
And some hand holding while going to look at the Rio Grande way down in the gorge. They both wanted to hold Anna's hand while she carried Odin, not going to work.
The three of them sitting on a rock...
Or maybe a broken off pillar at the base of the wall.
On Wednesday Anna was a champ and took all three kids to the Aquarium and Botanical Gardens so Glen and I could climb in the Sandias. Naturally, even though it was the warmest day of their stay the wind made it pretty bitter up at 10,000 feet. Anna apparently got some pretty odd looks and comments based on having 3 kid so close together in age a with obviously different fathers.

We made the mandatory trip to El Pinto for dinner on their second to last night, since Linda was out to dinner with the Asia ladies and is not such a fan. On their last night Linda and Anna headed to the climbing gym.

Here is Dylan and Alder at breakfast on their last morning.
And Glen and Anna before loading up to head out.
All in all it was a great week and a half. It was nice to have more people in the house without it being full to overflowing. Hopefully they will run south again next year, maybe in the late fall when the weather is better for climbing.

Finally here is a video of Dylan and Alder with his Thomas the Train book.

Zoo, Lasik and New Furniture

On Monday Dylan and I went to the zoo to enjoy the great weather. For the first time he really enjoyed the play structure they have there. Here he is walking a suspended bridge with vertical supports. The slide was a hit as well, it would send him rocketing off the end across the floor.

It was Valentines day so the polar bears got frozen hearts with 2 fish in each that they were chowing down on.
So as many of you know I got Lasik about 5 weeks ago. It is pretty incredible though I still try to take my glasses off before I go to bed or get in the shower, wonder how long it is going to take to break those habits? So we have "new" (they are actually about 8 years old for me) Oakley's and "old" Oakley's.
Finally used a piece of wood that I've had for about 10 years after pulling it from a 100+ year old house in Colorado Springs. I think the coffee table turned out pretty nice, the base again is courtesy of our friend Pat Barr of Specialty Manufacturing, a radio tower and welding company, but they can do pretty much anything with metal.
Of course Dylan thought that maybe it would make a better bed than the one I built him at the end of last year so he could move out of his crib/day bed.

End of March

We had a very full weekend.

On Saturday I did the 200 km brevet that started at the edge of town. We had a small turnout, only 12 riders or so. While it was sunny for the first bit of the ride it was also quite cold. Numb toes and fingers even with covers and winter gloves. The ride up RT 66 went pretty quick with a tail wind which is quite rare. The trip up S14 with Chris was uneventful and went by pretty quick. Once the climb was topped out Chris and I had faced the swirling winds up top. we nearly got blown off our bikes on more than one occasion. John, the local organizer measured the wind gusts at 45+ mph. Eventually the route turned or the wind shifter and we had a tail wind that had us flying down out of the mountains to the east side of the Manzanos. As we turned to head south to Mountainair we got nailed by the head wind. Riding along at less than 10mph on the flat sections and 15mph on the down hills. Luckily that stretch was short lived and we soon had a cross or tail wind the rest of the way out to Mountainair and the turn around.

Now this never happens in NM so we were not looking forward to the trip back and hung around long enough at the checkpoint to team up with the next 2 riders on the road, Catherine Shenk and Michael from CO, figuring that even though we had made it out faster that 4 into the wind would be better. Well the wind shifted a little and even died down a bit so it was mostly a cross wind on the way back and even a tailwind at points, though we all tried not to mention these facts too loudly or face the wrath of the wind instantly changing direction on us.

By the time we made it back to the top of S14 to head off and do the rollers Michael had dropped off and Chris who had been taking the longest pulls by far was starting to feel the effects of a long day, OH and we got snowed on a bit as well somewhere up there. Catherine and I started taking longer pulls at this point to keep Chris fresher. Once through the rollers we made a quick stop at the last checkpoint that was a little longer than planned since Chris had been planning on riding home from the finish and now decided that calling Joanna for a ride home was the prudent thing to do. The last bit heading down RT 66 to the finish on the edge of town, while usually into a headwind always seems to go by pretty fast as it is pretty much all downhill enough to keep speed high enough that the draft is really good. This is typical of John when he designs his courses. He tries to kill you bay making it a difficult as possible but gives you a downhill finish to try and get you to leave with a smile on your face thinking, hey that was not so bad.

On Sunday I worked on the house. Doing base trim in the master bedroom and bathroom and making thresholds for the doorways. To keep Dylan out of the way of the power tools and nail guns Linda took him to the ZOO. Once the little one was down for his nap Linda headed to the climbing gym to meet up with a friend and climb till dinner.

Merry X-mas

Hope everyone has a great holiday season.

Right now Linda's family, all 11 of them are in town and staying with us. The house is pretty crowded. In addition some of their friends are here as well adding another 4 people to the group during the days.

The kids have all been learning to ski up at Sandia and having a blast. Linda has gotten in a couple of days of skiing and I a couple of days of snowboarding. It's been quite a while since either of has has done snow sports and my experience was pretty limited anyway.

We all just finished opening presents this morning. Dylan's favorite seemed to be a shinny bag that one of his gifts came in, pretty typical really. He would put it on his head and play hide and seek.

Dylan is having a blast playing with all his cousins and being doted on by all the adults.

The whole gang made it to the ABQ Bio Park for teh River of Lights Festival which was pretty cool. They build a bunch of light sculptures, some of which move and light the Children's Fantasy Garden, it is pretty fun to walk around in the dark and see the lights, literally millions.

Old shots and video from Thanksgiving

Here are a couple of shots of Dylan from early last month.
Nice black eye. . .
Sweet new house slippers. . .

Yes the black eye was just when Dylan got out of hand with a marker, but it's still funny, since he did not actually get hurt.

Over Thanksgiving we headed to the SF Bay Area to vivit my family. We made it to the Monterray Bay Aquarium and the California Academy of Sciences, both very cool places to check out regaurdles of it you have kids or not.

This is some video of Dylan's reaction at the Aquarium to a glass bubble that the wave surges push water over. This is the first time we subjected him to it.

Climbing, Riding and Critters

So on Thursday Dylan and I made it out to the Crystal Cave in the Jemez in the afternoon with a couple of guys that work at the gym. Dylan had fun playing in the dirt and sitting in Jeff's chair. While I played on the short but very steep routes with Jeff and Doug. Maybe I'll get some shots of it next time I'm there, it's hard to explain, but the lip of the cave is only about 20 feet high and the routes are up to 60 feet long or so, really steep and pretty hard.

Over the weekend I did the Bill McClain Memorial Crest Race, and naturally got killed since most of the guys riding have put in probably 4 times the miles on the bike this year as I have. Though I was only about 2 minutes slower than I was 5 years ago, the last time I did the race and actually trained for it.

On Sunday we headed to Datil with a bunch of folks from the gym. In a true rarity for climbing, women out numbered men in the group, even if you counted Dylan. We all had fun climbing on the tower and walls to the left.

This morning Dylan and I headed to the Bio Park and spent some time wandering through the aquarium. After our trip to Hawaii he is totally fascinated with fish and turtles. Then we checked out the butterfly pavilion which I'd never been to before. I was a little disappointed as I thought there would be more or larger butterflies, maybe they will grow, but there was enough for Dylan to have a good time trying to chase them around. On our way out there was a booth set up with some critters, a small tarantula, a small scorpion, a couple of squeaking roaches, then these guys....

These are the small ones that you can find in NM apparently.

Then the big ones that are from Africa....
They also had a centipede, which have a pretty bad bite and are nearly impossible to kill, think hammer repeatedly though they are already flat to begin with. I though I'd killed one once at the gym only to find it crawling back out of the garbage can a few minutes later.

On our way out the model trains were up and running so Dylan watched the big train then spent some time "push"ing the "button" to make the "small" "train" go in circles, it was fitted with a car that spewed "bubbles" as it went, needless to say he was thrilled.

For folks that say that the newspaper industry is going to die, I beg to differ. I posted my truck on-line and in a couple of locations and received not a single call. We put it in the paper and on the first day I got about 10-12 calls and sold it. The classifieds are the way to go.

Yes it is late, Weekend Report

I know, I'm late. We had an entertaining weekend and a busy week.

On Friday Dylan and I headed up to Ponderosa, the Sattelite area, to boulder with a guy that is new to town, Jerod (sp?). He is from back east and moved out to ABQ for the climbing, yes there are other places I would choose ahead of NM for climbing, maybe his older brother being here had something to do with it as well. Any way, we had a good time. I managed to do a problem that I'd tried periodically over the years but not managed to do previously. Dylan learned that as you dig down in the dirt it gets colder the deeper you get. It was also our first time out with the new child carrier, Dylan enjoyed it enough to fall asleep in it towards the end of the day out.

On Saturday the family headed to El Rito so Linda could climb with the Gym's adult team that she is a part of. Our group was about 12-15 people, there were 2 guide groups out, each with about 10 climbers and perhapse another 10 climbers as well to go along with 8 dogs. If you've been to El Rito before you'll know that this is a huge number of people to be in the area and there was definately some friction between the groups. Dylan had a good time hanging out with Anna K. aka: Accorn. I did not bring climbing shoes to make sure that I took the day off and Linda came OH so close to sending Pocket Rocket 5.12-, which would have been the first time she had climbed the grade in a day. Oh well, there will be other routes and oppotunites and she still wants to get back to it to finish it off.

On Sunday, I headed up to Palomas Peak to climb with Chris, Jesse and Matt L.. Chris is just starting to climb again after taking a break of a couple of weeks so he was just climbing easy with Jesse. Matt and I did a warm up with them than went to work on a couple of routes on the slab and the franks walls. I'd been wanting to get back to Sanke Dance for OH about 3 years to finish it off since I'd done it with one fall on my second attempt. I hung the draws and the opening crux seemed a lot harder than I remembered and I was no sure I could even start the route. I did find some better beta for the top where I'd fallen off before, so that was encouraging. It seemed as though sending mostly then revolved around doing the boulder problem at the start. I was nervouse starting up it the second time because you don't really have an opportunity to relax before the tough moves begin. I managed to pull the crux much more easily, more like I remembered it feeling then just executing the sequence to the top. It was nice to have sent a route that equals the hardest that I've done, 5.13d and a couple of other people who have done the route have even suggested 5.14a, so at least it should be solid at 5.13d. Snake Dance is a good route with a boulder problem start to a good rest then a serise of moves that gets progressively harder untill you are over the lip of the overhang. Matt was working on Entertaining Mike Tyson 5.13b which is a short, powerful route that I'd wanted to try and do on my first try. With beta from Matt I was able to pull off the flash. EMT is a really fun route that packs a lot into about 25 feet of climbing. All in all a pretty good day of climbing.

Linda and Dylan got a call from Ali in the morning to say that she and Paul were taking their daughter, Charley to the Bio Park. Charley is 3 months older than Dylan and we see them ever couple of months, we should try to get together more often as Dylan really like the "older" ladies.

and fish are super interesting as well,

I've finally started to let Dylan control his own food more which naturally leads to a bigger mess at times. Sometimes I wonder if he isn't trying to kill himself with how much he stuffs in his mouth at once. Here he is taking a tiny bit of banana,

On Monday, Linda test rode a nice Look 585 ella to work an home. She really liked how the ride felt but was not so hot on the lack of standover, she does not like to get quite so intimate with the top tube of her frame, so we are still looking. I rode out with Dylan in the trailer to meet Linda and Betty and ride home with them. On the way out I managed to roll the trailer, pretty scarry moment I must admitt, got to be careful of those bridges with 6" steel thresholds that you have to make 90 degree turns off of. The 5 point harness worked great, Dylan didn't budge and the wheels and the handle stick out enough that the actual carrier didn't even touch the ground, but he did get a little scarred, though he willingly got back in after I took him out to check on him and let him walk around a bit.

As further proof to those out there that are concered that he may have been hurt of knocked silly, here is some video that I took later that evening,

OH, PS the new truck arrived today, so if you all know anyone who needs a vehichle, we are looking to sell my old Tacoma 4x4, extended cab, V6, topper included.

Going to the Zoo with JaxonWest

Today was beautiful, sunny and 80 degrees, a great day to go to the Zoo and Dylan is 18 months old. After slathering on sun screen and a few failed attempts at getting the hat to stay we met up with Jason and his boy, Jaxon West. The boys had fun looking at the animals and saying names and making sounds. Dylan was particularly enthralled by the pink flamingos.

While the Rio Grande Zoo is not a petting zoo, that did not stop the boys from trying. Jaxon was almost successful at petting the duck, he's a bit faster than Dylan at this point. Here they are trying to corner the duck.

We fed the kids in the Zoo cafeteria, some fries and chicken tenders to go along with a sandwich and a banana. Jaxon might be more fleet afoot but Dylan would take him down in a chow contest, is that something I should be psyched about?
Afterwards we headed out to the Slate Street Cafe to get some real food for the dads. The place is pretty difficult to find since Slate St is discontinuous, but it is between 5th and 6th st and Lomas and Mountain. The lunch menu is mostly sandwiches and salads. So we got a couple of sandwiches, the food was quite good and the boys ate some more to supplement their lunch. Later Dylan tried on Jaxon's hat, and since we were inside and there was no sun, naturally he made no effort to take it off.

After coming home and taking a nice long nap and running some errands, mom made it home and Dylan had a blast playing with her.

After a good mommy play session he had dinner and was pooped, maybe a bit full as well. I did a weight check and got him at 29.1 lbs dressed so he is probably about 28.5 or more, not bad for 18 months.

All in all it was a fun day for all. Last but not least, here is a shot of what Dylan looks like when mommy is feeding him or he is trying to feed himself.

Bio Park with Popo and Yeah-Yeah

Well, The new camera came in on Wednesday and I've had teh opportunity to use it some and check out some of the features. Some are pretty cool, like being able to preview the effect of over exposing or under exposing a shot and choosing how you want it to look or how different white balance settings look. Bad is the back lighting feature which is supposed to make shady faces with bright backgrounds come out without blowing the background out which it still does and the faces end up looking whiter than normal. I guess that could be good if you're trying to show that you are sick or something. Being able to take video is nice as we have never had a camer with a video feature, just show how old our other point and shoot was since they pretty much all can take some amount of video now.

My parents are in town so yesterday the three of us took Dylan out to the Bio Park, Zoo, Aquarium and Botanical Gardens with a train that connects them. He had a blast pushing his charriot around the Zoo and he enjoyed the train but the tunnels made him pretty nervous.

After the Bio Park my dad and I went for a quick ride and saddly he crashed when someones off leash (actually the dog was on a leash but the owner was not holding the other end) little 15 pound dog cut right in front of him while on the bike path taking out the front wheel of the bike he was on. He was lucky in some ways in that he was about to go between some concrete posts to keep cars from driving on the path which the bike hit and he some how avoided which limited his road rash to just his elbow but it means that the top tube of my Cervelo R3 took quite a blow. He can't be all that bad off as he is out right now with mom ansd Chris' wife, Joanna on a 30 mile ride, but on a different bike as the Cervelo needs to get looked at.

Here is a sideways shot of Dylan looking pretty happy with himself after summiting a pint sized boulder at the Botanical Gardens.

Now Dylan is trying to break one of the large ants that hang at the Bio Park in a place called the childrens fantasy garden, sort of like Alice in Wonderland when she is small, or Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

My mom is a model train fan so we had to check out the model trains the have at the Botanical Gardens.

Well that is long winded enough for now but with 2 extra sets of hands around hopefully I'll be able to get another post up this weekend.