3 Years Off - I'm a Slacker

At the beginning of 2013, with Dylan now in school 5 days a week, I headed back to school myself. I was not doing anything with my math degree but got talked into accounting. So I headed to CNM and went through their CPA prep program, basically a series of classes that fulfill the requirements in NM to sit for the exams. I had intended to complete the program before looking for a job but ended up getting hired by a small local firm that fall, Matts & Co. Accounting Professionals, LLC (only 5 people in the office), through a referral from a classmate. Anyway, I finished the program while working my first tax season and took the 4 exams between the end of August 2014 and January 2015 (4 total), and received my license from the state on April 15th, 2015. In the meantime, Matts & Co. merged with Atkinson & Co., Ltd., a large local firm of 50+. So I'm now finishing up my 3rd year in public accounting which has of course taken time away from many of the things I used to do, such as maintaining this blog and cycling, climbing etc.

Anyway, Dylan has changed and grown quite a bit in the interim. He has picked up and given up soccer and guitar after a couple of years doing each. He is going to the NM International School, a NM state charter that is spanish immersion and based on the International Baccalaureate program. He currently is mostly focused on learning to swim, being water safe is important to both Linda and I. I don't really care if he ends up being a good swimmer so long as he can keep himself afloat and get where he needs to if he was to fall in with his clothes on. As well as violin, which he has twice a week at NMIS as well as once a week on his own with the same instructor.

While climbing has definitely taken a back seat for a few years, Linda was eligible for her 3rd sabbatical with Intel in August 2015, however with a child in school we were unable to go anywhere until this summer, not to mention I'm not allowed to take time off during tax and tax extension seasons. We have been wanting to go to South Africa to check out Rocklands for years and with some friends that are from there and will be headed to many of the same areas we want to go to this summer seemed like a perfect opportunity. We have been working on the plans for at least 10 months and even then we were not able to reserve our first choice lodging at Rocklands.

With a climbing trip on the horizon it was time to get back into climbing shape. So, with what spare time we had through tax season, Linda and I put in many nights at the climbing gym and trying mostly unsuccessfully to climb outside. We did however make it out to El Rito for a day in May. With Dylan getting a little into climbing these days and a new hammock, Linda and I were able to get more climbing in than we've been able to recently. Below are a couple of photos of Dylan on his first completed outdoor routes, chilling in the hammock and a sunset.  

Focused on getting to the top, possibly the offer of Rebel Donuts had something to do with Dylan's enthusiasm on this day.

 Linda is the grey looking spot below

 Getting serious about and apple

Pretty colors

Annular Eclipse and busy Weekend

This was a busy weekend here for us. We headed to El Rito to do some climbing on Saturday with Jodi and her daughter Livia as well as Greg and Magdel and their 2 kids. It was my first time climbing in about 5 weeks, since I crashed on my long board and and scrapped up my forearm and hip (bruised as well, this seems like it is going to continue to be an issue for another month or more). Anyway I was predictably out of shape and got super pumped and almost pitched off the top of a couple of routes that I normally run laps on. Once at the top of a climb after clipping the anchor I dropped back exhausted into my harness, not a good move when you have a bruised hip, and immediately jumped back on to readjust.

Later we set up a rope swing at the base of Bolting Barbie for the kids. Magdel and Greg's two thought it was better than anything they had ever done and threw fits when their turns were over, sorry about that guys. Her Livia helps Dylan out with the swing and yes there is usually a Barbie doll hanging out around the route.

On Sunday I left home really early to head to Santa Fe to ride the Santa Fe Century. I made good time and with the early start it was a bit weird being out on the course with nobody around but still with all the aid stations set up and waiting. Towards the end I ran into a fair number of other riders since the end of the course is used as an out-and-back for shorter rides. I was finished and driving back to Albuquerque by noon, not too bad since I've not ridden more than about 50 miles since PBP in Auguat. Linda and Dylan spent the morning at the climbing gym and Explora!, a children's science museum. In the afternoon there were 2 rare events happening.

The first was Page and Anthony's wedding. Both of them have house sat for us and are good friends and great people. We could not be happier seeing the two of them exchange their vows. Here is Page being walked in by her dad Charlie.

 And the happy couple walking out after the ceremony.

 Dylan was well behaved for the most part through the ceremony and afterwards when we were hanging out with some fellow climbers waiting for the reception to start Dylan got his hands on a Canon, with a canon for a lens. He had a good time taking pictures of everything, all very zoomed in since it was a 70-300mm lens. Tim, the camera's owner keeping a close eye on proceedings.

After playing with the camera Dylan also helped put away the folding chairs. 

Dylan entertaining himself with the place settings.

 Dylan getting his mug in every shot possible then asking to see it immediately after, the sticking out the tung in a nice touch.

And stealing the bride after.

 Our Sunday ended looking at the sun. We had a good view of the horizon where the sun was going down from the synagog parking lot and several of the guests had either glass from welding glasses or the eclipse viewing glasses that were in short supply but given out for free around town during the last week. Pretty cool stuff, this annular eclipse, and how lucky for us that Albuquerque was right in the center of the viewing path. It took awhile for me to figure out how to get a photo of the sun and with sharing the glass and glasses it took a bit, but eventually... the moon moving over the sun,

 and the moon centered in the sun creating the "Ring of Fire" or the "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them..."

 OK so maybe it did not get dark, but if you looked at the thing without the special protection you'd be blind, not quite like disappearing but hey. I guess the last time this happened around here was 1994 so a pretty rare occurrence and one I'm glad I was able to see and share with Dylan and so many friends.

4th of July and 1st Haircut

This last weekend we headed to the Dungeon with Scarlet. There were a whole bunch of folks from Albuquerque out there that we climbed with as well. Linda finally worked out a good sequence on the bottom of Moat Jump 5.12a with the help of Susana, and it seems as though she ought to be able to send it. I mostly ran laps on things since I've done most everything there, did three 5.13's after warming up. Dylan had fun as usual playing in the dirt and the stream. This time instead of using his harness we brought the real swing which he really enjoyed. Here he is being "watched" by one of the dogs for us.Dylan and I went to visit John and Carolyn last week before John left to guide in Europe for a month and a half. We hung out in Carolyn's personal training studio and climbed while Dylan got to use some of the training equipment, here he is on the rowing machine with John.
For the 4th of July weekend we headed to the Taos area to do some climbing. We met up with Betty and Eric. The Groth's where there as well, John, Liz and their girls Sarah and Michele. The girls were great playing with Dylan, her Dylan "belays" Michele (the younger of the two) while she pretends to climb.
The first day we climbed at Comales Canyon which is a fun crag with "vacation" grades (ie: they are easy).

Dylan is starting to get the hang of camping and is always excited to get into the tent, though he likes to run around and play without going to sleep until he is so tired that he drops mid-sentence. Here's Dylan getting ready for the sun to go down with Linda's headlamp.
The second day, after a very slow start and a kind of long drive we ended up at El Rito and got a few routes in before heading home. We just ran some laps on stuff on the Rad Wall.

Finally gave Dylan his first hair cut last week. Here is the "before" shot.....
and the "after"
We now have our little monk back.

Here is a video of Dylan singing a song about frogs, he misses a bit at the end but it is still pretty funny.

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.