Note to self: buy better gloves

Here's a rundown of the big race day - the 2008 Pikes Peak Ascent.

My morning prep:

• 6 am - ate a half of a banana and a few bites of a Clif bar
• 6:30 ride my bike about a mile up the road from the kitschy Rainbow Lodge, then lock it and walk the rest of the way to the starting line
  
• 6:45 down a Clif Shot and some water
  

My gear for the run:

• polyester running tights
• polyester long sleeve shirt
• North Face GoreTex rain jacket with large vents
• gloves (most definitely not waterproof)
• one handheld water bottle (empty to start the race)
• one Clif Shot packet (energy gel)
• my Mizuno Wave Ascend 2 trail running shoes - the best shoes I've ever owned

As predicted, it's wet and chilly. It wasn't too cold in Manitou Springs (at 6,300 feet) but it was certainly wet. The race started at 7 under a steady rain. For the first few miles, I was actually a little too warm in my rain jacket, even with the vents wide open and the front zipper mostly open. Nevertheless, I don't want to get too wet because I know the mercury is gonna drop big-time as I go up. I felt strong this morning - unlike my start on Mt. Evans in June.

Miles 2 to 5 are the steepest part of the race, on a section of the Barr trail called The W's because on a map the switchbacks make it look like a bunch of W's strung together. Despite steady rain for the past 24 hours, the trail isn't too muddy for 2 reasons: first, because it's too steep for water to collect anywhere, and secondly because the surface is crushed granite gravel - granite doesn't absorb water.

As I rose past the W's, we seemed to rise above the clouds and the rain diminished to a mere annoying drizzle. I was optimistic that I'd seen the worst of the weather. I was soon to be sorely disappointed.

Miles 5 to 10 are less steep - this is the easiest part of the race. A few spots are even flat enough to have puddles. At this point my hat is wet and pants are slightly damp, but I'm comfortable. Make that comfortable temperature-wise; I'm running at about 91% of my max heart rate, right at the edge of my aerobic max, which is never exactly comfortable.

So why would I start the race carrying an empty water bottle? The first 4 aid stations are close enough together that I don't need to carry my own drinks. However, between aid stations 4 and 5 (Bob's road to Barr camp) is 2.3 miles, and the distance between stations 5 and 6 (Barr camp to the A-frame). The amazing volunteers at the stations fill my bottle with gatorade to keep me going. Here's the first problem with my cheap water-resistant gloves, though - filling a small-mouthed bottle from a pitcher of gatorade results in spillage - on my already damp gloves. And it's starting to get cold up here at 10,000 feet. Did I mention that it was raining, too?

At the A-frame aid station, the volunteers are telling people to turn around if they're cold. One guy heeded their advice and turned around. The trail emerges above tree line. At this point, the rain has turned to rain-hail mix. I'd take hail (very small hail, anyway) over rain anyday. Hail bounces right off and doesn't get you wet. The trail gets steep from here on up, and the boulders I have to step over get bigger, too. I've passed several people over the past few miles, and I'm still feeling relatively strong.

Now things start to get interesting. That GoreTex jacket that was keeping me too warm 2 hours ago is now a Godsend. The wind has picked up and the temperature is somewhere in the 30's. I'm in a dense fog with hail/snow falling on me. And I'm wearing wet gloves. I took one off to see if I was better without them, but bare wet skin was even worse, so I pulled it back on. It's cold enough now that I put my hood on and closed the jacket vents. With about 2 miles to go, I pulled out my earmuffs and put them on too (I'm damn glad I decided to pack those for the ride). It's now hail/snowing steadliy and it's accumulating on the trail, first as slush and later as bonafide snow.

With about a mile and a half to go, my hands are starting to get numb. Finally, the thought occurs to me that I should pull my fingers back into my palm, which gives my freezing hands some slight relief from the icy cold, wet fingers of the dreaded water resistant gloves.

Now my calves are cramping each time I need to step over large boulders. For the last 3-4 miles of the race, I'm mostly doing a fast hike, although I still break into a jog when the trail isn't too steep.

I can't see anyone else around me who has warm clothing - many of them are wearing shorts with rain-resistant tops, and nobody has a hood.

I crossed the finish line at 14,115 feet after 3:03:30 (approximately - I haven't seen my official time yet); a minute and a half faster than last year, but 3:30 slower than my goal of 3 hours. At the summit, it's cold, windy, foggy, and snowing. Not quite a blizzard, but damn close for mid-August. I made a bee-line for the shelter of the Cog railway station/gift shop for some warmth. The race organizers haul a bag for each runner up to the summit - typically filled with dry clothes. My hands are so numb and cold that I can't untie the knot in it, so I head to the men's room and warm my nearly frostbitten hands under the air dryers. As they warm up, the pain starts - shooting pains as my flesh defrosts. One of the other runners in there is shivering hard. While I'm inside, I learned that the race was just stopped due to thunder - any runners who hadn't passed the A-frame (about 10.5 miles into the race) would have to turn around and run back down. I can only imagine the utter disappointment.

After changing clothes and doing a bit of stretching (although not nearly as much as I would have done if I was warmer), I jumped on a van for a ride down the mountain. The guy next to me didn't go inside to warm up - he went straight from finish line to van - and he is shivering violently. I untied his bag and helped him get some dry clothes on.

"We'll look back on this tomorrow and laugh about it", says one of the other guys on the van. He's right. I promised myself that I'll buy warm, waterproof gloves before I run any more races like this. Are runners crazy or what?

Race day forecast: cold and wet

It looks like I'll need some warm clothes for the Pikes Peak Ascent tomorrow. The forecast is a high temp of 57 degrees (F) and rain - at the base of the mountain. That likely means it will be snowing at the top. Brrrrr.

Soggy camping weekend

We spent a soggy weekend camping near Keystone. We were lucky Friday night, when it didn't rain til after we were all in the tent getting ready for bed. Saturday morning I went for a run under cloudy skies and came across 2 moose walking up the road. Since they were walking the other way, didn't see me for quite a while so I was able to watch them for several minutes unseen. This is the first time I've seen moose south of I-70. Our friends Mike & Renee Kappus joined us, so combined we had kids ages 2, 3, 4 and 5. They watched the kids for a few hours Saturday afternoon while Amy and I rode mountain bikes. In keeping with the weekend theme, it rained on us, but we were prepared and had rain jackets. Saturday evening we cooked dinner and roasted marshmallows under a light drizzle, which wasn't so bad since I had rigged up our huge 10 ft by 20 ft tarp between some trees to give us a nice area to cook and stay dry. Sunday morning was overcast yet again, but I got in a long run - 2 hours and about 2700 vertical feet. That's my last big run before the Pikes Peak Ascent next Saturday. It never did rain Sunday morning, so Mike and Renee got in a short bike ride before we all packed up our wet gear and hit the road. Not the best camping weather, but I've certainly endured worse.

Fire on Green Mountain

Lightning started a grass fire on Green Mountain on Monday afternoon, and the fire burned right to the edge of our neighborhood, about half a mile from our house. Fortunately no homes burned, but it got pretty tense with some evacuations. Our house smelled like smoke Monday and Tuesday, but most of the smoke odor is gone. This is the second time in 2 weeks we've had a fire in the open space on Green Mountain. The last one was much smaller.

Green Mtn. and Mt. Evans training runs

I did training runs this weekend, the first one on Saturday morning on Green Mountain. I ran for an hour and 40 minutes (1:40), getting the top 2 different times and doing a complete circuit of the mountain. It was already hot even at 6:30 am, which might explain why a 6-foot long bullsnake was laying across the trail warming himself up for the day.

Today I drove up to Echo Lake on Mt. Evans and ran from there up the Chicago creek trail, over a steep pass to summit lake, then a few miles more up the road, and finally off the road and up the south flank to the summit, finishing in 2:15. Chicago Creek and the 2 Chicago Lakes are in a surprising beautiful glacial valley - it's a spot I'd like to revisit someday when I have more time to linger, and cast a fly line. On the way up I surprised a lone deer, got real close to a herd of 18 mountain goats, and hiked right through a family of ptarmigan just below the summit. I hitched a ride back down, and spotted a few big horn sheep on the drive.

Elizabeth's bedtime routine

Although her feet are straight now and she can walk just fine, Elizabeth will need to wear her foot brace at nighttime until she is at least 4 years old to prevent a relapse. The brace is such a part of her routine that she doesn't mind it at all. Here she is in her PJs, with the brace, and sporting a new hairdo courtesy of mommy.

Bush's Dept. of Justice broke the law

It's disappointing, but unfortunately not too surprising to learn that the Bush administration improperly and illegally meddled in the hiring process at DOJ. According to a Department of Justice internal report, White House liason Monica Goodling rejected one candidate because of his wife's political views, and another because of the mere rumor that she was a lesbian. The politicized screening process even blacklisted candidates who were members of The Nature Conservancy (see report here), an organization that uses free-market forces to conserve natural habitats. Don't conservatives supposedly believe in free market solutions and doesn't the term conservative derive from the word conserve?

When did I wake up in a country where the President is above the law? If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

Training for the Pikes Peak Ascent

I'm a glutton for punishment, or so it might seem. I'm running in the Pikes Peak Ascent again this year on August 16. It's a trail race of 13.3 miles and -- more significantly -- 7815 feet of vertical gain. My goal is to finish in under 3 hours, and beat my time from last year (3:05:03). In conjunction with my efforts, I'll once again be collecting donations for the Ponseti International Association for the Advancement of Clubfoot Treatment - so they can help more children with club foot birth defects. If you'd like to make a donation, click here.

Buckets and Tap Shoes

Amy and I took the kids to see a performance by Buckets and Tap Shoes on Wednesday evening. These guys have a unique and entertaining act mixing drums, bass, some guitar, lots of tap dancing, and yes, banging on buckets, all with a good funky groove. It was fun for the kids and adults. They even invited all the kids in the audience to the stage for the last song to bang on drums and buckets. See them if you have the chance!

Lemongrass Creme Brulee

If you're looking for a restaurant with a unique menu, I'd recommend Zengo. The Latin-Asian fusion dishes are definitely out of the ordinary, and quite tasty. We went there for Amy's birthday an Tuesday night and sampled about a dozen different appetizers, tapas-style, instead of ordering entrees. For dessert, we had lemongrass creme brulee - an odd sounding flavor combination, but as it turns out, delicious. Very distinctive, too.

Weekend sans kids

Jon Christensen, my friend and co-worker at 3 different companies (BoldTech, StorePerform, and IP Commerce), got married this weekend near Vail, and Amy's parents agreed to take care of the kids for us for 2 nights. We took full advantage of our kid-less situation, starting with a lazy Saturday morning at home - something we can't do when our kids are up at 7 am or earlier. Then we packed the 4runner with camping gear and loaded our mountain bikes, and had a nice ride on the Colorado Trail going west from Copper Mountain part way up Searle pass. The bottom section of the trail was a rutted, bumpy mess thanks to all the horses that ride through, but the upper part was beautiful and great riding. Our next stop was Piney River Ranch just north of Vail - the site of the wedding. We both washed up, dressed up, and enjoyed the ceremony and reception with it's spectacular backdrop of Piney Lake, the glacially carved Piney river valley, and the impressively jagged Gore range. Early Sunday morning, I got in some altitude training by running about 6 miles round-trip from 9,300 ft elevation to about 11,500. After breakfast, Amy and I hiked up the valley to the cataracts on the Piney river. We arrived back at Ron and Dena's a little after 5:00 pm to pick up the kids and get dinner. One heckuva weekend.

I'm an uncle

A big congratulations to Amy's brother Jason and his wife Jan, who became proud parents today of a baby boy, Emerson Butler! They also succeeded in making me an uncle, and bringing Andrew and Elizabeth their first cousin. Here is Jason with the newborn boy.

11th Anniversary

Amy and I celebrated 11 happy years of marriage today with a nice dinner at 240 Union and a concert by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at Red Rocks. I love you, Amy!

Camping and fireworks

For the long 4th of July weekend, we took the kids camping near Keystone. The trip got off to a rocky start on Thursday, which was a company holiday for me. With a customer deployment deadline of July 15, we ran into a snag with a supplier that I had to deal with on Thursday morning. Once I had my team working on the issue, we escaped to head up to the hills for two nights.

When we go camping, we do our best to avoid established campgrounds, most of which pack people way too close together and have all the charm of a trailer park. We picked nice spot next to a small stream, with no pit toilets or "rules & regulations" signs to be seen. Upon arrival, Andrew and Elizabeth grabbed their buckets and shovels and proceeded to get absolutely filthy, which is what you're supposed to do out in the woods. For dinner we grilled pork chops. Some advice, by the way - avoid the "light the bag" charcoal - unless you enjoy the taste of lighter fluid. (I knew this, but we couldn't find a small bag that wasn't the match-light kind.)

After dinner, we roasted marshmallows, and Andrew discovered the magic of a camp fire. He thoroughly enjoyed putting a stick into the coals then pulling it out to watch it glow and make smoke. (Last year, there was a fire ban throughout most of the state all summer, so we had to forego this most important ingredient of a proper camping trip.)

On the 4th, we snuck away from the camp site and took the kids to Keystone for the jumping castle, playground and some ice cream. At night, we enjoyed the fireworks display, which had Elizabeth fascinated and a bit scared at the same time. The next day, she called it "lightning McQueen" - a mix-up of lightning and the main character from the movie Cars.

We finished off our trip with a nice lunch in Breckenridge with my brother Erik, and a hike to Monarch lake. (By the way, three weeks after I popped into the bar where Erik bartends, he says people are still asking about his "twin" brother.)

Andrew's Lemonade Stand

Andrew has been obsessed with money lately - counting it, trading ones for tens, playing Monopoly even. From gifts and doing chores, he had amassed about $20, even after spending some on candy. He is now intent on having $100, so Amy helped him start toward that goal today by helping him set up a lemonade stand. Andrew bought $7 worth of lemons and sugar at the store - with his own money - and helped mom make the lemonade. Then they drove to the Green Mountain trailhead parking lot, where a bunch of thirsty hikers and bikers would hopefully shell out $1.50 for a small glass or $2.50 for a large. Andrew made the signs himself. The result:

Expenses: $7
Revenue: $25
Net profit: $18

Not a bad ROI for a few hours of labor.

Tour de Southeast Colorado

Amy's friend Sara Reid, whose family owns a cattle ranch near Ordway, Colo., invited us down this weekend to see the ranch and witness the calf branding. The ranch is only a few hours drive from Denver, but it's a world away. It's wide, wide open spaces out there. Turning off I-70 onto highway 71 at Limon, the sign says "Next services 75 miles". Sara's parents Janelle and John treated us to a fantastic meal when we arrived. Of course, beef was on the menu. On Saturday morning after another filling meal, we took Andrew and Elizabeth to see the animals, along with Sara's neice and nephew, Maggie and Shane, who are the same ages and Andrew and Elizabeth, respectively. Maggie was our tour guide, and the first stop was the chicken coop. They have a few dozen chicks that are several months old and the kids enjoyed chasing the around the coop. They also enjoyed sitting in the cab of the John Deere tractor, petting the horses, and feeding the cows some hay. Later in the morning we watched as the Reids and their friends roped, branded, immunized ear-tagged, and de-horned, a bunch of calves. I didn't realize the de-horned the little things - it looks painful. After the horn buds are off, they squirt a bit of linseed oil and turpentine on the wound to slow the bleeding and keep flies off. They used an old bottle chocolate syrup for the squirt bottle. Andrew got to ride a horse, which he thought was great. Elizabeth, who loves to point out horses - both in books and when she sees them for real - was a bit overwhelmed by the specter of a big horse at close range, and refused to get on one.

Andrew also may now fully realize the implications of what he's known for a few years - that beef comes from cows. As he asked more and more questions about what they do with the cows, we told him the brutal truth - that eventually they go to a place where people cut them into pieces so we can buy the meat at the store. He pondered that reality in silence for a minute, then went back to playing. He still eats meat.

Saturday afternoon we drove another 90 minutes or so to Pueblo - observing a whole lot of boarded-up store fronts and run down housing along the way. Once there we visited Amy's grandmother and great Aunt.

Bike to work

Today is bike to work day in Denver. I often ride my bike to the park-n-ride and put it on the bus, but this is the first time I've ridden to work since I moved to Lakewood. The main reason I don't ride more is because all the routes from my house to downtown involve some riding in traffic, which I like to avoid. I did find a route that's fairly direct and keeps me out of traffic most of the way, except for about a 1-mile stretch on Perry St, which I found out today doesn't have much traffic. I may just do this ride a bit more often.

Torn supraspintaus

I while back I wrote about getting an MRI to determine how much damage I had done to my shoulder. It turns out I have a "low grade partial tear" - about 20% - of my supraspinatus - a tendon in my rotator cuff. The doctor recommended more physical therapy before surgery. I was relieved to hear that because the recovery from arthroscopic shoulder surgery, as both he and the therapist explained, is long and painful: about 3 months before I could do anything substantial with my right arm, 6 months til I could be active, and up to year before I'd regain 95% of my original strenght. Ughh. No thanks. I'd much rather do the exercise every day for a year.

1 minute faster on Mt. Evans Ascent

Yesterday I ran in the Mt. Evans Ascent, 14.5 miles from Echo Lake at 10,600 feet elevation to the summit at 14,264 feet. My time this year was 2:24:17, or 9:57 per mile, which is 54 seconds faster than I ran the same race last year. Even though my time improved, it was a much more competitive race this year and I went from 21st place overall in 2007 to 43rd in 2008 (out of 360 people). Not bad, but I was hoping for a bigger improvement over last year's time. The overall winner was Matt Carpenter, who beat the previous course record by 4 minutes, and beat the 2nd place finisher by more than 12 minutes! That guy is a rock star of running.

I ran the first mile in 8 minutes, but wasn't feeling strong, my place slowed, and many people passed me. I improved in the second half of the race, at least compared to other racers, and was able to regain position by passing several people, including 5 people in the last half mile of the race - which is definitely my fondest memory of the race.

Before the race I had delusions about a top 10 finish, but I would have had to run at a pace of 8:25 per mile to do that. That's a minute and half faster, per mile! To do that would take a fundamentally different level of commitment to the sport, and/or different genetics than I was born with. I don't think I'm ready to commit the time it would take to get to that level.

5:48 mile

I while ago I set the goal (perhaps overly optimistically) of running a 5 minute mile. I hit 5:05 on a treadmill, and in November ran a 5:49 mile on a track. I tried again yesterday and ran a mile on the same track in 5:48. Most of my training recently has been for hills, distance and altitude, and I guess that doesn't necessarily translate into a faster mile.

The 5-year-old world traveler

A few days ago Andrew saw my sister, his Aunt Lynette, and they talked about Lynette's husband Jeff being in China. I wasn't there but here's what Lynette had to say about it.

When I told him on Saturday that Jeff is in China, he said, "Oh yea? Where in China?" I thought it was cute because I don't know of many 5 year olds that would ask where in China. I told him I wasn't sure of everywhere Jeff would be but he was starting and ending his trip in Beijing and Andrew said, "Oh I've been to Beijing".... like most 5 year olds would say about having been to Chuck E Cheese or something. It made me laugh.

Just your typical conversation with a five-year-old!

Backstage and 3rd row for Big Head Todd

Amy and I had a memorable experience at Red Rocks Amphitheatre yesterday - a backstage tour, access to the sound check, and 3rd row seats for Big Head Todd and the Monsters. Our tour included a glimpse of the cave-like backstage dressing rooms and the tunnel from backstage to the sound booth - scrawled with graffiti from decades of rock stars and their crews.

The show itself was fantastic: great performance, perfect sound. It was 2 full sets of BHTM - about 3 hours of music. Hazel Miller made a special appearance on several songs as did a horn section. The encore finally was an extra-bluesy cover of Joe Walsh's Rocky Mountain High. The band filmed the whole show for a DVD they'll release later this year.

The 3rd row seats made the performance unforgettable. If you've never sat up close before, I highly recommed getting general admission tickets to a show and arriving early to snatch the good seats. It's well worth it. Here are a few photos and brief video clip.

Sound check: Todd and Jeremy

Tunnel under the seats at Red Rocks

IP Commerce announces $17M funding

My employer, IP Commerce, announced the closing of our Series C capital raise of $17M, which was led by Venrock venture capital.

Altitude training

To prepare for the Mt. Evans Ascent race in 3 weeks, I did some altitude training yesterday. Here's a timeline:

• 4:59 am - wake up (I woke up on my own 1 minute before my alarm was set to go off)
• 5:20 am - leave the house after having a drink and a banana
• 6:30 am - arrive at Summit Lake on Mt. Evans (12,850 ft)
• 6:40 am - begin running. uphill. on the road. 5.5 miles to the summit
  
• 7:40 am - arrive at the summit (14,264 ft). Enjoy a few minutes of the spectacular view
• 7:50 am - start running back down (another 5.5 miles)
• 8:28 am - arrive back at Summit Lake
• 10:50 am - back home to watch the kids while Amy plays soccer

Hell of a way to start a Sunday!

Andrew's 5th birthday

We celebrated Andrew's 5th birthday today with about 20 of his friends plus their parents at Lions park in Golden. Andrew and Amy made a pinata from scratch, which was probably the highlight of the event. After several good whacks, it broke off it's string and our brave friend Mike Kappus held it up until Quentin, our next-door neighbor, gave it the fatal blow. Mom put a lot of time into the event, getting helium balloons, fixing food and drinks, and cooking 2 cakes.

Andrew winds up for the swing

Mike Kappus gets crazy

The frenzied aftermath

First harvest 2008

Yesterday (May 30) we harvested our first vegetables from our garden: some spinach. We had spinach salad with our spaghetti, which was Andrew's request for his birthday dinner.

Southern Colorado Vacation

We arrived home from a family vacation to southern Colorado, including the Sand Dunes, Pagosa Springs, Mesa Verde, and drives over the state's most spectacular passes after a spring snow storm. Here are the highlights.

May 16 Friday

First stop - about 8 pm (45 minutes into our journey) at a convenience store in Fairplay for a potty break. Andrew was wearing his rocket ship pajamas - mom put them on to prepare for him sleeping in the car. I told Andrew he could buy one item (within reason), and he chose a dozen Hostess donuts - chocolate, powdered sugar, and plain. Not a bad choice, since it was their post-breakfast dessert for the next 3 mornings. We arrived at our first destination - the Medano-Zapata Ranch near the Great Sand Dunes - at around 11 pm. The ranch is 100,000 acres owned by the Nature Conservancy bordering the National Park. The Conservancy just recently opened their lodge and guest house for nightly lodging. Amy and I are long-time Conservancy donors, and we had been interested in staying at the ranch, but until recently the only option was to join a multi-day naturalist workshop. It was perfect for us. Of the 3 nights we were there in the 6 room guest house, we had the whole place to ourselves except for 1 night. The house has a large living area and kitchen, with a panoramic view of the dunes and Sangre de Christo mountains; a beautiful spot to enjoy a meal.

May 17 Saturday

After breakfast we went straight to the dunes. A steady cool wind was blowing from the east, making it just cold enough that we all wore light jackets. Medano creek was running strong and cold on the edge of the dunes. After crossing, we didn't go too far into the dunes before we settled in a nice spot and the kids started playing with their buckets and shovels in 30-square-mile sandbox. We all ran down the dune faces a few times, too. I got a good workout doing laps up and down one steep dune. After a picnic lunch, we stopped at the visitor center, where Andrew earned his badge as a Junior Park Ranger. He beamed with pride for the next few days telling anyone who would listen that he was a Junior Park Ranger. While Andrew earned his badge with Mommy's help, I took Elizabeth on a short nature walk. We see several bugs (she calls all bugs "lady bugs"), some animal burrows, and I pointed out to her a pile of deer poo poo. She now excitedly points out to us every pile of deer poo poo she sees. After naps for me and the kids, we mosied over to the main ranch house, where a fairly tame herd of deer was feasting on the green grass, and the kids got a pretty close look at them.

May 18 Sunday

I started my day at 5:30 am, hitting the road for a short drive to a trailhead, and got some uphill altitude training in. I ran up the Zapata Lake trail from about 9000 to 11,300 feet elevation and back again. That's a hell of a way to spend a vacation, eh? After breakfast back at the ranch, we all piled into the truck and went back to the dunes! We did a short nature hike where the highlight for the kids was throwing rocks into a stream, and then on to the dunes again. Andrew told us he didn't want to go to the sand again, but we knew better and took him anyway. This time we went to the east side, where fewer people go because you need 4 wheel drive and partially deflated tires to get thru the sand. The great thing about this spot is that the creek here runs right into the bottom of the steepest dune around, one with about 300 feet of vertical rise straight from the creek. Amy and the kids played in the wet sand and creek while I scaled the dune and ran straight down again, leaping several times as far as I could to land in the soft sand. The sand makes an odd rumbling noise when you land in it - hard to describe. I then helped Andrew build a sand castle and moat while Amy took her turn leaping down the dune. After all that, it was nap time for the kids, so back to the ranch we went. Andrew now said he loves the sand dunes, despite telling us earlier that day that he didn't want to go back.

May 19 Monday

This morning we went on a bison tour. A ranch hand drove us out where we got up real close to some of the ranch bison, including several calves that were about 1 month old. We got up close but stayed in the car to watch. The animals are huge and unpredictable. The conservancy maintains them as an essentially wild herd, providing no feed. They do round up and sell many of them each year to slaughter, but they are increasing the herd size. Without any wolves, they don't have any predators. It surreal to see about 3 dozen bison at close range, with the dunes and the snow-capped peaks of the Sangres as a backdrop. After the tour, we packed up and headed toward Pagosa Springs. Andrew and Elizabeth napped for about an hour (ahh, sweet silence!). We listened to C.W. McCall's "Wolf Creek Pass" as we drove on Wolf Creek Pass and stopped at Treasure Falls. With a drop of about 100 feet and and creek swollen with snow melt, this is the most impressive waterfall I've seen in Colorado. The short hike from the road for a closer look is well worth it. We're now at the Pagosa Hot Springs, where the kids have the only thing required for kids to have a fun vacation: a pool.

May 20 Tuesday

Tuesday was a kid-centric day with most of the day spent in the hot springs pool. Amy and I took turns getting massages, so wasn't entirely kid-centered. The hot springs are right next to the San Juan river, which was probably 6 feet higher than normal due to snowmelt: high enough that they put up sandbags to keep the turbid and frigid water out of the hot tubs.

May 21 Wednesday

After a morning dip in the pool, we hit the road toward Mesa Verde, stopping at Durango on the way for lunch and a stop at the candy store. At this time of year, Mesa Verde lives up to its name, with vivid green spring growth everywhere. Andrew earned his 2nd Junior Park Ranger badge, and we all toured the Spruce Tree House ruin. We spent the next 3 nights at Kelly Place, an amazing B&B west of Cortez, nestled in the canyons underneath 10,000 foot Sleeping Ute mountain. There are several Anasazi ruins right on the property, including one very well restored pueblo and kiva (circular, underground room used for ceremonies). It also borders Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, where several more cliff dwellings are a short hike away. There was a group of about a dozen people here on a "vision quest"; after a few days banging on drums and various activities at Kelly Place, they all packed up for a week of backpacking in the Utah desert. They were really nice folks, and not nearly as weird as you might expect.

May 22 Thursday

We spent the whole day in Mesa Verde, starting with the ranger-led tour of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in the park. Surprisingly, there is a winery and vinyard just up the road from us along McElmo creek - Guy Drew Vineyards. We stopped in for a tasting and bought half a case of wine. One of those bottles we promptly finished off back at the B&B while the kids napped. It was a cold rainy day, so enjoying some nice wine and a book was a great way to spend the afternoon.

May 23 Friday

Today we hiked a few miles into Canyons of the Ancients to see the cliff dwellings. They're certainly not as big or impressive as those at Mesa Verde, but the solitude - we were the only people there - makes it well worth the walk. Back at Kelly Place, we ate dinner and played games. They had an ancient Monopoly game without the board, so Andrew improvised a game - something like shopkeeper. He doled me out a stack of monopolymoney and then "sold" me various items and gave me change. So he got to exercise his math skills by calculating change, and he absolutely loved it. He insisted on playing again the next morning after breakfast!

May 24 Saturday

Today was a big driving day, but a beautiful one. The cold spring weather left fresh snow everywhere above about 8000 feet, and we spent a lot of time at these altitudes as we drove through Durango, over 2 passes to Silverton, then over Red Mountain pass to Ouray, and finally over McClure pass to Basalt and Glenwood Springs. If you've never been over these passes, they are absolutely spectacular. I also bought the most expensive gasoline I've ever bought - $4.29/gallon in Ouray. (Fortunately, and somewhat miraculously, I got 22 mpg in my 1995 Toyota 4Runner on this tank of gas - the best mileage I've ever gotten.) We spent the night with my dad at my parents' place in New Castle, and as usual, enjoyed great food and great company!

May 25 Sunday

We saw a bear! Driving home over Vail pass on Sunday evening, there was a handful of people stopped to look at something - a big black bear! Just a hundred yards off the road, the bear was grazing on vegetation. This is the first time I've seen a wild bear in Colorado. Pretty cool way to finish our vacation! (Unfortunately we didn't have a good zoom lens...)

Andrew's first girlfriend?

Andrew, who will be 5 years old on May 30, has a good friend in his preschool class named Ali. The other day, Andrew wrote a note that said

I am goen too mary Ali

Translation: I am going to marry Ali
Let's hope he waits a few more years before he ties the knot.

Shoulder MRI

Last fall while hiking with the kids and the DesMarteau family on Kenosha pass, Andrew asked me to carry him up on my shoulders, so I obliged. When I lifted him up, I messed up my right shoulder. The doctor suspects that I have a torn labrum, which is the soft tissue in the shoulder socket where tendons connect. After several months of exercises I regained strength, but every time I do something as simple as throw hard with my right arm, I re-aggravate it. Today I had an MR Arthrogram, and MRI with a dye injected into the shoulder joint to help show the injury. They start with CT scan, and then inject the dye. They had trouble getting the dye in the right spot so the had to repeat this about 6 times, jamming a needle into my shoulder each time. Then I spent about 20 minutes in the MRI. Now I'm left with a sore shoulder and wondering what the doc will tell me tomorrow. Most likely, I'll need arthroscopic surgery to repair it, and 2-3 months of recovery after that. I won't even be able to run for the first 1-2 months of recovery, so I'm planning to postpone surgery (if needed) til after the Pikes Peak Ascent in August.

7 weeks til the Mt. Evans ascent

I have 7 weeks until the Mt. Evans Ascent, which means it's time to kick my training into high gear. Today I ran for about an hour and 20 minutes at Elk Meadow Park, starting at 7600 feet and climbing to somewhere over 9000 feet. Yesterday, I went for long bike ride, with Andrew in tow in the double-wide trailer. The extra weight and drag makes the 400 vertical foot climb from Bear Creek Lake park to my house a good workout.

11th place in Cherry Creek Sneak

I ran the Cherry Creek Sneak 5k (3.1 mile) race this morning in 19 minutes, 11 seconds. That was good enough for 11th place overall, and 2nd in my age division (35-39 year old males). Apparently I'll receive a "commemorative award" by mail for being in the top 3 for my age group. That's also about 20 seconds faster than I ran the same race 8 years ago. Not a bad way to start a chilly April morning.

Gum and Sukrz

What do you get when a 4 (almost 5) year old boy, who is learning to spell phonetically, writes his own grocery list?

gum
sukrz

(a.k.a. "suckers")
What else could a growing boy like Andrew need???

Spring ride on Green Mountain

Yesterday I went for a bike ride after work on Green Mountain with Matt Good and his buddy Dom. It was a beautiful Spring day in Colorado with sunshine and 75 degrees, but the wind was howling at about 30+ mph. Riding uphill into the wind is a good workout. It's a good thing we got our ride in yesterday because by this afternoon, it's supposed to be raining and snowing.

Running uphill

I signed up for 2 races again this summer: the Mt. Evans Ascent in June and the Pikes Peak Ascent in August. I've been training all winter, but it's time to kick into high gear now and see if I can beat my times from last year!

Happy 2nd Birthday Elizabeth!

Elizabeth is 2 years old today - tax day - so her birthday is easy to remember. We had a party for her on Sunday with all of her grandparents plus her Uncle Jason and Aunt Jan. Most of her gifts were girly-girl things - necklackes, cute dresses, pink sunglasses, and lot of barrettes for her hair, which is shoulder length now and growing fast. Her Uncle Erik gave her a puffer-fish stuffed animal that makes a "boing" noise when it hits something. She had tons of fun with it last night; she picks it up, says "boing", then throws it down and giggles excitedly when it makes it's noise.

The duplex is rented

Yesterday we ended our quest to find renters - we signed a lease and collected a deposit from a family that will move in on May 1st. They have family living down the street, so we hope that means they stay for a while. It's quite a relief to know we don't have to answer the phone and show the house anymore - at least not for another year. And thanks to craigslist, it didn't cost us anything to advertise.

Adventures of Mr. Mom

Amy is on a business trip in Kentucky until Friday evening, so look out, kids, I'm Mr. Mom for the rest of the week! That's right - I have sole responsibility for waking, dressing, packing lunch, driving to day care and preschool, picking up from said locations, feeding again, playing games with, putting pajamas on, and tucking into bed -- for 2 kids. Of course, I get to enjoying playing with them for a short time each evening before bed. Tonight, I cooked up spaghetti, and let them watch Shrek 2 while I ate my own meal and cleaned up. Thank goodness for DVDs. Amy (bless her heart!) made a big batch of chili on Monday before she left, so I shouldn't need to cook dinner for the rest of the week.

Andrew is really sad that mommy isn't here and doesn't understand why he couldn't go with her. Hopefully he won't be scarred for life.

Easter weekend

We had a great Easter weekend, starting with egg decorating a few days ago. The Paas kit we bought had stickers and hats to dress up the eggs with; the photo below shows the result. On Saturday morning we enjoyed an Easter egg hunt for the kids at Barb & Dave Frommel's house. This was Elizabeth's first real chance to participate in the hunt, and she loved it. Saturday night, we had dinner with Jason & Lindy Kearns and Yoshi and Sandra Tagawa. Jason and his family are in town from Washington DC with their 3 kids for a spring break vacation. Jason and Yoshi are fraternity brothers, and I haven't seen them since Andrew was a few months old. It was great to catch up! On Sunday, of course the Easter bunny visited our house and Andrew and Liz had another chance to search for candy-filled eggs. Next was church, where Elizabeth got to show off her pretty dress.

Winter Park Ski Train

Amy, Andrew and I took a ride on the Winter Park Ski Train yesterday. (Elizabeth stayed with Grandma & Grandpa - she's not skiing quite yet.) Of course Andrew loved the train ride, and it's 29 tunnels each way, including the 6.2 mile Moffat tunnel under the continental divide. Amy and I loved not driving - or sitting in an I-70 traffic jam. To top it off, the snow and weather were both great.

Artwork & numbers

Here is a sample of Elizabeth's day care artwork.


And here is an example of Andrew's fascination with numbers and math.


Finally, here are some samples of Andrew's creative side. He is left-handed, after all.

One year with Elizabeth

Yesterday (March 6) is the one-year anniversary of Elizabeth's adoption day. It's almost hard to imagine now a time when she wasn't part of the family.

Walking, talking machine

It's been a while since I've posted an update on Elizabeth. A while back I posted a short video of some of her first, wobbly steps. A few months later, she's walking like a pro, and starting to talk, too. She's come a long way since she started the Ponseti treatment for her club feet!

Ski school

Yesterday, we put Andrew in ski school at Winter Park, hoping that would help him improve faster than we can teach him ourselves. We put him in Level 2, where they spend the day on the "magic carpet" - a tiny hill with a conveyor belt the kids stand on to get up the hill. Looks like it was a little too easy for him, so next time it'll definitely be Level 3, where they ride up a real ski run on a cart pulled by a snowmobile. His instructor said he spent a lot of the morning crying for mommy, but in the afternoon he calmed down and skied great - the best in his class.

This is Andrew's 3rd season on skis, but he's only been skiing a few days each season, and only a few runs per day. He started with a little rubber strap to keep his ski tips together, but we took that off this year and he's done great without it. He loves to go fast, he can do a snowplow (or as we call it, a pizza wedge), and he can turn fairly well. Amy and I took him for a run with us before his lesson started, and again after his lesson was over. He didn't want to go afterward, but he said he would go if we gave him a Pez candy afterward. He drives a hard bargain!

Landlords

For a few years now, off and on, Amy and I have been looking to invest in real estate. We actually signed a contract for a 4-plex a few years ago, and the very next day I got laid off from my job when StorePerform decided to ship all of their software development to India, and then we all moved to China for a while, so that deal fell through. (By the way, StorePerform is now bringing development back to the US. Ha ha!) Recently we made 2 offers on a duplex in Lakewood and the seller finally accepted our offer. With a little luck, we'll be able to lock in a decent mortgage rate and we'll be landlords in about a month.

Geek in training

I mean that in the nicest possible way. After all, I'm a geek myself! Andrew seems to have a gift for - or perhaps an obsession with - arithmetic. Almost every day, while in the midst of other activities like playing or eating, he'll start quoting arithmetic equations. "3 plus 3 plus 3 is nine", he'll say, followed by "1 plus 2 plus 3 plus for is .... 10!". At his preschool, he's writing a "math book", which consists of handwritten pages of math facts - mostly addition, I think. At home last night, our next door neighbor came over to play with him, and instead of playing with her he spent his time writing his own home version of the math book. At one point, he said, in a most serious tone of voice, "I love writing math books".

Let's hope this lands him a really good scholarship one day!

Mr. Mom's potty training

Amy and I decided to potty train Elizabeth. She's only 21 months old, but when she joined our family at 11 months old, she was already trained pretty well. In China, starting at just a few months old, they put children on the toilet at regular intervals and leave them there until they pee. When they start going, the adults whistle, and the Pavlovian effect takes hold. Pretty soon, they can set the kids on the pot, whistle, and viola - potty time!

We made Andrew go cold turkey (no more diapers - period) when he was 2 and a half years old. Over a 3-day weekend, he learned quickly that he didn't like being soaked in urine. We started the same technique on Elizabeth 2 days ago (except for overnight - she still needs a diaper then), with mixed results. To top it all off, Amy took off with some girlfriends for the weekend and left me in charge of potty patrol. Liz makes it to the toilet about half the time, but in a single 1-hour period this afternoon, I had to clean up 3 accidents - meaning 3 changes of clothes for Elizabeth, and me too.

C'est la vie!

Andrew the author

Andrew is quickly learning to write letters and words. The other day, entirely of his own initiative, he wrote the following on a piece of paper:

Ole Andrew can rit on the papr

Translation: Only Andrew can write on the paper

He's written several short letters recently - one to Santa, a few others to friends - but in those cases, mom or dad wrote the words first for him, and then he copied them down. In this case, he did it entirely on his own.

Thailand and Cambodia (May 19, 2002)

This is another installment in the series: 'Round the World Revisited. I sent this email from Thailand on May 19, 2002 during our 6 month journey around the world.

Hello, everyone. Here's our latest installment from
Thailand.

Bangkok - our first experience in Asia. We call it
"organized chaos". Lots of people say they don't like
it because it's too crazy, but that's exactly why we
DO like it! You never know what you're going to see
when you turn the corner. It might be a beautiful old
temple, a modern skyscraper, a shabby market selling
mystery foods, a horrible pile of rubbish, or dozens
of shops selling huge Buddha statues. Whatever it is,
though, there's sure to be tons of dogs roaming the
street and through the shops (remember to watch your
step).

Some observations on Thailand:

Food: Excellent! It's rare to find bad food here. Much
of it is nice and spicy, just how I like it. And
cheap, too. Coconut curry, Thai salad (Yam), and Pad
Thai are some of our favorites. It seems to be safe to
eat from dubious looking street vendors. At least, we
haven't had any problems yet. And there's food
everywhere. The most common Thai "restaurant" is a few
folding tables and chairs on a sidewalk, with a single
wok and surprisingly varied menu. At some places, we
saw carts selling roasted beetles, worms, crickets,
and even scorpions. It does a body good!

Transportation: roads are good, and Bangkok has modern
trains, good buses, and tons of taxis. They still
manually control the lights at many big intersections,
though. Public buses are cheap and reliable but
private ones (run by dubious tour companies) are often
delayed or broken down, and they stop way too often --
so the driver can collect a commision for bringing
tourists to a restaurant.

Plumbing: One thing they definitely have not mastered
is plumbing. They can't seem to connect two pipes
together, and often times our sink drains onto the
bathroom floor, sharing a floor drain with the shower.
In the (cheap) places we stay, we typically get a
sit-down toilet with a bucket to use for flushing. The
locals, though, normally have squat toilets.

Religion: Buddhism is prevalent. It's not quite what I
expected, though. Too superstitious. Every cab and bus
has a mini shrine hanging from the mirror or sitting
on the dash, and boats have ribbons made by monks
wrapped around their bows; this is to bring good luck.
(With the crazy way people drive here, they need it. )
Every shop and home has a spirit house (a small
shrine, usually on a pedestal) in which the spirits
live. Monks in their orange robes are omnipresent,
although talking on mobile phones and smoking call
into question their austerity. Apparently, one can be
ordained as a monk for as little as a week, then go
back to a normal life and add the honor to one's res

Language: Thai is a tough language for westerners.
Every syllable is spoken with one of 5 different tones
(low, medium, high, rising, or falling) and the
meaning of a word depends on its tone. Thus "Mai mai
mai mai mai" (with the correct tones) means "New wood
doesn't burn, does it?" Be careful how you say "thank
you" (khap kuhn khrap) or it may turn out to mean
something like "your mother was a hamster."

Massage: for about $4 per hour, you can get a great
massage here. The style they use is a mix between
"normal" massage, chiropractic, and accupressure.

Leeches: that's right -- worms that sink their teeth
into you and suck your blood. Really nasty buggers,
but apparently not really a danger. They seem to
prefer the taste of "farang" (westerners) over the
locals. Really creepy to find one squirming on your
body and chowing down when you didn't even feel it.

--------------------------------------------
Here's how we've been spending our time. After a few
days in Bangkok, we travelled south to the islands.
First on the west coast, we stopped in Krabi and
visited Wat Tam Seur, an amazing monastery and temple.
We climbed 1200 steps to a shrine perched on top of a
sheer vertical cliff.

Next stop Ko Lanta (Ko means island), where we went
diving at an absolutely beautiful site, Ko Ha. 80 feet
of visibility, great corals, and 4 octupus changing
colors before our eyes. Then we took a small boat to
the small island of Ko Hai, which is relatively
undiscovered with only 3 small resorts on a beautiful
beach with a great view of 3 huge limestone pinnacles
facing the island. From here we took a day trip to
Emerald cave, where we swam through a cave and emerged
on the other end inside a hidden lagoon surrounded on
all sides by vertical cliffs several hundred feet
tall.

We did an overnight tour of Phang Nga bay, which is
amazingly beautiful. It's filled with hundreds of tall
pinnacles rising up to a thousand feet straight out of
the bay. We spent the night at a muslim fishing
village built on "stilts" rising out of the bay next
to a small island. Out of 250 buildings, only 2 are on
land.

Before crossing the peninsula, we stopped for a few
days in Khao Sok national park, which is a thickly
forested area dominated by a large reservoir. This is
where we had our encounter with leeches. Other than
that, it was a really nice example of Asian jungle,
complete with bamboo, monkeys, and hornbills.

Now in the Gulf of Thailand, we spent several days on
Ko Tau, a nice little island with lots of good (and
cheap) diving.

After a short stopover in Bangkok, we travelled to
Angkor in Cambodia. This is the famous site of 8th to
14th century Khmer ruins. Getting there was a fiasco
in which we spent 14 hours travelling about 250 miles.
We spent 5 hours with 7 other people in the back of a
pickup truck on a terrible pot-holed, dusty road from
the Cambodia border to Siem Reap (the town near the
ruins). This is the Cambodian version of a bus. We
were supposed to be in a real bus, but our bus
supposedly was broken down (it was a scam all along --
there was no bus).

Despite all that, the pickup afforded a great view of
the Cambodian countryside and villages, which are
definitely third world. We saw men plowing their
fields with buffalo power, huge carts the size of a
U-haul being pushed by a dozen men, begging children
galore, whole families on a single moped, etc. So how
do you transport live pigs in Cambodia? Answer: tie it
upside down on a plank and strap it to the back of
your moped (legs kicking in the air). If you have
multiple pigs? Stuff 2 or 3 of them into a little
wicker cage and strap that to your moped.

Angkor is truly amazing -- words can't do it justice.
I would highly recommend it to anyone. It is the ruins
of an advanced civilization which build huge Hindu and
Buddhist stone temples with the finest artwork
imaginable. The largest and most famous temple, Angkor
Wat, is surrounded by a 600 foot wide moat. It's outer
wall is over 3 miles in perimeter, and it stands about
300 feet tall. Almost every square inch of stone is
covered in the highest quality carvings depicting
battles, Hindu epics, and everyday life. It's terrible
to think how wars have reduced this civilization to
such a primitive state.

That's all for now. Next up is northern Thailand and a
week or two in Laos. Hope everyone is doing well back
home!

Brad and Amy

Caucus

Amy and I just attended the Democratic caucus for our precinct. Four years ago, 12 people showed up for our precinct. This year, we had 74, and we had to park a half mile from the caucus site (Alameda High School) where about 30 different precincts caucused. Our precinct supported Obama over Clinton by more than a 2 to 1 margin. We don't know yet what the state-wide results are.

Van Halen

I spent Friday night at the Van Halen concert at Pepsi Center with some friends from high school & college - Dominic, Bryan and Steve.

The review
It was a damn good rock 'n' roll show. Depite the various shortcomings which I mention below, it was a great nostalgic blast for the fans of the original VH. There were only 2 hints of the Hagar era: a few guitar solo riffs lifted from 316 and the "5150" tattoo on Eddie's shirtless back. These guys still know how to entertain a crowd even if their stage show doesn't exhibit the manic excess it did back in the day.

The crowd
Ten seconds into the opening song, You Really Got Me, a drunk guy directly behind us took a dive into my buddy Bryan, causing a domino-like chain reaction of people falling and beer spilling. In the process he got his foot stuck in my seat (the kind with the seat bottom that flips up) and spent the next two minutes struggling to yank it out. After that he kept his drunk ass snugly in his own seat until he disappeared about half way through the show. The average age in the arena was about 35-40 years old, but there were a surprising number of teenagers, many of them with their parents. I'd say 75% of the fans were male; it was a definite sausage party.

The set list
The song list was the same as every other show on the tour, which is fine. The played all the hits and dug deep for some surprises like "Little Dreamer" and "Romeo Delight". Every album from the Roth era was represented, with the first album dominating. The true fans were not disappointed. The capped it off with an encore of 1984 and Jump. I was disappointed, just like the last 2 times I saw the band with Hagar, that nobody played keyboards (unless you count the sound stage guy). For "I'll Wait", "Jump" and "And the Cradle Will Rock", keyboard music appeared from the ether while Eddie stood there pretending to play guitar until it was time for the guitar solo.

The sound quality
In a word: disappointing. I don't think acoustics are a strong point at the Pepsi center. "The Can" is a more appropriate name for this place as a concert venue. The sounds were muffled and it was tough to hear the guitar through the din. It was loud, like you'd expect a VH concert to be, but it wasn't ear-splitting, AC/DC-circa-1990 volume I feared it might be. They didn't turn up the amps to 11 this time around, thankfully.

DLR
Diamond Dave still puts on a decent show for an over-the-hill rocker, but he certainly can't hold a tune - or a scream - like he used to. He also went into a silly rambling reminiscence of teenage party times for what seemed like 10 minutes, while strumming an acoustic guitar and eventually breaking into "Ice Cream Man".

Eddie
Ed is skinny and was shirtless all night. He actually looked like he was having fun. His guitar solo was nothing new. It's the same incoherent mix of recycled riffs from Eruption, Little Guitars, Cathedral, Mean Street, and 316 that he's been doing for decades. As a guy behind us said during the solo, "write something new, Ed". Those are some damn impressive riffs, though. And amazing to see how effortless he makes it look.

Alex
Grandpa Alex is looking old these days, but he can still keep the beat. He still wears his signature karate-style headband. His drum solo was a furious few mintues of arms and legs pounding the skins and cymbals as fast as humanly possible, but with very little apparent rhythm. The huge gong behind the drum set was just begging to see some action, but sadly went untouched throughout not only the solo, but the entire show.

Wolfgang
It's disappointing that Eddie tossed Michael Anthony aside like one his millions of cigarette butts. But I can't hold that against Eddie's son and competent new sidekick. The kid can play bass and sing backup with the best of 'em. Probably sings a lot better than Lee Roth these days. He could use some coaching on his stage presence, though. Not much going on there.

Sick as hell

I've spent the last week with flu-like symptoms, or a particularly strong cold. On several days, I didn't hardly do anything except sleep, and I haven't had much appetite. The doctor checked for strep, but that came back negative, so I suppose it's a virus. I went for a run last Sunday - the day before I started feeling sick - and I wonder if that did me in. It was a fairly nice January day for Denver, with temperatures in the upper 30s, and when I stepped out the front door to check the temperature, I didn't even feel a breeze, so I didn't cover my ears. That was a mistake, because there was a breeze, particularly on the run back home. My ears were freezing. Also, in addition to 20 minutes of easy jogging, I ran 1 very fast mile around the track at Green Mountain high school. That's 6 minutes of sprinting, and consequently, 6 minutes of pretty cold air pounding on my throat and bronchial tubes. It was my throat, bronchial tubes & ears that started bothering me the next day.

Cowboys with Blackberries

We took the kids on Friday to the National Western Stock Show and rodeo - a Colorado institution. There's no doubt this is the largest gathering of people in cowboy hats anywhere in the state. You can generally tell apart the folks that wear cowboy hats and boots for real, and the posers who dust them off once or twice a year so they can fit in with the crowd. It's amusing and incongruous to see cowboys chatting away on their cell phones and blackberries like a bunch of urban teenagers.

As for the kids, the Andrew enjoyed petting and feeding the baby goats and sheep, but Elizabeth was a little bit freaked out by all the critters. Andrew's favorite part of the night was when we bought him a bag of gummy worms.

Beaver Creek

I've been wanting to ski Beaver Creek for years, and finally had a good excuse to go on Saturday. My fraternity brother Eric Ianuzi was in town from Connecticut, mainly to ski, but also for an exhibit of 2 of his paintings at the DU art school. I joined Erid and another of our fraternity brothers, Rhidian Orr, on Saturday at Beaver Creek, which had about 4 feet of new snow this week. It was a near-epic ski day, with plenty of Colorado's famous powder. To top it off, Rhidian's wife got us $40 lift tickets - that's $52 less than the full price $92 tickets - ouch!

Powder day

I woke up at 5:30 this morning and checked the snow report. 7.5 inches of new snow and 12 inches in the last 48 hours at Winter Park. My work calendar was nearly empty of meetings (which is very unusual) so I decided to take a powder day. No, I didn't lie and take a sick day - just took a vacation day. Of course since I get PTO, a sick day is the same as a vacation day.

Amy and I had had a great time, and found some good powder stashes. A storm hit on the drive home, and a few miles from the house, I hit a patch of ice at a red light and bumped the car in front of me. Fortunately, he was driving a big ol' SUV with a solid bumper, and my 4Runner's bumper was the only part that got messed up. Nothing bad, no cops, no insurance claims.

Soda and fudge

Andrew's grandma made some fudge for Christmas, and Andrew has a new favorite food now! The other day, while grudgingly finishing his meal, he told us "I wish everything was made of soda and fudge." I couldn't help but point out that if his wish came true, he could never have ice cream.

Americanized Chinese Food

Since returning from China just over a year ago, I've purposely avoided the typical Chinese restaurants that cater to gringos. The reason is that real Chinese food isn't anything like the phony fare you find on the menu at those restaurants (sweet and sour pork, pu pu platter, General Tso's Chicken, etc.) - it's much better. I have gone out of my way on several occasions to drive down to Denver's China town (near Alameda and Federal) and found authentic Chinese grub at Superstar and King's Land, which satisfied my cravings for the good stuff.

There's a Szechuan restaurant near home at Garrison and 6th Ave, and I've been craving Sichuan (aka Szechuan) food for a while, so I thought I'd try it. Amy and I dragged the kids there on a last-minute whim on Friday night, and it was disappointing. Nothing on the menu that resembled the fantastic and spicy Sichuan food we had in China. Just your standard Americanized Chinese menu. Blah. The only redeeming thing about the place is that we learned that Sichuan means "4 streams" (Si meaning 4 - which we already knew, and chuan presumably meaning stream).

Anybody know where to find authentic Sichuan food in Denver???

5:05 on a treadmill

I'm still training to run a 5 minute mile, which is tough with snow and ice everywhere for the past several weeks. This morning, I ran a 5:05 mile on the treadmill at the gym, which is faster than I could run it outside, I'm sure, where I actually have to propel my body forward rather than just move my legs fast. Anybody know how to convert treadmill time to real time?

Australia (March 29, 2002)

This is another installment in the series: 'Round the World Revisited. I sent this email from Australia on March 29, 2002 during our 6 month journey around the world.

Greetings from Australia (Oz)!

Quiz: translate the following phrase from Australian
into English: "I've got tinnies in me eskie, mate!"
(answer at the end of this message)

First some observations about the differences between
New Zealand and Oz.

1. Northern Australia is hot! In fact, I dare say it's
freakin' hot! In Cairns and Darwin it seems to hover
around 99 degrees (that's 37 to the locals) with high
humidity. At night it gets all the way down to about
85. Southern NZ was getting a bit chilly by the time
we left.

2. Australia is swarming with 20-25 year old kids
running around in swimwear looking for cheap beer. And
the tourism infrastructure is really geared to cater
to them. The average NZ tourist is slightly more
mature and sober.

3. Prices. Food in Australia is dirt cheap, but cars
are not. We paid US$12 per day for a nice 4-door car
in NZ, but in Oz cars are running about US$30 per day
for a tiny Daihatsu with a squirrel cage for an
engine.

On to our adventures. We started in Cairns on the
north east coast, and did a 3 day live-aboard diving
trip on the great barrier reef. We also took the
advanced open water diving course. A great time,
except for the broken air conditioning on board the
ship (refer to #1 above). We did 8 dives plus
snorkelling, including a night dive, deep dive (28
meters/90 feet), and a boat/drift dive. Great marine
life -- colorful corals of every variety, giant clams,
white-tipped reef sharks, giant Maori wrasse
(friendly, approachable, and several hundred pounds),
turtles, etc. Visibility wasn't spectacular, but
decent.

Next was a few days' driving around the tropical
north, including the Wet Tropics World Heritage area
(rain forest preserve). It's fairly rare in that the
rain forest comes right down to the coast. We were
able to spot a wide variety of wildlife, including
crocodiles, cassowaries (huge flightless birds),
lizards, wallabies, brush turkeys, scrub fowl (build
huge ground nests 9 feet tall and 15 feet across),
giant yellow orb spiders (bigger across than your
hand), possums, pademelon (tiny marsupials) etc. But
no luck spotting the elusive Platypus.

Next stop Darwin, in north-central Australia (the
Northern territory, which is NOT a state, kind of like
the old territories of the western U.S). Our primary
aim here was to visit the huge Kakadu national park.
We're here at the end of the wet season, although this
has been a relatively dry season. We did a guided 3
day tour, and our guide was a real Aussie character,
ala "Crocodile Dundee" or Steve Irwin (the Crocodile
Hunter). He loved to hike around barefoot and had a
vast knowledge of "bush tucker" (outback foods),
aboriginal culture, and the flora and fauna. Plus he
told some great stories! The tour was great and we saw
some amazing country, with impressive sandstone
formations covered with lush vegetation, ancient
(10000+ year old) aboriginal rock art, and beautiful
water falls and swimming holes. We really got off the
beaten track where there were no trails, and he even
got us to follow him barefoot up a canyon
appropriately called the "garden of Eden" where we
climbed up a waterfall and took in the scenery. It
definitely wasn't your typical tour of 50 old farts
packed into a big tour bus.

We also did a 1-day tour at Litchfield Nat'l Park,
which was similar scenery and swimming, but much more
crowded. The highlight for me was seeing hundreds of
huge black bats -- flying foxes -- hanging from the
trees, and a little rock wallaby with a joey (that's a
baby) poking it's head out of her pouch.

Here's a question for you MBA types out there: how
does a pub give away free meals and free beer and
still make money? There's a bar in Darwin which gives
away free dinners 7 nights a week -- all you have to
do is get a ticket from any tour company. So 7 of us
from the Kakadu tour went for our free meal after our
tour, and were surprised that the food is actually
pretty good. Not only that, but after we sat down, the
bar tender brought 3 free pitchers ("jugs") of beer to
the table. By now we've had 3 free meals at this
joint. Not bad! There was a place in Cairns that had
free meals too -- they really compete to bring in the
partying crowd of young backpackers.

Next we're off to Katherine Gorge, where we'll do some
exploring before we begin a 4-day volunteer project
with Australian Conservation Trust. We'll be
revegetating an area of thermal pools (presumably
damaged from too many people visiting the area), and
hopefully meeting some great people. We've done
trail-building projects back home and the people we
meet are always interesting.

Quiz answer: "I have cans of beer in my ice box,
buddy!"

We hope all is well back in the USA! Happy Easter!

--Brad and Amy

6-year-old telemark skiing on moguls

At Mary Jane, it's not uncommon to find 6-year-olds skiing black runs. On Sunday, though, I saw a little guy cruising down a black run - moguls and all - wearing telemark skis. Kinda embarrassing when a first grader can free-hill ski as good or better than I can on the bumps. I like to think they have an unfair advantage due to their low center of gravity.

Amy, Andrew and I all went skiing at Winter Park on Sunday. This is actually the 3rd season that Andrew's been on skis, and he's doing great. He still likes us to hold onto his harness, but he doesn't realize that we're not assisting him at all - he's doing it all himself.

Preschool Holiday Concert

Andrew participated in his first ever performance on a stage: the Free Horizon Montessori School Holiday Concert. His combined Primary (pre-school) and Kindergarten class jammed the stage to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Dreidel Song, and The Twelve Days of Christmas. In the audience, a few hundred parents with video cameras watched with smiling faces. Andrew sang well and enjoyed himself, even if he did get a bit lost during some of the verses, and fidgeted a bit. Good job, Andrew!

Explaining infinity to a 4-year-old

How do you explain the concept of infinity to a 4-year-old? I've been struggling with this for a few weeks now. Andrew can count to about 100 now, and he loves to shout out numbers that sound huge, like "five hundred thousand". Trying to outdo his friend Quentin in the big numbers game, he asked me, "what is the biggest number of all"? "Infinity," I told him. This leads to interesting conversations, such as:

Dad: "You would have to keep counting forever to count to infinity."
Andrew: "You mean until you die?"
Dad: "Well, uh, even longer than that."
Andrew: "What is infinity plus one?"
Dad: "That's also infinity. Infinity isn't a normal number. No matter how high you count, you can always count 1 number higher, so you'll never count to infinity. It's kinda complicated."

I find myself using that same explanation for other questions, such as "why is the day shorter in the winter?"

So now Andrew has a new phrase he likes to use. "It's kinda complicated..."

Belize

Dec 1: the journey

As always, Andrew thoroughly enjoyed the ride on the underground train at the airport. From there, the first leg of our flight took us through Dallas. Amy's secret seating scheme to reserve 3 seats but skip the middle seat served us well. We reserved an aisle seat, the opposite aisle seat, and the window seat, but not the middle seat; no one else got that unreserved middle seat, so it was ours! From Dallas to Belize City, we didn't get so lucky, until the couple across the aisle from us discovered that they lost their passports. Their loss was our gain - 2 extra seats on a flight that was otherwise completely full! Next was a 14-seat puddle jumper that took us 30 miles to the village of San Pedro on Amergris Caye - the smallest plane I've ever been in except for a short joy ride in a sail plane (glider). What is ambergris? A secretion from the intestines of a whale, once used to make perfume, and at the time, more valuable than gold. Next was a short taxi ride to the dock, followed by a boat ride through the dark to the Costa Maya Reef Resort, about 6 miles north from San Pedro. There aren't any real roads outside San Pedro, so boats are really the only way to get there.

Dec 2: relax
On Sunday we let the kids enjoy the pool and the sand, and we snorkeled around the resort's pier. A school of about 400 bonefish puttered around a sand flat just past the end of the pier, and hundreds of grunts hung out under the shade of the pier.

Dec 3: snorkel
Belize, just south of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, is a small country with only about 250,000 residents. It's home to the world's 2nd longest barrier reef, which sits about half a mile from the front door of our beach-front room. A nice spot for snorkeling called Mexico rocks is a short paddle on a sit-on-top kayak from the beach. Dozen of coral "heads" (small groups of coral) are separated by sand flats in about 10 feet of turquoise water. Amy and I spotted a large southern sting ray up close, and a large variety of smaller reef fish. Quite good snorkeling, though not the best I ever experienced. How did we do this with 2 small kids in tow? We left them with grandma and grandpa for a few hours.

Dec 4: snorkeling in Hol Chan marine reserve

Hol Chan is a reserve at the southern tip of the key. We joined a group of 4 others plus our guide. The first stop is a cut in the reef where we snorkel down one side, across the cut, and the back up the other side of the reef. Here we saw 2 large spotted eagle rays with about 8 feet of wing span. The graceful fish are amazing to watch. The next spot is known as shark/ray alley. Here the nurse sharks, southern sting rays, yellow fin snappers, and jacks are well accustomed to tour boats feeding them chum. I'm not really crazy about the idea of feeding wild animals, but the result here is an incredible and very memorable experience. We were actually able to reach out and touch the 3-6 foot long nurse sharks, while the rays were so tame they would swim straight to us and I could grab their wings.

Dec 5: diving; Andrew falls in the drink

On Wednesday morning we went for 2 dives. The first was a deep dive to 100 feet just outside the reef, starting with a swim through a short cave. The area has deep coral canyons, a wide variety of hard and soft corals, and a decent number of reef fish. The 2nd dive was in much shallower water maybe 1 mile from the heart of San Pedro. Once again the guide used food to lure the sharks and rays, and they were even tamer than yesterday. Here, you could easily reach out and grab a nurse shark by the tail and let it take you for a short ride. They didn't even try to get away when you swam toward them. One shark acted like a dog when we grabbed it, turned it upside down and rubbed its belly; the shark seemed to enjoy it! After the feeding frenzy, we swam around and saw a turtle and another spotted eagle ray, this time up close. Awesome. In the afternoon I cast Ron's fly rod from the end of the pier while Andrew watched. After one cast, I heard a big splash - Andrew had fallen right off the end, about 4 feet into the shallow ocean below. I immediately jumped in after him, and was proud when he popped up to the surface with his eyes wide, but didn't panic, tread water like a champ, and remained calm. Another man on the pier pulled him back up, and then Andrew was actually pretty excited about his little adventure, and went running to tell mommy all about it.

Dec 6: back to Mexico rocks

On Thursday we ventured back to the coral heads in front of our resort. This trip was better than the first, with brighter sunlight and a more aquatic life, including another nurse shark and another eagle ray, again up close and personal. Andrew and Elizabeth enjoyed the pool and the beach -yet again!

Dec 7: fishing in the lagoon

Ron (Amy's dad) and I ventured in a 2-man kayak out to the mangrove-surrounded lagoon on the west side of the island with 3 fly rods. Ron explored the lagoon 2 days before, and plotted his course on his GPS. Without it, you could easily get hopelessly lost in the narrow channels and confusing, small lagoons. I landed a small bonefish and small barracuda, and we spooked a school of large snook but weren't able to land any of them. As I paddled back, we trolled a fly and Ron landed a decent size barracuda which we kept for one of the maintenance men who worked at our resort and told us he liked barracuda. After paddling 10 miles with my bony butt on a hard plastic kayak seat, I was happy to be back on land.

One other thing: all of us endured mosquito and sand fly bites, but somehow Elizabeth was almost unaffected. While we had dozens of itchy bites, we could only find one spot on Elizabeth that appeared to be a bug bite. Lucky girl!

Day 8: from hot to cold

On Saturday we woke to our 7th consecutive beautiful, 80+ degree sunny morning overlooking clear blue ocean. 12 hours, 1 boat ride, and 3 airplane flights later, we landed in Denver in the middle of a snowstorm at 18 degrees Fahrenheit, scraping ice off the windshield.

Overall, Belize was great. The diving and snorkeling was great and very memorable, even if it didn't fully live up to the hype of being the world's greatest. Prices in Belize are high, since almost everything is imported. Groceries cost about double what they would at home.

The Costa Maya Reef Resort is above average, but not fantastic. The beach and pool were nice. The isolated location makes it quiet and relaxed, but with the next resort about half a mile away, you don't have a lot of choices - you're pretty much stuck with what they offer you. Food prices were high, some meals were good, and some were mediocre. Service was slow. Our room was spacious and adequate, but far from superb. The dishwasher was broken, although they did fix it, and the AC in one room didn't work.