Riding In The Snow

I've had 3 rides in the snow in the past two weeks, crazy!

The first was at night, and there was just too much snow.  We just went up horse trail and back down after finding that there were nearly 6" of snow at the top.

Then, last week, I rode a ride with blue sky and sun, and just a sprinkling of snow - about an inch.    It was phenomenal - one of the prettiest days of riding I've had in months.

Today I set out in the rain with gray clouds, not quite as exciting as the sunny day.  But as soon as I started climbing up the hills in the forest the snow started collecting fast.  I ended up riding through about 3" of snow.
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I think 3" is about the limit of snow I'll ride in.  Coming down it was OK, but going up was tough going because I spun the tires some.  Plus, the snow really started to build up in the gears and in the rear triangle.

I would have never guessed that I'd have 3 days of riding in the snow in March!

Politics, March 2012

I just posted my BranBrain Dump, and realized I had neglected my political thoughts.

First, the GOP candidates for president are just nuts (Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul).  You've got Romney, a fairly "centrist" republican who is trying to appear as "conservative" as he can be and failing - he's the candidate the GOP doesn't want.  You've got Santorum, a hard-core social conservative who basically thinks women belong in the kitchen making sandwiches.  Gingrich is obviously old school, cheated on both his wives, and says he's not a part of the establishment, even though he actually created the current back-stabbing conditions in American politics (and who was ousted from power by his own party b/c of corruption).  And then there's Ron Paul, the isolationist - who has more views I agree with than any of the GOP candidates - and more than I agree with Obama.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of any of them.  I'm actually going to write in Scott Adams (yes, of Dilbert fame).

We're still at war in Afghanistan, and bombing several other countries via unmanned drone.  We're still imprisoning hundreds of "terrorists" (without enough evidence to even have a trial to see if they're worth holding).  We've killed an American via a targeted drone strike, and Obama's justice department justifies it by saying that "due process doesn't mean judicial process." Nobody from the Bush administration has been prosecuted for war crimes/torture, nobody from Wall Street has been charged with anything due to the financial collapse, no real reform has been made in either situation - in fact Obama has gone after whistle blowers more vigorously than all other administrations beforehand, he's expanded executive power more then W did, etc. etc. etc.

Needless to say I'm not happy.

I am happy I've found this comic strip, here's an example of their work.  It's spot-on and absolutely hilarious.

You've got the media talking about nothing but the political races, and completely ignoring actual policy debates.

For example, Iran.  Everyone from Obama to the GOP candidates are trying to sound tough on Iran, completely and whole-heartedly supporting Israel's desire to bomb Iran.  Yet when actually pressed (though nobody ever does), people in the know agree that there is no evidence that Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons.  Nobody talks about the fact that Iran actually had signed an agreement to give up the enrichment program - and the US decided to just go ahead with sanctions instead.

And the media just goes along with the party line - both parties in fact, and repeats the same B.S. - which is what led us into Iraq.

It's disgusting.

Brain Dump March 2012

Forced post to jump start this blog.

My LASIK has gone incredibly well.  I just had my 2 month checkup and the doctor says he has trouble seeing the edge of the corneal flap.  Plus, my left eye is spot-on - no astigmatism and perfect vision.  The right eye is slightly near-sighted and has a slight astigmatism.  The left eye is 20/15 and the right is a slightly blurry 20/20, and both together can read a couple of the letters on the 20/10 line.  woo-hoo!  Other than an odd dream where I saw the doctor b/c a flap had come unhinged, everything is going super well.

I'm still doing Weight Watchers and am coming out of a 2+ month slump.  I've basically had the same weight since December, but am currently at my lowest weight since I started: 240.4#.  I've been occasionally eating crummy food at work (someone brought baklava, and there were donuts, and pizza) and feel kinda tired when I do that.  So I'm doubling down and eating good food to see if that helps with the energy levels (and weight).

I've been riding 2 or 3 times a week in the mountains and been loving it.  We've had some rain in January and February, but even with all the "crummy" weather, I've only had to ride in the rain maybe 3 times since I started riding in the fall.  On Tuesday of this week I went out for a lovely ride in the sun and blue skies with an inch of snow all over the hills.  Amazing and beautiful!

I don't think I mentioned it on my blog (quick search... nope) - I joined a mountain bike team this year: Team Dirt.  It's got some really amazing riders on it, and I figured they could use some help rounding out the team profile (ha, round, get it? I'm overweight, i.e. round, heh heh).  The team is loosely organized, though this year it's applying to be a non-profit and the guy running it is making the team and the races he organizes his job (as in, he quit his other job -  but he's got a wife who brings in the money).  There are lots of plans for the future - building more trails, more races, changes to the team to be more inclusive (allowing people who just want to do trail work and not ride).

One of the active team members has a regular ride on Monday and Thursday nights from his house and there are 2-3 guys who consistently show up to ride.  I've joined that crew on Thursdays (after my WW meeting) and been riding with them for about a month.  They're a good group of guys who wait for me at the tops of the climbs.

What's been real fun is that a number of people on the team are using strava.com to track their rides.  What makes this site different than others (for the moment, I figure they'll have competition soon, if not already) is that  it automatically recognizes segments of rides for you, and it recognizes when other people have ridden that segment.  So, for example, the climb to Dimple Hill is a segment, and every time I ride it, the web page tracks my time and shows how I'm doing relative to everyone else.  An aside is that my personal goal is to make that climb in under 20 minutes (by the end of June).  Plus, there's a social aspect to the site where you can follow people and get updates on their activities.  So I'm seeing what other guys on the team are riding and how they're doing - which meant that I already had some rapport with the guys I ride with on Thursdays before I'd even ridden with them.  It's been surprisingly fun.  You can see my riding here.

I've got the Beaver Freezer coming up, and a friend from Wings is going to join me and race too.  I've yet to dip my foot in a pool since the last Freezer - perhaps this weekend.  And, I just found out today that my trusty old road bike needs ... $900 worth of work.  (shhhh, don't tell Mary, she doesn't know yet).  So there's some decisions to be made on that front.  (new crank/chain/cassette/bb, shifters old and worn and old enough they need to be replaced, new tires, cables/housing, front derailleur - basically everything but the brake arms, frame, headset, hubs and rims).

When Mary and I visited Victoria last fall for our anniversary I bought a pair of custom sandals from Heart And Sole Shoes - kind of on a whim (Mary was the one who was interested in the shop and sandals).  I've been wearing them regularly since then and have been enjoying them.  They're definitely unique, and I've gotten comments like "Jesus sandals" and "gladiator sandals" all the way to "are you wearing your wife's sandals?"  They were made just for my feet and have proven to wear very well so far in the 5 months since I've had them.  I do need to trim the leather strap that goes around the back of my foot (it stretched a fair amount).  I'm mostly including that note to see if I ever get around to doing it.

Mary is doing real well - she's begun her practice part-time (half a day a week, to selected patients only), she's fit as a fiddle and looking great.  Plus, she's been learning to ride a horse since last fall and loves that very much.  I don't like commenting bunches about her on my blog b/c I wouldn't want to speak for her, but I think she's pretty happy overall.

Simone, on the other hand, doesn't have a blog (that I know of), so I'm continuing to take the liberty to talk all about her.

She's loving kindergarten at the Waldorf school, and after spending the first half of the year talking mostly about a couple of kids she'd gone to preschool with, she's talking about other kids now.  One, Xavier (?), was very prominent for a week because they were "in love" - and they'd kissed (I guess Simone is very lovey with most of the kids).  You can keep your jokes about "just wait until she's a teen" to yourself.

The biggest shock to me was that we're going to keep her in kindergarten for another year.  Long story short, when the thought of next year first came up I'd assumed she'd be going onto 1st grade next year, and when that came into question I was a bit shocked.  I quickly realized it was all about my ego (as if that should matter in determining what's best for her).  The school had a meeting for parents of soon-to-be-1st-graders and talked about what they looked for developmentally and talked about the differences between kindergarten and the grades.  It became clear that Simone is still pretty dreamy and probably wouldn't adapt to the requirements of 1st grade without a bit of a struggle.  She's been reading lots, spelling words, writing letters/cards/stories - so she's ready academically, but honestly, I don't think she could really handle sitting for 2 hours out of the day.  She does that on her own schedule all the time, but it's never when she's "told to" (like when I'm working from home and Mary is out for some reason).  Plus, part of the reason we chose this school was for the personal attention and their emphasis on social growth - and if the teacher is suggesting she stay in kindergarten - it'd be foolish to ignore her advice.  Ultimately, there's no reason to rush Simone off to college, let her be a kid a little longer.

Off Road!

Simone and I rode the Trail-A-Long to Avery Park this afternoon.

Right when we got there I asked her if she wanted to take the dirt path that goes around the park.  She was very excited and we rode it all the way from the Mary's River crossing to Lion's Kitchen.  And then we rode it back the other direction.

Lots of "whee!" interspersed with "boing" as we went over rockier portions of the trail.

Hopefully the first of many off-road adventures.

Running

I started running again - with the intention of seeing whether or not my body would be agreeable to do it for another Beaver Freezer.  A friend from Life Works (that seminar I just finished) told me she'd come and race with me if I did it (she has a goal of competing in a race of some kind in each of the 50 states).

So, I'm spending January figuring it out.

My body isn't crazy about running, but I think it will be ok with me doing the Freezer.

Yesterday's run was in the mist, and the streams were flowing high.  I took a couple of crummy photos with my iPhone.

At the end, my knees complained a little bit (I resorted to more walking than running), but was happy to be outdoors.

Self-Made Coloring Book Pages

Just the other day, Simone decided to draw some pages to color in.  We've had a couple of different coloring books, and she likes them well enough.  Lately she's paid a fair amount of attention to coloring in the lines and choosing very specific colors.  I've always preferred her free-hand drawings, but some of the colorings have been very pretty.

This, however, was a new twist.  She drew two pictures with black pen and we colored one in together.  I had artistic reign over the fairies (well, one had to be a rainbow fairy, oh, and they needed blue eyes and gold hair, but I did the coloring), and I colored in the brown roof, the chimney, and the tree.  But I just love her drawing, with the wings and the tu-tu.

And then she drew another page, which we didn't get to color.  It's a drawing of Jade (the larger one) and Juptier.

Simone Book

Simone loves creating things.  Last fall (Sept 2011) she wrote a book.  Well, she wrote many books, but one in particular stood apart.  I just scanned the images in, and here it is.

Of course it has a title page, which is her name:

Mary got some watercolor pencils, which are way cool.  You draw with the pencils, using whatever colors you want, and then you come back with a water brush and apply the water and you get a water color painting.

Simone loves using them.  She draws with a pen for the outline, and then colors it in.

I can't remember if the next drawing was a boat, or just the clay birdhouse we have in the back yard.  Ah, that's probably it, the birdhouse was sitting in one of the clay pots that have soil.

I knew I should have kept notes, I'm pretty sure this is a picture of Hazel.  She was really missing Hazel last fall.

 Flowers are a big part of her drawing.  Though this one actually reminds me of a duck.  This one is a black-eyed susan.

 I believe the next one is a self portrait, note the blue eyes and blonde hair.  She is wearing her Hawaii dress.

Rainbows were probably the first concrete thing Simone started drawing, and they make frequent appearances.  Edit: Simone informed me this is a sunset - which makes sense, there's no green.

From another picture she drew about the same time, I think this is a picture of the horse named "Red."

After creating all the pages, Simone ripped them out of the notebook and stapled them together.  She's made a number of books, some are full-blown stories, and some are more abstract.  This is certainly one of my favorites.

Edit: This morning I showed Simone the pictures and she read the file names and corrected me on several accounts.  So, she recognizes the words rainbow, clifford (I'd incorrectly named the in the filename).

Three Weeks In

We're in the new year, and what's happened?

I had LASIK (at PCLI) and it went really well, though I'm itching to get back to mountain biking (I took a week off as a precaution, then had other things get in the way - including the flooding of Corvallis which has closed down the forest b/c of landslides).

I finished up the Life Works seminar, which was  a great experience.

The last weekend of LW, Simone caught a bit of a stomach flu and was puking all weekend, I returned from my weekend away to help out as Mary got winged by it, and then I took a day off because it laid me low for a day.  I think it's our first illness that got all three of us.

Simone is drawing lots (I really want to scan them in... maybe that'll be tonight's project), and speaking more and more complicated - I wonder where my little girl has gone.

This weekend is a papa weekend as Mary is at a conference.  Simone and I played outside in the brief patch of  sun, we made mustard and kimchi, we read lots of books, and then more books, and we've been eating lots - including rice pudding for dessert.

Mary hung up some paper lamps in the bedrooms, and the fairies turn them on and off for us.  The three in our bedroom are remote-controlled, so the mystery might still be holding there.  It's hard to tell if Simone is just playing along or if she still believes.

Tonight I read "A Fairy Went A-Marketing" to Simone while she took a bath.  Cute book, great illustrations.  How geeky of me was it that when the fairy gave a coat to a frog my first thought was, "That's not right!  Frogs are cold-blooded!  What is this book teaching?!"

The year has started off well - looking forward to the remaining 49 weeks!

New Year

Well, it's a new year.

The highlights so far - a lovely 3+ hour walk with Mary through the woods (Lewisburg Saddle to the top of Dimple Hill, down Dan's and back) while Simone was at school, then lunch at Vietnamese food, then a 2 hour mountain bike ride up to the top of McCulloch Peak (taking nearly 3 minutes off my PR, yay!), and coming home to see Mary and Simone, both happy to see me.

The lowlights so far: Spending nearly 8 hours re-installing all the software on my laptop from scratch (yes, I could buy a new one, but facing 8 hours versus $1K, I went with the time I had).

It's Good

Simone woke up early this morning and called out for me.  When I came into her room she wanted help blowing her nose and then asked if I could snuggle.  As I snuggled in next to her she said, "It's good to snuggle in the morning."

It certainly is.

Breakfast

So we're at the beach for Thanksgiving.  Mary, Simone and I drove through Astoria because 101 is flooded just south of Seaside.  The road is flooded because there was a crazy storm happening, winds up to 60mph (seemed like 80, but what do I know).

We woke up (I use that term loosely, I slept in until 8:30) and then decided to have some breakfast.  Oatmeal porridge was on the menu, but for some reason Mary pulled down a package of marshmallows, and she said the word "marshmallow."

Of course Simone heard this and came into the kitchen asking about them, face very bright and excited.  There were two bags.  One of the ridiculously over-sized large marshmallows - large enough that you need a graham cracker the size of a piece of sandwich bread to match.  The other bag was the regular size marshmallow.  Simone told us how the big ones make her sick and she'll "never eat those again" ("never" and "always" are popular terms right now, everything is absolute).  However, she did want one of the regular-sized ones.

She had 3 marshmallows, very excited about each one - I should have gotten it on video.

We did actually eat oatmeal after than, and then I high-tailed it to McMennemin's to put in half a day of work, leaving Mary to hang out with Simone hopped up on sugar.

good-luck!

Riding With Simone To School

Simone and I rode to school today.

Yup, she's in kindergarten at the big Waldorf school, it's her second full week.

We woke up this morning, had breakfast (hens in pens), dressed up nice and warm, hopped on our bike and road the 6 miles or so to school. It was super foggy in parts - I meant to take a photo of some trees in the fog, but I wanted to be to sure to get to school on time.

We got there in plenty of time, being the second kid in the class to walk in.

Simone peeled off her many layers, kissed me goodbye and she was off.

It felt great to ride her to school, and I hope to do it a few more times before the rain sets in.

I took a slightly longer way home, riding along Walnut/53rd, and I did take the time to snap a photo of the sun shining through the oak trees. I was on a bit of a hill here, and was just barely out of the fog, about 2 minutes later I was back in the thick of things.

I do love the fall weather - let's hope it sticks around for a while longer.

If Only "The Onion" Reported Real News...

I didn't read/follow much of the 9/11 navel-gazing that happened, but I saw that The Onion wrote a piece and thought I'd check it out. It's worth a read (it's really more sad/ironic than funny).

U.S. Commemorates 9/11 By Toasting Stable Afghan Government From Top Of Freedom Tower | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

NEW YORK—In a moving and beautiful ceremony held atop Lower Manhattan's gleaming, 120-story-tall Freedom Tower, the nation commemorated the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by raising a glass to the stable democracy of Afghanistan and to a decade of unprecedented peace and prosperity across the globe.

A sobering/depressing read

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult:

"If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power."

He heaps a lot of blame on the Republicans and (more or less) discounts the Democrats as incompetent. I think I'd disagree with that statement about the Democrats - I think they're basically in cahoots with the Republicans. This isn't Gilligan's Island, the Dems are professional politicians - they know what they're doing, they know who butters their bread - it's the same as who butters the GOP's bread - large corporate interests...

I do have half a mind to take Mary up on her occasional, "we should move to another country..." thought.

Wouldn't that shock people.

Farm to Farm - a ride for me

Mary noticed a bike ride coming up, the Farm to Farm.  It totally has my name written all over it.  A ride through the countryside, with 4 stops along the way at farms with fresh food, ending with a meal made from the ingredients from the farms.  Woo-hoo!

I'm in.  Anyone else?

Studying Obesity

(From the archives, a post started in January 2011 but never finished)

Today I saw two articles. The first was in our Friday paper: "OSU wins $5 million grant for rural childhood obesity research", and the second was a blog post "The American Fast Food Syndrome". Oh, and I heard a story on the radio last night, "Overburdened Food Banks Can't Say No To Junk."

It got me to thinking about obesity again, and wondering how much money will we throw at studying this problem and how much time (lives) will we waste?

The OSU research has a goal of "improv[ing] the fitness level and reduce the body mass index of rural children, ages 5 to 8." That's a great goal, and you do need specific goals in order to win research money. Which are you more likely to give money to, a study with the goal, "make people happier" or one whose goal is "decrease incidence of days of depression in 20-25 year olds"?

We, in the U.S., seem to like to research the hell out of things and not do anything about it. How many diet/lifestyle studies do we need to do?

It's clear that if we feed ourselves too much food, and crummy food at that, we're going to get fat.  The government heavily subsidizes corn/soy/wheat/sugar and that gets turned into cheap junk food.

Biking and a Hike

We found a trail-a-bike (tag-a-long) on Craig's List yesterday and I picked it up today.  We should have gotten one in the beginning of the summer...  oh well.

We hooked it up and Simone and I went riding off into the summer day.  She had a blast, and so did I.  Simone  felt very confident on the bike (after the initial 30 seconds of "I'm tired"), and about half way into our ride she was pedaling enough that I could feel the help.  I'd occasionally stop pedaling (on request) so she could be the one to make us go, and I'd do all the steering.

We went through Avery park, to Noah's house (he wasn't there), and then on to Bohdie's (he was, we chatted for a few minutes), and then we came back through Avery park to see the big train engine there.  All in all, we covered nearly 8 miles, and Simone would have easily gone another 4 (she was asking to go further).

Instead we came home to connect with Mary, who was hanging out at home recovering from her first half-marathon.  Yay Mary!  She did it with Tracy (Bohdie's mother), so the papas and the kids rolled down a little later to catch the mamas as they crossed the finish line.  Tracy finished 49th out of the 1000 - running way fast (about 1h45m).  Simone and I walked them back to their car and made it back to the finish line a few minutes before Mary crossed - so we cheered her on.

Anyway, we came home from the bike ride to tell Mary all about it, and then headed out to Alsea Falls for a little hike and to cool our feed in the water.  We rarely go out there, and I don't know why - it's lovely.  We crossed over the creek and headed down the trail to where it got a little slippery.  But we made it down to the water and hung out in the bottom of the gorge on big rocks, wading in the water, feeling as though we had the entire forest to ourselves.

A wonderful labor day to finish a great weekend.

It Begins

Today was my first meeting at Weight Watchers.  I weighed in at 263.8 pounds (socks, shorts, t-shirt), and I've got my goals set.

The leader (Sandy) is energetic and pretty entertaining (though she reminds me a little bit of my mom...)

Here's to reaching some new goals and staying there.  The medium-term goal is 235 pounds, but first I've gotta lose 5 pounds (you get a gold star! - it's just like kindergarten)...

An Adventure

We woke up this morning and figured we'd try something new, and adventure perhaps. So, after a rousing game of bananagrams,

Mary made one of our favorite breakfasts, sunny-side-up eggs over a bed of wilted spinach. yum! We then piled into the car

and headed off for a little hike just outside of Lincoln City called Drift Creek Falls. We'd never been there before and it sounded neat. The last 10 miles of the drive there were through a narrow, winding road, and it seemed as though we were going into the middle of nowhere. But, when we arrived, there was a huge paved parking area with space for 20 cars, most of which were filled. We parked, hopped out, and headed down the path. The trail is very gentle, mostly following a ridge down to a little creek at the bottom. You walk through a variety of sunny forest with lots of vegetation, and darker forest along a steeper portion of the hill.

After getting to the bottom, we had a snack next to the stream:

Drift Creek from Trey Jackson on Vimeo.

We crossed the stream, walked through some nice old growth forest

and then came to a neat suspension bridge over a surprisingly large gorge (very little water seemed to flow through it)

We then hiked down to the bottom to dip our feet in (Simone came fully prepared with water wings)

The hike back out was almost as nice - a little busier, and uphill of course. Simone did find one little fairy chair to sit in on the way out.

After the nice hike, we drove into Lincoln City and found lunch at a wonderful cafe named Blackfish Cafe. The fish and chips was awesome, Mary's fish tacos were delicious - almost as good as her glass of wine. And the hostess said dinner was even better (reservations recommended). The fog rolled in, and Mary and Simone started to fall asleep, so I pulled into Agate Beach (a childhood favorite of Mary's) and we played in the sand there for an hour. There are sand dunes all over the beach, ranging from 2 feet tall to nearly 6 feet. Much fun for climbing, sliding, jumping and the occasional tackle.

We finished the day with a light dinner at Mo's, some ice cream (and brownie!!!) for dessert and then headed home.

A very good day indeed.

Camping In Her Room

Last night Simone camped in her room, it was very exciting.