Heavy Hiking

Rattlesnake Canyon Arches

2012-02-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

Denver got blanketed in snow, but the ski areas received very little. What to do? Go to the Rattlesnake Canyon Arches!

More photos here.

I just loved this place. Despite it's relative proximity to I-70, various circumstances have conspired to keep it isolated - the trail is a little too long (14 miles round trip) for a day hike, and the road is notoriously bad when wet (and closed from February 15-April 15).

There are good descriptions of the trip online, including the BLM's fine map/directions, so I'll add only a few points:

-The arches are on a bench about 500 feet above the floor of Rattlesnake Canyon. The bench itself is both relatively narrow (a few hundred feet at its widest) and short (50-60 feet). So you observe the arches from a comfortable natural amphitheater, but whenever you turn around your eyes have to adjust to this sweeping panorama out into canyon country. The opposite wall of the canyon is itself dotted with sandstone towers, vaults, and an arch or two. While wonderful to view in person, the forced "close up" make the arches somewhat difficult to photograph. Even professional photos strain to "back up" enough to capture the full effect. I'm sure someone has solved this through aerial photography (which I haven't seen).

-The arches bench faces southwest, maximizing the winter sun. I am confident this was one of the warmest spots in the area this weekend (although it dropped into the teens at night).

-Really you come to see the big Akiti Arch. It's pretty stunning:

But my favorite view was from on top of the bench looking down Horsethief Canyon. Here it is again:

For me, canyon country begins at the Loma boat ramp (although I admit this is arbitrary - if you live in Phoenix, canyon country could begin at the Mogollon Rim. The Colorado River and I-70 rush out of the Rockies, and past Grand Mesa/Lands End. Then it lingers in Grand Valley, bordered on one side by fine farmland and the endless Book Cliffs, and on the other by Colorado National Monument, a prelude of the canyons to come. Then at Loma, the highway can't follow the river anymore, the river drifts into Horsethief Canyon, and a clear line between regions is drawn. On one side of Loma is the Rockies and Colorado. On the other side is Utah, sandstone, and the Colorado Plateau. And I could sit at this vantage between the two - very nice.

Generous Servings (closed)

2012-02-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

Will-J observed that the windows at Generous Servings are covered in paper. After somediscussion, he understood this to mean no more good butter-tasting poppy seedmuffins – not just today but forever (!). Despite Will-J’s love, we never quite understood that place. It had fine coffee, but really no place tosit (inside) and enjoy it. It had abeautiful commercial kitchen, but said kitchen was dedicated to cookingclasses, and later a sideline dessert/snack après-dinner place. But the après-dinner place was too small tobe comfortable for the couples who would presumably enjoy such a place. Service in the coffee shop used to beproblematic, but improved over time

This opens the door to the ultimate Highlands coffee-snob place(catering of course to me). First,Peaberry’s closed. While the coffee wasbad, it had a great heated outdoor seating area. Now Generous Servings is gone, only somewhatoffset by the fine biscuit/strong coffee place occupying Basil Docs (also lovedby Will-J), but only in the morning, and also with no good place to sit/enjoy. St. Marks needs to open a Denver-west place,please. Or maybe a Denver branch for TheCup, The Laughing Goat, Café Sole, Brewing Market, Vic’s, etc. – who will takeup the cause, Boulder coffee entrepreneurs?

Stuff (generally Chile / Peru)

2012-01-14T12:17:00.001-08:00

-I want one of the CONAF guardaparque’s sun hats. I don’t like sun hats generally because theyusually seem floppy, with too much cloth (and they’re naff). But the CONAF guys have these nice,straightforward caps with a simple neck/ear covering.

-Everyone in this area apparently gets the same car alarm. They all have the same sound. They all have the characteristic of being very, very sensitive. When we got our truck, I touched the roll-bar in the bed and the alarm went off. When we were coming home, we were waiting for the sun to rise at the Lima airport, and there was the sound through the window: "Bee Boo Bee Boo, Booooooooooooooooip Boooooooooooooop, Naaah Nahh Naaah Nah, BRR BRR BRR BRR BRR BRR BRR BRR...." Catherine instinctively got up to go turn it off.

-Speaking of waiting, we were in Tacna for a seven-hour layover. Catherine saved us some money by having uscross into Peru and then fly from Tacna. However, crossing into Peru meant a new time zone, moving us two hoursback. Plus we didn’t really know howsimple the crossing would be – it’s simple. So here we were in the proverbial one-horse town waiting for the sun toset. But the time went quickly. Which reminds me of a recent read – “Traffic,”by Tom Vanderbilt. In the book, heexplains that defined waits seem shorter than undefined waits. So we have a defined wait, albeit long.

The book starts slow, but then gets into some relatively interesting material about the nature of safety - do we want roads that forgive unsafe driving (interstate), or roads that encourage safe driving (village road)? Also some insights on how much thought (or not) is going into road construction worldwide. Yes this was on my mind with the A-11 altiplano construction madness.

-And then speaking of waiting again, we were in Miami for four hours (the total trip home was as follows - Arica to Tacna in a collectivo cab, including the border crossing, then seven-hours in Tacna, flight to Lima, six hours in Lima, flight to Miami, four hours in Miami, flight to Denver - it took us I think about 40 hours total, or the second-longest trip of my life [but hey we saved a few hundred dollars]). The Miami airport was an interesting study - we got to watch various travel-zombies in our little corner of concourse D having similar experiences. We were sitting there, numbed out from travel, and I look across at another couple, even more numbed out from travel. The woman held a piece of cookie in her hand for several minutes before eating it. Both sunburned. I'm sure they had a good story.

-I think my post with the most views is on the La Sportiva Raptor shoe - which I wrote as a bit of a joke on gear reviews. Serves me right. Out of spite, I brought them to Chile, expecting to destroy them and perhaps leave them down here. Nope - they're tough, wonderful shoes. In fact, I can't think of a better shoe to scramble around 5,000 meter slopes measuring llareta plants all day. They don't even smell bad. In particular, they have a very precise fit - after a year, I still have to untie them to get them on. Which is great for rocky slopes and scrambling - not so great for regular running. In any case, the Raptors live on (and maybe I'll get a few hundred hits now on this post).

Chile Photos

2012-01-13T16:59:00.000-08:00

Catherine's science photos here.

My travel/general photos here.

I made a separate (small) gallery of water structure photos here.

I also took some video, and am still thinking about how to organize.

Arica beach rugby sevens

2012-01-13T16:46:00.000-08:00

Enough with plant measuring and mountain hiking - it's time for beach rugby sevens!

There was a big tournament in town today. Big hits - the sand literally shakes when these guys tackle. Big cheers for the (successful) U. de Tarapaca team. No cheers for the Lima teams. Fun with the camera:

There was even (almost) a fight - here you see U. de Tarapaca (orange/white) after a narrow five-point victory. The other guy is affiliated with the Arica Buffaloes, and upset about a late hit that ruined the Buffaloes chances to tie the game:

Parinacota / Arica, Chile (NGS Waitt Grant 5)

2012-01-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, the weather suddenly changed from this:

To this:

We took advantage of the blue skies by looking for llareta on the highest and best slope that we could - the nearby mountain Larancagua. We found a young plant at 5250 meters, which was over 100 meters higher than Catherine had previously observed - there are undoubtedly plants higher on the mountain that we could not see due to the high snowpack. My GPS put the mountain at 17,870 feet, which set our literal and metaphorical high point for the trip:

(although we couldn't always read the signs).

By this point, we were quite acclimatized, and therefore able to hike from about 15,000 feet to the summit and back in about three and a half hours (noting what what may be an altitude record for the Cumulopuntia ignescens cactus, as well as the high llareta plants):

(llareta at 5216 meters).

The better weather also allowed us to camp, lessening the time we spent driving to transect sites in the various parts of Lauca National Park - and providing us with views like this:

We left the high country for Arica this morning, taking time to note the altitude range of the outrageous browningia cactus:

As well as some other surprises, like a baccharis sp. living in the extreme arid zone at about 5,000 feet:

Later, we arrived in Arica with a fierce wind whipping off the ocean, dust flying everywhere, and ironically feeling the effects of the altitude for the first time - (very) tired, and (very) hungry. Ross the hostelier welcomed us in, and we set about eating whole chickens. One more day in Arica, and then it's back to work in Denver (although as they have internet here, we are working already).

As I mentioned in the last post, the "work" portion of the trip was intense such that the days flowed together in our attempt to gather as much data as we could, stay healthy while living at 4,500 meters, and observe whatever else we could of such a beautiful place. We attempted to start discussing what happened on the drive back down the mountain, but not only were we tired (and hungry), but we were still enveloped in this eye-popping landscape of extremes. I'd mention something about ecotourism, and then I'd look out the window at what looked like a 7,000-foot tall sand dune - and completely lose my train of thought.

So maybe this is the first and main thing to say about our time in Chile - we experienced a giant land, a land that lacks (at least our) accustomed boundaries of geology and spatial relationships. We climbed (at least what we considered) a large mountain, and looked down on the fantastically-large Choquelimpie mine:

And it turns out, people were mining gold and silver in this area for perhaps 400 years, and it's one of the larger mines of its kind in the world (this history of the mine is a worthwhile read - it has been taken down, but take the time to view a cached version). And not only that, but we couldn't even see the massive Volcan Guallatiri only a few kilometers away - there were too many other huge mountains, snowstorms, fog, etc. in the way. Only later were we able to view the volcano - appropriately, it only revealed its smoking summit when we stationed ourselves a suitably huge distance away. For our hike/climb up Larancagua, I couldn't find a climb account online, and a local guide couldn't recall another summit party - there are so many big mountains to climb, people don't have to bother with views like these:

(Nevado Sajama in the clouds).

This general thought leads directly to our second main thing, which is our broad concern over the future of Lauca, as well as Chile's outsized landscape generally. That giant mine, scheduled to reopen this year, is right in the national park. The A-11 road really is a disaster - the Gobierno Chile apparently thought it was a good idea to tear up fifteen miles of highway, and then ineptly herd massive caravans of container-trucks over an alternately dusty/muddy rutted track. We were sitting there in the endless (and logic-defeating) "pare/siga" gridlock looking simultaneously at vicuna grazing in a sensitive bofedal wetland area, and a hundred trucks bouncing along trying to supply Bolivia. Where does this lead?

The road project, and others, are having a dramatic effect on the local economy. Far fewer people are visiting Parinacota than in 2000. CONAF is operating with a skeleton crew - good rules are in place, but it's unclear if people are following them. Certainly we had the run of the place - measuring plants, climbing, camping, etc., without anyone knowing/caring what we were about. More people are staying in Putre and driving up to the high country for the day. Which may be a good thing, depending on who you ask.

(Minor aside along the lines of outsized-Chile: we consistently spoke of "going down the mountain" to Putre. As in, "it will be great to go down to Putre where it's warm and you can breathe easier." But Putre is 11,500 feet - and only a 2-3 hour drive from sea level!)

For now, Catherine's (and Dr. Rundel's and Dr. Graham's) data is locked in spreadsheets and notebooks - they will tease out the information in the months to come. Our other thoughts on outsized-Chile will likewise be a work in progress.

Parinacota, Chile (NGS Waitt Grant 4)

2012-01-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

-The nature of the "work" portion of our Chile trip dawned on me after performing the first 100 meter transect measuring the density/number of llareta plant. It took about 45 minutes, and after climbing over rocks, up and down a hillside, and panting in the altitude (about 14,600 feet), I was already getting tired. Catherine mentioned that maybe we'd do 50 or so of such transects. And so the days started running together as we measured the plants and did other work with Dr. Rundel and Dr. Graham. The data looks quite promising and meaningful, so everyone is happy (albeit tired).

We are down in Putre to check in on things at home (and of course to do more plant work). The weather has dictated the work (and play) so far - for the first few days we had sun in the morning and buildup/lightning storms in the afternoon. Then it shifted to all-day snow/rain (but without lightning).

We were able to climb a small-ish mountain (at least for this part of the world) in the Quebrada Condoriri - I measured 17,450 ft. at the summit. We left the highway in fog, then had brief sun at the summit, and the storms came in as we descended. Catherine was able to find the llareta at 5155 meters, which is her highest observation, and close to the reported record.

Our days are generally packed, and it's surprising how quickly we've gotten used to the altitude and other local conditions. Here we are living at approximately the altitude of the highest mountain in Colorado, and after a few days we are working/eating/sleeping just fine. I've taken quite a few photos and made some videos of Catherine's work, but posting must wait for another day - the fog is returning and we need to head back up the hill to Parinacota.

Two more stories for now:

-We drove up a spectacular road north from Putre to near the Co. de Tarapaca (5775 meters) - at the summit, a sign proudly announces "5250 meters." We looked out upon countless llareta and laughed - well, I suppose we can just step out of the car and record the altitude record for the plant. However, the actual pass is about 4800 meters. The sign is something of a local legend - people dispute whether the original altitude measurement was simply so far off or the sign was installed for gringo photo-ops.

-The Parinacota church is stunning inside - it's hundreds of years old and features the stations of the cross with Conquistadors taking the place of persecuting Romans. Nothing is preserved or off limits - it's a functioning church, with grass roof and the wind whistling by the door. It was raining outside, and gloomy inside, and we stood silently observing this special place.

-Oh, and we don't have heat or power. I just wanted to throw that out in case you thought I was on some kind of resort vacation. Back to work - photos to come.

Putre, Chile (NGS Waitt Grant 3)

2012-01-04T09:33:00.000-08:00

While we feared the worst regarding the roads, the reality looks more like this:

Catherine certainly doesn't remember the 11 road looking like this - there has been much work since she was last here in 2000. First we drove along the swollen Rio Lluta, which I neglected to take a picture of before climbing into the mountains:

Catherine took her time botanizing along the way - we noted the altitude of when the first examples of the various species appeared, including the fabulous Browningia candelaris. No, it isn't related to Then we were in the "nebla" (fog). And for a time we were above the nebla in fast-streaming clouds. We happened to stop for lunch at a spectacular canyon:

But soon after, more nebla - we're staying in Putre (a town along the 11 road - my altimeter says 11, 620 ft.), which currently looks like this:

Yes it's a funny feeling jumping up 11k feet in a day - a little lightheaded, but energetic and (at least for me) hungry. it reminds me of when I used to work at WMRS and we'd drive from 4k to over 12k and immediately start working. All part of the indirect river of history, we suppose:

Off to see the sights (?) of Putre.

Arica, Chile (NGS Waitt Grant 2)

2012-01-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

A photo set of our time in Arica here.

The weather continues to surprise. This evening we had a light rain and full rainbow over the harbor.

We sat up on the roof in awe - when Catherine first came here in 1998, she heard about adults who had never seen rain, and now we've had two episodes in two days. As I mentioned yesterday, this changes our trip significantly. As made apparent from this ABC news dispatch from July, a small rain here indicates torrents/snow higher. This said, Catherine is now comfortable with the concept that documenting rain, and possibly increased recent growth of the llareta is a far more compelling story than two more gringos climbing Parinacota.

Other:

-Feel free to put the restaurant guide from your favorite guidebook away. The people here are ambivalent about restaurants - at noon or just after they pile into a few favorite spots and eat. So just follow the crowds and enjoy. Dinner doesn't seem to be a big deal - apparently most people eat at home, or snack out on "completo" hot dogs, etc. There is a famous ice cream place here, but we haven't made it because in our minds ice cream is for dessert and the place closes down before dusk.

Today we followed the herd to "La Primavera" in a food court near the bus terminal - it was a mass of employees from the local construction/cell phone/mining companies ignoring every restaurant in the area except for this place. Soon after we sat down (as in a few seconds), a perfect bowl of cazuela de ave (Chilean chicken stew) arrived. I mean perfect - like the Platonic ideal of this basic local meal. Great.

Here at the hostel, a few folks seem to specialize in taking an incredible amount of time to cook very simple meals, like a marinara sauce/pasta. Yes, these folks are French; yes, they start cooking at eight P.M., and finish around midnight; yes, there is various plinking on the guitar and loud radio; yes, we call them "The Frenchies." There is a certain element of an old blog topic, "the lotus eaters," here, and we'll leave it at that. We've combated The Frenchies by taking a nap in the afternoon so we can stay up and work during their extended mealtime.

-Today is our last day in the lowlands (we hope), and we took time to visit the excellent Museo Archeologico. We drove through fields of olives and corn to view mummies over 6,000 years old:

And of course stopped to observe a 1953 Studebaker:

and a bizarre 3-wheeled BMW Isetta from the same period (1955?) - the latter is one of those things where someone said "this is the future!" and (thankfully) everyone else said "no it isn't!"

I'd like to imagine that thing driving over the mountains to Arica, but more likely it arrived by sea as an olive/fish-baron's toy by sea. This is of course the car in the Depeche Mode video "Never Let Me Down."

Yes, I can't believe I mentioned impossibly-ancient mummies in passing before moving on to a defunct city car. The mummies were simply overwhelming - two millenia before the heyday of Egypt mummification, the people here were carefully preserving their brethren - in some cases children and babies - for the afterlife. One sits and looks and it is difficult to comprehend through the gulf of time. Easier to talk about defunct Isetta city cars.

-Some of the area being pressed into service in the Azapa valley for olives/other crops defies belief. The corn must be shaded, a huge undertaking. Here are some olive tree saplings on a bare sand slope:

I also took some time to observe the ditches/diversion structures, which may be of no one's interest except me given my work in water rights/law. The ditches are flowing well, given the rain.

But the government places signs all over advising to protect the water resource. It is all quite tenuous on the Azapa, but working.

-We also visited Playa Corozones, where I was able to observe the impressive/massive cliffs leading down to the sea. The cliffs seem quite complex geologically, with several types of rock overlaid by the ubiquitous sand - I would like to know more about how these came about.

-Unfortunately, there was little swimming due to a large number of jellyfish. We tried to head north of town to some of the surf beaches, but they were there, too.

We engaged in a game of sorts with some local folks to see who was brave enough to swim in the water. Catherine was the bravest, and was able to body-surf for a bit, but she also got two jellyfish stings - in some games, unfortunately, there are no winners. More to come.

Another Arica photo

2012-01-02T17:04:00.000-08:00

The Arica public defender's office:

Arica, Chile (NGS Waitt Grant 1)

2012-01-02T15:46:00.000-08:00

The sea wind is blowing through the curtains, and the lights are coming on El Morro. So far in Chile:

-While the trip down was long, we were fortunate on the long (8 hours) Miami-Santiago leg. We boarded with only about 50 pepole, and quickly fanned out to the middle rows to sleep. I woke up with the morning light looking out at I believe the vicinity of Aconcagua. Impossibly dry mountains stretched out forever. -You never know what will make the impression when you travel (which is why you travel). I was amazed by the endless dune/cliff along the ocean north of Iquique. From the airplane, it really looks like just a giant sand dune rising maybe 2,500 feet (or more) from the Ocean. Now that's an impressive sight.

-First off, Arica is where punk lives:

-I'm very much enjoying the feel of Arica. Things are going generally well here for people. The economy is strong. It's a coastal town where it's always breezy and not too hot. It rarely rains (but see below). They live in a pretty place. They have influences from all over. The Chileans come in all colors, shapes, and sizes - and they all want to walk briskly on the 21 de Mayo pedestrian mall and look at each other. I find it a very approachable city - a trading city, a frontier city. A lot of surf culture. Some people are comfortable in Paris; I'm comfortable in Arica.

-Catherine says a lot has changed. There weren't any buildings taller than five stories last time, really. There is a Lider hypermarket now. And the atmosphere is much more relaxed - more casual. Like I said, surf culture. Surf style. At least for the young. And positive.

-Today was a very good day. Catherine set aside two days for logistics to arrive at Lauca/Parinacota. Of course it will take a few days to meet the CONAF contacts, as well as with her collaborator at Tarapaca University. But instead we woke up, had a fine breakfast at our hostel, and immediately met up with Professora Belmonte, who enthusiastically welcomed Catherine's research.

They call Arica a city of eternal spring, and the university is essentially outdoors - certainly it seems hard to focus on one's studies with all that ocean breeze and sun. Professora Belmonte then offered to drive us over to CONAF, where we sat right down with the regional director, as well as the prior regional director, both of whom also welcomed her research. They are discussing, the Spanish is going very quickly, and everyone is talking about this wonderful plant that Catherine studies. Great. By the early afternoon, we were done with our meetings, and had time to see a few of the sights:

-But this was by far the most interesting, and the most surprising, sight:

That's the Azapa River. And it's always dry. In fact, it practically never rains in Arica. Except that this morning it rained, and the river is flowing (albeit intermittently). What this means is the mountains are getting crushed by storm after storm. Every day it's raining in Parinacota. After literally eight years of practically no rain at all, water has returned. This is good news for everyone, but less so for us, who had hoped to climb Volcan Parinacota, etc. The climb is out, and it looks like we will be getting wet (repeatedly) in the course of Catherine's upcoming fieldwork. More to come.

2011, Beer, Yoga, and Objects of Past Trips

2011-12-31T14:14:00.000-08:00

On the last day of 2011 I'm at the Miami airport. We just walked by two guys celebrating new years in we think Berlin - they were streaming the event and having champagne as the airport crowds passed.I didn't write anything for the new year last year (but went skiing instead), and something only new years-ish the year before. So I thought about something more fun like "the year in beer," but for us that's pretty short - the Black Butte XXIII was easily the best beer we tried. We stuck the bottle on the top of our kitchen cabinet, waiting for the day when another might take it's place.Or maybe the year in yoga - after being rejected from Corporate Yoga, I went on my ~~wandering~~ deal-of-the-day ways and tried a few places. But again, the story is short - I was largely too busy at work to practice much (although for short time I was able to combine the two and take a few classes from one of my bosses), and the big thing I learned is that the way I had been practicing at Corporate Yoga (and yet no instructor ever corrected) was tweaking my back. Live and learn.But this 2011 is jetting non-metaphorically into 2012. As I mentioned previously, Catherine landed a National Geographic grant and we are off to Chile. Therefore, prior to leaving for the future - literally spending our first hours of 2012 flying over a continent I've never visited - we're currently anchored in the 2011 (except for those guys who've already departed for 2012 by virtue of their minor airport celebration).Packing for Chile, I dug out a lot of stuff that I had stuck in bins for several years - some items of gear had been planted in there since the years I lived out of my truck. It had seemed like a good idea to keep this stuff - I don't need mountaineering boots every year, for example, but why get rid of a fine pair of La Sportiva's obtained years ago for cheap at Midwest Mountaineering. And while I don't need a -25 degree sleeping bag very often, it's nice to have one nonetheless. Etc.And as I dusted these items off, the stories came out, too - did I really climb the Cathedral Group one summer? Or all the trips with my big old red North Face backpack, the one they sent me on the Pacific Crest Trail - and the woman on the phone at TNF asked me if those were real birds in the background? Or best of all, the ancient Sierra Designs "Night Watch" tent I had when I met Catherine, and she had one, too. Surely it was meant to be - and it was. And some things I ended up finally having to let go. Climbing stuff obviously - are you going to take a fall on a 15-year-old sling (let alone five)? But other stuff, too - stuff that I thought I'd use someday. Those Big Agnes inflatable sleeping pads were pretty nifty when they came out, but unfortunately they cracked and leaked like crazy - I never fixed the slow leaks, they've been replaced by far better designs (don't tell anyone, but at least some of their stuff is junk), and it's time to put them out in the alley for one of the guys in the old pick-ups to rescue and send to another life somewhere. So in the course of getting ready for a 2012 trip, it was time to clean out the old. A good way to get ready for a new year. I was surprised at how accustomed I've become to my little lightweight backpacking excursions - it's good to have to get ready for something very different.

AZT (completed)

2011-12-18T14:17:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, the Arizona Trail Association and some dedicated volunteers finished the section of trail where you either had to hike along a railroad track (illegal) or bushwhack way above the Gila River. Which is great. The Association now considers the trail "finished," to which I respond by putting that word in quotes. Finished?Of course I'm still heading back to finish the trail, and of course it will be great to hike across the Grand Canyon, but I'm not looking forward to all the road-walking north to the border (as well as generally bypassing the Vermilion Cliffs). Or maybe I need to get over it and enjoy the rest of the trail (when I can).

ATL

2011-12-18T14:02:00.000-08:00

At a trial training program in Atlanta last week. Certainly not much time to see the city – the class is like a lot of things where the more you commit, the more you get out of the experience. So I decided I’d go for it and learn – and there was a lot for me to learn, certainly.

The first few days were warm/rainy/foggy. We never get weather like that in Denver, and I wasn’t working outside, so it was very nice to sit out on the hotel balcony and feel that humidity/listen to the rain.

The program had lawyers from at least 30 states (!), and I’ve never felt quite so Coloradan. You sit down with a lawyer from New Jersey and say, “Parking? Well I usually ride my bike to work.” And he looks at you, and there’s silence - and yes, there’s a cultural gap there.

What else about ATL? Not a lot. Like a lot of places, the food is generally better than Denver. Really it was a lot of time inside – I did manage to spend some quality time (?) on the treadmill. Yes, our Chile trip is in three weeks – and no, I’m in no kind of shape to climb a big volcano.

Drift Peak / Chile

2011-11-24T13:21:00.001-08:00

Catherine got a great deal on a place at Copper Mountain for Thanksgiving, and plus it even came with two passes! Perfect - I've been a curmudgeon this year and haven't bought a pass (although I have some lame reasons); look, barely into the season a ski deal comes my way.

Of course "two passes" meant two parking passes - Catherine and Will-J headed off to the mountain while I faced two options: (a) watch the fam ski, take a few photos, take a nap, and maybe watch a little football, or (b) a 10-degree windy icy postholing slog-fest up Drift Peak. Drift peak it is!

Look, I even made it to the top:

Here's a view:

And another:

Here's a long ridge that took me about twice as long as it would have in better conditions:

Among other things I did not know when I headed up to Mayflower Gulch trailhead for a little hike, the ridge has a name: Villa Ridge. Also, some people consider Drift Peak a "real" mountain (300 ft. rise from saddle with Fletcher Peak), and some don't.

The plan had been to climb Drift, then Fletcher and Wheeler Peak, but there was no way on earth I was going to do all that today - definitely worth a return visit, and it would be even better to link these with a car shuttle to Blue Lakes. Another day.

So as I was slogging up there, slipping/bouncing off rocks, postholing, etc., and having no way of completing the trip I wanted to do, I thought, "Well, this is fine training." Training? Training for what? But you don't like training.

Well, in a few weeks Catherine and I are going to Chile. Catherine is the recipient of a National Geographic Waitt Grant, and we are going to the Arica and Parinacota Region, Lauca National Park, to continue her doctoral work on the giant cushion plant Azorella compacta.

It's exciting for us - Catherine hasn't been back to her field sites for over ten years, and I haven't been to South America. If conditions allow, I will climb up Parinacota volcano (20,800 ft.). It isn't the proper season, and I don't appear to be in very good shape, but we'll see.

The trip keeps sneaking up on us - we've just started planning on what we'll bring, and I'm still fiddling with the fancy camera I'll use to take photos, as well as my generally frustrating GPS. Part of this is our disbelief that we're really going on a research trip together. Some years ago (12!), Catherine was a young researcher at UCLA and I was working at the White Mountain Research Station. She was just off her work in Lauca, and I filled my off-days by climbing the Sierras. We thought wouldn't it be nice to spend our lives together, and along the way we'll do these big trips to high altitude places.

Over the years, we've done and seen many things - no regrets - but we've never done one of those big trips together. Until now.

Gamelan Tunas Mekar

2011-11-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

We saw this group last week. It was great - when they first started playing, Will-J exploded laughing and then did a wild dance. I was surprised how "modern" it sounded - some of the pieces sounded like Steve Reich (at least to me).

In praise of TheCoolTV (there are no bad music videos)

2011-10-30T12:14:00.001-07:00

Sometimes we come up with harebrained business plans - usually when we're backpacking, traveling, etc. One plan went like this: "What happens to all the old music videos? They're great - time capsules of fashion and sound. We need a new channel of just music videos! It wouldn't have commercials - none of those videos were HD, so there would be plenty of room on the side of the screen to run ads all the time. Can you tell me that if you were in a bar and "Der Kommissar" came on you wouldn't watch? Or how about "Der Kommissar?" Genius!"

And then we found TheCoolTV. Too bad about the ads. But everything else is great. Who has time to watch/keep up with a series anymore? But I definitely have time to watch/remember the weird U2 "Numb" clip.

Now we wonder how this outfit goes about picking clips. My guess is it's a big basket of random stuff the rights were cheap for, along with obligatory big-ticket new songs. Or maybe whoever is in charge just really loves Tears for Fears.

I'm really hoping it's the later. So I turned it on one night and viewed, in order: (1) Julian Lennon, "Too Late to for Goodbyes," (2) The Firm, "Radioactive," and (3) UB40 and Chrissie Hynde, "Breakfast in Bed." You could go on and on about these three:

"Too Late for Goodbyes." Did you know Sam Peckinpah made this? Why? Who's dancing around in the doorway? Is it a man or a woman? I don't remember tight rugby shirts being big...ever. Wait a minute, is he scat singing? No, no, we're not trying to be like the Beatles - we're going to play our instruments way over here by ourselves and pretend that Julian isn't here at all. Not here at all - by the way, check out my awesome electronic drums!

"Radioactive." Do you remember that Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers were briefly in a band together? Apparently with Peter Garrett on drums? And Sting-on-drugs-and-a-fright-wig on bass? And that despite seemingly having a great deal of clout in the music industry, this is the video they got? And there isn't even a version anywhere that's dubbed correctly?

"Breakfast in Bed." Wow, I missed this one completely. The guy from UB40 and Chrissie Hynde made a song together! Why? What's going on here? Right - he's a ne'er-do-well who scams people by wearing a priest outfit and a bowler, and...wait a minute - Hynde is from Ohio; why does she have a British accent? Who cares! This is great!

(And for all three - hey You-Tube-people, surely you know that TheCoolTV is playing these things now. You don't need to settle for grainy versions ripped from VHS ripped from German t.v. Please go ahead and post better versions any time now.)

Apparently in "I Want My MTV: the Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution," there's a lot of discussion regarding the worst music video of all time (Billy Squire, "Rock Me Tonite") (I don't have time to read the book, but rather have enjoyed the fine Grantland column on it, with the top ten worst music videos of all time). I think the book (and Grantland) have it wrong - really, there are no bad music videos. Long live TheCoolTV!

On fat tires, fat skis, and parenthood

2011-10-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

I've written about the Surly Pugsley here before. Now I've seen three in the last week - a guy presumably test-riding one by Salvagetti's, then one pressed into service as a commuter/kid carrier bike at a playground in the Highlands.

Then this morning I followed one across that death-defying plasticized pedestrian bridge at the Confluence. Unlike the last few years, snow came early in Denver, and there were a few fresh inches on the bridge. The Pugsley rode right across the snow without slipping. My regular MTB tires dug in, spun on the plastic, and I had to dismount. Lo! In my last post, I pondered what a big, heavy bike with giant tires is for - it's for crossing that pedestrian bridge in snow.

But not for riding up the Cherry Creek path at more than a few miles per hour, however. Even my slug-like bicycle skills surpassed Mr. Pugsley, and I was soon left to ponder how it seems so many people have an extra $1500 for a bike with extremely limited utility.

Which reminded me of course of the current fad for reverse camber "rocker" skis. I think rocker skis are a wonderful and great development for the same reasons I thought the fat ski fad was a wonderful and great development - both developments convince people (a) to buy new skis and sell me their perfectly good used skis, and (b) to use shorter skis. Regarding (a), my wonderful (but terribly named) Salomon "Gun" skis are nearly worn out, and I can't wait until someone sells me his lightly used Mantras for pennies on the dollar in order to trade up to some weird spatula skis.

Regarding (b), this isn't/wasn't just my opinion, but rather of the many wise people who re-educated me how to ski when I moved to Crested Butte years ago. I showed up and showed my "quiver" - I had my old Salomon 3S (198 cm) for short turns and my Salomon 7S (205 cm) for big turns. No problem, right? These are race skis! Hey, why is everyone looking at me with that funny wry expression like who brought the loser? No worries - in short order I had proper skis and was making proper turns, turns I couldn't have dreamed of on said "race" skis.

The rocker development is perhaps even better than fat skis because you're essentially creating dramatic, but ultimately useless, ski-like protuberances on the tip and tail. Given how often said rocker skis see powder snow deep enough for the reverse camber to operate as designed, the upturned portion remains safely out of contact with snow for most of its service life. Unlike the uselessly long skis of old, it's win-win. The skier shows off his 150 mm width, while in reality he's skiing a more modest proposition. The only downside is the excess weight (and cost).

Which then leads to one of the many joys of parenthood. For the last few seasons, we've had Loveland passes, and it was a true joy. In fact, one reason I passed on a pass this year is because I really couldn't believe this year could top last year. Will-J and I closed out the season by skiing each lift on the mountain, and he declared his intentions to ski more this winter. Catherine found an only-astonishingly-overpriced package of lessons at Copper Mountain, and so that's where they'll go (I'm still waiting for the inevitable cheap tickets to appear).

However, Will-J's experience with Loveland is such that skiing begins at some point in the fall when it's still warm in Denver. We told him that Copper doesn't open until it starts snowing in Denver. And today we had an early storm with six inches on our lawn. Will-J looks outside - time to ski! Points at his skis. Dances around the living room with joy. And for a few minutes I have the same wonderful feeling as when my parents told me we were going skiing. Not yet Will-J, but soon. And living vicariously is not all bad.

Mad dogs and Denver-ites (South Platte Trail-C-470- Trail-Clear Creek loop)

2011-10-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

I was heading to the San Luis Valley fairly frequently there for a bit, and I'd always see that endless concrete sidewalk. Have to ride it - it's right there. But it's always too hot, too cold, too windy, too much work, e.

So today I rode it. It was the second road ride of the summer for me - the first was the Triple Bypass. I've come to terms with cycling - I'm not very good at it, it takes a long time, and often I find it boring. But it's still fun to get out here and there.

The ride was fine - an endless (relatively) smooth concrete sidewalk. I've ridden the Clear Creek path quite a bit, in particular when Will-J was hooked on the Golden Rec Center baby pool. I'd tow him out there in the bike trailer, we'd get coffee, he'd splash his heart out, and then he'd sleep most of the whole way home. Yes, Will-J, I'm still sorry that one time I thought it would be a good idea to ride all the way out to Commerce City and the confluence of Clear Creek and the South Plate - it's yucky and hot and too long, but you did get some ice cream out of the deal.

The route is surprisingly difficult to follow given that it is indeed an endless smooth concrete sidewalk. It's easy to get off onto the Bear Creek path, miss the turn onto the C-470 trail, miss the way through the Solterra development, etc. And due to FasTracks, there's a lot of this:

Oh, and I rode through "TAMARISK."

What's better than naming a high-end subdivision after a rapidly-spreading invasive plant that chokes out both native vegetation and all river access? No idea.

Yes that's my finger in the photo. More importantly, why are the photos insistently upside-down no matter how many times I re-save them? Also no idea. I'm apparently the only person in the world who doesn't find the i-phone intuitive.

But oh, the weather. We're right in the middle of the endless warm fall we get every year in Denver, but always surprises. Sunny and in the 70's, leaves falling, gentle breeze, etc. - and of course there were precious few folks riding the endless concrete sidewalk of fun. I've seen these same paths packed with riders on 90+ degree days. This may fit in with our general theory that Denver-ites see the outside as "closed" after Labor Day. Or maybe it has to do with the epic Tebow comeback this afternoon. Or maybe everyone's hunting. In any case, it certainly was a fine day make the loop.

Ruby-Horsethief Canyons - easy in October

2011-10-16T18:40:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in many a backpacker's life when he looks down from a hot, dusty canyon rim at those people having fun floating down the river, and says, "That looks like more fun that what I'm doing." But of course rafting takes a lot of gear, effort, skill, time, etc. Unless you take a backpacking approach to rafting. Which can be really fun.

So we loaded up the "Sea Eagle" and headed to Ruby-Horsethief Canyons

Truly, canyon country at it's prettiest. Eighty degrees in the day, forty-five degrees at night, clear skies, low dust, and smooth sailing. And bald eagles flying around. I didn't take many photos because my only camera was my phone, and my phone spent most of the trip in a dry bag. Here we are in Mee Canyon:

Home or on the river, Will-J gets up early:

Sitting in a boat on a warm day watching the canyons go by at 4-5 mph is pretty great. The water was about 5,000 cfs, which is the accustomed level for family trips. We were still surprised how fast the current was - we could have done the whole trip in a day without much trouble.

It was crowded, but not too crowded - although the put-in was a zoo, we had a campsite to ourselves. And yes, the black rocks are the highlight - an interesting narrow maze of gniess/schist. Catherine has seen a lot of the big western rivers, and hadn't seen anything quite like it. Here's a guy who understands the geology of the area (and rafted it at five times the flow [one to 1 1/2 mph faster).

Oh, yeah - at the put-in we saw a group heading out to kayak Ruby-Horsethief at night under the full moon. I hadn't heard of kayaking at night, but there's a lot I haven't heard of.

We can't carry a lot of stuff, and certainly it's a tight fit with the three of us in the boat, but there's a lot less to clean and lug. More of this type of trip, please.

Trouble in the Highlands - Competing Meetings

2011-10-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

As you know (?), I've been following the slow progress of new apartment buildings at 32nd and Lowell for some time. There were zoning investigations, news of impending destruction, field trips to see the foundation test wells, etc. And slowly but surely the apartments may someday come to pass.

But what's this? I came home from work to find an incendiary flyer on my door.

Nefarious activities afoot! Dark forces coming to the crossroads to built "HIGH RISES." High rises? No public input? More importantly - free wine and cheese! I'm there!

And so on Tuesday we went over to Highlands Church.

There were two people, one a self-described "property developer," and one self-described "used to work for the developers" explaining that they really didn't want the new "towers." They weren't taking questions - a guy in scrubs tried to ask about the square footage, and one of the two told him to be quiet.

Really, not much happened. The developer one wanted a traffic study. The wine and cheese were good.

But in the course of things, I found out that there was another meeting held at the same time, in a different place (Highlands Event Center on Julian) by the West Highland Neighborhood Association. A meeting our Councilwoman attended. But there wasn't much talk of the new buildings, and certainly no reference to dark forces. A competing meeting! I've been had! I forgot that one can't be too careful in the land of the ugly duplex.

Stuff

2011-09-26T20:13:00.001-07:00

Work has been quite busy, and so I tend to not tend to the blog. Which is as it should be - work pays the mortgage, while the blog pays - well, I won't quit my day job. But with the pace, things I might normally post fall by the wayside (but I seem to have plenty of time to bash R.E.M. post-breakup). So, here are some random things I probably would have written about if I had more time:

-In 2000, Catherine got a her first post-doctoral job at Adams State College, and lo, we packed up a truck and moved to Alamosa. And (also) lo, I found that no one would hire me and I faced an indeed long winter. And (also also) lo, it was indeed interesting to return to Alamosa as a "trial lawyer" a decade later, set for an appearance before the fine Judge Kuenhold. I still have a few friends there, and it's still one of the most astonishingly beautiful valleys I've ever seen - maybe you think I'm exaggerating, but I'll say the view of the Annapurna Range from Pokhara has nothing on the view of Blanca and the Crestones from Alamosa. Furthermore, there are few restaurants as fine - anywhere - as Calvillo's. When I walked in to enjoy the incredible home-cooked green chile, carnitas, asada, etc., the owner came and shook my hand like I was his long-lost cousin. And thus the years melted away and I pondered the life and roads that brought me to Colorado (and delicious Mexican food).

But there was no time for reverie with the press of trial preparation - and the incredible pancake machine:

The hotel had a breakfast, and there was a pancake machine. You push a button, and a minute later a pancake comes out. They're pretty good. Really. I really became proud of the pancake machine. The second day, I showed it off to the guy behind me, told them they were pretty good, and he was equally amazed. His family came to watch - you push the button, and out come the pancakes. Really - a pancake machine. How much are these things? Can I have one?

-Another thing I saw in Alamosa was "The Hub." Sure, it's a hub - but only if you're looking for computer services, color copies, and massage therapy. Then, it really is a hub:

-They paved part of my ride home - it's perfectly smooth asphalt now. Here's 33rd and Vallejo (across from Rosa Linda's, which gives Calvillo's a run for its money - and the owner is equally friendly, especially to my son).

Which makes me wonder how the decisions are made regarding which streets to re-pave. Currently my own street is being torn up for new water mains - my observation is that the resulting patches are relatively rude. Certainly this treatment would be an improvement - barring that, at least my commute is nice.

-Black Butte Porter, Anniversary

It has chocolate nibs and orange peel in it - in other words, it sounds like an overdone foo-foo beer I would hate. But it's amazing. It's beyond beer - better than beer? Something else entirely? Everything fits perfectly. It's one of those beers you can show people when they start going on and on about Belgium - you can point to this and say, yup, and we do some good things here, too.

-And here are some tanks on railroad cars right behind Coors Field:

This one was odd - I was on my way someplace, and there was a long line of tanks. The train stopped, and I looked at the tanks for awhile. Certainly you have to move tanks around, but it looked weird in downtown Denver. But certainly they were fine, modern tanks. Once I was on a train to Ulan Bator, and our train passed a long train of tanks. They were brand new, but the model was something very Cold War. I leaned out of my train to take a picture, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I knew immediately I had been busted - certainly I shouldn't be taking pictures of tanks. But instead it was a tourist on the train who laughed at my surprise. Of course this tourist happened to play cards with another tourist using a very certain deck of playing cards. And she noted the tanks, I went back to my cabin, and the train rolled on under the intensely blue Mongolian sky.

-All of which leads to the fact that I'm basically proud of two things: (1) being Will-J's parent, and (2) being to Ulan Bator. Regarding Will-J, he glows and reads at an impossibly early age and hams it up so that everyone smiles at him - he's a gem and my only task is to guide him to a bright future as best I can. Regarding Ulan Bator, some people in my family have traveled widely, but as far as I know none of my kin have been to Mongolia. Some funny things happened on that trip, and we stayed in some interesting places - it was just one of those series of fortunate events.

-What I should be writing about is "Wilderness and the American Mind." I've been writing about wilderness lately, and I took a copy on my Arizona Trail trip to re-read. But for some reason this topic fell behind my beer review, playing cards, and pancake machine. Too much like work, I suppose.

-Finally, adieu to "Big Game" in LoDo. They had good beer, okay food, BIG screens for sports, and were quite nice to Will-J. Basically, that place was too good to last.

Gibson Lake - Whale Peak

2011-09-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

On Father's Day we were turned back on our trip to Gibson Lake, but after Catherine got her work done this weekend we cut loose to go up there, plus Whale Peak. It was one of those special late-summer Colorado days - t-shirt weather at 13,000 feet in late September? Sure - we've seen it before. Every year, in fact. We remember one particularly nice day hiking Mt. Huron with similar weather in late October (of course, a week later and it was zero degrees up there with snow).

Yet another fun hike in an area of the Divide we particularly enjoy - it's south of the Boulder/I-70/Guanella Pass crowds, but north of the equally crowded Sawatch Range - and closer.

Gibson Lake has a feel of being set-aside by the forces that be - it's a tiny little perfect lake in a cirque practically surrounded by high-traffic jeep roads (and the Colorado Trail only a few miles away). It's protected by the fairly rough road in and the hike. And someone is clearly putting a lot of effort into maintaining the trail. But the old road in was left to deteriorate, the jeep roads are just far enough away, and thus the little lake hangs high and quiet. We shared the lake with two guys up to fish - as well as a large herd of mountain goats:

Whale Peak is certainly nothing crazy - another in a line of climbs we've done in this area (Boreas Mountain, Red Mountain, Father Dyer, a bunch of 14-ers, etc.). It's also another one of those mountains in the middle of it all. There's Grays/Torreys; there's Pikes Peak; there's my recent hike to Ptarmigan Peak/Ute Peak; there are the Gores; etc. I took a bunch of photos of them, but nothing too exciting.

R.E.M. - We've been on this shift too long

2011-09-21T19:29:00.001-07:00

Back in high school, there were certain people listening to Bon Jovi ("Slippery When Wet" and "New Jersey") and certain people listening to R.E.M. ("Document" and "Green"). And I'm reasonably certain that every one of those certain people listening to R.E.M. were certain that in 20 years R.E.M. would stand the test of time, and Bon Jovi would be largely forgotten.

And they would have been wrong. Peter Buck wanted to play mandolin, KRS-1 saved up one of the worst single rap verses in history, and R.E.M. laid a giant collective turd at the feet of its devoted fans in the form of "Out of Time."

It was 1991, and quietly the future hipsters of America moved on to better bands - but no one noticed because R.E.M. sold a bazillion copies of "Out of Time," the band signed the musical equivalent of a ridiculous N.B.A. guaranteed-money contract, and one of the biggest bands of the era quietly turned into the musical equivalent of Shawn Bradley.

(And of course, Bon Jovi continues to release multi-platinum albums, while R.E.M.'s "Accelerate" (of course you remember that one, right?) sold 200,000 copies at Starbucks to confused people. Even Michael Stipe said that "Around the Sun" was bad - if it was bad, why did they release it? Oh, yeah - that $80 million contract again.)

But after said turd, I for a few years I actually became more interested in R.E.M. How could a band make an album as interesting as "Fables of the Reconstruction" and as vital as "Life's Rich Pageant" and then do something like "Monster"? It didn't make any sense. I had a worn tape of "Murmur" I just kept listening to in the car. Kids in 1983 were listening to Def Leppard "Pyromania" and Motley Crue "Shout at the Devil" - and some guy is mumbling something vaguely hopeful about the coming fall of Communism (and really, a lot of stuff no one understands). And yet there it is - the best album of 1983.

My strong association with that tape was sitting in a dorm room with a girl I was dating - it was stuffily hot, with the radiators popping away. Outside it was a freezing cold Minnesota October afternoon, complete with full-on freezing pelting rain. And Stipe was going on explaining how "not everyone can carry the weight of the world. I had met her at a downtown Chicago church, and she was outrageously smart. I didn't really interest her, and it was clear I was on the way out. A year or so later, she was pregnant, left school, and I never heard about her again. It made no sense to me - I lost that R.E.M. tape about the same time.

Aside: We were in the car the other day and heard Depeche Mode "World in My Eyes." I made Catherine guess when "Violator" was released, and she was amazed it was 1990. That record sounds like it could have been released a year ago. This has led to our ongoing game of seeing what albums sound timeless and what albums are trapped in the year or period they were released. For example, "London Calling" is 1979. It just is - it's 1979, and if you hear "Clampdown," it's 1979. Big fun. Eventually we came to the conclusion that Depeche Mode really had the most forward-looking sound of any (major label) band. "People are People" was 1984?

The problem with R.E.M. is the problem with the 90's. We're just beginning to recognize it now, but it was a boom time, a roaring time - generally, an easy time for a certain portion of America. And R.E.M. fell into that portion, got a lot of money, were able to use that money in various ways (many of them selfless), and sort of forgot about writing great songs/being good musicians.

But now that they're calling it quits, and no one (except I suppose a core group of fans) cares. Sort of like the 90's.

Long Distance Walking / Running - goals?

2011-09-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

Some interesting things playing out on the very long trails this year. Jennifer Pharr Davis broke the Appalachian Trail record - by walking. But runners still seem to be having a hard time. Which has been known for a long time (thousands of years) - when you're going a long distance (over a few hundred miles), walking (maybe with a little jogging) is faster. And which I found out on my old PCT experiments in the 90's - I started throwing in some (for me) huge days - a few 40-milers, followed by a 50-miler, then a few high 30-milers, etc. A (relatively) efficient walker can adapt to these distances. Humans evolved to walk - and jog - long distances. It's something we do pretty well.

Which I also found intensely boring - and so I never even finished the PCT, and went off to test my (limited) mettle against runners in long-distance running. Why is it so boring? The answer is that I - and pretty much everyone else who does this sort of thing - finds out that the limiting factor is time, not speed. People max out at hiking speed - I'll say between 3-4 mph. And then it becomes a matter of walking walking walking. You just have to walk. A lot. And you carry very little because you're walking all the time. You walk past the pretty campsites and views and cool mountains, through fun little towns, etc.

Running is different - people max out at very different running speeds. When I ran Western States in 23.5 hours (14.1 minute miles), Scott Jurek ran it in 16.2 miles (under 10 minute miles). That's a huge difference - we're not talking about putting in time, we're talking about going much, much faster.

Aside: I never noticed that while I was 65th after 14 hours (eventually coming in 80th), the guy who came in 79th (Jeffery Browning) was 179th at the same spot. In terms of running, my eyes were always bigger than my stomach.

So if you want to hike a long trail in a really fast time, you have to do lots and lots of average-paced walking. But if you want to run a race really fast (even a long one), you have to run really fast. There you go.

Another concept I haven't seen discussed is the difference between "redpointing," "on-sighting," or "flashing" either a long race or a long trail. There's a huge difference from just showing up to the terminus of the Western States or the PCT and going for it without much knowledge of the "course," and having, say, hiked the PCT eleven times and then going for the record.

This came up in a big way when I ran the Moab Red Hot (short distance) race the second time. The first time (running as Sugar Shackapuss) I came in waaaaay back in the pack. The second time (running as "Boba Fett," I came in third). I found it a huge advantage to know the course. However, not such an advantage that I'd try to run it faster - generally I like to experience a fun adventurous course and then move on.

All of which leads to a question for me - would I ever go back and finish the PCT? The last time I was out there, I decided to try to finish before turning 40. Now, being midway through the Arizona Trail, I'm not feeling it. I've spent a fair amount of time - okay, a lot of time - hiking at average pace over long distances, and I'm not sure I'll be up for shifting to using my time off to hike yet more long distances at average pace. But that could change.

Zoning news - Highlands Changes

2011-09-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

I wrote some time ago about the zoning changes in Denver. My conclusion at the time was: the existing old/bad zoning code led to one of America's great and diverse cities - therefore, let's trash it and replace it with something no one seems to understand.

Then this week I read in the North Denver News that indeed the church near my house is slated for demolition - and really there's nothing to stop the developers from putting in a bunch of apartments (besides someone trying to designate the church as a historic landmark) - which is also my understanding. However, the developer's plan would have been allowed under the old zoning as well - and could have been taller.

And so I suppose those test wells Will-J found are for a purpose after all.

Will-J at Work

2011-09-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

Arizona Trail - Pine to Flagstaff (weather window hiking)

2011-09-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

I got away for a few days over Labor Day to hike the Arizona Trail from Pine to Flagstaff. Photos are here. It was a fortuitous trip - I had an opportunity to break from work for a few days, and Arizona was experiencing record heat. Although along the Mogollon Rim it was in the mid-90's, rain was light/infrequent and lows were in the mid-60's. Now, a week later, Flagstaff is having heavy rain and lows in the 40's. A lot of the "trail" (really two-track) is red clay that turns into a terrible soup when wet - I've struggled/slipped/trudged along through this in the past as it clings inches-deep to my shoes. So it was a hot and dry, but peaceful and fortuitous, trip.

I'll lead with two "trail stories." Trail stories are like any other kind of tall tales - the teller finds them important/interesting/hilarious, while the recipient listens patiently and/or tries to avoid the situation altogether. This is even more so for backpacking because it's a slow and obscure activity - nobody makes a "Nobody Cares that You Long-Distance Backpack" sticker only because nobody would ever think anyone would have an ego about long-distance backpacking (or really even knows what it is).

So, with that edifying introduction, story one:

-I rode a comfortable and efficient van to Payson - with the incremental demise of Greyhound, these services are becoming the de-facto non-car infrastructure of rural America. One of the other passengers asked me, "Aren't you worried about bears?" I of course replied that I wasn't. After a few minutes in Payson, Dennis of Payson Taxi (no web site), took me the rest of the way to the Pine AZT trailhead, and I was on my way.

Four miles into the Highline Trail section of the AZT, I approached the first spring. I heard something moving around in the scrub oak, and figured another cow had gotten through a fence and into the spring. But it didn't really sound like a cow, and I instinctively started backing away, "hey-bear"-ing and banging my hiking poles together. Sure enough, seconds later a small black object (that sure looked like a bear cub) shot across the forest floor and up a tree. And immediately afterwards a (definite, unmistakable) mama black bear rushed out of the woods behind it.

She saw me, saw the racket I was making, saw that I wasn't cutting off her approach to the cub, and started backing up. She bumped into a stump, fell over, jumped up, spun around to see what knocked her down, got scared that she had taken her eyes off me, and then ran off into the woods.

So there's my AZT bear story.

Story two:

A few miles north of Highway 87, I was running out of sunlight and saw a fine campsite. In fact, there was a carved stone monument marking the spot:

Good luck - I was fortunate to find such a nice camp. At about midnight, a car drove up within maybe eight feet and two guys got out. I asked them what they were doing, and learned that this was their traditional Labor Day camp for decades - didn't I see the "Los Pinos" monument? His nephew carved that rock. The rest of the group was arriving the next day - they were there to start the setup.

For a few minutes we debated our relative rights to the site. We concluded it was toss-up. Certainly the iron-clad rule of personal-space-loving western American dispersed camping is first-in time, first-in-right. In other countries, you end up camping right on top of each other, but right or wrong (I'll say right), not here in the USA. But of course I should have known that this was a meaningful spot to someone, and that certainly such a meaningful spot might be occupied by the folks who find it meaningful over the Labor Day holiday.

In the end, we solved our differences like good westerners - we accommodated/ignored each other and waited for the problem to pass. The two guys unloaded their stuff and went to sleep. I got up before dawn, tried to be quiet, and headed on my way. Here's one of the guys sleeping in his car in the morning:

In sum, a surprising experience - I've slept out for over a thousand nights, and I've never had anyone suggest that they might kick me out of my campsite.

-There you go - two trail stories. Other notes on this section of the Arizona Trail:

-I wasn't looking forward to this section, and admittedly it wasn't my favorite backpack. There's far too much road-walking, and a fair amount of what I call "Arizona Death Cobble," and what horse folk call "Potato Rock." More on that later. However, it was a peaceful, if quite hot hike. It's the type of connector-type trail (long section connecting famous/scenic locations - in this case the Mogollon Rim country and the San Francisco Peaks) that inspired me to stop doing long trails nonstop a long time ago.

-The Highline Trail area is really a highlight. The Highline Trail is a National Recreation Trail (not to be confused with a National Scenic Trail, which is what the Arizona Trail is) (and also not to be confused (?) with the Highline National Recreation Trail in Idaho) that follows along below the Mogollon Rim for about fifty miles. It's a diverse area with bubbling creeks, diverse plant communities, and packed with wildlife (in addition to an excited mama bear). I saw deer, coyote, foxes, several herds of elk, deer, coyote, etc., along the way.

Yes, the trail has a lot of the aforesaid Death Cobble/Potato Rock, and at a few points the trail nearly disappears. I thought, "Hey - fifty miles, rugged trail, beautiful country - this would make a great 50 mile race!" Indeed, someone beat me to it (by about 25 years). Genius! I was hiking the route of the Zane Grey 50 race, a classic with fast times by the likes of Dave Mackey, Anton Krupicka, Karl Meltzer, and other outrageous runners.

Aside: I really love these old articles on early Zane Grey 50 finishers, in particular a young Kirk Apt making the course record in 1992.

And blackberries:

-From the Rim to Highway 87, there is a good stretch of trail and low grazing impact. It's a lot of nice tall grass, un-incised drainage banks, good campsites, etc. There are also two quite luxurious developed Forest Service campgrounds, complete with water. Here's an example well-groomed campsite:

But hey, I'm not paying $8 to camp (and plus I had miles to make) - I made it all the way to Los Pinos. Definitely worth it (?).

-In this stretch, I met an interesting guy who had volunteered with the AZT since the late-90's, and had helped build much of the trail in Pinal County. He had decided to section-hike the rest of the trail and was out and about for a few days. As such, he was the first AZT backpacker I've actually seen on-trail. More importantly, I was also the first backpacker he had seen on- trail (!).

Which raises the question, are there really that few people out there hiking the trail, or am I demonstrating why people don't understand statistics/Gambler's Fallacy? Again, I think it's the former, and of course leads back to my ax to grind re: Death Cobble/Potato Rock. And again, more on that later.

-North of Highway 87, there's some looong road walk and heavy, heavy cattle impact. Water sources are limited to a few stock tanks and, beautiful Ponderosa forest aside, it's some country to "get done." Here's your water source:

Delicious!

-I wandered down into Mormon Lake in the middle of a giant rodeo - I sat on a bench outside the Mormon Lake Lodge restaurant/"steak house" and a cowboy was literally hustled/pushed out the door like in an old Western. He dusted himself off and walked away. I'm sad that I missed the demo derby:

But that late-model Caddy didn't have a chance unless they pushed in the back end. I can say I've enjoyed every demo derby I've been to except for an indoor derby in Anaconda, Montana - the carbon monoxide was so bad I was sick for days afterwards.

-Like the “Los Pinos” site, I arrived at the Marshall Lake dispersed camping area at sundown. I plunked down near a middle-aged pop-up trailer with some toys sprinkled around in front. I figured small kids meant that at least they’d go to sleep relatively early. It turned out to be a friendly Phoenix family with good kids and a husband quite interested in getting back to doing more backpacking/traveling. They fed me hot dogs by the campfire while the husband asked me leading questions. Example:

“So, Will, does your WIFE worry about you when you’re out on the trail?”
“No, husband, she doesn’t – and most of the time I’m in cell range anyway.”
At this point, husband would look at wife, wife would look at husband, she would roll her eyes, and he would ask the next question.

-Okay, getting down to the Death Cobble/Potato Rock. Gambler’s Fallacy aside, it really seems there are very few people out there back/horse-packing the AZT. Why? Oh, lots of reasons, right? It’s the newest National Scenic Trail, not well known/famous/infamous, not known as “finished” as much as such a long trail could ever be complete, has a quite small weather window for thru-hiking or completing longish sections, there are very few folks who do this sort of thing, etc.

And I posit that there’s another reason – namely that, well, the trail...in many places…but certainly not all…and not for lack of incredible dedication of volunteers and thousands of hours of work…and really I’m not criticizing because there very well could be no trail at all………..well, the trail sort of sucks. It can be rocky. Really rocky. Rockier than anything I’ve ever seen, anywhere. Here’s a not-extreme/very typical Death Cobble section:

It looks fine, right? Just an old Jeep track being used as a trail. Certainly you aren’t going to get lost here – no way. And certainly this doesn’t need maintenance – it’s not overgrown and should be fine for years. But here’s a close-up:

It’s just rocks. Rocks that you kick around, teeter-totter over, slip on, and generally hate. Horse folks call this Potato Rock, and it can really hurt hooves, leaving them vulnerable to infection and other problems. There’s a lot of this trail along the AZT – miles and miles of it.

Other (long) sections of the trail look like this:

And this:

With both prone to turning into the aforementioned terrible soup when wet - in other words in the spring when folks would be trying for a thru-hike. This may sound persnickety, and perhaps it is, but this isn’t “trail” – it’s road. And the Happy Jack passage (the Arizona Trail Association calls segments/sections “passages”) is over twenty miles of road.

And again, I’m not (really) criticizing. Lots of the trail looks like this:

Also, I’m not out there working on the trail, and I’m committed to finishing the AZT (even though the remaining sections include a lot more road walking). But I think this is one reason why there aren’t more people out there.

-While the AZT trail quality may be lacking, trail marking is now good. The Association has installed literally hundreds of carsonite posts along the way like this:

At this point the trail is easy to follow. Whether the posts last is another matter – these things make tempting targets/souvenirs. Tree blazing may have been a better, but no longer a feasible/permissible, option.

-A good escape, and fun. As usual, when I’ll get back to do more trail I have no idea – certainly not until next year.

Williams Fork Mountains / Middle Fork loop

2011-08-29T13:34:00.001-07:00

I had always wanted to hike this ridge, and read about a good loop in "Complete Guide to Colorado's Wilderness Areas," by Mark Pearson and John Fielder. I decided to tack on the climb from Silverthorne to Ptarmigan Peak as well, and make myself a full loop of the Ptarmigan Peak Wilderness Area.

Photos are here. Here's my favorite.

It was a little too long/rugged for the time I set aside (a day and a half). The ridge is quite beautiful, and I charged along through a quite pretty weather window. However, there's no trail up there and it takes awhile to move along. It's definitely not the place to be during a rainstorm (although there are some pretty little lakes/hunting camps on the east side of the range).

The ridge reminds me just a bit of hiking in the White Mountains of California - a big rolling landscape with a mighty jagged range to the West (in California, the Sierras; in Colorado, the Gores).

Aside: Awhile back, a friend said, "Back when I was younger, I just went up stairs like I was walking on a flat surface - I didn't get what was wrong with older people." Back when I worked in the Whites, I caught a ride to Barcroft Station with my bike, dropped off the bike, and then hiked from Barcroft to Boundary Peak and back in two days. When I got back I was so windblown I looked like a tomato. I jumped on my bike, rode down to Crooked Creek Station, had lunch, and then rode down a road that drops 1,000 feet a mile from 11,000 feet to 4,000 feet. I stopped a few times to fix blown tubes until I just stuffed the tire with grass and sage. Back at OVL, I crashed for the night and went back to work the next morning - I probably went for a run before getting started. Yup, it was good to be young.

End of aside.

I made it down to treeline just as night came on, and - hey, what's that steady droning noise? Why, a tremendous conveyor belt, obviously. Interestingly, the little tourist map in the Pearson/Fielder book directs prospective hikers right into the Henderson / Climax Mine folks' property. My first thought (obviously) was, "Hey, I could jump on the conveyor belt and get back to the trail fast!" However, that would have meant that you would read about me in next years' Darwin Awards. I was back at the trail soon enough after my industrial intermission.

The hike up the Middle Fork of the Williams Fork was pleasant but muggy, and I refrained from telling the elk hunters that all the elk were still up high. The trail back up to Ptarmigan Pass is fading fast, and you then essentially cut cross country back to the Ptarmigan Peak trail.

After a few trips, I'm realizing that the Pearson/Fielder book is just a (good) idea book - everything is positive and wonderful and it's just great to go out to the wilderness. It's up to you to find out that the trails may or may not be there, the route may lead into the largest moly mine in North America, etc.

Which is fine - I'm glad I went. It's an incredible spot, especially considering how close it is to Denver.

-

The trip was also a bit of a shakedown for my longer trip to the Arizona Trail this week. It's good to know that your little sunscreen bottle has mysteriously separated/liquefied, etc., before heading out for five days.

One new gear item is my replacement REI "Halo" sleeping bag. The old one was doing fine until it randomly developed a giant tear that dumped a bunch of down. Apparently this is common given the fabric used in the past. As I've written previously, I got a screamin' deal on this bag, so screamin' that REI didn't want to take it back. But after about an hour of them looking me in the eye to see if I was a bad hippie/serial gear exchanger, they gave me a new one.

And lo! The new one has substantially more down/loft than the old one. Was my old one a secret factory second/defect model? In any case I'm happy with the new one.

Austin: Good food, bad weather

2011-08-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

As we were getting ready to go to Austin for the weekend, our friends invariably compared it to Denver: "It's like a grown-up Denver," "It's hipper than Denver," "It's sort of like Denver, but not as pretty," etc. All I really knew about the place was "worst" barbecue, SXSW, and Mellow Johnny's. Oh, and Slacker.

And that's not a good way to visit a place - you haven't even gotten there and you're comparing it to your home. When we went to Edmonton a summer or two ago, we didn't go there expecting Denver of the north, and we were pleasantly surprised by the interesting melange of European-city/oil town/tundra zone/white-nights fun. And yes, it's sort of like Denver of the north.

Luckily, we didn't have to even think about comparing Austin to Denver because our son ran around looking at everything and comparing it to home. He would splash in the Barton Springs Pool and say, "Oooh! This is colder than our pool in Denver, Colorado!" Then we'd go to eat and he'd say, "This place has better noodles than Denver, Colorado!" And so on.

But what he really didn't like about Austin, and what made Austin an inferior city, was the heat. It was hot - over 100 degrees each day - and he didn't like it one bit. He commented on the heat, frowned at the heat, and asked us if the heat would go away. He announced that he wanted to go back home a few times. And when we did get home, it was in the 90's, and he asked if we were still in Austin.

We've spent a fair amount of time in hot places - Thailand comes to mind - and I spent a few years running around the Mojave - but the Austin heat was just nasty. It's one thing to say, "Oh, and it was 105." I've been in Las Vegas when it's 105, and it can be a purifying, almost cathartic, heat. And I've been in the jungle when it's 105, and again it can be an interesting (okay, I'll just say "wet") experience. And I used to live in Davis, CA, where getting up to 105 just made people sleepy slow and would spawn pleasant downpours every week or so.

But in Austin we'd walk outside and immediately feel like something was wrong. Will-J kept trying to smell the air, frowning like it was old milk. It was muggy and the low gray clouds made everything look flat. And it would just linger - I went out to move the car at 11:00 PM, and it was still 87. Muggy gripping hot. Which made spending time in the pleasant Barton Springs Pool all the better. We couldn't figure out why all of Austin doesn't pack in there on Sunday.

Indeed, the food is better. Much better. Which given our Cow Town experience, isn't saying a lot. But still. When I go to other cities, I don't want to try the nicest place in town. According to people we talked to, the best place in Austin is Uchi. And I'm sure Uchi is awesome - in fact, I'd be pretty mad if it wasn't considering the prices. No, I want to see how the locals are eating and see what's going on (or at least that's what I tell myself because I can't afford Uchi). And so we wandered into a place called Madam Mam's, ordered a few Thai noodle staples, and they were fantastic. Awesome. Better than anything in Denver - even U.S. Thai. And Madam Mam's isn't the best Thai in Austin.

That was our weekend. We'd stop off for a snack someplace, and it would be really good. So Austin has it going on for food.

And you get used to the heat. At first, I was amazed to see people on road bikes and running in the heat, but by this morning I was ready to go for a jog. Will-J - not so much. He was happy to get on the plane and head to his sweet home native city a mile high. A good trip, even though I ended up having to work quite a bit over the weekend.

Etc.:

-Will-J has quietly grown into an intrepid traveler. I'm calling him the Travel Tank now. I pick him up from school, head to the airport, and he marches along with his backpack. Grab a burger, catch some news on the airport monitors, and he's ready to fly. This morning, we had a 6:30 AM flight. No problem - grab a scone, hop on the plane and time for a power nap:

-We showed up at the rental lot and they said, "It's slow - just take any car." So Will-J pointed out a sleek black Volkswagon CC, and off we went. It's the nicest rental I've ever had, and added quite a bit in terms of style-factor to our trip. Here's Will-J profiling in front of his ride:

(no that's not where we stayed) It's an interesting car - in my mind very VW in the same way as our old (unreliable) Jetta. It looks great, presents fine fit and finish, and has a trunk larger than many apartments. What's not to like? Plenty. The CC has an overwhelming plethora of controls, so much so that I never figured out what all the buttons and switches were for. It had an awful automatic transmission that lagged acceleration. It has no apparent market, i.e. a under-powered sports sedan with the handling of a Lincoln Town Car, but good looking and sort of expensive. But it had a cool touch-screen navigation thingie:

-We stayed right in the heart of the club district, and while Denver tries tries to be sort of like L.A., Austin tries tries to be sort of like Miami Beach. I don't know why - maybe it's the excessive heat.

-Barton Springs Pool is great:

But those in the know visit the free overflow area right outside the fence. It's clearly marked "no swimming," but that doesn't seem to bother anyone:

(that dog also doesn't seem to have a leash - did I mention I'm a lawyer?) Also, there's an endangered salamander that lives in the pool. I found this interesting: "Hey, everyone, there's an endangered animal in the pool, so please leave it alone the best you can." Meanwhile kids are reaching under rocks trying to find a pet salamander. I don't get how that works - critical habitat somewhere else? Not designated yet? Other?

-Mellow Johnny's is just okay. Besides all the cool historical bikes, it's just a Trek store with a coffee shop and a nice locker room/shower set up. I'd take Wheat Ridge Cyclery over Mellow Johnny's, actually.

-Speaking of Slacker, where do you go these days if you're a budding early-20's hipster? It seems like the field is increasingly occupied and/or gentrifying. Slacker was 1991, and certainly Austin circa that time looks like far more suitable hipster habitat than the slick "consultant"-land I observed this weekend. So if Austin/Boulder/Portland/etc. are out, what's in? My guess is that now that I'm middle-aged, I'll never know, and the young folks are happily riding their fixies off to whatever interesting place they've found to avoid people like me. My other guess is that the hipsters are colonizing ever smaller towns in search of a better (cheaper) life - as long as said towns have T-1 or faster internet, of course.

What's scary for an oldster like me is that at this point my memory of cool places is becoming sort of like Slacker, i.e. a time capsule memory of those places before they were taken over by nu-urban infill, "consultants," and of course the "ugly duplex." This really hit me a few years ago when I was walking through Missoula with a friend. We were walking along, and we just passed by a yoga studio. Not a hippie yoga studio, or "serious yoga," just a random fitness-yoga studio with people inside taking a class. Neither of us said anything about it. Then a week later, I realized, "I was walking down the street in Missoula, Montana, saw a yoga studio, and didn't think anything of it. What the hell happened to Montana?"

I can only imagine what has happened to some of the cities of my memory. When I was hanging around Portland, Maine, it was just starting to wake up from the demise of shipbuilding. When I lived in Davis, some of the old places were just starting to turn over. What now? Well, they're probably somewhat like Austin/Boulder/Portland/etc.

What I'm getting at is that in some places, I missed the odd-in-retrospect cheap-money nu-urbanism (Click on that and isn't that the beat from Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind"? Indeed, it is.), and so when I go there, it's sort of like every other rebuilt mid-sized city downtown. In other places, I haven't been back since that transformation took place, and now they don't recognize the cities of my memories (Chicago is the big one). In other words, I missed the 2000's.

Really, it's only Denver where I'm watching the transformation take place in real time. And it's surprising. And it doesn't always seem like a good thing. I went for a few evening rides in the old west part of Five Points, new "Ballpark Neighborhood." It's amazing - when I moved here if you visited between Blake and Lawrence and Broadway and Downing, it was warehouses, meat packing, and some not-so-nice places to live. A few years later it's becoming some kind of 20-something paradise (?) of gyms, clubs, condos, scooter dealerships, etc. I'm not saying it's a bad thing (and in this case I'm not even sure it will stick), but if you came to visit Denver for the first time this weekend (see LoDo, for example), you'd definitely get a different perspective than if you visited in 1991.

All I can really say in terms of value judgment about this change is it does homogenize cities. I recognized downtown Austin as sort of like LoDo. People tend to get tired of homogenization, and so it may be a good thing to encourage/allow these areas to fly their own flag, so to speak. Or maybe I'm wrong and this is all good for business, progress, tax base, etc. - I don't have a specific prediction here, except that historically speaking, our world has trended towards suburbanization/exurbanization.

-Bats! Every summer night about a million bats fly out from under the Congress Ave. Bridge. The spectacle exceeded my expectations - it's really impressive. Will-J liked it too, but after the big waves of bats he got hot and wanted to go. Like I said, it was hot in Austin.

Will-J and Catherine with Dinger

2011-08-05T20:06:00.001-07:00

Why I carry a camera

2011-08-03T20:00:00.001-07:00

Here's "Rubbish Solutions:"

I don't want a "rubbish" solution - I want a good solution! Get it - a "rubbish" solution.

Oh and then there's this:

I won't say this is an "ugly duplex," but that one really stands out.

Denver Triathalon - big finish for Catherine

2011-07-26T13:56:00.001-07:00

Catherine ran her first Olympic distance triathlon last weekend in the Denver triathalon. It came to no one's surprise that she won her age category, and the next day headed off for a long session of botany field work without soreness or complaint. Super tough!

I performed suitable husbandly duties - Will-J and I were there to cheer her onto her bike, and then we caught up to her on bike/in bike trailer with about a mile to go in the run. Will-J then jumped out of the trailer, ran with her across the line, and of course claimed her finisher's medal.

Neither of us were inspired to do another tri. Yes, there are a lot of jokes about triathletes, and certainly they bring things upon themselves with those silly sleeveles lycra unitards. Again, I was shocked at the proliferation of wildly expensive bikes. I'm accustomed to running races, where maybe you splurge on a new pair of shoes.

Also, the running course left a lot to be desired. For some reason, not only did they plan on running on the crowded Cherry Creek bike path, but directed runners onto the biking side of the path. So there were hundreds of runners, the typical aggro weekend warrior Cherry-Creek-time-trial crew, families, kids, the remnants of a morning charity ride, and more all on the path.

Back to shoes, the expensive bikes make me think that shoe manufacturers are really missing the boat. Bikes just keep getting more expensive, and people just keep buying them. But running/other shoes plateaued at a merely ridiculous level years ago - shoe companies need to start marketing shoes better, and if they did there would be no reason they couldn't market $500 and up pairs to triathletes.

In defense of Venue

2011-07-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

In my long-delayed, possibly never-to-be completed post called, "I live in the West Highlands, and all I can get to eat is 'gourmet' mac and cheese, overpriced burgers, bad burritos, and pizza slices," the shining exception would be Venue. We've been to this place a few times now, and were impressed each time - they have interesting, solid items, great balanced flavors, were nice to our 4-year-old (they even gave him some pitted cherries, which was a generous use of their time), and generally been a cut above pretty much everything else in NW Denver. The best example is their shrimp and grits - it's a pretty standard dish, but everything about it is exemplary. Even the green chile sauce - which ordinarily would have been out of place - is respectful of the tradition but doesn't overpower anything else on the plate.

Which, of course, earns them a long list of negative reviews on Yelp.

I'm particularly defensive of Venue because it reminds me of a few places I opened/worked at - it's a teeny tiny little kitchen trying to do something interesting, and with that interesting thing happening to push the boundaries of that space. Come on, people! It's not a great big hotel kitchen with lots of options. The food is going to take some time. No, it may not be the place for your large group. But it is good, and it is quality. Give them a chance.

TdF 2011: the CadelPocalypse

2011-07-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

The Tour de France had gotten boring in the past few years, and so I didn't follow it this year (plus I've been crushed with work). I mean, does Contador dope? Who knows? It certainly doesn't look good, but ultimately the jury is out. The problem for cycling fans is that he just looks like a doper when he rides. He comes up to those big climbs, does his wiggle dance, and skin gleaming, almost with a smile, he proceeds to just flow up the hill like an inverse waterfall. Who does he remind us of? Richard Virenque? Riccardo Ricco? Again, it doesn't look good.

And it's hard to identify with - I certainly don't flow up the hills. But I can sort of identify with Cadel Evans (if I were an absolute cycling badass Aussi). He's sort of funny looking (big chin and eyebrows), and he's always a few second off the pace. His skin doesn't gleam. He struggles. He's good, but he's always behind the dancing up the hills. He seems like a regular (again, awesome/badass) athlete.

And so in retrospect I wish I had actually followed the TdF this year (if I actually had the time) to see our struggling, regular guy beat the flowing guys and stand on top of that podium.

Now, Thomas Voeckler, he just makes me feel old. He did his last crazy yellow-jersey run in 2004, in the midst of the Lance Armstrong years. I remember this like it was recent history, but crap that's seven years ago now. I feel pretty much like I did in 2004 - just as slow, not flowing up hills.

BikeSnobNYC made fun of the "CadelPocalypse," but for me it serves as a reminder of what we're really looking for in sports. I grew up in Chicago during the Jordan reign, and to a certain extent it's why I don't watch much NBA - those teams were at such an incredibly high level it's hard to watch anything else. On the other hand, I loved it - and the revenue levels reflect that everyone loved it - when Dallas beat Miami for the title this year. And everyone loved it when Green Bay beat Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl this year. Hey, it's great to see the Lakers/Celtics hoop it up, but isn't it more fun when Butler goes to the championship game?

In fact, you could do (and probably someone has done) a cost benefit analysis of having a team of superstar jerks versus having a team of likable good players, and find that maybe the likable-good-player teams actually make more money. Is an Aaron Rodgers worth more than a Brett Favre? That would be nice.

What does this have to do with doping? Well, I liked it, and probably a lot of other people liked it, when a guy who at least doesn't look like he's doping won the TdF. Does Cadel dope? Who cares? At least Contador, a Favre type, didn't win. Next year I'll probably check it out a bit more to see another Voeckler run, some Hushovd wins, and maybe other interesting/inspiring things.

What does this all say about Contador? Probably nothing. Fans see these guys as so incredibly strong that they forget how much a crash takes out of you. You have a little crash, with some road rash and some aches and pains, and you're just not 100%. In the TdF, if you aren't 100%, you lose. And Contador had several crashes.

What does this say about sports? It means that fans want to see the real thing. And maybe, given some recent performances, the powers that be are listening to the fans - or at least listening to the income the fans pour into these events - and maybe putting their fingers on the scale against PED's a bit more than they used to and/or looking for different kinds of guys for their teams.

But who knows? This year maybe the Yankees will win the World Series, the Pats will win the Super Bowl, the Lakers will win another NBA title, and next July Contador will have do his little dance flowing up those hills again with his skin gleaming and a little smile. And maybe Contador doesn't take drugs, and really he's a nice guy (even though he punches fans and generally seems like a jerk). In the end, it's all in the game.

Fake Real Community and Virtual Actual Community (I was a middle-aged yoga mat cleaner)

2011-07-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I headed back to Corporate Yoga as part of their yoga-trade program. It’s something about which I have (surprisingly) little to report. I got to evade the intensity of being a lawyer for a few hours a week, clean the studio, and in return accessed their generally fine yoga classes. And so much the better if I happened to overhear things like, “Yeah, that quote about ‘doors of perception’ is by Jim Morrison,” (which is true if you leave aside both William Blake and Aldous Huxley, relative lightweights in their fields), and “Yeah, I HAD to get hair extensions – my hair kept flopping around in class and now I can tie it back – how does it look?”

Unfortunately, my short time as a middle aged yoga mat cleaner came to an end when Corporate Yoga essentially blew up the program, which I suppose makes sense considering all the classes they were giving away. In the course of my termination, I exchanged views with management, during which I was repeatedly reminded about the Corporate Yoga “community.”

Community? Huh? Mainly we saw a lot of tuned-out and/or self-absorbed office workers over the years. We didn’t see a lot of people talking, and we certainly never met anyone we would now consider close friends. This is entirely consistent with the sales-oriented mission of Corporate Yoga, but inconsistent with actual community.

Which brings me back to long-distance backpacking, of course. For a few years in another lifetime I messed around for a few summers doing some really long hikes – in particular on the Pacific Crest Trail. During that time, I became sort of known in a limited sort of way among the other hikers, and later with ultramarathoners. Not like I was a record-setter or doing anything serious out there, but like I was a harmless guy doing the trails and occasionally writing about them.

At the time I was critical of what I saw as the false community of the long-distance backpackers. They seem friendly enough, but you never actually see them – they’re all online telling tales (or not online, not telling tales, and working and/or hiking a different trail than you). Little did I know that it’s actually a fairly vibrant community of like souls who like seeing large swaths of the country on foot and/or getting really dirty.

Case in point is my recent exchange with El Monstro/Fstpker/Adam Bradley, who recently absolutely destroyed the FKT on the Arizona Trail. I was particularly interested in his trek as he started right about when I ended my two week hike this spring, and became more interested when he appeared to be shadowed along the way by another hiker known only as “Starsky,” who may or may not also have been seeking the FKT.

I had a few questions for the man, in particular how he understood the “official” route of the AZT and alternates. He wrote back with surprising clarity, defining the scope of his efforts and justifying his decisions. Back when I was hiking, I was disturbed by the relative lack of style employed by a lot of thru-hikers, and turned to organized races as a means to explore my distance/speed limits (long story short, those limits are in fact quite limited). And here’s someone sorting through what style is effective and necessary to define those distance/speed limits and efforts without organized races. Great stuff.

And as a few other people weighed in on his efforts, I realized the extent of the (admittedly small) community of distance/thru-hikers, as well as some meaningful individual commitments/contributions to that community. It was impressive, and I see it as a real community, despite the fact that said community often exists largely online. Which was strikingly highlighted when I was faced with continued invocations of a face-to-face “community” – when said community is based largely on sales efforts and appearances. I’ll take the former over the latter any day.

Monsoon 2011 (2)

2011-07-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

A really big storm last night - an endless flashing and rumbling of thunder. Our sleepy son just slept right through it all. It was the biggest lightning display I can remember since I did the Wilson-El Diente traverse several years ago with Rex the dog.

We finished the climb and retreated to our camp at Navajo Lake. From there, we watched the peaks get absolutely lit up by a lightning display. Rex watched it calmly, but since then she's been wary of lightning (her preferred approach is to hide in the bathtub).

Monsoon 2011

2011-07-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

In 2004 we were living in Timmy Duggan's condo in Boulder, and I was sitting there writing cover letters to law firms. And it got hot. And hotter. Then hotter. And I realized we didn't have air conditioning and it was going to be a very long summer. Then the rains came, it cooled off, and we had a pleasant variable summer of the Colorado "monsoon."

This summer, the rains return. We've been on a cycle of morning heat and afternoon/evening rains for a few weeks now. It's great, and beautiful. I heard Lake Powell is rising a foot a day.

Triple Bypass 2011: ups and downs

2011-07-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

In 2005, I was done with running and had been doing more road biking. I entered the Triple Bypass ride with Catherine and my brother-in-law, and had a good time - I think it took me maybe nine hours, Catherine about ten, and brother-in-law stopped at Loveland. Later he told us that was the day he decided to get fitter, and has since transformed into a monster ultra-marathoner/Hardrock finisher.

I didn't keep up with road riding, opting instead for a training regimen consisting largely of working at a desk - sometimes it works. Time passes, I get creakier, and after commute-riding to Boulder occasionally last year, I really haven't ridden my new-ish road bike much.

Which turns out to be a bad idea because due to circumstances outside my control I ended up with a free entry to the Triple this year. And thus, at 5:30 in the morning I headed up towards Squaw Pass wondering how it would feel. The answer is okay, and actually pretty good, but I don't have a low enough gear so I strained my knee a touch.

Otherwise my thoughts on the Triple are generally the same as last time:

-The Triple is really quite beautiful, and Team Evergreen will sell out the ride until the end of time. Could they improve the ride? Absolutely. It makes no sense that a ride that takes most people all day has no hot food at the aid stations - or no food at all if they're slow. No fun along the route - like a band or something? And no free beer anymore? That's horrible. I still love their ugly ride jerseys, though. Every year they're ugly, but each year is ugly in it's own way. In the past few years it looks like they're trying a subdued orangish color scheme to no avail.

-There are a lot of good cyclists in Colorado. A lot. This time around, I was heading up Vail Pass about the time as the quick-ish recreational riders - they started at a more civilized time (an hour or two after me), and slowly churned past in their little team groups. It was a slow progression of very, very expensive bicycles ridden by (mostly) men with very large quads. How many hundreds of fine carbon fiber top-of-the-line bikes did I see? It's amazing, and somewhat guilt-inducing. Wouldn't all that money be better spent elsewhere? How much non-recyclable carbon fiber is going into all those bikes?

-I was equally impressed at all the creaky and sore strong riders with large quads lounging around at the top of Vail Pass next to their expensive carbon fiber bikes. It's a hard ride, period, and Vail Pass is the worst part. Really, I just don't like the part from the Summit-Co high school to the base of the pass. It's largely uphill and just a grind.

-I rode the Triple like I would run/walk an ultra - spending relatively little time at the aid stations and just trying to get over the passes. I did this in order to beat the rain, which I did, and rode it in about the same time as 2005. However, this isn't the style/form of the Triple, which is (at least for the large-quad men) to blast between aid stations, and then relax at the girlfriends'/spouses'/friends' cars for awhile, sipping recovery beverages and remarking on the epic pace. This makes a certain amount of sense, at least if the girlfriends/spouses/friends don't mind. It did get annoying, however, to get passed by the same guys over and over again. In the end I think the "Sweat Equity" guys from Crested Butte passed me five times.

-Cycling is just so much less impactive than running. It's amazing for me. If I ran a marathon yesterday, I'd hobble around for a week. Instead, I feel pretty much fine today (except for the sore knee, which is my own fault).

-Like last time, we formed little pace-lines from Vail Pass to the end. Big fun. Unlike last time, I actually took some pulls.

Will I ride it again? No - I really don't see that happening. But that's what I said last time, too - and in 2005 they even had free beer at the end.

Fourth in the Flat Tops: Stillwater Lake to Trappers Lake and "The Devil's Causeway"

2011-07-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

Spent a few days in the Flat Tops. Photos are here.

Route was from Stillwater Lake on the east edge, up the road from the town of Yampa, then up to the Devil's Causeway, across the exciting causeway itself, and down to Trappers Lake on the Stillwater Trail. I hiked around Trappers, up towards Wall Lake before giving up in the snow, and then camped back up at a quite pleasant lake (I'm sure it has a name but I didn't have said name on the tourist map I used).

Returned the next day on the Stillwater Trail, navigating two fairly steep snowfields on the way down. Had a great stop at another lake (see above) before calling it a trip.

The theme of the trip was "snow." I ran into a horsepacker near Stillwater who called it a "shocking" amount of snow for the 4th. There was snow right down to the Stillwater Parking lot. You could make a good argument there's more snow up there than any year since 1983. Many Coloradans head to the Flat Tops for "easy" or introductory backpacking - the passes are a little lower, the climbs a little easier, navigation no problem, good trails, etc. - but the snow this year made it a suitable adventure, at least for me.

Despite the snow, it was a fun trip. It's a national-park quality area, set aside very early in the wilderness-preservation tradition, and is a large chunk of stunning/interesting area with lots of loop trails all over. So you get essentially a national park where you can wander around wherever you want and without sticking to a specific itinerary. I saw one group of backpackers in 2 1/2 days over the 4th weekend. Great stuff.

Of course I had to see Trappers Lake, arguably the first area of National Forest protected as wilderness, and indeed it's a beautiful spot - a large subalpine lake surrounded by striking snowy cliffs. Unfortunately, coming up on 100 years after being set aside, said spot is ravaged by spruce bark beetle, catastrophically burned, bordering a muddy parking lot, overrun with day users (many of whom are roughing up the banks with various watercraft), etc. Well, we can say it's a work in progress (?). As always, the crowd disappears just a few miles up the trail, especially so this year due to the snow.

Then back to Denver and wonderful 4th celebrations with friends and family, including Will-J's first fireworks.

I'd love to come back to the Flat Tops for a big week-long loop hike up and down a bunch of the valleys - add that to all the other trips in the hopper, I suppose.

Adventures in Cycling: Road to Nowhwere II

2011-06-30T13:18:00.001-07:00

Just a day after investigating the new bike sidewalk (?) on Bannock, I saw this incredible event:

Yes, it's someone on a B-cycle that would be going the wrong way on the bike sidewalk, but is in fact out of the sidewalk altogether. It's things like this that make bike commuting interesting.

Adventures in Cycling: Road to Nowhere?

2011-06-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

I was riding up 14th Ave., and the new bike lane in front of the former courthouse on Bannock caught my eye:

No, wait, the new bike lane:

Oh, that's pretty funny - but let me try again:

There it is! It looks pretty cool - of course it will lead to pedestrian/cyclist collisions (because it looks like a sidewalk) and there's a crazy suicide bike lane across the street that could have been avoided by making it a bi-directional lane:

But wait, where does it go? Currently it leads to Colfax, which may have well just have a skull and crossbones for cyclists, and up against traffic coming out of 14th St. So basically the only way to go is on the sidewalk east on Colfax:

Maybe this lane is part of a big cycling infrastructure project, but currently it's utility (but not its expense) is a mystery.

U.S. Forest Service - it's simple, really.

2011-06-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

I complain about public lands management here from time to time. But many times things are actually pretty simple.

The USFS spends half it's budget on wildfires each year. There you go. Take away litigation, rulemaking, and maintenance, and that's not going to be a lot left.

Father's Day - Gibson Lake Trail

2011-06-22T20:50:00.001-07:00

We started driving towards Jefferson Lake, but decided on a backpack towards Gibson Lake. We really like backpacking. We parked where Road 120 splits at the campground and gets rough. I'd like to report that our Will-J hiked maybe four miles, and acquiesced to his Dad carrying him/postholing about half a mile through snow to our camp - and then happily turned in for a long sleep with no worries.

Photos here.

We're using (at least what I find) an interesting setup for taking Will-J hiking. Catherine takes it easy on her knees by carrying the bedding/clothes for Will-J (he just uses an adult zero-degree bag) in a larger GoLite pack (actually an old Jam 2). I use my lightweight backpack, don't bring very much for me, but stick our hand-me-down made-in-America bombproof-but-heavy four-person North Face mountaineering tent on top (it's the big tube in one of the photos). This really gives me some peace of mind while backpacking with a four-year-old. Maybe he gets tired, and wants to stop. Maybe conditions are poor. No problem - we have a tent suitable for the Himalaya where he can bed down into for the night. It gets quite warm in there with just our heat, and he sleeps well. Very good.

Part of the point of this blog (or really, the main point) is to remember what the hell I did a few years ago. As such, it also helps keep me honest about past conditions. Everyone this year is talking about what an extreme snow year it is, and certainly that seems confirmed by us not being able to hike much above 11,000 feet last weekend. But wait, on the last weekend of June, 2009, I hiked from Kenosha Pass over Georgia Pass (only a few miles from Gibson Lake) and then to Copper Mountain (hike 3 of my Colorado Trail section hike). And indeed I never actually touched snow on that hike. The verdict - this year indeed has much, much more snow than a relatively good snow year such as 2009.

Groupon is the end of the world!

2011-06-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I wrote about Groupon. Here’s a more detailed take along the same lines. I saw another post somewhere accusing Groupon of using a “cynical” business model. This touches on another topic, which is that somehow Web 2.0 companies should be – or are – “above” the ethical standards of “regular” businesses (to the extent one can still draw that distinction), i.e. the Google “no evil” proviso.

In the end, I think online deal-of-the-days are for four types of businesses: (1) doing a grand-opening and working the loss caused by the deal into opening costs; (2) are successful, trying to get some more people in the door, and run a deal for less than the average sale; (3) idiots; and (4) OMG NO ONE’S COMING AND WE GOTTA GET SALES UP!!!

The last time around, I wrote from the perspective of a restaurant owner/worker. To review, if you came into one of the successful restaurants I worked at/ran and said you wanted to offer a huge number of half-off coupons – and by the way, you keep half or more of the other half – the hills would have resounded with laughter. On the other hand, if you walked into one of the zombie, walking dead, doomed restaurants I worked at (but never ran, of course) and gave the same spiel, we’d think about it – would we actually get some more customers? Hey, maybe they’d come back. In this way, I see the deal-of-the-days as a tax on doomed businesses – hey, maybe it’ll work, but it’s a last-ditch effort, and by the way it’ll be a big money-loser, too.

But what about law firms? Of course this has already come up, and of course the ethics boards have already opined both for (Missouri), and against (North Carolina), deal-of-the-days for lawyers. And of course these decisions turn on the ban on fee-splitting with non-lawyers that I’ve seen firms flaunt and/or work/merge around (and Australia is apparently doing away with altogether).

I think deal-of-the-days would be better for lawyers than other businesses (like restaurants). I wouldn’t run it like a will-and-POA for $99, but rather 10 hours of service for 5. This would fall into my category (2) above (although I suppose these days it could be (1)-(4).

Wallow Fire - Arizona's disappearing forests

2011-06-08T21:00:00.001-07:00

Yes, I find the Wallow Fire upsetting. I spent two weeks on the Arizona Trail in April, and hiked through large burns. The worst were the incredibly striking Mazatzals. Clearly the area had basically been abandoned from a management perspective, had become seriously overgrown, and went up in a blaze in 2004 (Willow Fire). Here are some opinions. My view is these aren't cyclical/natural fires - the entire Mazatzal (and the entire Santa Catalina, etc.) range burned up in an inferno - in some areas, there's just nothing left. This is very different than a slow-moving ground fire or variation that clear out some young trees.

Which is happening now outside of Alpine. I hiked around the area a bit at the end of college. It's incredibly rugged country - and like most areas of Arizona I've hiked - it has a land-that-time/tourists-forgot feeling. It's out there - you don't do wolf reintroduction just anywhere. Few trails, and those that exist are overgrown. Few roads. Little management. And yes the forest was unnaturally dense for where it...

...was.

Highland Church test holes - development in the West Highlands/Highlands Square?

2011-06-08T19:59:00.001-07:00

The problem with my numerous observations of urban infill is I (almost) never get the pre-construction photo. So all you get is a half-built house with an observation that oh, that half-built "ugly duplex" (or maybe this) replaced a 500 sq. ft. falling-down peeling-whitewash alley house (but a 500 sq. ft. falling-down peeling-whitewash alley house with character, let's remember.

Aha! Then this morning I spied a well-drilling rig at the corner of Moncrieff and 32nd, digging test holes. Will-J and I approached a guy in a hard hat driving a nice "geotechnical consultants" truck, and he backed away and hid behind the rig. When I came by in the evening, I found ten or so holes. Here's one:

(behind Coral Room)

Here's another one:

(behind the Mondo Vino building at 32nd and Lowell):

And here's a 1966 Volvo for sale that caught Will-J's eye:

(good taste)

From what I can tell, they're over 30 feet deep, and drilled into the water table (ask me sometime about my theory about the Highlands overlaying a significant clay lens). What's up? Hey, maybe Highlands Church has massive drainage problems. Or maybe the excavators are going to show up in a week or so. At least now if they do, I'll have the "before" pictures.

But I hope they keep the pretty church:

Because it really does have character.

Looks like the kids in Arvada were getting crazy with the signage last night

2011-06-05T12:42:00.001-07:00

Correction - maybe? Confluence Park

2011-06-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday about Confluence Park being built on bonds. Here's a great article about how part of the area came to being. They say that the construction budget for the little part of the park that used to be an electrical substation was only $800k, with a big chunk of this coming from (I think) The Greenway Foundation. Great. Which makes me wonder how the other parts of the area were built - also a lot of Greenway money it seems. I think, though, maintenance falls to the City/County - although I've been wrong before (!).

Secret Denver weather / Building stuff then abandoning it

2011-06-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

The thing about Denver is it has secret good weather. I've said it before. But winter really does linger around until almost June. Then suddenly it's hot. Everyone here goes through "that day" where the heat hits home - it knocks you out, your skin gets clammy, and you just want to go lay down. That's because it's been cool/cold for six months. It hit me when I went running with a colleague on Thursday. We didn't go that fast, but we were both a wreck afterwards. It's just the way it goes. Everyone gets used to the heat, and for the rest of the summer we'll be fine.

Today Will-J felt it. It was one of those glorious early summer days. We went to the farmers market, ran around the fine playground at Spear and Wewatta, and of course made a St. Marks stop. There were low clouds, and all our rain is still evaporating, so it felt like Florida. After a fun day, Will-J was worn out from the heat and demanded to go to sleep at 6:45. He kept drinking water and commenting an oddly formal way that it was "quite hot."

Or maybe I had bored him to sleep with that bad Hubble 3D movie. Did you know they still (until July) fly the Space Shuttle? Yikes.

So when I was a kid, the local library had a bunch of books stretching from the 50's to the late 70's about fast aircraft and space flight. I really ate that stuff up back then. So we had the X-15 and variants, and everyone knew that was the future. But they ended up just sticking a re-entry vehicle on some random existing technology and calling it a Shuttle. The Shuttle was ridiculous and dated by the time it launched - a design completed and operating by 1977.

Aside: And I would tell my family this at age ten. I wonder what they thought? What a geeky kid. I hope that my son isn't like that - except that we're sitting together on summer nights watching space telescope documentaries. The geek circle will be unbroken. End of aside.

And it's still flying over 30 years later? Like most of America, I put the Shuttle out of my mind - it's a painful reminder of where some of our taxes are wasted. Really, it's like an (explosive) flying symbol of federal bureaucracy - tolerated, but uninspiring to say the least. Watching Hubble 3D, it hits home - there are still people risking their lives in that thing. Really. They're treating it like an old DC-10 doing mail runs. Except that it's incredibly dangerous (and always was), inefficient, wildly expensive, and pretty much an all-round bad idea. The people who fly in that thing really are national heroes.

I was interested to see Will-J's reaction to the movie. He couldn't really understand that the Hubble is a telescope - he was more comfortable calling it "satellite." Which was great. But his main takeaway is that things float in space - not just things, really, but FOOD. There's a scene where one of the astronauts makes a little burrito, leaves it in the air, grabs a spoon and something else, and then goes back to the burrito.

His eyes got wide. Food floating? Food. That floats. Why? What is "gravity" Da-Da? Huh? FOOD FLOATS IN SPACE! Ha ha! That's crazy!!! I have a feeling I'll be hearing about floating food for awhile. I hope he doesn't try to float his lunch at preschool next week (but he probably will, and I'll have to explain to his teachers that there was this documentary movie about the Hubble Telescope...).

-

In our perambulations, we passed through Confluence Park. Confluence really is a tremendous success. I was just writing about the old mud flats and abandoned buildings down on the South Platte, and now it's our city center. But after just a few years all the drinking fountains are now turned off - one marked "no longer in service" and we tried to stop in a bathroom that was pretty much unusable, the landscaping is deteriorating, etc.

Okay, this my typical white whine. But I remember using that bathroom a whole three years ago - and it was fine and maintained. In fact, it was pretty much new. So how much did that bathroom cost? Probably a lot. I'm reasonably sure Denver didn't pay cash to build it, rather it was bonded out. And surely Denver won't be paying the bonds off on that brand new nice bathroom for a decade or two. So Denver will be paying for a decrepit unusable bathroom - in fact, they'll probably lock it for good in a year or two - for years to come.

I see this a lot. Probably the most striking variant was when I was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and saw scores of abandoned old public facilities up in the mountains. We built them, we were taxed for them, and then the agencies let them go. Sort of like the Space Shuttle.

Rockies the day before Memorial Day

2011-05-30T14:45:00.001-07:00

So we thought, what a nice day - let's go grab some Rockpile tickets for the afternoon game. Unfortunately that's what everyone else in Denver thought, too:

Yup, there's a few hundred people in line. Instead, we went to the Littleton museum. They had a little display where I could do water administration in District 6. And I got to tend the plow:

Good weather - good times.

Doomed Restaurants that won't die - Paris on the Platte. In Yelp we do not trust.

2011-05-29T23:03:00.002-07:00

I wrote recently about Doomed Restaurants. More:

-Sometimes a Doomed Restaurant location (address that just keeps cycling through concepts) just gives up. There was a place on 17th and about Larimer that just kept changing names - at one point I think they were doing $1 glasses of wine to try to get people in the door. It finally gave up the ghost, and it's a P.O. box place.

-And sometimes a place just sticks. The corner of Baseline and 27th Way in Boulder was a bunch of different places, and then it became a Beau Jo's Pizza. Bam - it just stuck.

-And then there are the places that just won't die. When Catherine was in College, she played hearts at Paris on the Platte. At that point, the professional dorms across the street weren't there, and it was just a mudflat down to the river. It was bad back then - and it's bad now. We went there today, and tried to get some breakfast. It was awkward, nervous service, with a few meals coming out of the kitchen every ten minutes or so. They seemed practically desperate to show everyone there that maybe they had just started doing breakfast and it was a really awkward situation - except they've been there 20 years. I look forward to coming back there when I'm 56 and there's the same (or similar) awkward hodgepodge of kitchen equipment, bad smells, new servers, cold food, etc. That place is a survivor. Why we don't know - but it's a survivor.

-

I just posted this, and thought - hey, Yelp is so useless it probably has a positive review of Paris on the Platte. Sure enough - Paris on the Platte gets 3 1/2 stars. Yikes.

Classic Camping: White Ranch

2011-05-28T22:12:00.000-07:00

Sure, you know where White Ranch is - it's where you do your epic mountain biking and run those annoying bird watchers and joggers off the trail. Right off. I mean, now that you have a Niner, you definitely don't have time to mess around hopping on and off the bike to let people pass.

But it also has fine camping:

It's so fine, it's actually like camping used to be. It's free, you walk in, and there's an actual working water pump. And an actual non-smelly outhouse. JeffCo really goes over the top by stocking wood to burn. A friendly ranger came to visit us to see how we were doing. Did I mention it's free? Catherine just kept saying, "This is so easy. It's so fun. There's nothing hard about this."

Here's Will-J enjoying himself:

Here's the crew - notice only my family is mugging:

And this could be our Christmas card this year:

Fun. And there's a great view of the city lights. Did I mention it's fun? And a mile from the trailhead? Word is it gets pretty hot up there, but that's the only negative I know of so far.

Canvassers - quickly and effectively eliminating the legitimacy of various organizations

2011-05-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote about the canvassers. Recently they've moved to new, more residential locales, and for that reason have become just that much more annoying. No, it's not enough to simply avoid the 16th Street Mall anymore. Eric from St. Marks has some good advice on how to address their solicitations.

It's easy to go around and around with the canvassers. Are they so annoying because we in America are so used to our overly-developed sense of/entitlement to personal space? Aren't they just expressing free speech? Etc.

But then it crosses a line, at least for me. Today I was walking on Capitol Hill a few blocks from work, and indeed I see the regular two-man crew of punk kids in light-blue ACLU t-shirts. So what. One of them says, "Do you support gay rights?" Also standard. And I in turn generate my standard response, which is to walk past.

And then one of the kids shouts at me: "I GUESS I'LL TAKE THAT AS A NO." Oh, no. You can't do that. You can't call me a homophobe as I'm going to get a coffee. Or at least you can, and most likely the ACLU would say it was well within the idiot kid's first amendment rights to call me a homophobe. But you definitely can't do that and have me respect what you're doing. Which is to say that I now associate idiot-yelling punks with the ACLU. And Planned Parenthood. And some other organizations that are all apparently using the same team of contract punks to sign petitions/raise money.

The ACLU. Scopes trial? Nope. Loving v. Virginia? Nope. Yelling annoying kids? You bet. Talk about bad branding.

Maybe this is some kind of Swiftboating thing. Like the business that hires these kids actually encourages them to be as annoying as possible. That would be interesting.

Lime (Doomed Restaurant)

2011-05-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

We had yet another deal-of-the-day coupon for Lime – we went to the one on 6th, and it was far too soon after our OTF experience at La Loma. Blah food, blah drinks, blah atmosphere.

And the service.

Bumbling around between tables. Child menu comes first, with regular menus later. Ten minutes to get a drink for Will-J, then coming to tell us they don’t have his requested drink, meanwhile we can see another staff actually making said drink. Our food comes out ten minutes before his child’s meal comes out. And our food was cold, meaning our meals were in turn sitting around for awhile before making it out the window - sans kid's meal.

And I was sitting there thinking, “Where do I remember this from?” Ah, yes, the Doomed Restaurants I worked at along the way. There are the OTF restaurants. Restaurants where everything goes smoothly – there’s always the right silverware, no one is dropping anything, and people leave smiling. And there are the Doomed Restaurants. Restaurants where nothing goes smoothly – something is always missing or wrong, mistakes and problems proliferate, and people leave nodding politely but vowing never to return.

It’s borderline spiritual – a force of success or failure. For example, there are Doomed Restaurant locations – places that just keep turning over between owners and concepts year after year. You could bring in the most successful chef in the world to initiate the best concept in the world, and it would still fail. The place just wouldn’t feel right.

My favorite Doomed Restaurant I worked at was a place called “Buddha Bistro” in San Francisco. I knew it was a Doomed Restaurant the minute I walked through the door. It was a cheesy Fusion restaurant on a busy restaurant row. On Friday night, all of the joints would be packed except for Buddha Bistro and its one or two lonely tables. Staff was stealing anything not nailed down or too heavy. The chef would occasionally pass out in the office from mysterious causes, and during especially slow periods we would see how much old food/parings/junk we could pile on him before he woke up. We didn’t accept checks – only cash. I was only there a few weeks – we all were. It was just a stopover to points down the road. It closed soon after I left.

Lime is a Doomed Restaurant. It was busy, and it seems relatively successful. But it’s still Doomed. They have too many (confusing) specials, and the specials are too different/inexpensive compared to the regular menu. When you’re serving $11 burritos, $1 TACO NIGHT doesn’t make sense. The service was strange and strikingly uncoordinated, especially for an established place. I don’t know what makes it Doomed, it just is.

Things I'll Never Write About

2011-05-16T20:19:00.000-07:00

Definitely not "law," as in bashing/pontificating on the practice of law generally. Nope. Not for me.

And definitely not this guy, who makes living as a law professor - not a very good one - who's current viable research is now bashing law school (and his old viable research was on pop-culture obesity observations, and how bad American law is, interspersed with observations on the beauty of Boulder women). Nope - not interested - even though he gets six-figure salary at a public school to pontificate on said random topics.

And certainly not the weirdness of what happened with Krudmeister/El Monstro/Adam Bradley's Arizona Trail record attempt. With him first writing about his fun trip on Trailjournals.com - which apparently wasn't quite accurate because there was some additional problems he didn't write about - like hypothermia and intestinal parasites. And then some other guy was apparently racing him for the "record," on a trail that isn't finished yet. That he apparently filmed the other guy not finishing the trail based on his footprints only, but Adam isn't putting up the vid because he's off on a another hike. Not that solidifying three weeks of absolutely intense hiking might be worth putting in a few hours at an internet cafe. And that now he's deleting comments off his site if you question his "record." Nope, not writing about that either.

Not at all. Thanks, though.

But I have been enjoying the writings of Matt Taibbi. Good stuff.

Rain, Perspective, small races (Sean May Memorial Run), and THX-1138

2011-05-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

It rained a lot in Denver this week - the flow in Cherry Creek (aka the Cherry Creek Memorial Denver Storm Drain) jumped by 70 times overnight. I took a few photos on the Friday morning commute.

Here's the confluence really moving:

Here's the creek up over the bike path:

Here it is thinking about coming up over a little bridge:

And here of course is the death-defying plasticized pedestrian bridge that gets infinitely slick with the most minimal moisture:

I've been trying to crash on this thing for years, but haven't managed to do it yet.

Of course none of this compares even in the slightest to the flooding going on in the south currently - which puts our wet Denver in perspective. By today, the rain had stopped, baseball was back on (even though you could get pretty much any seat in the house for $5 on a cold, humid Sunday), and Cherry Creek was back to its normal demure self.

So Cherry Creek crested at 700 cfs. How much could the walled channel along the bike path hold? I think it's huge, like 30,000 cfs. Someone else (more rational) said maybe 7-10,000.

Aside: During the ride a few other intrepid commuters took time out of their day to warn me that: "DON'T GO ANY FURTHER THERE'S FLOODING AHEAD!!!" It's wonderful universal human trait - we have the inborn desire to warn each other about the obvious. I remember once backpacking along in the glorious summer sun and encountering a trail sign festooned with notes of all sizes warning that the trail was CLOSED from TOO MUCH SNOW!!! Sure, but then August eventually comes.

-

I've written here about some of the races I've run. I left out a lot of small races I've entered over the years, and a lot of these were the most meaningful and fun - and certainly I've had some of my greatest "glories" (in perspective, of course). Like a random 8k (?) I ran at City Park years ago, where I suffered through a poor breakfast decision (a big baguette with lots of butter) to third place. There were maybe six of us in the last 3/4 mile, and suddenly this older guy came blasting up with the craziest running style I'd ever seen. He was practically falling forward, with his legs kicking out diagonally. It looked like he was trying to swim - but he was going incredibly fast. It completely threw us for a loop - a few guys laughed and fell off the pace, he sped past, and another guy followed me and we got in behind him to finish. No one took our pictures, we got a little medal, I threw up, and we went home to enjoy the day.

Or the little-known but longstanding Carbondale Mt. Sopris Runoff - 16 miles from Basalt to Carbondale up over the shoulder of Mt. Sopris (on a dirt road). This one is something like $10, and I think of all people Matt Carpenter has the record. I showed up to "race" my friend from Carbondale, who proceeded to absolutely destroy me. However, the paper ran my picture with his name under it. Then the next year they ran my picture again with the same error. There were some random comments that helped us both keep our perspective - I think someone say that he looked good with a full head of hair. Someone told me that he looked like he had gained weight in the photo. Such is life.

So this weekend, I ran the Sean May Memorial Run. Sean May was a Denver deputy district attorney who tragically and senselessly died far before his time. Access to Justice and others run a 5k and a 9 mile in his honor and as a fundraiser at Barr Lake.

I did the 9 mile, and of course I did what I've done at races since I was 10 - go out too fast, go into the hurt locker, and suffer until the finish. Which raises the question of why do I keep doing races. There were four of us at the front (with my coworker sensibly marking us). Two guys were obviously strong. One guy blew up, the strong two took off, and I suffered along by myself around Barr Lake keeping a little over a six-minute pace. Soon enough, I ran into the remnants of the 5k race, which hid the fact my steady coworker was coming up. He ran out of trail, though, and I got third. Third seems to be a pattern for me.

It was fun, and of course while I ran along I thought about how all our time here is limited/borrowed, and how might I best spend some of that said time.

-

Suitably inspired (?), we finally watched THX-1138, a movie about living life to the fullest. I was expecting dour/ponderous, like Logan's Run or Planet of the Apes, but it was really fun. There's a lot of (dark) humor there, that very much reminds me of the scientifically organized buffoonery of the Communist era. Some of that reminded me of "Lives of Others" - another movie about living under constant surveillance. The ending is supposed to be open-ended, but birds (accidentally?) fly across the setting sun, which for me made the result obvious. In any case, it was good.

Building an ugly house - it's not as easy as it looks / Fresh Gorp (Wal Mart) / How to treat Canvassers

2011-05-08T23:45:00.001-07:00

There are not one, not two, but three home construction projects on my street. Here's one where they gutted what seemed to me a pretty nice house:

They're building a huge back on it that pretty much fills the lot:

Then there's what used to be an eyesore - a house that was apparently tied up in probate for years:

And then there's this (monstrosity):

I was particularly interested in this one because they used part of the old foundation, including the old gas meter. A foundation that seemed really close to the property line.

And LO! The stop-work order:

Whoops - here's an up close of what the neighbors face:

Now I'm interested in how it turns out. I'm sure green plywood doesn't show off it's many qualities, but geez so far this is one house that only a developer could love.

But real estate is dead in the Highlands - dead I tell you!

-

Yes I admit I go to Wal-Mart (you know, only sometimes, in an emergency - like when we need food). And I bought a big bag of GORP that I've been enjoying. Here's the date stamp from the back:

So I bought the GORP about two weeks after it was bagged. Maybe it's full of bad ju-ju, but you can't say it isn't fresh.

-

And from the wisdom of St. Marks comes the proper way to deal with Denver's exploding population of canvassers:

"DEAR CUSTOMERS...You may have noticed the new flock of CANVASSERS THAT HAVE begun to nest on the sidewalk in front of ST. MARKS...DO NOT 'FEED' THEM...no not speak to them or engage them in any way. Their canvassing efforts are a kind of quasi-legal harassment...if we ignore them, maybe they will go back to King Soopers where they belong. Eric."

Although I disagree with the "quasi-legal" aspect of their harassment (harassing passerby with free speech is actually a right in this country, at least in the few remaining public places), I highly agree with the proposed response.

Last Day at Loveland - Arizona Trail Record

2011-05-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

It was closing day at Loveland, and Will-J and I went up to enjoy our one day of spring skiing (it was 14 degrees last weekend up there). I found it surprisingly subdued - it was fairly quiet, and the promised band was still fiddling around with their equipment when we left at 2:30 or so.

It was an interesting contrast to closing day at Crested Butte - when I worked there, closing day was an outrageous party. At Loveland, people put on their Hawaiian shirts and ski around. Oh, and other people cordon off large areas of the (nasty dirt) parking lot with police tape to host "private" parties. So that I can't get to my car with my tired son. Boo on private taped-off parties in the Loveland parking lot.

Our goal today was to take every lift. Will-J did just fine. Here he is at the top of Lift 9 on the Continental Divide:

And here he is mugging by the West Ropes:

We won't be renewing our Loveland passes next year, and as we drove off I was a bit sentimental - Loveland helped keep me sane during a particularly difficult job period this year, and on one cold January day I had one of the best days of skiing in years. But the terrain is limited, and they do a few weird things practically designed to annoy season ticket holders (like practically give away tickets on random weekends/closing the Valley too early). It was a good year to hold a pass - they nearly broke the snowfall record. What's next? Catherine says Copper, but I'm not sure.

-

I've enjoyed following Mr. Bradley/Krudmeister/Monstro on his record breaking Arizona Trail trip. The cracks on my feet haven't even healed yet from my own minor adventure, and here is this guy hiking the whole thing in something like two weeks. It's like a Cliff Notes version of my hike. He posts a photo from the Superstitions, and then the next day he posts a photo from the East Verde River. Um, those two places are separated by 100 miles of really difficult terrain (to put it mildly). And now it takes a turn for the weird - apparently there's someone out there racing him for the record. They're passing each other out there at night and whatnot - there was a veiled accusation of someone cutting trail.

Which of course reminds me of the epic Continental Divide Trail yo-yo battle between The Onion and Mr. Magoo. These guys are out there, doing crazy superhuman mileage, in many cases without a net. To me, it's petty/compulsive and compelling simultaneously.

La Loma: another OTF restaurant

2011-05-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

I was pondering the Army Corps of Engineers' Scylla and Charybdis decision to blow a hole in a levee - thereby flooding farms and homes - to prevent flooding in towns downstream. How would an agency make such a decision, and so quickly? How would I as an attorney advise them about such a decision? And other law-type thoughts.

High time to have a great meal and set things aside for awhile - headed to La Loma, a legendary Mexican place at Alcott and 26th. Wow. Like Domo (and Sushi Den), it's another restaurant that occupies the field for me - an "OTF restaurant" (or the Ohio Turfgrass Association restaurant). We had been going to sushi for years, and then we tried Domo - suddenly we weren't eating sushi out anymore. Domo occupied the field for sushi - why would we go elsewhere? We'll just wait and go back for the real thing.

La Loma is pretty much perfect everything. Handmade tortillas, green chili with depth, pollo asado falling off the bone (but not greasy), salsa with the right amount of bite - all very reasonable and in a relaxed nice atmosphere. So now are we really going out for whatever Mexican food when we can just go there? With that place practically in my neighborhood I could gain five pounds fast.

So we went there with friends, and the food came out and we just dove into it. Will-J was destroying a kid's meal meant for eight-year-olds, Catherine was pulling the chicken apart, and I was trying to scrape the last atoms of green chile off my plate. Friends were forgotten - luckily they were gracious enough to carry the conversation while we ravenously ate.

I still think the hot green chile at Santiago's is better, but only on a good day. Otherwise, I think I can say that's the best Mexican food I've had (except for a truck stop near El Paso I went to once, but that's another story).

Econ b.s. 2

2011-04-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

My mortgage is held by Chase. The loan has a fine interest rate, a rate that will look rediculous if any kind of inflation kicks in. Which it never will, right? Just like 6-8% inflation was just a fact of life prior to 1980, when we got a Fed chairman willing to take the lumps necessary to break inflation, combined with a President who either approved of what Volker was doing or didn't really understand what Volker was doing.

But I had some questions on my mortgage, and I called Chase to see if they could help. Instead, someone at a call center tried to sell me a new loan. No documentation (or minimal), a screamin' low interest rate, and maybe an ARM. Or would I like a home equity loan maybe? Have I thought about buying some more properties?

And I thought, that's crazy - I read The Big Short, and I just read Black Swan, and everyone knows that the banks were making all kinds of bad loans and we'll never go back to that stuff again.

So I went to the main Chase branch in Boulder - they'll have someone smart working who can help me. It was noon on a weekday, and totally empty. A bunch of young sales people were wandering the bank aimlessly. They shunted me to a mortgage saleswoman, who listened to my questions, nodded, and then started punching buttons on her calculator and explaining to me how I could get a super-great rate right now and why don't I get a refi - really, very few questions asked, you know.

I thought a bit about this. Then, I started my new job, and wanted to move to their 401k. I started applying online, and was presented with a short list of a few mutual funds to chose from. There were a few big cap funds, an "international" fund, etc. - the only bond fund was some short-term governmental thing. That's it. Oh, and there were funds that are just amagamations of other funds. They were called things like "Retire 2040" and put money into various levels of "risk." Which is great money (for Vanguard) if they can get it - even with the low, low expense ratio of 0.19%, that's a big chunk of change for just sticking money in other mutual funds.

And I realized that nothing has changed. Banks are making (good or bad?) loans of all the cheap money they're being given. And people are putting their retirements into a (very risky) equities market that's up something like 8% in ten years. What this means I have no idea - just that we're on the same track as before.

Which is very different than the ending of The Big Short, where some of the very smart traders realize that there has been a sea change in finance and financial services - that nothing will be like it was before. It was a meaningful moment, where we were at the cusp of something else entirely. And it was wrong.

More on the Arizona Trail

2011-04-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

-The mighty Adam Bradley/Krudmeister/El Monstro/Fstpker is out there setting a new speed record on the trail. While I was out there I contemplated what a really fast time would be for the trial - I figure we're about to find out.

-I found using a GPS very helpful. Yes, the same GPS I have complained about. The AZT Association maps are too large scale for navigation, and topos could be difficult in parts because the trails/routes wouldn't be on there. Sure, you could kick sand on me, point at my little muscles, and tell me what a weakling I am for using a GPS and all the nice waypoints from the Association, but I found them very helpful - borderline essential. Plus, I like the concept of GPS-based navigation (as opposed to sticking carsonite posts everywhere for people to run over and/or shoot at - printing out lots of maps) for various reasons - not least of which is it provides one means to free people up to make route variations and new routes.

-Some of the sections on this last trip helped me remember why I stopped trying to do point-to-point distance hiking for fifteen years or so. Hiking straight across big distances is a great way to experience the vast wild world, but it's also a great way to experience a lot of abusively rocky OHV tracks, crazy scrubby hills, and (often grumpy) peoples' backyards. There are a lot of tremedously beautiful areas - areas I'd like to see during this lifetime/areas I'd like to hike before my knees turn to fetuccini. I tend to think about this while bushwacking painfully unmaintained trails in minor Arizona mountain ranges. Or while hiking 10/20 miles of dirt roads before picking up the next actual trail segment.

I'll come back to finish the AZT, but I'm more interested in doing some (short[er]) wilderness loop backpacks than doing any more straight line hikes. But what about finishing the Pacific Crest Trail someday, i.e. before I turn forty like I said last summer? I don't see it happening, at least now now, and especially seeing how much I enjoyed backpacking around Yosemite - it would be hard for me to justify leaving the fam for a few weeks to hike a long stretch of Ponderosa forest in Northern California.

-I risked it all and did this trip in a pair of Montrail shoes - even after broadly bashing Montrail awhile back. They were fine, even though the cushioning essentially collapsed after about seven days (!). The important part is they were really big - my feet practically swam in the shoes at home, but of course after a few days of hiking in 90-degree heat they fit just fine.

-I got much more sore running an 18-mile race in Moab (on nice slickrock) than hiking 300 miles in Arizona (on very rocky/rough routes). Running is hard on zee joints and back. I just picked up Run for Life, and I agree with pretty much everything in there, but again, running is hard on zee joints and back. You can't really change that - in fact, one of the main recommendations - something I've expounded to any runner who would listen to my rants - of Run for Life is to run less.

Beer Wars: not buying it - Etc.

2011-04-29T22:57:00.001-07:00

We watched a documentary on microbrews called "Beer Wars." Bo-ring. Hey, did you know that big companies try to maintain their proportionately larger market share? Me too! Do you want to spend 90 minutes listening to a commercial for Sam Adams, Dogfish Head, and the ill-fated Moonshot? Nope, me neither.

Basically, the recent attempts by the "craft breweries" to strongarm our new governor has made me decide to stop buying - I'll go back to making my own beer.

It's a business, right? The guy who founded Dogfish Head may call it a labor of love, but he's still selling alcohol. We don't need beer. And I'm tired of drinking good beer being a "statement" - good beer is just better than bad beer. But now it's getting too expensive, and too laden with supporting or not supporting the "right" people (smiling people in t-shirts) vs. the "wrong" people (older guys with short hair in suits).

My question is why does everyone need such huge homes? The movie follows around the Moonshot woman - and it's true she does a lot of sort of strange things, things that maybe the movie takes out of context. Why exactly was she talking to Anheuser-Busch to sell the brand? Weren't they marketing they're own similar product? Was she just hoping they'd buy her out to get rid of a nuisance? And why was she focused on selling it from bar to bar, even though that approach clearly wasn't working?

Anyway, she tells the interviewer that she has $23,000 left (which, of course, is 73 times the per capita income of Kenya), and then she pulls up to her ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS HOUSE. A huge house. Beautiful. With numerous rooms. The same thing for the Dogfish guy. He explains how he's in tremendous debt expanding his brewery, and the camera pans back to show his gigantic house - it's really more like a small hotel. Huge! Do we really need so much space? Would it have been easier to launch a craft brewery from maybe a smaller house? When I see stuff like this, I can't help but think of people from the future looking back and pondering why we stressed-out about our debts, yet insisted in living like Roman patricians (only more luxuriously).

-

I was just writing about the old Amato's becoming a brewpub, and under the LoHi I-25 pedestrian bridge, I found a tag with a strong opinion:

Why hate on Amato's? They were just selling concrete lawn art!

Here's a view I liked of Denver at dawn:

I find the crane fitting - Denver is definitely a city under construction.

Cycling and doping/Boston

2011-04-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

I followed UCI WorldTour bike racing for a few years - my father-in-law is a big cyclist (and loves Lance Armstrong) and I my roommate was a Cat 1 racer in Boulder. They both showed me that it's far more interesting than running races (rabbits/one lead group/pretty much one big move per person).

But like a lot of people I fell off due to the doping. Too much doping. I see something like this (Philippe Gilbert winning a bunch of races), and I just think, "Oh, he's doping now." The other racers practically use a code language for these kinds of performances: "He's just TOO strong" "He's riding like he's from another planet." And lo! He's doping. But maybe Gilbert isn't doping - he's just in really good form, and he's just in really good form. It's sad, but that's the way it is.

-

I was out backpacking when Geoffrey Mutai ran Boston in 2:03:02. I don't care if it gets certified as a world record or not - that's an insane race. It boggles my mind. That's so fast. That's crazy. I ran Boston, and it's an undulating, fairly hilly course - it's simply not the kind of course where you set a record, let alone absolutely destroy a record. When people set records, they're doing it at Berlin, where you have rabbits, people running out to give you water, etc. - Boston doesn't have any of that. I absolutely must see a replay of this thing.

So, the question is, why do I see Mutai's record as legitimate, and Gilbert's streak as suspect? Is it because part of the interest/drama in cycling is doping? Because it just seems more plausible to me that someone could have an outrageous single day and run super-fast at Boston? I don't really know.

Don't blink or the Highlands will change before your eyes/A victim of advertising

2011-04-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

So I get back from Arizona, and of course the old Amato's (random concrete lawn decorations) is already the Breckenridge Brew House:

That was incredible - Amato's was there forever, and then suddenly it's yet another gourmet hamburger-and-beer place. Which reminds me that I'm way behind on posting my horrifying rant: "I live in the Highlands, but all I can find to eat are hamburgers, bad pizza slices, and overpriced macaroni and cheese."

The long-promised retail renewal at 32nd and Clay is taking the black-box approach:

And here's a whole truck full of PBR and the golden dome of the Colorado capitol:

Two thoughts:

-So our house in the West Highlands may or may not have been on the market for awhile, and we may or may not have had about 12,523 showings to snobby people who complained about things like our neighbors yard. Because real estate, is like, out. Done. Everyone should just drive all the real estate agents crazy by ordering showings of every house in Denver looking for an insane deal that doesn't exist in a (relatively) efficient market. Or make crazy low-ball offers on places, offers that would only serve to hurt the buyer (if successful) by dragging down all home values in the neighborhood. Because, you know, like half the condos in Florida are vacant and it's the real estate apocalypse. Meanwhile, interest rates/inflation are creeping up. Who knows? Time will tell. In any case, thanks for not buying our house because we decided we love it and don't want to move.

-We were talking to a friend and she said that she couldn't organize another block party for her spot in the Highlands because everyone had gotten divorced or moved away. And it made me think that this rapidly changing neighborhood - houses getting torn down and popping up/new (generally bad) restaurants every few weeks - drives people to live in an emotionally kinetic manner. You go out the door every day, and people's homes are disappearing (only to be replaced by tasteful (?) modern duplexes). Couldn't the impermanence of it all inspire someone to think of changing job, city, or even partner? Remember - you can have many houses in this life, but love is rare.

Speaking of tasteful duplexes - we saw THIS EXACT HOUSE (which popped up near us) way over on the other side of town off of Broadway. As far as I can tell, it's the same developer.

Arizona Trail - Sunflower to Pine (Passages 22-26)

2011-04-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

After a day off in Payson, I spent three days (and a bit of a fourth) on the trail hiking the passages from Sunflower to Pine. I did these in "reverse" (north to south), both to let the snow melt and because it was much easier to get a ride from Payson to Pine. Photos are here. By my incredibly imprecise reckoning, I've hiked about 450 miles of the Arizona Trail, and have about 300 to go. Will I come back to hike them? Yes. When? I have no idea!

The Mazatzal Wilderness was incredible - it's really rugged, rarely visited, and much of the range was burned in a 2004 fire. It was exactly what I consider the best purpose of this type of long-distance backpacking - it's an area I knew nothing about, would probably never visit again, but incredible, difficult, and edifying. I found the distances of burned snags dreamlike, ethereal. Even more moving is that there are so many ranges/wildernesses dotting southern/central Arizona to explore.

As I hiked between my last few camps on the trail, it hit me what a special trip this was. I only had two weeks off due to a fluke - my work start date had been pushed back. When's the next time I'll have two weeks to backpack? Years? It made me appreciate even the brushy/gully chaparral hiking of the Saddle Mountain passage. As the sun set, I hustled down to Highway 87 and the "campground" marked on my map - alas, the campground is now a wrecking yard, and I camped in a rough pasture too close to the highway.

In the morning, I hiked back up towards where I lost the trail in the snow on Bull Mountain. I don't think I made it all the way up there - I'll have to catch those 3-4 miles on a day hike someday (?).

And then Catherine and Will-J arrived to pick me up, and the real fun began:

We camped outside of Globe, near Pioneer Pass, and then at the Oak Flat Campground near Superior. And THEN, we stayed at a fantastic hotel in Phoenix with pools galore - Will-J had a blast splashing around for hours. Unfortunately, he wore himself out and fell asleep too early to enjoy the pools at night - he was like someone at a buffet who fills up too quickly and misses the crab legs. It was a bit weird for me to see so many people trying to get sunburns at the pool after generally trying to avoid sun-exposure for two weeks - I covered up practically completely, both against the sun and all the prickly plants out there.

It's wonderful to see him out in the desert - the terrain and life captivates him, as it does Catherine and me.

Another highlight was the Casa Grande National Monument:

I'll write more about this place when I have time - in short, I have been informally researching the early days of public lands management for a class I may be teaching. Casa Grande was withdrawn from the public lands in 1892, which makes it the first historical site so recognized - predating the Antiquities Act of 1906 and other laws facilitating such withdrawals. It makes sense - an obviously unique structure/set of structures amid a farming area with people scratching on the walls/taking pottery/etc. I'm curious to what extent recognition of Casa Grande led to the development of the current federal regulatory regime of similar sites.

A few more things about the trip:

-Cows. North of Catalina Highway, I was pleasantly surprised to see generally less cow impact - in the Colina Hills and Reddington Pass passages, in particular, basically anything that wasn't a rock or a cactus was a cow-pie. It took the cow-impact level from 99% down to maybe 65%.

-Where is everyone? March and April are prime time for hiking the Arizona Trail, yet I still have yet to see a backpacker on the trail. When we passed back through Superior (I wanted to get some images of the buildings like this:)

we met an actual AZT thru-hiker (Paul). His assessment was similar to mine - it's really rugged trail - rocky, and hard on the feet. And it changes constantly - you might get a few miles of buttery smooth trail, then a nasty OHV track, and then maybe no trail at all through a wash, then maybe a road-walk, etc. But aside from the OHV-ers, there aren't many folks out there this time of year - from the Mazatzals I could see the lights of Phoenix, but I seemed to have the range to myself.

-Arizona Trail Association. They are doing a lot of work with very little. My sense is they aren't getting help from the feds, and volunteers are just getting out to brush the trail as they can. On my last morning, I watched some cowboys drive cattle right up the passage 21 trail - kicking rocks, breaking down the trail, etc. Then there'll be a big fire eventually and more snags to clear - it's a huge task to maintain such a long trail.

-Gear. Besides my notes on the Kindle, I don't have much to add. I'm still using the same basic stuff as I got a few years ago to section-hike the Colorado Trail.

Small Beer - Colorado beer sales

2011-04-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

Colorado has been kicking around various ideas for repealing its old blue laws on beer for years now. And the craft brewers are against it - according to the updates I'm getting from Great Divide and others, the entire industry will be in trouble if grocery stores sell full-strength beer. My view all along has been that Colorado's restrictions result in overpriced beer, and that other states with "regular" beer sale rules have plenty of microbrews (say, California). So here I am in Arizona, and at the grocery store, you see the big names at pretty much the same price as in Colorado.

So what is at stake? I'm still not sure it's a lot. Maybe this - the $10 six pack. Right now, in Colorado you have to go into a liquor store to buy real beer. And you see some regular okay beer - say Sierra Nevada - for a somewhat overpriced $8.99. And right next to it you see a really great beer, like pretty much anything from Great Divide, Oskar Blues, etc. and these six packs are pushing $10. $10! $10 for hops, malt, and water? Well, it's a special occasion, and maybe we'll splash out for the good stuff.

That goes away with beer at 7-11, or Safeway for that matter. You get your regularly priced Sierra Nevada for $7.99 (or less), and you take it home with your bananas or whatever. You have to go seek out the $10 six pack, and maybe you don't do that so much.

Or maybe the good stuff is so good, people will go find it? Judging by the reaction by the brewers, they think it's the former.

Patagonia socks

2011-04-10T19:34:00.001-07:00

My brand-new Patagonia brand hiking socks lasted a total of three days hiking before being full of holes. My "Starter" brand socks from Walmart ($1.50 a pair) are doing fine. Which reminds me of one of the funniest things I've heard said while backpacking: "No, I don't know why Patagonia doesn't make backpacks, but if they did, they'd have a wine and cheese compartment."

Arizona Trail 2

2011-04-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

The last time I spend time on the Arizona Trail, my journey ended with a huge snowstorm - so this year I also expected snow. It came, but not until after five of the hottest days I've ever backpacked, and then three nice days. I wasn't in a mood to write - I had been writing intensely at work for some time, and plus this time I brought my Kindle (more on that below). I brought a few new books, but I settled on reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable . I've found this quite good so far - I was expecting more of an "investment book," and/or more of an unpacking of his Black swan theory. Instead, it is his book of philosophy - specifically on empirical skepticism. Montainge was also an empirical skeptic, and his Essays is my favorite book. As Taleb aspires to a collection of thoughts and opinions on the plane of Montaigne, I naturally gravitate to Taleb's book.

Most importantly, The Black Swan is an actual complicated book - I wouldn't just be able to say, "Oh, that book is about X, and I agree/disagree." Many of the books I've been reading are just about X - I can surf quickly through and find the X idea, then maybe whatever I enjoy learning about X idea, and then I'm done. This book demands more attention - which is good when you're backpacking around in the Sonoran Desert.

So here are some other thoughts/events/other from the trail:

-For about five days, it was really hot. Molino Basin trailhead on the Catalina Highway is right outside of Tucson, and I kept thinking, "Surely, the trail must be up a little higher. And cooler. Right?" Nope - it was 87 degrees and just warming up. I carry a ten liter water bag, and then with bottles I have three liters more - so realistically about three gallons. I called the water bag "the blob." Every time I found water, I'd feed the blob, and suddenly my pack would be about twenty pounds heavier. But it was so hot I was going through two gallons a day. Of course some of this has to do with me being from Colorado and not used to the heat.

Trail story: The hottest part of the trip was after crossing the Gila River. There's a long undulating section of trail heading west, and I was walking right into the afternoon sun. It was in the mid-90's. When I stopped for the evening, I found that I had the chills and had to lay down for awhile - I realized that I had minor heat exhaustion. I used to get it working in restaurants - I worked at a place in Davis where the kitchen would routinely get above 110 degrees in the summer. Back then, it seemed that lots of cold beer would do the trick, but in my old age I just rested. But my left arm hurt. And it still hurt in the morning. What a weird thing - why would heat exhaustion make my arm hurt? I looked at my arm, and pulled an inch-and-a-half cactus spine out of my deltoid. Ah - that felt much better. Welcome to the desert.

-The main reason I love doing these hikes is to see random out-of-the-way beautiful spots that few people know about and that I'll never see again. On this trip, there was the West Fork of Sabino Canyon (beautiful cascading pools), Wilderness of Rocks, a high-point bulge in the Tortilla Mountains, White Canyon, and Reavis Ranch (although this one is a popular backpacking destination). What I haven't really enjoyed in the past are the interfaces with "regular" America. Yes, I walk out of the woods and the family gives me the hard stare as if I was a green man from Mars. My reaction to this has changed over time - youthful defiance, early-adult guilt (I should be doing something more productive!), and now middle-aged acceptance.

It's the hiking poles - people just don't get it. They're always staring at the hiking poles. I get at least one "hey, there's no snow - why do you have ski poles?" comment per trip Seriously, if you're from Tucson or Phoenix, and you haven't seen or heard of hiking sticks or poles, you need to get out more. Yup, I've got hiking poles, and I just hiked through this entire mountain range - what did you do this week?

-My visit to the pools in Sabino Canyon was truncated by two neu-hippies making out in one of the pools. Wait, didn't this just happen last summer? Actually, the folks on Mt. Bancroft were doing more than just kissing. But in both instances, the couples reacted grumpily, covering up, voicing their displeasure, etc. Hey, it's a public space you know - you take your chances. In France they'd just kiss harder.

-There's fun culture-shock, too. The trail passes by the Roosevelt Lake Marina, and there's a store that people use to resupply. I'm hiking northbound through some really rugged country - Two Bar Ridge of the Superstition Wilderness may be the worst trail of the whole AZT - and you come to a loooooong dock on a lake:

I'm dusty. I'm hot. And I walk out there, and people are on boats from New Jersey with cute nautical names, very much living the nautical life. There's a nautical-themed little bar, and a store selling mainly boat stuff. What a clash!

-Yes I carried a Kindle, and it worked really well. I know a real lightweight backpacker would scoff at this, but I've enjoyed reading it at night, and the charge seems to be doing just fine. I got a cheap Kindle-specific dry bag for it - no problem. In fact, the Kindle really seems designed for travel. It's not good for really studying books, but rather just for light reading. Don't we need a reader with maybe three hinged "pages" where you can always look at the page before and after the one you're reading, plus a button where you can "flip" quickly back through pages? I see that as the next step.

-The Forest Service put disclaimer signs all around the Santa Catalina trailheads:

I also saw this one on state lands:

I don't know the utility of these since the Forest Service has governmental immunity anyway. But it does illustrate the perception of "controlled" areas near trailheads and "real" or "uncontrolled" "nature" in the "backcountry" or "wilderness." All charged terms, denoting a place where actual nature occurs. And occur it does. I saw three Gila Monsters in about fifteen minutes. Here's one:

-I've been preparing to teach a class in public lands with Catherine, with my overriding theme being that there's nothing really inherent or set about the way we manage these lands. And along these lines I was amazed to see all the completely treeless lands constituting the Tonto National Forest. My theory is these were withdrawn as part of a huge presidential designation before people in Washington even knew/cared about what was out there.

-Here's my big snow story, or how I became a minor legend to some teenage campers. I had known about the big coming storm on Sunday for at least five days, and so I expected to have to beat it out of the mountains. I hurried up and hiked the Four Peaks Section on Saturday, so I would have a clear line of exit, hopefully down to Highway 87 on Sunday. Sunday morning looked like this:

I hiked most of the way down to the highway, but the snow was piling up too fast and I had to backtrack and make a route out of Forest Service roads. I started pitying myself hiking around in the snow, but then I came upon a guy sitting in his truck, and when I asked him for a ride, he said, "YOU LOOK FINE - I'M NOT DRIVING OUT OF HERE IN THIS SNOW," and slammed his door. Soon I came up to a minor rescue operation in progress. There were at least four vehicles involved - some kids from Phoenix had driven their cars into the woods for the weekend, and one was stuck on essentially a cliff, and the other two were just stuck. The fourth car belonged to someone else, with those people not around. So there they were, all wet and cold, and this random guy comes hiking out of the snow with some weird little backpack. Cold? No, not really. In fact, I lugged all this cold-weather crap through the record heat because I knew it would snow at some point. They were confused because my gloves had gotten wet and dyed my hands black - one of them thought I had massive frostbite. The police were nice and gave me a ride to Payson, where I'm taking the day off.

-I still carry a first-gen Apple Shuffle (it still charges off AAA batteries before Apple "fixed" that ability) on these trips, and I just randomly fill it - let the chips fall where they may. As a result I end up pondering some music I haven't heard in awhile. For example:

Part of why I love Bob Dylan is that the studio musicians on his earlier recordings didn't really know what was going on. And instead of fighting them, Dylan just went with it and made it part of the irony. The drummer in "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" - what exactly is he doing? They must have asked him for a "rock beat," and yeah he's heard of rock music and a rock beat; yeah - it's like the Monkees - and so there's this ham-handed machine gun beat the whole time. And Dylan going on about Shakespeare's pointed shoes, etc., and the drumming is just part of the weird carnival show. But Van Morrison, he fought those guys. They were always trying to add stupid "latin" beats and horns on his tracks, and fighting it just made him a grumpy man. Why can't the Red Hot Chile Peppers change singers every few years like Van Halen? There was a lot of The Police on the Shuffle, which makes me think of The Samples. The Samples were a grassroots Boulder band, with a similar use of white-reggae as The Police. They were huge - I remember seeing Dave Matthews opening for them. But it never really stuck - they put out all these okay albums, but instead Big Head Todd (far inferior) is selling out Red Rocks. And wasn't Sting going solo a big deal at the time, but now seems like the only logical thing for him to do? Is REM the biggest example of the band version of an overpaid NBA player with a guaranteed contract? Do record execs go to seminars that use REM as an example of what not to do? So that each new REM album now is hailed with "REM has a new album, and surprisingly, it doesn't suck!" And why did we like REM anyway? I absolutely loving them in high school and now I don't know why. So there are all these amazing old school rappers out there - why can't we put them together into touring super-groups? Who wouldn't pay to see Curtis Blow and Grandmaster Flash and whoever else touring with whatever awesome DJ? Likewise, why can't we put the old Zulu Nation - like, all of it - together for a massive 2012 tour? Didn't The Smiths break up at just the right time? Like at the exact moment that Morrissey's bad-boy act was about to get old? And what's Johhny Marr's best post-Smith's project? The The? Electronic? Modest Mouse? I think I'd take The The.

-I'm still doing 25-mile days like when I was younger, and as my wonderful wife would say, "That and a dollar still might not get you a cup of coffee." I'll never head off to do really big trips again (and even if I could, I doubt I'd enjoy hiking more than a few weeks), but I'm looking forward to having tours like this with her when Will-J goes off to summer-camp or whatever - as well as going with him if he wants. It's fun. Again, it's a good way to see things you wouldn't see otherwise, at a walking pace.

-And wilderness. The real reason to get out there is to experience Arizona's wilderness areas. A part of me quiets right down when I see a sign like this:

Arizona Trail - Catalina Highway to Sunflower (Passages 11-21)

2011-04-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

I escaped to Arizona to hike on the Arizona trail for some days. So far, I made it a little over 200 miles, and am doing a "zero" day (in the long-distance hiker's lingo) in Payson. My photos so far are here.

I'll write more about the trip later.

Closure/Westword Best of Denver 2011

2011-03-31T08:14:00.001-07:00

Closure is a rare thing in this world, so I was delighted to share the nose-rack of the bus on the last day of my Boulder commute with the Nishiki-Spinergy commuter bike. The Nishiki-Spinergy commuter bike and I go way back - all the way to last March, when I first pondered why you would lovingly (?) build up an old Nishiki road frame in such a manner. Sometimes I shared the bus with the Nishiki-Spinergy bike during the day. And sometimes at night.

This morning, though, I couldn't get a very good photo of it before the bus hustled off:

Not only is closure rare, but fleeting. I did get a picture of an unlocked Felt Curbside:

And "Oceanic Wilderness:"

I've spent a fair amount of time pondering wilderness without ever considering the wilderness aspects of the ocean - interesting. If oceanic wilderness is populated by angry red fish, though, I'll stick with land wilderness.

And the sun even came out:

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The Westword 2011 also came out, and there was a time when we were going to try and go to many of (at least the cheap) restaurants on the list. After we went to a few duds, we gave up and went back to our regulars. As usual, the list is a mix of actual interesting stuff (Aviano has the best coffee? Pizzeria Basta. Rooster and Moon sounds interesting. Some place in Aurora has the best green chile?), the obvious (Star Kitchen, Olivea), questionable leftovers from Westword's Jason Sheehan heyday (Pho 95), controversially questionable (Z Cuisine is the best French? The Cup has the best cappuccino?), and the just plain wrong.

In the "just plain wrong" category:

-You cannot seriously claim that Sushi Sasa is better than Sushi Den.

-The Squeaky Bean isn't the "best" anything - it isn't even the best restaurant in its own building (which would be Rosa Linda's). We've been there a few times, and each time went away disappointed.

-What is everyone's deal with the Pete's restaurants? They're okay diners. That's it. And the quality has been down for awhile. Can we just agree that Pete's are just sort of "there," and leave it at that?

-Panzano. I don't know what to say. I used to go there for work once in awhile, and never understood why people liked it - I'd sit eating my overpriced flabby pasta and ponder why I wasn't saving my calorie-bomb lunch for Yazoo BBQ instead.

-Wooden Spoon is the best bakery? Another bizarro choice. Is Westword so LoHi crazed that they couldn't check out the Denver Bread Company up the street? At least Wooden Spoon had Packers cookies for the Super Bowl.

-Paris on the Platte has bad coffee and smells bad.

-El Camino has the best nachos in Denver? No, it doesn't. This place is particularly frustrating because it's right nearby and always packed. We go there, and we try the food, and it's not very good. We look around, and then we realize, oh yeah, it's a meat market - that's why people come here.

-I don't understand why everyone goes crazy about Pho 95. It's just okay.

All of which reminds me that I need to write my blog rant about why I hate the nu-fancy hamburger places, called "I live in the Highlands, but all I can find to eat are hamburgers, bad pizza slices, and overpriced macaroni and cheese."

Whether Boulder/gear lists

2011-03-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

I'm changing employers - from here to here. I'm very much looking forward to the new position as I've worked with some of the lawyers at the State, and they're quite good. Great stuff.

And thus, my short-lived commute to Boulder comes to an end. I've gone on about Boulder here, and I don't have much else to say. In my mind, Boulder is the perfect encapsulation of the outdoor-culture/hipster neuroses - with a lot of investment advisors, hedge fund managers, "consultants," and of course tens of thousands of undergrads, piled on top. It also has some fantastic trail running - I don't even like running much anymore, but I was sucked in not by the culture, but by the nature.

I'll have a few days between jobs to do another section of the Arizona Trail. Unlike last year, it's quite dry in Arizona, and so this trip may be a matter of hustling from water source to water source. We'll see.

I'm turning over a new leaf on this trip, namely to actually "pack" for the trip (rather than just stuff a bunch of gear in my bag and go). In order to do so, I printed out some "gear lists." Gear lists are these wonderful aspirational documents - practically manifestos - drafted by ultralight/light/other backpackers. It's a great phenomenon. First, there's the obvious altruistic free service of putting a detailed spreadsheet of one's backcountry preparations online. And it's a somewhat voyeuristic enterprise to see everything that someone carries around - how many people publish the contents of their purse or briefcase? Then there's the show-off element: "Observe my awesomely minimalistic and detailed-out my backpack." And the gear-head element - people cutting off toothbrush handles and re-packing toothpaste into a lighter container.

I'm finding these gear lists to be interesting windows into the thoughts, views, and even personalities of the drafters - more so than the often-rambling accompanying trail-journals. For example, I checked out Andrew Skurka's lists. He's one of the most outrageous long-distance backpackers, and indeed his gear lists are equally outrageous. Here's his list for hiking the Hayduke Trail. No soap? Just one 20-count matchbook? What if you drop the matchbook in a stream? I mean, this seems overly austere - surely he had room for a "mini espresso maker" (I certainly never leave home without one).

Going past the sheer austerity of the lists, there's an underlying Boy Scout element. In the note column after "toothbrush" he writes "twice a day." He comments almost guiltily about having to use ibuprofen "at the beginning when breaking in" on his outrageous Alaska circumnavigation. Um, if you're hiking 5,000 miles around Alaska, I think you get to use some pain meds from time to time.

From what I've read about Skurka, his lists are probably representations of exactly what he takes on his trips. But how many other people putting these lists up are actually carrying so little stuff? No extra t-shirt for when you're in town? Maybe a beer? Never? Maybe I'm just a softy. Actually, I'm definitely a softy - and the result is heavy hiking.

Worst Restaurant Review Ever: William Porter on WaterCourse Foods

2011-03-24T09:46:00.001-07:00

Yes, we all miss Jason Sheehan - his outstanding Westword restaurant reviews captured the Denver (cow town) food scene in its full glory. Yes, we're twenty years behind the coasts, but we still have good food, and we can still have fun reviewing/eating food.

As Exhibit A of our longing for Mr. Sheehan, please observe this review from the Denver Post of WaterCourse Foods. The article kicks off with an explanation that real, live vegetarian restaurants "gained a foothold in this country" "four decades" ago, and that WaterCourse itself has been open since 1998. So why am I reading this article? I mean, doesn't everyone in Denver know by now that WaterCourse is an okay cafe on 17th with a nice patio but small portions? And that, yes, there are vegetarian restaurants in various locations in the United States?

The author - William Porter - then strains to include as many cliches about vegetarianism in his review as he can. Did you know that "open-minded carnivores" (people that eat exclusively or primarily meat?) might enjoy eating vegetarian food? Because not just "vegetarian types" are allowed to eat at WaterCourse - you know, typical vegetarians: "a younger crowd" sporting "more ink than the Sunday comics." Because vegetarians have tattoos. You know, like Johnny Appleseed and Cesar Chavez.

But not people from "NASCAR country." Why? Because try to serve seitan to someone from "NASCAR country, and they'd take you into the wall on turn three, guaranteed." (unless of course, you happen to be a vegetarian who also likes auto racing, but that would be not only outrageous, but contrary to stereotype). You mean that people who like NASCAR would aggressively attack anyone who tries to serve them a meat-like product made from wheat gluten? That certainly wouldn't be very nice. It's too bad everyone who likes NASCAR both hates wheat gluten AND has road rage - but that's Mr. Porter's red state stereotype, and he's running with it.

No, for Mr. Porter, this place is really only for "hipsters," and maybe "carnivores" out on a lark. Like Mr. Porter, who is sad about "all the swine [he's] missing." Swine? I think he means pork.

Yes, these are real quote. Yes, it's 2011. No, we can't have Jason Sheehan back.

Econ b.s., blah, blah, blah

2011-03-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

And then I said, "It must be fine - I mean, Quality Inn has 'Quality' right there in the name."

Where was I? Oh, yeah, CDO's. Don't get me started on CDO's, or it'll be a long evening. And then I realized, there's an entire generation that without a cultural reference for significant inflation. For pretty much anyone under fifty, if he/she stuck money under his/her pillow for a few years at any point during his/her adult life, very little would change during those years in terms of what you could buy with that money. That's pretty much our current cultural understanding of money. And it's pretty much the assumption we have as a culture moving forward. Which is interesting.

Denver invalid parking tickets - boo!

2011-03-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I parked in Cherry Creek to attend a yoga class at corporate-yoga supporter and high-flying public equity Lululemon. And lo! I found a newfangled Denver electronic parking meter (instead of the annoying old parking stations). I maxed out the time for two hours, and of course when I got back I had a $25 ticket.

Was I really gone for two hours? I didn't think so. In fact, the light on the meter was still green - that was odd. But probably I hadn't fed the meter correctly, or maybe it was a new meter and something went wrong, blah, blah, blah. And like a good soporific American I sent in my $25.

But in fact, there's a guy driving around giving out bad tickets. Boo! Live and learn (to question).

Closed for Psychological Maintenance / Corporate Yoga

2011-03-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

At the Trident this morning:

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I'm always going on about corporate yoga. Well, here it is:

It must be spring - the bagpiper guy is back

2011-03-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

Last March, I noted a bagpiper outside my office window. Well, he's back:

So it must be Spring.

It must be spring - people are singing Sara Bareilles on mountaintops

2011-03-17T19:51:00.000-07:00

I was on a ride up Lookout Mountain, and I passed a woman sitting on a rock outcrop, with a laptop, playing Bareilles "Love Song," and singing along loudly. Now that's spring for you.

Jimmy Chin, GPS, and Outside Magazine

2011-03-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

So I get home from desk-jockeying all day and find this:

I smiled. I think Jimmy should be on the cover of Outside every month. If ever there was a guy who deserves the hype, it's him.

In 1992, Jimmy and I both signed up for a ten-day Carleton College climbing trip to Joshua Tree. While I was learning how to put on a climbing harness and gingerly trying my first climbs, Jimmy immediately internalized sport climbing like Keanu Reeves downloaded kung fu in The Matrix, met and befriended pretty much the entire J-Tree locals scene, and was climbing 5.11 and harder routes - all within a few days. And he did it all while partying all night and generally having an outrageously good time. After a week, I was exhausted - he was just warming up. In a big way.

I thought the article captured Jimmy's general makeup of equal parts hero, hustler, and huckster - and also quickly and vividly unpacks the sponsorship/adventure game. Interestingly, what it lacks is that it focuses on just a few facets of Jimmy's general awesomeness - for example, it doesn't even mention his outrageous guiding and climbing accomplishments. Or that he's smart/savvy enough chuck it all next year, decide to become the next Warren Buffet, and indeed become the next Warren Buffet.

I also discount the "legend" of Jimmy's success stemming from randomly selling a single photo he took on top of El Cap. From the minute Jimmy met climbing, it was obvious to me - and pretty much everyone else - that he was heading for big things.

The telling line from the story is "Jimmy hadn't slept." He simply has more energy than you. I hadn't talked to him in years, and I asked him for camera advice for a National Geographic/Waitt Grant trip Catherine and I are taking to Chile later this year - he replied within a day. This is a guy who Outside Magazine sticks on its cover along with the words "THE GREATEST" (in all caps) and "THE NEW KINGS OF ADVENTURE" (also in all caps). Yes, he has time to be THE GREATEST, and yes, he also has time to respond to random emails from a random college roommate. And he does it while laughing, having fun, and generally in style. Huge.

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Flipping through this particular copy of Outside, I also found a random article my main takeaway from which is that there's at least one particular outdoorsy couple in Boulder who may or may not be drunk driving their kids around in an old truck. Good to know the next time I decide to bike-commute back to Denver.

And I saw this:

Hey, Garmin GPS's have come a long way from the model I'm currently struggling to use. It certainly appears to have more-intuitive (and even labeled!) controls, has a ton of memory, and is generally an improvement. But wait a minute - it can only store 2,000 waypoints? That's only 1,000 more than my unit - I still can't do what I want, which is to upload waypoints for the PCT and AZT at once. And I still don't understand why. Arg.

I'm from another country and want to take a bus in Denver: RTD issues

2011-03-10T08:17:00.001-08:00

So I'm from another country and here to visit you're wonderful city, Denver. Now that I've seen the world's ugliest building, been puzzled by your extremely-quiet, yet pretty downtown, and now I'm ready to visit the wonderful city of Boulder. So I've arrived at the bus stop. Fortunately I know English and it appears that there is a bus to Boulder called the "B," the "BF," or perhaps the "BX."

But on the signpost by the stop, it looks like maybe it's called the "BV:"

So I guess I'll just wait for a bus with a "B" on it and take that. But I'm having a hard time figuring out how much it costs. This sign indicates that the bus could cost anywhere between $2 and $4.50.

Is the Boulder bus an Express or a Regional? I've read that they only accept exact change, so I go to a store to get quarters. But when I get on the bus, the driver tells me the fares have actually changed and it's $5. Oh, well.

The driver also apparently started heading the wrong way, had to turn around, and repeatedly tried to read a route book as he drove the bus. What a strange system!

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A few days ago, the General Assembly failed to pass a bill forcing RTD to contract out 50% of it's buses by one vote - the "winning" (?) vote was stuck in traffic, apparently.

This Just In! Inception sucks.

2011-03-08T21:46:00.000-08:00

There's a guy on local NPR (Howie Movshovitz) with overly critical and academic movie reviews. He'll watch something like Big Momma's House and blast it for being unintellectual (but did he blast Big Momma's House 1 or Big Momma's House 2?). So what? It's not like Big Momma's House was trying to be the next Citizen Kane - it's a light comedy.

So I'm here to tell you that Inception is horrible - an absolute howler, like maybe Barb Wire or Battleship Earth. Hey, my thoughts on The Wire (and theory of The Wire worldview) were only two years late - why not blast away at this poor movie after the Oscars, which was one of pretty much every mediocre movie of 2010 to be nominated for Best Picture.

First, the movie makes absolutely no sense at all. Zero. Why would a subliminal dream-defense mechanism take the form of a bunch of gun-toting goons? Why not just have the dreamer dream of bubbles - bubbles that would carry away the guys trying to break into the dreamers' thoughts? DiCaprio would be getting his good-cop/bad-cop speech ready, but he'd just be floating away in a bubble. Or if the mechanism had to be violent, why not have the dreamer manifest an atomic bomb that just blows everything up?

DiCaprio would really have a hard time getting into my dreams (not that I have anything worth knowing in my head). This is because all I dream about are endless Santiago's breakfast burritos, followed by endless powder days, Belgian beer, and maybe backpacking. Okay, occasionally I dream about forgetting a filing deadline, too. And for some reason taking depositions. So DiCarprio would get into my head, start lecturing me to give up the information, and I'd be like, "Sorry, dude, but they're doing bacon in the burritos this morning - and I think I forgot to file those Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures. Gotta go." And I'd roll over and keep sleeping.

But not everything would tilt crazily in the dream world when I rolled over. That's because dreams are right side up no matter how you sleep. So in the movie, it doesn't make sense that when the dreamers' van rolls over, everything in the dream rolls over, too. It does, however, afford an opportunity to create some interesting Matrix-style fight sequences where everything is floating and rolling in circles.

In fact, Inception dispenses with pretty much everything known about dreams in lieu of making a movie like the Matrix. In the Matrix, people were stuck in a computer world. In Inception, people are stuck in dreams. There you go. EXCEPT MAYBE NOTHING IS REAL - MAYBE NOT EVEN WHAT YOU THINK IS REALITY!!! I think I read about this somewhere - there were people in a cave, and projections, and something about education. Oh, well - high school was a long time ago. And hey, look! Another gun battle!

I don't like watching gun battles, not even beautiful ones, like in the Matrix. And besides, wouldn't it be more effective (and make for a more interesting movie) if maybe instead of fighting with guns, they had to fight with Belgian beer, which is one of the most pleasant things imaginable? It would be like Ghostbusters and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man sequence - but even better because everything is CGI now. Or maybe let people really fight it out in a truly dreamlike way - something like Videodrome?

I heard there was another movie out now that's like Inception but not as good. I'm sure I'll pass, even if it's one of ten movies nominated for Best Picture of 2011.

Yoga chatter: watch out for No. 1, but don't step in No. 2

2011-03-08T21:44:00.001-08:00

(before yoga class)

Me: Hello, Acquaintance

Acquaintance: Hello, Will - how are you?

Me: Well, there's 100 things I should probably be doing, but I came here anyway - you only live once, right?

Silence. We both look up on the mandala on the wall.

Acquaintance: So I've heard.

(the end).

Not Tele-ing at Loveland - March (and stuff)

2011-03-08T08:32:00.000-08:00

Those "Nobody Cares that You Tele" stickers are too harsh. Certainly, no one cares whether or not you or I do pretty much anything, but why slap one's condescending attitude about a particular style of skiing on one's car?

One reason not to tele is that it's incredibly hard on one's knees. After three knee surgeries, Catherine finally gave it up and joined the downhill skiing horde. It's been fun to watch her rapidly improve - check out these moves:

Making tracks:

And here's the "Bing" snowboard:

What does a Bing snowboard do? My guess is it just copies the Google snowboard and puts its name on it. (big joke)

And here's our little ham:

Super-commuter

2011-03-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

I was getting on the bus, saw a bike with fenders made of license plates, and grabbed a photo:

And I forgot about it. Of course I was looking through the chip for yet more awesome photos of my son - because that's pretty much all parents do: take adoring photos of their kids, and then look at those photos over and over again - and I saw this picture. Whoa - there's a lot going on here. $1500 carbon frame as single speed commuter? Seems cool, if you're comfortable locking it outside. Steel fork? Two different sizes of tire? Mismatched cyclocross style-brakes? And of course topping it off with handmade fenders and a bell. Okay - interesting bike.

But how do they know I'm on the wrong bus?

2011-03-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

Garmin GPS (ARG!), Part 2: Moore's Corollary of technology expectations / Maps and legends

2011-03-04T08:48:00.000-08:00

I continued my mighty struggle with the Garmin GPS late into the night. I started using a GPS last year (you know, only about 20 years late to the party), and it was extremely helpful hiking around in early-season snow(storms) on the Arizona Trail. And so, as winter turns to spring, a middle-aged office worker's thoughts turn to new adventures. I blew the dust off the unit and decided to load a bunch of waypoints for the Arizona Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. That way, whatever sections of those trails I end up hiking, I'd be loaded up and ready to go. The early bird gets the worm and all that.

But you can't do that. The Vista HCx only fits 1,000 waypoints. It doesn't matter whether you put a 16 gb chip inside or a futuristic 160 gb chip inside. Only 1,000. Everyone already knows this. Circa 2006 when the Vista HCx came out, people were blown away that you can add topo maps to practically your heart's content using the chip - I uploaded pretty much all of Utah and Arizona for the heck of it. If I had California, I could add those, too. Of course, you can't read them very well on the little screen, and the user interface is horrible, but more on that below.

And circa 2007 people started threads on GIS forums saying, "Hey, why can't I add tens of thousands/millions of waypoints or routes using the chip." Because you can't. It makes no sense, but there you go. Maps go on the chip, and waypoints/routes go on the internal memory. End of story. I'm sure by now you can buy a GPS where you add lots and lots of waypoints - I have no idea, because I can hardly deal with this unit.

Because I want my GPS to be slick, like an iPhone or Android product. I want to turn it on, and have it zoom right in to where I am, do whatever else I want, and generally be intuitive. But Garmin products aren't like that. Garmin's bread and butter is navigation aids for pilots, not phones for hipsters. It's an incredible GPS - it often locates me within a few feet, works well in canyons and woods, and appears indestructible. If you took this back in time to a backpacker from 1980, she would think you were an alien.

And that frustrates me. It's a corollary to Moore's Law - as technology gets rapidly more advanced, my/our expectations get that much higher.

-

The Arizona Trail also inadvertently introduced me to the (modern travel) world without guidebooks or USGS topo maps - again, I'm late to the party. This started when a friend and I went to Montana to hike the Mission Mountains Wilderness. He picked me up from the airport, and we drove over to the local gear shop to pick up some maps - a time-honored tradition practiced by pretty much anyone who backpacks/climbs/Jeeps/etc. We walked over to the big old wooden map chest, and the maps weren't there. They were just selling out the old maps. The USGS isn't really even printing them anymore. But they'd be happy to print out the maps we wanted using National Geographic TOPO! software.

And of course people are putting up updated, accurate, crowdsourced maps of pretty much everything online. When/if I get back to the PCT this year, I'll be leaving my old guidebook at home. While it will be a sentimental end to years of trying to follow the thick line of the trail on grainy black and white topos, and especially to Mr. Schaffer's near-obsession with geology, there are better (free) maps on the web - with waypoints, up-to-date comments on conditions, etc.

This is not to say the downloading maps thing is all good. In particular, the inexpensive (for Garmin/Nat. Geo. map CD's) or free maps are only inexpensive or free to the extent you pay for color copies. My copy of Schaffer's Northern California PCT guidebook cost me $10 used - it would cost at least $100 to print all of Mr. Halfmile's PCT maps for the same area. Plus it takes additional time.

The process of throwing away the guidebooks and printing one's own maps is also part of the interesting, and I think generally positive, larger change in adventure/wilderness travel. When I hiked the PCT in 1998, everyone bought the guidebooks, tried to follow them the best they could, or they were "lost" - off the map. You weren't hiking the PCT anymore. Now, more people are leaving the guidebooks at home, making up their own routes, sharing these routes - and of course using better/more detailed maps and GPS to "hike their own hike," so to speak. The most annoying thing I found hiking any long-distance trail, in particularly the Appalachian Trail, were the zealots on guard against "yellow blazers" - anyone deviating from the standard route. Who cares? It's not a race, or even a sport.

It's a big change. When I hiked the Colorado Trail last year, I used the standard guidebook - a guidebook that, even as revised, employs large-scale tourist maps and a huge thick red line obscuring the trail on said maps (but of course now that they've published a photo of mine in the new book, I think it's awesome). Perhaps to compensate for this, the trail is incredibly well marked - I don't think I ever actually needed to refer to a map to know where I was headed.

But the Colorado Trail doesn't always make much sense, at least to a hiker. It often detours around wilderness areas and more scenic routes. I'm thinking of the loooong traverse of the eastern edge of the Sawatch Range in lieu of following the Continental Divide Trail through the Tin Cup area. There's no reason why someone couldn't make her own Colorado Trail connecting interesting areas, printing it out, and hitting the trail.

The danger in this is the loss of community - with everyone hiking their own hike, everyone on an island. It also leads to all the "first" hike of this or that and FKT silliness. Or worse. Chris McCandless' stated goal was to "throw away the map," and find a new way.

And it represents a near-total separation between the land management agencies and outdoor community. These agencies, particularly the Park Service, like for hikers/climbers/etc. to stay on established trade-routes - the Park Service may not like that so many people want to hike the Muir Trail, but at least they aren't just out wandering around Kings Canyon. Of course there are large numbers of old trails out there, trails that are unmaintained and gradually disappearing, but still usable. And people know about these things - they are out there hiking the Sierra High Route - with or without permits - and many of them are more than willing to share their knowledge of what's actually out there.

There are good scientific and management reasons to concentrate use, but just ignoring that part of our national inheritance is an established trail and route network is a poor idea. I've ended up stuck at permit desks all over the West, trying to convince the local ranger that, yes, there is a trail out there, and yes, I can complete the hike I'm planning. Aside: The exception to this was the Bishop Forest Service office - I'd roll in there when my eight-day shift ended at the White Mountain Research Station, wide-eyed and making large motions across their counter-mounted permitting maps. They'd never blink - they just handed me my permit for wherever (and a poop bag, of course), and away I'd go. End of aside.

Of course the key is actually making/finding/having the time to get out there - that's a far more difficult process than just getting the right number of waypoints on the GPS.

Let us now praise the free market for gear (but not Garmin GPS units)

2011-03-03T14:38:00.000-08:00

I keep mentioning those Hoka shoes. Maybe I've been reading too much Matt Ridley, but for me these are proof of an improving world, or at least an improving gear world. Many people don't realize this, but the most difficult part of hiking/running trails are the downhills - the constant braking overworks the quads and soon travelers get hurt, slow down, adopt a silly bowlegged gait, get joint injuries, etc. In my first 100 miler, after 50 miles I was running up the hills and walking the downhills - exactly the opposite of what would make sense. And those foot shoes might strengthen your foot muscles, but they actually make the problem worse.

I never thought that a huge, overblown running sole would be the answer. But these guys did. Of course they're overpriced, but in a year the other manufacturers will have thick-soled shoes, they'll go on sale, and my knees will reap the benefits.

These have been compared to fat-skis, but I think a better analogy are the clap skate and full body swimsuit. Course records will fall, and running will be easier.

Which also reminds me of my tiny little no-name GoLite shell. I picked it up years ago for a few bucks at one of the annual Boulder outlet sales. They just had a big box of these wispy things, made of odd, slick fabric. It weighs maybe 3-4 ounces and packs up to about the size of a (thick) cell phone.

But what to do with it? I wouldn't take it backpacking, because I'd take a real shell. And I have another old shell I like to take running if it's raining. But it's the perfect biking/hiking wind/light rain jacket. It went from just sitting there to something I used all the time because I finally realized it's a real piece of gear.

I save my opprobrium for my GPS, a Garmin HCx. It has an absolutely terrible interface that makes me not want to use it, which is too bad because it's a fine GPS and I'd probably benefit from using it more. I started trying to upload some routes for an upcoming Arizona Trail hike, and it was an absolute bear - I still can't figure out why it won't delete anything off the unit. It doesn't have adequate documentation, the software is a patch-riddled mess, and the controls are nonintuitive. The iphone its not. Fortunately, you can upload data out of the unit to Google Earth, Topo!, and other software that actually works. Arg!

Gear: La Sportiva Raptor Shoe

2011-02-28T20:01:00.001-08:00

Part of my tremendous winnings (?) at the Moab Red Hot 33k was the pair of La Sportiva running shoes of my choice. The only one I could find that was anywhere close to wide enough were the Raptor, which also happened to be the most expensive (non Gore-Tex shoe), so I was sold (so to speak).

The service was incredible - I sent the certificate on Tuesday and the shoes were in my hands on Friday. Shipping was fast because they came from Boulder. Wait a minute - isn't La Sportiva an Italian brand? Like didn't Cesare Maestre use La Sportiva boots on the Compressor route? Indeed, there is La Sportiva NA (Boulder, and La Sportiva Spa (Italy).

Why is this important? Because La Sportiva running shoes in Italy come in awesome Euro colors like florescent purple and green!!! Plus they have better models, like the Quantum, which is so ridiculously advanced that it's not even allowed to be sold in the U.S. yet (and also transcends the bounds of "regular" Newtonian running physics).

Anyway, the Raptor is a fine shoe. I divide trail running shoes into two general categories: (1) a big slab, usually wide, with a basic upper that holds the slab to my (hoof-like and flat) feet, and (2) a too-narrow (at least for me) fitted shoe with aggressive tread that would allow me to practically dance on the trail (if it actually fit). The old Montrail Leona Divide was my favorite of the former variety (plus I achieved my highest pinnacle of trail/ultra running at the Leona Divide, which was to be mistaken [briefly] for Scott Jurek - once the guy figured out who I was, he walked away), and pretty much any Adidas trail shoe fits into the latter. Of course there are other unique shoes, like the extremely interesting Hoka shoe. And the old Montrail Hardrock, which was extremely durable and yet weighed less than most road-running shoes.

Aside: Can't we all agree that something horrible happened to Montrail shoes at some point, maybe circa 2003-4? I went to the Wasatch Crest in 2002, and I won a pair of random Montrail shoes at the pre-race raffle. I immediately decided that I would run the race in them, and did so - it rained for probably 16 hours, but the shoes were perfect. Now when I try on any pair of Montrail shoes, they feel like someone's first attempt at making a trail shoe, but if that company was actually imitating version the once-great shoes made by Montrail.

End of aside.

The Raptor is in the (2) category of shoe, but it's wide enough for me, and La Sportiva does something interesting where they have an extra "plus" size between U.S. sizes. So theres and 11, an 11.5, and an 11.5+, and then a 12. None of which matters because I took a 12, but it shows that they want the shoes to fit well.

More importantly, the shoe feels incredibly durable. I pretty much assume this shoe will last 800 miles or more, which is especially nice because I won these things by beating a bunch of old men in Moab - I'm going to need to train a lot in order to beat the younger guys in the 55k.

Some of the awesome Italian styling definitely carried over to the Boulder "NA" La Sportiva company. Much of that styling consists of printing random cool English words on the shoe.

Here is the shoe:

Here is an awesome stylistic touch, which is printing that looks like carbon fiber reinforcement. It isn't real carbon fiber, because of course real carbon fiber would result in shoes that cost $500 rather than $110, but it looks super cool. Embossed in the printing that looks like carbon fiber is the word "STABILIZER." Because carbon fiber, if it were real, would be super stable:

Here is a part of the shoe that says "IMPACT BRAKE SYSTEM":

Here is a part of the shoe that says "FRIXION," which isn't a real English word, but is still cool:

Wait, there are more words. "TRAIL BITE HEEL:"

Here's the "Fit-thotic" system:

And here's another shout out to the "IMPACT BRAKE SYSTEM:"

And here are the shoes with a bottle of Bridgeport Cafe Negro Coffee Infused Porter for scale:

Aside:

The Bridgeport coffee porter may be the single most disappointing beer I've ever tried. Not the worst, but the most disappointing. I like Bridgeport IPA, and I like their Hop Czar as well. And I saw the porter and thought, Coffee-infused beers are all the rage - Bridgeport IPA has been a standby since college, this will be great! And it was watery, weird, and completely covered up by overpowering instant coffee smell.

End of aside.

One interesting part about these shoes (aside from all the English words) is the super-grippy/sticky sole. This looks great for the slickrock, but will it hold up? I'll try to get out there and put in my 800 miles to find out.

Before ending the gear discussion, I'll take this opportunity to bash REI once again. I didn't know what size to request from La Sportiva, and so I thought, hey, I live mere blocks away from the big Denver REI superstore - I'll just run over there and try on a few pairs. And of course it was absolutely mobbed, as always. You can go to the wilderness area of your choice in Colorado, and maybe on the Fourth of July you might see ten people, but at REI you can hardly get in the door. And I struggled mightily to get even one pair of shoes to try on. I finally planted myself outside the exit of the shoe storage area and simply kept repeating my demands to whatever green-vested person came past. I managed to try on one 11.5+ size shoe, which was too small, indicating I most likely needed a size 12. And I retreated quickly from the store, but not before buying some patches to fix the sleeping bag I idiotically burned a hole in.

At this point, I've run/hiked 30-years, and I know pretty much exactly what I need (those wide/slabby shoes, see above). But I have no idea how the average neophyte would ever find a shoe at REI. They have so many shoes, and such a horde of people, and the sales people don't seem to be telling anyone anything useful at all. Sure, those low-profile foot shoes are cool for building up your foot muscles while running in Wash Park - my cross-country coach made us run barefoot all the time - but you can't/shouldn't really use those for racing or backpacking. Not that REI cares - all through the recession, the place has been packed to the gills with people buying foot shoes, super-expensive non-waterproof/non-breathable jackets, and lame bikes. It's somehow part of the Denver Cow Town experience. Even I go, and I don't want to go. But now I don't have to because I have my winnings - I know so because of FLEXION (and other cool English words.

Big Game - Will-J the restaurant critic

2011-02-28T12:33:00.000-08:00

We've been using our dwindling supply of restaurant Groupons/other daily-deal offers, and it's been a joy to see Will-J enjoying foods one might not expect a three-year-old to enjoy. At 9th Door, the waitress kept asking us if he might like some bread to eat - meanwhile he's sitting there with an anchovy in one hand and a tuna-stuffed fried olive in the other, happily enjoying his "snack." The staff was generally pleased that he likes tapas at his age - great!

And he seems to have a good sense for restaurants. We took him to Big Game, and although I generally dislike the upscale burger/beer trend (they're a culinary race to the bottom), we feel Big Game is a fun and tasty variant - plus the service is quite good. Sure enough, as soon as Will-J walked in, his eyes lit up. A fireplace? People are smiling at me? The three biggest TV screens I've ever seen, all playing sports? He announced, "This is a PARTY restaurant!" And certainly it always has a fun atmosphere.

We liked the Colorado beer flights - four 5 oz. beers for a fairly good price (especially considering the beers [Great Divide, Twisted Pine, Avery, etc.]).

Aside: I wrote a few weeks ago that I didn't understand how Groupons were good for restaurants - it seems like a variant on the pizza coupon price death spiral (no red-blooded American would ever buy a pizza except with a coupon). Maybe restaurants, at least in Denver, are already wising up to the issues?

Davis Wiki - good times

2011-02-24T08:56:00.000-08:00

I became (briefly) fascinated with Davis Wiki - it essentially recreates Davis in web form. More importantly for me, it preserves my brief life in Davis circa 1998. Hey, where was that smoothie place I used to go? Of course it was Green Planet, owned by Aaron Souza, and closed 1999 - and as we all know was killed off by a conspiracy by Jamba Juice.

What about the Mustard Seed, the place where I worked briefly before cooking at Soga's? It's still there, and incredibly, the owners are still yelling at the staff 13 years later. Soga's sadly lost its way, becoming an Indian place, and then a nu-Mexican sports bar, before going bankrupt and disappearing altogether last year. I wonder what they did with/thought about my Christmas cards after Matt Soga left?

Cafe/Espresso Roma is gone, too. I made a lunch menu for this place and hung out in a back office with some resident journalist anarchists. Interestingly, despite all the staff turnover noted in the Wiki entry, when I called in 2006 to complete my bar application, they remembered me and asked when I was coming back (?). I was pretty surprised as I had only worked there a few months.

And what was that good pastry place? Oh yeah the Konditorei - it's still there.

But most importantly, they've condemned The Domes! The Domes are a bizarre set of little fiberglass huts on campus - a forgotten exercise in futuristic living that became student housing. I used to run by there all the time and ponder why anyone considered those things a good idea.

I really liked Davis - my view was that it was composed of people who got kicked out of Berkeley for being too weird. It was incredibly hot much of the year, so much so that it forced everyone to slow down a bit. Plus there was incredible local produce.