Author: admin

Day three…

My head, it landed to the sounds of cricket bows… ~ Jane’s Addiction

I actually made it to the Basin today. Go figure. This mid-week skiing is the shiz. I think I made it up there in about an hour. Good stuff.

Not much new snow (if any) since last time but they opened up to the top. I was on a limited timeframe so I busted out a half dozen no-stop runs, fell on my ass skiing switch and called it a day. So much for my zero-fall season. Hugo’s record is intact.

I actually felt awesome today. The legs burned a bit the first couple of runs but that always seems to happen. Then I settled in and was good to go. Luke and I are planning to do the Enduro this year so I have to get used to non-stop runs. Though on harder terrain. Hopefully that will all open up soon. We just need some snow and cooler temps. Soon.

I realized why I couldn’t come up with other movies viewed in the past few days. I dipped into my collection and hadn’t really kept track. Here is the list:

Amelie
Baseketball
Snatch
The Godfather
Memento
Jackie Brown
Fight Club

These are all among my favorites. Hence, the ownership. I highly recommend each and every one.

Ok. Back to work.

~stubert.

Nada mucho…

Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to fool around with him if I were alone. ~ Townsman

Things are moving right along in Stuville without much change. I did get out for another run last week and have been trying to focus on improving my pace, stride and efficiency. Not sure that I am making tons of gains but it was a fun, exploratory run in the woods near my house during which I found the remnants of an old trail that may hook up with a newer section of unfinished singletrack to make a nice, alternate loop. Good stuff.

It has been unseasonably warm here and Eldora is supposed to open in 10 days. I am thinking that isn’t going to happen since it was nearly 60 up here over the weekend. Not good. It cooled off a bit yesterday and I froze my butt off riding down to Boulder to see Dr. Dave and to meet with a contractor about doing some work. I definitely didn’t dress right for the nighttime ride back up the canyon but kept telling myself on the way home, “Only 12 more minutes.” “You have been colder than this before.” etc. to keep from being a total pansy. Funny thing about pushing your limits, it gives you a totally different perspective when you approach them during subsequent trials and/or tribulations.

This past weekend was pretty relaxed. I built a storage shed for our snowblower and chopped down some more trees. Getting pretty close to having that project completed for the year, which is nice. My chainsaw is acting up now so I need to take it to the shop to see what’s up. That may cramp my ability to finish up. We’ll see.

And a special shout out goes to my buddy, Caleb. He ran the NYC marathon over the weekend and finished in 3:02:46 (or something). That put him in the top 2000 finishers out of over 34000! Super cool.

Movies:
I have been watching a lot of movies of late. Here is the Cliffsnotes recap:

Naked States: This is a documentary about a photographer, Spencer Tunick, who shoots nudes in public settings. He is most famous for his shots of large groups of nudes (18000 in Mexico City). I actually like his work and it can be seen here (NSFW). This film focused on a project during which he captured at least one shot in each of the 50 states. The documentary itself was interesting. Not great, but worth a watch if you are interested in this sort of stuff.

The Outlaw: This is a terrible western directed by Howard Hughes that ran up against Hayes Codes in the 40s. What was interesting about this movie is a) how tame it is by today’s standards and b) how thoroughly gay it was and how this didn’t set off the censors more than
Jane Russell’s ample bosom. So funny. We watched the whole thing even though it was really, really bad. In any event, you really don’t need to go out of your way for this one.

Hmmm. I guess I haven’t watched as many movies as I thought. Gotta get on that. I am psyched for the new Coen Brothers vehicle, No Country for Old Men, possibly American Gangster (I can’t decide on this one… Denzel Washington almost always just seems to be playing Denzel Washington these days) and the Darjeeling Limited. I have also heard good things about Lars and the Real Girl so I’ll probably throw that on the list too. Rach and I are going to try to hook up a double feature next week.

Okay blog readerinos, that’s all for today.

~stubert.

Getting back out there…


Look at me, I’m Peter Pantsless! ~ Homer Simpson

Let’s see… where to start? I suppose I’ll lead off with Sunday’s run — the infamous Double Mesa. ‘

Bob decided it was time to get out there and grind out a half marathon on some of Boulder’s finest terrain. The Mesa Trail (for those unfamiliar with the more popular area runs) rolls along the foot of the Flatirons and spans about 7 miles from central Boulder to Eldorado Springs (almost). This is a great run and often times one can take on a large chunk of the course without seeing any other runners or hikers. The middle section is particularly devoid of the crowds that can plague other Boulder-area trails. Good stuff.

Bob put together a great group of guys for this outing and a total of six of us headed out from the Ranger Station at shortly after 10 in the morning. The group was fairly well balanced with everyone from seasoned marathon runners to “longest evers”. We maintained a solid pace throughout and it was good to be back on Mesa. Still one of my favorites. This was my longest run since the event and we finished in about 2:40. Not blazing, by any stretch of the imagination, but not too shabby (actually on par with the last time I ran the Double Mesa). (Check out the full album.)

I was pretty sore the following day. Given my activity levels of late (or lack thereof), I wasn’t surprised but recovered quickly. All in all, this was a good run for me and it reminded me why I do this stuff. I need to set aside time to get out in the wilderness more often. Put that on my list.

So I took it easy the next couple of days. Back to the grind. Today I waffled about whether or not to go up to A-Basin for some more early season turns and finally decided to give it a shot about 9:00. I needed to get to the bank anyway and this was a good excuse to get out. We got about 3 inches of snow last night which also helped to motivate me for the drive. I was hoping to drag Luke or Pete into the fray but neither was able to make it up so I headed out solo.

Everything was splendid until about 5 miles from Eisenhower Tunnel when traffic came to a standstill. Unfortunately there is a dead zone right there so I was unable to get a signal to check to see what the hell was going on up the road. After about 30 minutes of sitting at a virtual standstill punctuated with periodic 1-2 mile and hour surges up the hill, I got a signal and discovered that the tunnel was closed due to wrecks on the West side. Super. I stuck with things until the next exit then bailed back to Golden, a quick jaunt to the bank and grocery store then back home. Took the skis for a drive. Always a joy. Oh well…. Can’t win every day.

Oh yeah. I also lost a toenail. Two more are looking suspicious. My feet are still just hammered from Leadville.

Movie time:
We have been spending a lot of time with Robot Chicken of late. Great show if you have never seen it. Seth Green cracks me up. Essentially, this is stop-action animation with action figures and dolls and whatnot. Very funny.

We also watched Spiderman 3 and Harsh Times. Neither is worth the effort, really. S3 had some great special effects but for some reason Sam Raimi decided it would be a good idea to show the softer side of Spidey in the third installment. Um… no one wants to watch a super-hero bawl all the time. Trust me. Plus, it just wasn’t that great. There was this space goo that was never really explained and just seemed like an afterthought. “Well, we have to get Spiderman to get infected by this gunk to show his alter-ego. Ah hell, I’m lazy, let’s just send it in on a meteor and call it good.” In any event, I wasn’t particularly impressed.

Harsh Times was a Christian Bale/Freddy Rodriguez vehicle that just didn’t draw me in at all. Both characters were just not sympathetic. Being what I like to call a “Steve” (Straight To Video), I am not sure what I expected. Don’t rush out to put this one on you list.

Okay… that’s all I have for now.

~stubert.

Laggin’…


So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. ~ Willy Wonka

Yesterday: Ski – A Basin, 2 hours (day 2)
Today: Hike
Tomorrow: ???

So I guess I just haven’t been in the blogging mood of late. Lots to talk about, not a lot of time or energy available to put it out there. My apologies.

In the past few weeks I have been staying busy working (which is good). We settled down a bit from September and have launched several sites including Weekends and Lion Equity. Good stuff. Still cranking with Quintess as well. This month has flown by.

I was all set to tell you about my first day on the slopes but then we had some bad news. Our beloved bunny, Rockshot, passed away. He was a very special little guy and will be greatly missed. Here is his story…

Rockshot (expertly demonstrating “top-bunny” posture in the above photo) came to us through the shelter where he was delivered with his partner, Houdini, in a terrible state. They had been rescued from some horrible conditions and were both malnourished and filthy but happy to be in a loving home. After some initial tests, it was determined that Rockshot had some serious health problems that would probably take him from us in just a few short months. Apparently he didn’t get the memo and was quickly racing around the house being a goofy, splendid bunny. Both Rocker and Houdini (actually discovered to be Mrs. Houdini) put on weight and quickly became part of the crew. Rockshot was with us for over a year and was awesome to the very end. He will be sorely missed.

On a lighter note, I have gotten up to the slopes twice now. The first day was cold and snowy. The second, um… not. Yesterday, it was 55 degrees at the base and the Basin was in full springtime mode. T-shirts and bikinis were in full effect (I opted for my hoodie, which was a bit of a mistake). Not a cloud to be seen. Normally, that would be a good thing but damn… we need some cold weather and snow.

Lots more to tell you but I’ll have to catch up later.

~stubert.

Let it snow (repeat x3)…


Don’t mess with the fantasy, okay? ~ Gary Wallace

Yesterday: Beer Festival
Today: Run – Towards Ned, 1.5 hours
Tomorrow: Off

Ever have a hot chick drive by and ask you if you want a ride? Normally I don’t just hop into cars with strangers, no matter how smokin’ they may be but today it just felt right. Plus she wasn’t a stranger. Rach had come to rescue me. But I thought I’d string you along for a little while there.

So I left my car in Ned yesterday so I could take the bus down to Denver. Today’s mission… run to Ned to pick the bad boy up. One minor complication — it snowed about 6 inches overnight. This makes for good times.

I headed out about noon towards Ned. Mostly sticking to main roads, I slogged through the slush fairly quickly though I still can’t seem to keep my heartrate down to normal levels. I am guessing this is a double-whammy combo special of still being fatigued from the race and sitting on my butt for the past 6 weeks. In any event, I actually felt okay today. Not great but okay.

Shortly after passing through Rollinsville, I headed west along a fairly well-established trail. This eventually hooks up with the WestMag trail system from which I can just head down to Nederland. Not today, however.

After following the trail for about a half a mile, it cuts into the woods. This is the point at which Senor Trail and I parted ways as it was impossible to find it with the fresh snow and tight trees. So I stumbled around for about 45 minutes — crossing several fences, dodging cattle and generally not knowing where the hell I was. Eventually I jogged into a clearing just west of Kelly Dahl park and jumped back on the Peak to Peak roughly 1/2 mile from where I left the pavement. Awesome. At least I knew where I was finally.

I jogged along the highway for another mile or so until I was propositioned by the aforementioned hottie and jumped in Rach’s warm Subaru for a ride on in to Nederland. All in all a good day in the woods. Or close to the woods as the case may be.

Once home, I got some work done and should be able to launch the Lion Equity site on Tuesday.

All in all we got at least 6 inches of snow and it continued to fall all day. The temperature is dropping now so we should see some additional accumulation overnight if this keeps up. I am sensing an A-Basin outing in my near future. Wednesday, anyone?

Rach spent the day in a significantly more productive (and charitable) manner wrangling critters at Bleating Heart Animal Sanctuary. This is a yearly event (that always seems to coincide with the first major snowstorm of the year) during which volunteers catch sanctuary bunnies, goats, turkeys and other assorted critters; make certain they are in good health; and release them back to the sanctuary grounds. Good stuff. This is the second or third year Rach has participated in the round-up. She has mad critter catching skills.

Movies:

Last night, we took a trip down memory lane and watched Do the Right Thing. Still a decent flick. I had forgotten that Martin Lawrence was in it. There are some classic lines in this one. Good stuff.

Your homework for the next few days: Go play in the snow.

~stubert.