Riding the San Jaun...

                So at the very end of 2012 I got a text from a buddy of mine asking if I wanted to hit up the San Juan trail with he and a few of his buddies.  I’ve had to say no to this guy way more times than I was comfortable with and was super excited that this time I got to say yes.  I was on vacation, the wife was off to take care of the kids and so I was in the garage that night prepping the old Santa Cruz Heckler.  For those of you not in the know San Juan, when shuttled, is primarily a downhill trail.  So I figured the Heckler would be perfect and I hadn’t been on it for nearly a year.  So I cleaned her up, put some lube on the chain and inflated the tires.  She was gleaming and eager to get going.

                We were meeting early and the morning dawned brisk, crisp, and clear.  It was going to be an epic day.  We met up at my buddies house, got the bikes switched from one car to another and all the gear squared away and off we went.  The starting point for the San Juan trail when shuttled is right outside of Blue Jay campground (yes Tyson the campground with all the flies…it’s an inside thing and another post).  We parked, unloaded the bikes, and promptly started to mentally compare bikes.  Watching Mountain Bikers….or any bicyclists can be hilarious.  First, we eye the competition and start to calculate how much the other guys bike might have cost.  Is that a SRAM or a Shimano parts group?  Is it a 29er? Then when we’ve got our facts straight and we’re feeling comfortable with our choice of bike the conversations starts. 

                “So how do you like that (insert bike brand/model here)”

                “What do you think of those (insert brake brand/model here)”

                And for this ride the topic of conversation most often brought up….adjustable seat posts!!  I was at the back of the group when we started off so I could gauge my skill level with the others without holding anyone back.  I was riding along marveling at the idea that I was actually riding with other human beings when the topic kept coming up here and there as we climbed and then dove down another decline.  I was having a blast but chuckling as everyone was fiddling with their hydraulic seat posts.  I’m old school, I keep mine at one level (unless it slowly drops like it did in Moab) and I ride with it there.  It’s old school but it’s also much cheaper than those fancy hydraulic posts.

                I pulled up the rear for the first couple of miles and made idle chat with a guy who was a paramedic at a pretty nice hospital in Utah.  He was a childhood friend of my buddy and his son was riding with us on a hardtail and doing pretty good at it to all things considered.   The trail was pretty rock strewn and I kept waiting for a pinch flat but my slightly worn Nevegals held up just fine.  We regrouped and my buddy called me to come up front and ride with him.  I got up there, let the group rest and then we took off.

                The next hour or two is a total blur.  We would fly down some sections where I was really pushing my skill level.  There were some ninety degree turns where I was grabbing all the brake I could just to make it. A HUGE thanks goes to my bro-in-law who did an excellent job bleeding my brakes nearly a year ago.  It was a blast of a ride.  We would fly down a section and then wait for the group to gather.  Then it was off again. The upper section was fast, twisty, and narrow.  Those are all the ingredients for some great times on two wheels.

                When we finally got to Champagne Rock (I’m pretty sure that was the name of it) we took a break, took some pictures and enjoyed the view of Orange County and the Pacific Ocean.  We snacked, chatted and then remounted to begin the long decent to the other parking lot.  This section was fun.  It was a little loose and had all kinds of switchbacks, ruts, and rocks.  It was honestly some of the best riding I’ve done since Moab/Fruita back in 2011.  We were flying along, grabbing brakes, riding out of the corners and then letting gravity take over.  The Heckler handled it like a champ.  I was doing fine and feeling light on the bike, right up until I grabbed to much brake, washed out the front tire right into a rut and over the bars I went!!  It hurt.  A lot.  I haven’t crashed like that in probably ten years and felt all 39 of my years at that moment.  I laid there on the trail staring up at the blue sky my right shoulder really hurting, my knees and lower legs scrapped up and bleeding.  Once I figured nothing was seriously broken I got up and checked out the bike.

                It was fine, thank goodness!

                I climbed aboard, a little shaky and with a right shoulder that was throbbing.  Nothing I could do about it at that point so off I went although much slower than before.  This last section of the trail required a lot of body English and a lot of braking.  My shoulder would scream at me if I turned just the right way so with the advice of my father ringing in my ears….I didn’t turn that way very often. 

                Finally we got down to the cars that would shuttle us back up to our starting point and the cars we left behind.  I was sore and in a little pain.  The paramedic took a look at it and was concerned enough that I decided to hit up the Urgent Care when I got back to town.  As we loaded the bikes we joked and laughed and reminisced about different parts of the trail and other escapades we’d been on in the past.

                The x-rays from the Urgent Care came back negative, nothing was broken or pulled.  A radiologist called me a few days later and told me the ligaments had been strained and that was it.  I took it easy for the last few days of vacation and tried not to use the shoulder/arm very much.  It’s gotten better but not 100% yet.  There is still a twinge here and there but it just reminds me of what an awesome ride it was.

                It’s really cool how this sport can bring people together.  At the start of the ride the only guy I knew was my buddy and by the end of the ride I felt like I’d made some great friends.  All of these guys have been hanging out together since they were kids and I want to thank all of them for never making me feel like an outsider.  It was an awesome day for a most excellent ride with some pretty cool dudes.  Nothing much in this world beats that combination!!

Getting yanked off the wagon...

            Happy New Year to one and all!!  I suppose it’s better late than never but it’s been a rough month for this here blogger.  I always like to start things off on the right foot and 2013 has not really done that.  Sunday nights I like to get to bed early so come Monday morning I’m refreshed and ready to get the week going.  I like to wrap up projects at the end of a month so that come the new month I can start all these new exciting projects that I’ve been waiting to do.  As 2012 ended and I looked back over my goals, plans, and work out log I was fairly happy with the over all success of everything.  I didn’t quite make a few year end goals but that’s not a failure just something to inform the next years goals and plans.  Things were looking good going into the last week of 2012.

            I went on a ride with some friends that was simply awesome but (there is almost always a but isn’t there?) I ended up crashing.  It was a pretty spectacular over the bar type crash that no one saw.  It hurt but thankfully nothing was broken and I finished the ride.  I spent the next couple of weeks in discomfort.  Following the crash I picked up a nasty cold/flu and that’s how I spent the first month of 2013.  Not very glamorous is it?

            It’s amazing how an injury or cold or some other malady can really get you to narrow your focus.  Usually at the beginning of January I spend lots of time thinking about what I want to accomplish.  How many miles I’m gonna ride during the year and what I’d like to do with this blog and my writing in general.  I even start thinking about how I’m going to spend the summer with the kids.  None of that happened as I struggled just to get through to the end of a day.  Heck there were a couple of days where making it to noon was a major accomplishment.  In fact its only been in the last few days that I’ve been able to walk more than a few feet without being attacked by a coughing fit.  It’s been quite interesting.

            So now it’s the first part of February and I feel like I’ve been yanked off the wagon and just getting back to my feet.  It’s nice to feel better and I’m finally able to get my mind to look at the longer term stuff in life which is nice.  I think the weather and my health will both be decent enough to get a nice ride in on my next weekend and perhaps with this new ‘vision’ and the ability to not sink into my own suffering my diet will improve a bit.  It’s starting to look pretty up for me and my family and I think 2013 is going to be pretty awesome.

Loss...

             As a kid loss didn’t mean much to me.  Most things that we lost could be replaced, or if you enlisted the aid of Mom, found.  The items I lost weren’t all that important really and as I look back on my childhood I never really wanted for anything.  I had a close family.  A ‘Leave it to Beaver’ family that I rebelled against with every ounce of my strength in my teenage years but it also meant that our grandparents were a regular part of our family gatherings.  It meant trips to see our grandparents on a pretty regular basis.  Those trips were always trips filled with fun and exciting new things to do and see…and good snacks.  It meant eating Grandpa’s cookies and watching baseball on the TV or a Laker’s game.  It meant reading a really awesome coffee table book about the history of the NFL.  It meant playing Star Trek on the back porch of Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  It meant going and hanging out with them for the evening while Mom and Dad went back to Disneyland to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade at Disneyland.  It also meant seeing my Aunt Betty, my Uncle Dave and playing with cousins.  I also got my first star wars vehicle toys there, a very cool white tie fighter and Darth Vader’s tie fighter!!  We played with Gi-Joe figures on the giant (at the time at least) rock fireplace.  It meant dinners gathered around the table on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthdays and during family reunions.  It meant Family!

                Last week my Grandma passed away at the age of 90.  She lived a good long life.  She had a loving husband, two great kids, seven or eight grandkids, and four great grand kids who she got to know and hang out with on several occasions.  Grandma became GG when my kids were born but to me and to my brother she will always be Grandma.  She was the last of my grandparents to pass away and I miss them all but she was the last and for some reason it’s really sticking with me.  She was the last connection to a forgotten time.  She saw so much in her time. Most of the modern conveniences that we know today didn’t exist when she was born.  No computers, no cell phones, no TV, no 8 tracks/cassette tapes/CD’s/DVD’s/Blu-Ray’s.   She adapted to it all.

                I’ve spent a lot of time over the years thinking about what I want people to say about me when I pass on and I’ve gotten really fancy with it and I’ve written long personal mission statements that have directed me through life based on those ideas.  In the end I just want to be remembered as a good person who tried his best for his family and his kids.  Grandma embodied all of this and maybe that is her legacy to pass on to future generations.  She was a good honest person and she raised good honest children who in turn raised good and honest kids.  I am trying to do the same now.  Grandma loved us unconditionally, even when we managed to break something every. Time. We. Visited.  She made us meals and let us watch TV when we ate them.  I loved her like I love my own parents.  I’ve loved all of my grandparents like I love my parents. 

                I miss my grandparents.  I miss my Grandma.  She was an awesome Grandma and in the end that pretty much sums it up.  I love you Grandma, you will forever be in our hearts and the hearts of our children. 

R.I.P. Frances Wilson!!

Captain Cole to the Rescue...

                I hate cities.

                They’re loud, and entirely too crowded for my taste.  Give me the wide open spaces of the Colonies and Rim Territories.

                I slide into a spot at a local bar between two patrons in garish costumes.  Too many people, wearing to many brilliant colors and the latest in fashion make my head hurt.  I order a shot of the bars finest and slug it down.  It burns pleasantly on its way down.

                “Ten credits and I’ll tell you your fortune.” Her voice is soothing and sweet.  Low and almost unnoticed in humanities roar, I turn towards her as she sidles up beside me.  There’s a twinkle in her eye.

                “Gypsy Queen looks good on you Jax” I say.

                The diminutive brunette shrugs, “They’re not looking for a gypsy” she says tossing a thumb over one shoulder.

                There are two guys in suits, all business and decidedly government, moving systematically through the crowd. 

                “What’d you do this time Jax?”

                She holds her palms up with mock surrender.  “Nothing, I swear.  The information was free, open to the public.  I just shared it with a few of my friends.”

                “Which friends?”

                She shrugs, “Friends that pay better than you Cole.”

                “Can’t help it if you’re a greedy girl.”

                She casts a glance over her shoulder and then looks back at me, “I need help Charlie.”

                There are two of them and they’re only a few bar patrons away.  They haven’t recognized Jax but they will.  They have implants, I can tell from the dark shades that seem to melt into skin.  A computer facial match will beat any disguise Jax comes up with.  I should ignore this but we’ve got a past and she was a good partner once.  Instead I stick my nose in matters it doesn’t belong in and say, “Come on.”

                I push her away from the bar and towards the exit, but my luck, never great to begin with, doesn’t keep us hidden for long as one of the suited goons glances up and tags us with a visual match.  “Halt!” he yells.

                “Go, we’ve been tagged.”

                I can only hope they don’t get a shot of me.  I have a file but not a big enough for them to actively hunt me.  We exit the bar and run smack dab into more pedestrians.

                I hate cities.

                It’s a constant struggle to push through the crowd.  Behind us I know no one is getting in the way of the suits.  It’s just not smart to get in the governments way.

                I grab Jax and we duck down a small alley between two food stands.  It dead ends.

                “Now what genius?”

                I push her towards a waist high pile of trash.  I kick it away revealing a sealed door in the floor.   Port cities are huge and multi-leveled.  If you knew they worked you could get around fairly easily. I reach down and spin the handle.  The hatch pops up revealing a ladder.

                “Go.”

                She does.

                I follow her down and seal the hatch behind us.  They’ll know what we’re doing and where we’re going but time’s now on our side.  We bust out of the alley and into pedestrians.  Pushing and shoving we run down the open air corridor, take a left, a right, and then another left.

                “There” I say pointing.

                We swing to our left and keep up a sprint that takes us past several occupied landing pads.

                “Halt.”

                “Go Jax, she’s unlocked.”

                I skid to a halt, spin with pistol in hand.  I snap off two shots, aimed high because I’m not a fan of innocent bystanders dying.  The twin suits duck behind cover.  I’m up and running again.

                The Domino’s on the last pad on the right.  Jax is already up the ramp and disappearing inside.  As I arrive the ramp is rising and I leap up onto it and sprint through my ship to the cock-pit.  With the main drives on stand-by I crank up the transfer coils and drop into my chair.  I point at the seat next to me and Jax drops into it.

                “Just like old times” she says with a laugh.

                I shake my head.  I bring up the Domino’s thrusters and we lift off the landing struts and into the air.  I end any ground pursuit with a blast from the chin mounted gatling.  Docking control is screaming at me and I know fighters will be scrambled soon.

                “Where are you going?”

                “To hide.”

                We shoot into the city and I swoop us in and around tall buildings that reach for the heavens.  We dive under bridges arcing through the air and joining one building with another.  We tear through traffic lanes designed for small air cars and not my FTL capable freighter.  We probably cause more than one accident but the mayhem we leave behind should keep authorities busy and fighters off our tail until I can find an out of the way place to set down.

               “Why aren’t you getting off the planet?” Jax asks.  Her voice a little shaky

                “There’s an entire fleet up there now on high alert.”

                “Oh.”

                I shut down all active scanners and drop down into the mists of Lowtown.  I switch off the running lights and we slip into the perpetual fog that the cities  forty-seven percent  live under.  I pull up a map on a side monitor and find what I’m looking for.  An abandoned landing pad looms out of the fog.  I swing the Domino around, kill the main drives and settle onto the ground beneath it with thrusters.

                “Now we sit here?” Jax asked

                “Yep.”

                 Free and clear the time being.  I know the suits will be hard pressed to find us down in Lowtown and after a day or two we will be able to blast clear of Alpha Prime without half the fleet on red alert and actively scanning for us.

                I turn to Jax, “So, seriously, what did you do this time?”

A letter to whoever wants to read it...

            It’s amazing to me how things can change with the drop of a hat…or maybe the slow descent of a hat since the Change was a very long drawn out process that nearly had me pulling hair out.  Still, the Change happened and now I’m settling in.  It’s been a good thing, nay, a great thing.  I’m content for the moment.  (probably won’t last long though, my contentment never seems to at least)  I’ve settled in at my new location and I’m falling into my groove.  It’s a nice laid back groove right now, partially because it’s that time of the year and partially because quite simply the area I’m responsible for is quite a bit smaller.  It’s nice to not be running around like a chicken with my head lopped off.  It’s nice to be able to take things at a leisurely pace at work and to shed the stress I was under before. 

            To be fair, the place I worked before wasn’t a bad place, I’d just grown a tad bit tired of it.  It was equal parts burn out from a busy summer and simply being there for to long.  The people were cool and even a majority of the users were ok, but the bad began to rear its ugly head in my conscience a little to often while the good hid behind a large boulder most of the time.  Here it’s different.  Or maybe ‘its’ not and I am.  The users, while still probably off their rockers, aren’t quite as, insert derogatory adverb here, and their questions aren’t quite so…oh I dunno…like pouring acid on an exposed nerve…yep that’s the ticket.



The Office View



            So for now I am content and happy.  My personal time is a little less all in one place now and so things like writing and even riding has sorta been placed on the back burner to be replaced with early morning runs and dates with the weights.  It’s not a bad way to mix things up but I do miss some of that bulky free time.  However, I am at home at night with the family and that’s been a pleasant change.  More time helping out in the house, getting children to do their homework and generally take some of the pressure off of the wife are things that were a large part of why I sought the change out in the first place.  We are not and never will be single-parents but the last 7 months has given us a taste of what it might/sorta/coulda been like to be one and I for one did not like it at all.  (I’m pretty sure the missus didn’t either) Kudos to those who are in that position for sticking it out and surviving though, you have my sympathies. 

In the end though it is still a job and there is still work that is required to do so that always sucks.  Making your hobby/interest your job is never advised in my opinion.  The whole love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life is…well…a crock o’shite.  It’s work and it sucks but the office isn’t bad and the work…if I have to work it’s not bad to do.  We’ll see if I’m still singing praises and doing the skippy-fan-dango in a few months when I’m shin deep in the cold white stuff but for now things are content and I feel like I’m in a pretty good place. Till next time folks keep the fires burning.

Curveballs...

           Life has an interesting way of really taking some left turns when you least expect it.  I start things and it seems like I can’t stick with them.  Sometimes I really wish I could just like one or two things and just stick with those things.  Forever!  When I sit back and look at all of the things I get enjoyment out of the list seems pretty exhausting…and expensive, just ask my wife.  Let’s see, there is riding, running, hiking, backpacking, camping, writing, guitar (or music in general), reading (books, magazines, comicbooks, graphic novels…you name it and I’ll probably read it), and photography just to name the ones that popped right into my mind.  What I’d like to know is why I can’t stick with them for the long haul or eliminate one or two altogether?

            At the beginning of the year I was pretty gung-ho about writing and in fact from a writing stand point it was the most productive time of writing in my life but as with all things I found other things to interest me.  For a few months I kept a pretty good balance between the family, writing, and exercising.  April thru July was probably one of the best four months in a decade for me.  I was writing good stuff and getting it ‘out there’.  I lost about twenty-five pounds and just plain felt good.  In and around all of that I manufactured a pretty awesome move at work and advanced my career in a way I’m pretty downright proud of. 

            Slowly and almost without warning things slowly began to unravel.  My blog posts died a slow death and  since August 16^th I’ve not posted a darn thing, lapsing into the typical Dead Blog syndrome.  I’ve gone from four work outs a week to maybe two a week.  I dropped soda and was very proud of it, but over the last few weeks I’ve had first one and then two until at one point last week I had four soda’s from fast food joints in two days!!!  (I even re-filled my soda last night at the Pizza joint)  I haven’t been on the bike in 3 weeks.  (My work outs have mostly been runs)

            I’m not a man who can easily wait for stuff.  It just isn’t something I’m not good at.  It’s something I’ve struggled with all my life.  I also can’t just enjoy the thing I have now.  I’m always ‘Looking to the future, to the past, never his mind on where he is, what he is doing.’ (that’s a paraphrase on a Yoda quote.) My job advancement has made me wait.  I’ve been waiting for nearly four months for it to happen.  I knew it was coming but I’ve had to wait for all of the moves that needed to be made to be made.  It’s been draining because for a long time at the beginning all I could do was day dream about the whole thing and I think it just totally tore me down mentally.  We could probably throw around the term depression pretty easily regarding the last few months.  So the other stuff.  The stuff that I need energy for and desire for have wavered and faltered. 

            I finally have a light at the end of the tunnel, however, and in roughly four weeks my plans and desires will see fruition for better or for worse.  I’m feeling a little lightness around the edges of my mind.  I’m on vacation as I type this and I’m hoping the 9 days off (now 8 days) will renew my spirit a bit and I can soldier on through the last three weeks in my current spot.  Now I’m hoping I can return to my former ways.  I’m hoping I can pick-up the scattered pieces of my hobbies and put them back together and continue on.  I’m hoping to take a few minutes to examine these pieces and pick out the good ones and maybe toss aside the bad ones.  The good news….I’ve really only gained about a pound through all of this so far.   I’ve not totally thrown away a healthy diet, just yet.  With the changes will come new hours and new schedules.  (sorry mom I’m still working weekends) and that will create new challenges that I’ve not had to face in many many years.  This will cause a new stress but it’ll be a new stress that I think I’ll be okay with.

            I’m hoping that means you’ll be seeing a bit more of me here on the blog with stories about my adventures and thoughts.  I’ve re-embraced my passion for photography so perhaps we’ll be seeing a few more posts with pictures.  And a nice conversation with a published author on twitter the other day has stoked my passion to write.  Not sure I’ve got any new and wonderful ideas for stories per se but it did spark this here confession….errr…post. (Hope you enjoyed it).  So without further ado I bid thee farewell but only until we meet again, which I hope will be soon.

Now what????

                I’m losing weight.  A lot of weight if I’m honest, and I’ll tell you what, it freaks me out!  It really does.  It means that my clothes fit and I may even need to drop a size in pant size.  Extra Large shirts now are suddenly fitting pretty darn good.  I look in the mirror and I’m not automatically disgusted with myself for letting go as I age.  All of these things are awesome and I’m proud of what I’ve done to this point. 

                So then, what scares me?

                Losing it all.  No seriously, almost a decade ago I was in the same situation.  I had started working out nearly every day with weights.  I was going to a gym and using my own stuff.  That same equipment is now rusting its way to a dump on the side of our house.  Those weights sit untouched, except to move them from house to house and room to room 360 days of the year.  I dropped down to 190 pounds at one point a decade ago.  It lasted five days.  Slowly, and over about a year or more, I gained weight.  I justified it but for some reason, unknown to me, I just stopped working out.  Oh I rode some here and there but we’re talking, at the most, 500 miles a year…at the most.  I was training in Aikido at the time and that was the one thing that probably kept me from ballooning up in a matter of days.  I went from eating super clean to eating pure crap inside of two weeks.  Did I sabotage myself?  Was I so negative about life in general that I created a self-fulfilling prophecy?  Was I only looking at the whole thing as an experiment, a diet, and not as a life change.  I don’t think so but honestly I’m not sure.

                This leads me to the here and now.  I’ve lost nearly 25 pounds since the beginning of April.  I’ve done it by eating better, portion control, dropping out soda, and exercising three to four days a week for 45 to 90 minutes at a time.  (mostly running & riding) I’m hovering around 210 pounds most days right now.  This was a short term goal but the real goal was to see myself under 200 pounds.  With the end of the year creeping up on us and the achieving of a goal around the corner I keep wondering if all of this is for naught.  Will I simply achieve my goal and then let go?  I hope not but I’m still not sure why I did it a decade ago.

                I have an acquaintance I met through the mountain bike world and follow on Facebook.  She recently suffered an injury that has her riding a couch the past few weeks and probably for several more weeks into the future.  She’s lost all of her conditioning….all of it.  I feel really bad for her because she was at an elite level of racing.  I know she’ll get it back but at what cost to her body and her mental well-being?  I want to…nay…I need to stay away from losing it like that because I fear that if I were to let all of my meager conditioning go I’ll end up as a 350 pound man careening his way through his forties on a high speed date with my grave.  I do not want that.  Not at all, so how to keep it from happening?  My acquaintance can work her way back and use small feats as stepping stones that will ultimately lead to her first race and she’ll be able to build from there.  I won’t.  Why?  Because my work schedule doesn’t allow me to race…racing, for the most part, occurs on weekends.  I work weekends and most evenings during the week. 

                So if weight loss is your goal and you achieve your goal, what’s next?  This is the thing that scares me.  That nebulous no man’s land after you’ve achieved your goal.  It’s not something that will be happening tomorrow but it is something that is on the horizon, something that I’ll have to deal with at some point and in all honesty I’m not sure how to.  Trying new things, new sports, new activities will keep life fresh but will it be enough to keep the weight off, to keep my conditioning at a level that I’m comfortable with?  Seems like a no brainer really but I know from past experience that it’s not, I know just how quickly it can all come back; old habits, poor attitude, and that couch potato mentality.  It’s just not something I want to return to….and perhaps that desire to not return to it is enough this time around but I doubt it.  I am inherently lazy and will pick the easy path every time unless I’m truly putting some serious pressure on myself like I am right now.  I’ll sit in my chair and devour ice cream, oreos, and fast food all day while watching movies and sports if my little devil is in control.  So now it’s off to search for something…anything, really, that’ll keep that little bugger at bay and keep me on the ‘right’ track.  We’ll see how it goes and like always I’ll keep you, the reader, well informed of my journey.