Desultory Thoughts

I just finished watching the U2 live webcast on YouTube tonight. They performed in L.A. tonight and let the entire world in on the act via a YouTube stream (the first of its kind) and it was fabulous!! I’ve been to every U2 concert since they started coming back to Salt Lake City. I really love live music. This just about counted. There was something special about it knowing that the rest of the world was watching with me.

The quality of the stream and the sound of the music was amazing. I thought for sure they’d have technical issues with so many people tuning in for a STREAMING broadcast. But it was flawless! I was witness to something special tonight. Now they’re rebroadcasting and I’m going to have to force myself to go to bed. Five o’clock comes too early!! So much for getting to bed early tonight. It was worth it! They better come to Salt Lake City on their second North American leg of the tour!

Let me begin by saying that Sprint and Colorado (at least the part that I’ve been in the last few days) are not friends. My friend who has Verizon has had much better coverage, so I blame Sprint for my delays in posting daily updates as intended. Besides that, we’ve also been extremely busy! But I love to document so it’s no burden to relay the events of this trip. I have a couple of hours of down time AND an internet connection, so hopefully I can catch up.

We got off to a rocky start when at 2 a.m. Chan and I picked up our friend John at his house. We forgot the bike rack and left the trailer behind on purpose so we strapped his bike to the roof of Chan’s Suburban. When we got back to Chan’s house to load up the trailer we pulled into the garage and forgot about John’s bike! His bike (and Chan’s roof rack) were, needless to say, toast! Not a great way to start a biking adventure at all. We decided to make the best of it and take the broken bike along in the event we could make some repairs, but John would have to purchase new front shocks at the very least. His Boxxer shocks were a twisted mess and would no longer be useful.

Matt, the fourth and final participant of this great event, arrived at Chan’s house at 4:30 a.m. We packed up the trailer and left ON TIME at 5 a.m. That has NEVER happened before with this group. I was surprised and impressed.

My wife always teases me that I never tell her what we talk about on these long trips. I seriously always forget what we talk about! With that in mind I decided to keep a log of the conversation of the trip on day 1. It’s quite random, but here are some “highlights”.

John tells us about the power of magnesium.

Discussion: Are germs mobile?

Tyler and Matt discuss the merits of Windows Vista as well as the drawbacks. Both are happy about the release of Windows 7.

Driving up Spanish Fork Canyon. Chan mentions how much he hates this road. We could die on this trip if we fall asleep at the wheel. Other ways we could die: Spontaneous combustion – Matt explains, if you dove into a stream or pond that had been contaminated with potassium…upon drying you would auto ignite. It happened once to Matt’s lab coat.

Matt talks about an $8 tool that will straighten out your rear breaks.

Chan let’s us know that it’s only 44 degrees in Spanish Fork Canyon.

We reminisced about the time that John called in a fire that a train had started in Spanish Fork canyon.

John is surprised about how many entries Tyler is making in this log. The log is reviewed by Tyler. (laughter) Matt predicts the next entry will be four days from now and that it will read, “I’m so sick of this trip! John’s bike is broken and we can’t find a part to fix it!”

Chan suggests that Tyler get a buzz on this trip. He is the only one that doesn’t have one.

Tyler discusses the reason he goes to Sports Clips for his haircuts, despite the $25 cost (including tip).

John talks about his trip to California to replace stained glass windows in the NewPort Beach Temple.

Matt washes Chan’s window with his hat. It’s 33 degrees! Matt begins to wash Chan’s side of the window.

Chan is drowsy. We take turns telling stories about falling asleep at the wheel.

John says, “If I could choose a death I think I’d rather die instantly in a head-on car accident than drown.” John told a story about how he felt like he almost drowned, which is one of his worst fears. Chan related a story about how he felt close to death in Moab and Matt came to his rescue. It had something to do with falling off a rock while climbing or something.

Brother Matt believes his beard makes him a better driver. The skill level has risen. His beard resembles the beard of Mose, Dwight Schrute’s cousin on The Office.

John starts calling around to different bike shops to find himself a replacement shock for his broken bike. “Hi, I have an odd question for you. Do you have a pair of used boxer shorts?” (He meant to ask if they had a used pair of Boxxer Shocks. It was pretty funny, but maybe you had to be there.

Grass Roots Cycle hooks us up with a used shock and only charges us $20 for installation, including all the cabling that was needed after the garage incident.

John preaches to us about Magnesium some more. He reads from a pamphlet he picked up in Grand Junction while waiting for his bike to get fixed.

So, that’s a sampling of our meanderings in conversation. It’s usually quite interesting, although it’s probably not very evident. Anyhow, we got John a used front end shock ($200 cash), a new wheel and disc ($190 and $20 labor). What a freakin’ deal! $410 for a bike made new again. Crappy way to start a trip, though.

We drove to Vail, Colorado and walked around for a while. We decided to go drive South to Buena Vista, CO. We shopped at City Market and drove west of Buena Vista to find a campground to camp in. We found a campground called Collegiate Peaks Campground and pulled in at around 9pm. We set up the tent and ate dinner and got to bed at around 11:45pm. Matt, Chan and Tyler took Tylenol PM to aid in their sleep. It wasn’t the start we planned on, but we still had fun getting started.

This post describes the mundane, normal occurrences of our trip, which you may or may not find interesting. The following days are much more exciting, I promise! Enjoy the pictures.

The title of this post might be overstating things, but that’s how I feel about the trip about I’m to take! A few friends and I are taking a week-long road trip to Colorado and I’ve been looking forward to this for almost a year now! I’m afraid I might be building it up in my head to the point that I’ll be let down. In attempt to savor every moment of this trip, I’ve decided to blog about it along the way. Hopefully I’ll be able to make a daily trip report and post some pictures and maybe even some video.

Here’s the general plan for the trip, which is part of the reason I’m so excited about it. My friends and I love to mountain bike, rock climb and bag peaks. So that’s what we have planned, but in no particular order and with no particular location other than somewhere in Colorado. We’ve scouted out several spots that we’ve researched or that have been recommended to us and we know our general route. We’ll be heading East on I-70 and then south on a road to be determined but likely some scenic byway of sorts, and then back west towards Durango and finally back North on the Million Dollar Highway through Silverton and Ouray. Everything is subject to change and all events are subject to vote based on what we feel like doing that day. We’ll be camping, staying in hotels, driving all night. Who knows! It’s a true adventure where the possibilities are endless. I’m really, really looking forward to this trip!!

We’re still open to suggestions. Check out some of our tentative spots and let us know if we’re missing anything, especially if you know first-hand. As I mentioned, I hope to update the blog daily and you can keep track of where we are by keeping an eye on our location via Google Latitude which is posted at the bottom of my profile page.

I plan on hiking one peak per month for the rest of the peak-bagging season.  True peak-baggers probably don’t restrict themselves to a certain time of year, but I’m proud to say that despite the inclement weather we were having this weekend, I stuck to my plan and it really paid off!

I was banking on the weather clearing, but when I paid my $9 entrance fee to enter Antelope Island State Park and heard the two rangers tell me that there was no hope of the weather clearing up today, my heart sank.  Nothing to do but hike the peak, no matter what the conditions.  It rained on me the entire way up the mountain.  The winds got pretty strong and the rain stung my face.  Despite the weather, it was one of the easiest peaks I’ve ever climbed.  The trail was great all the way up, despite the muddiness, and there were only a couple of exposed areas.

Upon reaching the top I took some pictures (not too much to look at when you’re in a cloud) and was about to head back down after only 15 minutes, but as I reached for my pack I noticed a flash of sky and a mountain off in the west.  As quickly as I saw it it disappeared.  But it gave me a glimmer of hope that the storm was about to clear.  Another flash, and another!  Sure enough, the clouds started to clear out.

I ended up staying on top for an hour and a half and by the time I headed down I had a clear view all the way to the Wasatch mountains to the east. It was awesome! I can’t wait for the next peak!

I took the day off the other day to attend a sales event that NCSI (a vendor that sells network apps and utilities) hosted for a bunch of their customers.  It took place at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, so I didn’t have to drive very far.  Some of the customers came all the way from Wyoming to attend!  They were showing off some stuff from LeftHand Networks (iSCSI SANs).  Pretty cool stuff, but it pales in comparison to the pre-event!

First we were able to get out in a Mustang on closed course track with cones.  We took three rounds through the course to get a feel for it, but their advise to us was to drive the car like we stole it.  I’ve never in my life driven something with that much power!  It was pretty dang sweet!  After we warmed up we took three laps around as they timed us.  I wasn’t the best, but I wasn’t the worst either.  And I never hit any cones, so that was good.

After driving the Mustangs you wouldn’t think that it could get much cooler, but it actually did.  The coolest part of the experience is when we rode shotgun with professional drivers around the actual race track!  Their were three cars out there jockeying for position on the track, just like they would in a real race.  The only thing they held back on was actual tapping.  That’s what they do in a real race that so often ends with a car off the track, so I’m glad they held back a little.  I had my little camera so i pulled it out and flipped it into video mode and took some low-quality video of the experience.  This video doesn’t do it justice, but you’ll still get the idea.  It was a lot of fun!