In which I introduce Rich and Dozer to camping

The weekend before I broke my ankle (back in mid-August) I drove up to the North Shore with Rich and Dozer for a little camping trip before his son Liam was born.  We didn't really plan in advance (suprising, I know) so when we arrived at Gooseberry Falls State Park we found out that nearly every campsite on the entire shore was full...  The helpful ranger told us that Finland State Forest MIGHT have a couple, so we beat feet for the forest and snagged what was literally the last open spot.  As we were setting up the tents, several other cars pulled in looking for a site, so we only just made it.

Our campsite by moonlight (extra light provided by Canon)

Cooking dinner, while Dozer looks on wistfully

Rich had his own tent while I shared with Dozer, and we were up early the next day to get over to Eagle Mountain, the highest point in Minnesota at around 2200 feet.  It was a short but nice hike, with plenty of lakes for Dozer to swim in and a nice little plaque at the rather underwhelming summit.

At the highest point in MN!

Of course, having climbed the tallest point in MN we were plenty hungry, so we drove up to Grand Marais for some Sven and Ole's!  The pizza was excellent but it was even better later that evening, reheated over our campfire!

On our way back to camp we stopped to take some photos, and were suprised when someone leaped off the cliffs at Temperance River State Park right next to us, plummeting about 10 meters straight into the water below.  When they climbed out, we got the scoop on where and how to jump, and after a moments hesitation, we decided to give it a shot.  You only live once!

Richard taking the plunge

Turns out the fall is just long enough for you to think, "Oh shit, this is really damn tall" before you hit the water.  Even cooler, once you're down there it's possible to swim/climb behind the falls into a hidden grotto.  I definitely want to go back next year with a waterproof video camera to get some shots of the jumps and the hidden spot.

The next morning we got up early and drove back down to Taylors Falls to climb for a while.  On the way out we passed this spot, with the sun rising over some wetlands, and I slammed on the brakes so we could get some shots.  Absolutely stunning!

In which Dozer attempts to send us to the bottom of the river

I've wanted to do some canoeing all summer, but hadn't had any success, with people either busy, scared of water, and missing out on a Boundary Waters trip, and time was running out!  I made plans to go on one of my Mondays off with Mike, but it ended up being well over 100 degrees with the heat index so we called it off, and luckily I was able to go to work that day and take a later weekday off, when Mike and I were able to get up to Taylors Falls to canoe the same route Rich and I did last summer, Interstate State Park to William O'Brien State Park, about 17 miles on the St. Croix river.

I brought Dozer along, since his whole purpose is to be my "adventure" dog, so this was to be his shakedown cruise.  We put all the important stuff in a waterproof bag just in case his fascination with flying things proved our undoing, and pushed off from Interstate rather late, at almost 1pm.  We had a plan to get to Osceola and then see if we had time to make it to William O'Brien before the last shuttle back (supposed to be a 5-7 hour trip, we had about six to make it there).

We got off to a good start other than Dozer leaping in after a stick when we were only about 200ft from the landing, but we were able to recover him underway and headed downriver.  Turns out Dozer weighs just enough to unbalance a small canoe like that, so before long, Mike and I both could feel the work our core muscles were doing leaning this way and that to counter Dozer's almost constant moving.

Relaxing at Osceola after tiring the pup out making him swim after me against the current

In less than an hour and a half we'd hit Osceola, which is about the 1/3rd point, and decided to rest up there a little then push on further, as we had plenty of time.  Dozer had mostly calmed down at this point after a nice swim at our rest stop, so we made better time until we took a side channel and started to wonder if we'd ever rejoin the river again.  Just when we were starting to consider portaging the canoe back to the main channel, we  found a gap barely wide enough to scrape through and were back on track.

Dozer on bug watch.  If it flies, it dies.

Just like last time we did this route, we hit the end a little sooner than expected and were able to rest for about 40 minutes before the bus ride back to our car.  Dozer slept on my lap, crushing me the whole way back, but our first outdoor adventure was a rousing success!

I am the WARRIOR!

Waaaaay back, months and months ago, I registered for the Warrior Dash, planning of course to spend the intervening time working out like mad so I'd be able to kick ass.  Cue me realizing it's one week from the race, and I hadn't done more than rock climb a bunch and run a mile or two every now and then.  I quickly decided to go run a 5k to see how I might fare, but developed wicked blisters from my new shoe inserts after about 1.5 miles, so I walked home...

Then before I knew it, it was Saturday morning and I was at Afton Alps about an hour south of the cities, watching the first wave finish in the huge mud hole shown above.  All I could really do at this point was stretch, so I made DAMN sure I was the most limber person on that course, and headed to the start for my wave, the 4th wave of the entire event.  I'd decided to wear my Vibram FiveFingers to help deal with the wet, and since my running shoes+inserts had proven themselves to cause blisters.

The before shot

Right off the bat they hit us with the biggest hill at Afton Alps.  I don't exadgerrate when I say that at least 90% of people were walking before we even finished it!  I know I was!  Once we were at the top we had to climb over a bunch of cars and tires, then run through an ice-cold, fan-blown monsoon, and I figured that was the worst of the hills, and it would be largely downhill or level from here on out.  NOT SO!  The sadistic bastards that had laid out the course drove us up and down ski-runs over and over, throwing a mix of cargo net-based and other obstacles in front of us.  I ended up walking a good deal of most hills, as did many others, but really made up time on the various obstacles, blowing by large groups of people there.  As we came to what I knew to be the last couple obstacles (a big waterslide I could see from the start, as well as the flaming logs and mud, I poured on the speed and hit the slide headfirst, rocketing down the hill and into a pile of haybales.

After that it was on to the flames, where the course photographers snapped this slightly blurry shot of me, then the mud.  Oh the mud.  I'd seen the leaders of wave 1 hit it, and it was far easier and faster to dive in.  People that ran in tended to bog down immediately and sink in up to their thighs, and many lost shoes.  As I ran towards the pit, I heard the crow chanting, "dive, dive, dive!" and decided, why the hell not!  I superman dove into the mud, barely falling short of the first strand of barbed wire, then hauled myself through the thick soup to the other side, where they caught this lovely shot of me looking like the swamp thing.

Another 50 feet or so brought me to the finish and my kick-ass warrior dash medal!  I'd done it, but I had no clue how long it had taken since a storm had forced them to shut down the time displays.  I used about a dozen cups of water to clear my face and hands, got my camera and had someone take an after photo for me.

It ended up taking me another hour or so to get through the wash station and clean enough to drive home, where I showered and went straight to work!  I found out later that I'd done the course in about 44 minutes, not bad at all for my lack of training, and much faster than I'd expected.  Even more exciting was that I was actually in the top 1/3 or so of all people to do the event that weekend!

I'll definitely be running the event next year, it's already on my calendar!  I'd also planned to do the Mud Run, a 10k, much more intense event this coming weekend, but obviously the broken ankle put the kibosh on that.  Next year!

In which I climb rocks

Friday evening, June 3rd, Rich and I were chatting online, both bored and without any real plans for the evening, when one of us suggested we try rock climbing at the nearby indoor gym I'd been hearing about for a while. We'd both climbed once or twice as kids, and it sounded like a lot of fun and good exercise, so before long, we met up at Vertical Endeavors and did our orientation. We quickly learned that climbing is HARD, especially when your body isn't used to it, but we were clearly hooked. The next day I went to REI and bought my own harness.


JJ and I at VE

Since then we've gotten about half a dozen other friends to get into it as well, and I've been climbing 2-3 times a week ever since. We started off climbing routes rated 5.6-5.7 on the Yosemite Decimal System, and Greg, Rich, and I have progressed to 5.9s, and are close to completing our first 5.10s as well. It's a killer workout, and I find it much more fun than lifting weights!


Greg on a 5.5 out at Taylors Falls

A couple weeks ago our buddy Phil invited Greg and I to come up to Interstate State Park in Taylors Falls, MN to climb outdoors with some of his friends who own the ropes and neccesary gear. We've been out there twice now and plan to get outdoors as much as possible. It's a very different experience from the climbing gym, and the views of the St. Croix River from the top of the bluffs are fantastic!


Up on the wall at Taylors Falls

If you've never rock climbed, I highly recommend checking to see if there is an indoor gym near you and giving it a try. It's one of my top new hobbies and I can't wait to get back to it after my ankle heals up.


The crew at Interstate State Park my first time climbing outdoors

The view from the top at Taylors Falls.

Lego Kidsfest, not just for Kids!

Well, it really was pretty much just for kids, but Lego wanted us adults to display some of our stuff for the kids to marvel at and they were willing to pay us for the privilege! Nathan and I joined forces with Alyska Bailey Peterson and Chris Doyle from Reasonably Clever and managed to fill two spaces with Micropolis and other creations.

Kidsfest is a loooooooooooooong event. Running friday evening, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday. There was plenty for kids to do, and I took the opportunity before they all stuck their grubby little hands in it, to pose in a pile of lego big enough to fill a truck bed.

Micropolis was mainly Nathan, Jennifer, and my modules, with some additions from Garth and Tom, but we still managed to put up a very large display. This is in addition to a whole different Micropolis TwinLUG was showing at the same time, across town at the SpringCon comic convention. My newest addition was the conversion of my drive-in theatre to actually show movies, in this case the Lego Cars 2 trailer.

In addition to the paycheck directly from Lego, at the end of the event, we were invited to the event's Lego store to pick from whatever they had left at a hefty discount. Of course, I couldn't quite resist and ended up picking up quite a bit! The Pet Shop and Grand Emporium are my first-ever modular buildings sets (building the Pet Shop took me about 6hrs with multiple, "holy cow!" moments). Several of the sets were further discounted due to damaged boxes, and the Death Star is sealed up in the basement as a long-term investment. One of the Lego Master Builders also brought us a huge box of clear Lego dome pieces to do with as we pleased. I've got at least 30, no idea what I'll do with them!

Bet you can't adopt just one!

While I love Itty to bits, I've always wanted a bigger dog as well, one to run/hike/bike/whatever with. Itty is just too old and too small to tag along on a lot of my adventures. While I hadn't exactly planned on getting one just yet, the draw of the little black puppy I met at the rescue was strong.

I ended up convincing my dad to come meet him, and the whole family went back to the rescue to check him out. By this point my plan was still to get mom and dad to adopt him. While he was a big hit, after a couple days of deliberation the answer was still no.

I wasn't having that though, and presented a plan to my parents to make sure I came to play with, excercise, train, and care for Dozer while he was living with them, and began looking for a new place where I could have him AND Itty. In response to my incessant pestering, the OK was given for me to adopt him and keep him in Coon Rapids for now. Felix would appreciate the playmate, and I got my little black buddy.

Dozer at almost 8 months. He's a big boy now!

I picked up Dozer on the way to my parents with Itty, and he promptly thanked me for adopting him by peeing in the back of my car on the way home. Luckily, I'd planned for this and had a thick blanket down in the back of the car, but still!
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All three dogs together for the first time

Now I'm in for a real adventure. With all three dogs home at my parent's, it can be a real mad house. In late September Ryan and I will move to a new place and Dozer and Itty will go with me...

It has been ONE day since our last accident

For more than a quarter of a century, I've ran around, jumped off things, fell down, balanced on ledges, and more, without any serious injury, or even a sprained ankle. Tuesday, August 15th began like any other day, with me going to work after the excellent weekend trip up north with Rich. Still riding the high of rock-climbing up at Taylors Falls two days before, I stopped by REI and ended up picking up a rope and some gear, as well as buying an assortment of anchors and carabiners from a guy on Craigslist. I now had all the neccesary kit to put up a toprope myself, so Rich, Greg, Mike and myself could climb outdoors whenever we liked (once I learned how to set it up from someone experienced).

I got a haircut, then hurried to Vertical Endeavors to tell the guys the good news. I met Greg, Rich, Phil, and Robert at VE, and we got started climbing. I first tried again at the 5.10D that I'd been working on, but then everyone decided to head upstairs to the bouldering cave and I decided to join them. We did a couple easy routes, then watched as Greg struggled with a V1. I figured I could do better so I hopped on the wall, and smoothly made it past where he'd been stuck, then reached for the final hold, at which point I missed it, and dropped from the wall to land on my feet and try again.

Greg "bouldering". I was on a more vertical wall when I fell.

As I touched down, the slight rotation of my body combined with the soft foam-rubber padding on the floor caused my ankle to roll. And keep rolling. I heard at least two pops, and ended up on my back. For about 60 seconds I thought I was fine. After that, I had a new reference for what my 10 on the 1-10 pain scale is. The guys ended up carrying me downstairs, and after icing and wrapping my rapidly-swelling ankle they drove me to Urgent Care, where I got X-rays and a boot and learned that it was definitely broken.

Me after surgery, drugged out of my mind!

I've never broken a bone before this. That sucked. Also, with a possible trip to Chicago that coming weekend for the Air & Water Show, PAX the week after that, and my dream of a Colorado hiking trip with Dozer over Labor Day, this was a terrible time to break it! (I should point out that the break was 100% just bad luck. Neither I or VE did anything wrong, so don't be afraid to check them out!)

A visit to the orthopedic surgeon confirmed I'd need surgery, which I had on August 29. They put in a nice steel plate and five screws to stabilize the bone and ligaments, and now I have to keep it elevated and unweighted for about two weeks. This is in addition to the two weeks of doing nothing that I had BEFORE surgery. Needless to say, I'm getting a lot of reading and gaming done...

I feel like the screws should have been put in straighter... no?

Hopefully I'll be fully recovered sometime in November, but the move in late Sept will be interesting considering I can't really carry anything in crutches! So far my roommate Ryan, my mom and dad, and even Maria have been VERY helpful, mostly with Itty and with bringing me food, water, and other things, as well as taxiing my drugged-up ass around!

Goodbyes and hellos.

(Quick note. I've obviously been terrible about blogging lately. That will change now, and I'll slowly be going through the last 10 months or so of adventures as they come to me.)

About three months ago, I got a text from my mom about Sebastian. Apparently he'd been out for a walk and collapsed and was in some distress. By morning he'd been checked over and it looked like there wasn't much to be done for him, so they made the tough decision and put him to sleep.

While distraught over losing Bud, my parents knew that this time they weren't going to wait years to get a new dog, like they had after we lost Abby in 2005. I quickly got into the habit of checking the local Craigslist for cute dogs, and forwarding them to my parents for review, and before long I found a Nova Scotia Duck-Tolling Retriever at a local rescue, and they decided to start the adoption process.

Unfortunately, by the time they'd completed the application and had a home visit, the dog they were interested in had been adopted, but my mom kept checking the rescue's site for other dogs that might catch her eye. In the end she found Felix, a suspected Pomeranian mix that had come from a South Dakota Indian reservation as a stray.

My parent's went to meet Felix and loved him, but he was sorta growly with my dad, so a couple days later I met my mom at Paws for a Cause's open house to see how he did with me. There was about a dozen dogs running around the yard, but it was easy to pick Felix out since he looks just like a fox!

Felix exhibited none of his agression or meekness with me, eagerly jumping into my lap as soon as I sat down and attemping to lick my face every chance he got. Mom was sold, and she made the arrangements to bring him home with her. While she was doing that, I played with the other dogs. One in particular had caught my eye almost as soon as I'd arrived.

A tad bigger than Felix, and definitely still a puppy, Dozer was a 5-month old Australian Shepherd/something mix who's mom had been taken from the same reservation that Felix came from. Black, with extraordinarily soft fur and a white chest patch and paws, I thought Dozer was perfect. Right from the start Dozer and I sorta clicked, and I attempted to convince my mom to adopt him instead, without success.

Felix came home with us to meet Itty at my place. She was confused by this new dog, but Felix didn't bug her so she didn't much care. When they got him home, Felix was now just fine with my dad, and he quickly felt at home. However much I liked Felix though, I couldn't stop thinking about the little black puppy back at the rescue. I tried to convince my dad to adopt him as well, but he wasn't interested.

Dog crazy

I was "priveledged" enough to take responsibility for my mom's dog Sebastian twice over the last month, each time for about a week.  This coincided nicely with the dropping temperatures, since my roommate and I were in no hurry to turn the heat on!  With Sebastian warming my legs, and Itty up by my chest, I was roasty toasty even on the morning that Ryan woke up and found the house was a chilly 50 degrees!  I was a little sad to see him go when my parent's returned from West Point, but I won't miss finding his fur everywhere!

  
I took advantage of the great fall weather to walk both dogs as much as I could, and they could't be more different.  Sebastian is content to wander at my side, never pulling or wanting to investigate anything, while Itty lives at the end of her leash, pulling nonstop, and trying desperately to reach any and all objects or other dogs that we pass.  It was quite handy living right next to Como Park!

The last day Sebastian was around we went for a walk right before sundown, and were treated to a lovely sunset during our walk home.  Itty took a couple days to get used to being the only dog in the house again, but she'll be spending a week with my parents in just a couple days, when I head back to California, first to LA for work over the weekend, and then to San Diego for my two days off, to work on my tan, see the sights, and get some great photos!

I'm bad at this.

So I started the new job, and I'll blame it on that.  Between working full-time, finishing out my wedding photography schedule for the season, a business trip to Los Angeles, and the usual junk I've utterly failed to update my blog.  That all changes tonight!  I've got plenty of stuff that's happened over the last month or so to write about, but I think I'll start with some of the fun I had last Wednesday.

Way back in May I signed up for Livingsocial.com to get a daily local deal by email every morning.  Most of the time it's for a local restaurant or salon or something, but the one that caught my attention was for skydiving!  I ended up buying the deal, which was a half-price tandem skydive at Westside Skydivers, just west of the Twin Cities in Winsted, MN.  I tried to get various friends to buy one and come along, but everyone was too poor (or more likely too scared!) to take me up on it.  I meant to go during the summer, but just never got the chance, and before I knew it it was November!  My days off now are Tuesday and Wednesday, and Westside is only open on weekdays through the end of the month, so I called up Preston (the photographer I usually shoot weddings with) and asked if he wanted to fly out to Winsted for a jump.  Now, Preston already jumped this summer, but he'd recently bought an American Champion Super Decthalon aerobatic aircraft and offered to give me a ride out to Winsted in it, and throw some aerobatics in for kicks.

I'll cover the skydive in depth in a couple days once I've got the actual video of the jump, but it was a blast!  This post is about the aerobatics we did after the jump, on our short flight back to Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie.  I was still riding the adrenaline high from the skydive as we took off from the neat grass strip at Winsted Municipal Airport, and my body didn't have a chance to relax, since as soon as we got to altitude Preston started up with the aerobatics, and I quickly realized this was NOTHING LIKE a rollercoaster.

I of course brought my camera along, fitted with my 11-16mm ultra-wide lens, intending to capture our aerial hijinks on video!  I've finally put my Youtube account to good use and uploaded some videos to hopefully give you a better idea of what we were doing.  While Preston described the Super Decathlon as the "pickup truck" of aerobatic aircraft (and it certainly is when compared to stuff like a Pitts or an Extra), it's still capable of things that 99% of the population have never come close to experiencing!  We started off with a short and relatively simple aerobatic routine, beginning with a loop, then a hammerhead, and ending with a nice quick aileron roll.  This wasn't so bad.  While we hit several positive Gs, there were no negative Gs.  The plane has a handy little G force indicator that shows both the max positive and max negative Gs you experience.  We hit about 4.5 times the normal gravity, and as many as 3 negative Gs!



We did several more loops and rolls, and then decided to get some better camera angles.  I held the 7D on myself, while Preston held my Powershot SD1400 on him.  Below you can see both of us as we complete the loop!

Me:

Preston:


By this point my breakfast was making itself known at the back of my throat, so we leveled off for a bit to allow me to gather my wits.  I'll tell you what, I always thought it pretty amusing that something like 95% of people who land a ride in a jet fighter lose their lunch, but after experiencing a mild thrashing in the Decathlon, I can understand it completely!  We decided to cap the day off with a nice spin before we got too close to Flying Cloud.  I'll just let you watch the video rather than explain it.  Try and keep track of the ground!

Needless to say, I was ready to be done after that. Apparently it takes about 4-6 flights to get used to the maneuvers and get over the motion sickness. It was an absolute blast though, and don't worry, we both had parachutes on the entire time, just in case there was a catastrophic failure of some kind. Between the skydive and the aerobatics, my poor body had had enough excitement for the day, so I headed home for a nap and to cook some White Chicken Chili!