Category Archives: Site Updates

I think this is the default title for the last post in any blog. The first is always “Hello World!” and the last is either “So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish” or “All Good Things Must Come to an End.”

Well, this is the last post here at ColoCalders. But, Don’t Panic! I’m not giving up blogging! We simply decided to move the most recent posts to a new domain, and the reasons for the move are detailed in our first post at our new site: RocksAndSun.com!

I will leave this site up for a few months, probably, because the last six years of my life have been well documented here. But, eventually, ColoCalders will turn to password access only in order to better protect our kiddo’s digital footprint.

So, check out the new site, update your readers, follow our new account on twitter, and let’s have some fun!!

“May the bridges I burn light the way.”

Let’s face it, having a baby changes every aspect of your life, and not even this blog has escaped! I’ve been posting photos and writing about our adventures around here at ColoCalders for nearly six years, covering topics from crazy climbing, to crazy weather, and even crazy computer fires. But in the last two years, my focus has taken a decidedly baby-oriented turn, and this blog has changed subjects once again.

So, I took this opportunity for a bit of an overhaul. I’ve updated the theme and the general organization of the site. Check out some of these changes!

• The “Follow Us!” links on the sidebar will take you to Kate’s social media pages on other sites. Some of these are more often updated (Pintrest) than others (G+), but we’re out there.
• I’ve updated the About page to include the kiddo! Unfortunately, the “Kate is working on her Phd” is STILL applicable. Perhaps that will change in the next year…
• There is a new Resources page with lots of links to other sites, blogs and books about getting out for adventures with kids. I’ve recently stumbled upon an amazing community of climbing/hiking/biking/camping/blogging parents who haven’t slowed down (too much) with their babies in tow. Check these sites out for inspiration, how-tos, gear reviews, and awesome stories about families in the wild!
• The Map page has been updated to… well, actually work. And give a good overview of where we’ve been in the last six years. I also added links to some of our more popular trip reports. I’m hoping to keep working on this page to categorize the adventures better, giving visitors a good overview of where they can find info on kid-friendly or super-epic climbing and hiking.
• And the Archives have been moved from a rather useless drop-down menu to their own page with a nice visualization plug-in.
• For the content of the site, well, it’s already been pretty baby-full of late. And, you’re only going to get more of it. I know this may annoy some people who used to stop by and read about our climbing, but life moves on and we’re dragged along with it. As always, Mark and I are more interested in enjoying the journey than focusing on the destination, and we hope that you’ll come along with us for the ride!

As usual, please leave a comment if you find something that isn’t working, or you have any suggestions for links or content. Mark and G and I are all super excited about the approaching summer, and we have some big plans for this year!

Last summer, Mark was talked into trying out CrossFit classes by his boss, and he rapidly fell in love with it. What’s CrossFit, you ask? Well, it’s a daily workout, focusing on whole-body and functional movements, that tests your mental and physical limits. In other words, he goes to the gym every day at lunch and works so hard he wants to die or throw up or both.

I have gotten trained on CrossFit, and attended several classes so far. The first one was so hard that I started hemorrhaging blood and ended up at the hospital! Since then, I’ve built a ton of strength, and I’ve started to, occasionally, beat Mark at body-weight only exercises.

It’s been a great ride for us so far, and we’ve seen incredible gains in our fitness and strength. One of the best things about CrossFit is the ability to compare gains and accomplishments through careful logging. So, based on this idea, and inspiration from No X in Espresso, we’ve started our own on-line CrossFit Workout Blog.

If you don’t do CrossFit, this blog is unlikely to be very interesting. But, if you do and you’re interested in the struggles and triumphs of other CrossFit-ers, check it out: ColoCalders CrossFit Blog.

A few hours of tinkering last night and the website is in pretty good shape! I discovered that the new wordpress theme I love so much has heavy, heavy use of stylesheets. I know these are useful things, and good for abstracting your code, but I think this is just over the top:

Nobody should have to enclose their photo gallery code in five different “div” levels, and behind one dummy “div.” Yep, that list containing only a space is entirely necessary to make everything work. Lovely.

I still have some work to do, like adding in a link to the map on posts with geotags, and putting the “nights outside” graphs back in. But all in all, it took a lot less time to make it work than I thought it would, and I like it. And it’s fun to redecorate every now and then!

Also, Mark wanted me to post the story of his encounter with the Mangoes and the Monkey Peeler. (Imagine the sound of guitar floating out of the website and Bob Dylan singing “Mangoes and the Monkey Peeler were hard up for cash. They stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash…”)

On our hike out from North Table Mountain last weekend, the two guys walking infront of me were discussing the most wonderful sounding foods they were preparing for their superbowl parties. One guy was exceptionally creative and mentioned his world-famous mango chutney. Yuuuum. So, Mark and I bought some mangoes, a pinapple, some peppers and set about making a chutney. While peeling the mangoes with his new, awesome, monkey peeler (a Christmas present from my very cool brothers), the mango got away from Mark and he took the top off of his finger nail.

I finished up the chutney, which turned out great, and we served it in big piles over spicy grilled fish. Mark has kept his finger carefully wrapped and covered in anti-biotic cream, complaining about how this terrible injury is going to ruin our early climbing season.

I guess I’ll go to Florida and get myself some sun
There ain’t no more opportunity here, everything’s been done
Sometime I think of Mangoes, sometimes the fruit dealer
Sometime I don’t think about nothing but the Monkey Peeler

You might notice a few changes on the site in the coming few days.

I was inspired by the new version of WordPress to update the blog theme. The new blog theme does not work with my ZenPhoto integration. So, I updated ZenPhoto. And now my ZenPhoto theme is completely borked, and I think it’s time to let go.

I always seem to pick the most inopportune times to dive into giant site upgrades. I have a million things to do at work right now, let’s spend three days sorting through piles of php code instead!!

I apologize for the current state of the photo gallery. It works, it’s just not as well integrated as it will be soon. Thanks everybody!

After transferring the site, moving the registration of our domain name, and then a lot of confusion as to what our “colocalders” address was pointing to, the site is now back up! So far, aside from the initial work, I am very happy with the performance of our new host. The site seems to be loading much faster for me, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Note to everybody: The blog is actually at a slightly different address (no “/blog” at the end of the site). You’ll have to un-subscribe and re-subscribe if you want your readers to have the correct feed.

The next step is to fill out the titles, descriptions and information for all of the images moved over to the new photo gallery. That’s going to take some time. But, you might notice, in order to save machine cycles I have resized all of the images in the gallery to about 75% smaller than they were before. I hope that’s ok.

Let me know if you find anything that isn’t working!

I got sick and tired of the slow speeds, poor up-time and horrible performance of our old webhost. So I signed up with somebody else! So far, the site is loading much faster (at least for me), but evidently moving an existing domain is one of the world’s most complicated tasks. The bureaucracy, the security hoops, the forms to fill out, the emails to respond to are all amazing in their bulk. It probably would have been easier for me to register MarkAndKateClimb.net and just set up an auto re-direct for a month or two until people got it.

But I didn’t.

So, now we’re on step 12 of 18: “waiting for the old registrar to contact me and ask permission to release the domain.” From what I’ve read, if they don’t do that in seven days then it will be released automatically. Hopefully, then the site will be back at it’s permanent address.

Or maybe I’ll give up and pick a new name. What about WeekendWeatherWarriors.com? Probably already taken. Oh, I know: VedauwooIsTheShiznit.Org! Well, that might be hard for my grandma to remember. Let me know if you, the readers, have any ideas.

How you frustrate me. Our webhost has decided to move all of their clients to a new server, with a new hosting framework and evidently all new databases. The transition process has been causing all kinds of fun outages on our site here, and now that it’s complete, some aspects of the site aren’t working. The most notable of which is that the old photo gallery is no longer showing images. And I don’t know why. I apologize for the inconvenience. Hopefully I will be able to get it all working soon.