Kate is teaching a class in Colorado Springs for 3.5 weeks allowing me to “live like a single guy” in the evenings. It means I’ll be eating unhealthy food, playing computer games until the wee hours of the night and generally letting myself slip to a lower standard of hygiene.

Kate bought me a birthday gift last November which caused me to build up a computer from scratch. She bought World in Conflict and it was a brilliant game. I played the single player for maybe 8ish hours and kept hoping it wouldn’t end. Kate did excellent in picking that one. It is the best real-time strategy game I’ve played. After that, I obeyed the end of year ruckus surrounding Portal, and bought it as part of the Orange Box. Portal was brilliant: short, but perfect. After that I replayed Half-Life2 and then continued on with new-to-me content in the Episode1 and Episode2. They are brilliant as well and did not disappoint.

Being a married computer gamer, I have self-imposed limits on my gaming so that I don’t ruin my marriage or my job. The first rule is to never play a game that doesn’t have a pause feature. This rules out all massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft (WoW) or City of Heroes/Villains. Those would be like crack to me and I know better than to give either a taste. I’m nearly done defending the earth from an alien incursion (in Half-Life2) and it is about time to pick a new game. I’m leaning towards conquering the universe in Sins of a Solar Empire (though I shall ignore the multiplayer bits because it will have no pause button), or the most recent well-acclaimed classic RPG’s (from 2006) Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion plus sequels.

To read about the building of the PC and all the parts I choose and why, read on…

So, I was out photographing a dramatic sky the other night, and as I looked through the images I brought back in, I thought a lot of them were nice and abstract. I thought I would like to have them as desktop images, and decided to offer them in larger resolution here for others to use. I’d like to do this more often, so feel free to keep checking back if you’re interested. Also, leave me a comment if you’d like a size that I don’t have posted here.

1024 x 768, 1440 x 900, 1600 x 1200

Mark did our taxes earlier this year. Last year, due to mistakes in withholding and a whole lot of capital gains, we ended up owing thousands to uncle Sam. After that debacle, we increased our withholdings to a ridiculous amount, and were eager to see if we got a refund this year. And we did! Tax time is the only time of the year when we thank our financial counselor for modest gains in the previous year: good job guys! We made very little money, had more mortgage interest to deduct, and now we’re a couple thou in the black. According to the tax software, we should spend that on a new alternative fuel vehicle. Pretty cool idea, really…

Saturday was a beautiful day in Northern Colorado. Temperatures topped out at nearly 55F (~13C) in the Fort, and the sun felt great. On Sunday morning, my parents left Colorado, and Kevin headed back to Denver. Mark and I got up early, packed our bags and then drove down to Eldorado Canyon for a day of trad climbing – just the two of us. There are a few pictures from the day in the gallery.

We realized at some point in the last few days that Mark and I had not climbed together, as a pair of partners, with nobody else around, for several months. We thought that it would be nice to get back out on the rock for a quiet day of adventure. When we left Fort Collins on Sunday morning the Front Range was covered in a thick lenticular cloud, but we could see sun over the mountains. As we pulled in to Eldorado Canyon, it seemed the cloud had been pushed higher over the mountain. The canyon was dark, cold and covered in snow. Mark declared that he had not driven an hour and half and paid $6 to not climb, so we bundled up and headed to the Whale’s Tail.

We roped up for the creepy traverse across to the ledge at the bottom of the formation, but I’m not sure that the route we took across in the morning really warranted it. As Mark was racking up for the first climb, the clouds receded, the sun began creeping down the canyon towards us. By the time he was off the ground the rock was warm and sun-lit, and the weather was officially beautiful. It was quiet in the canyon, too. We could see and hear only one other distant pair of climbers for most of our day there, which is wonderful in a place which is normally so busy that rap lines land on leaders and rocks fall on crowds below almost every weekend.

(1) West Crack (5.2 or 5.4) – The first climb of the morning was a great one. This crack was long, exposed, took great pro and was an all around aesthetic climb. Mark and I both had huge smiles on our faces when we came down from this one. It felt simply like the reason trad climbing had been invented. Note, though, the route took most of our 60m rope. If you have less than a 58m rope, I don’t think you’ll reach the ground from the rap anchor.

(2) West Dihedral (5.2 or 5.4) – Mark and I spent some time discussing how best to climb this route and then set a TR on the middle slab and then clean that TR anchor and come off the rock from the rap anchor above. Once Mark had led the dihedral, he ended up building an anchor up and left of the overhanging crux, and worked out great for the slab. He ran up the dihedral, placing only 4 pieces of pro before the anchor, and I had no problem with it either.

(3) West Face (5.6 X) – This slab climb was long and fun. It had a few thin parts, but Mark climbed it in his old rental shoes with no problem. I think it’s worth doing on TR if you’re in the area, not worth risking your life over as a lead or free-solo. But that’s just MHO. After Mark climbed it, he climbed above our anchor back to the rappel anchor on top of the rock, and then set up the rappel. He cleaned the anchor for the slab on rappel, on his way down, which involved a bit of aerial ballet but nothing too crazy.

As we pulled the rope from this last climb, another couple climbed over to our ledge, and the sun began to touch the edge of the canyon on the far side. We packed up our gear, and Mark lead back across the ledge to our stuff in the gulley next to us. This time, he took “the low road” which ended up having a very exposed technical downclimb move that Mark protected well. It was an exciting way to finish the day, and made me feel like we had just gotten in another whole pitch of climbing. By this time, the canyon was starting to feel crowded again, and we met a guided group of about 6 climbers looking to get on our climbs as we packed up in the last of the sunshine. We chatted with the other climbers and then hiked out in the new shade of the sunset, which ended up being around 3p. The days are short in a steep canyon like Eldo, but I think we managed to squeeze a perfect climbing day out of this one. Mark and I got to be alone together in the sun, in a dramatic and beautiful place, doing what we loved.

I grew up in a suburb of St. Louis called Kirkwood, Missouri. Last year we were in the national news for the first time in years when a guy working at the local pizza shop was discovered to have kidnapped, help captive and abused two young boys.

And last night we were in the news again. A disgruntled (what a descriptive word, huh) contractor killed a policeman, walked into a city council meeting and started shooting people. He ended up killing between five and six people (the reports differ), one of whom was the father of one of my good friends in highschool.

I haven’t kept up with “the gang” much since I left for college, but it was horrible to hear that Dave Yost’s dad was shot and killed in the middle of what should have been just another regular city council meeting. I spent many awesome summer days in Dave’s pool, and many winter evenings in his basement, hanging out with our group of friends, playing loud music, watching movies, and just having fun. I played Doom II for the first time at Dave Yost’s house. I kissed my highschool boyfriend for the first time at Dave Yost’s house.

I do remember his dad, because he used to come pick up Dave from other “parties” and take several of us home at the same time. I remember the first time Mr. Yost took me home and he asked me if I lived north or south of Manchester road. I said “Well, it depends on which way you’re coming from…” and everybody in the car just started rolling with laughter.

It was a bad night last night. And I hope you’re doing ok out there, Dave.

On a related note, it’s interesting to see how the national media is characterizing the suburb I grew up in. Here’s a quick rundown:

So yesterday was called “Super Tuesday” by the MSM outlets due to the large number of states which held primaries that day. It was also called Mardi Gras which means “Fat Tuesday” by French Catholics due to the day after being Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. And I’m sure, in many parts of the Southeastern US it will be called by a different name, due to the largest outbreak of tornadoes in February in decades.

Update: Click Here to view the storm reports and Here for a good overview story from Bloomberg.

Conditions were ripe for heavy weather last night, as temperatures in the south-east climbed into the 80s during the day, and dewpoints followed upwards, almost into the 70s. A strong winter cyclone moved off the rockies and deepened as it blew across the plains. By the time the strong circulation hit the warm moist air of the southeast, deadly weather was almost inevitable.

There are reports now coming in of the warnings given to the areas hardest hit. The death toll would have been much higher, no doubt, without the diligent work of meteorologists throughout the country, and the warning networks we have installed. It was unfortunate that the bad weather hit on such a critical day, when people were out voting and caucusing, and perhaps not able to seek shelter as quickly as they needed to. It is also a little weird, but not unprecedented, to see tornadoes this early in the year. Severe weather like this comes from high temperature gradients, and the more warmer surface temperatures clash with cold polar air, the more we’ll see storm outbreaks like these.

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.

On Saturday, Mark and I met Doug, Liz, Mike and Adam in Fort Collins and headed south for a ski day at Eldora Ski Area. We met Kevin in Boulder, but missed Weeks in the morning due to some missing emails. I took a camera with me, but I didn’t take any pictures, unfortunately. Here is a map of the trails in the resort, and little labels that show where we all skied during the day.

Kevin took a full day ski lesson for his first day out. He had a great time. Liz helped me remember all the basics and gave me great encouragement during the day. We skied every single green run, and even went through “Fun Gulley”: a tiny little terrain park though the trees between two green runs. It was a great day for both of us, we both spent time working on our turns and building up confidence and feeling more comfortable on skis.

Mark started the morning with the “Elite Performance Package” for the first time ever. They gave him racing skis that were stiff, heavy, and huge, and he hated them after his first run. After lunch, he turned them in for a pair that turned a little better and had a great time exploring the mountain with Weeks. They covered a lot of terrain over the course of the day.

At the end of the day, the others headed home and Mark, Kev, Weeks and I hit Boulder for dinner. It was really nice to catch up with Weeks, especially since he’s heading to the South Pole to work as a facilities engineer at the research station down there. It’s going to be a tough eight months, with no daylight and temperatures around -100F, but it will be the experience of a lifetime, and Weeks really thrives in extreme environments.

In the end, it was a great day. Kevin learned to ski, I carved up all green runs (and didn’t cry at the end of the day!), we got to see Weeks before he leaves, and Mark didn’t hurt himself. What more could you ask for?