don't worry, I'll get a helmet

FH borrowed a bike from a friend and got it running so we could do some dirt biking together. We were supposed to go riding on Sunday but the weather wasn't very good. So FH was like "let's ride around my yard". I think, after he had to save me from a rattle snake, he might have been worried about what I would do on a motorcycle (haven't ridden in 5 years) on a trail. His backyard was a great way to get back into the swing of things.

It was fun! Can't wait to go out on a trail!

riding on gravel is always a good way to feel incompetent

the friend who lent us the bike, Balls, looked at this pic and said "so she's wearing one knee pad but no helmet" - I'm also wearing FH's jacket because it has a padded back and padded elbows

the hardest way to get a new vacuum

FH and I were going to go skiing today, but decided there wasn't enough good snow to not fuck up my new AT skis. And we were thinking to take out the dirt bikes (one of his friends lent me his dirt bike) but we decided to wait until tomorrow to go.

So instead of doing something "dangerous" we thought to do a hike at Roxborough. The park was so crowded that they had stopped letting people in (I'm happy for the park but sad for myself...I miss the old days of going there on the weekends and being practically the only one there). We headed to Mt. Falcon for a mellow hike.

We were about a mile from the car finishing our hike when I heard something that I thought was birds rustling in the bushes. Suddenly FH grabbed me and pushed me backward. I was like "I wonder what the fuck he's doing????" and then he said "RATTLESNAKE!"

I didn't see it at first reminding me of the old saying "if it was a snake it would have bitten you". Under the shadow of a bush not 2 feet from where we standing was a not very large but VERY aggressive rattlesnake. I was like "seriously fucker, there's snow on the ground!" Maybe that's why he was in such a bad mood. He lunged at us and then rattled like he was getting paid to make noise (maybe a stint on fox news next - hee). If it hadn't been for FH's superhuman reflexes I'm sure I would have gotten bitten.

what ever you cranky asspipe - go bite yourself and fuck off

Most of the snakes I've encountered in the wild (rattle or otherwise) back the fuck off once I back off. But this guy was standing his ground and biting at the air and generally being a cranky fuck for brains who wouldn't get off the trail. I was frozen but FH was calmly snapping pictures.

"What should we do?" I asked, thinking that if it was by myself I'd hike the long 5 miles back to the car rather than try to get past the snake. The trail was narrow with a steep drop off on the non-snake side. Plus, I didn't want to get bit and then have to hike a mile back to the car.

We talked about options and ended up with an idea to jump onto a boulder directly opposite the snake (with the idea that it couldn't bite us that high off the ground) and then to jump from the boulder to the trail, landing as far from the snake as possible. With my zombie knee I'm not really a jumper so I was like "hm". We decided I should go first in case something happened. It took me a minute or two to make the moves but we both managed to get past the snake.

When we got back to the car my hands were still shaking. But, I didn't hyperventilate or cry the way I used to do (guess I'm losing my fear of snakes even though experts have failed to give good advice - perhaps my middle east dream was correct).

I think FH felt really sorry for me because I've been asking him to get a new vacuum for the past month (his doesn't work as well as mine and I've been bringing mine over to his house). On the way home he said "Let's go get a new vacuum."

I've already vacuumed the house and the garage with it

Not happy about the snake encounter, but I'm very happy about the new vacuum!

my blackberry is as fucked as my dreams

Last night I had a dream that FH and I were walking through some scary woods looking for a serial murderer. We saw a couple we know, J and C, laying under a tree on a moving blanket. C, the male member of the couple, was, inexplicably, wearing large horn rimmed glasses.

We asked what they were doing and they said they were camping in the woods and planned to sleep there. I was like "dudes, there's a serial murderer somewhere in the woods!" But C was like "look at all the pretty flowers!" and ignored me (not that a guy ignoring a woman when she's talking is something novel).

While everyone was looking at the flowers I noticed a fat bald guy in a white wife beater and beige polyester pants wandering towards us. I realized he was the serial murderer. I was like "look, it's the murderer and he's come to kill J and C!"

Then I woke up.

It was 430 in the morning. FH was awake, doing work (he wakes up throughout the night to "check on things" at his software company). I told him about my dream and he was like "hm, that's interesting". I fell back to sleep and the dream started again, except that J and C were gone. The murderer was still there. He walked by us and as he did FH said "you're a fucking fat ass". The murderer started chasing us through the woods. As we ran I was like "I can't believe we're going to get murdered in the woods because you called him a fucking fat ass!" Then I woke up.

I tried to tell FH about my second dream but he was still working. I fell back to sleep again and this time dreamed that FH's dogs had come down with a virus that turned them into zombies. The only way to cure them was to feed them little vitamin c pills. The dogs didn't want to take the pills and kept biting us then running away and hiding. Suddenly a tiny grey dog about the size of my hand ran into the house and said "I'll take vitamin c! I love vitamin c!" FH picked up the little dog and said "you're my new favorite dog! you're the best dog in the world!"

As he held the dog I noticed there was something wrong with the dog's face. As I looked closer I realized what it was. "FH, that's not a dog, that's a talking sock!" I said.

Then I woke up (the alarm went off).

As fucked up as my dreams were it's nothing in comparison to how fucked up my blackberry is. I tried to update the software because I can't receive emails anymore and I couldn't fix the problem. My blackberry has thrown more errors than the crap software I used to write. I'm hoping I can restore it otherwise I'm phoneless and I'm not sure the fuckwits at verizon will be able to fix it since they can't even get my billing statements right.

Ech.

so much irony, so little time

I came into the office today because I'm having dry wall work done at my house and didn't want noise in the background while I was doing a very important presentation this morning.

Literally 5 minutes after my presentation began a guy showed up with a bucket opposite my cube...

...and started doing dry wall work.

one hopes the holes were not caused by someone's head

You will have guessed of course -> my dry wall guy didn't show up.

Perhaps I should take the rest of the week off.

rich guy, with a twist

I know some of you hate it when I blog about my dreams, but I had a revelation last night...

I had a dream that I was in a building with my family in DC (which, actually, I was this past weekend). A older guy (60s-ish) with a totally fake looking tan came up to us and said "your uncle asked me to get into contact with you." I was like WTF?

He proceeded to tell us that we had an uncle who was really rich, and who was dying in Belize. He wanted everyone to take a month off from work to go to Belize to be with this uncle. He had a big suitcase, which he opened, that was full of all kinds of jewels and other shit like gold coins. Everyone in my family was like "really????" The guy said the uncle wanted to give us all of his wealth and that's why he wanted us to get in contact with him.

Then he said "but, you'll have to bring him some medicine." Sun tan guy produced the medicine, which looked like seaweed that they use in sushi (one second...yum...sushi) all packaged up in an airtight ziploc-like bag. He said "the medicine is $124.50." (forgive my engineering brain - I was just watching a show with fun hog yesterday about eliminating decimal points - um, don't ask). Each of us picked up one of the airtight packages and the sun tan guy pulled out an iphone with that square thing and ran our cards through. Then we went to the airport, and jewelry started falling out of tan guy's suitcase as we were walking in. So he took out this blue plastic scoop (like something you'd use to clean a litter box) and started scooping jewels into our pockets and bags.

I started thinking "what the fuck is really going on?" The sun tan guy came up to me and said "I heard you wrote a book. Your uncle would really like to read it!" So I gave him a copy (for the record, I do NOT carry around copies of my book) and immediately after realized that the sun tan guy wanted to read it to learn about my family and that there was no rich uncle and that the sun tan guy was trying to use us to smuggle drugs to Belize.

Then I woke up.

...to the revelation that, sure, it's stupid to think of someone smuggling drugs to belize from the US. But what my brain did, through the whole dream, was try to rationalize what was happening in the dream into something that could (in theory) happen in the real world.

So I started wondering if that was a characteristic of the creative brain (not bragging, I am pretty creative). Your brain throws some crazy shit at you and you spend the whole dream trying to rationalize it into something that could really happen.

Or maybe it's a sign of an aspie brain, making order out of disorder.

Or me having a nervous breakdown because some of the other engineers I work with come up with insanely stupid ideas that can be proven, with simple mathematics, to not work, and yet I have to entertain them so no one gets their feelings hurt. I'm not allowed to punch people at this job.

I will spare you the other dream I had last night about a snake that looked like the most ridiculous dog in the world that kept trying to bite my face. The snake was in the driver's seat of my car and I was in a hurry to get somewhere...

hot springs

Last Friday the fun hog invited me to Ojo Caliente, a spa in New Mexico. It was fun though we only went to the hot springs on the last day.

We got a late start and hit traffic so decided to stay in a Walmart parking lot in Alamosa. I haven't been in a Walmart since 2007 because I hate their policies toward women, but I figured the parking lot didn't count.

Pretty scenic for a walmart parking lot

My brother Bob is always worried about my zombie knee. So FH insisted I wear a knee pad so that my brother wouldn't get made at him for taking me mountain biking (we mountain biked a trail around the spa - thought it would be easy - it wasn't - it was a sandy arroyo with lots of loose rocks). I sent this picture to my brother as a joke.

There were a lot of really interesting rock formations on the spa property. This section almost looked man made because the rock was so square.

Cool granite walls. Too bad they were super smooth and breaky. I would be scared to climb here.

To get into the spa pool you have to pay $20. There are 6 pools and I decided I would go into every one of them to get my money's worth. We started out in the arsenic pool (think I swallowed some water when FH and I decided to try to drown each other - we were annoyed by the "whispers only" bullshit signs around the pool). Then I talked him into going into the mud pool (he would only go in up to his knees because he doesn't like to get dirty...even though every sport he does involves getting dirty). There was a cool iron pool that had rocks on the bottom of it (too bad it smelled like farts). The soda pool was interesting but way too hot. Then we went into the main pool (it was just a plain old pool I guess). The sixth pool was closed for repairs.

The spa was fun if you like the outdoors. Otherwise you'll find yourself sitting around with a bunch of would be hippies. The hiking trails and biking trails are not wimpy little spa trails. The granite there is pink and mixed with mica so hiking in the little canyons is like going to a super expensive department store. Very nice.

We saw a bunch of shooting stars and FH found what we think might be a meteorite (more testing on that).

And now I'm in DC because my dad is getting a very prestigious engineering award. Flew in this morning and flying back to Denver tomorrow. Can't say I miss traveling as much as I used to. In fact, I have no idea how I went to the airport every week...

head shot

I got the first shot at the skunk. I shot him in the head and in the tail since he was trying to spray me when I got close to the cage. FH took a few more shots to make sure the skunk was dead. Now we just have to figure out how to dispose of him.

fun hog: "trapped and capped"

The skunk trap finally worked.

bye bye you stinky fuck

Can't wait to go over to fun hog's today to hear the story.

squirrels beware of skunk traps

I admit I broke the law yesterday and shot a squirrel that was fucking with the skunk trap.

Don't cry. Squirrels are assholes.

...I can't explain the hello kitty pinata so don't ask

Take

1 person who loved the 80s, plus

a miami vice cake

that isn't actually a cake (who eats cake anymore...everyone's doing paleo - btw, this was iced at king sooper's - those dudes don't have time to order the apples I want or clean their floors but they have time to ice a box of beer - nice)

and a hello kitty pinata

Nice 40 something birthday party for the fun hog!

skunk trap not working as expected

After fun hog's dog was sprayed with a skunk he got a skunk cage so we could catch and shoot it (if you don't want us to shoot it feel free to come pick it up).

Skunks are apparently smart or don't like gourmet food. I did some research and suggested that we use peanut butter or cat food in the trap. Instead he first put poached halibut with old bay in the trap (leftovers). Then chicken he made with a spice rub that made it taste like fried chicken even though it wasn't. Last night he tried curry infused smoked turkey.

Well, someone likes turkey. Just not the skunk.

"fuck me, I'm stuck in a cage and can't get out"

coconut vs grasshopper

After he bit its legs off I stepped on it and put it out of its misery...

and, a favorite movie quote

From the documentary Vernon, Florida.

um, what?

no opposable thumbs? no problem

My sister's dog is really good at opening doors. How you may ask? With his teeth.

he looks so innocent here

sorry door knob

he must have bionic teeth

 

 

 

broncos kickoff game

Last night I went to the bronco's first season game. For those who didn't know, there's new security rules at all the stadiums and you can't bring anything in with you unless it fits in a plastic bag. Or you can buy a bag (as well as approved seat cushions) on the NFL web site for $10 - $20.

I like it when people profit from keeping us safe.

I immediately realized how little I know about football when I was corrected that it's quarters, not innings. It kind of set the tone for the rest of the night. Then I kept thinking that the ref was saying "flag on beyonce" and I was like "how is that possible, she's not even here". The ref was saying "flag on the play". I also thought the announcer was saying "king sooper's will donate $1,000 for every touchdown the broncos score to the cheerleaders" and I was like "that's good" because the cheerleaders sucked. But it turns out they were saying charity, not cheerleaders.

I was constantly amazed that the crowd would suddenly all start shouting the same thing, like "IN-COM-PLETE" or "DEFENSE". Then I saw this little light strip thing that told the crowd what to say.

In my opinion, if you're going to put huge TVs all around the stadium why not use them to display useful information? This TV would show stats of players (which was confusing because they'd be talking about some guy getting a touch down but they'd be showing some other guy on the screen - this is why I thought our quarterback was a black guy until 4th quarter - and the players would do this weird thing where they'd show up on the screen, looking down, then they would look up, and then move around or pretend to talk or just stare into space - what marketing idiot thought that would look cool?). If I were in charge of this big TV I would put pics of the player I was talking about, show what flags or penalties the team just got since it was hard to hear, and maybe a running tally of time outs or something.

There were a lot of fans that seem to know a lot about football. I really couldn't understand what they were talking about. Although this guy did say something really funny: "Volker (or Walker, or something), stop making those emotional tackles!!!!"

There was a cool camera on the field that filmed the game and showed it on the big TV. That made it a little easier to see what was going on.

There were a lot of moths in the sky.

Every time the broncos scored this horse ran across the field. However, I don't think it's a real bronco since a bronco is an untrained or feral horse.

Everyone kept high fiving everyone else. Even I got high fived once by this weird guy who was super tall but had midget hands. As the night wore on the high fives got more terrifying since people were getting drunker and drunker and were almost falling over during the high fives.

Denver skyline. Wish I had a camera instead of my blackberry.

bathroom remodel finally done!

Old bathroom. Ugly vanity, drywall shelves

Floor and tile were ugly, the wall had a weird bump out (on the left) which made the window look weird

floor replaced, this is a single piece toilet which will be simple to clean - and it looks cool! for a toilet

replaced the vanity with a custom built vanity made by the same guys who did my kitchen - and Christine found me this great piece of Vetrazzo!

the wall is now straight across without the weird window bump out

coolest sink faucet, and it's easy to keep clean

stinky monkey

coolest shower ever - you set the temp control and you never have to adjust the water to get the right temperature

cool shelves!

closer look at window

drilla from manila

I'm busily painting my bathroom (almost done! just need the granite and sink installed!) and putting my downstairs back together now that the shelves are done (note to self: buy less DVDs in your next life because it's a pain to carry them up and down the stairs).

coolest shower ever

new shelves

 But I did manage to do some climbing this weekend. I went to Lime Park, which is the middle of nowhere, and accessible by a pretty scary dirt mountain road. Surprisingly there were three groups of climbers camped there. Luckily they weren't climbing so the fun hog and I had the whole wall to ourselves.

leading a 5.8 - never thought I'd be the kind of climber that would be able to lead stuff after not climbing very much but I guess I am now - as the fun hog says "god hates a coward"

I am not sure what I'm doing in this picture. Scratching my nose? This was a fun climb, half face and half crack climbing.

clam vs skunk

Last night the fun hog and I were hanging out in his back yard, having a drink (we had just finished priming my bathroom) and watching an episode of Fringe on his outside TV (you need a TV outside to be an official red neck). Our relaxing evening was suddenly interrupted by fh's dog who decided it would be a great idea to stick her face into a bush where a skunk was hiding.

At first we weren't sure what had happened. She ran away from the bush and made a beeline for the house. She kept snorting and rubbing her nose with her paw. I was like "what the fuck is she doing?" and then we smelled the skunk. FH was like "she just got sprayed" so we ran over to the house and grabbed her as she was walking into the kitchen. FH dragged her outside and I ran to my car and grabbed my headlamp out of my climbing pack. He only had clamato tomato juice, so I'm not sure how much that helped with the smell. After he gave her a clamato rub down I brought down some oatmeal dog shampoo and we gave her an outside shower.

Then we went looking for the skunk. The little bastard had stayed in the bush and was watching as we gave the dog a bath.The skunk was huge. So fh went to get his rifle but by the time he was back the skunk was gone. We waited around for a while but the skunk never came back.

However, the smell lingered. We turned on a fan to clear the downstairs and that worked pretty successfully but the yard still reeks of skunk.

Tonight we're going to try to find it and shoot it. The skunk has been around for a while and I'm pretty sure it's hit other dogs in the neighborhood. So his ass deserves to get capped. Stinking bastard.

the leap

Last week was busy with my upstairs bathroom in full swing (I'm doing some of the work to save money...you know, the simple but tedious tasks that I can't fuck up, like peeling caulk off my tub), work, and of course playing.

Saturday I went to a new climbing place in Golden. There's a hike in so luckily no one was there except for myself and the fun hog. It was an interesting day.

I started up the first climb, which we initially thought was a 5.8, but that ended up being a 10+ (and I've hardly been climbing). I broke a hold off headed to the third bolt and then took a 10 foot lead fall when I missed the fourth bolt. So the fun hog decided we should climb something simpler, and we moved to an area of the cliff that we thought had 5.9s. But the one he led ended up being another 10+ (I guess they don't grade them more specifically because the holds keep breaking off - the more you climb them the harder they get).

a picture where I'm not wearing sunglasses and a hat - rapping off the 5.11

a close up of my ass - yeah I know the rope is twisted, I'd just finished a traverse and was about to go under the rope to untwist it

I ended up following the 10+ and then climbed over the arete to feed the rope through anchors on a climb we thought was the 5.8 (we basically spent the whole day climbing the wrong climbs because the map was fucky). I put a quick draw on the final bolt under the anchors as I was lowering on the supposed 5.8 for 3 points of contact (not like the anchors would fail...maybe...safety first). As I was lowering I looked at the climb, which was really overhung and not very feature rich. As I landed on the deck I told the fun hog "this looks harder than a 5.8".

We aren't sure what the grade is, would guess it was a 5.11 or harder. FH started leading but you had to climb over a big ledge that was all slopers at the top so there wasn't anything to grab to pull up on. Plus, you could only squat under the roof on a sloper ledge. I'm guessing as we climb more we'll be able to pull the ledge but neither of us could do it.

Then clouds started moving in and I was worried that it was going to rain. The rock hasn't been climbed much and has moss all over it. Moss + rain += shit show. But...I had left two quick draws on the anchors and one on the last bolt.

Quick draws are expensive.

So fun hog said he could help pull me up to the top to retrieve our gear (of course I had every fucking thing in my pack except a prusik). I barely made it over the ledge even with fh pulling me and me pulling on a quick draw I had put in above the ledge. I ended up trying to stand on what ever I could get my feet on (the hands were worthless - I knocked a hold off that was the size of a baby's head barely grabbing it). I finally made it to the top and got our gear back. Surprisingly, since I wasn't really climbing, it was the hardest thing I climbed the whole day.

Looking forward to more climbing there!

and then fun hog, who commented that I never have pics taken where people can see my face, snuck took this picture and then sent it to me with the caption "I'm a dork!" - then he said "why can't you ever look normal in a picture?"

don't mind the explosions on my back deck

I bought one of those stretchy green hoses to water my upper deck flower garden. I drilled a hole in the side deck wall and ran it up the gutter so I could access the water spigot below the deck.

stretchy hose coiled on upper deck

 Even though we've had a lot of rain I decided to add some water to the self watering planters yesterday. I went downstairs and turned the hose on. My contractor Neal was standing near his saw.

From the upper deck, Neal's saw

As I turned on the hose I heard a loud POP. Then water started spraying off the upper deck. I was under the deck so I was fine, but Neal was standing right in the line of water fire. We were both like "what the FUCK just happened?" I turned off the hose and went upstairs on the deck.

my fucking stretchy hose exploded

Somehow pressure, I guess, built up in the hose (hasn't been turned on for a while) and the top part blew off. Neal said "I think those fucking things are guaranteed for life. You should get your fucking money back!"

Haha. My dad suggested that I get a different type of hose.