And you thought finding five bucks in your pocket was exciting

So the other day I went to get gas; our ATM card was declined, which shouldn't have happened. So I called Kelly, our house CFO, and she started looking into it. Turns out that when she's been depositing her bartending earnings at a particular branch they've been putting it into a savings account that she forgot she'd opened. And since it's a savings account they only send out quarterly statements. Anyhow, turns out there was a little over a grand in there. Now *that* was an exciting find!!!

In other news, after looking at clean vacuum cleaner bags, Raelin declared that putting a new bag in the vacuum is like changing its diaper. Gave us pause though guess it makes sense ;)

In yet other news, Liam continues to sleep like shit. Usually pretty well while Kelly and I are up, though the intervals between waking up decrease rapidly around 11:00 or so until, well, about dawn. Through that time he "sleeps" for maybe 30 - 45 minutes at a time, and really only while in direct physical contact with one of us. We're trying a different homeopathic remedy now. Thought it might be early second year molars coming in though a hefty dose of kiddie Motrin didn't change a thing. So onward onward.

I'm sipping on a gin and tonic. I thought that the mix was off cuz I put too much tonic in so I just added a little more gin. Nope. Too much gin, so I guess I'll put a little more tonic in.

Been a busy week "off." Sure I didn't check work email at all, though been a busy bee on the shed conversion. Also gave Kelly a bunch of time, which was needed and deserved. Shed's foundation finally got done with the arrival of a cement truck on Thursday morning. Actually turned out pretty darn good, though the final test will come when the weather gets cold and I fire up the radiant floor heating for the first time.

Anyhow, wrap this one up here...Kelly and I have a new blog over at http://homeontheridge.blogspot.com

Long Lost Blog

OK...serious, serious, serious blagger here. Not sure I even remember how to post ;) Anyhow, last post: May 18th. Lots happened since then. Most notably we moved up to the ridge top paradise of our dreams. Also of Note, Liam had just turned 1 and Raelin was almost 4.

Both the kiddos are doing smashingly up here. Love it much.

I think this entry will mostly be a bunch of bullets filling in the scoop from the last couple of months...perhaps a bit tasky though we'll see ;)

So yup, up on the ridge. Stunning. Beautiful. Quiet. Inspiring. Healing. The place works on me daily in very subtle ways...ways that don't lend themselves to simple words. I just know that I *feel* really good up here.

The place needs a bit of work still to get it to where we want it. Been a busy summer for sure getting it to where it is: new paint on the house and shed, my office set up in the hay loft of the barn, moving stuff to and organizing once it's at the barn. Catching frogs, picking 40 pounds of blue berries. Building a new hen house and coop for 26 (now 25 since the runt didn't make it) new chicks. We got the "meat and egg combo" so half of them will be off to the butcher on 10/4. We've painted most of the downstairs of the house. We've gotten moved in...no small feat with 2 very young kids. Installed a water treatment system for the well. A new washing machine, and new dryer and fridge are on the way (thanks mom and dad!!!!). Also got a chest freezer to hold all the berries, birds, and 1/4 cow from a farm down the road. Also looking to dig a root cellar. Also had a tractor dude come in and mow/rototill our garden beds for next year. Also are in negotiations with our friends to buy the adjacent parcel of land, which includes viewshed from our house, a nice orchard, and generally 20 acres full of knock-your-socks off beauty. Also lucked out of the house or power lines getting hit by lightning a couple weeks ago; the tallest poplar in our yard got nailed instead. Was still *very* loud. Also Kelly started working 2 nights a week as a bartender. Also Bartlebee made the jump up from Down Under for a couple days, though her trip was a bit shorter than planned cuz she slept through her flight. Not slept on the plane, mind you, like was sleeping at the in-laws when she was supposed to be getting on said flight. Raelin did the best job rubbing in the fact that a too short visit had been shortened even more with her incessant "why did you sleep through your flight?" and "next time you need to be here longer." I've simply dubbed her "Brick." However I ended up having to work part of while she was here...bummer. Also, have been out to CA 2 times for work. Also my brother came out for a couple of weeks to help with the initial move and settle in...couldn't have done it without him. Nice to watch him on the land and its effect on him. Also my folks came out for 10 days or so, though I ended up having to work while they were here, too. Bummer. Not sure why visits are seeming to line up with the crazy work weeks...

Enough about the summer hectics, so about that work thing. I must say that I'm flying high with the job, the company, the coworkers. I think that at this point if the honeymoon were going to end, it would have ended. It hasn't. The caliber of people there and the ones that keep getting hired is staggering and humbling. Seem to have made my mark for better or worse there ;)

Been working on getting the shed-to-office conversion done. It's been very slow going as other projects keep getting triaged in. Today, however, I got a big chunk done, though not before bringing down some trees and brush near the barn the exterminator says need to go (we've got a little acrobat ant problem there that needs some attention). I still managed to get over half of the insulation in place for the slab I'll be pouring. Will bang the rest out tomorrow and also hopefully get all the radiant tubing and manifold ready to go. Hoping to get a short load of concrete delivered next week so I can keep on trucking on the project. Winter will be here very, very soon...well, OK, not *that* soon, but you get the point.

Anyhow, on a final note, I'm not going to Burning Man. Was super ultra bummed about it for awhile. Still bummed though I realize the timing's just really bad this year in so many areas. Really hoping to make my return next year...

So that's a catch up post...if you're still dropping by to see if I'll update do me a favor and drop a comment ;)

I'll Be 33 This Year...

...and I've been married almost 6 years (10+ years of relationship, one more if you add pre-romance friendship), drastically changed careers, started and run a successful consultancy that kept me self-employed for over 4 years, moved across the country, became a parent twice, bought and remodeled a house, got a new full-time job with a fair amount of freelance work carrying over, have almost sold the house and closed on a new place, and only now I've learned that really, I can't do it all by myself.

And can I just say how fucking good it feels to let that unwind a bit? I mean, fuck me! So yeah, this year has been pretty nuts in the juggling department. And I'm glad to say that with the support of my lovely wife, I've started putting some boundaries around many areas including essentially hibernating my consultancy. When I took this new gig I initially had the idea that I would be able to pull a night or 2 here and get everything done. It just ain't possible; there's not enough time and quite frankly, when work starts coming upstairs with me, I'm done. Just not sure why it took so damn long to figure it out ;)

Anyhow, so big changes here. In a couple of weeks we'll be out of this house and on to the new place. There's a lot of mixed feelings about it. This place is comfortable. We've done a lot of work on it; I know it well. I know the places that are solid, and where there's issues. I know the junction box to look in for a loose wire on the smoke alarms (the electricians did a shitty job there and my fix wasn't very much better, and I just figured this one out a week or so ago anyway), I know why the shower drain pipes leak a couple drops now and again (I glued 'em and did a shitty job but was burned out on house stuff). I know which deck joists are a little off, where I mis-drilled the first ledger bolts, etc, etc, etc. There's a deep level of familiarity all around. And convenience, too with our to town.

And we're leaving this little nest to head up to the hills to a place that needs *a lot* of work. Not in the sense that this place did, I mean, it's totally livable now, but to get it to where we want it to be will be substantial. I knew this the first time we went up there, though it was more like a factual regurgitation checklist: roofs need replacing, shed-to-office conversion, barn-to-home conversion, remove those trees, gardens here and here, orchard here, wood shed here, need to install woodstoves, need to figure out some way to get off burning hydrocarbons all the time, etc, etc, etc. None of that really mattered because I was so in love with the place. And now, I dunno, it's sunk in. I wouldn't say it sunk in to the point where I'm thinking we're making a mistake, because I don't think we are, there's been *a lot* of guidance to this place in many ways that when I listen to and follow even if it doesn't make cognitive sense always has a way of clicking into discrete pieces in hindsight. Don't mean it ain't scary at times though. Seems to be what happens when one dreams big and then chases those dreams down. Sometimes it's scary. And sometimes I feel lost and doubtful.

And then again, Burning Man is just around the corner, and if there's anything I'm not doubtful about, it's getting my ass back out to the playa for a few days this year. We just finished up the 3rd season of Grey's Anatomy and on the writers' blog, I found this:

So that?s it. That was our season. I did my level best to burn it all down this season, to burn it to the ground so that we can have a place to build from next season. Burning it down was hard.

I love it!!! I was talked to a coworker about BM last week (she's never been). She was curious what I like about it. In some ways BM is pretty excessively stupid: tens of thousands of people trekking out to the desert and essentially bringing their city lifestyles with them for an experiment in temporal expression culminating in burning large and small wooden structures. Pretty stupid, though also amazingly stunning; build it up, experience it to the absolute fullest extent possible, then watch it burn to the ground. Sort of a nihilstic slant on seasonality or something ;) Regardless, I'm fired up to go back out, and in a much better emotional space this year to celebrate more than the recouperate I so desparately needed last summer.

In the interest of finishing this post I'll tie it off here, though perhaps come back around in the next few days with some family updates; Liam's now 1, Raelin's almost 4, and the antics are keeping Kel and I rollig with laughter, banging our heads against the wall in frustration, questioning in self doubt, and mopping the overflow from our hearts off the floor. Indeed life is full full full ;)

Trying to Catch Up

(And here's another one that I started and never finished from a week ago)...

And not only here...

It's been so long since I blogged, and I mean really blogged, that I'm not even sure where to pick up...

Really I don't. I mean, there's been some really deep emotional shifts moving around, good ones though certainly not always pleasant. Stuff around becoming a father (this goes back, oh, 4 years or so), and more navigating the radical shift a marriage goes through when kids come along. It's been a lot of work and I'm glad that we've come out the other end of it, not because I ever remotely doubted we would, but because it just sucked.

And then there's these 2 people in my life that are my kids, and they're getting older so very fast, and yet still so very little and vulnerable.

(anyhow, I'm in no mood to finish this one, so I'm posting as-is; just know that there's some big, deep stuff happening, too ;)

Stomping in the Ol' Cruzin' Grounds

Wow. I got as far as titling this post back in the beginning of April when I was out in CA on a biz trip. Must have been right after I rented that sweet (and I mean *sweet*) Turner 5 Spot from Another Bike Shop. All I can say is....oh...my....god....

I can still feel that bike, and the long, long, ok-I-have-no-idea-where-this-trail-comes-out-and-it's-gonna-be-dark-and-I-have-no-lights-or-reflectors-and-I-really-don't-give-a-flying-fuck ride I did up through campus, then down through Grat Whale and into Wilder. Seriously, I couldn't just cut and go back to the studio, and I ended up, well, out in the dark. By the time I made it down to the bike path back to town I could just barely make out the white stripes against the black pavement. But, the bike; it was literally like flying. At one point I was down in a gulley and the sun had gone down and it was near total dark down there. I went down a little berm on the trail that looked to be smooth and ended up being a 2-3 foot drop, all onto the front end. On most bikes it would have been an instant over-the-bars wreck, though with a 5" travel front fork from Fox it just plushed through like buttah. Seriously, people talk about the ease of a point and shoot camera, well this is a point and shoot bike. So incredible to ride...

Anywhoo, that was the highlight of that trip. Also got to eat up a burrito at my favorite SC taqueria, grabbed a breakfast burrito and latte from the Chill Out Cafe (where they roll the fatty :p ), picked up a 6 pack of Red Tail Ale, saw the first swell in many weeks roll through the Lane, and generally had a kick ass time even though I was working like a dog during the days. Managed to get up to SF to see the old crew (and even bump into my brother, w00t!) and pick up a pre-release of the new Bassnectar cd. Which has me soooooo fired up for Burning Man this year OMFG!!!!!

Yeah, a good trip. Did I mention I worked a lot? I did, though true to the company values, that too was a blast. Oh, and the coffee place a couple blocks from the office has redefined the latte for me. It's that good; they even swirl a little heart into the touch of foam on the top. I'm such a sucker for that kind of stuff; the last touch of love...

Crayola Head

Tried to post this the other day...didn't work...

Anyhow, here's the purple...

Boarded Out

Today is a slow day on the body front. And sore. A couple of weeks ago, when we got back from our trip Kelly and I were talking about things we really wanted to do; I really wanted to get some more turns in and at the time we had a ton of snow here. Then we had a string of 3 showings and an open house in 4 days, near the end of this a major rain storm moved through and, well, it pretty much tanked the local ski season.

I was pretty bummed, so Kelly being the most awesome wife in the world that she is told me to beat it to Sugarloaf the following weekend for a day. I did have a couple gift cards that were about to be worthless, so the lift ticket would be a freebie. Without hesitation I said yes. Then the next storm lined up...

The 'loaf got about 18" of new snow over the last weekend; when I showed up on Sunday morning the sun was starting to break through flurries and the groomers were exceptional. Spent the next couple hours riding solo until a buddy from NH got there, then we rode for another several hours in the afternoon. It was totally epic.

Anyhow, I didn't think I'd ever say it, but I'm pretty boarded out at this point, and looking back at this season, there's some pretty sweet notches on the old belt:
-hit 2 days at Kirkwood in January right after they got a big dump; it was the last storm there for about 6 weeks.
-hit Vail for 1.5 days after they got 100" (yeah, that's 100!) over the prior 3 weeks.
-carved up some freshies at Sugarloaf yesterday.
Throw in the handful of mixed days at the local hill and that's really a pretty phenomenal season!

So I'm stoked and got a belly full of fat turns. Here's to the long fast until next winter!