family
River of Lights 2017 Now with more Paula!
Just before Christmas we headed down to the ABQ Biopark to check out their annual River of Lights display. They fill the botanical gardens with festive lights, generally Christmas or winter related but always fun.
It was cold enough to feel cold even though we dressed appropriately. Never mind that. Dinosaurs!
Goofy family photos to follow….now:
Holiday Weekend Starts Outside
Happy Weekend everyone. Just a quick update to say this Fourth of July we are sticking close to home and relaxing as much as possible.
You runners know what relaxing means right? Getting outside and getting the miles in. I enjoy my running solo more often than not, but it can get lonely sometimes, be sure to bring a friend.
Along those lines: Animal had mentioned to me recently that she wanted to go hiking like we had a few times before. I was a bit surprised at this as she is twelve now and not likely to want to have anything to do with her boring stinky old dad.
Yesterday am instead of heading out the door in the am I asked her if she wanted to hike and off we went! Of course we left a note for Sweetums and Lisa.
We took a short but fun route up to a nearby rock formation I’m fond of. Pretty level at first but it gets steep on the way up.
She took a breather at the top to meditate so I naturally took a Christ-like picture. Because I could.
On the way home we made a new friend!
We returned home unbitten but with a few surprise cactus needles in us. Breakfast and then off to the rest of the day. Not a bad way to start a holiday weekend.
I did get out there to prance around the foothills on my own yesterday and today. It feels like a reward to get some sun on my back after running in the dark every morning before work.
Birthday Shenanigans!
Not really any shenanigans but plenty of fun. Last week saw both of our girls celebrating birthdays. Yes they are five years and two days apart. Yes it is fun but also kind of a lot. Mostly fun though.
Animal
Animal turned twelve this year. She’s a “young” twelve though. I think so anyway. She’s not into the pop culture and drama that seems typical of preteens and teens today. I know it’s coming but for now I’m happy to encourage he to keep reading a book a day. Srsly.
Animal made her own cake with a mold recently sent by my mother. She’s really good at this stuff.
Animal didn’t want a party. Too cool for that I guess or maybe it’s not cool enough? I don’t know, I heard that somewhere.
Anyway she will get a day to herself where she gets to dictate the meals and events that take place. Probably we’ll end up at home reading then watching Avatar: Legend of Korra. Sounds good to me.
While we were at Sweetum’s party I did manage to snag a picture of her that, well it is just beautiful:
Sweetums
Two days later on Friday was Sweetums birthday. She’s seven now. Damn they grow fast. They also made a cake with the mold sent by my mother. It turned out as great as Animal’s cake. These ladies are strong bakers.
We met her at school during the day for a special lunch (Blake’s Lotaburger), followed by donuts for the class as a treat. In turn they treated me to a concert of sone songs they had prepared for Mother’s Day that I (as a dude) did not get to see. Great fun!
Saturday we held a big party for Sweetums. She basically keeps asking for the same party so we keep delivering. As long as she likes it she will get it.
Sweetums party recipe: Jumper, Party Games, Food.
That’s it. A hot air balloon themed jumper which is fitting for New Mexico. Kids love that shit. Lisa put together a number of games for the kids to play. Water Balloon toss, Donut eating and Something about pouring water over their heads into the cups behind them. I dunno where she got them all but the kids loved them. Messy silly wet fun. What else do you need to keep people happy?
They kids and the adults had a lot of fun. Lisa has received a number of compliments of the party. No one has said shit to me. I didn’t do much planning, just set up but still why assume she did all the work? The nerve!
I am incredibly grateful to have Lisa here to plan and coordinate such events. I am a lucky husband and father to such amazing girls.
Happy Birthday everyone!
What are your favorite party games from childhood?
Cedro Peak 50k
Last Saturday was my first race of the 2017. The Cedro Peak 50k here in beautiful Tijeras, New Mexico. Seriously this one is in my backyard. And my backyard is beautiful.
Leading up to the event I had not been running as much as I would have liked. We had just finished a weight loss challenge at work and I had dropped my weekly mileage in favor of adding some weight-lifting/body-weight routines into the mix. Therefore instead of 30-40 mile weeks with appropriate long runs I was running approximately 20 – 30 miles at most with my longest run at 15 miles the week before the race.
I’ve been running nearly every day for years so I wasn’t afraid of being complete shit out there but I wanted to perform well.
0700 start meant a 0630 check in. It was cold and cloudy. Meaning we were in the clouds. Yeah that happens at 7600′. Still it was fun to be ready to go and feel the energy coming off all the people huddled into their sweatshirts.
The sun was obscured for the first three hours. At first it was just cold but as the day progressed it stayed mercifully cool, never breaching 60ΒΊ. Perfect running weather.
I felt strong and really tried to let my body guide me through this race. I ran whatever felt comfortable not what pace I wanted my Garmin to say. Turns out I was doing alright.
I averaged 12:29/mile, which is pretty god for 31 miles. On top of that I averaged 150bpm which means I was working aerobically the majority of the time.
Last year I DNF’d at Deadman Peaks due to GI issues so that was my biggest worry for Cedro. However I was able to eat anything and everything I wanted and I had no issues hydrating. I topped of at each Aid Station and ate whatever I felt like. Guacamole wraps, bacon, handfuls of M&M’s and Fig Newtons were my picks.
I generally alternated between filling up with Tailwind or water and I would drink whatever water or soda was available. This included picking up a cup of Mountain Dew (which I detest) only to find that is was not Mountain Dew but it was Pickle Juice. I was NOT disappointed.
If you are looking for a Great race, this is one of them. Beautiful terrain, technical but runnable and exceptionally well manned and appropriately spaced Aid Stations. The longest spacing was 8 miles and that one felt like forever! Kim King does a fantastic job putting this race together.
Lisa and the girls were waiting for me as I crossed the finish line. Thankfully they hadn’t been waiting long. We’re doing this thing now where they meet me at the end and avoid the all-day waiting that happens at ultra races. I was very happy to see them. I always am.
I was also happy to have had such a solid race. It felt good and wasn’t a slog-fest to the end. Made a couple trail friends along the way and got to spend Earth Day outside in the best playground of all.
What’s happening?
Apologies for the long delay in between posts. Lots has been happening to keep life…..constant.
Work while still great has been relentless. It’s Cold and Flu season so everyone is coming into the clinic with a sore throat and sinus pressure. Add to that the allergy season has started early and strong here in New Mexico…. Work is busy.
Outside of work, well life is busy there too. We and Baha’i’s around the world are in the tail end of The Fast. From sunrise to sunset for 19 days we neither eat nor drink. It’s rough but spiritually gratifying. Don’t talk to me at 4pm because I’ll be pretty salty (salty here means grumpy and liable to say something mean in a snappish manner).
Rain Wilson wrote an article a number of years back about the Fast (read it here) and he’s right it is tough and uncomfortable (it is supposed to be) but it places perspective on things.
It hasn’t all be rough and tumble though. There has been plenty of fun and exciting activities keeping us busy. Just before the Fast is Ayyam-i-Ha which we celebrated by getting all the local children’s classes together for a skating party! Roller skating is harder than I remember, I spent more time on roller-blades as a kid but still Lisa and I made most of the other adults look like beached walruses. Sweetums of course had a blast. Animal is old enough now to be too cool to hang out with us for pictures.
Sweetums school library held a Beatrix Potter fancy Tea shindig (my name for it) and we got all dressed up!
Of course no weekend is complete without a trip to the archery range. Animal got a bow for Christmas and we had not made the time to adjust it and try it out. She invited a friend along who had never shot a bow before. Sweetums I think looks like a Pro.
Finally we have been playing a lot of board games at our house. Clue is a recent addition that everyone loves. I had not played since I was Animals age and it showed but I’ve won my fair share of games.
Animal and I continue to play Tak. It gets more fun and more complex every time. Mostly we are evenly matched but some days she kills me.
OK I got that of my chest. Happy to have said something at least. It’s been on my mind while I do all that other fun stuff. Oh and DnD. I do some of that pretty much every day.
See you around here soon.
What’s been keeping you busy?
Time for a Little Slow Down…
It’s been a while since I last posted. It seems ages and ages actually. Mostly that is just because it’s been a looooooong couple of weeks.
It all started off well. The local Children’s Classes had a little gathering to celebrate restarting after the holiday break. Sledding and hot chocolate and prayers for all!
The snow didn’t last long. It never does here in ABQ.
I had a number of excellent trail runs. Some foggy and rainy weather made for a nice diversion from all that damn sunshine. I even spotted a few animal friends along the way. The roadrunner has been around for a while but the bobcats in the arroyo are new. They are a bit shy for pics and the one time I got close enough I didn’t bring my camera.
There was a pleasant snowfall yesterday morning though and Lisa and I got out for a frosty hike.
That’s all the pleasant stuff. Mostly I’ve spent the last couple weeks dealing with a bad tooth. #3 (upper right molar 2nd from back) had a root canal that has failed. It hit me hard with pain two weeks ago. Emergency dentist visit sent me to the Endodontist for $180 CT scan of my face. Result:I’m still pretty but my tooth needs to go.
A round of antibiotics killed the abscess and the pain and bought me some time to get to the Oral Surgeon. I went in on Thursday and had the tooth pulled. He had to work at it a little bit as the tooth was ankylosed (fused) to my jaw bone but muscle won the day and out came the tooth.
Fun fact: akylosaurus is a dinosaur with a fused bony club at the end of it’s tail. Also not my favorite dinosaur.
The bleeding didn’t last long and I was able to eat scrambled eggs for dinner. However I dislodged the clot that was there and started bleeding again. And this time…
It didn’t stop. All night it didn’t stop. I applied pressure with gauze. Then I ran out of gauze and used cotton balls. Then those ran out and I used tampons.
I had a giant clot clinging to the side of my mouth like green slime (dnd reference there). Technically it’s called a liver clot and basically it just keeps growing in size because the bleeding isn’t actually stopped.
I slept for about 1.5 hrs before I woke up and spit out this giant red slug like Will Byers
from Stranger Things. After that I just stayed up. I made my way to the couch and finished reading The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. I liked it but I wasn’t as blown away by it as I was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Honestly I think it was over my head for a single read through and I need to go through again. Lots of layers there of things that don’t make sense in my brain. Don’t get me wrong Androids was heavily layered but I think I’m hard-wired for fantasy and Sci-Fi so less difficulty there.
I went back to the oral surgeon in the morning and after lidocaine with epi and some more packing, the bleeding stopped and has not restarted. I went home, called in to work and went to bed.
I woke up having had the horrible dream that I had terrible tooth pain and that Donald Trump had just become President of the United States. Oh how sad I was upon waking. Thankfully the tooth pain has ended.
A Beautiful Game
To end on a happy note though: I got my kickstarter copy of Tak from Cheapass Games. Tak is a game described in the Kingkiller books by Patrick Rothfuss. It wasn’t real but now it is and it’s awesome. If you haven’t read the books yet: What the Fuck?!?! Go read them now. Even so you will enjoy the game. It’s simple to learn but probably impossible to master.
Animal and I sat down together to learn how to play. Though we both picked it up in a few minutes, with every new game we learned just how deep and complex this game is. Complexities and strategies emerged. It is the new chess. Needless to say we had a blast playing and continued to play all this weekend.
I pray you all have been happy and healthy and that you brush and floss regularly.
What are your favorite boardgames?
15 Years in Chicago
Last week Lisa and I hit 15 years officially married.
It seems like so many years and none at all. What is really amazing about hitting that mark is that as recently as three years ago it was not a certainty. In fact we were much closer to divorce than we were to anything else.
It has been a lot of work for both of us to get to where we are now. Some of the time it seemed the obstacles we had out in our own path were insurmountable, were too painful.
I’m glad we did the work. I am grateful we waded through the pain. It didn’t lessen the hurt but it taught us who we are and that lead to understanding which helped heal.
We wanted to celebrate that work. Perhaps a bit more so this year because of well, 15 years felt like a milestone. I was in charge of the plans again this year so I decided to go big. I asked my mom for some help because it’s OK to ask your mom for help.
She came into town unannounced. With my mom here to watch the girls I was able to surprise Lisa with a trip to…..
Chicago!
Yeah that’s right. Chicago. We had never been there before other than to drive through. It is a major US city and more importantly it houses the BahΓ‘’i Temple for North America. This was the primary drive for our visit, though as it turns out we took advantage of other opportunities.
We flew in Thursday morning and took the L into the city. After checking into the Talbott Hotel
we headed out for some food. Despite the somewhat inappropriate/tempting name, we opted to bypass Velvet Taco and ate at Lou Malnati’s.
Yes we did the deep dish pizza thing. It was pretty good, but the New Mexican that I am…I wanted green chile. Then it would have been outstanding.
After that we walked the Magnificent Mile doing a bit of sightseeing. We ended up in front of Trump Tower…. I don’t really want to talk about that.
Day 2
After an relatively late breakfast we took the L up to Wilmette to see the BahΓ‘’i House of Worship. Words fail me. It was just so…beautiful and serene.
The thought behind this temple was a melding of East and West and indeed you see a lot of Eastern architectural influences in this building including the minarets, which are a favorite feature of mine.
The temple is incredibly detailed and this required new techniques in concrete construction.
The surface is a mix of white cement and crushed quarts. I’m told it looks purest white and glitters when in the sun. We wouldn’t know as it was overcast the entire time we were in Chicago, but it was still a beautiful site.
The minarets held endless details. If you look from the top down you will find:
- The Nine-pointed star of the BahΓ‘’i Faith.
- The Star and Crescent of Islam
- The Cross of Christianity
- The Star of David
- The Hooked Cross of Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions
We spent some time walking the grounds despite the chilly winds. Inside the temple we attended the 12:30 Devotionals and spent a great deal of time simply sitting in silent prayer and meditation. Most of the time I was praying and reflecting.
Some of the time I was thinking about how I could use the layout and design of the temple for a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. I think I did pretty good overall.
It was a very moving experience and I am grateful to have been able to share that with Lisa. Not so many years ago I would have hesitated to admit a belief in God and today my faith is a cornerstone in my life and a roadmap for all of my interactions with the world.
All I had to do was give it up.
After most of the morning and early afternoon we headed back into the city for our evening plans. But I’m going to make this a cliffhanger.
How many times can I say we had a busy Weekend?
Yeah yeah you get it. We ended up doing more than we planned and even though it was a three day weekend for me, after it all I’m tired and now I have to go to work and give probably 3000 flu shots in the nextthreedaysandnowI’mjustcomplaningandtalkingtoofastlikeagnomefromtheDragonlancebooks.
What? You haven’t read the Dragonlance books? Go check out the first three in the series. They’re the best of the lot and I still find them inspiring.
Date Hike
Lisa and I spent Friday morning hiking in the Bosque. It is lovely living up in the foothills but there is something nice about those big trees down by the river.
Saturday we spent finishing up some costume ideas and then off to a Halloween party with some Baha’i friends. It was a very good time with very good vegetarian chili.
It was fun and we enjoyed ourselves but man were we tired and grumpy the next day. Well, I was at least. I worked it out on a quick run in the afternoon though.
I swung by Active Imagination, our friendly local nerdstore Gaming store to preorder a new DnD book and maybe pick up some Magic:the Gathering cards. I was planning on teaching Animal how to play since some of her friends at school play and I’m old enough to remember when MtG came out and didn’t have worldwide tournaments.
Anyway I got a few free starter decks from the fine folks at AI and we played a quick intro game. She took to it quite well and I’m guessing we’ll have more games coming up.
I pray you all had a wonderful weekend? Who has played MtG? Come on admit it nerds!
Another Long Weekend
Another long weekend here and looking to make the most of it. Which means I really want to take long runs, read the latest Jay Kristoff book and get some shit laid out for the next DnD campaign (first in a few years).
Actually all of that has or will happen this weekend. So I’m good. There are just a few more things happening in between all of that goodness.
Firstly Friday was date day for Lisa and myself. Lisa had the honors of planning it. Initially it was going to be a hike up on the peak, but she’s been sick all week and is not yet fully recovered. That and we found out last minute that Sweetums was tie-dying a shirt with her class on Friday. We of course like to be involved in anything we can, so we jumped over there first before heading out on a smaller trail.
We hit the Embudo Trail which is just a few minutes from the house (I love living in the foothills). A relaxed pace in and out and we had four miles under our feet and lots of sunshine.
I particularly enjoy coming through the canyon into the open basin deeper in the foothills. It felt very secluded from the city and would make for a beautiful hike/run in the snow (taking notes for this winter).
The next part of our date was less flashy but equally important: we had a little sit down about money. It was an overdue financial talk and actually left us both a bit uplifted. We are currently in a better place than we have been in a long while, maybe ever. **don’t fuck it up…don’t fuck it up**
After school we hung out with the girls and had a movie night. Meet the Robinsons. 2007 Disney flick. Not bad. I could go on about how predictable it was and how quickly I figured it out but I’m a fucking 36 year old man watching a kids movie. I’m the winner.
Saturday
Animal went out the door early to a Jr Youth event in Santa Fe. Actually I brought her. It was early and the weather decided to turn here in ABQ so it was pretty damn cold. I got her off with her group and since I was close to the river I changed my plans and did my long run down in the Bosque. 11.5 miles in a nice relaxed pace. I saw a coyote briefly (one of my favorite animals) and ate an energy bar made out of crickets. 
It was pretty good. I ordered a box of them after reading about them in Trail Runner. They taste like an ordinary energy bar BUT WITH CRICKETS. About 75 per bar I think. Much more sustainable than beef protein.
Check them out over at Jungle Bar.
I got some nice pictures of the cottonwoods in the Bosque but none are changing color yet. It will come soon though. And the Rio Grande is always amazing.
One interesting discovery was a small half-built shelter that was apparently recently visited by a school group. I noted some papers attached to it as I ran by and upon closer inspection I found this:
All of the papers were differing versions of this same story. Obviously an assignment for the nearby students of the Bosque School but still an unexpected find 3 miles into my run.
After that fun it was my turn to hang out with Sweetums while Lisa headed out for an event. We did what any father and daughter do to have fun on the weekend. We cleaned her room.
I’m just kidding! No we did really clean her room but first we had a tickle fight. Then we played Hide and Seek tickle (when you find the hiding person you tickle them). It’s our invention so don’t play it unless you send us a quarter!
After all that fun we decided to get out of the house and hit the local establishments. Rita’s and Page 1 Books. I had it in my head to find a new Halloween themed book and Italian Ice is always nice on a warm day. Oh yeah and the gummy bear donuts.
Following this is was hang out at home with everyone once Animal and Lisa returned from their events. A pretty solid couple days.
Today: Children’s Class and I had a practice run on the 10k Trail run I signed up for last minute. It will be next Sunday. I’ll let you know!
Best of all? Animal and I sat down and made her first Dungeons and Dragons character. Super excited nerd dad here. I’m going to run her through a few encounters later this week.
I pray you all had a fun and love filled weekend. We certainly are blessed here.
What did you do? Did it involve running or dice rolling?
itsnotintothinking 