Merry Christmas

We finally had a white Christmas this year, the first in several winters as far as I can remember. Got a nice 6" or so on Christmas eve.... quite pleasant indeed. April & I stuck around home for the holiday again this year, just appreciating the cozy celebration and taking it easy, making good food and drinking doctored up eggnog.

After a lazy morning with a handful of gifts and strong coffee, we got out of the house for a sunny urban trek amongst the melting snow. I love being out on Christmas day, the city is so quiet it feels like it's completely deserted.

Mr. Xmas, who lived on the top of my car for a day

colorful condemned warehouse near the train tracks

stumbled across a semi truck trailer storage yard up north

Mt. Meeker and 14,259' Long's Peak neatly framed at 33rd & Blake St in the neighborhood

Elbow Surgery v2.0

The surgeon originally told me that most everyone with the kind of hardware I have in my arm eventually has it removed due to pain and discomfort. I need to have this done before the end of the year in order to avoid paying my insurance deductible all over again. And I'm very eager to see if it helps alleviate the pain I get when lifting or pushing things, pain when I do physical therapy to work on regaining more extension of my elbow, pain when I hit a bump while riding my bike, pain from a bumping my elbow on anything solid, resting it on a table, sleeping on it, reaching for something on a shelf... you get the idea. Pain of a lesser or greater degree from a whole lot of "normal" things I used to take for granted.

Although this is a fully anesthetized operation, it's fairly minor and should be a quick recovery (primarily waiting for the incision to heal up, then back to normal.) I hope the have less pain and sensitivity, be able to work harder on range of motion stretches, and to start lifting weights to regain strength in my left side. I've lost a lot of strength from the injury and the ongoing pain limitations.

Here's my range of motion before the surgery:

flexion is very good, almost back to normal

extension is a problem- this is as straight as I can go

scar from first surgery

....and... things went really smoothly! No significant post-operative pain, a soft splint that allows me to bend my arm some and use my hand fairly effectively. Nice! I even made a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the afternoon. Only took prescription painkiller for the rest of the day, after that I felt ok on my own.

I should be all set to return to work on my bike by Monday.... carefully. I built up my old touring buddy Bianchi cyclocross bike into a winterized urban warrior before the surgery. It's what I'll be riding while my arm heals (and whenever it snows.) Currently set up with narrow knobby tires, mountain bike style flat bar handlebars, brakes and shifters.

Thanksgiving

When you love to cook, you love Thanksgiving. We gathered with a gang of friends old and new, but first spent the day at home in the kitchen. I made my Thanksgiving standby of homemade perogies. It's something I do every year for T'giving because my dad always wanted perogies with our family's holiday meal. Since I don't have to worry about making a turkey and a million other things, I can spend a day making the dough & filling, assembling and boiling them, and finally sauteing them in my own herbed butter. 

April typically makes homemade noodles in vegetables and broth, also from a family tradition of her own:

Gobble gobble!  Thanks given for our friends, family and bounty!

Mom & Dad visit + CO road trip

Mom and Dad paid a visit to their slacker son here in The West, so we went for a good trek in the Rockies. They loved it. Admittedly and appreciatively, it's my folks who introduced me to the mountains, to traveling, to exploring and being adventurous. As a youngster, I saw the gleam in their road-yearning eyes and took some lessons, that desire to move and see. They took me to a ton of new places in this world! I can't begin to grasp the fortitude it would require to drag 2 kids into a camper/van for weeks on the road. It's a safe bet that I'd leave the kids at the first encounter of a Rest Stop. Thanks to my folks for instilling that yearning for new territory...

I'd composed a tentative itinerary for us to follow on a 4 day Colorado road trip, seeing some of my favorite places and a couple on my own personal list of  'gotta see CO' locales. Little did I know, as we traversed the state, they'd actually been to most of these places, canyons, scenic drives already... some before my days and some that I already coursed through as a boy in the back seat of the van. Due to an approaching storm system, we elected to refrain from heading further west and trending north instead. Even though they'd once seen these places years ago, they still love it. I like it too; that's why I'm still here in Colorado.

First stop on the roadtrip is the Air Force Academy in CO Springs, which is extremely angular:

Next we made it to the legendary Bishop's Castle, which is exquisitely organic. Unbelievably, this 160ft tall castle is a one-man effort begun in 1969 by Jim Bishop and is still growing and evolving. This place is equal parts amazing, awe-inspiring and potentially deadly. I highly recommend it without hesitation, although you will experience hesitation when you crawl out upon its catwalks....

After a walkabout in various little mountain towns, we drove over the Continental Divide in a mild snow shower and got to Glenwood Springs for the 2nd night. Here now, is the adventuresome spirit I've come to know, my parents. A snowy drive in a Honda Civic brings a pretty sunrise.... 

The next day we headed southwest into Aspen... and to an utterly deserted drive back to the Maroon Belles. Sadly the two Belles themselves were socked in with clouds, but the essence back there was sublime. It mattered not that we didn't capture the postcard photo of the the ridged sedimentary mud peaks... Mom loved being amongst the mountains with her family. [and alas, we should go backpacking together next year]

Cold Frame in the garden

For several years I've been wanting to experiment with a cold frame in the garden, and finally this year I got around to constructing one. Spurred along by having access to Randy's workshop and having dumpster-dived about 99%of the materials used, I dug in just 2 days before the first forecast frosty night. It was hurried, to say the least. A masterpiece, not as much.....


9 lettuces and 3 hearty kales generously donated by way of D.U.G. have become my pets/specimens as we forge ahead into the frigid months to come. The idea here is to cultivate a miniature greenhouse to protect these lucky plants from the inevitable chill of Denver winter. How long it will persevere, remains to be seen.

1st Snow

Got a few inches of snow last night and today... first of the year. Winter's a-comin'. This storms was particularly beautiful because much of the colorful autumn foliage was still on the trees, bedecked in white fluff. Sadly for the trees, though, the extreme weight of the moisture and leaves led to a massive amount of snapped limbs around town.

Georgia Pass via mountain bike

We got one (potentially) last really warm weekend on October before the snows start to sock in the high country. April had prior plans in the city so I packed up the car solo with my mountain bike for one last camping/biking weekend for the season. Headed up to Kenosha Pass southwest of Denver and set up in the dispersed car-camping area east of the pass. So nice and peaceful; this area is packed most of the summer but now in October it was pretty desolate, yet convenient. On Saturday afternoon I rode the Colorado Trail about 6 miles east until it enters the Lost Creek Wilderness area (no bikes allowed in Wilderness Areas.)

After a relaxing evening alone reading next my campfire, on Sunday I rode northwest up to the Continental Divide at Georgia Pass. This was my Big Ride of the season, so happy to get up to the divide via my legs this year. It's been a long summer of recovery, and a huge trophy to regain the continent.

very last of the autumn colors at 10,500ft. Sawatch Range beyond

crossroads of the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide Scenic Trail

at Georgia Pass on the Continental Divide at 11,600ft... looking west towards Breckenridge

Instead of backtracking, I opted for the Jefferson Creek trail to loop me back down. Plenty of snow on this north facing slope; below tree line I ended up slogging through 2 miles of 8" snowy switchbacks while dropping down into the sweet flowing creekside singletrack along Jefferson Creek. Totally worth the hassle!

 

About 25miles and 5,000ft of climbing today.... wish this was every day of my life!

Mountain biking outside Boulder

My dispatcher had a couple of days off, which meant that I was on office duty up in Boulder. It being my favorite time of year in the Foothills and emboldened by my recent return to mt. biking, I brought the fatty tire bike up both days and took advantage of being next to some great riding.

On Thursday, I cut out of the office a bit early to catch the 4:40pm bus up to Nederland and got in 2hrs of really fun trails in the West Magnolia zone. My most recent trail day up here ended up with me in the hospital, so it was a victory of sorts to revisit my old trail haunt that I've ridden so many times since moving to Boulder--- 8 years ago. Sadly I forgot to pack the camera, and that's especially sad because it was perhaps the most electric and vibrant neon aspen colors that I've ever seen in my life! Sections of these trails duck through full canopies of young aspens, and it felt like a Disneyland ride to pedal through a fully encompassing tunnel of screaming neon yellow.

Friday I pedaled out from the office up to the Batasso Loop just a couple miles up Boulder Canyon, eager to check out the newly built Benjamin Loop addition. Got a late start, rode slow, and found the new spur to be longer than I'd expected. Luckily I had packed my lights and ended up pedaling the last hour in the darkness. This was my first proper singletrack in pitch black with only a headlight, and it was kinda fun. Kinda nerve wracking as well....


Started off well enough with a nice sunset ride outside of town....

But the last hour turned into this....  (Boulder city lights way down below in the distance!)
Made it home safe and sound, very very carefully.... ~4mi in the pitch black, a mile or two on technical singletrack.

"naked" fixed gear

I've been riding my fixed gear track bike for work with the aid of a front brake all summer while my elbow heals. I've managed to not use the brake even once (I've ridden without a brake for about 10 years now) but it's a nice piece of mind knowing it's there with my weaker left arm. However, the front wheel I was using snapped a spoke today at work, so I put my old track wheel back on and took the brake off. Figure if I can ride a mountain bike for 3 hours on the Colorado Trail, I can do without the brake. Every step closer to my old self feels like a big accomplishment.

back to the mountain bike!!

April and I packed up the car and took off for some rustic car-camping outside Buena Vista along the Collegiate Peaks in the Sawatch Range of the Rockies. We found a nice quiet campsite near the dead end of a dirt road in the National Forest and had a fun night by the campfire.

My elbow's feeling stronger and more stable so I brought my mountain bike along to have my first go at riding trails since my accident in June. The Colorado Trail passes through this area just a few hundred yards from our campsite and on Sunday I rode south for a couple of hours to Sand Creek before turning around and heading back to camp. Autumn foliage was spectacular and the aspens were peaking! A really beautiful weekend and a major hurdle cleared in getting back into the woods on my bike. I'm not at 100% by any means, but felt pretty solid once I got into the groove of mountain biking. I can't wait to get back to the trails soon!

Sunday afternoon, April hiked the Colorado Trail north a few miles to Mt. Princeton Hot Springs, and I finished up my bike ride and met her over there with the car. A relaxing soak until dusk came upon us, then stopped off in Leadville for our favorite bargain dinner of filet mignon at Quincy's.

City O' City- installing the chandelier

First off, for a much better expose of the finished work at City O' go to Randy's site!

Last of the major work at City O' City is transporting the custom chandelier (and it's 1000+ individual strands of delicate fiber-optics) from the workshop to the restaurant, and then hanging it from the ceiling beam. It was built while hanging from a custom wooden frame, so we modified that to keep everything in place and then late at night trailored it to City O'.

It made the trek without incident, and we had a team of good guys to help move it into place and install it hanging from the ceiling beam above the large community table in the center of the restaurant.

The finished product resplendent in full effect!

View from the table directly underneath the main chandelier- this is only a small portion of the whole apparatus, but you get an idea of just how much tedious work April did to individually hand-build each and every strand of fiber-optic string.

Chicago!

In a gem of perfect timing, the very next day after City O' City opened for business, I had a flight booked to Chicago where I met up with April. She had been seeing her family in Kentucky, then flew up to Chicago for a few days back in the city that was once both our homes. Perhaps from the delirium that I was recovering from now that I could finally sleep for more than 2 hours a night, I basically forgot to take any photos while in the city. Whoops.

lunch along the annual Renegade Craft Fair

CTA stations no longer offer the amenities they used to

new bike shop along Milwaukee Avenue

After a couple days in the city, I took the train down to Indiana to spend a few days in Saint John with Mom & Dad & Maggie. Again I totally forgot to take any photos but we had a nice time catching up and getting some work done. Dad put me to the task of helping take down a huge limb that had broken in the backyard poplar tree. I miss yardwork like trimming shrubs and trees, so I had fun spending a day with a saw and clippers tidying up the landscaping

more City O' City work

Some critical crunch-time maneuverings with the City O' City project. With only a week until the scheduled opening day (the restaurant has been closed for 6 weeks during the remodel/expansion) Randy and I were working a week of consecutive all-nighters. Weekends we'd be working in the restaurant space from 7pm until 7am. It was a fun routine to experience the city (and Capitol Hill neighborhood in particular) go through it's transition from daytime to dead of night and then back to life as daybreak came to a pair of weary craftsmen. Weekdays I still had to work at the couriers, and never in my life have I managed to survive (barely) on just a couple hours of sleep a night (and sometimes none at all) for almost 2 weeks straight. We got most everything done, and all of the critical things needed to run a restaurant. Still some finishing touches of various degrees to tackle in the coming week or two.

Some photos of the progress:
This will be the coffee service area behind the orange/brown metal. In front will be one of the large barn-beam countertops I've been working on. The metal in the following pics in the sheet metal skin taken from a 1946 semi-truck trailer that Randy bought from an old junkyard and repurposed here as the interior finishings.

The kitchen bar service area will have the second barn-beam countertop and allow patrons to eat while watching into the open kitchen. The wall light fixtures were also salvaged from an old warehouse and retrofitted with ultra-efficient LED bulbs.

Transporting the finished barn-beam coutnertops from Randy's workshop to the restaurant on the top of his old Volvo wagon. I was terrified that they'd slide off en route, dashing my dozens and dozens of hours of work perfectly finishing the antique wood.

Today I learned to use a cut-router! Safety glasses did their job.

Opening night!!!!

Still need to hang the custom chandelier and matching fiber-optic light fixtures, and a few finishing touches. But all the major things got done, the city health inspectors passed our work and there was a line out the door all night long. And I learned an amazing amount of skills from Randy; this has been one of the most rewarding and interesting opportunities I've had in a long time. I'm very grateful to have had the chance to work on this project.