Finally...

I think that the creative bug finally came back!!!

I took most of the month of August off work to bike the Colorado Trail.

Only part of the Colorado Trail was biked. I rode most of the sections between Breckenridge and Denver with my little brother. We camped out a couple nights and I realized that inbetween both of us being in much worse shape then we thought and lots of little things going wrong that the week with my brother would be better spent staying at my aunt's house and biking with my brother up there. Luckily I was right and biked a lot and cooked alot. And got some really quality time together. After he left I headed back out on the Colorado Trail made through one section and realized two things.

1. I was not having a lot of fun cause of the bike I had.

2. I was in much worse shape then I thought and the Colorado Trail was much harder biking wise then I had expected.

The night I decided to bail out, I sat on a log for 2-3 hours and thought about my thought process and how overly optimistic I tend to be about accomplishing goals. In the end I realized that I would have to ride the whole trail some other trip. So I rode back to Breck and got a ride back to the Springs.

I arrived back in the springs and fixed up the Kaboom and started biking as I waited for my motorcycle to get fixed. The Kaboom was such a revelation. To prepare for the Colorado Trail I had set aside the single speed and rode a full suspension. The purity and the simplicity of the Kaboom was amazing. I fell back in love with mountain biking. As I rode instead of concentrating on getting somewhere I just felt the flow of the trail and actually took the time to notice the scenery. When I was on the Colorado Trail I focused on getting to the top of the next hill or to the end of the next segment. The scenery and the trip are so much more important the accomplishing the goal.

I planned to head out to Durango a couple days after I got back to the Springs, but fate intervened and my motorcycle decided to need a little bit of TLC the day before I was going to leave. As I was waiting for parts I rode the Kaboom everytime I got the chance and realized once again that I do not want to live my life in an office. I want to interact with people in person, and I want to work with my hands, I want to create.

After my motorcycle was fixed I headed out to Crested Butte which is one of the coolest mountain towns I have been to yet. I rode all kinds of cool trails around the town and heard all kinds of amazing music. All the tourists were gone because school had already started in most of the country so I got to hang out with all kinds of local Crested Butte people every night at the locals bars. I think that there tend to be a higher ratio of people I really connect with in mountain towns then on the Springs...

On the way back home I rode one of my favourite trails in Colorado. It is called the Monarch Crest trail and if you ever get the chance you must ride it. It runs right above tree line for most of the trail and all the views are amazing. Plus it flows like nothing else.

Ever since I came back to the springs, I been restless, but that restlessness has led to more biking and also more drive to create instead of sitting around. Right now I am working on turning my porch into a small bedroom plus redoing the bike rack to be cool looking at fit in with the house better, and adding recycle bins into the bike rack (pictures soon to come). I can tell I am out of practice writing, it does not flow quite as easy as before.

Biking, Biking, Biking and more Biking

It has been way to long since I sat down to write anything.

I think, ponder and then go to write the ideas down and get carried away on a rabbit trail or just being lazy.

The past 2 months have actually been amazing months. I finally started to get into the groove of biking multiple times a week to work. I was finally able to sell a friend's motorcycle and since mine was broken and I have been spending all my extra money on bike parts, it forced me to ride my bicycle to work more often. I had wanted to get started but it is so easy to put it off when another means of tranportation is available in the morning.

The best thing that happened was that I was able to get 3 weeks off work this summer to ride the Colorado Trail. And what makes it even better is that my brother gets to ride the portion from Denver to Breckenridge this summer before he starts school.

So far it has been alot easier motivate myself to ride the bike to work, the store, the trailhead, and the recycling place since I found out. I definitely strayed to far from my love of bicycling and oddly enough I can trace that to the purchase of my first motorcycle in 2004. I rode the motobike more and the bicycle less.

As I ride my bike more and more I realize why I love it so much and riding the motobike is a secondary love! Riding in the snow tomorrow will be a blast!!

100 items I would take with me to class

My friend Elizabeth got me thinking about what I would take with me if I was bringing 100 items somewhere?

I've been pondering it over in my mind, the first couple are easy but what comes after.

1 Kona Kaboom (The single speed)
1 Samoa the Traveler (to right)
1 iBook
1 Earphone
1 Bob Trailer
1 4,5,6mm wrenches
1 Chain tool
1 digital Camera
1 Colorado Recreational Map
1 lb. Raven's Nest Coffee
1 Aeropress (cool little coffee maker)
3 mechanical pencil
1 sketch pad
1 cigarette lighter
1 Beanie
1 Cilantro Plant
1 Timbuk2 bag
1 Bike work stand
1 Dwell Magazine
1 Mountain Flyer Magazine
6 bottles Pipeline Porter
1 carton OJ
1 almond joy bar
13 Jelly Bellies
1 book Landscape as Spirit
1 Knog Light + 1 vegas tail lamp (so I don't get run over wherever I am going)

1 Hookah with 1 mango and 1 double apple box of shisha
2 theater chairs from Glen Eyrie (that sit in my living room)
7 bananas
1 pair chacos

I am at 61 and am kind've running out of stuff. but I think I can go on

4 Laus Tacos... One Mahi Mahi, one shrimp, one veggie, and one chicken
1 bowl of my mom's amazing japanese curry
1 blue nalgene full of good water
3 kiwis
1 australian shepherd
1 block pepper jack cheese
12 postcards
1 black gel pen

I am up to 85 and this is definitely bringing back memories of a book that I remember reading when I was a kid where you got to count lots of things. It almost seems like a Richard Scarry book so in that case

1 Dr Suess book, maybe Horton Hears a Who
1 Richard Scarry book
1 writing pad
12 stamps for postcards

I am still amazed at how hard it is to come up with 100 items to bring somewhere. The nostalgia is definitely flowing though. I feel like I am a little kid counting stuff. It's fun!!!

Maybe this is supposed to be an experiment in details and I am not very good at focusing on details of life. I am much better at the big picture.

Oh well...

2009 Goals

So I was at my small group last week and we went over our goals for 2009. I had not really thought about them in depth until then but it was definitely a good thing. Here they are.

SPIRITUAL

1. Spend 1 hr every week focused on God

LEARNING

1. Read 1 Book per week

2. Learn how to weld

3. Learn to cook 1 new dish per week

FINANCIAL

1. Pay of all Debt

2. Save up down payment for land for yurt and funds to build yurt.

3. Save money to buy my sister computer for high school graduation

PHYSICAL

1. Commute 60 miles per week

2. MTB twice a week

3. Compete solo in 12 hrs of snowmass

RELATIONAL

1. Talk to my brother and sister at least once a week

2. Invite friends over for dinner at least once a month

RECREATIONAL

1. Go on at least 2 trips out of colorado and 1 trip out of the country this year (surfing in baja?)

2. Volunteer with Glen Eyrie Garden Society at least once a month during spring, fall, summer.

Somewhat mundane but at the same time I think very attainable.

Eyes

A common saying is that eyes are windows to the soul.

As I was looking into someone's eyes yesterday I was thinking... This is an awful lot of fun, what makes it so. technically you are just looking through a lenses at someones retina and they are doing the same thing to you.

What adds meaning to an experience??

Is it what we are told to think??

I wonder if I would have come up with the idea that eyes are a window to the soul on my own or just some version of it or if I did not have preconceived ideas and notions what would I come up with when I look into another persons eyes?