Feed Update

So I put the wrong feed address in my previous post. This is the correct one. If you happened to get it (I think only one person did) please use the new address.

Springtime is HERE!

I know I have posted about it previously, but spring is here. I played ultimate frisbee for the first time this year today. Every week at work a group of people spend their lunch time playing basketball, frisbee, or something else. Today happened to be the first outside ultimate game. It was a beautiful day, pleasant temperatures, and sunny!

Another group of people at work are running for lunch two days a week to train for the Wasatch Back Relay. The WBR is a 2 day relay race that starts in Logan and ends in Park City. Backcountry.com (work) sponsors a couple of teams made up of employees every year. Last year I didn't get to participate because of Jess and I's trip to Lake Tahoe. I am wicked excited about it, it will be a good time.

Feeds for Thought

I set up an RSS feed for my blog. I am curious to see if it actually gets adopted by anyone. It is super simple right now. You can either click the link in the side bar or just click here. Copy the URL and paste it into your favorite reader or use the drop-down.

I like feeds.

Climbing Day

Today was the first big outing of the year. I went up Little Cottonwood Canyon with a co-worker to get in some long trad-mileage. We met at the mouth of LCC just before 8 am. We went up to the Gate Buttress and started in on the fun. We put in 4 routes and a total of 6 pitches. That was a very long trad day for me. It was awesome because it was a great way to work on crack technique. In all of those climbs I did get my first trad lead in of the year. Other firsts from the day were: first time seeing a cam used as a stopper and first time climbing a flaring crack. It was awesome. I got home about 2:00 and had lunch with Jess and Penelope. While we were eating Jess said "I want to get outside". So what did we do? We went bouldering. Back up LCC to boulder. We met up with Matt and Bri shortly after we got there. We got in some good climbs.

Jess, Penelope, and I enjoying the afternoon in the mountains.

Warming up

Jess is excited, can you tell?

Jess working the start of Mud

Overhanging mantle problem that defeated me this time.

It was a very good day. Penelope LOVES being outside. We had her in the front carrier most of the time. She was constantly looking around to see what was around. She would just look up and marvel at the tall lodgepole pines.

On our way home I was talking to Jess and I realzed that between 7:30 am and 8:00 pm I spent a total of an hour and a half inside today. It was awesome.

First Hike of the Year

Yesterday was an extremely active day for us. The weather has been absolutely beautiful as of late. It was in the low 70s yesterday so we decided to go for a hike.

We cruised up to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail just behind the UofU for a short hike. Penelope went in the front carrier with a big sun hat and away we went. We were only out for about an hour, but it was perfect for the first outing of the season.

It didn't take long for Penelope to fall asleep.

The usual Miller self-portrait.

I am eagerly awaiting the baby backpack so we can head out on longer hikes.

We came home for lunch and quickly tired of being inside. We packed up the car and went up to Ogden to do some bouldering at the 27th Street boulders. We completely forgot to take pictures. It was a good time. Penelople hung out in her carseat, she slept for little bit, but when she woke up she had a good time watching us climb. She would actually laugh at us a little bit when we were on the rock. Jess did really well for her first time bouldering outside since being pregnant last year.

Site Counter

I finally got a site counter. I have been curious for awhile now how many people come to my blog. I don't think it is very many but I am curious anyway. This should prove to be very interesting.

Why can't we be like this?

This is one of the best stories I've seen/read in a long time. It's about the island of Samso off the coast of Denmark, it is virtually energy self-sufficient. Not only do they produce all of their own fuel and power, they do it without carbon emissions and they do it sustainably. The residents of this island are extremely resourceful. Why are we as a nation so far behind? Why is there no push or support from the government to pursue such activities?(avoiding small political rant...). The Danish goverment and the citizens of Samso are excellent examples of people and government working together to find alternative methods for energy and fuel. They definitely deserve kudos for the strides they've made and will continue to make.

I recommend watching the video.

By Popular Demand...

I'll be honest there was only one request for the canvas grocery bag pattern. I did some google searches thinking there would be lots of patterns to choose from, I was wrong. I mostly ended up with results of people selling bags. I did find one pattern that we use. You can find it here.

It is an all right pattern, the bags seem sturdy enough (so far they've worked), but the part about adding the gussets wasn't explained very well (that is mine and Jessi's opinion, perhaps we aren't very smart). It took doing it wrong once, being mad about it, Jess making her own bag and figuring it out, then me unpicking mine, and resewing it to figure out what the instructions meant. Good luck and if you want tips on the gussets just let me know.

Am I a Hippy? - Part Two

The previous post was about making our own canvas grocery bags (hippy?). This post is about an environmental viral marketing campaign.

Over the past few months I've spent a lot of time thinking about living a more environmentally conscious and sustainable life. One of my recent topics of thought has been waste. I've been paying additional attention to the amount of junk mail we receive, the amount of papers I print at work, the amount of paper towels people use in the restroom, the amount of napkins used at restaurants, etc. I had thought of ways that I could reduce my personal consumption but I hadn't thought of any effective ways to get the word out. I was more than excite when I found a blog titled These Come From Trees. It is " An experiment in environmentalism, viral marketing, and user interface design with the goal of reducing consumer waste paper!" (from their blog header).

The "These Come From Trees" (TCFT) solution is exactly what I was looking for. It is an easy way to remind people that those 23 napkins they took (of which they will only use two and throw away the rest) came from trees or that they don't need six paper towels to dry their hands. They are reminded by a carefully placed sticker on the paper dispenser.

I can fully get behind TCFT and support what they are doing. The thing I like the most about this is it is subtle. It isn't chaining yourself to a tree or fire-bombing the paper plants. I think it will be more effective because it is speaking to the consumer, not the producer or anyone in the supply chain. If the consumer reduces their use then the producer will manufacture less and then less trees will be cut down. That is a very simplistic view and it may be viewed as naive, however, a small change in consumer usage will effect a large change higher up.

I am signing up for some stickers and will enjoy putting them up.

Am I a Hippy?

So this may be a multi-part post. I don't really think I am a hippy but a few posts may make it seem like I am.

For Christmas we received a sewing machine from Jessi's mom. My first project with the sewing machine was making canvas grocery bags. It was a fun project. I found a short how-to on the internet, bought some on-sale canvas, and away I went.

I made the first bag which was a definite learning experience for me. It had been awhile since I had sewn anything (probably since home-ec class in the 7th grade) and needless to say I was very rusty. The bag turned out far from professional but it will serve our needs.

Jess made the second bag and it is by far the best one we have. I made the third bag. This one turned out better than the first, but still isn't as good as the one Jess made.

The result, three canvas bags, all slightly different sizes. I am excited because it will significantly reduce the number of plastic grocery bags we use. I like the idea of the canvas bag because it is reuseable and will reduce waste.

Apparently I'm Spammy

It has been awhile since I have written a blog and I am glad that I logged in today. Apparently Google has bots crawling blogs now and they are flagging some that have "spam" characteristics. Mine was one of those. I had fill out a quick verification and should up and running in a couple of days.

I am curious though what part of blog resembles spam. There was a quick summary of what a "spam blog" is but I didn't read it.

More to come in about "two business days" once my blog has been reviewed.

Famous? Not Quite.

At work we feature a monthly newsletter for our email subscribers. Periodically we conduct gear tests on various types of gear. We most recently conducted a test on wool baselayers vs. synthetic baselayers. The results were pretty interesting.

I was able to participate in this test and am featured in the article (not really tooting my own horn). The article is well written and I recommend that you check it out here.

My First Whoompf-ing Experience

I went ski touring yesterday morning for the first time in probably a month. Winter here hasn't really been winter and the snowpack was just faceted crystals the whole way through. We've recently had a few, small systems come through and give us more of the good stuff.

Matt and I headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon at about 6 am. Since the avalanche danger was rated "considerable" in most areas we decided to hit up some low-angle, sheltered aspects. We started touring up Mill D to a small slope that is covered in aspens. We'd skied here before and it is a relatively safe slope. Our first run went off without a hitch. The turns were smooth and nice. The new snow was dense and provided some buttery turns.

After reaching the bottom we decided to make another lap. We skinned back up to the top of the short shot we previously hit. From there we wanted more vert so we started up an adjacent peak. Being concerned about safe travel, we quickly made our way to a ridgeline and made our way up. About halfway up the ridge become choked off by trees and deadfall. This forces us just off to the side of the ridge. We hugged the trees as close as we could and continued towards the top.

At one point the trees ended and we started making our way back up to the ridge. We were close together and in a somewhat open area when we heard a loud "Whoompf". We stopped dead in our tracks, listened intently, and looked around. The "whoompf" sound is made when one layer of snow collapses onto another layer. This is a sure sign of instabilities in the snowpack. With my heart now racing I scanned the snow to find a few small fractures that had propagated a few feet.

Avalanches can occur when a strong layer is sitting on top of a weak layer. The weak layer then fails and the strong layer comes ripping down the mountainside. When that weak layer fails, the strong layer then collapses through the weak layer and the sound you hear is "whoompf".

We quickly made the decision to spread out and get off the aspect we were on. Since Matt was breaking trail he continued while I moved back to a couple of small trees. Once Matt was on safer ground I moved up to meet him. We then proceeded, one at a time, up the ridge some more to dig a pit. We dug a quick pit and did some simple shear tests.

From here we were less then a minute from the ridgeline so we prepared to move up to it. As Matt started moving, we once again heard a loud "whoompf'. This time, however, I dropped a couple of inches. It could have been because I was standing right where we dug the pit, it could have been that I was standing on snow that was on top of bushes. Whatever the specific cause, it once again made my heart start pounding. I moved over to a large aspen, just in case, while Matt skinned to the ridge. I then quickly and very carefully joined him.

We decided our best bet for a safe ski down was to make a quick traverse over to an aspect similar to the one we had previously skied. The decision was sound and we enjoyed some very smooth, fun turns through an aspen grove back to the skin track. We skied one at a time from island of safety to island of safety. Within a couple of these short skis I had some of my best turns of the year. The last section was the longest and the best. I just happened to pick an awesome line.

After a very short and fast descent down the skin track we were back at the parking lot. It was a fun, extremely eventful, and educational morning.

Changes at Work

My associate at work that I have worked with since moving up to the corporate office just quit his job to take a 6 month climbing road trip. We were both working on varying aspects of email marketing. What does this mean for me? Well we don't have a replacement for him, yet. So for the time being my work load is going to drastically increase. In a situation like this many people would complain. I am actually looking forward to it. It is going to challenge my organizational, prioritization, and time management skills. There are going to be many good opportunities that will present themselves.

One really great benefit of this change is that I am going to learn vast amounts of information. I am diving into projects that have been rolling for awhile and taking on projects that I haven't had anything to do with.

I will admit when I first heard about my co-worker leaving my initial reaction was negative and I wasn't looking forward to the changes. Now that I have had time to think it through I am embracing the change. It will be a great opportunity for me to excel and really prove my worth.

Blog Aversion?

I thought for awhile that perhaps I was allergic to blogging. As it turns out I am just plain lazy.

It isn't that I don't have anything to write about. I have plenty that I could write about. The issue is when I get home from work I find myself doing other things that I would rather be doing at that time with the intention of blogging later. Once later comes I am tired and just go to bed. I almost didn't write this post but I decided to postpone bed for 2 minutes while I eeked this out.

Avalanche Clinic

Two Saturdays ago I attended an avalanche clinic. Work worked it with the Utah Avalanche Center to provide a two-day avalanche clinic for employees of Backcountry.com. Thursday night was the classroom session where we spent 3 hours learning some basics on avalanches. Our instructor was incredibly enthusiastic. He is one person that you can tell is very passionate and loves his job. I have been to a few classroom discussions that covered the same material but this guy made it extremely enjoyable.

Saturday was field day at The Canyons. The entire group of us, about 40 or so plus 8 guides (most of whom are all avalanche educators), met just before 8:00 and caught a pre-opening gondola ride up to mid-mountain. From there we split into four predetermined groups. The day was going to be made up of four mini-clinics with each group rotating through each clinic.

The day started off for my group with a rescue scenario. We ducked out-of-bounds and skinned partway up a ridge to catch a few turns to where the rescue scenario would begin. The rescue scenario was this: "We had just skied into an area where an avalanche just happened. There were some bystanders who saw the slide. They said there were two people buried. One with a beacon and one without." We took stock of the situation and broke into two groups. One group doing a beacon search and the rest of use forming a probe line to find the victim who didn't have a beacon. We were a little rusty getting started, but it was most of our first time doing any kind of rescue scenarios. All in all it wasn't too bad. It took the beacon searchers about 5 minutes to find the first victim and it took us about 20 minutes to find the second victim (without a beacon). All in all it wasn't too bad for our first time. We then regrouped at the top of the "slide path" and recapped what happened. We discussed what went well, what could have been improved, and what didn't go well. It was very informative and helpful to finally put some knowledge to the test.

Second up for the day was beacon drills. The instructor took us through the fundamentals of how beacons work. We then did a test to see the effective working range and maximum search range of our individual beacons. Then we went through the basics of doing a beacon search. We then did drills where we had to go find beacons that were buried. We did single burials and multiple burials. Once again this was extremely informative. I had previously done some drills for single beacon searches, but never anything for multiple burials.

Third was snowpits. We ducked out-of-bounds again and made a short skin up a ridge. We reconvened at the top and discussed various things that can affect snow. We also talked about some basic steps in determining if you are in dangerous terrain. We then ducked off the ridge and started digging pits. The instructor for this portion was Bruce Tremper. Bruce is the head of the Utah Avalanche Center and is one of the foremost avalanche educators in the country. We went through the basics of how to dig an effective snow pit. Once we had our pits dug Bruce explained various tests to check snow stability. There was a test that I learned that is relatively new and is very effective. I also was able to participate in a ruschtblock test. I had read about this test previously but I haven't ever done one.

Yours truly in green and Bruce in red.

Fourth was safe travel through avalanche terrain. This was also informative but it was very hard to pay attention. It was the end of the day and I was tired. The weather had also changed from sunny and quite pleasant to cloudy, windy, and snowy. I had a hard time paying attention as I was just trying to stay warm.

It was a very informative day. I liked it because it covered many of the basics I had previously learned and also presented some new information that is extremely valuable.

Games Are Fun

We went to Brigham City today to visit my mom, brother, and grandparents. While we were there we played this great game that my aunt gave my grandparents for Christmas. The game is called Blokus. It was a ton of fun. You have a bunch of pieces that are all different shapes. The point of the game is to get as many of your pieces onto the board as you can. When you place a piece it has to be touching the corner of another one of your pieces, but the sides can't touch. It is fun and gets funner once all of the paths begin to cross and you have to start strategizing where your pieces will go. I recommend it.

Right now we are watching Friends. It just so happens that Jess got a haircut yesterday. Just now she asked me "does my hair look like Monica's?" My response was (as a joke) "Do you like her hair?" I figured it would help me answer correctly. I really said it as a joke, although Jess keeps saying "Yeah whatever". It is a true story though, it was a joke.

Skiing is good

I forgot to post last week about my first big tour of the year. It was Saturday morning and my friend Matt and I headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon to go tour up Grizzly Gulch. I was excited for a number of reasons. 1-the first big tour of year 2-to actually be skiing 3-to be outside 4-to test out my wicked nice new softshell jacket. I've read about the benefits of softshells for years and it was my first chance to try it and see what all of the hype was about. The tour started out interestingly enough. We started up the skin track and about 15 minutes into it we realized we were on the wrong skin track as we saw people a couple hundred feet above us on the skin track where we wanted to be. After a few minutes of traversing sun-crusted snow we got on the right track. Our destination was Davenport Hill (10,120). After about two hours we reached a ridge just below Davenport Hill. Our initial plan was to drop off the backside into Days Fork and then back up and down to the parking lot. As we rounded the hill onto the ridge we got blasted with the wind. It was ripping up Days Fork and the snow on the other was wind-ripped. So we modified our plan and headed towards the Honeycomb Cliffs (10,479) just south of where we were. We couldn't actually see the skin track to get over there so Matt started breaking trail and we figured we'd run into the skin track soon enough. Our trailblazing took us across some small questionable slopes of sun-crust that made slight fractures as we crossed. About this time some people had followed our trail for a ways and then started breaking their own up. As we worked our way up the mountain we converged with these other people and found the actual track that went to where we wanted to go. Once on top of the Honeycomb Cliffs we had some great views. It is incredible how close all of the canyons and resorts are. From where we were we could see the backside of Solitude, the backside of Brighton, and the top of the Canyons over in Park City. Everything is very close. There is actually a tour you can do where you ski Snowbird, Alta, Brighton, Solitude, the Canyons, Park City, and Deer Valley in one day. It is a long tour and you have to be in wicked good shape to do it, but it can be done.

We had reached the top after about 3 hours of somewhat leisurely skinning. We didn't waste anytime packing up skins and stepping in for the ride down. It was a great run of about 2400 vertical feet of skiing. We took it in chunks (avalanche safety). Although there were quite a few tracks already we found some great turns and even hit a few small, soft, untracked shots. It made me realize how much I don't miss skiing the resorts. Almost the whole time we were skinning and skiing we could see Alta. The place was completely packed and tracked out. I'll definitely take one powder run that I worked for as opposed to riding a chair all day for tracked out snow.

Exciting First Times!!!

Ever since Penelope was born I have looked forward to feeding her with a bottle, especially after seeing how her and Jess bond while Jess is breastfeeding.

The last few days we have been trying to get Penelope to take a bottle. Everytime I'd try Penelope would cry and push the bottle out of her mouth with her tongue and then cry even harder.

Tonight I tried again and Penelope kept pushing the bottle away and crying. I would calm her down and then try to give her the bottle and she still wouldn't take it. Then one time after I had her on her side and calm I held the bottle in her open mouth for awhile and then she finally bit down and started sucking! I am very excited that I finally got to feed her with a bottle! Hopefully she will continue to take bottles. It opens up a whole new set of possibilities. Now we are that much closer to being able to leave Penelope with people (like Grandma) so we can go ski for a couple of hours or go on a date.

Feeding Penelope for the first time.

Fun Stuff With the Baby

It's been awhile since I posted, but that seems to be the norm for blogging around the holidays. We had a good Christmas. We stayed here in Utah and visited my family on Christmas day and then Jessi's family was just down here over this past weekend.

We had a good Christmas as got some fun stuff. One of the best presents we got was a Baby Bjorn Carrier". So what did we do? We took Penelope hiking on the 26th. It was awesome. It was Jess' first time out being active since Penelope was born. We went up Millcreek Canyon. It was a beautiful sunny day and it wasn't very cold. Both Jess and Penelope did really well. I loved being outside with Jess again. I have definitely missed being able to do stuff with her. I am very excited that she isn't pregnant anymore so we can start doing stuff again.

Hiking up Millcreek

Just the other day we went to the climbing gym. It was awesome to watch Jess climb again. She was very excited to get back on the rock. She is amazing and I really have missed recreating with her.