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.

I'm on the week schedule

So lately I've been on the once a week posting schedule. I'll try to change that...

Does anyone know where to find the counter for site visits? I want to say that I recall when I set up my blog there was an option to put the counter on the blog, but now I can't find it. I don't think too many people visit, but I am just curious how many visits I get.

It is almost Christmas time. This year I haven't had a chance to think much about Christmas. All of my time has been occupied with Penelope and Jess and work. It was crazy to think "only 6 days until Christmas". I am excited.

I've been done with Christmas shopping for awhile now. Well with the exception of a few small things. It has been nice to not have to worry about it the week before like I usually do. Well I haven't been that bad in the past, I usually don't start until after December 1st.

I am excited to spend the time with my small family and then visit lots of other family. I love taking Penelope places and letting people see her!

Back to work

The week long "vacation" is over. Luckily I was able to take a week off work after Penelope was born. Typically time off during the fourth quarter of the year isn't allowable for an e-commerce business. It's crunch time. Going back to work yesterday was hard. I missed my girls alot. After spending pretty much everyday together for a week you would like I would be excited at the prospect of getting "away". The exact opposite was true. I wanted to be home more than ever. Such is the way of life. I am very excited that Jess gets to take so much time off work. Thank you US Government for FMLA but no thanks for not even coming close to the benefits other countries offer for maternity leave. According to an article on MSN, in Sweden a mother gets up to 480 days PAID time off work. I know I shouldn't necessarily be complaining (which I'm not really doing) because at least there is something offered now. Not very long ago FMLA didn't exist and mothers were getting shafted even more.

On a happy note, it is winter and storms are predicted for later this week. Should be a good time in the mountains. Only about 5 more weeks before Jess should get cleared and we can get out together! I am very excited.

Baby Time!!!!

Our little baby arrived Sunday (12/3) at 9:35 pm after 17 hours of labor!!! We are now the extremely proud parents of the cutest baby girl! We named her Penelope Jessica Miller. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and was 19.5 inches long. Jess and the baby are both doing well. We are getting ready to go home later this afternoon. Here are a couple of pictures for your viewing enjoyment:

It's Coming!!! (And 16 hours later she did)

Little Penelope

No Baby, EVER!

That isn't exactly true, but our baby certainly does not want to come out and see us. I know we aren't at the "due date" yet, but I want the baby! Both Jess and I are very anxious to have the baby with us. This whole time I kept saying the baby would come on November 29th (today) and I was absolutely sure I was going to be right. Oh well. We just hope the baby comes soon.

It has been wicked cold here the past couple of days. Last night it was in the low single digits and will be the same or colder tonight. It nuked up in the mountains with parts of Alta receiving 39". I can't wait to get out again and enjoy the white, fluffy goodness. I also can't wait for Jess to be able to get out and start doing the stuff she loves again. I will certainly watch the baby so she can go. All we need now is for the baby to come and see us!!

It's Getting Closer

It is almost baby time! As of tomorrow Jess is 8 days away from her due date! It is kind of weird to think about and yet it is very exciting. We keep talking about how "tonight could be the last night that it is just us". We like not knowing when the baby will come. There is anticipation that builds a little each day. "Will the baby come today?" "Am I going to get a phone call while I am at work today?". Needless to say, we are very excited and can't wait for this little baby to come into this world and see us.

Too Much Chocolate!

Yesterday was the 3rd annual chocolate show in Salt Lake. I went with my mom, aunt, and brother. It was a good time. It was a fairly small show so it didn't take too much time to walk around. I tried a slew of different chocolates from a variety of companies and chocolatiers. Within about 20 minutes of being there I was feeling slightly ill from eating too much chocolate too fast. I learned some interesting facts about chocolate and about some ways it is made. There was an area where you could make some goodies. I made a couple of caramel chocolate pretzel rods and a bag of Belgian Vanilla Hot Cocoa.

Being there and watching the pros make desserts made me miss my past culinary jobs. It brought back memories of being a line cook at the Cadillac Grille in Jackson Hole. I miss making their dessert plates and being in that fast-paced restaurant environment. Mmmm, dessert.

Boredom

Our Dell desktop bit the dust the other night. It decided that it doesn't want to turn on anymore. Of course Dell has an amazing website where you can't find any information about what you need or need to do. I am currently chatting with their live help, which is very slow. The rep is probably helping other customers at the same time. So apparently we need to get a new motherboard. Not too stoked on that. What confounds me is there is no information on the Dell website about spare parts like motherboards. The only way you can find out is by calling sales or spare parts. For being a web-only firm, they aren't very good about having information about their products online.

It has cooled off here the past few days. It snowed as well, but all of the snow that stuck here melted off. It is signs that winter is getting close. It is almost time to start wearing shoes, but Chaco's will out for a couple more weeks.

The baby will be here soon. We are very excited about the new arrival. Everyday we get more and more excited and the anticipation builds. I can't wait to find out what we are having. It is going to be awesome.

There hasn't been too much activity as of late. Mostly just bouldering a couple times a week. It is now dark by the time I get home from work. That poses interesting hurdles to trail running. I won't give in and run on the roads because it hurts. I can't wait for ski season to start.