Blog Post Overload

Yes it's been a little while since I've posted.

However, you can get your dose of blog post overload over at Jessica's blog.

She did a great job of covering everything we've been up to.

The Best Sandwich, EVER!

The sandwich to which I am referring is the cold turkey sandwich. However, this isn't your typical cold turkey sandwich, it is THE cold turkey sandwich. The sandwich of all sandwiches.

Ordinarily one enjoys this sandwich immediately after Thanksgiving. As many of your know, we spent our Thanksgiving in Southern Utah so we didn't get to enjoy homemade Thanksgiving dinner.

Well we had a gift certificate and come coupons for a turkey and we picked one up after Thanksgiving. Since it was going to be free I got us as much turkey as I could for free and we ended up with a 21.5 lb turkey! We cooked it up right nice on Sunday and had a small Thanksgiving dinner.

The best part happened Monday for lunch, the cold turkey sandwich. I look forward to this sandwich all year long. Everyone has their own way of making the sandwich and I have to say all those ways are wrong.

There is only one way to make the cold turkey sandwich, Miracle Whip (trust me, it's essential), lots of cranberry jelly, and ample amounts of turkey.

So far I've enjoyed three cold turkey sandwiches and there are many more to enjoy. If you don't believe me that it is the best sandwich I'll make you one.

This is 100

Wow, phenomenal isn't it? This is post #100 for me on my blog. I thought there'd be more fanfare. You probably thought there'd be something more exciting. Well...Are you ready for this?

I bet if you squint hard enough fireworks will shoot out of your computer.

Did it work?

UPDATE: Apparently this post is boring and it sucks. Jessica started reading it and didn't finish. She said "I got bored". Hmmmmmm...

Green Christmas Ideas

As wonderful as this time of year is and how great Christmas is, it must be the most wasteful holiday of the year. Everyone is exchanging gifts (more products produced for this time of year) that are no doubt boxed up and wrapped, sometimes shipped, sometimes delivered in person. All of these things equal waste.

This has been on my mind as I have been preparing for the holidays. I have been contemplating what I can do and what I can help others do to reduce our impact during this time of year. I recently found an article in a Wild Oats magazine that I picked up last time I was there, and I wanted to share some of the ideas:

-Conventional wrapping paper (especially extra-glossy & metallic papers) can't be recycled a lot of the time. Use newspaper, paper grocery bags, or even canvas bags as wrapping instead. Many of these alternative wrappings can be colored or decorated to look festive. (This will also save you some cash. How much do spend on the wrapping that is just going to get ripped apart and discarded?)
-The first idea often doesn't feel very "holiday". If you feel you must use festive wrapping paper reuse papers, ribbons, gift bags, boxes, etc whenever you can. When buying new paper avoid metallic and extra-glossy paper, and buy recycled paper whenever possible.
-Instead of shipping packages (especially heavy packages) purchase gift cards or something local for the recipient.
-Avoid products with excess packaging or better yet give a homemade gift or a baked gift in a reusable tin or container.

Implementing some, or all, of these ideas isn't hard and every little bit helps. I am far from perfect as I have purchased gifts this year online and am having them shipped to our house. All it takes is everyone doing at least a little. I am, however, wrapping all of our gifts in newspaper and other papers, bags, and boxes we have saved from previous occasions.

What are other ideas that some of you have for reducing our impact during this time of year?

Here I sit, still at work

The office is completely dead, yet I'm still here, what can you do though? Hopefully leaving soon. Sometimes things take longer than expected and it's unfortunate that it has happened on a Friday.

It has been nuking all day so that should make for an interesting drive home. Tonight Jessica got a babysitter for us so we can go climbing at the gym together. After that we'll be cleaning the house and getting stuff ready for Penelope's birthday party tomorrow.

The new snow will be extremely beneficial for skiing at Alta! This is going to perhaps be the best first birthday ever (who else got to go skiing on their first birthday?)

Christmas Came Early

Well sort of...The stuff I won from the Backcountry.com Adventure Contest finally arrived. The crazy/best part is it all arrived on the same day!

I scored a new ski helmet, goggles, and sunglasses from Smith (although the sunglasses weren't in the box). I've had the same ski helmet for about five years now. It is a super old design, have practically no ventilation, and it made me look awfully funny. The goggles are super rad. They are the new I/O. The goggles feature a design that is truly interchangeable. I am very excited to get out and give the new headwear a whirl.

I also got some nice "casual" shoes from Montrail. They are super comfy and it will be nice to have a pair of shoes to wear that aren't either Chacos or trail running shoes. Although I still prefer Chacos to anything.

Thanksgiving in Southern Utah

This year we decided to take a trip for the Thanksgiving holiday. We decided to pack up and head to Southern Utah for some places we haven't been to. We went Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks.

We had both been to Bryce when we were younger, but didn't remember much of it, and neither of us had ever been to Capitol Reef. The original plan was to get a hotel for Thanksgiving night and then camp. After checking the weather and seeing that the nightly lows were supposed to be in the mid-teens, we opted for a hotel every night. It actually work out quite nicely.

We were able to find Thanksgiving dinner at the Ruby's Restaurant, inside the Ruby's Best Western. We were also able to find a nice indoor pool and hot tub as well. The place we stayed had closed theirs for the season.

We spent Friday driving the scenic drive, hitting up the lookouts, and then hiking down through the bottom of Bryce Canyon. I was absolutely amazed by the formations. It definitely ranks highly in my favorite national parks list. The hike through the bottom of the canyon was the best. Even though we passed quite a few people at the start and at the end, we were able to find solitude through the middle section. The perspective from being down in the canyon was amazing.

Saturday we drove "scenic" Highway 12 to Capitol Reef. This was the most amazing section of road I have ever been on in my life. As you're heading north you are on top of a plateau (maybe it's a mesa) and then all of a sudden you drop down into the bottom and your amidst slick rock, canyons, and huge walls. As you climb out the other side you quickly find yourself on top of a spine is wide enough to fit a two-lane highway and a couple feet of dirt on each side before the drop into the canyon, on each side. Unfortunately the camera was packed away in the trunk so we didn't get any pictures. I will make a trip just to drive that section of road again.

By the time we got to Capitol Reef we had just enough time to get in one hike down a side canyon that gave some great views of the main section of the park. The huge sandstone walls (and splitters) were awe inspiring. We saw absolutely no one else on the trail and enjoyed complete solitude the whole time. I have a feeling that a trip will be in the works in the springtime to make it down to climb some of the cracks we saw.

We spent Sunday driving home. The nice part of the drive was we spent most of the time driving on Highways and little time on the freeway. We actually drove on a lot of roads that neither of us had been on and we saw lots of places that neither of us had seen. While on the back roads we were able to pass a guy in his jacked-up truck, with his four-wheeler in the bed, and a sticker that said "Shut up hippy". It made me laugh.

Here's an album of our trip (I went back to Bubbleshare because Flickr is lame.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Safe Toys

The Big 1 Triple 0

I'm sure all of you didn't notice, but this blog just rolled over 1,000 visits since I added the counter earlier this year. It isn't a momentous occasion but one I wanted to mention anyway.

Okay, I'll admit, it was easy fodder for a quick blog post.

A full blog post report on our Thanksgiving Southern Utah trip will be coming later this week.

Grandeur Peak

This past Saturday we decided to hike Grandeur Peak here in Salt Lake. Grandeur is the first peak between Parleys Canyon and Millcreek Canyon. I had previously run up the Millcreek side earlier this year so we opted to tackle the West Ridge. It has been a little while since we last hiked and thought it would be a good test run before this weekend.

The trail starts right at the mouth of Parleys and ascends 3100 vertical feet in 1 3/4 miles. STEEP! Needless to say Jessica and I both got worked. It was fairly grueling on the way because the trail is so steep. It had been a long time since either of us had put in any kind of vert.

It was a great day for hiking. The temps were a little low, but once we got moving it felt very nice. There was hardly any wind until we reached the ridge just below the summit, but we only had to endure the chilly wind for a few minutes.

Once we reached the summit we were rewarded with outstanding panoramas of the Salt Lake Valley, the Wasatch Range, Parley's Canyon, and beyond.

It was a beautiful day to out hiking. It is by far one our most favorite things to do together. Unfortunately we didn't get out as much as we should have this summer, but sometimes that happens. We will definitely be taking advantage of this weekend and the remaining days until the winter arrives (which I am praying will be sooner rather than later.).

You can see the rest of the pictures from our hike here. (I can't remember how to post the Flickr slideshow in my blog...I know there is a way, or at least there used to be a way. If anyone knows please tell me.

Do you know why I pulled you over?

"Well no sir" (okay...I knew).
"You were going 44 in a 30."

As it turns out I didn't know I was going 44 (didn't look) and didn't know it was 30 (didn't see the sign).

That was the glorious event that transpired driving home from the Buchanan's two Fridays ago. I completely forgot to blog about it, but then as I was paying my fine online just now I remembered I needed to post about it.

The most ironic part of the whole thing is we just renewed our auto insurance in October and for the first time since Jess and I have known each other we both had completely clean driving records and were bumped up to the "highest" level of insurance.

So I just paid 132 bills my speeding mistake. 82 of them go to pay the fine and 50 of it goes to traffic school so the ticket doesn't go on my record. So we're out 132 clams but at least we get to keep the good standing with the insurance.

All that is left is going to traffic school.

Good thing the sewer got fix...

...because I got really sick last night.

Penelope got sick Thursday night, had her first throwing up incident. I think whatever she has she gave to me because last night I had my first throwing up experience in about 10 years. Definitely didn't enjoy it, but it did actually make me feel better. My day has been spent trying to catch up on sleep and getting better.

Did I mention that being sick sucks?

Sorry sir, you can't use your own bathroom

Wednesday late afternoon we get a paper put on our front door. It is from a company saying they have be contracted by Salt Lake City Sanitation to install a new pipe in the public sewer. The paper then continued to say the installation would be happening on Friday at 8:00 am and that we shouldn't use the sewer at all during that time (washer, sink, toilet, shower, etc) because our private service line will be blocked and any water usage will flood our structure.

It is now 10:00 pm Friday night and we still can't use anything. The paper said the process would take 10-18 hours to complete! The good news is I was at work most the day and Jess was watching some kids from the ward for half the day.

The bad news is something the workers did caused a bunch of sewage to come up in our toilet (like the toilet overflowed) and it got all over the floor. The worst part is we haven't been able to clean it up because we can't flush the toilet.

Gross...and lame.

No Posts

I was called out in the comments of my last post (thanks Honey!) for not posting very often. Here's how my days have gone for the past week or so:

Wake up, go to work, work all day, come home, eat dinner, play with Jess and Penelope for a few, work until bedtime. LAME! Work has been super-extra-wicked busy lately and it is spilling over into my home life. I'm not very stoked on it but hopefully after this weekend it won't happen anymore for awhile.

Halloween was fun. Penelope was a spider, she was cute. Jess and I dressed up as Jim and Pam from "The Office" Check us out on Jessica's blog.

What? Post Regularly?

So apparently I have "blogpostirregularisophrenia-syndrome". Look it up on Wikipedia, I'm sure it's a real thing. I always have the best intentions of posting a couple times a week, but for some reason it never really turns out.

Here's exciting stuff that is going on:

-Got Fritschi Freeride AT Bindings.
-Started using Google Analytics for a project I'm helping with.
-It snowed a bunch last week.
-Ski season is coming
-Cute pictures of Penelope (my goodness she is getting big!)
-And my wife is pretty much the coolest wife...ever!
-Oh yeah, did I mention ski season is coming?

I'll Fritschi Freeride Your Face

It's taken me about 3 years, but I finally picked up some Fritschi Freeride bindings. They are the burliest alpine touring bindings on the market. For the past few years I've been rocking alpine trekkers with my alpine bindings. So I sold the trekkers, sold the bindings, and ripped the mounting plate off my skis and I'll be mounting the Freerides straight on. In all I've shaved probably close to 10 pounds off my touring setup. This winter will be a crazy touring winter. I'm very excited.

Sushi Sampler Day

You know it's a good day when you get free sushi!

Today at about 3:30 I realized I hadn't been out of the office all day. I needed to get out for a walk. My friend Ben and I walked over to the Woats to see if the new Mountain Gazette was in (it was, hoo-haw). Then we decided that wasn't a long enough walk so we headed over to Smiths. We walked in and headed toward the deli/bakery area. At first I thought my eyes deceived me. I looked, saw, shook my head, and looked again. Yes it was true, it was sushi sampler day. I have heard tale of sushi sampler day but haven't ever been able to partake. The stand was out and was half full. I helped myself to four pieces (tried one of each). It was delicious.

What's better than sushi? Free sushi of course!

Adventure Par-tay

Last night was the annual Backcountry Adventure party. It's the equivalent of most company's Christmas party, but this was better. In my post about last year's adventure party I mentioned how the employees all rack up points for recreating. Those points put you in a raffle for some rad gear prizes. Once again, this year I didn't win any of the "big" prizes, but that is all right. All the employees got these super rad Backcountry branded Skullcandy headphones, an Ogio duffle bag, and a windstopper beanie. Of course everything has the Goat on it.



Each of the guests also received a beanie and headphones (that was rad). All of the employees won door prizes as well. This year I won a Smith package. I'll be getting a new ski helmet, goggles, and sunglasses. I also won a pair of Montrail shoes. Could you say I am super stoked? Yes you could.

In the tradition of last year's post (does one year make up a tradition?) here is a breakdown of my points:

5 camping points (5 nights camping), 9 hiking points, 5 paddling points, 22 climbing points, 25 trail running points, 46,572 vertical feet ascended, 21 road biking points (hooray for biking to the carpool), and 297 pieces of trash picked up.

A great quote

There is a Smith's grocery store about a block from my office. We usually walk over there once a day to get some breakfast or some snacks. One morning, about a month ago, we were walking back to the office and the wind was blowing in our faces and it was sleeting. I made some comment about how the weather and precipitation was cold. My co-worker Walt said: "A true warrior isn't afraid to feel nature on his face."

A few seconds later another co-worker, Mike, said: "What if a bear's humping your face?"

I laughed all day about that quote. As weird as it is, Mike had a point.

It's probably not that funny to anyone else because you weren't there and you don't know Mike, but I think it's hilarious. Just thought I'd share it.

I love spam!!

No I'm not talking about the wonderful meat from the blue can (I say wonderful yet I've never had SPAM, perhaps I should go buy some). I got the best email today while I was at work. I wrote it down so I could share it with all of you:

"Hi! I am Valentina and would like to meet you.
Email me to: onlinelove@****.ru (I added the asterisks)
I’ll be waiting. Bye!"

The fact that this beautiful women (only beautiful women send emails like this) sent this email to me is pure luck, no...wait, it must be fate! She wants to meet me and she's waiting! It must be my lucky day. Oh, and grammar isn't a strong point. I particularly like "email me to"... I didn't think a person could fit in an email.

What blows me away is someone out there (probably more than a few people) will think this is legit and reply.

It's never too early...

Yesterday the weather did this (it's hard to see, but those are snowflakes):



So I did this:



It may be a little early but I got excited so I started getting my skis ready. I was taking the bindings off and ripping the integrated plate off the skis so I can mount a pair of Fritschi Diamir Freeride Plus Bindings. These are super rad touring bindings that I've been wanting for a few years. I'll sell my current bindings and trekkers. This will lighten my set up by a few pounds and make touring a bit easier.

It really is never too early to get stoked for ski season.