Cerebrations & Explanations

Forget Running Shoes - It Snowed!

2012-02-07T18:36:00.000-06:00

Winter finally made an appearance here in Nebraska on Friday night. After a few weeks of temperatures well above normal, we awoke on Saturday morning to nearly 10 inches of snow blanketing the landscape! When I say blanket, that's literally what it appears to be too - not the usual drifting snow that Nebraska is known for - this snow piled in evergreen trees and broke branches, and looks like frosting on top of the bushes at several parks. The wet heavy snow made a mess of thing for a short time on Saturday morning, but by Saturday afternoon we were outside playing in the snow.

The only snag I ran in to was my running routine. Sunday is traditionally my day for a long run, but with that much snow, there wasn't much chance of finding a clear trail, sidewalk or even a street that would work for an extended distance. A few inches of snow mixed with ice can make running a little more difficult but I have a pair of 'yak traks' for days like that. When the snow is mid-shin deep, there just isn't much hope of completing any run worthy of being considered beneficial.

So, Sunday morning I dusted off my snowshoes and ventured out into the elements. The first thing I realized - I overdressed. Within half a mile of starting I had already taken off my hat and gloves and I was opening the air vent zippers on my heavy coat to circulate as much air as possible. I should have known better, I run in shorts and a long sleeve shirt in temperatures as cool as 25° F . Why would I need a heavy coat at 30° F when I am doing the equivalent of running?

With the exception of overdressing, the hike went pretty well. Around 3.5 miles I could feel a blister rubbing on my left heal, but decided to not call for a ride home - I'd just tough it out for another 2.5 miles. That was a bad choice, I'm going to need to let that blister heal for a day or two before even thinking about putting on my running shoes!

By the time I made it home, my legs were pretty darn tired and I was starting to become dehydrated. My shirt and coat liner were soaked from sweat. In fact, I had trouble seeing for the last few miles because of all the sweat getting in my eyes! When I weighed myself I had lost nearly 8 pounds! I basically felt like I had run a half marathon, and from all indications I equivalently had.

All that after only 5.85 miles! Too bad we don't see more snow like this in the winters - I could really go for some more snowshoeing, but perhaps I would prepare myself a little better.I took my GPS along so I could get an idea of how far I had gone. The map of my route shows a graph with my speed and elevation profile as well. I kept my pace around 3 mph for the most part, with the exception of a few breaks to take pictures and to rest for a few moments to wipe my eyes of sweat and generally just rest for a moment. After I took a thirty minute nap, I felt like I could recover enough to make it through the rest of my day. I suspect that is the land, and only, snowshoe trip I will be taking for the winter season, so I made sure I got my fill of it. I would love to have another big snowfall to snowshoe, but I also need to think about getting in some good long runs before the half marathon too. Now less than four months away!

Until again
-=Nolan=-

Running & the Woo-Hoo Factor

2012-02-01T22:08:00.005-06:00

OH BAAABY! Wooo-Hooooo! Ah-oouh! Those are just a few of the remarks heard from passing vehicles as I trot along on the sidewalk lately... Not to mention some whistling and other remarks not suitable for young ears - usually referring to anatomical features of disproportional representation. Perhaps the tried and true "Run Forrest, Run!" is losing it's grip on passing motorists - I don't hear it much these days. Has Forrest Gump aged to the point that the younger generations won't quote it? These types of societal changes are the types of things I think about while I'm out running...

It's been amazingly nice, weather wise, here in Nebraska this winter and that has resulted in a lot of motorists driving around with their windows down...which means us outdoor fitness warriors have been receiving a lot more compliments from those passing motorists. Usually summer is prime time for fitness folk to don skimpier athletic clothing and take to the sidewalks and trails to show off toned bodies and slender figures - we know the motorists appreciate our healthy efforts from their verbal suggestions and long stares. However, the unseasonably warm temperatures lately have allowed us to stay out in force and so the Woo-Hoo Factor, as I call it, has been reaffirmed for an extended period of time. Let me explain:

The Woo-Hoo Factor is just as it sounds. Motorists, typically but not limited to members of the opposite sex, often signal their nearby presence with an audible announcement. This announcement is usually made from within a darkened vehicle interior as viewed through a tinted window, however there are also those brave souls who like to project their upper body out of the window and wave their limbs in what appears to be an uncontrollable manner; all-the-while screaming with excitement as though they may have just won the lottery.

I have great appreciation for these people. They keep my seemingly boring fitness routine interesting. If anything, I have something to think about for a few minutes and if I'm lucky I will run another mile without passing much thought about the distance - mostly just the remarkably strange manner in which I was just complemented.

Now that I think about it, perhaps I don't miss Forrest Gump so much after all. It's time for a new movie to take the spotlight of runner lore and become the new quotable quotient...the Woo-Hoo Factor could use some new terms of endearment.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Updated Travel Map

2012-01-19T08:41:00.005-06:00

I realized it has been a very long time since I updated my travel map. Somewhere in the neighborhood of two years by my best estimate. I should clarify, it's actually Laura and I's travel map - we can't fill in a county unless we go there together. As I've mentioned before, I've been to every contiguous state at least once, all before I had completed high school. Now, I'm working on traveling the continent seeing it all again - and even a few new places while we're at it.

Setting Goals

2012-01-03T18:02:00.005-06:00

The start of a new year brings a lot of rejuvenation to people. I guess it's the thought of having a 'new' year to work with. In reality it doesn't really mean much, besides the fact that we have made another trip around the Sun on this little planet we call Earth. I guess it also means the calendar manufacturers keep themselves in business too... Then again, this year is the year that the Mayan calendar ends - so maybe we are marching on towards our own doom!

Oh well, in the mean time I will keep myself busy with work and everyday chores... I don't want the next humans or aliens or whatever creature inhabits the planet to think I was lazy. I think the best way to go about keeping myself motivated is to come up with some goals for the year, if not longer. In fact, I have a few goals in my head already and they are not exactly anything of excitement for anyone but myself - mostly just running related and then a few miniscule material wealth goals too.

I have a tough time with setting goals beyond that though. I have been reading Facebook posts of friends setting goals and making resolutions for 2012, all-the-while I can't come up with anything to strive for. The other day, while out on my evening run, I had some time to actually stop and thi... Let me rephrase that, I had some time to actually run and think about it. I don't have trouble with establishing goals, I hold high expectations of what should happen. On top of that, I have high expectations for myself and my family... I will refrain from commenting on the latter though, I don't intend to bring personal family views into this online self-evaluation.

Is it really a problem if I have high expectations instead of viewing something as a goal to try to achieve? I don't think so. I'm disappointed occasionally, but who isn't - can I handle disappointment - sure, it's life, deal with it and move on. Part of having high expectations is having strong desire and understanding of sacrifice. It befuddles me to hear people complaining about not having enough money to buy things they want/need, yet they drive expensive cars they don't need and live in large expensive houses they can't afford. "Oh, but it's smarter to buy than to rent! I need a reliable car to drive around town!" Really? I expect to pay for my vehicles the day I buy them. It can be tough to drive around with a car that doesn't look cool, run well, and doesn't make you happy - but a little sacrifice will get you a lot further in life than always getting everything you want. Look at the housing market right now - why are so many homes in foreclosure? It's not the fault of the bank - it's the people that wanted the loans for the house they couldn't afford...but I digress, it's ultimately on ME to do what needs to be done and perhaps my expectations are too high, but it's understanding of the rewards of sacrifice that pay off in the end. I could go on and on about that though, if you want to really get into it, bring it up some time.

So how about a few goals for the year? Well, like I mentioned, running or perhaps personal health is at the top of the list. Yes, lose a little weight is on there. Running faster is pretty easy to say, but I need to actually hammer out some definitive times to shoot for. I did sign up for the Lincoln Half-Marathon again - this will be my 3rd year doing it - so that goal is self explanatory, FINISH! If I can finish under 1:40:00 I will be happy, although after only improving 2 seconds/mile last year, I wonder how likely it is to improve 19 seconds/mile this year? Hopefully my training schedule will help this year - it's much tougher than the version I used last year, I actually have some workouts instead of just logging miles.

I'm sure I will think of some more personal goals while out running the pathways, trails, and sidewalks on these dark and cool winter evenings. It's easy to find motivation when I think about what I'm already doing - something that most people never get started...

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Opps

2011-12-31T17:56:00.001-06:00

I forgot to post a blog for December... I'm thinking my resolution for 2012 will be to try to blog a little more often. Perhaps twice a month?

Fitness Doldrums

2011-11-28T20:02:00.001-06:00

Since high school I've always considered myself to be in good shape. I can still go out for a run and pace myself at 8:00/mile for quite a distance... Even though I haven't really trained for anything since the half marathon, I haven't ran consistently at all, I still can go out and run without much effort. This has apparently led me to believe my physical fitness is still 'good enough' to do just about anything... Well, I've had a realization - and it wasn't that the signs were hidden, I just wasn't adding them up!

The first thing would obviously been the half marathon training. I've been writing myself a pass, basically saying "distance running isn't really my thing and just finishing the half is good enough" which is actually true, but that is the beginning of my problem - I let myself become mentally weak, when I should be challenging myself more.

My second clue is directly related to the first - I can't seem to break twenty minutes when running a 5K race... Really? I can't run 6:25 pace for 3 miles? That's rather pathetic when I really stop and think about it... Now, I probably should mention as a side note now, I don't mean to belittle anyone here, running is purely personal to each person and I have plenty of family, friends and acquaintances that can't run that fast. The fact that any one of them is willing to discipline themselves to get out and train for any race is a great thing. However, I have personal expectations that I expect to (now it seems I just mostly want to) achieve. Regardless, running 5K races in college around 17 minutes was just another run - now it seems that would be a remarkable accomplishment for myself - I'm still trying to get back into the 19 minute world!

My next clue came this summer during ultimate frisbee. I mentioned this several times to Laura and other people playing frisbee with us - but I'm getting 'slow.' My speed is fading - at an age where most men usually are reaching peak physical shape, I'm slowing down. BAH! That doesn't sit well with me at all. I've always been the guy that could out sprint the other players or at least stay right with them. Several times this summer I was being 'out kicked' when the guy I was covering would take off for a deep route!

Finally, yesterday the realization came to me. I'm in poor physical shape... After spending Thanksgiving with family, I just didn't have much energy to do anything. That's typical I suppose, eating a large meal (in my case I experienced a weekend of 4 Thanksgiving meals) usually slows most people down - yesterday was no exception. Once I gathered enough momentum to get myself moving again I found myself jumping up in the air trying to touch the air duct in a sudo-challenge with family members. About five jumps is all it took for me to realize I need to start stretching - my legs didn't handle the jumping well, and my wrists hurt from stretching my hands to touch the air duct... I think I've reached the 'pathetic' point - and maybe now I've realized it.

The end of this week will bring my 29th birthday (it's technically my 30th birthday because the day I was born was my first birthday, but I will be 29 years old) and perhaps I need to set a few physical fitness goals to accomplish before I officially end my 20's.... I think I just mentioned a few goals to start my list.

Until again
-=Nolan=-

Animal House

2011-11-05T23:47:00.003-05:00

Sometimes Laura and I just feel like we are zookeepers trying to keep the animals in our home happy. On Monday evening (Halloween) we paraded around several neighborhoods with our animals leading the way - a crocodile and a monkey. Emryk was excited about his crocodile costume and had a lot of fun trick-or-treating, Arlo wasn't nearly as happy about his monkey suit. He has just recently started walking around, and the costume was certainly causing him some trouble, so he didn't wear it long. Emryk, on the other hand, trick-or-treated until late into the evening and was very excited to fill his pumpkin bucket full of candy.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Frosty Freeze

2011-10-19T18:39:00.000-05:00

The National Weather Service says tonight will be the first freeze of the fall. I'm indifferent to the event happening, although that does mean winter is just around the corner and the coats that have been stuffed into the closet for the past six months will soon see the light of day again. As usual I've got more on my 'to-do' list than I have time to complete but that doesn't mean I'm not making efforts to at least start them.

What kind of things you ask? Well probably the biggest thing is residing the house. The number of things needed to complete before residing is nearly complete, so getting started with that soon is a possibility. We've installed the patio, some new windows, new entry door, and we even have the siding sitting in the driveway, waiting for us to get started. Since the daylight is limited these days, about the only time to get started with that project is during the weekend - but lets not forget that Saturdays are reserved for football, which basically means Sundays are our day to do some work. Okay, so that's not totally true. I do get a lot of stuff done on Saturday mornings and sometimes even into the early afternoon - it's just not as easy to do big projects on Saturday.

Maybe more importantly right now, I need to clean out some space in the garage for the woodpile... The good news there, all the wood we need for a few months is cut and ready to burn. It won't take long to clean that area up and bring the wood in, so I'm not too concerned with completing that job. Plus, I'm looking forward to clearing some room from the woodpile so I can start cutting wood again and run the chainsaw. Running the chainsaw and then manually splitting wood with the maul is probably one of the most relaxing 'vigorous' activities I do besides running. The destructively constructive use of a chainsaw and big splitting-wedge which result with heat in my fireplace brings the most satisfactions - it's cheap and good for me!

Sadly the cold weather means it's about time to stop riding my bike. Not that I can't ride my bike in the cold or snow, but it's just not as enjoyable as riding on a warm summer evening. I guess that means I will be taking to running more often - or so I hope. I have stepped away from running once again due to my busy schedule - which is an easy excuse to make - but mostly because I would rather spend some time at home or doing something else with family. Although, it's probably about time to start thinking about getting myself back into shape, relatively anyway, and get my running program set up for the winter. I have to admit, it's the Lincoln Half Marathon that motivates me to run right now, and since I don't have plans to start into my training schedule for a few weeks yet, I just can't get myself to put on my running shoes and go.

Maybe in a few weeks I'll be able to give some updates with some results! Right now, it seems like the little jobs, along with the big projects and long-term goals are a mountain of work to take on - but I'm looking forward to it at the same time!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

My New Wheels

2011-09-19T23:05:00.005-05:00

If you're an athlete by nature then you know the meaning of 'stoved up' and you especially know how it feels to be out of shape and then try to push your body a little harder than you usually do. Trying to regain that ability that was once easy to come by, now takes a lot more effort to achieve. For me, the last few weeks have been a real treat - and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that. I'm sore beyond sore, but it feels so good to push myself more than usual. I haven't been in my usual running routine. In fact, for the past two months I have pretty much stopped running altogether. Sadly, I have lacked motivation to trot along the trail and pretend I am in shape... Until early September I was basically just playing ultimate frisbee pick-up games on Sunday evenings and that was the extent of my exercise for the week.

Things changed about three weeks ago when I bought a new bike. My good ole Huffy could still get me around on two wheels, but the amount of work needed to get from point A to point B was painful. I picked up a Specialized Hardrock 29er and I can't believe how easy riding a bike is now! Instead of 'have to' I now 'want to' ride my bike around again. A ten mile ride is nothing - whereas before, well I would have been hurting! Not that I'm not hurting now, but it's because I actually ride my bike and push myself - instead of pushing my bike!

Not to mention, I hook up the child trailer to my bike and pull the boys everywhere. The 50 pounds behind my bike is MUCH easier to ride around with as well! I think the boys like the bike rides too and with the light I mounted on my bike, along with the trail system here in Kearney, we can ride late into the evening before we have to come home. We have taken a few trips for different things - sporting events, family visits, and just getting out for a bike ride on a nice evening.

Last year, Laura and I decided that new bikes were going to be our Christmas presents to each other, so almost a year after making that decision we are halfway done. That's not a bad timeline if you know how I shop and delay decisions... At this rate, Laura should have her bike by sometime next summer.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Closing Summer

2011-08-31T22:51:00.001-05:00

Today is the unofficial last day of summer. While summer season technically ends in late September, there's little question in my mind that summer ends on August 31 each year. Tomorrow (September 1) will bring the season opener of dove season - one of my favorite fall activities. Football season will be in full swing this weekend, along with volleyball and cross country, no doubt sports which bring strong memories of fall activities. The smell of fall is detectable in the evening breeze and I see more people out enjoying the comfortable temperatures.

While today we find ourselves looking at temperatures in the mid-90's, this weekend will be in the upper-70's and that will surely bring on a feeling of fall! I'm still hopeful to go camping and enjoy some warmer temperatures for awhile yet, but with schools back in session and fall activities underway, there's no doubt in my mind that summer is over!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Block By Block - Landscape Love

2011-08-18T23:07:00.004-05:00

When people hear the word 'landscaping' they usually picture trees, flowers, and garden gnomes. I, on the other hand, think of retaining walls and hardscape design. What's hardscape you ask. Well, it's basically the stone aspect of landscaping. It can range from natural stone to any kind of artificial material incorporated into a landscape design.

When I was working in Montana we had no shortage of natural stone to work with - small 'shim' stones used in natural rock retaining walls up to two-ton boulders were our common material. I really enjoyed that kind of work and finding the perfect stones to construct a wall was a challenge and always exciting. Keeping a wall 'level' when using natural stone can be a real challenge, and eying a dozen or more stones for possible future placement in a wall is important as well. Adjusting stones and using any of the many angles for the 'face' of the wall is important - thus the excitement of the challenge! Here in Nebraska, we don't have the abundance of stone we had in Montana, in fact it's rare if you find a rock larger than your fist.

Since we have a lack of natural stone we use a lot of preformed retaining block. The problem with retaining block is a lack of education when constructing D.I.Y. walls. I see a lot of terrible walls around town and it's painful to see any worth from their attempt at a nice, long-lasting wall. A leaning, wavy, crooked wall isn't exactly a pretty picture and isn't likely to stand long without extensive future maintenance. There are a lot of different problems you can encounter when building a wall, it's just a matter of having some experience that can help make or break the final outcome.

Recently, I have been working on a retaining wall around our place. It isn't exactly a magazine quality design or construction, but I have enjoyed putting it in place and believe it should last for quite some time. It all began last year when we determined that the concrete block wall that was put in place 25 years ago was beginning to lean too much and needed to be replaced. Not only would the wall be replaced, but we also decided to add a patio area onto the front of the house. If I could have had the help of the crew I worked with in Montana, we could have knocked the project out in less than a week. Since I was working on it during my evenings and weekends it took a few months - and then went on hold once Arlo was born. This spring I began brainstorming and came up with some plans to add on to the already existing wall.

I get a lot of relaxation from doing this kind of work. It's both a physical and mental workout. I don't work from a blueprint, it's all in my head and comes together as I construct each part. The block takes some work to remove the rough edges but it helps produce a smooth, level line as the wall is built. The important part is creating a strong foundation for the wall to sit on and making sure the first blocks are properly in place before getting carried away and building the wall in a hurry. Mentally, making a wall look nice and function properly can be two different things and finding a nice balance between the two is where experience comes in.

Here's the progression over the past year.

Okay, so I kind of jumped a lot of the block wall before the last picture, but you get the idea...

I'm not sure where things will go from here. The thought is to add on to the patio and create a larger sitting area near the retaining wall. Perhaps add some steps around the outside of the planting area, but those are just some of the options being tossed around. For now there's a few other projects that need to be completed around the house so the landscape work will be set aside. Besides, it takes a little time to dream up the next project and having a little time to step back and admire the work is always a welcome accomplishment.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Symmetric Wrists

2011-07-27T23:35:00.002-05:00

For the first summer in many, many years I have matching wrists. You're probably confused right now? What does Nolan mean - he has matching wrists? Aren't they the same all the time?

Well, not exactly. You see, at one time I was running on a daily basis - sometimes twice daily - I was reliant upon my wrist watch. The comfort of having it on my wrist every day while running transitioned into wearing it while I wasn't running. Almost as if taking it off left part of me naked - lacking proper wardrobe for my everyday life. The only time I took my watch off was to swim or sleep. I usually showered with it on just to keep it clean (hey, running isn't exactly a squeaky clean activity). On those rare occasions when I did have my watch off, it was quite obvious that I had a tan line as a result of wearing my watch all the time - not that it was anything I was ashamed of though. In fact, I would be willing to bet that other runners take pride in having a watch tan - it's a sign that we see a lot of sun while training.

This summer is different though. I don't have the band of white skin around my left wrist. Why? My old reliable watch is starting to show it's age. The buttons don't work very well, and it actually doesn't keep the time very well any longer. Unfortunately the battery isn't the problem, I have replaced it. The electronics are wearing out and pushing any of the buttons just resets the time to 12:00. My good ole' watch has been sitting on the shelf for the past few months while I slowly decide what my next step of action should be...

In the mean time, I have been out in the sun and my left wrist is experiencing excessive amounts of sun for the first time in over a decade! The bad news, I haven't been running... I bought a new running watch at the beginning of the year, and I do like the watch. In fact, it's the same Timex Ironman brand that my old watch is - just an updated version. The fact that it IS new keeps me from wearing it all the time though - especially for work, where I get into all sorts of dirt and grime - I'd rather just leave my nice watch at home and wear it when I'm running.

I'll probably start wearing a cheap watch this fall and keep my new watch for training. Right now though, I'm enjoying the fact that my wrists match. Ideally it will be the last summer for another decade that I have this 'matching wrist' phenomena - I would like to get out and run more which it turn should make me a little better runner once again - and also will shade that sunlight from my left wrist.

That's a matter for next summer though - my symmetrically tanned wrists will fade over the winter - hopefully my running doesn't!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

GPS Eulogy

2011-06-30T23:42:00.000-05:00

Here it is, the final day of June and I am finally getting around to blogging this month. Not that I was waiting until the last minute or anything, I guess I’ve just been a little busy. In fact I am typing this from the passenger seat of our van as we head for Cheyenne…likely to be uploaded late tonight, just making it in before July begins. Sorry, no pictures to make this blog visual...

I have been thinking about how I should discuss my topic today and I simply haven’t been able to think of any good way to begin, so I’ll just say it. My reliable GPS has likely seen its last trip. For some strange reason, the power button stopped working and with it, all capability to turn it on and retrieve all the waypoints I have collected over the past 6 ½ years. Not only that, but it quit working in the middle or our trip to Minnesota (which I haven’t mentioned before, so I’ll briefly touch on that).

For nearly 6 years I have been telling my friend Nick that I would pay him a visit in Minneapolis. Well, as everyone knows, time seems to slip away and year after year we failed to make any effort to go visit. Finally, back in January we finally started making plans to visit in May. I’m sure Nick and Becca were tired of us discussing travel plans by the time we finally were ready to go…not to mention I’m sure they were ready for us to go home after invading their home for half a week!.. But we had a great time and hope to visit them again soon, hopefully before another six years have passed.

Back to my poor GPS though, while on our trip I was excited to see that my GPS was going to hit 200,000 miles traveled. I watched it hit 199,000 miles and anticipated the next few days when we hit 200,000. However, it wasn’t to be – the curse of 200K found us once again. You might remember when our Subaru broke down and caught on fire while moving back to Nebraska in early 2008? Yup, it was just a few thousand miles over 200,000 as well. I also had a Buick back in college that was slightly over 200,000 miles and the engine seized up and became a redneck lawn ornament. Apparently I am cursed?

We didn’t miss a beat with geocaching though, we picked up a backup GPS a few years back and now it has logged nearly 6000 miles since leaving Minnesota just six weeks ago! With the trip we are making this weekend to Cheyenne and then on to Cody, Wyoming, we are looking at another 1,600+ mile adventure.

I’m going to miss my little old GPS though. Laura gave it to me for my birthday back in 2004 and I haven’t gone anywhere without it since. We’ve been quite a few places and explored some pretty amazing locations. I guess nothing lasts forever, I just wasn’t quite ready to see it go, not before 200,000 miles anyway. It was so close!

I have been combing the internet for possible fixes and I may have actually come across some solutions, it’s just a matter of determining what I want to try to do. For now, I am going to hang it up and give it a rest, do some thinking, and continue logging miles with our other GPS. Maybe I’ll even look into getting another GPS with a few more features – but I’ll wait until I find a good deal – for now, it’s nice just to have a similar GPS in hand to keep me going in the right direction.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Half Marathon Recap

2011-05-13T23:41:00.005-05:00

...Well, although this post says it was posted May 13, 2011...it really wasn't. It's actually June 13, 2011. For the first time in five and one half years, I missed a month of blogging. I simply didn't find the time and so to make up for it, I am going to fib a little and pretend it's actually mid-May. Not that it will matter much, I actually have been thinking about this posting for close to 6 weeks now, but sometimes it's just too difficult to sit down and get some free time at the computer. I've neglected a lot of electronic related tasks in the past month - so it's time to catch up!As I mentioned, I've been thinking about my next blog post since May 1. Namely, because the Lincoln Half Marathon was that day. Even during the race, I was doing a lot of thinking about how to express my feeling regarding the 'race' that morning. Running the half marathon is significantly different than any other race I have ever trained for - especially considering my specialty in college was distance sprinting - 400 meter, 800 meter, and occasionally a metric mile or even a rare steeplechase so everyone had something to laugh about for the painful 11 minutes it took me... I digress though, those races were short compared to the hour and forty three minutes I was running - I had lots of time to think about what was happening.

Mostly, I was just thankful it was a nice morning - cool, slight breeze, and a terrific atmosphere. As far as my run went, I improved 26 seconds from last year. Yup, 26 seconds - or in other words, 2 seconds per mile faster. I guess it's nice to think I improved my time, but I really thought I would be a few minutes faster at the least - especially since I felt like I did a little more training this year. Then again, I felt a lot better this year during the final few miles than I did last year - so that was a welcomed improvement.

Laura did much better than I though she would. Not to say I didn't think she would do very well, but she ran 1:37 which was 7 minutes faster than me - literally beating me by nearly a mile. Although, it was nice of her to run the first mile with me. Once we passed the Nebraska State Capital Building she was ready to go running, and I didn't stop her. I was proud of her to be in such good shape in just over 6 months after having a second baby and it was nice to have her with me every Sunday morning when we ran our long runs around Kearney. That hour or two, when we could run together and just pass the time by chatting about everything we don't talk about around our kids or even just the mindless thoughts we have while passing mile after mile are a welcome relief to all the time we can't sit together and talk and an even more relaxing way to release the stress of the past week.

Maybe more importantly is the thankfulness Laura and I have for my parents, who kindly agreed (willing or not) to watch the boys while we selfishly took to the trails and streets in our quest to prove we could still push or bodies a little farther than we really want to. Without having my parents to watch them every weekend, I can guarantee I wouldn't have been running as much as I did, and I KNOW I wouldn't have managed to improve my time either.

Not only did Laura run the half marathon with me, but so did my sister, brother, his fiancee, and two first cousins. It was actually much more enjoyable for me this year to have other people I know running, although we didn't run together, just to keep that encouragement going and remember that other people were out there working hard too. Hopefully it wasn't too bad for them and they were able to enjoy it enough to consider it again in the future...
...which brings me to my final thought. I have a few months yet before I need to be worrying about the run next year, but I question my willingness to train for another half marathon next year. It is a great reason for me to run all winter long, yet I feel like I rely upon my parents to watch the boys every weekend and the amount of time necessary to train can become overwhelming... then again, I sure enjoy pushing my body to train for something challenging, so it's hard to walk away from something like that. But, like I said, I have a lot of time to think about it, so for now I will just enjoy the fact that I finished and I felt better than last year. It's the small victories that make all the work worth it in the end.

Until again
-=Nolan=-

Waiting For The Race

2011-04-27T22:36:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows the saying "The calm before the storm" and if you know what that feeling of anticipation and waiting feels like, then you know what my state of mind is right now... This coming Sunday I, along with many other family members, will be running in the half marathon in Lincoln. I have a feeling most of the runners are going through the same emotions this week as well. It's exciting to finally have it before us.

The hard work in preparation is behind us and we are able to go the distance, but there still exists those lingering questions in the back of everyone's head. The 'what ifs' always exist and the unknown can create fear. The big factor is the weather though. Last year the conditions were nearly perfect - bright sunshine, light breeze, temperatures in the mid 40's at start time. It will be hard to match that kind of morning this year, but as long as the temperature isn't around freezing, the wind isn't tornadic, and it's not a cold rain, then everyone will feel much better when we line up a few minutes before 7:00 a.m. to get started...

I won't get too nervous before the race...well, perhaps I should say 'run.' The only race I will be looking at is against myself - namely to improve my time from last year... Yeah, that sounds better...I won't get too nervous before the run. I have had nearly 15 years of races and competitions with much higher stakes and I have learned to control my nerves and curb the excitement of others...even Laura's. I could easily get myself worked up about it though, the competitor inside of me will still push my body and mind to that painful threshold where comfort and pain mix - and that is where the nerves will come from - the KNOWING of the pain that is about to come.

For now, it's just a waiting game. Waiting and watching - waiting for the race and watching the weather. Right now the weather is looking favorable for us on Sunday morning and that's a very good thing. Everyone will have their own personal battles to deal with and Mother Nature isn't one I want to have on the list.

Until again
-=Nolan=-

A GPS That Just Won't Quit!

2011-04-08T17:46:00.000-05:00

If you've traveled with me in the past 6 years, you might know that everywhere I go I take my GPS along. It's a Garmin eTrex - not a fancy GPS - it doesn't have a color screen, camera, loads of internal memory, or anything like that... It does everything I need though, it's basic and it works! I like to keep track of where I've been, mark locations, and do some geocaching too. Being a geography geek, I guess this little device is a good way to keep myself entertained.

My GPS has been all over the place with me, which is apparent from the nearly 194,000 miles I have logged on the odometer. The scratches, dings, and worn plastic indicates an adventurous existence - perhaps with a few dangerous situations. Back in the summer of 2005 it went through Death Valley on a hot (120° F) day in a Subaru Outback with no air conditioning. That incident melted the glue that held the water tight gasket... It's gone on a few canoe trips in the Nebraska Sandhills, no worse for the wear. A few hunting trips in Wyoming involved lots of walking in sub-zero windchills that even made it rather lethargic - not that much different from how I felt afterwards. It's experienced a backpacking trip through the Thorofare of Yellowstone National Park, dozens of hiking trips to the top of mountains, a ride on a jet to Las Vegas - along with a second trip through Death Valley, and thousands of miles of car traveling... Recently, the newest threat has become kids...kids that want to hold the GPS and use it. So far, so good though.

Then, Wednesday morning as I got out of my car and walked into the office, I heard a sickening sound. Something fell out of the pocket on my lunch pail and hit the ground - and it didn't sound good. I turned around to see my GPS laying screen down on the concrete. As I pick up the GPS I noticed the back of the GPS was cracked WIDE open. I gave a little sign of disgust for being so neglectful. The GPS had fallen on it's 'top' and cracked down to the battery compartment. I gently looked it over and then thought - "well, I guess it won't make it to 200,000 miles."

I started keeping my GPS in my lunch pail a few years ago. I could tell it wasn't good to leave it in my car during the days when I was at the office all day. The heat wasn't good for it, and the cold wasn't all that great either. So I just started throwing it into my lunch pail to keep it at room temperature and take care of it. Unfortunately that means it gets beat up a little more from being moved to and from the car, but I think it's better than having it melt or freeze all the time..?

After looking over the damage, I thought I might as well see if it still worked - I doubted it would, but to my surprise it did! I took out my Leatherman multi-tool (which I always have on my belt) and arranged the broken plastic case back to it's proper position. When I got home from work on Wednesday evening, I used some Elmer's Nano Glue and a few clamps and I left it overnight to see what happened...

Thursday morning, I checked things out and the GPS appeared to take the operation well. I did a little cosmetic work with my multi-tool and my GPS is back in perfect working order!

The pictures aren't great, but from what you can see, the glue covers the crack and holds it together amazingly well. I'm very surprised the working components of the GPS didn't break just from the initial fall, but it appears it was built to last! I guess it's just another story to tell!

Another month or two and I should be seeing 200,000 miles on the GPS - I'll be sure to announce that milestone when it arrives. I might sound overly confident in that accomplishment, but I also plan to take a little better care of my GPS after this little accident. I consider myself lucky to have it still working....and I don't intend to press my luck!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

New Running Shoes

2011-03-24T08:05:00.003-05:00

Momma always says there's an awful lot you could tell about a person by their shoes. Where they're going. Where they've been. I've worn lots of shoes...

-Forrest Gump

Being a runner, I have an intimate understanding of my shoes. They have to feel right, move right, and most importantly run right. If you're not a runner, it's hard to explain how the difference between a New Balance shoe and a Reebok shoe can alter a runners form, stride, and even mental state. It's a funny relationship we runners have with our shoes, but after-all they're practically the most important piece of equipment we use.... Obviously there probably are a few other important items, but non-runners don't want to hear about the 'disgusting' things that runners deal with.

In it's rawest form, runners would be barefoot and grassy fields would be where we frolicked. But let's face it, the real world loves asphalt and concrete. While it's great for rollerblading and bicycle riding, it's brutal for bare feet and even knees for that matter. Shoes are the only thing between our feet and the pavement on a hot summer day where surface temperatures are easily 150°F or a cold winter day with snow and ice. Can you imagine how much abuse a running shoe has to take?

With the Lincoln Half-Marathon less than 6 weeks away, I have started breaking in a new pair of running shoes. I doubt I will run with them in Lincoln, but it's important to start breaking them in now so I can comfortably use them when I am ready to retire my current shoes. Well, I guess I should admit something... Much to my wife's disliking, I don't really retire my running shoes they just become another pair of shoes to wear - maybe for hiking or around the house, maybe even for work. Whatever I use them for, my shoes have to be falling off my feet before they go in the trash. I still wear a pair of running shoes I ran in during my high school senior year of cross country - and that's over 10 years now.

A few days ago I was running and noticed I had a rock wedged between the tread in my shoe. It felt like a pretty good sized rock too. I scraped my foot along the road for a few strides to try and break the rock loose but that didn't do anything. I had to stop for a moment and get it out by hand. I stopped, turned my shoe over and there it was - a small little rock. I couldn't believe it was so small, but I flicked it off and went on my way. Then I got to thinking.... That little rock hardly was anything, but my feet knew that rock was there and my foot could tell the rock was now gone. When I have a pair of shoes broke-in and comfortable, it's amazing how sensitive my feet can be to such little changes. Almost as if my feet and shoes have fused together and have become one. I especially know how well my feet relate to my shoes when I start breaking in a new pair of shoes - like I am doing now. I run a few miles and I have blisters forming on my feet! It's a pain in more ways than one, but someday in the near future these new shoes will be accepted by my feet and we will all get along much better. Until that day, I continue to painfully break in my new shoes - slowly my feet and my shoes become friends - just like a new kid in the neighborhood, we have to feel each other out for awhile before understanding how everything will work.

I have another run with my shoes this evening. I'm sure they will give me some fits, but I am not easily swayed to stop. It just takes a little tough love to convince my feet and shoes that they are going to become well acquainted - like it or not. Besides, we have a lot of miles to travel together, we might as well enjoy it.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Where Will I Be In 2011?

2011-02-21T09:29:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking about the year 2011 for quite some time now. I think the first time I ever thought about it was back in middle school, when we were asked to think about what we wanted to be doing ten years after we finished high school. At that time it was hard to look beyond middle school... I mean really, we had to go through high school yet. Not to mention the possibility of college... That's a long time - especially for a 13 year old.

For some reason 2011 has arrived and now I can barely grasp how fast it happened. Even looking back to high school I don't think 2001 was all that long ago. Did something happen around 2003-2006 that I just kind of 'spaced out' and wasn't here? (Don't worry honey, I still remember our wedding day.)

On Facebook the Kearney High School class of 2001 is slowly coming out of the woodwork. Not everyone, but most of us are. It's fun to see all the people that I don't remember. No, let me re-phase that. It's not that I don't remember them, it's simply that I haven't seen them since the day we graduated and therefore I don't think of them. Now, in a few months, our paths will cross once again and we will get together and talk about our lives and how it seems like only yesterday we were walking the halls of Kearney High.

In a strange way, I can still take myself back to 2001 and think about what I want to be doing in 2011. Wow, that's ten years away - and the world is a changing place. Who knows what will happen in that time. I will be 28 years old... Hopefully I will be married and I might even have some kids too... If I could only go back to 2001 and warn myself! Ha ha! :)

I wouldn't go back and do anything differently. Why would I? I've had it pretty easy. There's not many people who get to take a multi-year vacation to Montana and do all stuff we did after we got married. Now that we have kids and have settled down we reminisce about how much we liked it in Montana. Of course while we were there we wanted to be closer to family and friends and it was a strange place to us, but now that we are a little older and a little wiser (I said a little!) we can see how simple things were for us. That's ok, I'd still keep everything just as it is. Besides, I don't have the time to go back and change things...I've got two kids!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Chills & Spills

2011-02-08T17:23:00.001-06:00

Chills: Dealing with the weather in Nebraska isn't too hard to do if you can handle ever changing temperatures from day to day and can adjust with the seasonal climactic fluctuations throughout the year. My primary example is occurring right now. It's -2° F outside, with the windchill it feels like -25° F. Wait just a few days and things will be warming up. In fact, by Sunday the estimated high is nearly 50°F and possibly higher into next week. It might be cold outside right now but in a few days we can all dig ourselves out of the snow and enjoy the outdoors in relatively short order. It makes it a little difficult to keep one coat out of the closet though. I think right now I have 4-5 coats I rotate throughout the week depending on the desired function - be it work, around the house, warm or cold, ect. If it were flat out cold I wouldn't have to bother, it would just be the warm coat or if it were a little warmer the light coat or maybe even just forget it! It's not that big of deal, but I certainly have to weight my options day-to-day.

Spills: Emryk put our new health insurance to the test the last few days. He took a tumble from a small step stool and injured his right arm. I am about as anti-doctor as anyone can be - in fact the last time I went to the doctor was back in December of 2006 after I stepped on a nail at work (in Montana). Even though I have no reason to go see the doctor, I am a little more cautious when it comes to other people and especially anything that needs to be looked at. That happened on Sunday when Emryk fell and hurt is arm. We could tell something was wrong when he wouldn't use it, so we had to wait until Monday before heading into the clinic to see what the trouble was... After a trip to the clinic and then to a fracture specialist, along with plenty of waiting around and more x-rays than I care to pay for, it doesn't look like there is anything too serious to worry about. A splint should have him back to his usual self in no time - in fact after putting the splint on he practically is as good-as-new and acting as wild as ever! I guess next time we will just leave him to lay around a few days while we relax!

Until again
-=Nolan=-

13 Weeks to 13.1 Miles

2011-01-27T09:18:00.003-06:00

This coming Sunday will begin the 'official' countdown to the Lincoln Half Marathon on May 1, 2011. Typically 3 months is the desired training time for a half marathon - that is as long as a runner has a running base to work from. Some runners can train less and some need to train more, but I discovered last year that 3 months was about perfect for me.

Laura and I registered this week for the race...well, let me alter that wording. Laura and I registered this week for the half marathon. Yeah, it's still technically a race, but it's anything but a race for me. A race is when a runner toes the starting line with every intention to be the first runner to achieve the predetermined distance. For me, this is a 'race' against myself. Just finishing the 13.1 miles is a big accomplishment considering I no longer have time to run and actually training is practically impossible. So yes, it's a race but only for the first 50 or so runners - for the next 9,950 runners it's a competition against yourself and the demonic forces that all runners have to battle.

At this point, maybe a few of you are thinking "...but Nolan, if this is such pain - figuratively and literally - why even bother to do it?" No? You're not thinking that? Well, too bad, I'll tell you why anyway. I enjoy the challenge of pushing myself and having a goal to work for. Although I don't have the speed I once did in college and even high school, I still have the desire to push myself into challenging my body to do something - and do it a little better each time.

Last year I finished in 1:43:30 - I basically averaged 7:55/mile. My goal was 8:00/mile and finish under 1:45:00. Overall my goal was to just run better than I did in Spokane and I can definitely say I did that - adding a time goal was something I determined I could run after finishing a few long runs during training. It really wasn't a goal as much as it was a time I calculated I could finish within.

So this year I need to set my goal a little 'low' and push myself a little more. I've been pondering what that goal should be but I haven't come to a conclusion yet. To be honest, I don't know if I can run a little faster or A LOT faster. Maybe another six weeks of running will bring me to a point where I can judge my ability but for now I will be happy just running faster than last year. I'll just have to see how the next few months of training go.

Until again
-=Nolan=-

Getting Nowhere...FAST!

2010-12-31T09:33:00.002-06:00

As I sit here watching the snow fall outside, while I should be traveling down the road to Cheyenne, I wonder how it is time can speed up and get away from me so quickly. Another year has passed and now 2010 is 'last year.' Really? 2010. When I was a kid, 2000 was a VERY far thought, no one ever talked about 2010. We would be wearing computer clothes and have the ability to travel anywhere we wanted to with new technology that could zap us there in moments... Did someone forget to invent this stuff? I'm still waiting for it...

Although, getting there is half the fun. My drive today to Cheyenne won't be all that enjoyable due to the snow and high winds - near blizzard like - yet I still think it will be an enjoyable trip. Seeing the countryside, well hopefully we can see it, and making our way down the road is what I enjoy the most. Getting there IS half the fun for me, but then again I haven't left yet today and the snow keeps falling... Which reminds me, I need to pack the van and scoop the driveway. If being there is half the fun, and getting there is half the fun, I think it's safe to say that getting started isn't very much fun.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Goodbye Johnny Cache?

2010-11-24T14:23:00.003-06:00

Where has Johnny Cache gone? It appears no one knows and because of that I fear he is GONE. Some of you might be wondering what I am talking about - well, I'm talking about a Geocaching Travel Bug that Laura and I released in March of 2007 near Winnemuca, Nevada named Johnny Cache. I blogged about it back then, and I made some updates as it moved around the country, but for the past eight months there hasn't been a hint of activity. To be honest, there isn't too much to be surprised about, missing travel bugs are quite common unfortunately. We are guilty of nearly losing them ourselves. Perhaps it's a small item that gets dropped between the seats in the car or it is simply placed in the pocket of a backpack and then put in the closet for a few months (or more) before being discovered again. It happens.

The evidence for Johnny Cache appears to be the always strange and unexplainable disappearance out of a geocache. Johnny was placed into a geocache outside Kansas City on March 7, 2010. Since then, about thirteen different geocache groups had been to the geocache and several have mentioned that Johnny isn't there - and no one seems to know where he's gone. SO, with the information given I think Johnny has disappeared for good.

I'm not sure what the average lifespan or distance of travel is for a Travel Bug but I think Johnny did pretty well to make it 9,731.2 miles in three years. The states traveled to are: California, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina.
It was fun to watch the progress and see where Johnny was going. It makes me want to travel to those places and see what can be found. Maybe someday Johnny will reappear from somewhere I would never suspect, but it's best to not be too hopeful. Perhaps we will release another Travel Bug sometime - just to vicariously travel with it and see if it can make it farther than Johnny did. I don't really have any travel goals in mind, but I am sure it wouldn't be too hard to come up with something. For now, it's nice just to see how far Johnny Cache was able to travel and hold on to that little glimmer of hope that just maybe we'll see him again...

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Waking In The Dark

2010-10-30T18:54:00.001-05:00

Is it me or is it ridiculous that I arrive at work at 8:00 a.m. and the sun still hasn't come up yet? What's that? It's not just me? Good, I'm glad you are in agreement. How the government thinks we are saving energy by waking up in the dark is beyond my level of thinking... I wake up in the dark and in a week I will be arriving home at sunset. Which means I will be running in the dark - and then spending the rest of my day in the dark... I don't know, I find it amazing the government thinks they can fix things which do not need fixing.

Since Arlo arrived just over a month ago, I haven't been sleeping that much anyway. Waking up every few hours and going to be later than usual can really start to take a toll on a person. Arlo has decided that bedtime should be sometime between 11:30 and midnight - which is usually when I go to bed anyway, but I still have stuff to do after he goes to bed - thus adding to my night.

Laura has done really well with the boys though. She is getting them into a routine and they are starting to figure out brotherhood is going to work. I'm still not sure I have figured out how fatherhood is going to work with two boys! Emryk is learning about 'time out' and slowly understanding he can't be hitting Arlo or yelling late into the night and Arlo is learning that he is going to be harassed when Emryk is around. Overall though, Arlo is happy and wants to cuddle most of the time. It is amazing how quickly an infant develops characteristics and how different they can be from a sibling.

We will see how the winter season goes for us. If we are cooped up all winter because of cold temperatures and large amounts of snow, we might have to vote someone out of the house - and I might be willing to just leave without the vote! However, the forecast is for a warmer winter with less snow - perhaps I will be able to get out and run enough to blow off all that craziness! I know Laura is hoping so as well!

Until again
-=Nolan=-

Short And Sweet

2010-09-30T23:37:00.001-05:00

In keeping with my recent blog trend - I have waited until the final day of the month to post anything. On top of that, I have waiting until the final hour - and for that matter it is 11:37 p.m.... But, the biggest news of the month is the arrival of our second son Arlo. He was born on Saturday September 25 at 1:36 in the morning and weighed in at 7lbs 11oz and was 21 inches long.
Emryk is excited to be a big brother and we are excited to have a second baby boy to enjoy! Although, a little sleep now and then would do us all some good!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Transitions

2010-08-31T13:33:00.009-05:00

Over the past few years my blog has become more of a monthly family update rather than the weekly adventures of Nolan & Laura. I guess that's fine by me, life is full of changes and Laura and I have settled down into a routine of working, sleeping, spending time with Ermyk, and finding some free time whenever we can... Our adventures don't take us as far as they once did. Instead of leaving off at 5:00 a.m. from Missoula and driving all day to make it to Cheyenne or even Kearney by nightfall, we now leave around 9:30 drive for an hour, stop and play at a playground with Emryk, drive another 45 minutes and eat lunch and then if we are lucky a nap is in the works and we might get 2 full hours of driving before we have to stop again. A trip from Kearney to Cheyenne becomes a half-day adventure and we are exhausted by the time we make our destination.... No longer can I work a full day, meet up with Laura and take off on a 10 mile hike for the evening - I consider a 5 mile run to be a small accomplishment these days. Although, we do still dream up vacations with long drives to faraway places to see something we haven't seen before, and maybe one of these days we will actually go! A backpacking trip for a week into the remote wilderness tickles my fancy now and again as well...

It's the changes in life that make it interesting and fulfilling. I am probably one of the few people on this planet who can do the same thing day after day and be completely content with what I am doing. Heck, in middle school I ate pizza every day for lunch. Even today I still typically eat the same thing for lunch daily... Between cross country and track I enjoy track more because the track is always the same size. Although, there are changes I always look forward to.

The end of summer is nearing and that change is typically my favorite time of year. Hunting season, the fall sports of football, volleyball, and cross country, the changing leaves fall to the ground and the crops in the fields are harvested. The smell of crisp fall air on a cool afternoon is a smell that brings back memories long passed but still fresh in mind when recollected.

Soon, Laura and I will be transitioning from single child status into the role of multiple children parents - a role which I have more fear with two kids than I did with the birth of one. I'm excited to have two kids, yet I find myself wondering how things will change with two kids compared to one. All to quickly my little boy has grown from an infant into a toddler and soon to be a big brother. I wonder if I will have the patients with two kids, the energy with two kids, and the ability to breath with two kids! It's amazing how easy it was to become comfortable with Emryk's arrival - it wasn't really the life altering event I thought it would be - and maybe two kids won't be either...maybe I fear that the amount of sleep I HAVEN'T been getting lately will soon double with two kids..?

Okay, so maybe I don't really have that many worries or fears about what is about to happen. Although, I do find it interesting that I seem to have more apprehension with baby #2 than I did with the first baby.

Like I said, changes are what makes life interesting. The way my blog has been going lately, it will be the last day of September before I publish another post and by then the baby might have already arrived... I guess we will all soon know how interesting life is going to be and how our transition from a family of 3 to a family of 4 will change things once again - I'm looking forward to it!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Here's some random photos from the month of August:
Storm front moving in on my way home from work
Courthouse & Jailhouse RockCurt Gowdy State Park - WyomingHiking at Curt Gowdy

Winning Summer

2010-07-31T08:00:00.004-05:00

Do you ever get in a slump where nothing goes your way? Everything seems to go the complete opposite of what you want and everything seems wrong... Not especially fun.?.. Well it's summer's like the one we're having that make up for those low times. When I say 'we' I am speaking of Laura, Emryk, and myself - we have been on a winning streak lately and it's quite nice.

The first 'win' came back in mid-May when we attended the Nebraska Outdoor Expo at Fort Kearny. We entered Emryk into a drawing to receive a half-price Lifetime Hunt/Fish Permit and his name was drawn, so he technically got us started this summer.My winning has been in the form of trivia contests on the radio and 'name that tune' which I can usually do within the first few notes. Usually I am just winning a free lunch from various restaurants, occasionally I win larger prize packages and get some odds and ends too.

Laura has the biggest prize package of the summer though. She won a trip for two (that's me included!) to Las Vegas. The local AM radio station had a big contest and she was the lucky winner. It's a 4 day/3 night trip, airfare, luxury hotel, and pretty much any show we want to go see while we are in Vegas! It will be fun to go back to Vegas - and I have never flown a commercial flight, so it will be a new experience for me as well. Plus, I've never been to Vegas in the winter, so it should be a totally new experience all around.I don't know what the rest of the summer has in store for us, but so far it as been great! We are less than two months away from the arrival of baby #2 so hopefully things continue like they have!

Until again
-=Nolan=-

Getting Summer Started

2010-06-30T22:28:00.004-05:00

It's been close to two months since I last blogged - 7 weeks I think it was... Well, not that I haven't wanted to blog, but as the saying goes "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get." Since the half-marathon in early May we have been busy as can be with various summer activities - trips, weddings, sports, and then every other weekend Laura is working and that doesn't help with getting caught up with anything.

We made a trip to Colby, Kansas to find the world's oldest geocache over Memorial Day weekend. That was a trip of 800 miles with lots of geocaches and my first time visiting the southwest corner of Nebraska and northwest Kansas. We camped two nights, once at Lake Ogallala and the next at Swanson Reservoir outside Trenton, NE. We had some storms the second night, but nothing too bad considering the rest of Nebraska was practically in every storm warning possible, yet we were only experiencing some strong winds - but we could still see the night sky!

This past weekend we went to the Cornhusker State Games in Lincoln and I played in Ultimate Frisbee competition with a team from Kearney. It was the first year for the sport and overall I think it was a real success for both the sport to get some publicity (especially in Nebraska) and for Kearney to get a team together and represent a community other than Omaha or Lincoln (where the rest of the teams were from). We were by no means amazing, but I was impressed with the way a large number of novice players were able to listen to some of my instructions and make some competition for the more experienced teams. We were one point short of beating the second place team on the first day and that was an excellent game! We played it at 2:00 in the afternoon on Saturday - after playing 3 games before - and it was nearly 100º F as well! Overall, we came home with a 4th place finish and I think that pleased everyone to have a respectable finish - I know I was impressed.

As far as running goes, I haven't done much running the past two weeks. Resting up for Cornhusker Games and then recovering from them has slowed me down some, but hopefully after the 4th of July I can get started once again. I am down to 194 pounds now and a little more running will get me to the 190 mark soon! Sunday evening, after getting back from Cornhusker, I weighed in at 189 - and that was after eating 4 roast beef sandwiches from Arby's and a few cans of pop! Most of the weight was from dehydration, but I think I can get back to that weight by the end of summer if I keep working hard.

Here's the team picture from the weekend at Cornhusker State Games.

I will try to do a better job of blogging this summer, but I am making no promises. The year is going by too fast and I can hardly find enough time to relax as it is... Oh, did I mention there will be a baby showing up sometime in late September?

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Breaking Down The Lincoln Half-Marathon

2010-05-06T21:36:00.004-05:00

One of my goals I wrote down in February was to run a half-marathon again. After my experience with my first half-marathon I was a little hesitant to make another attempt. I didn't hesitate out of fear, more from knowledge - knowledge that I needed to be in better shape and approach the race with a much wiser plan. I sat down on the first day of March and came up with my plan to run the Lincoln Half-Marathon on May 2, 2010 - 2 months time. I developed a very basic training schedule which established a base to allow myself to run the 13.1 miles without stopping - time was no issue. I followed by training schedule very closely and by early April I was beginning to believe I would actually be able to run the full 13 miles - it was then that I started contemplating a finishing time... 1:45:00 came to mind almost immediately. On my next long run on Sunday morning I ran all the calculations in my head - 8:00/mile would be exactly what I needed to break the 1:45:00 barrier with 12 seconds to spare. From then on I ran as close to 8:00/mile pace as I could on my long runs and occasionally on my shorter runs I would go 7:30-7:40 mile pace. Two weeks before the half-marathon I ran 12 miles and ended up around 1:34 - although I did stop my watch for a few minutes while I stopped and stretched after 5 miles - so I was able to recover slightly while sitting around for 5 minutes.

Jump forward to Sunday morning May 2, 2010 - 7:00 A.M. when the starting cannon echoed across the UNL campus and 8,000 runners stampeded through Lincoln. I lined up with the 8:00/mile group, planning to run 8 minute pace for 5-6 miles before trying to speed up a little and run just slightly faster for the last half of the race....
The race starts directly east of Memorial Stadium and begins by running to 16th Street and heading south. Turning the corner onto 16th street I saw Laura and Emryk, I made sure to wave one last time just in case I was marching myself towards impending doom. Emryk seemed to be confused as to why I was in such a big group of people and running away, but had little concern since he was with mommy.

The first mile of the race is rather nice. Just a few blocks into the run a low rolling hill allows a good visual of the course for the next two miles. This comes as you leave the UNL campus and head into the downtown district. Moments later I found myself looking skyward at the state capital building as I ran past with hundreds of other runners. A moment later I passed the first mile - 7:46. Not exactly the 8:00 starting pace I had planned on...

I was still getting into the swing of things during mile two. Folks lined the street, played music, and the pack of runners consumed the entire street. We were all still running to find our pace and settle into a comfortable position, which is all relative when it comes to running. The good thing about the second mile is it is straight and relatively flat - nothing too complain about at all. I came through at 7:55 /15:42 much closer to the 8:00 pace I had been expecting.

The third mile is a long incline. It isn't much of a hill, just a mile of gradual climbing. This was the first place I noticed a lot of people slowing down. I have always been a hill runner, I run hills hard and don't lose my pace (as long as I am not completely exhausted). I passed quite a number of runners but I also noticed some runners were working the hill just as hard as I was and in fact some were surging. Perhaps if I am in good enough shape next year I will try the same approach... Regardless, I still came through the third mile at 7:42/23:24 - whoops, maybe I don't need to worry about surging on the hill!

Mile four and five is the best stretch of the half-marathon. The divided road takes runners through residential streets lined with spectators applauding and cheering everyone on. For nearly two miles there is constant encouragement and lots of things happening. The long curving street climbs for awhile before allowing a long downhill for a mile or more. This is also where runners predominately started thinning into long lines instead of crowding the entire street from curb to curb. Passing became much easier and I ran 7:54/31:18 through 4 miles. The fifth mile I missed the marker while I was looking at all the spectators and didn't notice until I was around 8:42/40:00...

Mile six was more downhill and then some more downhill. That's my kind of running! In fact, I hardly remember anything of it, except I passed a guy in a superman t-shirt with a red cape pinned to the back of his shirt... He didn't look like the superman I had seen on tv - he was much shorter and Asian.. I clocked myself in at the 6 mile mark at 46:46.

Mile seven becomes much trickier. Instead of running on the street the course goes to a paved trail about 6 feet wide. It's a little narrow for passing groups of runners, but it did feel much faster. A few moments after hitting the trails the 10K sensor awaits for runners to pass by - I was there at 48:20 - which is about 7:46/mile pace. I wasn't real thrilled with my pace, I had not trained to run this fast for this distance and I feared I would 'bonk' (essentially crash) somewhere around 9 or 10 miles into the race - as I had done previously in Spokane. However, I was feeling pretty good though, and decided I was going to keep the pace for as long as I could and deal with the results later... In other words "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" At this point in my training long runs I could feel my body beginning to work harder and sure enough, it came nearly at the same distance in the marathon... I came through the 7th mile 7:36/54:23.

Mile eight stays on the trail for another half mile and then spits runners out onto 20th street heading north. It's a rolling mile, lots of quick uphill/downhill stuff on the trail and then 20th street offers a rather frustrating hill. It doesn't compare to Doomsday Hill in Spokane, but it certainly can lead to some heavy legs and unappreciated thoughts. This is also where Brock Steinbrink caught up with me and helped keep my mind off of the intimidating hill I was looking at. I still managed to stay on pace and clocked 7:53/1:02:16.

My ninth mile was nearly identical to my eighth mile - 7:54/1:10:10. Although the ninth mile has another tough hill it does have a good downhill to help make up some time. Brock continued to run with me and informed me he was regrouping after starting much farther back and working his was up. I was starting to calculate my pace and what needed to happen to finish the race without stopping, although I knew if I was still staying under 8:00/mile pace I wasn't in as bad of situation as I was allowing myself to believe.

Mile ten was my gut check. Another mile at sub-8:00 pace confirmed I could finish the race without stopping, although I wondered how long the next three miles would feel like. This was perhaps the mile which I forgot the most about, I was thinking more and more about what I needed to do to finish the race and I began to pay less attention to what was happening around me. Brock was still chugging along next to me and we occasionally chatted as we went along - which greatly helped the miles pass faster, although trying to chat and breath does become a little difficult... A good majority of the tenth mile is through residential streets as well. We ran past the Lincoln Country Club and I had a quick thought of what fun a cross country race would be out there, although I was starting to feel my breathing becoming labored and my legs becoming heavier with each step. I came to the ten mile marker at 7:50/1:18:01.

After I passed the ten mile marker I decided I had to slow down a little and save what little energy I had left to finish the race. I calculated I could run 8:30 pace for the rest of the race and still run under 1:45:00 - if that was true or not, I didn't know at the time, but I had to set a goal quickly to keep myself motivated to run to the finish. At 10.5 miles we rounded the corner onto 10th street and it was a straight shot down 10th street for 2.5 miles to the finish line. Just before reaching the 11 mile marker I could feel Brock starting to make his move forward and I wished him well before he disappeared into the crowd in front of me. I knew I had slowed down, but by how much? I was starting to worry myself - I hit eleven miles at 8:03/1:26:04 - not nearly as bad as I thought!

Mile twelve continued to torment me. I felt like I was walking, runners began slowly passing me, some where even clipping off a good pace as they went past! I started second guessing myself and if I could finish under goal time. Most of that entire mile was spent trying to stay with people who were passing me and desperately looking for the sign to indicate the conclusion of twelve miles - just one more to go... It finally came and I hesitated to look at my watch but I finally did - 8:12/1:34:17. Wow! I had 9:43 seconds to get to the finish line which was just 1.1 miles ahead of me! I knew it was going to be close! The good thing was we were approaching downtown Lincoln again and running downtown, with the close confinements of the buildings, can help a person feel like you are running faster and that can help to motivate your pace, is certainly did mine.

After I came through twelve miles, I did my best to keep my pace constant. Even though my legs were heavy and difficult to move, I knew I was still running at the right pace. It wasn't as fast as I had been running, but I wasn't walking either. I was practically running in the shadow of Memorial stadium and when I got there, it was all over! I turned the corner to head for the stadium and I could feel my heavy legs working like machines - moving regardless of what my body wanted to do, this race was going to end soon and stopping before the finish line wasn't an option. I made it to mile thirteen around 8:08/1:42:26 - I had 90 seconds to run 550 feet! It still took me close to a minute to finish from there, but entering Memorial Statium and running onto the field deserved a slowdown to take in that perspective which few people get to experience. At the 50 yard line I crossed the finish line at 1:43:30.

I finished the race without stopping, without taking any water, and I average 7:55/mile pace. I managed to set a goal which I felt I was able to accomplish and still push myself. Perhaps next year I will be able to challenge myself once again and do it all over again. I had a blast this year, I can only imagine what some more training would allow me to do!
One of the great things about finishing the race inside Memorial Stadium is the ability for the crowd to watch the finish and mill around while others are finishing. On top of that, the screens displayed current race information to keep the crowd updated and even showed the runners approaching the stadium and finish line on the huge screen in the north end of the stadium! Next year, they are talking of increasing the race size to 10,000 runners. If they can make some minor tweaks to the course, the race will continue to grown larger and larger each year. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Grapes Under A Shade Tree

2010-04-15T21:13:00.003-05:00

One thing I absolutely love about my job is the fact that I am able to be outside and enjoy some the nicest days - rather than be stuck inside an office cubical for 8 hours and miss out on all the things going on. Eating my lunch under a shade tree and taking a few minutes to enjoy the peacefulness of the outdoors is one of the best remedies of cabin fever I can think of. This winter I bought a small camera to keep in my pocket and snap some photos while I am out traveling the countryside. I haven't used it too much yet, but I am sure I will get plenty of opportunities this summer. Next week I anticipate going out and checking groundwater levels around the district, so I will soon be putting some miles on the work truck and getting reacquainted with the county roads once again. Perhaps I will have a few more pictures to share in a few weeks, but for now, here's a picture I took on Friday while I was near the Platte River. The bright blue sky is one of the greatest sites!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Looking Forward To Spring

2010-03-24T15:41:00.002-05:00

Spring may be here on the calendar but it's hard to believe. Usually, by this time of the year most of us are wearing t-shirts and maybe just a thin jacket on a regular basis. I haven't put my heavy winter coats away yet! Last week we dabbled with temperatures in the 60's for a few days and then we had a mighty cold day with some snow added in! Slowly, the winter is loosing it's grip and spring weather is fighting to bring on the warmer temperatures.

One thing about the warmer weather, I can run a lot easier. 8 miles on Sunday was pretty easy, in fact, I was running my 8 mile route as fast (in some cases faster) as I run the 7 mile route. Although, most of my 7 mile times were completed on cold winter days with wind and a fair layer of clothing... Once temperatures reach 70° all I need is a pair of shorts and I am set...although I do keep my shirt on these days, I do have some weight to lose and there's no need to prove that point! Hopefully by summer I will be doing better.

Just a short note today.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Spring Forward

2010-03-13T15:01:00.004-06:00

Don't forget tonight is Daylight Saving Time (not savingS time)! Next weekend we welcome the spring equinox and hopefully that means some warmer weather as well. This winter has been a real downer for anyone who needs to see the sun and have a few days above freezing.

While the winter hasn't been too bad on my mental health, my physical health hasn't done as well. I am maintaining my weight pretty well, but I am not losing weight either, and that is something I intend to do once these cloudy, cold, rainy days pass. I am leaning heavily towards running the Lincoln Half Marathon in May, just to give myself something to work for and I might be able to even top my Spokane Half Marathon time back in 2007 - gosh I hope so!

The cold winter has also completely depleted our firewood supply. In fact, I had to cut more wood a few times during the winter and we still have been burning conservatively. Did I mention most of the winter the house wasn't above 60°F? Most mornings we wake up to inside temperatures around 53°. We have learned to live a little cooler this winter, that's for sure. I think we had the house above 70° no more than a dozen times from burning the stove (and most winters it wouldn't be below 65°! A few of the house plants are rather unhappy with me, but that's ok, Laura hasn't been all that thrilled either!!!

We have managed to save a few pennies and get ourselves a nice vehicle for traveling. As you know we love a road trip and it is time to have a vehicle that can get us down the road comfortably and safely. We were stuck between the Ford Freestyle (also known as Taurus X) and a mini-van. We spotted a Chrysler Town & Country that we really liked, but it was sold before we were able to do any research. A few weeks later we hit up Young Motor Company, the same place I bought my truck from back in 2003 (still running strong!) and test drove a 2006 Town and Country Limited. We were impressed with it and Al was right in our price range, so we bought it. We have been thrilled with it too - Limited Edition always has good stuff. It's loaded - leather, power everything, power doors, stow & go seating (the seats fold into the floor) DVD player, satellite radio, 6 cd changer, gps navigation - like I said, lots and lots of stuff I didn't even touch on. The important thing, it rides smooth and I know there will be plenty of room for all the stuff we take with us! We won't be driving it around too much, it's primarily going to be for our trips out of town or maybe grocery shopping when we intend to fill the pantry up. It's been hard to let it set in the driveway though, we have places we want to go!

Emryk is really starting to talk. He is growing up fast and becoming more and more independent all the time. He loves to climb as high as he can get, I do too so there's no surprise there. You can see, he's very resourceful when it comes to finding things to climb on. He wheeled his Mega Block dump truck over in front of the TV so he could get to the DVD player and play his favorite movie The Sandlot. He hasn't taken any major spills yet, but he is due up for a dozy one of these days.

That'll do it for me today. I have been trying to think of something to blog for the past month and I finally had time to sit down for 15 minutes and post something - I feel good to get that right now!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Ready, Set, Goal!

2010-02-07T15:23:00.007-06:00

I've been doing some thinking the past week and I think I have come up with some personal goals for myself. Some will be easier to do than others, but rule number one when setting goals, some have to be easy and some should be near impossible. It's a simple concept, accomplish the easy goals and that will provide motivation to get to the more difficult ones - now implementing that theory might be another story, but I'll give it a shot.

●Goal number one is to lose weight. Duh, there's a New Years resolution huh...? Well, I think last time I blogged I mentioned I was around 210 pounds - as of this morning I was at 201. In one week I have dropped 9 pounds just from changing my eating and getting out for some longer runs. I don't believe I can accomplish any of the follow running goals until I am somewhere around 185 pounds, so another 15-20 pounds is a must.

●That brings me to my second goal - start running farther/longer. The quick 3-4 mile runs are nice when I don't have much time, but to really get a little running base I need to hit 6-10 miles occasionally.

●Once I am running farther, I plan to try my hand at a half marathon or two. Hopefully I will be able to get one in this year, which one I don't know, but I have a few places in mind. That really isn't a difficult goal for me, I actually believe I could run a half marathon right now - it just wouldn't be at a pace I would accept for myself.

●Another running goal - and maybe this is actually two goals, but I will lump them together. Head to the track and run a true mile under 6:00. Once I can do that, the next goal will be to go sub 5:00 - that will be the true test and a very difficult task for me - at least the way I see it right now.

●Once I get the 6:00 mile - I believe I can run that relatively easily by the end of April if I train consistently - my next goal will be to break 19:00 in a 5K race. That is 6:06 mile pace. I should mention, I did come close last year with very little training, so I expect that to come easy as well - if I can, I would like to run under 18:00 for a 5K - that is closer to 5:45 pace.

Enough with the running goals, basically they are a progression of goals. One thing will lead to another and as long as I can maintain a training routine, I should be able to get through most of them this year.

●I would like to do some traveling this year as well. Maybe get to a few new counties in Nebraska that Laura and I haven't been to. we have a few pockets we need to get on the road and go see, maybe we can do that.

●How about getting out and doing some camping a least once or twice this year? We made it out once last year - maybe we can double that.

●Another travel goal is to get to a new part of the country I haven't been to - at least with Laura that is. I have been to the contiguous states so that isn't anything - but Laura has yet to see a lot of the Eastern United States. We don't have any plans to travel far from home this year, although I would like to. Maybe a trip to Texas/New Mexico needs to happen so we can cover all of the Western states before going east. Oklahoma is the closest state to us that we haven't been to together, so maybe a long weekend trip is in order...

●With all this traveling, we are going to need a better vehicle. We've got some cash saved up, so maybe a nice minivan is the ticket. How about trying to get a nice 'new' traveling vehicle?

As sad as it is, running and traveling are really the only things I have thought about for goals. Maybe I should add some more in other categories, but I haven't really thought about any others - maybe that will be an addition later down the road.

Here's my updated travel map. I have two now, I can't decide which one I prefer - any thoughts?
Until again

-=Nolan=-

Goals

2010-01-28T20:23:00.005-06:00

If you're like me then you think New Years resolutions are pretty much worthless. Yeah, it's nice to think about how nice it would be to set a resolution and then complete it within the year...but I don't try to come up with any New Years resolutions. I do however think setting some goals is important - lately it has been a financial goal or something pretty easy. Maybe save a couple thousand dollars a month or invest some extra money into an IRA or something - I've been enjoying doing some money management the past few years. The fact that Laura and I actually have money is exciting, but right now we are just saving it and putting it away until we decide what we are going to spend it on...

While financial goals are fun, I am working on coming up with some goals which might actually require some physical strength on my part. Last weekend we had our college track/cross country alumni gathering and it was a little difficult to watch the college kids run so 'effortlessly' around the track...add to that a few guys my age mixing up the top 4 in the mile (sub 4:35) and I started getting a little upset with myself for getting out of shape. I started pondering some running goals, hopefully that will motivate me to get my butt in gear and start actually running again...

Let me backup and say that the past 8 weeks have been particularly difficult for me. Exercising just didn't happen, at least beyond scooping snow. The quick onset of darkness after work, combined with the ice,snow, and god-awful winds didn't help me any.

The last time I stepped on a scale, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I was starting to feel in shape and actually had been maintaining my weight really well. I was eating what I wanted and that was what has got me in trouble today. I stepped on the scale last week and I had gained 15 pounds since Thanksgiving! WOW! This past week I have been exercising 30 minutes or more each day and tonight I jumped on the scale to see the progress I was making - OH MY! I gained 4 more pounds. This is the heaviest I have ever been 209 pounds! Yeah, I am brushing 210 easily... Geez. This past summer I was holding an easy 190 and during our ultimate frisbee tournament in Omaha in August I was down around 180 after a full day of frisbee.

Quite frankly, I am dumbfounded by what I just saw on that scale, 210 pounds! No wonder running was tough this week, I'm carrying around 30 pounds that I don't need, and if I would get in good shape I probably could lose up to 40 but more likely 35 would be about right.

So, it's time to sit down and come up with some weight loss goals and while I am at it, I think I am going to come up with some tough running goals as well - nothing crazy, but something that will make me work and get in shape again.

I'll come up with something this next week and my next blog will be those goals in written form - something I can hold myself too because they are written down...

How about I finish this depressing blog off with a picture of Emryk enjoying one of his favorite candies!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

2010

2010-01-15T08:27:00.006-06:00

So what year is it? Twenty-ten or two thousand ten? I think it's twenty ten, but then again, I thought it would be awesome to say twenty aught nine (or whatever year it was). That didn't happen very often though. Either way, people tend to like to use the easiest method and I tend to think that is twenty ten.

So far, 2010 is off to a good start. Nothing too exciting is happening but nothing too dull either. We got our car back from the shop, lucky for us there wasn't too much damage and it was fixed for a reasonable price. The timing belt broke while Laura was driving down the Interstate - lucky for us the '97 Contour is a non incorruptible engine otherwise that car would be done! Although, it did get us thinking about looking into other vehicles. Our feeling is we are nearing the mini-van era of our lives. I tend to believe you buy a vehicle and drive it until it won't drive another inch - then you tow it to the junkyard and that's that. So, our feeling is we need a relatively nice vehicle to use for all the driving and traveling we like to do, and vehicle with lots of cargo space is what we need - summon the mini-van. So, we are keeping our eyes open for a good deal.

My winter project at work has been to digitize about 600 historic aerial photos of our district from the 1930's. I actually worked with these photos before, back in college I spent a summer indexing them for the University - little did I know at the time, I would be doing much more work! Although I have only finished one county, (1/3 of the district) I feel like I made a major accomplishment to get that done. 200 photos, and each photo requires me to find landmarks in the historical photo and match it up to a current aerial photo. I then 'pin' the landmarks together and that stretches the photos to match each other. It's a long process, I usually try to pin at least 8 and as many as 12 locations on each photo (a photo is about 3 miles x 2.5 miles roughly). So with 200 photos I have over 2,000 'pins' just for Phelps county. Here's a low quality photo to show my results so far. The photo is pretty big, so it will take awhile to download!Click on the photo and you can see some more detail. The red line shows the county boundary. It's pretty neat to see these old photos and see what the land once looked like. Just for reference, here is a current look of the county.All-and-all, 2010 is off to a good start and it looks to be a busy year - no surprise there!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Different December

2009-12-17T18:19:00.000-06:00

This has, by far, been one of the most difficult December months that I think of. Meaning, of the 28 Decembers I have lived through, this one tops them all in terms of craziness. *Those of you scratching your heads right now trying to figure out how I have been in 28 Decembers - keep in mind that you technically count the fact that I was born at the beginning of December and basically that is the first December. Either way, we are barely past the half way point and I can hardly help but wonder what else is yet to come.

To get thing started, the alternator went out on the car so for my birthday I taught Laura how to tow a car. Her and Emryk drove my truck and pulled me in the car. We got it home without too much trouble, but that was a rather wild evening I could have done without.

On top of that, NOAA reported this morning that this December started out the 3rd coldest on record - the only two that were colder were 1919 and 1972. With the limited amount of wood cutting we were able to do we won't be able to keep up with this cold streak (averaging 13°F) for much longer.

Just when we think the car is fixed, Laura took a trip to Hastings to see a friend in the hospital who suddenly had her appendix burst and on her way back the car broke down on the Interstate. Well, turns out the timing belt broke and there is a good chance there was some engine damage as well. UGH!

It's not that I overly worried about the cost of fixing the car or even worried about the fact we might just have to buy an entirely different vehicle - more the fact that we now are down to one vehicle and that sure makes our working situation all the more difficult. Laura drives 20 miles east of our house and I drive 33 miles southwest. Not exactly a carpool commute.

Thankfully we have had the help of my family to let us use a vehicle occasionally and we can try to limp along here for a short while until we find out more about our car and likely get ourselves a better vehicle for our longer road trips.

Speaking of road trips, we are heading to Cheyenne this weekend for Christmas. Our plan to do some elk hunting is still on and we had planned to take the truck to begin with, so we don't have to change our plans much. We are not overly excited to drive the truck with the three of us crammed into it (like we did in October when we went to Utah to help my sister move back to Nebraska) but I think we will get along fine for the short 5 hour drive. The weather looks to be in our favor, so I can't complain about that!

Hopefully the last half of December is less eventful than the first half, but I am not going to hold by breath. The way things are going, I think it's s safe bet that the fun is just beginning. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Amherst Adventure Run

2009-11-24T21:28:00.000-06:00

If you haven't noticed, my ability to blog has near disappeared. Time just seems to get away from me so quickly now and many things have to take a backseat to more important priorities. Nearly two weeks ago now, Laura was on her way home from work and a young gal ran into the back of her - Laura is fine, the car is drivable (for the most part) - the gal that wasn't wear her seat belt might have learned her lesson when she smacked her head on the windshield though... So that has been taking up a significant amount of time, along with cutting firewood and preparing for some winter weather!

Before all that fun began though, Laura and I ran an Adventure Run in Amherst. You might remember we did an adventure RACE this past summer, but this was just a run through the countryside (more or less). Basically, a race/run over pasture, through the Wood River creek bottom, and all-the-while following cattle trails, jumping logs, climbing hills so steep that ropes are the only option, and add to that the great decorations and hidden 'treasures' in the thick trees and you have yourself a heck of a great time!

The race had been scheduled to be run on Halloween morning, but some bad weather and rain a few days before made the access to the farm too difficult, so it was postponed until the next weekend. We talked a few friends into coming along and so we went to Amherst with a carload of runners.

I ran the 5K and Laura ran the 10K - boy am I glad I only ran the 5K - that was a difficult race for me and it was clear I need to workout just a little more. It's definitely a race I would run again, mostly for the fun of it. Perhaps next time I will do a little better, but also train a little harder too! Laura and I finished 2nd place in our age group - Laura was actually 2nd overall in the womens race. Overall we had a great time and hopefully we can do it again next year....

Until again
-=Nolan=-

Halloween

2009-10-31T22:19:00.002-05:00

With the final hours of October quickly moving into the early hours of November, it's hard to believe that in two short months we will be ending another year and for that matter, another decade - the 00's are nearly up! Look out, here comes 2010... Just in case you hadn't thought of that.

Of course, today was Halloween and overall it was a pretty good day. I enjoyed watching the Loper football team win the RMAC championship this afternoon, and this evening we took Emryk trick-or-treating. We thought he did great, considering half the time he doesn't listen to us anyway. But he quickly figured out that candy goes in the pail and we collect it from houses...amazing.

As sad as it is, I'm super tired tonight after hunting this morning and coming up with anything more to say just isn't happening. Happy Halloween!
Until again

-=Nolan=-

Getting Back to 'Normal'

2009-09-24T14:55:00.011-05:00

It's been over six weeks since Laura and I have felt like we were living at a normal pace. Let me back up (and post a few pictures) and revisit the activities of our busy summer.

First things first, we finished shingling the old house at the end of July. That took a good amount of our late spring and early summer to complete - mostly on weekends and occasionally a Friday evening as well. We had to replace some of the boards that were damaged by hail and we even rebuilt a small segment of roof connecting the stairs and entryway. We believe we built it better than it was originally designed (now knowing the flaws) and so far we have been right.

A few days later we moved into the old house and basically just dumped our stuff in the house. The last few days were a little crazy - Laura had to work and Emryk and I were moving boxes in the evenings (ok, so I was moving boxes and trying to keep track of Emryk). We moved out of our apartment and literally went straight to Cheyenne to spend a long weekend with Laura's parents. We spent a few days at a Game and Fish cabin in the Laramie Mountains about 20 miles south of Laramie Peak and evens spent a day hiking to the top of Laramie Peak. If you have driven the stretch of Interstate 25 from Cheyenne to Casper then you have seen Laramie Peak - it's the large mountain near Wheatland and it rises 10,274 feet above sea level.Returning to Kearney we faced a very dirty, very messy house. Laura did an awesome job cleaning the kitchen and getting it ready for us to use right away. Between work and all the beautiful evenings we spent outside or trying to get in a little exercise (running or ultimate frisbee) we didn't get much cleaned during the week. We basically worked in small segments and got one little thing done each day. We are still actually trying to get the house organized, but at least we have the living room and Emryk's room cleaned and usable now - along with one bathroom and slowly working on the second.

August 8th & 9th I played in an ultimate frisbee tournament in Council Bluffs. A buddy from high school and college that I used to run with had some connections to get my brother, Rylan, and I on an Omaha team and get some quality playing time. We had a lot of fun, but the first day of the tournament the temperature was over 100 and there was a 25+mph south wind that really took a toll on us. I alone lost 13 pounds on Saturday - no joke. I wouldn't have believed it, but I went from 192 to 179 - that might have explained why we were feeling so bad on Saturday evening. We drank a lot of water during the day, but the heat and all that running really put it to us... We were pretty tired, but we refueled for Sunday and finished 3 and 3 for the tournament.

Skip ahead a few weekends and we suddenly found ourselves at the end of August. Since Memorial Day weekend we had been wanting to go to Davenport, Iowa and see a GPS exhibit but we simply didn't have the time. The drive alone was 500 miles and we didn't think Emryk was ready for something like that... After our trip to Cheyenne a few weeks prior we discovered Emryk was quite the passenger and didn't mind riding in the car as long as we were able to get out of the car every hour or two and do some exploring and walking - no problem, we always have a geocache we can grab! With just a few weeks remaining before the exhibit closed (Labor Day weekend) we decided at the last minute to go. Saturday afternoon we arrived at the Putnam Museum in Davenport and spent the afternoon going through the GPS adventure maze and learning about GPS technology. The museum also had natural history exhibits and local history of the area along the Mississippi River - very neat and different than the history we see in Nebraska and into Wyoming. On our way back from Davenport we stopped at a little town outside of Iowa City called West Branch. Little to our knowledge, we discovered it was Herbert Hoover's boyhood home and his Presidential Library is located there. We spent the hour before sundown walking the grounds and learning about the area. We made a mental note to return someday and see the area during business hours - that's right up my alley.

That ended August and took us right into September and Labor Day. Once again we found ourselves traveling and on the move, but we always have a good time on Labor Day because we canoe in the Nebraska Sandhills around Mullen. This year we canoed on the Dismal River, a challenging river by canoe standards (perhaps one of the most difficult in Nebraska) and we had eight canoes in the river. We canoed the river and then spent the night in Mullen with my grandparents. On Labor Day we loaded up the mower and went north of town to mow at the cemetery where my great grandparents are buried. It's a little secluded cemetery nestled in the Sandhills, up in the hills, away from the highway, a nice quite place...

Finally, the weekend after Labor Day was the 6th Annual geocaching picnic at Fort Kearny and the Bootlegger Night Adventure Race in Kearney. We went to Fort Kearny for lunch and to picnic with over 100 other geocachers. We spent early afternoon chatting and seeing new faces and a few friends. We were recognized for reaching 2000 geocache finds and received a milestone geocoin to mark our 2000 finds. We accomplished that goal back in March when we visited my sister in Twin Falls, Idaho. We always have a lot of fun and geocaching events, and this was another good time.

We had to leave the picnic early, so we could get ready for our adventure race that evening. We didn't know much about adventure racing, but from everything we heard, it was something we would enjoy and we always like a little competition, so Laura got a few friends from college that ran cross country and I had a team of guys and we spent Saturday night racing 34 other teams around Kearney. Let me tell you, it was a blast! We had about 12 miles of bike riding and about 5 miles of running, but in between we had challenges that we had to accomplish before moving on. Running around in the dark with a flashlight is a lot of fun, especially when you are racing other people and trying to read a map while riding your bike!! Our team, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, finished in 3:26.17 - we took some bonus pictures along the way we were able to subtract 6 minutes (2 minutes per bonus photo - maximum of 3) from our time to give us a grand total of 3:21.17. We finished 3rd in the mens short course and ten minutes later, the first womens team to finish was Laura's team. They won the womens short course and really impressed us - especially after we found them about a quarter mile off course at one time and going in the wrong direction! They really made up a lot of time in the running portions.

That basically brings us to the present and we still have a lot of cleaning to do at the house. We also need to cut firewood for the winter. We have a small amount of wood ready to get us started for the cold weather, but it would be wise to find some downed trees and start cutting! Hunting season is under way and that means football season is here too - when will I find time to get anything else done!? Maybe instead of writing up such a long blog I should be getting something done.......

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Moved

2009-08-13T22:39:00.002-05:00

Here we are, all moved in. Wouldn't you know it, the only thing that didn't survive the move (that we have found) was my computer. Well, I should clarify, it survived the move but it has been giving me an attitude for the past year and this past week it decided it wasn't going to start. Not a big deal, I have our laptop running Windows 7 Beta (the next Microsoft Operating System that will be released next year) and so I am at least able to get on the internet and do some stuff. All of our pictures, music, finances are loaded on the other computer so we don't really have much to work with there, but I can get those off the hard drives later. For now, I am happy with the laptop and I will make it work. I am thinking of building another computer, so it will be nice to have that to work on this winter.

As far as the move, it went rather smoothly. No major problems and we have all of our stuff here, it's just a matter of finding it. We are slowly cleaning rooms and moving our things into them. This house has had a sad existence the past 5 years and it is in need of some serious cleaning! Laura is one of the best cleaners I have ever seen and I have great faith that she will get the job done. With my organization skills and her cleaning skills I predict that within the next year we will have one fine looking place! At least, that is the hope anyway - there is a lot to do though.

Well, without the use of some pictures a blog just isn't worth making a long publication so I will leave it with that. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Moving

2009-07-26T10:17:00.002-05:00

Moving is probably one of the things is life that really make a person evaluate what they have. What other time do you really go through EVERYTHING you own? Maybe you don't own a lot of the stuff you have, maybe you borrowed it several months back and discovered it hiding at the back of your closet under that pile of shoes you swore you'd never wear again..? Either way, when everything is being cleaned out of your place, you get a rather unique view of your lifestyle.

For use, it's rather apparent we are.. uh..parents. Toys, toys, baby clothes, baby 'stuff' toys and a of Laura and I's things scattered here and there. This will be the third time we have moved since we were married - and most definitely our most chaotic. Most of the chaos is due to the fact that we have a one year old who isn't real excited about having all his stuff put in boxes and packed away for a few days or even weeks. Two parents working alternating shifts and trying to pack, move, unpack with a baby wanting to walk and crawl everywhere is one of the most difficult tasks to manage.

Did I mention we are going on vacation at the end of the month? We are leaving the day we are moving out of the apartment and coming back to a different place. Emryk will probably be confused for quite some time and wonder where his little cozy apartment went - but he is going to love having the big yard to play in at the other house. Plus, things are a little quieter in the country. At least I am looking forward to all of that...

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Shingled

2009-07-21T22:05:00.005-05:00

I've had good intentions to blog the past few weeks, but as usual, I am busy and sitting down to a 20 minute blog is difficult. Maybe not the fact that I can't find time to blog, it's a matter of finding 20 consecutive minutes to blog! Tonight I am making a rather late entry just so I can get a blog in for July.

The summer project for my family was shingling our old house. We have neglected it for too long and it was time for some much needed repairs. With the new house having projects all the time and Laura and I taking our vacation to Montana (for 3 years) we finally MADE time to put in some long, hot, tiring hours on the roof. A few days were well over 14 hours, and the first weekend we worked close to 33 hours - keep in mind, there are only 48 hours in a weekend! Needless to day, our motivation was rather lacking after a few weekends of work, but we have finished shingling the house and we are ready to move onto other projects... But first, Laura and I have to move in!The dark shingles will take some time to get used to, but once the siding is replaced I think the house will look a lot better. Laura and I are looking forward to moving in and doing some repairs, improving things, and generally having a place we don't mind putting some work into. A place where our efforts won't be overlooked. I think Emryk will enjoy it too - a front yard to play in and explore the great outdoors!Until again

-=Nolan=-

5K'ing

2009-06-09T21:55:00.003-05:00

5 King? No, not 5 kings, I mean 5K - you know? 5,000? 5,000 meters to be exact, or better yet, 5 Kilometers. Understand? No? How about 3.11 miles - does that work for you? If not then I guess you are doomed with distance.

Saturday Laura and I had a 5k road race here in town. We did better than we expected, but still a far cry from our best times. The good news for me is that I am still faster now than when I was my sophomore & junior years in high school, so I know I can still improve. On top of that, I have lost about 12 pounds and started running in a new pair of shoes and I am feeling much much better. The past few days of running with Emryk (pushing the jogging stroller) have been really good and I can feel my base mileage starting to really establish itself. In fact, on Saturday we did a mile warm up, a 3 mile race, and then I did a 4 mile cool down, so in total I had an 8 mile morning. It's been a long time since I ran 8 miles - in fact, it was the half marathon in Spokane, Washington in October 2007 - a race I desperately try to forget about!

We've got a few more chances to run a 5K this summer to try to improve our times, I'll let you know how those go...

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Up On The Roof

2009-06-07T09:23:00.007-05:00

Laura and I are going to be moving into the house I grew up in. There have been some repairs needed for quite awhile and this summer we are jumping right in to get them going. The house is 25 years old and hasn't needed much maintenance, but in 2002 we had a major hail storm rip through the area and it did a real number on the roof. I'm not talking about small hail stones, I am talking the size of softballs. Some of them went through the roof at the house and so we had to replace some of the sheeting on the roof too. For the past seven years we have relied on the patches we made on the roof to keep the water out, but in the past few years they have started to deteriorate and so it's time to put in some time and shingle the house. Last weekend we put in over 30 hours of work and finished the entire north side of the house.
We finished the back at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday night - so I didn't get any pictures of the finished result. We were going to shingle again this weekend but the scattered rain showers have kept us off the roof. That might be for the best since we could use a few day to rest. Yesterday we ran a 5K race here in Kearney and had a great time doing it, we both ran pretty good but my dad still beat us so it appears we have some more work to do.Hopefully we can get back to the roof soon so we can finish it off and then start with other projects to help get the house back in top shape. I'll try to keep you updated on a more regular basis.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Few & Far Between

2009-05-15T21:36:00.002-05:00

Sadly enough, it seems like getting one blog posting up in a month is a real task. As family members pointed out to me last weekend, they can tell I am busy when I haven't posted on the blog in a few weeks. Well, that's the truth, busy is becoming the normal these days. Laura and I are really starting to slow down and relaxing when we get a chance. When we had a free minute we would run out the door and maybe find a geocache or go for a quick run - these days it seems like a few minutes to sit down and check email is about as good as it gets. In fact, here it is a little after 10:00 p.m. and I put Emryk to bed about half an hour ago - so far I have been able to check my email and make a quick cruise onto Facebook, but other than that, my evening has been filled with boogers, cracker crumbs, screams & crying (Emryk and I both) and a now a few moments to shut the eyes and think about sleep.

I don't really mind the fact that Emryk wants to play and have attention, it's the matter of finding time to get some of my stuff done once he crashes for the night. I plan on getting a quick bowl of cereal and maybe watching a few minutes of the news (while trying to catch up on the internet) and then getting to bed myself. It's amazing how someone so small can cause you to use up so much energy! I can understand why parents tend to age at a faster rate - the lack of sleep and constant thought of "where could I hide for 15 minutes to take a nap" are always wearing on them. For me, a thirty minute run is total freedom - just enough time to get about 4 miles in and then get back home to start into the evening with Emryk. Not that I'm complaining, our lives would be rather dull without him!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

A Faster Pace

2009-04-28T21:26:00.008-05:00

I can't figure out how it's happening, but it seems to me that time is passing by faster and faster all the time. Here it is, nearly the end of April and it seems like 2009 just arrived a few weeks ago. In fact, spring is in full effect and there are flowers all around, along with leafs on the trees, and it seems like I have hardly slowed down to notice the simple things lately.

The past few weeks have been a blur it seems. I suppose if I had to sit down and retrace my footsteps I could do it rather easily, but it might take a few moments of thought......

As far as work goes, we started out April with a prescribed burn in Gosper County. For anyone that hasn't been around a prescribed burn, if you get the chance to help with one you should take the opportunity. Not only are they a lot of fun, but they can do a lot of good things for the land and habitat. Most of us grew up with Smokey the Bear and the thought that every fire should be prevented. In recent years the logic has turned to 'if it isn't going to hurt anybody then let it burn.' Depending on who you are, both sides might be a little too far stretched, but I tend to think that Mother Nature uses fire to 'flush' the old stuff and let new growth sprout. It's good to have a renewal now and again.

The middle of April I was out running around the district checking static water levels. A pretty simple task, but we have over 200 wells we measure, and there are only two of who measure water levels - so it can become a long drawn-out process. Especially when you figure we were driving upwards of 175-200 miles everyday (not includind my drive to and from work). We have a program at work which has been in place for 30 years - checking water levels twice a year to monitor the groundwater levels - the wells are spread throughout the district. The way to measure them is to take a lead weight tied to the end of a steel tape measure (designed for groundwater measurements) that is 300' long and apply chalk to the first 4-6 feet and drop the end of the tape down into the well. Once you think you have hit the water level, you check the tape measure and remember the depth, reel the tape back up the well and if you did it right, there will be a clear wetted area (cut line) on the chalk at the end of the tape. Some simple math and you have the depth to water. Seems simple, but there is a lot that can go wrong, and there is a lot that does - but it's all part of the experience. However, the fact that I can be out of the office (especially since I have been cooped up inside all winter) is a great way to get out and start enjoying the spring.

Emryk has taken to his feet and started walking around - A LOT. He isn't walked unaided however - we have to hold his hands but he goes along like a little rocket ship. Running from one place to another. He loves his walker on the kitchen tile, well I guess its linoleum so it's even easier for him to run around on. He really likes to run across the kitchen and crash into whatever he finds on the other side - it doesn't matter if it is the cabinet or the back of your leg, he hits it at full speed and laughs the whole time.

The warmer weather has been great to take him out in the stroller for a run - it gets him out of the house which keeps him happy and it lets us get some exercise and that keeps us happy. The past few days have been a little cold and that has kept us indoors, our cabin fever didn't take long to return and we are ALL ready to get out of this tiny little apartment and get outside to stretch out! Perhaps some geocaching could cure us...

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Marching Along

2009-03-31T21:41:00.008-05:00

Just like that, 2009 is a quarter complete. It seems like I have hardly had enough time to blink, err, maybe that's the lack of sleep that does that to me..? Either way, someone told me spring is here and that means the snow and cold will soon be gone for awhile - I think. The weather the past few days has been something else. Blowing cold and a even some snow last night. Just a few weeks ago there were tornadoes in Eastern Nebraska. Strange weather to say the least.

We did manage to get to Idaho during 'spring break.' We left on Saturday morning around 5:30 a.m. and drove the entire 940 miles by midnight - just about 20 hours in the van. Laura, Emryk and I had the back seat while Rylan and Kayla looked cozy in the middle captain seats, mom and dad saw most of the road through the windshield. Seven of us stuffed into a mini-van was a little tight, especially with all our stuff - or should I say Emryk's stuff. Either way, we all seem to get along pretty well, so there wasn't too much discontent amongst the ranks.

Lana and Kory had to put up with us crashing in their one room apartment for a few days, and they did a pretty good job of dealing with all of us invading their space. Lana gave everyone a haircut and we all were looking better right off the bat. We spent most of the time just exploring Twin Falls and checking out all the things there were to see. The Perrine Bridge at Twin Falls crosses the Snake River and it's about 500 feet off the water. It's one of the only bridges where BASE jumping is legal 24 hours a day - we saw a few jumpers while we were there too. Looks like a real rush and if I could get ahold of a parachute I think I would try it out.

We also saw Shoshone Falls and Twin Falls - although, the Twin Falls are now just a single waterfall. One of the falls was damed to creat hydro power - kind of a sad deal actually, it looks like it would have been a neat sight to see with two waterfalls.

Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day, we drove west of Twin Falls on Highway 30 to the Hagerman area where were saw the springs which flow right out the side of the cliffs into the Snake River. We also stopped and saw where the Oregon Trail was. The ruts and cuts are still visible in the side of the hills near the Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument.

I always enjoy just driving and seeing the countryside. There were parts of the drive that looked like areas of Nebraska - especially areas north of Kearney. With the exception of a few rocks in the fields it appears nearly identical - just don't look too far on the horizon and spot the mountains off in the distance!

Tuesday night Kayla had friends coming to Twin Falls to visit her, so the rest of us loaded up the van and headed south to Nevada to be robbed by the one armed bandit in Jackpot! Well, I guess it isn't robbery when you willingly give the money, but it did make for some fun. I think Kory did sneak away with the few extra dollars in his pocket, but as for the rest of us...well, lets just say I better keep working for my paycheck. Did you see Emryk decked out in his St. Patrick's Day outfit? When we arrived in Jackpot we were adorned with festive beads and Emryk was really playing the part.

We made it back to Twin Falls a little before mid-night and we packed up our things. We tried to leave Twin Falls around 5:30 Wednesday morning since we decided to change our route home and go back through Nevada and across Utah to so I could see the Bonneville Salt Flats. That small detour added 100 miles to our drive and Wednesday we really put the miles on! It was 1,048 miles home - a new one day record drive for me. We rolled into Kearney a few minutes before midnight and we were all feeling the trip catching up with us. That's just how my family vacations though, we go 100% while we are on vacation and relax when we get home.

Besides our trip to Idaho, Laura, Emryk and I made a trip to Cheyenne this past weekend to see Laura's parents. It was another quick trip, but it was nice to have such a 'short' distance to go this time!

Which reminds me... With today being the last day of March, I snapped a picture of my GPS tonight. I have been logging the miles I travel each month, just to see how far I travel. I think this is my second farthest month I have logged since I started paying attention - 5,091 miles.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

On To Idaho

2009-03-12T11:36:00.003-05:00

A few months back my brother and his girlfriend mentioned going to see my sister and her boyfriend in Twin Falls, Idaho over spring break... He didn't necessarily invite Laura and I along, but we mentioned that we would be interested in going along and paying for gas. We did stipulate that Emryk would be coming with us but that wasn't a problem either. Fast forward a few more weeks and mom and dad decided they might like to go along too. Well, that's seven people packed into the minivan, so that confirms that we are on a spring break trip - minus that fact there is a baby along, but we don't discriminate.

Saturday morning we are setting out for Twin Falls and we should be in town by early that night. The drive out is around 940 miles and should take about 12 hours on the road. We have a stop in Cheyenne to make - that will be 1/3 of the way - to see Laura's parents and let Emryk burn off some energy, otherwise we are going to be seeing a lot of Interstate traffic. I do have a few geocaches along the way to help break up some of those long stretches and help Emryk get out of his seat for a few minutes.

I am excited to see some new scenery and Laura and I will have some new road to travel together. We have been through Twin Falls before, and we have been across nearly all of Wyoming on I-80, but we have not been through Northern Utah together. We had plans to go through Salt Lake City on a trip to/from Missoula/Kearney but since I moved back rather quickly we were unable to travel through Utah. So, now we have our chance to travel some new roads and go through a few new counties as well. We were spoiled when we were in Montana, we did a lot of traveling on the weekends, and since moving back and having a baby we have been rather stationary. It should be a good time, and we are looking forward to going on a road trip.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Another Book Off My List

2009-02-26T21:01:00.004-06:00

It's a good feeling to finish a book. Thankfully, Emryk crashed around 8:15 tonight and that allowed me to sit down and finish the book I started back in June of 2008. Yeah, I'm a slow reader - I like to read everything closely to get the full understanding of the book. Forget that speed reading stuff, I like getting the full enjoyment out of the books I read. Slow and steady is how I read.

I don't read for entertainment. I have tv, video games and internet for that. I read to educate myself - mostly I stick to history books. Since graduating from college I think I have read three history related books - Death In Yellowstone, Undaunted Courage (Lewis and Clark), and tonight I finished Nothing Like It In The World. The last two books have been by Stephen Ambrose and I enjoy his writing style.

Nothing Like It In The World is the story of the Transcontinental Railroad across the United States. I picked up a copy of it when we were living in Missoula and put it on the shelf to read after I finished the Lewis and Clark book.

Interestingly enough, I read Undaunted Courage while living in Missoula, an area full of Lewis and Clark history and once we moved back to Kearney I started Nothing Like It In The World which talks about the very railroad which was key in the development of modern Kearney and runs right through town.

I don't think I will start a new book for awhile. I have a stack of National Geographic magazines waiting for me to read - we started getting those when we were living in Missoula too. Not to mention I have a few outdoor magazines that I have been piling up to read as well.

Maybe I will have the magazines read by the endo of the summer and I will be ready for another book to get me through the winter. I have been thinking about reading a book about Theodore Roosevelt or maybe even William Fredrick Cody - better known as "Buffalo Bill." I think a book about Buffalo Bill would be very intersting - Laura is from Cody, Wyoming, a town founded by Buffalo Bill. He also has some history of being in Nebraska and I'm a sucker for local history.

Then again, I'm always open for suggestions.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

111111.1

2009-02-08T22:41:00.007-06:00

The trusty Garmin eTrex has reached a milestone - 111,111.1 miles since I first started using it over 4 years ago. I take the thing with me everywhere I go. I pulled over on my way to work Thursday to take the picture of the GPS - yeah, I even use it everyday I drive to work. Heck, I even plug it in while I drive around at work and log the miles I travel. Most of the time I am just interested in logging the miles I travel each month - last year in April I had a 5,000 mile month! Take into consideration that I did go to Missoula and move back that month, so that was a quick 2,500 miles. Although, last summer I did have a few months over 3,000 miles and one that was even close to 4,000!

Maybe you noticed the new picture that tops off the blog. I decided as nice as the Bitterroot Mountains were, they just didn't represent our current situation - plus a little change is good now and then. I took the picture of the geese last month while we were geocaching in Grand Island, Nebraska. Speaking of geocaching, Emryk has gone out on a few geocache finds with us - he and Laura found one just the other day while I was taking pictures. Ok, maybe he didn't find it, but he sure wanted to play on the log that we were searching around!

The recent warm weather has really been teasing us that spring will be here quickly, although I suspect we might be in for one last snowfall this winter - at least I hope so. If it doesn't snow here I would like to make it out to Wyoming and do some snowshoeing in the mountains for a day with Laura. I don't know that we could make it a full day right now, be both feel like we are a little out of shape, so maybe just half a day would do! Here's hoping for just a little more winter!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Super Bowl Sunday

2009-02-01T10:17:00.008-06:00

I had planned to blog yesterday and get one extra blog in for January, but that wasn't the case. So, I guess I will start of February with a blog... Yeah, today is Super Bowl Sunday. Not that I care much, I will probably sit and watch for awhile, mostly for the commercials, and once the game is lopsided I will find something else to do.

I mentioned in my last blog that we moved my computer into the living room for Emryk's room. I don't believe I mentioned the fact that I lost a computer desk in the process. In an effort to move the computer a little faster, I left everything on the cart and started pushing it out of the room. I made it about ten feet and then disaster struck. I should have been pulling the cart instead of pushing it - it probably would have made it - but hindsight makes us all smarter doesn't it?

So far I haven't found anything that broke from the collapse, althought I did put a pretty good dent in my sub woofer for my speakers. The monitor took quite a tumble, I think it rolled onto it's top - I quickly grabbed it and sat it upright. Then I grabbed my camera and snapped a few pictures. The computer tower sits on the floor, so there was no worry about that.

Emryk has become a master at sitting up and playing with his toys. On top of that, he doesn't mind being left alone to play while we do some chores or make a meal. The other day I snapped of photo of him while he was playing in the crib. Yup, he's got it pretty rough.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Starting Off New

2009-01-19T10:37:00.002-06:00

When we moved into the apartment we still had a few months before Emryk arrived, so we placed my computer in the second bedroom. Well, once Emryk was here the time to use my computer virtually disappeared - that is, unless he was sleeping. The problem was, if Emryk was sleeping I couldn't use my computer because it was in his bedroom, so I was forced to use the laptop computer. So for the past six months the laptop has been sitting on our coffee table when we want to use the internet quick.

Having the laptop sit out all the time just doesn't seem like a good idea to me, especially since we had a few cords to trip over while we were carrying Emryk. So, as we were taking the Christmas tree down I decided to try to squeeze my computer into the living room and move some bookshelves into Emryk's room. That wasn't so bad, but once investigating my computer I discovered my computer was in major need of some help. The most obvious problem was the virus which was ruling my system. My simple fix for that was to format the hard drive and reinstall windows. I started off downloading Windows 7 Beta - the new operating system from Microsoft, it is basically a testing version. I used it for a day, but my internet wasn't working so I have gone back to Windows XP. I liked Windows 7 though, it looks much better than Vista...

..so for the past two weeks I have been getting my computer back up to speed and running like it is brand new. There are still a few things I need to install to have it working at full force, but for now I am feeling pretty good to have my computer accessable at all times and browse the internet with bookmarks instead of typing in every web address I want to go to!

So I am starting off the new year with a relatively new computer and new location to use it!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Cache in Carolina (North, that is!)

2008-12-30T14:06:00.004-06:00

Johnny Cache is on the move now! Tennessee was a quick stop, and now he has stopped in North Carolina, less than five miles from the South Carolina border. No new destination have been achieved, but the odds of getting to one soon are quite good.Total mileage is now at 3,588 miles. We are looking forward to seeing where he goes next!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Map Making

2008-12-24T09:26:00.005-06:00

Here we are, Christmas Eve and Laura and I still have some Christmas shopping to do. Good thing we are not having our family Christmas for another two weeks, when my sister comes back from Idaho. We have most of our shopping done though, but still a few loose ideas on presents to finish our shopping with.

I have been doing some odds and ends at work, getting caught up with projects and brainstorming other things to do or attempt to do. One of my projects has been designing a 3D computer model of the districts landscape. It's in the first stages, but some things are starting to come together. It's interesting to see the wide range of geography just within our district.

I have been doing some experimenting with some of our GIS (Geographical Information System) program that I use at work. Some things are understandable but others take some practice, and so I have been doing some practicing. I made a map of Nebraska and used the geocaches we have found and placed within the state. There are several programs that will do this for me, but manually working with the information can be more rewarding and can help to understand the information more clearly. Here's the simple map I came up with quick.
The red dots are geocaches we have found. It's quite obvious we hang out right around Kearney a lot, but we have also done a fair amount of traveling around in the Panhandle as well. Interstate 80 is pretty easy to see as it goes west from Kearney. The green dots, which are a littel difficult to see, are geocaches we have hidden. We have hidden 7 in Nebraska - we had three or four in Montana, those were adopted by one of our geocaches friends in Missoula. Here is another map that shows the counties we have geocaches in.The exception is Logan county, we actually have only hidden a geocache there, not found one...

Well, that's the news for now. Tomorrow is Christmas and we are headed to the Sandhills, just like we have done the past 26 years.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Johnny Cache Finds Tennessee

2008-12-12T21:48:00.007-06:00

Well, good ole Johnny Cache has made it was to Chattanooga, Tennessee. He has now traveled 3,411 miles and has stopped at four of the destinations on his long list of goals. Those however have only been the states of Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Tennessee. Hopefully he will make his way to Nashville while he is in Tennessee, but you just never know where the next Geocacher will take him. We will be waiting for him to get picked up and move along with another geocacher on their adventures! Until again

-=Nolan=-

A Letter To The Editor

2008-12-09T10:19:00.004-06:00

For those of you who know me well, you might know that I like to speak my mind occasionally - ok, maybe more than occasionally. What better way than getting my opinion in the local newspaper?

I wrote a Letter to the Editor a few weeks ago and thought I would share it. A little background first though. A little over a month ago, I was out for my run after work. Keep in mind, the sun had already set and the street lights had come on - it was dark. As I came to an intersection with a marked cross walk a car rolled through the stop sign - it was close enough that I slammed my hand on the back of his trunk to let him know I was not very happy that he didn't stop. If we would have met a second earlier I would have been on his hood...

Well, the young man then rolled his window down and started yelling at me for hitting his car. I didn't hesitate to throw my thoughts back at him. Maybe next time he will think a little when he's driving his car...but I doubt it.

Here's my letter:

Every year, after we set our clocks back, it seems the idea of venturing out into the dark for my evening run is borderline insanity and more dangerous to my health than staying home on the couch and watching TV. I have been running on the streets of Kearney for over a decade now, and it seems some drivers need a friendly reminder that even though the street lights have come on, there are still many people who get outside to take a walk or go for a run. When I run in the evening I try to wear at least a light colored reflective top to be seen. Lately, it seems my efforts to allow motorists to see me are falling on blind eyes.

I have noticed drivers on cell phones or text messaging who likely never noticed I was running around their vehicle at an intersection. Usually I have to run around the back of a vehicle after the driver speeds to the stop sign and finally come to a stop with their rear tires blocking the crosswalk. Had I been a few steps quicker or they arrived a few moments later I would surely become a very unwelcome hood ornament or perhaps even worse.

Simply stopping before the cross walk, looking both directions, and proceeding is an easy practice to follow and would improve the safety of our streets for both pedestrians and drivers. At least a few of us could breathe easier while we exercise.

It's not much, but at least it's something for people to think about. It was in the paper a few weeks ago, and since that time I haven't had any trouble when I have been running - but it's only a matter of time until another bad driver ignores a simple traffic law and receives my fist pounding on their car. It wasn't my first and it won't be my last.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

One More For November

2008-11-30T21:48:00.006-06:00

I thought I would get one last blog in for November. In a few short hours we will be starting December and soon 2008 will be over - look out, here comes 2009! Where is the time going so fast?

At the beginning of November Emryk started eating baby food with a spoon. He wasn't very good at it, but here we are a few weeks later and he eats from a spoon like he has been doing it all his life! As you can see, he isn't exactly a clean eater, but I know people my age who still consider staying this clean a achievement!

Thanksgiving was nice. We left for Cheyenne around 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday after Laura got off work. We took our time getting there by taking the highway and doing some geocaching on the way. Not only do we get better gas mileage on the highway, but we also get to enjoy the scenery a little more. The Interstate just doesn't offer very good views at 75 miles per hour and semi-trucks everywhere. Emryk did very well on the ride to Cheyenne, he slept most of the way and only cried a few minutes - lucky for us we were just arriving on the outskirts of Cheyenne as he started fussing.

We spent Thanksgiving with Laura's family in Cheyenne. That allowed Laura's parents some quality time with Emryk and Laura and I were able to relax a little while they watched him. We did some geocaching in Cheyenne - even though it was less than two hours we still enjoyed a few minutes by ourselves and not having the threat of a crying baby in the backseat of the car. Our ride back to Kearney wasn't nearly as pleasant!

Thurday evening Laura's dad and I installed the stained glass window that I made last year. I finished it up just before I moved back to Nebraska in January. In fact, after I got my current job in December, I went back to Montana for just a few days and packed everything I thought I would need for a few months before Laura moved. In the mean time, I finished up the stained glass window by going to the studio of my instructor and spending about six hours during one day to finish it. When we moved in April, I packed it between several layers of cardboard, and then placed it in a box of blankets. That box was put in the Subaru on the backseat - where it would be safe... If you don't know the rest of that story you can read it >>HERE <<.

Here's a picture of what the template looked like in the book. I made some changes.

Here's where the stained glass window goes. We finished the basement and left a spot for it.
Here's the finished product.

The window doesn't look too bad. In reality the window won't have enough light behind it to look very good - but the purpose of the window is to allow a little natural light into the interior area of the basement which doesn't have a lot of natural light to begin with. I think it achieves the desired look - the white of the swans and light colors I used for the water should allow enough light through to brighten up the area. As you can see, the basement has a turkey fan on the wall and there is also a deer and antelope mount on the wall, so the swans will add to the basement atmosphere. Overall I really liked making the window and hopefully I will be able to make another stained glass window in the future. That will be when I have much more free time though - Emryk seems to think he needs all of it right now!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Three Years of Blogging

2008-11-19T09:48:00.000-06:00

It's difficult for me to believe I have been at this for three years now. Granted, the past few months I seem to only manage one or two blogs a month, but I am starting to acquire quite an archive. Sometimes, when I don't have much to do (ha - like Emryk gives me free time!) I like to go back through some of my old blogs and remember some of the things we have done over the past few years. I think, several years down the road, I will be very pleased to have a small history of our time in Montana and remember all the fun things we tried to do while we were there. Last winter, while I was still in Montana, I tried to print some of my entries off with an old printer I found in a dumpster. Laura bought some cheap colored ink for it, and I printed off quite a few of my entries in color. I think I only managed to get about a years worth printed before something happened to the printer though. Since then I just haven't had the time to try to get it running again and continue printing off the many pages I have. Perhaps that will be a project for a snow day when I cannot get to Holdrege for work.

Another thing I would like to do is make a new banner image for the blog. The mountain at the top of my blog are nice - it was a picture I took while I was hunting, but I would like to update it to something more relevant and give a Nebraska feel. Perhaps I will have to keep looking for the right picture, I'm sure I will find one.

Perhaps one of these pictures of Emryk would we a good one to add.
Although the pictures are adorable, if I do say so myself, I don't think they will quite fit the bill for a new image. Maybe a picture from a Nebraska hunting trip would do the trick. Here's some from a few weeks ago:
And here's a few from our weekend hunt with Randy. As far as filling our bag limit, we had the best day of hunting ever. We had 18 ducks by noon and even had a chance at a few geese. Wouldn't you know it, we were out picking up ducks when the geese showed up! We still got a shot off, but we couldn't drop the geese. However, we did have a good mixed bag, including a beautiful bufflehead that I hope to have mounted and a few canvasback ducks - both a first for me.
Rylan and I have been trying to get out at least once every weekend for a hunt together. This has been, by far, our best year of duck hunting.

This weekend I hope to get in some hunting and maybe even talk Laura into going along one morning. We both have been talking about doing some geocaching as well, so hopefully we can find some time to get out and enjoy the outdoors together. This morning I saw gas was $1.80 in Kearney, so we have some incentive to go out and burn some 'cheap' gas!

We will be in Cheyenne for Thanksgiving. We are looking forward to taking Emryk on a trip with some distance, although we hope he enjoys riding in the car for several hours without getting out. The good thing about geocaching is we can stop occasionally and get out to let him move around for awhile. Before I get ahead of myself, I forgot to mention the alternator in the car is going bad, so we need to have that replaced before we get out on the highway. So, right now we would be stuck driving the pick-up, which is a nice ride, but I think we ALL would rather ride in the car and have some room as we travel.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Veterans Day

2008-11-11T09:45:00.012-06:00

Veterans Day here in Central Nebraska is a cold and rainy day. No snow, but we do have rain and ice. The office is closed today so Emryk and I are spending our morning at home watching Sesame Street and staying warm. Later today we will be going in for his four month check up and then I will be going to the dentist. Although I am taking advantage of my day home from work by spending it with my family, it's important to remember we have troops who are fighting and have fought for our freedom and it is important to thank them for their service.

When I think of Veterans I often think of my grandfather who served during World War II in the Navy. During the invasion of France, more specifically on D-Day, he manned the landing craft that transported soldiers from ships and took them to the shores of Omaha Beach.

The landing craft was hit by enemy fire and was sunk near shore. My grandpa, who couldn't swim, managed to get to shore and dig into the rocky beach. I can only imagine what a helpless feeling it would be to have no weapon and try to dig a hole in the rocks with your hands.

Sometime I would like to set up a video camera and have him tell the story. I know the general information, but the details are what makes a real story.

Here are some pictures I found on the internet of landing craft at Omaha Beach.
Those are some very amazing photographs taken during a very amazing time. Remember that here in The United States we have a lot to be thankful for and especially thankful for our Veterans!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Travel Bug On The Move

2008-10-21T20:04:00.003-05:00

With Emryk keeping us so busy lately we haven't had much time to get out and geocache. Yesterday I did find a cache when I was checking groundwater levels - I took a five minute break and found a geocache we had missed early this summer.

Later, Laura and I took a run on the trail and found a new geocache while out for our jog with Emryk in the baby jogger.

Today our Travel Bug known as Johnny Cache was picked up from Louisiana and is headed for Tennessee. It has now traveled over 3,000 miles since we dropped it off in Winnemucca, Nevada back in March of 2007.

Laura and I will be heading to Lincoln this weekend to see the Huskers take on Baylor and hopefully we can go a little geocaching while we are there. We had thought we could make it to 2000 finds by New Years, but the way things are going currently we might be lucky to make it to 1900.

Hopefully I won't forget the camera this weekend and I will be able to blog about our day in Lincoln next week! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Roll Over!

2008-10-09T18:30:00.006-05:00

Rolling over is the theme of my blog entry today. No, Emryk isn't quite rolling over yet, although he has managed to get onto his side a few times without much trouble. He will be rolling over very soon, and then we will have our work cut out for us - not only will he be demanding, but he will be mobile too! I'm trying to get this blog posted as fast as possible because Emryk is sleeping and Laura is at work, so I have very limited time to turn my back!

This afternoon gasoline in Kearney rolled over, or perhaps rolled back. $2.99/gallon! HOLY COW, back below $3? Most people didn't think we would ever see it happen again. I have heard a few places east of Kearney are even cheaper.

Finally, my GPS has rolled over 100,000 miles. In less than 4 years I have traveled over 100,000 miles with my GPS in hand, or at least next to me in the car. In fact, I have gone farther than that, but I didn't always have my GPS handy. Just like yesterday, I went to Halsey Forest in the Nebraska Sandhills - a 250 mile trip - and didn't take my GPS along. I was there to look at the tree nursery and examine the inventory for next spring. I brought a few trees back to see how they do this winter - I have them planted in planters in front of our duplex, so who knows how they will do...

Well, I hear Emryk awake after his quick ciesta so I must go!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

**Bonus Picture**
Laura and I standing in the geographical center of Nebraska on Husker game day - a few weeks ago while we were geocaching around Merna, Nebraska.

Our Quick September

2008-09-26T17:42:00.008-05:00

My sister has informed me, perhaps nagged me, that I need to post a blog. Believe it or not, I had totally spaced off on blogging. So, with my best effort at the time I will do my best to update everyone with the news of the last month.

I'll start things off, or perhaps I should say get things going AGAIN, with Labor Day. For the past something-teen years there has been an annual canoe trip in the Nebraska Sandhills. Between the Dismal River and the Middle Loup River we have manuvered a lot of downed trees, sandbars, fence lines across the river, and even the occasional cow wading in the river. The 2008 canoe trip was a nice relaxing float of nearly 16 miles down the Middle Loup River just north of Mullen.

We spent most of the day on the river, enjoying the calm meandering of the sandy river. It's hard to beat a river in the sandhills - the constant swirling of the sands in the river create quite a sight along the grass covered dunes as canoes float by under the hot sun. (How's that for a strange sentence?) The peacefulness of being on a Sandhills river is truely something impossible to explain. Sure, there is a fair amount of work involved to keep your canoe from smashing into an overhanging cedar tree, costing you several weeks of bruised knees, scraped shins, and not to mention scratches that resemble a cheese grader being run the entire lenght of your body...but I digress. We had a relatively peaceful float due to the fact that Emryk was spending the day with my mom while we had the day to enjoy on the river.

I took my 'cheap' digital camera along for the canoe trip - I had it in a water tight box I picked up from Wal-Mart - super handy for some nice pictures on the river. Laura took a picture of me posing next to our canoe, but it looks like I will need to help her next time to get me in the frame.

A few weeks later we attended a geocaching event here in Kearney. Kearney's "Fifth Annual Geopicnic & Campfire" (GC1D47F) was at Fort Kearny State Recreation Area on September 13. Geocaching events are a fun way to meet other geocachers and share stories, geocache ideas, and just general chit-chat with some other 'strange' people.

We started things off with a Nebraska Geocacher meeting - a meeting for members of the Nebraskache group - and then around noon had a big pot luck dinner with over 100 people attending. The afternoon was filled with geocaches made especially for the geocaching event and then followed with another pot luck supper before the main event - the cobbler - made in the dutch oven! YUM!

Emryk spent the morning and afternoon with us. We made good use of our carrier as we strolled about the park following our GPS. The baby carrier was a gift from our geocaching friends back in Missoula, Montana - the MOOG group (Missoula Organization Of Geocachers). This thing has been very handy for hauling Emryk around when we are out looking for geocaches or just need to keep him close while we do something requiring two hands. We will probably use it more when he is a little bigger so we can hike to some geocaches which require a few miles of hiking.

Laura and I have been dropping Emryk off with Grandma to go dove hunting with my brother in the evenings. That has been a nice relief to have an hour to get out and walk around in the pasture and enjoy the nice fall evenings. We have been trying to take walks with the stroller when we have some free time and Emryk really likes to ride in the stroller. It's been a great way to calm him down in the evenings and help us to keep our sanity at the same time!

I'll wrap it up with a parting shot of Emryk as we drove a gravel road north of Mullen over Labor Day weekend. We were on our way to find an old family cemetery when we suddenly hit some bumps in the road, his reaction was priceless!Until again

-=Nolan=-

Randomness

2008-08-26T22:31:00.003-05:00

It's amazing how random people will come and talk to you about your baby when you are in the store. Well, ok, so mostly it's just ladies who see a baby and ask how old he is or what his name? Not that I mind though. I have no problem chatting with perfect strangers at the store. It's nice to be friendly with people you don't know, it brings a sense of good feeling to be able to talk to someone you don't really know and walk away a little better than when you came. Especially if you listen to the news these days, heck the world is out to get everyone according to them...

In more important news, Emryk is 6 weeks old now! It's amazing how our once thought of lack of sleep has been transformed into a typical nights 'rest.' He did manage to sleep for over 6 hours last night, and that really helped us reengergize.

Well, just when I think I have a few minutes to sit down and blog I am once again summoned to take hold of our little bundle! I guess I'll try again the next time I get a full night of sleep!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Goodbye July

2008-07-31T22:19:00.005-05:00

Can it be? Is July really gone already? Well, not officially for another hour and a half, but it might as well be gone. Emryk will be three weeks old on Saturday and boy has time gone fast! Well, in some ways. He has really developed over the past week, he controls his head much better and he is beginning to show facial expressions now - not always purposefully mind you.

However, time seems to creep by on those long nights when he won't sleep, or maybe it's just that Laura and I aren't sleeping. Either way, some nights we wonder if the sun will ever rise!

I wish I had more to blog about right now. In fact, I could ramble about lots of miscellaneous things at the moment, but it's hard to type with one hand trying to feed my face while the other hand is trying to rock a baby slowly to sleep. Multi-tasking has become standard practice around here!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Emryk

2008-07-19T10:35:00.007-05:00

Well, if you haven't heard by now then you have been living under a rock. Laura finally popped! Last Saturday at 7:46 pm Emryk Deo arrived. The story goes something like this...

Friday afternoon I left work at 5:00, the usual time. I came home and we had supper, sat around the house and enjoyed the evening. I started working on a new geocache (actually an Earthcache) around 8:00. Laura wasn't feeling real well so she went to bed around 11:30 while I continued to work away at the computer. I finally finished our cache a few minutes after 1:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. I climbed into bed at 1:14 and just settled in for a good nights rest - hoping to sleep in and then have a lazy weekend... but it wasn't to be. Nine minutes after I climbed into bed, at 1:23 Laura woke up and told me her water had broke!

My first thought was "oh man, there goes my night of sleep." Laura called the clinic and they informed her we should probably head to the hospital. So, we got dressed and decided to eat a bowl of cereal before we ran out the door. While we were eatting our 'breakfast' I saw our library books sitting on the table and I realized those would be due at closing on Saturday, so we made a detour past the library dropbox before we went to the hospital.

We checked in to the hospital around 2:30 and soon were on our way to labor and delivery. My cousin Bri works in the labor and delivery ward and she was on duty Saturday night. I think she had been informed we were on our way to the hospital and was awaiting our arrival. She got us situated into our room and we began the wait... Things were going pretty slow, but advancing as needed so we let things take their time. Bri's shift ended at 6:00 a.m. - which seemed like a blink of an eye - and she joked as she was leaving that we needed to wait until she came back at 6:00 p.m. to have the baby so she could be there to help. Well, sure enough, it took most of the day for things to finally work themselves out and at 6:20 that evening, Bri was back helping us out and we began the delivery.

Things went pretty well overall. With the exception of the baby getting 'stuck' for a short while, Laura did well. Emerk was born at 7:46 p.m. - he weighed in at 7 pounds 12 oz and was 21 inches long. We stayed in the hospital until Monday evening and came home to REALLY begin the fun! So far things have been great. Emryk is really strong, he can hold his head up and sees very well. He recognizes both of us by voice and sight - he is a quick learner, but what can you expect when you look at his parents!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Are You An Idiot?

2008-06-27T00:47:00.000-05:00

There is one simple way for me to determine how smart you really are or perhaps lack there of. Quite simply, I just have to wait until some severe weather shows up in the area and then watch your reaction. With that in mind, I have determined nearly everyone on my street is an idiot beyond reasonable doubt, as what proven evident no more than an hour ago. **The picture below was from a storm a few weeks ago.**

This evening around 10:00 p.m. we had a squall line roll through most of Nebraska. Although they usually are not as dangerous as tornadoes they still have the ability to ruin your day. The storm was producing winds up to 80 mph (130 kph) and throwing some trash and loose chairs, ect. around. The civil defense sirens (tornado sirens) went off to warn people to seek some shelter from the strong winds - the clouds were clearly not rotating so there was no threat of a tornado - yet people still came out of their homes to look up at the sky to see if they could get a glimpse of the twister... Give me a break people! About the time that 50' tree comes crashing down on your head, you will realize you've made a bad decision.

Use some brains folks.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Cowboy Stew & War Birds

2008-06-23T22:54:00.011-05:00

Another weekend has come and gone, and as usual Laura and I have made the most of it. Although we have a long list of things to do, we still manage to find some time to take a break and enjoy some of the local area events.

Friday evening we met up with our friends from Minnesota, Nick & Becca, and cooked up a mess of Cowboy Stew. If you don't know what Cowboy Stew is, well to put it bluntly, you really don't know what a little simple cooking can offer your taste buds. Nick and I survived on it while we were living together during the summer of 2003. Laura seemed to have had enough of it five years ago and has been less fond of it than Nick and I - but Becca had yet to try it, and so it came to be that on Friday evening we finally found the time.

Saturday afternoon Laura and I went to Holdrege and took in the airshow. There were several stunt pilots flying in the show, and did some amazing maneuvers, but my main attraction was seeing the WWII era fighter planes. I am not a big buff when it comes to airplanes or anything of the manner, but actually seeing an airplane that actually flew during the era is something I couldn't pass up.

It's times like this when I wish I had a nice digital SLR camera to get some great photos, but I manage to make due with what I have - and here's what I got.Sunday was another busy day. We spent a good majority of it with my parents fixing cars, organizing and rearranging some of our things - some might call it junk really - and checking out the vegetable garden. So far our pumpkins are off to a great start, but it appears our strawberry plants didn't fair so well from the move from Montana. So, the brings the total loses from the move to three strawberry plants and one car - however, the strawberry plants may be of equal value to the car, so our loses have now nearly doubled! Har har!

Speaking of moving stuff, we have a short list of things we can't find after our move. It's amazing actually. We went through all of our stuff, yet somehow we managed to lose some it along the way... That wonderment has been pushed to the back burner for the time being, we just have not clue where we would find some of those things or why we haven't seen them. Stand by for updates on that strange situation.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Sand Through The Hour Glass

2008-06-11T22:29:00.024-05:00

Time just keeps on ticking and seems to keep building more speed every day. Already, it has been three weeks since I last blogged, and a lot has happened since then, but finding the time to sit down and blog has been more than a trick. We still have not had internet hooked up here at the house – thanks in part to our neighbors who are unknowingly supplying wireless internet to our laptop. Add on too that our laptop is in need of some repairs – the cooling fan on the processor went bad and that results in over heating, which in a computers worst nightmare. In fact, there are cases where computers have actually began to melt from over heating. Laura and I have been rather resourceful though, we have limited our time on the computer to 10-15 minutes and then the computer is shut off for no less than half an hour before starting all over again. So, we have become quite quick and checking e-mail and moving on to other things. I suppose that has not been all that bad though, we spend more time together, and the weather has been nice lately, so we might as well be outside enjoying it!

Speaking of weather, I should make mention of the tornadoes that strolled through Kearney on May 29. Our place was just a few blocks from where a tornado touched down and flipped some cars and took a roof off an apartment complex. We escaped without any damage though. Here’s some visuals for you.

The tornado was on Thursday, and on Friday I took the camera along with me to work. Every month I drive a route for work to check wells and monitor groundwater levels. We have had some extensive amounts of rain in the past two weeks, and in some places I found water levels to be eight feet higher than they were at the beginning of May! The flooding was quite something to see as well. While I was out checking wells I happen to walk upon a fawn laying in the grass trying to hide from me. I nearly stepped on it though, so I grabbed the camera and shot a few pictures of the little guy. I'll add a few shots from some flodding in Buffalo County that I experienced during our ground water measurements. The farmers were out pumping water across the road to try to reduce flooding to the crops, but there was a lot of water to remove from the fields. You can see from the last picture that the roads were washing away as well. That made for an interesting passage as I had the truck in four wheel drive and crept along through the water. Yes, I know that you should never drive through water, but I had already come from several puddles much deeper than this, so I had 'tested the waters' several times prior.

Flipping back a few months through the blog pages I noticed I have not posted a picture of the finished stained glass window. I may have mentioned this in a previous blog, but I finished this in Missoula before we left. It sat in Missoula until April when we moved back to Kearney, we dropped it off in Cheyenne during the move. It has yet to be installed, but at least it is complete. The pictures isn’t very good, and hopefully I can get a better picture of it sometime, but for now it’s good enough.

…and how about a few shots from our move? To be honest, we didn’t take very many pictures, other than when we were sitting along the road waiting for a tow truck to take us into Butte, Montana. We put the fire out under the car, the result of the rear differential melting, and then drove into Anaconda, Montana to get some assistance to get us into Butte to assess the damage. We ended up selling the car to the salvage yard and rented a 2009 Explorer to finish the move. Laura didn’t mind that so much though, the car only had 3,000 miles on it when we picked it up.

Really the view was quite nice, and the weather was as nice as it looks in the pictures. Nice, cool, and calm. We couldn't have asked for a better situation to break down in, although, the fire and being in the middle of the move, selling the car for dirt cheap were all negatives, but hey the view wasn't bad!

Well, as you can imagine things are not getting any slower around here for us. We are a month away from the baby arriving so we are getting excited for that, and trying to get the house in somewhat of an order before things really get out of control. It seems we have about everything we can think of needing, but no doubt we will be smacking our foreheads when we realize we still need this or that for the baby. What fun would it be to have everything before we needed it all though?

...and now I can see that I am approaching the 15 minute barrier to have the laptop running, so with that shut the lid on the laptop and go do something constructive, maybe destructive, with my time until I can return and check my e-mail.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Getting Back To It

2008-05-17T19:12:00.002-05:00

I've haven't completely fallen off the edge of the Earth, but I have been busy as a bee the past month. We haven't hooked up internet at our new place yet, so blogging has been quite difficult to do.

Overall, things are settling down and we are taking a few short breaths before things really get wild in July, or maybe June, who knows...?

The move went gre.... No, wait, it wasn't so great. 100 miles down the road the Subaru broke down. The rear differential actually melted and caught fire, lucky for us I had the fire extinguisher handy in the truck to put the fire out. After we finally got the car towed into Butte, we ended up selling the car to the junkyard and rented an Explorer to finish the move. Laura's mom had come from Cheyenne to help with the move and she ended up meeting us in Butte to help pick up a few of our things - lucky for us!

We left a load of our stuff in Cheyenne and returned the next weekend to pick it up - so for a week we were living without many of our things and making due with what we had with us. Since some of the parts for the bed were in Cheyenne we spent the week at my parents house while we unpacked things at the apartment.

Here we are, a month later, and we are just finishing a lot of our unpacking! Since I am just posting a quick note, I don't have any pictures to post, but when I get a few extra minutes and some actual internet I will try to get post regularly again. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Farewell Montana

2008-04-10T10:55:00.004-05:00

Can it be? Is the end really within sight now? Two days until moving day and the apartment is still a big mess! This morning I am trying to waste a little time until it warms up outside. It's a few degrees below freezing and I had a few things to do inside, but I quickly finished those and now I am preparing to begin packing things into their spots for the move. Once again, we will be moving with just the Canoe-baru (nickname of the poor Subaru) and the truck, however we will have a trailer in tow this time to help distribute some weight.

The weather looks to be rather nice for us on our travel. The forecast for this weekend in Missoula is looking at the upper 60's and sunny. I'll take that over rain and fog!

Our travel plan is to leave from Missoula on Saturday morning and head for Cody, Wyoming to spend the night. Laura's mom is talking about meeting us in Cody and then driving with us to Cheyenne on Sunday. Monday we are going to stay the day in Cheyenne and spend some time with Laura's parents before we hit the road for Kearney on Tuesday. Once we get into Kearney we will have a lot of work to do to get a vehicle unpacked so I can take it to work on Wednesday.

So, although I am doing a good job of wasting time here at the computer, I better get my act in gear and start loading up some boxes. Less than two days to go! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Staying Busy

2008-03-28T22:05:00.005-05:00

Holy smokes have I been busy! I think the lack of sleep lately has been starting to catch up with me as well - believe it or not.

Last week I thought I was going to have a pretty slow week. As it turned out, that wasn't the case. Work had initially started the week planning on drilling a couple observation wells during the week, but due to a my boss having a death in the family we had to reschedule for this week. So instead of sitting at work all week with nothing to do, I went on a tour of the Nebraska Panhandle to explore the North Platte River and the irrigation districts which are diverted from the river.

If you thought that was a simple process - like I did - then let me tell you right now... YOU'RE WRONG! For the past week in the Kearney Hub the reporter that went with us on the tour has been running several articles featuring issues from the tour and they are not quick reads either. Water is big news! I could probably write a short book from everything I learned in three days, but I won't get into the details of the tour - how about the highlights!

The first day of the tour we drove from Holdrege to Scottsfluff - we found ourselves atop Scottsbluff National Monument by mid afternoon and enjoyed the views from above, even though the wind was a smidgen too cool. In the mean time we were viewing diversion dams on the North Platte River before hitting up a steak house for the evening in Scottsbluff.

Day two was nearly an information overload - but in a good way. We spent the entire morning viewing irrigation canals and learning the geography of the area. We drove from Scottsbluff to Bridgeport and then had a presentation at the community hall about supplying water from Wyoming reservoirs to Nebraska irrigation canals and understanding the complexity of the situation - especially in the current drought conditions. On our way back to Scottsbluff we did some more touring of the irrigation canal systems and made a stop at Chimney Rock - probably one of my favorite places to visit when it comes to Nebraska landmarks - mostly because of its history. We dined at another steakhouse in Gering and then retired for the night, all-the-while still dazed from everything we had heard from the day.

Our third and final day was capped off with a stop at Kingsley Dam overlook on our way back to Holdrege.Although the water level is looking dam low (pun intended) it is looking slightly better than last year, but only slightly. After three days cramped on the tour bus I think everyone was happy to be back home, but very happy to have taken a tour of the panhandle and understand the issues with the river water these days.

This week at work was a busy one as well. We drilled wells on Tuesday and Thursday - not stopping for lunch and every five feet we take core samples of the underlying geology. When you drill down 300+ feet that can become a real long day!

On top of work being busy this week, I made it to some basketball games on the evenings. The NCAA Division II Womens Basketball Championships are in town this week and those have been great to watch. Wednesday night the final game went to double overtime and finally ended around 11:00 p.m.. The Thursday night games were even better, those were the semi-finals, and I made it home around 11:45 last night. Needless to say, after I finally made it to bed around 1:00 a.m. I was a little unhappy when my alarm went off this morning at 6:45.

Yet, I have made it through the week and I am ready for the weekend! OH! I forgot to mention in my 'spare time' I have been doing a lot of apartment browsing and I think we might finally have something narrowed down. So hopefully we will have somewhere to move into when I move Laura back. I will be leaving for Montana next week for our final move... A little sad, but we can always take vacations and go back. We will just be happy to be closer to family and friends again more than anything.

That will do it for now. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Rylan's Rare Goose

2008-03-10T22:12:00.008-05:00

Well, in case you missed it. Rylan got himself a rare snow goose last week. Actually, it's a Blue Phase Ross' Goose. Most snow geese have a blue phase where they are more of a gray color than white, but a Ross' goose does not, and they are often much smaller than a snow goose. If you didn't know what to look for then you might overlook the Blue Phase Ross' Goose all together. We went out hunting a little this weekend, but mostly just watched the geese fly around and never managed to get a shot off on Sunday. Rylan did bag about 45 geese on Saturday while I slept in and caught up on sleep.

Work has been going well. I have been out in the fields doing some work and learning the details of my job. Mostly I have found that 4 wheel drive is about the best thing for driving across cornrows in muddy fields! What a bumpy ride that is! As you can imagine, my work truck has become quite dirty in the past several weeks, and I will be out in it again this Thursday and Friday for another great ride around the district to check on irrigation wells.

Laura has been keeping me up to date on her situation in Missoula. She will be defending her Masters thesis on April 4 and then we will be moving to Kearney the next weekend, April 12. It's hard to believe I have already been with my new job for two months now! Time has really gone fast, but thankfully, under the circumstances, that is the best way to get through this time.

Believe it or not, that's about all the news I have from my little world. I have been keeping as busy as possible with work and occasionally I try to go for a run in the evening - although I have been doing a pathetic job the past week. On Sundays I have started throwing the frisbee around to try to spark some interest in getting a better Ultimate Frisbee crowd around the Kearney area, but it will be a long time before we see must ground made. Oh well, I enjoy throwing the frisbee around and getting out to enjoy the outdoors regardless.

To wrap things up, I should mention that Rylan's goose was featured on the local news on Sunday evenings "The Outdoors Files. Kent does a nice job of explaining why the goose is so rare.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

A Hunting We Will Go

2008-02-26T20:48:00.010-06:00

It's been a few years since I have been able to enjoy the chaos that is the Spring Snow Goose Conservation Season. If you've never experienced a snow goose hunt then I can't describe it to, you just have to get out and try it sometime. We didn't have a lot of luck this weekend, but we did have a lot of fun and that's what it's all about. The four of us, Rylan, Chris, Darrin, and I had a nice sneak right at sundown. We started our approach from a mile away and slowly worked our way into the geese. The great thing about the spring season is we can shoot up to 30 minutes after sundown and that's usually be best time to sneak. After we had manged to get about a half of a mile away from the geese we split up into twos and took advantage of the weak spots in the groups - namely the flanks. We took about an hour to get into the geese and with five minutes to go Rylan and Chris opened fire and sent the birds our way. There were quite a few geese around, but not nearly as many as we have seen. In that last few days I have been seeing a few more geese as I go to work and return home.Here's a pretty good picture of Rylan and Chris as they were sneaking the geese. What's that you say? Just a cow? No no, that's a cow decoy! That's one of the strategies we use to sneak up on the geese - they don't seem to mind the cattle in the field and pretending to be a cow seems to work pretty well if you do it correctly.

The real excitement comes when all the geese get up into the air and start making all sorts of noise! We were just hanging out watching the geese land when they came buzzing over us and definitely close enough to take a few shots, but we were not on legal land to shoot so we, being the ethical characters we are, just enjoyed the view and took a few shots with the camera before chasing after them for a more sporting chance.

The one thing about hunting that can really wear a person down are the long hours that are required. Between the four of us we probably had about twelve hours of sleep total. Darrin didn't sleep a wink after his overnight shift and came straight from Lincoln to meet us, Chris' shift ends at 4:00 a.m. and he and Rylan were shooting by 7:00 a.m. I didn't get to sleep until sometime around 3:00 a.m. and met up with Darrin just a few minutes before 8:00. Yet, we still had a good time and a little sleep deprivation here and there isn't so bad.

I'll wrap it up tonight with a video I shot while Darrin and I were working our way towards the geese and sundown. There really isn't much to see, the geese were still over half a mile way, but listen to how much noise they are making already! Give a listen and imagine what we found 20 minutes later.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

I Have Returned

2008-02-09T10:14:00.001-06:00

Some of you probably think I dropped off the face of the planet in the past three weeks. Others have probably seen me too often to care - either way, I've returned for an update. The problem was getting some internet access for my computer so I could actually get some pictures uploaded and spend some time writing up a blog.

So what has been happing that has kept me so busy you ask? Well, for starters I am working the 8-5 office hours at the Tri-Basin Natural Resources District. Check out the staff page - I certainly look like an office worker don't I? A collared shirt is quite a change from landscaping and taking down lumber mills. My official job title is Water Resources Technician - which means I am going to be doing a lot of work with groundwater. I also am the map maker and GIS specialist for the district as well. I've already put a few maps together and done a few small GIS projects. GIS stands for Geographical Information Systems and it's basically a way of using maps on a computer in layers. Instead of one map with all the roads, rivers, towns, ect. on it, there are many maps that can be stacked on top of each other and compared and analyzed.

The office is terrific. It's located in Holdrege and I drive about 35 miles one way to get to work in the mornings - but that's only temporary until Laura gets here. I'll explain more of that later. My office has a nice large desk and big comfy chair. My main laptop is loaded - it has 3 gigs of RAM and is hooked up to a docking station so I can use the 22" widescreen high-definition monitor to do my map work on. I've got a wireless keyboard and mouse, along with a PDA to use as well. It's basically a handheld computer! I have a plotter printer - it's about six feet wide and makes very large print outs of the maps I generate. Here's a shot of my first map printing out. I also have a GPS for work and a work truck that I take out in the field. Yesterday I went out to check some wells and needed the four wheel drive - I plowed through a drift and came to a quick stop in a big mud puddle.. YUCK! So, as you can see, I am really struggling to adjust to my new job!

The real struggle has been being here without Laura. She will be finishing her degree in April and then she will be able to move back and start her new job - but until then I am living the 'bachelor' lifestyle. Hopefully we will find a place to rent in the next few months and then my commute to work will change a little, but I doubt we find anything closer to Holdrege - likely we will be staying right around Kearney.

I better share these pictures as well. Laura was pretty excited to have them. These are the first pictures taken from the ultrasound from a few or two ago.I also wanted to share some photos I took on our way back to Montana. We were headed into Lusk, Wyoming and along the highway there was a train derailment. WOW! I've never actually seen the results of a derailment. Makes a person think twice about pulling up to the rail crossing so close.That's all I have for pictures. Laura has our good camera, and I am using my old digital camera to take pictures - which has been few at the most. On top of that, I haven't been doing too much other than driving to and from work every day. I suspect things are going to start becoming a little more lively on the weekends now that it is starting to warm up just a little and the snow is disappearing. Until again

-=Nolan=-

2008-01-15T20:35:00.000-06:00

I don't even know where to start today.... Really, I don't. In the past month, everything has flipped itself downside up, backwards, outside in, and every which way. I'm back in Kearney working in Holdrege and waiting for Laura to move back to Nebraska once she is completed with herself degree. Let me back up a few days before I get into that though...

I'll just start at the beginning of 2008. We went to Cheyenne for New Years with Laura's parents. The next day my great grandfather passed away, just 3 days shy of being 105! Yeah, you read that right, 105 years! I could probably write several thousand pages about him alone, but just like today's blog, I wouldn't have a clue where to start either. Some people are just indescribable.

So, we drove back to Nebraska on the 4th and attended the funeral on the 5th. We had originally planned to make a two day trip and be back in Missoula by the 5th, but we did an all-day drive on the 6th to make it up. I spent 5 days in Missoula and left Saturday morning and drove all day to get to Kearney and unload another truck full of our stuff.

I have a lot to learn at work, but I am picking it up as I go. Hopefully I will get some time in the next few days or next week about work. Everything has been in high gear for the past few weeks, and it hasn't slowed down much. I'll try to get a picture or two for next time. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Away Away

2007-12-31T08:49:00.000-06:00

Away goes 2007 and so do we...for a short while. We are headed for Cheyenne this morning, the blowing snow won't help much with the drive, but I feel like we have done the drive enough we could do it blindfolded. I will only be gone for two weeks, and then I have to be in Kearney and ready to start work on January 14, 2008.

Check out the temperature the other morning on our way into town. I don't think it was quite -196 F but I suppose for some folks, especially those from the warmer areas, this time of year might feel like we've sunken below Arctic temperatures.

We made our geocaching goal for the year. We reached 1600 by the new year - 1601 as of this morning, and I suspect we will find a few more on our way to Cheyenne today as well.

We are going to spend a New Years in Cheyenne with Laura's family and then stay the week and head for Missoula on Friday. I suspect we won't be driving the entire distance in one shot, maybe staying overnight in Cody, Wyoming and getting back to Missoula on Saturday. The long drives are just not as easy to do right now.

As for me, I will have about five days in Missoula to pack up and head back for Kearney. I am probably going to drive it all in one shot and just get it over with. But then again, I am not positive on my plans or when I will be leaving Missoula - that has yet to be determined.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Post Christmas, Pre New Year

2007-12-28T08:38:00.000-06:00

We've made it to that time of year when we are in between celebrations. Christmas is over, but the new year is lingering closer and closer. As far as our trip from Montana, it was rather uneventful... Well, I shouldn't say that because we did have a lot of fun things happen, but as far as having trouble with the truck or trailer we just went right down the road all the way to Cheyenne and then to Kearney.

We spent a few days in Cheyenne together before I had to come to Kearney. I left for Kearney at 4:30 to get to here in time to head off for a job interview. Laura stayed behind and spent some time with her family - she was delivered to Kearney by her brother the next afternoon.

My interview went well and my job will be starting in January. I will be taking Laura back to Montana and spending a few days with her, pack up my things, and move back to Nebraska in the next few weeks.

Our geocaching on this trip has been rather unique. We have actually found a few caches, and nearly all of them have been under snow - we are really going along! In fact, as of last night we were at 1592, but I suspect we will be up to 1600 by next week.

I took the picture of the moon - the nice camera has been returned to Laura's mom and we are back to our cameras. I don't need a lot of photos of the moon, so I think I can manage for awhile until I upgrade to a better camera - but that might be awhile anyway.

I'm randomly jumping around here, but I've got a lot of random thoughts going on this morning. Blogging on my laptop isn't as easy as blogging from by desktop computer... Anyway, I wanted to share a picture from a geocache we stopped at in Wyoming. Shirley Basin in Wyoming is where a lot of nuclear reactor tailings were dumped - this site closed in 2000 and it's easily accessible, but it's marked quite well to inform people what's going on.

Otherwise, we are enjoying some downtime here in Nebraska. We are headed to Cheyenne on New Years Eve and then a few days later we will be headed back to Montana so I can get back to Nebraska. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Preparing For The Road

2007-12-07T12:20:00.000-06:00

Things really warmed up around here the past few days and all of our snow melted - all 14 inches at our house! With the exception of a few snow piles here and there it doesn't even look like winter around here anymore. The grass in the yard is still holding a small amount of green to it and yesterday it was about 45°. The last few days I have been getting things in place and ready to go for our Christmas trip back to Wyoming and Nebraska. The apartment is slowly looking more and more messy, but we are packing things in boxes and getting everything ready for the move too. A large amount of the stuff will be loaded onto the trailer and stored in Nebraska until spring when hopefully we will be making one final trip to move.

Now that it's colder outside we are cooped up indoors a little more than we like to be, so we make the most of our weekends by getting outdoors one way or another. Last weekend we took a drive to do some geocaching and just enjoy the Bitterroot Valley. I wanted to make a stop at Lee Metcalf Refuge to check out the ducks and geese. There's always a lot to see around there - especially the deer who are as common as the weeds!

I was taking a picture of a buck... When suddenly a pheasant flew across the frame....Did you see the doe playing peek-a-boo with the pheasant?I've been out hunting a few times, but lately I have just enjoyed watching the ducks fly around that pulling the trigger. Tomorrow I will be on the Clark's Fork River floating along and trying my luck with ducks and geese, it should be a lot of fun.

We leave next Sunday for Cheyenne. We are going to make a two day drive to Cheyenne and stop in Cody, Wyoming. We think the drive will be a little better if it's split into two days, and the truck should get a little better fuel mileage as well. Not to mention it would be nice to just take our time and get there without the burden of having a full days drive. This way we should have about six hours behind the windshield and a little more time to do some geocaching or just slow down to enjoy the scenery on our way. That will be nice as well! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Don We Now Our New Apparel

2007-11-27T00:01:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone in a hurry... and after eating leftover turkey for the past four days it's now officially over for me! Our snowfall from earlier in the week is still covering the ground - in fact it has only been above freezing once this week and that was for only a few hours in the afternoon. Starting tonight the forecast is saying we are due for more snow through Wednesday. How much we receive is yet to be determined, but I am hoping for at least another six inches.

Friday, I found myself standing in line, out in the cold, outside of Staples at 5:15 a.m.. Not bad considering last year I was up at 3:00 and in line by 3:30. Amazingly, my shopping trip to Staples took me less than 5 minutes to walk into the store and check out. By 6:06 I was out the door, and by 6:10 I had gone down the road 4 blocks and was standing in line at Radio Shack. As far as my shopping list goes, I got nearly everything I wanted - which wasn't too much - but I did pretty well for family members wanting things. As amazing as it is, I managed to max out my credit card for the first time ever - I don't know if that's something to be proud of, but I managed to do it! Unfortunately for the credit card company they won't be collecting any interest off of me, I pay the entire bill and I pay it on time. I'm the kind of customer they like to hate. Too bad.

I picked Laura up around 8:00 and we went shopping together. One thing on our list we really wanted to get were snow shoes - and we got them! They will be nice for hiking trails in the snow and getting out for some hikes this winter. In fact, yesterday that's just what we did.

We waited for the temperature to warm up to a warm 21° F in the early afternoon before we hit the trail. We ventured south into the Bitterroot Mountain and up Bear Creek drainage on our way to find a cache. We hiked the trail last spring and knew it was a nice easy trail, so we knew our first shoe shoeing excursion wouldn't be too bad.

The trail was actually really nice. There had been enough traffic on it over the past week to create a nice base and made for a nice smooth hike. The cache was only 1.5 miles in and we didn't hike must slower than we usually would in the summer. In fact, the trail was actually smoother with the snow in the winter than it is with the rocks in the summer.

I took my pack along to haul some things for Laura, along with a few cameras and a tripod for taking some pictures. Not to mention we had to take some swag along to trade at the cache too! The pack is actually a lot more comfortable to wear in the winter because my big winter coat adds a lot of padding and the pack sits a little tighter to my center of gravity. It was still bulky and heavy - actually heavier with all the winter gear on - but I think I will take it along on our next adventure as well.

Laura brought a shovel along to dig for the cache. We expected it to be buried under at least a foot of snow, but turns out a rock had actually sheltered it and the cache was easy to get to. We have looked for caches in the snow before, and it can really be a pain if you don't dig in the exact right spot. We didn't think we would actually find the cache but we really wanted to take our snowshoes out for a hike, so we decided to have some motivation for a hike as well. After we found the cache, we took a few pictures and headed back for the car. The sun had already set over the ridge of the mountains to the south by the time we got to the trailhead around 2:00 p.m. so we didn't have much sunlight to deal with to begin with - by 4:30 the sun is down!

One of the pictures we posed for turned out to be a real laugh. I sat up the camera on the tripod and set the timer. Having my snowshoes on was the downfall of the picture session though - literally! As I hustled back to Laura I had to turn around - and if you have ever tried to turn around with a pair of skis on you know that sometimes you stumble over your own feet and.. OPPS! Down you go...I tried to recover as best I could from the fall but Laura was really getting a kick outta my ballet moves and laughing up a storm. I thought I finished it off with a nice move...Laura and I had a great time in the mountains with our snowshoes. I think we will be headed out with them again this weekend if we can find time. Maybe we'll even find another geocache while we are out.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Here's a short video of Laura strutting her stuff!

Until The Snow Flys.

2007-11-20T10:06:00.000-06:00

I don't even need to say anything. Just look at this.The winter quickly arrived in Western Montana on Sunday afternoon. Starting in the form of rain in the early afternoon, by 6:00 p.m. we had about an inch of snow on the ground. By the time Laura left to go babysit at 9:00 I was scooping about 3-4 inches of snow off the driveway and back deck. The snow didn't stop then though, it was still snowing when Laura came home around midnight and it was still going strong when we went to bed at 1:00 a.m. By Monday morning at 7:30 we had 11 inches of snow! I didn't mention the temperature was around 34 most of the night, so a lot of the snow was melting too! The snow finally stopped shortly after noon on Monday but came back for a second helping in the evening, but only adding an inch or two on top of things. By my meteorological investigations I estimate we received between 13 and 15 inches at the house!

As usual, the snow just fell slowly and stayed wherever it landed. Unlike the Nebraska and Wyoming snowfalls where the wind whips the snow into a series of drifts, the snow stays put here. Take a look at the chain-link fence! That's a regular metal pole on the top of the fence, and look at the snow piled up on top of it! I have to admit, that's one thing I enjoy around here, the snowfalls are beautiful.

Laura doesn't enjoy the snowfall as much when she has to walk to the bus stop to catch the bus too the college though. The half mile walk through a foot of snow wasn't too pleasant yesterday, as I experienced first hand. The lack of scooped sidewalks is more than ridiculous - understandable for elderly - but at 5:15 when I walked down to meet Laura at the bus stop it was easier to walk in the road than try to fight through the snow on the sidewalks.

On that note, I have a sidewalk of my own to scoop clear. Until again

-Nolan-

The Return Of Nolan (a.k.a Swirly Beard)

2007-11-17T00:03:00.000-06:00

Goodness, it's been awhile since I blogged. Thankfully, Laura had a few things to say in my stead and blogged a few weeks ago. I've been so busy lately that I have only had my computer on a handful of times in the past few weeks.

For starters, we picked up a last minute landscape job and we have been trying to get as much done as possible before the weather ends our season. So, up until today we had been working sun up to sun down - about 9 hours a day. When the sun doesn't show up until 7:30 and it's gone around 5:00 it makes the day short and the nights long. Due to the fact that I have no daylight time to do stuff around the house, I have been getting home around 5:30, grabbing a bite to eat, and then checking off chores from the long list of "To Do." What was there to do? PACK our bags!

We made a trip to Nebraska, and took our first load of things back with us. We bought a trailer to move our things - we won't be taking everything in one trip this time. For some reason, we seem to be accumulating things as the years go by - imagine that! The trailer was a great investment, and I suspect it will get a lot of miles put on it. For starters, we put 2500 miles on it last week, and we will do it again next month. 5,000 miles right off the bat is a good start!

As for the trip, we left after my stained glass class on Wednesday night - around 11:00 p.m.. Switching gears for a moment, the window is coming along nicely. We finished our last class this previous Wednesday - I still have some work to be done on the window, but I have the knowledge of what will need to be done now. The picture I snapped of the window really doesn't look very good, but you can at least see how it looks for now.

Back to the trip - we drove into the night Wednesday and into Thursday morning, only stopping in Columbus, MT, Sheridan, WY, and Casper for gas. We reached Cheyenne at noon on Thursday and grabbed some McDonald's before hitting the road again around 1:00. We made a stop in Brule, NE to pick up some stuff for my brother and then another quick stop in North Platte to pick up Gram's computer for a much needed overhaul. We arrived in Kearney a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. on Thursday evening - 20 hours after leaving and 1,150 miles down the road. It wasn't too bad though - I worked sun up to sun down on Wednesday, had an hour between work and glass class, then made it home a few minutes before 10:00 p.m. to put the final things into the truck and tie down the tarps. I slept combined total of 20 minutes on the drive back to Nebraska, but I didn't require any extra sleep on Thursday night - I just woke up early as usual and started the day...

Friday was spent with family and getting my semi-annual haircut. Followed by wedding rehearsal. OH! I forgot to mention, that was reason number two for venturing back to Nebraska. My good friend who ran with me in high school and college got married, and I was part of the festive group celebrating the occasion... So after the rehearsal dinner we spent a few more hours with family before getting some sleep before the long day on Saturday.

The wedding was a great time, and a lot of high school friends were there. Few live around Kearney these days (including us) so it's rare to see them, and even more rare to see everyone together.

Sunday we rolled out of Kearney in the late morning and made our way back to Cheyenne to spend Monday with Laura's parents. After a quick stay in Cheyenne it was back to Missoula on Tuesday to get back to work on Wednesday and pay off the $500 we spent on gas for the trip! Can you believe that! We were a little disgusted by the price of gas, but decided that money is just money and family and friends are hard to put price on. Either way, the trip was great and we will do it again next month.

Work is still going strong. We are planning to work until the snow starts flying, and then we will put our work gloves away for the season. Hopefully I can get a few pictures of the project before the snow gets here, I really want to show off the work. As far as this weekend, we don't have much planned. A day at home getting caught up on our lists, and then maybe a day of hunting on Sunday. Either way, it's a short week with Thanksgiving on Thursday and I am planning on doing some hunting on Thanksgiving morning as well.

Until again

-Nolan-

The Mysterious Swirl

2007-11-04T21:33:00.000-06:00

Well Nolan has not had time to blog this weekend so I (Laura) am filling in. I will begin with a very disturbing image. This is Nolan's beard and for some odd reason it always grows with a unique swirl. He has now earned the nickname "Captain Swirlybeard" as he has begun wearing a beard quite frequently to prevent his face from freezing in the mornings at work. The origin of the swirl is still an unsolved mystery but has made for some interesting conversation starters. Now on to our week of adventures. We began the week by carving pumpkins on Sunday afternoon with some friends from the Chemistry department. Nolan decided to go freehand while I chose to go with a pattern in hopes that my pumpkin might not look like it had been carved by a third grader this year. We were both pleased with the outcome (mine is the ghost and Nolan's is the zombie face) and proudly displayed them in our kitchen away from any prying eyes for Halloween. Our apartment is in the basement of a house and we enter in from the backyard. Last year the upstairs neighbor let us hand out candy on Halloween with her but this year we were not so lucky so our pumpkins were not enjoyed by any of the neighborhood kids. Monday was my birthday so Nolan took me out for a nice Italian dinner and then we watched "The Last King of Scotland." The movie is loosely based on the story of Idi Amin's brutal reign as president in Uganda during the 1970's. It was a good film but definitely not one for the faint of heart. Wednesday night was Halloween but we did not have any parties to attend this year so Nolan went to his stained glass class and made a lot of progress. The window is really starting to come together, I think my parents will be very excited to see it at Christmas. Saturday Nolan played some ultimate frisbee in a hat tournament which required wearing (and playing in) a Halloween costume as an entrance fee. Nolan went as a convict (orange jump suit) and by the end of the day after all of that diving for discs he looked like an escaped convict to boot. I had to work most of the day but managed to get over to the fields to snap a few photos of the game action. At the end of the tournament there was a race to see who was the fastest ultimate player in Missoula. It turned out to be roughly 60 meters and there was a hat drop to start the race. However, as most of the participants had been drinking some beers throughout the tournament, the exact rules of the race were a little blurred. So Nolan ended up starting at the drop of the hat rather than at the end of the countdown but still managed to place second. He was a little bummed that he did not win the "fastest Missoula ultimate player" t-shirt but still enjoyed the day. Today he woke up with a lot of aching muscles but still managed to help me pack up some books and camping gear to take back to Nebraska with us this week when we head to Kearney for a wedding. We finished up the day with an afternoon hunting excursion. After setting up and waiting for about half an hour, we had a flourish of activity. Nolan was gunning for a pintail in full plumage but it just wouldn't come in quite close enough for him to hit it but I managed to land a drake mallard from the group. Unfortunately that was the only activity we saw all afternoon until we jumped a couple of ducks in a small stream on the way home. Nolan got a mallard on the creek and we headed home to clean ducks and rest up for another week.

Shootin' The Breeze

2007-10-22T12:31:00.000-05:00

Laura and I made it out for some duck hunting yesterday morning. What a great time that was! We saw quite a few ducks and even some geese - in fact, we had three geese decoy into our spread, but spotted Laura, who was caught off guard and in aww as the giant birds quietly soared towards us! Once they spotted Laura they were on the move though, and we was still a little in shock from how much larger the geese were compared to the ducks we had been seeing most of the morning! Laura took the first shot of the morning and got herself two Ruddy Ducks, I got myself one leaving from the same group. The rest of the morning we were seeing a lot of activity and ducks were giving us good looks, but our gun barrels must be bent because we missed EVERY shot we took. Oh! The shame... We still had a great time though. We were just happy to see good numbers of ducks in the area - a lot more than we saw last week when we went on our evening hunt. Laura was having a good time, as you can see in the photo. It wasn't long after she dozed off and took a short nap. I laid back for a nap but about one minute later I was awaken but the distinct sound of ducks dropping into the pond from WAY up high! If you don't know what I am talking about, imagine a little fighter get buzzing past you! The wind on the wings of the ducks makes them sound like miniature jets, and they will get your blood pumping to see them wizz past you - in some cases reaching well over 50 mph! ZOOM!

I told Laura she could try to shoot the duck, she just looked at me with that "you're crazy" look. I don't blame her, that guy was on the move!

We packed up the gear a little before noon and made our way to some geocaches. We had a few caches in the foothills of the mountains that we wanted to get before the snow was too deep so we made our way to those. It was a great little hike too, we had the trail mostly to ourselves and when we arrived at the end we had the great waterfall all to ourselves too. This is Morrell Falls it is just a few few miles outside of Seeley Lake.

One last thing that I know Laura and I were dumbfounded by was the number of idiots who come out of the woods, or maybe go into the woods, on opening day of big game season. Yesterday was opening day of elk season and the number of hunters is staggering. Ok. let me rephrase that. The number of hunters is few, and the number of idiots out driving around with rifles is staggering. There, that's more accurate.

What am I talking about? Well, we encountered a lot of road hunters. Road hunters are what I call lazy and stupid. They are the people who give hunters like Laura and I a bad reputation. Some of the examples from yesterday would be the guys sitting in the back of a pickup truck in lawn chairs, wearing their blaze orange with rifles in hand - going down the highway. Another came when we were driving to the trail head of the falls - a guy standing up in the back of a pickup, wearing the blaze orange, leaning against the cab of the truck looking for game - oh, did I mention he had his rifle in hand as well? This is NOT hunting. For people who do not hunt, and see this kind of behavior, I can understand why they see hunters as a bunch of beer drinking idiots with guns!

Believe me when I say, real hunters don't comply with this subterranean behavior. We work hard for our rewards, and we don't intentionally break laws. It's disgusting to see this type of behavior being paraded around, and it's these people who make us look bad. It's too bad this is the type of behavior that many non-hunting folks see.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Stained Glass

2007-10-19T11:08:00.000-05:00

We've made it to Friday once again - and we are ready for the weekend. As usual on Friday evenings we will be going dancing.

I've got the day off from work after putting in a solid 10 hour day yesterday. It was time to blow out sprinkler systems around town, so the boss and I started at 8:00 and finished a little before 6:00. It wouldn't have been so bad if the wind and rain wouldn't have picked up in the afternoon, add to that the temperature overing around 45 for the high and it just became a less than enjoyable day.

Enough about that though, I wanna share my progress with the stained glass window I am making. Laura informed me that I should be sharing that, so here goes.

Here's a picture of some of the work - it's actually what I did on Wednesday evening. What you are looking at is what will eventually be two swans. Something to note though, this is actually the back of the window - in the design they are swimming the other way. You're seeing the back because there is a template pattern stuck to the other side of the glass. Also, the glass looks much darker than it truely is because of the templates and because it is laying on the floor. Actually, here's the picture of the finished window from the book I am using. I actually redesigned the pattern to look 'better' in my eyes. I changed a few colors to keep the cost down as well. I also did some redesigning to make it a little easier to cut the glass out. The large piece of blue glass on the top runs about $12 a shot - so messing up is a costly mistake! I've completed most of the other parts of the water as well, but they don't really fit into place yet so I left them out of my photo. This afternoon I am headed to the glass shop to get some white glass for the swans!

Here's a random photo for the day - it's me and R2-D2 hanging out in front of Macy's in downtown Missoula a few weeks ago. In this case, R2 is actually a mailbox that has stickers on it to look like the Star Wars robot. The USPS released a bunch of these designs for the summer to promote the Star Wars anniversary.

Here's one more random picture for everyone. Occasionally I mention how strange things are around Missoula, particularly some of the amazingly strange people we see all over town. Well, when you have a bumper sticker that proclaims the town to be weird then evidently I am not alone. I spotted this on a light pole I usually park next to when I go play ultimate frisbee. It reads "Keep Missoula Weird - Do Your Part!" Well, I think it's safe to say that some people are overdoing it.

Finally, I had to show off some of our work from last week. We installed a patio at a house - there was already a concrete slab poured, but they wanted to extend the patio with paver stones.You can see the boarder around the pavers, I thought that was a nice touch. The trick was getting the stones cut to fit into those shapes. This is where I really have to show off some skills - particularly mine. You can see some of my handy work in the bottom of the first photo where the boarder comes together to meet. This was some crafty work to get this just right. See how tiny those pavers are? Not to mention the stager that continues throughout the narrowing... Here's a better angle. Check out how small that last sliver of stone is before the boarders meet! That was some fine tuning with the wet saw to get that to come out how I wanted it, but I got it on the first attempt, so that's how it was.

The next area I'm going to show off isn't all that impressive, but I still like how it looks. For the most part the patio didn't have much in the form of a straight section of boarder - that is, there were no straight edges on the exterior boarder. Except one spot that is a high profile are of the patio, and quite noticeable. The real challenge was getting the curve to come out nicely and transition into the straight section before curving the opposite way. I actually did this section before the skinny area, but I thought it was a lot easier - basically because the cuts were rather simple once I got started. The pavers were basically being cut in half and that makes everything much easier! Overall it wasn't a particularly difficult patio, but it was a good challenge. We are hoping to get started on a patio early next week before the snows start flying for the winter. That all depends on if the owners get things aligned and make a final decision though.

Otherwise, the weekend looks to be cold and rainy. Likely I will find myself hunting at least one day, if not two and before I know it, Monday will be here. So, on that note, have a good weekend! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Bonk!

2007-10-16T17:03:00.000-05:00

Another two weeks have passed and I have once again failed to get my act together and blog. With the day off, I have a long list of things to do, but blogging about our weekend trip to Spokane is numero uno on my list right now.

The half marathon (13.1 miles or 21.1 kilometers) was Sunday in Spokane, Washington and we were there to partake in the fun. For some, like myself, it was less fun than desired!

Saturday, Laura and I left Missoula a few minutes before 8:00 a.m. and made our way to Spokane - no doubt geocaching along the way. We picked up our numbers that afternoon and went out to check out the route we would be running on Sunday morning. We had been in the area before when we were geocaching last year so we had a good idea what we were in for, but wanted another good look at it before Sunday. We looked over everything and looked forward to running the next day. Here's the map if you know the area:Sunday we went through the usual pre-race warm up that we always did in college - stretching, jogging, relaxing. I had been looking to run the race at 7:30/mile pace, which would be 1 hour 37 minutes (give or take) and Laura wanted to keep her time better than 8:00/mile - or about 1 hour 45 minutes.

The weather was as close to perfect as could be. When the race started for us at 8:45 the temp was around 45. Laura and I rolled along the first mile and with the group of close to 450 folks it felt like a pedestrian pace! Taking up close to three lanes of traffic, we had trouble working our way up in the pack, but soon found our way up where we felt comfortable. The first mile seemed to take awhile to arrive, but once I hit the 'lap' button on my watch I saw 7:28 and I turned to Laura and mentioned we were both going along at a good clip.

I knew at some point in the run I would get away from Laura, I just didn't know exactly when that would be. I thought I would be nice and run the first 6-7 miles with her and then let her finish the last half of the race on her own, so the first few miles we went along together - talking and enjoying the morning. The second mile was a 7:55, the third a 7:20, and from there we were right around 7:30 for the next five miles. In fact, we came through our five mile somewhere in the 37-38 minute range which isn't a bad five mile run for us these days. The next time we checked our overall time was at the 8 mile mark - 1:00.13 - about as close to 7:30 pace as can be! We had been picking people off for the last six miles and slowly working our way into the top 50! We were really feeling good and mentioning how easy the race was going considering the amount of hills and lack of running we had been doing in the past month. In other words, we were getting there and it was like a 'jog in the park' - literally!

About this time I was thinking I should probably consider doing some racing with a few of the folks who were in front of us. Mile 7 and 8 are basically all downhill, and lots of people pick up the pace through here, that's not my running style so we had lost some ground and it was time to gain a little back. Laura and I did a short surge - a 10 second increase in our pace - useful in breaking up running form and getting things shaken out. You'd think after 8 miles we would have things shaken out, but it's actually the other way around - you tend to get into a habit of going a certain pace and that can be a problem.

So we surged along for 10 seconds and it was then I realized I was working far too hard to go the pace we had increased to - it couldn't have been any faster that 6:45/mile pace (AND ONLY FOR 10 SECONDS TO BOOT!)

As we approached mile 9, I could feel things were starting to shut down and I was going to be in trouble soon - how soon I didn't know, but it was coming like a freight train in the dark! I told Laura to go ahead and keep the pace she wanted because I was going to have to slow down to finish the race, but I would likely catch her shortly. This all happened right before a nasty nasty hill that is rightly known as DOOMSDAY HILL! I didn't get a picture of the hill, but here is the elevation chart of the race - you can see it after mile 8 - it's a steep climb, and it's a long climb!

Usually I am a person who attacks a hill and runs the hill to pass people, I like passing people on hills and I like working hard to get over the hill and put some distance on the competition...but not Doomsday Hill, and not at mile 9 of the half marathon. I tried to attack the hill for a short time, I even caught up with Laura for a short while, but then T.B.S. set in. T.B.S. is a term we used in college known as Total Body Shutdown. In the athletic word it's known simply as BONK.

From Wikipedia:

bonk [or bonking] describes a condition when the athlete suddenly loses energy and fatigue sets in, usually caused when glycogen stores in the liver and muscles are depleted, resulting in a major performance drop.

Things went from bad to worse. I managed to run the entire hill - if you can call my jog a run - and I continued on to almost mile 10 before things got real real bad. I desperately did not, I repeat, DID NOT want to stop or walk, but once I realized I could walk faster than I was trying to jog, well, I knew my number had been called and I was spent.

I started walking and tried to regain some energy to get a jog started again, in hopes of getting back to a run and just finishing the race off. Every attempt I made resulted in less than 100 meters of running before my legs shut down and I was back to my crippled walking pace! After I passed mile 11 I began getting dizzy (always a sure sign when you are running that you are dehydrated) and had trouble walking straight down the road. If you've ever been to a cross country race or perhaps at a track meet when a distance runner begins walking but doesn't really seem to know what's going on - that's where I was going... However, I knew what was happening and that I needed to keep my breathing steady and focused. A few moments later I was at the aid station getting a small amount of Gatorade and I was on my way again - chugging along at 14:00 minute pace...

I had some encouraging comments from folks pacing me though - most of whom Laura and I had passed between mile 2 & 8.

"Come on, you didn't run that well the past 10 miles to walk the last three!"

"You've got it, give a little jog going and get on your way"

...

and then the comment that blew me out of the water.

"Come on buddy, you are still on pace to finish under two hours!"

TWO HOURS! I was now struggling to get my self across the finish line in two hours! What was a pedestrian pace of 7:30 and the first 8 miles in an hours time, was now becoming a 14:00 minute pace and the last five miles were going to take me an hour... I managed to get myself together and took the last 1.1 miles in 13:03 to finish at 2:01.30 - the results show 2:01.36 but I figure the six seconds it took for us to get to the starting line after the race started shouldn't count against us, and I obviously need all the help I can get!

I finished 226 overall. Not bad really, but disappointing to myself none-the-less.

Laura on the other hand did really well. She had some troubles too, around mile 11 she stared feeling the gas tank going empty and had to walk for a short minute as well. She lost several spots and her pace slowed, but she still finished with a 1:40.53 - good enough for 54th place and 2nd in her age group. Oh, by the way, the girl that beat her in her age group passed her only a few hundred meters from the finish line and beat her by 8 seconds! DARN! Regardless, still an excellent first showing for Laura and I have a lot of room to improve!

We have already started talking about running the half marathon in May in Lincoln, Nebraska - but who knows. All I know right now is that I am still tired, sore, and should have done a little more training for that race. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twi - you can't get fooled again!"

Until again

-=Nolan=-

**Bonus picture**
This is really how we felt after we were done!

Post #250

2007-10-01T18:09:00.000-05:00

Can it be? I've rambled on for 250 entries? I find that hard to believe. Then again, it's been nearly two years since the start of my blog!

Fall is in full affect in Western Montana, the leaves have gone from green to orange and red in a matter of days! Not only are the leaves changing, but so it the weather - Laura and I experienced it first hand this weekend.

But wait, before I start in on our weekend of geocaching (yes, that's basically all we did - AGAIN) I should start out with our Friday evening. Our dance class started on Friday and Laura and I spent an hour, escaping the rain, dancing with a wide range of folks learning to 'Cha Cha.' Now before you start laughing, or perhaps when you finish laughing at that statement, I have to make a confession. It was actually a lot of fun. There, I said it! I can hear my brother laughing at me already. All I can say is Laura and I can really shake a leg now, and we are just getting started! We actually picked things up pretty quickly on Friday night and we will be ready for an advanced step by this Friday - a few folks were still having trouble by the end of the first class, but I think they will pick it up pretty quickly this week - after a week of practice.

Now onto our geocaching weekend...

We slept in on Saturday morning - 8:00 is sleeping in for us these days - before getting ready for our day at "The Grubstake" restaurant in Hamilton, MT. The local geocachers have an occasional 'party' and they are always a grand time, so we make our best efforts to attend. The event on Saturday started in the afternoon, so wouldn't you know it, we had plenty of time to geocache before getting there! It's true, we really can't make a trip over 25 miles without incorporating a geocache or ten into the mix...

So after our morning of geocaching we found ourselves at 5,500 feet of elevation enjoying the view from the side of a mountain overlooking the Bitterroot Valley. The forecast called for rain most of the day, but nothing of the like arrived. We experienced a few occasional snowflakes, but that's it. In fact, after I took the pictures the clouds actually broke up and cleared out of the valley, leaving us with a blue sky! Here's the majority of the crew from the party. Laura and I especially enjoy the fall party at The Grubstake because the food is excellent! This year we were treated with huckleberry ice cream to go with homemade buttermilk pie and to wash it down there was homemade root beer!

After the party we had just enough daylight left in the sky to do a quick 3 mile hike to a geocache we attempted to get in the spring but got the canoubaru stuck. I blogged that story. This time we didn't have any trouble and we enjoyed the view from the overlook at Blodgett Canyon.

Sunday morning we thought about going duck hunting and then thought about doing some geocaching. In the end, we decided to take our shotguns geocaching! We compromise quite well. Although we didn't find any ducks, we did find four geocaches - bringing us up to 13 caches for the weekend and 1,455 total. Our goal has been to hit 1,500 before December 4, 2007 - our 3 year geocaching anniversary. By the looks of it we are going to make it and then some.

We aren't really ready for the coats to come out with the hats and gloves, but it looks like winter is going to be here a little early this year. We have already had a frost and lost our pumpkins the other night. We still had a few geocaches in the mountains we wanted to get to before the snow buried them, but it appears we are too late now. Oh well, that's the beauty of weather, you never really know what's going to happen.

As far as work goes, we will be starting on a patio tomorrow. That is, as long the weather cooperates and we don't receive the half inch of rain we are forecasted to have. Tonight I am thinking of making an appearance at ultimate frisbee or at least getting out for a walk to take in some fresh air. Until again

-=Nolan=-

On The Road With Johnny Cache

2007-09-28T09:39:00.000-05:00

Back in March we released a travel bug called Johnny Cache. He's traveled nearly 2,500 miles and visited three destinations (out of 81). In case you have no clue what I am talking about, let me explain things.

Travel bugs are tags that are attached to items and allow the item to be tracked by the owners. The tag has a numeric code on it, and when it is found by another geocacher they can log where they found it and where they dropped it off at. For more information you can check out Travel Bug FAQ at Geocaching.com.

We dropped Johnny Cache off in Winnemucca, Nevada. After visiting Idaho, Wyoming, & Colorado, he's been taken to Louisiana and is awaiting the next geocacher to pick him up and take him somewhere new. I've been tracking Johnny with Google Earth and I thought everyone might be interested to see the path he's taken. As always, you can see a larger image by clicking on the picture you want to see. It's neat to see the caches in Wyoming, we have done quite a few around Cheyenne and along I-25. However, we have not found any of the caches Johnny was in while visiting Wyoming, but I suspect we will be stopping at them the next time we are close.

I have Johnny Cache under Links and you can check back to see how he's doing. Hopefully he will find his way out of Louisiana soon and visit some caches around the South for awhile.

Tonight, Laura and I start our dance class. We are looking forward to learning a few steps! Also tonight, Elton John is playing a concert at the college, but the chances of getting a ticket to the show were nearly impossible - that has actually been quite a debate the past month. There were no tickets available to people waiting in line to get them, and anyone who got online to get tickets had them bought before people in line could get them! What a mess!

My stained glass class is looking to be a lot of fun. I have not chosen a design yet, but that is my assignment by Wednesday night.

This weekend is the season opener for duck and goose hunting. Laura and I are not going to hunt on Saturday, instead we are going to do some geocaching and attend a geocaching party at the Grubstake Restaurant in Hamilton, MT. Sunday we will probably get out and see about finding a few ducks or geese, but there really aren't too many around so we are not counting on much action.

Everyone have a great weekend! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Rock!

2007-09-26T19:06:00.000-05:00

Lately, there hasn't been much to blog about. Believe it or not, that doesn't look to change any time soon. Work has been running be into the ground nearly every day and the past two days have been especially tiring. We finished laying the weed barrier - all 14,000 square feet, and now we have, at least,11 dump truck loads of rock to fill with! We have managed to knock out about 8 loads so far, but it's taking a toll. The rock isn't easy to spread and it's not easy to shovel or rake so a lot of effort goes into getting the rock exactly where we want it.

Basically, for the past two weeks I have been working all day and coming home to recover for the next day. Fortunately, PBS has been airing the new Ken Burns documentary titled "The War" which is about World War II. I like it so much I have been watching it twice in a row - plus I am too tired to do anything else.

However, tonight I will have to record the show because I start a class at the adult education center. I am going to be learning how to make stain glass windows and try my hand at making one as well. So, for the next eight Wednesday's, from 6:30-9:30, I will be busy! Then on Friday's we will be taking dance lessons as well, that will keep us busy on top of everything else going on right now.

Otherwise, things are fine and dandy - just busy. I haven't even taking any pictures in the past few weeks to share, so this blog goes picture-less much to my disapproval. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Cachin' & Frisbee

2007-09-16T23:09:00.000-05:00

Once again, I have managed to go several weeks without a blog. The steam finally built up enough and now things are really rolling!

For starters, work picked up last Thursday! We are working for the Forest Service removing bark, laying fabric, and then finishing up with a nice layer of rock. We are still removing bark! It's been 7 days of bark removal and I would guess we probably still have two days left before we can start with the fabric weed barrier. In all, we have 8 large planting beds we are working on, totaling about 14,000 square feet! We are about sick of shoveling bark but, in all honesty, we know it's the easiest part of this job. The fabric will have a lot of odd cuts and we have to lay fabric around large bushes - I suspect we will be on our knees for a good week or more. Then the rock installation will be a real back breaker - we will be replacing the bark with cobble rock, the ones that don't really shovel too well. So that will add to the fun! However, the pocketbook sure appreciates the much needed income!

Last weekend Laura and I did some hunting. Not just regular ole' hunting - Sandhill crane hunting! Okay, well wait a moment - let me phrase that more accurately. Last weekend we drove around aimlessly for two days and watched Sandhill Cranes fly away from us... I have to admit, they were a lot harder to hunt than I had expected. I tried to put the sneak on them from over a quarter mile away, and they were well aware of me before I had made much ground. As soon as then knew the story, they were in the air and gone!

We turned our attention from hunting into caching and went after a few caches - we found one of my favorite caches at an old gold mine. It was a big one too! One of the larger ammo cans we have ever seen! Usually we find caches that are in 30 caliber ammo cans (3"x10"x6") - as you can see from the picture this one is much much larger! The largest cache we have found was in the desert in Utah, it was a 15 gallon tote hidden under a large rock shelf - that was actually next to some dinosaur footprints, so that was pretty cool too!

This weekend was sectional for Ultimate Frisbee. I played for the Missoula Mbubes (it's Zulu for lion). We didn't do as well as we had hoped, but we still had a great time for only playing together for less than a week. We actually learned a new offense on Monday and practiced it on Wednesday before playing in the tournament on Saturday and Sunday. So all-and-all we were pleased that we worked together so well. But then again, we were rather displeased that we went 2-4 for the weekend. Laura came for a few games and snapped a few pictures.

Focus on catching the disc!

Eating some dirt after I missed the disc on defense. Opps-a-daisy.I managed to deflect an endzone throw by the tips of my fingers with this jump! Saved the day! Here I am working on my defense - a little fancy footwork added in to help out, but I just couldn't reach far enough! Darn!Getting some air to score the first point of the game!The Mbubes (or at least the ones who survived two days)

The 5 games we played on Saturday were pretty rough, and our game on Sunday was a lot of fun, but tough with only a few substitutes. Not to mention everyone was pretty tired.

Speaking of which - I'm blogging at 9:00 on Sunday night and about to fall asleep as I type. I've got a long week of work ahead of me, and some rest would be a good thing at this point. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Labor Day

2007-09-04T15:16:00.000-05:00

Just when the smoke looks like it is going to give up completely and make a retreat until next summer, it comes back thick as ever. The fires in Idaho are the blame for most of the smoke around here this weekend. Regardless, we did some geocaching and got some REAL exercise. Saturday evening we ran up Mt. Sentinel (the M hill) from the back side and found a geocache at the top of the mountain. That was a 6 mile round trip adventure.

Sunday we turned around and went for a hike up Bass Creek in the Bitterroot Mountains. We had a list of geocaches to find in the area so we have been hitting them hard the last few weekends. Last week, we were on the ridge above the drainage, and this week we were in the drainage. We ended up hiking just shy of 21 miles for the day! The elevation gain wasn't too bad, it's only 3,000 feet over the 7 miles into the lake. After that, we cruised around the lake and climbed into the saddle for a picture as well. From the picture you can see the lake is quite low. We hiked in from the valley to the right. The big mountain to the right is Saint Joseph's Peak - the mountain we hiked to last weekend.

Monday we spent the day recovering from our hike. I don't think it was the distance that made us so tired, but perhaps the speed at which we covered it. Most of the hiking was at 2.5-3 mph and on our way out we were pushing 4mph! I usually like to hike at a good clip of 3 mph, although I don't mind going slower, but when I am on my own I like to move right along. I guess when I am hiking along at 3 mph for about 8 hours my body gets a little tired!

Here's the panoramic pictures I took at the top of the saddle. It's 8 or 9 pictures and gives a 180 degree view from above.Tonight, I will be crashed in front of the television watching Country Music Television (CMT). Why, you ask? Well, tonight CMT is premiering the movie Dale - the documentary movie about Dale Earnhardt. I have been hearing good things about it all year, and the movie has been following the NASCAR circuit from track to track and allowing fans to view it. From the reviews, I guess it's quite a documentary - even non-race fans enjoyed it.

That's about as exciting as it gets for now. We are under six weeks away from the Spokane Marathon and in two weeks I will be playing in the sectional finals of Ultimate Frisbee - playing for a bid to the national finals. We don't have high expectations, but plan on having a good time while we are at it. Until again

-=Nolan=-