• Category Archives Sport

  • Snow

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Wolf Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Snow. A lot of it. Maybe 10 inches? (measured with a broom stick and a tape measure: 14 inches) Snowed hard from about 3:30 yesterday well into the night. Fire in the fireplace with Gabe last night. Gabe and Kep. An awakening interest, renewed interest in sports. Omicron booster. Ready to eat beef tips and mashed potatoes. The Lodgepole Branches bowed by Snow. Hygge. Mini-splits putting out climate friendly heat. Power outage. Generator on during the night. A full refrigerator.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow.

     

    Good to wake up to a big Snow. The clocks were all blinking. A power shut off in the night. Generator took care of it. Off now. No breakfast with Alan. Too soon. The silence of Shadow Mountain, always deep, becomes profound after a big Snow. All that sound buffering. Each home feels like an Island in the midst of a Snow Ocean. A beautiful part of living up here.

    Vince has covid, but he’s got a backup guy that will plow me out before 5 pm. I take Gabe back at 6 pm. By that time Colorado will have worked its magic and the roads should be at least driveable if not clear.

    Think of the Bears in their shelters. The Mule Deer sleeping together. The Elk, too. Foraging will be tough for them today. Maybe they’ll sleep all day. Foxes in their dens. Marmosets and Pine Martens. Mountain Lions take a Snow day? Lynx and Bobcats, too. I don’t really know what any of them do in the Snow. Would be interesting to find out.

    Of course, more to the economic point Snow = $$$$. All the ski resorts love this coming ahead of the New Year’s weekend. Irony. Big Snows bring allure to Vail, Aspen, Steamboat, Breckenridge, A-Basin, Loveland. And. The havoc they play with traffic on I-70 the major land based route to get to them.

    As for those of us who don’t ski. Well. We hike, snowshoe, or put logs in the fireplace and enjoy the view.

     

    Chewy has failed me. Again. Or, rather, Fedex has failed both Chewy and me. I have one cup of Kep’s dogfood left. The order from Chewy had Sunday as its ETA. Now it’s Thursday with deep Snow. No Fedex delivery. I have canned dogfood and a supply of kibble  that was not the best for Kep’s gut. I can make it. Chewy has been regular. Order. Three days later. Dogfood. The brand I want that’s not available anywhere nearby. Venture. Over the last couple of months though. Not so much.

     

    Solid workout yesterday. Back up to two sets of resistance work. Want to get back to three. I’ve let sarcopenia weaken me and I don’t like it. I could never do the fire mitigation I did when we got here. My cardiovascular fitness is excellent, but my stamina sucks. I suspect sarcopenia and Erleada. Gonna talk with my PCP about that at my physical next week.

     

    Working most days on How To Become A Pagan. Hard for me to say how it’s going. I’m writing 500-600 words at a whack. Getting content down. The broad organizational scheme of the Great Wheel holidays seems to work. At least right now. Trying to be as heartfelt as I can be.

     


    Dogs Health Hermitage Jefferson County Mountains Shadow Mountain Sport Weather +Climate Writing

  • Beauty Nearby

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Holimonth Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Snow. Cold. No pee on the rug. Kep, my official nudger. Osher Lifelong Learning. Herme. The Hermitage. Warm for the Winter. Dr. Astrov. A Chekhovian humanist. National Forests. Arapaho. Pike. Chippewa. Grand Mesa. Rio Grande. Superior. Mauna Loa. Erupting. Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. Haleakala. Mt. Etna. Black Mountain. Bear Creek. Cub Creek. That six point Mule Deer Buck. Rabbit tracks in the Snow. Phonak.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mauna Loa

     

    Colorado Cold. 10 degrees. Sparkling white Snow. The Snowpack. Lagging a bit here but good in the Colorado River Basin. An old fashioned Winter shaping up for Shadow Mountain.

     

    Over to the Happy Camper yesterday after working out. The lady at the cash register surprised me by saying after I gave her my birthday. That was my husband’s, too. I missed a chance to make a solid connection with her. Too focused on my purchase. Another 8 packs of Indica Cheeba Chews. Edibles. A word that has morphed its meaning over the last ten years.

    The drive to Bailey featured a Snow capped Continental Divide and Mt. Blue Sky (formerly Mt. Evans). Always a beautiful drive. If you drive beyond the Happy Camper into Bailey, you come to the 7% grade known as Crow Hill. It levels out into the Platte Valley where the small town of Bailey begins.

    The Platte Valley has steep Mountains on both sides and a roiling North Fork of the South Platte River. This is Park County, no longer Jefferson in which I live. Bailey is the only town with a downtown in the Valley and it’s a modest one. Shawnee and Grant have names, but no there there.

    As Hwy 285 rises toward Kenosha Pass, the 11,000 foot pass separating the Platte Valley from South Park, the Valley ends. About half way up this incline is Park County 61 which leads to Burning Bear Creek Trail and a beautiful camping area in the Pike National Forest. I posted pictures of a large Beaver dam and Beaver felled Trees earlier this summer.

    I write this to illustrate how much beauty there is within an hour or less of Shadow Mountain. Including Shadow Mountain, Black Mountain, Conifer Mountain. The drive down to Evergreen on Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive.

     

    Gee, guys. Headline in the New York Times: Jewish Allies Call Trump’s Dinner With Antisemites a Breaking Point. You think?

     

    Today at 2pm MT the US Men’s soccer team plays Iran. And it’s a must win for the US if they hope to advance.

     

     


    Mountains Park County Politics Shadow Mountain Sport The West

  • The Greatest Spectacle in Racing

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                                                        Cancer Moon

    Start of the first Indy in 1911

    Today is the Indy 500. The 103rd. A long time. I’ve written here before about this race. Growing up in Indiana there are two sporting events that create a life-long spot in the heart, the Indy 500 and basketball, especially high school basketball. At the beginning of May the Indianapolis Star would start running articles about the racers, the crews, their preparations. The build up would peak pre-race on qualification day.

    On race day those who didn’t get tickets would gather around their radios to listen. If you chose to go to the race, you already knew about the horrific traffic jams ahead of your trip to Speedway.

    Speedway is a western suburb of Indianapolis which, according to Mapquest: “The town of Speedway was developed as a city of the future. Meant to be a testing ground much like the famed race track which is its namesake, Speedway was designed to be a city that was hospitable to the car. In a time when Indianapolis streets were often narrow orange brick thoroughfares… the town had homes with garages for cars.”

    Borg-Warner Trophy

    On the F1 circuit, the winner stands on a podium with the second and third place drivers, opens a bottle of champagne and sprays his fellow drivers and the crowd gathered around. It’s a media event. At the end of the 500 the winning driver is alone in pit row, like a thoroughbred at the end of the Kentucky Derby, which runs not far away in Louisville, Kentucky. Also like the Derby the 500 winner gets a floral sash.

    This Indiana dairy farmer will present today’s winner with an ice-cold bottle of milk

    The 500 is a race with agricultural roots, a car race held about as far south from Detroit as it is north of the Derby. A blend. Nothing shows that more than the winner posing with the huge Borg-Warner Trophy and chugging down, not champagne, but a quart of milk. From a glass bottle.

    In 1965, the same month I graduated from high school only sixty miles from the speedway, Jim Clark and his Lotus changed the look and feel of the race forever. Jack Brabham brought the rear-engine European designs from F1 to Indy in 1961. 5 years later Jim Clark won in his Lotus-Ford. After that rear engine cars dominated the race. And still do.




    Holidays Memories Sport US History

  • The Ides of April

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                           Rushing Waters Moon

    Whoa. Tiger Woods won the Open. After 11 years of shame, rehab, shambling along. A victory for aging. For never letting go of the dream. For living into the present and the future, not being bridled by the past. I’m glad, for all of us.

    tax_dayTax day. Still puzzled by the acrimony taxes create. Taxes express our solidarity as citizens of this nation. They do the work of road building, of feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, of war fighting, of space exploration, of consumer and environmental protection. Or, at least they do under reasonable, non-tyranny leaning Presidents. I’m happy to pay them, federal and state and property. Always have been.

    Do I always agree with the use to which my tax dollars are put? Of course not. I understand the nature of politics. It’s about compromise, about negotiating the differences we have. Politics define how we live together as a people, at least in the public sphere.

    oligarchy
    imgur

    No taxation without representation. That was the Boston Tea Party demand of King George. Its corollary is that when you have representation the taxes are legitimate, whether you agree with their aims or not. If not, change your representation.

    There’s an article in this morning’s NYT titled, “Is America Becoming an Oligarchy?” I wrote a comment, “Whaddya mean, becoming?” That is, of course, the trouble with our government and with the notion of representation. I know that. It doesn’t make no taxation without representation inapplicable, rather it defines the struggle ahead.

    Further down the page was an article titled “Want to Escape Global Warming?” It features Duluth as a climate-change proof city. Which, I imagine, makes Canada look pretty good, too. With decent forest management Conifer could be such a place, as well. Duluth’s a great town, situated between the Twin Cities and northern Minnesota, sitting on the largest body of fresh water in the world save Lake Baikal in Siberia. Kate and I considered moving there when she left Metro Peds.

    A menu from a 1999 visit
    Menu from a 1999 visit

    60 today here in Conifer. Snow later in the week. Colorado.

    And, my appointment with Anna Willis. I have some anxiety though my rational side says it’ll be fine. At least I’ll get a professional opinion about my rising PSA. What’s life in the third phase without a little medical frisson every once in a while?

    Friend Tom Crane and Roxann have returned to Minnesota after several days on Maui. To snow and cold. Of course. They stayed at the condo near Duke’s restaurant on Kaanapli beach while the grandkids and their parents were with them and moved to Mama’s Fish House Inn after.

    Mama’s has been a favorite spot of Kate and mine’s since our first trips to Hawai’i. Celebrated several birthdays there. Mine, since Kate’s CME’s often fell in February, a great time to be someplace else other than Minnesota.

     

     


    Aging Great Work Health Minnesota Politics Sport Travel

  • Snow. Soup. Go.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                                            Recovery Moon

    20190314_050257
    Steps up to the loft this morning

    Wow. Bombogenesis! As the weather guys said, “We achieved bombogenesis.” I think they may be a bit too close to this whole thing. Anyhow this storm socked us in. 18 inches or so. Wet snow. Heavy. In fact the power lines sag under its weight and as a result the snowplows can’t work the mountain roads. Black Mountain Drive, usually cleared many times during a big storm saw no plows, no scraping along the asphalt. Nothing. Just snow and the very occasional pickup truck. Even our plow guy had trouble moving around so he could clear driveways. I told him it was ok if he came this morning. We weren’t going anywhere yesterday.

    It puzzles me how snow discombobulates Coloradans. Sagging powerlines that might electrocute a driver or take out power to a whole neighborhood are one thing, but our pulmonologist’s office called last night late and said the practice was closing today due to inclement weather. They are in Littleton which got, as near as I can tell right now, about 8″.

    Snow totals aren’t the whole story. The winds created blizzard conditions. We couldn’t see Eduardo and Holly’s house just across Black Mountain Drive. Drifts. Snow slides. Avalanches. These last not so much around here, but further into the Rockies. We’ve had over 2,000 avalanches this year, several deaths.

    In terms of degrees below zero and general misery Colorado winters are wimpy compared to Minnesota, especially this Minnesota winter. Throw in the mountains however and the difficulties multiply quickly.

    Two favorite tools
    Two favorite tools

    It was a perfect day to make soup. My entry for the CBE CNS competition is in the frig, flavors blending. The competition is on St. Patrick’s Day. I have to be there at 3:30 with my soup and my instant pot. Plus a ladle. Wish me luck.

    We need Sgt. Preston of they Yukon. Remember him? He delivered medicine to the Eskimos by dog sled. Well, Kate’s on her last bag of tpn nutrition. The delivery was due yesterday. Didn’t make it. They have until 4 pm today or Kate’s gonna have to start eating her meals rather than having them pumped in.

    While making the soup, I watched several episodes of Formula 1: Drive to Survive. It was a recap of the 2018 season, timed appropriately since the 2019 season begins, as Formula 1 always does, in Australia. This weekend is the first race of 21. I’ve been a fan, off and on, since I was young. Getting back into it over the last couple of years.

    This a sport that requires millions, for the big teams like Mercedes and Ferrari, hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Each team has hundreds, in the larger cases, thousands, of employees. Yet the total number of seats, literally seats in F1 cars, is only 20. Each team has two drivers. Ten teams. That means the competition is intense at all levels and the stakes in each of the 21 races high.

    F1I suppose it was growing up in Indiana. We supplied many things to Detroit, lights, batteries, and alternators in the instance of Guide Lamp and Delco near Alexandria. These two factories alone employed 25,000 when I was growing up and most of my friend’s fathers worked at one or the other. Then every May, the greatest spectacle in racing: The Indianapolis 500. Cars and racing were prominent.

    My subscriptions to Road and Track and Sports Car Magazine have long lapsed, but during middle school and high school I followed motor sports closely. Yes, as you can tell, my interests lay somewhat askew of the Indy 500, leaning more toward European cars and races. F1 is my interest now.

    Looking forward to the Australian Grand Prix.

     

     


    Cooking Memories Sport Weather +Climate

  • Meteors, Around the World Solo, 430,000 mph!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                                                   Monsoon Moon

    While the Golden Globe sailors round Africa, (see below), the night sky for the next three nights will give each sailor a spectacular show, the Perseid meteor showers. The moonless sky will be optimal for viewing this annual event.

    perseid-meteors-2018-radiant--e1533672930772
    Meteors in the annual Perseid shower radiate from a point in the constellation Perseus the Hero. Chart via Guy Ottewell.

    So grab a lawn chair with a view of the NNE sky, maybe some hot cocoa and watch.

    Golden Globe Race. 1968 was the first sailing of this world solo navigation competition. It featured nine competitors, only one of whom finished the punishing task. A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols recounts the race and participants who ranged from a man who decided to learn to sail during the race and a man who’d already logged 20,000 solo miles in a yacht. It was not run again. Until this year, its fiftieth anniversary.

    golden globe2

    Golden Globe 2018. This Golden Globe has already clocked 41 days, 2 hours and 40 minutes. Of the eighteen entrants, twice the 1968 number, three have already quit. Jean-Luc Van Heede’s pace, he’s the current leader, has an estimated finish date of January 30th, 2019. The sailor in last pace, Abhilash Tomy, will finish on May 29th at his current pace. The lead boats are nearing the horn of Africa.

    parker solar probeFriend Bill Schmidt alerted me to the launch of the Parker Solar Probe, scrubbed yesterday, now scheduled for tomorrow. “Parker Solar Probe will swoop to within 4 million miles of the sun’s surface, facing heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it. Launching in 2018, Parker Solar Probe will provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth.” At its top speed this probe will reach 430,000 miles per hour!

     


    Science Sport

  • Engines and Basketballs. Indiana.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                                                  Sumi-e Moon

    novicutawayThe 102nd running of the Indy 500 is over. Will Power won; Danica crashed. Big traffic jams and lots of beer. Noise. Green flags, yellow flags, and one checkered flag. I went once, long ago, maybe 1958. The mighty Novi V-8 was in the race and from our seat near the fourth turn we got to hear its roar every lap as it accelerated for the long front straightaway. Watching the 500 was a sensual experience. It wrapped us in sound, flashed colors and tires and driver’s heads before our eyes, briefly, and put us among the 250 to 300,000 people in attendance. “Gentlemen, start your engines!” (no. no women drivers back then.)

    hoosiersLebron James carried the Cavaliers to the NBA finals, his 8th straight. I’m beginning to see that he might be Michael Jordan’s equal, or better. Certainly his will and drive match Michael’s. Basketball and the Indy 500. Hoosier themes not removed from my life though I watched neither the race nor the NBA playoffs. They still crank up my interest.

    My Sunday was much less exciting. Garage cleaning. Getting back to a task I had almost completed when Jon moved in following the start of his divorce from Jen. Nap. Money meeting. Another Midsomer Murder, number one of the twentieth season. Dreams.

     


    Sport

  • Mountain Sounds

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                                            Sumi-e Moon

    20151022_101834You might expect the cough of a mountain lion, the cries of magpies, mule deer and elk rustling through undergrowth, bugling in the fall, the sounds of the pines soughing as winds sweep down from Mt. Evans, perhaps even the violent poundings of the thunder storm the other night. And those sounds do exist up here.

    But the one I here most often, aside from light traffic noise on Black Mountain Drive and dogs barking, is a chainsaw. Lots of fire mitigation work. Lots of tree felling for wood heat. Lots of people, I think, who just like their chainsaws. Me, included.

    Neighbor Holly displaying t-shirt sold on the Han Motogear website
    Neighbor Holly displaying t-shirt sold on the Han Motogear website

    Then there are the motorcycles. Our neighbors, Eduardo and Holly, run a business selling steampunk gear to women riders. They have two Harleys. Motorcyclists come up here more often than bicyclists, riding in packs or alone, enjoying the mountain scenery and the fresh air. There are other motorheads up here including Jude our welder neighbor and the family two doors down that never got over the whole Volkswagen thing from the 60’s.

    These folks, I think, and many of our other neighbors live up here as a base camp for canoeing, riding, climbing, 4×4 adventures off road, skiing. If you’re already in the mountains, it’s easier to explore them.

    20180115_153644In the winter there is the scrape and drag of Jefferson County snowplows and the intermittent pushing and engine revving of private snowplowers, the whine of snowblowers.

    Oddly, much of the time our home in Andover was quieter than it is here. And I value quiet. This noise does not, however, upset me. As an older adult, I’m happy to have neighbors close by and having neighbors means living with their habits and passions. Even the noises I’ve described are intermittent and when a heavy snow falls, or mid-day, like right now, or late at night, the silence here is profound.

     


    Dogs Jefferson County Mountains Shadow Mountain Sport Travel

  • So the Eagles won

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    Imbolc                                                                                      Imbolc Moon

    fans2So the Eagles won. My disassociation from the NFL is almost complete though the Vikes sudden run through the playoffs had me reading the sports pages. No, I’ve not gone off football because of player’s kneeling. Hardly. It would be a reason to watch for me. At least the moments before the kickoff. No, I’ve not gone off football because it’s violent with one caveat which I’ll mention in a moment.

    No, though it would be understandable, I’ve not gone off football due to 40 years of frustration with the Minnesota Vikings. I remember the guy who died with the long beard. He said he wouldn’t cut his beard until the Vikings won a Superbowl. It would still be growing.

    The real reason I got off football was the expense of cable T.V. We cut the cord in 2012 and along with it broadcast television stations. That meant it was no longer possible to turn on the TV, flop down on the couch with a bowl of chips, and give away two to three hours of my life to silly commercials and over analyzed plays.

    ConcussionsMoving to Colorado two years later reinforced the effect. Bronco’s territory. The Bronco’s fan is similar in nature to the Packer fan. Lots of Broncos on rear windshields. Bronco flags. Bronco billboards. Just too damned serious for me. Not to mention that the Broncos were not the Vikings. No 40 years of memories. Yes, frustrating memories, but still.

    I’ve had flirtations with returning. Kate and I went to the Brook Forest Inn a couple of years ago to watch the Vikes and the Broncos play. My inner purple and gold cheerleader still got me out of my seat from time to time. Yes, the fan lives inside me.

    But. Back to that caveat about violence. Like a lot of guys and not a few women I enjoyed seeing muscular titans crashing into each other, moving each other around, a primal dance reminding us of our origins as a species often at war with itself. Yes, in a mild way, gladitorial. However. When the first news about chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE came out, I winced. Yes, big chess pieces throwing themselves around in organized, balletic ways entertained me. But at the cost of player’s cognitive capacity?

    concussions2

    The average football player lasts only 3.3 to 6 years in the NFL. Of course, that’s after a long period of apprenticeship in Pop Warner leagues, high school and college, an apprenticeship where the collisions keep on coming. And even for those whose career lasts 10-12 years, those whose skills allow them to start regularly for five seasons will tend to play this long, by the late 30s everybody’s career is over. Yes, Favre and Brady, but exceptions at the most protected position.

    So cutting the cord made watching football more difficult. Moving to Colorado reduced the place-based loyalty I had. CTE made me think about my eagerness to watch, to cheer, to sit through the commercials and replays because that eagerness meant lending my eyeballs to the statistics that made advertising such a lucrative source of income for the NFL. That lucrative income meant football salaries could be high, high enough to make the decision to play on in spite of possible CTE inevitable for many. This is collusion with a complex web of reinforcing factors: competition, regional loyalty, incredible athletic performances, television, advertising revenues, fan based engagement like fantasy football and memorabilia purchases.

    It’s CTE that made me finally say no. In spite of my many years as a fan, in spite of my still existing loyalty to the Vikings, in spite of my Y chromosome, I’m not going back.


    Health Sport