Commando

I knew it was going to be a good day when I was clearing my driveway last night. The intake height on my snowblower is 21 inches, and it was up to the top in places.

I’ve made no secret that I’m a bit absentminded from time to time. This ski season seems to have been a little worse than normal in that regard. Typically I’m really good about putting all my gear except for what I’m wearing and my boots in the car the night before.

Unfortunately, last Wednesday morning I walked out the door to go skiing and didn’t realize until I got to the parking lot that I failed to bring my boots. Thankfully, Aaron had locked his keys in his car, so it worked out that I took him to get a spare key and grabbed my boots on the way and the two of us still got a lap in after the rest of our friends were finished.

Then on Saturday, Tyler and I made it up to Alta and were putting our boots on when I realized my beacon was nowhere to be found. It was five degrees, conditions weren’t great, so neither of us was too disappointed to go back home.

This morning, however, I made it out the door with everything intact. I even brought an extra jacket so I could decide based on conditions which one I wanted to wear for the descent. It would have been a bad morning to miss. First time of the year it’s been over-my-knees deep. Mid-thigh, and almost waist deep in a few spots.

Jon S. and I broke the trail most of the way up Flagstaff, but with the deep snow we were easily caught by Ben and Mike—who started about 30 minutes after us—before reaching the top. The four of us did two laps together. The skiing was so good, I couldn’t be bothered to take pictures except of the first pitch we skied.

First light of the morning on Cardiac ridge:

I laid first tracks and stopped to take photos:

Jon surfs the deep stuff and kicks up some cold smoke:

Ben drops in with panache:

Mike makes good use of his new Megawatts. Unfortunately, coverage is still thin, so he put a core shot in them. I one upped him on lap two with a core shot plus a blown edge.

The coverage isn’t the only thing lacking this time of year. I wish I would have had the fitness for a third lap, but after two, my legs were done. 3,000+ vertical—all of it deep powder—isn’t bad, though.

I can’t believe I’m about to post this on the Internet, but back at the office, I discovered that the absentmindedness wasn’t taking a day off. I’ll need to be running to the store on my lunch break. One need only look at the title to figure out what I forgot.

Emergency rations

Remember in We’re No Angels when they first start pretending to be monks and Sean Penn’s (or maybe it was DeNiro’s and I have it backwards) character is panicking a bit because he doesn’t even know how to cross himself? And DeNiro says something to the effect of “it’s easy, just remember spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch?”

Never having been Catholic and therefore never having learned to cross myself, I thought this was useful information. Though the only practical use I’ve had for it was on the handful of occasions in my life when I’ve entered a Catholic church and wanted to avoid having holes burned in my chest by the glare of the old Italian woman who spends six hours a day there praying for the soul of her Mafioso son.

Being quite absent-minded, however, I do have practical use for a similar routine, which I use to check that the four elements are in my pockets before I leave the house: chapstick, wallet, keys, and phone.

Anytime I deviate from my routine, dire consequences may result. For instance, this morning I didn’t drive to work (Rachel picked me up from work on the way to Boise for the weekend—my car stayed in the parking garage). So I rode my bike to a point along Mark N.’s commute and caught a lift with him.

Since I don’t typically take my wallet when I go for a ride and therefore didn’t check for it until it was too late, the wallet got left at home. And since I didn’t pack a lunch, I had no wallet and no food.

A little before 1:00 I realized I wasn’t going to make it through the day with no food. A search of my car yielded ninety-seven cents in the ashtray and a salted nut roll in the glove box.

Blowing nearly all the cash on a 44 ounce diet coke with negative nutritional value probably wasn’t the wisest move I’ve ever made, but old habits die hard. If the 240 calories in the nut roll prove insufficient, there’s always microwave popcorn in the break room.

God’s country

On my way out of town Friday, Steve sent me a text that said “have a good time in God’s country this weekend.”

The “God’s Country” he referred to is, of course, Wayne County, Utah. There’s a chance you’d take issue with me labeling it as God’s country, but chances are good you wouldn’t if you’re among the small portion of the populace that has ever been there.

I’ve been visiting Wayne County for as long as I can remember. My dad grew up there, and two of his brothers still raise cattle there (now as gentleman rather than full-time ranchers).

We stayed at my uncle’s house, which is at the edge of the foothills below Thousand Lake Mountain and has a Piñon-Juniper woodland out the back door and expansive views of the Fremont River valley out the front. It’s a cool place—literally. Because much of Wayne County sits around 7,000 feet or more, while Moab and most of Utah’s red rock country is scorching hot, Wayne County is still quite pleasant.

Yet hardly anyone seems to visit. Unlike the sometimes Disneyesque feel of Arches or Zions, Capitol Reef National Park and the adjoining Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument are uncrowded. When we arrived at the Capitol Reef visitor’s center on Saturday, many of the 15 or so parking spaces in the lot were full, but that was likely just because it was raining.

While at the visitor’s center, I indulged my inner nerd by purchasing a poster that provides a timeline and labels for the rock layers at all of the national parks in Utah. At some point I’ll know my navajo from my wingate from my kayenta and will be able to thoroughly bore anyone who hikes or bikes with me with unsolicited geology lectures.

From the visitor’s center, we drove south on a dirt road, into the rarely-visited heart of the park, and stopped at the trailhead to Surprise Canyon, a gorgeous slot canyon that winds its way into the waterpocket fold. We encountered exactly one other hiker.

Sadly, in our rush to get out of town following the gauntlet on Friday, the camera was among the things left behind. This was a real bummer, because there were all kinds of plants and flowers I wanted to take pictures of for Alex to identify. Not to mention all the rock formations. (Incidentally, the visitor’s center in Capitol Reef has an awesome catalogue of native plants—you just thumb through it like you would LP’s in a record store back when those existed, but instead of album art, you look at plant samples encased in plastic with the names, both proper and common, on the card.)

After the hike, we backtracked a little to the Burr Trail, followed it up and over “the reef” and into Grand Staircase-Escalante. If you’re wondering how Capitol Reef got its name, many of the early explorers were seamen who were accustomed to describing any barrier or obstacle as a reef, including the waterpocket fold. Since some of the white sandstone formations bear some resemblance to the Capitol dome, it was given the name Capitol Reef.

Someday I’m going to ride the loop we drove from Torrey to the Burr Trail to Boulder and back to Torrey on a bike. It is some of the most amazing country anywhere and ranges from red rock canyons to alpine forests, summiting at 9,600 feet before dropping back into the Fremont River valley.

I have to admit that my motivation for making this trip wasn’t all sightseeing and family time. I also wanted to check out the course for the Capitol Reef Classic stage race coming up next month. All I can say is I can’t imagine a better course. The time trial is in Loa near the airport, likely because it’s the only flat stretch in the entire county.

In the road race, tactics are going to be critical—the big climb going up to Fish Lake comes early enough that it won’t be decisive. If you make a break on the climb, you better have enough of a motor to solo for 40 miles. It will be my first real test as a Cat. 4, and the anticipation/anxiety is already killing me four weeks out.

If you’re looking for an awesome race in an amazing location for July, you should consider this one. Unless you’re a strong Cat. 4 that climbs well, in which case I recommend skipping the race and sitting on the couch and eating as many bowls of Reese’s Puffs as you can.

Hell of the North

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-Robert Frost


Dante's Inferno chronicles one worldview of hell, and indeed the prominent worldview in medieval times, as a place of physical torment for those who made decisions in their earthly life that were contrary to the will of God. Of note is that while the concept of hell as a place of physical punishment is often and even in holy writ referred to as a lake of fire and brimstone, in Dante's epic poem, the damned occupying the ninth circle of hell--that place reserved for the likes of Satan and Judas Iscariot--are entrapped in ice.

Other, perhaps more modern or enlightened, notions of hell suggest that it is a state not of physical punishment but of perpetual regret wherein the condemned are left to suffer in the most simple but poignant knowledge that had they chosen a different path, paradise could have been achieved rather than the less-desirable state wherein they find themselves.

Regardless of which, if either, is correct, I got a taste of both on Saturday.

The story begins on Friday. I had skied some light, delicious powder that morning, and it continued snowing all day. Rick sent an email out in the afternoon inquiring as to whether anyone wanted to do a longer tour on Saturday morning.

I had been planning for weeks to do the Hell of the North bike race, Utah's miniature version of the spring classic sharing the same nickname. Conditions were going to be awful. Or epic, depending on how you look at it. I wavered with indecision for the rest of the day, even going so far as to prepare my "B" bike the night before AND set out all my clothing and gear for skiing.

Finally when I went to bed and set my alarm, I more or less made a decision. My rationale was thus: I've skied 40+ times this year, 25 of them powder days. The wind is blowing, skies are cloudy. Tomorrow could go either way. Hell of the North is one day a year and a chance to race with my brother, which I always enjoy.

At 4:30, I awoke with my phone chiming, alerting me of a text message. I got up and looked at it. Dug: Not gonna make it. At this point, I could have gone and checked the weather--looked at what the wind was doing and what the overnight snowfall was. Instead, I just responded: Me neither.

I got back up at 6:00 and put on my cycling kit. The wind and snow were beating against the walls of my house. Then I got another text, this time from Sam, saying he wasn't going to race because conditions were too bad. Great. Sam called me Friday afternoon and gave just enough encouragement to race that it was probably what tipped the scales in that direction. Oh well. Sam not showing means I'm automatically one place higher than I would have been.

Steve and I got to the course and were relieved to find the winds much calmer and no snow falling. For the moment. We rode a warm up lap, and the course, which includes nearly 2 miles per lap of dirt road, was wet, but probably not as bad as it could have been. We got back to the car, took our jackets off and headed to the start.

I realized about a mile down the road to the start that I hadn't used my inhaler and didn't have it with me. I also had left my water bottle in the car, so I turned around. And quickly realized I wouldn't make it back in time. So I raced with no inhaler and no water. It was only 25 miles, so I figured I'd be OK.

A couple of guys tried to break for it right from the starting gun. Everyone else let them go, and by halfway through the first lap, we had caught them and spit one of them out the back. I also noticed at that point that Steve was nowhere to be seen. I wouldn't see him again all race.

Onto the dirt, and I was feeling OK. My glasses got dirty, and I was getting wet, but once on the pavement again, I just wiped my glasses off (I'm in the red vest and white and blue helmet below).

On lap two, I figured out that the strategy was going to be to accelerate out of the corners and push it as hard as possible on the dirt, with hopes of dropping riders little by little. It worked. After two laps, the lead group was down to 15 or 20 riders, and after three laps, it was down to 11.

At this point the snow was falling fairly hard, my drivetrain was so gummed up that it was about 15 seconds from when I shifted until the chain moved cogs, and my feet were numb. My glasses were sitting down on my nose like an old lady, useless to see through, but still a somewhat valuable shield from the splatter coming up and into my eyes.


When the bell rang as we completed the fourth lap, it was one of the sweetest sounds I have ever heard. I was just ready to be done. My feet were so numb at this point that they just felt like stumps from the ankles down. I knew the pace would be harder on this lap as riders wanted to thin the field before the bunch sprint, but it was only five miles.




We may have dropped one or two on the last lap, but I'm not sure. We passed quite a few Cat 4s, who started four minutes ahead of us. I didn't have a computer, so I can only describe the speed as somewhere between fast and painful.

The 1Km to go sign is on the dirt road, shortly before rounding the corner to the pavement. The pace went up again, and I knew the sprint would start as soon as the pavement did. I also knew that even though I was holding on, I had only been on a bike four times since November, and I could do no sprinting.

Phatty Pat got a nice leadout from the first guy to make a move and held on for the W. I gave it what little I was worth to finish at the tail end of the lead bunch, somewhere around 10th.


Steve had flatted in the first mile and ridden solo for the duration. The downside to that is he got no benefit from drafting. The upside was that he stayed remarkably clean.



Aside from being as cold as I have ever been in my entire life, I actually felt pretty good about the race and about my efforts. And it got me one step closer to the Cat. 4 upgrade, so that was good. The physical suffering was very real and intense, but by the time I'd had some hot chocolate, taken a shower, and gotten the mud out of my eyes with only minor lacerations on my eyeballs, it was over.

The regret and mental anguish, however were only beginning. For starters, I forgot the bike was on the roof rack when I pulled into the garage. Thankfully it wasn't my "A" bike. The car is fine, the garage is fine. The bike is not. At the very least it needs a new fork. We'll see what else.

Then I decided to take the kids to Solitude for the afternoon. Which was a good thing--my son skied his first blue run, right under the lift, and got plenty of cheers from above as he did so. The first time down, he followed in my tracks, but after a couple laps, he was hitting it all by himself. Unfortunately, being up there, I was left to look around at all the untouched backcountry lines just begging for someone to ski them.

While there, I made the mistake of texting the Wonder Twins to see how the skiing was. Rob said "Incredible--wish you woulda come." Rick said "Some of the best snow of my life. Super light and over the shoulder deep." My pleas to Dug to go out on dusk patrol went unheeded.

Once home, I found that the Samurai, who is a skinny ski guy, was on 110 waisted skis and even then wondered if it was too deep. Dustin and his crew were gasping for air between turns. Oh to suffer from asphyxiation in such manner.

Even if my legacy for the day is a smashed-up bike, I shouldn't complain. It's not like my life sucks. It's just that in hindsight, Saturday could have sucked a lot less than it did.


A huge thank you to my brother Josh for braving the elements in nothing but a sweatshirt to get these fantastic photos. Thanks mom and dad for coming to cheer us on--encouragement from the crowd makes a difference.

I am such a thoughtful friend

I’m a people watcher. One of my favorite things to observe is how people spend their money. For instance, I get a big kick out of people who buy economy cars and then spend a bunch of money on accessories and upgrades. Hardly seems worth it to me.

On the other hand, I’m sure there are those who look at how I spend my money and time and think I’m nuts. In fact, my sisters are among them.

But hiking up hills and skiing down on fat skis makes me really, really happy. In a way I don’t know how a car or any other earthly possession possibly can.

So this morning when we had just gained the ridge and we were sidehilling a bit and Rob’s binding broke in the exact same way that Dug’s did a few weeks ago, I was heartbroken. This was Rob’s first outing in a couple weeks, there was over a foot of fresh snow, and just like that he was done.

If Rob weren’t a foot taller, but more importantly, three boot sizes bigger than me, I would have just given him my skis. Instead, I watched him limp back to the car with his binding held on by a Voile strap, realizing only after it was too late that I didn’t give him the keys, so he’d be stuck outside freezing his kibbles and bits off until I got back.

Apparently it was a bad morning for guys named Robert, because I also discovered when we got to the top that Bob was no longer with us. We thoughtfully dropped into Cardiff without him.

Deskinning at the top:

Tyler:

Jonathan:

Adam:

Can’t-wipe-the-smile-off-his-face Aaron:

Back up to Cardiff Pass and down towards car. Tyler took the camera and snapped this photo of me:

On the way out, we came across a nice little kicker. Which Aaron didn’t hesitate to hit. Unfortunately, my cold finger hesitated to hit the shutter button, so all we have is the landing.

Aaron’s lack of any hesitation whatsoever to hit this kicker while all of us cool skiers skied around it like girlie men has compelled me to take at least a one week hiatus from having righteous indignation towards knuckle-dragging snowboarders and their hip-hop arms.

Instead, I shall forthwith make fun of telemark skiers. Tele skiers have their own self-righteous attitude, with sayings such as “free your heel, free your mind” and “drop your knee or drop the sport.”

I say, “fix your heel and fix the problem.” And openly mock tele skiers leaning back and making bad alpine turns when the terrain gets challenging. (But truth be told, watching a good tele skier shred a technical line is something to behold. And I don’t tele simply because I find skiing challenging enough, and I don’t need to make it unnecessarily harder than it already is. That and skiing tele is stupid. Ha!)

Back at the car, I got a text from Rob indicating he had hitch-hiked down. Nevermind that his shoes were in my car and he would have to go to work barefoot. Bob hitch-hiked the other way and made it back up to the parking lot a few minutes after we got there. He had fallen in with another group and skied down Superior.

I guess the old saying “there are no friends on a powder day” is true after all. Not that there was ever any doubt.

Inconceivable

Vezzini: Inconceivable!

Inigo Montoya: I do not think that means what you think it means.

Dug had a crappy morning. Which reminded me that years and years ago, I took a road trip to Mexico with three of my friends. We planned to be there for Cinco de Mayo, thinking there would be cool parties and street festivals, and, since we were single, young ladies. We got there and pretty much nothing was happening. We asked around as to when the party was going to start.

“What party?”

Turns out, Cinco de Mayo is a holiday invented by the American beer companies. So we kept driving south through Baja California towards Cabo San Lucas.

As we drove, we noticed a rodeo being held more or less at the side of the road in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. We decided to stop and watch.

The rodeo was cool and all, but partway through, one of my friends needed to go back to the car for something. I reached in my pocket to give him the keys. Pocket was empty.

We all walked back to the car and discovered the keys were there, still in the ignition. Doors locked. There was no spare key. So we went back to the rodeo and started asking around as to whether there was a locksmith or a mechanic in “town.” Turns out there was one guy who didn’t really have a shop but kept a bunch of tools in his truck. Not really sure how it happened, because there were no cell phones or any phones that I noticed, but about 15 minutes later, he showed up. And he had a slim jim.

Unfortunately, none of us, including him, knew how to use one. So all I did was break the internal latch mechanism on my passenger door (which thereafter forced me to go around and open the door for my wife whenever she exited the car—kind of a good thing when we were dating—but unfortunately also forced me to do the same thing for my friends or anyone else who sat in the passenger seat).

Panic was now setting in and we were coming very close to smashing a window. While someone else was off looking for a hammer, I noticed the key was still in the on position. Which meant the power windows would work.

I asked the mechanic if he had anything fairly long, slender, and reasonably strong. He produced a machete. So I climbed on top of the car and wedged the machete into the sun roof far enough to push the button and raise the glass. Then I stuck a stick into the narrow gap and reached down to the lock button and pushed it with the stick. Click. Sweet relief.

The next day we found someplace that would make keys and had a spare made. Which came in handy because I only locked the keys in the car two more times that trip. Only once while the engine was still running, though.

That steep, narrow, cliff-lined chute. (You know, the one above Aspen Grove?)

So you know how yesterday I talked about suffering through a steep skin track and my absentmindedness disrupting an otherwise great tour? Well I spoke too soon.

This morning Dug, Aaron, the Wonder Twins (Rick and Rob), and I all met up in Orem for a little backcountry tour in Provo Canyon. Aaron just got a new splitboard, and today was the day to christen it.

The target was a line above Sundance that has been referred to as the Orion Chute. Incidentally, none of us particularly cares for that name, and since it’s neither well-known nor classic, we aren’t letting that name stick. But other than “Redford’s Bunghole” we couldn’t think of anything on the drive home. Dug has since christened it “That One Steep Narrow Cliff-lined Chute.” Actually, the hyphenation in “cliff-lined” was mine, because that was the one punctuation error in the name I couldn’t tolerate. And since apparently we all peed in it, I don’t think the name can be changed now. I’ll be sending notice to the USGS shortly.

Anyway, I had no idea what this line was like, but if I thought yesterday’s skin track was steep, then today’s was downright ridiculous. It wasn’t that Rick was keen on inflicting punishment (though that can’t be ruled out), it was just that the slide path we climbed up to get to the ridge was ridiculously steep.

It eventually choked down so narrow and steep that we were switching back about every ten feet and lucky if on the switchback we didn’t slide down to the track below us.

As an aside, Wasatch Front residents may remember that slide in Provo Canyon five or so years ago that buried three snowboarders, one of them to the point that they didn’t recover the body until spring. That was the line we climbed up, though today it was evident that it had already slid this storm cycle, whereas five years ago it was an “extreme” danger avalanche day and those guys had no safety equipment. Not that safety equipment (other than your brain telling you not to go out that day) would help in a slide that big. The damage was still visible, with large trees snapped in half at the trunk.

Once at the top, we enjoyed a few turns through the trees and some nice deep pow before arriving at the top of the One Steep Narrow Cliff-lined Chute. The first 15 or so feet were steep enough and narrow enough that we chose to downclimb rather than slide and scrape it clean before the next guy made it down.

Rick downclimbing:

Dug at the top:

The descent itself was steep and narrow—barely wider than my skis; when standing perpendicular to the fall line I could reach my hand out and touch the slope. Rick graciously chose not to shoot video of the descent because, though we all made it down, we didn’t look like pros doing so.

Me:

Rick:

Aaron:

Rob:

The only problem I had was poor sluff management. As it opened at the bottom and I started actually linking turns, I skied right into my own sluff, which buried my ski. As I made my next turn, the buried ski popped off. I stopped immediately, but on a line that steep, I was still 10 feet below my ski. To make matters worse, Aaron was coming down behind me, and his sluff was piling up on me as I tried to come back up. Before I’d made any progress climbing back to my ski, I was buried up to my chest in Aaron’s sluff.

Once out of the chute and onto the apron, the skiing was sublime. Knee deep and blower with well-spaced trees to keep it interesting. Every day should be so good. Wait. The last three have been. I am so spoiled.

The only bummer about today was that once again my absentmindedness reared its ugly head. Last night I charged my camera battery and was sure to put my camera in my pack this morning. Unfortunately, I forgot to put the battery back in the camera. So all we’ve got are Dug’s cell phone camera pics (which actually turned out quite nice, all things considered). And you know how I feel about those. Oh well, there are worse things than skiing a line like this without your camera.

My absentmindedness, part 4

This morning Rob and I decided to do a quick lap in Scotties Bowl before work. Usual routine: LCC lot at 5:30, throw stuff in one car, drive up, yadayadayada. I drove up the canyon. Rob and I just chatting as we drove. I saw the turnout to a parking area, but it was early, snowing, dark, and I was only loosely aware of my surroundings. I was thinking we weren't high enough to be at White Pine, so I kept going. Then I saw the Snowbird Entry 1 sign. Oops.

We pulled into the lot, and the Black Diamond Bus was there. Brad Barlage, his brother, and a few friends from the Brighton Ski Patrol were a few minutes ahead of us on the skin track. I was feeling pretty good this morning and didn't want to get to work too late since I spent the morning yesterday at Brighton, so I pushed the pace to try and catch Brad and crew. I knew my redline was well within Rob's comfortable range since he's one of the Wonder Twins and all.

Just when I thought we were going to close the gap, the skin track got crazy steep. Now the couple times I've been out with BD guys, the skin track has always been steep, so this was not surprising. But I'm convinced that some of Brad's purpose must have been to see just how straight up the hill he could go before his skins lost grip. I never actually fell on my face, but I came close.

A couple hundred vertical feet from the top, we finally caught the crew ahead of us. Catching Brad Barlage on the uptrack officially goes down as the highlight of my backcountry career. Nevermind that he was breaking trail through knee deep snow.

At this point Brad made the call to plant the flag, not wanting to risk a slide by continuing on through the upper section. Rob and I de-skinned and were the first to drop. I only took three pictures, none of them very good. This one gives you an idea how deep it was: you can see Rob's ski tip and glove coming out from behind the lowermost tree on the right. The rest of him is shrouded in white.


And here he is planing out as he goes past me. Notice that planed out, the snow is still up to his boot tops.


According to the Alta website, the snow density was 5-6% for the recent storms. It had settled a bit, so wasn't quite that light. I'd say maybe 8-10%. What a pity. Actually, the real pity is that Rob and I were the only two who got up for it. And other than getting up at 4:30, it didn't interfere with our workday. At all. Because we were back at the car at 7:37.

Those of you who don't know me probably figured that the title of today's post was in reference to driving right past the trailhead and having to turn around. It's not. At least not completely. Because when we got back to the car, I discovered that the gym bag with my jeans and sweatshirt in it were still at my house, so I had to go back for them before going to work. Double oops. So much for getting in by 8:15 even on a powder day.

My absentmindedness, part 3

Forgetting to close the garage door at night is a bad thing. In this case, not so much because of the skis, tools, and bikes that any thief could have helped himself to, but because it snowed quite a bit last night with substantial wind. I've never run a snowblower inside the garage until this morning.

We didn't want your business anyway

Balance sheet restructurings aren't just for banks, insurance companies, and automakers sucking at the teet of the federal government. I'm in the midst of my own, just at a much smaller scale--we're talking 7 figures and under, but that's counting the numbers after the decimal point. I think the total assets I'm moving around are worth about 27 Pounds Sterling.

As part of the restructuring, today I went to the bank to deposit a check for a fairly substantial amount of money, but which I will almost immediately be moving somewhere else. Mind you all of this has to be done within a few days, because I've got a hard and fast deadline of the end of this month to get everything wrapped up.

So imagine my surprise when the bank, which I have been a customer of for nearly 12 years, told me that they were putting a 15 day hold on the funds. I don't have 15 days to wait but went ahead with the deposit. After a lot of back and forth and churn of activity between teller and manager, apparently because it was such a large amount of money (?), they finally processed the deposit and gave me a receipt.

I left the bank and went to the 7 Eleven to get a diet coke. I got to the cashier and opened my wallet. The $20 cash back I asked for wasn't there. Probably because the bank never gave it to me. As you know, I'm pretty absentminded, so of course I didn't think to ask for it. In fact, last time I went to the drive-up window, they also forgot to give me my cash, but at least that time I asked for it before leaving.

Back to the bank I go. When I got there, I was informed that there is a little cash dispenser below the teller window, which I didn't notice, but apparently it had my cash in it. Even though the teller never mentioned this. Of course the cash was no longer there.

Since I'm back at the bank anyway, already a little agitated, and I now have the attention of both teller and manager, I asked them about that hold they placed on the funds. They said there was little they could do about it. So I called my brother, who is the Assistant to the Regional Manager at a competing bank and asked him, right in front of the bank manager, how long he would hold the funds if I deposited the money at his bank. "You'd have it right away," was his response. So I reversed the deposit and got the check back.

Except now, since $20 was allegedly dispensed as part of that deposit, the manager doesn't want to just reverse the transaction, because she's got $20 that's unaccounted for. And she wanted me to cover that $20, since, unbeknownst to me, it was my responsibility. I quite firmly informed them that it was clearly not my fault and wouldn't be on the hook for it. And then I left.

Now I don't know about you, but if I were in the banking business and my bank had just been sold to another bank to avoid insolvency, I'd be trying to grab every deposit I could get. So if a customer of many years came in with a reasonably large deposit and right in front of me called a competitor to inquire about depositing the funds there, I'd do what I could to make sure and keep the business. But instead she chose to quibble with me over $20.

I walked out and called my brother to let him know to expect me.

How stupid do you have to be, part 2

Yesterday morning I went to the airport for my flight from Boise back to Salt Lake. When it was my turn at the TSA desk, the agent looked at my driver's license and pointed out that it was expired. So? I thought. The picture looks like me, and the name matches my ticket. "Do you have another form of valid ID?" I was more annoyed than concerned, but in our current socialist police state, talking back will get you nowhere. So I looked through my wallet, pretending to be concerned, knowing there was nothing there. "Anything else with a picture, like maybe a Costco card?" he asked. So I grabbed my Costco card and used that. Apparently a 3/8" x 3/8" grainy, black and white photo on a warehouse store card is OK to fly with, but a state-issued driver's license that happens to be expired is not.

The guy in front of me was a pilot, and as we put our stuff on the X-ray machine, he commented on the absurdity of the situation. A driver's license being expired doesn't make it any less useful for establishing identity, at least I wouldn't think. In fact, I have a friend who has been using the ID he got at a Go Cart race track to fly with for years. And it's not like the TSA is consistent with this approach either, because it's been expired for seven months, and this was my fourth flight in three weeks and the first time anyone even noticed. Don't think I'm going to go get it renewed a month before I move to another state, either.

It would have been nice had the stupidity ended there, but it didn't. Except the next act was all me. Actually, the next act of stupidity had already been completed, but it was still a few hours from discovery. I had been very careful on Sunday night to set out wallet, keys, and chap stick so as not to be stuck without essentials. Keys were particularly important because my car was still in Salt Lake and I also needed the RFID key fob to get in and out of the office.

We share a floor with several other tenants, and the restroom is outside of our space. Once and only once so far I left for the restroom without my keys and had to have someone come open the door for me. Since then I have always checked to make sure my keys were in my pocket before venturing out. Sure enough, they were there, so I proceeded with confidence. On the way back in, I pulled them out and discovered that I had brought the keys to my wife's car with me from Boise. This was disastrous. Not only could I not get back in, but I couldn't drive home either.

Fortunately, I was able to get a loaner key fob for the office. I then borrowed Mark N.'s car and drove to the dealer to have a new key made. My stupidity only cost me $2.14 this time, plus a little bit of humiliation.

Apparently stupidity is virulent and contagious, because even after Martha Stewart's jail time, billionaires are still (allegedly) engaging in insider trading. This time it's Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban dumping shares to avoid a loss that, relative to his wealth, would be like me losing a spool of dental floss.

But that's not all--the idiot storm is dumping large buckets of stupidity all over the country. It seems that a few thousand or so Mormons were the entire reason that a majority of the voters in a state of over 16 million registered voters supported California's proposition 8. And because it's clearly entirely the fault of the Mormons, those disappointed by the outcome have decided to protest at and vandalize the Mormons' places of worship.

Now I realize that this is an exceptionally complicated subject that is sure to elicit a highly emotional reaction. But the fact of the matter is that the people of California exercised their constitutional rights and made a decision. There may be enough Mormons in California that if all of them voted for proposition 8, it could have been the deciding factor. But they didn't all vote for it, and non-Mormon Californians who did vote for it outnumber the Mormons who did by at least an order of magnitude.

So why all the anger directed almost exclusively at the Mormon church? One opponent of the measure called it "the most dangerous form of bigotry." Apparently participating in a democratic election is the most dangerous form of bigotry, but vandalizing someone's place of worship and assaulting missionaries is appropriate for people who preach tolerance and acceptance of others.

Sure you'll always have your wackos, but I wonder if the response would have been so heated and on the scale that it is had the election results been different.

My absentmindedness, part 2

I've mentioned before that sometimes, OK, nearly every time, in the flurry of activity that is getting ready for a bike ride, or worse, a trip involving the bikes, that I am prone to forgetting something. Remarkably, my absentmindedness has never resulted in driving into the garage with bikes still on the roof, which will now undoubtedly happen this very afternoon. Anyway, try as I might, I don't always remember everything I should when I'm packing.

Last week's trip to Utah was no exception. Rachel was flying from Salt Lake to New York Thursday afternoon, so we had to leave early and did not have the luxury of spending a few minutes going through the (still mental) checklist, making sure things were done properly.

About 100 miles into the drive, my four-year-0ld indicated that he needed to go to the bathroom. Incidentally, he makes a verbal announcement, including details of the nature of his urge, every time he needs to go, whether we are in the car or not, even though he's perfectly capable of taking care of business himself when stopping the vehicle at an appropriate place is not a necessity.

In this situation "appropriate place" was defined as "South side of I-84 Eastbound, circa mile marker 150" because there were no towns, villages, rest areas, or even ranch exits within the three minutes or so we had between announcement and denouement. So I stopped the car, helped him out and into the weeds, where he of course bared his bottom (rather than just unzipping his fly) and provided the thirsty weeds with moisture and nutrients.

On the way back into the car, I checked the bikes on the hitch-mounted rack to make sure everything was still secure. The bikes were mounted securely to the rack. But upon inspecting the rack, I noticed that although it was inserted into the receiver as it should have been, the pin that should have been securing it there was evidently still in the garage at home. Oops.

Fortunately, the rack stayed put, preventing my bikes from becoming several thousand dollars worth of aluminum and carbon fiber shards scattered across the freeway. At the next town I stopped at an auto parts store, and for three dollars and eighty four cents was able to purchase peace of mind that I was somehow unable to find during the miles since the bathroom break.

Ready

This morning I finished getting my bike ready for Lotoja. Two new tires (Michelin Pro 3 Race, in case you're wondering), which I am a bit nervous about since that's the same tire I sliced open ten days ago. Installed the new chain even though the old one was not even showing 0.75% wear even with 2500 miles on it. Cleaned everything up, including removing the cranks to get the gunk out of the bottom bracket area and apply some fresh lube.

On Monday I found my arm warmers and yesterday I remembered the place that was going to be easy for me to remember where I put the batteries to my HRM, so I don't even need to spend my time looking for misplaced items.

Now all I have to do is wait. Today is a rest day, so I'm not even going to go out and ride. Thankfully I at least had a job interview this morning to give me something to think about besides not riding my bike.

What happened to human decency?

Though Fatty is convinced that there's plenty of it to go around, I am assured that human decency is lost, perhaps irretrievably. I have little hope of finding it, but if I do, perhaps some of the other stuff I'm missing will be there with it.

My certainty regarding the complete and utter absence of human decency was solidified during my road ride today. The smoothest, most luscious and pristine piece of tarmac in the entire valley has been coated with gravel in preparation to become chipseal.

This is a grave loss, as this wonderful piece of pavement was just the sort of place where one could fly along (if 23-25 mph is considered flying, and indeed it is to me), seemingly uninhibited by rolling resistance. One could imagine one's self as Mark Cavendish, pulling ahead of the bunch sprint and leaving blow snorting Belgian primadonnas in one's wake. Or perhaps as Dave Zabriskie, in the deepest and most aero of tucks, impervious to the wind, nuts coated and protected from moisture and friction by a high-viscosity embrocation.

If this strip of road were somewhere I only occasionally rode, I could perhaps overcome my disappointment. But nay, it is part of at least half of my regular routes. I pronounce myself inconsolable. Were I to die of brokenheartedness, ACHD would have the blame resting squarely on its shoulders.

As I search the world diligently for human decency, I am quite certain that if I find it, it will be in a place that I put it, certain that said place would be easy to remember. Along with it would be the batteries that I bought for my heart rate monitor a few weeks ago. I bought new batteries a few weeks ago knowing I would need some soon. But not wanting to use them until I actually needed them, I put them in a place that would be easy for me to remember. If I ever remember where that place is, I am quite confident that I will find many other things there, things which I long ago gave up on ever finding again.

Should my current and acute brokenheartedness in fact become a mortal wound, and should the collective humanity desire to prove itself decent, please bury me with the batteries for my heart rate monitor.

150 solo miles

The last few weeks, I've felt as though I've been behind on my Lotoja mileage. Until Saturday, I had done a grand total of four rides over 100 miles all year. Last year I did that many in the month of July alone. Not wanting to bonk for lack of sufficient miles in my legs, on Saturday I took off for an epic road ride. I hoped to find some company, but for some reason it's tough to find people interested in spending pretty much their entire Saturday on the bike. Go figure.

So about 7:30, I took off from home, intending to ride to Banks, then on to Lowman, Idaho City, and then back home.


View Larger Map

I was a little nervous about covering that many miles alone, so my wife and kids planned on meeting me about three hours into the ride to provide food and water and then follow during the lonely miles where if something went wrong, I'd be in a real spot of bother. I also threw a spare tire and chain in the back of the car, but in my haste to get out the door, forgot to toss a spare tube and the floor pump in the car. I wasn't too worried, though, as I always carry a spare tube and two CO2 canisters in my seat bag.

Things went well for the first couple of hours, and by the time Rachel caught up with me, I was well ahead of where I planned to be. I stopped long enough to top off the bottles and grab some more food and was back on my way. We had stopped near a campground, so Rachel stayed there with the kids and let them play for a while before proceeding.

Ordinarily I ride just to the left of the white line, as I've found forcing cars to move a little bit to go around me typically results in them giving me more space as they pass, not to mention it keeps my out of the garbage that's often on the far right side of the road. This ride was a little different, though, as the highway, especially near the white line, was really rough chip seal, but to the right of the line it was relatively smooth tarmac.

About 65 miles into the ride, I was making my way up a moderate hill just above Big Falls when I heard something ricochet from under my tire into the guard rail. Instantly, my tire was flat. I pushed the bike to a pullout that was just ahead of me and took the tire off the rim. I was going to just throw a new tube in and not even think about it but decided to inspect the tire for glass or other debris just to make sure I didn't damage the new tube. Good thing I did, because there was a half inch cut in the tire.


The tire was done, so I sat down and waited for Rachel to catch up with a new tire. At this point, I was also really wishing I had remembered the floor pump, but CO2 was going to have to do. I got the new tire on, only breaking one lever in the process. I aired it up and started back up the road. And "bang"--it was suddenly flat again. I had made the rookie mistake of not checking to make sure the tube was clear of the bead, and the tube had been pinched between the tire and the rim. With no extra tubes, the ride was over. I put the bike in the car and drove home.

Since I couldn't really wait until next week to try again, I still wanted to get out and finish the ride, so once I repaired the tire for the second time, I headed back out and got my mileage via a different route.


View Larger Map

Taking a two hour break in the middle of the ride wasn't my first choice, not to mention I was looking forward to doing the climb from Lowman to More's Creek Summit, but I got my mileage in and I can go back and do the climb another day.

Unlike Rick, who rides with no computer or heart rate monitor, I like to know the stats of my ride. So I have a computer on one side of the handlebars, and my HRM/Altimeter on the other. For any ride, I know my distance, time, max/min HR, and elevation gained and lost. The one thing I don't have is a power meter, so when Eric offered to let me use his on Saturday, my inner geek was ecstatic. Of course my handlebars were pretty crowded with gauges, but I know a lot about my ride. Here it is by the numbers:

• Distance: 152.5 miles
• Elevation gained lost: ~7900 feet (this is an estimate, since I forgot to turn off my altimeter on the drive home after the cut tire, so the climbs I did until that point got counted twice)
• Average watts: 177
• Max watts: 1000 (OK, this was just me goofing around giving it everything I had on the list hill before I got home--the most I showed on any of the climbs the rest of the ride was about 400, with my threshold being about 250)
• Ride time: 9 hours

One of the biggest things I was looking at was my pacing. I definitely started to flag towards the end of the ride and was not putting out the same power as at the beginning. But it wasn't a drastic decline, so I think my pacing and nutrition were OK. Speaking of nutrition, here's what I ate on the bike:

• 3 packs of honey stinger chews
• 2 ham and avocado wraps
• 1 20 oz coca cola
• 1 pack of shot bloks
• 1 honey stinger gel
• 3 bottles gatorade
• 1 clif bar
• 1 power bar recovery
• 2.5 homemade energy bars
• 1 chicken and stars soup at hand
  

The things I enjoyed the most were the wraps, the coke, honey stinger chews, and the homemade energy bars. Least enjoyable were the clif bar, stinger gel, and powerbar. Once again, I didn't feel like eating after about eight hours. I don't know if there's anything I can do about this. Although a cold coke sounded really good on the way home. Maybe I'll keep the cooler full of coke at Lotoja just in case.

I'll admit this was not the most fun way to spend a Saturday, but it was an important training ride. If nothing else, I now feel ready and confident heading into Lotoja rather than apprehensive about the mileage. I may put in some hard efforts this week, but nothing too long. And I'll definitely be doing some group rides, because 152 miles with no protection from the wind really blows.

My absentmindedness

Whenever I'm meeting someone else for a ride, I start getting ready about 5-10 minutes before I actually need to start getting ready. Or rather, 5-10 minutes before I should actually need to start getting ready. This is because I am absentminded and will undoubtedly spend that last 5-10 minutes coming back into the house to retrieve something I should have had with me in the first place, whether it's my heart rate monitor strap, water bottles, or cell phone (I've only had to make the call of shame once, but I never ride without it just in case).

So on Thursday afternoon, when we packed up to spend the weekend in Utah, I went through my mental list of things to bring several times. Realistically, this shouldn't be a mental list, but a real one, either laminated and hung prominently on the wall of my garage or tattooed to my forearm. But the list is still mental, which means it's prone to omissions.

This time I forgot my floor pump. Since we were staying at my sister's house, it also meant no access to one. At my parents' or most of my other siblings', there's at least one cyclist in the house. I'm sure this will change for my sister and her family, living as they do right at the mouth of American Fork canyon, but for the time being, there are no cyclists resident. Which means no floor pumps.

On Friday morning, I took off to ride over and back of Suncrest. I thought I'd be OK, since I'd just pumped up my tires on Thursday morning for a ride. I even theorized that since we had gone up in elevation going from Boise to Utah that the pressure in my tires would have been greater than they would have been at a constant elevation.

Everything felt fine as I pedaled through Alpine, into Highland, and towards the hill. I got to the top and noticed there was quite a wind blowing. Those of you familiar with Suncrest know that the south side tops out at about an 8% grade, but the north side is a consistent 10% grade pretty much top to bottom. As I began my descent, I didn't like the wind, but I thought it would be OK. Then as my speed increased, a good gust hit me, and I got the wobbles. Could not keep the front end under control. It got so bad that I slowed all the way down and checked to see if my quick release was sufficiently tight.

I tried descending again, but the wobbles soon returned. Then I remembered the tires. Between the wind and the under-inflated tire, I simply couldn't keep the bike from shaking. Of course, once the front end starts to shake, I get nervous, which does not help me to relax and just let the bike go. So I ended up riding the brakes pretty much all the way to the bottom. Thankfully on my descent of the South side, there was less wind and a flatter grade, so I made it back without incident.

I wish there were some way I could buy my sister a floor pump for Christmas without it being obvious that the gift was really for me.

Technical incompetence

I work for a very large tech company. As such, many people who don't work with me think I know a lot about technology and how to do stuff. These people are wrong. May I enter into evidence Exhibit A, my writeup of my Moab trip. Those of you who read the writeup probably wondered where the pictures were. To me they showed up just fine, because they were hosted on my machine. To the rest of you, they were invisible. My apologies.