Month: February 2010

  • Rockhound State Park

    We cycle between giddiness and overwhelmed exhaustion today. Even at our slow pace we pace places we’d love to explore, like the rock spires of the Organ Mountains east of Las Cruces. Ann drives the rig, which is highly stressful for her still, while I experiment with using the computer in the passenger seat. It…

  • First Nomad Night in the Socorro Box

    It seems a little too easy to leave Santa Fe with all our possessions when Ann gets off work on Friday, and it is. But we’re eager to go before the next round of predicted snowstorms roll in, and we’re unbearably excited about our nomadic future. So we fill tanks and head south, everything apparently…

  • Book: The Road / Cormac McCarthy

    This book kind of leaves me speechless. The setting is so bleak, it’s tempting to give up on it, but the characters don’t give up so I didn’t. Maybe that’s what it’s about – removing all reason to hope, looking at one father-son relationship, and seeing what’s left. And being forced to admit that hope…

  • Phlumf on Raven’s Ridge

    Figuring this may be our last hurrah in the snow for a while, we head up the mountain in heavy snowfall. Ann has held a grudge against Raven’s Ridge ever since our six-hour posthole trudge last May, and wants a rematch in some real snow. Real snow is what we get, dumping all day long.…

  • WordPress GPX Viewer Plugin

    People like me who use a GPS unit to track their movements often end up with a GPX file full of incomprehensible data at some point. There are many ways to make sense of the data using maps and graphs, but my favorite so far is Jürgen Berkemeir’s GPX Viewer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t clear how…

  • Book: Proust Was a Neuroscientist / Jonah Lehrer

    In a series of portraits of avant-garde artists, Lehrer lays out his take on the stormy relationship between Art and Science. I felt like the book taught me many things, due in large part to Lehrer’s crystal clear interpretations of ideas that seem murky or impenetrable in their original expressions. It boils down to the…

  • Ski My Valentine

    I usually shy away from repeating outings, but I must admit that I improve and learn things when I do it. I’ve always been impressed with how friendly people here are to us, the uphill traveling minority. At other areas we’re subjected to the endlessly witty, “You’re going the wrong way!”, all day long. Here…

  • Sun at the Ski Basin

    The snow is still good, and we enjoy the mood booster of a deep blue sky and warm sun as we climb the ski hill in Ann’s best time yet, about 1:20:00. The run is great as well, and it’s so nice to have our home waiting at the base with dinner and a warm…

  • Ski Basin Laps

    We’re “embracing the snow” while we can before we head south. I truly enjoy huffing up the ski area under my own power just to bomb down again. Ann may be doing it more for the exercise, but that’s good too. I get two laps in while it snows just enough to keep the bumps…

  • A Cloudier Heaven Hill

    Aaron takes me up the mountain for another lap on Heaven Hill. Conditions are cloudier and a little cooler today. Our route takes us up to the top of Raven’s Ridge after leaving the ski area, where we start to feel the bite of some wind. Treeline on Raven's Ridge The ridge has changed quite…