Eric's Blog

Changes

2011-08-07T10:52:00.009-06:00

Instead of teaching Sunday school, I get to go to a teacher improvement class today which means that for the first time in what seems like ages I have a free Sunday morning.

I’m not really sure were to begin with this post. So much has happened over the past few months, and it would take pages to recap so I’ll just hit the highlights.

First and foremost I started a new Job. I’m back at IBM as a cross brand channel manager and couldn’t be happier. Essentially I help a few of IBM’s top business partners sell IBM software. It is different, challenging, and I get to work from home which is a huge bonus.

I left IBM because I had been doing the same thing for 10 years and really needed a change. I looked internally but never found the right role, so after several months I decided to leave and go to a different company - NetSuite. Suffice to say, I did not thrive there. There are certain environments that bring out the best in me both creatively and emotionally and this was not one of them. One night in fit of frustration, I sent out several emails to various people I knew and eventually found this job. The funny thing is that a year ago I actually interviewed for this role but didn’t get it. Life has a funny way of working out if you keep trying.

I’ve been working / traveling so much that I’ve almost completely put racing to the side. I was scheduled to race Xterra Indian Peaks yesterday, but didn’t because my fitness is way off but more importantly I didn’t want to be away from Hannah or Cate for most of the day. I made the decision not to compete last week, but I’d been thinking about it for a while. One of the reasons I race is because it gives me motivation to train and while I sometimes have to force myself to get out there, most of the time it’s enjoyable. Lately though, it all felt forced and the race started to feel like an obligation rather than a reward for training. I love it too much to let myself hate it so I’m taking a break.

I’m still getting out there, but I don’t have any structure. I do what I feel like doing. Yesterday morning, I went for a run, and just pushed it. My hart rate was sky high, I was breathing hard, my legs burned, but I was having a wonderful time. Last week I did a few barefoot runs, and even did power Yoga twice. I think I’m going to play the rest of the season by ear and just do what sounds fun. I might race or I might not. I might just focus on running / biking for enjoyment and put racing on hold until next year.

Oh. As some of you know, I started another blog focused more on training. The idea was going to be that this blog was going to be family focused, but that has been put on hold for the time being.

With the change in focus, I’ve been able to spend much more time with Hannah and Cate. In July we went to two family reunions – one in Utah and the other in Oregon. It was great to see family and spend time with everyone. The best part for meA was showing off Cate. For several members of my family it was the first time they had seen her. She of course loved the attention, and hated to come home were she only has two people to play with.

Well that is all for now. Hope everyone is have a great summer.

So You Think Your Tough?

2010-02-07T17:01:00.006-07:00

*Note from Eric: Last week I posted that I was having knee problems. I’m happy to report that I just had some swelling around my knee joint. The caused was my knee cap wasn’t tracking properly. The solution is a few exercises that will strengthen certain muscles to pull that knee cap in to the proper position. My 2010 tri training will pick up again full force on Monday….whew! I was worried there for a minute.

So you thing your tough? I’ve wanted to do a post about this for awhile, but never got around to it. My subject is Scott “Hoss” Cartwright. I’ve worked with Scott for a little over four years now. My best sales year ever was with Scott, and over the years I’ve viewed him as a mentor. He has lots of experience and has the ability to simplify complex scenarios, which is extremely valuable in IT sales.

**Note: this video was filmed back in 07 so he's lifting more now, but it shows all the lifts.

Sales is only Scott’s day job. At night he is a top ranked power lifter. Not only is he top ranked, he is the single ply squat world record holder – 1025 lbs. For those of you not in the “know,” competitive power lifting uses the combined total of three lifts: bench press, dead lift, and squat. Single ply refers to the amount of supportive clothing worn by the lifter. Single ply is basically no support, which is the hardest one can do.

*Note: This is not for the faint harted....watch the nose.

In addition to lifting, Scott is a regular contributor to various power lifting magazines. He talks about technique, how to get stronger, ect. I’ve asked him for advice on strength training from time to time, so when I hurt my knee he was the first person I talked to. His advise was not surprising – man up and muscle through it.

Knee Problems, Swimming, and Good News

2010-01-31T09:48:00.004-07:00

Two weeks ago I was in San Francisco for work. The hotel only had a one bike machines, so my workouts consisted of some basic movement and strength exercises and running. I try to always stay in the same hotel because I have a running route that I love and I can adjust the distance from 5 to 7 miles depending on how I feel. I tend to run longer and go harder when I run at sea level because my cardio system can easily handle the load which means that my legs really get worked.

This time around I ran three times with a total mileage of 18 miles – about 6 more miles than I usually do. My legs felt great and I wasn’t doing any other cardio, so I didn’t thing anything about it. I flew home on Friday, got up early, and headed out for a long but easy, but longer than normal road ride – about two hours. For the past few months my cycle workouts, weather they were outside or on the trainer, have been right around 60 minutes. I saying all this to point out that while my distance and time increased this past week, it wasn’t a difficult and I felt fine.

After the ride, I showered, did my Saturday chores, and then ran some errands with Hannah. No problems. Sunday morning, I rolled out of bed and kneeled down for my morning prayer and my right knee was throbbing with pain. The knee cap was so tender that I couldn’t kneel or go up and down stairs without it really bothering me. Monday it was worse. By the end of the day I could barely walk. I did some research on-line and think it might be Patellar Tendonitis which affects the ligament that attaches the knee cap to the shin bone. The only treatment that I found was rest – complete rest.

For the rest of the week, I stayed off it as best I could and iced it all the time. Today, one week later, it doesn’t hurt, but it feels tender going up and down stairs. I can tell that if I really start using it again it will flair up. I have an appointment to see a sports medicine doctor next Friday. Hopefully it is nothing serious and I can start training again. March 1 is when I start training for 2010 and I need to have some solid base fitness before then, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t be out of commission too long.

Since I can’t run, bike, or do leg exercises I went swimming yesterday. It’s been about 5 months since I was in the pool and it was good to be back. My speed is about the same, but my endurance is way down…my muscles are really sore this morning : )

Now that that is out of the way, we need to move on to more important things. Hannah had her 20 week ultra sound on Friday. We are having a girl!! We’re both really excited. Hannah has been saying it’s a girl from the beginning. I really didn’t care what it was going to be, but deep down, I think I wanted a girl. Not sure why, I just did.

And now your moment of ZEN…..

Kierke, I know I said that I thought ultra sound shots were kind of creepy, but I’ve TOTALLY changed my mind. When it’s your own, it’s awesome!

2009 Recap and 2010 Races!

2010-01-24T17:03:00.013-07:00

*Note: These pictures are of my Xterra Buffalo Creek Race. I’m posting them here since I didn’t do a race report.

I’ve spent a little time reflecting on 2009 and it was quite an eventful year. The most notable part of the year was that Hannah got pregnant. After 8 years of trying, this news was almost too good to be true. It took us a few weeks before it sunk in. The first time we went into the baby section department store after learning that it was a healthy pregnancy we felt guilty. We were so use to ignoring the fact that we didn’t have children, going into the baby section seemed wrong somehow. It’s strange the walls you build around your self(s) to shield you from disappointment. Anyway, that is all in the past and we look forward to having a baby in June. Words can not express how excited we are.

Another highlight of 09 was developing our family history. For some years now, I’ve been interested in family history. This blog actually started as an attempt to document at least part of my / our life. Earlier this year Hannah and I had to opportunity to video my Grandma Ann, my parents, and my Aunt Sharon talking about their lives. Later that year we did the same with Hannah’s folks. Over all we captured about 7 hours of video. Through the editing, I’ve had the chance to watch it again and it is absolutely wonderful. Eventually I would like to do this with each person on both sides of our family. We’ve started with our parents, next is their children, then grandchildren. It’s going to be years in the making, but I believe that future generations will benefit from hearing about their lives.

Last but not least was is my race season. My love of training and racing continued to develop. My focus was on getting faster, but mostly on having fun. Triathlon training can be quite complicated. One has to train in all three disciplines at least twice a week incorporating both hard and easy days, increase in volume and intensity until a few days before the race when you “taper” down to allow your body to recover…but not too much or you’ll loose your fitness for the big day. While this formula works, it can sap the fun out of it. The key for me was to do as much as I can, but don’t stress out if I can’t stick to my plan 100%. This seemed to work and I did well in all my races, with the exception of Buffalo Creek which was fun, but I just wasn’t feeling it that day.

This year my focus will change slightly. Having fun will still be my main goal, but I will also be increasing in distance. Another change will be that I won’t be doing any Xterra’s this year. There just aren’t any races that fit my schedule. Just doing road triathlons will be interesting and I’m curious to see how I like them. Below I’ve listed the races I want to do. It seems like a lot, but I’ve spaced them out pretty well.

• Feb 26, Snowman Stampede – 10 mile foot race
• June 5, Tune Up Tri – Road triathlon (500m swim, 12 mile bike ride, 3.1 mile run)
• June 26, Slacker Half Marathon – 13.1 mile foot race
• July 17, Tri In July – Road triathlon (750m swim, 14 mile bike, 4 mile run)
• July 31, Laramie Enduro – 70+ mile mountain bike race
• August 28, Utah Half Ironman – Road triathlon (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run)

My “A" priority race is the Utah half ironman with the Laramie Enduro coming in a close second. I think that the other races will be good training for these two main events.

As you can imagine this schedule represents a real time commitment. I structured my workouts so I will do most of my training during lunch or early morning with a few short evenings, so time away from Hannah will be minimal. I’ve discussed this schedule with Hannah in length (when her eyes glaze over, I know that I’ve talked about it too much) and she is behind me 100%. I’ve very luck to be married to such an understanding and supportive woman.

**Note: Notice the smile when I’m crossing the finish line. After a disappointing bike and run, I see Jason in the transition area who is fully dressed because he beat me by 10 minutes….AGAIN!

And now your moment of ZEN.....

I snapped this picture on a recent trip to San Francisco. Joe Harrison picked me up and we had the best bouillabaisse I've ever had. Huge prawns, crab meat, muscles, clams, and fish. Truly a moment of ZEN!

San Francisco

2009-10-06T19:38:00.007-06:00

A few days after we got back from Crested Butte, I had to go to San Francisco for work. The trip was productive from a work stand point, but not to interesting to talk about. During the day I was either attending internal IBM meetings or customer visits. The meetings were productive, and we uncovered several new opportunities during the customer visits. In the evenings, I would go for a run with my buddy Dean, go out to eat, and then go back to the hotel and get caught up on email or watch TV.

The evening runs were the best part of the trip. It’s a great way to see the city. My favorite loop took me from my hotel (Hilton San Francisco Financial District 750 Kearny Street), through the city to AT&T Park, along the Embarcadero, up some - LOTS of stairs to Coit Tower, over to Lombard, and then back to the hotel. It’s a total of about 7 miles with some good hills and great views.

My favorite restaurant of the trip was a German place called SuppenKuche. The main dinning area is filled with large bench tables that you share with other dinners. Its supper loud and you have to yell to have a conversation, but the atmosphere is great and the food was excellent…..of course Dean and the boys loved the selection of beers. We just about closed the place.

And now your moment of ZEN...... Every time I ran down town, all I could think about was the coolest skate move of all time - Search for Animal Chin. I couldn't get the video to upload so you'll have to click the link.

Crested Butte

2009-10-06T19:15:00.010-06:00

Hannah and I have wanted to explore more of central Colorado for a while now, and we had to opportunity to do that over the 4th of July weekend. The plan was to do some camping, hiking, and mountain biking in Crested Butte It is about a 4 hour drive from hour house and goes through high mountain valleys and steep peaks.

We met Hannah’s folks, Melanie and Stoney, at a camp site just outside of Gunnison right next to the Gunnison River. Melanie and Stoney camped in style in their camper, and Hannah and I slept outside. It’s great to go with someone that has a camper because you can hang out around the table playing games in the evening and when it’s raining, which it did almost every day. Plus it has a full kitchen so you can eat in style. Stoney did all the cooking, so Hannah and I just lounged around. It was great.

The bummer of the trip was that Hannah was sick the whole time, and I think everyone but me caught a bit of what she had. In spite of this, we still had fun and got out for a pretty group ride up by the resort.

Our last afternoon there I got out for an “epic” ride on the Doctors Park trail. I chose this ride because I could start and end at our camp site. The guide book said it started with 7 miles of dirt road, followed by 7 miles of trail and ended with 7 miles of uninterrupted spectacular single track - 14 miles up and 7 miles down.

The climb went up

And up

And up

And up

As I neared the top I was exhausted. My legs were jelly and my lungs were burning, but the views were great and I was having a great time. The trail hits the peak of the mountain and immediately starts descending. 100 yards into the decent the trail makes a sharp right over a log bridge crossing a small creek. The logs were wet and slippery and I hit them going pretty fast. I turned my wheel, but kept going straight. When I hit the other side of the bridge I went over the handle bars and rolled a few times. Luckily the ground was soft so I didn’t get hurt, but my front tire came off my rim. Normally this wouldn’t be that big of a deal but as soon as I got up I was accosted by mosquitoes – the worst mosquitoes I’ve ever encountered, and I’m from Alaska! They were so bad that I couldn’t sit in one place for more than 30 seconds. I had to try and repair my wheel while walking back and forth. To make matters worse I had a few other mechanical challenges, but I was able to sort them out. At one point I thought I was going to have to walk down which would have stunk because the best part of the ride was going down!! Anyway, I got everything fixed and had a great ride down.

All in all, the entire trip was great. We exercised in beautiful country and got away from the daily grid for a bit. We plan to go back this fall to do some more exploring.

And know your moment of ZEN………

I LOVE cows!!

So Far This Summer

2009-06-30T11:47:00.011-06:00

One of the tricks I use when I run is to try and let my mind wonder. I try and think about anything other than the pain I’m feeling at the moment. During these times I’ve come up with some of the funniest blog posts ever conceived of….unfortunately when I actually start to type them out they don’t have the flair they had in my mind. I feel like my uncle Parley who once said that he once woke up in the middle of the night because he had dreamed the funniest joke and wanted to get it down on paper. He said “I was going to make the whole world laugh.” Unfortunately for him, upon reading the joke the next morning he realized that it was just gibberish. It must run in the family.

Trip to Utah

A few weeks ago Hannah and I flew out to Utah to attend her sister Sunny’s wedding reception/bbq. Due to my work schedule the trip was a bit rushed, and I was afraid that it was going to feel that way, but trip was actually quite relaxing. Stoney picked us up from the Airport and we went straight to American Fork Canyon for a bit of exercise and sight seeing. When Hannah and Stoney learned that I had never been to Timp Cave, they chastised me (I’m sure David would have as well) and told me that I was taking the tour. The cave is about a two miles up from the canyon floor. The views from the trail is beautiful and very distinctly Utah. The cave itself was amazing.

The rest of the trip was spent going to the bbq, playing with Jack and Lily, visiting with family, and relaxing. It was perfect.

Races

We got back from Utah Sunday night. Monday morning Hannah and I woke up early and drove to Boulder for my first race of the season. The Bolder Boulder is a 10k that winds its way through the streets of Boulder. This year 55,000 people participated. It’s not a serious race for most, but I really enjoy it. People run in costumes, people run with their kids, Boulderites line the streets playing music and offering runners everything from burritos to beer bongs to greasy bacon. It’s a great time.

Two weeks after the Bolder Boulder I participated in a sprint road triathlon (500 meter swim in the pool, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run). My goal for the race was to have fun, practice transitions, and practice going at racing effort. Again, I had a blast. Road tri’s are a lot easer than Xterras!

Two weeks after the road tri, I did Xterra Buffalo Creek (1 mile swim, 20 mile mountain bike, 5 mile trail run). Last year I didn’t finish this race because I was kicked in the head during the swim. This year the swim was the best part of my race. The bike and run were ok. I have some work to do for future races, but I gave it all I had so I’m happy about that. The real bummer of the day was that Hannah wasn’t there. She was taking her LEED certification test (which she PASSED!!), and couldn’t make it. The race wasn’t the same with out her.

Next week Hannah and I are meeting up with Stoney and Melanie at Crested Butte for a fun filled 4th of July. I also have one more Xterra in August and I’m thinking about participating in two more. Don’t really have much else to say. Kind of boring to write about, but life for the Petersen’s is great.

And now your moment of ZEN…..

Hannah riding Stoneys recumbent bike. To learn about what type of person rides a recumbent, check out what the “Fat Cyclist” has to say. The whole article is pretty funny if you’re a cyclist.

And a little humor from the Argyle Sweater

A Quick Trip to Fruita

2009-05-13T14:09:00.012-06:00

I wanted to make a quick post about our trip to Fruita CO last week end.

I’ve had the hankering to go camping ever since spring started to….spring, so Hannah and I packed up the Subaru and headed to Fruita. Fruita is about an hour and a half East of Moab and has the growing reputation of being another mountain biking Mecca.

We drove down early Friday morning with the intention of finding a camping spot then doing some riding. When we got to the only camping site I knew of, it was full. I knew there had to be other camping around, but it was getting late and we wanted to get a ride in before it got dark, so we decided to ride first and find a camping spot later.

The plan was to ride a two loop trail system that was moderately technical and had great views of the Colorado River (Mary’s Loop and Horse Thief Loop). I wasn’t really expecting too much, but was really impressed. The trail is super fast, fun, and the views were spectacular. Hannah really stepped up her riding and was taking the steps and drops like a pro. I was really proud of her.

After the ride we were both tired and the only places we found to camp were scrub brush fields, so we opted to get a hotel. We stayed in the over priced LaQuinta Inn, and I got flea bites all over my legs. Never again. Oh well, we had a good time anyway.

The next day we went rode the Western Rim trail which is a 20 mile lollypop trail (out and back with a loop at the end). The out and back wasn’t too exciting (still fun though), but the rim was amazing. (Stoney, we kept saying that you would love this ride). After the Western Rim, we drove back to Denver, and got home at about 10:00.

All in all the trip was great, and well worth the drive. We are planning on doing a few more trip this spring and some more in the fall.

Here is a video of one of the obstacles on the Western Rim. As always it looked scarier from the top :)

And now your moment of ZEN…..

This little gem came from an awkward family photo web site that my buddy The Doze found. The picture is funny, but the comment under the picture “Wilford Chivalry” kills me.

Catching Up

2009-04-29T17:20:00.011-06:00

Humm…..lets see my last post was in November of 08 so it’s been about six months. I’d say it’s time for another post.

Both Hannah and I have had a lot going on. Mostly good stuff, but like most people we seem to fill up all of our available time with activities/projects of one kind or another. Below are some of the highlights:

City Garden Commercial Design

The biggest news on Hannah’s side is that she finally started her own business. I’ve been urging her to do this for a while, but the timing has been off. The timing is still off, but we figured that if she didn’t do it now, she’d never do it. If you don’t know what she does, check out her web site. www.citygardenco.com She is off to a great start and I know she’ll do great.

No More School for Eric

My news is that I FINALLY graduated! Good Grief! If I were in high school someone would have written in my year book “what a long strange trip it’s been,” but I’m not in high school and the trip hasn’t been strange just long – really long. I’m glad to be done. The fist few days after I finished my course work, I didn’t really know what to do with my extra time. I would sit around thinking that I had something to do, but I didn’t. It was weird, I couldn’t relax. I soon got accustom to it though, and as I said above, it didn’t take long to fill in my time.

New Bike

I also got a new bike! We started out looking for a new bike for Hannah, but I ended up getting one instead….poor Hannah. Sometimes I’m sure she regrets marring me. I’ve had my eye on the 29ers (29" wheeled bike vs. a traditional 26" wheeled bike) for a few years, I could never make up my mind. The cons are that the bikes take more power to get up to speed (larger wheel to turn = more power needed). The pros are that once those wheels get up to speed they have more momentum. The larger wheel also has more traction and rolls over obstacles better. A 29er seemed to be a good fit for Hannah so we had her try one. I tried one at the same time, and two minutes after I was on it I was trying to think of how I could justify a purchase for me too. Long story short, I got a great deal on a used frame and new components through a friend of mine, and I’m going to sell my old bike, a set 26 inch wheels, and some other items. I think I’ll come out a little less then even. I took the bike to Moab earlier this month and I’m completely converted. I love it. I’m riding better then I ever have. Just so everyone knows Hannah is still getting a new bike, she hasn’t made a decision as to which one she wants. I’m really trying to steer her towards at 29er...Hannah speaking now....Eric spent all my money! I only weigh 10 pouds (inside joke between David Petersen and us). I can't afford a new bike now so I will keep on riding my old bike and wear my tattered clothes.

Moab Trip

I attended the annual Moab guy trip again this year and it was fantastic. Due to schedules we had to go a little earlier this year so the weather was a bit cooler than normal, but it worked out just fine. As usual I went down a few days early and camped. I tried to get Timmy to come with me, but he was bogged down at work and couldn’t make it. On Monday I got up early, hit the pool for a quick swimming session, and then drove to Fruita, CO which is about a 3 hour drive. I had a conference call for work that I couldn’t get out of , so I had to hang out in town (due to cell reception) for about two hours, take the call, and then hit one of the local trails – Chutes and Ladders was the trail I rode. The riding is very different compared to Moab, but it’s a lot of fun – very fast. I took some pictures but they aren’t very good, so I found this video on uTube of the Chutes and Ladders trail. I found a great camping site that night, woke up early the next morning and started the drive to Moab. I got there at noon (I took my time). The rest of the gang wasn’t due to get there until late that evening so I went to Arches National Park and hiked to Delicate Arch and then Klondike Bluffs. It was really good to get some solid Eric down time. It was one of the best days of the trip. The rest of the trip was spent riding some Moab favorites. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was great.

Chutes and Ladders:

Mark Plumbs Wheel - this needs some explanation. Mark got a flat tire on a trail and like all good friends we took off and figured he'd catch up when he got everything fixed. When we got back to the van he hadn't caught us and wasn't at the van. We figured he road back to the condo. We decided to got to lunch. During lunch, Mark called and was at the trail...He had gotten two flats and didn't have any more tubes. He taped his tire to the rim of his bike and was able to ride about 3 miles leaving only 5 easy miles for him to hike. He hitched a ride to the restaurant. Moral of the story is - never trust your friends to wait around....your on your own!

Finally the pro of the group... Vincent taking a fall. Unfortunately I didn't get any video of him making it.

Well that’s about it, I’ll post something else in another six months:

And now your moment of ZEN…..

Two of my favorite things

Road ride up High Grade Canyon with Hannah
Fat, lazy, wonderful Pete the cat

Hannah's Birthday Trip

2008-11-12T11:58:00.013-07:00

For Hannah’s birthday I offered to take her to Maui. I thought it would be win/win because she would get a Hawaiian vacation and I would get to see the Xterra World Championships which just happen to be at the same time. To my surprise she wanted to go camping in Moab with her folks – I love this girl.

We left Denver Thursday morning and drove the 300 miles to Moab in about 5 hours. The drive was great. We snacked on red vines, cookies, talked, listened to Dickens’s “Great Expectations.”

Stoney and Melanie arrived in Moab before us, and found a great camping spot next to the Colorado River. That night we ate bratwursts and steamed vegetables and played games in the camper.

Friday morning was spent playing around by the river and lounging in the sun. In the afternoon we road Slick Rock and went out to eat that night. Saturday we did a short hike through “Wall Street” in Arches National Park and then drove home.

The trip was really fun, but WAY to short.

Yard Redesign Project

2008-11-12T10:54:00.012-07:00

I’ve been heads down trying to bust out my last few classes (only 3 months to go!!), so I haven’t had much time to BLOG, but I thought I post a few before and after pictures of our landscaping project. Hannah did a great job. I’ll post some more pictures in the spring when things have started to grown in. Not only does the yard look 10 times better, but we have twice as much usable space and 1/3 the lawn to water.

Before

After

Miscellanies Debris

2008-09-17T16:06:00.011-06:00

With the last three posts, I felt like I was kind of on a roll. I had taken a break from school, and we had some fun things to talk about. August 1^st came and I started school, Hannah started a new job, and my job became really busy. The last thing I wanted to do was come home, get on the computer and BLOG…..but I want to keep in the habit, so I’m going to post some random items – hence the BLOG title.

Food

One of the things that Hannah and I decided we could do to improve our fitness level is to eat better. We eat alright, but we could do a lot better. We decided that we would plan out our meals and only buy food items related to those meals. We’re still not perfect, but we’ve gotten a lot better. I found a couple of food BLOGS that are pretty good and have been getting some ideas from them - like grilling vegetables. One of my favorite dinners is fish tacos with mango salsa. I took a picture of it, but it’s difficult to make food look good in a digital format so I decided to skip it. Here is the recipe:

Fajita size tortillas (we use the whole wheat kind)

White fish (halibut is best, but tilapia is much much cheaper and still tastes ok)

Mango salsa:

- 1 Mango cubed

- 1 Avocado cubed

- Juice from 1 lime

- ¼ c finely chopped cilantro

- Salt to taste

It’s best if the salsa sits for at least an hour, but it’s good any time.

Training

As I look back on last years training schedule, I learned a few things. First I think trained a bit too much – rather I trained in the wrong way. The over all volume was good, but I would stack difficult workouts back to back and sometimes three and four in a row. My body never had adequate time to recover. Next year I will plan things out better. I’m think of joining a virtual training site that will out line the types of workouts I do and when.

Second, I need to do more brick workouts. A brick is doing two specialties back to back. For example: bike / run, swim / bike, lift / run. Stacking workouts really helps to train you for the fatigue of a race. Hannah and I did one on last Saturday. We swam and then biked home from the pool. We took it easy, but it was really fun.

Memories

I like to listen to music when I work out, and don’t want to listen to the albums time after time, so I’ve been listening to some mixes. My friend Jon is a huge music buff and has made me two fantastic mixes, and I recently made one I’m enjoying. I like it because each song invokes some sort of memory. Some of the memories are very specific and others are references to a block time in my life. Below I’ll list the songs and the associated memories. *Note – it is somewhat embarrassing for me to admit that I like a few of these songs….but I do…..there I said it, I’m out of the closet. **Note – keep in mind that these are song that I run to, and I need to run to up beat music.

1. 99 Luftballons (Nena) - This was the fist music video I ever saw and Tim showed it to me.

2. Come on Feel the Noise (Quiet Riot) – Playing video games at Bullwinkle’s pizza

3. Rock you like a Hurricane (Scorpions) – watching John Unzicker and Cory McPherson play guitar with their way cool mullets

4. Round and Round (Ratt) – Dustin Jacobson turned me on to this song after his trip to Seattle

5. Owner of a Lonely Hart (Yes) – going over to the Eakins house. Mark played this song for me on his brother Bob’s record player

6. A New Level (Pantera) – coming down from snowboarding in Derrick Jensen’s van with this album blasting the entire way. We waited 15 minutes to make a left across traffic, and everyone was getting really upset because some of us had to work that night. We finally had an opening, and Derrick popped the clutch and stalled the car. He was so mad he let out a string of profanities and punched the windshield…it shattered….Derrick was REALLY upset then. Brad leaned over to me and whispered “whoah, Derrick is pissed……but that was SO funny.”

7. Hunting Humans (Misfits) – no specific memory to this one, but anyone that can sing those lyrics in the voice of a crooner gets extra points in my book.

8. Mannequin (Firehose….not FireHOUSE) – Brad Hartman…..how does he find these cool bands? Brad was always ahead of the curve on that kind of stuff.

9. State of Love and Trust (Pearl Jam) – again no specific memories, just a time period in my life.

10. London Dungeon (Misfits) – This is one of my top 3 favorite snowboarding albums. I never get tired of it. I probably listened to it every time I went to Brighton in 93.

11. C’mon C’mon (The Von Bondies) – This is a recent memory. Jon told me about these guys, and I remember being surprised at how much I liked them.

12. Corduroy (Pearl Jam) – Hanging out with John Unzicker in the middle of winter at his and Noah’s cabin in Juneau.

There are more songs on the mix, but I’m usually done running at 12.

Here is a random photo of our trip to the dinosaur exhibit at the natural history museum.

And now your moment of ZEN….

Since I was waxing nostalgic I decided to post my favorite Alaska Airlines commercial.

Xterra Indian Peaks

2008-08-06T16:15:00.013-06:00

I didn’t do a race report for Xterra Buffalo Creek (too much was going on and I bombed anyway), so I’m going to do one for Xterra Indian Peaks.

For those that don’t know, during the swim at Xterra Buffalo Creek I was kicked in the head, and didn’t end up finishing. I probably could have, but I got in the race marshal’s boat to recover and that’s a disqualifying move - c'est la vie.

Indian peaks’ lake is pretty small, so it’s a staggered swim. Ranked on anticipated finish times, racers go into the water every 5 or 6 seconds. The result is a nice even group of swimmers rather than one big frothing mass.

Despite the staggered start, there is a tendency to clump up. I swam with the same group of about 8 or 9 swimmers most of time and only had one incident. Towards the end of the swim, I put on a small burst of speed and caught the person in front of me. My head was about even with his waist, and I was right next to him (he was on my right). During the freestyle stroke your arm makes an arch in the air, enters the water in front of your head and shoots forward. Because of my position relative to the guy in front of me, my arm made the wide arch and speared the guy right in the neither region between his legs. I breathe on my right side, so I saw it as it was happening, but due to momentum I was powerless to stop. All I could do was go push forward and get lost in the crowd. Luckily with wet suits, swim caps, and goggles, it’s hard to tell who’s who. For some reason, after that happened, the song “strangers in the night” kept running through my head.

After the swim, we had to run 600m to the transition area. It was all up hill, and seemed much farther. I slipped out of my wet suit and donned my bike gear. As I started the bike, I realized that I forgot my sunglasses….to late now. The course is on the nordic ski trails of Eldora ski area. The trails are short, so the course zig zaggs up one trail, down the other, back up the first, down another, across one, back across another, and so on. It was well marked, but hard to tell how far you’ve gone.

The course is shorter than Buffalo Creek, so I was expecting it to be easier….it wasn’t. The course was steep and very technical. I was burned out by the end.

Not only was the bike course harder, the run was much harder as well. There isn’t a flat bit of ground on the thing. About 100 yards out of transition the trail goes up for awhile. At the top of the hill my quads were starting to cramp, so I pulled my foot up behind me to my butt to stretch them out….my hamstring cramped up so bad I didn’t think I could straighten them out again. The rest of the run was a blur.

Despite the fact that I really underestimated the course, I had a great time. There were lots of pro’s there, the weather was great, the trails were really fun, and I finished. My friend Jason did really well (he was with Hannah at the end of the run as I was coming in. He yelled, “dude, I’ve already eaten my lunch…hurry up!).

I don’t have anymore races scheduled for this year, and that feels pretty good. I’m going to concentrate on work, school, and exercising for fun!

P.S. Regarding the pictures - there all of me…sorry. Hannah had the camera. Also, I’m probably going to jail or at least going to get fined for using some of the race photos with out buying them. I would have bought them but they don’t offer a digital format. They only offered large print for $40.00, and there is no way that’s going to happen.

And now your moment of ZEN…..this is my favorite Easter cartoon. I was cleaning up my picture folder, and didn’t want to wait a year before posting it.

While I’m at it, I also found this old Monty cartoon that I always laugh at (you'll have to click on it to read it).

J town and the Wedding of Brad

2008-08-01T17:58:00.019-06:00

This seems to always happen to me. I start out hot and heavy on the BLOG. Then I miss a week but I want to write about it, so I postpone (or procrastinate) writing anything until I write about the week I missed…..next thing I know It’s weeks or months since I’ve written anything.

Here’s what I missed: A Petersen family reunion in Juneau, and the wedding of Brad and Christy. Way to much happened, so I’m not even going to try to write about it. I am going to post some pictures and briefly explain them. The only bummer about that is I didn’t do a very good job of taking pictures, so I didn’t get everything I wanted to. Oh well, here goes:

Hannah and I on the boat – Photo by Ray

Hannah and Jake – my dream come true (this is a labradoodle puppy that Hannah and I brought up to AK for Nicole). He lived in our garage for a few days and bonded with Hannah.

The Kids…..that’s right “kids.” Hannah wants to move to AK because Sherry and Karen have such great skin from living with 300 days a year of overcast sky’s….not a wrinkle on either one of them.

Nicole - casting some kind of spell? I don't know what she's doing, but I like the picture – Photo by Kara

Sea lions – Photo by Kara. Hannah really liked this on because the big one on the right reminded her of our cat Pete. Pete is of course black, but when he lay’s he looks just like a sea lion or a sausage.

Don on the boat

At $7.00 per pound for halibut in Denver you’re looking at about $600 - $700 worth of fish…the things you take for granted in AK.

Me and my Dad

Eric, Kara, and Kyle

This is a video of Hannah catching her HUGE chicken halibut. We ate it when we got back to Denver, and dreamed of lazy days on the boat of AK. - video by Ray

Eric and Brad - some of the greatest adventures of my life were with this guy. Road trips, camping, hiking, and snowboarding….Life was sweet. Brad’s catch phrase was “I just want to go dooo something.”

Hannah and Matt – As you can tell by the fine craftsmanship, this is not the fist piñata Matt has made, but here’s the thing….if you had a party, Matt would be the bouncer. If someone is acting up, Matt would escort them to the door and in no uncertain terms let them know they needed to leave…and they WOULD leave. He’s tough, he’s loud, and yet….he enjoys the gentle art of making piñatas for children….the dichotomy is staggering. He’s complex. He’s also a one of the best friends a guy could have.

Eric and Andy – What can you say about a guy that everyone likes. He introduced me to skateboarding. I hadn’t seen him for years, and it was like no time had passed.

And now for your moment of ZEN……

I Think I'm Loosing My Mind

2008-06-16T18:35:00.009-06:00

I’ve done some bone head things in my day, but lately I’ve reached a whole new level. Work is going great, but I’m forgetting things…..important things. I’ve been really lucky in that I have a ton of deals in the pipe and I should do about 250% of my fist half number. It’s the best I’ve ever done. The problem is that I forget when deals book. Last week I forgot to reflect in my forecast that I closed 50k the week before. I forget to follow up on 20k deals…If I didn’t write everything down, I wouldn’t get anything done. I would just stare at the computer wondering what I was supposed to be doing.

The forgetfulness isn’t just at work either. Last week I road my bike down to the lake for a swim and realized that I forgot my goggles. If you have ever tried to swim with out goggles it isn’t fun. The wind was blowing and there was about a foot of chop on the water. Every time I would lift my head to look were I was going I would get an eye full of spray or a wave right in the face. I started to swim for 2-3 minutes at a time without opening my eyes. The strategy poses two problems, the first is that it’s really, really, really boring. Swimming isn’t the most entertaining sport, but when you can’t see, it’s especially bad. I was trying to do multiplication problems in my head to kill time….it didn’t work. The second problem is that I couldn’t tell were I was going. One time I looked up and found that I had been swimming at a 90 degree angle from the point I was aiming for…..at least I was making good time.

While the above mentioned incidences are more annoyances than real problems, I pulled a real beaute last Tuesday. I drove under an over hang and forgot I had my bike on top of the car. My hart sank as I heard the sound of my car rack being ripped off my car. I wasn’t going fast but the damage was severe. My car rack was broken, my bike rack was bent, and my bike forks were snapped in half.

This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I have the Xterra Buffalo Creek coming up next Saturday, which means that I can’t spend a lot of time looking for deals. Also, just two days before, I was telling Hannah that I wanted to upgrade my forks, but couldn’t justify spending the money. When I called her up and told her what happened she said
“did you do that on purpose?” I told her that are easer ways to get new forks.

Well my work quarter is wrapping up at the end of June, as of today I’m done with school until mid July, and in a few days the Xterra will be done….hopefully I’ll start sorting things out better.

Speaking of Xterra, last Saturday Hannah and I were going to go pre-ride the bike course, but that couldn’t happen so we went up and ran the trail portion. I also swam in the lake for a bit. The water was cool and the air was warm. It was a beautiful day. I’ve also been doing a fair amount of road biking during my lunch breaks. The IBM campus is just outside of Boulder and there are mile and miles of farm land to ride through. I’m really luck to live in such a wonderful place and have a flexible job. Our quality of life is great.

And now you moment of ZEN……sometimes when I’m out and about I see things that I know would make Hannah happy, and knowing that they would make Hannah happy, they make me happy. This picture is of some fury cows. I don’t know what kind they are but I know Hannah would get a kick out of them. I pass them on my lunch rides, and smile every time.

The Boulder Boulder and a Fist Full of Quarters

2008-06-04T18:36:00.008-06:00

I love summer…..I mean I REALLY love summer, and the older I get the more I love it. Summer means longer days, warm weather, and various Saturday activities with Hannah. Summer also means that I can go running or biking on my way to and from work.

For those of you that don’t know I have an hour and 15 minute commute to and from work. In the winter, the drive starts to grate on me, but in summer I actually love it. The drive is up and down the “Front Range” with hundreds of great trails for mountain biking or trail running. Lately my schedule has been:

Monday – Run in the morning and Bike during lunch
Tuesday – Swim in the morning and stretch during lunch
Wednesday - Run in the morning and Bike during lunch
Thursday - Swim in the morning and stretch during lunch
Friday – Long trail run in the morning
Saturday – Long bike ride

It sounds like a lot and two years a go I would have thought the same thing, but now I wish I had more time to exercise. It’s satisfying and mentally relaxing……anyway.

On Memorial Day Hannah and I ran the Boulder Boulder with some friends of ours. The race is 10k (6.3 miles) and goes through the city of Boulder. The neat thing about the race is that it’s the 2nd largest foot race in America and the 4th largest in the world. This year over 50 thousand people participated. There are bands on every corner, people dressed up in gorilla suits, and general craziness. The ending is in the Colorado University stadium, with thousands of people watching so you feel like your in the Olympics. It’s great.

I ran a 9 minute miles, which for a runner is poor. I wanted to do an 8:30 mile but I’m happy with it. Actually the last three miles were 8:30, but the fist three were slow. I’ve been doing speed work all month, so hopefully I can do 8:00 minute miles for Xterra Buffalo Creek.

Last Saturday was pretty fun. I wanted to get up at 6:30 and do my home work (I hate school) but I slept through my alarm and woke up at 7:30. I had just enough time eat, wash my face, get dressed, and head out the door for our ward service project which is cleaning up a mile section of road buy our house. We’ve done the “adopt a road” thing, so we do a clean up once a quarter. I usually do the same section and it’s funny because on one particular corner I always find tons of banana peels. I can just picture some guy eating his morning banana and chucking the peel out in the same place every morning.

That afternoon Hannah and I went on our favorite bike ride, but the highlight of the day was watching the much anticipated movie “The King of Kong – A Fist Full of Quarters” (You have to check out the link). I wanted to see it at the theater, but it never came to Denver, and was thrilled to find it on TV. The movie is a documentary about the raining Donkey Kong video game champ, and his arch nemesis who is trying to beat his 20 year high score record. I give it two thumbs up, five stars, and a big heck yeah. I can’t even begin to describe it, but I’ll give you two of my favorite quotes:

1. The contender is driving from Seattle WA to Tampa FL for a Donkey Kong shoot out with the current champ. The winner of the contest will be in Guinness book of world records. The contender’s 5 year old daughter asks her father why he cares so much about getting in the book, he gives an answer, and she says, “yeah, I’ll bet a lot of people ruin their lives trying to get in that book.” ……out of the mouth of babes…the moment was priceless.

2. This quote was said by a person who holds the current world record for playing “centipede”….with his feet. “Well, you don’t see a lot of DDG’s in here (speaking of the arcade)….DDG stands for drop dead gorgeous if you didn’t know.” I think that pretty much sums it up.

Well that’s all I’ve got.

And now your moment of ZEN……we love cows.

This thing weighted over 2k pounds....

I Wish I Lived In Moab

2008-05-14T10:01:00.011-06:00

Notes from Eric:

New blog format – the main frame is wider and the text is larger. I hope it’s easier to read.
Various links – I’ve added links to my workout logs and other blogs I read. You may be interested, you may not be.
Because we don’t update this blog with any regularity, I will continue to send out email notifications.

Humm….my last post was in July of 07...it’s now May of 08…it’s about time for another post. Far too much has happened to recap, so I’ll by recapping last week.

Last week I went to Moab with some friends for a much needed biking vacation. Originally I was planning to leave Denver on Wednesday and come back Saturday with some friends from our ward, but my plans changed Saturday night before the trip after I spoke with my friend Tim and learned that he wanted to go to Moab as well. I hung out with Tim Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday. I spend Wednesday by my self, rode with the guys from the ward Thursday and Friday, and drove home late Friday night…..it’s was a great trip.

On Monday Tim and I rode the Slick Rock trail. It was the first time for both of us, and we lucked out because there were only a few people on the trail. Usually this trail is packed with so many people that you can hardly move (so I’ve heard). The trail is almost completely on sandstone and is amazing to ride because unlike the name implies, the surface is extremely “grippy.” You can climb very steep hills because your tires never loose purchase.

On Tuesday we decided that we weren’t in the mood to bike. We were tired from Mondays ride, and I hadn’t slept well the night before (I slept outside, and the wind blew sand in every nook and cranny of my body). So, what are two not so young bucks to do in Moab if they don’t want to bike? They rent a jeep. I highly recommend this form of entertainment. Our jeep was brand new, came stocked with a cooler, and had satellite radio. The only set back was our jeep broke in the middle of a trail. We were crawling on some rock when we heard something fall off the jeep. We got out and took a look, but all we found was a washer. There wasn’t anything obviously wrong, so we kept on going (slowly). A few minutes later we discovered that the shock absorber came unbolted from the frame, and was threatening to punch its way through the fire wall of the jeep. Luckily we were able to get cell reception, so Tim called the rental company. They brought us another jeep, and we finished the trail.

Tim left Tuesday night, so I camped out and rode the slick rock trail again Wednesday morning. That afternoon I rode part of the Gemini Bridges trail. I had hotel reservations for Wednesday night so I checked in and took a long hot shower. My other friends were not going to get into Moab until late that night, so I ate some Chinese and went to sleep early.

On Thursday we rode the Sovereign trail, and on Friday we did a mix and match of the Gemini Bridges, Poison Spider Mesa, and Portal Trails. I had a small crash on the Sovereign trail and cracked my helmet. I was slowly making my way down a steep rocking section, when I hit some sand and endoed (went over my handle bars) I landed in sand, so I didn’t get hurt, but my head found a buried rock and it cracked my helmet…..ALWAYS wear a helmet. After eating dinner I drove home, and I was lucky not to have fallen asleep.

While I was in Moab, Hannah was in AZ seeing her sisters. You can see her sister Jenny’s blog for updates on that trip.

That’s all for now.

And now your moment of ZEN…..

This one needs some explanation. Hannah dropped her keys in the toilet, and they got stuck. She had to remove the toilet to get them. She did it in her night gown…..I love this girl! I offered to do this for her, but she wanted to do it her self. This picture is of her getting ready to clean off the tarp she used in the bathroom. If you don’t hear from me again, it’s because Hannah has killed me for posting this picture.

July 2007

2007-07-09T21:07:00.000-06:00

Well it’s official; I have the coolest wife ever. She took me to a bike race, “Colorado Crankworx,” for our 6^th year anniversary. Crankworxs is a bike event that has traditionally been held at Whistler ski area in British Columbia. I don’t know the background but they decided to hold one at Winter Park Colorado. We drove up Thursday night, ate dinner at a local restaurant, and stayed the night at one of the lodges.

I’m still recovering from my wreck (two weeks ago!!) and it hurts to lie down for a long time, so I woke up at 5 am and decided to go for a walk. I wasn’t sure were to go, so I got in the car and found a dirt road that looked like it might have some nice views. The sun was peaking over the mountains, and it was absolutely beautiful. It was a great way to start the day.

After my walk, I drove back to the hotel and woke up Hannah with some peanut m&m’s. I got the idea from watching a TV commercial were I guy put a diamond necklace on his wife while she was sleeping. The women woke up and kissed her husband and they lived happily ever after. Hannah’s not in to diamond necklaces, and I don’t have the money for one anyway, but I knew m&m’s would get me the desired response. Hannah woke up, smiled, ate the m&m’s and went back to sleep….mission accomplished : )

After we checked out of the hotel, we went to Safeway for breakfast, and headed up to the race.

Crankworx has cross country races, downhill races, and slope style / big air competitions. The event in BC is much bigger, but this one was pretty good.

In the morning we watched the slope style / big air events. The racers would enter the course by riding off a 30 ft platform and landing on a steep slop. Depending on how fast they road they would get 40-50 feet of air. It was INCREDIBLE!!

In the afternoon, we hiked to the top of one of the ski runs to watch the downhill events. These guys (and girls) were riding so fast that I got nervous just watching them….memories of my crash have left me a little gun shy.

All in all it was a great anniversary. Hannah is my best friend, and I can’t image life with out her.

And now you moment of ZEN……this is an old picture, but it deserves to never be forgotten..

June 2007

2007-07-09T20:53:00.000-06:00

Well its official, I’m tough. T- U- F- F tough. That’s right, I’m a grade A tuffy. I’ve been telling you all this for years and now I have a medal to prove it. I raced in my 1st Xterra triathlon 2 weeks ago.

My friend Kristen is a swimmer and my friend Laurel is a runner and I love to mountain bike so we decided to enter as a relay team. They let you do it as a team if you’re not ready for the real deal. I thought this was a safe way to try something new. For those of you who are not familiar with the Xterra triathlon let me give you the run down. Basically the Xterra triathlon is the coolest triathlon in the world. They hold these races around the world and they are unique because they are all off road and held in rugged locations. The amateur races usually consist of a 1 mile lake swim, a 20 mile mountain bike course and a 5 mile trail run.

After seeing everybody warm up in their swimsuits I am convinced that these triathletes are the fittest athletes around. Needless to say, I was very intimidated. I almost backed out because I have been so busy at work I haven’t had time to train. Riding 20 miles on a mountain bike at 9000 feet above sea level and pushing as hard as you can is not the same as 20 miles on a road bike.

Most of the race was single track and I was worried about some of the technical areas….rocks, stumps, etc… When it came down to I actually did fairly well. I passed more people than passed me and I did very well on the downhill and in the technical areas. In fact, that is where I was able to pass people. I just wasn’t prepared for the 3 miles of steep uphill at the end. It was terrible!

Anyway, like I told Eric, “I went crazy fast” on the downhill single track and we ended up being the fastest relay team. This doesn’t mean a whole lot because I didn’t have to swim or run, but we were the only female relay team and beating the boys always makes me feel good. I wore my medal around the house for a few days until Eric said it was getting old.

My dad flew out from Utah to hang out and watch us race. It was wonderful having him here. He could win in his age bracket if we could only teach him how to swim. I was surprised how good it felt to see my Dad and Eric cheering for me at the finish line. I felt like a little girl again in a very good way. It was a great experience and I look forward to racing again.

Eric raced in the sprint course which is a shortened triathlon. He had to swim a half mile, mountain bike 10 miles and run 2.5 miles. He worked hard for his race and lost 20 pounds in the process. He did very well and now he is hooked. They have an Xterra race in Ogden, UT in August and he was thinking about racing until he fell off his bike. Turns out he cracked his sternum, a rib, bruised his calf, and dislocated his arm. It has been over a week and I am still not allowed to hug him, touch him or look at him too hard. He must be hurting because he struggles taking the lid off the peanut butter jar.

Both Eric and I are working all of the time and I am gearing up for girls camp. Sorry for the delayed blog. Busy times.

And now your moment of ZEN.......(notice Eric's 'post race' bowed legs..)

April 2007

2007-07-09T20:19:00.000-06:00

In April I had to go to Washington DC for some meetings. The meetings were scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and under normal circumstances I would have flown out Sunday night, but due to flight schedules I was a lot less expensive for me to fly out Friday night, so I ended up staying over the week end.

Because I had some extra time, I decided I’d play tourist for a day and bought a tour with “Old Town Trolley” for $25. It was worth every penny. The tour covers Washington's major attractions such as the Capitol Building, Lincoln Memorial, Washington National Cathedral, the White House, the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, and Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.

The trolley’s stopped at each site every 15 minutes so you could get off at the sites you wanted to see and skip the ones you don’t have time for. It was perfect. I only had two regrets. First: I wish Hannah were there. It would have been much more fun with her. Second: I wish I would have brought warmer cloths. It was 60 in Denver and the forecast for DC was in the mid 50’s…..well it was much colder and the wind chill was brutal. I did the tour in a sweat shirt and froze my nubbins off.

On Sunday, I attended church in Virginia. The ward was very friendly, and I had a great time. I even got a dinner invitation, but declined. The rest of that day was spent in my hotel room and walking around Bethesda (that’s were my hotel was).

Monday meetings….Tuesday meetings…Tuesday night I get a call from my friend Tim, and he tells me that our friends Joe and Barbara Muir live in Chevy Chase MD. Tim had their address and contact information, and low and behold they lived 10 minutes away from my hotel. I was disappointed that I didn’t get this piece of information sooner, but I was able visit them.

Joe was instrumental in helping me return to the church, and the meeting was kind of emotional for me. It had been seven years since I’d last seen him and I wanted to tell him that I had been grateful every day for everything he’d done, but when I saw him it was the same old Joe, and he down played everything he did. It’s wonderful to have good friends.

December 25, 2006

2007-01-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard, Denver had a heck of a snow storm last week. Roxborough received over 3 feet of snow, and some of the wind drifts were 6 feet. The whole town shut down, and we didn’t leave the house for 3 days, but had power, heat, and plenty of food, so it was like a vacation. Hannah went to work Wednesday morning, but decided to leave around 10:00 before the roads got too bad. When she got home, she had a movie, treats, and told me that we were going sledding. I told her that just because it was a snow day for her, I had to work (I had my laptop). The good news about technology is that I can work from home, and the bad news about technology is that I can work from home. It’s a mixed blessing.

By Saturday enough of the roads had been plowed that we could make it to the state park just up from our house, so we decided to go cross country skiing. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the snow was light powder – perfect conditions. The park was closed, which was great because we didn’t have to pay, so we skied in. The road to the park is about 3 ½ miles, and has great scenery. It’s almost better then the park. When we got to the park, we decided to do some exploring, and ended up having to make a choice of backtracking or going through a gully of scrub oak. We knew the scrub oak patch would stink to go through, but it was a long way to backtrack so we decided to go through. We found a dry stream bed that had slightly less trees in it and followed it down. The trees were so thick that we had to take off our skis and the snow was up to our waist. I slipped on a covered rock, and banged up my knee. I had a brief thought that I wasn’t going to be able to make it to the main trail, but Hannah broke trail and we made it out in about 35 minutes. When we got home my knee had swollen up so bad it looked like I had an orange under my skin, and now it’s starting bruise nicely.

We went to church on Sunday, and Hannah gave a wonderful talk about the importance of receiving, and showing our appreciation for the gift of the atonement. She also sang in the choir.

That night we cooked a ham, made cheese mash potatoes, salad, rolls, and cherry cheese cake for desert. After the feast, we opened our presents, and being stuffed played “fat dog” (lay on the floor).

A few weeks ago Hannah asked me what I wanted to do for Christmas. This was our first Christmas without family, so we wanted to establish some traditions. I told her I didn’t have any ideas, and she asked me if I wanted to go downhill skiing.

When I worked at Brighton, I would volunteer to work on Christmas. I didn’t have any family in town, so I figured I’d let someone else spend it with their family. Christmas day was a great day to work… My boss would let me take a few runs before we opened, and everyone was in a great mood. I always wanted to go skiing with my family on Christmas, but because Hannah’s not a big downhill skier, I never thought we’d do it. The one condition that Hannah placed on the skiing adventure was that I couldn’t be too bossy.

Christmas morning we got up at 6:00 and drove to the Loveland Ski Area. It’s more of a local resort, so we didn’t think it would be as crowed as some of the destination areas. Another bonus is that they have an entire section of beginner / intermediate runs separate form the rest of the area. We had a wonderful day. I think this tradition may stick.

That evening we went and saw the new James Bond movie and ate all of our Christmas candy.

Hannah speaking…Christmas was wonderful this year even though we did not get to spend it with other family members. Because I was preparing for a talk the weeks leading up to Christmas I made an extra effort to reflect upon why I really should celebrate the season. Christmas is about celebrating our Savior and receiving our King. I didn’t make treats or buy lots of stuff but I was happy. I was happy with the blessings I do have because of the Birth of Christ…..my life, the Gospel, eternal families, the Comforter, an eternal perspective….life is wonderful.

And now your moment of ZEN.........(I was Santa again this year)

December 15, 2006

2007-01-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

Last week stunk. Our cat Max had been fighting a cold for a few weeks. He seemed to get better, but then he would relapse and get sick again. We took him to the vet twice, but were unsatisfied with her diagnosis – “Max is in perfect health.” Hannah found a cat specialist in Castle Rock, 30 minutes south of us, and she took him there.

Once there, she explained the history and the vet noticed that Max’s coat looked unkempt. He decided to run some tests, and found that he had the virus called Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). FIP is extremely rare, and only 1% of cats are diagnosed with it. He told us that there was no cure, and that Max would appear to get better, and then get worse – never fully recovering and steadily going down hill. The decision was made to put him down.

The morning we were scheduled to put him down, Max was feeling better and purred when we picked him up. It sounds dramatic, but it was one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do in my life. I bawled like a baby. The last time I cried that hard I was a child. I really bonded with that cat. On Sundays when I’d take a nap, he would jump on the bed and sit two inches from my face staring at me until would lift up the blanket and he’d crawl in. If I rolled on his legs, he wouldn’t make a sound, just kick his way out, and then go back to sleep.

Hannah and I decided that we needed another cat right away, so we went to the pound and picked up a 15 pound black male. He’s very mellow, likes Sally (our other cat), and sleeps all day….he’s perfect. We tossed around several names, and landed on Pete…I think. For fun I’ll list a few of the names we tried on:

Berry White: Named after the R&B singer. Berry White was a ladies man, and had a deep baritone voice. When Pete was at the pound he was in a room with all females, and he would let them lay on him, and has a deep rumbling purr, but his meow is a soprano.
John Coffee: Named after the black guy in the movie “The Green Mile.”
Puddy: Named after David Puddy on Seinfield
Molasses (Mo for short): Black Strap Molasses??? Slower than molasses??? I don’t know it just seemed to kind of fit.
Mouse Face: From the side he looks like a mouse.
Chief Meow Meow. This was Hannah’s first choice but Eric rejected it.

What ever we end up calling him, we’re glad to have another cat.

October 8, 2006

2006-10-08T21:22:00.000-06:00

Welcome Max Powers!!

Last Saturday Eric and I went to the animal shelter and adopted a new cat named Max. Eric named him Max Powers in tribute to one of his favorite Simpson episodes. I will explain….. Homer Simpson concludes that all of the bad things that have happened in his life are due to his weak name…. Homer. He decides to rename himself with the most powerful name he could think of….Max Powers. Later in the episode he has his wife’s name changed to Chesty Sinclair. I don’t feel it appropriate to rename our other cat Sally, Chesty.

Well Max is very, very tall and leggy. He has beautiful tiger stripes and is very friendly and soft. We love him already. He does meow way too loud. Every night this week he has woken Eric up at 4:00 a.m. For those of you who have not seen Eric woken up when he is deep asleep you will not be able to fathom the drama. Max meows very loud, Eric flips the light on, kicks the covers around, yells a lot, stomps around the room, threatens the poor little cat’s life, locks him in the laundry room, slams the door and then reports back to his sleepy and bewildered wife that in the morning they are returning Max to the pound. The funny thing is, is that when 6:30 a.m. arrives and Eric loves Max and comments on what a wonderful cat he his. You should also note that Eric refers to Max as Reggie, our old cat. I find this a little blasphemous but I think David, I mean Eric, may have inherited the renaming gene from his mother.

You will notice that Sally our other cat hates us now. She stares at the corner instead of associating with us or the new cat.

And now, your moment of ZEN.... I believe that this photo is "photoshoped," but it makes Hannah and I laugh really hard every time we see it....Remember you can double click on the image and it will enlarge.

September 17, 2006

2006-09-17T22:02:00.000-06:00

Hello friends and family. Things are good here in Colorado. The weather is perfect… cool, crisp and sunny. The skies are blue and clear during the day and at night they are full of stars. We live in an area by the mountains away from the city. We do not have very many street lamps so the view at night is amazing.

I was just released from the primary presidency and am now the new young women’s president. I am looking forward to working with the young women. They are all kind, good girls. I will miss the primary terribly. When I was first called to the primary I didn’t think that I would enjoy it as much as I did. I’ve never really spent much time around children and I didn’t enjoy them like other people. I think that working in the primary presidency has been my all time favorite calling. I love the children; they set such a good example and love unconditionally. The Sunday that I was released the primary chorister asked the entire junior primary to come up and hug me. They mobbed me all at once and took turns hugging me. I was kneeling on the floor and was covered in little kids. I could see their sweet faces so excited to come and hug me that I started to cry. (I don’t like to cry in public) This made the chorister cry and all of the other primary leaders. I was surprised at how willing the children were to express love and gratitude.

We just had our first combined young men/ young women activity the other weekend. We took the youth to the ‘Taste of Littleton’. The Taste of Littleton is a community event where many local restaurants line Main Street in Littleton and provide samples of their food to the public. We purchased wrist bands for $5 which allowed us unlimited samples. It was a lot of fun. I do not have a counselor yet, so Eric came along and drove some of the kids in his car. My folks would have loved this event. They loooooove free samples.

Eric here. The taste of Littleton was fun, but I had to deal with young punks making fun of my Subaru. As Hannah pointed out, I had to drive some of the kids in my car. The kids I happen to get were gear heads. They all drove big trucks, and couldn’t fathom buying anything but American. Of course they also get 9 miles to the gallon, so by the time they get to the movies they don’t have enough money to get in, and I definitely highlighted that fact. In the end they came to respect the Sub. I floored it a couple of times, and let them feel the awesome power of its mighty four banger.

I was only able to ride twice this week. On Tuesday I rode the Apex trail, which was fun, but technically difficult. One of the keys to getting over technical terrain is to have momentum, witch requires power, and generating quick bursts of power every fifty feet wears you (me) out pretty quickly. The down hill was, as always, extremely fun. It drops down the Front Range with beautiful views of the city.

On Friday, Hannah and I met at the Chimney Gulch trail head, which goes up to look out mountain. This is one of my favorite trails. There are a few rocky sections, but for the most part it’s a steady climb for about five miles. The trail isn’t a loop so you have to watch out for riders coming up as your going down, but you can see far enough ahead to be able to get some decent speed.

Your moment of ZEN......

Memories of Reg

2006-09-04T20:00:00.000-06:00

About three weeks ago, Reggie got out at night, and we never saw him again. We think that a fox or coyote got him. We miss him terribly, and the house seems empty with out him. Even though his name was Reggie, I usually called him Pal, because that’s what he was. He would come when we called. He’d follow us around when we were out in the yard, and just wanted to be by us. Of course I also called him Rotten Reg, and Reggie the ruiner, because he was constantly getting into things, but all in all Hannah and I decided that he was our favorite cat of all time.

Even though most of our “Moment of ZEN” pictures were of Reg, I thought I’d post a few more in his honor.

September 4, 2006

2006-09-04T17:21:00.000-06:00

A few months ago, Hannah had a really good month at work, and as a reward she wanted to buy her sisters plane tickets to come out and visit. She decided that even though the fairs are reasonably priced, it was still to expensive. She said that she would go out and visit them. As time went by, I realized that she wasn’t going to buy a ticket (we have a lot we’re saving up for). I also knew that she really wanted to go, so I bought a ticket for her.

I was planning to go to the Black Hills in South Dakota when she was in Utah, but a week before she left I sprained my ankle playing basketball, and the weather was suposed to be rainy. Rather than drive five hours and go for easy bike rides in the rain, I decided to stay in Denver.

I’ve done a fair amount of traveling for work since Hannah and I have been married. While I never really like to leave, I’m working, so the time goes by quickly. Staying home while Hannah leaves STINKS. I was board out of my gourd. Hannah was livin' it up, so I would as well.

I took a few hours of on Friday, and rode the Hall Ranch trail just outside of Estes Park – North of Boulder. The first two miles are extremely technical and I ended up walking my bike up a lot of it. After the first section, there is a five mile loop that was fairly easy, and made for fast riding. On the way back, I was able to ride down most of the technical parts, and really enjoyed myself. I came home, ate left over spaghetti, watched some TV and went to bed.

It rained Saturday, so I changed the oil in my car, cleaned it out, did some minor things in the garage, went for a hike, and went out for Sushi.

I am addicted to Sushi. I can’t get enough of it. I dream about it. On my birthday a few years ago, Hannah took me out for Sushi. She had never had it and was skeptical. I knew she wouldn’t like the Nigiri Sushi, which is raw "whatever" on a ball of rice, so we got a sushi roll. I can’t remember what was in the roll, but the conversation went something like this:

Hannah: I just don’t like the texture of the fish.
Eric: It takes some getting use to.
Hannah: I’m just not a fan of the sauce.
Eric: The do have other sauces, or you don’t have to get any sauce.
Hannah: I really don't like the seaweed wrapper... it makes me gag.
Eric: So the only thing you like is the rice.
Hannah: Yeah, but even that tastes like the seaweed.

Needless to say, we haven’t gone out for Sushi together since.

This morning, I got up at 6:30 and went for another bike ride. This time I went to a trail just outside of Roxborough Park about a mile South of our house. I hadn’t been on this trail before because the entrance is in a gated community. We have some friends who live there, and they said that we could use their name to get past the gate, so I did, and had a great time. The pictures of the red rocks are of that trip.

And now your moment of ZEN.......

August 27, 2006

2006-09-04T17:03:00.000-06:00

Hannah and I have started a mid-August resolution…..write more on our blog. It took the gentle prodding of some good friends. They used kind words like, “You have no excuses,” and “it’s been three months.” There is no need to mention names…you know who you are….and we miss you.

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A lot has happened. We went river rafting in Southern Colorado for our 5th year anniversary. I spent four days in Seattle for work and then we went to Oregon for a week and had a mini family reunion. Everyone was there with the exception of the Huntsmans, whom we all missed.

Since we don’t have time to go over everything in detail, we’ll do a quick summery:

The rafting trip was great. It was Hannah’s turn to plan the anniversary trip, which is good because she always has the best ideas. I got off work early and we drove down to Canon City in Southwestern Colorado and spent the night. The next morning we went rafting in the poring rain and loved every second of it. There was one other group in the trip with us. Two of them were members of the Church from Arvada ( a few miles North of us) and some foreign exchange students from Saudi Arabia, who consequently had never been swimming. We had a great time. Hannah and I had a boat to ourselves (plus the guide) so we sat right up front and faced the rapids all day. The guide was pretty cool and even let us “ride the bull”. To ride the bull one must sit on the front point of the raft with your legs over the front edge of the raft and hang on to the bow line like a cowboy holding onto a rodeo bull. As you hit the rapids you scream like an idiot and love every minute of it. We became friends with the other group and made plans to do it again next year.

I had to go to Seattle for a mid-year planning session. While I was there I took the opportunity to visit some customers and eat Sushi every night. It was great fun, and I enjoyed meeting some of the people I work with, but only get to talk to on the phone. At the end of the trip, I was ready to come home and realized that I don’t like Seattle as much as I thought I did. I still really like it, but it’s just too darn big. It takes too long to get to the mountains.

At the reunion we saw Sherry and Ray, David and Wren and their family, Grandma Petersen, Aunt Sharon, Uncle Parley and Aunt Kathryn and of course my parents. It was wonderful, but the schedule was really hard on me. Each morning I would wake up, eat some cereal with fresh raspberries and blackberries, lay around for a few hours and then go swimming. The hard part was going back to the real world.

And now your moment of ZEN......(Eric and his nieces running from the waves).

July 1, 2006

2006-09-04T16:53:00.000-06:00

I just saved my baby Reggie’s life! I was walking out the door to go to the church and I saw a fox in our neighbor’s yard. I freaked out because he was so close to our house and I knew that Reggie (my cat not my baby) was outside. Just then I saw my fat, juicy, tender little cat stalking the fox. I was in my car and drove as fast as I could toward fox and the cat because they were only a few feet apart from one another. Reggie would have been a goner but the fox hadn’t seen him yet. I pulled up in front of them and honked my horn trying to keep Reggie from springing on the fox. The honking distracted both of them and gave me a few second to get out of my car and grab Reggie. I saved that dumb cat’s life. The worst part is, is that the fox was kind of cute and I couldn’t blame it for the situation. Well I came home all freaked out and now Eric and I don’t know what to do about this dumb old cat. I think it might be best for him to spend the rest of the summer with Melanie and Stoney.

Eric bought a new bike and has been riding a lot. He thinks he is better than me now that he has his fancy new bike with his fancy little biking shorts. Well he is. I can still take him on the uphill but as far as technical skills go the grasshopper has surpassed the master. I need to have my Dad, Stoney come to Colorado again for another bike ride and put Eric in his place.

Eric gave a wonderful talk today in church about the Plan of Happiness and the Atonement. This is the third time he has spoken in church in a year. He did a wonderful job. He is comfortable speaking in public and likes giving talks. Good thing because our ward is small and I am sure they will keep asking him to speak.

I am still working hard. Cub Scout day camp is this week and I am assigned to take the boys this Wednesday. Cubs…what can I say…they are appropriately named cubs. I have been missing my family and friends lately especially my sisters. I was so worked up about the fox attack that I had to call Jenny to calm down. She is the only one who can fully understand the tramas of being way too attached to a cat. On Fathers day I really missed my Dad. My Dad is wonderful. He taught me to love so many things that make my life happy. I hope that we are always close. I am always happier when he is around.

Eric and I are sooooooo excited to go and see his parents in July. David and Wren will be there and so will Sherry and Ray. I think Eric’s Grandma Ann and Aunt Sharon may be there as well. One good thing about our marriage is that both Eric and I love our in-laws. We love being around each other’s family.

Our 5th year anniversary is this week and it is my turn to plan something special. I still don’t know what we are going to do but it will be romantic. I will keep you all posted.

Well Melanie (my Mom) is an inspired woman. She gave Eric a case of brownie mix for his birthday and it is being put to good use tonight. My Mom Rocks!!!

Your moment of ZEN..... (if your wondering what Hannah has around her legs, it's a piece of elastic. She has take wide steps with it around her legs for her knee exercise’s)

May 21, 2006

2006-05-21T21:23:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, I know. It’s been awhile since our last posting. There are two reasons for this. The first and, probably the most accurate is that I’m lazy. I don’t know why it’s so hard to keep this current. Once I’m typing everything goes smoothly; sitting down at the computer is the hard part. The second reason is that my camera is broken. The small clasp that holds the spring loaded battery in is missing, so every time I want to take a picture I have to hold the battery in. Without pictures, I think the blog would be boring.

A few weeks ago, we got a call from our friends Aaron and Kristen. They had some extra tickets for Les Miserables, and asked if we wanted to go with them. I usually balk at entertainment that requires dressing up, but Hannah really wanted to go, and I wanted to hang out with Aaron and Kristen, so we said yes.

The play was on a Friday night, and before I left work one of my co-workers asked me if I had any plans for the week end. Let me pause for a moment, and tell you about this individual. His name is Dean Holmstum, he’s single, he rides a Harley, and on the week ends he goes for beers with the boys. In short, he’s a man’s man. When Dean asked me if I had plans for the weekend I panicked. I wanted to tell him that I was going to Les Miserables, but I didn’t know how to pronounce it. Not wanting to butcher the title, I said I was going to “la Mis.” I had heard it referred to this before, but it never sounded so feminine as when I said it. Dean looked at me for a moment and said, “That’s ok…I’m sure you’ll have a great time.” We still joke about that. It was actually pretty funny.

Well despite the not wanting to dress up, and feeling awkward for not know how to pronounce the name, we had a wonderful time. The singing was great, and the story was inspiring. I was so impressed with the production, that I’m reading the book, and really enjoying it.

Work is going well. I’m starting to understand how to navigate IBM, which means that I’m more productive. I don’t have to spend twenty minutes researching each question I get.

The commute isn’t bad either. If I didn’t have one, it would be better, but I’m making the best of it.

I pass several great bike rides on the way home, so I’ve decided to ride once or twice a week. Last week I road the Heil Ranch trail. It’s just outside of Boulder and it reminds me of South Fork in Provo. It’s a long narrow valley, with beautiful meadows, and plenty of trees. It also has tons of open range cattle. As some of you know, I love cows. I don’t know what it is about them, but every time I see them I feel happy. The only problem Heil Ranch is that it’s quite rocky. A lot of the trails around here are rocky, and normally it doesn’t bother me, but this year I’ve been feeling like I just got beat up after every ride. I came home and told Hannah that I wanted a new bike. I was expecting to have to justify the purchase, but Hannah was wonderfully understanding, and said I could get one if it wasn’t too expensive. I was planning on getting a new bike this fall, so I’d been doing a lot of research, and already knew what I wanted. The bike shop I went to offered demos, so I demoed a bike on Friday, and bought it on Saturday. It’s like a dream come true. I can’t believe the difference.

Well that’s all I have to say for now.

We love, and miss all of you.

Eric and Hannah

And now your moment of ZEN.......

March 6, 2006

2006-03-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

Today was a wonderfully sunny Sunday. The temperature reached the high 60’s and the sky was deep blue without a cloud in the sky. The whole week has been this way. Saturday I took the opportunity to go for a bike ride. Usually Hannah and I try to go on bike rides together, but she had been gone for several hours running errands, one of which was going to the gym. I decided that if I didn’t go by my self I wouldn’t go at all. So I packed up the car and took off. As I was leaving the neighborhood, I saw Hannah’s car coming my way. No one was behind me so I stopped. I was planning to ask her if she wanted to go with me, but when she rolled down her window all she said was “I’ve been betrayed,” and took off (the funny thing is just a few days earlier she was telling me that she wasn’t into drama. If that’s not drama I don’t know what is. : ) I called her on her cell, and asked her if she wanted to go. She said that she had to get ready for a party we were going to that night, and told me to have a good time.

I chose to ride Deer Creek, because it was close. I hadn’t ridden for a while, so I knew it was going to be hard, but its close, so it was the obviously choice. The first half of the trail is the most technical, and luckily was dry; the second half still had snow and ice, which made it more difficult. I got tired of pushing my bike so I only made it 2/3rds of the way up. It was fun anyway. After the trail I decided to ride on the road for a while and snapped a few shots of some decent size elk.

I was able to get pretty close to them before the started getting nervous. One of them took a rather aggressive stance, which surprised me. For a second I though I was going to be on of those “When Animals Attack” videos, but the elk decided to turn away instead.

(Hannah here) When I married Eric my long time biking buddy (Stoney, my Dad) started riding with the Bishop. I still ride with my Dad but not as often. I thought that Eric agreed to be a biking buddy, especially since we moved to Colorado. I don’t have anyone else to ride with and every time I ride by myself I feel like cougars are stalking me. Anyway, I was a little sad to see Eric’s Subaru driving down the rode with a bike on top.

Over the past few months I have been our ward’s Young Women’s basketball coach. It was tough at first. Most of the girls had never played basketball before and struggled with the basics….dribbling, hitting the backboard when shooting, not walking with the ball in your hand etc…. But the girls were so happy and dedicated. They came to all of our practices and loved it. We only have one elementary school gym in Roxborough and having access to it is rare. I started sneaking into an empty slot on Tuesday’s at 7:30 p.m. and claimed it as our time. One of the 11 year old boys in our primary is one a YMCA basketball team and asked if their boys team could practice with our. It turned out to be great. Every Tuesday night a bunch of LDS Young Women with several of their friends scrimmaged against a boys 11-12 year old team. They boys beat us every time, but we started mixing the team and the boys helped the girls learn how to pass and how to defend tough players. Because of their help our girls improved Soooooooooo much. It was amazing how good they are now. The Stake sport leaders came and hugged me after our last game. They have secretly been rooting for our little team, and commented on how good they are now.

Yesterday we had a end of season Basketball party at Cori Holloway’s house (the Young Women’s president). All of the girls and boys came. It was out of control. I forgot how different boys and girls are at that age. The girls were so nice but a little “goosey”. (My mother said I was goosey when I flirted too much) and the boys kept talking about poop.

Oh well, it was an excellent missionary experience and I enjoyed it. (Eric) I had a good time as well, but it made me feel old. I remember going to parties at that age, but this was the first time I was the “adult.”

3-06-06

Today was another beautiful day. IBM is located at the north end of Boulder. The west end of the campus is butted against the mountains, and everything to the east is farm land. I took advantage of the location and the great weather to go for a walk.

I passed horses that were fuzzy with their winter coats and enjoyed views of the mountains. When I returned to work I felt refreshed, and decided that I’m going to bring my bike tomorrow and go for a ride.

Last night we went over to Joe and Wendy’s for an evening of fun and excitement. I creamed Joe at both ping pong and darts (the previous sentence is an example of rewriting history. The power is with the writer. The truth is that Joe creamed me at both, but future generations will only see my writing and laud me as an exceptional sports man while feeling pity for Joe’s pitiful performance : ) After ping pong Joe burned some movies for us and Ely and I played retro video games. This was followed by lemon squares and a card game called Nerts, which I dominated yet again (see previous comment in parentheses). After Nerts the kids went to bed and we talked a little while longer. I found out that Wendy had been doing some genealogy recently. The past couple of weeks I have felt a strong desire to learn about our ancestors, and it was good to hear that someone else was feeling the same way. She’s going to show me how to use the church history web site, and both of us are going to ask our parents for any kind of stories / information they have. I was actually so excited that it was hard going to sleep. I never thought I would get riled up about genealogy.

Last week I talked to my nephew Kyle. He is attending Snow Collage in Ephraim Utah. He recently purchased some climbing gear ( I’m so proud of him ), and we discussed plans to rendezvous in Southern Utah for some outdoor adventures. I hope we can make it happen.

The summer after my mission Kyle and I did some backpacking on Heintzleman ridge in Juneau, and I realized that even though he was only 14 (I think) at the time, I enjoyed his company immensely, and I look forward to playing with him before he goes on his mission. He mentioned that he was going to try and go to Zion’s National Park during spring break, so I’m adding some pictures of a previous trip. These were taken on the “Angles Landing” trail. It’s very popular with lost of people, but still one of the best hikes I’ve ever been on. The second picture is of the actual trail. It goes on top of the fin. I thought I had a better one, but I can't find it.

We Love you all.

Eric and Hannah

And now your moment of ZEN.......

Febrary 26, 2006

2006-02-26T21:12:00.000-07:00

Housekeeping Items:

If you click on a picture, it will be enlarged.
Archive links are on the right hand column.

Well it’s diet time again. Hannah and I have decided that we’re going to stop eating sugar again….for the most part anyway. We did it for about six months last year, and were feeling great. Sundays were treat days, but other than that we were just about sugar free. Christmas was our down fall. We had treats every day, and our addiction came back with a vengeance. We started cutting back this past week, and starting Monday morning, no more sugar until Sunday. It won’t be a fun week, but after that it won’t be bad. We found that we didn’t even miss it last time.

Work is still great for me, but not so great for Hannah. She feels a little trapped. They are relying more and more on her, and wile it’s kind of flattering, it also makes it harder for her to leave. In addition to getting more responsibilities, she doesn’t feel that she can commit to a new job if we are able to adopt in the near future.

My commute is still long, about an hour and ten minutes each way. It sounds really bad, and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I’m actually enjoying it. I work out during lunch and Hannah goes to the gym right after work, so each get home between seven and seven thirty. Since we have less time to spend together, I’ve found that we work harder at making our time together better. We talk more and appreciate each others company more.

A friend in the ward had the same commute to Boulder for years and collected hundreds of hours of talk tapes for his drive. So in addition to my personal study in the morning, and reading with Hannah in the evening, I get two extra hours of gospel learning. I feel like I’m on my mission again. It’s great. I may be singing a different tune when I run out of things to listen to, but it’s great for now.

One of the topics I’ve really gotten into is the Martin and Willie handcart companies. They were truly amazing people, both the immigrants, and the saints that participated in the rescue operations. I left work the other day, and it was about zero degrees. The wind was blowing at about 5 mph, and I was so grateful that I didn’t have to endure what they endured.

I had last Monday off, so Hannah took a half day, and we hiked Carlton peak. It was a really easy hike with about thirty five hundred feel of elevation gain, spread out over a few miles. We did it in about two and a half hours. It had been a few weeks since we had been hiking, and it was great to get outside. We took it really slow, and just talked the whole way up.

Last Friday we went out to eat with three families from the ward: the Calis, their daughter and her husband, and the Bergs. Brother Cali, is one of the friendliest people I have ever met. He and his wife quickly befriended Hannah and I when we first moved in. We have been good friends ever since. It was no surprise that they knew the owners of the Chinese restaurant we went to. What was surprising was that we got all our appetizers for free – and we got tons of appetizers. I am not exaggerating when I say that this was the best Chinese food I have ever had….nothing even comes close. It was fantastic. We ate some many appetizers, that when the entrées came, we each had a taste, and asked them to box it up. We had a great time.

Saturday was spent cleaning the house, and going to the temple. Hannah also went to stake women’s conference. Not to exciting, but fulfilling none the less.

(Hannah speaking) Women’s conference was a little tough for me because I think I need glasses. I sat in the back and while trying to focus on the speakers I gave myself a terrible head ache. Our church building is located on a block with 3 other churches. There are 2 LDS chapels, a Lutheran Church and a new Catholic Church. At the conference we had 2 women from the Catholic Parish next door come and speak. They talked about how they had prayed for years to have their own Church in Highlands Ranch and how happy they were when the Church was finally built. One of the women talked about how when they were first moving in a LDS relief society sister knocked on their door to welcome them to the neighborhood and invited them to participate in one of our humanitarian service projects. Just last month all of the LDS and Catholic sisters met in their basement and put together comfort kits for cancer patients and the LDS boy scouts and some of their male members installed their landscaping. This Catholic sister talked about how wonderful it is to have neighbors in Christ. The spirit was very strong.

I have been listening to talk tapes as well this week. I was listing to a talk on President Joseph F Smith or Heber Grant (I can’t remember which one) One of them was saying how they longed to see the day when latter day saints would be good friends with their neighbors of other Faiths. I thought that he would love to see our relief society here in Colorado.

I had a great phone call this week from Stoney, my Dad. He called me from the Provo Temple just to tell me that he loved me. It made my day. I remember when I worked at BYU and he had Fridays off. He would ride his bike to my greenhouse and take me to lunch. When I say take me to lunch I mean take me to lunch Stoney style. We would find an empty bench on campus and he would pull out a thermos full of beans, a hunk of his manly, homemade herb bread and 2 spoons out of his pocket. That was lunch. He is wonderful and so is my mother.

We hope you are all doing well. We love you and miss you all, and want you to remember that our home is always open to anyone that wants to visit. Which reminds me, I know that some of the Petersen kids are thinking about visiting Mom and Dad this summer? It’s been a long time since we’ve all been together. I talked to Don a few weeks ago and he suggested that we all just pick a date. Hannah and I can do it any time in July or August. I have a very busy work load the end of June and will not be able to travel that month. If you have any other suggestions, please reply to my email. It would mean a lot to me if we could all make it at the same time.

Love Eric and Hannah

And now your moment of ZEN…..

February 13, 2006

2006-02-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

We are terribly behind on the blog, so I’m going to try to sum everything up in this posting, and cut our losses.

Home sweet IBM. It’s so good to have a real job again. It was touch and go for a few months, but we’ve come out of it better for the experience. As Stony always says, “life is wonderful.”

For those of you that don’t know, I recently started working as an inside sales rep for IBM Rational development tools. Software development is a whole new world, and I have tons to learn. The environment at IBM is great. I’ve never worked in a place were the people are so interested in helping everyone succeed. There is a real sense of teaming, and empowerment. In addition to being measured on attainment, we are measured on our contribution to the teams that we are on – ie our extended field sales team, and our inside sales team.

The result is that people are always thinking of ways to improve and sharing those ideas with others. It’s really great. One of the reasons IBM acquired Rational, was for their sales program, and they are patterning the rest of the inside sales organizations after the Rational model. We get a lot of great press. I really lucked out.

January 23rd I went to Las Vegas for a partner meeting. I stayed at the Venetian resort, and it was actually pretty fun. The place is amazing, despite the fact that it’s a casino. Truth to tell, the casino is really only a small part of the resort. I was working most of the time, but I did get a chance to go to the aquarium at Mandalay Bay. I tried to take some pictures but if I used the flash, it reflected off the glass, and if I didn’t the pictures were too dark. My favorite section of the exhibit was of course the shark tank. They had several sharks ranging from one to seven feet. I snapped this picture in the glass tunnel. It’s not very good, but you can really see this guys teeth.

I left Vegas Friday night, stayed in Colorado Saturday, and left for San Jose Sunday morning for my orientation. San Jose was not what I expected, and I’ll say that I’m glad I don’t live there, and leave it at that.

I had a two week break between ending my last job, and starting at IBM. Hannah was jealous (As I would have been if the situation had been reversed), so she kept me busy with things around the house. However she did let me go snowboarding with two guys from the ward. We went to Copper Mountain. The resort was cool, and it was great to get on he slopes again. It had snowed the night before, and there were still some sections of fresh snow. I didn’t ride really hard, but I had a great time just being there.

House project number one was organizing the garage. I build a work bench from the scrap wood pile at Home Depot, and really lucked out. It’s exactly what I wanted and I only spent $15. We also bought some sturdy metal shelves for food storage, and will be restocking our supply at the end of this month. When I was laid off, we didn’t have a year supply, but we did have several cases of caned goods that we used up, and were very grateful to have them.

We also decided to go all out and build a cat tower for Sally and Reggie. I was a little apprehensive, because I didn’t want to be one of those people that has their house decorated with cat furniture, but the cats didn’t have anything to play on, and we didn’t want them scratching up the carpet, so we decided to go for it. Hannah designed, and we both build it. The cats absolutely love it. They spend all day up there looking out the window and sleeping.

A few months ago, Hannah was asked to coach the young women’s basketball team. While Hannah played basketball when she was younger, she hadn’t played in a long time, and was wondering why they had asked her. She found out that none of the other women in the ward played basketball, and Hannah was tall so they assumed that she knew what she was doing. By the way, that last sentence is almost a direct quote from the young women’s president.

At their first practice, Hannah found out that half the girls in the ward had never played basketball before, and she was going to have to start teaching the basics. Now when I say basics I mean basics – like how to dribble. They got creamed their first game, but they kept on getting better, and better. I was really impressed with how much the girls had improved. And the best part is that the girls love playing. They won’t let Hannah cancel practices, and go long every time they do practice. The one game they won was really intense. I couldn’t have been more excited if I was watching a play off game. They had worked so hard, and we knew that if they didn’t win this one, they weren’t going to win one all year. It was a close game, but everyone did really well, and they pulled it off.

Well that’s all we have time for so we’re going to sign off.

We love you all.

Eric and Hannah

And now your moment of ZEN……

Buckhorn Wash

2006-01-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

When we went to visit my family in Utah we talked Stoney (Hannah’s Dad) into taking us to the Buckhorn Wash. For those of you who do not know Stoney he is a wonderful, kind, quiet man who knows the back country of Utah better than anyone. He’s like an off road atlas.

He agreed to take Eric, Hannah, and our friend Sean Gibson an hour and a half South East of Provo to see the Buckhorn Wash and the Wedge. As you can see from the photos the country was incredible. We were all alone and surrounded by red rock cliffs, Indian Petra glyphs, dinosaur foot prints and beautiful views.

Stoney took us first to the wedge where everyone scared Hannah by throwing large rocks off of cliffs. I think we counted 12 seconds before we could hear the rocks drop. The wedge reminds me of a slightly smaller version of the Grand Canyon. In a way it is better than the Grand Canyon because there aren’t any tourist, just eagles and chipmunks.

Stoney took his GPS unit and led us to a dinosaur foot print. That whole country is full of dinosaur remains. It was unbelievably fun to follow the GPS to the foot print. We all agreed that Eric’s brother David should have been there. In fact every time we go to southern Utah, we wish David was there to explain things….we would also enjoy his company : )

We stopped for lunch and decided to break out the old Red Ryder BB gun. Stoney and Hannah love to throw sticks in streams and use them for target practice. This time we only found cow pies. As it turns out, cow pies are just as fun to shoot as sticks and make great substitute clay pigeons.

As you can tell we’re running a little behind with the BLOG. Eric will try get us caught up before he starts his business trips.

And now your moment of ZEN……

Yes I'm holding a cow pie, but there are a bunch of leaves underneath so it's not touching my hands...I just had to make it clear that I don't go around touching things like that with my bare hands.

We love you all.

Eric and Hannah

December 25, 2005

2006-01-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful Christmas. Eric and I drove back to Utah to spend the Holiday with my family. It has been several years since I have been able to spend Christmas with my sisters Sunny, Jenny and my brother in law Jared. The restful vacation and time with family was just what we needed. We were a little bummed out not to see Eric’s folks hoping to go out to Oregon this summer for a visit and hopefully catch David and Wren. One of the best things about our vacation was NO WORK. I took a week and a half off. Eric had been interviewing with IBM and decided that even if he didn’t get the job he needed to continue looking, so he quit Advanced Surgical right before we left, and planned to start looking full time when we returned. Luckily IBM called and offered him the job while we were in Utah. As it turned out, he negotiated a better deal then he had with his previous offer, so maybe things were suppose to work out this way.
The day after we arrived in Utah we all went to see the latest Harry Potter. During the middle of it they had to make some repairs to the film and consequently gave us all free tickets. We used the tickets to go see King Kong after Christmas. If you haven’t seen King Kong, take my advice and close your eyes when the giant slugs come.

Another highlight was our annual McCoard family, Christmas Eve pig out dinner. For the pig out we all draw slips of paper that assign us the main dish or salad or dessert or drink etc… Then we all go to the store together and buy the ingredients for our favorite food (whatever we drew.) Then we all pile into the kitchen and cook it up. What comes after is a very unconventional mix of foods. When Jenny was little she drew the main dish and made us all eat fish sticks for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately for Eric he was assigned the bread for the 4th year in a row.

Christmas day was relaxing. We went to Sacrament meeting in the morning and then went home, exchanged gifts, and laid around for the rest of the day. Stoney gave Eric his old spotting scope and they went and looked at Sheep that evening.

A few days later we went to Temple square in Salt Lake to see the lights, tour the conference center and check out the new Joseph Smith exhibit. We love Joseph Smith. There is a new movie that they are showing about the life of the prophet. It was sold out for months so we hope to see it next time we are in Utah.

We were able to spend a lot of time with Sunny, my sister, who is usually hiding at her boyfriend John’s house. Sunny, my mother and I threw Jenny a baby shower. I made lots of pretty treats and was pretty proud of how domestic capabilities. Jenny invited just a few of her friends and it turned out to be very entertaining. My mother gave Jenny one of her hippy 1970’s birthing books. Basically the book contains many naked photos of hippies giving birth. We passed the book around, laughed, scared Jenny and grossed Eric out.

And now your moment of ZEN……
Well Happy Holidays to all of those that we were not able to see. We love you all and miss you very much.

Love,

Eric and Hannah

December 18, 2005

2005-12-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

(Eric) A few weeks ago Dad sent me some pictures of their trip to Alaska this summer. I decided to post this one of Dad on his hunting trip. He just looked so happy. He reminded me of a little kid on a dream vacation. I was going to use it for the moment of ZEN but I decided to post if front and center. I never asked him if it was ok to post it here. Dad, I hope it’s ok….of course if it isn’t it’s to late now.

For me this Christmas season has been a difficult one. I listen to talk radio when I work, and I’ve heard debate after debate on why anything having to do with religion should be taken out of the celebrating, so we don’t offend anyone. TV and news paper adds bombard you with messages stating that if you don’t by XYZ product your kids will be depressed or your spouse won’t think you love them enough to get ABC And news reports seem to focus on financial numbers – how spending trends compare with years past. It’s probably been this way my entire life, but for some reason it got to me this year. I was feeling pretty ‘Scroogeish” until the Cub Scouts did a service project for the Denver 1st ward.

Denver 1st is a Latino ward with ties to a few members in our ward. The ward is located near downtown and contains many needy families. Our six Cub Scouts were asked to help collect clothing and toys for this ward. We assigned each boy different members of the ward to collect from. They were also encouraged to go door to door in their neighborhood. The response was fantastic. We filled up my car, and the bed of a full size truck (it was over flowing). When we arrived at the church they unloaded and organized everything. They had to be reminded to stay on task a few times, but all in all they did a great job. I was extremely proud of them. Afterwards the Bishop spoke to the boys about the benefits of service. He said that for most of the families in that ward, those donated items would be the only Christmas presents they could give their children. It was a wonderful experience.

The service project was Tuesday. Wednesday night our ward activity director called and asked if I would be Santa for the ward Christmas breakfast. I said yes, but wasn’t looking forward to it. I told Hannah, and the first thing she said was, “Santa??? You don’t have the eye brows to play Santa….I’m going have to glue on cotton balls.” Luckily she never followed up on that, but I will say after viewing the pictures. I don’t have the eyebrows to be Santa.

The activity was really fun. When the kids would sit on my lap, I would ask them if they had been good that year. They all said that they had been good so I asked them to tell me one good thing that they had done. The responses were priceless. Towards the end of the event I let some of the bigger children sit on my lap. You may recognize the two in the photos. I am happy to report that they were both very good.

Both experiences brought me out of my funk and I’m again happy for the season.

(Hannah) Well, I think Eric has summed up our week. He did forget to mention a few important details so here they are: It has been so cold here that we have had numerous days below 0. (I have forgotten how it feels to walk around in -18 degree weather); Yesterday we made plates of cookies and vats of fudge and managed to eat a huge tub of cookie dough in a week; My new ipod was stolen at the gym and I have been moping around ever since. (It contained my secret stash of Destiny’s Child); Eric’s back is feeling better after a little fender bender; We had dinner with Joe and Wendy Harrison and got them hooked on LOST, our favorite TV show; And Reggie, my beloved cat, is too fat to jump up on the counter (which he shouldn’t be on anyway). He thinks he is still skinny and therefore puts forth the same amount of jumping velocity and falls short every time. I don’t know how many times I have seen him smack into the counter and fall back on his back and run away scared, like someone did something mean to him. (Eric) He really is getting fat. The other day he was standing on my desk with his front legs about an inch apart and I noticed that he had cleavage. I’ve tried to put less food in his bowl, but he just mows and mows. I finally give in and give him more.

(Hannah) Eric was a great Santa by the way. People only knew it was him because I was taking so many pictures of him.

And now your moment of ZEN......

We Love you all,

Hannah and Eric

November 28, 2005

2005-11-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

Where to begin? I’ve procrastinated this entry, and a lot has happened, so I have to “work” on thanksgiving.

About two years ago, I went through a small pre-mid-life crisis. I felt like I had lost some of those things that defined me as a person. I was working at Novell, buying my cloths at the Gap, and hadn’t been doing hobbies that I loved doing - ie snowboarding, skating, rock climbing, ect. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I felt I was loosing part of the person I had once been, and becoming someone that I didn’t wanted to be. I felt that I looked, talked, and acted like everyone else I came in contact with. Whether it was true or not it was difficult for me. So, what was my solution? I bought a skateboard. After my purchase, I found an empty parking lot and started to relive days long past. About fifteen minutes into it, I attempted to perform an “ollie to curb grind” (popping the board in the air landing on a parking curb, and sliding the trucks / axles of the skateboard on the concrete surface). Well I didn’t have enough speed to slide, and my trucks planted firmly on the curb, while the momentum propelled my overweight body forward. I planted my forward foot, twisted my knee, hit the ground, and rolled twice. Bruised, battered, and humiliated I got back in the car and went home. When I told Hannah about the experience, she said “well at leased that’s out of your system.” We both laughed and thought it was pretty funny.

Shortly after moving to Colorado, I was placed in the Cub Scout program. One of the other leaders, Travis, is my age, and still skates. He’s a surfer from San Diego, and still try’s to keep up with all the board sports (skateboarding, surfing, and snowboarding). Anyway, he told me that we should go to a skate park that’s close by. Wanting to go, but feeling a little apprehensive, I agreed on the condition that we go early in the morning on a school day so no one would see the 32 year old bald guy flailing around. On the selected date, Travis who is in real estate, had to cancel because of an appointment, so my friend Tim and I went alone. When we arrived there was only one other kid there. He was about sixteen (skipping school) and quite good. I swallowed my ego, and attempted the terrain. It was slow going, but I finally started to get my balance back, and ended up having a great time. The pictures aren’t’ very good, because the timing is off, but at lease you can see what the park looks like. I’ve been back once since then, and look forward to many more trips.

Last week I took my first work trip to Nebraska. I set up three appointments with smaller hospitals, and ended up visiting three more. The visits were really fun. I even enjoyed the driving. I did about six hundred miles in two days. As I write it down it doesn’t seem like much, but when you consider that I was doing visits through out the whole thing it made for long days. When I arrived in North Platte I had about 45 minutes before my next appointment, so I drove to nearest “hill” and snapped a few shots. It was neat to see the plains, but I’m glad I don’t live there.

The best part of the driving was that I was able to listen to CD’s that I haven’t listened to in a long time. On the way out I had a Jazz-a-thon. I started out with Hank Crawford’s “Wilde Flower” album and ended with John Coltrane’s “The Gentle Side of Coltrane.”

On the way back I rediscovered an old favorite – Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder. Years ago when I worked at the record store, I went through a Ry Cooder faze. He’s a blues guitarist, and I started collecting everything that he’d put out. When I came across this collaboration album that he did with Ali Farka Toure I was blown away. Ali is an African musician, and has several albums out, but most of them aren’t really my thing. This one however is great. No one interment stands out front and center. It all mixes together, and while it seems simple and at times a bit repetitive, if you really stop to listen they are doing some wonderfully creative things. It’s perfect to listen to when you’re driving or working at the computer…….enough with the endorsements. I’m just trying to spice up the Blog a bit, and tell you a little more then what we do from day to day : )

During my second to last Hospital visit, I had an interesting experience. I was meeting with the head of the Bio Medical department. For those of you that don’t know the Bio Med department fixes the medical equipment, and what they can’t fix the send out to be repaired which is were I come in. The guy was a bit crusty at first saying things like “I can do that for $20 and you’re going to charge me $180,” and “I don’t like sending my flex scopes to 3rd parties because the quality stinks.” He wasn’t being mean, he was expressing his concerns, and had a coarse way of doing it.

A few weeks before my trip, I had read the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I had heard about the book many times before but always stayed away because is sounded like a book that focused on manipulation – which I didn’t want anything to do with. As it turns out the book is about human behavior, and how to understand that behavior to build relationships. It’s a great book and has applications in a business and personal settings, probably more personal than business.

One of the things that book talks about is becoming genuinely interested in other people. You’ll develop a stronger relationship with a person by getting them to talk about them selves rather then telling them about you, or in my case the service I can provide.

Feeling that the meeting needed a bit of help I looked around the room and saw that he had several model air plains hanging from the ceiling. I asked him about them, and he started telling me all about the models, his time in the Air Force, and doing intelligence work during the Gulf War. It was all very interesting, and the feeling in the meeting changed from confrontational to one of mutual respect. He even gave me two repairs and promised more if everything works out. The whole experience was kind of neat.

Today Hannah and I went to my cousins Joe and Wendy’s for Thanksgiving. My aunt and uncle, Katherine and Parley, were also there as well as a sister from their mission and her family. We had a great time. There was ton’s of food. We played games, watched football, ate pie, and relaxed. Joe spent 10 bucks on special holiday batch of “Jones Soda.” The festive flavors included such things as turkey with gravy, herb mashed potatoes, and brussel sprouts with butter. Joe wanted to share, but Parley told him that because he had spent so much money, he should save it for him self.

The hardest part of growing up in Alaska was that it was hard to visit family. I’m really glad that we have the opportunity to do so know. Even though we haven’t spent that much time together, there is a bond. I found a whole group of people that have my Mom’s sense of humor. We’re defiantly family and it’s great.

The older I get, the more I appreciate Thanksgiving. It’s everything that a holiday should be. There’s ton’s of food, you get some time off work, hang out with friends and family, and spend the day being grateful. The other night I was listening to a talk radio program, and the host was asking people to call in and tell him about what they were grateful for. I thought it was a good question, so I asked it of my self and came up with several answers: my bike, our jobs, mountains, ect. But two things stuck out: My parents and Hannah. I have thought about this many times. I’m not sure exactly what my parents did, but I was raised understanding what and who to respect and why, the difference between right and wrong, how to judge between right and wrong, how to work hard, and a sense of what is important in life. Every good thing that has come into my life has come because of correct choices I’ve made with the knowledge my parents instilled in me. They’re wonderful, and I love them deeply. And then there’s Hannah. She is the crescendo of all the good choices I’ve ever made, both conscious and unconscious. She motivates me to be a better person, so that I can be with her. She’s beautiful, funny, and deeply thoughtful and spiritual. I love her with all of my heart, and would be so lonely with out her.

I hope you’re all doing well. Be grateful!

Love Eric and Hannah

And now your moment(s) of ZEN……

November 6, 2005

2005-11-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

(Hannah) Well, I turned 29 and I am a little sad about it. Eric said that he didn’t have any sympathy for me because I was still in my twenties. Eric made me dinner for my birthday. He also bought me the book “Puss in Boots” and read it to me that night. I caught a cold for my birthday so Eric reading me cat stories in bed is just what I wanted. (Eric) Hannah wanted me to let you know that the reason she looks so puffy in this photo is because she's waring 7 layers of clothing.

Primary is going well. I love interacting with the kids and teaching in sharing time. I enjoy working with the senior primary the most. They are older and I relate with them better. The junior primary still confuses me sometimes. When the sunbeams flop around on the floor or cry it is difficult for me to reason with them. The primary program is next week and I have volunteered to help lead the music. I have a hard time keeping a straight face when I lead the primary songs. The kids look at me so earnestly. I know they are trying to read my lips so they can sing the right words. I exaggerate my mouth movements which cause me to laugh and then I make the kids laugh and it’s hard for me to get back on track. The children are so wonderful. I have never like kids so much in my life as I do now. I also love working with the other women in the Primary Presidency. Lori Lambert, our president is wonderful, patient and inspired. She is my hero.

Eric and I have been called to sing in the ward choir. I am very excited about the invitation because I miss singing in an organized group. Eric is a little hesitant; he has never sung in a choir before and in the past has always refused to go with me. I admire him. He was called by the choir director to come and because he believes in accepting all callings he is coming. I think that he will learn to love it and that this could be a blessing for him. He has a beautiful voice and never sings off key. He just needs to be taught how to read music and pick out the tenor part.

Eric and I sold our new Xterra and our Toyota Avalon in an attempt to save money. Eric was sad to sell his “dream truck” which we owned outright. It was hard to see it go, but we bought two other great cars, lowered our car payment and put some money in the bank. I bought a silver Passat which is a great car and provides me with heated seats and Eric got a Subaru Outback which he loves.

Yesterday Eric and I took a day trip to Boulder and Eldorado Canyon to check out the rock climbing. We were stuck in traffic for most of the time which allowed for great conversation. We were also birthday shopping for Jenny. I saw a maternity store and went to check it out but was scared off by the window display. Look close and you'll see why. Each one of what ever they are has something printed on them.

Thank you everybody for remembering my Birthday. Phyllis, you letter was wonderful.

Eric bore his testimony today in fast and testimony meeting. He said that he was grateful for our trials that we have had since we have moved to Colorado because it has brought us closer together as a couple and closer to our Heavenly Father. He was right. Life is good and hard sometimes but we are happy.

(Eric) Yesterday morning I woke up early and went for a walk up the Dutch Fred trail in the Pike national forest. It had snowed the night before and was absolutely beautiful. I hiked for about an hour and then spent another hour bouldering. I snapped this photo for Stoney’s photo contest. For those of you who don't know, Stony suggested a photo contest. It's not really a contest, but that's what I'm calling it. He picks a color and a theme and we all take pictures around the criteria. This month he picked brown, and something we're thankful for. My picture is of brown granite rocks. I thought it looked pretty, and you all know how much I love big rocks.

And now your moment of ZEN.....

We miss you all very, very, much and hope to see you all soon.

Love

Eric and Hannah

Oct 9-16

2005-10-16T20:50:00.000-06:00

(Eric) I had an interesting thought this past week. As Hannah and I were singing the sacrament hymn him in church, a mother and her daughter sat in the bench in front of us. The girl is probably about four years old, and was dressed in a black shawl and was caring a purse. She was dressed just like her mother and was obviously feeling very grown up. She looked like she was having fun and was very cute.

This poor girl has some health problems that require her to take medication that causes her face and arms to swell up. I had seen her at different church functions and at a birthday party we attended a few weeks ago. I was impressed with how intelligent, thoughtful and kind she was as she interacted with the other children of the ward.

As I watched her take the sacrament, my hart ached with the thought of a life of hardship from illness. I was further saddened as I remembered that children can say and do cruel things with out the full understanding impact that it has. No sooner had I thought these thoughts that I remembered something that Elder Batemen said in conference (I’m going to paraphrase. For the full talk click on this link.) He basically said that at one time he thought of Christ’s experience in the garden as one where a “large mass of sin was heaped upon him,” but he now believes that it was a much more personal experience. In other words he felt every sin (infirmities) from every person. He also quotes Alma 7:12 which states: “He will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”

I had read that passage in Alma a few days before I had listened to the talk, and it stuck with me. Then I heard Elder Batemen speak. When I saw the young girl it all came together – what it really meant. I had such a feeling of peace and gratitude. That Christ not only paid the price for us, but he has an intament and personal understanding of how we feel not only when we sin, but our sicknesses, our losses, our worries, our pains, and everything else that we feel. I’d heard it before, I’d even bore testimony of it on my mission, but this time I felt it stronger then ever before. What a wonderful blessing the gospel is.

I didn't want to give you a sermon. I just felt like sharing : )

Last week was pretty good for Hannah and I. Both of us finally made some sales, and things are starting to pick up. Hannah landed a large account and I received two good repairs, and sent out quotes for several refurbished scopes. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we feel better about our situation.

Yesterday we went for a bike ride up Indian creek. When we got there we were surprised to find about four inches of snow on the trail. There were patches of dirt, and we thought we still might be able to ride, so we rode for about 5 minutes, but as you can see from the picture the not only was there snow, but the early storm had done a lot of damage and there was broken limbs and debris all over the trail. (Dad, I told Eric to take this picture of me because you love me and moss!!)

Since it was a beautiful day, and the main road was clear, we decided to ride on the pavement. It was wonderful. One of my favorite things about Colorado are the brown granite boulders with pine trees growing around them. As we road, we passed several cabins. It was kind of cold, so the cabins were burning their stoves, and the whole area smelled like fall, and wood smoke…..wonderful.

After the ride Hannah and I went over to our friends house, Aaron and Kristen Hassle, and had dutch oven desert, and played Lord of the Rings risk. I love strategy games, but have a hard time finding people to play with me because they take so long. This time was no exception…we left their house at 2:30am. I had a great time, and couldn’t go to sleep because I was playing everything out in my mind. We had a really good time.

And now your moment of ZEN.....Sleepy Reg in a basket on top of our kitchen cabinets.

We love everyone and hope your doing well.

Love,

Eric and Hannah

October 3 -9

2005-10-09T19:14:00.000-06:00

Greetings from rainy Colorado. How is everyone?

(Hannah) It has been raining all day. Eric is wearing 2 jackets and his robe. We are expecting snow tomorrow. Reggie is sad to be inside so we let him out and he came back with sever mud paw.

Eric and I have been working hard and took a trip an hour south to Colorado Springs to look at some cars. We are selling our Xterra and trading in our new Toyota Avalon, all in attempt to save a little money.

Inside the city limits of Colorado Springs, (which is the Provo of Colorado) is the Garden of the Gods. The garden is a piece of land donated to the public years ago by a local family. And is now maintained by the city and open to the public. It consists of some strange red rock formations right in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The hikes are more like strolls and camping or picnics are not allowed, but it makes for a great Saturday day trip. It’s a mini Zion’s. I am defiantly not a photographer like Dad, but I did get a cool picture of Eric’s shadow scrambling up a ridge.

And now your moment of ZEN....... This picture was taken right after we got up. the bed was still warm, and the cats jumped on it right away.

We love you all and miss you. Thank you for your prayers and concerns. Hope to talk with you all soon.

September 18 - October 2

2005-10-02T19:33:00.000-06:00

(Eric) Well it’s been awhile since we’ve posted. No excuses really except that not much has been happening, so we didn’t have much to put up.

As you all know conference was yesterday and today. It’s not broadcast on TV here unless you have satellite, which we don’t, so we had to listen to it on the internet. At first it seem kind of inconvenient only being able to hear the audio, and not see the video, but then I remembered being a kid and having to see conference at the chapel, and realized that we have it pretty good. As always the talks were great, and they seemed to be just what I needed. I love the gospel, and I’m grateful to have a testimony. I would be unhappy with out it.

(Hannah) Maya Gibson had her 3rd Birthday yesterday, I was asked to make yet another special Hannah Piñata. This one was supposed to be a lady bug. When I took a look at the final product I had to quote Eric by exclaiming “scare ball”. I have never known what he means by that but it fit the occasion. Actually the piñata turned out better than I thought it would. Eric helped me make it the night before and then we left the wet piñata in the office with the window open. Well it was cold that night and the balloon shrunk and the piñata caved in on its self and was still mushy. Eric wanted to put it in the oven and I consented because I was busy getting ready for work. Well ten minutes later I hear Eric yelling and a few minutes after that he presented me in the bathroom with a steaming mass of newspaper. The balloon had swollen due to the sudden heat and then exploded leaving a huge cravas (sp?) with steam poring out of it

(Eric) When we moved to Colorado we were told that the area we live in is not suited for cats. There are too many foxes, coyotes, and turkey vultures. We heard horror stories about people’s cats disappearing, so we decided that our cats could only be out during the day time. This works out fine for Reggie. He is very sociable, and loves to be out side. We have to trick him to come in at night, but for the most part it’s not a problem. Sally on the other hand is scared of everything, so she hates to go outside during the day. Because she can’t go out night, she’s inside 24/7. It wasn’t a problem until recently when we noticed that she had started to scratch on the stairs. She is bored, so she scratches. We have a post for her, but it just wasn’t enough. Reggie, who is really just a follower, figured that if Sally could do it so could he.

We tried everything we could think of, and still they scratched. Finely I read an article on line about scratching. It said that one of the reasons cats scratch is to mark territory. If you spray some kind of citrus spray (which they hate) on the area they won’t be as likely to scratch there…if they have an alternative. Since we’re poor, I didn’t want to buy another scratching post, so I made one. Only cost me six bucks. I didn’t want to pay anything for it, but I couldn’t find any scraps.

After it was built, we started playing with Reggie around the post. As soon as he realized that he could scratch it, he started going crazy. He was clawing at it with all four paws, ripping into one room and then running full blast back to the post and jumping at it with all fours again. He was playing so hard that he started panting. We had to quit playing with him because our bellies hurt from laughing.

(Hannah) Well, you can tell that we have been busy working if the highlight of our week is the new scratching post.

Last Saturday Tsaile Gibson was baptized (she is the daughter of our friends Tim and Holly from Alaska who live by us now). She asked me to give a talk on baptism. There were two other girls their getting baptized, one was Sierra Wolfe. Eric is her home teacher so she asked him the give the talk on the Holy Ghost. So Eric and I were the two speakers for the baptism. It was wonderful to remember the day that I was baptized. Eric gave a great talk and used a rock spray painted gold as the Liahona.

Varenka Beesley Harman, her little boy Cedros and her parents, Colleen and Wayne Beesley came to visit us. It was so nice to see them. Varenka has always been a genuine friend. We went to the Molly Brown house, which is the preserved house of Margaret Brown. If you have seen The Unsinkable Molly Brown you know who I am talking about. It was much more interesting than I thought it would be. Those Beesleys know how to pick the winners. The home was amazing. What was more amazing is that Cedros (2) sat in his stroller through the entire tour. The tour guide even found Varenka afterwards to tell her what a good mom she is.

Varenka and Colleen drove out here but Wayne took the train from Salt Lake after flying in from Mexico. He had just finished a Book of Mormon tour in Mexico and Guatemala. Wayne rocks!! He was so excited about the Book of Mormon tour that he yelled out in the middle of Union Station “It was like freakin’ Sunday school the whole time”!!!! Eric was highly entertained by his enthusiasm. Later he showed us videos of the ruins which convinced Eric and me to work harder so we can afford to go too.

Colleen, Varenka and I also went to a thrift store that they knew about. It was defiantly not a Utah DI. Everything was new or in good shape and not picked through. Colleen stocked up on dress up accessories for her grandkids. She is a wonderful, patient grandmother. The Beesleys are wonderful people who were extremely welcoming when we were teenagers and still are.

Eric has lost 20 lbs and looks great. We just baked banana bread together and are going to take some to the Bishop. Eric promised him some bread for his help with a job referral. We have attempted to make him bread twice before but one batch was nasty and the other batch Eric ate.

And now your moment of ZEN....

We love you,

Eric and Hannah

Sept 5th - 10th

2005-09-11T21:20:00.000-06:00

So that everyone can tell who is speaking we will state our names before our paragraphs.

ERIC - I hope everyone is doing well. Saturday morning Hannah had to attend the leadership conference, so I decide to go on a ride by my self. I choose my nemesis – Deer Creek Canyon. I rode it before, but never made it to the top. As you can see from the pictures the beginning is rather technical, and the whole trail is steep. The pictures don’t do the steepness justices. Anyway, I made it to the top and was rewarded with spectacular views of the hog back that separates Denver from the foot hills.

HANNAH: Well, I am working hard and unfortunately getting more and more busy. I took Eric on a date last night to the dollar movies. I made him watch ‘Sky High’. It is a pre-teen movie about teenage super heroes. Eric was hesitant because of the PG rating, but I reminded him that ‘The Parent Trap’ is rated PG and it is one of his favorite movies. He can watch those troublesome twins for hours.

Reggie and Sally are bad kitties. Sally has started scratching the carpet on the stairs and Eric told me today that he liked the carpet more than the cat, so she would have to go if it continued. I think we will just clip her nails tonight. Reggie and I bond every morning and night when I am getting ready for bed. I let him lay in my bathroom sink and then I turn the water on. He doesn’t mind the water at all. His fat little belly even clogs up the drain and he creates a little bath for himself. This is fun for both of us, but it does leave a lot of hair in and around the sink. Eric has moved all of his stuff into the guest bathroom because apparently Reggie and I are “filthy animals”. ERIC – I never called anyone a “filthy animal.” However I did move bath rooms because I was tired of cleaning hair out of my sink.

Eric and I are still working hard. We are both in sales and starting new positions and consequently have still not made any money. Colorado is an expensive place to live and the lack in incoming money is a little stressful. We are paying our tithing and working hard and hope for the best. We both agree that this is probably a good experience for us. Living in Utah was easy for us. Colorado has made us stretch and grow and realize how much more we need to rely on our Heavenly Father and listen to the Still Small Voice. I have already felt the blessing of the Holy Ghost in my job and calling.

And now your moment of ZEN.....

We love you all,

Eric and Hannah

Aug 29 - Sept 3

2005-09-04T20:54:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone!! I hope you’re all doing well. Hannah and I don’t watch much TV, so we didn’t know Hurricane Katrina was as bad as it was until we watched the news on Thursday. The interesting thing is Hannah watched a documentary six months ago about what would happen to New Orleans if it was ever hit by a bad hurricane. Unfortunately every thing predicted happened. If anyone is interested in more pictures, click the link: Hurricane Katrina. After we found out how bad it was, we called David and Wren. David said that they were ok, and that the hurricane actually brought better than normal weather to Tampa….crazy how things work out.

Hannah likes her job a little bit better. She’s starting to make some sales, and thinks there might be some potential if she can hold out. Last Friday she went to a bid for the Denver Airport. At the bid she met the sales manager of a competing company, Initial Tropical Plants. She had interviewed with them before she accepted the job with Bristol. The lady recognized her, and wants to talk to her about working for them. The position would be in the future….2112 to be exact….sorry I’m a dork. What I meant was that they don’t have any current openings, but they want her to consider them in the future. I should have deleted the previous statement, but I thought it sounded kind of funny so I added the 2112 part…I digress. The bottom line is that Hannah has other options. The only problem is that Bristol wants her to sign a “non-compete” and it’s pretty broad. She read it to me and the way I understand it is that she wouldn’t be able to work in the tropical plant industry for two years after she left Bristol. She’s thinking about having one of our friends, who is a lawyer, read it and see exactly what she will and won’t be able to do if she signs.

Thursday we went back to Indian Creek. So far it’s my favorite bike ride. There’s never anyone there, and the trail is loads of fun. I had Hannah take a picture of me coming down a steep drop, but there wasn’t enough light and it didn’t turn out very well. Let just imagine that I looked spectacular : ) Next time Stoney comes, we’re definitely taking him on this one. He will think it’s a “sucker pit” because you ride downhill first and then have to ride uphill to get back to the car. Stoney calls these downhill-first rides “sucker pits” because you get tricked into going further than you planed.

Friday we went on a hike with our friends Aaron and Kirsten. The destination was to Devils Head Fire Look Out, one of the last manned forest fire look outs in the country. The hike was easy except for the 148 steep steps to get to the top. It didn’t look bad, but at 140 my legs were burning. Once on top the views were wonderful. As you would expect, we had 360 degree view of pine trees and granite out cropings….my favorite combination. We watched the sun set, and on the way back down it was dark. We passed the time talking about bear and cougar attacks which is a very bad topic of conversation while walking through the dark woods of Colorado. Personally I’m much more afraid of the cougars. They don’t give you much of a chance, and there aren’t a lot of survivors….at least that I’ve heard about.

Reggie is fat and faithful. Sally has bad breath and is still silky. Eric is still losing weight and I have gained back 1 pound. We miss everyone terribly but we are learning tough lessons, reading the Book of Mormon and loving our lives.

And now your moment of ZEN..........

Well that’s all from us. We love you all.

Cheers

Eric and Hannah

P.S. Hannah and I both wrote this, so the voice may seem a little strange.

Augest 14-27 2005

2005-08-28T21:44:00.000-06:00

Two Saturday’s ago Hannah and our friend Tim went on a bike ride at Buffalo Creek. I had wanted to explore the area south of us, so I choose a ride just off CO 85. It wasn’t until we were loaded up and on the road that Hannah realized that the road we needed to take was in fact CO 285……big difference. It’s not South it’s west, and a ways off. After informing me that I’m always missing little details like that, we drove to CO 285 and began the hour and a half drive to the trail head. The beginning of the tail was flat and extremely muddy. As we started to climb it dried out and was quite fun. On one section of the climb there is a dead fall tree that has fallen over the trail, and you have to duck to get under it…..Hannah didn’t duck enough and bonked her head. It was yet another experience confirming that helmets are a good thing.

We went on two other rides last week, but didn’t take many pictures. The one we went on last Thursday, Indian Creek, had the best down hill that I’ve found since I’ve been here. It’s single track, with steep hills and tight turns. The only problem is that you start out and the top. I always like to get the reward after the work out. The good time is diminished a little knowing that you still have to come back up.

Yesterday I went to a Bio Med conference at Pine Hills golf course. There was a best ball tournament in the morning followed by a trade show. This was the first event like this that we had done, and it turned out quite well. We met lots of people, and we were the only ones that repair the kinds of instruments that we repair. No competition is always good in those kinds of situations.

I’ve been golfing for about three years, and not very good. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up, but as it turned out, I carried the team…that’s not good. I’m not sure were we placed, but I didn’t talk to anyone that had a higher score than us. My boss’ team on the other hand had the best score, and I didn’t hear the end of it. I think that experience with give him enough ammunition to fire at me for quite some time.

I got to the course before my boss, so I walked around the grounds for a while. I noticed a squirrel playing around some trees, so I stopped and watched him for a while. All of a sudden he made a mad dash for something on the ground. He was moving so fast that when he got to the object he had to skid to a stop. He picked up what looked like a stick and started going crazy. I looked closer and noticed that it was a rib bone with a little bit of meat still on it…I had discovered a vicious meat eating squirrel….crazy. He was really going down on that thing.
Unfortunately you can't see the squirrel very well in the picture...but I swear he was gnawing on a bone with meat on it.

Today I was asked to sub for the seven year olds in primary. I don’t think that the lesson went well, but they seemed to have a good time. The best part of the hour was the activity, which was a puzzle that said “love one another.” When they were done they were extremely proud, as you can see from the picture.

(Hannah now…) I started my new job as the Sales Manager for Bristol Botanics. They are the second largest interior plant company in the Denver area. I am getting to know the other employees and will present my first presentation tomorrow. But to be honest with everyone, I really do not like the job. I have never quit a job because I was unhappy, so this may be a first. It has been a long hard two weeks. I realize how blessed I have been in the past, and hopefully will have more gratitude in the future. Other than that life is good.

Primary is going well and I will be singing in a special music program in Relief Society in a week or so. I have stopped eating candy and have lost 2 pounds. This may not sound like much, but it is a miracle that I have abstained from sugar this long. They even have a big basket of candy bars in our office that tempt me every time I walk by. The candy cut off almost killed me the first week, but I am feeling better than ever. I still let myself have a big dessert on Sunday’s. Eric is cutting out sugar as well and is eating better. He has lost about 10 lbs. I am very proud of him. He looks better and can ride his bike faster. He still can’t keep up with me on the uphill but beats me every time on the down hill.

And now your moment of ZEN....

We love and miss you all.

Love,

Eric and Hannah

August 7 – 13

2005-08-14T20:13:00.000-06:00

It’s Sunday evening and Hannah is at the “It’s great to be eight” fireside. She is giving a talk that she titled “The age of account ability.” She didn’t tell me all that was going to be in it, but she did mention that she planed to tell them about her baptism. I know that she will do great. Some of her best testimonies have been about her baptism. I find this interesting that it is still so strong a memory for her. I believe that she was truly converted by that time if not before – which is wonderful.

This past week was the last week that we will be having cub scouts at our house…..hallelujah! They’re great kids, but tend to be a little rowdy. Not too surprising, but we will be glad to meet at the elementary school from now on. For those of you that don’t know, I’m over the bear cubs. I’ve never been a Den leader before, and I’m really enjoying it. Our activity was “Sports, Sports, Sports.” We started off by talking about the benefits to physical fitness, and then did sever activities: push-ups, sit-ups, standing long jump and a 30 yard sprint. It was fun to see the act tough and show off to each other. One boy was particularly proud that he could do one handed push-ups and wanted to show me. He assumed the position, and proceeded to move his body up and down, but his arm never bent. When he got up his face was beat red. I held my tongue and told him that he did a great job : )

Saturday morning Hannah and I took our friend Tim on a bike ride up Waterton canyon. I got up at 6 am, looked out side, and was disappointed to see it raining. Luckily the rain stopped and we were able to go. The cool overcast weather made for a great ride. Unfortunately the battery on my camera died, so I only got the one picture. The trail goes up through the trees along a series of switch backs. On the way down, I got a little excited and didn’t make one of the switch back, and took a header off the trail into the brush. I’m not sure exactly what happened but I banged up my shoulder, and hit my head. It was good that I was wearing my helmet. I have to admit that I haven’t’ always wore a helmet. I don’t like them, but I can assure that from now on I will always have one on. Stoney if your reading this…….

After our bike ride we went over to Tim and Holly’s house for their son Farris’ 5^th birthday party. Hannah made his piñata, which as you can see is a fish (Farris’ nick name) and she was quite proud of her self. One of the activities at the birthday party was all the kids got to through whip cream at Tim. Because I found this highly amusing they gave me a shot.

For a present Hannah and I got Farris his first skate board. When he opened it up, all the other kids said that their parents wouldn’t let them have one. At first we felt bad, but then we justified our actions by telling our selves that it’s good for kids to have scraped knees and elbows….just make sure he wares a helmet, and don’t call me if he has to go to the emergency room. We told Tim and Holly we were sorry if they didn’t want him to have one yet, but Holly said that Tim had been trying to get him one for a long time…..whew!...we didn’t want to be the only bad influences in Farris’ life.

In closing......your moment of zen (It's a daily show thing)

That’s all for now. We hope your all well.

Love,

Eric and Hannah

My Fist Shot At The Blog

2005-08-09T15:43:00.000-06:00

Hey Everyone,

I've always wanted to create some sort of web site that we could all communicate through. During my research I came across blogger, and thought I'd give it a try. This isn't perfect, but it's better than email......and it doesn't cost anything. It's also really easy to use. Feel free to post your comments...in fact please post your comments. I'd like to hear what you think. Also, if you ever want me to post something: Links , pictures or announcements, let me know and I'll post them.

For starters I'll post some pictures and other miscellaneous items that I might have already sent you via email, but I needed something to start out with, so bare with me.

When got lied off, Hannah and I had about two months to hang out together. With the exception of our missions this was the longest either of us had ever gone without working. Because our spending was to be kept at a minimum, we couldn't do any of the home improvements that we wanted to do so we spent our time biking, hiking, and lounging around....it was glorious. We also took a little time job hunting. It was then that we decided that we wanted to move straight to retirement, but not having the recourses we continued to look for work.

During this time, my friend Tim got a job in Colorado, and he and his family stayed with us for a few days.

He and his wife Holly have three kids (Above: Their son Farris) and it was great to have them. When they moved into their home our house felt empty, and we missed them. Shortly after they left, Hannah's sisters Sunny, Jenny and her husband Jarred came for a visit.

While they were here we went to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. We spent the day looking at the exhibits.

The museum is huge. The nature section has these incredible taxidermied animals with interesting commentary and other props. The deer display had foam rubber deer ears that were hollow. The idea being that if you put them on you should be able to hear like a deer....Sunny loved this as you can see from the picture.

After the Museum closed, we relaxed on the lawn for an hour, and then saw the IMAX movie
"Mysterys of the Nile."

If you've never been to an IMAX, I highly recommend it. The cinematography is fantastic, and the stories are usually pretty good. After everyone left, the house was once again empty and we were forced to find other ways to entertain ourselves.

I've always enjoyed hiking peaks, and Colorado has more 14,000 foot peaks than any other state. We decided a great way to become better acquainted with the area would be to climb some of them. The first one we chose was Mt. Bierstadt. We didn't make it all the way to the top, due to an incoming thunder storm, but the hike was great none the less.

We've also been on some great bike rides. One of our favorites was ride in the Elk meadow open space area just outside of Evergreen. The trail was easy, but really fun. There was just enough uphill to make your legs burn and just enough down hill to get your adrenaline pumping.

Well that's about all I have to say for now. Remember to let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Eric