Peek-A-Boo

O Where Is My Hairbrush?

Wakey Doggie Silly

Sweet Dreams

Belly-Button Lent And Vail

Lent began on Wednesday...what, you didn't know? Anyway, after some soul searching, chapel on Friday, and article/blog reading, I've decided to give up blogging for Lent. I'd better not type much more or else I'll be blogging!

I'll still post any cute pictures of Julia or family activities during this time. However, I am going to take a hiatus the next 40 days from typing about such "important" life issues (e.g. football, etc) described by the writer of Ecclesiastes (King Solomon) as "meaningless". Hopefully, I will replace the time otherwise spent blogging on things that aren't "chasing after the wind" and "vanity". And, I plan to actually talk to my wife and parents about things that I do rather then make them read my blog to find out about them or what I'm thinking.

So, without further ado, here are some pictures I took in Vail this weekend. Stacey and I left Julia with my parents and bummed around Vail on Saturday and Sunday. The picture you see here is where we met in Silverthorne on our way home and on my parent's way to Steamboat.

Weekly Spurs Update

I've decided that I'm going to try and limit my posts about Tottenham to once a week, since 4 out of 5 of my readers probably "couldn't give a toss". The one reader who does is actually myself, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since I'm the one writing it in the first place. I mean, is it bad that I write these posts and then enjoy thinking to myself "that's exactly what I was thinking" after reading them? Anyway, I'm already off topic (see my previous post about narcisscism).

Monday night's game against Hull was huge. Considering we played at least a day after everyone else, we knew going into the game that if we could get a victory it would put us 5 points above relegation. If we lost, we would stay in the same spot we've been all season with fewer and fewer games remaining. We ended up winning 2-1, on a late header from Woodgate. This is a huge result and gives us at least a game cushion considering our superior goal difference. Big, big win.

Thursday we host Shakhtar, and I'll just follow this one online. After the Hull game Harry was interviewed and flat out said we beat Hull because we rested our players against Shakhtar a few days prior. He pointed out that Villa had not rested their players and they ended up losing to Chelsea. Yeah, it was Chelsea, but they and Villa had similar records and so did Spurs and Hull. He proceeded to slam the fixture list about this and the fact that we have a game on Thursday night a few days before a cup final! Anyways, if we fielded a weak team last week, this week's matchup against Shakhtar is going to be even weaker. I'm pretty sure he said he'll make 11 changes to the team that played Monday night against Hull and will give even more of our "youngings" a run out.

This leads me to Sunday morning...8 a.m. Tottenham face United in the Carling Cup Final, hoping to pull off the upset in the same cup final as they did last year against Chelsea. Anything can happen, but I wouldn't bet on it this time around. Regardless, another cup this year would slightly sweeten this bitter season. Additionally, it would get us back into the UEFA Cup next year - something we can't do in the league since we're so far down the table.

Things are looking a bit more hopeful right now. Who knows, if we happen to win on Sunday and hit a good stretch, we could end the season in mid table and with a cup! That's a far cry from even a few days ago. Here's hoping.

The Death of Facebook

I wanted to pass along a great article that has been floating around. It's an insightful take on so-called online social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It's just something for you online social network users to think about.

Although blogs can also serve as a platform for narcissism, I believe this blog's primary purpose is a way for us to share pictures and videos (and sometimes thoughts) of our life with our family and friends. That is, it's a facilitator to the relationship and not a replacement.

EDIT: AFTER THINKING THROUGH THIS ON MATT'S BLOG, I'VE COME TO THE REALIZATION THAT ALTHOUGH THIS BLOG IS SUPPOSED TO FACILITATE RELATIONSHIPS, IT MAY IN FACT REPLACE THEM AT TIMES. HMM...I THINK I NEED TO THINK ABOUT THIS SOME MORE BEFORE I MAKE THAT LAST STATEMENT.

Check this out: The Death of Facebook

Extreme Ice Climbing

Mark

Josh

New Mountaineering Techniques

Watch carefully as I demonstrate these new techniques:

Australian Glissade

KP Rapid Descent

Mount Shavano

This weekend Josh, Mark Rockefeller, Chris and Lara (newlyweds/SAR in training), and I headed out for an overnight trip up Mt. Shavano and Tabeguache Peak. I left Colorado Springs at about 9 a.m. on Saturday and met up with everyone except Mark who was coming from Denver in Woodland Park. We met up with Mark at the Gunsmoke gas station in Johnson’s Village, only shortly behind schedule due to Mark getting pulled over by a state patrolman a few miles outside town. Luckily, he was only cited for a bald rear tire!

The road to the trailhead was covered with snow, so we were only able to make it to the first creek crossing and had to park our vehicles there. Unfortunately, that stopped us almost 3 miles from the summer trailhead. The walk up the road was easy and we didn’t need our snowshoes until we actually reached the trailhead 3 miles into our journey. We snowshoed until dark, in some places breaking trail. After a very salty dinner, Mark and Josh and I snuggled up in the 3-man tent while Chris and Lara did the same in their 2-man.

That night our tent was directly on snow, so I was able to test out my new sleeping pad and bag. A few days earlier I had purchased a 0 degree synthetic North Face mummy bag and a Big Agnes inflatable sleeping pad. Both worked great and I never woke up cold. If anything I was hot sleeping between Mark and Josh. I did wake up a few times during the night due to the wind. Luckily, we had picked the perfect camping spot below tree line to be out of the wind. When I awoke, I pulled out my iPhone to check the forecast for the day since it was supposed to be fairly windy. Unfortunately, the forecast hadn’t changed and still called for wind…which seemed to be fairly accurate since it was constantly whipping through the trees above our heads!

Josh, Mark, and I decided to head up to the bottom of the angel at 11,800 feet, just in case. My hope was that the weather might change or that we might be sheltered that close to the mountain. As you’ll see from our pictures, that didn’t really pan out. The highest reading Josh got was about 42 mph. On the way home I looked at the current forecast and it said gusts up to 65 mph. Needless to say, when the wind gets that hard the fun factor blows away with it. So, we made the decision to call it a day and try again some other time. Before we left, we did some self-arresting with our ice-aces but also played around on some of the hills as you will see in coming video posts.

At the end of the trip Josh guessed we had covered 11 miles and my guess was 10. After loading the route from the GPS into the computer it showed a round trip of 10.51 miles! Technically he won unless we were playing by The Price is Right rules…which then means I won. At any rate, it was a good trip. We had a good time and it was great to catch up with Mark along the way.

Music by OK Go (Here It Goes Again)