wildcelticrose.net

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Wallace Falls Photos

Update tomorrow

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After seeing the “Way Back Week” suff on Facebook where folks were changing their profile pictures to old ones, I started looking through some old photos…

I thought I’d offer a few up here for fun.

A couple of days ago, I offered up some California and Wyoming photos. Today, I’ll post a few from my days in Colorado.

I was a Park Ranger and River Guide and a Ski Instructor when I lived there (OK, that’s the same thing I did when I was in Moab UT, but this is my Colorado post)

I was required to remove my duty belt, body armor and sidearm for this photo session because it was for the Junior Ranger brochure.

Here are my friend Lindy and I at Powderhorn where we taught skiing.

On spring skiing days, we could wear shirts and vests only.

This cute little kid next to me is Ian Groo, AKA “my favorite monster” he was ten at the time; he’s in his mid-20′s now. He and his dad came up to ski and visit me and he was kind of getting underfoot when I was teaching, so I started out with “Ian, you know you’re my favorite monster…”

He looked at me and said, “I’m your ONLY monstor.”

He was an awesome kid. I miss him.

This is my buddy Ed and I skiing at Vail. We used to get awesome deals in the spring $15 for a two day lift ticket for locals.

Speaking of Ed, here he is with his boat “Watts Out” putting in on the Colorado River above Glenwood Springs.

and here I am rowing my first ever class IV rapid, “Man Eater”

and here’s a shot farther up river on the Powerhouse Run (where it’s tradition to moon the freight trains) while we were on a BLM patrol

Here Ed and I are with my friends Dusty and Andy (Dusty is the one with the large “lime green gozongas” christening my raft the “USS Estrogen” (on the river we used cheap beer for such things) Dusty and I cheated death in Westwater Canyon in that boat more than once… Oh the stories we can tell about Skull and Surprise rapids.

After the river guiding accident that fractured my spine and pelvis/almost killed me, I shocked my friend Karen by showing up at her housewarming party in Aspen just a few days after being released from the hospital.

Yes, my hair was very blonde then. I was also very tan because I was in the sun all day, every day from sun up to sun down.

Well, that’s enough photo spam for now…

for now

~L

Mood: Amused

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Here are the portraits I shot for (and of) my friend Crystal today…

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Gene’s awesome mom, sent me a link to the pictures that she and his Dad took of He, Kathy and I at the Moses Lake Triathlon.

THIS is my favorite. I almost look like I think I’m doing something “naughty” for trying to strip off my wetuit in front of one of my freind’s parents

Here are the rest of the photos.

In other news, the cohabitation is going well.

I’m actually quite relaxed and the BadKitty is prancing around the place like she owns it. (she previous photo of the Icky Boy on his hands and knees petting the kitty)

~L

Mood: happy

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Here’s the slideshow.

Now I’m heading out for a run and then a swim and maybe a trip out to Molly’s to visit…

more later…

~L

Mood: It’s SUNNY!

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It was a pretty mellow weekend, which I needed.

There was “icky boy time”, “best friend time”, “photography time” and “music time”.

I took a few walks, but mostly rested and ate. I’m making a conscious effort to replenish what the last several weeks of not sleeping or eating right (some days, not eating at all) too out of me and caused my bonk on Chilly Hilly. I’m also making a concerted effort to get more potassium into my diet, and I was likely somewhat hypokalemic (low potassium levels which can cause/exacerbate SVT/cardiac arrhythmias) I’m not going to take a supplement, but I’m making sure to eat more potassium rich foods such as orange juice, avocados and sweet potatoes. Despite popular misconception, bananas are not the best source and I find them gross, as well as a huge waste of fuel and other resources to ship them this far away from where they grow. Oh, and I’m also taking my vitamins and calcium/magnesium/vitamin-D supplements again.

I had a wonderful photo safari at the WW Seymour Botanical Conservatory just down the street in Wright Park.

I’ve been working my fingers raw on the violin to learn the new piece (I chose a difficult one on purpose)

It’s making me read music again.

I posted the link to the flashcards in my last post, but after some searching, I finally found the awesome practice tooks that I used before. They are at emusictheory.com the best music online music practice tool I’ve ever found.

This one is a FABULOUS timed note drill. You can choose treble, base or grand staffs and include or exclude sharps and flats

This one, is an awesome violin fingering drill. You’re shown the note on the staff and have to find the placement on the violin finger board.

Speaking of violins.

Mine still hasn’t told me her name.

My first violin’s name is “Fiona”. (aka, my Fine Irish Fiddle Cleverly Disguised as a Cheap Chinese Violin)

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to name her?

I’d like a Celtic-Gaelic name if possible but I’m open to other suggetions.

She’s very beautiful, and has a sweet, dark, tone…

I’m taking suggestions, let em fly folks…

Now, I need to get some serious practice in, write a magazine article that is due and get some photos in, and get ready for the upcoming work week.

~L

Mood: Musical

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A friend of mine was adding some Tom T Hall songs to his MySpace profile. He hadn’t yet added one of my favorite Tom T Hall songs.

I found the original recording on YouTube. The video isn’t so good, but it’s great to hear the silly song.

Last night, I went over to the icky boy’s for dinner and do to laundry.

I was wearing some running pants, instead of my usual warm fuzzy lounge pants.

The first words out of his mouth were… “What? No moose jammies?”

“Uh, no… I thought I’d wash them so that they wouldn’t be stinky moose jammies.”

Here are said moose jammies all nice and clean. (piccie taken with my new phone)

This morning, I woke up feeling pretty decent and can’t decide if I want to swim today (tomorrow would be better as the pool will be open for adult swim only) or an easy run in the park; or maybe just a long walk?

If I look out one window, I see a bit of blue sky peeking out, if I look out the other window, I see storm clouds.

Tonight, we’re going over to Molly and Charlie’s for dinner; it seems like forever since I’ve seen my best friend, we’ve both been so busy and stressed. (and no, I’m not wearing my moose jammies)

I’ve been doing well on my fiddle practice and have been making time every day no matter how busy I am. I picked a more difficult fiddle tune to learn this week so that I’d be forced to read the music. (I only learned when I was 41, so it’s not like I had a lifetime of it and it wasn’t easy to forget with a 4 ½ year break. I’m getting it back and that makes me happy.

For anyone interested in learning, relearning or just wanting to see how much they do (or don’t) remember; here’s a cute site with online musical note flashcard (just in treble clef)

here they are…. treble clef flashcards

I should probably go actually practice instead of just talking about practice…

~L

Mood: amused

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When I logged into my computer this morning and pulled up my start page, I got a blast from the past in the form of one of Yahoo’s most emailed photos.

A vehicle over the side of a cliff.

A familiar looking cliff.

It is Colorado National Monument where I used to be a visitor protection ranger and used to have to rappel down cliffs all the time after people who had fallen or cars that had gone over (dumping stolen cards or suicide attempts) to do rescues, check for victims and/or pepare for haz mat cleanup of anti-freeze, gas oil etc….

How come the cars I went after were never this easily accessible? This one is way more convenient that anything I ever had to go after.

Van Drives off Cliff at Colorado National Monument

The little blurb mentioned that they had 27 suicide attempts last year.

Holy crap!!!

Well, I need to get moving now.

I was woken up before I really wanted to get up this morning which is unfortunate since I haven’t been sleeping well.

Today is the only day forecast to have clean air (the freezing polluted fog just started to lift yesterday) and I have GOT to get outside and be active before I go the rest of the way insane. It may snow tomorrow.

I need to get some coffee into my body, go swim, and then head out for a club bike ride. Then I’m heading over to my best friend’s house to run/walk/jog/wog and then drink cheap champagne.

After that, I’ve got to get to the store to pick up items to go in the cache for our Grand Canyon trip and figure out what to do for dinner. I’m having the icky boy over as he will be spending the entire day helping out with the Mountaineers intermediate climbing class qualifer.

~L

Mood: Tired