Productive Day

I had a productive day today. I mowed the lawn for the second (and probably last) time this summer (grass grows slow up here). I also started putting up the Christmas lights. Since I never took them off the trees from last year, all I did was move the lights from the trees to the roof, which is where I had originally intended on putting them. Before you question why I am doing the Christmas lights in September, know that last year I put them up after Thanksgiving and had to do it in two feet of snow in the freezing cold. The weather is pretty good here right now, so I'm taking advantage of it.

I also built a bench out of an old snowboard today. I used some scrap 2x4s I had laying around and I think it turned out pretty well.


I made the bench to put under the kitchen table. We normally have the table pushed against a wall. When we have more than three people eat, though, we have to pull the table out and put folding chairs behind it. Now, we have a bench ready to go when we pull the table out. The top of the board is pretty ugly, but I plan on doing something to make it look better.

I also built a display case for the 20 year old food I found when I cleaned out the cabinets last spring. I used some more scrap would I had laying around and plexiglass leftover from when I replaced the plexiglass in the storm door last summer. You can't really see it in the picture, but there is a piece of plexiglass closing the front of the case. I used the table saw to cut grooves in the wood to hold the plexiglass.


The rice in the bottom right was the official sponsor of the 1992 Olympics. The baby food in the upper left expired in 1987, so it was probably mine. The Mac & Cheese doesn't have any dates on it, but the price tag says "4 for 88¢". It must be old! I'm going to get a bracket so I can hang this gem on the wall.

Shed Update

I finished painting the green on the shed. Just have the trim left and it's finished.


I had some company while I was painting Monday evening, a couple of mule deer hanging out on the other side of the street, just 15 yards from where I was. They stayed for a while, until Piglet came and chased them off.

Climbing Mt. Massive

Labor day weekend was pretty crazy for me. I worked at a ski show for Loveland selling 4-Paks and season passes down in Denver on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday afternoons. Friday evening, after I got home around ten, I packed my bags and set off to climb Mt. Massive, a 14er, with some friends.

I made it to the spot where my friends had already set up camp around 11.45 pm after about a two hour drive. I rolled out my sleeping pad and sleeping bag in the back of my Jeep and slept until my alarm went off at 3 am. We had originally wanted to reach the summit at sunrise so we could watch it from 14,421 feet. We didn't leave quite early enough for that, but we were at the trailhead by 4.30 am (I had a slow crew to break camp with).

It was pretty close to a new moon, so it was very dark and the first two hours of our hike were in the pitch black, hiking through the woods with headlamps. Without the moon, though, the stars were incredible. We stopped several times and turned our headlamps off just to admire them. About the same time we made it to the tree level (a little over 11,000 feet), the sky had become just light enough that we could hike without our headlamps. Here's the sun just starting to glow in the valley 1,000 feet below.

From there, we had another 2.5 miles to hike and nearly 3,500 vertical feet to gain. That is a very steep assent. The hike was similar to climbing thousands of loose, rocky, steep stairs for three hours. By 8.30 am, after around 4 hours of hiking, we'd reached the summit. I was in a bit of a hurry to get back down because I had to be back in Denver to work at the ski show by 3 pm. I spent about a half hour on the summit basking in the sun, eating, and relaxing before the hike down.

I left my group at the summit around 9 am, hoping to make it back to my Jeep by 11. After I'd gotten only a couple hundred yards from the summit, I saw a family of mountain goats. I think they were as interested in us as we were in them.

The hike down was as challenging as the trek to the top. I maintained a pretty quick pace on the way down, nearly jogging at times. The hike up and the brutally steep decent had my quads shaking with each step down. I had to stop several times and sit down to rest my legs. I didn't have time to waste, though, and forced myself to keep moving. In spite of my breaks, I made it back to my Jeep before 11 am, less than two hours after leaving the summit and less than half the time it had taken to reach it.

It took every bit of the four hours I had left to drive back to the cabin, shower, and drive to Denver in time for work at the ski show. I was physically exhausted, but made it through the show and the drive back home before collapsing in bed. My legs were incredibly sore the next two-and-a-half days, but climbing Mt. Massive has been one of the highlights of my summer.

The rest of the pictures are on flickr.

Primed Shed

I got the shed primed and ready for paint at the end of last week. It already looks significantly better. Can't wait to put the bright green paint on it and have it match the cabin!

Job Update

I've been applying for engineering jobs in Colorado like crazy. Almost every day, I apply for new positions that have been posted. I have also made some connections in engineering companies that I'm trying to leverage for a job opportunity. In the meantime, I've been working at the local tourist railroad, The Georgetown Loop. I'm a platform attendant there, which means I take peoples' tickets and help them board and unload the train safely. I also have to clean the bathrooms. It pays the bills, though, and will hopefully only be temporary, until I get an engineering job.