It was the strangest thing, and has been quietly haunting me ever since it happened.

We were on our way out the door to surprise a friend on his birthday, saying goodbye to a guest who had spent the night and was now on his way to Colorado, by bicycle. Tom had taken the first load of things out to the car, when he called me, and pointed out a small baby bird, still slightly downy, hopping and cheeping on our walkway. It didn’t seem able to fly yet, and could only manage a few feet in a flutter.

That was interesting, and I thought maybe I’d go out and take a picture. I sat down on the sidewalk, and started taking pictures, and the little guy (girl?) started hopping toward me. I held still, delighted to be getting a close-up view, and trying not to frighten it away. I shouldn’t have worried about that. It hopped straight up to me, and cuddled in next to my leg. When I moved away, it followed me and settled in again. It seemed cold (in spite of the down coat?), and desperately cute.

The only explanation for this one being out on its own, that I could think of, was that he’d been kicked out of his nest by a stronger sibling or something, and left without help from his parents, hopping and peeping as it was, it was probably going to end up as a coyote snack, if it didn’t die of exposure or starvation first.

Normally, I can be fairly stoic when it comes to natural selection. In nature, sometimes even the really cute little guys get killed and eaten, but then the cute little guys rarely make a personal plea. They rarely come right up and ask for a little warmth. It had snuggled up to me. It had started a Relationship.

Crap.

I know nothing about how to care for a young bird. I didn’t know what kind of bird it was, or what it would normally eat. If we fed it, would it still learn to forage for itself eventually? Even more of an issue, we were leaving for a 3 day weekend in San Diego. We couldn’t take it with us, or care for it while it was here. so, we settled for leaving an old fleece jacket on the sidewalk with the little bird, and continued packing the car. Almost immediately, the bird settled into the jacket and I was able to pick up jacket and bird and move it to a more sheltered location. Then we left.

Tom wondered aloud whether we’d really done it a favor or not. Starving to death doesn’t sound like a good way to go. Maybe it would have been better for it to have been left more exposed, to die more quickly from a predator.

We’ll never know. When we got back, the little bird was gone.

I learned later, that sometimes when a young bird is first learning to fly, it spends some time hopping and flapping furtively on the ground, with the mother bird nearby, before getting itself straightened out and getting on with its life. I choose to believe that is what happened to my little bird.

Of all the birds in Yosemite, this little brown bird is my new favorite kind of bird… or would be if someone can tell me what kind of bird it is.

My beautiful cousins from Florida are now living in CA, and they came to visit last weekend in Yosemite. It was wonderful to have a chance to catch up with them, and show them around. They were so thoughtful – they brought me a delicate orchid as a birthday present, and a birthday card. These are so much more spectacular than the small native orchids that you find around the park growing wild.

On Saturday morning, after late night arrivals for both cousins, we got a leisurely start with Quiche (courtesy of Kim) and strawberry scones (courtesy of Stephanie and Tom, respectively), and then hit the trail. Fortunately, because Tom and I had left one car in the Valley, we were able to start the hike down the Panorama and Mist Trails from Glacier Point, rather than driving down in the Valley and battling for the few remaining parking spaces. The hike was wonderful.

As seems typical lately, Tom and I slipped into flower picture taking mode, and brought up the rear of our procession for the first part of our hike. I saw some purple nightshade for the first time. The Brewer’s Golden Asters were out in great numbers. Whisker brush. Monkey flowers. Pacific stonecrop. We decided that we need to keep a journal of some sort to catalog all the different flowers that we saw along the trail including things like time of year and any other interesting things. That would be a fantastic record to have.

The waterfalls were more spectacular than usual for this time of year because of our big winter/snow season, and the mist a welcome reprieve from the heat on the trail. The best part was just having the chance to get to know each other a little better.

Dinner was interrupted with the need to go and retrieve Kim’s car, from where we left it at Glacier Point, but the ice cream and the conversation was excellent. Stephanie decided to get up early instead of driving late, sneaking out of the house at 4am on sore legs and feet from hiking, only to work a full shift on her feet for the day. Next time, maybe we should try rafting instead.

Kim and Orestis spent the night in the downstairs apartment, and we got to spend a little more time with them in the morning (my actual birthday) before they took off to explore Tuolumne and maybe Mono Lake, while we settled in to clean the rental apartment for the next guests, and then curl up with movies and a bit of champagne. All in all, a very happy birthday weekend.

The Yosemite House

The steady churning of projects surrounding our new Yosemite vacation rental increased to a frenzy starting late May into early April. We have a nice stream of renters from VRBO who are planning to stay in our downstairs apartment starting on June 1, and the pressure to have everything in order by then is intense.

In addition to the furniture purchases we’ve made online, in the last two weeks we’ve made, collectively, 3 completely separate trips into Fresno for furniture and other finishing supplies for the house. We’ve bought a brown leather sofa for the living room, new comforters, sheets and bedding for the bedroom and the living room daybed that we ordered online, a sharp-looking 42″ TV, TV stand, rugs, blinds, and a multitude of other home supplies like kitchen gadgets, pots and pans. The friendly cashier at Lowe’s mentioned today that he recognized us from the previous times we’ve been in the store. We’d be a lot happier about that if we didn’t spend so much money every time we went in.

The building phase is finished. We passed our final building inspection a week ago on Friday, but we’ve hired the Roosevelt Cooks (that’s plural, Sr. and Jr.) to help us pour a separate parking pad and walkway, so that our renters will have their own space when they drive up. They framed it up in just half a day, it looks great, and now are getting ready to pour just as soon as the weather cooperates. I love hiring professionals.

We’ve also started thinking of the front yard area, and what we can do there that will be beautiful, but wild and un-manicured at the same time. We bought some Sierra wildflower seeds at a local nursery, and I hope that the yard area turns into a wild garden of color when the weather warms up. We’ve had some blissfully warm days, but just tonight there was snow again, and the Dogwoods in the yard still haven’t been persuaded to bud and bloom. This is a long winter year, and the snow is lingering.

Still, it’s coming together so fast.

Getting fit

I’ve finished the first week of a new weightlifting/fitness program, and am looking forward to decreased soreness in week 2. The first week, the bicep curls left me unable to straighten my arms, and after the leg work out, I now groan and stretch my protesting calves into a standing position in the morning before taking the first my first tottering steps. Truthfully, it feels fantastic because it feels like I’m getting stronger. Tom says that there is already some visible difference in my upper arms. My biceps are back. I’m not completely sure that I believe him, but the positive reinforcement is welcome anyway.

Tom also tells me that according to one of the fitness experts that he now follows regularly, sometimes the nutrition is the key to big breakthroughs. The expert himself is not a nutritionist, but he’s just noted over the years that often his athletes make a big jump in performance as soon as they get the diet part of the equation right. So, Tom’s concerned that the many handfuls of almonds I snack on pre-dinner, is not the winning strategy I’m looking for after all. The highly recommended 6 small meals a day (with an emphasis on protein) program is the hardest part of this fitness program for me. I’m going into week 2 with a renewed commitment.

The frozen shoulder is thawing slowly, as it tries to keep up with the other exercise. I’m up to 160 degrees of passive flexion – the same as the active range of motion in my ‘healthy’ shoulder. Still, my external rotation still needs some work, and the left shoulder as a whole is still terribly weak, although between rehab exercises and my weight program, it seems to be getting stronger quickly. I’m looking forward to making a first stab at rock climbing again. I want to try my hand (my shoulder really) on an easy boulder problem that everyone has been recommending (everything from 5.2 to V4). It’s going to be a long time before I’m climbing as hard as I used to, but at this stage in the game, I’m just looking forward to being out on the warm granite pulling hard.

Wouldn’t it be great if this summer was my summer to put all the things I’m interested in together? Backpacking, trail running, rock climbing, photography, playing the piano, art and the internet? Not to mention running a vacation rental and too many projects at work. There’s so much to do!

Swiss and Bay Area Guests

Next week, our friends from Switzerland arrive for a few weeks of mountain adventure and exploration. It’s going to be so good to see them again, and to meet the littlest Longchamp, who I think is already 3 years old. It’s strange how time moves. It seems seems mostly to slide by unnoticed, except for the size and ages of our friend’s children.

We had hoped that they would be the first guests in the new downstairs apartment, but there’s still too much to do to make them feel comfortable there, especially with a toddler. Instead, we’ll have a few more evenings of preparing, and then when more friends from the Bay Area arrive on Thursday, Tom and I are going to do the honors ourselves, and give the place it’s inaugural stay (if you don’t count the handful of people who crashed down there among the construction debris when it was still completely unfinished). It feels like we’re going on vacation, and I can hardly wait. Also, we’ll hopefully figure out if anything is missing before our renters arrive, so that everything will be ready for them when they come.

I know, everyone else starts this game in January, but now it’s May, which is really a time of beginning things, and I can’t even remember if I made New Year resolutions, much less what they might be, so I’m starting again with a couple of goals for myself.
Read the rest of this entry »

… and breathe…

Between a Sisyphusean marketing workload with DNC, a conversion optimization class that operates heavily on the you’ll-get-out-what-you-put-in principle, volunteer activities at the Valley Visitor Center for a full day once every other week, a frozen shoulder that seems to be adamant about remaining stuck, and house construction (Tom’s been going nuts, and we now have flooring down in most of the house, and appliances waiting for installation, it’s very exciting), it’s been a long couple of months between the last post and this one.

Fortunately, the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be getting closer. Two weeks ago, Tom and I met up with our friend Shauna, and skied out to the Nelder Grove of Giant Sequoias. Neither Tom nor I had ever been there before but it’s close to Shauna’s new house, and it was a perfect day and a great chance to explore. Last week, I got out for a quick walk on the Hites Cove trail to look at the wildflowers. And with those two activities as the sum total of my exercise for the last month, today Tom and I hiked up the Snow Creek trail to Mt Watkins and back. Our agreed-upon turn-around time left me a few hundred yards short of the summit, but I have Tom’s pictures from the top as inspiration for the next trip.

The skiing was brilliant and beautiful, the weather perfect, and it just feels fantastic to really get out and DO something for a whole day that doesn’t involve my computer.

It was about 11 miles round trip, with nearly 4500 feet of elevation gain, and I am bone tired and fully expect to be hobbling and sore tomorrow, but I am ever so happy. I’ll try to post some pictures soon.

With Halloween coming up, with the ever-looming prospect of kids with too much candy on their hands, I thought I’d share a brilliant idea that a co-worker told me about. When she was growing up, she and her brother were allowed to eat as much candy as they wanted Halloween night, but then, all the left-overs went to into giant pumpkin shaped bowls to be left for the Pumpkin Prince.

In the morning, the candy would be gone – taken by the Pumpkin Prince – and, magically, in its place would be some amazing, and much-desired present. The kids thought this was fantastic – new basketball shoes, toys, whatever – and felt like gloating when the other kids had only their paltry daily ration of Halloween candy in their lunches. And the advantages to the parents? After the one-night candy-fest, the kids were happily back to eating healthy food. And then, of course, there is the Pumpkin Prince, who makes out like a bandit with all the kids’ candy, which can then be generously re-distributed at events or throughout the year.

Happy Halloween!

One of the odd consequences of living in Yosemite, and also of being part of the marketing department, is that my face seems to keep showing up in funny places. I get a chuckle out of it, usually. Part of me is certainly flattered at the attention, but it’s also hard not to be self-critical.

As part of a photoshoot I participated in while I was working at the Mountaineering School, my picture was taken while I was hiking – or pretending to hike, rather – out on Old Big Oak Flat Road with El Capitan in the background. That image, for a short time, graced the cover of the activity brochure, and is now on the front of several Pepsi vending machines. My Pepsi machines, my friends tell me, are in the Village Garage, at Housekeeping Camp and maybe some other locations. Unfortunately, I’ve never really liked that picture of myself, and it’s a little disconcerting to run into such a big image of myself. I’m glad that the two machines in front of our offices have pictures of other people.

While at YMS, I also had a chance to go snowshoeing with Tom Stienstra, an outdoor columnist for the SF Chronicle, TV personality and guidebook author. Between that and his continued close relationship with Kenny, who now works only 15 feet from me, he recently decided to publish a story about me in the Chronicle. It is a story about the accident I was in nearly 3 years ago, and my subsequent recovery. It was interesting to work with an experienced journalist and storyteller, and to see the process that he went through in terms of preparing for an interview and then writing a story. Unfortunately, the online article generated a bunch of pretty negative comments, which I thought were either petty, immature, uninformed or a combination of the three, but they still left a bad taste in my mouth.

Some nice things have happened as a consequence of that story too. One was that another writer, Bill Katovsky, who is working on a book entitled Return to Fitness, contacted me about putting a short sidebar about me in his upcoming book. Again, I had the opportunity to witness the writing process of a professional author. The methods and styles of the two men are very different, but each time I was amazed to see the sometimes subtle, sometimes sweeping influence on the story I would have told, making it more dramatic and/or fleshing out details.

Another thing that surprised me was that someone who had recently been in an accident and had injuries similar to mine contacted me to find out about my experience with recovery. I was happy to report to him that so many of my issues have gotten better over the years. But most interestingly, to me, was the number of old friends who got back in touch with me after reading the article. Reconnecting with them gets me thinking about other phases of my life, and the cool people I’ve met.

I’ve gotten back in touch with some friends over the last year, since my sister-in-law, nieces and nephew convinced Tom and I to get Facebook accounts. Facebook is kind of a strange service. On Facebook, I am friends with old High School classmates that I hadn’t been that close to, even then, and co-workers that I rarely interact with in real life. And when it comes to HS friends, the day-to-day updates don’t seem to come close to filling in 20 years of radio silence. Still, I love it. I love getting little messages about what people are doing – just random news and noise from their days.

And then there are the actual conversations! I just got back in touch with my orchestra teacher from high school and she reminded me that at one point I was upset that my dad wouldn’t let me get a job. “School is your job”. I don’t remember that at all. School is an awesome job. Getting to hang out and learn things all day – I wish I’d been more appreciative when I was younger. I wonder what else I’ve forgotten.

I wonder if some day I’ll stumble back across this post and think back. Oh yeah, remember those silly Pepsi machines with my picture on them? Those were the grand old days in Yosemite.

Today I read a post from an instructor at Where There Be Dragons about 68 reasons that she loves her job. It was a great way to share her love and enjoyment of the places she went, and the people she traveled with. It also made me think of the pictures that I could share about Yosemite and the people here. Someday.

I received an email today from my boss that had the whole office giggling out loud. We had people wandering in from the hallway to tell us that we all seemed to be having too much fun. Really, some funny emails are just worth sharing. If I had a pic of KK crying with laughter, I would put it into my list of reasons why I love my job. It happens pretty often – I’ll get that pic one of these days.

I wish I could figure out who the original author/editor is. The contents of the email is all over the internet, mostly from blogs (like this one) that are posting it up to share, but I have found an attribution. (Interestingly, I usually see it on the internet titled “Random Thoughts” but it has morphed along the way, and by the time we got it, it was “Observations of a modernist on post-modern life”.) Anyway, I hope you enjoy…

Observations of a modernist on post-modern life…

I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?
Read the rest of this entry »

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle boils down to a book about a boy and his dogs. Edgar is born mute, to a family of passionate dog breeders, dedicated to breeding the perfect companions – selecting dogs for certain elusive qualities that make them soulmates – or something else that is just beyond defining. Trouble starts when Edgar’s uncle, Claude, returns to town. Edgar’s father, Gar, dies mysteriously, and then Claude starts to manuver into his place, capturing his mother’s (Trudy) affections. Edgar is forced to run away into the Chequamagon with 3 of his dogs – learning to survive in the woods on his own.

It’s a good read, not the kind of book that I can’t put down at night, but it moved along quickly and easily for a volume or its size. I finished the book tonight, was surprised by the ending, and am still trying to make sense of it. It will be a good book to discuss at our book club, whenever we get around to officially reading that one.

Spoiler Alert: if you don’t care Read the rest of this entry »

I get an occasional tip here and there on how to use Photoshop from the amazing and creative in-house graphic designer in our office, but just in case I get to thinking that I know how to do a thing or two… there are images like these which are in a completely different league.

It’s not that I can’t start to figure out now, how someone would start to put an image like that together, but coming up with the ideas, planning the shot out, taking different images and figuring out how to put them together. Truly cool.

And while you’re there, check out some cool wildlife pics. I’m not sure some of them aren’t also examples of very clever Photoshop-ery, but they are neat anway.