The summer of '98, j.j and gnat style
The summer of '98, j.j and gnat style
June 12th through the 14th
Backpacking on the Blue Lake Trail in the Rockies
We went camping with our friends Larry and Kathy. The Blue Lake trail was very beautiful, at first. We hiked in on Friday night. We didn't start hiking until about 7:00, that gave us about an hour and a half of daylight. We got in about a mile and then found a place to camp. The next morning we got up early, packed up and headed up the mountain. Our goal was Blue Lake, where the fishing is reportedly good. But by 10 or so, the clouds were rolling in, and by noon, it had started to snow. And there were huge piles of snow over the trail, so the going was very slow. It was really hard on my knees, and exhausting to fight our way across the snow. I fell a lot. It couldn't have been much after 2:00 before we gave up and set up our tents in the only flat places we could find. We climbed into our tents and pretty much stayed there until Sunday. Larry and Kathy came over after dinner Saturday night and we drank wine and played cards until late in the night. When we woke up the next morning, we saw Larry and Kathy's tent all covered with snow. So was ours. We had to practically dig our way out. By this time everything was pretty much soaked, with no hope of drying out, so we hightailed it down the mountain. This picture shows the stump end of a tree that had not been down when we went up the trail. I'm really glad we weren't there when it fell. Kathy wasn't really happy with the early morning start until we stopped and made coffee. See that big smile on her face? It was really good coffee.
Nat went to the Usenix conference, and I went with him mostly because I've never been to New Orleans and always wanted to go. Mostly it was very hot. But I did a lot of sightseeing. There are a lot of photos. I've already put them in albums and will probably never scan them. But you can read the St. Expedite prayer card. Don't know who St. Expedite is? Check out alt.folklore.urban If you want to see our photos, you're just going to have to come over here and see them yourself.
June 27 - 28
Colorado Brewer's Festival
We volunteered to serve beer at the festival this year. It was fun, but the festival was kind of a nasty disaster because for some reason the organizers don't let the suppliers bring enough beer. There was almost a riot. If we don't volunteer at the festival again next year, we probably won't go at all. It really isn't worth it. It's always too hot, and it's too expensive, and half of the beers there are really really really bad, and the good ones run out early, and before that they have very long lines. I'd rather just go to a bar and drink something I know I'll like.
Fourth of July Weekend
Rapid City, South Dakota
Tom Boutell didn't go on the Big Ride because he got run off the rode by a truck and broke his finger. Stupid truck. So he volunteered to help on the road crew instead. But that turned out to be not much fun so he called us for a rescue. So on the 4th of July weekend, we drove up to Rapid City and grabbed him. We went to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Mountain and a bunch of other really touristy places (which, after all, is what South Dakota is all about) and had a good time. Then we brought Tom back to Fort Collins with us. More pictures later when I feel like scanning.
Rally at the Fort 5k Fun Run with Leslie. This was a practice run for the Fort Collins Triathlon for us. We wanted to see how long it would take us. 43 minutes. Yes, we walked most of it. But we did it. And it was a lot of fun. And we got neat t-shirts. That is what it's all about, after all, the t-shirt. Pictures:
Leslie and I went to Boston for the ICES conference. Nat was supposed to come, but he had to work on his book. It was a good conference. I got to network with a lot of important people, and I got to see a cousin I haven't seen in years as well as a lot of talk.bizarre people. jv, our host, took some digital pics We tried to do some serious sightseeing, but it seemed we were constantly being thwarted. It was really really hot and muggy, and Leslie caught some sort of nasty stomach bug.
July 19, Fort Collins Triathlon
450 yard swim, 14 mile bike, 5 k run. Leslie and I came in 10th and 9th in our division, respectively. It was a really fun race and we had a damn good time. We're definitely going to be doing that again.
July 24-27, Roadtrip to Chicago
Chicago. As a birthday present for Momma, we drove out to Chicago for the weekend to see family and friends. We got to meet Isaac, my sister's new baby. We also saw Nicolas, Isaac's big brother. Isaac is the sweetest child ever born. Mom's cousin Sheryl let us stay in her hotel on the southside. She gave us a really big room, it was great. We got to see our friend eamon and his new girlfriend stacy. Sheryl treated us to a great brunch at her hotel in honor of mom's birthday, and we got to see our cousins Micheal and Ryan who we haven't seen in a really long time. That was great. Micheal still looks the same as when he was 10. Ryan is a different person every time I see him. After brunch, Eamon, Stacy, Nat, Momma and I went to the Japanese Garden behind the science and industry museum. Nat and Eamon took advantage of the pavilion there to practice their sumo wrestling.
Last April, Momma went to visit Kiki and Nicolas and brand new Isaac in Guatemala. She took a lot of pictures. Some of them are quite big, but they are all stunningly beautiful. Colors are brighter in Guatemala.
August 1, United Societies in Space Conference
The United Societies in Space is committed to forming a "metanation" of space faring people. I'm not sure how they're going about that, but one of their things is this annual conference. I gave a talk on the design of planetary structures. Very basic. It went pretty well. I also saw a guy I met at the Albuquerque Space Conference, Alex Lightman. After the conference, our host, Declan O'Donnell had a banquet for us at the USIS headquarters, which is a 100 year old church in Denver. It's so cool. Declan's hobby is to paint rocks. At the conference we found that Declan had painted a rock for each of the conference presenters.
August 13-16, Mars Society Founding convention
The Mars Society convention was really fantastic. The talks were all well attended, the speakers were great. There had to be over 700 people there. It was amazing.
August 22 - September 2, Chicago, IL and Madison, WI
I had to go out to Madison to work on a final report for a NASA contract we had. It was very short notice, so I had to fly into Midway airport, then rent a car and drive to Madison. Before and after Madison, I stopped by my sister's to see the family.
In Chicago
September 4-7, Black Rock Desert, Nevada
BURNING MAN. Here are our photos, and here is the main burning man web site.
Copyright: Almost everything in here is © Jenine Abarbanel (1998) unless attributed to someone else or inadvertantly stolen from someone else, in which case, it's their copyright. Don't be a jerk.
