Hmmm...we have kind of a disturbing trend going this summer. Weekends with no climbing. Over the last few weekends, the bails have been brought on by the odds of rain, which has been over 50% for the north country for the last few weeks. This is getting old. In any case, with our weekend of climbing in tatters, it was time for WHAT ELSE!! house stuff. We cruised over to Scottsdale last night to check out slabs for the bathroom remodel... the chosen slab is a marble called Rainforest Cafe. Unfortunately, the slabs they had in the warehouse all had a sort of nasty quartz (white) streak running through them, so we opted to head to their other warehouse in Tempe to see if we can get a different boulder and get rid of the quartz.
Rainforest Cafe marble...Saturday morning and it was raining... hmmm... that's going to put a dent in my plan to install the second front post light in front of the house. Dammit. Luckily, by the time I had a little breakfast and checked the email, the rain had stopped and it was drying out. Out came the tools, light, etc. This time around, knowing what I was in for and how to alleviate the problems, I had the thing in place fully installed in about 25 minutes. Sweeet!!! Glad that's over. The humidity was about 300%, which made it quite the sweat fest, but I managed to do the whole job without any of the necessary profanity OR any trips to Home Depot!! Just call me Mr. Smoooth! Thank God that's over. Moral of the story... you get your house painted, the paint dude manages to shank your front light beyond repair, then four or five years later, you find some lights you like and get 'em installed!~
Ho mahn! Check that thing out. After discussions earlier this spring with Russ and Dave, guess who comes home today with this contraption!?!! The thing was hideous to put together... thousands of bolts and moving parts. Okay, maybe it only took 45 minutes. Still...
Right now, it's on the lowest setting (only allowed to partially invert). Gotta start slow and work your way up...or down... or sideways or whatever.
It's pretty dangerous... I took it for a test spin, all the blood rushed to my head and I nearly busted a brain vessel before I got out of there! Might be just the ticket for that lower back fun and games, though!
Once a month in Pheonix, they have what they call "Silent Sunday" down at South Mountain Park, which happens to be the largest city park in the US and one of the largest urban parks in North America at 16,283 acres. The many singletrack trails of the park are VERY popular with the area mountain bikers, but it is the paved road that is the focus of "Silent Sunday." Once a month, the city shuts down the road to the summit of South Mountain so that bikers, hikers, runners, and even skateboarders can use the road safely without having to compete with auto traffic.
This has been going on for a while (couple years?) and Tim has been trying to get me to go down and ride ever since it started, but for one reason or another, I hadn't made it yet. This month, after canceling a weekend of climbing in Flag due to monsoon rain, we made it happen. According to Pete's GPS, from the parking lot, the elevation gain to the summit is around 1300 feet and the mileage is about 7.5 miles.
Here's Pete's GPS log from the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/41798842
I've recently decided it's time to get off the couch and get some fitness going, so my game plan here was just to get the workout and not put myself too deep in the hole on the way to the top. I'm about as far from a climber on a bike as you can get, so I just sort of bungle my way uphill trying to keep the pedals turning and moving my somewhat considerable mass upwards.
The last time I did the South Mountain ride was in 1990, after riding down through central Phoenix from 59th Avenue and Bell Road (about 75 mile found trip as I recall). The ride up the hill wasn't too bad. There were quite a few people riding the hill.
Pete and Jen getting ready to fire up the hill.
And they're off!
Tim cranking away up the hill.
Downtown Phoenix from part way up the ride.
Jen...
Tim again...
Looking up the last section of road at the summit radio towers. This is near the top of the ride, where there were riders now blasting downhill, I nearly got wiped out by a guy who just about lost control as he tried to make a turn. He nearly crossed over the mid line right into a guy just in front of me, locked up his brakes, and just barely managed to straighten it out before his bike slid out from under him. A bit scary. 
Jen pulling the last hill before the top. (and doing an excellent job of it!)
Pete and Jen ride into the summit parking lot together.
After we rode back down from the top, we threw in an extra ride out San Juan Road and back. It was a nice downhill cruise followed by the uphill climb on the way back. This is Pete headed back to the parking lot.
We got our new front post lights a few weeks ago and it was finally time to try to get them installed this morning. As it turned out, I only went 1 for 2, but after two trips to Home Depot and one to Ace Hardware, I was on the verge of having an aneurism by the time I got done with the first, so doing the second after a couple days to take deep breath might be the best course of action. In any case, I have to go back to the hardware store to pick up new supplies before I do the second light. What a pain in the butt!!!
The big fun was the mystery as to how to mount the new base for the new light... hmmmm... what you have here is a base with a big mounded pile of stucco on top of it rounded off to form the top of the pillar. Great... sorta concrete, but not real concrete. Inspired by the mounting for the old lights, I picked up some toggle bolts (I think that's the name) that have a screw on one and and regular bolt thread on the other. Bing, bam, boom, you drill a hole and screw it in, right? Right? Yeah... maybe. As it turns out, it's hard, but not impossible to drill a pilot hole in the stucco mound for the toggle bolt. So I got those drilled, then start screwing the bolt into the stucco... PING! the toggle bolt breaks in half with very little force. Cheap a** piece of crap!!! I managed to get it out. Reamed the pilot hole out a bit more... start over. PING! Next one breaks. Manage to get it out. So I ream out all four holes, and very carefully get all four corners almost to the pearly gates. Then the fourth one goes PING! and shears off right at the stucco when I'm two turns from done. Yeah... that's what I said.
The good news is that I'm halfway there!!
Old light...
Old light removed. This step was a piece of cake. Five minutes and it was off and out of the way. I thought I was home free!!!
The base with the toggle bolts and cap nuts sticking out of the corners ready to screw into place. Repeat after me... PING!!!
The first light tightened down, wired and in place.
Current standings... Greg, 1
Stupid house where nothing can be replaced without a huge drama, 1.
Felicia's birthday party was Saturday the 17th. Pete and Jen graciously offered up their house and back yard for the party. Felicia got to choose the theme, so she decided a murder-mystery party would be the way to go. The mystery was set on a Caribbean resort island called Margaritaland. Everyone had to come in costume and assigned a character with specific things to do (talk to someone, perform some task, etc.). At a point in the evening, Jack Daniels (played by Russ) dropped to the poolside, deader than a mackrel. A chalk line was drawn around him and he was dragged off before he stunk up the place. After that, everyone had more things to do, rumors to spread, people to talk to, etc. and at 9pm, the island cop, Sgt. Lord (ably played by Jim) put all the clues and evidence out for everyone and it was time for people to guess the killer. As it turned out, the killer was Livesaver Sam the island lifeguard... which turned out to be ME!!! Felicia swears she had no idea until a couple of days before the party and she didn't specifically pick me to be the killer.
The party was a lot of fun and I think everyone had a great time. It was a fun celebration of Felicia's first HALF CENTURY!!! :-) Many thanks again to Pete and Jen!!!!
I was busy drinking margaritas (in character, of course), but I got a few picture of the party.
Our beer "cooler"....
The regaae twins Vicki and Ron!
Jim (Sgt. Lord, island cop) and Susan (island swim instructor)
back yard congregation... man was it HOT out there!
Sandy, Susan, Tim and Karen
Felicia and her big flower!
Uh-oh!! Houston we have a problem!!
Jack Daniels (Russ) laid out on the deck, complete with chalk line!
Sgt. Lord (Jim) lays out the murder evidence...
One of the nice side effects of the party was needing the truck to go get some of the gear. We had to take the camper off the truck, so after returning the stuff this morning, I took the opportunity to scrub ALL the bugs off the front and back of the camper before putting it back on! It hasn't been this clean since we bought it!
Being as this was a special year for Felicia in the birthday department, I wanted to come up with something special for her. Starting just after the first of the year, I started scanning climbing slides, picking out digital photos, and putting together a book for her that is pretty much all pictures of her climbing in the many places we've visited over the last 15 or so years.
It took me all the time in between to get it laid out and ready to upload to the onlniine printer (www.Blurb.com, if you're interested). In the end, the file to upload was HUGE and I wasn't sure it was going to transfer without bad things happening, but it uploaded okay and passed it's preflight checkout. I ordered up a copy of the book on Tuesday July 6th, and it showed up on the front porch on Wednesday, July 14th. That is some kind of turn-around time.
The book is 10"x13" (coffee table style) and has 208 pages. The chapters are broken up into major areas of climbing with another chapter being just a gathering of photos from several smaller areas. I added a section at the back that contains a list of the 2154 routes that Felicia and I have climbed together with dates, names and areas.
I'm happy to say she seems to like the book a lot.
The front cover.
Back cover.
The start of the route list section.
