More photos...

Cutie kitties!

LR "blizzard" of '04

Kiddo #2 & moi!

Ariel & kitties!

Ariel's pottery

Twice is a charm...

For those who don't know, I attended the Lord of the Rings movie marathon (now showing in local theaters) last December when The Return of the King was released as documented here.

Yesterday - I was able to partake of yet another marathon, this time from the comfort of my own home. However, I swear that the forces of Sauron were conspiring against me to even go through with it. Co-worker buddy couldn't make it (sob!) and my friend Joshua was only barely able to make it because his wife was ill. My initial plan to start the Fellowship of the Ring at 9am was pushed back to 10:15am as Joshua was taking care of his wife.

All was not lost as I took that time to clean and start preparing the food for the day. On the menu:

Homemade salsa
Homemade pizza
Homemade wontons
Other assorted snacks

As you can see, we had a nice food table set up:


And here is the setup in all of its big-screen Goodness (TM)


We finished the first of the trilogy by 2:00pm or so - that called for a break for lunch!


We immediately launched into The Two Towers in order to try to finish it by dinnertime. At some point, we were joined by the Kiddos:


After the conclusion of The Two Towers (~6pm), Joshua had to take a break and go home to care for his wife. Our ETC (estimated time of completion) was now being pushed to the very limits of Staying Awakedness. While he was gone, we made dinner for everyone. He returned around 7pm to eat with us. Mmmmm...yummy homemade wontons:


By the time we started The Return of the King, it was 9:45pm - but it was sooo definitely worth it. Watching the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was simply incredible. It made for a long, but YUMMY day.

Fingers crossed...

Rain, rain, go away, come again during the weekday....

The influx of rain sure has dampened my plans for some RtR training this weekend. I was HOPING to get my potential female teammate out on some offroad mtn bike trails but it looks like that will have to wait for another day. :( Not having had rain for almost a solid month, it started pouring last night and hasn't hardly let up all day. It's supposed to be much of the same for the entire weekend. It's not to say we won't train - in fact, it would be good to get out & do some hiking in the rain, but it just makes it less fun.

Having gotten the Adventure Racing (AR) bug, I've been looking for other races to compete in since there was the possibility I couldn't do Raid the Rock this year. Some that look like good candidates for next year include:

Ozark Challenge
Ozark Greenways Adventure Race
Southern Tour Adventure Sprint Races
Lewis & Clark Urban Adventure Race

The sprint races are half-day mini adventure races, and the cool thing is that they are open for kids 8 & up! Something to think about with Ariel or Jen next year.

For a list of AR races for the entire US, click here.

One thing I didn't realize until recently is that one of my co-workers, who has been racing with Team Traveler, who also gave the AR clinics, and is in charge of the race this year - they won the National Championship in 2000 & 2001! How fortunate it is for me to learn AR from one of the top teams in the entire nation. :D

T-minus 2 weeks & counting...

Training, training, and more training

Autumn once again is almost upon us, which in the life of Cliff means a return to a more active lifestyle. Of course, right now, my main focus is on training for Raid the Rock, set to take place on Sat. October 23rd. My teammates from last year couldn't do it this year for personal reasons, but I didn't find out until a week ago. So right now I'm DESPERATELY scrambling to find people who might be interested and to put a team together. The most difficulty comes in finding a female individual who is interested, motivated, and willing! I have a couple of leads still left out there so keep your fingers crossed!

I've managed to get out approximately every other day for the last several weeks either biking or hiking. Over the weekend I biked 16 miles Friday night, and then hiked about 5 miles yesterday followed with a 16 mile ride. That probably explains why I was so exhausted when I woke up this morning.

Co-worker buddy & I will also be teaming up for the fall table tennis league, which officially starts on Sunday. It should be a blast! That will start preparing us for the Arkansas Open which will take place Sat Oct 30th this year. I'm hoping CWB will compete!

And if that wasn't enough on my plate, I'm also interested in doing 100 min of CARP again this year (a mountain bike race to the uninitiated). That takes place Sunday Oct 31st.

In the meantime, I'll be a hiking, biking fool...

SoCal - A place of wonderment & beauty

Dare I say - SoCal is a pretty dang cool place? Ok, so I'm highly biased from a visitor's perspective, but I sure had a helluva lot o' fun while I was there. Even though I did come down with a fever while I was there. Even though I did come down with a sore throat while I was there. My friend Scott was the ultimate tour guide - and I thank him for being the gracious host and showing me things that I feel honored & privileged to see. For a photolog of the trip, keep reading...

Day 1:
The Grove - a very nice, fancy shopping center where I'm told all the locals hang out to get away from the touristy crowd in Hollywood. Of course the only store that really called to me was the apple store, which was the first one I had seen and been. I took some delight in emailing my family & close friends from inside the "look-ma-everything-is-translucent" store. The Grove is also home to the original Farmer's Market.




La Brea Tarpits - I followed my stint of local-ogling with a jaunt through the La Brea Tarpits, both of which were only a ten minute walk from my friend's apartment. What's interesting with the tarpits is that new seeps keep occurring from time to time, and they either have to dump crap on it to soak it up, or they build these caged off areas which are big huge eyesores. In the second photo below, you can see a bubble of methane gas which has reached the surface.




USC campus & USC fencing club - I came, I gave a couple of fencing lessons, and I kicked some fencing butt. Glad to see that my kick-ass mad fencing skillz haven't atrophied too badly during my nearly ten year hiatus from fencing. Looking into picking the sport back up here in LR.

Day 2:
Museum of Radio & Television - a brief tour of where my friend works. Since it is located in Beverly Hills, that called for a walk down Rodeo Drive. Note the famous gift bag from Tiffany & Co. That was to score some major brownie points with Jen. ;)


Hollywood Bowl - since buying tickets on ticketmaster.com was going to cost us almost twice as much as the tickets themselves, we decided to pick up the tickets in person at the box office. On tap for that evening: Nickel Creek and the LA Philharmonic - what a treat!
In-and-Out Burger - What's a trip to LA without a visit to an In-and-Out Burger? I had to see what the rave was (esp. in the ArsTechnica community) with the Double Double Animal Style. All I can say is - YUM YUM.
Santa Monica Pier - To kill some time before our concert, we headed to the beach & the famous Santa Monica pier. After wasting some zombies in House of the Dead at the arcade, we did some beachwalking and some more local-ogling.


Mann's Chinese Theater & the Walk of Stars - my brief foray into TouristTrapLand landed me at Hollywood & Highland - for a few brief moments before heading off to the Hollywood Bowl for the concert. Plus it never hurts to boost the good 'ol self-esteem ogling the freakazoids dressed up with no place to go in front of the theater. Yep. I may be a computer geek and LoTR nerd, but at least I'm not *them*. Heh.








The concert totally rocked - with Nickel Creek playing the last few songs accompanied by the LA 'freaking' Philharmonic. Plus I think my friend enjoyed their music, having not heard them before. Always a plus.

Day 3: (not feeling well so we tried to see more "indoorsy" sites
Walt Disney Concert Hall








Los Angeles Public Library
The Bradbury Building - built at the turn of the 20th century on what they envisioned a building in the year 2000 would look like.

Day 4: (still sick - rested all morning but in the afternoon felt well enough to go see...)
Arclight Cinema Dome - saw Hero playing here which was just about the epitome of a movie-going experience. Amazing movie. Amazing theater.
Amoeba Music - since it was across the street from the Arclight, we just HAD to go there. Heh. Very very hip music store. Gotta be there to appreciate it.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis-Brown house - definitely the highlight of my trip. It was guys night out at the FLW house, or as they call it, "poker night." But they don't play poker. This night was dedicated to D&D & BBQ. Mmmm. A geek's dream paradise. Playing D&D & eating meat in a historical landmark. What could beat that? Lots of photos from this part of my trip. Plus the view was incredible.

Day 5:
Abalone Cove Shoreline Park - tide pool sightseeing










Wayfarers Chapel - designed by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Day 6:
One last hurrah in Beverly Hills & the Page Museum at the La Brea tarpits before I had to leave to go home the following day. All-in-all, a very fun, memory-filled trip - spent in the company of one of my bestest friends.

What's he saying?

int main ( )
{
int day, chl_progeny
double month;

day = 0;
month = 0.0;
chl_progeny = 2;

do
{
day++;
month = day / 30;
} while (month != 9.0);

chl_progeny++;

cout

Another fun day...

We spent a good part of the afternoon on Monday at the National Zoo in Washington DC. We got to see lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!). Not to mention the illustrious panda bears that get so much hype and attention. :) However, my favorite exhibit at the zoo must have been the web spinner spiders that they have living out in the open (sort of) in the invertebrate house. We got to witness first hand a spider attacking, paralyzing, and eating a live cricket. Yum. Heh.

Still enjoying my vacation immensely, however today is one of those agenda-packed days. Jen & I are going to try & hit the Whole Foods Market this morning, then we're considering taking the kids downtown to see some of the Museums, and then tonight we're going to Baltimore to eat dinner & see Phantom of the Opera (which my dad got us tickets for as an early birthday present).

We leave tomorrow to head back home - definitely NOT looking forward to the long drive ahead of us.