Ride The Divide Documentary

We got the Ride the Divide movie around Christmas time and I was 'saving' it for an indoor training session on the bike.  The knee seems to be feeling better so I decided to do an easy spin on the trainer and fired up the Ride the Divide movie.

The Ride the Divide is a documentary based on the Tour Divide which has to be the hardest bike event in the world.  If you click through to the link, take the time to check out the Route Photos as they are amazing...back to the 'race':  It is a self supported, repeat, self supported 2700+ mile race starting in Banff and ending in Mexico.  This is not like 'le tour' where you have mechanics at the ready to fix your bike or team cars to load up on water or calories, or someone to massage you post race, or a nice soft bed to sleep in, etc.  You are responsible for feeding yourself and fixing anything that might break on your own.   It follows the Continental Divide and has somewhere around 200,000 ft of elevation gain throughout.  2,700 mile and 200,000 ft of climbing...INSANE!  The insanity is that they pass through all kinds of terrain - anything from high mountain passes where grizzly sightings are common to the long barren plains in Wyoming where water is scarce.

You have to be a physical freak and a little coocoo in the coconut to even think about undertaking this endeavor but alas there are people who are both and there are people who thrive for these events.  Matthew Lee is the unheralded king of this event having won it multiple times and in the process breaking his own race record.  To put it in perspective, his record is 17 days 21 hrs...this means he averages over 150 miles a day.  This is all the more impressive when you consider that there are sections where it takes multiple hrs to traverse sections where you are hike a biking through snow, etc.  This is not easy to terrain to ride through and this crew is just TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH.

The other point of interest for this event is that it actually passes through Butte and so during the summer there are a few days where the riders swing through town, load up on food, fix any mechanicals, etc...So there is a local link to the event which is fun to plug into when they are rolling through town.

It is a great documentary that really makes the mind wander to the wilderness and gives a little insight into the suffering these lunatics go through.  I will certainly be putting this back into the DVD player for inspiration while spinning indoors....mad respect to these folks who toe in at the starting line!

Top Ten Bond Villains

One of the constants throughout Bond movies is a scary villain who is always out to get agent 007.  007 is usually able to overcome his counterparts but the good villains always seems to come back for multiple rounds.  Here is my list of the best Bond villains...


10  Zorin & May Day...Christopher Walken & Grace Jones as villains...need I say more?

9  Mr Wint and Mr Kidd - these creepy dudes definitely were not messing around.

8  Red Grant - He was specifically trained to kill Bond...the big blonde dude had it out for Bond, and not in a good way!

7  Dr. No - his scary black glove that was supposed to be a prosthesis let your imagination run wild about just what it was capable of.

6  Tee Hee - his metal prosthesis was very memorable when he was feeding the crocs with chickens

5  Rosa Klebb - This little spitfire had daggers in her shoes and gave agent 007 some heartache.

4  Blofeld - His scary scar was enough to make you want to squirm...and then add in the creepiness of him stroking his kitty and it is enough to scare any sane person.

3  Goldfinger - the guy who turned everything to gold and had Bond on the table with a laser to 1/2 007 into agent 00 3 1/2

2  Odd Job - This guy (of the throwing a hat a severing heads infamy) was just a mean looking dude, and he really made an impression on Bond when he crushed a golf ball in his bare hands


1 - Jaws!  This dude was huge and scary!  His metal teeth and all around indestructible character just kept coming back for more and more...although he did show a softer side when he fell in love in Moonraker and actually helped Bond.

Top Ten Bond Girls

There are a lot of hot mamacitas in the Bond legacy and my criteria for the Top 10 includes a combination of name, character on the movie, and of course looks....


10:  Miss Moneypenny - she has been the only Bond girl that has been a constant in all the movies...

9:  Pussy Galore - Honor Blackman: Goldfinger - just the name alone gets on the list

8:  Tifanny Case - Jill St John: Diamonds Are Forever - just her on screen personality gets her on this list - mischevious and she added a little humor (perhaps unknowingly).

7:  The next Bond girl is rumored to be Freida Pinto -

6:  Camille Montes - Olga Kurylenko: Quantum of Solace

5:  Paris Carver - Teri Hatcher: Tomorrow Never Dies

4:  Dominque 'Dominoe' Derval - Claudine Auger: Thunderball

3: Jill Masterson - Shirly Eaton: Goldfinger - of the infamous painted gold...

2: Xenia Onatopp - Famke Janssen: GoldenEye

1:  Honey Rider - Ursula Anders: Dr No

Top Ten Bond Songs

It goes without saying that the Bond movies are classic - the songs probably don't measure up to par with the movies but there are definitely some good soundtracks to the movies.  My top 10 list for Agent 007 are:

10:  You Only Live Twice - Nancy Sinatra did a nice job with putting together a song that blended in well with the movie and overall 007 theme.

9:  On Her Majesty's Secret Service - a good instrumental that just like the movie might be a little under the radar but it quality.

8:  The World is Not Enough - Garbage picks up the slack for one of the sub-par Bond movies

7:  A View To a Kill - Duran Duran stayed relevant with another one of their catchy tunes

6:  GoldenEye - written by Bono and The Edge and sung by Tina Turner-- just a good all around 'everything' combo

5:  Thunderball - Tom Jones doing it right for Mr Shaken, but not Stirred...Two pantie dropping studs teaming up - Thanks Connery and Tom Jones!

4:  James Bond Theme Song!  DUH!

3:  Goldfinger - A killer voice from Shirley Bassey provides for a powerful song with some memorable notes held for a song that just sticks in your head to make for a great 007 song.

2:  Nobody Does It Better - Carly Simon definitely hits the spot - enough that Radiohead has even covered this bad boy too!

1:  Live and Let Die - by Sir Paul and the Wings!  The song would later be re-done by Guns n' Roses with equal ferocity and conviction!

There are some honorable mention songs that might make the list if they stand the test of time but recent contributions include Soundgarden's Chris Cornell on Casino Royale with his song 'You Know My Name' and the Jack White/Alicia Keys contribution of 'Another Way To Die' on the Quantum of Solace movie.

Top Ten Bond Movies

When I started to peel back the layers it became pretty easy to filter the list down to a short list...there were a handful of Bond movies that just were not very good.  All Timothy Dalton movies were eliminated for me because he did not a good Bond make...he was just downright awful!

so in reverse order here is my top ten list:

10:  Thunderball
How can you go wrong with Tom Jones belting out the song and the now infamous jetpack action?

9:   Goldeneye
The Opening Sequence alone is worth the price of admission!  Here is another version of the opening sequence linked to the Propellerheads song:

The Dark Side of Goldeneye from Gregory Pike on Vimeo.

8:   The Spy Who Love Me
Another great opening scene.  A great opening line to boot "James, I need you" with Bond smugly replying "So Does England".  The villain Jaws was cast so well and he makes for a perfect bad guy who scared the beejeezuz outta me when I was a kid...and who could forget the Lotus car transforming into an underwater rig.

7:   Casino Royale
This was the intro of Daniel Craig as Bond and he made for a great Bond...although the movie made him out to be a little too PC for my liking

6:   Diamonds Are Forever
great Bond girls in Vegas...what more do you need?

5:   Goldfinger
This might just be the most captivating collection of Bond girl names...

4:   On Her Majesty's Secret Service
George Lazenby did a nice job and it blends in well with the Bond series.  Great location shots in Zermatt and another great villain!

3:   Live and Let Die
Roger Moore getting it done with an awesome film song!

2:   From Russia With Love
Classic old school Bond with a great plot and great locations to film


1:  Dr No

My list tends to gravitate to the older Bonds because the older movies had believable plots with natural enemies/foes that are not too far of a stretch.  The other super cool aspect of the older Bond movies is the mix of gadgets that seemed so futuristic but still credible.  With the advent of special effects, the Bond movies started to go downhill where the stunts were not as believable because they were made by special effects and not by stunt people actually doing the stunts....
There are so many great scenes but the epitome of Bond to me is Dr No....The best Bond girl scene of all time might just be Honey Rider (Ursula Anders) coming out of the ocean onto the beach and encountering a smirking 007

Bond Week

That was fast!  and it started off in fine Monday morning fashion today....nothing like logging on at 7:30 and seeing some work stuff blow up right off the bat.  Woohoo!

It was a good weekend in Big Sky land - The weather was good and we managed to get out to Discovery on Sunday to play on the snow.  The conditions were OK.  The coverage was decent and you could still find some decent snow on some of the steeper slopes along the sides of the runs but most of the mountain has been skied out and there were a few icy spots.  They definitely need more snow and our forecast is calling for a warming trend so who knows where it will end up being another tame snow season here.

As the weekend wrapped up, I got sucked into watching another 007 movie for the umpteenth time (From Russia With Love)....and it got me thinking to what my favorite Bond movies are.  I have a hard time moving off channels when  Bond is on...especially old Bond with Connery and R Moore...it is like turning away from Animal House or movies that are just uber classic....so tomorrow I am going to put together my Top 10 Bond movies as it just helps me to appreciate some of the classic classic Bond action.

I like my Bond to be old school:  un-pc, a lothario, a quick witted overall bad ass who drinks like a fish, beds down ladies with promiscuous names (and attitudes), and does not think twice about pulling the trigger on a crazy villain - all for his country!

One of my lists of reads is to go through the old Bond books...Bond is da' man!

When I did a little research a while back it turns out that Bond was perhaps created by Fleming around the real life 'scene' that was happening at the Estoril Casino in Portugal back around the WW II era when spies and royalty openly rubbed shoulders in neutral territory.  Fleming was a little bit of a mover and a shaker and probably a wanna-be ladies man and it all helped in developing his Bond character for his books.

although my Monday morning was enough to shake me up (and wake me up a little)....I was not stirred....

Blood Meridian

For the past couple of weeks I have been engrossed in the book by Cormac McCarthy.   People probably know him best by his works of 'The Road' and 'No Country For Old Men'.  If you happen to have read either of those, you will know that his work is not necessarily the most upbeat of topics.  His books are usually very descriptive and focus on some pretty heavy themes.  Wikipedia describes him as 'He has written ten novels spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres'.   Southern Gothic?  I had no idea that such a genre existed!  It somehow does describe his style though.

Blood Meridian ups the ante on both of those aforementioned books.  It makes both of those books seem like the latest Dr Seuss release.  Blood Meridian is violent, graphic, engaging, dark, well written, hard to put down, etc.  It is amazing to me that some people are blessed to have such an incredible imagination and ability to describe that imagination so vividly and precisely.  If you are looking for a great read, pick this book up and be ready to go on a ride through time and space back into a land of total lawlessness.

Back in the law abiding world, it is Friday and it is time to wrap up some work and get ready for the weekend!  

MicroSuck

After going through multiple computers due to obsolescence & and Microsoft bugaboos, we decided to try going the Mac route as a test run.  We bought a Macbook Pro (a laptop) about two years ago to see how we liked the Mac option.   We were tired of running through desktops at the rate of about 1 a year and thought that moving over to the Mac platform would be better in the long haul.  We have really enjoyed the Mac operating system and interface and I think we are ready to move 'all the way' over into Mac-land.

I was personally tired of going through Micro-Suck updates on a weekly basis...not to mention all the add on products that cost $ and how MS forces you to upgrade SW and therefore having to purchase the same SW again (sold under the guise of a new version).  Add to that that the OS is not nearly is stable (although it is much better than what it used to be), is more susceptible to being hacked, etc etc and we had just reached our boiling point with the dreaded Microsoft mafia.  I have also had a couple of situations where updates to the system would crash other programs indefinitely or evener worse when the computer just totally died and I had to re-install everything (losing all programs and data too).  Blue screens are NEVER a good thing and I have seen said blue screen about 5 times in the past 24 hours.  It is time to back up all the data and start looking at options once again.

It might just be time to move all the way over to the Mac platform and get a Mac desktop too because apparently at some point it has become 'normal' to have to go through a desktop at a pace of one each year.

I think the term 'disposable income' really means that the products these days are disposable and that you have to frequently spend your 'disposable income' on replacing the products that need to be disposed of so frequently.

Symphony of Night Sounds

Last night was a topsy turvy kind of a night for me...sleep was hard to come by and as a result the mind wandered and wondered about nothing and everything.  As I lay there tossing and turning I started to realize all the sounds around me.  First it was the wifer's heavy breathing then it was the ping pong volley of sounds coming from the dogs.  Moby chasing bunny rabbits in his sleep....volley over to Otis snoring....volley over to Moby whimpering in his sleep....volley over to Otis stretching and scratching the wall with his paws....backhand volley over to Moby licking himself....forehand volley over to Otis to re-arrange himself to get more comfy...lob volley over to Moby grinding his teeth....volley over to the other court where the wifer hit a vicious forehand slice and did some sort of grunt/groan while flopping over and re-arranging the pillows....

This went on for a couple of hours and I lay there being very envious of everyone else in a deep sleep.  Naturally I woke up tired and dragging arse today.

It turned out to be a pretty productive weekend.  We did some serious clean up and organization around the house.  It was well overdue and it was good to knock some things out.  Unfortunately our weather is in the tweener mode where it is between being too nasty to go ride bikes but not nasty enough to get out and play in the snow.  It has been wet lately and it seems very strange to be saying that in January...January moisture is usually of the white variety in this neck of the woods, and not of the Portland variety of liquid sunshine.

TriggerPoint Grid Foam Roller

The TriggerPoint Grid foam roller has just recently come on to my radar and I have been diligently spending time on it each day to try and loosen up my IT band and my quads.  Cyclists are notorious for having tight IT bands and quads (with relatively weaker hammies).

The first 3-4 times using this were rather painful but it finally feels like things are loosening up and there appears to be some progress in working out the sore spots.  The idea is you isolate a muscle group and then roll through until you find a 'hot spot' or a spot where you feel pain and then you stop on that particular spot until it stops hurting and then move to the next one.  This can take around a minute or so for each trigger point.  I have been using this on the IT bands and quads and have noticed marked improvement.  The first couple of times took a while to work through the IT bands as I had to 'stop' a lot on many locations.  It was not exactly the most pleasant experience considering the pain but in a way it felt good because it was a means to an end.

What I like about the design of this particular foam roller is that it won't lose its shape.  The way it is designed pretty much guarantees it will maintain its shape and firmness.  It is built with a plastic tube on the inside with a layer of foam molded onto the plastic.

This all helps in giving it a pretty firm feel.  The nice thing about this firmness is that when you first start it feels too firm but you realize that you can off-set that by taking weight off the area you are working.  You basically use the leg you are not 'working' to take weight off so that you can find the happy medium.

The hard part is disciplining yourself to do it.  It takes about 30 minutes to go through the IT bands and quads followed but a couple of stretches but I think the benefit far outweighs those 30 minutes.  It is one of those things that you don't really notice that you need to stretch until something tightens up and then it is too late and you are starting from behind...sort of like hydrating...by the time you feel thirsty, it is too late as you are most likely already dehydrated....ohhh deep thoughts....

Hammer Shout Out

and no, I don't mean MC Hammer....

We have been ordering product from Hammer Nutrition over the past 3-4 years and I have really come to like their product for nutrition while riding.  Their products are great and their customer service has just been outstanding!

My recent experience with swapping out estim units once again showed what a top notch organization Hammer is.  I expected some push back from them when I brought up swapping out units (since they were switching brands and we had just purchased the brand they were no longer going to carry) and all I got was great customer service!

It is a sad day when these 'good' customer experience becomes the exception rather than the norm.  My expectations are so low that it is an anomaly when people do their job and do it well.  This is why the 'Hammer experience' has been even more impressive - they have gone above and beyond the 'good' to just plain awesome!

tip of the hat to Hammer!  Thanks!!  You guys ROCK!

Tendo'know'sis...Tendo'notknow'sis

Monday proved to be a rough day and sometimes it is good to just get through the day and look forward to a better follow up day.

The lone good news of the day was that the new Compex estim unit (Compex Sport) arrived and was promptly put to good use later in the evening.  The initial observations are that the unit has similar functions to the Globus unit that we sent back.  Once you start to peel back the layers, you notice that there is more functionality though.  The Compex has more functions and programs than the comparable pricepoint for Globus.  Once I get a chance to use it a little more, I will do a more in depth review with more details but so far it is a thumbs up.

I have been spending a little time on the indoor trainer and have been just trying to keep a higher cadence with constant pressure on the pedals for an hour.  I am trying not to push too many watts right now with the intent of trying to give the knee a little bit of a break.  Last night I stacked workouts and sat on the indoor trainer for an hour spinning away and then followed that up a little later with an e-stim program.  The legs feel a little tired today so it will be a good rest/recovery day - although a quick lifting (upper body) workout is in the works at some point during the day.

After having a semi grumpy knee for a while and not seeing a lot of progress healing-wise, I decided to do a little digging and see what I could do to help speed that along.  My theory is that my legs might be tight and that stretching out the IT bands with foam rollers and stretches should help to bring everything back into alignment.  Once the IT bands tighten, they throw the knees a little out of alignment and my theory is this out of alignment position might be what is causing some tendonosis.  I have been working with the foam roller the past three days trying to loosen things up as well as trying to stretch.  If all else fails and all these new variables fail, it might be time to see a pro.  Regardless, it will be good to try to get this sorted out before putting real mileage on the legs this spring.

Fred's Grill - DON"T DO IT!

The wifer and I decided to head out to dinner last night and we ended up at Fred's Grill.  We have been to Fred's on 3 different occasions and have been really disappointed every time.  The first time we went there, they forgot about us and the waitress either did not see us or decided not to serve us.  We even asked the hostess and the waitress for some menu's, etc but nada...after waiting for about 20 minutes, we decided to find elsewhere to dine that evening...Strike #1

We decided to give them another chance thinking that maybe they just had an off night, were super busy, etc...So we proceeded to be seated at the very same corner table where they forgot about us the first time.  We politely declined and told them we would just wait for the next available table...to go ahead and seat the people behind us that were waiting at that table that was offered to us.  The hostess argued with us for a while and then looked at us as if we were aliens and reluctantly seated others at the table that we did not want.  Based on her reaction to this very simple and polite request, you would have thought we were asking her to solve for World Peace!  We were seated and the service was once again v-e-r-y slow...we kept seeing people who arrived after us getting served and figured we must have been lucky enough to have pissed off the staff when we asked them to solve for world peace earlier...Strike #2

At this point we probably should have known better and not returned but alas there are not many places to eat in Butte so we decided to hit Fred's up for a third time hoping our two prior experiences were anomalies. The 3rd time was another disaster with poor service and over-priced food.  Strike #3...they should have been OUT but no we were still hopeful......

Enough time had passed that we decided to hit up Fred's again last night.  The service was fine (actually it was excellent relative to our prior experiences) but the kitchen staff totally skeeved us out.  The wifer ordered a burger and I opted for the fettuccine primavera.  The kitchen is visible to the patrons because there is just a bar separating the dining area from the cook area.  I made the mistake of watching one of the cooks and watched the following sequence:
Cook grabs bunch of pre cooked fettuccine noodles with his hands and dumps it on a plate.
Cook then wipes his nose with his bare hands and wipes his hands on his t-shirt
Cook then handles the food with his bare hands again
Cook alternates several times between wiping his nose on his shirt and wiping his hands on his shirt.

At this point I called one of the waitresses over and changed my order explaining what I had just seen.
They were very sympathetic to my plight and promptly changed my order...bear in mind the lack of efficiency from ordering to bringing your food and all it meant was we got moved back in the queue and our food would now take even longer - Our food finally arrived and I tried to put the visions of said cook handling my fries with his bare hands again while I tried eating...
Our check came and the waitress comped us my drink so I left a nice tip, but Fred's is no longer on our list of acceptable  places to eat.

It did get my mind wondering about how often that happens in kitchens that are not as visible...either that or I am just way too picky about people wiping their noses with their bare hands and then handling my food with those same bare hands.

NPR Tiny Desk Concerts

I just recently stumbled across a gem of a series via NPR.  NPR has really gone down hill lately (when they no longer gave impartial news stories) but they have some awesome music content!!

The tiny desk series of 'concerts' where artists go to the NPR studio and literally get behind someone's desk and will do a few tunes.  It is usually a stripped down version of the band so there is no fancy technology to hide behind.  If you have not already discovered this tiny desk series on youtube, then check it out!!!
Here are a few of my favorites to date:

the missus and I were lucky enough to catch these guys in Denver about 3 yrs ago:


great voice from Raphael:


If you are looking for something just totally manic and fun, then find the Gogol Bordello show in this series!!

There is a little bit of everything in this series, from Omara to Tom Jones to Jakob Dylan to Gyptian and on and on...check it out!

Canadian Hip Hop

I just recently discovered an artist out of Canada that has a pretty cool sound.  As it turns out, he actually was the artist behind the World Cup song in S Africa this past year.  It is always fun to discover a new (to me) artist and so far I have been impressed by his lyrics.  Here be some K'naan





He reminds me a little of K-OS and as it turns out apparently they have a little beef with each other...even Canadian artists get a little grumpy sometimes!

Globus vs Compex

The new Hammer catalog came in the mail yesterday and I was a little surprised when I got to the e-stim section and noticed that Hammer has decided to sell Compex as opposed to what they had been peddling (Globus).  My head started to extrapolate what this meant to me...The missus got me a Globus e-stim unit from Hammer in late November (for Christmas) and at the time they did not disclose that they were getting ready to switch brands.  I find this a weeeee bit shady but was willing to overlook it until I started to read into the details.

When I talked to one of the reps at Hammer I started to realize that not only does Compex provide a better bang for your buck but they actually offer more functionality at a lower pricepoint - so does this make it a bigger bang for a smaller buck?  Fortunately we are within the 60 day replacement period with the Globus unit so I plan on sending back the Globus unit and getting an upgraded Compex.

Part of my concern was the issue of replacement parts and warranty if Hammer decided to stop carrying Globus.    They said they would continue to carry replacement parts but it definitely does not give me a warm & fuzzy.  To their credit, Hammer mentioned I could still return the unit but it was a little surprising that they did not mention it up front when purchasing the unit in late November.  I will certainly give them the benefit of the doubt as their customer service has been outstanding with all our other purchases.

Monday was a busy day work-wise and I am looking forward to things slowing down a little today.  It is a rest week for the legs so there will be some light spinning but nothing too demanding.

The New Grind

It is officially back to the grind this week.  It is sure to be a busy week with most folks coming back from vacation and undoubtedly get caught up on their email which will definitely prompt a lot of follow up.  There are a few open items that will be good to get resolved this week but I somehow get this feeling they will require more work than what is really needed.

Yesterday was a full on rest day exercise wise.  I opted not to go to Discovery to hit the snow because the coverage is still a little on the light side and there was a lack of motivation to go sit on the chairlift while the cold temps pelted the face.  It resulted in a high TV day with the highlights of watching the Seahawks and Blazers.  Both somehow managed to win but as a fan, it has been a rough year to be following either.  I can't imagine there is much hope for the Seahawks next week when they go up against New Orleans but at least they made it to the post-season.

The rest day will probably be followed by a relatively easy week this week in terms of sitting on the trainer.  The legs feel pretty good as per the last session (was almost able to average 200 watts for the hour) so I am going to try and not over-do it and will try to rest them this week with light spins so that they can endure more fun next week.

I am going to spend some time trying to figure out the e-stim unit this week.  Hammer is available again this week so I will be picking their brain on trying to develop a plan of sorts that can hopefully create some synergy with the existing training.  The wifer tried out the e-stim unit this weekend and she now gets why my face would occasionally contort with what looks like pain when the bad boy was fired up.  She was not all that impressed so it might just be me serving as the family guinea pig.

It's a new decade

Happy New Year!

2011 rings in a new decade and makes me think back to the turn of the prior decade which also happened to be the millennium gloom and doom of Y2K that passed without incident.  With each milestone year, comes a series of prophets who will tell us how the world is about to come to an end, blah blah blah.  Those milestones come and go and we are still around pontificating the next gloom and doom story.

Our only gloom and doom around here right now is our weather!...it might be a minus 15 F when we wake up and it might deter us enough from playing outside, but this too shall pass!  At least it is sunny outside.  We just got back from running errands and the -4 that the thermometers were showing felt decidedly warmer than the -15 when we left a little earlier.  It seems absurd to think that -4 feels significantly warmer than -15 but somehow it does.

2010 was a good year.  We managed to get a lot in and we hope that 2011 will follow suit in terms of progress.  We made great progress on the Airstream and are planning to use the Globetrotter for more than just taking up space in the garage this year.  There will be some spring work needed to finish off the tin can but we are getting closer.

We also were lucky enough to get a couple of road trips in.  We did a nice tour of the Tetons, on both the east side and the west side.  There is something very therapeutic about smelling a camp fire and sitting around it and being forced to chill out (while keeping an eye on the roaming bear that was eyeballing the campsite).  We also pulled a trip to Oregon where we got to catch up with friends and bask in the heat wave that had enveloped the area.  I also had a chance to meet an old friend from HS in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics.  All in all, there were some keeper memories fo' shizzle!

The missus had a busy work year.  She had lots of additional leadership opportunities outside of her regular work that really were incredible and gave her the chance to get involved at a state and even federal level.  She does not talk about it enough (not her nature) but I marvel at how quickly she has been able to earn these opportunities & respect within the extended medical community.  She organized a conference, she met with state reps in DC, she was chief at the hospital, & she even managed to put up with me on top of all of that (while training for her 1/2 Iron Man Tri).

The only downside on her plate was that she owes the devil (gov't) more time at her current work.  All of these wonderful opportunities she had, resulted in having to be away from regular work a couple of days and in return she now gets to pay back the government with a couple extra weeks of time at the end of the 4 year contract.  The absurdity of it all is that she more than works her commitment off on a weekly basis where she has worked many more hours than what she is required to but the government does not take those 'banked or OT' hours into consideration.  What a crazy system.  To put it into context, if she were to take the vacation time she is allowed to at work, she would have to work additional time to make up for the allotted allowable time in payback to the gov't.  The good thing is we can at least manage that proactively moving forward so that she does not get dinged again.  It is always good to understand where you stand and this certainly helps to clarify how things work...

Enough about 2010...time to map out a little of 2011 and figure out what is on tap for the new decade.  It should be a great year!