Humming

Cougar 10-Mile Defeat

2009-07-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the 10-mile trail race of the Cougar Mountain Series I've been running. The pace in this race started quite a bit faster than the 8-mile race, so it felt great. From the beginning, I knew I was going to be able to up my time from 2-years ago...till I misstepped on mile 4 and rolled my left ankle. I couldn't put weight on it at first but slowly tried to walk it out. Wow did it hurt! After 3 or 4 minutes, I decided I could hobble back along and would finish the race. My ankle burned, but putting weight on it wasn't a huge issue. Though I thought I was taking care of my foot placement, I managed to roll it again on mile 6. This time, there was a bit of a pop and I thought I was surely out of the game. Once again, I spent 3 or 4 minutes walking it out and stubbornly refused to give up. Apparently I didn't learn my lesson...and on mile 8, I rolled and popped it a final time. From there, I hobbled out of the race. A mere 6 minutes off my time from 2-years ago...despite 5-10 minutes of ankle trouble and walking the final 2-miles out. This was THE most defeating race I have ever run. To be so close to my goal and have a joint and not conditioning issue...

What I should be saying is that I'm lucky my ankle is healing quickly and doesn't seem like it'll have lasting issues. It's nearly down to it's normal size and I think I'll be back out running paved trails by the week's end. I am also lucky that I have the 13-mile race in 3-weeks to find redemption. For now though, Eure and I are pretty frustrated w/my immobility. Soooo, it's time to get back at this work bs and research ankle strengthening exercises @ lunch.

Hope y'alls weekend was better than this little engineer's.

Honda N600 Upgrades - Day 1

2009-06-30T18:18:00.001-07:00

Task: Unsticking the driver's seat for Ms. Wee.

Step1: Jack up car for the first time (thank you JC and your glorious low profile floor jack).
Step2: Remove driver's seat (thank you previous owner for making this so easy).
Step3: Remove seat track from seat (thank you JC for pointing out the splendid nutplates).
Step4: Clean 30+ years of grease off tracks w/chemicals that made me high.
Step5: Grease, roll, let set, repeat. (thank you JC AGAIN for having product on hand).
Step6: Reassemble (tomorrow after the grease has set)!!!

Todo List:
1) Replace nearly 40 year old seat padding and sew new seat covers...after all the mechanical components are back in order.

Darn it's good to be an engineer!

Lake Melakwa

2009-06-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

While my mom was in town, we made it out to Lake Melakwa.

It's still covered by 80% ice...

...but Eure enjoyed it anyway.

Next time...we'll RUN this trail!

:)

Triad Lake - Buck Creek Trail

2009-06-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

We tried to make it out to Triad Lake...

...but ran into avalanche after avalanche. Only made it back 8-miles.

A good backpacking trip nonetheless.

Eure thought so too!

The past few weekends.

2009-06-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

Idaho was suprisingly awesome in the summer...

...

...and so was MN.

This little engineer is too busy living to write a real post. More later.

2009-05-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I bettered my time for the 5-mile Cougar Mountain trail run from 2-years ago. There's nothing like a trail run on a MOUNTAIN to humble you though. Here's to hoping the 7-miler in a month goes even better.

After, we went camping out near Leavenworth along Icicle Creek. For car camping, it was pretty cool. Temps were getting a bit warm for the poop even though we kept her coat watered down. Alas, she made it to the top of Icicle Ridge and was quite proud of herself. The second day was frustrating, but shows us how far we are and aren't in training.

Along those lines, we're in a frustrating but somewhat necessary obedience class w/Eure. She's SOOOO much more aadvanced than any dog in the class...yet she's also the most extreme w/focus and lack of focus. We're using the class purely to build our teamwork as she already knows all of the commands.

This little engineer is out.

Where I left off...

2009-05-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

Running w/the guys was AWESOME. I pulled the pace for the first few miles, then amiably kept pace and chatted (note to self: the guys don't chat when they run) for a few miles. The last few miles they picked up pace and made me seriously work to retain the glory of keeping up w/supper tall running guys. And, bam, I did it. I finished right in the middle of the pack on their final kick and WOW am I happy about that. I wasn't feeling Herculean strong either - just able. I'm not sure if we run again tonight, there have been a lot of storms passing through.

On top of that, I started the Commuter Challenge w/a group of guys at work. They've given me the code name 'sprockette' (which barely ousted the code name Diva Knievel) and I've biked to work 1 day this week (15miles round trip). It's not much, but it's enough to keep me going on my normally off days. Our team is not super competitive, but it'll be neat to see how far we bike during the month-long challenge.

Eure has been slowly getting the idea that running is for moving fast and chasing stuff and not for sniffing and eating grass, so she finally popped out a phenomenal unlead 5-miles (usually some oen runs or bikes ahead of her to keep her moving at a good pace - she pulled the pace for several miles on this last run). 5 miles in 37 mins flat is pretty good for us. Yeaya to training my little runner - I don't think people understand how much work it is w/a BC. Keeping her from stalking bikes, cars, people, dogs, trees, etc, etc, etc has taken MONTHS of positive reinforcement.

Though I v.much feel like ranting about designer dog breeds and pure breads for the sake of vanity, I wont. Instead, this is what you can get when you pick up some one else's mistake...

...georgous 'border collie' goodness.

This little engineer is out.

The Dark Side

2009-04-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

There are times that I wish my competitive side wasn't so dominant - I'm not very good at hiding it's existence and it can make me restless. Sometimes, though, it comes in v.v.handy.

Most of the older engineers around me have their PE's...and they waited till their 30's & 40's to get them. That was the origin of the drive that enrolled me in the summer PE review class @ UW. I plan on taking the class this summer, studying on my own for 6-months and then taking the class again before I take the test. Yes, I plan on knocking the test out w/in the next year. If all goes well, I'll be the youngest engineer w/in the group to complete it..until some new upstart decides to one up me. Either way, I'm excited about the test - I'm an awesome test taker.

Aaaaand that stinky competitive side finally kicked me in the butt to invite myself to the guys' running group on Tuesdays. These are all Boeing guys in my new group....and they're all pretty tall. I have no delusions that I'll be hardcore struggling to keep up w/them on their easy days, but this will be v.good for me. My only goal is to keep up w/them for 2-3 miles on their way out, and do the back on my own. We'll see how it goes for my first run w/them tonight. Hopefully Eure can join me next week. This should put me at the final level I want to be at before the 5-mile trail run in a couple of weeks...which is exciting. I didn't spend enough time building up a strong base last year and my final mini times were slower.

Goals, goals, goals - gotta love the summer. This little engineer is out.

2009-04-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

We will meet Boomer on Sunday.

2009-04-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

The first thing I thought when I saw this Element was, "wow, that's gay...at least they support gay rights". I know, I'm an a$$hole. Really though - soccer mom stick people...and cats, the cliche apple decal, AND it's an Element. Well, look closer, like I did and... "Omg, that's awesome!". They're gay men stick figures w/their cats and they drive a gay car. Rock on you clever little men - your car makes me smile when ever I pass it.

The end, this little engineer is out.

2009-04-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

She arrived this morning and is definetly a toy and not a commuter...for now. The breaks are too soft, so need to be worked on before I'll be driving her around. It's also going to take me a while to befriend manual transmition.

This little engineer is out for the weekend.

2009-03-30T19:22:00.001-07:00

Want to know the best way to take a perfectly rugged and robust border collie and make her look like a city girl?

Throw a powder blue soft shell jacket on her. While up at my Aunt's cabin this past weekend, we were hiking in and out of some pretty deep snow. That w/the chilly temps deemed it jacket worthy for the pup. When we weren't out hiking, we were living like movie stars as we spent nights in the hot tub drinking wine while the snow fell upon us.

All in all, a good weekend for this little engineer.

The Domestication of Wee

2009-03-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

I love suculants.

This color matches my eyes some days. Joey and I replaced all the hardwear, too. LOVE the grey towels, right?

Aaaand leave it to Nash to have pretty awesome friends.

All in all, a great weekend.

The most irresponsible I've ever been...

2009-03-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

...was the time I purchased this old Honda N600 from a seller in Kansas.

Everyone else has shiny toys...the boys have their motorcycles, my friends all drive Lexus or Audi's...and now, I have the car of my dreams. Small and efficeint - the way everything should be. My goal is to keep it running on my own (with Joey), which will be a great adventure.

Bad decision? Probably. It was my turn to act my age though.
This little engineer is excited.

2009-02-19T18:51:00.000-08:00

You should be jealous of my space bagging abilities.

4 quilts, 5 full sized pillows, 2 throw pillows, multiple sets of sheets, and a few throw blankets... Glorious.

Ah...domestic life.

2009-02-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

This is the planter I put together last weekend. Joey and I chose the flowers from the awesome plantshop accross the street. Apparently this stuff will all live well in this planter and the flowers will bloom every year in the winter(, which ROCKS)!

The end. This little engineer is out.

State of the Union 2/9/09

2009-02-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

Another good weekend. We went out to a few bars on Friday. Sans the drink and w/the new friends, I'm still finding my place. They're good people, it just takes so much time to build friendships even mildly comparable to those from college. Saturday we project-ed. My fiancé is handy - he made the hellion her own shelf bed for the bedroom.

(The small shelf above my laundry hamper on the left.)

I FINALLY created a design for my fleece quilt that sat well w/me and made the center section. The green borders will complete it.

Sunday we started the morning w/a little 5K:
This was my first race back after 5+ months off w/the poop (Eure is the #2 pet, so the poop). Though I ran harder than I have since the San Fran 1/2 2-years ago, I finished 20seconds behind my last years time. I placed 193 out of 1309 women, so that felt alright. It just takes SO long to get back after time off. I've recently decided this is going to be a summer for awesome running, so this is just the start. My goals are the Cougar Mountain Trail Running Series, possibly Bloomsday, Ski 2 Sea, and I hope to add a 1/2 Marathon the weekend before the wedding. Anyway, it's exciting to find the conviction to run awesomely again. I have a new running partner that seems like she may be able to be convinced to do some crazy training, so that's exciting too.

Anyway, so it's back to the daily grind...where I actually like my job. Calculating interface loads on pulley brackets this week and finding time to wrap up a hot/cold cable analysis. My job sounds cool right? This little engineer is out.

State of the Union 2/2/09

2009-02-02T06:14:00.001-08:00

This past weekend was pretty great. I had to work 5-hours on Friday (my day off) to make up time, but still managed to run errands (yeah, Jo Ann!) after work. The VW dealership had some extra items on my bill, so we left my car there AGAIN in order to speak w/the sleazy service manager AGAIN today. I was able to forget that lingering stressor as soon as we went out to see ‘New in Town’, which I enjoyed quite a bit. It was a cute date-movie and I greatly appreciated the light humor – it had been a while since I’d laughed. Saturday morning-ish we went on a hike in Lord Hill Park. The hike itself wasn’t awesome (location was kinda blah), but it’s always good to get out. It was especially neat to have so many of our friends along, including Eure’s secret crush, Munch. Eure’s recall was great and she did phenomenally well around the 2-horses we saw <phew>. And SUCH tasty mexican food to be had after.
Outside of that, I want to say that I’ve greatly enjoyed those silly ‘25-random things’ lists that are going around facebook. I typically hate self-proclamations (there's no one more biased about you than yourself), yet I’ve enjoyed reading what others write. On top of that, I think it reminded me how proud I am of our balanced active lifestyle. I'm proud of the people in my life, too...especially Joey.

That's all from this little engineer this morning -- carry on!

2009-01-29T07:43:00.000-08:00

Trying out a new header – perhaps it’s time to retire ‘The night…’. We’ll see how it sits.

As I walk into my building every morning, there’s an old wall mural that surely started out somewhere important. In it’s later life it was moved to my run-down building. I laugh as I read it every morning:

“What others dream, we do.”

Haha. Way to be motivational Big B.

This little engineer is out.

Lime Kiln Trail

2009-01-25T18:52:00.001-08:00

The car situation is still dragging on, so I guess I’ll update when we reach a conclusion – hopefully that’s some time this week. In order to distress from this horrid past week of car mishaps, Joey and I went hiking w/the pup on Lime Kiln Trail near Granite Falls. Eure is growing up to be a pretty great dog. She was great off leash and v.responsive…outside of her determination to walk in EVERY water/mud puddle.

The only issue we ran into is her persistent guard-instinct. Now that we have a protocol down, we really need to get out on populated trails to nip this issue in the bud. We also discovered that she has an issue w/horses…and I have NO idea how we’re going to teach her how to handle something we so rarely see – it’s worse than the kid issue.

Anywho, after hiking, we decided against camping – my back managed to tighten up pretty bad, so it wasn’t really an option. We went out to a bar w/friends instead. It was fun to see people karaoke…and fun to get more history on the crew…it’d been a while since we’d seriously seen them.

It’s back to work tomorrow - unfortunately still w/just a single car. It’ll make for another hectic week…but that’s the way the cookie crumbles…or something like that. This little engineer can’t wait to get the car bizness finished.

The saga continues...

2009-01-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

Immediately after work yesterday, we went to go pick-up my 'fixed' golf. The dealership explained that the only reason my engine was not running was due to my spark plugs. Though they said a piece fell into a cylinder, they charged me 200$ to assess that there was no damage. With replaced spark plugs, they sent me on my way w/the verbal assurance that I would be able to drive the 30-miles to my trusted mechanics for further repair. After turning left out of the dealership, I proceeded roughly 100m where my car topped out at 30mpg before proceeding to breakdown. I coasted to a stop on the highway in rush-hour a mere 200m from the dealership. With my trusty fiancé and some understanding drivers, we managed to push my can across the 3-lanes of traffic into another parking lot. Where my car still sits. The dealership has wiped their hands of me, saying that my car drove the 100m and so they did their job. The shady factor comes into play when I asked about any warrantees or guarantees on their service...they have none. The towing bill would be on my hands if I brought it back and they would not guarantee they could fix it... So, the new plan is to cut my losses with a shady dealership for now and tow my car down to our trusted mechanics for a new assessment and another round of estimates. There will be many a letter to the editor and such as soon as I'm of a normal state of calmness. After the hassle and cost of towing on top of the charges, I will be looking at a 400$ fee (and only this low because we're towing it ourselves w/a rented dolly and borrowed jeep) before I even have an idea of what is wrong with my car. If the assessment is horrid, it leaves me w/little choice but to figure out how to ditch my formerly adequate golf in favor of a new car. I'm not a new car type of person, nor can I afford a new car at this point in my life of home ownership and wedding planning - the thought of a new car actually makes me queasy. Lets not get ahead of ourselves though - towing the car at noon, estimates by Friday evening, plans made over the weekend, and decisions acted upon by Monday. To add to the bad, consider the neglect our poor Eure is suffering in this stint - none of us have been properly exercised since last weekend. This little engineer is clearly unhappy - at least it's not as stinky as a backed up septic tank. ba-dum-ching

2009-01-19T14:12:00.001-08:00

My car died while I was driving on the interstate today. It died...AND the brakes decided to stop working. Luckily, I was able to coast off on my normal exit and to the top of the parking ramp...and then drift around the corner where I pulled the emergency brake. At this point a cop rolls up and explains he wants to push me off the street and into a park-and-ride. This is where my car now lives. Un-turn-on-able, w/out working brakes, and w/some new gouges out of the bumper from mr. police man who almost spun me out twice. NOT the lunch break I envisioned today. NOT where I want to spend the final 1000$ to my name. Thankfully Joey left work to take me home where we let the dog out and discussed what next.

To be continued...

2009-01-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

“I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness; now what I want is joy. Joy is like sex – it begins and ends. I want pleasure. I want to be contented, but happiness? I No longer fall into that trap.”
The Witch of Portabello Pg 130

“…between the God who controls the world and the Goddess who is part of the world, between people who join together in groups where celebration is a spontaneous affair and those who close ranks and learn only what they should and should not do.”
The Witch of Portabello Pg 141

Dropping out of SAR

2009-01-15T12:04:00.000-08:00

That was short-lived. After a directive of mandated overtime on top of the wedding plannign on top of the desire to participate in Boealps on top of needing to start pre-marital counceling on top of Joey's guard duty on top of socializing and training Eure on top of trying to maintain a base level of personal fittness, I just couldn't handle the large commitment of search and rescue. It feels like a bit of a failure...yet, I can breathe again. It comes down to the fact that adding the tasks would have worked if they'd been a reprieve from stress...but there was no real gratification from training - only more stress. Soooo, we're switching gears. Eure is just going to be a superstar pet and not a true working dog - I think this is how she prefers it anyway. The next step is to follow through w/her basic training and continue on w/something more fun.

That's all I got. It's SO time for this little engineer's weekend to start!

Second BBD Sighting

2009-01-12T07:21:00.000-08:00

At the end of yesterday's jog, Eure and I turned a corner to run smack dab into the big black dog that attacked her 1-week ago. The dog nearly pulled the guy off his feet as it lunged and snarled at Eure. It was SUCH a relief to see the dog leashed up even though that barely kept it in control. It's good to know he's a regular trail user, too - we'll continue to keep an eye out for him. Eure had a GREAT day at the dog park last Friday as well. It's done a lot to build her back up since the attack incident. On top of that, I did some reading and devised a training strategy to conquor Eure's in-house barking (she barks furiously when she hears strange noises, which is common in a row-style townhome). After 3-days of implimentation, I believe I've seen a drastic improvement in her behavoir. She barks at new noises (which isn't a terrible thing) but she's learning to listen to me when I give her the ok to stop barking. She then quickly calms down and returns to her buisness (usually sleeping, eating, or chewing). It's been a good week for progress, which is often the case when I'm alone w/her - her focus is much better when the pack is just a single human and her.

That's all I got. This little engineer is starting the week w/a decent outlook.