We’ve moved!

That’s right, my digital. stories. blog has moved! I’ve spent the past two weeks migrating it to a fancy new WordPress-based site that you can read all about in this new post over at patrickbrown.org.

The Blogger posts will remain here, but all of my future posts will go directly to patrickbrown.org instead of to the rumitcu.blogspot.com URL.

If you’ve been a loyal subscriber to my blog, you’ll need to update your subscription method to keep getting updates.

• Email subscribers: Just enter your email address in the right sidebar on the patrickbrown.org site and you will continue to get updates in your email when I post new content
• RSS subscribers: Use patrickbrown.org or patrickbrown.org/blog as the feed that you want to subscribe to.

See you over there!

Springtime in the Desert

Winters of late have served as a time of rest for me with a focus on rest at home. So after several months of mulling about the house, the arrival of Spring brought with it another season of opportunity to travel and explore the West. When Colorado was still locked in Winter’s hold, the deserts of Utah were beginning to warm and offer the perfect place to get out camping and play in the sunshine. In the past month, I’ve managed to make it to the desert on 3 separate weekends with trips to Moab, Fruita, and then Moab again.

Good Friday was a CU holiday, so I decided to extend my long weekend with another day of vacation and really make the most of the Easter weekend. And fortunately for me, the Holcombe’s were also in the Moab area and had a Westwater permit for Friday. For almost 2 years, I’d been meaning to make a video about my impressions of the Bostig Turbocharger kit so with a weekend of play ahead of me, I decided it would be a perfect time to document my life with the Bostig upgrade and so was born, Turbo Weekend! Over the weekend, we kayaked Westwater Canyon, climbed Elephant Butte in Arches National Park (N.P.), climbed Looking Glass Rock south of Moab, and mountain biked Rabbit Valley near Fruita. And all the while, I had 4 of my cameras focused on our activities to document the turbo life. The video is coming soon, and it will be worth the wait!

I also used my new Garmin Fenix GPS watch on all of my adventures, so if you’re curious about where I went, check out the following GPS tracks:

• Westwater Canyon whitewater kayaking
• Elephant Butte climbing
• Looking Glass Rock climbing
• Rabbit Valley mountain biking

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Two weeks after my Turbo Weekend in Moab, I headed west again but only as far as Fruita for some mountain biking with Karen and Scott. We camped in the BLM distributed area out near 18 Road and were able to enjoy the Bookcliffs trails directly from camp each day. Compared to the warm, sunny weather 2 weeks earlier, we were faced with more seasonable conditions that culminated with gale force winds that forced Scott and I to abort our ride along the knife-edged trail of Zippity Do-Da. I also collected some GPS tracks from our rides which you can see here:

• Kessel’s trail on Saturday
• Zippity Do-Da on Saturday 
• Prime Cut, PBR, and Vegetarian Loop on Sunday 

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The spring desert season concluded for me this past weekend with another wonderful long weekend in Moab that I shared with a larger group of friends. Scott F, Scott W, Karen, and I started the weekend with a long drive after work Thursday night that culminated in a bouncy drive along a dirt track off the Rabbit Valley exit to a perch high above the Colorado River at Knowles Canyon Campsite. It is a magnificent place to camp, and that resulted in all of the spots being taken. On Friday morning, we got back on the road determined to find a nice camp for our group along the Colorado River, but once again, every single site was occupied. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who wanted to be in the desert and camping was looking to be quite difficult to get. Rather than spend a whole day driving around looking for a place to camp, we headed up to a secret spot of mine near Dead Horse State Park. We had the location all to ourselves and the view from “the beach” was breathtaking with the Colorado River, the rugged sandstone desert, and the snowcapped La Sal mountains all before us. On Friday night, Tracy, Jodi, and Ryan showed up and our group was complete as we watched the sun descend over the landscape.

The next two days were spent between time in camp and exploring Arches National Park. On Saturday, we did the obligatory hike past Landscape Arch to Double-O Arch, and I was reminded of just how beautiful that section of desert really is. Sunday, we returned to Arches but with a special backcountry permit that allowed us to explore the Fiery Furnace section of the park. The Fiery Furnace consists of vertical sandstone fins that allow for days of exploration of the resultant slot canyons. We only had a few hours to explore, but we found some amazing locations and were able to get everyone out in one piece in time for Jodi and Ryan to drive back to Denver. The heat of the day was overwhelming for me, and we were fortunate to find a new camp spot along the Colorado River where I repeatedly cooled off by jumping in the water. Monday rolled around, and before heading out of town, we got in a fun ride at the Bar M mountain biking trails north of Moab. It was yet another action-filled weekend in the desert that had to come to an end eventually. I can’t wait to get back out to the desert this fall when the temperatures cool down again, and in the meantime, I can at least remember the fun we had as I look at the photo album below!

Click here to open the photo album in its own window

And here are a few GPS tracks from the weekend:

• Mountain bike ride down Pucker Pass/Long Canyon and then back up!
• Hiking to Double-O arch in Arches N.P.
• Hiking in Fiery Furnace in Arches N.P.
• Mountain bike ride at Bar M trails

Bathroom Remodel

There comes a point in time when you realize that you’ve done it—you’ve accomplished your goal. Hot on the heals of my recent kitchen remodel, I put the finishing touches on the remodeling project of my bathroom and just like that, I reached the conclusion of a decade’s worth of home improvement projects on my condo.

In the midst of my kitchen project, I coordinated my efforts with the upgrade vision I had for the bathroom. The vanity was a tired, 30 year-old contractor special that was accompanied by a Boy Scout-built pine box vanity light. The floor had been upgraded to Pergo shortly before I bought the condo, but I was never much of a fan of the wood tone. On the plus side, the toilet, tub, and shower all functioned beautifully and looked just fine to me in their timeless white ceramic color. So while I was ordering the kitchen cabinets, I tacked on a matching vanity with a comfortable 36” height that would no longer make me feel like I was at a sink in a kindergarten bathroom. And with a granite countertop order underway, it was trivial to add matching granite to the vanity, and I decided to add a little modern flare and extra handwashing space with a rectangular undermount sink. In keeping with the contemporary brushed nickel motif throughout the condo, I added a beautiful 8 inch widespread faucet and new vanity light fixture. The demolition of the old vanity happened back in the middle of December which also resulted in the destruction of the old wall-mounted mirror. So when I installed the new vanity, I mounted a new wall mirror and cut a large hole in the drywall and studs for a flush-mount medicine cabinet. The combination of the new fixtures in the vanity space has really transformed the little place where I brush my teeth twice a day and has certainly added value to the condo.

After two disruptive months of construction, I stepped away from my home improvement projects and spent some quality time skiing in the Colorado high country and staying true to my goal of having friends over for dinners in the new kitchen. Still, I knew that I was not quite at the finish line. The Pergo floor still irked me, and I longed for a heated tile floor to complement the one I installed in the kitchen 6 years ago. But I also remembered the challenges I faced when installing the kitchen tile. Rather than procrastinating any more on an inevitable project or getting in over my head, I practiced some humility and maturity by asking for help from my friend and contractor, Matt. Two weeks ago, he showed up early in the morning and within 5 hours, I had a beautifully laid tile floor with thermostatically controlled heating. With each glance at the level, evenly spaced tiles, I remember over and over again that I made the right choice by asking for Matt’s help. After another week of occasional effort, I had grouted and sealed the tile and installed the new baseboard and brushed nickel towel racks. And that’s when it dawned on me, my condo renovation projects were complete!

It has been simultaneously frustrating and rewarding to remodel my condo, but more than anything, it is simply something that I have done. I didn’t just talk about doing a whole bunch of work, I did it. It is so very easy to consider things and talk about things, but to actually do something, that is what I think really counts.

Now that this massive condo renovation project is complete, I realize that I have a great new opportunity to pursue other goals that were lower priority but more interesting. After I finish writing this, I am planning to begin a significant long-term migration and improvement of my website to the web-standard Wordpress platform. That will be an ongoing effort, so I will also get back to achieving autonomous aerial flight with my quadcopter, and if that weren’t geeky enough, I absolutely can’t wait to see how I can incorporate Arduino microcontrollers to completely tech-out my Westfalia van!

Below are a sampling of Before and After photos from the remodeling project. I apologize if it is difficult to see the improvements I made to the bathroom; it’s very difficult to take photos of such a small, cramped space.

Click here to open the Before and After photo album in its own window

The West

1900 miles of driving over 4 days and I was exhausted. The road had lulled me into a state of complacency with its perfectly spaced concrete seems that resonated with the suspension in my Jeep Cherokee but I was soon to be awakened like never before. The fresh-off-the-lot little black Jeep was filled to the rim with a summer’s worth of perceived camping accoutrement—the Royce Union mountain bike that was a Sport’s Authority special, the red Gregory backpack that could hold enough gear for a week on the trail, crates full of stoves, pots, food, and of course, my Zamberlin full-leather hiking boots.

It was June 11 of 1999, and I was on the greatest adventure of my life. Having just pulled off the most amazing heroics to complete my Master’s thesis, Micro Air Vehicle Control Design: A Comparison of Classical and Dynamic Inversion Techniques, the good folks at MIT granted me my diploma, I bought the Jeep on the spot, drove to my parent’s house in Moorestown, NJ, and bid adieu to the East for the first time in my life.

First, a 14 hour day, then a 19 hour day behind the wheel. I put the lowlands behind me as fast as possible. Then a soul-inspiring overnight respite in the dew-laden grasslands of Badlands National Park. Mount Rushmore just didn’t do it for me, but the granite hills, Oh the granite hills! My excitement was building, and I knew the long hours on the flat, featureless road would soon be paying their dividends. Another rainy night in my Sierra Designs tent, but that time loneliness accompanied me along with the ponderosa pines and the erratic boulders on a deserted 4x4 road in the Black Hills. I could feel that I was close.

Another day spent behind the wheel, and Wyoming replaced South Dakota. And that’s when I saw them for the first time. Nothing could have prepared me for that. My journal entry said it all: “I rounded a curve and got my first-ever, distant view of the mountains. My jaw dropped, and all I could say was, ‘Holy Shit!’” My first sight of the Rocky Mountains! Well, the Big Horn Mountains to be specific. Sure they might not have been the Tetons or the Colorado 14ers, but let there be no doubt, I had arrived!

The Big Horn Mountains—who has even heard of them? It didn’t matter, because just as St Louis symbolized passage to the West for American frontiersman, those snow-capped peaks marked the first time I ever laid eyes on the grand mountains of the West. That summer was spent on perilous, yet transformative solo journeys through the Tetons, Glacier National Park, and the Sierras to name a few, but after 2 months, the East beckoned and I returned to responsibility and my first position as a professional engineer. My outdoor adventures continued throughout New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, but something was always missing. Finally, after two years of longing, I broke my ties with the East and made the long drive once again towards the Rocky Mountains but this time to a new land of exploration—Colorado. A dozen years have passed in Colorado with hundreds of weekends accounted for in exploration of the state’s grandeur. And in that time I’ve also climbed some of the highest peaks in the world, but never, not ever have I seen and felt such magnificence as the moment I rounded that curve in the road and got my first glimpse of the West.

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This personal essay was written in response to homework assignment #3, “To See or Not to See—That is the Question” for the Life Writing class in which we were asked to think back on our lives and writing about a time when we suddenly “see” something that we will never forget (a moment of understanding or a wonderful opportunity of using our eyes to view and experience the world).

Ceiling Fans in the Sky

Oh my God! The man appeared to be a white ghost, but I knew for certain his spirit was still within his body. Although only moments had passed, it seemed like an eternity. Of all the possible outcomes, this one was far from the worst. I might lose my job, but at least the man isn’t dead.

I never had much money growing up, but I had a strong aptitude for all things mechanical and used this advantage in my undergraduate studies of mechanical engineering to help pay for school with scholarships. But still, there were additional expenses and that meant summer and weekend jobs. I spent the summer after high school in my hometown of Moorestown, NJ learning the ins-and-outs of house electrical wiring and stocking boxes at the big-box Hechinger’s hardware store.

And since it was summer, I found myself in constant motion shuffling air conditioning units and ceiling fans throughout the electrical department. It seemed that we never sold very many of these cooling devices, but Bob Moore, the electrical manager, always had more of them on order and they always needed to be somewhere other than their current location. I suppose that’s why he hired a tall, young guy like me. Each day, Bob would give me a handwritten list of the stock that needed to be moved and I would spend hours climbing a 30 foot ladder to the top of the blue steel shelving units with boxes of dusty ceiling fans in my arms. One by one, I would stock the shelves, and then the next day I would reverse the process by pulling different models down to put on the floor. And this is precisely how my days were spent at Hechinger’s the summer before I went off to college.

That first year at Rutgers was one of constant learning and constant work. Work in the classroom, the lab, and of course, at Hechinger’s. I began to take on additional responsibilities at the hardware store that included providing sound electrical advice to homeowners. My confidence from the classroom transferred to the store floor and adults twice my age were actually listening to what I was telling them to do. I was truly growing up.

And with that growth came additional responsibility. One day, Bob Moore let me know that I didn’t have to use the staircase ladder anymore. After a few hours of training, I was able to drive a massive forklift to move entire pallets of ceiling fans and air conditioners to and from the highest reaches of the stores. I jumped at the opportunity and excelled at learning the subtle transfer of movements from my hands to the steel tines 30 feet above. Almost instantly, I went from slugging a single box to moving dozens of boxes. I was young, cocky, and felt like I could do anything.

My head was in the clouds and it needed to be brought back to earth. And so it was on one particular summer day that I had one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Per my usual routine, ceiling fans needed to be stacked at the top of a 30 foot shelf. Fortunately, they were already palletized and there was a perfect opening for them high above. I slowly, carefully maneuvered the forklift over to the pallet, aligned the tines with the openings in the wooden pallet, and effortlessly raised a dozen fans into the air. I swung the suicide ball on the steering handle and the entire vehicle spun in place like a figure skater. I eased on the accelerator pedal and the pallet crept over the top of 30 foot shelving. The pallet was out of sight, but I knew there was room for it, so I continued creeping forward. Just a little more, I thought. I don’t want the pallet hanging off the edge of the shelf.

BOOOM!!!!

My heart stopped and with the absolute certainty of a child who just knocked their glass of milk onto the floor, I knew I had done something wrong. The crashing boom came from the next aisle over and was immediately followed by yelling, screaming, and crazed commotion. I switched the forklift off and bound to the other side of the shelving. That’s when I saw the man. He was covered in white paint from head to toe and there was a 6 inch-deep magmic flow of paint easing its way down the aisle in either direction from a jumbled heap of paint cans. He jumped around infuriated, but at least he was alive. Somehow, by a matter of a few feet, he had escaped half a ton of paint that crashed to earth from 30 feet above. His life was spared and mine was humbled. The good people at Hechinger’s didn’t fire me, but I was no longer permitted to drive the forklift and have never forgotten how that young version of me narrowly escaped committing the very worst of mistakes.

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This personal essay was written in response to a homework assignment #2, “Work’s Nuts!” for the Life Writing class in which we were asked to write about a job we held at one point in our life that was, well—nuts!

The Recital

The sound of clanking coffee cups is quickly subdued by the roar of the espresso machine. Laptops are crammed onto tiny, rickety tables while hipsters raise their voices in an effort to be heard by their cohorts. Meanwhile, I sit nervously across the room. My heart pounds as I glance over the words on the page before me. So many names and so many songs; it is hard to know how much longer it will be. Then, in an instant, it comes to life. Shrill tones are produced haphazardly, but eventually I find a pattern to the sounds despite that damn espresso maker. How rude, I think. Can’t they see that he is performing? But still he presses on until there is no more, and then the coffee shop erupts into applause. Well, maybe it doesn’t erupt, but all of the parents are considerate of little Jimmy knowing that soon enough, their own child will be propped high on the bench in front of the large, wooden upright piano.

The first performance by my peer does little to slow the pounding of my heart within my ribcage. Thump-thump. Thump-thump… Maybe if I think about something else fun, I won’t be so nervous. Next, the siblings make their way to the piano. Gosh, I am so much bigger than them. But as they begin their performance, I realize that they aren’t nervous in the least bit. Whatever. At least I’m bigger than them. They play three songs together before hopping off the bench over to their parents with smiles on their faces. I glance at the page and see that my turn is quickly approaching. Thump-thump. Thump-thump… It’s not fair; I can’t believe I’m being forced to play the piano out in public in front of all the other students. I’m not even sure why I’m really here; I should be outside playing.

Minutes feel like hours and at last the teacher calls my name. My face feels flush and I can already feel a slight tremble in my fingers as I walk between the tables towards the piano. I feel the eyes of all the parents and even the hipsters on me as I attempt to keep my face from looking like I just sat on a tack. The teacher adjusts the bench and reminds me that if I make a mistake, it’s okay, I should just keep playing. This makes sense to me but is of little comfort as I unfold the sheet music. I’ve played the song dozens of times at home but never in front of anyone other than my teacher. I take a deep breath, focus my eyes on the black notes on the page, and begin to press my fingers to the keys. The piano echoes the thoughts in my mind, but it does so with protest. It is not singing the song; it is more of a forced confession under a bright light. The beating of my heart has not slowed a bit. Rather, my vision has begun to lose focus and the tremble in my fingers is enough to reach beyond their intended press of the correct keys.

I’m a page into the song and it all stops. Nothing. There is absolutely nothing I can do. I am literally frozen in place. The fear has culminated at this and it has won. The teacher leans over to me, “Pat, just keep playing. It’s okay.” I hear the words, but they can’t begin to effect what I am feeling. Or more appropriately, they have absolutely zero chance of unparalizing me. The eyes are still out there, and even without making contact, I know they are looking at me. Now, the coffee shop seems completely devoid of all sound. Except my heart of course with its relentless pounding. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. I tell myself that I can do this. Those other students aren’t much better than me. I don’t care what the teacher says, I’m starting over from the beginning and I’m going to play the whole song from start to finish. It seems like an appropriate time for a big gulp in the back of my throat, but there is no saliva in my mouth to accomplish such a quintessential task. I begin again and force myself note-by-note, line-by-line through the song. When it’s finished, the sound of polite applause fills the coffee shop yet again. As my parents taught me, I respond to the clapping with a slight bow and make my way back to my seat.

Many more songs are performed, each with more complexity than the previous. My face is still red and my heart rate is still elevated, but slowly I begin to appreciate the music and realize that it might be fun if I stick with it long enough to be able to play the songs that the older students play. An hour and a half has passed, and finally the recital has come to an end. As the event breaks up, several of the parents congratulate me on my performance, and the teacher tells me how proud she is of me for playing in my first recital. I consider this praise and begin to feel a bit of pride well up within me. Not everyone can play the piano. It’s not easy.

I gather my sheet music, the recital program, and my jacket and slowly make my way through the tightly spaced tables and chairs to the door. Outside, I feel the cool November air on my face and come to the realization that what I just did, what I just experienced was one of the scariest things of my life, but I faced it head-on and made it through. I contemplate what it means to take on challenges in life and how they define us as individuals.

I reach into my coat pocket, grab my car keys and unlock my 4Runner. As I sit in the seat and start the engine, I begin to remember the peer reviews that I need to coordinate for next week. The NASA engineers will be in town to criticize our design, but I don’t feel the least bit concerned. I am a grown man and I just played in the first piano recital of my life under the unnerving eyes of 8 year olds, their parents, and an occasional hipster. My confidence soars, and I realize that if I was able to make my way through that, I won’t have any problems with the NASA reviews next week.

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This personal essay was written in response to a homework assignment #1, “I forgot who I was…” for the Life Writing class in which we were asked to think about times in our lives when we forgot our very essence. My response was inspired by my favorite quote which happens to be about forgetting who you are in life:

"There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive."
-Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Life Writing Class

Writing has become one of the most rewarding yet challenging activities in my life. Last year at this time, I was wandering along trails in New Zealand and considering the role of writing in my life. Among the many considerations, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to make a deliberate effort to improve my own writing. So when the Boulder Valley School District course catalog for Lifelong Learning classes showed up in my mailbox and I saw a class called Life Writing, I jumped at the opportunity and immediately signed up.

The class follows a workshop format with 10 adult students who all aspire to further enrich the role of writing within their lives. It is only a 4 week class, and there are weekly homework assignments. The writing assignments are short in length (1 page) and are meant to stimulate the students’ need to write about their own life events. After authoring 2 of the 3 essays so far, I decided it would be worth it to share my stories on this site. This is definitely a bit of a deviation for me in terms of content on this site, but it has been fun to expand my own boundaries and see where my writing goes. I am definitely looking for critiques, so don’t hesitate to tell me what you really think!

• Week 1 Homework Theme: “I forgot who I was…” and my response, The Recital
• Week 2 Homework Theme: “Work’s nuts!” and my response, Ceiling Fans in the Sky
• Week 3 Homework Theme: “To See or Not to See—That is the Question!” and my response, The West

Solar Panels on a Westfalia Luggage Rack

In May of 2011, I embarked on several projects to improve the functionality of my 1985 VW Vanagon Westfalia camper. After installing a Bostig turbo charger and designing & building an Arduino-based battery monitor, I designed and installed a solar panel system to keep my beer cold all summer long. But of course, just as I finished the project, I set out on a 10-day kayaking road trip that was part of my kayaking 100 days in 2011! I always intended to share my experiences with this solar system and after having it installed for almost 2 years, it seems like a great to do so!

I put together a video walk-through of the system, so if you have about 14 minutes and want to see and hear all the nitty-gritty details, have a look below! (If you’d like to watch a 2 minute synopsis, check out the video at the bottom of this post.)

The goal of the solar panels was to allow for continuous use of the 12V refrigerator in my van during the summer months, since that would simplify the need to add or remove items from the fridge. Considering that I am always on the go during the summer, I wanted my van to always be ready to support my next adventure and that meant that the fridge needed to already be cold and stocked with beer! And since the pop-top portion of the roof is always loaded with kayaks and other gear and I wanted the panels to be useable without having set them up and take them down each time, it meant that I needed to mount them on the area over the luggage rack. But wait, I have more requirements! The solar panel also needed to be removable so I could set it in the sun when the van was parked in the shade. And finally, just one more requirement—I wanted to retain partial usage of the luggage rack!

Yes, I was able to meet all of those requirements and am extremely happy with the entire system almost 2 years later. The best way to understand how the system works is to watch the video above, but I thought I’d provide a little bit of detail about the components that went into the system in case you are interested in building something similar.

• (2) Ramsond 50 Watt panels for about $150 each
• Various aluminum extrusions and hardware: about $30
• Cabling: about $10 for a 50’ extension cord
• Weatherproof Multi-Con-X connectors from Switchcraft/Conxall: about $90
• Morningstar SunSaver 10A solar charge controller: about $60

Finally, I’ve included a few photos that show the solar panel system in action as well as some details of the mounting system.

Click here to open the photo album in a new window.

Update, 2/19/2013:

If you would rather spend 2 minutes instead of 14 to see how the solar panels mount on the luggage rack, check out this abridged version of the video:

2013 New Year

I spent the end of 2012 and the start of 2013 driving through the mountains of Colorado in freezing weather in my van without heat. I skied Steamboat on New Year’s Eve and kayaked Shoshone on the Colorado River on New Year’s Day, but somehow I was coldest when driving the van. In spite of what might be considered misery, this was a perfect way to start the next year of my life.

The annual process of penning a New Year’s blog post is both rewarding and very challenging. I have found that it contributes towards my annual growth due to the setting of goals and resolutions followed by their execution. The past few days however, I have struggled with my post for 2013 and have ultimately come to a new conclusion. The process is at least as much about personal reflection as it is about goals and resolutions.

A year ago, I was at the beginning of one my life’s great adventures when I reflected on the coming year of 2012. Without a doubt, my time in Antarctica was one of my biggest accomplishments of 2012, but it also taught me a most important lesson. The very act of walking away from my day-to-day life for several months and immersing myself in one of the most isolated places on the planet opened my eyes to the extreme importance of Home and the People in my life. Although I have made strides in my personal goals this past year, this shift in perception has probably had the largest impact on me and how I have lived my life. In Colorado, I have appreciated my friends and co-workers (who are also friends) more than ever, and I have been fortunate to spend time with my family back East at my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary in July and with my parents and brother in Florida for Thanksgiving. And in June, I was once again reminded of how wonderful my Colorado friends are when tragedy struck and we lost our friend John “JB” Boling. So as I move into another year, not only do I want to set personal goals, I also want to recognize and prioritize the relationships in my life. I want to make greater efforts to stay in touch with those I love and to really listen to them when I do have a chance to spend time with them. And despite the fact that I have a weird fear of doing so, I want to invite people over to my home to share time.

In recent years, my goals have largely centered around whitewater kayaking with 2011 representing the pinnacle of my paddling career. It would have been almost impossible for 2012 to match the previous year and as fate would have it, it was an abysmal year for the rivers in Colorado. I still managed to spend time on the water with friends, but my focus was freed from this activity for a season so that I could concentrate on other endeavors. Like I said in last year’s post, it is so very important to be able to reevaluate and adjust goals based on the circumstances that life provides. So while the rivers were dry in 2012, I had another amazing opportunity presented to me.

Out of nowhere in April, our project team at LASP received permission to build a quick turn-around instrument named, TCTE (TSI Calibration Transfer Experiment; TSI=Total Solar Irradiance; TCTE pronounced like the beer, Tecate) to make up for the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) sensor that was lost when our Glory mission failed to reach orbit in March of 2011. I jumped at the opportunity and volunteered to lead the test program despite the fact that I had never performed this role in the past. What started as a simple gesture to help out the team turned into an all-out effort to deliver the instrument at a record-pace of 4 months. By contrast, this would usually take several years to complete. My summer nights and weekends were filled with computers and testing instead of rivers, but the accomplishments and the new friendships were just as rewarding. By the time Labor Day came around, we had followed through on our promise to NASA and had a beautifully built, thoroughly tested TIM that was ready to be integrated on the STP-Sat3 spacecraft. I am extremely proud of the contributions I made to this project and believe that it may be the biggest accomplishment of my professional career. It wasn’t just that we did our job and did it well, I truly believe that we demonstrated ourselves as an organization in a way that can hopefully establish an even stronger sense of trust with NASA that will improve the way we do business with them in the future.

With the delivery of TCTE came the start of autumn and some free time that I filled with a renewed interest in mountain biking. Over Labor Day weekend, I biked from Buena Vista to Crested Butte and continued to meet up with friends on the following weekends for more riding along with a final, exciting kayaking day on through Gore Canyon. Then as the opportunities for outdoor adventure began to wane, my thoughts began center on my home. I decided to finally finish the home renovation projects that had been on my list for a decade by remodeling my kitchen in November and December and also diving into a partial bathroom remodel. Along the way, I seriously considered the notion of selling my condo to buy a house, but the realities of the expensive real estate market deflated those dreams. But then I had somewhat of an epiphany. I decided to change my own expectations about what is possible. I reflected on what I really wanted for a home and realized that although I couldn’t get there right now, if I made some changes in my life, it would be entirely possible. I came to the conclusion that if I sold my 2010 4Runner and made a deliberate effort to contribute towards my savings, I would be in a perfect position to buy a house in June of 2014.

So you see, as I drove the snow packed roads around New Years in my cold, 2wd van, I couldn’t have been in a better place. I just finished my kitchen remodeling project and knew that I would soon be inviting guests over to share it with me. I was in the process of selling my 4Runner that would help me towards my goal of a house, so the cold van seemed like a worthwhile sacrifice. And of course, I was on my way to ski and kayak with my great friends in Colorado. I can’t imagine a much better way to start a new year.