tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32156882024-03-19T13:21:20.164-06:00Raymond Johnson @ downclimb.comBlogging remarkably infrequently since 2001.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBlogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-48617971334254584272023-12-31T23:38:00.000-07:002023-12-31T23:38:04.045-07:00Much Nothing About Ado<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGp_bfuRXLJ5BodB-3o7VBJnhrdBph3u0Ot_K5Zh1O1zKGwVMJoed-Emk4koyNCoukFvaAhPeTRNHDe_xkWyyIMx_PPoR6J6wnwuisdkuToRolr1mqNv7cfBkjTRQPuU_c8zp-vZrPLIq7FJsXxMM9cKNxchyphenhyphenJMwHgNmnq7aaxCYoJR3FN74JUkg/s4032/PXL_20230611_165911462.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGp_bfuRXLJ5BodB-3o7VBJnhrdBph3u0Ot_K5Zh1O1zKGwVMJoed-Emk4koyNCoukFvaAhPeTRNHDe_xkWyyIMx_PPoR6J6wnwuisdkuToRolr1mqNv7cfBkjTRQPuU_c8zp-vZrPLIq7FJsXxMM9cKNxchyphenhyphenJMwHgNmnq7aaxCYoJR3FN74JUkg/w640-h480/PXL_20230611_165911462.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rounding the bend on Ride the Rockies<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>As I look back at 2023, I get the sense that I'm basically finishing this year where I started the last one. Sure, lots of stuff happened, but ultimately, I don't feel significantly ahead or behind where I was a year ago. Is that good? Bad? Neither?</p><p>I'm finishing up my 8th year with the Colorado Department of Education. It's still good work, but there's so much of it! It's difficult to not finish each day just dwelling on all the things that might help people but there's just not enough hours to do it all. This has also been a year for many new colleagues, which brings new opportunities and challenges.</p><p>By some measures, you might say this was my biggest cycling year yet. I rode Ride the Rockies for a second time, and that week was dominated by cold, wet weather. The highlight of the week should have been riding over Rocky Mountain National Park on Trail Ridge Road, but snow had closed the road and even if by some good luck the road had opened, it was going to be lousy (and perhaps dangerous) conditions for cyclists. We shuttled around the park instead. I also rode RAGBRAI and that week was dominated by heat. So much heat. I joked with people that 75 degrees F is perfect biking weather, and all the 50 degree days on Ride the Rockies were combining with the 100 degree days on RAGBRAI to give me that 75 degree average. I held on to enough fitness to also ride the Buff Epic 100 in September. It has almost 8000 feet of climbing, which is a lot for me (and a lot for most people shaped like me). I came in with the last group, but I made it. I have so many photos to process and I really should have tackled that this week during my winter break, but maybe I'll get to them in early 2024 before I start taking photos of next summer's adventures.<br /></p><p>This year's big math conferences were in Washington, D.C. at the end of October. I didn't do much touristy stuff, as I usually stay focused on conference activities when I'm conferencing, but I did slip over to the National Archives for a couple of hours. It's such a privilege to get to travel for work events, and so important for my professional growth and outlook on the work I do.<br /></p><p>One twist to the end of my year was spending a couple days serving on a jury. The charge was unwanted sexual contact, so there wasn't anything fun about the details of the case, but I'm glad to have served my civic duty.</p><p>I keep thinking that I'm going to replace this blog with something else, and maybe 2024 is finally the year that I do it. I've been slowly tinkering with Hugo, a static site generator. I can whip up a site quickly using a pre-made theme, but before making the jump I'd like to feel like I know more about making and customizing themes of my own. I know I don't write much here anymore, and haven't for years, but I take some pride having stuck with Blogger since 2001. (Back in the Pyra Labs days before Google bought it!) But I de-Googled my email this year by moving to Fastmail, and maybe it's time to move from Blogger, too.<br /></p>Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBroomfield, CO, USA39.9205411 -105.086650411.610307263821156 -140.2429004 68.230774936178847 -69.9304004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-22497682724800779532023-03-20T00:32:00.042-06:002023-04-04T20:13:12.091-06:00Effects of Handbrake presets and RF quality settings across AV1, H.265, and H.264<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0M5khfyv7dMENzVAVhRNbCBnu9yvYoyym-CPB3YSBp7_Y6KJJlX7LFU04093I67qHdOyqg2MJDDYsUoBdrk3ALSBfle2uVjzgQh_XBtczqCox5GP_9xaa6dcSCmClcsP_Z-KuU8XKmEa1qiyaeqZDANSCoXqGOPd6cIwTkoXaLPqZgZoWubM/s1920/Fantastic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0M5khfyv7dMENzVAVhRNbCBnu9yvYoyym-CPB3YSBp7_Y6KJJlX7LFU04093I67qHdOyqg2MJDDYsUoBdrk3ALSBfle2uVjzgQh_XBtczqCox5GP_9xaa6dcSCmClcsP_Z-KuU8XKmEa1qiyaeqZDANSCoXqGOPd6cIwTkoXaLPqZgZoWubM/w640-h360/Fantastic.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Fantastic!"</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p>Every once in a great while, I dive deep down the rabbit hole of media formats and the codecs<sup>1</sup> that encode and decode them. Sometimes it's photos, sometimes it's audio, and this time it's video. I'm no expert in these things, but rather an enthusiast who (a) likes to create and organize digital media and (b) likes knowing that the formats I'm choosing are going to meet my present and future needs. In the past few months I've been adding Blu-ray movies to my media server. I've relied on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding">H.264/AVC</a> as my video format for a long time (more than a decade, maybe?), but with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding">H.265/HEVC</a> now pretty mainstream and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1">AV1</a> emerging, I figured it was time to refresh my knowledge and get to know how these different tools might serve me.</p>
<p>This is going to be a long post, so I'm going to take a moment here to establish the four considerations I make whenever I'm encoding media, whether it's video, audio, or photos. The four considerations when choosing a codec and its settings are <b>compatibility</b>, <b>compression</b>, <b>quality</b>, and <b>encoding/decoding speed</b>:
</p><ul>
<li><b>Compatibility:</b> Regardless of its technical merits, a codec isn't any good unless you can create, edit, and/or view the file it produces.</li>
<li><b>Compression:</b> The whole point of codecs is to make files that take up less storage space and transmit with less bandwidth. If space and bandwidth weren't issues, we could just sit back with uncompressed, lossless formats and not worry about compression.</li>
<li><b>Quality:</b> Depending on the settings you choose, modern codecs produce media that can look as good as the original or files that are compressed beyond recognition.</li>
<li><b>Encoding/Decoding Speed:</b> I debated whether or not I should call this "computational intensity" or something similar. Our modern devices are powerful enough these days to play a lot of formats well, but that doesn't mean we like to wait hours and hours for media to encode.</li>
</ul>
<p>With those definitions in place, here's how I see the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and AV1 formats comparing as of early 2023:</p>
<ul>
<li>H.264/AVC is <b>compatible</b> with just about everything, often with hardware acceleration, especially for typical 1920x1080 or smaller videos. Its <b>compression</b> is good but dated compared to newer codecs. Because it's seen a lot of refinement since being introduced in 2004, you can get high <b>quality</b> at relatively good <b>encoding/decoding speeds</b>.</li>
<li>H.265/HEVC was released in 2013 and it plays on most modern devices that play H.264/AVC. Its greatest <b>compatibility</b> problem lies in the licensing and patent issues that prevent commercial creators from encoding videos in the format without paying fees, but that's not really a factor for home users. Its <b>compression</b> is better than H.264/AVC for the same <b>quality</b> output but you should expect slower <b>encoding/decoding speeds</b> than H.264.</li>
<li>AV1 is the new kid on the block, having only been released in 2018. It's not <b>compatible</b> with a lot of devices, including many media devices being sold in stores right now. This is expected to change because AV1 has broad industry support (including Amazon, Google, and Netflix) and it's designed to be free from patent and licensing concerns. AV1 was added to Handbrake 1.6.0 on December 28, 2022, and to Plex Media Server 1.30.2.6563 on January 10, 2023, which are two huge steps towards widening its use. AV1's <b>compression</b> should be better than H.265/HEVC for the same <b>quality</b> output. Because there are multiple AV1 encoders in development and hardware support is still early, there is a lot to learn about its <b>encoding/decoding speed</b>. AV1 is going to be most important for 8K and 4K video, but it works well at lower resolutions, too.</li>
</ul>
<p>Let's get to the testing. <br /></p>
<h2>Testing H.264, H.265, and AV1 <br /></h2><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijPdVMxIoPoREDgUSdm3x68EVnBy5-88EOcP9URgUfkJmhNV7746lBW3RMpiAQaDFoV-wXBAaNZDG8Hnw9pRZwNEkEO6ClPrl-8reZmAJeMgwWGnfSge-7Ua_8ryVI8KSDEtdxk63sfFMoU5jOGh7uDWg7356Id-r4QNtu-haw9sE8nm0CvEs/s1920/NoTouchingHairOrFace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijPdVMxIoPoREDgUSdm3x68EVnBy5-88EOcP9URgUfkJmhNV7746lBW3RMpiAQaDFoV-wXBAaNZDG8Hnw9pRZwNEkEO6ClPrl-8reZmAJeMgwWGnfSge-7Ua_8ryVI8KSDEtdxk63sfFMoU5jOGh7uDWg7356Id-r4QNtu-haw9sE8nm0CvEs/w640-h360/NoTouchingHairOrFace.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"No touching of the hair or face...and that's it."<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>There are many recommendations on the internet about how to get the most out of various codecs. <a href="https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/latest/technical/performance.html">Handbrake's documentation is a great start</a>. Because AV1 is so new, there's less information about its usage on the internet and some of what has been posted might be outdated or unreliable. I find that when it comes to discussing codec performance, enthusiasts can sometimes let their opinions run on the wild side, claiming that they can see or perceive dramatic differences in quality that others cannot. Some of these claims might be attributed to misconfigured software or unusual or defective source material, but I suspect many are probably due to confirmation bias or pure fantasy. To avoid this, I'll be using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Multimethod_Assessment_Fusion">VMAF</a>, an objective video quality metric developed by Netflix, the University of Southern California, and the University of Texas at Austin. For reference, <a href="https://realnetworks.com/sites/default/files/vmaf_reproducibility_ieee.pdf">a VMAF score of 93 is the level where streaming engineers find that the video is either indistinguishable from the original, or, in cases where it's not, the differences are slight and not annoying</a>. I used the the <a href="https://github.com/fifonik/FFMetrics">FFMetrics</a> software, v1.3.1, in Windows to calculate the VMAF scores, comparing 5 minutes of each output against the source, skipping the first minute. It's not a perfect measure, but it's far better than me posting a ton of screenshots to squint at or having me ramble on about perceived sharpness, smoothness, and saturation<sup>2</sup>.</p>
<p>My testing approach is pretty simple: Run a source video through Handbrake over and over (200+ times!) using a variety of codecs, presets, and quality settings, and collect the results. As my source, I selected one of the greatest action sequences ever produced in modern cinema: The big fight scene from <i>Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy</i>. Here are the stats for that chapter of the Blu-ray, in its original H.264 state ripped directly from the disc: 1920x1080 resolution, 6 minutes and 9 seconds, 1573.74 MB, and 8847 frames of video. I used Handbrake 1.6.0 on my Linux workstation running a Ryzen 9 5900x, with the exception of the AV1 (QSV) tests, which I ran on a Windows computer running a Ryzen 7 5700x and an Intel Arc A380 GPU.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMl1EfIqFnN4VkIdUcXWB602KSekS4j1bYd_U9ZfpzEAct_WgPgZU04oDkzAjzC1ca-ZiZKt1PxeNt1oZzSjTS0rRoahYjYVkAR_bFjUzSkGR6J3CahB5IV6FgxioAPthBMq9eoM2rw8sEgEnOCw3vUDL-fhCBp_0CpMREayBOUhJ7pD3ByTk/s1920/Aaaarrrrrggggghhhhh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMl1EfIqFnN4VkIdUcXWB602KSekS4j1bYd_U9ZfpzEAct_WgPgZU04oDkzAjzC1ca-ZiZKt1PxeNt1oZzSjTS0rRoahYjYVkAR_bFjUzSkGR6J3CahB5IV6FgxioAPthBMq9eoM2rw8sEgEnOCw3vUDL-fhCBp_0CpMREayBOUhJ7pD3ByTk/w640-h360/Aaaarrrrrggggghhhhh.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Aaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!"</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p>
<p>Handbrake has a lot of customizable settings but in my testing I focused on two. The first is the "RF" level, which is the primary setting that controls video quality. To put it simply, lower RF numbers means more bits in the output video, and higher RF numbers means fewer bits in the output video. All other things being equal, more bits equals more quality. I kept changing the RF level until I got VMAF scores as high as 98 (which should almost always be indistinguishable from the original) or as low as 90 (which is still quite good). The other setting is the preset level. This one seems to get widely misunderstood, as some people think it has a significant effect on quality. While it <i>can</i> affect quality, what the preset mostly does is determine how many "efficiency features" the codec uses to compress the file, and to what degree. It makes more sense if you look at <a href="https://gitlab.com/AOMediaCodec/SVT-AV1/-/blob/master/Docs/CommonQuestions.md">this table in the SVT-AV1 documentation</a> or <a href="https://x265.readthedocs.io/en/stable/presets.html">this table in the x265 (an H.265 encoder) documentation</a>. Lower presets "try harder" to compress the file while maintaining quality, at the expense of (often dramatically) longer encoding times, while higher presets work faster but tend to yield bigger file sizes. How presets work can vary across codecs and be influenced by how you're specifying the bitrate, but don't worry about it too much. You'll see the effects below. I started with the "middle" presets in Handbrake and then went two steps up and two steps down. As for the rest of my Handbrake settings, I turned all the filters off, kept the framerate the same as the source, and left the Tune, Profile, and Level settings to their defaults, which for AV1 were None, Auto, and Auto.</p>
<style type="text/css">
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<p>In the tables below, you'll find the following information:</p>
<table class="tg">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><br /></th>
<th>Preset Level</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody><tr>
<td>RF Level</td>
<td>VMAF score<br />File size in MB (and as a percentage of the original)<br />Encoding time in minutes and seconds (and average frame rate)</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2>AV1 (SVT)</h2>
<p>With the AV1 (SVT) codec (8-bit; I didn't retest with 10-bit), I tried every combination between RF 23 and Preset 4 (which gave a VMAF score of 98.02) and RF 42 and Preset 8 (which gave a VMAF score of 89.69).</p>
<table class="tg">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><br /></th>
<th>Preset 4</th>
<th>Preset 5</th>
<th>Preset 6</th>
<th>Preset 7</th>
<th>Preset 8</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>RF 23</td>
<td>98.02<br />396.16 (25.2%)<br />47:41 (3.1 fps)</td>
<td>97.89<br />376.48 (23.9%)<br />29:02 (5.1 fps)</td>
<td>97.84<br />382.09 (24.3%)<br />11:39 (12.7 fps)</td>
<td>97.89<br />415.11 (26.4%)<br />7:19 (20.2 fps)</td>
<td>97.52<br />345.21 (21.9%)<br />2:13 (66.5 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 24</td>
<td>97.83<br />356.68 (22.7%)<br />47:27 (3.1 fps)</td>
<td>97.68<br />337.94 (21.5%)<br />28:58 (5.1 fps)</td>
<td>97.61<br />341.79 (21.7%)<br />11:39 (12.7 fps)</td>
<td>97.67<br />374.37 (23.8%)<br />7:36 (19.4 fps)</td>
<td>97.36<br />324.68 (20.6%)<br />2:26 (60.6 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 25</td>
<td>97.58<br />313.07 (19.9%)<br />45:26 (3.2 fps)</td>
<td>97.40<br />292.77 (18.6%)<br />27:55 (5.3 fps)</td>
<td>97.30<br />294.73 (18.7%)<br />10:49 (13.6 fps)</td>
<td>97.39<br />328.46 (20.9%)<br />6:59 (21.1 fps)</td>
<td>97.11<br />294.82 (18.7%)<br />2:22 (62.3 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 26</td>
<td>97.28<br />270.11 (17.2%)<br />43:06 (3.4 fps)</td>
<td>97.08<br />250.30 (15.9%)<br />27:05 (5.4 fps)</td>
<td>96.96<br />251.72 (16.0%)<br />10:06 (14.6 fps)</td>
<td>97.06<br />283.99 (18.0%)<br />6:38 (22.2 fps)</td>
<td>96.82<br />264.50 (16.8%)<br />2:21 (62.7 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 27</td>
<td>96.98<br />233.44 (14.8%)<br />40:57 (3.6 fps)</td>
<td>96.76<br />216.80 (13.8%)<br />25:42 (5.7 fps)</td>
<td>96.91<br />217.17 (13.8%)<br />9:49 (15.0 fps)</td>
<td>96.72<br />246.07 (15.6%)<br />6:27 (22.9 fps)</td>
<td>96.50<br />236.07 (15.0%)<br />2:21 (62.7 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 28</td>
<td>96.69<br />204.93 (13.0%)<br />39:11 (3.8 fps)</td>
<td>96.45<br />188.50 (12.0%)<br />23:55 (6.2 fps)</td>
<td>96.25<br />188.09 (12.0%)<br />9:09 (16.1 fps)</td>
<td>96.39<br />214.97 (13.7%)<br />5:56 (24.9 fps)</td>
<td>96.18<br />210.58 (13.4%)<br />2:18 (64.1 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 29</td>
<td>96.39<br />178.52 (11.3%)<br />37.12 (4.0 fps)</td>
<td>96.15<br />166.88 (10.6%)<br />22:53 (6.4 fps)</td>
<td>95.92<br />165.56 (10.5%)<br />8:23 (17.6 fps)</td>
<td>96.08<br />189.69 (12.1%)<br />5:39 (26.1 fps)</td>
<td>95.86<br />188.39 (12.0%)<br />2:13 (66.5 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 30</td>
<td>96.11<br />160.38 (10.2%)<br />35:43 (4.1 fps)</td>
<td>95.86<br />148.42 (9.4%)<br />22:04 (6.7 fps)</td>
<td>95.59<br />147.07 (9.3%)<br />7:58 (18.5 fps)</td>
<td>95.75<br />168.34 (10.7%)<br />5:19 (27.7 fps)</td>
<td>95.53<br />168.56 (10.7%)<br />2:10 (68.1 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 31</td>
<td>95.77<br />140.40 (8.9%)<br />33:54 (4.3 fps)</td>
<td>95.49<br />130.48 (8.3%)<br />20:47 (7.1 fps)</td>
<td>95.19<br />129.20 (8.2%)<br />7:29 (19.7 fps)</td>
<td>95.39<br />147.77 (9.4%)<br />5:02 (29.3 fps)</td>
<td>95.15<br />149.27 (9.5%)<br />2:07 (69.7 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 32</td>
<td>95.38<br />122.87 (7.8%)<br />31:46 (4.6 fps)</td>
<td>95.10<br />114.74 (7.3%)<br />20:02 (7.4 fps)</td>
<td>94.74<br />113.43 (7.2%)<br />6:57 (21.2 fps)</td>
<td>94.96<br />129.37 (8.2%)<br />4:48 (30.7 fps)</td>
<td>94.71<br />131.40 (8.3%)<br />2:04 (71.3 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 33</td>
<td>95.01<br />109.47 (7.0%)<br />30:26 (4.8 fps)</td>
<td>94.72<br />102.95 (6.5%)<br />19:00 (7.8 fps)</td>
<td>94.31<br />101.80 (6.5%)<br />6:38 (22.2 fps)</td>
<td>94.55<br />115.77 (7.4%)<br />4:30 (32.8 fps)</td>
<td>94.28<br />117.55 (7.5%)<br />1:59 (74.3 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 34</td>
<td>94.64<br />98.51 (6.3%)<br />28:57 (5.1 fps)</td>
<td>94.34<br />93.54 (5.9%)<br />17:53 (8.2 fps)</td>
<td>93.89<br />92.42 (5.9%)<br />6:17 (23.5 fps)</td>
<td>94.16<br />104.73 (6.7%)<br />4:18 (34.3 fps)</td>
<td>93.86<br />106.49 (6.8%)<br />1:56 (76.3 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 35</td>
<td>94.23<br />88.54 (5.6%)<br />27:52 (5.3 fps)</td>
<td>93.13<br />84.93 (5.4%)<br />17:12 (8.6 fps)</td>
<td>93.44<br />84.04 (5.3%)<br />5:57 (24.8 fps)</td>
<td>93.73<br />95.28 (6.1%)<br />4:07 (35.8 fps)</td>
<td>93.41<br />96.69 (6.1%)<br />1:54 (77.6 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 36</td>
<td>93.76<br />79.29 (5.0%)<br />26:08 (5.6 fps)</td>
<td>93.49<br />77.34 (4.9%)<br />16:52 (8.7 fps)</td>
<td>92.96<br />76.65 (4.9%)<br />5:41 (25.9 fps)</td>
<td>93.26<br />86.54 (5.5%)<br />3:57 (37.3 fps)</td>
<td>92.91<br />87.82 (5.6%)<br />1:51 (79.7 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 37</td>
<td>93.31<br />72.47 (4.6%)<br />25:06 (5.9 fps)</td>
<td>93.07<br />71.50 (4.5%)<br />16:00 (9.2 fps)</td>
<td>92.48<br />70.85 (4.5%)<br />5:30 (26.8 fps)</td>
<td>92.81<br />79.75 (5.1%)<br />3:45 (39.3 fps)</td>
<td>92.43<br />80.80 (5.1%)<br />1:48 (81.9 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 38</td>
<td>92.79<br />65.23 (4.1%)<br />23:42 (6.2 fps)</td>
<td>92.58<br />65.57 (4.2%)<br />14:54 (9.9 fps)</td>
<td>91.95<br />65.09 (4.1%)<br />5:12 (28.4 fps)</td>
<td>92.30<br />72.37 (4.6%)<br />3:35 (41.1 fps)</td>
<td>91.92<br />74.04 (4.7%)<br />1:46 (83.5 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 39</td>
<td>92.30<br />60.39 (3.8%)<br />22:37 (6.5 fps)</td>
<td>92.10<br />61.00 (3.9%)<br />14:16 (10.3 fps)</td>
<td>91.41<br />60.57 (3.8%)<br />5:03 (29.2 fps)</td>
<td>91.79<br />67.21 (4.3%)<br />3:27 (42.7 fps)</td>
<td>91.40<br />68.66 (4.4%)<br />1:44 (85.1 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 40</td>
<td>91.76<br />55.76 (3.5%)<br />21:43 (6.8 fps)</td>
<td>91.61<br />56.97 (3.6%)<br />13:48 (10.7 fps)</td>
<td>90.89<br />56.71 (3.6%)<br />4:54 (30.1 fps)</td>
<td>91.27<br />62.68 (4.0%)<br />3:21 (44.0 fps)</td>
<td>90.87<br />64.10 (4.1%)<br />1:42 (86.7 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 41</td>
<td>91.17<br />51.52 (3.3%)<br />21:09 (7.0 fps)</td>
<td>91.08<br />53.27 (3.4%)<br />13:20 (11.1 fps)</td>
<td>90.30<br />53.05 (3.4%)<br />4:45 (31.0 fps)</td>
<td>90.71<br />58.34 (3.7%)<br />3:21 (44.0 fps)</td>
<td>90.27<br />59.70 (3.8%)<br />1:40 (88.5 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 42</td>
<td>90.60<br />48.02 (3.1%)<br />20:12 (7.3 fps)</td>
<td>90.55<br />50.10 (3.2%)<br />12:43 (11.6 fps)</td>
<td>89.71<br />49.86 (3.2%)<br />4:44 (31.2 fps)</td>
<td>90.14<br />54.66 (3.5%)<br />3:10 (46.6 fps)</td>
<td>89.69<br />55.94 (3.6%)<br />1:39 (89.4 fps)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Based on these tests, I'm encoding most things with <b>RF 30, Preset 8</b>. That gives me a VMAF score above 95, encoding speeds that are more than twice the framerate as the source material, and compression that I'm happy with. Also, I was surprised that changing presets to make the codec "try harder" to compress didn't always mean it succeeded. Look at the RF 30 row — who would expect encoding a file for 2 minutes on Preset 8 would result in a file only a few megabytes larger than one encoded for 35 minutes on Preset 4? And at lower RF values, the Preset 4 files are often larger than the Preset 8 files!</p>
<h2>H.265/HEVC</h2>
<p>With H.265/HEVC, I again used the 8-bit encoder and tried every combination between RF 19 with the slower preset (which gave a VMAF score of 98.32) and RF 28 with the faster preset (which gave a VMAF score of 89.14).</p>
<table class="tg">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><br /></th>
<th>Preset Slower</th>
<th>Preset Slow</th>
<th>Preset Medium</th>
<th>Preset Fast</th>
<th>Preset Faster</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>RF 19</td>
<td>98.32<br />662.52 (42.1%)<br />53:43 (2.7 fps)</td>
<td>98.36<br />657.96 (41.8%)<br />12:34 (11.7 fps)</td>
<td>97.62<br />562.24 (35.7%)<br />5:02 (29.3 fps)</td>
<td>97.39<br />498.41 (31.7%)<br />2:41 (55.0 fps)</td>
<td>97.37<br />498.9 (31.7%)<br />2:31 (58.6 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 20</td>
<td>97.92<br />535.44 (34.0%)<br />49:03 (3.0 fps)</td>
<td>97.98<br />531.53 (33.8%)<br />11:52 (12.4 fps)</td>
<td>97.13<br />451.23 (28.7%)<br />4:39 (31.7 fps)</td>
<td>96.88<br />405.29 (25.8%)<br />2:35 (57.1 fps)</td>
<td>96.85<br />405.62 (25.8%)<br />2:24 (61.4 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 21</td>
<td>97.46<br />426.23 (27.1%)<br />44:46 (3.3 fps)</td>
<td>97.53<br />421.51 (26.8%)<br />11:04 (13.3 fps)</td>
<td>96.58<br />358.65 (22.8%)<br />4:20 (34.0 fps)</td>
<td>96.30<br />324.59 (20.6%)<br />2:29 (59.4 fps)</td>
<td>96.25<br />324.73 (20.6%)<br />2:18 (64.1 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 22</td>
<td>96.93<br />335.12 (21.3%)<br />40:16 (3.7 fps)</td>
<td>97.02<br />329.03 (20.9%)<br />10:15 (14.4 fps)</td>
<td>95.96<br />283.89 (18.0%)<br />3:59 (37.0 fps)</td>
<td>95.65<br />258.74 (16.4%)<br />2:23 (61.9 fps)</td>
<td>95.57<br />258.64 (16.4%)<br />2:12 (67.0 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 23</td>
<td>96.33<br />261.11 (16.6%)<br />36:14 (4.1 fps)</td>
<td>96.45<br />253.98 (16.1%)<br />9:23 (15.7 fps)</td>
<td>95.27<br />223.96 (14.2%)<br />3:40 (40.2 fps)</td>
<td>94.92<br />205.73 (13.1%)<br />2:17 (64.6 fps)</td>
<td>94.81<br />205.29 (13.0%)<br />2:06 (70.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 24</td>
<td>95.70<br />202.96 (12.9%)<br />32:58 (4.5 fps)</td>
<td>95.84<br />196.05 (12.5%)<br />8:33 (17.2 fps)</td>
<td>94.47<br />176.65 (11.2%)<br />3:23 (43.6 fps)</td>
<td>94.10<br />164.15 (10.4%)<br />2:11 (67.5 fps)</td>
<td>93.94<br />163.45 (10.4%)<br />1:58 (75.0 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 25</td>
<td>95.05<br />158.93 (10.1%)<br />30:16 (4.9 fps)</td>
<td>95.20<br />153.36 (9.7%)<br />7:52 (18.7 fps)</td>
<td>93.56<br />140.51 (8.9%)<br />3:06 (47.6 fps)</td>
<td>93.19<br />132.54 (8.4%)<br />2:06 (70.2 fps)</td>
<td>92.95<br />131.62 (8.4%)<br />1:52 (79.0 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 26</td>
<td>94.36<br />126.17 (8.0%)<br />28:01 (5.3 fps)</td>
<td>94.51<br />122.18 (7.8%)<br />7:16 (20.3 fps)</td>
<td>92.52<br />112.67 (7.2%)<br />2:54 (50.8 fps)</td>
<td>92.17<br />107.82 (6.9%)<br />2:01 (73.1 fps)</td>
<td>91.82<br />106.81 (6.8%)<br />1:46 (83.5 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 27</td>
<td>93.61<br />102.18 (6.5%)<br />26:02 (5.7 fps)</td>
<td>93.72<br />99.18 (6.3%)<br />6:48 (21.7 fps)</td>
<td>91.34<br />91.61 (5.8%)<br />2:42 (54.6 fps)</td>
<td>91.02<br />88.91 (5.6%)<br />1:57 (75.6 fps)</td>
<td>90.55<br />87.80 (5.6%)<br />1:42 (86.7 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 28</td>
<td>92.75<br />84.36 (5.4%)<br />24:24 (6.0 fps)</td>
<td>92.79<br />82.00 (5.2%)<br />6:23 (23.1 fps)</td>
<td>90.01<br />75.90 (4.8%)<br />2:34 (57.4 fps)</td>
<td>89.77<br />74.69 (4.7%)<br />1:53 (78.3 fps)</td>
<td>89.14<br />73.48 (4.7%)<br />1:37 (91.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Compared to AV1, you can see that H.265 has bigger file sizes for the same quality. Somewhat surprisingly, the encoding times aren't all that different. The best comparison I can find for AV1's RF 30, Preset 8 that I prefer (95.53 VMAF, 168.56 MB, 68.1 fps) is H.265's RF 22, faster preset (95.57 VMAF, 258.64 MB, 67.0 fps). The quality and speed are almost exactly the same but the AV1 file is only 65% the size of the H.265 file.</p>
<h2>H.264/AVC</h2>
<p>With H.264/AVC, I tried every combination between RF 18 with the slower preset (which gave a VMAF score of 98.25) and RF 28 with the faster preset (which gave a VMAF score of 88.34).</p>
<table class="tg">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><br /></th>
<th>Preset Slower</th>
<th>Preset Slow</th>
<th>Preset Medium</th>
<th>Preset Fast</th>
<th>Preset Faster</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>RF 18</td>
<td>98.25<br />1030.62 (65.5%)<br />5:52 (25.1 fps)</td>
<td>98.18<br />1032.72 (65.6%)<br />3:08 (47.1 fps)</td>
<td>98.10<br />1033.96 (65.7%)<br />1:57 (75.6 fps)</td>
<td>98.10<br />1050.35 (66.7%)<br />1:33 (95.1 fps)</td>
<td>98.07<br />1018.4 (64.7%)<br />1:08 (130.1 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 19</td>
<td>97.86<br />859.02 (54.6%)<br />5:28 (27.0 fps)</td>
<td>97.77<br />862.22 (54.8%)<br />2:57 (50.0 fps)</td>
<td>97.70<br />872.67 (55.5%)<br />1:52 (79.0 fps)</td>
<td>97.67<br />903.40 (57.4%)<br />1:30 (98.3 fps)</td>
<td>97.61<br />867.83 (55.1%)<br />1:07 (132.0 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 20</td>
<td>97.41<br />695.99 (44.2%)<br />5:05 (29.0 fps)</td>
<td>97.32<br />696.92 (44.3%)<br />2:45 (53.6 fps)</td>
<td>97.24<br />707.96 (45.0%)<br />1:45 (84.3 fps)</td>
<td>97.17<br />750.56 (47.7%)<br />1:25 (104.1 fps)</td>
<td>97.08<br />717.09 (45.6%)<br />1:04 (138.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 21</td>
<td>96.91<br />546.77 (34.7%)<br />4:42 (31.4 fps)</td>
<td>96.81<br />547.53 (34.8%)<br />2:33 (57.8 fps)</td>
<td>96.73<br />549.90 (34.9%)<br />1:39 (89.4 fps)</td>
<td>96.60<br />591.62 (37.6%)<br />1:21 (109.2 fps)</td>
<td>96.47<br />563.99 (35.8%)<br />1:02 (142.7 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 22</td>
<td>96.34<br />419.54 (26.7%)<br />4:18 (34.3 fps)</td>
<td>96.23<br />423.12 (26.9%)<br />2:22 (62.3 fps)</td>
<td>96.13<br />416.78 (26.5%)<br />1:33 (95.1 fps)</td>
<td>95.95<br />450.09 (28.6%)<br />1:18 (113.4 fps)</td>
<td>95.76<br />427.25 (27.1%)<br />0:59 (149.9 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 23</td>
<td>95.66<br />319.71 (20.3%)<br />3:58 (37.2 fps)</td>
<td>95.54<br />324.60 (20.6%)<br />2:08 (69.1 fps)</td>
<td>95.42<br />316.10 (20.1%)<br />1:27 (101.7 fps)</td>
<td>95.18<br />343.74 (21.8%)<br />1:13 (121.2 fps)</td>
<td>94.92<br />325.74 (20.7%)<br />0:57 (155.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 24</td>
<td>94.83<br />243.40 (15.5%)<br />3:39 (40.4 fps)</td>
<td>94.70<br />248.43 (15.8%)<br />1:57 (75.6 fps)</td>
<td>94.58<br />243.86 (15.5%)<br />1:22 (107.9 fps)</td>
<td>94.30<br />265.10 (16.8%)<br />1:09 (128.2 fps)</td>
<td>93.97<br />252.31 (16.0%)<br />0:55 (160.9 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 25</td>
<td>93.82<br />188.07 (12.0%)<br />3:24 (43.4 fps)</td>
<td>93.68<br />191.81 (12.2%)<br />1:46 (83.5 fps)</td>
<td>93.59<br />191.37 (12.2%)<br />1:16 (116.4 fps)</td>
<td>93.27<br />204.86 (13.0%)<br />1:04 (138.2 fps)</td>
<td>92.86<br />195.40 (12.4%)<br />0:52 (170.1 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 26</td>
<td>92.60<br />147.89 (9.4%)<br />3:13 (45.8 fps)</td>
<td>92.43<br />150.09 (9.5%)<br />1:37 (91.2 fps)</td>
<td>92.38<br />152.55 (9.7%)<br />1:14 (119.6 fps)</td>
<td>92.05<br />160.81 (10.2%)<br />1:03 (140.4 fps)</td>
<td>91.54<br />153.45 (9.8%)<br />0:50 (176.9 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 27</td>
<td>91.15<br />118.96 (7.6%)<br />3:06 (47.6 fps)</td>
<td>90.95<br />120.02 (7.6%)<br />1:31 (97.2 fps)</td>
<td>90.96<br />124.38 (7.9%)<br />1:11 (124.6 fps)</td>
<td>90.63<br />129.43 (8.2%)<br />1:00 (147.5 fps)</td>
<td>90.04<br />123.92 (7.9%)<br />0:49 (180.6 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF 28</td>
<td>89.47<br />98.45 (6.3%)<br />3:00 (49.2 fps)</td>
<td>89.24<br />99.06 (6.3%)<br />1:26 (102.9 fps)</td>
<td>89.34<br />103.91 (6.6%)<br />1:08 (130.1 fps)</td>
<td>89.02<br />107.06 (6.8%)<br />0:59 (149.9 fps)</td>
<td>88.34<br />103.27 (6.6%)<br />0:48 (184.3 fps)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>H.264/AVC is old, predictable, and fast, but file sizes are so much bigger than the newer formats. Here, the best comparison I can find for AV1's RF 30, Preset 8 (95.53 VMAF, 168.56 MB, 68.1 fps) is H.264's RF 23, slow preset (95.54 VMAF, 324.60 MB, 69.1 fps). The quality and speed are almost exactly the same but the AV1 file is only 52% the size of the H.264 file.</p>
<h2>AV1 (Intel QSV)</h2>
<p>I picked up an ASRock Intel A380 graphics card which features AV1 hardware encoding and decoding. The knock on hardware encoders is that they're very fast but the speed comes at the cost of quality. But by how much? For these tests, I tried every ICQ (constant quality, like RF) setting between 20 and 30 on all three preset settings: quality, balanced, and speed. Like the other codecs, this gave me VMAF scores from <i>almost</i> 98 to 90.</p>
<table class="tg">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><br /></th>
<th>Quality</th>
<th>Balanced</th>
<th>Speed</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 20</td>
<td>97.68<br />521 (33.1%)<br />0:45 (196.6 fps)</td>
<td>97.65<br />519 (33.0%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>97.64<br />522 (33.2%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 21</td>
<td>97.69<br />520 (33.0%)<br />0:45 (196.6 fps)</td>
<td>97.66<br />518 (32.9%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>97.62<br />519 (33.0%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 22</td>
<td>97.62<br />506 (32.2%)<br />0:50 (176.9 fps)</td>
<td>97.58<br />502 (31.9%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>97.53<br />503 (32.0%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 23</td>
<td>97.30<br />447 (28.4%)<br />0:50 (176.9 fps)</td>
<td>97.21<br />437 (27.8%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>97.21<br />445 (28.3%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 24</td>
<td>96.65<br />355 (22.6%)<br />0:50 (176.9 fps)</td>
<td>96.55<br />350 (22.2%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>96.54<br />358 (22.7%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 25</td>
<td>95.61<br />258 (16.4%)<br />0:46 (192.3 fps)</td>
<td>95.47<br />255 (16.2%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>95.42<br />262 (16.6%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 26</td>
<td>94.41<br />191 (12.1%)<br />0:46 (192.3 fps)</td>
<td>94.28<br />190 (12.1%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>94.15<br />194 (12.3%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 27</td>
<td>93.69<br />164 (10.4%)<br />0:50 (176.9 fps)</td>
<td>93.55<br />164 (10.4%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>93.37<br />167 (10.6%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 28</td>
<td>92.61<br />134 (8.5%)<br />0:50 (176.9 fps)</td>
<td>92.49<br />135 (8.6%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>92.25<br />137 (8.7%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 29</td>
<td>91.48<br />113 (7.2%)<br />0:50 (176.9 fps)</td>
<td>91.36<br />114 (7.2%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>91.09<br />116 (7.4%)<br />0:33 (268.1 fps)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ICQ 30</td>
<td>90.25<br />95 (6.0%)<br />0:50 (176.9 fps)</td>
<td>90.09<br />96 (6.1%)<br />0:36 (245.8 fps)</td>
<td>89.78<br />98 (6.2%)<br />0:34 (260.2 fps)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Compared to the software codecs, here the preset doesn't matter as much and the speed is the same up and down the quality levels. Comparing again to my preferred AV1 software settings, RF 30 with Preset 8 (95.53 VMAF, 168.56 MB, 68.1 fps), the QSV hardware encoder gets similar quality at ICQ 25 with the balanced preset (95.47 VMAF, 255 MB, 245.8 fps). The file size is 51% bigger with the hardware encoder, but encoding happens almost four times faster. It's a tradeoff that some will choose, but I'm pleased with the results I'm getting with the software AV1 encoder on my Ryzen 9 5900x. This is also one of the rare cases where I can see the slightest differences between videos with similar VMAF scores and I prefer what I see with the software encoder.</p>
<h2>Conclusion and why your mileage may vary</h2>
<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Dmm8zEPGhqP0zIj8V94rH1L5RF3AXMcuJWKkXepabuA5fC0zlLWQAjdmDaHU_t2m8ONBul2sVpnsUTOI0eq5oIPzu-1WYlwbp9aKWb9nxn1LsskiD2bAs_w0UEXw_kSZ3xJR7FZxRpDT9QHhrfB_ilUF3Szpef44GCw-WrqexwYAKdeLf3k/s1920/BrianFantana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Dmm8zEPGhqP0zIj8V94rH1L5RF3AXMcuJWKkXepabuA5fC0zlLWQAjdmDaHU_t2m8ONBul2sVpnsUTOI0eq5oIPzu-1WYlwbp9aKWb9nxn1LsskiD2bAs_w0UEXw_kSZ3xJR7FZxRpDT9QHhrfB_ilUF3Szpef44GCw-WrqexwYAKdeLf3k/w640-h360/BrianFantana.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I mean, that really got out of hand fast."<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />For the last two months I've been encoding everything with AV1 and Opus audio. It's a bit of a gamble because it's not compatible with everything yet, but it encodes fast enough for me with a significant space savings over H.265 and H.264. Right now, my Plex server has to transcode my AV1 files if I'm playing them on my Roku devices or my Google Chromecast with Google TV. It's mostly okay, although as I write this the Plex app for Android (which is on the Chromecast) thinks it supports playback of AV1 when it doesn't, so I have to manually tell it to transcode<sup>3</sup>. That's annoying but I assume it will be temporary. I also have the cheaper, newer, HD version of the Google Chromecast with Google TV, which supports AV1 decoding, and on it the direct play of AV1 files works great.</p>
<p>I have to be reminded that all of the testing above was with one clip from one movie, and I would have gotten different results with a different source. In fact, today I was encoding Ken Burns's <i>The Civil War</i> and was really struggling to get the file size low, which is a surprise for a film with so many still black and white shots. AV1 has some synthetic grain settings that I experimented with but ended up simply changing to RF 33 and Preset 6 to cut the file size in half compared to RF 30 and Preset 8. There are going to be exceptions like this on occasion, but for most Blu-ray discs I've been satisfied with AV1 (SVT) 8-bit at RF 30 and Preset 8. In casual viewing, I can't remember ever noticing it was different from the original and the file sizes are so, so small. With any luck, AV1 will be the format we stick with for the next 10+ years, much as we've been able to do with H.264/AVC.</p>
<hr />
<p><sup>1</sup> Disclaimer: Yes, I know that there's a difference between the format, say H.264, and a codec, like x264. But we kinda all know these go hand-in-hand, right? I'll be specific where I need to be.</p>
<p><sup>2</sup> That said, you do you. If your encoding choices make you happy, then keep them and stay happy.</p>
<p><sup>3</sup> Fun fact: People will tell you all the time to avoid transcoding because it's harmful for image quality. I think Plex's default transcode settings are to use H.264 using the very fast preset and a bitrate of 8000 kbps. When I transcoded one of my AV1, RF 30, Preset 8 output files with a VMAF above 95 to H.264 with those same settings, the double-transcoded file still got a VMAF score of 93 compared to the source directly from the Blu-ray. In other words, your media can survive two transcodes and still look good enough that you don't have to worry about it.</p>Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBroomfield, CO, USA39.9205411 -105.086650411.610307263821156 -140.2429004 68.230774936178847 -69.9304004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-52773124593699795922022-12-31T23:52:00.001-07:002022-12-31T23:56:24.861-07:00Toodle-oo, twenty-twenty-two<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPh6CIV0t93IuyX1MtTPrHWmY5LgilFNqFfATdEvZO5Wjqe_NtsXV9Dfi36ubVl-mgIxIQGdDAcg9KcIcCOQtsNJIXS_2_z0xtqErUlJHehIoI1zuWCFWJeSePG0Y7XPwafpAUd_jZfd5vfbRXJoYW2qMUPAD7kcIMbT3PSPm4sRuzskgkugQ/s4032/PXL_20220724_115347820.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPh6CIV0t93IuyX1MtTPrHWmY5LgilFNqFfATdEvZO5Wjqe_NtsXV9Dfi36ubVl-mgIxIQGdDAcg9KcIcCOQtsNJIXS_2_z0xtqErUlJHehIoI1zuWCFWJeSePG0Y7XPwafpAUd_jZfd5vfbRXJoYW2qMUPAD7kcIMbT3PSPm4sRuzskgkugQ/w640-h480/PXL_20220724_115347820.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RAGBRAI 2022<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />I feel obligated to keep my 22-year blogging streak intact here, even if what I'm about to say isn't particularly meaningful to anyone. So here it goes.</p><p>The year got off to a rough start. On New Year's Eve 2021, I came home after evacuating from the Marshall Fire. The fire destroyed over 1000 homes nearby, and the flames came within sight of my building. I spent that night at my sister's, sleeping in a recliner next to my ailing mother. Mom died less than two weeks later, finally succumbing to the stroke she had suffered the previous July. Really, nothing was great for mom after dad died in 2019, but it was nice to have her here in Colorado for a few years and I can't thank my sister and nephew enough for the care they gave her in those final months. It was hard for everyone.</p><p>My work at the Department of Education kept me exceedingly busy. I felt like the whole year was a constant state of never getting caught up. The last time I took a Friday off, I worked from 8 pm on Wednesday to 4 am on Thursday to stay ahead of things. That's kinda how it's been, and not how it should be. But the work is important and I do what I reasonably can to keep up.</p><p>It felt like I didn't do a lot of cycling this year but somehow I was in good enough shape to have a really good RAGBRAI. The hardest part was finding transportation, so huge thanks to my friend Joanna and her brother for helping me get to the start and finish. The weather was beautiful, the winds favorable, and the primary memory that comes to mind was the simple passing of the miles. It was just good to be on the bike.</p><p>I got to do some work travel for the first time in several years. My series of big math conferences was held at the end of September in Orange County and Los Angeles. The learning was great and I managed to sneak in an Angels game and a Dodgers game. In November, I made a trip to Austin for a two-day meeting on the UT Austin campus. I don't get excited about travel, necessarily, but if it means I get to learn a lot and do quality work with quality people, then it's worth it.</p><p>Then it was a couple of holidays and bam, here we are, December 31 all over again. Let's finish with a list of random year-in-review stuff:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>A goal achieved:</b> I filled my car with gas in Kansas on the way home from RAGBRAI at the end of July. Then I filled my tank again mid-September and made it a goal to get to the end of the year without filling again. I made it with plenty to spare.</li><li><b>By bike and by foot:</b> <a href="https://www.strava.com/">Strava</a> tells me that I was active 99 days
and set 95 personal records. I went 1,787 miles and climbed 89,558 feet,
which was way down from 2021 (17 fewer days, 891 fewer miles, and
57,962 fewer feet).</li><li><b>TV and movies:</b> My <a href="https://trakt.tv/" target="">Trakt</a> statistics tell me that I spent 336 hours watching 40 different TV shows. Station Eleven was a pleasant surprise, Winning Time was fun (I seem to like Adam McKay-made stuff), and both Better Call Saul and Andor provided some really rich tension-filled drama. I started rewatching The Golden Girls when I traveled to L.A. (maybe it was the palm trees?) and I'm wrapping up Season 6 as I write this. I watched 79 hours of movies and finally tackled some long ones I'd been wanting to see, like Dances With Wolves, The Green Mile, The Great Escape, and Once Upon a Time in America. I don't have stats for it (and maybe that's for the best), but I spent a surprising amount of time on YouTube watching other people react to movies I've seen. I don't know what it is, exactly, but I find it enjoyable to watch someone discover a film I grew up with and know inside out, like Star Wars films or the Rocky series. After midnight tonight, I'll start the year the same way I have now for years, by rewatching Woody's wedding on Cheers. It's a 2-part episode and some of the most brilliant, fast-paced humor that show ever produced.</li><li><b>Music:</b> <a href="http://Last.fm">Last.fm</a> tells me that my top artist was Cannons, my top album was Fever Dream (by Cannons), and my top track (62 listens) was Come Alive, again by Cannons. My 2022 Recap playlist from YouTube Music puts Riffs of the Night by Jos & Eli & Eli & Fur at the top. Beyond that, it wasn't a very memorable year music-wise.</li><li><b>Stuff I learned and used to keep busy:</b> I built and/or rebuilt most of my computers and got quite proficient at creating ZFS pools and datasets and scripting the creation of snapshots and sending them to a backup server to keep my data safe. Lately I've been working with a lot of video and learning about the usage of h264, h265, and av1 codecs. It's a hobby.<br /></li></ul>Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBroomfield, CO, USA39.9205411 -105.086650411.610307263821156 -140.2429004 68.230774936178847 -69.9304004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-8539601741287701252021-07-04T21:36:00.009-06:002021-07-04T23:08:47.702-06:002021 Ride the Rockies<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290500781/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Bear Mountain"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290500781_956d2bda7e_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Bear Mountain" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>In January of 2020, I set my sights on riding Ride the Rockies. After finishing my 5th RAGBRAI in 2019 and riding both the Buffalo Bicycle Challenge and Pedal the Plains that fall, riding the premiere bicycle tour in Colorado was something I wanted to do. As spring approached, I trained, kept my weight down, and then saw my plans change as the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the cancellation of all the summer bicycle tours. Given the choice of a refund or moving my registration to 2021, I moved my registration. Riding the Rockies would have to wait another year.</p>
<p>As it turned out, even if the organizers hadn’t postponed RTR in 2020, I wouldn’t have done it. In April, I had shock wave lithotripsy to break up a kidney stone, and in May, I got a deep vein thrombosis in my left calf. (These were unrelated. I’d had bouts with kidney stones for a few years, and, the best I can tell, the DVT was triggered by the abrupt transition from a super-hard Zwift ride in the late evening to sleeping without taking time to cool down and rehydrate.) The kidney stone procedure went fine, but the blood clot landed me in the emergency room. Thankfully, my complications were minimal and the clot cleared within weeks, but for that period—which would have included RTR—being on blood thinners meant I needed to minimize activities where accidents could cause bleeding. Bombing down mountain passes on a bicycle was going to be a no-go for me, pandemic or no pandemic.</p>
<p>As the pandemic wore on and vaccines became available, it seemed more likely that Ride the Rockies would happen in 2021. I needed to be ready, so I began the training that I hoped would prepare me for long days in the mountains.</p>
<h2 id="preparing-for-ride-the-rockies">Preparing for Ride the Rockies</h2>
<p>I’d picked up a smart trainer at the start of the pandemic and enjoyed riding various routes in Zwift. It sure beat my old stationary bike, but I knew that if I were going to get serious about my RTR training, I should sign up for a Zwift training plan and stick to it. I started with the beginner-level “FTP Builder’ plan for six weeks starting in late December 2020, and I was pleased with the difficulty, intensity, and routine it provided me. When I wrapped that up in early February, I stepped up to the intermediate-level “Build Me Up” plan for 12 weeks, which kept me busy until early May. When I finally started riding outside again, the gains were obvious and I was besting my Strava segment times from years prior. My schedule and the weather never really allowed me to get in all-day rides in May and early June, but I was pleased with my ability to climb 2,000-3,000 feet in a workout and still feel strong.</p>
<p>I should also mention the preparations made by tour director Deirdre Moynihan and her RTR crew, specifically for COVID-19 mitigation. Like many COVID-19 plans, they included things that would make a big difference (promoting vaccination) and things that wouldn’t (disinfecting bike racks after each removal of a bicycle). Two precautions would prove to have a significant impact on this year’s RTR. First, everyone, including riders, crew, and vendors, had to provide proof of vaccination or show a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of the start of the event. Second, riders could opt-in to a catering plan so they could eat without having to enter local businesses (and, vice-versa, local business people didn’t have to assume additional risks to serve high numbers of riders). Thanks to the lifting of many state and local restrictions, we didn’t have to follow most of the precautions planned months before, and we didn’t have to travel in an impenetrable bubble. But as you’ll see, COVID-19 complications weren’t behind us, even if our behavior during RTR suggested otherwise.</p>
<h2 id="day-0-saturday-june-12---drive-to-durango">Day 0: Saturday, June 12 - Drive to Durango</h2>
<p>I’m a slow packer, so I should have known that when I had the thought, “I’d like to leave at 10 am, but it’s fine if I leave at noon,” that meant I’d be leaving for Durango at 2 pm. It’s about a 6.5-hour drive from my place in Broomfield, and I only stopped briefly in Pagosa Springs to get some dinner. I got to the camp area while there was still some daylight, so I hurriedly put up my tent in center field of the baseball diamond. I tried to assess what COVID precautions might still be in place, but it didn’t seem there were any. I didn’t see people wearing masks, the tents weren’t spaced out in a grid, and the porta-potties weren’t spaced out with doors facing in alternating directions. In other words, it looked like any other bike tour I’ve been on. I left my bike with my tent, drove up to Ft. Lewis College, and found the long-term parking. Unfortunately, the parking shuttle was no longer running, so I walked an hour in the dark back to camp. It wasn’t ideal, but I figured the walk was an acceptable punishment for being late. I got back to my tent around 10:30 and tried to get some water in me before going to sleep. Whatever amount I drank, I should have drank more.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290682943/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Durango After Dark"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290682943_67ae02c359_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Durango After Dark" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<h2 id="day-1-sunday-june-13---durango-loop">Day 1: Sunday, June 13 - Durango Loop</h2>
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<p>RTR organizers advertised this day as a 74.4-mile loop with 3,594 feet of climbing. Since we would finish where we started, we wouldn’t have to take down tents and pack our gear before setting out. I’d paid for the ride’s $6/morning catered oatmeal bar, so I went to the breakfast tent and sat down with an admittedly underwhelming scoop of gooey oats with a sprinkling of dried cranberries and brown sugar. The caterers didn’t wear masks, which surprised me a bit, and while there were bottles of disinfectant spray on all the tables, I never saw anyone using them.</p>
<p>After filling my tires with air and my bottles with water, I pedaled away from camp at 7:53 am. If I’ve learned anything about the first day of bicycle tours, it’s that there’s a natural inclination to want to push too hard and go too fast. I would have liked to have left even later, but the forecast of excessive heat pushed me and many other riders to be not so casual about this day’s ride. The first leg was a beauty, following Durango’s recreation paths downstream along the Animas River, meaning light pedaling and decent average speeds for the first hour. I was happy for that – not only was I still not rehydrated after the long car trip the day before, but I’d also gotten cold in the night and didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted to. The forecast high might have been the upper 90s, but here in the high desert of southwest Colorado, nighttime temperatures were still dropping into the high 40s.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51289758392/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Animas River"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51289758392_21201a045d_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Animas River" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The first aid station came at the end of the downhill, about 21 miles into the route. They had boxes and boxes of bananas, water, Scratch drinks to aid hydration, and a few other snacks. Like I’d seen in camp, I didn’t see the COVID precautions I’d heard and read about in preparation for the ride. Everyone was filling their own bottles, grabbing their own snacks, and standing close together. It didn’t bother me or make me feel unsafe, but I did feel a need to orient myself and figure out what, if any, official protocols were still in place. It looked like any other aid station stop at any other ride.</p>
<p>From here, we turned east and headed uphill. I’m not fast going uphill (that’s for skinny people!), but I was fast enough to keep up with others and pass the occasional rider, which helped inspire some confidence. I was expecting to see people ride wearing masks because we’d been told that was a request of the tribal leaders of the Ute Reservation, which covers much of the southwest corner of Colorado south of Highway 160, but nobody was. I later learned that the local mask restriction had been lifted the day before and I’d missed the message in my lateness getting to Durango. I pulled into the aid station in Ignacio to find a big crowd and long lines for Scratch and water. While I waited, I chatted with Jason Sumner, who is RTR’s route coordinator.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290504141/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Ignacio to Bayfield"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290504141_626611ed7c_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Ignacio to Bayfield" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>From Ignacio, it was a gentle climb north to Bayfield. I spent a couple of nights in Bayfield a few years ago and wondered who might be out on their small but cute main street to greet us. It turned out that nobody turned out, and we passed by seemingly without notice. After crossing the highway, we stopped at Bayfield High School for aid station #3. I’d paid for the sack lunch package as part of the ride catering plan, and I didn’t realize they were here until someone standing near a stack of cardboard boxes asked, “Did you get a lunch?” After saying yes, they handed me a sack with a turkey wrap, some chips, and a cookie. I was surprised they asked me the way they did, as the question, “Did you pre-pay for lunch?” would have helped make sure the only people taking them were those who paid for the catering plan. I went and sat in the shade and talked to a couple of folks while we ate.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291513795/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Climbing north of Bayfield"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291513795_e7e2a9092c_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Climbing north of Bayfield" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>By now, it was early afternoon and the temperatures had reached the 90s. As I made my way back to my bike, I heard a few staffers complaining about the disorganization with the lunch distribution, and I hoped it hadn’t led to anyone not getting the food they should have gotten. From here, the route continued north and kept climbing, and with my stomach busy digesting the rest of my body was sluggish. Not far from the high point of the day, with temps around 100, I finally had to pull over and take a break. A group of cyclists had found a cool patch of concrete by some mailboxes in some shade. I struck up a conversation with a guy named Virgil from North Dakota. He was riding his 10th RTR, but a broken leg in February had interrupted his regular training and he was finding the day difficult, too. I joked that maybe if we had enough stamps, the USPS could deliver us to Durango.</p>
<p>With some rest and time to digest lunch, I felt better and I followed Virgil’s leisurely pace to the top of the climb. A handful of medics were nearby on bikes, and a few of them had stopped to aid riders who pulled over in search of relief. A rider just in front of me was swerving in the heat, then suddenly crossed the road to find shade on the opposite side. He did this just as a car from behind was trying to pass and narrowly missed being run over. These kinds of things are an ugly reminder of how accidents can happen when you push yourself too far and your judgment gets cloudy.</p>
<p>The top of the climb came at about mile 58. It’d taken me almost 6 hours on the bike to get this far, which concerned me for the rest of the week. The last 16 miles were mostly all downhill back to Durango. As soon as I got back to camp, I started taking in more water. A lot of water. I knew I’d been under-hydrated all day and was paying the price, and I certainly wanted to feel better in the more challenging days to come. After a shower, I walked a few blocks to Subway, where I slowly ate a sandwich and cookies while filling and refilling my water bottle, as well as filling my phone battery from the outlet behind my booth. A nice part about being experienced at these kinds of bicycle tours is that you have a good sense of how you feel and what your body needs. My body needed water, a footlong tuna sandwich with lots of veggies, three cookies, and some quiet time in a cool space.</p>
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<h2 id="day-2-monday-june-14---durango-to-cortez">Day 2: Monday, June 14 - Durango to Cortez</h2>
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<p>Day 2 promised a similar distance, similar climbing, and similar temperatures to Day 1 but included a 17-mile section on a packed dirt road. I don’t mind riding on some dirt and gravel, but that’s a substantial distance. If conditions were worse than advertised, it could add a significant amount of time to my day.</p>
<p>I woke up hydrated and rested and went to work packing my stuff and tearing down my tent. It was cold again, with temperatures in the upper 40s. I knew the day would warm up quickly, so I resisted putting on additional layers. I had a brief moment of panic when I struggled to get everything to fit in my bag. It occurred to me that, until that moment, I hadn’t attempted to squeeze everything in there. I just figured that since it was <em>almost</em> the same stuff I’d taken each year on RAGBRAI, it should fit about the same. It did, but barely.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51289758137/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Westbound 141"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51289758137_f8c43f2e68_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Westbound 141" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>I rolled out of camp at 6:45 and headed back onto Durango’s excellent riverside bike paths. Instead of following the river like the day before, we turned after 3.5 miles and headed uphill to the southwest. After climbing, then plateauing, then descending, we turned north onto the dirt road about 27 miles into the day’s ride. I heard some grumbling by other riders, but the road was better than I expected. Nearly all of it climbed steadily at grades of 0-2%, and the combination of trees and terrain to our immediate right meant that quite a bit of the riding was in the shade.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290503956/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Get dirty!"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290503956_3a116ccfd5_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Get dirty!" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Maybe three-quarters of the way in, we reached the aid station and our lunches. Dierdre was there helping fill water bottles from a garden hose. “See, I do more than just send emails!” she said happily, which probably was just as much a moment of relief from her duties as tour director as it was a relief for thirsty riders to get a drink. Like the day before, I didn’t spot the lunch handout area right away. If I hadn’t noticed a few people walking around with paper sacks, I might have accidentally moved on without eating. I grabbed a lunch and found a shaded but unglamorous spot behind a bathroom trailer to enjoy while I ate my wrap and cookie.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51289757997/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Midway aid station"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51289757997_1df0f6467e_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Midway aid station" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Like the day before, I found that riding after eating was not a good recipe for feeling good on the bike. The route continued to climb up the dirt road until we were back at Highway 160, which we took the rest of the way to Cortez. The first few miles back on pavement was also uphill but soon switched to a long, fast downhill, then one last uphill to the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park, then the final descent into Cortez.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290503716/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="The valley opens"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290503716_e5289f73db_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="The valley opens" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>We camped at the recreation center in Cortez and it was probably the nicest setting of the tour. The grass was in good condition, there was a lovely pond and performance area nearby, and we were an easy walk away from restaurants and other services along the highway. Here the porta-potties were spaced out like we’d been told they would be, except here, there were no handwashing stations like we had in Durango. It was yet another sign of how we were still in this somewhat clumsy period of transition out of the pandemic. I asked at the information booth if I was missing something and where we should wash our hands, and they suggested washing at the water bottle filling station. That would have never been in people’s official plans, much less the COVID-19 mitigation plan, especially since it requires touching the same levers that people push with their bottles to dispense the water. Washing where people fill bottles tends to be a nuisance in my experience, so I got by with some hand sanitizer.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290503506/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Ute Mountain Tribe"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290503506_ff0edfb1c3_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Ute Mountain Tribe" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>I sat in for Jason’s route preview and Dierdre’s announcements. The next day would be a long one, so Jason rightly stressed eating and drinking enough to sustain yourself for the 100-mile ride to Norwood. Dierdre went over the logistics for shuttling back and forth to Telluride, for those riders choosing that option, and reviewed details about getting breakfast in the morning and knowing where to expect lunch along the way.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290503486/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Sunset over Cortez"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290503486_401e946a0d_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Sunset over Cortez" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
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<h2 id="day-3-tuesday-june-15---cortez-to-norwood">Day 3: Tuesday, June 15 - Cortez to Norwood</h2>
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<p>On to Lizard Head Pass! This was our biggest distance day: 100 miles from Cortez to Norwood up and over Lizard Head Pass, with a tough climb up Norwood Hill near the end. I went to the community tent for my bowl of oatmeal and was surprised to see tables full of store-bought muffins, bagels, and other breakfast foods. I asked where the oatmeal was and got a simple, “The caterers aren’t here,” as a response. These folks were from the community and I sensed they assembled this at the last minute. All I wanted was some calories to get me going, so I grabbed a muffin and rolled out of camp at 6:40.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291513095/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Leaving Cortez"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291513095_048012e757_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Leaving Cortez" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>I joined the crowd heading north out of Cortez, past the agricultural fields and towards the small town of Dolores, the site of our first aid station. I wondered if maybe the caterers would be here since the aid station was conveniently located only about 11 miles into the day’s ride. But nope, it was just the usual assortment of pretzels, fruit, water, and Scratch, so I filled my pockets and set off again. From here, the route followed the Dolores River, which offered beautiful views and a cool microclimate at the bottom of the canyon. We were at 6,850 feet of elevation and we’d follow the river gently uphill for more than 2,000 feet.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51289757442/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Dolores River"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51289757442_bcc0c62b4a_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Dolores River" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>After 48 miles and 2,000 feet of climbing, we reached the small mountain town of Rico, site of an aid station and our lunch. Except there was no lunch! Depending on which group I was standing in, people said the caterers had quit, or been fired. We were also momentarily out of Scratch and some people were eating multiple snack-sized bags of Cheetos to try to fuel their body for the 50+ miles still to go. Someone had bought some jars of peanut butter, but there wasn’t much to put it on. I wondered why someone wasn’t buying more food for us, but then someone said there was a power outage in town and the stores had closed. Not much seemed to be going right. Rico is a town of fewer than 250 people, so it’s not like there was a big grocery store or restaurants to feed all of us hungry riders. As bike tours go, it was an ugly situation.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290681838/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Nearing Rico"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290681838_d8d1d75271_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Nearing Rico" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>A woman with a cowbell and a basket of cookies saved my day. I happily gave her $6 for two large oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Combined with some pretzels and rest in the shade, I finally felt like getting back on the road. It was almost noon and there were still about 12 miles and 1300 feet of climbing to get to Lizard Head Pass and the next aid station.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291218679/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Leaving Rico"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291218679_a3dca756b1_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Leaving Rico" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The climb got steeper nearer the pass, but only slightly so. I was part of a small group that pulled over for some shade and relaxation at the chain station. I kidded with another cyclist that we should put our tire chains on in the event it got icy, but he just looked at me in a high-altitude stupor, not getting the joke. As I approached the pass, the gradient leveled off and I saw the welcome sights of tents, lines of cyclists, and piles of bikes. For what was lacking at Rico, Lizard Head was well-stocked with lunch, snacks, smoothies, and plenty of liquids. It didn’t offer much shade, but the heat was less of an issue at 10,000+ feet of elevation.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51289757142/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Mt. Wilson, Gladstone Peak, and Lizard Head"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51289757142_a59fd1f662_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Mt. Wilson, Gladstone Peak, and Lizard Head" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>I spent probably 45 minutes at the aid station before setting out again a little after 2 pm. This was the part of the whole tour that had worried me the most: the big downhills. I’ve had a couple of close calls on steeper descents in the past (braking until my front tire blew and threw me over the handlebars, fighting a high-speed wobble and narrowly missing an oncoming SUV), so I’m more cautious with my speed than most. Thankfully, this turned out to be okay, requiring some light braking to keep things to a “reasonable” 40 mph and pulling over once to snap a photo of a lake. After a few miles, we turned to take a gravel road for more of the downhill, which slowed everyone down. The road conditions were pretty good, but some blind corners and loose spots warranted some patience. The gravel kept us away from the highway, where car traffic to Telluride made that road dangerous in a different way. There was another aid station on the gravel road, and this one turned out to be a couple of coolers, no food, no volunteers, and a single forest service toilet. I laughed with Bridget from Buffalo at the meager accommodations, but we agreed that it was better than nothing. After all, we were still riding our bikes in a beautiful place.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291218349/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Trout Lake"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291218349_bec51857bd_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Trout Lake" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>We reached Highway 145 and the pavement with about 17 miles left to go. Ahead of us were miles of paved roads sloping slightly downhill as we followed the San Miguel River, except for Norwood Hill, one of the steeper bits of sustained climbing we’d see all week. I’m strong on the slightly downhill, even with headwinds, which boosted my confidence and helped my pace for 12 miles. There was another aid station along the way. This station was staffed with volunteers, but there was little aid for them to give. We had water and a few boxes of clementines, but the rest of the food was gone. The volunteer (who had come from Virginia to help as her daughter rode) was frustrated, and so were the riders. At least here, there was some shade and a hose with running water so some riders could spray themselves down for temporary relief from the heat.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290681378/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Norwood Hill"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290681378_16b154bf5a_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Norwood Hill" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Norwood Hill (a.k.a., the Norwood Crusher) is a climb of less than 2 miles, but it ascends almost 700 feet with an average gradient of 6.8%. That’s not much of a challenge for a professional cyclist, but plenty for a heavier rider like me. I settled in, ground it out, and was pleased with myself for never stopping. Still, it took me over 24 minutes, well short of the 8:49 record on Strava.</p>
<p>Finally, it was downhill and a straight shot west into Norwood for the last 3 miles. My Garmin warned me about a low battery, so I used that as motivation to ride just a little faster. Nobody wants to lose data after a 100-mile day. Once in town, I turned a couple of blocks off the highway to the sprawling complex of school and fairgrounds. I gathered my bag and found a spot for my tent at the back of the football field before heading off to get more water. It was about 5:30 by this time, and I knew I’d have to move a bit more quickly to get everything done by dark. So it was quick into the shower, a little organizing in the tent, and then off to find dinner. With the caterers gone, the whole town of Norwood pitched in to make sure we got fed. I got in a line where happy volunteers presented me with a choice of pasta, burgers, or deli sandwiches. I opted for a burger and fries and gladly accepted two beef patties. Later I grabbed a second helping of fries and a sandwich. You get hungry after such a long day. I was in the community tent when Dierdre gave her updates as the tour director. She confirmed that the caterers had dropped out with an email at 3 am, and it was a scramble to get us food for the day. Thankfully, both the people of Cortez and Norwood came through for us. Some riders weren’t happy that the plans had changed, but everyone appreciated the communities’ efforts to help out when we needed them.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291512400/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Getting food and answers in Norwood"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291512400_a5ba87b034_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Getting food and answers in Norwood" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>After dinner, I took a walk around the town. It’s not like my legs needed more work, but with a big meal and a busy day, it was nice to have some quiet time before it got dark. Norwood is an international dark sky community, so the views of the stars there are hard to beat. I stopped to enjoy the view on my trips to the porta-potty, which were a welcome sign my body was rehydrating after such a long day in the sun. As I settled into my tent, I also found that Norwood is an excellent place to listen to dogs bark and howl after dark. Seriously, they’re really good at it. Thankfully, after a 100-mile day, it takes more than some barking in the distance to keep you from falling asleep.</p>
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<h2 id="day-4-wednesday-june-16---norwood-to-ridgway">Day 4: Wednesday, June 16 - Norwood to Ridgway</h2>
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<p>With only a 40 mile route from Norwood to Ridgway, the day’s plan called for a rolling start somewhere between 7:00 and 11:00. I felt no need to rush. I took my bike over to the mechanic at the Velofix van. Amazingly, for a ride of 2,000 riders, we had just one van and one mechanic. A veteran rider told me that typically there’d be a handful of other bike shops in camp and along the route. However, because of the pandemic and more people riding bicycles, bike shops had little inventory on the shelves but plenty of work for their mechanics to bring in revenue and keep the shops afloat. With demand high in their shops, they couldn’t afford to send mechanics to Ride the Rockies.</p>
<p>With my shifting issue worked out, I headed back to the football field to take down my tent. All but one rider was gone! I didn’t realize that “rolling start between 7 and 11” meant “everyone is gone by 9.” I hurried to get my stuff packed, feeling a bit embarrassed to be the last tent off the field. A few other people were bringing bags to the truck at the same time I was, and as I pulled away from the school, a bus full of riders from Telluride came in on the hotel shuttle. I took some comfort knowing I wouldn’t be the last cyclist on the road.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290502426/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Rafting the San Miguel"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290502426_f249ca905a_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Rafting the San Miguel" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Dierdre told us the evening before that there’d be no breakfast in camp, but we could get breakfast with our breakfast tickets at the first aid station. I figured that would be about 15 miles in, but I rode along with some folks from Ft. Collins who said it was at mile 17. I was hungry, to be sure, but told myself I was fine. We kept pedaling to—and past—mile 17, with no sign of an aid station. Someone from a private caravan said we must have missed it, but there was no way. So we kept going, and finally at mile 21 we found it. By that point, I’d been riding two hours and climbing 1400 feet on an empty stomach. I waited for probably close to 45 minutes in a long food line for some breakfast. By the time I got to the front, breakfast had turned into chicken tacos, but boy, were they good. Later, I learned that the porta-potty company dropped the porta-potties at the wrong place, which meant the whole aid station had to move farther down the road. I’ve said before that I wish bike tours would adopt <a href="https://what3words.com/">what3words</a> to aid in locating important services. I don’t know if it would have helped in this specific case, but I’d have preferred to see the aid station at <a href="https://what3words.com/shoestring.lotion.delay">///shoestring.lotion.delay</a> instead of <a href="https://what3words.com/superb.completed.dippy">///superb.completed.dippy</a>.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51289756532/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Ski Dallas"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51289756532_3ab961be0b_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Ski Dallas" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>It was about nine more miles to the summit of Dallas Divide, where we topped out at about 9,000 feet with outstanding views of Mt. Sneffels to our south. I met up with Virgil from North Dakota for a bit of this stretch, and we did each other favors by taking pictures of each other near an intersection with Last Dollar Road. A little way down from the top there was another aid station, this time with smoothies and more outstanding views of Mt. Sneffels and the surrounding peaks. They were wrapping things up for the day, but since it was all downhill from there into town, I didn’t mind taking my time.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290680703/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Sneffels, Dallas, Mears, and more"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290680703_0df9841e8a_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Sneffels, Dallas, Mears, and more" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>After a descent on broad shoulders hitting 45 mph, I slowed as I entered Ridgway and was impressed by the little businesses downtown, the nice park with the big shade trees, and the Uncompahgre River flowing through town. Camping amidst those shade trees would have been very nice, but instead, signs directed me to the fairgrounds and the rocky dust bowl of the infield of their race track. Because I got there late, the lump-free spots were long gone. So I cheated a little and set up my tent just beyond the track in a little grassy strip next to an irrigation ditch. It turned out to be an excellent decision, as the ground was softer, I was upwind of the dust, and it put me in reasonable proximity of the community tent, showers, and porta-potties.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290501936/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Ridgway camping"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290501936_a522bc01d8_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Ridgway camping" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>After cleaning up, I hung around the community tent for more updates. Jason gave the route update for the next day and Dierdre went into more detail about the catering situation. If I pieced it together correctly, what happened was this: Just like the riders and the RTR crew, the caterers and vendors were required to be vaccinated or show proof of a negative test at the start of the ride. But as we got started in Durango, the caterer’s chef got injured, necessitating flying in a replacement chef from Denver. That got them through Day 1, but it turned out that the replacement chef was infected with COVID-19. I don’t know if the chef showed symptoms or not, but I think they got tested on Day 2 and showed a positive result. Either way, it meant both the first and second chefs were out of RTR. There was little risk to the riders since we were more than 80% vaccinated, and we didn’t have direct contact with the chef. But for the caterers, it turned what was already a challenging job into an impossible job, and they chose to withdraw entirely. Dierdre hoped they’d be back to serve us on a limited basis, but they never returned. A different catering company filled in with some simpler meals, but it wasn’t what people thought they’d be getting.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290501881/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Uncompahgre River"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290501881_6c8ef348cf_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Uncompahgre River" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>With that new information, I walked into town for dinner in quest of food of my own. I found a Mexican restaurant, El Agava Azul, and I waited for more than 45 minutes before getting a table. I ordered the special, a big plate of nachos with chicken. I ate while charging my phone and drinking several glasses of water. After dinner, on the way back to camp, I noticed that the town ice cream shop was closed. Apparently, they’re always closed on Wednesdays. Did they not know that Ride the Rockies was coming to town? I know it’s nice to have a day off, but with a bunch of hot, hungry cyclists in town, I think we could have made it worth their while to be open.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290680318/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Nachos at El Agave Azul"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290680318_56c182c070_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Nachos at El Agave Azul" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Ridgway is the location where the movie <em>True Grit</em> was filmed (the 1969 original with John Wayne, not the remake with Jeff Bridges) and they had an evening showing in one of the fairground buildings. I got there about halfway through and stretched out on the floor to watch the rest. This was one of those moments where I was thankful that so many of us were vaccinated, as indoor gatherings weren’t something we were sure we could do just a few weeks prior to the ride. After the movie, I filed out and headed to bed.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290680248/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="True Grit"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290680248_d6362fb4d0_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="True Grit" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
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<h2 id="day-5-thursday-june-17---ridgway-loop">Day 5: Thursday, June 17 - Ridgway Loop</h2>
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<p>Riders had essentially three options this day: (1) ride a 30ish-mile loop then head back to town, (2) ride the loop but take a trip back up Dallas Divide to visit a <em>True Grit</em> shooting location, or (3) take the day off entirely. I chose the first option and enjoyed a leisurely start to my morning, getting on the road at about 8:45.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291511250/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Day 5 Ridgway Loop"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291511250_dd5f65735f_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Day 5 Ridgway Loop" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The ride started on some recreation trails to Ridgway State Park, then followed the highway north to the little town of Colona. It was mile after mile of gentle descents—enjoyable at first, but then you can’t help but think, “I’m going to have to climb back up all that, right?” In reality, the total descent was only 600 feet, but the speeds of the highway made it feel like it was more than that on the 15-mile stretch to Colona and the first aid station.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290501426/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Climbing out of Colona"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290501426_5c179c9d72_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Climbing out of Colona" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>This aid station was maybe the best-stocked of the whole tour. It had the four aid-station food groups: water, electrolytes, sweet snacks (cookies!), and salty snacks. I chatted with an ex-car dealer from the Chicago area before getting back on the bike and heading uphill on a dirt road. Things got hot quickly as we climbed 1400 feet in about 8 miles with little shade and little breeze. I emptied both of my water bottles along the way, and other cyclists were doing the same. A man named Jim from Phoenix kept me company for part of it, and somehow struggling with the heat together was easier than doing it alone. The gradient eased for the last few miles uphill, where we were greeted with more excellent views of Mt. Sneffels. Some clever Cookie Monster-themed signs warned me that cookies were ahead, and after a short distance, I spotted some happy people at a table in a driveway with cookies laid out on a folding table. Amazingly, this was the only time I saw something like this during the whole Ride the Rockies. Finally, we came to a steep, switchbacked, 1000-foot descent back down to the valley. A tour worker advised us when we got to the highway that we could go uphill to aid stations and the extended part of the route, or head downhill back into town. The other cyclists around me were also out of water, so we headed down. This was another example of not having an aid station where we really needed one.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291217099/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Sneffels from the plateau"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291217099_fa1c1f08d6_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Sneffels from the plateau" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>For a late lunch, I headed to the True Grit Cafe and had a burrito. As you might guess, the whole restaurant was John Wayne-themed with pictures and movie posters, along with many mounted animal heads. I wandered back to camp after eating to catch the announcements at the community tent. Jason gave a preview of the next day’s route, but Dierdre was delayed and didn’t give her regular update. After having problems with aid stations the past couple of days, I didn’t want any troubles during the last day, but no information was given. When Dierdre did arrive, I heard her telling someone she had to go to Ouray because some riders had set up their tents in their park without permission and didn’t comply with city officials when they were asked to move. As if the tour director doesn’t have enough to deal with!</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291216959/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="True Grit Cafe"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291216959_f3965d38ab_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="True Grit Cafe" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The community events moved on to recognize riders with at least ten years of riding Ride the Rockies. One energetic man did a Q&A about his experience on RTR. He’d ridden 34 tours, and all 35 if you count his first: He was out for a casual bike ride in Denver when he came across a group of people looking happy on bikes, and he thought, “Where are they going? I’m going to follow them!” He kept going all the way downtown, where they passed under a banner recognizing the finish for the very first Ride the Rockies. It was a good story, and most seem to agree that by riding part of the last stage of RTR 1, he gets credit for riding them all.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291216814/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Celebrating 35 Ride the Rockies"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291216814_44954cef7b_c.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="Celebrating 35 Ride the Rockies" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>I set out for some dinner after the presentations. It hadn’t been that long since I ate my late lunch, but pedaling a bicycle day after day can rev up your appetite. There was a pizza place nearby called Panny’s Pizza that I’d tried going to the day before, but they closed early after running out of ingredients. This time I had better luck, and they served me one of the best veggie pizzas I’ve ever had. I sat with David from Phoenix, whose New York City accent gave away that he wasn’t an Arizona native. As I finished, two riders sat at the table next to me. One wore a 1999 RAGBRAI T-shirt that revealed a great story. In 1978, as a 17-year-old from Ohio working at a bike shop, he learned of RAGBRAI from a PBS documentary. So he packed up his bike and some camping gear and took a Greyhound bus to Sioux City to join that year’s ride. When it ended at the Mississippi River, he just continued riding across Illinois and Indiana to get back home to Ohio. He returned to RAGBRAI seven years later, in 1985, then again seven years later, in 1992, and then <strong>again</strong> seven years later, in 1999. He hasn’t been back since, so we had fun talking about what’s changed and what’s still the same.</p>
<p>Back at camp, I got in a long but wonderful conversation with my neighbor, Eric from Norwood. Yes, the tiny Norwood we’d just ridden from the day before. He was a firefighter with the Forest Service and his wife was a teacher. We talked about the ride, small towns, community, fighting fires, and various other things. We finally wrapped up as it was getting dark. He had the luxury of leaving his tent behind the next morning, as he would pick it up as he drove back to Norwood from Durango. On the other hand, I’d need to pack up and get an early start for what was sure to be a very big final day.</p>
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<h2 id="day-6-friday-june-18">Day 6: Friday, June 18</h2>
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<p>The Million-Dollar Highway. Red Mountain Pass. Molas Pass. Coal Bank Pass. 80 miles. 7,500 feet of climbing. The queen stage!</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290501026/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Ouray from above"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290501026_015778c3d7_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Ouray from above" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>I pedaled out of Ridgway at 6:11 am, an excellent start for me. The planned route added a couple of miles to follow the river instead of the highway, but in our briefing the day before, Jason suggested we just take 550 south for the most direct route to Ouray. That sounded good to me. It was 12 easy miles and 800 feet of climbing to downtown Ouray, where Bridget from Buffalo and I spotted each other again. When riding with 2,000 strangers, it’s nice that by the end of the week some of the faces start to look less strange.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290500941/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Small shoulders on the Million Dollar Highway"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290500941_98c4169eb1_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Small shoulders on the Million Dollar Highway" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The aid station was a bit higher at the so-called “Switzerland of America” lookout point. From here, it was 3,000 feet of climbing in about 12 miles to the top of Red Mountain Pass. That’s about a 5.5% average gradient, which isn’t very steep but isn’t <em>not steep</em>, either. In other words, I spent a couple of hours pedaling steadily in my lowest gear. The best part was that in the tight canyon, I was in the shade where temperatures hovered around 50 degrees until 8:20 am when we finally got hit by the sun. It took another hour to get to Red Mountain Pass. I hadn’t climbed fast, but I felt great. I got a breakfast burrito, some snacks, and more drinks.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291216519/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Million Dollar Highway"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291216519_691a2e20e4_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Million Dollar Highway" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>I left there about 10 am, and it was a fast but not-too-fast downhill from there to Silverton, where the day’s third aid station awaited us. Given that I’d hardly turned a pedal on the descent from Red Mountain, there wasn’t much I needed here. I grabbed a cookie and topped up my bottles. I figured I’d be in good shape to make it to the next aid station, which I assumed would be on the top of either Molas Pass or Coal Bank Pass.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51289754927/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Grenadier Range"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51289754927_597d4911dd_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Grenadier Range" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>That assumption didn’t work out very well. The climb up Molas Pass was similar in steepness but only about 1,700 feet. It offers excellent views of the Grenadier Range, including the unmistakable Wham Ridge on Vestal Peak. I got to Molas Pass before noon, still feeling pretty good. But there was no aid station! I figured it must be on the next pass, so I took some pictures then got back on the bike. Not only was I eager to rehydrate, but I felt a few raindrops and wanted to stay ahead of the weather. Riding in the rain isn’t fun. Your brakes don’t work as well, your tires don’t grip the road, and at these elevations, being wet in 40-degree weather is a real possibility best avoided. I knew it was time to get down the road.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291216264/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Molas Pass"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291216264_8b13bc4c3d_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Molas Pass" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The descent off Molas towards Coal Bank Pass is a relatively short 1,100 feet, followed by an 800-foot climb up to the pass. Raindrops kept falling, but just as isolated drops. A few riders pulled over to put on jackets, but I didn’t think we were at that point quite yet. I was out of water when I got to the pass, and again, there was no aid station. I guess I should have studied the map, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered. I still needed to drink everything I had over those two climbs. Aid station #4 was at the Purgatory ski area, eight miles away and 1,800 feet downhill. That made it 21 miles between aid station #3 and aid station #4, which would be quite a bit on flat terrain in pleasant weather. On this terrain, it took me about 2.5 total hours to get from #3 to #4, which is too far for comfort.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51291510235/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Coal Bank Pass"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51291510235_197641a255_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Coal Bank Pass" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Finally, I got to Purgatory at about 1:15 pm, where I found water, Scratch, smoothies, and some simple snacks. No porta-potties, though, so riders were sneaking into the bushes for their nature breaks. Here at lower elevations, it was a bit warmer and the raindrops weren’t so threatening, although there was the noise of some distant thunder. Everyone was talking about the long distance between aid stations, and one said that the route to Durango had been changed and there would be no aid station #5. We were still more than 25 miles from the end, and the original plan was to leave the highway and come back into Durango along the Animas River with an aid station along the way. But, in a now-familiar story, the porta-potties weren’t delivered to the planned location for aid station #5. So in a last-minute decision, the route was changed to follow Highway 550 all the way into Durango, the most direct route. I shared the news with other riders, but I’m sure many left the aid station without knowing it would be the last aid before the end.</p>
<p>The first stretch out of Purgatory was flat but wet, as rain must have moved through before I got there. Then it sped downhill for about 10 miles, most of which I could take at full speed, passing other riders along the way. The last 10 miles were slightly downhill, which as I’ve mentioned, suits me very well. Feeling good on that terrain, I cranked up whatever watts I had left in my legs and averaged 21.4 mph over an 11-mile stretch that descended at a mere -0.3%. After going slowly uphill much of the week, it was a nice change of pace.</p>
<p>I got to the finish at about 2:30 pm, which wasn’t bad for such a long day. Things were a scramble at the finish, though. I got my bag, found the shower truck, and cleaned up. Then I found a safe space for my bike and bag while I waited in line for the shuttle to the long-term parking. Shuttles were scheduled to leave every 15 minutes, but that turned out to be a very optimistic estimation. I remember getting in line at 3:46 pm, just missing the previous shuttle. David from Phoenix was on one side of me in line, and a guy from Burlington, Iowa, was on the other side. David was driving back to Phoenix that night, and I hoped to drive back to Broomfield, so we were eager to get moving. It took more than a half-hour for the next shuttle to arrive, and it was nearly 5 pm by the time I made the round trip to the long-term parking and back to my bike and bag.</p>
<p>I was worried I’d get sleepy as soon as I started driving, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case. I stopped at City Market in Pagosa Springs for a deli sandwich, chips, gummi bears, and chocolate milk. Then it was drive, drive, drive. I did get tired as I went over Kenosha Pass and down Highway 285 towards Denver. It helped that I’ve driven that road dozens of times. Finally, I arrived home just before midnight. It’d been an eight pass day! Red Mountain, Molas, and Coal Bank by bike, then Wolf Creek, Poncha, Trout Creek, Red Hill, and Kenosha by car.</p>
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<h2 id="epilogue">Epilogue</h2>
<p>I’m finishing writing this a week after getting home from Ride the Rockies. The big news is that Deirdre Moynihan, the ride director, submitted her resignation to the Denver Post Community Foundation, the owners of both Ride the Rockies and Pedal the Plains. That’s too bad, but I get it. Deirdre has an engaging personality that I appreciated on the webinars, when I saw her at the aid stations, and when she addressed us during the community updates. And as I understand it, she has 15+ years of experience organizing bike rides and tours. But this year, a lot just didn’t seem to go to plan, and it wasn’t just the catering. It was the aid station placements. And the meager food at some of them. And the inconsistent and unclear COVID mitigation strategies. And the single mechanic for the whole ride. And the lack of community involvement. And probably other things I don’t know about or forgot to mention.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51290500741/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="Silverton"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51290500741_3c8de8d228_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Silverton" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The thing is, it’s all complicated. COVID restrictions eased just weeks before the ride, and that’s not something under the director’s control. Porta-potties that are ordered and not delivered aren’t totally under the director’s control. Bike shops you used to be able to count on—but not this year—isn’t something totally under the director’s control. The lack of community involvement was planned as a feature of the ride, not a problem! For safety, we were supposed to travel in our own bubble that could be kept mostly separate from the community bubbles. That’s the primary reason why we needed catering, and that need only went away in the month before the ride. A whole lot of plans shifted and time spent on COVID before the ride was time that would normally be spent on other priorities. My sense is that Dierdre worked extra hard to make this year’s ride happen, but a lot of her efforts went towards things that ultimately didn’t make much of a difference. The unused spray bottles of disinfectant on all the tables at the community tent now seem symbolic of this year’s RTR.</p>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/51289757777/in/album-72157719501541596/" title="A welcome sign"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51289757777_e5ee7ea3c4_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="A welcome sign" /></a><script async="" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Veteran Ride the Rockies participants told me not to judge RTR by this year’s ride. I’m okay with doing that. But I know other riders were not okay. They didn’t want so much gravel riding. They didn’t want unreliable catering. They didn’t want aid stations that were 20+ miles apart. And because of all that, they’re questioning if they want to participate in Ride the Rockies again. Ride the Rockies is about $600 just for registration, and riders want to feel like they’re being cared for in exchange. That’s fair. So like a lot of things currently, it’s a bit of a mess. Cleaning up this mess and making sure it doesn’t happen next year will be a lot of work, and with Dierdre’s resignation, that work will fall to someone else. I’d like to ride RTR again, so we’ll see what future organizers have to offer.</p>
<p>Want more photos? <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/downclimb/albums/72157719501541596/with/51289757777/">Browse my album on Flickr</a>.</p>
Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBroomfield, CO, USA39.9205411 -105.086650411.610307263821156 -140.2429004 68.230774936178847 -69.9304004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-20918402143261618332020-12-31T23:17:00.002-07:002020-12-31T23:21:48.683-07:00That was a year, I guess<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE7Bbon8FRg-OX4Ce4O2J4Rlwn6AkZguoRfFVjTUU7WqkSZ-3hgjm_1r07-KZgKwbVquqxUIKZ9q1lxyEp_59tYrFpjkQpvD7q7kJ2Wg7zLfC7c3tmsaG_lLXYaom3QlTrVYTv0g/s1616/EUaBgIvVAAYnnYa.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1616" height="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE7Bbon8FRg-OX4Ce4O2J4Rlwn6AkZguoRfFVjTUU7WqkSZ-3hgjm_1r07-KZgKwbVquqxUIKZ9q1lxyEp_59tYrFpjkQpvD7q7kJ2Wg7zLfC7c3tmsaG_lLXYaom3QlTrVYTv0g/w640-h429/EUaBgIvVAAYnnYa.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A nearly empty Highway 36 in March of 2020<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />I'm back for my now-customary year-end blog post. A few hours ago I was thinking I should hurry up and process a bunch of photos to include here, and I should gather some statistics about how much I rode my bicycle, or how many hours of TV and movies I watched. But now I'm writing and I haven't done any of that. I think that's 2020 in a nutshell -- a year in which big plans were set aside in favor of just getting through the basics.<br /><br />I sort of remember the part of 2020 before March 13, but not very well. I was working, as usual, and I made a couple trips around the state to visit schools. A few of those trips involved snowstorms, which were things people had to deal with when they still left their homes. But then the pandemic spread, and everything changed. By late February and early March, I ramped up my grocery shopping and prepared for a long stay at home. I guess you could say I saw it coming, but like most people, I was surprised at how quickly the pandemic took over. It felt like we went from "there are some people stick on a cruise ship" to "2020 is cancelled" in about a week. No NBA, no March Madness, and the one that really got me, no NCAA wrestling tournament. UNI had a #1 seed in Taylor Lujan, and I still feel bad that he never got a chance to make a run at a title.<p></p><p>I was in no mood to mess with the coronavirus. As a cyclist, any potential decrease in respiratory function seemed like a good thing to avoid. It was a relief when the department let us work from home. I'm fortunate enough to have a home office with fiber internet and a lot of experiencing navigating work through videoconference and shared documents, so that part was relatively easy. If anything was difficult, it was that schools and teachers went into survival mode and under that stress, communication suffered. "Doing the best we can" took on a whole new meaning. I think we all did what we could to get through April and May. I had a few health issues that needed attention, but none were COVID-19. One issue likely had to do with too much couch time and too little exercise, so that's at best tangentially related to the pandemic.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1s9MSJ6Rb1CyyB-grSgdvDbirtbx8QpBC79Rw091ZrBNV8TL1fe-ZNiPIq_KH_ZzqUCs5fgfNch0DCWtohB-HgDqvDML8FeHCbZ4ivnCAJNCVnAuCvcdoZVyOdy4LIgX_APBGCQ/s4032/IMG_20200723_075136.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1s9MSJ6Rb1CyyB-grSgdvDbirtbx8QpBC79Rw091ZrBNV8TL1fe-ZNiPIq_KH_ZzqUCs5fgfNch0DCWtohB-HgDqvDML8FeHCbZ4ivnCAJNCVnAuCvcdoZVyOdy4LIgX_APBGCQ/w640-h480/IMG_20200723_075136.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view from RAGBRAI in Colorado on July 23<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />A couple things helped get me into and through the summer. The biggest thing for me is that I'm quite well-adapted for staying home alone for long stretches of time. Mentally, that's not really a struggle. Another thing that helped is that I purchased a smart trainer for my bicycle in March. I got set up with Zwift and was able to build fitness like I normally would going into the summer months but without leaving home. I know I <i>could</i> have ridden more outdoors, but it was nice to be able to jump on the trainer for a quick ride whenever I felt like it. Ride the Rockies was cancelled. It would have been my first. RAGBRAI in Iowa was also cancelled, but they replaced it with a virtual event. I rode all the miles I would have ridden in Iowa here in Colorado. It certainly wasn't the same, but it felt good to spend a week on the bike and explore a lot of new local territory. If you want to read more, I wrote about and posted photos for each day here: <a href="https://ridespot.org/rides/192830" target="_blank">Day 1</a>, <a href="https://ridespot.org/rides/192832" target="_blank">Day 2</a>, <a href="https://ridespot.org/rides/192834" target="_blank">Day 3</a>, <a href="https://ridespot.org/rides/193719" target="_blank">Day 4</a>, <a href="https://ridespot.org/rides/193720" target="_blank">Day 5</a>, <a href="https://ridespot.org/rides/194325">Day 6</a>, and <a href="https://ridespot.org/rides/194647" target="_blank">Day 7</a>.<p></p><p>The only thing I seem to remember about August is that I worked a ton of hours. Some of that was to catch up for time missed while riding, but more of it was to get things done as the new school year began. Wildfires got bad as we got into the fall. It was probably a good thing that I got my outdoor riding out of my system in late July because the air quality was so bad for much of September through November that I wouldn't have wanted to ride outside anyway. I did make an exception at the end of September to ride to the top of Mount Evans. The road from Echo Lake had been closed to cars for the summer due to the pandemic, which offered cyclists a great opportunity to make the climb without traffic. It's really not a difficult climb in terms of steepness, but with the thin air I had to manage my effort and take a reasonable pace. The reward was being able to spend time on the summit completely by myself, which is not something most people get to experience on the summit of Evans.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-fv-WPcgdSd5RWO36-y2EI53ej1HWWDiBR0ducgZ3UMJ0wsMU-dFleNU_NALd_eMdsfLiOH0vRJTqGeWUiPpkLTBh9tQC9AGQ2yjW4nF8BIImgX6rNttkDgMuQh3QFHHnYMouA/s2400/EkfCQ3sXUAIDrXE.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="2400" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-fv-WPcgdSd5RWO36-y2EI53ej1HWWDiBR0ducgZ3UMJ0wsMU-dFleNU_NALd_eMdsfLiOH0vRJTqGeWUiPpkLTBh9tQC9AGQ2yjW4nF8BIImgX6rNttkDgMuQh3QFHHnYMouA/w640-h426/EkfCQ3sXUAIDrXE.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An especially bad air quality day on October 16<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Holiday time has been a lot more home alone time. Family isn't far away, but I'm still not taking any chances. Mostly, I'm sticking to a routine. I started a 6-week training plan in Zwift, which should help bring my fitness up as the new year begins. I have my binge watching down to an art, which does absolutely nothing for fitness but does help pass the time. I try to go for groceries once a month and minimize my time in the grocery store. Otherwise, I'm not going much of anywhere. And that's still fine, although I'm certainly looking for a 2021 that finishes on a more positive note than the way most of 2020 has gone.<p></p><p>A few stats to remember 2020 by, now that I had a chance to look them up:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Total cycling: 2168 miles (compared to about 2300 miles driven)<br /></li><li>Zwift cycling: 1378 miles</li><li>TV watched: 546 hours</li><li>Movies watched: 143 hours</li><li>Binge-watched shows: Barney Miller, Veronica Mars, The Good Place, Ray Donovan, Veep, The Handmaid's Tale</li><li>Songs scrobbled: 2313</li><li>Most listened-to artist: Cannons</li><li>Most listened-to album: <i>Shadows</i> by Cannons</li><li>Most listened-to track: <i>Shadows</i> by Cannons</li></ul><p>See you in 2021!</p>Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBroomfield, CO, USA39.9205411 -105.086650411.610307263821156 -140.2429004 68.230774936178847 -69.9304004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-37601479977381655342019-12-31T23:07:00.001-07:002019-12-31T23:18:19.761-07:00Y2K + 20I have made a habit of posting on December 31, if for no other reason to ensure that I've posted at least yearly on this blog since 2001. I found an old post titled "<a href="https://johnson.downclimb.com/2009/12/y2k-10.html">Y2K + 10</a>" that I wrote 10 years ago, so the logical title for this post must be "Y2K + 20." I only have a few hours before the year, and the decade, comes to a close, so I'll try to pick a highlight from each month to show what I'll remember most from 2019.<br />
<br />
<h3>
January</h3>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3kKxLie5qfxKmxTxIizvQAe1H5oE4TQO_zdXQ3FSccyNUJP-3pjDm4HL3pnwCbl_iL2d6AmOHoHDCgD7GmZEqEf6XL2CW2RQ-Vkq3GhQcMaBhsDCmY7gI-MqXc14wmGj-VROtrQ/s1600/IMG_20190106_171230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3kKxLie5qfxKmxTxIizvQAe1H5oE4TQO_zdXQ3FSccyNUJP-3pjDm4HL3pnwCbl_iL2d6AmOHoHDCgD7GmZEqEf6XL2CW2RQ-Vkq3GhQcMaBhsDCmY7gI-MqXc14wmGj-VROtrQ/s400/IMG_20190106_171230.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Midwinter skies from the new apartment</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A year ago I was closing the door on my old apartment at CU Boulder, bringing to a final close my long tenure there as a graduate student. And what a wonderful tenure it was! That meant I spent a lot of January trying to get settled into a new apartment. In hindsight, it's been a really good move for me. I do miss aspects of Boulder, but I have a more comfortable living space here and it's cut my commute by about 15 minutes.<br />
<br />
<h3>
February</h3>
I was on the road quite a bit for work in February, something that's continued throughout the year. There was a computer science meeting in Idaho Springs, an item writing workshop for our state standardized tests, a board meeting for our math teachers professional organization, a day delivering professional development in Colorado Springs, a two-day performance assessment workshop, and a two-day math conference. None required me to travel very far, but it was far enough to keep me out of the office more than I was in it.<br />
<br />
<h3>
March</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgnBvXb9ALSChKibe6_hs3ZYiyYKFdwTZf47JR8Kwt6xidk19NGCpIUcV4pwxnOOw3mfYB2ggrD7-fpiblFVCoy2kBYLFjeABDzfZbz6F4E4gzhd34kjNUnbVdbVHukcAeaF2uhQ/s1600/DSC06367.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgnBvXb9ALSChKibe6_hs3ZYiyYKFdwTZf47JR8Kwt6xidk19NGCpIUcV4pwxnOOw3mfYB2ggrD7-fpiblFVCoy2kBYLFjeABDzfZbz6F4E4gzhd34kjNUnbVdbVHukcAeaF2uhQ/s400/DSC06367.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One last family photo</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My father had been diagnosed with lung cancer in the fall of 2018 and the doctors had given him about 6 months. His grand plan was to sell the house and move to Colorado so that mom would be near my sister and me after he was gone. After about four months, a horrible Iowa winter, and the effects of cancer and chemotherapy, my parents' progress towards getting moved did not look good. I took time off towards the end of the month to make a trip to Iowa with my sister to help them organize and pack. Ever try to move someone out of a house they've lived in for 50+ years? It's a lot of work. With a lot of help from friends and family, we packed a big trailer and pulled it to Colorado. I did most of the driving with dad in the passenger seat and his brother and my sister sitting behind us. Dad wasn't in great shape to travel, but as we went I could see how this wasn't just a moving job, it was a chance to take one last road trip with his little brother and his kids.<br />
<br />
<h3>
April</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjunLnJrvQCP1HnhGhQIfX0g6-yfpBeDMNkqHbykZ2QzInys8VOF0-25PUpqV4dDnDGC5g2YvDhQL1KvkgOmEeW9x9m0Vz9oA8VjlsYZhwfgwF9naI8c4869zD0qEKXuGggsyoqHQ/s1600/rj_20190401_192006_516.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjunLnJrvQCP1HnhGhQIfX0g6-yfpBeDMNkqHbykZ2QzInys8VOF0-25PUpqV4dDnDGC5g2YvDhQL1KvkgOmEeW9x9m0Vz9oA8VjlsYZhwfgwF9naI8c4869zD0qEKXuGggsyoqHQ/s320/rj_20190401_192006_516.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Diego</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I began April in San Diego, where I spent nine days attending and presenting at math education conferences. I thought I was going to have to leave mid-trip when dad's health took a bad turn, but thankfully I was able to complete the trip as planned. I don't get to attend all the math conferences I'd like, but this big week-plus string of conferences each spring has done so much for me personally and professionally, as it gives me time to meet new people, catch up with old friends and colleagues, and get exposed to a lot of new ideas.<br />
<br />
I got home from San Diego late on a Saturday only to get back on a plane and fly to Iowa for another three days to pack and bring a not-quite-final load of stuff to Colorado. Dad was on some pretty serious painkillers at this point and it was clear that he wasn't going to get any better, but he and my mom did finally say goodbye to the house and move to an apartment near my sister. I had two days of work between that trip before flying to Chicago for a Cubs game, courtesy a kind member of my dissertation committee who got me tickets as a gift. I really didn't need the extra travel, but I wasn't going to turn down a trip to Wrigley.<br />
<br />
<h3>
May</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9p5b9aZRyoyqOCOfp1mgJAZ_Bz56WGz7xpHWSMIOpQ4MwJ3B1Tk4ESMofSXSdBWvbLs-o27Z644dws9zIMqwyZU5-W8J42oG6TrR3tVoBNCsfJ8ex70JlZM0zOQ25lHMy17Q6hg/s1600/DSC07437.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9p5b9aZRyoyqOCOfp1mgJAZ_Bz56WGz7xpHWSMIOpQ4MwJ3B1Tk4ESMofSXSdBWvbLs-o27Z644dws9zIMqwyZU5-W8J42oG6TrR3tVoBNCsfJ8ex70JlZM0zOQ25lHMy17Q6hg/s400/DSC07437.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goodbye, 330 Jason. Goodbye, dad.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Despite our best efforts, there still remained some things left in the house in Iowa and it had been sold, so my sister and I drove to Iowa and back over a three-day weekend at the start of the month to empty the last bits out. Saying goodbye to the house that we grew up in was really sad for both of us. Dad started receiving hospice care, which was a great help for mom, but also a sign that the end for my dad was near. I stayed busy the first full week of May, with visits to an elementary school, my graduation ceremony, and Math Day at a Colorado Rockies game that I helped with. The whole family gathered together for Mother's Day on the 12th, and just as we finished breakfast and a hospice worker showed up, dad died. I took the next week off and spent a lot of time with mom as we wrote <a href="https://allveterans.com/tribute/details/158393/Mark-Johnson/obituary.html">dad's obituary</a> and made arrangements for his cremation.<br />
<br />
<h3>
June</h3>
June started with a two-day trip to Rocky Ford to deliver professional development to teachers in that part of the state. The rest of the month was relatively quiet, and my schedule finally freed up enough to spend quality time on my bicycle. And in the absence of quality time, I put miles in biking home from work along the South Platte River (which totally stinks next to the sewage treatment plant and other industrial areas), Clear Creek, and the Highway 36 Bikeway.<br />
<br />
<h3>
July</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNhRVU8h1ixMKJun-9vPP8P-aMPIK2Z4UmUvuutHd-EPyTKpnywyBiOw8Z8mjXxVhp6hn8xIqvPzojLMTlij2i0brT9z4Vlqgt7beCMUqCOSh7mqqvLYgtQGcClcN1Iz02ZOM1_g/s1600/IMG_20190723_191009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNhRVU8h1ixMKJun-9vPP8P-aMPIK2Z4UmUvuutHd-EPyTKpnywyBiOw8Z8mjXxVhp6hn8xIqvPzojLMTlij2i0brT9z4Vlqgt7beCMUqCOSh7mqqvLYgtQGcClcN1Iz02ZOM1_g/s400/IMG_20190723_191009.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hot air balloons over Indianola on RAGBRAI</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I headed to Iowa again, this time for RAGBRAI, the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. I was undertrained compared to prior years, but this was going to be my 5th trip pedaling across the state and getting from one side to the other was not much of a concern. I enjoyed RAGBRAI -- don't get me wrong -- but by the end of this one I couldn't help but think that the ride, for me, had gotten a little <i>routine</i>. I love the daily routine of the ride: wake, pack, ride, eat, ride, eat, ride, unpack and set up camp, shower, eat, relax, sleep. But somehow the experience as a whole felt routine, and I decided the problem wasn't RAGBRAI, it was me, and I needed to expand my cycling horizons to include more new places and new experiences.<br />
<br />
<h3>
August</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisnhCvTtTVHCSH2ct9y9JyryDy6lbBJim7pzBYo6ZOIAaywVtiEHvd3Eb_0MMRNLdFgMjtTOylo1PTBwe9jQ9M8wFbo-Rs-iEiArroagtJbNFOtXVvVWGFVw0hMhoruLsBXiu7uA/s1600/IMG_20190802_082548.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisnhCvTtTVHCSH2ct9y9JyryDy6lbBJim7pzBYo6ZOIAaywVtiEHvd3Eb_0MMRNLdFgMjtTOylo1PTBwe9jQ9M8wFbo-Rs-iEiArroagtJbNFOtXVvVWGFVw0hMhoruLsBXiu7uA/s400/IMG_20190802_082548.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colorado National Monument</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Right after RAGBRAI, I came home to do a morning of professional development in Douglas County, a day and half of presenting and volunteering at our state math teachers' conference, and then traveled to Grand Junction to present at another conference. Although I was tired from the travel, I threw my bike in my car so I could take an extra day to ride Colorado National Monument. It was spectacular! For one, my fitness was quite good with 500 RAGBRAI miles in my legs, and two, the landscape was like nothing I'd cycled through before. This was the break from the routine that I'd been missing, and now I wanted to find more events and places to ride, which was a lot different from previous years where I'd come home from RAGBRAI and was happy to set my bike aside for a while.<br />
<br />
<h3>
September</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid46lr0X7juDxWk_TuIwaVuurd1s8QHzsAHY6Al1t0u8q1LMkuolYjNh2hA9qzI76Oyn4BsKHrIvr0e0FrJCCVmjSUob8lKg3vvAwBIQzfZSOs1APYgFFjOmBco5Z85zXyfS4vCA/s1600/IMG_20190913_155503.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid46lr0X7juDxWk_TuIwaVuurd1s8QHzsAHY6Al1t0u8q1LMkuolYjNh2hA9qzI76Oyn4BsKHrIvr0e0FrJCCVmjSUob8lKg3vvAwBIQzfZSOs1APYgFFjOmBco5Z85zXyfS4vCA/s400/IMG_20190913_155503.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pedal the Plains</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My next cycling adventure was the Buffalo Bicycle Classic, a local scholarship fundraiser organized by CU Boulder. I was well aware of the ride from seeing signs and riders in previous years, but I'd never actually participated. My thinking was, why pay to ride the same roads I ride all the time for free? Answer: Traffic control and aid stations! I was feeling fit so I went big and registered for the "Buff Epic," a 100-mile ride up into the mountains with 7800 feet of climbing. It was hard, but great. I'm certainly not the fastest going uphill, but it turns out that I'm not the slowest, either, and with enough training and proper fueling I can ride something like this and stay well within my comfort zone. The Buff Epic was great preparation for Pedal the Plains, a three-day ride the following weekend. This year PtP was held in southeast Colorado with overnight stops in Lamar, Holly, and Springfield. The middle day was century day and I mentally prepared myself for the heat and the headwinds. What I didn't realize was that, unlike the previous weekend's ride up and down the mountains, when you're on the flatlands of eastern Colorado and western Kansas, <i>you have no hills to coast down and you have to pedal the entire time</i>. Combine those conditions, and I do think it was harder than the Buff Epic, and the dozens and dozens of bikes and riders that had to be hauled in by the sag wagon suggested as much. But I made it without incident (unless needing to drink over two gallons of fluid over 10 hours is an incident), and was rewarded on the last day by tailwinds and almost 25 mph average speeds. Fun!<br />
<br />
<h3>
October</h3>
I spent a lot of October in the office and weekends off the bike after somehow aggravating a knee. At the end of the month I made a week-long trip to southwest Colorado to visit three different school districts. It was hugely informative for me, and I hope the advice I was able to give while I was there is serving those districts well.<br />
<br />
<h3>
November</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiob0LYTgZcVRpIBrq6GfBOEWIgWCYBcT_FwqkIYC1357jrc6BAep4OQA0p-4tx1LLzSKuIOPBBdOz0mH0JUcFukO1QwqQlY6_D3R99wS5TJBgF36LHOr0LFr29ep72IiaiJMdp0A/s1600/md_0066.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiob0LYTgZcVRpIBrq6GfBOEWIgWCYBcT_FwqkIYC1357jrc6BAep4OQA0p-4tx1LLzSKuIOPBBdOz0mH0JUcFukO1QwqQlY6_D3R99wS5TJBgF36LHOr0LFr29ep72IiaiJMdp0A/s200/md_0066.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sister and dad, from before my time</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I started November finishing my SW Colorado trip, spent a lot of time in the office in the middle of the month, and finished it with four days off for Thanksgiving. I got to host Thanksgiving dinner this year, something I had done the first few years I moved to Colorado and bought a house, but I wasn't able to do in my tiny Boulder apartment. I started a major project to scan and catalog all of my parents' photos. I have no idea how long that will take, but as I know from my own photos, it's worth the effort to preserve them and make them easily shareable.<br />
<br />
Oh, and I reached my goal of paying off all my student loans within one year of my Ph.D. dissertation defense. I'm not sure which one feels like the greater accomplishment. <br />
<br />
<h3>
December</h3>
This month included a lot of routine days in the office and an extended amount of time off between Christmas Eve and New Year's. The downtime has been nice. But even with this blog post, and the family photo scanning I've been doing on nights and weekends, I think I finish this year (and decade) looking forward more than I do looking back. What new people and places will come my way in 2020? Time will only tell, but with school behind me, debts behind me, and a steady and rewarding career, I think it's time to think about new challenges. I squeezed a lot into 2019, some of it happy, some of it sad, but all of it just part of being human. 2020 could be much the same, but I'm ready to make it better. I'm in pretty good health (and about 10 pounds lighter than I was a decade ago), but I want to stay more active more consistently. I have pretty good personal relationships, but it's time to think about expanding my social circle and deepening some of those connections. I'm in a pretty good financial situation, and I look forward to being able to save more in the new year. A lot of good things could come in 2020, and if recent history is a guide, you may see me back here a year from now making sense of how it all turned out.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBroomfield, CO, USA39.9205411 -105.086650439.7258261 -105.40937389999999 40.1152561 -104.7639269tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-45859822866207669122018-12-31T23:53:00.002-07:002018-12-31T23:53:40.382-07:00My heart is in Boulder but my brain is needed in Denver, so I'm putting my body in BroomfieldI wasn't really joking when I told people the university hands you an eviction notice with your diploma.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsdSeRfajauOQQEMeFY2-yDHOrAWcD6E7qRgfVMhzBI3Xv6HlAAyNf7xyIySXj4LG1FR7K7lJs7sXOf5YS5Bmc_n50hQJ8DFyUdsg96Ovb9mzcl7Q26YpjrvlLvxthCCJTfshPg/s1600/IMG_20181231_221808.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsdSeRfajauOQQEMeFY2-yDHOrAWcD6E7qRgfVMhzBI3Xv6HlAAyNf7xyIySXj4LG1FR7K7lJs7sXOf5YS5Bmc_n50hQJ8DFyUdsg96Ovb9mzcl7Q26YpjrvlLvxthCCJTfshPg/s400/IMG_20181231_221808.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Congrats! Now get out."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The university doesn't do this for everyone, of course, just those of us who live in student housing. I lived in Smiley Court for more than 9 years, longer than I've lived anywhere other than the house I grew up in. It was home, and home can be hard to leave.<br />
<br />
Admittedly, the apartment had gotten a bit cramped. It was tight from the start, since I was downsizing from a two-bedroom apartment into a one-bedroom. Adding an extra bicycle and a few hundred books along the way didn't help. The apartment was also miserably hot in the summer, with south- and west-facing brick walls and a location on the top floor. Even with a small air conditioner wedged in the too-small windows, running all day, the temperatures could get over 85 degrees and stay that way past midnight. So it wasn't perfect. But then again, it had this view:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAT4b97AxCruyZ_rPl1XFx464hE446bmmIuw8khfFbN5JP-fTKGSC52xhnZqe8A54F3VwCso4hlIDnZ-9RS4AGsBn9cyKJm266n0oCmA-70Cc2s3jgLmuv3DZGtd0_WfUGpFrHqA/s1600/IMG_20181222_071803.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAT4b97AxCruyZ_rPl1XFx464hE446bmmIuw8khfFbN5JP-fTKGSC52xhnZqe8A54F3VwCso4hlIDnZ-9RS4AGsBn9cyKJm266n0oCmA-70Cc2s3jgLmuv3DZGtd0_WfUGpFrHqA/s640/IMG_20181222_071803.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A recent sunrise from the balcony of B1-31</td></tr>
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From this apartment I managed to turn myself into a runner, pounding the pavement along Boulder Creek, and later I turned my attention to cycling. If there was an event on campus, getting there required a brisk 20 minute walk. I could also walk to the grocery store, the movie theater, and multiple bus stops. One time I climbed Mt. Sanitas by walking out my front door, across town, up the mountain, and back home. It was a tiring 10-mile round-trip, but a reminder of why Boulder can be a wonderful place to live.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZEwgljO9doYAJ7_sDzMak68B5AqUBpJXZzSYypEiuIRt96tLE0ZMOw5TMpgP8dZKbowhjHzOl2oIN5qPSAXzO-gbp4gVd0y440esQua87Bx9CcWbvHxf-W9oHbs32eOaTOhtKyw/s1600/IMG_20181229_152457.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZEwgljO9doYAJ7_sDzMak68B5AqUBpJXZzSYypEiuIRt96tLE0ZMOw5TMpgP8dZKbowhjHzOl2oIN5qPSAXzO-gbp4gVd0y440esQua87Bx9CcWbvHxf-W9oHbs32eOaTOhtKyw/s640/IMG_20181229_152457.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Winter sun through the trees. My apartment was on the top floor.</td></tr>
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It's probably true that my happiness with my living situation delayed my graduation from the university. It's a lot more complicated than that, of course--I think I'd be a student forever, if I could, and big, time-sensitive projects with my state job didn't allow the schedule flexibility I needed to finish my dissertation. But eventually a good thing comes to an end. I worked day and night during September and October to finish my dissertation, and successfully defended in November. A few days later I had to fill out my intent to vacate papers with the family housing office. That also meant finding a new place to live, something I hadn't done in a long time.<br />
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I wanted to stay in Boulder, despite the challenges of doing so. The apartments and condos that had been selling for $200,000 when I moved to Boulder in 2009 were now frequently listed closer to $350,000, and even at that price you were looking at an apartment with 20+ year-old furnishings and maybe 800 square feet of space. There's probably a bit of a bubble in the market and now didn't feel like the right time to buy. The rental market is driven by the cycle of undergrads coming each fall. The first apartment I looked at was 624 square feet for $1200 per month--but only until August, when the owner said they'd renew the lease for $1600 per month. Having a landlord tell you they plan a $400/month rent increase is the kind of thing that makes you consider other options.<br />
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There are some nice places to live north of Boulder along some of my favorite cycling routes. I really liked the idea of rolling out my front door on two wheels and onto the roads of Boulder County. Unfortunately, that would have added to my commute. I haven't driven to get to work or school since 2006 and I wanted to keep it that way, so that meant figuring out new possible bus routes. Living north of Boulder would have meant riding one bus into central Boulder, then transferring to another bus to get to Denver. It was going to be at least 90-100 minutes each way. I really like the service RTD provides, but three hours a day on a bus was just too much to consider. I needed to get closer to Denver, not further away. I scoured the listings for places to live in Louisville or Superior, but there weren't many listings within walking distance from the bus stop. That meant going one more bus stop down Highway 36 and into Broomfield.<br />
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Broomfield is a bit of a compromise. Not just for me, but historically so. It began as a little town in the southeast corner of Boulder County but as it grew it spilled into multiple other counties, making the politics and administration of the area rather complex. In 2001, Broomfield became a new county and a city all in one. It is still split across five different school districts, so that part remains rather complicated. As much as I wanted to stay in Boulder, or in Boulder County--where I've lived and voted for 9 years--I was won over by an apartment in Broomfield within walking distance of Flatiron Station. If I walk a few hundred yards west, I'm back in Boulder County. Interestingly, if I walk a few hundred yards <i>east</i>, I'm also back in Boulder County. These apartments exist in a weird little "thumb" on the map that outlines one of the many irrregularities of Broomfield's county boundary. These apartments were built here to attract commuters wanting access to both Boulder and Denver, and I'm one of those people, so here I am.<br />
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I moved the last of my things out of my Boulder apartment today and turned in my keys, just before the deadline. Making a new home has been a lot of work and a rather expensive endeavor, but getting my stuff settled in a new place has taken the sting out of leaving Boulder. I have more room here and while I can't see the Flatirons out my window, I can still see mountains. I'll find new cycling routes, and from here I'm much more likely to bike to work in Denver than I would be from Boulder. If there's something going on at the university that I want to see, now it's a 20-minute bus ride instead of a 20-minute walk. Instead of running along Boulder Creek, I'll probably end up on the trails in the nearby nature preserve. It will work, and it won't feel like a compromise for long.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBroomfield, CO39.941591051117435 -105.123017863605739.746875551117434 -105.44574136360569 40.136306551117436 -104.8002943636057tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-59428041128947091782017-12-31T23:57:00.001-07:002018-01-01T00:01:06.924-07:00Hibernation<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwcbYx3afJ17CEj9UQJzuvA4FxQNYkekLPz4qiDj-3XCKfhAa2W0_MZbG5CRlWN41HzykXxCGPJqY1tmz1eC0sgE0IXuSpAzBr3_s3i-i5-DGbxdXTRPB4aUBQZAXJGDD3cXkQFw/s1600/DSC01018.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1070" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwcbYx3afJ17CEj9UQJzuvA4FxQNYkekLPz4qiDj-3XCKfhAa2W0_MZbG5CRlWN41HzykXxCGPJqY1tmz1eC0sgE0IXuSpAzBr3_s3i-i5-DGbxdXTRPB4aUBQZAXJGDD3cXkQFw/s640/DSC01018.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The star above Boulder as seen from Pearl Street, Christmas night</td></tr>
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It's the last half-hour of 2017 and I'm pushing out a post to keep my blogging streak alive. I can't imagine this is interesting to anyone else, but that's never really been what this blog is for. I could write more, and maybe I should write more, but the only goal I've had for this blog for a while is to write at least once a year.<br />
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The last week of the year has become what I call my period of "hibernation." Between Christmas and the New Year, I stay home, do whatever I want on whatever schedule I want. This year, that meant a lot of nights staying up until 4 am and sleeping until 10 or 11. Other than trips to get food, I pretty much had no social interaction for the week. I don't know that I purposely take this time as a mental vacation, but that's sort of what it is.</div>
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I had several goals for this year's hibernation, but the one I've done best to stick to is physical: pedaling my stationary bike 40 miles each day. There is a Strava challenge this year to ride 500 kilometers in the eight days from Christmas through New Year's Day, so 40 miles each day will get me there. I didn't think much about it, and I don't even keep track of indoor training miles on Strava, but it sounded like the right kind of goal to reverse the decline of my fitness the past few months. Tonight I finished my miles at about 11:30, just before I sat down to write this. The time of day doesn't matter, so long as I'm done with the day's ride by midnight.</div>
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Besides the miles on the bike, I've caught up with some TV and movies that I feel I'd been missing out on. I watched <i>Moonlight</i> and <i>Spotlight</i>, so now I'm current with the last several Academy Award winners for Best Picture. <i>The Big Short</i> was more lively than I expected, and I went on a little post-<i>Lady Bird</i> Greta Gerwig/Saoirse film fest with <i>Lola Vs.</i> (nice), <i>Frances Ha</i> (okay), and <i>Hanna</i> (this ain't Lady Bird). Now I'm watching Dave Chappelle's latest Netflix specials and realizing it's 11:57 and I have less than 3 minutes to hit publish.</div>
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See 'ya in 2018.</div>
Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBoulder, CO, USA40.0149856 -105.2705455999999939.820449100000005 -105.59326909999999 40.2095221 -104.9478221tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-76083607487027121292016-12-08T22:58:00.001-07:002016-12-08T22:58:40.702-07:00The 15-Year Blogoversary15 years and 1,213 posts! My first experience with the World Wide Web came in 1995, and by 1997 I had my own web page. The first web authoring tool I remember using was Composer, an HTML editor built into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Communicator">Netscape Communicator</a> suite. That helped me learn some HTML, and later I used Microsoft Word 97 and then FrontPage 98 and later Macromedia Dreamweaver to design more elaborate pages. Some of my FrontPage-built sites are still on the web. As I learned more about <a href="https://validator.w3.org/">HTML standards and validation</a> I wrote more HTML by hand, but I still wanted a way to make publishing to the web easier.<br />
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By 2001 I understood that (a) sites should be updated regularly and (b) FTP'ing sites and pages from my desktop to a server was a bit of a pain. I had heard about some early blogging platforms and chose one, <b>Blogger</b>, to try out. As you can see, I'm still here.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My receipt from Pyra Labs for Blogger Pro</td></tr>
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<a href="http://johnson.downclimb.com/2001/12/if-you-find-this-page-congratulations.php">My first post using Blogger</a> came on December 8, 2001. A few months later I paid for Blogger Pro, which offered additional authoring tools, like <i>spell checking</i>. Yes, in 2002 spellcheck was something worth paying for because it wasn't built into browsers yet. In 2003, Google bought Blogger from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyra_Labs">Pyra Labs</a>, which later freed up Pyra Labs's co-founder, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Williams_(Internet_entrepreneur)">Evan Williams</a>, to go do other things (like make Twitter). All in all, Google has been a good steward of Blogger — although the platform doesn't get updated frequently, Blogger has been stable, relatively malware-free, and the BlogSpot hosting service is still free.</div>
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My second blog using Blogger was a classroom blog, "FHS Math," that I started in January of 2005 to list daily assignments for my students and to have a place to document my approach to standards-based grading. Looking back, I was ahead of the curve on both classroom blogging and SBG. I can't take too much credit, though, as I changed schools and stopped both classroom blogging and SBG. It didn't seem to fit the school culture or the resources available to students there, <a href="http://blog.mathed.net/2010/08/2004-2006-my-adventures-in-standards.html">something I've written about in the past</a>.</div>
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Along the way I used Blogger for a couple other short-lived blogs, and one <a href="http://links.mathed.net/">link blog</a> that gets new content in fits and spurts. I don't blog so much here anymore, on what is my "personal" blog. When I returned to graduate school in the Fall of 2009, I started a "professional" blog at <a href="http://blog.mathed.net/">blog.mathed.net</a>. I've found plenty to write there in the past 7+ years, but I try not to ignore this blog completely. When grad school is finished I'd like to write more about photography and outdoor pursuits, which was the focus of <a href="http://downclimb.com/">downclimb.com</a> from the beginning, and I know this blog will be there when that day comes.</div>
Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBoulder, CO, USA40.0149856 -105.2705455999999939.820449100000005 -105.59326909999999 40.2095221 -104.9478221tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-37748163374516489932016-06-12T23:21:00.000-06:002016-06-12T23:21:03.787-06:00Last.fm and Ten Years of Web 2.0Ten years ago yesterday I scrobbled my first tracks to <a href="http://last.fm/">last.fm</a>. What's scrobbling? On last.fm, scrobbling refers to automatic music track logging to the internet. For me, uploading a record of my music listening habits was my first real experience with "Web 2.0." Remember Web 2.0? It referred to websites of user-generated content that enabled virtual communities and interoperability. Now such sites are too ubiquitous on the web to warrant a special designation — they're just <em>the web</em>. But that wasn't true in 2006, and even though I'd been putting content on the internet since 1996, at the time it was enough to make me a little nervous. What did these strangers want with my data, and what was in it for me?<br />
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Ten years and 24,941 scrobbles later, I have my answer: I have a really cool record of all the music I've listened to the past 10 years! Well, not "all," technically: I've certainly listened to music in places and on devices that didn't have a last.fm audioscrobbler plugin. But I have tracked the vast majority of all music I've listened to at my computer (first with <a href="https://amarok.kde.org/">Amarok</a>, then <a href="https://www.clementine-player.org/">Clementine</a>, then <a href="http://music.google.com/">Google Music</a>), on my smartphones, and on my home theater PC. Listening to 25,000 tracks over 10 years means averaging about 6-7 tracks per day, every day.<br />
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For many years I said in my <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/downclimb">last.fm profile</a>, "My favorite instrument may be the female voice. Boys with guitars rarely impress me. Bass is often better hummed, not thumped." With that in mind, the artists I've listened to most shouldn't surprise you:<br />
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<h3>
Favorite Artists</h3>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvGc0_KQlfRWfYWTrKVwQ8CDGq4GChsVdZbkq-iMqeadqGGw7wR1bqkXtmStgZXVUATwJ_GEe4-gb9etxDIvSpM5_weOOnc3qi5fsazt34Cf4cVC_pM-6LsvoOg7bLw2IIuXUog/s1600/20160612+-+Selection_001.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvGc0_KQlfRWfYWTrKVwQ8CDGq4GChsVdZbkq-iMqeadqGGw7wR1bqkXtmStgZXVUATwJ_GEe4-gb9etxDIvSpM5_weOOnc3qi5fsazt34Cf4cVC_pM-6LsvoOg7bLw2IIuXUog/s1600/20160612+-+Selection_001.png" /></a><br />
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I've been a Tori Amos fan ever since seeing her on Letterman promoting <i>Under the Pink</i> in 1994, so I've had a lot of opportunities to listen to her. It helps that she's steadily put out new music over the 20+ years since. I've been a fan of Sia since 2001 when she was doing vocals for some Zero 7 songs. I've only been listening to Morcheeba and Skye Edwards for the past year or so, but I've caught up quickly. How did I miss them until so recently?<br />
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Favorite Albums</h3>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-FJWZrNwKvKzEchTe7lbqYS619Sm9D-SPvcLtB3uZQuUwzVeGMicEscBrRP9QbTKwXuElI-hRKrJ0aTdv_-wBLICzV1PtTRrL0SCHBhvy3YgJ8sh6asuyaTIPfseYlKkOc4gyA/s1600/20160612+-+Selection_002.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-FJWZrNwKvKzEchTe7lbqYS619Sm9D-SPvcLtB3uZQuUwzVeGMicEscBrRP9QbTKwXuElI-hRKrJ0aTdv_-wBLICzV1PtTRrL0SCHBhvy3YgJ8sh6asuyaTIPfseYlKkOc4gyA/s1600/20160612+-+Selection_002.png" /></a><br />
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Sia takes the top two spots, and I have all the data I need to make "I listened to her before it was cool" brags. Tori's <i>Night of Hunters</i> album was the kind of album that begged me to listen to in its entirety, playing in the background while I worked, so it got a lot of plays in a relatively short amount of time.<br />
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Favorite Tracks</h3>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIiOgbt24oT8F2012mESMkiE_pzXs7Q4B3ZpxYdN0-gz-HyRwRzQT6gaOTKmsG7APsLg_TWY4yoQk4L-IT7WXIhpZFNgqdpNf7wzSQPBQWXcTchR5W4nhUm_uPbYxvNm1IZwWjWg/s1600/20160612+-+Selection_003.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIiOgbt24oT8F2012mESMkiE_pzXs7Q4B3ZpxYdN0-gz-HyRwRzQT6gaOTKmsG7APsLg_TWY4yoQk4L-IT7WXIhpZFNgqdpNf7wzSQPBQWXcTchR5W4nhUm_uPbYxvNm1IZwWjWg/s1600/20160612+-+Selection_003.png" /></a><br />
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You see that I've only scrobbled 3,614 total tracks, which means I've listened to each of those tracks an average of 7 times. Except here an average doesn't tell a very accurate story, as I'm not shy about listening to a song I like over, and over, and over again. Number 8 above, Chic's <i>I'll Be There</i>, is a good example — I probably listened to it 80-90 times in the course of a week or two, leaving it on repeat as I worked on writing a paper. You might think that after listening to these songs so many times I'd have the lyrics memorized, but you'd be wrong. I might know some, but usually I'm not paying attention to the words. I pay more attention to the sounds and how they work together. Case in point, which I learned from last.fm: At one point long ago I noticed I'd listened to Stereolab's <i>Miss Modular</i> 37 times, making it one of my most listened-to tracks. It was a song from a compilation album and I didn't know anything about the group, so I decided to look them up. Only when I read about the band did I realize that <i>Miss Modular</i> is sung in French, not English. I'd never bothered to notice, and you can see I've listened to it many more times since.<br />
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So that's 10 years on last.fm and 10 years contributing to a Web 2.0 service. Honestly, it's luck that I chose a service that's still around after 10 years. Last.fm has changed hands in that time, and variously emphasized music recommendations, streaming radio, live concert promotions, and being a social network. I've mostly enjoyed the statistics, and I'm glad that feature of the site is still going strong.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBoulder, CO, USA40.0149856 -105.2705455999999939.820449100000005 -105.59326909999999 40.2095221 -104.9478221tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-76081404056886000442016-06-04T03:05:00.000-06:002016-06-05T14:26:35.541-06:00Muhammad Ali, 1942-2016Muhammad Ali died late last night. To say I saw this coming wouldn't tell the whole story. Several times, over the past few years, I found myself suddenly struck with the thought, "Ali will be gone soon." It was the kind of thought that hit me as I lie in bed, unable to sleep, but unable to focus my thoughts. I wasn't seeing the future, and I'm not particularly sentimental about the dead. But the fact that my subconscious would do this to me should give you an idea of what Muhammad Ali means to me.<br />
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Early Memories</h2>
As a young boy, I had a few pieces of sports equipment: a bicycle, an old baseball glove passed down from my dad, and a pair of boxing gloves, which I used to hit a heavy bag fashioned from my dad's old Air Force duffle bag. My interest in boxing was initially driven by the Rocky movies, but I remember the first Ali fight I ever saw: an ESPN replay of the first Ali-Norton fight, from March 31, 1973. I'm going to guess I was 11 or 12 years old when I saw it. I was at my grandfather's house, and my dad called me into the living room to watch with him. He said something like, "If you like the Rocky movies, you should watch the real thing. This guy is Muhammad Ali, and he said he was the greatest." My father went on to tell me about how Norton broke Ali's jaw early in the fight, yet Ali continued through the pain and lost the decision. I'm pretty sure my father would have been pulling for Norton in '73, but I sensed respect for Ali's career. Had my grandfather been in the room, he'd probably have made us change the channel to something featuring white people. I watched a lot of <em>Hee Haw</em> at grandpa's, but wasn't allowed to watch <em>The Cosby Show.</em> Maybe that added to the feeling that there was something special about what I was seeing, but this one fight, with its gritty realism replacing the Hollywood drama of the Rocky franchise, was enough to make me want to know more about Ali.<br />
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I loved reading biographies, and our middle school library had a couple about Ali. One was a very simple book, written for children, and the other was Ali's autobiography. The autobiography was published in 1975, just after the last Frazier fight, and while it was co-authored with <a href="http://www.sonjadwilliams.com/word-warrior/">Richard Durham</a>, in hindsight I'm sure nothing in the book appeared without the approval of Ali's manager, Herbert Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam. Understandably, then, the book focused more on Ali's rich political and religious narrative, from joining the NOI, to changing his name, to refusing the Vietnam draft. The book told me so much that the children's biography did not. It introduced me to Malcolm X, the civil rights movement, Vietnam War protests, and Islam. By eighth grade, I read Malcolm X's autobiography (I had to get it through interlibrary loan), I read <em>Roots</em>, I learned about the race riots in Watts and Newark, and I read about Islam at the public library. It was the best self-guided history class I ever had. <em>To study Ali was to study America.</em><br />
<em><br /></em> I've collected a few books since, with the latest (<em>Blood Brothers</em>) arriving last Tuesday.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdARw-smIbD0lELgfMdx9y2hD34OJmPKa0R07v5SP9iXhms9Ll-1Is3NthkrNZVNNvYILhaYu2Mh0FFhl4POPytSDS4PJVEzJsHWTyU4e4cPmvEGZl6Os4nBW_j-VgN2BFYPDv6w/s1600/2016-06-03+23.30.26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdARw-smIbD0lELgfMdx9y2hD34OJmPKa0R07v5SP9iXhms9Ll-1Is3NthkrNZVNNvYILhaYu2Mh0FFhl4POPytSDS4PJVEzJsHWTyU4e4cPmvEGZl6Os4nBW_j-VgN2BFYPDv6w/s400/2016-06-03+23.30.26.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The boxing section of my bookshelf</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxc0EF4nDr8NPwq74MRg3GERfnxIXKKm-LuQIChdsXzxZ2adqZYDYSIFMVeTK_WfWEvF2SjkHV5_0_592kShlFfEMvTrUHaFf_Taw1ngK3CC4qgoLE3NCX2XSGwMHQi0_UApMlg/s1600/2016-06-03+21.08.06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxc0EF4nDr8NPwq74MRg3GERfnxIXKKm-LuQIChdsXzxZ2adqZYDYSIFMVeTK_WfWEvF2SjkHV5_0_592kShlFfEMvTrUHaFf_Taw1ngK3CC4qgoLE3NCX2XSGwMHQi0_UApMlg/s320/2016-06-03+21.08.06.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ali has said that turning his back on Malcolm X was one of his biggest regrets.</td></tr>
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<h2 id="the-fights">
The Fights</h2>
In 1990, NBC ran a series called "The Greatest Fights Ever," and I recorded them on VHS and watched them over and over. Clay-Liston I. Ali-Frazier I. The Rumble in the Jungle. The Thrilla in Manilla. I bought an HBO/Sports Illustrated documentary and I can still hear the narration in my head. What was particularly great about the NBC series were the characters they brought in to help tell the stories, including Ferdie Pacheco, Angelo Dundee, Don Dunphy, Archie Moore, George Benton, and Eddie Futch. They became as familiar to me as Ali's rhymes.<br />
<br />
Later I acquired more Ali footage on DVD, and when I first got access to ESPN Classic I built a digital video recorder and captured all the Ali footage I could. In one form or another, I now have over 100 hours of boxing footage in my library, most of it of Ali. By watching all these videos over and over, Ali is likely my most-watched sportsman of my lifetime, <em>even though almost all his fights preceded my lifetime</em>. I don't follow or watch the boxing of today, but I've watched some Ali fights dozens of times, like I did during a workout last week.<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Rode the stationary bike long enough tonight to watch Ali-Quarry, Ali-Bonevena, *and* Ali-Foreman.</div>
— Raymond Johnson (@downclimb) <a href="https://twitter.com/downclimb/status/736065455949905922">May 27, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> March 8 of this year was the 45th anniversary of the first Ali-Frazier fight. I recently noticed this fight wasn't in my digital library, and I didn't have a full version on DVD, either. Often called "The Fight of the Century," this meeting of two unbeaten heavyweight champions is much harder to find than other Ali fights, but I knew where I had it — in my VHS collection, on those old NBC recordings I made in the summer of 1990. Just a few nights ago I reconnected my VCR and made a digital copy of that broadcast, just so I could continue to watch it forever. Again, it's not like a had a premonition that Ali's death was imminent, although the possibility crossed my mind. It's just a reminder of how rare it's been in my life to not be watching or reading something about Ali.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4_ONph2ND1ahZTMwEoKV4C7t_ynPTMvK8EXGATOLHOHCJC54TYrTevief-0Sh4NHCW1jNRAuY-Kdih9DFGh2ffqjQRP4FXRhyphenhyphenB_rWdH1lKW26bo8kfhQj_UlRjjTKPZTkIxaZEQ/s1600/2016-06-04+03.00.45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4_ONph2ND1ahZTMwEoKV4C7t_ynPTMvK8EXGATOLHOHCJC54TYrTevief-0Sh4NHCW1jNRAuY-Kdih9DFGh2ffqjQRP4FXRhyphenhyphenB_rWdH1lKW26bo8kfhQj_UlRjjTKPZTkIxaZEQ/s400/2016-06-04+03.00.45.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I didn't even have to stage this photo, as these have been sitting on my desk now for several days.</td></tr>
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I could say so much about Ali's fights, but I'll limit myself to some bullet points:<br />
<ul id="draft_check_box_list_0">
<li>For the record, I believe Ali really <em>did</em> land that knockdown punch in the second Liston fight. But I also believe Liston <em>did</em> get paid and was fine turning the knock<i>down</i> into a knock<i>out</i>. (Also, that was an embarrassing job of refereeing by Jersey Joe Walcott in that fight. Yes, I have a better-than-average ability to remember who the referees were in big Ali fights.)</li>
<li>The Cleveland Williams fight might exhibit Ali at his peak form, but it didn't help that Williams was recovering from gunshot wounds. Maybe I should watch the Zora Folley fight a few more times, as Ali was really good there, too.</li>
<li>There's something that fascinates me about the category of fighter that gave Ali trouble. Mildenberger, Chavalo, Bonavena, Frazier, and Norton all could come in quick and low, and do it awkwardly enough to throw off Ali's rhythm.</li>
<li>I understand why the rope-a-dope became famous in the "Rumble in the Jungle," but I wish more people remembered and talked about Ali's brilliant use of a right-hand lead against Foreman that night in Zaire. Just brilliant.</li>
<li>The Thrilla in Manilla is probably the best fight I've ever seen, but I hate that two men had to come so close to death for it.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="legacy">
Legacy</h2>
My relationship with Muhammad Ali has changed in the past five to ten years. I've long seen Ali as both an athlete and a civil rights figure, but following the death of Nelson Mandela in 2013 it struck me that Ali was likely the most prominent living civil rights figure <em>in the world.</em> Long lives for our civil rights figures are not something we can take for granted. While we were saddened to see Ali's health comprised by Parkinson's, I'm thankful Ali wasn't shot down like Malcolm, Martin, and so many others.<br />
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It's not just that Ali survived threats and health problems for so long. He outlived so many of his competitors, too. Take the book and documentary <em>Facing Ali</em>. The film came out in 2009 and featured Leon Spinks, Larry Holmes, George Chuvalo, Ken Norton, Sir Henry Cooper, Ron Lyle, Joe Frazier, Earnie Shavers, Ernie Terrell, and George Foreman. Of those, Norton, Cooper, Lyle, Frazier, and Terrell all died between 2011 and 2014. I'm so glad that I heard their stories before they were gone. The same goes for Angelo Dundee and Bert Sugar, who both died in 2012. Boxing itself is a brutal sport, but its people comprise an amazing cast of characters that make the sport what it is. Many of these veterans of the sport told and retold the Ali stories, even as Ali lost the ability to tell them for himself.<br />
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An undergraduate student I taught a few years ago made a negative comment to me about Islam. It made me realize that for the majority of current college students, their first awareness of Islam came in the context of 9/11. How fortunate am I to have had such a different experience, and to have Muhammad Ali as my introduction to the Muslim world?<br />
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My relationship with Ali hasn't all been about lifting him onto higher pedestals. More recently, I've learned more and thought more about Ali's treatment of Joe Frazier. This was really highlighted by the book <em>Ghosts of Manila</em> and brought up more and more in documentaries and conversations since. I recorded a "Beyond the Glory" FOX Sports documentary about Frazier and watched it over and over, and my admiration and understanding of Frazier has grown immensely. So much so, when I was in Philadelphia for a conference a couple years ago, I felt no need to visit the Rocky statue until I first had an opportunity to visit a proper Joe Frazier statue in that city. As of late 2015, Philly now has a Frazier statue. I was just reading about it and <a href="http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a11618/joe-frazier-dead-6551212/">the death of Joe Frazier</a> earlier today, another reminder that Ali and his peers are often not far from my mind.<br />
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For the past few days, I've had the HBO documentary "Ali-Frazier I: One Nation Divisible" queued up in YouTube, waiting for me to watch it. I want to know more about how the personal tensions between Ali and Frazier reflected and were reflected by tensions within the American public, particularly within the Black community. So yet again, I'm getting another history lesson because of Muhammad Ali. It will surely lead to another, and another, and all that will be written in the coming days will give me plenty of new material to study. Just as I got so much from what Ali accomplished before my birth, I'll continue to learn from Ali after his death. You said you were the greatest before you knew you were, and you'll continue to be the greatest forever more.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comBoulder, CO, USA40.0149856 -105.2705455999999939.820449100000005 -105.59326909999999 40.2095221 -104.9478221tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-649379588931749012015-07-20T16:24:00.000-06:002015-07-20T16:24:04.815-06:00RAGBRAI 2015: Fort Dodge<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE339cYjGZa3ukf23FpHIAsnaQd3Jn6ldorNomUKNqvpdbJYjfokKHFQDFSgGoCfJTIYfyAet7rHbhlcwoVO2Chg6nv6VIZQ9mowrRVVNu166-ZaxJghR7_pvILsFB3Ek4-oGAIQ/s1600/IMG_20150719_210643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE339cYjGZa3ukf23FpHIAsnaQd3Jn6ldorNomUKNqvpdbJYjfokKHFQDFSgGoCfJTIYfyAet7rHbhlcwoVO2Chg6nv6VIZQ9mowrRVVNu166-ZaxJghR7_pvILsFB3Ek4-oGAIQ/s320/IMG_20150719_210643.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chautauqua Park in Storm Lake</td></tr>
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I made it to Fort Dodge and the mobile networks seem to be coping with traffic so far, so I'll add more to this post. Last night in Storm Lake I awoke to rain at about 2 am. I knew it was raining because I had purposely left my rain fly half-on and it didn't take much to secure it to keep me dry. I woke up around 5:30 to the sound of other people breaking down their tents, and I (slowly) followed suit, eventually rolling out of town at 7:15. Bathrooms, bottle filling, bag loading, etc. can all take a while with so many people doing it at once.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGid-qTA7CbbxyuG0XAowqEkYIrYZwYFo8O9XZbUUo2bO8QA6_nhlD1VsDIuuBLs-k0BOSI5q9w47D0l6hA0_mfaFKy500WtG5L-GkbLbic1FlNryFaCEEisMgvqnEaVtCAuNBw/s1600/IMG_20150719_211154.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGid-qTA7CbbxyuG0XAowqEkYIrYZwYFo8O9XZbUUo2bO8QA6_nhlD1VsDIuuBLs-k0BOSI5q9w47D0l6hA0_mfaFKy500WtG5L-GkbLbic1FlNryFaCEEisMgvqnEaVtCAuNBw/s320/IMG_20150719_211154.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Storm Lake</td></tr>
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I've quickly learned that while I might not be fast to get up, I'm decently fast on my bike. With about 3000 training miles in Colorado, I can keep a pretty fast pace without getting winded. I rode the first two hours today in the rain, which finally let up around the time I got to Manson.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brunch in Manson</td></tr>
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Some people come to RAGBRAI for the ride, some come for the party. Most balance the two, but I'm one of those who's here for the ride. I stop now and then to fill up with water or get something to eat, but I try to get back on the road quickly. Today I got water in Fonda (my 6th/7th grade math teacher's hometown), a sandwich from the Scouts in Manson, and my first slice of rhubarb pie at this great stand in Clare, the last big stop before Ft. Dodge.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeULzaTFIdRKv28Pc3Yo-qo-nk-YupH4wSEVSVXZ8cbKl01J8EF5DWx5Q0g5PUct0-BOiK4otJTZo-_d_QOzbBn3Uf83hE1lxUmC3iqhX6rYs_uObGXh8PukT9vUGOm8Jm7LeKyA/s1600/IMG_20150720_105230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeULzaTFIdRKv28Pc3Yo-qo-nk-YupH4wSEVSVXZ8cbKl01J8EF5DWx5Q0g5PUct0-BOiK4otJTZo-_d_QOzbBn3Uf83hE1lxUmC3iqhX6rYs_uObGXh8PukT9vUGOm8Jm7LeKyA/s320/IMG_20150720_105230.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clare was a great last stop before Ft. Dodge</td></tr>
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I got to Ft. Dodge just before noon, just in time to snag one of the camping spots with afternoon shade. If there's any reason to ride early, ride fast, or both, it's camping in the shade. I'm just south of Fort Dodge Senior High, the school where I did my 2-month high school student teaching placement. The middle school I worked at for 2 more months is just down the street.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho9f_StmIAEOG9heFe8v0rhkuynhp8g_MWYgaJXj4u91mNj_HXfbUdO4-MOmUEO6ByxbETR9i41l7WHdbSkawWn416GdBvHEoyFvCluKToIRGFfndGiQB-q8qSST54DZqYu-1aiw/s1600/IMG_20150720_163116.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho9f_StmIAEOG9heFe8v0rhkuynhp8g_MWYgaJXj4u91mNj_HXfbUdO4-MOmUEO6ByxbETR9i41l7WHdbSkawWn416GdBvHEoyFvCluKToIRGFfndGiQB-q8qSST54DZqYu-1aiw/s320/IMG_20150720_163116.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A beautiful day in a shady spot in Fort Dodge.</td></tr>
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A guy I talked to after arriving said that by the looks of downtown, Fort Dodge felt like a town with it's best years behind it. Maybe hes right. To me this is a mining town, where gypsum mining operations have fed the local economy for years. Like a lot of mining towns, there's something about this place that just feels a little tougher, a little harder, even if it's not prettier.<br />
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<iframe height='405' width='590' frameborder='0' allowtransparency='true' scrolling='no' src='https://www.strava.com/activities/350427250/embed/bb802818fbd060aeefa73366a909f7c897bc7415'></iframe>Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comFort Dodge Senior High School, 819 North 25th Street, Fort Dodge, IA 50501, USA42.5142819 -94.16272709999998416.9922474 -135.47132109999998 68.0363164 -52.854133099999984tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-42076484404242913502015-07-19T21:10:00.001-06:002015-07-20T15:14:23.163-06:00RAGBRAI 2015: Storm Lake<p dir="ltr">What a beautiful day to ride a bike! The air was cool and (relatively) dry for July in Iowa and I couldn't help but push the pace today. Some riders surely got out before 6 am, but I didn't dip my rear tire in the Missouri River in Sioux City until 6:45. I left town slowly in a crowd, but as I passed people and skipped most of the many stops along the road, the number of riders around me shrunk considerably. I saw very few riders in the last 10 miles into Storm Lake, and I felt a little like a guest who showed up to an event well before it was scheduled to start. I couldn't find a place to fill with water, the food vendors hadn't finished setting up, and the volunteers at the bag pick-up were still getting the hang of things. Getting here early did have some advantages, though: I had my pick of tent sites, plenty of time to shower and rest, and for an hour or two, Verizon's network was still mostly functional. That last bit is certainly not the case now, so I'm leaving this post as a one-paragraph, no-picture update (which hopefully uploads), and I'll try again tomorrow from Ft. Dodge. </p>
Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-27697547631801151232015-07-18T21:16:00.001-06:002015-07-18T21:16:11.996-06:00RAGBRAI 2015: Sioux City<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPeZe70H9TZfqI9EmkhESKH6d8IsqxOxXczGZ467VVKZhg3v-dMiuh6hLnJ5A3SXHS7sfXof4OcGV8UEyM3sTn3uYCpEHeDprwLZ5xTUgawHDoQ9I2yDJo318cfoe5SwzlKbv1LA/s1600/IMG_20150718_204307.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPeZe70H9TZfqI9EmkhESKH6d8IsqxOxXczGZ467VVKZhg3v-dMiuh6hLnJ5A3SXHS7sfXof4OcGV8UEyM3sTn3uYCpEHeDprwLZ5xTUgawHDoQ9I2yDJo318cfoe5SwzlKbv1LA/s320/IMG_20150718_204307.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset on the Missouri River</td></tr>
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<br />
As a kid in Iowa whose childhood freedom was viewed over bicycle handlebars, I always wanted to ride RAGBRAI, the [Des Moines] Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It might have taken me a while to get here, but I'm writing this from my tent just feet away from the banks of the Missouri River in Sioux City. Tomorrow I pedal.<br />
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I bought a new bicycle in January of 2013. I don't remember why I thought I needed a new one, exactly. My 1990 Bianchi Osprey mountain bike was (and still is) serving me pretty well as a commuter bike back and forth from campus. But Boulder is a bike-crazy town, and a trip to one of Boulder's many bike shops (which outnumber coffee shops, to give you an idea of their number) turned into a shiny new Fuji cyclocross bike. I'd never ridden cyclocross, but I liked the bike's versatility and robustness over a regular road bike.<br />
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Since then, I've put many a mile on my new bike, much of it on the roads north of Boulder. It's a spectacular place to ride. I also put in a lot of miles on a cheap Schwinn indoor stationary bike, which gets put to good use on bad-weather days or when I work late and want to squeeze in an hour of pedaling before bedtime. All that biking has added up, so when I looked at this year's RAGBRAI route and the couple thousand miles I had on my legs this year by April, I figured now's the time to head to Iowa and bike across the state.<br />
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Sioux City is a great starting town for me. I visited here often in the mid-1990s after my sister moved here. My nephew was born here now almost 21 years ago, and I still remember my sister's house in South Sioux City, Nebraska where we once celebrated our family Christmas. (My sister gave me a Sony Discman!) Later my sister moved to Moville, a small town to the east, but still worked in Sioux City, and I remember passing through in June of 2000 as my sister, nephew, and I headed to Oregon to visit family (and for me to climb Mt. Hood).<br />
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Tomorrow's ride is the toughest day of RAGBRAI this year, probably by a good margin barring strong headwinds later this week. It's a little over 70 miles with over 4000 feet of elevation gain. I've done comparable vertical, most recently on a ride from Boulder to Ward up Lefthand Canyon. But that kind of climb in Colorado is mostly one big effort up, followed by one long descent back home. Tomorrow will be up, down, up, down, and with considerably warmer and more humid weather than my long cycling days in Colorado.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comChris Larsen Park, 1280 Larsen Park Road, Sioux City, IA 51101, USA42.48888739344055 -96.41605683133548242.48596039344055 -96.421099331335483 42.491814393440549 -96.41101433133548tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-61686424671523753972014-12-31T18:49:00.000-07:002014-12-31T18:49:50.824-07:00A Last Chance to Blog for 2014To say I don't blog much here would be an understatement, but I'd feel bad if 2014 came and went without a single new post. After all, not many people can say they've been maintaining the same blog for 14 years.<br />
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When I think back at the past year my mind goes to academic conferences. In April I made a 10-day trip, first to the <a href="http://www.aera.net/">AERA</a> Annual Meeting in Philadelphia and then straight to New Orleans for the <a href="http://www.nctm.org/">NCTM</a> Annual Meeting. I listed <a href="http://blog.mathed.net/2014/04/aera-philadelphia-and-nctm-new-orleans.html">all the sessions I attended over at blog.mathed.net</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi27f2z3urE0QI7jP-JWGzHbVGXKmKoVV0-wt8pJs4xWg_fJDTc3b3yX5VyCGxxcU2NaUn4iIdZIq9ZnfQBO5PUm0Yk2x6XVcZaM11vVztZqpTJTHnfW5OKhazfisBLpulJD5KyFw/s1600/20140404_175411.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi27f2z3urE0QI7jP-JWGzHbVGXKmKoVV0-wt8pJs4xWg_fJDTc3b3yX5VyCGxxcU2NaUn4iIdZIq9ZnfQBO5PUm0Yk2x6XVcZaM11vVztZqpTJTHnfW5OKhazfisBLpulJD5KyFw/s1600/20140404_175411.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Philadelphia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsLkif6ALp5o8am_q93_LaOcne6G53C1M6zWHy6Zq-xsI-L58025xKwUCusDwa-CKunp_EUk9GsNrzWlpT7Ou2Xygmg3yXisdjLuiSRyRzSVib8pl8b5cbhmb45mtho_QXjG2ODw/s1600/20140412_074311.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsLkif6ALp5o8am_q93_LaOcne6G53C1M6zWHy6Zq-xsI-L58025xKwUCusDwa-CKunp_EUk9GsNrzWlpT7Ou2Xygmg3yXisdjLuiSRyRzSVib8pl8b5cbhmb45mtho_QXjG2ODw/s1600/20140412_074311.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New Orleans</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />In June I traveled to Madison for a Cyberlearning Summit. The main research project I've worked on is funded by <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/">NSF's</a> Cyberlearning program and this conference gave me a chance to see the work of similar projects from around the country. That trip also gave me a chance to spend some time in and around my home state, something I've only done 3 or 4 times since I moved to Colorado more than 10 years ago.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqX2fqG0qwN6Tve0uiQba44Lf-IEbFh6teC2CXKxEhW9VNuuWxO6L-Hi7ZhkTGlahuY1ucBiPIOq-5tXjlOyfaz7_qMNk-U2MD8kqcbZy2AdGxZz3Yb7qEPXzU91hzkJnft6b4Xw/s1600/20140610_100943.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqX2fqG0qwN6Tve0uiQba44Lf-IEbFh6teC2CXKxEhW9VNuuWxO6L-Hi7ZhkTGlahuY1ucBiPIOq-5tXjlOyfaz7_qMNk-U2MD8kqcbZy2AdGxZz3Yb7qEPXzU91hzkJnft6b4Xw/s1600/20140610_100943.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's always fun to travel across the country to see a presenter who works in your building</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />I also attended the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, but (despite being an international conference) my travel amounted to walking a few blocks, as CU-Boulder was the host. It was a really cool conference and brought me into contact with a lot of people both in and outside the mathematics education community.</div>
<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHyBPaDyg_qiBLPZHAnEzQ_riH84uesDpAthICnmJ2fYnZNcTLDdQn-10k6nO-Qc1FWttekz4_IjFou1FgcTF1z9QFLTZbWfBsZ8OQhMdWnGiTPC9BXASFjU_WUrYHKdbZm4iWA/s1600/20140624_163325.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHyBPaDyg_qiBLPZHAnEzQ_riH84uesDpAthICnmJ2fYnZNcTLDdQn-10k6nO-Qc1FWttekz4_IjFou1FgcTF1z9QFLTZbWfBsZ8OQhMdWnGiTPC9BXASFjU_WUrYHKdbZm4iWA/s1600/20140624_163325.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bill Penuel (conference organizer, my boss, and all-around good guy) welcomes us to ICLS</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />When I wasn't doing school stuff, there was a good chance I was either on my bike or watching pros ride their bikes. I became one of those faithful Tour de France watchers who woke up at 5 am to watch live coverage, and I watched the USA Pro Challenge leave its final stage here in Boulder.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrNnO6fvCsHJ9v99FCcPpuEDwrpcIUGtq7MLKqMitRz8eyCmkyvi9kzmxyF_7qLrjAE-suiv1JXu-RSTagVvI115yjfuYWHG7rt3SX9EgI-52HS2Ow6IYQJM3wh1Mkwq5JV8JWWw/s1600/20140824_122000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrNnO6fvCsHJ9v99FCcPpuEDwrpcIUGtq7MLKqMitRz8eyCmkyvi9kzmxyF_7qLrjAE-suiv1JXu-RSTagVvI115yjfuYWHG7rt3SX9EgI-52HS2Ow6IYQJM3wh1Mkwq5JV8JWWw/s1600/20140824_122000.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was great to be there for Jens Voigt's last day in the peleton as a pro rider.</td></tr>
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As the year concluded I spent some time with family and sharpened my photography skills on their pets.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAc5Sa03En3awNjaVJXYQx10ptdb7xsRAgni7cFJsKoJPavzrKzOgNLRxNI6Eo3dTHtM0rssIwQFXKRk6j2nZVbAArwdNgvOJqnkaTiFjCvoBXr57yxixpO4WJx7laDyxgyhLsQ/s1600/20141225_161934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAc5Sa03En3awNjaVJXYQx10ptdb7xsRAgni7cFJsKoJPavzrKzOgNLRxNI6Eo3dTHtM0rssIwQFXKRk6j2nZVbAArwdNgvOJqnkaTiFjCvoBXr57yxixpO4WJx7laDyxgyhLsQ/s1600/20141225_161934.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lily poses in the way a dog does only when they're begging for food.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /><div>
What's next for 2015? If things go to plan, it <i>should</i> be my last year as a student. I'll always enjoy being a student, but it's probably good news that now -- in my <b>12th year</b> as a full-time college student -- that it might be time to clear some hurdles and move on to some new challenges.</div>
</div>
Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-57918995152862124952013-01-04T16:40:00.000-07:002013-01-04T16:40:15.640-07:002012 Year in ReviewMy 2012 looked similar to <a href="http://johnson.downclimb.com/2012/01/2011-year-in-review.html">my 2011</a> - a lot of reading, writing, studying, and teaching. Throw in a bunch of running and a pretty miserable Cubs season and the year came and went pretty quickly. I traveled back to Iowa for the first time in four years, giving me a chance to visit old friends and help my parents a bit. However, if my 2012 is highlighted by anything, I think it comes down to three things: experiencing some great speakers here at CU-Boulder, passing my comprehensive exams, and not only setting, but reaching, a running goal.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Great Speakers</h2>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhADWWwFvgUfU2D_CSjVwcQL7wSvbRV3Ge3NUCwkIKle_k8Wbvc35fjrhcVI-if2x9zDc2VvWP500dMkysmRWW6aAwKdOBVeTuMVtkz1Gx6FG33zXOsl9zs8CIoMItl4223lXklfw/s1600/IMG_20130104_133121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhADWWwFvgUfU2D_CSjVwcQL7wSvbRV3Ge3NUCwkIKle_k8Wbvc35fjrhcVI-if2x9zDc2VvWP500dMkysmRWW6aAwKdOBVeTuMVtkz1Gx6FG33zXOsl9zs8CIoMItl4223lXklfw/s640/IMG_20130104_133121.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You know what else is great about all these tickets? I think I spent a total of $2 on them.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I'll remember 2012 for the outstanding speakers I got to see in person. First was Neil deGrasse Tyson, <a href="http://www.cuindependent.com/2012/02/16/neil-degrasse-tyson-inspires-at-macky/31690">speaking at Macky Auditorium</a> in February. In a talk called "The Delusions of Space Enthusiasts," Tyson, in a most entertaining way, talked about how we doubt our power to innovate, how we look too much at the past of the space program, and how our culture reflects our focus on science. Thankfully <a href="https://soundcloud.com/marie-cunningham/neil-degrasse-tyson-at-cu">someone recorded it and posted it</a>, so listen for yourself.<br />
<br />
In April, <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/ceb/Site2/Events/Entries/2012/4/13_CEB_and_Eye_Resist_Present__Dr._Cornel_West.html">Cornel West came to CU-Boulder</a>. He is, most likely, the most powerful speaker I've ever heard. Tying together messages from Plato to Martin Luther King to Curtis Mayfield, he sharply delivered messages about race, culture, power, democracy, and life in a way that I'd never heard before. I wish there was a recording of that speech, but thankfully Dr. West's oratory is easy to find on the web, such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4r7hgBlcNc">this great recent presentation</a> or his <a href="http://www.smileyandwest.com/">weekly podcast with Tavis Smiley</a>.<br />
<br />
To kick off our school year, the <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/bulletin/post/483">School of Education hosted Gloria Ladson-Billings</a>. I must say that I felt a little vindicated when she stressed that we, as educators, should use social media -- not just to connect to people, but to understand the <i>culture of connectedness</i> in which our students are growing up. I think this hit a point about culturally relevant pedagogy that gets overlooked: it's not just being aware of <i>what</i> culture our students are part of, but <i>how</i> they expose themselves and participate in that culture.<br />
<br />
By far, the speaker here at CU that got the most attention was President Barack Obama. He came here not once, not twice, <a href="http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_22280133/top-10-local-news-stories-2012-no-2">but three times</a> -- enough that I joked that he was trying to get Sasha and Malia eligible for in-state tuition at CU. President Obama is a great speaker, but because we hear him almost daily I can't say that much of what he said was very surprising. Even so, you're welcome back any time, Mr. President.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLySV59g6dOmUZ_-TfKsfUtF9N8gPBMEfMd7jC6jZGgT0u5r60xMHq1FA4qqrC39Cod9Iq8H6KpvXy65Z3AuH9ul7xr8sUJ-Ly0kjRH22X5iu2xQV_XxCSC0SrvBDqZJ5K51DL-A/s1600/PANO_20120424_184245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLySV59g6dOmUZ_-TfKsfUtF9N8gPBMEfMd7jC6jZGgT0u5r60xMHq1FA4qqrC39Cod9Iq8H6KpvXy65Z3AuH9ul7xr8sUJ-Ly0kjRH22X5iu2xQV_XxCSC0SrvBDqZJ5K51DL-A/s640/PANO_20120424_184245.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There are a couple white pixels down on the stage. That's President Obama, trust me.</td></tr>
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<br />
<h2>
Comprehensive Exams</h2>
<br />
Part of the process of being a PhD student usually entails passing some sort of comprehensive or qualifying exams, signifying to the university that you're a candidate for the degree and capable of engaging in your own research. <a href="http://blog.mathed.net/search/label/OpenComps">I wrote about this process extensively using the #OpenComps tag at MathEd.net</a>, so I won't go into much detail here. As I look back at it, having passed my exam just over a month ago, I focus less on the exam itself (a week of writing followed by a 90-minute oral exam) and more on my maturity as a graduate student. Simply put, things are making more sense, and I'm able to connect more ideas from more perspectives. That's a good feeling, even if I still have frequent and healthy moments of, "Wow, there's still so much I don't know!"<br />
<br />
<h2>
Running</h2>
<br />
I painfully remember in December 2009, after a semester of almost no exercise and some pretty unhealthy eating habits during finals week, the rotten feeling I had walking to campus to turn in my last paper. The 25-minute walk felt like it took <i>effort</i> and I was breathing harder than I should have been. During my previous several winters, I'd been coaching wrestling, walking to and from school daily, and skiing. Now I was nowhere near that active -- and it showed. In the months that followed, I tried going out for short runs. On a 1.5-mile loop near my apartment, I remember having to stop and walk several times due to fatigue.<br />
<br />
I kept running and my fitness improved, if only slightly. I was a very casual runner in 2010. Starting in the spring of 2011, however, I started tracking my runs with <a href="http://runkeeper.com/user/downclimb/profile">RunKeeper</a> and I transitioned from simply <i>running</i> to <i>becoming a runner</i>. Gradually, 1.5 miles became 2.8, and in June 2011 I ran 6.5 miles at a 12 min/mi pace. That August, I ran 10 miles at a 12:30 pace, and by the end of the year I had racked up 200 miles.<br />
<br />
I ran infrequently over the winter months coming into 2012, nursing some knee pain that didn't want to go away. By the end of March, I'd only tallied 37 miles. By May 1st and the end of the semester I was at 55 miles, and I'd started to figure out that my knee hurt no more if I ran 4 times a week or 4 times a month, so I picked up the pace and set a goal for the year: 366 miles, or an average of one mile per day. (2012 was a leap year, remember. Also, <a href="http://www.asicsamerica.com/news---events/all-asics-news/april-2012/asics-gel-nimbus-14-earns-runner-s-world--editor-s/">new, highly-cushioned running shoes</a> alleviated most of the knee problems.) I had some catching up to do, but no work or classes during the summer in the way of progress. I ran 48 miles in May, 26 miles in June (not bad considering I traveled for almost two weeks), and 34 miles in July. Perhaps <a href="http://johnson.downclimb.com/2012/08/ali-bernard-lolo-jones-and-women-of.html">inspired by the Olympics</a>, August was my best month yet at 58 miles -- which put me in excellent shape for <a href="http://johnson.downclimb.com/2012/09/mt-meeker.html">a beautiful climb of Mt. Meeker in September</a>.<br />
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Mileage dropped off during the fall months, but I ran enough to keep my fitness up. Still, I needed a big December to reach my goal. Thanks to a light schedule post-comprehensive exams, I ran 64 miles in December, almost all of it 5 miles at a time along the Boulder Creek Trail.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPXwH5mrWRWqVU2jgUNvTKtOtT1Gs42At-rHfhrShOgtISz5Zr-qg6ahI9xr03JElCx-kihrMpyEwemE7mlezMeoesVgdCZJfXp02HbK0qq4dr3Dzd9F1kJ6joNjwjE6gPwrf00Q/s1600/20130104+-+Selection_002.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPXwH5mrWRWqVU2jgUNvTKtOtT1Gs42At-rHfhrShOgtISz5Zr-qg6ahI9xr03JElCx-kihrMpyEwemE7mlezMeoesVgdCZJfXp02HbK0qq4dr3Dzd9F1kJ6joNjwjE6gPwrf00Q/s640/20130104+-+Selection_002.png" width="640" /></a></div>
My big December gave me just enough to finish the year at 366.9 miles. The progress on the graph below looks steadier than it sometimes felt. For some people this kind of mileage isn't a big deal, but for me -- the overweight, short-legged kid who hated to run -- I think it's a nice accomplishment. Trust me, my sore-kneed, sometimes 220+ pound body fits all too comfortably on the couch to see it any other way.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHdFKNDjeY5Oy9QeipyxekR8HMCfasu7SPT2dx0tSgKXSorm0UjxHBvHzfM4ygqoFbMUFZdeRSG6hJOK1hQvxehRGe6P9x9gObsKlCyTmshhcRbEHZH3_M2zKAhLP2xlu6Cykpw/s1600/20130104+-+Selection_001.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHdFKNDjeY5Oy9QeipyxekR8HMCfasu7SPT2dx0tSgKXSorm0UjxHBvHzfM4ygqoFbMUFZdeRSG6hJOK1hQvxehRGe6P9x9gObsKlCyTmshhcRbEHZH3_M2zKAhLP2xlu6Cykpw/s640/20130104+-+Selection_001.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<h2>
Best of 2012</h2>
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<b>Favorite book</b>: I read a lot in 2012, but rarely did I get a chance to sit down and read a book end-to-end. But one book I read last summer keeps influencing how I think about scaling technological and educational innovations: Michael Nielsen's <i><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Reinventing_Discovery.html?id=afqfFW8WV9cC">Reinventing Discovery</a></i>, which <a href="http://blog.mathed.net/2012/08/nielsens-reinventing-discovery-2005-in.html">I reviewed in August at MathEd.net</a>.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Favorite article</b>: Last year I chose Anna Sfard's 1991 article <i><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00302715">On the Dual Nature of Mathematical Conceptions</a></i>, and this year I'm tempted to choose her 1998 article <i><a href="http://edr.sagepub.com/content/27/2/4.short">On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One</a></i>. However, I think I've been more influenced by Marty Simon's 1995 article <i><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/749205">Reconstructing Mathematics Pedagogy from a Constructivist Perspective</a></i>, which <a href="http://blog.mathed.net/2012/09/rysk-simons-reconstructing-mathematics.html">I reviewed at MathEd.net</a>.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Favorite show</b>: In 2012 I never missed an episode of <i><a href="http://www.amctv.com/shows/breaking-bad">Breaking Bad</a></i>, I routinely watched some of the top shows on <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/">Discovery</a>, and caught <i><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/">The Daily Show</a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/">Colbert</a></i> when I could. Still, I pay attention to traditional television less and less. (I still get an unusual amount of enjoyment from the shows of my youth, like <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Court">Night Court</a></i> and <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheers">Cheers</a></i>, which I'll watch in marathon fashion.) Instead of regular TV, I watch and listen to a ton of programming on the web. My favorites this year included pretty much anything with <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/113612142759476883204" target="_blank">+Gina Trapani</a> -- I've long enjoyed <i><a href="http://twit.tv/twig">This Week in Google</a></i>, and this year she started another show called <i><a href="http://5by5.tv/inbeta">In Beta</a></i> with <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/115056011540871202403" target="_blank">+Kevin Purdy</a>. Now that she's joining <i><a href="http://twit.tv/aaa">All About Android</a></i>, I'll be glued to that show stronger in 2013 than I was before.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Favorite album</b>: According to my last.fm stats, I listened to 548 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tori_amos">Tori Amos</a> tracks and the single track I listened to most was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6yksopp">Röyksopp</a>'s <i>Vision One</i>. But for music that was actually released in 2012, I think I've been most impressed with Garbage's <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Your_Kind_of_People">Not Your Kind of People</a></i>, with Norah Jones's <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Broken_Hearts">Little Broken Hearts</a></i> close behind.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Favorite hardware</b>: I bought a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Nexus">Galaxy Nexus</a> from Verizon in December 2011, a pretty significant hardware upgrade from my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_x">Droid X</a>. It's difficult to separate hardware and software in mobile devices, but the amount of things I can accomplish with this pocket-sized device is incredible. From now on, I think I'm sticking with <a href="https://play.google.com/store/devices">Nexus hardware</a>, which probably means leaving Verizon when my contract expires for whatever phone Google releases after the Nexus 4.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Favorite software</b>: I still heavily rely on <a href="http://www.mendeley.com/">Mendeley</a> and became a regular <a href="http://evernote.com/">Evernote</a> user in 2012, and both make me realize that the distinction between software and service is getting pretty fuzzy. Niether of those products would be nearly as useful without their web and syncing capabilities. It's difficult to pick a favorite, but this year I'm going with <a href="https://www.google.com/producer/currents">Google Currents</a>, Google's news reader for Android. Maybe the app by itself isn't super impressive, but to me it represents how I was able to ween myself away from subscribing to the RSS feeds of major news sites, where my time was wasted in Google Reader getting past entertainment news and superficial political coverage. With the help of reading Clay Johnson's <i><a href="http://www.informationdiet.com/">Information Diet</a></i>, I realized that by checking just a few headlines from something like The Daily Beast's <i><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheets.html">Cheat Sheets</a></i>, I could get most of the news coverage I needed.<br />
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<b>Favorite service</b>: As I did in 2011, I have to give the nod here to <a href="https://plus.google.com/">Google+</a>. I still check Facebook occasionally and Twitter pretty regularly, but neither have the features or rich conversations and ideas that I regularly experience on Google+.<br />
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Make it a good 2013, everyone!Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-81974999583353623812012-09-11T22:00:00.000-06:002012-09-11T22:08:15.811-06:00Mt. MeekerAfter a summer of running and a couple trips to Rocky Mountain National Park, I felt like I was ready to climb Mt. Meeker. I didn't want to climb it alone, but luckily one of our new doctoral students, Elizabeth Schlessman, wanted to climb Meeker, too. Knowing the peak of fall weather was at hand, we set out on a beautiful Saturday to see if we could summit Longs's nearest neighbor.<br />
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Elizabeth and I hit the trail around 6:30 and steadily moved above the trees and got the classic view of Meeker and Longs. This is really a wonderful place, and getting there was far easier than I remembered it from my climb of Longs in 2000. Then again, this time I was in shape, accustomed to the altitude, and not carrying 45 pounds of camping gear.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t1C_4zPpuow/UE_0PMYDeYI/AAAAAAAADWk/9x2Gn6cAjPM/s1600/2012-09-08+08.21.01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t1C_4zPpuow/UE_0PMYDeYI/AAAAAAAADWk/9x2Gn6cAjPM/s640/2012-09-08+08.21.01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meeker on the left, Longs on the right, and Ships Prow in the center. Our route (the Loft Route) climbs the gully left of the Prow.</td></tr>
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I couldn't have imagined better weather for this day. Not too hot, or cool, or windy, and practically no risk of storms. Post-monsoon climbing is great!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--u7dejp4pMg/UE_0TNfcXEI/AAAAAAAADWs/uw0p1IhVWEk/s1600/2012-09-08+08.21.22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--u7dejp4pMg/UE_0TNfcXEI/AAAAAAAADWs/uw0p1IhVWEk/s640/2012-09-08+08.21.22.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I think the only non-beautiful sight I saw the whole day was the smog layer over the Front Range. It was good to be above it.</td></tr>
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Most of the challenge of climbing Meeker lies in the gully above Chasm Lake up to the Loft. It's somewhat steep, requires the occasional 3rd-class move, and you have to know where to exit near the top to find the ramp and switchback to avoid a cliff. It's also the kind of place where you'd want a helmet, as we could hear the occasional ice and rock succumb to gravity. One climber we met coming down said he had a close call with a cinder-block size rock moving within feet of him at high speed, but fortunately Elizabeth and I avoided such danger. Now I wish I'd have stopped and taken more pictures along the route, but I think Elizabeth and I were justifiably concentrating on the routefinding and making it to the top safely.<br />
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Once at the Loft, a climber's trail took us most of the way to the top. Meeker's summit is a pretty airy place along a narrow ridge.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yi8fyE-20nM/UE_0hbN-SwI/AAAAAAAADW0/8gEuMOhI6vc/s1600/2012-09-08+11.15.07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yi8fyE-20nM/UE_0hbN-SwI/AAAAAAAADW0/8gEuMOhI6vc/s640/2012-09-08+11.15.07.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth and I reached the summit ridge and moved cautiously towards the mountain's highest point.</td></tr>
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We took turns moving along the ridge while the other took pictures. The exposure really wasn't that bad, but certainly not a place to try anything foolish.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VT1HE5P7U9Y/UE_0m_Ew05I/AAAAAAAADW8/soblj_TO1-U/s1600/2012-09-08+11.24.59.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VT1HE5P7U9Y/UE_0m_Ew05I/AAAAAAAADW8/soblj_TO1-U/s640/2012-09-08+11.24.59.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth leaves her pack behind and moves towards the summit block. The more distant high point is the high point of Meeker Ridge, and a careful traverse (that we didn't attempt) separates it from Meeker's main summit.</td></tr>
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<div>
Meeker's summit block requires a 4th-class move, meaning if we fall we're probably going to get hurt. We explored the right side of the block where it slopes the lowest, but neither of us saw a graceful way of getting down once we got up there. Later, reading at home, I saw the suggestion that the crack on the left in this picture might be the surest way up.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vuFc2KL7Xdk/UE_0uTT3FSI/AAAAAAAADXE/lQ2v_G7UTo0/s1600/2012-09-08+11.27.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vuFc2KL7Xdk/UE_0uTT3FSI/AAAAAAAADXE/lQ2v_G7UTo0/s640/2012-09-08+11.27.12.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climbing up the crack in the summit block would have worked, but the thought of stumbling when dropping back down was enough for me to decide that standing on the absolute highest point wasn't worth it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Compared to the 2.5 acres of almost flat ground on top of Longs Peak, Meeker is no place to celebrate with dozens of your newest friends. Thankfully, we had the upper mountain all to ourselves and didn't have to wander far from the ridge.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YiBOIh6GR6c/UE_0ypMr7KI/AAAAAAAADXQ/CP_HLXCDF-c/s1600/2012-09-08+11.27.19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YiBOIh6GR6c/UE_0ypMr7KI/AAAAAAAADXQ/CP_HLXCDF-c/s640/2012-09-08+11.27.19.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meeker's summit is just airy enough that it's probably not a fun place to be when it's wet or icy.</td></tr>
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Elizabeth also opted to not try standing on the summit block, but she did exceed its height. Or her arm did, anyway.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KGKeUBDCNFM/UE_008UGQ7I/AAAAAAAADXY/gfb4gWPws5s/s1600/2012-09-08+11.28.31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KGKeUBDCNFM/UE_008UGQ7I/AAAAAAAADXY/gfb4gWPws5s/s640/2012-09-08+11.28.31.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">13,911? Try 13,912!</td></tr>
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<div>
The canister for the summit register was empty and uncapped at one end. Usually that's about all I look for on the summit, but this place had someone to greet us at the top.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-20Ue4M5GVIY/UE_04ZQIiTI/AAAAAAAADXg/lH3m4Uuv_gY/s1600/2012-09-08+11.33.16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-20Ue4M5GVIY/UE_04ZQIiTI/AAAAAAAADXg/lH3m4Uuv_gY/s640/2012-09-08+11.33.16.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buddha looking fit and trim compared to other times I've seen him, not surprising given the effort it takes to climb Meeker.</td></tr>
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<div>
We took the customary 20-30 minutes to eat lunch before heading back down. There wasn't much to hurry us except for the knowing that getting to the top is only half the challenge.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HKVZGf9bAjM/UE_1BW-Tl9I/AAAAAAAADXw/yjfZzhG8q5g/s1600/2012-09-08+11.34.49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HKVZGf9bAjM/UE_1BW-Tl9I/AAAAAAAADXw/yjfZzhG8q5g/s640/2012-09-08+11.34.49.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking to the east you can really get a sense for how tall Meeker stands above the Front Range.</td></tr>
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<div>
Meeker was Elizabeth's first 13er, even though she's climbed Longs <i>nine times</i>. Apparently she's never read the book, "How Most People Get Started Climbing Colorado's Big Mountains." It was great to see her excitement and satisfaction of seeing Longs from the top of Meeker.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NnbdjAFi54Y/UE_1Dxq2QDI/AAAAAAAADX4/RxfKwtpXqYg/s1600/2012-09-08+11.37.48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NnbdjAFi54Y/UE_1Dxq2QDI/AAAAAAAADX4/RxfKwtpXqYg/s640/2012-09-08+11.37.48.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Longs Peak is an incredible mountain, but frankly, compared to Meeker's narrow summit ridge, Longs looks like it's been broken off at the top.</td></tr>
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On the way down we detoured to Chasm Lake for the scenery and for me to refill my water. The mid-afternoon sunlight coming over Longs and dancing off the water was a great gift after a great climb.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E-vVjnPDv8I/UE_1JwYQOgI/AAAAAAAADYI/vTJYxqlwZeg/s1600/2012-09-08+14.36.01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E-vVjnPDv8I/UE_1JwYQOgI/AAAAAAAADYI/vTJYxqlwZeg/s640/2012-09-08+14.36.01.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chasm Lake is an awesome place and easily reachable for the reasonably fit. I need to go back there soon and often.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<div>
We reached the car around 4:30, roughly 10 hours after we started. (On her own I bet Elizabeth could do this in 8 hours. Thanks for your patience, Elizabeth!) All my summer running and packing lighter than usual paid off -- I can't remember feeling better at the end of any climb like this one. (How I felt later that night and Sunday, however, was another story. Let's just say for about a 24-hour period I avoided any and all sudden or jarring movements.) The experience has left me wanting to climb something else before the snowflakes stick, although I get the feeling my school schedule might have something to say about another climb as big as this one.</div>
</div>
Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-62637662135811155662012-08-10T01:55:00.000-06:002012-08-10T01:55:11.118-06:00Ali Bernard, Lolo Jones, and the Women of the London OlympicsComing into the <a href="http://www.london2012.com/">Olympics</a>, I had a hunch that these games were going to be remembered for the performances of the U.S. women. Maybe it had something to do with the local media attention on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missy_Franklin">Missy Franklin</a>, or my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa">native state</a>'s attention on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabby_Douglas">Gabby Douglas</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolo_Jones">Lolo Jones</a>, but it seemed there was a lot more talk about our female Olympians than there was for the men. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Phelps">Michael Phelps</a> is the obvious exception. Remember, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/28/london-2012-nbc-opening-ceremony">NBC thought it was worth skipping part of the Opening Ceremony</a> so we could listen to Ryan Seacrest ask him about his fear of spiders.)<br />
<br />
Now through 13 days of competition, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/story/2012-08-08/London-Olympics-American-women-medals/56890294/1">it appears my hunch was right</a>. U.S. women have so far won 51 medals to the men's 38 (neither figure counting the bronze won in tennis mixed doubles), and <i>the women have struck gold twice as often as the men</i>, 26 to 13. Give yourself this quiz: <b>Name a male U.S. Olympic gold medalist who isn't a swimmer</b>. (crickets) Give up? It's not easy, because there have only been three: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Hancock">Vincent Hancock</a> in shooting, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Taylor_(athlete)">Christian Taylor</a> in the triple jump, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Eaton">Ashton Eaton</a> in the decathlon.<br />
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(Side note: How backwards is it that we give so much more hype to the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_meter_dash">World's Fastest Man</a>" instead of the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decathlon">World's Greatest Athlete</a>?" Do we just lack the patience to follow the decathlon competition?)<br />
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Now, I know the games aren't over yet, but I find this imbalance pretty astounding. Yes, there have been some hard-to-explain surprises for the U.S. men: <a href="http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/boxing/story/_/id/8244927/2012-olympics-us-boxing-continues-fall">Zero medals in boxing for the first time ever</a>; <a href="http://www.intermatwrestle.com/articles/10499">Zero medals in Greco-Roman wrestling</a>, the first time that's happened since 1976; and <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/sports/54643644-77/400-olympic-american-runners.html.csp">no American men in the 400m finals</a>, an event we've won the last seven Olympics, sweeping the medals in 2008, 2004, and 1988. Maybe these are just flukes, an unfortunate accumulation of bad luck. But I don't think the performance of the women has much to do with luck. I think a lot of credit should go to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX">Title IX</a> (despite what <a href="http://themat.com/section.php?section_id=3&page=titleix">effects it may have had on minor men's sports</a>), which just recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. This country opened up opportunities for women to participate and compete, and they've flourished. We should be proud of this as a nation, and we should be proud of these women as individuals.<br />
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I've loved watching the U.S. women compete in these games. The women's indoor volleyball team has been excellent and I even stretched my soccer tolerance to 10 whole minutes to catch the end of the gold medal match we won against Japan. I was especially happy to see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allyson_Felix">Allyson Felix</a> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-oly-track-20120809,0,4331189.story">win a gold in the 200m after silvers in the past two Olympics</a>. But do you know who I looked forward to watching most? Two wrestlers: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarissa_Chun">Clarissa Chun</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Bernard">Ali Bernard</a>, both returning Olympians from the Beijing games. You've probably never heard of them. In a way, that's what makes the Olympics great -- you discover some athlete who has been toiling day-in and day-out with little reward or recognition, just waiting to be discovered by a national audience. Being a wrestling fan, these two women aren't as obscure to me as they are to most people. I've known about Clarissa since she won a World Championship in 2008, and I really had hoped to meet her when I was coaching and we took our state qualifiers to workout with the women's freestyle wrestlers from the Olympic Training Center. (She wasn't there, sadly.) Clarissa won a bronze medal in London by <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/wrestling/story/2012-08-08/Wrestling-freestyle-Olmpics-women-medal/56879258/1">beating a long-time Ukrainian nemisis</a>, and if there's a tragedy in these games, it's that Clarissa broke her phone during the opening ceremonies. (Who do you think took <a href="https://twitter.com/ClarissaChun/status/228778790988414977/photo/1">the photo of teammate Elena Pirozhkova lifting Michelle Obama</a>?)<br />
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I really didn't know much about <a href="https://twitter.com/asbernard86">Ali Bernard</a> before the games, but as I watched <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlKSlC67kc">matches</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aynCE9y-Teo">interviews</a> on YouTube before the start of competition there was <a href="http://www.flowrestling.org/coverage/248217-2012-London-Olympics/video/652331-Ali-Bernard-can-beat-the-best">something special about her that drew me in</a>. Maybe it's because I can imagine what it was like for her to grow up in rural Minnesota, and the challenges she faced being a girl in a predominantly boy's sport. Maybe it was imagining the big step she took to leave the U.S. and go to college in Canada where there was a women's wrestling program, or the sacrifice of committing herself to the training required for world-level competition. Maybe I can imagine her ups and downs the past year: a bronze at the 2011 World Championship; being named <a href="http://www.themat.com/section.php?section_id=3&page=showarticle&ArticleID=25048">Women's Wrestler of the year</a>; losing at the Olympic Trials despite being the favorite; having ankle surgery; <a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/olympics/wrestling/wires/07/26/2090.ap.oly.wre.bernard.s.second.chance/index.html">then making the Olympic team after the original qualifying wrestler failed a drug test</a>. You'll have to pardon me, Kobe and LeBron, but Ali Bernard's journey to the Olympics satisfies me in a way yours does not. And Ali's result is, to me, no less Olympian: a hard-fought first round loss, a dream over in four minutes as <a href="http://www.keyc.tv/story/19238629/new-ulm-woman-competes-in-olympics">her hometown watched and cheered her on</a>. As did I.<br />
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As much as I've enjoyed pinning my hopes to Ali, I could have been cheering for anyone. With a few different clicks on YouTube, maybe I'd have been getting up at 6am to watch a heptathlete, or a rower, or a boxer like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claressa_Shields">Claressa Shields</a>, the 17-year-old from Flint, Michigan, who <a href="http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/boxing/story/_/id/8251275/2012-london-olympics-17-year-old-claressa-shields-beats-nadezda-torlopova-wins-middleweight-gold-medal">won a gold for the U.S</a>. The U.S. seems to have so many talented female athletes to support, and many of them have knocked-down-get-up-again histories like Ali Bernard. They're everything we expect our Olympians to be, and often times more. Winning so many medals is just icing on the cake.<br />
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Unfortunately, it hasn't been a perfect Olympics for the U.S. women, or at least our perception and judgement of them. Being a successful female athlete in America still has its problems. First and foremost, I could happily do without linkbait like "20 Hottest Olympians of London 2012," to which I won't give any extra traffic by linking to here. Even NBC (and my local NBC affiliate) shamelessly published such an article, complete with plenty of bikini and semi-nude photos of female Olympians. I don't have all the answers here, but somehow our culture just hasn't quite figured out how to recognize their fitness and attractiveness -- which they should be free to display, and we should be free to appreciate -- in a way that I think is appropriate and not gender-biased. (The worst example: One site posted pictures without the names of the athletes or other identifiers. Just pictures.)<br />
<br />
It was also disappointing to see some of our biases and double-standards get targeted at individuals. For example, in the midst of Gabby Douglas's run at all-around gymnastics gold, the internet buzzed with <a href="http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/espnw/story/_/id/8232063/espnw-gabby-douglas-hair-criticized-social-media-sites">criticisms of her hair</a>. And the biggest drama of the games might be that surrounding Lolo Jones, which she referred to in <a href="http://todayinlondonblog.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/08/08/13179583-tearful-lolo-jones-media-ripped-me-to-shreds-before-race">this Today Show interview</a>:<br />
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<br />
Lolo was clearly was upset. And after I read <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/sports/olympics/olympian-lolo-jones-draws-attention-to-beauty-not-achievement.html">the New York Times article in question</a>, I was upset, too. (An editor for the Times has since <a href="http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/lolo-jones-article-is-too-harsh/">apologized for the article</a>. Okay, not really, but sorta.) The article claimed the attention given to Jones "was based not on achievement but on her exotic beauty and on a sad and cynical marketing campaign. Essentially, Jones has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be -- vixen, virgin, victim -- to draw attention to herself and the many products she endorses."<br />
<br />
Yes, Lolo gets a lot of attention. Her story of running out of childhood poverty and on to championships and track records is inspiring, and a lot of people cried with her when hitting the final hurdle in Beijing cost her a sure gold medal. That mistake might have been an early sign of a worsening spinal cord problem that kept her from feeling her feet, a problem that required surgery a year ago with an uncertain outcome. Given the emotional and physical turmoil, it's a surprise that Lolo even made these games, much less ran well enough to finish 4th best in the world. And yes, she's incredibly attractive. Beautiful. Gorgeous. She's all those things and more, and people love and celebrate her because of how she fits all her talents and attributes together. (And don't forget her wit and humor, which <a href="https://twitter.com/lolojones">she displays best on Twitter</a>.)<br />
<br />
Track and Field is often not all that lucrative, and athletes hope for steady paychecks from endorsements in between running for prize money. To maximize your endorsement value, athletes need to win <i>and</i> market themselves. <a href="http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/espnw/story/_/id/8249477/espnw-lolo-jones-worked-create-image-sells">Lolo did both, and did both well</a>. Unfortunately for Jeré Longman, the author of the Times article, he was uncomfortable with Lolo doing both. It's as if he's saying Lolo -- or any female athlete -- has to choose between success in their sport and being eye candy. Be one, or be the other, but don't be both. Don't be one whole person. Minimize our discomfort by only being the parts that don't expose our societal (or personal) double standards.<br />
<br />
That's not fair, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-lolo-jones/2012/08/09/2fb3903e-e17a-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_blog.html">the problem isn't limited to Lolo Jones</a>. On a variety of scales, our society still struggles with women who are beautiful and successful, and the Olympics is rich with women who are both. (Including, specifically, the <a href="http://www.themat.tv/2012/08/day-tripper-heading-to-france-with-womens-freestyle/">U.S. women's freestyle wrestling team</a>, no matter how many of those "Sexiest Olympians" lists omit them.) As a culture, are we getting better? I think so. But we stumble once in a while. After all, nobody clears every hurdle.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-25547654409556128992012-06-05T23:53:00.001-06:002012-06-05T23:53:07.048-06:00St. Vrain MountainAfter a month or so spent getting my running legs solidly underneath me, I figured it was finally time to head west into the mountains and climb something. After looking at destinations relatively close to Boulder, I chose St. Vrain Mountain, a peak located on the border of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Indian Peaks Wilderness.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SwGvn4MSwYI/T80ecgUCL6I/AAAAAAAACzw/YfcsPLxOzXU/s1600/IMG_20120604_081821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SwGvn4MSwYI/T80ecgUCL6I/AAAAAAAACzw/YfcsPLxOzXU/s640/IMG_20120604_081821.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's always nice to start a hike by knowing, for sure, that you're on the trail you think you should be on.</td></tr>
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While St. Vrain isn't that far from Boulder as the crow flies, getting there meant driving northwest to Lyons and then southwest to Allenspark. Thankfully, the gravel road south out of Allenspark was in great shape and it wasn't far to the trailhead. I was a little surprised at the lack of trail register, and that made me think that maybe this trail gets used less than I thought. I started hiking around 8:20 on good trail and was soon in the Indian Peaks Wilderness.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DR76gEdgE8Y/T80ehw5WBlI/AAAAAAAACzw/hsxPI2Skwrs/s1600/IMG_20120604_083923.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DR76gEdgE8Y/T80ehw5WBlI/AAAAAAAACzw/hsxPI2Skwrs/s640/IMG_20120604_083923.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's not far from the trailhead to the boundary of the Indian Peaks Wilderness.</td></tr>
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The trail stays mostly just to the north of the creek and the grade is pretty steady with few switchbacks. At about N 40° 10.2' W 105° 33.5 it turns south and crosses several snowmelt streams, but soon turns back north again. It was warm over the first few miles, but thankfully I started to feel a cool upslope breeze once I neared treeline. I was trying to move quickly, and even though I'm in pretty good physical condition it's still a workout to average 2 miles per hour going uphill with a pack.<br />
<br />
Most of what I carry on a hike like this, by weight, is liquid -- 3 liters of water and a liter of Cytomax. Since I did this hike alone, I threw in my full first-aid kit as well as some survival gear. I think smartphones have reached the point where I can carry less technology. I'm sure a few years ago on a climb like this I would have carried a phone, a camera, a GPS receiver, a GPS tracker for later geotagging photos, and an mp3 player. Now the phone is also my GPS, geotagging camera, and my mp3 player. (Tip: Turn on airplane mode to save your battery, which otherwise will drain quickly in the mountain if your phone stays busy looking for a signal.) I took my hiking GPS just in case, although I'm sure I would have been fine without it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-29_biuhmk-Q/T80elTYARsI/AAAAAAAACzw/OlObgFWc9-M/s1600/IMG_20120604_100620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-29_biuhmk-Q/T80elTYARsI/AAAAAAAACzw/OlObgFWc9-M/s640/IMG_20120604_100620.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There was a little snow across various parts of the trail, but it looked more like July 4th conditions than June 4th.</td></tr>
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If there was anything that really slowed me down, it was the 5-10 small snow crossings I dealt with along the trail. Usually the snow was firm enough to walk over but I postholed enough to make it inconvenient. Still, it's amazing (and worrisome) to have so little snow left this early in the summer.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2nHAcpqVik/T80eopYOZ1I/AAAAAAAACzw/BLn5mWTLcoE/s1600/IMG_20120604_100629.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2nHAcpqVik/T80eopYOZ1I/AAAAAAAACzw/BLn5mWTLcoE/s640/IMG_20120604_100629.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking back down valley, you get a reminder that you're really just at the edge of the mountains, with the plains beyond.</td></tr>
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It had been so long since my last hike that I almost forgot how much I love being at treeline. The views open up, you're exposed to the full effects of the sun and wind, and I always make the mental note that "If the weather goes bad, this is where I need to get back to -- fast." Everything struggles to survive up here, as evidenced by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krummholz">Krumholtz</a>. There is a fantastic stretch of trail on this route that starts at treeline -- the trail levels and smooths as you cross into Rocky Mountain National Park and you get some great views of bigger mountains to the north.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VWaIdbEVGwg/T80eqxmehcI/AAAAAAAACzw/Rlxb0o62eM0/s1600/IMG_20120604_101158.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VWaIdbEVGwg/T80eqxmehcI/AAAAAAAACzw/Rlxb0o62eM0/s640/IMG_20120604_101158.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sign said Rocky Mountain National Park, but I looked everywhere for a visitor's center and found nothing. I think somebody was playing a trick on me.</td></tr>
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I wish I could have stayed on that trail longer, but it wasn't long before I was at the base of St. Vrain Mountain and it was time to head up. There was still plenty of snow on the east slopes of St. Vrain, and thankfully it was still early enough for the snow to be a good firmness for climbing and not steep enough to risk a fall. I read reports of a climber's trail but I'm pretty sure it was still mostly buried in the snow.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TrV7DqOUMUQ/T80exqikIHI/AAAAAAAACzw/gyjgZpQtVkI/s1600/IMG_20120604_110247.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TrV7DqOUMUQ/T80exqikIHI/AAAAAAAACzw/gyjgZpQtVkI/s640/IMG_20120604_110247.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To reach the summit of St. Vrain Mountain you leave the trail and head pretty much straight up the hill along the RMNP and Indian Peaks Wilderness boundary. The familiar flat-topped summit of Longs dominates the northern view.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After 3,000 feet of climbing my legs were growing a bit tired and I slowed, but that's to be expected. Even with trying to keep an average pace above 2 miles per hour, I love how the good climbing of a summit push slows to a near crawl. I had <a href="http://runkeeper.com/">RunKeeper</a> tracking my progress and talking into my ear saying things like, "Current Pace...110 minutes per mile."<br />
<br />
There's nothing particularly spectacular about St. Vrain Mountain itself, but the views from the summit are pretty good. Surprisingly, I didn't spend much time looking west, as all the best views were either north into RMNP or south into the IPW.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sJgkHVZmKjk/T80e3BjkCpI/AAAAAAAACzw/q4Z972ujD58/s1600/PANO_20120604_111756.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="118" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sJgkHVZmKjk/T80e3BjkCpI/AAAAAAAACzw/q4Z972ujD58/s640/PANO_20120604_111756.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This panorama looks south on the left into the Indian Peaks Wilderness and north to the right into Rocky Mountain National Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I settled into the wind break on the summit, ate my lunch, and listened to (of all things) a <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/05/22/152848779/david-alan-griers-sporting-life-on-broadway">Fresh Air interview with David Alan Grier</a>. The skies above me were clear, but the clouds directly over Longs Peak were darkening. As much as I enjoy the peace and rest of a summit, I enjoy avoiding lightning strikes even more, so I packed up and headed back down the hill.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-in2iXvzMnG0/T80e6IVZHDI/AAAAAAAACzw/Hr5QePZ8BP0/s1600/IMG_20120604_113010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-in2iXvzMnG0/T80e6IVZHDI/AAAAAAAACzw/Hr5QePZ8BP0/s640/IMG_20120604_113010.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My last shot from the summit looks into the Indian Peaks Wilderness. I think I've only ever hiked there once, but given its proximity to Boulder I'm likely to return.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I moved downhill quickly and finally saw another person just below treeline. It was a woman and her dog headed for Meadow Mountain, a smaller peak that I opted to bypass on this trip. I don't think I took any breaks the rest of the way and passed one small group that looked to be out for an afternoon hike. Other than those two moments, I felt like I had the trail, RMNP, and the IPW all to myself.<br />
<br />
I was back at the car just before 2 pm. Total distance traveled was 8.7 miles with 3683 feet of climbing. Total time on the trail was 5:27 with a moving average of 2.2 mph. Click on the map endpoint marker for additional stats.<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=211578284643104328173.0004c1ad428cb584c8594&ie=UTF8&t=p&ll=40.167921,-105.559559&spn=0.031482,0.054932&z=14&output=embed" width="640"></iframe><br />
<small>View <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=211578284643104328173.0004c1ad428cb584c8594&ie=UTF8&t=p&ll=40.167921,-105.559559&spn=0.031482,0.054932&z=14&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">6/4/2012 8:21 AM</a> in a larger map</small>Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-43266829987881498422012-05-24T22:11:00.000-06:002012-05-24T22:11:04.069-06:00Scott Carpenter, Aurora 7, and Boulder<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/MalcolmScottCarpenter.jpg/384px-MalcolmScottCarpenter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/MalcolmScottCarpenter.jpg/384px-MalcolmScottCarpenter.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scott Carpenter (photo NASA)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Fifty years ago today, astronaut <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Carpenter">Scott Carpenter</a> became the second American to orbit the earth. The 1960s were a busy time for our space program, so the 2010s are going to be a busy time for 50-year space achievement anniversaries.<br />
<br />
I've been a bit of a space junkie ever since I was a young boy with my Kmart telescope and Space Shuttle models. My very first "Do you remember where you were..." moment was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS_51-L">Challenger disaster</a>, and even when NASA wasn't in the spotlight I was getting up in the middle of the night to watch Shuttle launches and landings.<br />
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One of the perks of being a student at <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/">CU-Boulder</a> is the university's history of producing astronauts (20 at current count, which I believe is more than any institution other than the military academies) and our strong involvement in building space craft and experiments (we're the top NASA-funded university in the world). There's a great <a href="http://cuheritage.org/exhibits/space-exploration/">exhibit in the CU Heritage Museum</a> where you can see a moon rock, various spacesuits and equipment, and artifacts collected from the Challenger wreckage that belonged to CU alumnus <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellison_Onizuka">Ellison Onizuka</a>, who died in the disaster.<br />
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CU can trace much of this proud space history back to Scott Carpenter, a Boulder native. I'm reminded of him almost every day: I live across the street from <a href="http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6261&Itemid=899">Scott Carpenter Park</a> and I route my runs behind Aurora 7 Park, named for Carpenter's Mercury spacecraft (which I've seen in Chicago's <a href="http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/henry-crown-space-center/">Museum of Science and Industry</a>). After Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom made sub-orbital flights, and John Glenn made a three-orbit flight, it was Carpenter's turn. The flight was designated as a science mission and not everything went well, as discussed in this video:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6xqOUWjLHao" width="640"></iframe>
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This video makes it look like Carpenter did a lot of work to save a ship with malfunctioning guidance equipment and a lack of fuel, although <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_C._Kraft,_Jr.">Chris Kraft</a>'s comments in the documentary <i><a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/nasa/nasa.html">When We Left Earth</a></i> and elsewhere make it sound like Carpenter was willingly pushing the craft to its limits, even when instructed not to. I suppose in the end it just makes for a good story, as whatever headaches Carpenter might have caused were replaced by the wealth of data Carpenter collected about the Mercury spacecraft and what's possible in spaceflight.<br />
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Carpenter returned to earth and to Boulder a hero, and locally he has been anything but forgotten. Here's a sampling of some great local articles written about him in the past few weeks:<br />
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Boulder Daily Camera: <a href="http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_20658295/scott-carpenter-50th-anniversary-boulder">Scott Carpenter leaves mark on Boulder, 50 years after blasting into space</a><br />
Boulder Daily Camera: <a href="http://www.dailycamera.com/lifestyles/ci_20645970/city-declared-scott-carpenter-day-1962-after-historic">Carol Taylor: Boulder declared Scott Carpenter Day in 1962 after historic spaceflight</a><br />
CU-Boulder: <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2012/05/21/cu-astronaut-alumnus-scott-carpenter-looks-back-50th-anniversary-aurora-7">CU astronaut-alumnus Scott Carpenter looks back at 50th anniversary of Aurora 7 mission</a>Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-81395239072568777022012-05-14T13:44:00.000-06:002012-05-14T13:44:51.691-06:00My Podcast PredilectionI think my main modus operandi is to interact with as much information as possible. I read for school, keep track of a couple hundred news feeds in Google Reader, watch documenaries, and follow really smart people on social networks who share good things. It's a full-time job, and I love it. Now that the semester is over, I can try to stay more up-to-date with a growing number of podcasts I follow. Being a PhD student is a very immersive experience, but podcasts are one way I keep myself stretched in more than just one direction. Here's a list of what I watch or listen to on a regular basis:<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://twit.tv/">TWiT.tv</a></b>: I keep up with a ton of technology news and debate by following Leo Laporte and others on his podcasting network. Here are the podcasts I prefer to watch:<br />
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<a href="http://twit.tv/twit">This Week in Tech</a> (This is roughly the tech equivalent of "Meet the Press," but far, far less formal)<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/tnt">Tech News Today</a> (Today's their 500th show, and I'm sure I've never missed one)<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/sn">Security Now</a> (Steve Gibson and Leo are great together, and even though I'm not responsible for other peoples' computer security, I enjoy the geekiness)<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/twig">This Week in Google</a> (Jeff Jarvis and Gina Trapani make this a consistently good show)<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/ww">Windows Weekly</a> (Paul Thurrott and Leo have great chemistry)<br />
<br />
And here are the TWiT podcasts I usually just listen to:<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/aaa">All About Android</a> (As an Android user, this is the primary way I hear about new devices and apps)<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/htg">Home Theater Geeks</a> (Depending on the guest I sometimes skip this one, but host Scott Wilkinson gets some great guests)<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/ttg">The Tech Guy</a> (Leo's call-in radio show, where I get reminded about "real people's" tech problems)<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/twich">This Week in Computer Hardware</a> (Ryan Shrout and Patrick Norton geek out over CPUs and video cards, old-school tech enthusiasm)<br />
<a href="http://twit.tv/tri">Triangulation</a> (Leo and Tom Merritt interview a great guest each week)<br />
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Although the length of the shows above varies, on an average week I think that adds up to about 16 hours of programming. How do I manage all that? It helps that I listen to all of my audio podcasts at 2x speed, thanks to <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts&hl=en">Pocket Casts</a> and the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aocate.presto">Presto</a> sound library. The one other technology podcast I listen to is the <a href="http://www.theverge.com/label/the-vergecast">Vergecast</a>, mostly because I enjoy and value the opinions of Joshua Topolsky and Nilay Patel.<br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php"><b>NPR</b></a> and <a href="http://www.pri.org/pri-podcasts.html"><b>PRI</b></a> are my other great podcast sources. I listen to:<br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=9911203">NPR: Car Talk</a> (I listen for the entertainment value, less so far car advice)<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=17350298">NPR: Education</a> (NPR does have some great education coverage)<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=7060034">NPR: Fresh Air</a> (Is there a better interviewer anywhere than Terry Gross? Seriously, listen to the "<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=05-08-2012">Fresh Air Remembers Author Maurice Sendak</a>" show)<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=94411890">NPR: Planet Money</a> (I love the educational angle Planet Money takes on the world of money and finance)<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=13994790">NPR: Science Friday</a> (I skip this one sometimes depending on the topic)<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=4985914">NPR: Sports with Frank Deford</a> (Short and somewhat curmudgeonly, just as I'd imagine from a great veteran sportswriter)<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=4819386">NPR: Story of the Day</a> (A great variety of topics)<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=5183214">NPR: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!</a> (A humorous round-up of weekly news stories)<br />
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<a href="http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/tavis/.jukebox?action=viewPodcast&podcastId=19170">PRI: Smiley and West</a> (Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are a great team, shining a light on the poor and disadvantaged)<br />
<a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/talpodcast">This American Life</a> (The best storytelling...anywhere?)<br />
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Lastly, a few miscellaneous podcasts that I subscribe to:<br />
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<a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/tag/freakonomics-podcast/">Freakonomics Radio</a> (I've read the books and enjoy the podcast...usually. Sometimes I'd prefer to see the world <i>not</i> the way an economist would see it.)<br />
<a href="http://hypotheticalhelp.com/">Hypothetical Help</a> (Scott Johnson and Mark Turpin (Turpster) turn (usually) bad advice into a pretty funny show.)<br />
<a href="http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/">Radiolab</a> (interesting stories here)<br />
<a href="http://www.talkinwalkin.com/">Talkin Walkin</a> (An entire show dedicated to Kevin Pollack's impersonation of Christopher Walken? Yes, please!)<br />
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Obviously, even listening at double speed, it's hard to get through these in a given week. I skip some of them or save them for all-day listening on a weekend. Now that it's summer and I'll be running more, I can count on these to keep me company.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-7820271126405225942012-01-04T21:57:00.000-07:002012-01-04T22:34:10.795-07:002011 Year in ReviewIt would be easy to oversimplify the past year. After all, most people would find the life of a full-time graduate student to be relatively dull: reading, attending class, reading, writing, reading, teaching, and reading. Maybe I'm exaggerating the amount of reading I've done, but maybe I'm not -- I added up the cost of all the books I ordered from Amazon in 2011 and came up with a total of just short of $1200. And that doesn't include all the pages from journal articles, blogs, and other websites that I've read.<br />
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But it's not just about reading. It's about engaging with ideas, and therein lies many of my favorite moments of the year: time spent with fellow students and professors, talking and debating. There are pros and cons to the cohort system in the <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/education/">School of Education</a> at CU-Boulder, but when your cohort-mates are as good as mine, it's a plus. So special thanks to (in no particular order) Ben, Sara, Alaina, Ashley, Katie, Clara, Karla, Ryan, Antonio, Joanna, Cristin, Ruhan, Tori, David, Chad, both Jackies, all four Michaels, and especially to Susan, who partnered with me for research and lent support in times of both ambition and apathy. I also have some great officemates: Ryan, Louisa, Michael, Bill, and Vinny have provided hours of great conversation. I'd also like to thank the professors I've had this year: Ken Howe, Greg Camilli, Susan Jurow, David Webb (twice), Henk van der Kooij, Sonja Palha, Derek Briggs, and Linda Mizell. There are many more people to thank, but I'll get to them as I run through a few of the year's highlights.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Finbarr (Barry) Sloane</span></b><br />
As a master's student I was advised by David Webb, who is almost singly responsible for me being at CU. But upon being accepted into the PhD program, I was assigned to a new advisor, Barry Sloane. It wasn't by my choice, but David assured me it would be okay. He was right.<br />
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As a first-year doctoral student, being advised by Barry was a real treat and I think more than a couple of my classmates were a bit jealous. It isn't just that Barry is wicked smart and hugely likable with his Irish charm, although that was part of it. What made me feel most comfortable about Barry was his commitment to supporting graduate students. While many of us break down the mission of School of Education into teaching vs. research, as if the two are disjoint and in opposition, Barry's focus on supporting me as a student, teacher, and as a researcher was comforting and confidence-inspiring. Unfortunately, external and completely understandable factors led Barry to the difficult choice to leave CU-Boulder, so my time under Barry's direct tutelage wrapped up early in the summer. Thankfully, David Webb again took over as my advisor, a position I feel like he never really left.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Conference Presentations</b></span><br />
Some people like conferences because it gives them a chance to travel and explore different cities. Some like conferences because it gives them time to socialize with colleagues from long ago or far away. Call me crazy, but for me the best thing about a conference is the conference itself. Until this year I'd only been an attendee, but this fall I had two opportunities to be a presenter.<br />
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Shortly after attending the NCTM Regional Conference in Denver in the fall of 2010, I submitted a proposal to present at the Regional in Albuquerque in fall of 2011. The amount of time between proposing and presenting is a bit ridiculous, but it gave me time to prepare a 90-minute workshop. This summer, during a class with David Webb, Henk van der Kooij, and Sonia Palha, I gave a very abbreviated version of the presentation as my final class project. It didn't go all that well, but showed enough promise to get me invited as a presenter at the 3rd International Realistic Mathematics Education Conference in September on the CU campus. It's a small conference and I presented during the last session so only about a dozen were there for my workshop, but it went quite well and prepared me for my presentation at the NCTM Regional in Albuquerque about a month later. There my workshop included more than 60 people, and it was nice to share with them some teaching methods that they'd never seen before. I've posted the slides of the presentations at <a href="http://mathed.net/">http://mathed.net</a>, and have resolved to write up the presentation soon for those who couldn't attend.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Teaching</b></span><br />
There were no opportunities for me to teach at CU as a master's student, and my assistantship as a first-year doctoral student was helping Barry with research. After two years away from the classroom I really wanted to teach a class again. In a true case of "be careful what you wish for," in the fall I was assigned to teach not one but four classes, a heavy (but not unheard of) teaching load for a full-time doctoral student. Three of the classes were for CU Teach, a program designed to recruit and introduce math and science students to teaching. Each one of those classes met for 1.25 hours once a week, and I had the pleasure of working with my co-teachers Kim Bunning, Julie Andrew, and George Ortiz. I taught those courses like I'd never taught them before, which is to say not very well. There are a lot of administrative hurdles in getting students placed into schools that I wish I could have handled better. Thankfully, I'll get a second shot at all of those courses this spring. My fourth class was a 3-hour basic statistics class for non-education undergraduates. That class was a fair amount of work, but things came together pretty well at the end and getting to know those students -- mostly math-phobic upper-division students who had been avoiding taking math elsewhere during their time at CU -- was a great reminder of why I love teaching.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>A Typical Summer Day</b></span><br />
To some this will sound boring, but I thoroughly enjoyed my average summer days: wake up, read the news and blogs, go running on Boulder's awesome trail system, do some reading/blogging/social networking, then settle in for an afternoon or evening of watching the Cubs. In 2011 I ran 200 miles (not a lot for a dedicated runner, but by far the most ever for me) and watched all 162 Cubs games. Both took dedication, stamina, and a tolerance for mediocrity.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Best of 2011</b></span><br />
I didn't want to turn the post entirely into a "best of" list, but some deserve mention:<br />
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<b>Favorite book</b>: After reading so much it's not easy for a book to stand out, but if one single book summarizes a lot of what I've studied it's Richard Rothstein's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Class-Schools-Educational-Black-White-Achievement/dp/1932066098"><i>Class and Schools</i></a>. It would be a good primer to many of the current debates in education.<br />
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<b>Favorite article</b>: I haven't summarized it yet at <a href="http://mathed.net/">http://mathed.net</a>, but one article that stands out as truly brilliant is Anna Sfard's 1991 article <i><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3482237">On the Dual Nature of Mathematical Conceptions: Reflections on Processes and Objects as Different Sides of the Same Coin</a></i>. Brilliant.<br />
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<b>Favorite show</b>: Other than Cubs games and video podcasts from <a href="http://twit.tv/">TWiT.tv</a>, I don't watch much TV. But all fall I was glued to the TV on Sunday nights for <i><a href="http://www.amctv.com/shows/breaking-bad">Breaking Bad</a></i>. Incredible show.<br />
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<b>Favorite album</b>: In a pleasant surprise, I really liked Tori Amos's <i><a href="https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD00028947797913">Night of Hunters</a></i>. It's not that I doubted that I'd like a Tori Amos album -- I've been a fan since her early days -- but I wasn't sure on the album's concept: Tori's reinterpretation of classical music with her (sometimes just plain weird) lyrics. Instead, the album's concept is its greatest strength, and many long-time fans admit that it was the album she was born to make.<br />
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<b>Favorite tech hardware</b>: This is a bit of an upset, but edging out my first smartphone (a Droid X) and tablet (an ASUS Transformer) are my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD595-Performance-Premiere-Headphones/dp/B0001FTVE0">Sennheiser HD 595</a> headphones. The price has risen dramatically due to them no longer being produced, but I wore them for hundreds of satisfying hours as I read, wrote, and relaxed. I still get a little happy feeling every single time I put them on, and I can honestly say I might not have enjoyed <i><a href="https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD00028947797913">Night of Hunters</a></i> and a lot of other music as much without them.<br />
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<b>Favorite tech software</b>: Keeping journal articles and citations organized is a major task for an academic, and it's made more difficult when you use multiple computers with multiple operating systems. Fortunately, I found <a href="http://www.mendeley.com/">Mendeley</a> and have been serving as a Mendeley Advisor this past year, giving presentations in the School of Ed and at the CU library. Sadly, it's not open source, but it is free and has a great community around it.<br />
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<b>Favorite tech service</b>: This one is simple: <a href="https://plus.google.com/">Google+</a>. For the first time I feel like I've found a social network that allows for the right mixture of features, sharing, and privacy. If you're not already using it I bet you will be by the end of 2012.<br />
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Have a great 2012, everyone!Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-70516083666740764992011-09-28T19:24:00.003-06:002011-09-28T19:24:30.927-06:00162I'm sitting myself down tonight after a long baseball season to watch the Cubs for the final time this year. After Ron Santo died last winter, this season I decided to upgrade myself from MLB.com's Gameday Audio to the full MLB.tv package so I'd have access to every Cubs TV broadcast this year. <i>I watched every one</i>. I might not have watched them live, and for quite a number the game became background noise as I worked on something else, but in one way or another I've watched every single game this season. It's not quite like getting season tickets and attending every home game, or like visiting all 30 major league ballparks, but it's something.<br />
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I certainly didn't pick a memorable Cubs season to watch. Early in the season, an injury-riddled Cubs lineup proved that they were a pretty poor team. Later, when they got healthy, the best they could do was still pretty average. There were way too many blown saves and about a billion men left on base. I know the Cubs are looking for a GM, and I'm in no way qualified for that position, but here are my thoughts about where the team is finishing and what I hope to see in the future:</div>
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<li>Starlin Castro has been fun to watch, although he has a lot of work to do in almost every aspect of his game. He can hit, sure, but rarely does he get on base any other way. I think his defense has gotten a little better as the season progressed; for a while there it seemed like he was throwing balls into the dugout or stands every couple of days. If there's a bright spot in a dull season, Castro's 200+ hits stand out.</li>
<li>Darwin Barney is a likable player, but I worry that the numbers that made him look like a good rookie won't improve and in a couple years they'll just look average. Remember all the talk after the Santo era about the constant turnover at 3rd base? I'm not sure the Cubs aren't experiencing the same thing at 2nd post-Sandberg.</li>
<li>I like Carlos Pena. He seems like such a good clubhouse guy and a real professional on and off the field. However, the equation seems simple: he's not under contract for next year and the Cubs have a AAA first baseman who won the Pacific Coast MVP. I know they're trying out LaHair in the outfield, but I won't be upset if he's slated to be the Cubs first baseman next year.</li>
<li>Aramis Ramirez has been as much a part of any Cubs success the past 8 years as anyone. I'd like to see him back, but it probably wouldn't be a good business decision. Unless you know you've got a real contender, shelling out big contracts to aging players isn't a good idea.</li>
<li>Alfonso Soriano has made a more positive impression on me this year. Not enough to justify his huge contract, but if he has three more years like this one I'll be okay with seeing him in left field most every day.</li>
<li>I continued to be impressed by Marlon Byrd's hustle. Same goes for Reed Johnson. If you're going to win, you have to have guys like these on your team.</li>
<li>Who doesn't love Tony Campana? (Besides opposing teams.) I don't care if he can't hit for power or if he can't produce as an everyday starter. I just want him on the team, ready to contribute at a moment's notice.</li>
<li>Starting pitching: Garza's a keeper and probably should have had 15 wins had he gotten good support. I hope Dempster's back, but I doubt that will happen. I think Randy Wells can still be a really good #2 or #3 starter. Carlos Zambrano....sorry, but we've been better off without you. Any bets that he'll be pitching for the Marlins next year?</li>
<li>Bullpen: Thanks, Kerry, for coming back to the Cubs. You gave up bigger money and Cubs fans won't forget it. Jeff Samardzija and Jeff Russell were unexpectedly good at times and Sean Marshall might have been consistently the best pitcher on the whole staff. Marmol? Shaky. Ortiz and Grabow? Yawn.</li>
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I won't go through the entire roster, but I think the theme for next year should be "let the kids play." Sure, Soriano and Byrd will get plenty of playing time, but I won't mind if every other position is filled by someone with less than five years of major league experience. If the Cubs spend money, I'd go after starting pitching. We saw how few options the Cubs had when Wells and Cashner went down, and having one or two more solid, reliable starters will give the kids a reason to think they can win every day.</div>
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It's the third inning and Dempster just gave up a 3-run-homrun with two outs in the 3rd inning. The inning would have been over had Reed Johnson and Starlin Castro connected on a relay to the plate, but instead the Cubs give away runs after a fundamental mistake. Par for the season, unfortunately, but I'll keep watching anyway. Until next year...</div>
Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-39734800213329963742011-09-11T15:32:00.000-06:002011-09-11T15:35:48.395-06:00Why Eleanor Roosevelt Would Have Liked Google+And why Google+ won't be replacing Twitter or Facebook for most of us anytime soon<br />
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Eleanor_Roosevelt_at_United_Nations.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Eleanor_Roosevelt_at_United_Nations.png" width="253" /></a><i>"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."</i><br />
<i>-- Eleanor Roosevelt</i><br />
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I know too much already has been written about Google+ and its place in the world of social networking, but I've recently developed a new perspective which might help some of you who are trying to decide how and when to use Google+ versus Twitter or Facebook.<br />
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Eleanor might have said "small minds discuss people," but there's more than one way to discuss people and none of us are consistently small-minded. People are important, and the people who are most important to us are those with which we have mutual friendships or family relationships. This is why <i>Facebook is best at people</i>: it enforces (if we ignore fan pages) a symmetric follower model, ensuring that we are connected to people who want to also be connected to us. Those connections, often with people who we don't see regularly but want to keep in touch with, are more important than the comments and conversation people post on their Wall. If your Facebook News Feed is anything like mine, you know what I'm talking about. But that's okay -- I use Facebook because my friends and family mean more to me than their latest post, and it's why we shouldn't worry about a mass exodus from Facebook anytime soon.<br />
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Beyond friendships and family, we are connected to others through common events. When fire broke out over the foothills of Boulder about a year ago, it didn't matter that I didn't personally know many other people in the area. What mattered was our shared experience and our desire to understand the event beyond our own perspective. This is why <i>Twitter is best at events</i>: those of us affected were able to congregate around the #boulderfire and other hashtags. Twitter didn't allow us to say much at once, but that was okay. No one person should dominate such a conversation. When someone did emerge as particularly insightful or resourceful, Twitter's asymmetric follower model allowed us to follow them without them following us back. Today, on the ten-year anniversary of 9-11, I know I'm not alone in wondering what that day would have been like had we had Twitter, fail whales and all. No tool allows us to so spontaneously engage in an event quite like Twitter -- it really is the internet's nervous system.<br />
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Sometimes our interactions with people and events spark deeper thought. Eventually we not only want to say more, we want to ask more. We want a space where we can engage with other people around our reflections and questions. This is why <i>Google+ is best at ideas</i>: it allows us a flexible space and a flexible audience with which we can have a cohesive conversation around an idea or belief. Great conversation emerges from great ideas, and great ideas are evidence of great minds. And when our minds aren't so great (which, let's face it, is most of the time), Google+'s threaded conversations allow participants (who may or may not follow each other) to push and shape the idea into something better. As Google+ gains capabilities (search, tagging, public circles, etc.) the way we find these conversations may change, but I think Google+'s focus on ideas will remain. And I think Eleanor would have liked it.<br />
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So while Facebook is best for people, Twitter is best for events, and Google+ is best for ideas, that in no way means that you can't discuss an event on Facebook or maintain close relationships on Google+. The reason that these are currently our most prominent and successful social networks is because we can use them in more than one way. But as with any set of tools, knowing which is the right one for the job makes each tool more useful. When I see a "I'm headed out to eat" post on Google+, it feels empty because I'm not sure how I can engage in a conversation around that idea. Maybe the person who posted that needs to pick a different tool or create a circle with a more relevant audience. I'm happy to follow a lot of smart educators on Twitter, but when their posts turn into a conversation, I feel handcuffed. Not only is it hard to reply to multiple people and restrain an important thought to 140 characters, I realize I can't easily see the other replies from people I'm not following. And while I might try to discuss an idea or event on Facebook, I usually don't get much response. Other than being my friends, people who see what I post on Facebook really don't have all that much in common.<br />
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If you use all three social networks, as I do, think before you post. Think about which tool is the best for the job. But also realize that because there's more than one job to do, there's room for more than one network. Now pardon me as my desire to educate combines with my ego to shamelessly share this post on all three.Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3215688.post-39547628666308831242011-08-21T23:36:00.001-06:002011-08-22T00:04:02.976-06:00Fall Semester, 2011<div><p>Tomorrow I begin my second year in the doctoral program in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Being a doctoral student isn't quite like being a student at any other level. Doctoral work is more of an apprenticeship, although there are plenty of classes to attend and papers to write. I imagine there are a number of qualities our faculty look for in us doctoral students. During our first year, they see if we can grasp the fundamental methods of quantitative and qualitative research, and they test our understanding of the major political and philosophical issues in our field. During our third year, we'll take a comprehensive exam to measure if we have the focused expertise and vision necessary to go on to pursue work towards a dissertation that will contribute new knowledge to the field. So what do they look for in our second year? If my schedule is any indication, they must be seeing if we can maintain our sanity despite heavy workloads. I hope I'm up to the task.</p>
<p>The typical full course load for doctoral students is three classes (nine credit hours). To an undergraduate that sounds like an unimaginably light load, but the work is different at the doctoral level. This semester I'm taking the last of my core courses, Multicultural Education, as well as two other courses: Advanced Topics in Mathematics Education and Measurement in Survey Research. All will keep me busy.</p>
<p>In addition to our courses, most doctoral students beyond their first year have a 50% assistantship, meaning the work is expected to take 20 hours per week. When I came to CU, I expressed a desire to teach. Last year my appointment was a research asssistantship. I was a bit jealous of my colleagues who got to work with students, but I immensely enjoyed working with my advisor on some of his research projects. This year, however, I don't just get to teach a class, <i>I get to teach four classes</i>. I never thought I'd be teaching more classes than I'd be taking, and for all I know a four-class teaching load is some kind of grad student record.</p>
<p>The courses I'll be teaching break down like this: Three are for math and science majors who have expressed a interest in teaching, and those classes meet once per week for an hour and fifteen minutes each. In addition, those courses are co-taught and we have all the materials (lesson plans, activities, handouts, etc.) from past semesters at our disposal. My fourth class, however, is a totally different ballgame. I'll also be teaching basic statistics to undergraduates. That class meets once weekly for two and a half hours per meeting and I'm pretty much on my own when it comes to lesson planning and activities. Normally they'd give that class to a more senior grad student with experience as a teaching assistant, but this year they're taking a chance on me to do the job. Fortunately, I've got some great people around me who can offer advice and support, and if I'm smart I'll take all of it I can get.</p>
</div>Raymond Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.comUniversity of Colorado-East Campus, Boulder, CO, United States40.011187 -105.249337