The Legend of Bsodius

Juliet and I were going to turn over a new leaf with the blog- we were determined to be more disciplined and consistent in our efforts to update it. It was last Friday that we made the decision to update it every Sunday so that it would be ready to read come Monday. This would give us a goal and add a little bit of routine to our lives.

Saturday was spent writing a new blog. We were on schedule to meet the first of our new deadlines.

On Sunday, I booted up the computer, ready to add some of those finishing touches that make our blog just so special. Instead of booting through Windows though, our computer would only displayed the widely feared “Blue Screen of Death” (hereafter referred to as BSODius).

Bsodius is like the Voldemort of computers. It sits silently somewhere in your system, cloaked in a veil of self-emanating evil. It is an intangible dark energy looking to manifest itself into the physical world. And like Voldemort sucking the blood from Unicorns in the Dark Forest for energy, Bsodius maintains its vitality by sucking the hemoglobnic (your welcome Webster) 1's and 0's from the fibrous bits that make up the lifeblood of your computer. Neither picture nor document has immunity from its deadly embrace.

“Windows has failed to boot, there's nothing you can do about it.” Troubling times call for a hero who possesses the ultimate telltales of courageousness and strength. Like Harry Potter before me, I knew destiny was calling. At first, I desperately tried to ignore the call- who was I to face Bsodius? Surely there was someone more capable than I. But destiny proved more persistent than a Salvation Army bell ringer. You can avoid eye contact, but the guilt will eventually cut through you like a katana through warm pumpkin pie (yes, I do use a samurai sword to cut my holiday desserts and it's even more awesome than it sounds).

I was plunged into the deepest darkest realm of the known universe. A place so damning that no mortal has ever went and returned with their sanity in tact. A place where the very ideas of logic and rationality are incapable of being manifested either as an idea nor as process of efficiency. I am referring to, of course, the land of Outsourceus Techsupportium.

Nothing could have prepared me for the eternity that I spent there, and my memory is fuzzy on recalling the exact order of events or details of the characters that I came across. I was cast down the rabbit hole only to find myself in some strangely enchanted land that my human sense could not make coherent. When I tried to ask for help, the only response I could get from the residents here were incoherent ramblings that, when finally decrypted, seemingly had nothing to do with the predicament that I found myself in. I can only imagine that it was a bit how Alice felt when she tried to navigate her way through Wonderland, only to stumble across the drunken rantings of that sociopathic Cheshire Cat, the pure nonsensical idiocy of the Tweedle brothers, or the psychosis of the mad hatter who's brain had long since been turned into Swiss cheese by mercury exposure.

I taxed the mental and physical strength of my body's every cell to the point of depletion, then demanded more, in a fashion that mimicked the US budget. But I needed to keep focused on the task at hand. I needed to find Bsodius and release my operating system from his evil influence. But every time I turned the corner I seemed to see a duplicate image of what I had just been through. Every time I tried asking someone for help, they began unintelligibly regurgitating what those before them had told me. What do they call it when you try the same thing over and over expecting a different result?

There was nothing I could do but be persistent. I finally reached a castle and met a fellow wearing what resembled a cap made of tin foil. He seemed to be unaffected by the strange ambiance that made everyone in Outsourceus Techsupportium so hopelessly unhelpful. He explained to me that he was a “case manager” and that Outsourceus Techsupportium is an illusionary world, created by Bsodius to throw off his opponents- to make them go insane and to give up trying to rid their computer of him. He told me that Bsodius was hiding in one of my sticks of RAM, so that if I removed the mystical stick I would have Bsodius contained, for now. I trustingly sent him the stick of RAM but wasn't convinced that this “case manager” wouldn't inflict its malice upon some other unsuspecting computer.

We no longer have the Blue Screen of Death, but you never know when it will rear its ugly head. The only way to protect yourself from its destruction is to back up your personal files and to do so often. Head the warnings of the legend of Bsodius or face dire and irreparable consequences.

And now for some unrelated photos:

Beautiful cousins: Nicolette and Toriann

Toriann rocking at climbing

Nicolette also being awesome at climbing

Lorenzo learning how to belay, Nicolette getting ready for her climb

Mountain bikers: Antie Cheryl, Tori, Lorenzo, Nicolette, Me (Juliet)

Jon making some Thanksgiving homemade chips

The truck broke down but luckly Uncle Kurt was around to save

Ying-Yang 5.11c. Great climb

An early Christmas present!!

Another day at the office

3:00 AM:  The alarm clock is going off which leads to a great deal of confusion.  “That can't be right,” I thought to myself, “I feel like I just fell asleep.”  I look over at the clock to check the time.  I look at my watch and confirm the bad news.  Time to get up.  The truck is loaded and ready to go.  Our gear is organized and we had even packed our lunch.  Today we will climb Epinephrine.  

3:30 AM:  We leave Juliet's aunt's house right on schedule.  It is pitch black in every direction except towards the Las Vegas strip.  Is the sun rising already or is it just the light pollution? We head up Hwy 160 and continue to flank the rolling hills that contrast the desert floor.  Five more miles down a BLM managed dirt road will take us into the heart of the precipitous Red Rocks and to the entrance of Black Velvet Canyon.

4:30 AM:  The rest of our approach is now by foot.  We are working under headlamps and take only the two backpacks that will be with us for the 2,000’ journey.  We spend the next hour scrambling through an old river bed turned boulder field that splits the middle of the canyon. We had practiced this approach the day before as we wanted to be as efficient as possible. 

5:30 AM:  We have a head start on the sun but already know we will be racing it down at the end of the day.  We are now at the base of our climb.  I begin climbing by head lamp, knowing that we only have 10 hours of daylight before we will be cast back into darkness. Juliet leads the next pitch as the sun finally finds us.  We studied our map of the climb one last time before plunging into its infamous chimney section.

 
9:30AM:  I had climbed deeper into the chimney than I would have liked, but it was the only way to protect the pitch.  It was wider further out and would have been easier climbing with the trade off of being more exposed.  

I had used chimney technique (back against one wall, feet against the other, push with feet and scoot back up wall 1mm, move feet up, curse, repeat), until it became so narrow that my legs couldn't get into the right position.  A five inch off-width crack began to run up the route for the remainder of the climb.  

I remember Tamas showing me the butterfly technique in Indian Creek (cross your arms and put the back of your hands together, push your fingers out and away from each other so that they push against each side of the wide crack).  Using this hand technique, I would pull my body up as high as I could before thrusting my left leg, thigh deep into the crack.  With leg wedged, I could reach up with both hands and repeat the process.  I finally caught a glimpse of the chains marking a small belay ledge and the end of the pitch and hurried my way up.  Physically exhausted, I tried to catch my breath and calm my stomach. 
 

10:30 AM:  Juliet led us out of the first half of the chimney system. The pitch was short and sweet.  I climbed up behind her.  We pulled out the map again.  A bolt on the previous pitch had been mislabeled.  We had actually managed to combine two of the chimney pitches and were now looking at the last sixty feet before we were on top of the Black Tower.

The pitch had two bolts which I hyper-focused on as I climbed, already exhausted.  To my relief, the walls of the chimney were studded and pocked with formation, making the climbing much easier than the varnished walls of previous pitches.  I took my time but moved confidently while in limbo between the first and second bolt.  

Once the second bolt was clipped, I couldn't seem to climb fast enough to get to the summit of the Black Tower. All we had to do was haul the bags up once more and the chimney sections would be behind us.

11:30 AM:  We had finally reached the top of the Black Tower.  We watched some climbers make their way up a neighboring route on the Black Velvet Wall and we felt a little less alone.  With six pitches of face climbing left, we were eager to continue.

Juliet led us off of the Black Tower and up the exposed face of the Black Velvet Wall. We swapped leads for the next 800 feet and were happy to see that the route was straight-forward and easy to follow.

4:00 PM:  We had spent the day watching the shadows of Black Velvet Peak get closer and closer to the distant Las Vegas Strip.  The sun was setting fast.  I belayed Juliet up the “last” pitch. The summit of this colossus rock formation still loomed hundreds of feet overhead. Without delay, we scrambled around the rock formation, carefully following an exposed ramp that proved much more technical than we were hoping.

We finally spotted the huge and lonely Ponderosa Pine that marked the top of the route. A very thin goat trail wound its way up the final few hundred feet.  Twilight was upon us and we were in a hurry, but we decided to rope up for the small, thin and very exposed approach to the goat trail.  

5:00 PM  We gained the summit just as darkness fell on the twinkling city far below.  Still before us was the ominous descent.  Hiking by headlamp, we followed cairns across two intersecting ridges.  We were aware that getting lost or descending off of the ridge too early would be dangerous so we moved slowly and cautiously.  

Nearly an hour into our descent we lost the cairn trail.  We spent the next 90 minutes tracing and retracing our steps, looking for the next cairn to lead us in the right direction, but there was none.  Tired and exhausted, our patience was greatly tested and we talked about the possibility of spending the night on the ridge so as to be able to find our way down in the day light.

We agreed to scramble to a distant peak to try and get our bearings.  As we approached the peak we realized that the actual “peak” was a ten foot tall cairn.  We briefly rejoiced and hurried on along the ridge.  We quickly gained the final peak which marked our descent.  Another hour of knee-pounding downhill took us to the top of the Whiskey Peak Gully.  We knew our way from here as we had climbed Frogland the week prior which exits the same gully.  

9:00 PM:  We finally made it back to the car and in good spirits.  As soon as we sat down our endorphins expired and every ache and pain became acutely accentuated.  We did very little for the next several days but had a lasting feeling of accomplishment that we had done something epic.

A lovely anchor and belayer on Frogland



 

A fun section on Frogland

 

On the top of Frogland with Las Vegas in the background




The top of Frogland with Epinephrine in the background



Chim-chimney, chim-chimaroo



The fabled Ponderosa Pine



Somewhere on the long ridge down...

Part II : Reaping What We Sow

It was apparent that being able to live for free would help us reach our goal that much quicker.  Juliet agreed to stay on and do dog sledding for another winter season and I joined her.  While we were both accustom to working hard for what we wanted, the next couple of years were challenging.

When you are living on a farmstead, the changing of the seasons are intensified by the natural processes of the animal world.

Spring, of course, is filled with excitement.  The days become longer and the radiance of the sun more intense.  You convince yourself that every snow fall is the last for the season.  Finally rain falls more often than snow, everything thaws, then blooms, and summer settles in. The dogs want nothing more than to lay around in the shade in an attempt to escape the heat.  The humans seem inclined to follow suit as time spent grilling, swimming, and biking to nowhere in particular increases multifold.  

As fall draws near we get back to work.   The changing colors of the deciduous trees, while beautiful, is also symbolic of the natural declination of the life force that seemed to be fluttering around us unrestrained in the previous months.  We prepare for the dog sledding season by doing trail maintenance, repairing sleds, mending dog houses, and beginning training.

While humans have proved a certain degree of engineering prowess evident in numereous technological advancements, we have yet to invent a material that is able to keep you warm and dry during fall training runs.  Freezing rain and fall flurries leave standing water strewn throughout the trails.  The constant pattering of dog paws as they pull against the transmission of the four wheeler mixes dirt and water into a slurry of mud that gets into absolutely everything. 

But all of the preparations pay off after the first big snow fall of the season.  While winter signifies the recession of life for most organic matter in the great north woods, this is the time when the dogs come alive.  They transmit their excitement to you everyday as they beg to run and run and run.  They truly want nothing else.

+++

Juliet and I have handled literally hundreds of sled dogs during our two year vocation.  To compare these dogs to a domesticated house dog is misleading and inaccurate both on a physiological and emotion level.  These dogs have a sense of pack which they get both while in the dog yard as well as when they are working as a part of a well trained team.  The dogs need a specialized diet high in protein and fat depending on the time of year, age, sex, and activity which is closely monitored.  The dogs receive vitamin and mineral supplements for skin and coat health as well as regular immunizations and nails must be kept short for running. 

In terms of exercise, sled dogs that are well taken care of will run far more than any house dog.  Even the youngest and oldest dogs will run 500 miles per year while dogs in their prime years will run many thousands of miles in a season in preparation for longer races or expeditions.  As you prepare the sled for a run, the yard explodes into a frenzy of barking and chaos as the dogs beg to be picked for the day's run.  As you hook up your team for a run their instincts take over similar to what might go though Lance Armstrong’s mind as he gets on his bicycle.  They will lunge forward again and again, hungry for the feeling of pulling something.   There is no command for "go full speed" - full speed is the default setting for these dogs.  Maintaining a sustainable speed, braking for turns, and stopping is an art that takes a musher years to master.

And no, your house dog would not make a good sled dog.  I don't know how many times I've had to nod and smile while someone told me that Fido is fit to pull.  I promise that it is not.  Sled dogs are not house dogs.  Proportionately a sled dog will have larger hearts, bigger feet, more efficient lungs, a higher metabolism, and much more power per pound than any house dog.  Sled dogs have been bred to be the best at what they do and there is no comparison.  On many levels, they are simply the greatest athletes on the face of the planet.  They are also the most loving animals on the planet.  And when the dogs are literally your life blood you certainly make sure that they are well cared for. 

How many house dogs get their needs met everyday to such an extent?  Sure, there are sled dogs that are mistreated and neglected, but from what I've seen I can't imagine that the maltreatment rate is greater than that of house dogs, many of whom spend their days locked in a kennel and scarcely see the light of day or smell the scents of their natural environment.

Dog sledding, when done right, is some of the hardest work that can be taken on.  Couple that with a job and the days really tend to escape you.  This is how Juliet and I saved for our trip.  We spent nearly two years sharing a 12' x 12' cabin.  It was simple and beautiful.  We shared a car and commuted together into town for work everyday.  Oftentimes, I would work in the morning and Juliet would work in the evening.  Juliet would drop me off and either go back home to do dog chores or run errands in town until she began work.  Once I was off of work, I would take the bus downtown and wait for her shift to be over.  It wasn't such a bad thing that she worked at a climbing gym as it was a fairly pleasant place to have to spend time.  Our free time was nearly non-existent and our hobbies, other than dog sledding, fell by the way side.  We made a plan to budget Juliet's paycheck for our living expenses and to put my pay checks into a savings account for our trip.  I took all of the web design jobs that I could to help speed up this process. 

Neither one of us made very good money, but we were committed to living well below our means for this period of time.  We talked often about the dream of traveling and being immersed in new experiences and it helped us through the hard times of feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.  The experience, though, was rejuvenating.  We didn't go to an office everyday.  We were both working in our fields of study and dog sledding gave us an excuse to be outside everyday during the long winter.

We had made a goal for ourselves and created a graph to track our savings progress.  Only two months before our departure date we bought the truck that we now live out of for cash.  We cancelled any credit cards and set up all of our unavoidable bills so that we could pay them online.  It's not that we are debt free or free from the burden of bills, but we budgeted for them as we saved.  We are okay with the fact that we are not paying back our student loans as quickly as some of our friends or are investing in a mortgage at the moment.  We are not in a hurry. 

There is a great deal of satisfaction in traveling and doing what you love.  What price could we pay to explore the world around us and ourselves?  We have worked extremely hard to get to where we are and have fulfilled a dream that started as just that.  How many people have the will power and work ethic to see such a dream come to fruition? 

While we receive a great deal of support for what we have chose to do (thanks to all of our amazing friends and family), we have also heard criticism.  Some people may see us as lazy or as leeches on society, but I can assure you that our current state of affairs is a product of dedication to our passions and to each other as well as a willingness to forego living with certain comforts.  The success of our great social experiement can only be determined with time.  Stay tuned... 

(Sigh) The dog yard. They make you love the work.

 

Social hour



Nephew Evan scooping poop. There is no better place to learn good work ethic. And as it turns out if you tell him it's fun... it is.

The rewards are great in this line of work.

Very, very great.

The dogs... I can't tell you how amazing it was to work with such hard working, loving animals.

(Imagine 'The Price is Right') AHHH NEW TRUUUUCK!!!!!!

Our first idea.

During moving we learned that accessing stuff from the back of the underneath storage space was a real pain.

Begin construction of the new idea.

Add curtains and sand the edges with a few helpful tips from the supervisor, and you've got...



Home!!!



Our modest kitchen with plenty of fresh garlic as a going away present from my friend Teresa. (We have eaten it all)