The Squash Chronicles

Last summer I was going to Mt. Whitney. Everything was setup and ready to go. I had my new gear, friends to accompany me, and the permits in hand. Unfortunately work changed all of that and I was not able to go. The permits were thrown away, but I decided I would try again next year.

Next year is now upon us all and my eye is set on Mt. Whitney. I just called today and purchased our permits. Currently the team size includes 7 people. Both friends and family are planning on going with me.

One thing different this year occurred when purchasing the permits. Unlike last year, I was able to reserve the exact day to summit Mt. Whitney. There was no shifting of dates because other people took it! I woke up early and everything to make sure we got the dates and it has paid off :).

Now begins round 2 of summiting Mt. Whitney. I have been keeping in shape since last year with my cardio and plan to kick it up a notch as the summer gets closer. I don't see why I wouldn't be going this year and I plan on keeping it that way. There will be no "third times a charm" on this end :).

Monday's are usually a drag. Nobody seems to like them. It means the weekend is over and we all have several days before we can get our weekend back. However, this Monday was great! Being that it is the first of the month, I had to go out and work in the snow. As some of you may be aware I conduct snow surveys for the Department of Water Resources for the State of California during this time of year. It lasts from February to as late as May. Hilda and Kyle came along with me to complete these surveys.

On our way up we turned around a bend in the road to encounter a Grey Fox! I have seen them before, but never on the forest I work on. It just sat there in the middle of the road curious as to what was approaching it. We stopped of course and the fox just went to the side of the road still starring. I wasn't able to get a photo in time, so I had to borrow one from the web. They are really pretty and cool looking animals.

What started out to be an hour or so ride ended up taking till dusk. Granted we did not start till about 3 in the afternoon. It was a wonderful time and we all look forward to doing another ride in the future. The photo is at the end of the dam 8 miles from the vehicles. A very nice ride. Thanks Toby and Jamie!

I added a couple of widgets to the website. One is from Twitter and the other is Pandora. I am wondering if it is "too much" having those both on all the pages of the website. Maybe I need to cut it down to just one widget, I am not sure. I will keep them up for awhile. What is your opinions?

The website is fully up and ready to go too. The original domain name is back in my possession, which makes me very happy. No more needing to enter a really long URL to get here. In fact, you can even skip the whole www part now!

Probably in a few weeks there will be another change in the house. The entry way, hall, bathrooms, kitchen, and dinning room areas will be tiled! I cannot wait to have it done. I just need to wait for the tax return to come in and everything else will fall into place. I already had two estimates come over and chose to go with American Floors. They installed the carpet last year and did a great job.

In less than two weeks, Diana and I will go pick out the colors to match the inside of the house. It should be fun, right? I think so anyway and we both are looking forward to it. A little part of me is bummed to cut out a long section of carpet. After all it is not even a year old yet, but that is only a little part of me ;) We both look forward to having tile in the "high traffic" areas of the house.