Ilanarama!

Britt and I wanted to get out of town, so we hopped into the Sportsmobile for a weekend in the canyons of SE Utah. He had in mind a place he'd heard of called Johns Canyon, at the south end of Cedar Mesa, just north of Mexican Hat on the San Juan River.

It took us about 2.5 hours to get to the turn-off. Then we spent the next hour winding along a tiny high-clearance dirt road that skirted the edge between Cedar Mesa looming above us and the side canyons that cut through to the river below us. We parked under a spreading cottonwood tree, had lunch, and then pulled on our hiking boots and spent a pleasant cool and sunny afternoon exploring a branch of Johns Canyon which ended about 3 miles upstream of our camp in a large pour-over alcove.



We got back to our van in time to relax with some wine and snacks before I made dinner, although the wind had picked up and although it was still sunny, it was more pleasant to hang out in the van than outside. Our plan for the next morning was to explore downcanyon on the opposite side from where we'd come in, then drive back to Durango in the afternoon.

( Except we woke to this: )

12 photos (including more Sportsmobile pr0n just for Eric W.) on Flickr.

Also, a big thank you to whoever gave me (another!) month of paid time on Dreamwidth! Which is a good lead-in to tell you all that I'm directing comments to Dreamwidth now. I am still crossposting to LJ for the moment. If you would like a Dreamwidth invite code, just holler.

A couple things happened recently that are prodding me in the direction of leaving LJ for good. This means no longer cross-posting, probably no longer reading my LJ flist (although I may syndicate your LJ feed and read you from here, if that's the only way I can read your entries - but note that I won't be able to read your locked entries until DW gets that functionality), and possibly removing my old entries. I'm not doing this yet, but I am probably going to do this soon.

First of all, while I was in Boston I used the terminals in my hotel lobby, and I happened to go to LJ (in order to reply to comments) using the direct link to my journal there, while not logged in. (This is not my usual pathway, for various reasons.) Wow. My journal grayed out and a video ad played. And then, since the hotel terminals had IE and no adblock, I got all kinds of intrusive ads until I logged in.

The thing is, this journal is my public face to the world. Unlike other journals I might possibly maintain (*whistles*), this one is searchable and widely linked. I don't like or want ads on my journal, especially not the way that LJ presents them. (I don't mind certain types of ads - small text ones in the margins don't bother me a lot, for example. But animated ads, and ads interposed between the entry text and the comments, and especially video ads that must be seen before the journal is read, annoy me a lot, and I don't want readers of my journal to be subject to these. I don't want someone googling for an interesting hike (which is how a lot of people find my journal) getting hit with LJ ad hell.

(You might say, why not pay for an account, then? I would, if LJ didn't piss me off so much. But also, I prefer the model that e.g. Flickr and Dreamwidth use, of giving limited services for free and additional services for paid accounts. With no ads. And I still haven't completely forgiven LJ for reneging on Brad's promise that Basic accounts would never have ads.)

Then there is the link redirect fiasco, which you can read about here and here. The problem I have with this is that (as others have found, as well) the redirection interacts badly with NoScript, and now when I click on any link on my LJ or reading page (including trying to expand cuts or leave comments), nothing happens. I can bypass this by allowing their redirect...but I don't want to! I can also disable javascript for LJ, but that gets rid of behavior I like (such as being able to comment inline). So I'm finding reading LJ really difficult at the moment.

I would stay if I felt really close to my flist on LJ, and that was the only way I could interact with them (with you!). But a whole lot of you are on Facebook, and that's been our primary interaction lately. A lot of you I read from another account, which - moving that one altogether is a more complicated prospect, and I don't know what I'm going to do there, or when. (It's not like I post there any more!) Another large chunk of you don't seem to be interacting with me at all.

So, if you're reading this on LJ, let me know what you are going to do. Are you crossposting? I'll read you on DW instead, and please do the same for me. If you're willing to read me at Dreamwidth, but don't want to move, I will syndicate your journal and read you from here. (Remember, you can comment using openID. And I can comment on your LJ using openID. And I have invite codes, or can find some for you.) If you post locked content (I can think of two of you who always post locked, whose entries I would like to keep reading) I might read you from my other journal (which is a permanent account and not going away, although I might eventually move away from it as well) instead, if you give me access. And if you just want to defriend me, that's okay, too. (Probably.)

I dunno how fast this is all going to happen. But I'm feeling kind of like straw, camel's back, kaboom right now.

In the morning, bowdlerized and idlerat and I went to the marathon expo so I could pick up my number and chip and maybe get some free stuff. And in fact bringing them was the smartest thing I did all day, because they had an incredible talent for ferretting out all the places handing out the coolest and most useful stuff. Now there are granola bars and sports chews piled on the desk in my hotel room, and my ankle has bright pink tape over the owie tendon, applied as a demo by the Kinesio Tape people.

They left to visit family while I wandered around and mostly missed text messages and phone calls from the various people I was trying to meet. I headed back to the room and ate my leftover dinner for lunch, then as I rested and iced my ankle, my roomie for the weekend, Judy, showed up. Judy is a wonderful woman I met through the RWOL "BQ women's thread", whose daughter Katie passed away in October after a long battle with leukemia. She was going to run Boston in Katie's memory, but she injured herself just a few weeks ago and is going to cheer us on instead. We had never met in person, but as you know that never stops me. :-)

I napped while Judy went to the expo, and then in the evening it was time for a big party at Boston Beerworks, put together by the people of the RWOL Boston forum. Lots of fun, met a lot of people, although it was probably a mistake to have three glasses of porter for dinner. (My food order never came, and I just kind of filled up on beer. Oops.) Also, I really was only going to have two glasses, but then the Celtics game finished, and we were told we couldn't leave because the T would be impossible to get on, so...I had another beer. And stayed up until nearly 1 am, which I don't do any more. (And don't tell me it was "really" only 11 pm, because I think I'm already on Boston time, and anyway, I'm not used to staying up to 11, either!)

Now I am awake far far too early, trying to make up for the dehydration I inflicted on my body. Skinny people in running clothes are walking purposefully through the lobby. I think I'll have another cup of coffee.

I'm sitting in the Starbucks in my hotel lobby, shamelessly abusing the 15-minute internet limit. It's gray and dreary and the flags outside the Sheraton across the street indicate it's windy, too. Totally not tempted to go out for a run. Actually, not tempted to go outside at all.

Spent Thursday night at splix's place, drove to ABQ in the first rush-hour traffic I've seen in 10 years (hey, we don't even have freeways), got stopped and searched at security because of scary residue detected on my ankle wrap (WTF!!) and then got on my plane. As we landed in Chicago, the older man sitting across the aisle from me asked me if I was going to Boston for the marathon; he'd noticed my carry-on tote from the Canyonlands Half. I had been wondering if he was going, since he was that rangy skinny runner type and wearing a runner's watch. We ended up chatting, both on the plane and in the lounge waiting for the next leg to Boston; he was with his non-running wife but meeting his son, who was running also, and he had qualified at the last possible moment just before registration closed.

Lots of runners in the waiting area, distinguished by their short hair, skinny bodies, and jackets from previous years' races. I felt incognito in my traveling skirt and Tevas, my long hair and eyeglasses. The flight attendants welcomed us to Boston and wished "good luck to all the runners."

idlerat and bowdlerized (who are waving over my shoulder and saying hi, having just woken up and come down here) took a bus up from NY to have dinner and spend the night with me before visiting with Ratty's father, who lives here. So cool to see them again. We froze looking for a restaurant that wasn't packed with runners, ate candy in the hotel hot tub, and hung out in my luxurious room on the top floor with a view of the game that was being played at Fenway in the rain last night.

Today's plans: go to expo and get packet. Um, that's about it. This evening is a dinner and party with my imaginary friends from the RWOL forums.

Yesterday: was our Democratic Party county assembly. For those of you not in caucus states (probably most of the American readers of this journal; and of course other countries do things differently) and for those of you in Colorado who haven't gotten involved, this is where the delegates elected in our caucus get together to cast our county's vote for statewide and national candidates (this year, just for US Senate) and for local candidates, and vote on party platform resolutions, and generally get all rah-rah about politics. I was not a delegate but I am part of the Local Party Machine (capitals ironic) and ran the powerpoint slides and timed the speakers. Woo. ( Making sausage. )

Today: we went skiing, almost certainly the last ski day of the season for us. It was on the order of 55°F out there, and it was like skiing on a slushee, fast and slick but easy to carve turns. The weird thing was that there had been a dust storm early in the week, and much of the snow had a light coat of reddish-brown dust. Not nearly as pretty as shiny white snow, that's for sure. ( It really stood out on the mogul tops )

We still had a lot of fun skiing, though, and my quads are certainly aching from it. And a few more pictures are here on Flickr.

A week from tomorrow: I am running the Boston Marathon! *gulp* I will make a post later this week with my bib number and information so that if you are bored and near a computer on Monday morning (or whatever it will be in your time zone) you can check the marathon website, which is tracking runners every 5 miles (I think; it might be 5K, which is really often, as a marathon is 42K!) and see how I am doing. Needless to say, I am not expecting to win. :-) My original and ambitious goal was 3:30, and my half marathon last month suggested I could do even better, but I've been injured and my training has been really half-assed because of it. I don't really know what I could do right now. I'd like a PR (3:45 or better), I'd be really happy with 3:3x, and honestly, I should just be happy to finish it, considering. So I am probably not going to know what I am targeting until I actually get out there and start running.

ETA: Right now: I totally forgot while composing this post, but I had intended to thank whoever it was who anonymously gave me a month's paid account at Dreamwidth. So, thank you so much!

If you want to be amused by the sight of me gasping like a landed trout as I race toward the end of my half marathon last weekend, here are the official pictures. Some of them (from the middle portion of the race) aren't too bad, but mostly? I look like a fish.

I have been sick with a cold all week, but have been feeling better the last few days, and today I was bouncing off the walls with boredom and desperate to get out of the house. So Britt and I packed a picnic lunch and headed down to the Aztec Ruins National Monument, a pre-Puebloan site related to both Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, which despite being only a 40 minute drive away neither of us had ever visited. Surprisingly extensive and interesting. Photos coming early next week, when I get them off the camera.

I let my paid LJ account lapse, because I'm kind of pissed at LJ over advertising and referral hijacking shenanigans, and I don't really use any of the extra services. I'm donating the $20 renewal fee to the OTW instead. FYI, I prefer the model Flickr and Dreamwidth use: limited basic functionality for free, extra services for paid accounts. Some types of advertising don't bother me as much as others. Oddly, the types that LJ use (in terms of positioning and ANIMATION and FLASHING and ARGGGH!) seem to be the most annoying (compared to e.g. Google and Facebook).

If you don't have an LJ, and want to read my journal ad-free (Hi Mom! Hi Eric! Hi any other crazy stalkers I don't know about!) read it at Dreamwidth: http://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org/

I am not leaving LJ, because a lot of you who I have known for many many years post there. (But if you want to move or crosspost to Dreamwidth, I have codes!) However: if you have a Plus account, I will probably either stop reading your journal (because it annoys me to get flashing ads right in my face as opposed to polite text ads in the margins), or I will move reading you to my other account (which is permanent, so no ads). ETA: I have now installed AdBlock Plus (thanks, Luz) which solves the problem.

Hello, people here from the DW friending meme thingy. I will check out your journals real soon now, I promise. Say hi or something.

Eric reminded me on my last post that I haven't posted here in a while. So, what have I been doing?

Running. This has been my first winter of serious training, and I have to say that it hasn't been bad at all. Then again, I don't actually mind running in (light) snow. I have been running more mileage than I ever have before! And I've been getting faster - I finally got the 5K monkey off my back (my 5K time has always been much slower than what is predicted by my faster races) and smoked (relatively speaking) a race on Saturday in 22:14, a PR for me by almost 1:45 and fast enough to get me first place woman! I won a gift certificate for a pair of running shoes, which I graciously gave Britt since he has started running with me on my easy days in his beat-up old sneakers.

Skiing. We have had a lot of snow this year, which has been very nice as we also have weekday passes at Purgatory. Britt and I have gone once a week, not necessarily for the whole day but we get plenty of skiing in. When the weather has been right (and it mostly has) we have gone on Fridays, when the nice restaurant up at Dante's is open: we ski some morning runs, get to the restaurant around 1:00, have some fancy food and a Backside Stout each. It's our special treat, and actually, it costs only maybe 50% more than the crappy food in the cafeteria downstairs, and it tastes 100 times better, and it's so much more pleasant to sit in the pretty room and have a nice waitress bring us our food.

And skiing once a week has definitely improved my skiing. And! I just bought fancy new boots at an end-of-season sale, and I'm gonna try them out tomorrow. I am confident they will make me ski so much better! Right?

Politics. Oh, man, you don't want to hear about local politics. *facepalm* Colorado's caucuses are in two weeks. I'm girding my loins.

Pictures. I keep forgetting to bring my camera while skiing (we have had some beautiful days!) or running. But I got some great shots of some of the deer who hang around my neighborhood, and wow, that was five weeks ago and most of that snow is GONE.

The first ski day of the season has been accomplished! \o/

Okay, so it was more like the first ski couple of hours. But the first day skiing is always a time to rediscover muscles one has forgotten about. And having a weekday pass means never having to feel guilty about only going in the nicest part of the early afternoon. (Mostly because it means feeling guilty about bugging out of work in the middle of the day. I promise to make it up tomorrow, boss!)

This is just one reason I love living in Durango: 'Chicken' interrupts council meeting

(Watch the video, too - it's only 2 minutes long. I was HOWLING with laughter.)