Merry Christmas! (and travel plans)

Hey everyone, just wanted to say Merry christmas to everyone. Kristen and I will be down in Boothbay tonight (C. eve) to do the family xmas stuff. I even think we're going to church. Should be a good time and a crowded house. Fortunately there's no new people to meet this time.
Tomorrow (christmas day), we're flying out of Portland at around 5pm. We should get to Starkville in the middle of the night/early morning, then we'll have all day of the 26th to pack for San Salvador. Then we're leaving at 11:59pm (on the 26th) for Ft. Lauderdale florida. It's a mere 17 hour drive or so, but we're taking a University van, and there's lots of people that can drive it. Then we spend the night in Ft. Lauderdale, and leave early on the 28th. I think we're supposed to return on the 8th or 9th.
I'm looking forward to the Bahamas. Should be a good time...
Oh yeah, I plan on getting you all something neat from there. Sorry, but my christmas presents are going to be late this year.
Once we get back from San Sal, we have a week or so before school starts again.
Enough about me though. I really do hope everyone has a good christmas and New years. Hope everyone stays safe and has fun visiting people. Mom and Dad, i plan on calling you tonight or tomorrow before we leave. Hopefully I'll have time.
Take care and Merry Christmas!

Sugarloaf

Thursday, Kristen's dad took us up to Sugarloaf, along with Kristen's sister Erica and her dad's girlfriend Pam. They're all downhill skiers, and I'm not. I can barely call myself an XC skier. Anywho, they spent the day going up and down the mountain, and I did my XC skiing thing all by my lonesome. Some decent scenery, but as usual when skiing, I was too distracted simply trying to stay upright or moving forward to notice it too much. I climbed up a lift line to the base lodge where we ate some lunch and warmed up. Everyone was having a blast. After lunch, Kristen skiied back down the lift line (her on normal alpine skis of course) and she worked on teaching me how to slowdown and turn. She said I got the snowplow down pretty well, but turning is still hard for me. I could turn to the left ok, but not the right. That was a whole lot better than my former descending method though... go straight until I lose control and inevitably crash. By the way, it's a pain in the ass to get back up when XC skiing. First of all, my poles have straps that wrap around the hand and are velcroed shut. Great when skiing, but it kinda renders your hands useless when you're trying to get up. I usually crash with my feet/skis at all sorts of weird angles. Getting your feet back under you is tricky, because only the toe of the ski boot is attached, so when you try to move them around, the skis tend to swing all over the place, usually making things worse. But, I always manage to get up again... But yeah, I skiied a bunch more after lunch. Only crashed a few times, and managed to stay upright on a long sorta fast descent. I tried the snowplow and turning stuff some other times too, but it turns out it's a lot harder to do when you're fenced in by trees on either side and the trail is bumpy. Anywho, I wore myself out and feel like I made some progress in my technique. I think I give up on skating until I get some skate skis (not that I'm planning on that soon). Whenever I try to skate, it doesn't seem to work quite right. I blame it on my skis being too wide (the width is great for ungroomed stuff though). So yeah, I have no idea how far I skiied, but I was skiing for about 4 hours total, so if I was going walking pace, that's maybe 15 miles or so.
Kristen and everyone else had a really good time doing the DH stuff too. Kristen wants to teach me how to do it some day, and says we have to live somewhere within an hour of skiing next. Sounds good to me! If I were going again while we're here, I think I'd rent a snowboard and take my chances with that, since I sorta know how to do that. I like XC skiing and all, but I very much appreciate the assistance of gravity (or intelligent falling). I also couldn't help thinking how cool it would be to have a snowbike out on XC ski trails, since there something like 105km or XC trails up there to explore...
Managed to take a couple pictures too, so here's some scenery.
The 'loaf from the parking lot at lunch...

View from the Nordic Lodge...

View more to the west, those are the Crockers, the AT goes right over them, then up the west face of Sugarloaf...

Maine, part 2

Well, I said I'd let you all know what's been going on up here. Pretty much nothing. We've both been completely lazy. And it's been great. Nothing really but lounging around the house reading, watching movies, or playing around on the computer (downloaded a rally racing game).
There's not enough snow to ski, and we're kinda stranded without a car anyway. I'd go ski on the lake since that's walking distance, but it's not frozen enough yet. We were going to go sledding the other day, but it got too cold and we wussed out. It's supposed to snow today, so that should warm it up a tad and maybe give us enough snow for skiing. Then I'll have to relearn how to do that...
Anywho, getting a bit of cabin fever. Hope I'll be able to get out and do something this weekend since we should have a car to use. Maybe we'll go hiking somewhere. We're headed down to Boothbay on Monday to see Kristen's grandparents, and again on Christmas eve. But yeah, I'm so used to being busy all the time that I feel like I'm wasting way too much time doing nothing. In reality, I'm enjoying being lazy, but since we spent so much to come up here, I feel like we ought to do more than sit around, since we can do that anywhere. We'll see. Guess I'll have to get off my lazy bum and do it...

Ads

So, there's now a little ad under the title... I've heard you can make some money off these things, so what the heck. If it bothers anyone, I'll get rid of it... I'm not sure how the ads are picked and I have no control over what they are. We'll see how it goes...

Richat again...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021028.html
There was a recent article about it in the journal Geology (or was it GSA Bulletin...) I came across. Didn't have time to read it though. It's hard to guess the geology based on a picture anyway, but aparently it's all sedimentary rock (so not really metamorphic). I'll read that article when i get a chance.

Lansat 7 image. The other ones were Lansat 5. Not sure what band combinations are being used (that is, why they appear different colors), but that's remote sensing mumbo jumbo.

Grades...

About to go to dinner at Kristen's dads... just wanted to mention our grades... drumroll....................
Me: all A's (4 of 'em)
Kristen: all A's (8 of 'em)
So I guess she's twice as smart. :)
More to come soon.

Maine...

Well, you all got the email that we're back in Maine. Safe trip, no problems, Zephyr made it just fine...
I promised mom I'd take a bunch of pictures. Haven't yet, but thought you might find these interesting. I missed having WorldWind, and I'm once again killing time on it...
The Caribbean. San Salvador (where we're going in a few weeks) is one of the little ones in the west without the light blue (carbonate bank) around it...

Close up of San Salvador. We'll mostly be on the northern end.
and...

The Richat Structure (overhead). In the western Sahara. Geologists don't know what the hell it is...

Another view of it... (from an angle)

MORE bikes...

So, Teal's got a sweet custom bike in the works. Can't wait to see that built up. It'll look awesome in black. How are you going to set it up? Obviously singlespeed, but what about other stuff? By the looks of it, this is no XC racer, but it doesn't seem to be a full-blown cliff dropper either. Jack of all trades? Let me know if you need any parts, I've got some nice stuff you might be interested in. I'd just like to recommend some brakes too. Don't know how much time you've spent with discs, but in my opinion Avid mechanicals can't be beat. I've had terrible luck with hydraulics though (rim and disc). I like how hydros feel, but hate the leaking... Get some 8 inch avids and you'll be golden (6" is plenty for what I do, but I hear 8" is even better). Also, love the bottle opener head badge. That's trick. The dimes are a cool touch too.
What about the geometry though? I'm curious...

Anywho, here's my SS road bike too. The only thing I'm going to change is the front wheel. Something with a black rim would make it look 10x better I think. The color is also weird in the picture. It's really a dark maroon with a very subtle metal flake glittery stuff. Specs are as follows:
1985 Trek 760 - 62cm, Reynolds 531, matching fork
Campy threaded headset
Worn out Sugino BB
Early 90's Dura-Ace crankset (172.5mm)
Cinelli Bar/stem (40mm bar, bit narrow for my liking)
generic seatpost, really long, campy one was too short
Rear wheel - Early 90's dura-ace, mavic Open4, DT swiss spokes
Front - who knows... crappy, ugly, heavy, but free
tires - Bontrager Select-K
tubes - whatever
Brakes - Shimano 105 dual pivot rear, really old DuraAce front
Shimano 105 brake levers (I have a set of old Dura-Ace ones that I'll swap them out for later)
Selle Bassano saddle (nearly identical to a Selle Italia Flite)
AtomLab TrailKing pedals (from the trials bike)
All for about $100...

Against the backdrop of the hideous love seat in my office...