zgecko

Public speaking here I come.

2010-05-03T12:28:00.000-07:00

Recently I joined Bozeman Toastmasters as my newest attempt at improving my public speaking skills. So far it was a blast. Anyone want to join?

Poem from St Nicholas Party

2009-12-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

I got this poem and since I do not want to loose it just yet here it is.

(SKI)

ZUZANNA's POEM

WHEN IT'S WINTERTIME,
ZUZANNA GOES OUT TO SKI
BECAUSE IT'S FUN,
AND MOSTLY FREE.
(SHE LIKES TO SKI AS MUCH AS ME!)
-YOU SEE
SO FAR, SHE HASN'T,
HIT A TREE.
BUT ONCE, SHE FELL,
AND SCRAPED HER KNEE.
AFTER SHE STARTS,
SHE WILL SKI AND SKI.
SHE WON'T EVEN STOP,EVEN IF
SHE HAS TO ... WORK!

Here is the one I wrote it is really meant for single person so may not make much sense for those who do not know him:

Riddle

Are you good at math?
Can you do it in your bath?
Can you do it during run?
Arrows, orbits, even sum?
Can you ski fast in ski races?
Build sheds and decks while tiling spaces?
Track your pace and sprint through land?
With your GPS at hand?

Can you conjecture who can?
XXXXX XXXXXX is that man.

(just to clarify for those that are trying to guess - no this is not poem for Tomas - GPS and Tiling spaces are obvious differentiators, but you woudl have to know both guys and some math to make that distinction)

Emerald lake

2009-10-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

Namiesto babieho leta dorazila zima, zaciatkom oktobra. Tak sme s Tomasom vyrazili na lyze. Neuveritelne vela snehu. Sneh bol nadherny, dokopca to bolo dost narocne, zato dolu to bola radost. Sneh bol fantasticky. Nie moc rychly, nie moc pomaly, makky a prijemny. Dolu kopcom to slo super. Sice sme boli prvy raz na lyziach ale cim dalej sme dosli tym lepsie to slo.
Niekolko fotiek z lyzovacky

a zobrala som si so sebou moju hracku tak som si odmerala ako daleko sme sli

US version:
It should have been Indian summer but instead we got winter. To beat the cold we decided to go ski. Snow was great not too fast not too slow, soft and forgiving. First time on the skis going downhill was a blast. The further we got easier it was to ski downhill.
Some pictures form the trip.

Plus this time I did not forget my little toy to measure how far we are going and how long it takes us.

Leto v skratke

2009-09-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

August bol plny navstev a vyletov a akcii a prilis pekne na to aby clovek sedel na pocitaci. Takze naozaj v skratke.
Najskor prisla Monika s Nicholasom a priatelmi z Pariza, ked odisli prisli Brownowci z Minnesoty a hned po nich moj brat Jan s rodinou. Takze sme sa nenudili ani chvilku.
Tiez do Bozemanu zavital nas prezident a vdaka mojim dobrym znamim som dostala aj ja listok na "Town hall meeting". Potom prisla jesen a vylety a seno a na labor day sme dokonca vyrazili na lezecky vikend to Wyomingu

fotky, z miest kam som si nezabudla doniest fotak a ked mi aj fungoval, su v albume:
http://picasaweb.google.com/zgedeon

Summer at a glance
August was full of visits and tours and action and too much to the man sitting on a computer. So in a nutshell really.
First came the Monica, Nicholas and friends from Paris, while they went Brown family came from Minnesota and immediately after, my brother Jan's family. So we are busy for a moment.
Also president visited us in Bozeman and are well acquainted (thanks to my friends) with my thanks I got myself ( my friends got me) a ticket for the Town Hall meeting. Then came the autumn, and tours and hay on Labor Day and we even went to Wyoming's climbing weekend

photos from places where I can forget when he brought the camera and I also worked, in the album are:
http://picasaweb.google.com/zgedeon

(note: gotta love the the last sentence by google!)

Hike to Koch and house update

2009-07-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

So house residing is pretty much done, needs some paint job and details. We did hit a roadblock on inside, they are out of stock on what I would like installed, so that may need to wait. And Tomas is now starting to work on deck.

And on the weekend we left Jakub at home and went hiking and camping with Tomas. Did a beautiful loop in Taylor Hilgard wilderness and hiked up the Koch peak. If there were't mosquitoes it was really nice hike.

Busy weekend

2009-07-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

Minuly vikend sme mali celkom zaujimavy, prerabame vonkajsie oblozenie domu - alebo lepsie povedane - prerabaju nam ho, povacsine. Ale nemaluju, tak som si povedala ze je jednoduchsie malovat ked netreba davat pozor na okolite detaily a tak som sa v Piatok vecer pustila do premalovavania podstriesky, aby som to stihla skor nez nam nainstaluju oblozenie. Tu su fotky pred prestavbou a minuly tyzden pred mojim malovanim, casom pridam aj nove fotky.

V Sobotu rano sme vstavali skoro aby sme stihli golf - hrali sme spolu s ostatnymi kolegami 18 jamiek. Celkom zabava akurat som skoro pri kazdej lopticke vykopala aj jamku - trava letela skoro dalej ako golfova lopticka - hlavne ked som ju netrafila. Ale na zaciatocnika to nie je najhorsie. Vozili sme sa s osobnym soferom - ktory mal 9 rokov ale nadsene nas vozil sialenou ruchlostou po golfovom hrisku. Bol to syn nasich spoluhracov na time. mali so sebou 2 deti a tak boli spokojni ze mohli jazdit kazdy na "svojom" auticku. Samozrejme sa k tomu podavalo pivo a "hard lemonade" tak ako sme postupovali sa nam hralo lepsie a lepsie...

Tu je viac fotiek z golfu
Potom sme mali cokoladovu party az do vecera.
V nedelu rano som sa budila skoro aby som stihla domalovat druhy nater zatial kym Tomas isiel byciklovat po horach. No a poobede sme isli na svadbu Christiny a Jasona.

Musim povedat ze ked sme dosli domov tak som uz celkom veselo odpadla do postele.

Climbing at natural bridge

2009-07-12T17:37:00.001-07:00

This weekend we went with most of my climbing buddies to climb and camp out. Same place we visited a year ago with my dad and Jacob. We all met in the morning at the parking lot and went from there.

Short hike and short but with dogs not really easy descent and we were in this amazing enclosed area shaded from sun, perfect for climbing.

We kind of started with eating lunch first. And then had great fun.

I think everyone climbed everything doable and then we tried top-roping some harder routes that Noriko and another random climber that happened to be there helped set up.

In the evening we went camping together. Some fished we made dinner and then fire and had a blast until quite late.

Maybe we should do something like this more often.

As for animals this was so far best weekend yet. better than last week and a lot better than the hike in Yellowstone. Along the way there we saw some antelopes. After climbing on the way to campground we saw cars parked along the way watching brown bear, they showed us where. It was really nice to see, although Doug said that they saw bear crossing their road earlier in the morning - theirs was black. And shortly after in right under beaver dam was a happy beaver swimming in circles. Unfortunately, by the time I got my camera out it was gone. And on the way back home we saw some more antelopes and bold eagle perched atop a dead tree overlooking Yellowstone river.

Oh yeah I almost forgot our little adventure, shortly before we arrived we got flat. So from that point on we drove to the camp and back 34miles and all the way home on spare. It worked, just took a lot longer to drive slowly. Now I still need to get it fixed somehow.

Saddle peak

2009-07-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

Dnes sme vyslapali na Saddle peak. Hore nas cakalo mile prekvapenie - cele stado horskych oviec. Lizali cosi zo zeme a moc si nas nevsimali. Videli sme pred nami len jednu skupinu 3 turistov a zdalo sa ze tam nik iny nedosiel, hoci po ceste dole sme postretavali dost ludi co vysli len kusok a nedosli az ku ovciam. Po ceste dolu sme poculi hrmenie ale nebol dazd, a mraky sa rozisli tak rychlo ako sa zisli.

US:Today we hiked to saddle peak. The day was great and even our son agreed to join us. Up high we had nice surprise waiting for us. There was whole herd of mountain sheep up there right by the trail and on the hill above. They were licking something from the ground and seemed to be too much interested in that part to pay attention to some tourists. Up there there was only another group of 3 that was ahead of us and no one else who made it that far. On the way back we heard some thunder but no rain caught us up there and clouds were dissolving just as quickly as they accumulated.
SK (prelozene s google):Dnes sme sa prudko zvýšila na špičku sedla. Tento deň bol veľký, a dokonca aj náš syn dohodli sa k nám. Vzhůru sme milé prekvapenie nás čaká. Bolo celé stádo horských oviec hore vpravo od cesty a na kopci nad. Byli lízání niečo z krajiny a zdalo sa to byť príliš veľký záujem o túto časť venovať pozornosť niektorých turistov. Tam bol len inej skupiny 3, ktorý bol pred nami, a nikto iný, kto to tak ďaleko. Na spiatočnej ceste sme počuli niektoré hrom, ale dážď nás tam a mraky boli rozpustením rovnako rýchlo, ako sa kumulovanými.

Black canyon of Yellowstone river.

2009-06-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

Today we hiked in yellowstone.
pictures are posted here:

yellowstone river hike

Crust cruising in Yellowstone

2009-05-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

Napriek tomu ze sme boli prec lyzovacka si na nas pockala. Po usedavom snezeni prisli teple dni so studenymi nocami a to zmeni sneh tak ze sa vytvori skrupina (Crust) a rano je pevna natolko ze sa da na povrchu lyzovat. Nevyhoda je ze treba vstavat skoro a tak sme sa poctivo zobudili o 5 rano. Svietil nadherny mesiac a ked sme o 5:40 konecne vyrazili tak uz bolo celkom vidno a ked sme o hodinu dorazili na miesto tak slnko uz bolo celkom vysoko.

Crust cruising

Kym sme dolyzovali uz bolo vyse 10C a celkom pripekalo.
Po lyzovacke sme navstivili nasho kamarata v jeho novej lokalite. Teda restauracia je uz prestahovana skoro rok, ale nam sa tam este nepodarilo zavitat.

US (via google translate API - looks like it still needs a bit of work)
Despite the fact that we were prec lyzovacka you delay us. After a heartrending snow prisli warm days and cold Noca to change the snow to the creation of the shell (crust) and in the morning is hard enough that it is on the surface of skiing. The disadvantage is the need to build in early and we honestly please wake o 5 rano. Lights wonderful month and when we finally came out about 5:40 so there were quite visible and when we arrived an hour to place the sun so there were quite high. While we dolyzovali already vyse 10C and total pripekalo. Lyzovacka After we visited our friends in its new location. And the restaurant is already almost a year of moving, but in us there is not this zavíta.

More photos from Nepal

2009-05-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

Tomas did a bit better job organizing and actually
talking about where we were in his new picasa album.
SK: kliknite si na link. Tomas si spravil vlastny album s fotkami nepalu, a popismi kde sme boli a co sme videli. On vybral dost ine fotky od tych co som publikovala ja.

Nepal

2009-04-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

I posted pictures of

Nepal

and

Bangkok

next news from nepal; back in kathmandu

2009-04-23T19:54:00.001-07:00

This morning we got on first plane with seti arlines. I got front
seat. will see if the pictures turn out. we are back in our hotel in
Kathmandu, waiting for our room to get ready.
There is free internet here so I am using the opportunity to post.

more news from nepal

2009-04-22T02:28:00.001-07:00

So we did manage to travel from Kathmandu on local bus to Shivalia (
as I found out just yesterday that translates to "house of shiva") and
started our trek. after acsending over 6000m and dec\scending about as
much in a week we arrived to Namche bazaar (and first trully hot
"solar powered" hot shower!)
Now we closed the loop and are back at Namche (and back to hot shower!
ahh the simple pleasures of life) after crossing Cho-la pass in over
5300m thankfully withouth major AMS - accute mountain sickness (sounds
too much like PMS)
and tomorrow is our last day of walking to Lukla and hopefully
katching a plane back to kathmandu the next day - weather permitting.
So far we are alive and quite happy and in quite decent hiking form. I
will add more posts and photos when we get back.

US first news from nepal

2009-04-05T17:17:00.001-07:00

After unbetievably long floght 4 planes and one between la and bagkok
took over 17hours we arrived to Katmandu. got whisked by taxidrivers
and handlers on th airport to downtown and our new place of stay
Shangri La hotel. Nothing much but for the price not bad.
people ar eincredibly nice and trying to help. we got untroduced to
local guide, who speaks pretty fluently english, and surprisingly some
chech. used to guide some grous from prague, several years in a row.
He talked us out of Anapurna circuit and ino "road less traveled" from
Jiri to Lukla, from there we will do loop near Everest (that part is
supposedly guite busy with turists) and fly back to Katmandu.
We became facebook friends.
They already finished roads around Anapurna so teh idea of trekking
where cars go dod not appeal to us too much and we modified plans. Ahh
the beauty of not much planning. they also talked us to hiring a
guide/porter. The advantage is that he can arrange our guest houses
before we get there and mu hope is that he can enlighten us on local
culture and customs. The adde benefit is, he will haul some of our
gear. So today we will do some sighteeing around katmandu and tomorrow
morning we start trekking.

Katmandu is impressive turist metropolis. lots of cars and
mootorcycles and some bikes with loads of turists chare narrow dusty
roads. center of town is full of tourist shops, you can get anything
from maps, local souveniers to complete equipment for trip to Everest
all within few walking steps. Lots of good food and even ATMs here and
there, those are hardest to find , but once we got oriented not too
bad. But for our trip we could simply pay directly with dollars and
they accept credit card, but with minor differnce from US, they will
pass creditcard charges onto customer. Adn there is 13% sales tax on
everything.
The light is coming up ( I am jetlagged so Iwoke up quite early and
decided to use this time, since the electricity is also on to write)
I might come again tomorrow, after that it will probably start to be scarce.

Re: cauko

2009-04-05T16:58:00.001-07:00

som nasla internet,
tak len tolko ze sme stastne dorazili, nechali sa na letiku naverbovat
taxikarom, ten nas zobral do hotelika, Shangri La, nic uzasne ale za
$10 na den aj s cajom a internetom v cene ;-)

teraz kedze mam jetlag tak sedim a pisem
bol tu aj guide a ten sa s nami pri caji porozpraval o trailoch ,
anapurna je vraj vybudovana a vacsinou je tam cesta pre auta kde sme
planovali trekovat, tak nas to ordadilo, ked sme sa putali kolko aut
tam jazdi denne, vykluli sa z toho 3 autobusy a 7 minibusov za den
hore a dole, ale aj to je dost aby nas to netesilo.

Tak nas nahovorili na vylet ( co tomas neplanoval na prvy krat lebo
sme si mysleli ze je to prlis vzdialene) ale teraz sa zda ze to je
lepsi alternativa
ked som to zpocitala tak aj s dopravou (autobusom do na zasiatok a po
konci lietadlom naspat z lukly ) a stravou a platenym
nosicom/sprievodcom nas to vyjde
okolo$1100 na 17 dni 700 za vsetky dolezitosti a typujeme 400 na
stravu a ubytovanie pre nas.
Takze ideme autobusom jednu dedinu za Jiri (to sme museli odrezat koli
casu) odtiel peso do Lukly odtial potom okruh nedaleko everestu - n
tej poslednej casti je hodne turistov a odtial lietadlom naspat.
katamandu je zaujimave mesto, neuveritelna turisticka metropola vsade
plno ludi a turistov kopec aut a motoriek a zopar byciklov a vsetci sa
svorne delia o polorozpadnute cesty. tak je to nesmierny chaos, na
chvilku zabavne ale po case dost unavujuce. je tu kopec prachu po
niektorych cestach este viac. A vsade dost spiny na nasske pomery.
Ulice su plne maluch obchodikov , v tejto oblasti su vsetky obchody
zamerane na turistov. tak nas to moc nelaka, ale kupilal som si suknu
abu som mala v com chodit. vecer sme boli v thajskej restike, jedlo
bolo fantasticke a tam bolo az prilis luxusne. typujem ze nas hotelik
je lacny ale videli sme aj ine co vyzeraju uplne luxusne.
najali sme si sprievodcu, hlavne preto ze by mal vediet po anglicku a
ze nam bude ediet sprostredkovat uytovanie a preklady po ceste, a ja
dufam ze nas nauci cosi o lokalnej kulture. videla som tu kopec
roznych yogovych miest a reklamy na spa.
elektrina je len zopar hodin za den pravidelne ju pre mesto vypnu =
uprostred vecere v restauracii zhaslo svetlo, pochopili sme ze sviecky
na stole tam nie su len pre okrasu. ale chvilku potom sme zase videli
niektore miesta osvetlene, jednoducho tie bohatsie miesta pouzivaju
generatory. AJ som spokojna aj po tme. doniesli sme si baterku co sa
dobija klukou a tak mame dost svetla.
co sa tyka sprch vraj tu vodu zohrievaju zo slnka ale ztial sa nam
nepodarilo zostit ako si pustit teplu vodu. co pre nas znamenalo
chladivu sprchu. vdaka tomu ze vonku je celkom hic to bolo prijemne
osviezujuce.

dnes planujeme popozetat pamatihodnosti katmandu a v utorok vyrazime
na cestu, musiem totiz poskat kym nam vybavia vsetky turisticke
povolenia a kupia letenku a listok na autobus, ta cast je prijemna ze
sa nemusime extra starat.

majte sa a este asi napisem zajtra

Annapurna trail

2009-03-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Finally found distance and elevation of the Annapurna trail.
What the ..., am I doing?
Still it should be fun.
Tomas does not know yet but since his backpack is way oversize, maybe I will unload mine inside his. It is only about 10kg extra.
At least I will be only few days above my usual elevation and starting low will help with getting the legs to go - so I hope.

Why economy collapses?

2009-03-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

I guess this is good explanation - if even managers do not know the difference between cent and dollar I am no longer surprised.

Make sure to wait the operator calls the supervisor for help. Tomas' comment was that he thought it just takes good teacher to teach calculus to some people, but this guy did his best! So his theory is shattered.

actually one of the comments on the original blog was:
'As for Verizon, i think this is the best argument i've ever heard in favor of outsourcing call centers to India.
Actually, next time you call them, try that tactic: "Can i de-escalate this matter to some kid in India? He'll understand." '

Bozeman explosion

2009-03-05T10:12:00.001-08:00

Tu je ako to vyzeralo predtym a teraz

US: before and after pictures

The story is being covered at Montana news station

Crochet a Water Bottle Cozy - wikiHow

2009-03-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

Well I bought these cool bottles made out of stainless steel but they can not get hot stuff in them - otherwise it is easy to burn your hands. That is untill I found this Wikihow - happened to show up on daily wikihows, I gues I am not teh only one with this issue. Now I need to make one or find someone aho want to try to make one.
Crochet a Water Bottle Cozy - wikiHow
When that is done with real wool yarn that is all I need!

Spomienka na Japonsko

2009-02-23T20:59:00.000-08:00

No a kedze Tomas je teraz v Japonsku, tak mi je tak trochu luto ze som tam neni aj ja, ale som si pozrela fotky z minula.

On nema zdaleka tolko casu behat po pamatihodnostiach ako som mala ja.
Zato poslal fotky

To dobre papanie mu asi zavidim najviac. Hoci tentokrat asi tolko nechodia do kadejakych vegetarianskych budhistickych restauracii.

US: Ok so Tomas is in Japan and I would probably rather be there than here, although the beautiful weather here beats rainy Japan. Only last 2 pictures are actually from his trip, the rest are from our trip together 2 years ago, mainly from my lovely lonely travels while he was working. It was incredibly healing experience.

Boulder Mountain Tour 2009

2009-02-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

Tak sme sa tento rok zase vybrali spolu s Tomasom a skupinou znamych lyziarov z Bozemanu na preteky do Sun Valley v Utahu. Ja som moc netrenovala - najdlhsi trening bol tyzden pred pretekami vylet do Hyalite a to som ledva presla 10km.

Bolo tam pekne. Tento rok sa pocasie vydailo a nastastie sa mi lyze celkom dobre klzali.A tak som dorazila v neuveritelnom case. Po 32 km sice dost vystavena, ale to uz k tomu patri. Tomas fotil a tak ma cvakol pri prichode.

Potom sme sa rozdelili chlapi sli na pivo a baby na kavicku. neuveritelne sme sedeli pri stole vonku pred kaviarnou a vyhrievali sme sa na slniecku. No a potom sme isli na kazdorocny vrchol programu - do horuceho bazena. Zase si tam vsetci kupili pivo, ja som pila vodu co som si doniesla, lebo keby som si dala pivo tak sa ta asi utopim. No a v nedelu rano sme sa pomaly naranajkovali a pokecali si v prenajatom byte kde sme byvali 9-ti. A isli sme zase lyzovat.

Boli tam predvadzaci lyzi a poziciavali tam ukazky, tak si kazdy cosi skusal, ja som si veselo lyzovala na svojich bezkach. Prevapujuco som sa citila celkom dobre a den bol zase nadherny. Potom sme sa vratili do nasho prenajateho bytu, a vyraszili domov.
Cesta bola neuveritelne sucha a rychla a tak sme boli doma za 6 hodin. Jakub nas cakal doma aj s jeho kamaratmi, a po veceri a pokece sa vratil naspat na intrak.
No slovom nadherny vikend.

US: Well I am too lazy to translate the whole thing, so in short: first picture is our trip to Hyalite week before the race. Then next 3 pictures are start of the race, and me near collapse at the end. Tomas surprisingly brought camera and actually managed to snap couple pictures, although I surprised him with my fast time. Next day we met everyone else from Bozeman on the demo day in the ski area. Day was really gorgeous and it was fun to hang around with our friends.
more info is on

Planovanie cesty do Nepalu

2009-01-21T16:55:00.000-08:00

Tak najnovsie spravy su ze sme sa dohodli s Tomasom ze pojdeme este na jeden vacsi vylet. Tentokrat do Nepalu. Kedze ideme sami tak planujeme ze vyrazime na cosi relativne jednoduche: Anapurna trail Tato stranka ma pekne fotky a rozpis dni a dokonca aj mapu kade sa ide.

US: So we decided with Tomas to go hike to Nepal. For starters we picked something that seems doable: Anapurna trail This site has nice photos and trail map and description.
And here is a site about weather.

Announcement - upozornenie

2009-01-20T21:45:00.000-08:00

Mili priatelia zmenili sme styl blogovania, rozhodla som sa pisat komentare po slovensky a tiez kedze sme zanedbali pol roka blogovania, pridam nase akcie ked bude cas, ale zaradim ich casovo tam kde by mali byt keby som ich tam davala nacas, tak si obcas pozrite starsie zapisy, mozno nieco pribudne (presne tak ako som dnes uverejnila fotky a zaznamy z vianocnych sviatkov)

US: For our english speaking friends: I changed main language for blogs. Also I will post stuf post dated so check old posts every now and then for "new/old" entries. Anyway I am quite curious how RSS feeds will handle that.

Yellowstone quakes

2009-01-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

So I gave in and had to look
after all the news about increased seismic activity in Yellowstone I did some of my own research to find more information.
There is older site with nice pictures and some history on U.S. Geological Survey Tracking Changes in Yellowstone's Restless Volcanic System (2004)

Quote from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory:
"The recent swarm is well above typical activity at Yellowstone. Nevertheless it is not unprecedented during the last 40 years of monitoring. Swarms are the typical mode of occurrence of earthquakes within the Yellowstone caldera, with magnitudes ranging to > 4.0. The 1985 swarm on the northwest rim of the caldera lasted for three months, with earthquakes up to M4.9 and over 3000 total events recorded."

From these sources it seems that "nearly all the things that would constitute warning signs already exist in some measure at Yellowstone" last time the big eruption happened was 150,000-60,000 years ago and supposedly the frequency is every 600,000 years (Where they get those numbers I have no clue), so we can only hope that we have still couple hundred thousand years 'till the next eruption.

Additional info (Jan. 9th 2009):
Today (there was an article in Bozeman Daily Chronicle "She’s not gonna blow!" with a comment that “The U.S. Geological Service is not affiliated with a Web site that recommends evacuation of Yellowstone National Park and bears the USGS logo.”

Hyalite Tour

2009-01-03T21:31:00.000-08:00

Zda sa ze to uz bude kazdorocna tradicia. Aj tento rok tu odpluhovali cestu k vodnemu rezervoaru, a upravili lyziarske trasy a zorganizovali vylet do Hyalite. Den ani nemohol vyst lepsie. Po dlhom snezeni bolo nadherne slnko a aj zima co-to polavila. Ved fotky hovoria za vsetko.Vyrazili sme trochu neskoro, ale nastastie sme si vybrali opacny smer a tak sme vsetkych kamosov stretli ked isli oproti.


From 01_03_Hyalite_tour

US: Local organisations got together with forest service and we got plowed road all the way to Hyalite and some groomed trails up there for annual hyalite tour. weather was awesome and we met our friends, thanks to the fact that we were circling the trail in opposite direction.

Skiing on Christmas day

2008-12-25T20:55:00.000-08:00

Na prvy sviatok vianocny sme sa napraskani dobrotkami vybrali na vylet asi 10 minut autom na vychodnej strane Bozemanu su verejne lesy a este sme tam tusim nikdy nelyzovali. Dokonca aj Jakub isiel s nami, tak sme si spravili jedinecnu rodinnu fotku.
Nahodny lyziar co sme ho stretli bol ochotny a odfotil nas vsetkych spolu.Bolo fajn.

OK for english speaking friends I will try to post translations (very loose translations at that): So this is Christmas day. Full of goodies we skied near Bozeman. Check the map if you will.

Yellowstone s konmi

2008-07-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

V Juli sme boli zase v Yellowstone tentokrat velmi luxusne s komplet stravou a zabavami. Najskor sme isli na Tomasov vysnivany vylet (18 mil!) a to ma v podstate celou cestou tlacili topanky a iba cast cesty bolelo brucho, tak to nebolo take zle.

Najlepsie bolo ked sme ku koncu brodili rozvodnene potoky - moje ubolene nozicky sa tesili studenemu obkladu. Samozrejme nam to trvalo dlhsie ako si Tomas naplanoval a zmeskali sme predplatenu luxusnu veceru v Yellowstone Lodge, nastastie nam ju potom prehodili na dalsi vecer. Ked sme navela navela dorazili do Lodge, cakala nas tam cokoladova bonboniera - lebo som pri objednavani spomenula ze to je na moje narodeniny. Boli vyborne. A dobre nam padli. S plnkou z Montanskych Huckleberries (v podstate cucoriedky).
Druhy den sme sli na 2 hodinovy vylet na konoch, bolo to nadherne ale nezvyknute tela su nezvyknute tela, celkom sme to zvladli obcerstveni zmrzlinkou. Jakub spraskal cely kelimok.

A na treti den sme sa pomaly pobrali domov. Samozrejme sme zvladli obzriet geyziry.

Ako zvycajne Yellowstone bol neuveritelne fotogenicky a tento krat este stale plny kvetov. Zima bola tento rok dlha a sneh sa udrzal. Dokonca sme este cez nejaky aj prechadzali prvy den na nasom vylete. Ocividne sa horskym kozam na tom snehu za horuceho dna celkom paci.

US:Yellowstone, just chek out pictures they are great. First day on the way there we stopped for 18 mile hike, that ends by 2 river crossings. Next day we went for 2 hour horse back ride. Last day it was really nice just to stroll around short park hikes around geysers.

BDSRA conference

2008-07-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

V polke Jula sme isli na nasu kazdorocnu konferenciu. Tento rok sa slo do Denveru. Tentokrat sa mi podarilo presvedcit aj Jakuba aby s nami isiel. NEnafotili sme tam moc. Stretli sme sa s nasimi priatelmi, porozpravali a dozvedeli nove vysledky vyskumov priamo od doktorov. Na zaver bola velka oslava.

As every year we again went on our trip to BDSRA conference. Most pictures we took at the final party.

July 4th grad student party

2008-07-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

To properly celebrate independence day we actually did go to a party. Mike was so nice and invited us over. I was pretty tired of biking most of the day with Tomas, but here I was at the party.
I got an idea that I will start a new blog, picture gallery all about shoes.
It is a long story but you can read about it in my new shoe blog.
Even Jakub made it there with us and looked like he enjoyed himself there, he managed to "close the box twice!

Anyway once you click on the picture it will take you to the gallery with more pictures from the party enjoy.

Math conference hike in Yellowstone

2008-06-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

(another entry by our famous guest columnist Tomas)

After a Mathematical Biology conference that took place in Bozeman June 4-6 2008,
four of us, Jim Cushing, Hal Smith, Patrick DeLenheer and me, went for a hiking trip to Yellowstone National Park. Our original goal was to hike a Specimen Ridge Trail that winds for 10 miles along a grassy ridge between Lamar Valley and the Yellowstone River, before dropping to the Lamar Valley, crossing the Lamar River and arriving at the Soda Butte trailhead.
Crossing the Lamar River proved to be a problem. After a very long winter the snow has barely started to melt, which together with sustained rains made fording Lamar river a suicide mission.

So we decided to shorten the trail. We started at the Yellowstone picnic area along the trails that shadows Yellowstone on a high bluff and joins with the Specimen Ridge trail after two miles. The flying eagle picture is from here and I also took picture of Yellowstone river.
After a short uphill, where we disturbed a badger digging a hole, we entered a high grassy ridge, that gradually climbed towards Specimen Ridge. We have encountered a herd of elk that was quite skittish and ran away from us, as well as two buffalo that also run away.
Elk and buffalo ran into each other, elk got a bit nervous and decided to back off. That is when I took the elk picture. We continued along the Agate creek trail and surprised 4 antelopes: one buck and three females. The buck crossed the trail ahead of us (joining the buffalo on the picture), but females refused to go along; he returned to the other side to join them.

After a lunch we saw a big storm coming from thew west and decided to head up hill to join the Specimen Ridge trail and return to the car. The snowstorm hit us full force with strong winds and wet snow driving horizontally. We made it to the top, and just as the storm was moving away we have found the trail. Since the trail is crossing open terrain and is not used much, it does exist only as an abstract construct joining occasional kerens and poles in the ground. As we came upon a small ridge a grizzly was moving along the next ridge line in full view, but fortunately, not very close.

After another short snowstorm we found a pair of buffalo stoically enduring the tempest and a another small herd that move quickly up a small ridge and then ran away. Patrick and Hal were unsuccessfully trying to convince three bulls to give us the right of way on the trail - we ended up circling around.

Coming down to the saddle where the Specimen Ridge trail and the "Yellowstone ridge" trail come together Hal spied a black bear, that came to the trail and started to hike the trail toward us. After coming withing about 80 yards, he started to roll around in the grass. We made a detour around him and then he got up and continued up the trail we came down from.
A third snowstorm passed quickly and we came down to our car.
We went to Lamar valley which was radiantly green with hundreds of buffalo and a lot of water. A magical place. On the way back we spied a fast moving black wolf on the north side of the road.

Other pictures are from the car trip to and from the trail head. In the morning we saw 2 buffalo next to the road with steam coming from their backs as the morning sun was gaining strength; a group of three coyotes crossed the road and we saw some antelopes.

And on the way back between Tower and Mammoth in a small draw was a throng of cars watching mama coyote with her small pups.

Climbing

2008-05-31T07:43:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was last day for Doug to go with us climbing before moving down under, So I brought my camera to document his climbs. And just have a little extra fun, and test the camera in different situation.

I managed to lead the one climb where Tom hangs head down without hands.

Floods in Bozeman

2008-05-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

Monday I went with my dad to look at all the floods. For a while he was looking at how high the rivers were getting - so this is the "ultimate high" for these rivers.On eside of Kagy was closed - for obvious reasons

I washed my undercarriage a bit as well, just like you can see in some of the pictures.
The guy driving on the closed road obviously had some serious fun, while lady in the white truck stopped to make a phone call, before proceeding (probably home) through all the water.

Golf courses were full of water but we saw couple people with their golf gear near golf courses and I saw one lone golfer actually play in semi dry stretch. And some of the houses were really sorry houses

Goodreads after Craft Night

2008-04-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

After a while I made it again to my Craft Night. And got introduced to goodreads - so I had to test their widget here.

Vasaloppet.

2008-03-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

An entry from our guest columnist Tomas:
(Also published by FasterSkier magazine.)

Vasaloppet.

The morning starts early - the buses leave Mora for 90 km distant Salen between 4:30 and 5:00 - there must have been more then hundred buses for the hour and half ride to the start. Last 10 km is completely clogged and so we arrive at start at 7 am. There is never enough port-a-poties so there are people all around relieving themselves in the bushes and down the bank on the river. There are 3 TV helicopters circling around - this is a live 5 hour broadcast on Swedish national TV. There are 16,000 people starting the race - half of city of Bozeman.
The start is anticlimactic.

Since we have not done the race (we = me + 5 other Bozeman guys) we had to start in the last wave behind 10,000 people. The whole mass is stretched for about a half a mile, 100 - 150 people wide, and when it starts, it takes about 5 minutes before you even move in the back. We do not even hear a starters gun. Then after about a mile there is a hill where all grinds into a standstill.

People are completely packed- people step on your poles, skis and you step on theirs. People fall, poles break and it takes an hour and 10 minutes to shuffle up the first hill (about half a mile long). It was the most weirdest experience I have ever had. You talk a bit to your neighbors, but mostly it is a earily silent - just wood on wood, skis on skis.
After you climb that first hill you can start skiing. However, all traces of tracks for skis is gone after 10,000 people; the snow is transformed into icy mess, and, in addition, this particular day conditions were right around zero C with fresh snow, which are the worst possible conditions for waxing. So our wax did not work and we had to propel ourselves forward only by pushing by our poles. It is a great and solemn sight as lines and lines of people double pole across the vast flat planes, across forests, on the shores of lakes and through small hamlets and villages. Swedes are tough, tough people; there was a guy who has done 55 years in a row (he started in 1953, when he was 19). There are women, old people and young people: everyone just puts their poles down, push,and repeat for 8,9, 10 hours.
The king has done it three times, the crown prince once, and one of the princesses has done the womens Vasa which is 30 km this year. Everywhere you go in Sweden people either have done, really wish the have done it, or plan to do it. For them it is not a race - tt is a national rite of passage, which separates boys from men.
The race is 90 km long - about 55 miles. Every 10-11 km there is an aid station - always in a small village, with brass band playing, announcer commenting on people coming through ( I was called out twice - "Tomas from Amerika, seems like here for the first time" (he guessed from my high bib number), "but we hope not for the last time").
The best thing they serve is "Blobar"-blueberry soup - I had three cups on every station. They also serve sports drink and bagels. There are waxing stations with huge lines of people hoping for some miracle wax - I know better,and keep plugging along.

After 45 km the course descends a little bit from the mountains and snow changes to a wet mush with icy tracks. The tracks were fast, but it was difficult to pass people, because you need to step out of track to pass but the snow was much slower there.
Last 20 km seemed like I am almost home - by then I abandoned thoughts on passing people and was just looking forward to getting done.
The finish is in town on Mora, the tracks wind through a big park with the skating ring and then across a bridge into town. There are thousands of people cheering and staying there until late evening to cheer for those at the end. After you cross finish line there is an impressive organization, which takes your skis, put you on the continuously running buses to a soccer field, where you find you bag of warm-up clothes, then you march to a huge communal showers. These consist of two basketball courts where you dump your stuff and then go to 5 shower rooms, which are crammed with about 50 people each, sharing showers and, luckily for me, soap and shampoo. It is a quite close encounter with humanity. After shower it is a time for meal - it is served in the hockey ring, on the ice covered with carpets.
Rice, salad, turkey, low alcohol beer, bread and cheese - good stuff.
Then buses back to your skis, another building where diplomas are printed and then time to watch people still streaming in, silent, determined, hundreds of them. By now it is getting dark.
Last 10 km has lights on, but they close the tracks at that last station at 6:30 pm- the last person arrives at 7:45 - almost 12 hours on skis. There were about 11,000 finishers - the other 5,000 either did not show up or did not make a prescribed time cut on one of the aid stations. I passed about 3,500 people, finished in 8 hours and 6 minutes somewhere around
5800 place.

I walk home for half an hour and then talk with the people we stayed with. Niils and Anika have done Vasa 6 and 8 times respectively and they volunteered for 20 years. For Mora there is time before Vasaloppet and after - 3000 volunteers are needed to put the race on. In the evening all of us gather for a beer and share war stories - all of us finished in times ranging from 7 to 9 and half hours.
It was a long day and a great experience.

photos from the race 1
photos from the race 2
photos from the race 3
photos from the race 4
photos from the race 5
photos from the race 6

Company outing

2008-02-26T18:56:00.000-08:00

Little company perks are great!
Today we got half day off and free tickets to our local resort along with some card to use for food. There was a small group of us skiing together - later we separated and rejoined group in the bar.
We had great day skiing - needless to say this was my second downhill skiing this year, it was great. we decided to start easy on Pierre's knob. But when we got there Roger said - lets go down flippers -so much for "easy". Starting on double diamond - I baled out since my skis did not want to do what I wanted them to do just yet. Later it got better. I had on my GPS - I now use it as a watch - since I do not have any other watch, and while I have it with me I can at least measure what we do - again it is easy to count runs and where we went at the end of the day just by looking at elevation profile. I forgot to start the timer (and collect data) at the beginning so the first two runs on Pierre's knob are not recorded but then deer park and Bridger and last runs on Pierre's Knob are all there - it is easy to know which one is which just by elevation profile.

Sun Valley, Boulder mountain tour race.

2008-02-08T21:23:00.000-08:00

Last week we went for a weekend in Sun Valley - but instead of downhill skiing we skied "uphill" Actually it was still mostly downhill.
As you can see from the terrain profile. I did not strap on my heart rate monitor, but used my garmin for mapping the terrain. I forgot to recharge it, so shortly into the race I got "low battery" announcement. But it obviously survived another 2.5 hours on low battery. Here are my
pictures from the race and image of one professional racer.
Next day we decided to not go downhill skiing although we hauled all the stuff up there, we skied some more in the Sun Valley nordic centre, it was really pretty and amazingly enough all the racers that beat me badly day before were nice enough and stuck with me - for most of the time anyway. So we had a great time made some new friends and I did something I have never done before once again skied almost 20 miles and then some more almost 10 miles the next day.

Silvergate

2008-01-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend we rented a little cabin in Silvergate. To get there you need to go through Yellowstone. Weather was not exactly very cooperative - it was cold and snowing, but we saw quite few interesting scenes and managed to ski around at leas little bit.
First day we saw herds of elks, buffaloes, and couple wolves and then later one wolf feeding near the road. We tried to get closer to the nature so we put on our skis and headed to the Lamar valley - no luck there, it looked that all the wildlife congregates near the road. So we decided to head for the warm cabin.
Buffaloes did not want to let us pass on the road and instead picked up a fight. It was most likely triggered by oncoming car. We were surprised to see the car approaching pretty fast, and as it neared buffaloes they spooked a bit and one of them probably moved too close to the other, they were two bulls and started butting heads. The car backed up pretty fast after that. Then we were just patiently waiting until they decided that was enough and moved out of the road. At least for the oncoming traffic. It took us quite a bit longer to get past them. We had to wait while they galloped down the road in front of us. Until finally turned to face us and moved to the other side of the road.
Cabin was cozy and quite warm, while there was no fireplace at least it has all the modern conveniences. It was still too early so we explored nearby Cooke city. It was full of snowmobilers revving their engines and running up and down the street. I was really happy that our cabin was in Silvergate, 4 miles closer to Yellowstone and peaceful and quiet. So we went back made spaghetti for dinner and enjoyed quiet evening. Some of us reading and some playing on computer.
Next morning Tomas woke us up with smell of sautéed onion for breakfast burritos. After that we headed out in freezing wind and bitter cold to explore neighborhood, before we will need to pack and go. As soon as we hid in the woods and wind stopped it was not so bad anymore. Tomas got a short lesson on classic skiing from Jakub and we turned back, packed and headed out through Yellowstone back home. We stopped by Yellowstone river and did another short ski trip. It was quite fun to go directly down the hill and needed to push hard to even keep going in almost waist deep snow.
Later we saw another coyote, and shortly after a wolf jumped on the road in front of us and kept running in front of our car until it found a place to get of the road and hid in the woods. We saw many more buffaloes and elk herds and at the end went to warm up in the boiling river. The hardest part was to undress in 5F and bitter cold wind, but the river was worth it. We stopped for dinner in Pine Creek cafe. We tried that several times but we somehow never managed to stop there when they were open, usually we showed up too early, they open at 5:30 for dinner. This time we were ther eonly couple minutes early and decided to wait. Food was great and cakes even better.
By the time we arrived home it was below zero. Winter is comming!

Tarhee skiing

2008-01-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

To commence my Garmin Forrerunner testing, I took it today to see how it does with all day downhill skiing. First I forgot to turn it on so we did 2 runs on main lift before I remembered. It had really hard time to find satellite at the beginning. We started skiing in clouds - not much visibility, which was the case for most of the day. We finally saw a little bit of Tetons from the car as we were driving back down. Couple times it cleared up enough that we could actually see the ski area. But the snow more than made up for it. Most of the time lightly skied knee deep powder - really nice. Since I can ski groomed trails at home we tried to stick to deeper snow. Anyway I think I am pretty impressed - it is easy to count your runs at the end of the day and add up all your vertical feet. One curious thing on the report is that although I vividly remember turning it on on top of the lift, on the reports it looks like the tracking started at the bottom.

Teton Ridge Classic race

2008-01-12T15:14:00.000-08:00

Today I raced 14km classic skiing. I could not resist and took my Garmin for second test. I tried to put it on my hand facing on my wrist but that proved to be a big mistake as I tucked downhill I accidentally pressed stop button I noticed it right away and fixed it because it beeped on me, but immediately did it again, second time I did not notice it for a while and so on I was curious what the system will do with this.
On the application on the computer there is a hole in my race, but on motionbased website it filled in blanks at least for trail, even though my heart rate is a flat line on those two spots. The only thing I can not do now is to play map player, maybe that is where the problem shows more prominently.(actually that is because I use Firefox and realized later that the map player only works in IE!) Anyway, I did like to race with monitor. once I finished I stopped by my friends and did not turn off the monitor immediately - I was surprised to see how my heart rate dropped almost immediately to my starting level.
Best part was I won 3rd place (I was last in my age category but I guess there isn't that many women my age doing crazy things like this. Now I have little magnet to show for it and I did beat the best people (those skiing 28km - twice as far as I did) - by only a few minutes but they had a 3min head start.
When I looked at the results - I actually placed 4th in my age group, but they did this strange thing, that they took all overall top finishers (the lady who won our age group was second overall) and then distributed prices for age group to the rest of the finishers - so I got 3rd place, while really finishing 4th and last in my age category being beaten by 60+ ladies. I know them both and know better than to feel least bit bad about that part - they are both really good, and both from Bozeman.
New news: talking to one of my friends who own similar gadgets - he claims that the initial low heart rate reading might be due to bad contact, It is not until I start sweating enough that the contact improves and the reading is consistent. I have heard of those special gels you can put on for better contact, or you can wet the strap. Wetting did not work for me,maybe also because I did it too early while I was dressing up at hotel room, way before race start.

New toy

2008-01-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

Santa's mail was a little late this year but I got this great little gadget - that I asked for in my blog from September. I got my very own Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS heart rate monitor. and today I put it to test. The gadget is really cool but even better is the MotionBased website that will analyze your data. It even fixes Forerunner bad altimeter readings and queries weather station, so you know what kind of weather was at that time. Best part is the Map Player page. The little drawback is that it takes forever to load but is worth the wait. It will overlay your track with your heart rate information so you can figure out where you were slacking. Needles to say: It is geeky enough, it may even get me to train more properly.

First ascent of the ceiling

2008-01-07T21:30:00.001-08:00

Someone brought camera to the gym and captured my second attempt, first partially successful climb, I hanged 2 times, but managed to edit that part out.

Little music does wonders, and I never posted anything on you tube so this is my double first.

New year 2008

2008-01-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

To start the new year off right, the sun came up and we decided to go ski to the outskirts of Yellowstone NP. We started at Tepee creek trail head and later crossed to Daily creek and along the road came back to the car. It was 6F when we started so I kept my down parka on although at times I had to briefly shed it.

We came across what was most likely a New Years Eve feast of local wolves and subsequently coyotes and birds feast.
This was first time we crossed park boundary on foot.

We were pretty happy when we hit the Daily creek trail and did not need to wade through deep snow.

Tomas was breaking the trail sometimes almost knee deep so we came back about equally tired. Payed visit to our friend Brian and his famous Huckleberry cafe. for late lunch. He was already closing but made us his specialty Mexican pancakes and quesadila anyway.

Christmas 2007

2007-12-24T22:47:00.000-08:00

So Tomas got a tree permit and we went for a ski trip to cut one out. Road to Hyalite was pretty decent - not much snow yet, and so we went there.
It was great excuse to get Jakub to go with us skiing. At the end Tomas got a tree and tied it up on the car before we could come there. Jakub asked him to do it that way. It was really perfect day for a ski hike. Sunny and not much cold.

When we got home we decorated it and next day it was Christmas Eve. Here is our tree in full beauty laden with presents. As usual we opened presents and then had our special dinner.

Skiing around

2007-12-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

One day we went out to ski with Tomas and at the end he stopped me and said: Wait I really like your hair. I did not notice that they frosted so much. By the time we got home there was no sign of the frost so I really did not see this until just now when I uploaded the pictures from my camera.
Later we did another ski trip. We should have brought real skis for this one. We ended up skiing downhill.

Snow was great, but on the XC-skis I am not good at making proper turns. So lots of falls on the way down, until I gave up and did a long turns from one side of the hill to another.

Hike Up to Garnet Mountain.

2007-12-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

This one is also called lookout mountain by the lookout tower used a while back for forest fire alerts. Now it is forest service cabin. The hike was really pleasant until we got up and the wind was really noticeable. Once we got all the way up we met friendly folks just leaving the cabin and they let us warm up inside. It was nice to be surrounded by glass walls, by the still relatively hot stove, while it was really windy outside.

We ate our lunch and headed back down. I must say I like it on foot almost better than on the bike.

Math Students sushi party

2007-12-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

As usual we hosted one more party for math students that work with Tomas. This time Mike offered to prepare sushi - he works as a chef at Japanese restaurant so the sushi was really great.

Looks Like students had a great time a we did too.

New york trip 2

2007-11-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

This time my brother planned a visit to NY and I could not resist to come and see him his wife and my little nephew. I was experienced driver and tried to navigate to the hotel at night without my GPS (I could not find the cable for it). well I did manage on second try. The guy at car rental place looked at me funny when I showed up second time and asked for directions again. Luckily it is pretty easy to find my way back to the car rental place - those are marked well. True to be told I did find my way to the hotel as well - except I was supposed to end up at Marriott garden inn and ended up at main Marriott. After that I used GPS to get us to the shopping mall at Woodbridge.
My nephew took a nap and then he had plenty of energy

we also managed to turn him into proper American - holding onto his Giant soda and enjoying Christmas decorations

Later I returned the car and we went to see NY. We stayed at Manhattan which was great. Everything was close and the bus from airport had a stop within walking distance from the hotel. next day we planed skating at the Rockefeller center but it was raining, so instead we went to "top of the Rock" and visited MOMA and FAQ Schwartz. I got an overpriced bag of roasted chestnuts - I do miss that part of Christmas here in Bozeman. We grabbed a lunch at the deli on the street - turned out to be really good and I had to leave.

Visitig New York and colleges

2007-10-24T07:53:00.000-07:00

In October we made a trip to Rutgers Tomas went for business and so me and Jakub went to see colleges. We stopped at Brown, MIT, Tufts, Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Rutgers. None of them in any great depth. I forgot to grab a camera so no pictures from first part of the trip. I got first hand experience driving on east cost in th efog on packed 3 line highway in downpour and the traffic jams of NY city. Still it is amazin that the traffic seemed newer to stop completely. Slowly but surely several lines from highway organized themselves into single line through Lincoln tunnel or bridges or whatever bottleneck there was ahead. I was really glad I got a GPS navigation system before this trip got us around to where we wanted to go most of the time, at least when it did not die in the middle of the highway. Luckily I had Jakub with me to restart it in the correct direction. Anyway we all had a blast. I caught up with my friend and ran by chance into couple of friends from Bozeman We had great time in New York.
Did obligatory stroll through central park all the way to "Imagine".

Before our departure heeded the advice "not to walk on ceilings".

Next day (Sunday) we actually drove into New York and visited Museum of natural history - Jakub's favorite is this weapon display with the piece most to your left:

My friend makes a really great cappucino, needless to say I got hooked. My "no caffeine" days are over. I guess that is what NY/"big city" life will do to you. Also Jakub got inspired and seems to understand better the differences between colleges now.

Running progress

2007-09-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

So this time I signed up for 5K since I already finished all of the Lewis and Clark marathon (in 3 parts) This year I did not train so 5K will be just about right. I started training with Monique and she has this cool gadget that tracks our runs, so I could not resist and post this out here.

Two runs sounds like enough training for "marathon". Next is only Pasta feed and race day.
We did finished 5K Monique beat me by a minute, but I placed 3rd while she was only 6th! Our times are on the lewis and clark marathon results page done by perfect timing .
Well it got both of us psyched for training and on our next run Monique calibrated her device, so we ran on the track for a while about 1.75 miles and then we went to "let out dogs"

Monique put her runs on http://www.runnerplus.com/ site, they have better graphing abilities there as opposed to the http://nikeplus.nike.com site. The advantage there is that it is really easy export the graphs and put on the blogs, while the other was a bit trickier. Nike site has a simple put this text into web page, while for runnerplus I had to print the page and then edit picture and upload it to blogger -I would not do that too often. Anyway I think this it for my running graphing endeavors. I just thought that it is really cool gadget.
Next post update will most likely come if I (by any chance) get my hands on Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS heart rate monitor. Because I think that is also a really cool gadget to have and train with.

Campin in Beartooths

2007-09-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most beautiful places - when it is accessible anyway, most of the year the road here is covered with snow and impassable. Even road is one of the most scenic roads in US. and walking little off the road is even more beautiful.
I just wish I did enjoy it a bit more.

We camped in Montana, because we wanted to fish, but it was not really smart since in wyoming we could probably have fire and in Montana we did not do that, since fire restrictions were still in place. We did not pack flash lights so we went to sleep as soon as it got dark. Next day we did a loop of the beaten path - scrambled down through the rocks.

Got back to camp. Then just packed up and went home, so we really stayed only one night.

Rainy camping in Taylor-Hilgard wildernes

2007-08-20T19:18:00.000-07:00

As a belayed present for my 40th birthday I got (finally) nice sleeping mat. So we went to test it.

Three of us planned to go, and we were debating whether one tent for three would be enough, and decided we will haul (read guys will haul) up enough tents to sleep 5 people. How lucky that was. Turned out we spent lots of time in the tents as it was mostly raining with one lucky break for short hike second day. True we got only small rain on the way up, which we survived under a nice tree and came to our camping spot while ground was still pretty much dry.

First night it started raining and then rained quite a lot - interspersed with lightning some of it quite close. Luckily we managed to build the tents on a good place - all around us turned to swamp.
Anyway first day was nice and I managed to try my newly acquired skills of fly fishing and caught my first wild fish - it was a cutthroat.

Third day we woke up to a sunny morning planning to hike more, but the skies started to do the same thing they did before - cluding up so we quickly packed the tents and managed just in time before next downpour came. Thank goodness we were under nice trees while the hail storm went by.
On the way down the trail looked more like neverending steam of puddles. But sun started shining on us as we were nearing exit.

We saw some norvegian purebread horses grazing loose on the trail. My first comment was that they must be really well trained that their owners let them so loose. Tomas added that they probably got completely spooked by lightning and broke loose without their ownes approval - obviously he was right. Little ways down the trail was a camp and the rest of horses.

Anyway the test of my sleeping mat was a success. Now even Tomas is thinking of getting one like that for himself.

Eurotrip 2007

2007-08-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

In July 2007 we traveled to Europe
Jakub left June 15th to spend 2 weeks in Vienna. From what he told me he had a great time. Going to the High school (gymnasium) in Klosterneuburg. Site seeing in Vienna. Hanging out with rock band player and attending wild parties. He had great cultural experience visiting Vienna opera.
Tomas left June 25th - met some friends in Bratislava and then along with grandma Ota went to Vienna to pick up Jakub and meet Jakub's host family.
From there they went to Poprad (northern Slovakia) to visit Tomas' aunt Marta. Tomas did not see her for 10 years. From there they did couple hikes. Fist in High Tatra mountains.

And second in Slovensky Raj (slovak paradise)

Grandpa Stefan picked them up from there and took them to visit Tomas' best childhood friend and best man at our wedding Miso, who also happened to vacation in Slovakia at that time.

And the they came back to Bratislava to meet up with me.
I arrived on Saturday July 7th. I arrived in the afternoon so we managed to visit my Aunt Hata and met with my cousin Miso.
We planned a trip to Dolomites with our friends, but it was raining everywhere so we abandoned that idea. On Sunday we decided to try to go to Austrian Alps, some 2 hours from Bratislava and try some Via Ferrata there.

It was not as much climbing as Dolomites - but it was still nice. And because we got rained on during approach I was kind of glad it was so easy. Rock was slippery although it only rained for a short time and we finished our hike without any further rain.

On Monday we left for Orava to visit my best friend from college. It was raining hard so we did not do many hikes there, but we had that much more time to hang out and talk. We went bowling in newly built hotel. It may not sound special, but bowling was virtually nonexistent in Slovakia last time we were here. When rain finally stopped, Tomas and I went for a hike to Skorusina. On the way we met older lady (I so wish I took her picture) who was going to pick some blueberries to the woods. She was a tru eold timer with a big cloth wrapped behind her back with jugs and all the equipment for picking. We started talking about recent bear sightings and she 'offered' to go with us for a while. Once her grandson caught up with us we left her and continued on. Usually there is beautiful view on top from the lookout tower, but everything was still hidden in the clouds when we got up there. From there we finished ridge and ended up in Oravice - hot springs resort. My dad, Jakub and Katka came to pick us up there. We thought we might go to hot springs, but we abandoned that idea quite fast. I can not see how people are willing to shell out $18 to soak in overcrowded hot springs. And we were quite starving as well.
From Orava we visited my dad for afternoon and drove back to Bratislava.
Tomas' uncle invited us to Cunovo. and we were lucky to actually be able to go down the man made whitewater channel on the raft. Original plan was to visit gallery nearby , because he had group of tourists to take rafting but he had couple empty spots, and when presented with the choice, we choose rafting over gallery.

In the afternoon we went to Dunaj and borrowed canoe and kayak from our friend Stevo, and went on the river, this is slow flowing side channel of the Dunaj, I used to do this a lot in college. on Saturday we went to see old Bratislava, hiked up to the castle and old climbing wall. I always dreamed that one day I will be able to do the whole wall, but I could newer do more than about 1/4 of it. This time we got on and did it all and I had to get off mostly because it started raining again. Needles to say, it made my day.

zahrada

In the afternoon we went to the garden for Tomas' family reunion. As usual it was really nice.
And Sunday we split again. Tomas and Jakub went to Zürich (for Tomas' conference)

Zürich

I went to Frankfurt visit my brother Jan. But before I left I met my brother Milan and we went to Zelezna studnicka for a concert in open amphitheater. It was interesting listen to modernized folk music. And from there we went back to my mom's for apricot dumplings and I managed to get to my plane at the last minute.
In Frankfurt it was interesting. I had to work so I did not get to see much of Frankfurt. And on top of it my brother was in the process of moving from one apartment to another so first day I made my workspace out of 2 kids chairs and table. I had my computer on top of one chair and table and sat on the other chair - it actually worked pretty well. There are no pictures from Frankfurt, because my brother had still everything in boxes and our camera was in Zürich.
At least I got to spend that much more time with my nephew, who is 3. Thank goodness he can still speak Slovak, because he is only starting to learn English and I am no good in German or French. I have no idea how he can keep those languages straight , but he obviously does. Last day before my departure we went to Main. They had stands with kids activities and he wanted to get something painted on his face. All week everyday he would come with something painted, so this was first time I was there to see it being done. when he was ordering the girl asked him what he would like to have painted. I suggested "papillon" - butterfly (one of my 2 French words I know, the second one is "piétinez" - trample - from magic cards - long story). I said it to him in French and then he just sat there for a minute thinking really hard until finally he said it in German to the girl. I was impressed. They dropped me off at Hahn airport and I flew to Goteborg. Incredibly small airport. I sent SMS text message to Tomas who was coming from Brussels with his brother Mato, his wife Katka, and Jakub by car. Original plan was, to pick me up at the airport, but they were running late, so I opted for my backup plan: took train towards Stromstad. I printed out schedule in Bozeman just in case. This way I did not have to sit at the airport and got to see Sweden before it got dark. I still beat them to our future base near Tanumshede by almost 2 hours.
Sunday morning we went to visit our friends in Stromstad, they were there only for weekend.

Stromstad

And in the afternoon we tried out kayaks for the first time.

Monday was still raining so we decided to visit Oslo, we went to Viking boat museum and Fram museum. To get there you need to take a boat - part of public transport (after our visit to Venice last year this did not come as much of a surprise anymore)

Oslo

After that it was back to our "base". It was old huge house, no heat, and since it was pretty much raining all the time, quite damp. That did not deter us from going kayaking - we will be getting wet anyway, so might as well while it rains. Finally sun came up on 25th (best present I got for my birthday) and we loaded up tents and gear and went for longer trip. It was beautiful day as you can tell from the pictures. next day started raining which was no big deal, but also wind picked up and we had our hands full just to get back to the shore. And last day we tried top brave the elements one last time. After paddling for an hour against the wind we turned and got back to our starting point . Transferred boats to a different starting point - not so much headwind and open sea in sight and paddled safely back to base. Some of us came a long way, starting from tentative kayaking on a smooth water, we ended up surfing the waves the last day - it is incredible how fast one can go on top of the wave.

Artists started to flock back to the base for their annual show. The houses main purpose is artists retreat, kayaking and rentals are to make money for renovations.
In the evening we had our last jamboree, this time with beautiful flute and drums.I went to bed at 2am just to wake up at 6 to repeat what Tomas Jakub Mato and Katka did on the way here. This time in reverse: drive from Sweden back to Brussels. This time packed with more luggage and me.

Next day we flew back to Bozeman.
The End.

2007 spring bike rides

2007-06-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

Tomas got a new book Montana singletrack and started dreaming about rides he and maybe some of them both of us could do. To break in the bike saddle we choose short (5.8 miles with elevation gain 860ft) Grizzly loop ride. It is beautiful ride and we had great day to do it.

It is marked as Moderate physical difficulty, Intermediate riders ability so Tomas figured we are both of those even though it was our first ride. Needless to say I ended up pushing a lot more than they mention in the book. And it took us quite a bot longer. I blamed it on my being out of shape and practice and did not think twice about that. After that we did stopped at the Corral for burger - it was really good. They even have Pisner Urquell on tap. We used to send our friends there, when they asked about places to eat so we thought it was about tome we tried it ourselves.

In couple of weeks we went on a Little Wapiti Creek Trail ride. This one is quite a bit longer (14.3miles with elevation gain of 2440ft!) and marked Difficult physical difficulty and Advanced riding ability. But it is also marked as "Cherry ride" so it was supposed to be fun. Well after we climbed over 1300ft I was quite tired and climbing did not really stopped until we reached top. The trail was in a deep rut so I had an excuse to push at least part way and stretch my tired legs.

Anyway on the way down it was really beautiful and the ride would deserve title "Cherry ride", if I just was not so tired that I had to expend all of my remaining energy not to fall down from the bike. At some moment I simply crashed and had to gather some energy between flowers.

The best part was when Tomas pointed out the moose just down the hill from us and made my day. It took us quite a lot longer than what the book says though.
Later I asked my friend Monique, who bikes a lot around, about what the "difficult" means and she set me up straight, these guys are bikers. They do like it tough so difficult is exactly that: difficult. And I should not expect anything less out of those rides even if they do say "Cherry ride".
After we got back from our summer travels we decided to give another "difficult" ride a go. Portal to Porcupine. Tomas invited couple of guys to join us. They actually did it while my ride was cut short before we even started. I did what I have not done before. Started leaning with bike and did not manage to get my foot out of the pedal basket. Stupidly enough knowing that I will probably push a lot I put on my tennis shoes with good traction. Traction was really good - especially when I did not need it! I landed on to of the handlebars and probably cracked something in the ribcage. It was still really painful 2 months later. I drove myself home and it saved the guys need to go fetch the car after the ride. Anyway once they got back they said it was really hard and rocky and for us normal mortals often virtually nonbikeable.

Posh outing

2007-05-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

Out of Bridger ski Foundation fundraiser, we ended up with a nice package deal to Mountain Sky Guest Ranch

After being treated to superb lunch we settled in nice cabin and went to meat our horses

After all these years living in Montana, Tomas finally become an official cowboy

we rode horses and then went to learn how to fly-fish one of th eskills every true Montanan should posses. It went really well we were "natural" and caught a lot of fish. And did not hook each other at the attempt.

In the evening we hang out at the bar with "locals" and then soaked in the hot tub.
Next morning it was nice breakfast and another horseback ride.

Once the Posh part was over we did a little hike in the afternoon before heading back .