Jon and Stacy are on the river

A few people have asked me for updates on Jon and Stacy's progress in this year's Texas Water Safari. The race started on Saturday morning at 9 am. I just heard from their land captain a couple of minutes ago that they reached the Cuero checkpoint at 12:50 this afternoon. If you'd like to see a nice map of all the checkpoints, click here. Don't count on seeing their times on that website though. At this point they are near the back, and they results are only posted for the first 40 boats or so at the later checkpoints. They slept a lot last night, so their land crew thinks they will pass a bunch of others who need to sleep tonight.

Here are some pictures from the start of this year's race:

Heading for the water.


Starting gun.




Ducking under a bridge at the first low-water crossing.

Here's a good picture of the guys on Day 1 that I stole off another website:

Courtesy of Bob Brooks.

I thought some of you might find the Wikipedia entry on the Water Safari interesting:

Texas Water Safari
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Texas Water Safari, billed as the "World's Toughest Boat Race", is a trek down waterways from San Marcos, Texas to Seadrift, Texas. The primary requirement is a boat powered only by human muscle. The event was first held in 1963, and is run annually.
In 1962 Frank Brown and Bill "Big Willie" George decided to navigate from San Marcos to Corpus Christi, Texas without a motor. They wanted to share this month-long journey with others, so in 1963 they held the first Texas Water Safari.

The race is scheduled to begin on the second Saturday of June of each year, unless extremely inclement weather prevents it from being held safely. The Safari has been postponed in only two years (twice in 2004, making a total of three postponements). The total distance traveled is 262 miles. Racers must take all food and equipment needed with them, receiving only water and ice along the way.

The Safari course includes natural rivers like the San Marcos, with rapids and dams. Most boats destroyed on the course are lost in the upper river. The San Marcos River converges with the Guadalupe River and becomes wider and slower. The main dangers in the middle river are sweepers, downed trees, logjams and dams. Near the end of the course there are lakes and swamps, and it ends with a crossing of the San Antonio Bay.

There are many popular and private checkpoints along the course. Experienced support crews may jealously guard their secret checkpoints. There are 12 official checkpoints, including the finish line. Their locations are published and they are staffed with race officials. The Team Captain of each team must be present and sign off the team's time as the team leaves (teams are allowed one missed checkpoint).

Official Checkpoints:
Staples Dam
Luling 90
Zedler Mill-Luling Dam
Palmetto Park
Gonzales 183
Hochheim
Cuero 766 (Cheapside)
Cuero 236
Victoria City Park
Dupont
Tivoli
Seadrift

Participants belong to one of a number of classes. The Unlimited class is one of the best known to spectators, and is restricted only to watercraft powered only by human muscle. Attempts have been made to win in craft of unconventional form, but the records show that the best results are achieved by a well-trained team in one of the multiman canoes (the records for largest team and fastest finish time are held by nine- and six-person canoes respectively). Other classes include Tandem Unlimited (similar to unlimited, but only two entrants per boat), Solo Unlimited (one entrant), and other types defined by standard or convention.

Participants tell of frequent hallucinations in the lower river (because most boats take almost forty hours to finish, and many racers do not stop to sleep, delusions are often unavoidable). Other challenges include aggressive alligator gar, alligators, sharks (while crossing the bay), poisonous water moccasin snakes, fire ants, and mosquitoes. Participants' boats are frequently damaged along the upper river, given the technical nature of this portion of the race course. Attempts to repair boats in the field are met with varying amounts of success.

The Safari is attended, in part, by a core group of followers consisting of former competitors, family and friends. Names and stories quickly become common-knowledge and there is a rich body of lore available to anyone who takes the time to seek it out.

And the livin's easy

Summertime is upon us, and we are starting to get a taste of what we are in for over the next 4+ months. Today is supposed to be around 95 degrees and nearly 100% humidity. Nichole and Gaurav are in Singapore laughing at me right now, because I'm pretty sure that's what they live in all year round. By the way, sorry we've been MIA lately. Getting settled in the new house has been a slow process. Here's an update on some recent events as well as what we've got coming up:

April
- We bought and moved into our new house (see previous post). We have since done done some painting, had a pool party, and rearranged our furniture a hundred times. We'll try and post some "after" pictures soon.

May
- The month started off a bit stressful when Kona slipped on our new laminate floor and partially tore his ACL. I know, right? Who knew dogs had an ACL. Apparently we dodged a rather expensive bullet, because if he had torn it completely, we would be looking at a surgery in the neighborhood of $2500.
- Shannon spent a week in beautiful Kemmerer, Wyoming. Some trivia for you: Kemmerer is the Fossil Fish Capital of the World and home of the very first J.C. Penney store. There is one (decent) restaurant in town called Bootleggers. I think I have now had nearly everything on the menu. The week in Kemmerer was followed by a visit to Salt Lake City to catch up with Matt and Elisabeth. I had a great time hearing about their upcoming wedding plans and eating sushi with their fun friends. Finally a stop in Denver was in order. I had a chance to get dinner and drinks with Cristy, Deborah, Allison, Chuck, Ann, and a bunch of other friends. I didn't realize how much I missed everyone!
- Nichole and Gaurav had a beautiful baby girl on May 20th! Congratulations to the new parents! We can't wait to meet her in person someday.

June
- Jon is getting ready for his 10th (or 11th?) Texas Water Safari. The indelible Fumar Chochar Mopar is being patched up and epoxied in anticipation of this Saturday's start date. No doubt photos and a distinctly "Jon" post will appear on the blog following the race.
- Ann and Chris are engaged! Unless you Colorado people have been living under a rock, you know Chris finally bought the rock. Let the wedding emails fly (at least between Ann and Shannon, I doubt Chris and Jon will be trading opinions on gowns and bouquets for the next year).
- We will be taking a short trip to Colorado near the end of June to close on our house there. We feel sad letting it go, but we have been renting it to the buyers for 6 months, and we feel confident that they will take good care of our first home together.

July/August
- Shannon's parents are coming for week-long visit to check out the new house. The list of projects continues to grow. I think I'm the only person who's dad needs to ship his tools out ahead of time in order to complete all the crap we ask him to do for us.
- Shannon is going to Oahu for a two-week work trip. I know, it's a rough life, right? Seriously, I 'll be working hard that whole time, I swear. We are fortunate that Jon will be able to join me in August for a week-long vacation. If you want to drool over my acommodations and the scenery I can expect from my hotel room while I'm there, click here. Stay tuned for more obnoxious posts where we blatantly brag about shark dives, mai tais, and snorkeling with humuhumunukunukuapua'as.

La Casa Nueva

I know, I know, most of you have already been barraged with pictures of the house, but for posterity we're posting some of our favorites on the blog. If all goes well, we will close on April 13th. So, until you all get down here to visit us, here's a little virtual tour:


Front


Living/Dining Room from Entry


Family Room
(There's a wet bar on the right - crucial for martini-making)


Kitchen


Kitchen


Living Room from Above


Upstairs Gameroom/Loft


Gameroom Window Seat


Part of the Yard


Patio w/ the owner's dog.
(Amy - her name is Shay!)


Deck and Half of the Pool

The bedrooms and bathrooms are hard to photograph, but if you would like to see them there are a bunch more house pictures here. Yeah, sorry, I went a little shutter happy at the inspection.

There are no bathrooms at the Alamo.

Just one of the many important lessons we learned when my parents came to Austin for their very first visit. We already knew there was no basement thanks to Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. The weather was beautiful and we spent a great day in San Antonio taking in the sites. Jon discovered his new favorite quote: "You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas" -- Davy Crockett, 1835

We made a stop in San Marcos to see the spot where Jon and Stacy launch for the Texas Water Safari.

A few pictures from the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Lots of fun bars, restaurants, and shops as far as you can see.

Jon, me, and mom at the Alamo.


Kona got lots of walks in the 80 degree weather. Is this dog huge, or what?

Kona's new favorite toy - the nearly indestructable Hedgie the Hedgehog. A gift from his grandma.

When Texas Freezes Over, Head to the Inaugural Ball

Last Thursday, Jon and I found out that his office was giving us tickets to the 2007 Texas Governor's Inaugural Ball on my birthday - January 16th (my 30th by the way). We thought, sweet! Free food, free drinks, meet some of Jon's fellow Republicans. It was also a good business opportunity for Jon. We immediately realized we had some important tasks to get done before Tuesday. I needed a floor-length ballgown, Jon needed to rent a tuxedo, we had to get the tickets from a girl who got the tickets from a guy who got the tickets from another guy...you get the idea, we had a lot to do. As the weekend progressed, I realized that all ball gowns are designed for 6-foot-tall women. Ok, no biggie, I'll just buy one and run it out to my mother-in-law to hem it for me. So what if she lives 45 minutes away, it's free. Jon's tux was a little easier to come by once we found a shop that could measure him on Sunday and get us the tux on Tuesday. Everything was falling into place.

That was, until the "Great Ice Storm of 2007" wreaked havoc on the City of Austin. It started Sunday, on my way back from dropping off the gown, and continued to keep us essentially trapped in our house for the next three days. See, what happens around here, is you get a full day of pounding rain followed by three days of below freezing temperatures. The kicker is, even though it's below freezing - it keeps raining. So now it's raining ice. Then it started snowing. All of these people were freaking out in the streets, rushing out to show their children what snow looks like. All of the Colorado people are laughing their asses off right now because they are still buried under about 7 feet of real snow. Honestly, I would take 7 feet of snow over 1/2" of solid ice any day. Here are a couple more photos of the frozen plants around our house as well as a photo of the ice chunk Jon pryed off my car:

If you've done the math, you've realized that the ice storm coincided with our plans to attend the inaugural ball. You may also recall that I dropped my gown off 45 minutes away and Jon has yet to pick up his tuxedo. When Tuesday arrived, we were certain the event would be cancelled. We were disappointed since we'd both spent money on attire and had been looking forward to the event for days. As the day went on, there was no word of a cancellation. See, this made it even worse, since we would feel extra disappointed if it wasn't cancelled but we still missed it. It didn't help that I had been calling the tux shop all day and they still hadn't opened. Jon started making his way out to his parent's house to get my gown (a 45 minute drive that was looking like it would take 2 hours with the weather) and had just decided to turn around, come home, and we would skip the whole thing. No gown to wear, no tux to wear, roads were barely drivable - it didn't look good. Moments later, all of the threatening phone messages that I left at the tux shop payed off when I got a call that they were opening for one hour so all of the partygoers could get their tuxes. Jon turned around, I rushed out the door to get the tux, and we scrambled like mad to get ourselves ready.

This story is getting a little long, so I'll cut to the highlights and the lowlights (not many of those!) of the evening:

Highlights:

An enormous map of the State of Texas. Who doesn't want their picture taken in front of one of these babies?

This guy won the Congressional Medal of Honor. We can't remember his name, but he was a cool guy. He looks unhappy, but I think he was just really uncomfortable due to the massive amount of metal hanging off his jacket. We're pretty sure he was having a good time.

At the afterparty, we met a 3-Star Marine General. He was very nice and equally hilarious (ask Jon about the General's now-famous men's room quote).

Finally got a copy of our picture with Governor Perry (courtesy of David Hill Photography). He's a nice guy and was gracious enough to let everyone in the room grab him for a photo.

Last, but certainly not least, our new friend, Buttons McGee. It would be rude of us to use his real name, but that just gives you all a reason to call us up down here for once in your life. We met Buttons on our way out of the ballroom as we were heading to the afterparty. He was selling political buttons (hence the nickname) and Jon of course needed to buy one as a souvenir. We caught up with him there, and he became our favorite person in the room. We even found out that he used to live in the Highlands (all of you Denver people know where that is). Crazy.

Lowlights:

Unfortunately, the night did have a couple of lowlights. The biggest for me would have to be the performance by the evenings headliner. And who else to headline a massive Republican gathering in Texas but Ted Nugent. I apologize to all of our hardcore Ted Nugent fan readers, but anyone who comes out on stage at an otherwise elegant function wearing a Stars 'n Bars sleeveless t-shirt, playing an American flag guitar, screaming at the top of his lungs about how much he loves 'W' and the Republic of Texas while simultaneously showing images of him and his buddies shooting deer on his latest bowhunting trip is an f-ing idiot. I giggled the whole time I took these photos. Until I saw the dead deer - then I cursed and left.

I couldn't publish this post without including this priceless piece of journalism sent to me by my good friends Dawn and Kent. They read about Ted's (unfortunately) unforgettable performance all the way in Wyoming (click on it for a larger version):

After some slurred goodbye's and a short cab ride, we were back at our house. By this time we'd indulged in plenty of the governor's libations, so we left Jon's car at the hotel. Unfortunately, our house key was in Jon's car - at the hotel. We had a couple of choices here: I could either hang out with our neighbors next door (who were up watching a movie) in an uncomfortable and embarrassing buzzed silence while Jon broke into our house, or I could count on the last couple of vodka tonics I drank to keep me warm while I sat on the front stoop while Jon broke into our house. I chose to avoid the embarrassing silence. Jon was surprisingly adept at ripping the screen off and getting us in there. For your enjoyment, he documented his escapade:

I think maybe we're going to lose some of our security deposit.

New Year's 2006

I managed to take zero pictures while we were with my family for Christmas. Here are a few from our New Year's celebration. Kona was the unofficial mascot of the New Year.

Kona with Mom.

Kona with Dad.

Mike doesn't look as happy to see Kona.

The infamous coaster-dodging incident.

This hideous creature is the Northwoods Pirate Monkey Staff:

I do not know if that is real fur, I do not know what kind of animal skull it is made of, and I do not know how said animal met its demise. All I know is that Jon would not leave a truckstop in Southern Minnesota without buying the damn thing. Ask him how much it cost. Go ahead. Ask him.

Christmas in Texas

Since we are traveling to Minneapolis for Christmas this year, we had Christmas with Jon's family last Friday. The weekend before Christmas, I decided it would be a fun idea to bake cookies with our niece and nephew. My niece had a ball, and my nephew got into the cookie decorating in between bouts of X-Box playing. The cookies turned out awesome if you could get past the fact that most of the sprinkles were in one large heap in the center of the cookie. But who am I to judge the artistic musings of a four- and seven-year-old?


I made them little aprons with their names on them to use when we do projects at our house. Oh yeah, who's the cool aunt? Me.


The finished products displayed at our family Christmas gathering.


Our tree and some of our Christmas decor.


We gave our niece a tea set that was a big hit. The coasters doubled as bundt cakes - mmmmm, bundt cake.

In honor of our new home state

I die laughing every time I hear this on the radio out here.

Bud Light's Real Men of Genius Mr. Way Too Proud of Texas Guy. You don't have to live here to find it funny, but it does take on new meaning when you do.

See ya

I should probably let everyone know that I survived the gallbladder surgery. It was fairly uneventful, really. I was able to go home the same night (in a decent amount of pain covered by a Vicadin-induced stupor), and by the following Friday I felt well enough to leave the house for some errands. In case you are into this kind of thing, here is a link to my surgery photos: http://tinyurl.com/y6sukj. Some people have found them fascinating, others notsomuch. My squeamish friends should probably avoid them.

The house is now completely packed up, and the movers will be here tomorrow to take everything down to Austin. Not much else to say here really. It's sad to leave, it's happy to finally get down there. I've worked in the same office for six years and can only hope the people at my new office will be just as great. We've had a lot of help from our friends these past few months, and at times it feels wrong that they put so much effort and their own time into helping us move farther away.

Gallbladder Surgery - Everybody's Doing It

...aaaaaannd I need to have my gallbladder removed. It turns out the excruciating upper abdominal pains I have been experiencing for the past couple of months are not stress-related heartburn. Who knew, right? If you want the whole down and dirty saga leading up to the decision to ditch my defective organ, drop me an email. The bottom line is - it's gotta go. Since a lot of family and friends have had questions for me, I compiled some information that might interest you (or completely freak you out, whichever). Info from Mayoclinic.com:

Where is my gallbladder and what the hell does it do?
The gallbladder is a structure on the underside of the liver on the right side of the abdomen. The function of the gallbladder is to store bile that is produced in the liver before the bile is secreted into the intestines. Bile secreted into the intestines helps the body digest fats.



What are gallstones?
Like many people, you may have gallstones and not know it. In fact, gallstones — solid deposits of cholesterol or calcium salts that form in your gallbladder or nearby bile ducts — often cause no symptoms and require no treatment. But some people with gallstones will have a gallbladder attack that can cause symptoms such as nausea and an intense, steady ache in their upper middle or upper right abdomen. In some cases, the pain can be severe and intermittent.

How do I know if my gallbladder is crapping out on me?
You may not know you have gallstones until they're discovered during tests done for other reasons. But sometimes gallstones may cause certain signs and symptoms:

- Sudden, steady and moderate to intense pain in your upper middle or upper right abdomen. This may signal a gallbladder attack. The pain may occur one to two hours after eating but may also occur at other times — even at night. It can last from 15 to 30 minutes to several hours. Gallbladder pain starts in your upper middle or upper right abdomen and, on occasion, may shift to your back or right shoulder blade. After the pain subsides, you might have a mild aching or soreness in your upper abdomen that can last for up to a day or so. Gallbladder attacks tend to occur infrequently — weeks, months or even years apart.

- Nausea and vomiting. These signs and symptoms may accompany a gallbladder attack.

What is the treatment?
Laparoscopic surgery. Most often gallbladder surgery is performed using a laparoscope, a pencil-thin tube with its own lighting system and miniature video camera. A surgeon inserts the laparoscope into your abdomen through a hollow instrument (cannula). Only small incisions are required. The video camera then produces a magnified view on a television monitor of the inside of your abdomen. This allows the surgeon to see the surgery in detail. To remove your gallbladder, he or she uses tiny instruments inserted through several other small abdominal incisions. Because laparoscopic removal of the gallbladder (cholecystectomy) uses smaller incisions, you'll likely have less postoperative pain, less scarring and an earlier return to your normal activity — often within just a few days. Laparoscopic removal of the gallbladder is effective in the majority of cases.

Is the surgery safe?
Every year, about 500,000 people have their gallbladders removed. The gallbladder is not an essential organ, and even today, only surgical removal of the gallbladder guarantees that the patient will not suffer a recurrence of gallstones.

When are you having your surgery?
Not sure yet. I should know in a day or two. I am also not sure if I will need to have it before or after I leave Denver for Austin. Stay tuned to the ongoing saga of Shannon's gallbladder...