As many of you already know, I have been going through some tough personal times recently. For everyone involved, I have promised not to vent my dirty laundry on the blog, which actually has been quite tough for me. This is why the blog has been quiet. I am extremely open with my personal life and feelings, as that has proved fruitful for so many reasons. Recently, folks have shown their love for me by being there when I needed a shoulder to cry on or a bottle of wine to drink. All I can say from the bottom of my heart is THANK YOU.
Between the amazingly heartfelt article in the Stranger, to random dinner parties at the house, to people just stopping by and without saying a word just giving me a big hug, I can not believe people could be this giving of themselves. I have recently felt the urge to run time and time again, and besides the love for my family, YOU are the reason why I have stayed. One can only spend so many nights crying or reading philosophy (who knew I could read?) that at some point you feel like you want to crawl up into a ball and hope the world passes you by.
I know the pain that I feel will provide strength to me in the long run. I know that this pain is a gift. This gift sucks, and you can not give it back. When you think about it, you don't really want to. This pain is leading me down a path that is uncharted, but healthy. That path is much easier to follow thanks to you all.
I'll update the blog as my emotions and time permits. So again, thank you. You are the one who is awesome.
I started reviewing all the work I have to do for Climb For Kids for the upcoming year and I realized there was no way in hell I was going to get this all done. I feel shitty as it deserves much more attention that I can give it at this time. Life has just gotten in the way. I was in the process of putting a hard sell on my close friends to help me out when I realized there were bunches of you out there who can't climb but want to help out the organization in other ways beside simply donating.
Well now here is your chance. Below is an abbreviated list of work items that need to be completed by Dec 31. If I can get through a percentage of them, I'll feel uber happy. If I can complete all of them, I may just break down and cry. Is there something on this list that you can help with? Maybe one of these items is in your wheelhouse... If so, ping me via twitter, facebook or simply email me at info@climbforkids.org.
Here they are in no particular order:
-- Update Google Adwords
-- Update Website, include new text, flash video of story (ruby work)
-- Recode website to require a deposit for participation (ruby work)
-- Consolidate climbforkids.org and climbforkids.com into one account
-- Set up next year’s events
-- Contact RedBull, let them know how much we appreciate and see if they will reup for next year
-- Contact Patagonia, ditto
-- Contact Black Diamond, ditto
-- Newsletter to all climbers and supporters
-- Special newsletter to all climbers
-- Set up Climb For Kids blog
-- Set up mobilegiving.org
-- Create sponsorship with OutdoorsNW Magazine
-- Send out end of year tax receipts
-- Budget for 2010
-- Find out what is going on with the documentary, determine additional costs, acquire raw footage
-- acquire raw footage from Emma’s ceremony
-- start evangelizing the Facebook page
-- start doing more with the CFK twitter account (create a persona)
-- update board members with latest info
-- marketing strategy for 2010+
Yes, that's a long list for 30 days, but a lot of it has to be completed ASAP. I'm contemplating a work party at the house for some of this. If you are interested, give me a shout and we'll get the ball rollin'
Surprise birthday celebration for me! Ella helps with the candles.
Since a lot of you follow me on twitter and facebook, you probably know by now that I'm traveling back east with Ella for two weeks. You'll probably also know that I was in the ER last friday with a super nasty stomach bug. I should really write a blog post on that whole ordeal, but for now, I want to just let you know that I have a bunch of photos posted from the trip.
Here are some of my favs:
....and don't forget this video of the doorway to Pittsburgh .
So far we've had fun in Columbus, Youngstown, and Boswell (PA). We head out to Philly tomorrow to see more family.
Is this how you enjoy great wine?
For our final touristy day in France was spent at the amazing Marqueyssac Gardens. This is just a few kilometers outside of Sarlat and we started the visit off with a picnic that was overlooking 4 different castles while drinking very expensive, but yummy, Chateau Lagrezette wine from Cahors out of sippy cups.
The gardens were just amazing and totally worth the visit there.
This final set of photos begins with a pic of our picnic: 
During our last two days in France, we took a bunch of photos. This first group, which has been drastically paired down, is from the Sarlat market and the medieval town itself. This was an amazing place, and we would have loved to spend more time here. Make sure you get a chance to see the video of Ella doing animal sounds.
Pix begin with this yummy photo of an organic breakfast crepe bought at the market. 
In an effort to keep you all from French overload, here is another batch of photos from our France trip, all in small bite size piece. This particular day was spent wine touring two hours south of our house, in the region of Cahors. They've been making wine in Cahors since the Romans ruled the area. Great wine, kind of under appreciated like Walla Walla is in America. That's great for us, as we were able to taste and buy wine fairly cheap.
We ended the day in the Medieval city of Sarlat. More on Sarlat tomorrow.
Pix from the trip start with this one: 
I'm here hanging with my good friend, Jim Goodman, raiding his wine cellar. We just finished an amazing 1982 Stags' Leap Petit Sirah and going on to the 1969 Robert Mondavi Cabernet, this all after nursing a hangover from the Pearl Jam show at the Gibson Amphitheater last night. Amazing wine, amazing show, and some cool pix from Perigeux, France.
Pix start with this one of ObamaTown: 
In my next installment of photos from France, we spent a day visiting wineries in Bergerac (see Chateau D'Elle above). The wine from there is very light, almost of a rosé quality. It's good, but it is not my typical choice of wine. In fact, I indeed found the rosés to be of a better quality (yes, I actually drank some rosés).
Following that, we headed to the largest private aquarium in Western Europe, Aquarium du Perigord noir. Ella had a ball there.
This day's photos start with this cute one of Ella on a toy tractor at winery in Bergerac: 
As is typical with my trips, my server went down, however this time for the right reasons (core overheated). Thus, I stopped posting halfway thru our trip. Now that I'm home, all is good.
We have a bunch of photos and notes from our adventure in France, however I won't inundate you with pointless banter and endless photos. Instead, I will present them in bite size, daily chunks. The first of which is our stroll through the Chateau Hautefort. This is just one of the over 5,000 castles and chateau's found in the Dordogne region of France, which is where we stayed. In fact, this particular Chateau was in the village next to us about 5 km away.
This day was particularly lazy. I think we walked through the chateau and then spent 90 minutes sitting on the lawn just looking at the scenery. What a great way to do nothing!
Pix from this day start here: 
Lazy days lead to time at the Sunday market in Saint Cyprien and exploration of the Chateau de Beynac. I also discovered I'm getting marginally better taking photos with my tiny point and shoot camera.
We finally got a chance to take a real vacation as a family. This time one of our friends lent us his farmhouse in Dordogne region of France, which is where I am now. I forgot how nice it was to have a child in Europe. As we traveled thru Paris on Air France, each person...the security personnel, passport control, the flight attendants, everyone stopped us and pulled us to the front of each line. It was awesome. Granted, carrying all of the crap with us along with a woozy toddler was no picnic, they really went the extra mile to keep it simple. Speaking of which, Ella was awesome on the flights to Bordeaux. She slept most of the flight and was sweet when she was awake. What a trooper!
Once in Bordeaux, we grabbed our rental car and headed out two hours east to the French countryside. I couldn't believe how remote we were. The roads were one lane, and they all connected these extremely tiny villages to each other. The farmhouse we are staying at is in the middle of a remodel, so our accommodations are a little rough. However, we did run down to the local market and picked up wine. All the wine we picked up was solid, not spectacular, but who would care at 3E a bottle. We couldn't believe how inexpensive wine was here.
Yesterday we had to drop off our rental car back in Bordeaux, so we decided to walk around the city a bit. It's weird seeing so many people when we are so remote. We also stopped by the water mirror which was hella fun. Then we drifted back to Périgueux for some dinner.
Today we decided was a lazy day. We went in search of market in Cubjac, but instead found beauty.
Since food is super expensive here, we have started making our own food. Tonight we ate something that resembled tacos, but the French don't seem to understand what hot spices are yet.
At some point, I'm actually going to start writing the book I've been planning, but I'm having too much fun just bumming around. Oh yeah, there's supposed to be wineries around here somewhere too.
You can find more photos up on Flickr.
Ellen's 34th birthday fell during Burningman this year, so we had a celebration off the playa after the event. Last weekend we invited everyone over to Vortex to wish Ellen a happy birthday and it was a great excuse to wear costumes that weren't covered in playa dust. The theme of the party was carnival or whatever that meant to you (carnie, clowns, cotton candy, Mardi Gras, whatever).
Ella was dressed as the carnival strongman, Ellen was a carnie, and I was the evil clown. We had a great turnout, you can catch my photos here. Peaboy posted his pix here.
It's hard to explain, but you can see some of the photos here.
Just wanted to let you know we are getting our newest iPhone app ready for release. Wanna try it before the general public?
You do? Great!!
Here's the catch. You need to...
- Own an iPhone - any model (duh)
- Live in midwest or southeastern US.
- Have kids.
If you qualify, shoot me an email. If you don't know my email address, leave a comment below and I'll contact you directly.
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