Sold A Flybox 28Dec18

I'd listed a collector's edition flybox on eBay that I'd bought ~20 yrs ago at a charity auction in Phoenix. Today it sold for $100! Woohoo. It is pretty cool but I'd never use it so didn't need it. It's a Richard Wheatley Millennium Limited Edition Fly Box 7610FX In Hand Crafted, Gold Anodized Aluminum.

Miley's Back 24Dec18

Lest you live under a rock you'd note that Miley Cyrus is back releasing stuff; this time it is with Mark Ronson of various award nominations fame (including Gaga on Shallow and others). They've been on all the shows including an official release of Nothing Breaks Like A Heart, a stop on SNL with Sean Ono singing War Is Over by John Lennon, and covering Ariana Grande on BBC Live Lounge. I do expect more this season but all of it thus far is very good... great singer.

SNL / War Is Over / Lennon

BBC / Covering Ariana Grande

Nothin' Breaks Like A Heart - Official

Not A Field Trial - Crusher Rig & Pigs 24Dec18

Well it was not a field trial but I did mount the ARB awning and trial it in a config similar to my expectations. I didn't install the tent portion as it was cold - wait, maybe that would've been a good test. I do have a "Y" connection on a regular propane tank and can drive two of four possible accessories at a time (heater, wok, grill, stove)... that stuff works too.

Frankly, the awning is not for the feint of heart. The aluminum poles are insufficient in gauge and the way they work with a twist-hold for telescoping is finicky. My camper awning poles are thicker with a better telescoping scheme. The awning poles bowed bent on first install and would not return to fully retracted - that made putting the awning back in the aluminum box a tight fit. I made mods to my camper awning and sense I will need so so do here. Nonetheless - it goes up fairly quickly and is decent. I installed it on the roof rack with Thule Mighty Mounts for oval OEM rack bars and then used ARB own brackets connected to those. It all seems fine.

I've adorned the rod rack with some sweet designer rainbow and brown pigs - since I'm always hunting them. All the dirt is courtesy of Summit Co.

Winter Solstice Snow With A Break 21Dec18-22Dec18

Yohanans came to Breck for the winter solstice and I joined them to ski, with all the men - Jim, Mitch & Nick. I arrived early enough for a half dozen runs before they arrived - but I therefore knew where some stashes remained from the Thu 10" snowfall. We had a fine afternoon on a very nice day. We enjoyed some brew at ORB and caught up with Wilks (no pics) as he returned from Kedrowski's talk on Everest and then dined at the "new" Pho Bay II together.

Matt and Alexa came out too to hit the snow but unfortunately MLC broke his wrist on the last run back to the car and spent time at St Anthony's before anesthetizing with ORB. Poor dude.

Too, as Kala and I declutter and "downsize" I've chosen to turn over my business library to Ross. I think the last time my friend Scott was here he looked at the shelf and just said "rid thyself" or something like that. It's a nice kit mostly replaced for me now with river maps and tying & fishing guides. I'm always one who takes continuing education and instruction so well. ;)

Summit Stuff 14Dec18-16Dec18

I headed to Summit Thu night to catch the tail of the snow which fell on Wed PM & Thu AM. I had a nice day a Keystone even catching some just opened runs of powder and even caught a clear shot of all of Breck from KS. That afternoon & evening I had a keen outing to ORB and the Western Tavern with DD... always enjoyable. Saturday was a work day where some of the IoT items were updated and pictures were hung. Sunday was a bonus day where I skied with Matt & Alexa (dang the kid is fast) and taught them how to tune skis...

Desert Retrospective - So Underrated - Roger Clyne 13Dec18

I've been listening to Roger Clyne since before The Refreshments in 1996, now through The Peacemakers and so on. This bandleader, songwriter, lead has some southwest swagger from Tempe but I don't quite get why he wasn't bigger... clever lyrics, stompin' vibe and a dirty clean. Here's his biggest hit Bandito played acoustic.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers - Bandito

Jean Luc Picard... and the United Federation of Planets... where they speak English everywhere.
The world is full of stupid people so meet me at the mission at midnight and we'll divvy up there.
Everybody knows, the world is full of stupid people, well I got the pistol, so I'll keep the pesos, and that seems fair.

But everything he's done (with 2 bands) is very worthy... here are the studio albums 1st to current... all really good though I've not dived on the most recent deeply.

Tying Stalcup's CDC Loopwing Emerger BWO 12Dec18

I love this fly on finicky tailwaters like the So Platte in Cheeseman. It is an all natural so not very rugged but man it works during BWO seasons. I've fished it both sunk and as a righteous emerger in the film with the wing "dry" and the body wet. Be warned, this is not an easy fly to tie despite its relative simplicity, the materials are generally small and it gets crowded at hook eye.

CDC Loopwing Emerger BWO

Recipe/Ingredients:

• Hook: #20-#28 TMC 2487
• Thread: Olive #70 UTC UltraThread
• Head: None
• Tail: ~6 white & brown partridge hen hackle fibers
• Body: Olive died goose biot
• Thorax: BWO Superfine dubbing
• Legs: ~6 white & brown partridge hen hackle fibers

Here we go...

Hook in vise; bind on thread at 1/2 way

Select small brown & white partridge feather

Tie in 4-6 fibers to bend leaving tail = hook length

Select goose biot and tie in at tail start;
assure notch at free end is facing up

Wrap on biot overlapping fuzzy front edge of biot;
get smooth, even, segmented look;
bind in at thorax

Select gray CDC puff
(These are easier to work than full feathers
and still pretty cheap)

Bind in CDC puff at tips end with concave up
(pull through wrap down to length but no
need to go all the way to tips - trim off tips);
Dub tube of BWO superfine and make thorax

Add 4-6 more partridge hackle fibers -
hold bunch on side on loose wrap then  move
beneath like legs and pull to length at hook point;
whip finish and tidy up (not too tidy here)

Frigid With Kize & More 03Dec18

Dr. Scott Kaiser (henceforth, Kize the speed freak) and I partook of a frigid day (<20° all day, in and out of sun) @ Breck. My friend BobR grabbed sinus crap and had to bail. We had a blast scoring 16Kft in under 2 hrs... it turns out Kize is a corduroy speed daemon and the lack of other fools on the mountain allowed very quick turns across pk8 and pk9 (6 and 10 are still closed). It was great skiing my 1st time with my friend and the short day too allowed me to get back to the Front Range for dentistry this week. No goggle gap on these supremely aware studs.

Once back I retrieved our packages from the past week and included is a micro-jump starter. Given the load I am now drawing from the Crusher battery to maintain my on-board fridge at 35° I had two choices - 1) build a 2 battery  system in the Crusher or 2) carry an on-board emergency jump starter. I chose the latter for now - we'll see how my fridge and how (hopefully not) the jump starter performs.

To test the fridge I needed to load it, right? After a bit of 110v charging, the fridge was a chilly 35° as hoped... so were my fresh 6 of Your IPAs from Melvin. Sometimes you need to turn from the haze and enjoy a nice West Coast IPA. Not the best from Melvin but better than most stuff out there; 'cause its Melvin.

The Beavers & More 02Dec18

Daryle DeBalski, Dave Sheldon and I all got our first trip down the Beavers section of A Basin... we took Loafer just to start, and it sucked. We should've gone up again for different lines as the terrain looks great, but it was so bad we moved back over to the face of ABay for some really fun runs in chilly but sunny conditions. What a view up there though.

More Early Season Runs In The Pow' 01Dec18

I've never gotten 4 powder days in November - what a great start to the ski season, even if I had to ski some weekends. ;) Today I was treated to catch a number of runs with DD. Yeah - please no comments on this - I didn't know he got a gold jacket and he didn't know I got a gold mid-layer. Yet, a fine outing on decent fresh snowfall despite some 2/3 speed runs to assure rock and stump avoidance.

Home Automation Update 28Nov18

I perused the smart doorbell offers and couldn't pull the trigger on the Google/Nest offer despite the great reviews - just too expensive. Since we have a Logitech/Arlo security/camera setup, I went with Arlo Doorbell and Arlo Chime. They are now installed at the Nest and work great ~ although latency is an issue with all these systems. I didn't have existing doorbell wiring so the pure wireless was a boon. Both items are fully integrated now... I know motion at the front door and record video on the event and I know a doorbell press, which rings the indoor chime, and can answer in person, or rings a call on my phone and I have a conversation with the visitor, or just allow the visitor to leave a message - without any intervention. Pretty cool. We'll see about battery life.

I now have the biggest config for Arlo which is still free. Five security cameras, including one added to cover the front door and one looking out back at the weather and wildlife, and a doorbell & chime (shown above). I've set up all appropriate rules and modes and it all works pretty well. I still get some false positive alerts though when I open the iPhone app and view a camera live - something is cross-wired in Arlo's cloud service. Too, the latency to the doorbell speaker, when answering on the iPhone as a phone call, is too long. Both of these issues are not show stoppers and the monthly fee of $0 is just right.

Regrettes @ Marquis Theater 27Nov18

Bob Riefstahl, Yoho and I enjoyed a good concert at the Marquis. We dined first on gr8 pizzas at Marco's Coal Fired and then walked over to the Marquis. We saw all three bands Ricky James, Welles and the Regrettes - though I was definitely there to see the (now headliner) Regrettes. Ricky James was energetic like Mick Jagger (he even did Helter Skelter after I noted the similarity) and somewhat like the Black Crowes a bit - I liked them... really bad image below. Welles was decent but a southern hard rocker sound I did not prefer - Jim liked them OK. Regrettes were good and fun SoCal girl punk as hoped. Production was better for them than at Summit early this year but I'd have to say that the sound at the Marquis is over-driven for such a small venue. It was a good, but not great, concert. I've included a movie of an unreleased song (PW: GR8F1sh)!

Regrettes @ Marquis - Unreleased New Song

Happy Birthday To Me 27Nov18

Kala scored me a cool ARB fridge/freezer for the Crusher for my birthday. No more chiller packs or ice chests, just continuously cold refrigeration. Its super efficient, 50 quart, and hooks into vehicle 12V circuit and house 110V, prioritizing 110V when both are connected. There's an adjustable voltage trigger that assures you can't drain the battery. I am still debating on whether to add a secondary battery to the Crusher so I'll assure cold beverages (and even ice cream!) and also assure a full battery. I did have to rearrange the back and remove the last row seat onto which I was oddly clinging. So cool.

[07Dec18 Update] The fridge install is complete. I ran a separate, fused, 8 gauge pair from the battery, through the firewall (not for the faint of heart), under the driver side door kick panels, behind the rear inside panel, and anchored out to a special positive screw-on terminal built for 12/24v line ARB purpose. Now there is sufficient full time power to the fridge to assure cooling - even when I am not jacked into 110V. It took ~3 hours and copious use of my "snake" but went better than I'd anticipated. As mentioned in a later post, I don't have a dual battery setup so will carry a mobile jump-starter just in case.

So far it's working well and holds ~35° steady... I have not tried to freeze stuff yet - nor has it been 95° out recently.