A Plan for 2010

So we are now officially half way through the first month of 2010. Over this last 2 weeks I have been working to define my goals and plans for the year. Now that my b-day has come and gone it is time to finalize my goals and plans. For the last 14 years or so, I have set a pretty agressive group of goals for myself each year. I am anal retentive about it and document these goals in a spreadsheet. I have used the same spreadsheet year-after-year adding a new tab to it every year. As I added my tab for 2010 I realized the wealth of data I have collected over the years. The data reflects the things that have done that are important to me. I don't know why it is important for me to collect this information, but.... it is. I guess it reflects to me all that I have accomplished! So here are some of the plans for 2010. - Take hikes and walks that total over 500 miles. - Ride my bicycle for over 1000 miles. - Take part in Death Ride 2010 on July 10 outside of Reno, NV. - Read 25 or more books. - Read 5 books on my list of the greatest books ever written (I have a list of 100 books that I consider the greatest books ever written I am attempting to read.) - Write over 200 posts for this blog. - Continue to climb Colorado's 14,000 foot mountains. Summit at least 3 of them this summer. - Travel, travel, travel. Take one major international trip during the summer of 2010. The leading candidate place to which we plan to travel is Iceland. - Complete hiking along the Highline Canal trail in Denver - Make sure the people who are important in my life know how I feel! Those are just a few of the goals I have for this year. I hope 2010 is a busy year for me. I want to continue to live life to the fullest and take advantage of every opportunity life affords me. And as always I will continue to exclude the most positive and optimistic outlook on life. I will try and laugh pretty much all the time - cause life without laughter sucks! Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

National Western Stock Show 2010

Yesterday Zack and I took our yearly pilgrimage to the National Western Stock Show in Denver. The National Western Stock show has been around for over 100 years and is one of the largest stock shows in the entire country (it might be the largest - I just don't know). For those of you who don't know what a stock show is, it is an exhibition of ranch animals - from cows and horses to llamas, yak and elk. On top of the exhibit of the animals there are rodeos, exhibition of farm equipment, kids exhibits, countless vendors selling farm/ranch related material, contests (fiddling, blacksmithing, etc.) and many other things. In general it is like a severely overgrown state or county fair. Saturday was the opening day for this year's stock show and I wanted to attend on this particular day because of two key events - the llama show and judging and the Mexican Rodeo Extravaganza.

My desire to see the llama show is obvious due to my plan to buy a llama. I didn't go to the show with the intent of buying a llama - but I wanted to spend a bunch of time talking to people who raise and care for llamas. Seeing the Mexican Rodeo Extravaganza is a yearly tradition for Zack and me. A Mexican rodeo is a lot different than your typical rodeo as there are a lot of entertainment activities involved as opposed to an "American Style" rodeo. There are feats of extreme horsemanship, comedy routines, dancing and singing (all in Spanish of course!).

We were quite rushed to make the llama show as it started at 4:00PM and Zack had a cub scout activity - earning his Aquanaut Activity Badge to do earlier in afternoon. We didn't finish at the Highlands Ranch Eastridge Rec Center until almost 10 minutes after 3. So we had to head home and change quickly before heading towards downtown Denver and the National Western Complex where the show is held.

(Zack saying hello to one of the llama in the competition for best of show.)

Arriving around 4:15PM we headed directly to the Event Center stadium in which the llama show was being held. There are 4 or 5 different stadiums within the National Western Complex. The largest of them - the Colisseum can seat almost 10,000 people. The others only seat between 1000 - 5000 people. This stadium can probably seat about 2000 people - thankfully there weren't many people there for the llama show and judging so Zack and I were able to get right down to the edge of the stadium floor and see the llamas very close up.

(Zack hamming it up with another llama.) After we were done looking at the llamas in the show we got some food to eat and then headed down to the paddock area where the livestock is kept when not in their shows. The llama section of the paddock was easy to find and spnt a good hour or so wandering through the hundreds of llamas that were there. I talked to quite a few owners and breeders and I was able to get the scoop on how easy llamas are to care for. In general, the conversations left me feeling that taking care of a llama won't be that particularly hard. It sounds like they are about as easy to take care of as cattle as opposed to horses - which seem a bit more needy. Next we moved on to the exhibit hall so Zack could spend some time hanging out in the "petting farm". Kids mobbed the entire "petting ranch" so I let Zack go in and I hung back drinking a beer. The National Western Complex allows you to carry open alcohol containers throughout the entire place so that makes the visit there that much more fun! Zack had a great time playing with all the animals. (Zack exploring some of the farm equipment on display.) We wandered through the exhibit hall for a good bit of time seeing all the exhibits and playing around on the farm machinery that was on exhibition. There was an ironsmithing competition going on in out of the open air tents so we stopped an investigated that. Though I don't think you can see the detail on the website, the photo I took of the ironsmiths in action I think is pretty cool! Look for the sparks flying through the air from the work the guy in the foreground is doing.

(Ironsmith competition in progress. Notice the sparks flying - thought that was really cool!)

The Mexican rodeo was our last event of the evening. As always it was really good and some of the acts of horsemanship were outstanding. At times it seems impossible what people can get these very well trained horses to do. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a Mexican Rodeo I do highly recommend it.

That wrapped up our visit to the 2010 National Western Stock Show. But if Zack has his way we will be going back at least one more time to see some more shows.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

A Very Bad Day

To say that I detest January 9th is an utter understatement. There are many historical reasons why I don't like this day, but there has been new fuel added to the fire with this January 9th. The person who meant the most to me has written me out of her life. I shared so much of who I was with her and now.... it just hurts! It doesn't make any sense to me - but it hurts and aches. Somehow I have to try and pick up the pieces and move on. Why? That is all I can say at this point.