Heron Lake

Earlier this year my buddy Brett and I took the boys camping. The real goal was to take the boys fishing. However, we seem to have forgotten that we live in New Mexico. Silly us. The original plan was to camp close, but the closest body of water didn't have any open camping spaces available. So we settled for Heron Lake. A 3 hour drive, but some people had deceptively posted pictures of pulling rather large fish out of the water.

We had reserved a camping space right on the water's edge. There was even a great picture letting you envision how you could conceivably orient your tent so that you could sit in the flap and cast your line. 

We got there with plenty of time to setup camp and worry about dinner. Here's a picture of Brett pounding my tent stake into a rock to make sure it would be useless.

 See the barrier behind Ben? That's where the water is supposed to be.

As per this picture:

 However, the water was really....

 That's right, nearly 600 feet below capacity. This turned out to be about 1.5 miles from the campout ground. It didn't LOOK like that far, but when we tried to walk out to the edge of the water, it just kept getting farther and farther away like a bad dream. Almost like they were draining the lake while we were walking toward it.

 So we pulled out the air soft and pellet guns and decided to shoot some stuff.

 For dinner we had brought some burgers to grill on a portable enclosed BBQ. This apparently did not meet the restriction on open flames as we were soon informed by a park ranger that literally popped out of nowhere. I think she came out of a hidden door in a tree trunk. Maybe she was really an elf...

We brought along Ben's friend, which made for an interesting night. When we invited him, his mom pulled me aside and informed me that he frequently gets "night terrors." I didn't think too much of it then, but in the middle of the night he started saying some pretty crazy stuff. Frankly, if his mom hadn't warned me I would have been freaked out of my mind.

The next day, we decided that we were going to catch some fish. So we drove over to where there was some water.

 However, as it turned out, there was still no fish.
So we went hiking.

 One thing there was a lot of was cicadas. So what did we do? We captured them for fish bait! Surely, we were simply feeding the fish the wrong stuff and we should use what was naturally in their environment. We quickly set up shop again. This time on the river.

 But there was no fish in the river either. So we went home and had watermelon with Zack.

TEDxABQ

I know that most of the people who see this blog also are friends with me or Katie and Facebook and have probably already seen an email from me on the subject. But, I'm only at 10 minutes of fame right now and I want to make sure I squeeze out that last 5 minutes for fear of getting short changed. On that note, here's another copy of the link to the talk I gave at TEDxABQ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZJ5RlrkcaI. ;)

Participating in TEDxABQ was a pretty fun experience overall. Some of the best of it was the free speech coaching that I received as part of the process. I pulled a "practice" talk at the Gillen family reunion this summer and I'm sure that anybody there was convinced that I was going to blow it on stage after the torture I put them through. They didn't complain about getting liquid nitrogen ice cream though.

The real treat was getting put up in a hotel for 2 nights as part of the event. Papa and Grandma came down to watch the kids and hear me talk while Katie and I enjoyed the high life at Albuquerque's only "urban resort." What is an urban resort, you ask? Well, it's a pretty standard hotel in the middle of Albuquerque with an overpriced indoor waterpark.

Other goodies associated with the event included cheap sunglasses, free drinks at Starbucks, bath salts made to look like meth, a text book on yoga, chocolates from a candy shop that we found out also doubles as an adult store (Nathan, I'm sure, will never forget that experience), a travel mug, and a stuff bag.

They only gave me 1 VIP ticket, which I gave to Katie. But since I was speaking I figured they should have given me some for mom and dad too. So we brought them in through the VIP entrance and pretty much did whatever we wanted on the day of the event to the chagrin of the event staff. Several time they tried to stop Papa, but he'd just point to me and "DNA." It was surprising how well that worked.

Luckily, I got to speak in the morning session which allowed me to sit by mom, dad, and Katie, for the rest of the talks. Unfortunately, I never did run into the gay guys that sat by Katie making surly and surprisingly positive comments during my talk. We did catch one or two of their comments on the video camera Katie was holding though.

I don't have any of the pictures from the event, so I'll leave it to Katie to come back in post publication to add them from her camera.

Kallie breaks her foot

Everyone has “mom of the year” moments and this was one of mine.  Four weeks ago all the kids were playing around after prayer one night.  I’m not sure about anyone else’s house, but in ours after prayer is “time to be crazy, run around, wrestle with dad, get wired up so we don’t sleep” time.  Remember this?

Kallie getting a huge cut on her forehead from Ben wrestling with her and accidently hitting her head with the wall….yes, after prayer and right before bed.

Fast forward a year.  All the kids were running around and Ben and Kallie smacked into each other.  Ben’s teeth hit Kal’s forehead, and Kal’s foot decided to roll underneath her and onto the side.  She starts crying and howling.  Ben is crying.  It was a hard hit. 

Now this is where I win Mom of the Year.  I’m not the most sympathetic and tell them both it’s because of them being crazy after prayer.  I tell them to go to bed and they will feel better in the morning.  Kallie is still upset so I give her some meds, put her foot on a few pillows and get her an ice pack.  She goes to sleep.

The next morning I go to see how she’s doing and she refuses to walk on her foot.  Kallie can be a little dramatic so I make her get up and at least attempt.  Two seconds she’s back in bed saying it hurts to bad.  I’m thinking it doesn’t look bad so tell her I’m going to call the doctor and take her in….hoping to get her to tell me it really doesn’t hurt as bad as she says it does.  I’m surprised when she agrees that’s a great idea.

This is her foot the next morning.  It’s a little bruised and puffy…but I’m not thinking it’s broken.  Broken to me is what I used to see at the ER.  Limbs in directions they aren’t supposed to be in.

So I baby her and let her eat breakfast in bed and watch movies all day.  I’m thinking after a few hours she will get tired of it and start walking.  I’m wrong.  I finally call the doctor around lunch time and get her an appointment for later that day.  They tell me to take her to the ER, but I inform them she’s happy just watching movies so we can wait for the 4:40 appointment.

She crawls all day so she won’t put any weight on her foot.  This is when I finally start to believe she hurt her foot.  I’m thinking a light sprain.  We go to the doctor and she sends us for x-rays.  Kallie has to ride in a wheelchair.  Of course I have to take a picture.

Verdict?  She has broken a piece of the bone on the outer part of her foot.  The piece is gone.  They don’t see it on x-ray.  I didn’t know that was possible.  They wrap her up, give her crutches and we get referrals to go to a foot specialist to see if he thinks we need a cast.

Funny part is the day before I got this picture.  Kallie’s cousin M getting a cast on her right foot too!  Kallie just didn’t want M to have all the fun.  Two days later M’s brother takes a hard hit at a soccer game and ends up with a cast on his arm up to his shoulder! 

Thursday (the accident happened on Tuesday, we see the first dr on Wednesday) we get into the foot doctor.  Her foot is still bruised and swollen, but I’m thinking not cast worthy.  I find out later from the gal who puts the cast on that the dr was booked that day, but once the x-rays came in they double booked him to get her in fast.  Made me feel even better about not taking her right to the ER the night it happened.  (sarcasm)

Zack loved her appointment.  There were things for him to touch and get into all over!

Doctor comes in and sure enough we need a cast.  She has a pretty good break on whatever that bone is called and it needs to be put in a cast.  Sad part – Thursday (this Thursday that she got her cast) was supposed to be her first ballet class.  She had been counting down the days for weeks!

Anyone surprised she got pink?!

She has to keep all weight off her foot.  The doctor tells her she needs to be in a cast for three weeks, then re-evaluated.  I swear this girl wore pink everyday for all three weeks.  She’s a really good sport about having a broken foot and really makes her brothers do everything for her.

Three weeks come and go and we are back in the doctors office.  She is really excited to get her cast off.  The big moment!

The doctor decides not to re-cast but to put her in a walking shoe.  She has to be really careful not to put too much stress on her foot and should still be using crutches most days (but doesn’t).  We go back in in another three weeks to see if the bone is all healed.

So Kallie, our only girl, is also the only one in our family (with three boys) to get stitches and a broken bone….both caused by her brother.  She is one tough cookie!

So to make Katie jealous, while here I explored the IKEA next door.

 While IKEA would normally have taken advantage of Katie ;) I took advantage of their dinner special. I think it was discounted because they ran out of actual Swedish chefs...

 I also went hunting for some mementos and very nearly bought this shirt for myself. I thought it was so awesome. I would have worn this shirt to work for the rest of the year.

 That was all yesterday however. Today I had a little time to do some hiking along the Niagara Escarpment. The trails were not clearly marked so I took the liberty of taking anything that I though looked like a trail.

 This eventually led me to the river and the dissappearance of an actual trail.

 So I just started hiking up the middle of the river bed.

 This is Albion Falls. It was actually quite impressive. I hate how cameras destroy the majesty of something. The giant rock slabs that don't match the rest of the geology came to rest there a couple of years ago when heavy rains apparently dislodged them and brough them downstream. Also, back in the 1800's a young lady flung herself from the top in a case of unrequited love.

 This is a view from halfway up the falls.

 And this is the signage I found at the top of the falls. Sometimes it pays to cut your own trail...

 Fall has started to set in here and it was beautiful. Going back to New Mexico is going to be visually hard to do even though I'm more than ready to be home.

Toranha

The title is apparently how some people from Canada pronounce "Toronto". It rhymes with piranha. Anyways, we finally found the signal for the experiment that I came here to learn about. It looks like this:

 and it only means something to about 10 people in the whole world. However, if my experiment proves succesful in all the ways we hope it will that could change drastically. If not, it will remain esoteric forever probably.

At any rate, getting that signal meant I didn't have to worry about working until late into the night looking for it. This gave me some time to do some urban hiking and explore Toronto a little bit.

I've actually been to Toronto before; once, when I was in high school the entire music department traveled out here for an adjudication trip. I don't actually remember a whole lot about that, but strangely enough going through my closet before this trip I came across the info packet for that trip back in high school. Crazy. Katie will be proud that I actually threw it away when I came across it :).

Getting into downtown Toronto was actually horrendous. I can't think of anywhere I've been that traffic is so bad, not even L.A. In fact coming back after 9 pm I was forced to take side streets because the freeways were still bricked up. Insane.

When I got into downtown I parked in what seemed to be a normal underground parking facility. However, unbeknownst to me it actually happened to connect to something of an underground shopping/business grid whose design is based off of corn mazes. I finally surfaced above ground two streets away in the opposite direction I thought I was heading.

One of the defining buildings of the Toronto skyline is the CN tower.

 

The restaurant in the ring rotates and slides up and down the tower giving a 360 degree view of the city. Where I stood to take that picture is the Royal Hotel, which looks like a citadel and was the offical residence of the Queen back in the days before Canada's separation from Great Brittain. It was quite the building but due to city construction projects I couldn't get a good view point for taking a picture of it.

 

Also just down the street from me was the rink for the Toronto Maple Leafs who happened to be playing the Ontario Senators tonight. Scalpers were everywhere. I almost bought a ticket for $20 but then I realized I could sit in a nice restaurant not sharing my elbows with two other people and watch the game on a grid of 20 flat screens while eating for the same price AND get reimbursed for it. I actually took a picture of my meal because I was so impressed that they took the time to make a lincoln log cabin out of my fries:

It's hard to tell from the picture but my fries where a solid perfectly square brick of potatoes about 4-5" high. It was actually pretty impressive.

 

 

While in Toronto I also passed by the Hockey Hall of Fame.

This building is the St. Lawrence Market. It sits kind of in edge of the city between downtown and old town. It is, according to National Geographic, the world's best indoor food market and yes, it is the principle reason why I wanted to go into downtown Toronto at all. Unfortunately, it happens to be closed on weekdays :*(.

 

I also came across some Canadian graphiti.

 But one of the best finds was BULK BARN. Yes, it is a store that sells every thing you normally could buy anywhere else... from bulk bins. The following picture is why my children will never be allowed in such a store. If you need further explanation search this blog for a previous story of Andrew in Las Vegas a year ago in August.

There was lots of cool architecture too, but it was getting too dim to take picture of any of it and it's probably something that's more boring for everybody than naught.

 

Before I leave I also hope to do some nature still hiking down by Niagara Falls.