Putting Down Roots

Ahh yes, summer in the lower-48.  I haven't been in the continental United States for a summer season since 2006.  Between Benin, traveling, and Alaska, I've gotten accustomed to living a transient lifestyle, actually planning trips to a store, and making do with whatever I happen to find at said store.  The last 10 months spent in Fort Collins have snapped me back into the world of wading through the many, many choices of every product in creation.  Not too sure how I feel about this, however access to Whole Foods HAS reintroduced me to the luxury of fresh, organic produce allllllll the time.  But since there's a reason it's also called "Whole Paycheck" I decided to go for the garden option.  I was pretty lucky back in August to find an actual human landlord who would let me put things in the ground.

Trolling the Larimer County farmer's market was fantastic; fresh bread, honey, cheese, and most importantly, veggie starts.  I just didn't have time to tackle seeds this year...but there's always next summer...and so the madness starts.  Fairly certain I inherited the gene that drives my mother to blow her knees out every year planting enough produce to feed all of Northern Ohio.  If we ever get a plot of land together, look out world!

I channeled my 15-year old self from the landscaping days and donned my hiking boots and shorts (my legs haven't seen sun in at least 3 years, ca-ute!).  Coming from the rich Ohio soil, the clay in my current backyard shocked my still-vibrating wrists when I was trying to raise the beds.  No mind, landlord Ben to the rescue with composted horse manure...and grubs.  Very curious to see how this planting season goes in a land of little water, high winds, and unfamiliar pests.  Photos below, suggestions are definitely welcome.

Squash, cucumber, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, strawberries

garden in the far corner...we're working on the grass situation

ready to plant

Herbs that WILL live through the winter

Looks sparse...fingers crossed

It's so dry here things are already starting to fry.

Happenings in Colorado

I haven't blogged since February???  Oh boy, grab a cup of coffee, this may take awhile... but I promise pretty pictures along the way.  I'll keep it chronological and full of highlights.  This should have been 7 or 8 blog posts.

Matt, Sally, and Tucker enjoying the view

For spring break I headed back to the familiar land of Leadville.  I am still completely charmed by this town.  It was so nice to walk in to the coffee shop, chat with old friends and see some familiar faces around town.  While I did have a looming finance project, there was still time to get out and snowboard and snowmobile a wee bit.   Sally even invited me up to Copper Mountain to get buried in a snow cave so the avalanche dog she works with could find me.  Getting found by a cute golden retriever face is not a bad way to spend a Tuesday morning.

Happy Dog who loves snowmobile trips!

Rocky continues to live the life

So that was spring break.  After an all too short week (but wishing the whole time we could just get on with the semester), I headed back to Fort Collins to finish up the last 8 weeks of the second of three semesters for my MBA.  I've always known I'm a multi-tasker and enjoy switching gears to keep my brain fresh.  Classes have been a grind for me this semester, statistics in excel is just not doing it.  So I began looking for additional opportunities to build my skill set...but mostly have some fun while I'm here.  My MBA team and I decided a few months ago that we will be staying in the United States for the summer.  Other teams are headed to Bolivia, Mongolia, Kenya, and Guatemala, can't wait to follow them!  Since we ditched our initial venture in Brazil, we'd been evaluating our strengths and opportunities and came up with a pretty cool summer endeavor.

*

But that's another post.  

*

What I REALLY wanted to say (unrelated to the school stuff) is that I was recently hired as the outreach coordinator for the Shortgrass Steppe Research and Interpretation Center at CSU.  

View from the research station.  

What a cool place!  You all will be hearing much more about it.  Big sky, amazing eco-system, and as a secondary self-assigned task, I'm learning about a whole new world.  Baby rattle snakes and burrowing owls? Yes please!  The director of the center does research on prairie dogs.  Now, I have friends who ranch and my mother has waged a war on ground rodents on a scale comparable to Caddyshack.  It's been interesting and more than a little ironic to learn about and appreciate the ins and outs of prairie dog towns.  My office is in a lab where they do research on the black plague as it relates to p. dog towns.  That's right, p. dogs get the plague, clear out and start-up a few years later.  

*

But that's another post

*

Switching gears, I began brewing beer!  This is a spin-off personal project from a past potential school project.  After talking to several people in the community about barley & hops, I got the brew bug.  I tasted my first brew two nights ago, a pale ale.  Fizzed, tasted, looked and provided a homebrewed buzz just like real beer!  I'm pretty sure angels sang when I took my first sip.  Now that I've gotten over the hump of buying the kit and understanding the process, it is ON!  So many recipes to try...

*

But that's another post

*

I've already improved upon this method, carboys get HEAVY quick.

The goods to make the goods

Right after transferring to the fermenter.

14-days later, we're ready to bottle!

The sanitation station.  Surgical conditions right here.

Bottle/carboy cleaner.  Best. Tool. Ever.

This is what fermented beer looks like before bottling.  Don't worry, we avoided including the crud (trub) in the bottom.

And now we wait, 14 or more days.

Clean-up is not the best part.

So while Fort Collins did not immediately win my heart, what with the big box stores, copious amount of vehicles, and the staggering number of people between 18 and 21 years old, it IS growing on me.  Spent some time last night at a great bar with great music, part of the FoCo MX 2012 music celebration.  Saw the group Highway 287 and am looking forward to a summer of music and brewing.  

PHEW! If you got to this point in the post, congrats. You are now just as up to speed on my life as I am.

Zip Cars!

Rocky is MIA as of late due to work in the mountains and up until now I've been just fine using a friend's car here and there when I needed to haul something bigger than my Cannondale could handle..which isn't often.  I made the decision to sell the only car I've ever had (owned for 6-months) last April before I headed to Alaska.  Felt great because as well all know with vehicles, with the freedom comes the expense.  I've been eyeing the zip cars  strategically placed around campus for some time and I finally just bought the $25/year membership as a back-up plan.  I'm sold!  I finally decided to complete the home brewing equipment kit I purchased a few weeks back and had to find supplies at (GASP) Wal-Mart.  Haven't been there in quite some time and walking through the doors made me feel like I'd just returned from Benin!

But first, zip cars.  Car-shares - What a fantastic idea.  Among the many Prius-es (Prius-i?) around, I had to reserve "Emmy" the Ford Escape because everything else was booked.  Not exactly the eco-image I was going for but whatever, the glaring zip-car logo on the side took care of my need to flaunt my greenity.  I show up at my reservation time that I so conveniently set up online a few hours prior, slap my personal zip card on the windshield sensor, hop in and drive away.  There was a half tank and they only request you leave a quarter, so Emmy and I were ready to roll.  When you DO fill the tank, please use the included gas card above the visor.  The total service is $8/hr but I end up spending less anyways because I'd fill a friend's tank just for goodwill.  As a last bonus, these are the nicest cars I've driven since staying with mom and dad.  No burning oil smell, smoke, or monster truck muffler faux-pas.  Again, I'm sold.

And yes, my eco-friendly car-share ride rolled me right into the Wal-Mart parking lot where I was desperately looking for a 15L kettle to steep my grains and boil my malt in.  No such luck and happy for it!  I may end up spending a few dollars more at the local brew store but I was so over Big Blue by the time I walked out, I'd have given my first born corgi (ok, maybe not) to avoid the droves of folks who had piled their carts high with corn dogs, fritos, and pallets of soda.  Not that I'm unsympathetic to the cost of food and hey, baby's gotta eat something!  It just threw me for a loop after my latest Whole Foods shopping spree.

So think twice before you fire up your 11-mile/gallon ride and start looking around for the strategically placed Prius.  It's totally worth your dollars!

Spring Happenings

Hey friends!  Decided to post an update during a much needed break.  It's been a month since the last post and nothing is as it was...so that's fun! Onward for the details: 

First, since I'm sure you're dying to know.  My fellows ruggers and I voted and we are now the fierce Fort Collins Cutthroats.   However, our colors are light blue and ...black (I think).  We all know how nicely blood comes right out of light colors...  We start outside practice this week with a potential coach so hopefully we'll get some time on the pitch this spring.  It's been a little start-stop-y due to lack of ladies and other teams who want to let us try out our sweet rugby skills.

Fort Collins has been kind with her weather.  Nothing too severe and I've been able to leave my road tires on my bike, though sometimes the cold wind requires I don my uber-fashionable snowboarding helmet, ca-ute!

I did make it up to the mountains with some friends who lit the motivation fire a few weekends ago.  Awesome time at ski cooper and got to see the new overnight yurts ( <-- click this link! ) at the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse.  What an amazing spot!  They just keep getting better and having a beer on the porch looking out to Mt Massive and Elbert made me appreciate the time I spent in Leadville even more.

X-Country skiing away from the cookhouse.

I'd like to post about the venture my team and I decided on since we bagged the Brazil green roofs idea, however I think I'l leave it with that photo for now.  Happy Sunday, stay tuned!

Fort Collins Lady Ruggers

Sore.  Every muscle in my body is screaming at me due to the 7-hour rugby camp I elected to attend yesterday.  Shout-out to the Glendale Raptors women!  These ladies hosted the camp and offered their expertise and facilities at no charge to growing teams in the area.  Their goal was to promote safe rugby and progress the sport, especially for women as we are so often left to our own coaching devices due to lack of funding, spotty commitment from players, and the absence of facilities.  Not to bring on a pity party, we did just fine at Kent State and had a blast doing it!

The most impressive part of the day was learning from women my age, who are svelte-er than I have EVER been, and watching them teach the game.  There was no screaming about "champions getting up even when they can't" or "digging deep" while I rupture something or feel my muscles sliding around under my pansy, turf-torn flesh.  This wasn't a competitive camp, its sole purpose was rugby education.  The Raptor ladies were humble and bad-ass at the same time and genuinely love the sport they have worked so hard to play. We covered everything from appropriate scrum techniques to ball handling to safe tackling; offense and defense general strategy and articulation of field positioning.  Great for our new girls and I learned new things every drill...mostly that I'm out of shape.  I was in good company though, one girl got up from being tackled and said "Oh yeah, the muffin top pinch, just a little reminder that it's the beginning of the season..."

To add to my awe of Glendale's rugby program, we played at Infinity Park, right outside the same-name stadium.  That's right rugby folk, I said STADIUM!!!!!  For RUGBY!  Try-posts, seating, and everything.  Seriously, click on the link.

The Fort Collins team showed with 7 ladies and I say ladies because we certainly aren't girls anymore.  I am 27 and hate the words "I'm too old to do that anymore", especially from my peers.  We're not "OLD"!  There are 70-year olds who run marathons so let's get over ourselves people!  That said, there IS a significant difference in how tackling affects me now versus when I started almost 10 years ago.  There were many moments yesterday when the team almost collectively decided to make ourselves the Fort Collins Cranky Old Bitches.  Anyone available to be our mascot?

All in all, it was as great though painful kick-off to our season of conditioning, scrimmaging, grant seeking for travel and jersey funds and getting our name out there in the community.  Check us out on Facebook AND our new website!!! Fort Collins Women's Rugby  The bio page is pretty funny.   Stay tuned for more details of excruciating fun and team bonding!

Hiatus of madness!

Hello happy readers!  Looks like I've adapted a 3-month blog cycle, New Years intention #1: record more, communicate better.  I've added a few pictures to encapsulate my semester.  Each photo should have been a blog in itself.  Here's the run down:

Since we last met, I attended Net Impact 2011 in Portland, Oregon.  It was a fantastic conference, focused on innovation across all fields.  Some key highlights involved hearing executive officers from REI and Nike speak as well as every day people who truly make a difference doing what they love.  Click on the link above to get a run down.  One of the most important take-aways came from interacting with several of the hundreds of other MBA students who also attended.  While many were taking a class or two on sustainability, we in the GSSE program are totally immersed in it.  It was nice to feel validated by every single speaker I saw.  We are, in fact, setting ourselves up to compete in the world of innovation and change.  The morning we flew out, a group of us made the trip over to Multnomah falls and though it was a rainy day, it was great to see some sites outside the city.

At Net Impact, Portland.  Breakfast of champions!

Multnomah Falls after our weekend conference.

Just as we all hit our mental capacity, Thanksgiving break arrived and I had 10 sweet days to sleep, marinate in what we had learned so far and head up to Leadville for some friends and home cooked food.  Check out those rolls by Rocky!

Thanksgiving in Leadville, great friends and food!

In the few weeks between fall break and winter break ( I forgot how much I love the academic schedule), classes kicked into high gear and we wrapped up presentations, projects, and finals.  The work paid off and I'm sincerely looking forward to building on what we learned, next semester.  Sidenote, one of my spring textbooks is "Statistics in Excel for Dummies".  Good thing we're all realistic enough to avoid being insulted...

Our very last final of the semester...40 hours and many pizzas later.

After some post-finals celebration, I headed up to Leadville and realized altitude + exhaustion = extreme sloth.  Recovered nicely in clear view of the Rockies and flew home for some family time.  Hadn't seen them in a year so it was great to eat mom's food, see friends (Shout out to Keith Chervenak & Co!), and pet my dog (who keeps fighting the good fight and never loses that puppy glow amidst the tumors).

Coming home always tastes so good!

I'll just re-start working out in January...

 Colorado State has a fantastic winter break, a complete 30-days!  Classes start on the 17th and in the mean time, I'll be searching for just a wee bit of snow to board on (it's a low year in Co), prepping for classes and grant seeking for a projected summer trip to Brazil to research sustainable housing solutions in the greater Sao Paulo area...but that's a whole different blog post. 

On continuous watch for dropped food.

Happy New Year everyone, may your good intentions be fruitful and communication channels be open!

The man, the myth, the legend!

Now where to begin?  In true form, it's been almost a month since posting but the good news is we're halfway through the semester, WOOT!  Instead of the usual whirlwind recap, I'll focus on a particularly exciting event we were able to partake in last Friday.  The MBA program I'm in is called Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise (GSSE).  It evokes many of the same reactions I got when explaining to people I was going into the Peace Corps.  "You're doing what? ...Why?" or "I hope you make as much money as that degree title sounds like."  I've gotten over the pitying looks.  As IF I could do anything to save this world caught in a downward spiral, right?  Well, turns out, some of us can.

The happy GSSE crew and speakers

The GSSE community had the opportunity to hear some pretty inspiring folks speak a few days ago. Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises (IDE) and author of Out of Poverty along with the current CEO, Al Doerkson came to share some perspectives about development and IDE's place in that world.  While Paul holds to some steadfast rules (the "Don't Bother Trilogy") I don't necessarily agree with, such as "If what you design can't pay for itself in a year, don't bother" he makes some of the most logical connections between business and the developing world I've every heard.  The way Paul and Al rattled off market numbers was astonishing.  As a wise not-so-old professor once said, "Paul is 78 and could kick all our asses".

Evolving as a professional and engaged individual, this program is pushing me to see the things I agree with and highlights some that I don't.  I think it was Obama's mom who said something to the effect of "Sooner or later you have to be for something rather than against everything".  

Giving potential venture feedback

The day started with some background on IDE and where the idea came from (Paul's head).  He's a psychiatrist by training, spent some time investing in real estate, and realized after traveling through many developing countries that a good chunk of the world has some serious needs BUT they had some disposable income to address them.  The rest is history, peppered by Somali donkey carts, drip irrigation systems, water purifiers and more.  IDE sells products to make people's lives easier in a manner that is affordable and less intrusive than traditional products.  Seriously, leave this blog now and go the sites I linked above!  They don't apply blanket answers but adapt their market strategy to each country, city, and village situation.  

Lettin' us have it!

The most exciting part of the day for me was when we were able to let fly questions we had about the projects we will be presenting at the end of this month.  Our class goal is to pick the most viable projects from a crop of ventures and carry those forward over the next 18-months and maybe beyond.  Paul and Al asked us real questions about the nitty gritty details.  What an opportunity to ask these men, who have been in the field for decades, about our ideas.  It was humbling and energizing all at once.  These were questions investors or really anyone would ask.  Our ideas are solidifying but we're still in the research phase for the most part... This is the irrigation project in India I keep mentioning.

It was a fantastic day.  Paul signed all our copies of his book, many contacts were exchanged and, I think, a good time was had by all.  I'm sure this is not the last I'll blog about these guys and IDE, their ideas and practices resonate with me in a very big way.  As Paul says, "There is much to be done."