Super Boulder II

Sunday marked the 2nd annual Super Boulder. A super bowl party with bouldering as it's sidecar......pure genius. This year the fun factor was greatly elevated as it was the inaugural use of the propane deep fryer I received as a Christmas gift from my brother in law. So mixed in with the climbing we managed to consume a lot of fried cheese, a lot of jalapeno poppers, a few fried dill pickles, and 15 pounds of chicken wings. There were only 8 of us, but we ate for 16. The bouldering was hard and we left plenty of routes unfinished. Through extensive research we did learn that eating chicken wings and drinking beer does not increase climbing ability. Consider that information 'the tip of the day!' In the end, a great game and for a bunch of ball sport hating climbers, there was quite a bit of cheering as the Giants ruined the perfect season. Cheers to underdog! Click on the photo for more Super Boulder II images. Photos courtesy of Eneu Photography.

Another benchmark of Super Boulder II is that it marks one year of this blog. Before you go posting your comments, I am well aware that there were several gaps in time. Maybe I'll get them next year......maybe.

Getting My Curl On

Events like I experienced today are exactly what this blog is about. We were given the opportunity to 'learn to curl' by our friends Vinh and Megan. Curling is that unique Winter Olympic sport that we all watch in amazement and wonder, "who in the hell does this stuff, and how did get into the Olympics?" I can't even explain how excited I was to curl. So I will give you what my small brain absorbed and deemed relevant from the day.

First, basically you push off of a rubber block, called the 'hack' and slide down the ice as you release a 40 pound granite 'stone' down the ice aimed at a giant bullseye about 140 feet away. The object is to get as many of your 8 stones close to the center of the bullseye, which is called 'the house' and the center is called 'the button.' You can only score if the stone is within the outermost circle, and only the team closest to the button scores as many points as they have stones inside of their opponents nearest stone. Each round is called an 'end,' similar to an inning in baseball, except far more exciting. It's kind of a shuffleboard meets bocce and putting on ice. As the stone slides down the ice you can 'sweep' it with a broom like device that basically creates friction and heat to help the stone slide more easily down the ice and stop where your team desires. Before I ramble on further, just go to Wikipedia if you really care about the details any more.

Some other interesting curling info to note:

• It is considered polite and 'necessary' to have a drink with the opponent after each game.
• The sport gets it's name because you put a slight amount of rotation on the stone as you throw it so it will curl left or right to hit other stones or curve around blocking stones to get to the center of the house. Sort of like a draw or fade in golf.
• A curling event, or tournament is called a Bonspiel, which I am pretty sure means tournament in Scottish.
  
• The ice is 'pebbled' to give it a slightly bumpy texture which aides in the ability of the stones to curl.
• Curling all day is far more tiring than I expected.
• Curling is far more about drinking than I expected.
  
• Stretching out in the crazy throwing position will likely render my leg extremely sore or unusable tomorrow.

I have to put this on the list of one of the most entertaining things I have ever done. It's an awesome sport that combines coordination, strategy, teamwork and gamesmanship all into one. I would highly recommend it to anyone. If I could just learn to luge. Click here to view more curling photos from the day.

It's colder than ________________!!!

When the windchill is -41, it's time for a weather related post. The average 'celebrate winter' activity is pretty much out, since you would freeze your face to a can of beer if you were to drink in your yard or something. As a result I came up with a few funtivities for extreme winter cold:

1. Wear dress pants to work and you will be able to simulate what it feels like to walk down the street with no pants on. As a disclaimer, actually walking around without pants may get you arrested and the staff at Adventures of Mitch can assume no liability for this.

2. Fill a container with very hot water and tell your friend you will go outside and throw it in the air over your head. Fun trick. The water will turn to snow when it hits the cold and what doesn't will freeze into a block of ice and hit you in the head. At least you are not wet. Again, no liability assumed.

3. Work on your fake cry and see how fast the tears freeze to your cheeks and eylashes. Option 2 would have you do something that actually makes you cry, but is usually far less fun.

4. Exercise your vocabulary to fill in the blank for this posting title, so as you see people throughout the day your are not the complete frozen brained idiot stating the obvious when you say, "golly, it's a cold one out there today, eh?" Some suggestions: It's colder than..........a) trading Johan Santana for a bunch of guys nobody has ever heard of, 2) the packer fans after Bret Favre threw and interception in overtime, 4) the tears that fall from Terrell Owens' eyes after he loses.........I could go on, but likely nobody will be entertained.

Happy 2008!

Happy New Year, 27 days late. Adventures of Mitch has been a neglected tale of late, and many of my avid readers (approx. 1-4 people) have begun to get restless in the absence of the riveting tales of Adventures of Mitch. So I will start with an update, and hopefully by the time I finish typing that I will have come up with something else to ponder.

Here's what's happening: UNI lost in the playoffs, it snowed this winter, my dog is still alive (at 12 years old she's mostly blind and 90% deaf), and I have stopped drinking coffee that was once part of a marsupial's excrement. Quick update, year in review, now onto the new story.

This has been the winter of skiing. Nordic skiing. Skate skiing. I got into it last year and have become obsessed. How obsessed? I usually consider myself obsessed with ice climbing. I haven't even gotten my gear out of the closet this winter. I haven't taken one swing at the ice. Instead, I hover over a bench in my garage waxing my skis for the next days weather and dream of Norwegian men in lycra suits. I'm not racing or anything, but just seem to be addicted to being out there. It's a great workout and a great way to cruise around the parks in the winter. I have been slowly building up the endurance with hopes of doing a race at some point this year, which brings me to the story of the day. Given this story, a race should be entertaining.

I went out on Friday morning with my friend Sean for about a 10k ski. ('skiers' measure their distance in kilometers because it's European, and therefore worldly and cool) It was somewhere new and hilly and fun. So, I decide at some point Friday night that this was going to be the "Weekend of Skiing." I was going to push my limit......go farther than I've gone before and basically totally dominate. So I head out to a state park about 40 minutes from my house for a long ski. I have never skied here before so don't really know what I'm getting into. The trail description is "wooded with some decent hills." Well apparently if these hills are "decent" they must normally ski in the Himalaya. I feel good after leaving the house full from no breakfast and 3 cups of strong coffee. After all, I find there is nothing better than a false confidence to get you through something difficult. I hit the trails cruising and feeling great. The trails are super hilly and the loop is about 12k in length, but I am skiing hard and fast. My goal was to ski 20-25k. After one lap, I feel pretty good and head out again into the woods. After about 3k into the second loop I start hurting. My water is almost gone, I really wish I would have eaten breakfast (or supper the night before), and my legs are screaming. Basically, I skied way too hard the first lap and now I am paying the price (See 'The Tortoise and the Hare' for further clarification). As I look at a map I decide I can trim about 5k off the loop, which puts me about 5k from the car. Not too bad except I felt like I was pulling log behind me and all the muscles had been surgically removed from my legs. I was shot.....wasted......dead. So the rest of the ski pretty much went like this: ski about 1-200 meters, rest for five minutes and drink imaginary water from my empty bottle, and repeat. I did make to the car eventually and can't remember the last time I was that exhausted. Once I got to the car I drove to a small general store about 5 miles away to 'refuel.' Here I purchased 32 ounces of Gatorade, a Kit Kat Bar, bag of potato chips, some peanut M & Ms and a root beer. I proceeded to consume all items in approximately 5 minutes, while driving, and drove home with a well deserved gut ache. Good times. Went out and skied 15k today and my legs reminded me of how they were treated yesterday. The good news is I didn't do the convenience store binge at the end and I lived to tell the story.

I Bleed Purple and Gold

As a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, and having grown up in Cedar Falls, I am a die hard Panther football fan. I started attending Panther football games when I was born in 1976 when the UNI Dome opened. I've seen a lot of games and there is nothing better than the FCS, or I-AA playoffs. I won't get into the details of why the games are exciting and how insane it is that Division I can't see how rational the system is. For those of you not keeping track off the #1 rated Panthers, they have had a record breaking season.


After a 12-0 season the playoffs started this weekend. I, of course, made the drive down to the dome to watch the big game.......I don't miss playoff games. We fans have been waiting for this day, as the last playoff game ended in a loss in 2005 when the panthers were defeated in the national championship game in Chattanooga, TN by Appalachian State.

This weekend, it was New Hampshire. A solid team, with a great quarterback to match up with our ace, Eric Sanders. I won't bore you with play by play, as you can find that on the panthers website (see link in right column). The dome is a crazy place to play. It's loud, it's the playoffs and anything can happen. This game was totally nuts. I've seen good games, I've seen crazy games, but this was one of the best. The panthers led, or were tied, the entire game as the offenses traded scores. New Hampshire found a way to score with just 1:16 left in the game to go ahead for the first time 35-31. Sitting at the game with my panther comrades........we'll call them Rooster,Martini, and my cousin Vinny (for the sake of anonymity), we were devastated, crushed like a small child after realizing their pet hamster can't swim in the toilet. Emotionally shattered like a 7th grader peeing his pants at school.........this was not good.

But wait, it's a bird, it's a plane...........it's the UNI Dome. Eric Sanders, our senior quarterback led the team down the field and threw a 25 yard touchdown pass with just 7 seconds remaining to win the game. We cheered, we cried, we forgot to notice that Rooster left at the half with his daughter........and couldn't remember where Martini's wife and small child were. Luckily, they were home safe, away from the pandemonium and chaos. We lived to play another day, namely, this Saturday, 1pm against.......the Delaware Fighting Blue Hens. Go Panthers!

For a video clip of the winning touchdown:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=VIDEO02

Thanksgiving in St. Paul

I have spent a lot of my Thanksgiving holidays, as an adult, in the Grand Canyon backpacking with groups. I find myself torn between how much I enjoy the Grand Canyon and how much I enjoy the gluttonous beginning of the holidays season marked by Thanksgiving. Having spent quite a few weekends traveling this Fall, we decided to spend our first major holiday at our home in St. Paul. We have both had some busy days at work lately and it has been incredibly relaxing to have several days of nothing. We enjoyed a quiet Thanksgiving morning with a cup of coffee, snow flurries and a paper filled with ads. I decided to try to cook a meal worthy of holiday status and it actually worked out fairly well.

I prepared grilled spinach and feta stuffed turkey tenderloins, mashed potato casserole and some stuffing. We killed a bottle of wine and enjoyed a late afternoon meal on a wintry day. Since I was in the cities this Thanksgiving, I decided to experience 'Black Friday.' After all, I hate shopping, but the people watching has to be entertaining. Brandi wanted to go to the mall, but I was afraid some would trample or eat me........these types of things happen at the Mall of America. We set the alarm for 5am and headed for the stores. After almost getting hit by 473 SUVs in the parking lot we watched several hundred people lining up outside Circuit City in 19 degree temperatures in their individual quests for discounted electronics. In the end, we hit a few stores, bought some stuff on sale, accomplished zero holiday shopping and found ourselves ready for a nap by 10am.

What would a weekend be without some driving? I am off to Cedar Falls tomorrow morning to watch my beloved UNI Panthers start their quest for the 2007 FCS college football championship after completing an 11-0 regular season last week. Go Panthers!

Minnesota's North Shore

Fall is by far my favorite season of the year, however, it's also the busiest season as well. With Brandi and I both working at the University, Fall is a crazy time of year. We decided we REALLY needed to get away for a few days. We headed to the North Shore of Lake Superior for some R&R and to take in the peak fall colors before the weekend crowds showed up. We were not disappointed. We spent some time in the quaint northwoods town of Grand Marais, hiked to the highest point in Minnesota and spent a night camped on a 'secret' beach on the shore of Lake Superior.

We hit the road on Thursday morning and stopped in the harbor town of Duluth for a burger at Fitgers Brew Pub before making our way along the shor on highway 61 (see 'Bob Dylan song'). While the leaves in the twin cities are changing some, it quickly became evident that they were near peak color in the northwoods. The drought of this year has left the woods glowing with yellow contrasting against the lakes, conifers and dark tones of the North Shore rock. After taking in the view from Palisade Head we left the shore and drove inland hoping to hike up to Mystical Mountain and the views above the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center. We got a shortened hike in as a passing thunderstorm prevented us from accomplishing the tricky scramble required to get up to the top. Wolf Ridge had great color and it never gets old hiking through the woods with fall colors lighting the way carpeting the trail underfoot.

Friday morning we enjoyed a cup of coffee and strolled through the streets of Grand Marais. A raised sugar donut from "Worlds Best Donuts" proved they did well in naming their establishment. The galleries and shops of Grand Marais made quick work of a lazy morning enjoying a sunny fall day and some great art.

After lunch we headed up the Gunflint Trail into the BWCA (boundary waters canoe area). The BWCA is the largest roadless piece of land east of the rockies, and definitely one of my favorite places on earth. The hike up Eagle Mountain to the highest point of Minnesota is a rugged rocky trail that winds through woods of the Sawtooth mountains and enters the BWCA boundary while winding through the northwoods and along remote lakes before reaching the amazing views at the top that overlook BWCA. The overlook on top gave us a birds eye view of the quilt of colors and some of the lakes we had paddled on a trip a few years ago. The colors from up on the cliff were awesome and it never hurts to have near perfect weather as well.

We spent Friday night at an absolutely perfect campsite listening to the waves of Superior crashing onto the pebble covered shore with a bright moon making it easy to walk around without using a headlamp. A bottle of red wine and a fire in the moonlight made it hard to go to bed, knowing tomorrow I had to drive home. In the morning, we enjoyed an amazing sunrise over the lake with a cup of chai before heading back to the city. (we did repeat offend at the donut shop)