End of 2011, Start of 2012, and a Trip to Navy Base Ventura County

That is a warm doggy.

Over the holiday break from school, my sister took care of her boyfriend's dog, pictured above.  During dinner one evening he burrowed under a jacket to find a nice warm place to hang out.

Between Christmas and New Years, I made my way back to Boulder, this time by airplane rather than automobile.  It saved time, but I did miss out on the Motel 7 in Wyoming.

Upon returning to Boulder, I made some last-minute preparations for my "Drink Like the Brits" New Years Eve party.  The event went off as planned, from about 4:00 to 6:00pm (5:00pm Mountain Time is midnight in Britain) with a handful of friends coming over for English tea, ales, ciders, and Scotch.  To give things a Colorado spin, I also had guacamole, hummus, salsa, and various chips and crackers for dipping.

My fridge looked a bit like the front of a Tesco store before the party started.

On New Years day, I embarked on an interesting physical challenge.  I attempted to walk approximately 33 miles from downtown Denver to my apartment in Boulder.  Having inappropriate footwear doomed my effort after about 27 miles.  However, I expect this challenge and I will have a re-match sometime in the not-too-distant future.

The first week of January, it was back to work drawing, building, and testing circuits.  Some prototype RF (radio frequency) filters returned from fabrication, so I tested those, and then assembled a table-top phase noise measurement system to verify performance of some amplifiers that needed to ship to customers.

These filters are all GND from a DC perspective, but to RF, do all kinds of cool things.

Phase noise measurements can sometimes be a real pain in the neck, but this time the system came together nicely and the measurements went as smoothly as I could have hoped.

Last Thursday, I made my way to Denver to catch a plane to LA for the next of (hopefully many more) adventures of 2012.  I was invited by the Navy Safe Harbor program to attend a training camp at Navy Base Ventura County, helping to prepare a group of athletes for the Wounded Warrior Games to be held in Colorado Springs in early May 2012.

In the Wounded Warrior Games, veteran athletes from each branch of the armed forces (Army, Navy/Coast Guard, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command) compete in a variety of individual and team events to lay claim to the Ultimate Champion (individual) and Chairman's Cup (team) awards.  Last year, I joined team Navy/Coast Guard as a tandem pilot for a blind cyclist.  We won the gold medal in the 30km tandem road race event, and now have our work cut out for us to defend that win in 2012.

After waking up to a low of 6F in Boulder on Thursday, I was greeted by temperatures in the 70's in Southern California.  It felt luxurious!

A park at Navy Base Ventura County (NBVC) neighbored the apartment where I stayed.  And there was no snow in sight!

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all full days characterized by early mornings, long training sessions, short meals, and activities continuing into the evenings.  The athletes were all pushing themselves and each other, which was great to see.  The level of energy and enthusiasm was contagious.

I hope everyone looked in the same direction when the real photographer took his pictures.

The camp participants were a mix of athletes who competed in the Wounded Warrior Games in 2011 and new athletes who are hoping to make their Games debut in 2012.

My workout on Sunday afforded a chance to do battle with a very large truck tire.  There was no clear winner.  We both wound up lying on the grass.  I, however, did eventually walk away.

On Sunday afternoon when the cycling sessions were complete and the bikes were all stowed in the storage facility, I did some training of my own.  Being mid-January, I'm in the middle of doing lots of hard workouts which don't involve the bike at all.  In this case, I rolled a tire, the difficult way, down the length of a football field.  Then I went to a pull-up structure and did 25 pull-ups.  After that, I ran two laps of the track and called that a round.  After five additional rounds, both the tire and I were lying on the grass, neither of us feeling particularly motivated to move.

Monday was another early day, with travel back to Colorado being the primary activity of the day.  While walking through LAX on my way to check my bag, I saw a sign (pictured below) that amused me.

Will a teamate serve a hot beverage if my baggage is lost?

I'd like to meet a teamate some day.  Hypothetical question: if I hand up tea to riders from my club as they pass through the feed zone in a road race, does that make me a good teamate?

Now I'm back in Boulder for a while, until the next adventure.