mullerb's musings

That's funny cause the beds in this hole are way too small. More like a cot than a bed. Looking forward to switching hotels tonight. The new one is in the city center has much better access right out the door to the sites that you want to see. The only draw back is the 15 minute metro ride from the conference but hey, that's kind of fun and novel. Rolling lessons for Leah, eh! That's great. I hope she enjoys it. Kelly is bailing, I take it. Too bad - she's really capable. ENjoy the hike! Should be really nice up there! My kangaroo presentation is on Friday. Yesterday was the workshop, today I split a presentation with Pat on COMET's current state of affairs, Thurs I lead a round table discussion on formatting traininig for mobile devices and I have a poster session to show off lots of COMET stuff. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox From: Rachel Muller <rachel@mullerb.com> To: Bruce Muller <bruce@mullerb.com> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 8:06:34 PM Subject: Re: travel plan

...and things are pretty raw. It's midnight and I just got home from a mini adventure. After getting set up in the hotel, we headed over to the university, which is all of one building (!?!) where the conference is being held. The building does have a couple of radars on the roof so it really is a college of science with focus on physics and atmospheric studies. The venue is just fine for our small band of global met trainers. It reminds me of the old 'gymnasium' school buildings in Switzerland where I went to 5-7 grade. We set up the computers, which are very nice new laptops, helped haul enough vodka up the stairs for each of us to have our own bottle at the ice breaker on Tuesday eve, then went out to dinner at a German restaurant with 5 Finns, 3 Americans, 1 Australian, 1 Dutchman, 1 Italian, and 2 Russians. Pretty wild. Instead of doing the reasonable thing at 9:30 PM, which would have been to go back to the hotel and catch up on some sleep, I went with Pat to his hote

Hard to say what things are like yet. We got in after a long 7 hour train ride. It's only 300km so it should really only take 3-4 hours. But lots of stops and a very long 1 hour stop at the border slows it all wayyyy down. The scenery was the same the whole way: tall birch and pine woodland interspersed with fields of green hay and the occasional farm house. Pretty monotonous but still pretty. We traveled with Alessander, the guy that took over Jaakko's former job. He's an Italian that married a blue eyed, blond haired Finn 12 years ago and mover to Finland to raise the family. He's a really nice guy and we great conversation the whole way. The region just across the border used to belong to Finland so it looks pretty much the same as well. Until you get closer to St Petersburg. Then things start to change - for the worse, unfortunately. Things start looking very run down, disused, and, well, drab. What a bummer. St Petersburg also greets you with a very run down look.

Hi Girlies! I'll post pics from the trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mullerb/2009_06EuropeTrip# How do? It's 12:40 in the morning here and the sky is still totally lit up. Amazing! I had a grand tour of a day with Jaakko. After last night's late escapade for dinner and a midnight stroll around the city center. I ate reindeer for the first time in my life. I also picked up the tab in order to pay back their hosting me. Despite the late night, I still managed to beat the jetlag and got up by 8:30 local time. Jaakko reluctantly gave up a late morning slumber on the first day of his 5(!) week break from work to take me to see his office where I visited with several folks that I know. We bussed it across town, about 3 miles, to get there. Nice place. It's the country's center for atmosperic research; a brand new building tacked on to the university's physical science research campus. It sits on a hill to the north of downtown and the views from the upper floo

Sorry I keep missing you on skype these days, Ben. Most afternoons are steeped in meetings. Thinking of you all though, all the time. Kicking back with some Coldplay in seat 20D on flight 932, trying to get my fingers to play nice on this ipod touch's little keyboard On the first leg of a 3-leg flight to Helsinki. A couple of days to see the sites of that northern city with my hosts, Jaakko and Maria, then a classic train ride to St Petersburg for a week long conference. A week in Switzerland with the girls after that. Close to a year now in a 'senior' management position. It's a senior position since there are only 5 of us that are running our show and any one of us can be called in to be the acting director if needed. We're a pretty flat organization so all 38 of us are pretty close. I've had a banner 10 months of getting creative putting new processes and tools in place. Funny how work can be fun yet so draining; at times it's like a long hard bike ride

Shook Rachel out of bed at 6AM in order to get an early climb in while Leah slept off a busy week of tennis and swim camp. We left the house at 7 and returned by 10:30. Hoofed it up to the base of the east face of Seal Rock in 35 min then simul climbed the first 2 pitches. Rachel took the lead and places all of 2 pieces on 2 pitches through the savory finger crack on the upper face. Got a call from Leah along the way, reassuring her that all was well as she glimpsed us from binoculars from our bedroom window. Big water holes on the summit rock and awesome views with no one around. A dramatic, mostly free-hanging rappel gets you down (50m, double ropes). Good for the adrenal gland after the easy climbing.

21 miles in an hour. Not too bad. Getting into a rhythm again. Finally. But upcoming travels will no doubt kill it. Sigh.

Quick launch in the banana Dagger but the looming storm clouds scared me back just in time. The late afternoon storms these days are just too predictable. I only got 25 minutes in on the paddle before I aborted.

Fast and hot today. Thought lightning would strike as I was huffing up the 3 Bitches below the buzzing power lines. Got caught in a shower before making it back but not enough to get soaked - nice cool off.

What a blast!! Took Yoly and Joe for a commercial paddle float down the 'beginners' section of Clear Creek with Arkansas Valley Adventure (AVA). A totally worthy thing to do! Makes me want to get a small paddle raft. Pretty continuous class II+ and III- for ~12 miles from Exit 140 down to Kermits on Route 6. Yeehaw!!

Solo, as usual.

Slow solo loop. I'm in OK shape, doing an average just shy of 20 on these slow runs.

Family float with the Blum's. One raft, 6 duckies and 'yaks. Yum.