Thailand planning - only 4 months away!

5 days of a sinus infection/cold/plague is enough. That's it. It can go away now. I spent most of last night waking up every hour, coughing, hacking up a lung. But the end is near, I can feel it. The sinus pressure has decreased and I'm beginning to think I can breathe again. Although I am certain I need a lung transplant as I'm wheezing and gasping whenever I do anything resembling exercise!

I'm making supper for Memere tonight - prune and apricot chicken tagine with couscous. I hope it's not too exotic, but the fruit and the spices make it a good 'intro' dish into Morrocan cuisine. Should be an interesting evening. I didn't know she was in town until she called on Wednesday. No one tells me anything about family stuff. That said, I don't often ask either. I haven't called my mom since the end of July. Time flies. I just don't have that much to talk about - nothing new has been happening - just work and training and union shit.

I've been searching the web for muay thai camps to train at in February. I've got a few on my short list:

Kobra Muay Thai (Koh Phangan)
Rawai Muay Thai (Phuket, Rawai beach)
Jay Prapa (Phuket, Kata)
Lanna Muay Thai (Chiang Mai)

At this point, I think I'll go from Bangkok by train down to Surat Thani (8 hours), then take the ferry over to Koh Phangan and spend a week or two there at Kobra. Then take the bus down to Phuket (6 hours) to Rawai, which will allow me to spend some time with the dive gang as well. That should be a leisurely enough time. If I decide that Koh Phangan, Samui and Tao are worth a longer stay, then that's what I'll do. I figure a more open, unplanned schedule is better than being tied to anything specific. And if I don't like the gym, I can always change - there are plenty of camps on Koh Phangan and in Phuket.

New training regime - bring on the mornings!!

Okay folks, today was Day 1 of the new training regime. a.k.a. the 'get your lazy ass out of bed early and train and don't use the car' regime. I woke up at 5:45am, dragged my butt out of bed in the dark and cold to the washroom to wake up a bit before taking the dog out. The dog did not want to go out at 6am (although he was quite happy to go out at 2am this morning after chewing on a large chunk of femur yesterday afternoon!). Short dog walk around the block, back inside to get into biking gear, scarfed down a Red Bull for some energy, then I was out the door, bike in hand, and rode over to the gym. This morning's workout: 200 m and 125 m sprints up a hill, and 10 repetitions on the stairs. Plus the run to and from Strathcona Park. An hour's worth of laboured breathing and a slight pukey-feeling. Although I'm not as fast as the boys, I can hold my own. And I'm out of shape - this will definitely be good to get back into shape!! And since I wasn't doing as much sprint work before July, I think this will make my conditioning a lot better than before. It is brutal and horrible work, but without pain...

I biked in to work as well, which adds another hour of cardio to the day, approximately. 14 km each way between the gym and work. I wasn't moving fast this morning, that's for sure!! But some fat-burning low intensity work is not a bad thing right now, especially to disperse all the lactic acid from the sprints.

Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday will be sprint/hill/stair days to push my anaerobic and lactic threshold. Wednesdays and Saturdays will be long run days. And then regular training in the evenings. This post-fight pudge will be coming off quickly!! Provided the food intake is normal and healthy.

Being up and doing that much training already makes for a very long day! I'm exhausted right now. Coffee is my friend. And water - I don't think I'm hydrated enough today. I took my office Nalgene bottle home last week because it had a definite fishy smell to it. I'm not sure if that was from the water here in the building, or simply from not being cleaned thoroughly, but it really had to be disinfected. So I'm stuck with only a small bike bottle here to hydrate from - not nearly enough.

I just printed out a published paper on nalivkinite, a new Li-dominant astrophyllite group mineral. I apparently reviewed this manuscript, as my name is in the acknowledgments, but I don't recall doing the review at all!!! How sad is that? I vaguely recall it, but not in any clear way. I would have been the obvious choice of reviewers, of course, but still... Wow. Getting back to research means cleaning out the cobwebs from the last 1.5 years and rediscovering work I have or haven't done yet!! Although I suspect I reviewed this paper at least 1.5 years ago, and it's just getting published now? That's way too long of a delay.

Did I mention I'm NOT a morning person in the slightest?!! Actually, once I'm up, I'm happy to be up and moving early. It's just that initial getting out of bed moment that is horrible. That's when I can get up, hit snooze or reset the alarm clock entirely and go back to bed. But that's wimping out. I can't afford to do that right now.

I came across this quote in the Bangkok Post today, wrt to the political situation in Thailand:

"In recent times, "democracy" is a word that has been thrown around more often than a ping pong ball in Patpong - and suffers about the same level of degradation."

I thought it was hilarious. Ah, memories of Khao San road and the invites to ping pong shows!!!

End to a long week

Last night, I was in bed by 8:45pm. After an extremely long week, all I really wanted was Friday even to be over and done with, to start fresh on Saturday.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in union mediation with our managers. No comment. None needed really. When is mediation ever enjoyable? It's quite a draining exercise actually - not physically, but mentally. And frustrating.

Thursday evening was Rockin4Tabitha and it went great!!! We had about 120 people show up, made enough money for one full house, and had a great time! Kru Bob's group was fantastic, and so were The Hitmen. The dance floor was hopping (thanks to my students who are unafraid of being goofy and got up and danced right away!!) right up until the end of the evening. A very successful event - made some money for a house, got some publicity for the Tabitha Foundation, and everyone had an enjoyable evening out. We do need to find some more builders for February though - right now, we only have 11 total. And to build 20 houses in 3 days? A few more strong bodies would help!

I'm exhausted. I spent 4 hours at the gym this morning - Kali, BJJ and then some shadow boxing and pad work. Hurting right now. Going back to Gi work is fun but it's like trying to get the gerbil wheel spinning again, trying to remember all the moves and drills. But hitting pads afterwards, I felt stronger than I have in the last couple of weeks. Feels good to hit hard again - my foot isn't hurting at all. Well, the right one isn't. The left heel is killing me.

Starting Monday, I'm training with the boys in the morning - 7am start with springs or hills, then shadow boxing and pad work. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings. Long runs on Wednesday and Saturdays. It's going to hurt for the first while, but I think it will be good for me - getting back into shape by jumping into the shark-filled pool head first. Yup, it's certainly going to hurt. That means Mondays and Fridays will be double training days. Maybe Tuesday as well. I should start going on Tuesdays again - do Phase III class more often. But it doesn't start until 7:30pm and by that time, I'm wanting to crash on the couch.

Cathartic Colorado

I'm headed back to Ottawa tomorrow, back to the land without mountains and my own mineral colleagues. It's been quite a week - exciting, cathartic, cleansing. I am headed home in a different state of mind, with renewed interest in science and mineralogy and a renewed friendship which I was never sure could ever again exist on a healthy plain.

Wednesday I bagged my first 14'er - the 14,267 foot Torrey's Peak. It's located just west of Idaho Springs, south of I-70. I was told that I could drive up the access road, but my poor little Kia Rondo had other ideas!! I made it up the first bit of the 'road' and discovered a huge gully in the middle of the track - not enough room on either side to put a tire, and no way I was going to drive in the ditch. I tried a few times, managed to bottom the car out entirely (insert screeching noises, large clangs, crashes, and finally burning smells) and decided that maybe walking the 3 miles to the trail head was a better idea!! I parked the car at the bottom of the road, and started to hoof it up the road. 10 minutes into the hike, a 4x4 truck came up behind me at a snail's pace and I stuck out my thumb - I figured anyone coming up that road was headed to the trailhead anyway. And sure enough, they were, so I caught a ride up. Yeah for friendly strangers!!

The trailhead was at 11,000 feet, with the trail heading straight up a glacial U-shaped valley. I slung a water bottle from my pack and started up. I managed to find a hiking rhythm fairly quickly, remembering my experiences in Nepal and knowing that going too quickly at the beginning was only going to destroy me at the end and leave me tired, sick, with a headache and needing to go back to lower altitude.

About 12,000 feet, I ran into two guys who were headed down because they decided that it was too cold on the upper reaches of the mountain and that they weren't dressed well enough. Huh. I had enough upper body clothing, but only shorts on below. These guys were in full fleece already, long pants, and they were cold?! Shit.

Past 12,000 feet, the going got rough, the switchbacks started, and thought "why am I here?" kept creeping into my head. Altitude digs hard into the quitter emotions. When you're moving so slowly, breathing in and out at each step, it's hard to imagine that the hike can be any more fun. But I took it slow and steady and all was good. I did actually wind up hiking the last 1/3 of the trail with someone - I ran into a lady, Joan, a retired Colorado resident, on a break at a switchback. We wound up hiking together, leap-frogging the entire way to the summit. That turned out to be a good idea as the wind at the summit ridge was brutal, freezing of the fingers started, and the oxygen deprivation near the summit was debilitating!! But actually not as bad as I thought it might be. Taken slow enough, it was actually fun!! I even ran into a mountain goat on the way up - it just stood right in front of me on the trail, not moving, eating lichen. Offered great photo ops, but it really had to move so I could get up the trail!!


Thursday and Friday I spent at the Colorado and Denver mineral shows. I think I am mineral'd out. 2 full days of browsing around over-priced samples and I'm exhausted!! I did wind up buying 2 samples for our collection, but not much new was on the market that interested me.

Thursday evening, I met Francois in the lobby at the Holiday Inn and we went into the bar for a drink, then out for supper. Amazingly, it was a good time. I really had fun - we talked about life, science, our jobs, our lives, etc. Like two normal friends who have not seen each other in a while. And he genuinely seemed interested in what I had to say, and vice versa. I didn't feel threatened or uncomfortable or insecure at all. I think we've both matured. We shared a bottle of wine and it helped to loosen us up a bit, which we really didn't need. It was nice to laugh and joke with him and I'm glad that we got together, to the point where I asked him to meet me for lunch today as well. When we said our goodbyes this afternoon, I was actually sad - it's been so many years since we've spent time together and then to have a great week and have to separate again? Hard to take. But part of me is still uncertain - can I let my defenses down this much and not get hurt? I don't know.

Flashback, deja vu, and a test of maturity

Greetings from Golden, Colorado! 5500 feet in the foothills of the Rockies, I'm finally back to the USA SW after 3 years of absence. And it's great to be back!! The mountain air, the blue sky, the rough, harsh, barren terrain, the altitude, the Mexican food, the ranch land. It's like homecoming, even though I have never lived out west before. I could live here. Actually, in New Mexico or Arizona would be better, but Colorado is pretty great as well.

I arrived on Saturday morning after a boring flight, got my rental car, and headed the 35 miles from the Denver airport to Golden, on the west side of Denver. After checking in and unpacking, I decided that a trip to downtown Denver was in order. I spent most of my time on the 16th street pedestrian mall, having lunch and walking around. Lunch was a detour from a healthy diet - I found a small mom-and-pop Mexican cantina in the LODO district and was in heaven - a Negro Modello, a Herradura Anejo margarita, and a mixed plate of enchillada, chilli relleno and a flauta - absolute heaven. I love Mexican food, and this was fantastic!! Although alcohol at 6000 feet is deadly - I was slightly tipsy by the time I headed off to walk around downtown so stopped by a Starbucks and found a coffee.

By supper time, I headed back to Golden, stopping at Corral Western Wear where I browsed the cowboy boots in my price range and wound up buying a nice pair of Justin's - brown with gold-ish stiching on the upper part. Woo hoo!! Gotta break them in though - they are pretty tight and stiff. But so were my other ones initially and now they are soft and comfy.

Saturday evening I decided it was time to get in some exercise, so I headed out on a run. Running at 6000 feet - not a whole hell of alot of fun! Throw in the fact that the route I took, west on Colfax (no sidewalks) was completely uphill!! 5 minutes in, and I was ready to rip out my lungs!! But I wound up doing about 5 km or so, enough to make me feel like I burned off some of my endulgent, cheese-smothered lunch!!

Sunday, I headed out to Red Rocks park, 15 min up Colfax West, and went trail running. Not knowing what to expect, I took the Red Rocks trail, which started at the bottom of this really cool formation of upthrust red Jurrasic sandstones that tilt almost 90 degrees in some places. It's really neat - you can stand at the top of the hills look south, and see this entire line of upthrust red sandstones. Never thought I'd find sedimentary rocks so cool!! Actually, from a sedimentary point of view, this area is interesting - lots of dinos and other Jurassic fossils are all over the place here. Okay, the mining history is alot more interesting, but the dinos are pretty cool too!! For dead things, of course...

Trail running in Red Rocks, at least initially, was more like trail walking - running up switch backs at that altitude was hell!! I did about 7 kms, some running, some walking, but having a great time nevertheless. I hope to go back a few more times this week and run one of the other, flatter trails. I had planned to go this morning, but when I got up at 6am, it was (1) raining, (2) really friggin' cold (think snow), and (3) dark as hell!! My plans of trail running were cut short and I wound up spending 1/2 an hour on the treadmill in the hotel exercise room.

After a shower and some healthy food (I stocked my hotel fridge with food from "Whole Foods" on Saturday), I decided to go visit Boulder, which is about 25 miles north of here. Mainly, I wanted to check out REI, and go wander around downtown Boulder, a cute little ski village with a pedestrian mall perfect for window shopping (or spontaneous shopping as the case may be!). I had lunch at a small cafe, wandered around in the sunshine, had a coffee, then headed back into Golden.

Last night was the welcoming reception for "Mineralogy and Museums 6", held at the Geology Museum at the Colorado School of Mines. The reception was well-attended - I ran into a number of colleagues and friends who I haven't seen in years. Some, like Julian, I see all the time, usually in Rochester where we've made him an honorary Canadian!

The turning point in the evening, the encounter I had been nervously awaiting, came as I was looking at the mineral collection. Francois came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a big hug (in itself very strange). Immediately I felt my guard go up - does it have to be up? Do I need to play defense with him still? Was his friendly greeting sincere? Can I trust him? The answer to that last question is most likely no. I need to be careful, for my own emotional state of mind. We stood around and chatted for a long time - about his change in jobs, research, the collection, cats, etc. One of our colleagues came over and chatted, and when he asked how I had made the leap from astrophyllite to Nb-glasses, I looked at Francois and he answered "cats". It's true actually - one of the first discussions we had via email when I was decided where to do my post-doc was about cats. It was an email discussion that I though boded well - to have someone that friendly and discuss something other than science with me via email, after only a few interactions, to me felt like good vibes. If I had only known...

He was headed out for supper after the reception, but I declined his invitation to go along. He keeps saying we need to go out and drink wine together. Part of me is very hesitant to do so - I believe that activity has gotten us into major trouble in the past!! Grenoble in particular comes to mind. So does the night after the West Indies restaurant in Paris when the Absinthe flowed like water. I'm not sure that he and I spending those kinds of evenings together would be healthy. And, although I suspect that he's happier and more relaxed with his new job, which might have calmed him down, he still doesn't seem to have changed all that much. And neither have I - I still feel an unexplained attraction to him, the feeling that I can help him, the misguided thought that he won't hurt me again. I am constantly reminded at how much we aren't in control of our emotions and feelings. Thus, my decline of his supper invite, but with a promise that we would go out later this week.

This morning, I ran on the treadmill, had breakfast and headed to the technical sessions. I did my best to walk around Francois, not knowing exactly how to deal with him. When I was a post-doc, I followed him around like a puppy when we went to conferences - I was young, immature, insecure, and didn't know anyone in the European circuit. Now it's different - I'm no longer that immature (in some ways!) and know alot of the people at this conference. I'm also no longer uncomfortable walking around solo like I used to be at conferences, needing to be beside my advisor or colleague at all times. I don't feel that insecurity any more. And, given that I feel very defensive right now and am fighting to figure out, in my head, how to handle this situation, I thought it best to avoid contact, so I hung out with Julian.

The technical sessions today were okay - good talks, wide range of topics. By mid afternoon I was crashing though - time change and being up early this morning. Francois finally did come up to me late morning and give me the traditional French greeting of cheek kisses. I found it quite intriguing - him coming to me rather than the other way around. Interesting. That sounds like a power struggle, doesn't it? Wanting him to come to me rather than the other way around? It is in a way - a demonstration of independence, a need to prove in some way that the past is just that - the past and I've moved on.

I didn't stay for the reception tonight. I've decided to not drink from now on - back to a training regiment and diet. Getting up early in the morning to run and do weights here takes alot of energy, and I don't want to jeopardize that. The weight I've gained since Iowa bothers me and I want to get it off - steadily and healthily. And alcohol just doesn't factor into that. Also, drinking here might bring too many demons out of the closet and make me open my mouth bigger than I should. I feel the need to talk to him, to bring out into the open how hurt I felt, how betrayed, how abused and demeaned. But what good would it do? We do need to sit down and talk though - I might return to Paris to work with him in the coming year. Is this a good idea? I don't know.

Tomorrow will be another long day - talks all day and then a dinner at the Denver Museum. I'm excited to go to the Museum to see the Sweethome Mine rhodochrosite display. I've been a fan, in love with! Sweethome Mine rhodos since I was an undergraduate student. When the Mineralogical Record special rhodo issue came out, it was like mineral porn for me! All those beautiful, red, lushious, almost edible-looking rhodos. Very cool. Sick person eh?!! :)