cmiles – blog

Charles Miles – Tucson Hiking, Outside and Adventures, Excel, .net, Life

The End of 2011 – Notes

Happy New Year! I thought it might be fun to write a few notes about 2011…

New Blog – consuming – I have been using this blog to post and record info about media that I have been watching/reading/listening to (and I like it!).

New Blogging – In the second half of 2011 I started contributing to Trail Talk – the Summit Hut blog, writing posts on both hikes (Airmen Peak, Rosewood Point and North Rosewood Point, Palisade Trailhead to the Sabino Canyon Tram and Buster Mountain, Buster Spring, Montrose Canyon) and about gear (Review: F-Lite 195 & F-Lite 230, First Impressions – Inov-8 Men’s Evoskin™ and Fall 2011 – Jackets with Synthetic Insulation!). Writing these posts has been a fun way to share some of the hikes, destinations and gear that I love.

Hiking/Outdoors – While my Flickr pictures are about any number of things I have more pictures of hikes/outdoor adventures than anything else – and my 2011 Collection has 30 sets of pictures – more than any other year I have on Flickr! I made more time for hiking than any previous year and am excited about getting outside in 2012!

School – I have been taking a variety of classes at Pima Community College for years as a way to keep learning new skills. But this Fall, with the combination of subject matter (diagrams, system planning, …), being busy at work and wanting to get outside I failed to finish my class for the first time in years… I am going to take a (brief?) break from classes at this point and focus on some programming projects at work that I am excited about as a way to keep learning, but classes are such a great way to learn/expand that I am sure I will be back for more at some point…

Rides/Runs – In the past I never felt all that excited about organized races – but I got the bug in 2011 (likely from ADT!) and did The Tour of the Tucson Mountains, El Tour de Tucson (60 miles), Catalina State Park Trail Run (5.1), Urban Assualt Ride and Arizona Distance Classic (1/4). I did not have specific goals (other than finish) for any of these events – and I like it that way – but the experience of seeing and being with so many other cyclists and runners is really inspiring!

2012?

In the first part of 2012, if I can stay healthy, I plan on doing Fleet Feet Arizona Trail Race, Mesquite Canyon (1/2 Marathon), Tour of the Tucson Mountains and the Catalina State Park Trail Run (10.2).

These events are a fun way to get outside – and I think my only goal in 2012 is to get outside more!

Hope everyone has a great year!
CM

Filed under: Life

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

twitter -> twitterings

  • Just saw the new Resharper 6.1 Early Access version has Async CTP support listed - downloading now... 6 months ago
  • Quick post about FeedDemon/Pinboard/Save to Pinboard on Android as my choice for Google Reader Sharing cmiles.info/2011/11/05/goo… 6 months ago
  • FeedDemon+Custom Sharing XML->Pinboard; NewsRob + Save to Pinboard on Android - replacing Google Reader sharing, Reader now just for sync... 7 months ago
  • Doing a few Max - cycling74.com - tutorials - what fun, first time in a decade I have played with this... 7 months ago

RSS pinboard -> links

  • Gmap4 - Share Enhanced Google Maps
    A very cool tool - free for non-commercial use - that can produce very nice (and very usable) topo maps that can have data (GPX, KML,...) overlaid on it very easily!
  • Vistoso Hiking Club Hikes Database
    Short descriptions of hikes near Tucson with a few off trail and interesting destinations - no doubt there are more informative sources but sometimes the simplest thing is nice...
  • Bill Hill - Pictures
    I don't stumble on that many well organized great sets of Tucson hiking photos so saving this link!
  • [WPF] How to bind to data when the DataContext is not inherited
    This solved a problem for me with control of DataGrid Column visibility via Data Binding. Did not test/research/profile this extensively, but for my problem this worked like a charm.

RSS cmiles-consuming -> posts

  • Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami 2012 June 1
    Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami are favorites of mine. To combine them into one blog post seems slightly odd – they are not part of a series and are complex enough that reducing them down to a few sentences seems like a disservice. But what these have in [...]
  • Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, Dan Simmons 2012 May 16
    I first read Dan Simmons‘s Hyperion in the early 1990s – the Hyperion Cantos is quite famous and I would occasionally see Hyperion listed in Amazon recommendations and ‘top’ lists (see the ISFDB Top 100 Lists and Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books from npr books (note that you may get some amusement out [...]
  • Wool Omnibus (Wool 1-5), Hugh Howey 2012 May 1
    I don’t usually pay much attention to Amazon’s recommendations – but after finishing 1Q84 I wanted something new and, for whatever reason, the Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey jumped out at me on Amazon’s list. Wool takes place in a bleak future where the characters live in self sufficient underground silos with only a vague [...]
  • 1Q84, Haruki Murakami 2012 April 15
    I am a fan of Haruki Murakami, so I was excited when the English version of 1Q84 became available. I picked up and put down this book several times while reading it and I have to admit that I just really don’t know what to say about it – Long/Interesting/What?/I am glad I read it/Why?/1984/hmmm… [...]
  • Ride the Divide 2012 April 2
    Ride the Divide has great scenery, interesting people, injuries, struggles and riding along the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route that goes from Banff, Canada to the Mexican border! While I am familiar with some of the long distance hiking trails in the US I had no idea this route existed and it was fascinating to [...]
  • Forks over Knives 2012 March 20
    Forks over Knives (official website), directed by Lee Fulkerson, is a rather long documentary with the singular message that plant based diets are better than meat based diets (it may be slightly more subtle than that, but I think that is a pretty fair summary). I watched the film days after seeing Tabloid and could [...]
  • Tabloid, The Thin Blue Line 2012 March 15
    Tabloid – by Errol Morris – is the story of Joyce McKinney. McKinney was involved in a widely publicized case/scandal/incident in England in the late 1970s sometimes given the colorful name ‘The Case of the Manacled Mormon’. I had no knowledge of the events prior to the film – which might have added to the [...]
  • Jig 2012 March 1
    Jig follows a number of dancers leading up to their participation in the 40th Irish Dancing World Championships (2010). This film is a friendly, short and entertaining glimpse into a world that I did not know even existed – great fun. Simple, good! Rating: 4 of 5 First Watch Date: December 2011 CM
  • 180° South: Conquerors of the Useless 2012 February 16
    180° South: Conquerors of the Useless (official site) direct by Chris Malloy follows the journey of Jeff Johnson from Ventura, California to the Corcovado Volcano in Patagonia. The film has some amazing footage of Patagonia and interesting people (including Yvon Chouinard and Douglas Tompkins) – but, somehow, it didn’t hold my interest… Too […]
  • Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest 2012 January 30
    I have no idea when I first heard a Tribe Called Quest (official site) – but it was the early 2000s before I really ‘found’ them and started listening. I would not call myself a devotee – casual fan is probably the best description – but even as a casual fan I was excited when [...]
email: charles@cmiles.info

flickr -> pictures

1205 Looking down Pontatoc Canyon

1205 Looking up canyon from the end of the Pontatoc Canyon Trail

1205 Pontatoc Canyon End of Trail Sign

1205 Looking up at the rocks above the end of the Pontatoc Canyon Trail

1205 Catepillar

1205 Maybe from the fire fighting

1205 Looking back up Sabino Canyon from Brinkley Point

1205 View towards Sabino Canyon from Brinkley Point

1205 Charles and Alison

1205 View from Brinkley Point

More Photos
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.