This year, I wanted to do better. I bought a couple of fantasy baseball magazines and watched the fantasy baseball 404 on mlb.tv. I also resided not to pick Cubs players for my team. I always pick them because I think they will do well, and I need to realize that they while maybe good players on the team, are not so great compared to the rest of baseball. The Cubs haven’t won a world series in over 100 years, maybe I should think about that. I also took some advice I read about not relying on rookie potential. It may be cool to land that next star that no one else took, but that won’t win you the league. However, Nelson Cruz worked for me last year, and this year I picked Jason Heyward fairly early on.

This year, I picked two teams again. One rotisserie and one head to head. I also picked another one as an experiment that I will outline later. The leagues are 12 team leagues. Yahoo uses the 5×5 format which keeps track of the following stats.

Batting:

• batting average
• runs scored
• RBI
• HR
• stolen bases

Pitching:

• wins
• saves
• strikeouts
• ERA
• WHIP

Yahoo fantasy baseball lets you have 10 position player positions and 8 pitcher positions. I also have 5 bench positions.

So for my first team, Splinter_hands, it is a rotisserie league, and my head to head team is blister. Don’t ask me where I got the names of the teams from, I’m horrible with being creative. This year Yahoo added an additional position to the position player group, another util spot. Yahoo also added another pitcher position. I was not aware of this until half way through the draft.

My draft picks are as follows:

Splinter_hands (7th draft position):

1. 1B Prince Fielder
2. P Roy Halladay
3. SS Derek Jeter
4. P Mariano Rivera
5. OF Jason Heyward
6. 3B Adrian Beltre
7. P Josh Beckett
8. P Heath Bell
9. OF Ryan Ludwick
10. IF Placido Polanco
11. P Jorge De La Rosa
12. P John Lackey
13. OF Carlos Gonzalez
14. C Benjie Molina
15. IF/OF Mark DeRosa
16. OF Brett Gardner
17. P Clay Buchholz
18. OF Juan Pierre
19. P Andy Pettitte
20. P Joba Chamberlain
21. P Phil Hughes
22. OF Austin Jackson
23. IF Troy Glaus

Blister (5th draft position)

1. OF Ryan Braun
2. OF Matt Holliday
3. IF Kevin Youkilis
4. 2B Robinson Cano
5. P Mariano Rivera
6. OF Jason Heyward
7. P Josh Beckett
8. IF Gordon Beckham
9. SS Elvis Andrus
10. C Bengie Molina
11. IF/OF Mark Derosa
12. OF Ryan Ludwick
13. P Jorge De La Rosa
14. P Tim Hudson
15. P Jon Rauch
16. IF Placido Polanco
17. C Yadier Molina
18. P Clay Buchholz
19. IF Maicer Izturis
20. P Joba Chamberlain
21. P Phil Hughes
22. P Derek Lowe
23. P Mark Buehrle

I feel better about this year’s teams than last year. I plan to rotate through my pitchers more on my head to head team. In previous years I had more luck in being able to hold just a couple of good starters and pick matchups that I liked each day to acquire pitchers each day. However, I just saw where I won’t be able to do that as much as Yahoo has put a 6 player a week acquisition rule in place. That puts a damper in my strategy. I wasn’t expecting to have great starting pitching picks as I would just choose each day who I thought would win. I’m going to have to keep an eye on the free agents and see if I can’t hold down some better pitching and just draft one pitcher a day for match ups.

I’m excited to be doing my fantasy baseball this year. I know I spend way too many hours looking over all the numbers and keeping an eye out for better players to get, but that’s just part of the engineer in me liking to analyze numbers I guess.

So the third team I drafted I am experimenting with pitching. Typically, hitters are picked in the first round, and hitters continue to dominate the picks for the first few rounds. Pitching tends to be picked later on. I thought I would take advantage of this. Since there is no innings pitched limit in head to head,  I loaded my team with pitchers and plan to rotate them through on the days of their starts. I did however take hitters on first two rounds as they were top tier hitters, and I need some hitting production to compete at all. I’m not too concerned if I win this one, but I’m curious what kind of position I can get in the end if my picks are focused on only half of my stats (pitching) that I need to win each week. Here’s the results of my draft:

bud_selig_is_evil (7th draft position):

1. 1B Mark Teixeira
2. OF Ichiro Suzuki
3. P CC Sabathia
4. P Felix Hernandez
5. P Mariano Rivera
6. P Josh Johnson
7. P Heath Bell
8. P Wandy Rodriguez
9. P Clayton Kershaw
10. P Ryan Dempster
11. P John Danks
12. P Randy Wells
13. P Jorge De La Rosa
14. P David Aardsma
15. P Carlos Zambrano
16. 3B Adrian Beltre
17. C A.J. Pierzynski
18. IF Placido Polanco
19. IF Micer Izturis
20. OF Brett Gardner
21. OF Juan Pierre
22. OF Cameron Maybin
23. IF Troy Glaus

Now if I could only get Yahoo to make an Android app for fantasy baseball like they did for the iPhone

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Our first stop after getting our rental car was to grab a bite to eat. We drove around downtown Phoenix a bit, but had difficulty finding reasonable parking near the pizza place we wanted to try. Wendy found a soda fountain (thanks to google maps on the cell phone) called MacAlpine’s nearby that we ate at for lunch. It was a nice little place. It was set in the 50′s. The food was good and the strawberry cheesecake milkshake we had for dessert was even better. According to their menu, they are the oldest operating soda fountain.

From there we headed to the Hall of Flame Fire Museum which was located next to the Oakland Athletic’s spring training field where they were playing a game as we drove by. The museum was great. It had a very impressive collection of old fire equipment and history. It had lots of hand drawn and horse drawn wagons as well as old motor driven fire trucks. It was very interesting to learn about the history of firefighting through the years. They had a section dedicated to wildland firefighting as well. I would recommend it to anyone who has the chance to go see it. Pictures

Next we went to the nearby Desert Botanical Garden. Wendy was excited to see wild flowers. I thought it was silly to have a botanical garden in the desert, but they had a lot of cool plants after all. Pictures

After the gardens, we went to check into our hotel. Wendy managed to find a great deal for us at The Hilton Phoenix East. Normally above our price range, but we got it for a great price. It was a nice hotel with large and comfortable rooms. The pillows on the bed were really soft.

While we were out that night we had stopped at a Target so I could get a baseball and sharpies. I hoped to get some autographs at the game. For dinner the first night, we ate at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria. It was some great pizza. You have to build your own pizza, and it was a bit pricey. We got a pizza with pepperoni, Italian sausage, and onions.

Next day, we decided to try to get to the Cubs game early in hopes to get autographs. For breakfast we went to a nearby place called The Good Egg. Really good breakfast with lots of choices.

We had bought our tickets online earlier and were going to pick them up at will call. We picked the tickets up right at 11AM in time to head into the stadium. Pictures. Hohokam was a nice looking stadium. There was a grass parking lot that we parked on for $5, not bad for this kind of an event. People were just starting to gather when we got there. Our plans to get in early to get autographs were spoiled by the gift shop. Wendy didn’t have any Cubs gear, in fact, she was wearing a red hat. We got her a new hat and shirt. I also got a new hat and a new Cubs shirt. We meandered around the ball park before the game started. There was a tent where some veterans were signing autographs for charity. Fergie Jenkins, Rollie Fingers, George Foster, as well as a few others were there. Had Ryne Sandberg been there, I would have waited all day for an autograph.

Ours seats were in LF on the LF fair line. They weren’t very good seats especially since the railing was right in the line of view. It was a good game. Cubs won 8-1 and Randy Wells only gave up one earned run for the win, but he did give up 7 hits over 5 2/3 innings. The Cubs put up good offensive numbers and chased Reds starter Carlos Fisher after only 1 2/3 innings of work.  Ryan Theriot had an impressive 3/4 day at the leadoff spot. Mike Fotenot and Marlon Bryd both had good days at the plate getting a HR each. Jeff Baker also came in to hit a HR. I was impressed with Tyler Colvin’s playing. I’m looking forward to seeing him play more this season. Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee did not make an appearance at the game.

After the game Wendy and I strolled over towards the Cubs dugout to see if we could get some autographs. Ivan Dejesus was signing a few, but I wasn’t real interested in him. Besides, he had gone back to the clubhouse by the time I got over there. When we got there, I saw a group of folks surrounding what looked like a Cubs official. I didn’t recognize him and asked someone nearby. Come to find out, it was Tom Ricketts, the new CEO of the Cubs. He was very friendly. He signed for everyone that came up to him as well as posed for pictures. He stayed for quite a while. I think he understands that we are his customers and if his customers want his autograph, he’s going to stick around for it. I wish the players understood that. I got him to sign my baseball. While he was signing I thanked him for sticking around to sign autographs and said to him “Why don’t we try to make this the year?” He responded by saying “Yeah, let’s put all of this behind us.” Maybe he came up with the “Year One” thing

I asked one of the Hohokam attendants if the players signed after the game and he directed me towards the back of the stadium. Back by the RF side of the stadium there was a wall of Cubs fans eagerly awaiting the chance to see their beloved Cubs hoping for an autograph or two. A few cubs strolled out during our time there, mostly newer cubs. I was able to get autographs from Sean Marshal and Sam Fuld. Only one other Cub came out during the time, not someone I recognized, before the security folks told us “The stadium is closed, you need to leave”. I asked Sean while he was signing my baseball if he was going to get to do any starting this year. He smiled and laughed saying “Yeah, I wish.” Looks like the bullpen again for him. I was glad to have long arms and my height so I could get past the people in front of me. Marlon Byrd came out towards the end but didn’t even acknowledge the crowd as he strolled by.

I have to say, I was not too impressed by how the Cubs seemed to not support their fans. It would have been nice to see all of the Cubs come by and they could have at least signed a few autographs, but they must have had other more important things to do than support their loyal fans. For the price they are getting paid to play a game, I don’t think that signing a few complimentary autographs is too much to ask. Even if its just a few. Sean Marshall on the other hand went out of his way to sign a lot. For that I have to say I was very impressed with how friendly he was.

After the game we went to Diamond’s Sports Grille. This place was formerly Harry’s and Steve’s, a sports bar that was owned by the former announcers for the Cubs. I was of the opinion that this was a great place for Cubs fans to go. It wasn’t that great in my opinion. I’m not a huge bar fan anyway, but it was an OK place, not bad, just not great. There were a couple of murals up on the wall that were baseball related and a small case with some baseball memorabilia, but other than that, it was your typical sports bar. The food was good, but just your typical sports bar type food. I doubt I’ll go back. There were four old guys at the table next to us that were getting pretty lit. One of them fell out of his chair and that was kind of funny.

That night we went back to our hotel room. It was still early and we thought about going to see a movie, but there wasn’t much of anything playing that we were too excited about. We found a movie on the hotel on demand system that we wanted to see and just stayed in to watch that. It was The Informant. Pretty funny movie.

The next day, Tuesday, was going to be our last day. We booked a late flight out of town so we could spend the whole day in Mesa without having to pay for another night at the hotel. That and Wendy had to get back to work the next night. Again, we went to The Good Egg for breakfast. We really liked this place. We then drove back to the hotel to check out.

After breakfast we went for a drive. Pictures. We drove on part of The Historic Apache Trail. We only had a few hours so we just got to see a section of it. It was a pretty drive with lots of cactus. The flowers were blooming this time of year so it was a pretty to look at.

We drove back towards Scottsdale and made it just in time for the Cubs vs Giants game. Again, $5 for parking, but at a church parking lot, and we got tickets from a scalper on the side of the road. We hadn’t planned on going to this game, but decided to go since we enjoyed the first game so much. This was at the Giant’s stadium. Their stadium was a little smaller, but still nice. Our tickets this time were much nicer than the ones we had bought online and for less I might add. We sat near 3rd base. Pablo “Kungfu Panda” Sandoval was playing today and we were only 4 rows back from him. The guy next to us was a Giants fan and he brought two kids with him. The kids spent the majority of the time getting sugary stuff to eat and trying to get Pablo Sandoval to wave them. It was funny.

Tom Gorzelanny got the win for the Cubs and went 7 innings giving up 8 hits and 3 earned runs. I thought he did fairly well. I was glad to see him pitch so deep into a spring training game. The Cubs were leading when they brought in Carlos Marmol. Personally, I am not a fan of him. His control is terrible and he walks too many batters, but he has been given the role of closer this year. Prove me wrong Carlos. It was odd to see them bring him in in the 8th. It was a save situation, but I didn’t expect to see him pitch until the 9th. He only gave up 1 walk and pitched 1 1/3 inning. John Grabow came in to pitch the last two outs to get the save.

Again, I was impressed with Tyler Colvin. He got two more hits. He played LF the previous day and played RF today. He even got an outfield assist off of Aaron Rowand trying to stretch what was clearly just a single into a double. The throw wasn’t that great, it bounced a couple of times coming into second. The guy next to me said he believed Rowand was just wanting to get back to the club house sooner. Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee both started today. I hadn’t realized that Mark DeRosa was playing for the Giants this year until today. I still wish Jim Hendry had not gotten rid of him.

During the game, I cheared for the Cubs as they ran right past us. Usually Aflonso Soriano and Marlon Byrd were within shouting distance. Alfonso never once looked towards the fans. I already don’t like the guy, but I was saying nice things to cheer him on. Guess who just lost more cool ponts. The Cub fan in front of me got Marlon to say something back to us. He seemed much more friendly.

Before and after the game, locals had made their own bike taxis to shuttle people back to their cars (for a fee of some kind). It was funny seeing how each person had put their own personality into their bike taxi. One guy had a boom box blasting Michael Jackson music that he was singing to and had a shinny glove he was wearing. Another guy had an umbrella he was holding. One lady was old and skinny looking and didn’t look like she had enough strength to pedal more than herself on a bike.

After the game we got supper at Los Sombreros. I had the Carnitas and Wendy had Chile Rellenos. They had fresh squeezed limeaid as well as two types of home made salsa. The food was all really good, but pricier than what Mexican food should be.

After supper we drove to the airport. The car rental return is in a very inconvenient place. We only knew to follow the signs, but the signs lead you all the way into and through the airport only to have you go to a place outside of the airport to return the cars. There has to be a better way to get there, but no one told us about it. Thankfully we had plenty of time, but I can see how people can be late getting to the airport because of this.

Southwest took us home, just like they got us there, all in one piece. Maddie had been put in doggie day care at a place called Dogmode. They are a great place to board your dog as they have open boarding where all the dogs are let out of their kennels during the day in a big open area. Staff stay with them all day. I was impressed by them. Maddie was very happy to see us the next morning when we went to go pick her up.

Our trip to Arizona was fun. We believe we will do it again, and hopefully during Spring Training so we can see more Cubs baseball. Wendy has been indoctrinated into being a Cubs fan. Lets just hope they win the World Series before she realizes how tough it is to be a Cubs fan.

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In part two, we discussed putting together the hardware of your server. Now that your computer is put together, plug in your power cord and your Ethernet cord to your router. Since you don’t have anything on this computer yet, you will need a spare keyboard and monitor while you set this up. Go ahead and plug these in too.

You will also need to have a copy of Ubuntu Linux Server edition so you can install it. If you would rather use the desktop edition, that is your choice, but this tutorial was written for the server edition. Also, I did this within a month of Ubuntu 9.10 coming out. It was very buggy at the time, and I had issues with it. So I decided to use 9.04. You will need a second USB key to make the install as there is no optical drive on this computer. If you have another kind of external drive (hard disk drive or CD Drive), you can try using that. This computer’s bios does support booting from USB.

Once you have gotten the iso of Ubuntu, you will need to put this on a USB key to install the OS. It will fit on a 1 GB drive. I tried extracting the files from the iso by using Diskmagic and WinRAR and copying them to the USB drive, but that didn’t work. The way I got it to work is by downloading a file from unetbootin, and using that to put the installation files on my 1GB USB drive. Visit this site to make your USB key so that you can install from it: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

SETUP AND INSTALLATION

Once you have the USB key ready, insert it into one of the USB ports on the computer. Power up the computer and you will see the Foxconn screen as it begins its boot up sequence. At this point, press the delete key to enter the setup menu to have a look a the bios. This bios will allow you to boot up from a USB drive, which is VERY important for installing and running the OS as the two disk drives are planned to be used for data only.

First we will edit the system information so we can change the boot warnings. Here make sure that Halt on is set to All Erros But, and have Keyboard and Mouse enabled. Since this will be a headless system, we need to make sure it’s not going to halt the boot up because there is no keyboard or mouse present.

Hit ENTER on System Information

Make sure it says ENABLED by Keyboard and Mouse

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Our first post in this series covered the planning of building our server.

Lets get started making a server. First, be sure and read the directions that come with this box. I was successful in not breaking anything when I did what it had to say.

There is one screw on the back. A simple Phillips head screwdriver will get it off. This will allow you to slide off the side panel for access to the inside of the box.

Next, we will need to pull of the faceplate. Follow the directions that came with your computer carefully, and it will come off. There are flimsy plastic clips holding it on. They do come off, so don’t force anything. I managed not to break mine.

Now that you have all of the outside pieces off, you need to unscrew the internal drive cage that will hold your 2^nd hard drive. It is designed to hold one 5 ¼ in optical drive. I bought an adapter that allows you to put a 3 ½ in drive into a 5 ¼ in bay.

All of the components once it has been disassembled.

Overhead view of inside of computer

Once you have it all apart, put your memory in.

Memory

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This tutorial is about how to make your own Ubuntu Linux file server. If you are wanting to follow along and are curious about the difficulty of this endeavor, I would give it a 6/10, where 10 is some kind of rocket science thing. I did my best to make this a step by step guide for anyone who, like myself, has lots of questions and isn’t totally sure what they are doing. I tried not to leave too much up to assumptions.

I am still a beginner at using Linux, but have been using a PC since the command line days of DOS. The reason I have decided to write this post is because I spent many hours perusing the Internet looking for answers on how to do what I wanted. What I found is that no one had posted exactly step by step for the noob how to do everything I wanted. So I had to take bits and pieces of pages from blog posts, message forums, the Ubuntu documentation, Linux Reality Podcasts, and help from the good folks at ubuntuforums.org to get where I wanted. I documented in Evernote along the way what I was doing so if I screwed up, I wouldn’t have to start all over again figuring things out (it took more than one try to get it to work). I wrote this post because I wanted to help others who may be trying to do something similar but can’t find all the steps. A lot of learning took place for me along the way. I did everything through the CLI (command line interface). It was like writing a book in a foreign language. I had to look up everything as I didn’t know the commands needed to do what I wanted. Once I knew what the commands were, I had to learn how to use them.

Here is what I wanted. A safe place to store my documents, music, photos, financial information, and anything else that I didn’t want to lose without worrying about a disk dying on me or succumbing to a virus. I am fully aware that this doesn’t solve every risk, but it did enough to make me happy for now. (This post might give you some insight to my paranoia with not trusting an external hard drive for my needs.) I also recently got married and wanted to make sure my wife and I both had access to everything in a central location. Since I am now the family IT guy, I wanted to make sure I had her data in a safe place too. This was also going to serve as a print server, and possibly more some time down the road. I wanted this to be virus free, cheap, long lasting, and energy efficient as it was going to be on 24/7. Once I was done getting it going, I wanted to be able to walk away and leave it sitting on a shelf doing its thing without needs for reboots, security updates, etc. I wanted it to be a headless system. That means no monitor, keyboard, or mouse. Just a power cord and an Ethernet cord. I’m sure my task would have been much easier had I just bought a fancy new computer and put windows server something on there or used OS X server, but apparently, I enjoy doing things the hard way (and I’m cheap).

The following is my setup:

• Ubuntu Server 9.4
• Foxconn barebone R10-S4 CPU
• Intel Dual-core Atom 330 processor
• MB with integrated Ethernet, video, sound
• Kingston 2 GB RAM DDR2 533
• 1 8GB Patriot USB key drive
• 2 750 GB SATA Western Digital Caviar Green Drives
• Linksys WRT54GL router with Tomato firmware
• Computers on network: Macbook and iMac with Snow Leopard, Dell Inspiron laptop with Windows XP

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This isn’t five voters who forgot to vote, they intentionally turned in blank ballots. Why? We don’t know all of the reasons why except for one guy, Jay Mariotti.

I didn’t vote for anybody in the baseball hall of fame this year. Ya know why?  To me…the first ballot is sacred. I think Roberto Alomar is an eventual Hall of Famer, not the first time. Edgar Martinez, designated hitter, eventually, but not the first time. Same goes for maybe Fred McGriff. As far as Blyleven and Dawson…if they haven’t gotten in for years and years I cannot vote them in now. Ripken, Rickey Henderson and Gwynn. They are true first ballot Hall of Famers, but I didn’t vote for anybody, throw me out of the Baseball Writers. I don’t care. SOURCE

Wow, I’m sure that was a great reason.

Personally, I can’t believe that five voters who have a pretty big responsibility didn’t have the consideration to at least vote. If they don’t want to vote, they should give the responsibility to someone who does care about the Baseball Hall of Fame. For crying out loud, Jay even asked to be kicked out. Please, someone do it.

Why is this significant, ask Bert Blyleven about how he feels about missing out on the Hall of Fame for the 13th time. Guess how many votes he needed to get in?

5

I can’t believe that five people don’t think that following baseball players were worthy of the Hall of Fame, at all:

• Andre Dawson
• Bert Blyleven
• Roberto Alomar
• Jack Morris
• Barry Larkin
• Lee Smith
• Edgar Martinez
• Tim Raines
• Fred McGriff
• Don Mattingly

All are All-Star calibre players that any manager would have loved to have on their team. Great players whose names any baseball fan knows. Are they all worthy of the Hall of Fame, no, but you can’t tell me that none of these players deserve to get in. I also don’t think it’s right to leave the ballot blank just because you want to make a statement.

Something needs to be done about the Hall of Fame voting.

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From http://www.gettyimages.com/

It’s been 9 years, but former Cub great, Andre Dawson, has finally made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I am very happy about the news. Last year, I posted about my disappointment that he didn’t make it.

Dawson’s numbers were not staggering, especially when compared to the juiced ball era that we are coming out of. His lack of any dominating category explains why he wasn’t a first year Hall of Fame player. He got in by how he played.

Dawson began his career in Montreal with the Expos, now the Washington Nationals. Early in his career, Dawson was known for his speed and great hitting. He and Tim Raines were a lethal pair. Unfortunately, the artificial turf in Olympic Statium destroyed his knees, and he was unable to run like he did in his early years. Throughout the rest of his career, his knees bothered him. Dawson’s problems with his knees started from high school football. He added power to his skill set to offset his lack of speed.

After playing on the turf for 11 years in Montreal, he had to move. Montreal was not going to resign him as they were afraid of the condition of his knees. Most teams were unsure of his knees and were hesitant to sign him. Dawson also knew he had to get back onto playing on the grass. He talked with the Cubs to ask if they would sign him, and they did. He just wanted to play, and he told the Cubs he would play for what ever they wanted to pay him. He got paid $500,000 that year, compared to $1.2 M the previous year. That season (1987), he then went on to turn in his MVP season for a Cub team that went on to be last place in their division that year. That year he led the league in Total Bases (353), HR’s (49) and RBI’s (137). MVP’s typically get picked from winning teams, but Dawson played so well, he was able to secure the honor despite his team’s lack of success.

I can remember watching him play on WGN as a kid. He was a great player, a steady clean up hitter. He struck out a lot, but could hit. My favorite thing about Dawson was watching his fielding. He played right field in Wrigley. The winds in Wrigley make it one of the toughest right fields to play. I remember watching him throw runners out with is powerful arm. My favorite was when he would charge a hard hit single and throw out the runner at first because the runner wasn’t hustling. The Wrigley faithful respected him. The bleacher bums in right would bow down as he would take his position.

Dawson’s teammates spoke highly of him. Although his knees hurt constantly and limited his potential, he didn’t complain and he didn’t let his knees stop him from giving 100%.

Dawson played for the Montreal Expos (76-86), the Chicago Cubs (87-92), the Boston Red Sox (93-94), and the Florida Marlins (95-96). His highlights are as follows:

• Rookie of The Year 1977
• MVP 1987
• Eight Gold Gloves
• Eight All-Star games
• Four Silver Slugger Awards
  
• Third Player in history to have 400 HR and 300 SB

His career numbers:

Batting Average: .279
OPS: .806
HR: 438
RBI: 1591
SB: 314
Fld%: .983

Now, to find out what cap he is going to wear when he is inducted this summer. I’m hoping they chose a Cubs hat. Way to go Hawk!

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3. Our trip to Mesa, Arizona for Cubs Spring Training Baseball This Spring, Wendy and I decided to go to Phoenix,...

I had flown out to Salt Lake City to visit with Wendy the week before the trip. The house we had signed a contract on had a shady realtor who signed another contract on the house. This had put our house hunt on delay as we had hoped to close on the house on my trip out there. We found another one and we just had to wait for everything to go through. While out there, Wendy picked up cold from one of her patients which she happily passed along to me. We both hoped to be well in time for our wedding. I was more worried about being able to hack it on the trail.

The day I flew back into Denver, Chris and Ramsey both also flew in. I was to arrive within an hour of both of them getting there to try to ensure a small wait time. Southwest was late getting me there by about an hour. Once we all met up, we headed to my car. I had checked the weather before I left Salt Lake and discovered that the weather had gone from beautiful with highs in the 70′s to snow starting the day we were to hit the trail. Ramsey was from FL and didn’t even own a pair of blue jeans. He had his cold weather sleeping bag though. Chris was from VA. I had told him he wouldn’t need his arctic gear as it was beautiful weather. So much for that. We stopped at my favorite restaurant for dinner that night, Woody’s Woodfired Pizza in Golden, CO. Once we were at my house, The Phat Pad, we began pouring over weather maps and forecasts to see what type of weather we could expect if we were to continue with the original plan.

The weather at Grand Lake just said snow, not how much, and that it was going to be highs in the 30′s for the duration of the days. We were going to be above Grand Lake, so it was going to be colder and even more snow. Of course, the day we were to hike out, Friday, it was supposed to be sunny and highs in the 60′s. Great timing. I had no doubt I could survive a trip in that weather, done it before. Maybe it’s just part of me getting old, but I didn’t need to prove that again, and I was wanting to have fun on my trip. I had also promised Lara, Ramsey’s wife, that I wouldn’t let her husband die. Being great friends, Chris and Ramsey were willing to do what ever I decided on. After looking over the weather data (did I mention all three of us were engineers Chris-Aerospace, Ramsey-Materials, Jason-Mechanical), I thought it looked like the SW part of CO was going to have a better chance of missing the front that was moving through the state. That’s OK, because that part of CO is my favorite part of the state.

The areas around Pagosa Springs and Durango are beautiful. It is also home to my favorite place to go backpacking, the Weminuche Wilderness. I had been down there a couple of times in the past. Once with Wendy in 2007 on a week long trip, and another time back in 1998 with Bill Sassani while waiting for the summer to start at Philmont.

On Monday, we went to REI to buy gear that Chris and Ramsey wanted to get for the trip. Ramsey was one of the founders of The Bulldog Hiking Club. It was a club that a few of us started when we were in college at Mississippi State University. Some of the distinctive marks of our hiking club trips were inclement weather, trips to a gear store, car camping, leaving well after our planned time, and drastic changes in trip plans. None of these things did we ever think would happen with our trips, but they always tended to happen. This trip was shaping up the same way. Chris and I had a history of backpacking trips that didn’t go as planned as well. This was turning into the perfect storm of backpacking trips.

Monday afternoon, we headed out on our trip, destination Pagosa Springs. My little Nissan Versa was stuffed to the gills with the three of us and our gear. It began snowing right outside of Denver as we were headed through Conifer on US HWY 285. This only reassured our decision not to go on our original trip. Ramsey, the fish whisperer, wanted to stop along the way at a local fly shop so he could get some flies for fishing. We happened to find a little hole in the wall gas station that doubled as a bait and taxidermy shop. Ramsey was able to get the flies he needed. I picked up some cold medicine as I was beginning to feel my cold coming on.

That evening we continued on to Pagosa Springs. We arrived around 8PM or so. Being dark, we decided our best option was to find a cheap motel and decide where to go from there. We ate at this little Mexican restaurant in town. We had brought lots of food for what we had planned to eat on the trail, but there just something about eating trail food in civilization that makes it less appealing. The motel we got had WiFi. Funny enough, the three of us spent the evening on our little hand held devices checking email, Facebook, sports scores, and what ever else. Like I said earlier, the three of us were engineers. We also spent some time looking over my maps and a hiking guide I had for the area. We decided to go do a day hike to Four Mile Falls where Bill and I had hiked 11 years previously.

Tuesday morning, we ate at a little restaurant for breakfast. We then set off for Four Mile Falls trailhead. The trail is a loop that is about 12 miles total. There is a river that runs near the trailhead as well, so it satisfied Ramsey’s needs.

This is the trail Bill and I had hiked several years ago. It has a large 300 ft waterfall about 3 miles in. Chris and I decided to hike this as a day hike. It would be 6 miles out and back. Ramsey loaded up my daypack and his fishing rod. I took my Camelback and Chris took his day pack and we set off. Not far into the hike we came to the boundary for the Weminuche Wilderness.

Chris and Jason at the Weminuche Wilderness

As you can see, I am holding a hiking stick. I don’t normally use them, but Ramsey bought a pair of trekking poles and said he is a believer in using them. He convinced me to give them a try as it may make it easier on my joints. I refused to use them in the past as Philmont Rangers refereed to them as sissy sticks. But I conceded to give them a try. Believe it or not but they really do work well.

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1. Christmas 2009 Merry Christmas! Wow, what a year. Last year left off...

Wow, what a year. Last year left off with Wendy and I going to visit each other’s families for Christmas. Now we are married! Lots of good changes have happened.

I proposed to Wendy in May of 2009. We got married Sept 27, 2009 in Evergreen, CO. The wedding was perfect. It was an outdoor wedding with great weather and we had lots of family and friends come to celebrate our day with us. Afterwards we went to Hawaii for 10 days for our honeymoon. We had a great time. The highlight for me was the helicopter tour. For my bachelor’s party, my brother Chris, and a good friend from college, Ramsey, came out to CO with me to do a backpacking trip. The weather didn’t cooperate, so we had to alter our plans, but we had a great time.

I had to resign from my EMT job at the ambulance company, Pridemark, when I moved. It has been an adjustment for me not having a job. I’m in the process of trying to get my EMT certification here in UT so I an get another job. So far, not going so well, but I’ll keep trying at it. I still am pursuing my dream of being a firefighter.

I had the privilege to work with some more great partners this last year at Pridemark. There are some great people who are in the business of EMS and Fire. I rotated through three full time paramedic partners this year, two of them who had just finished paramedic school. Bryan and I had started working together last year, and he found a job with another agency earlier this year. He too was a Boy Scout and a computer geek. We had a good time talking about common interests. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of good calls together. My second partner was just out of paramedic school, but had been a long time EMT at Pridemark. Pierre was a black cloud of death (we call people who attract lots of calls black clouds and those who don’t attract them white clouds). I got to see a lot of great stuff working with him. It was also nice to have some one who had an almost identical mindset on work, politics, etc. Deb was my third partner, and we unfortunately didn’t get to work very long but she was also a great partner. She had a very sweet personality and was also a very smart medic. She made some schedule changes for me so that I could have a good partner to finish off my time at Pridemark. Unfortunately, she got really sick my last week at work and had to go into the hospital. She’s better now, but she had us all scared there for a while. The most impressive thing about it was watching how the Pridemark family stepped up to help out during this time. I can only hope that I will ever be able to work with a group of people like that again. Definitely good people. It was actually a good way to go out as it helped reinforce to me how great the people were that I had been working with the last few years.

It was sad to leave behind friends and everything that I loved about CO, but I believe it was well worth it to finally be married and living in the same town with Wendy (we had known each other for 12 years). I will be returning to Denver for a few days in late January for the Children’s Hospital EMS conference. It will be good to get to see friends then.

Wendy is still working for Kidscare as an urgent care pediatrician. She really loves her job and the people she works with.

We bought a house in Sandy, UT which is a suburb of Salt Lake City. We really like the house. It has a great backyard, and lots of space inside too. I’m excited about have a home to take care of. The neighbors seem friendly, and the street is very quiet. One of the neighbors told me he can be at the ski resort in 13 minutes from his house. Wow, guess I better learn how to ski. I didn’t get much biking in before the weather got cold. I guess its part of getting old that I don’t like to bike when it gets below 40F. There seems to be good places to bike. About a mile from our house, one of the canyons starts winding its way up into the mountains. I’m excited about exploring new rides around here. There seems to be a lot of people who bike here in the warmer weather too.

This week, I got to check another thing off my list. As many of you know, I’ve been wanting another dog since I left MS. Monday, we drove up to Idaho to an animal shelter and adopted Maddie. Maddie is a 4 year old black and tan German Shepherd dog. We were lucky to find a full blooded GSD in a shelter. The family who owned her said she was chasing the neighbor’s cows and was afraid she would get shot. She is a fantastic dog. Really smart and sweet. Wendy and I are really happy to add her to our family. Benjamin, the cat, isn’t quite as excited about it as we are, but we are working on it.

This year, Wendy and I decided to stay at home or the holidays. Between her work schedule and us getting settled into our new home as newlyweds, we thought it would just be best to stay here for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have to admit, I don’t miss the hustle and bustle of the airport around this time. We decorated the house and are planning to cook a big dinner tonight. We are excited to be celebrating the holidays in our new home and starting our own family traditions.

As always, our home is open to visitors who want to make their way to the land of Utah.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Jason and Wendy Cotting

Photos:
http://anvilgear.com/gallery/

The 2009 Cotting Family Portrait

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My family has served in the military for a long time. Our last name used to be Cutting. Not quite sure when or why, but it changed to Cotting. We have records in our genealogy that tell of a Lt. Cutting who served with General Washington during the Revolutionary War. In the Civil war, a Colonel John Mosby CSA, led a famous group known as Mosby’s Rangers (Raiders) to fight against the Union. He was also a relative of mine. My grandfather’s brother (my great uncle) was in the Navy in the Pacific during WW2. My father served part time in the Air National Guard for 20 years. He started during Vietnam. His brother, my uncle, also served in the Army during Vietnam.

I’m so thankful for everyone that has ever served to protect my freedoms. From the Revolutionary war to today. Many have gone to the Alter of Freedom so that I could enjoy a life of freedom. Some returned, too many did not, but they were brave enough to go. Most of them don’t have a clue who I am, but they went anyway.

I hope that their sacrifice isn’t wasted. People in power don’t seem to realize what a country of freedom stands for. It doesn’t need all of their rules and regulations that they seem to think. I don’t need the government to tell me what is best for me. That is the opposite of freedom.

On August 30, 2009, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal requested more troops for the fight in Afghanistan. Obama has yet to give an answer. I personally believe this is irresponsible to be so indecisive. I can respect the notion of how difficult it must be to send our troops to fight and die. I can not respect the indecisiveness of a leader. This wasn’t his first time to hesitate when we needed him to pull the trigger. Anyone remember the pirates?

Our service men and women are the best in the world. Lets keep them that way and thank them for all they have done and will do.

USS Arizona Memorial

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