It's been over five months since I last posted on this blog! It seems appropriate that I come back with the counterpoint to the last photo I posted, this time showing the snowy Flatirons fronted by NIST.

Who knows when I'll post next!

Since we have moved to our new house at the other end of town, my ride to campus is a bit different. In some ways I don't like it as much as my old route because it is next to Broadway for most of the way. Broadway is a very busy street, it's noisy and unpleasant. My old route did go for a short while on a busy street, but most of the time it was on roads in quiet neighborhoods or on bike paths.

Note that I wrote "next to Broadway" above. In fact, my new route is almost entirely on grade-separated bike paths/sidewalks (it's legal here for adults to ride on sidewalks some places) or frontage roads next to Broadway, and I actually never ride on Broadway. The big bonus on my new route is that the views are far superior. Above is a photo of the view looking over NIST towards the fog-enshrouded Flatirons. They are not often covered in clouds like this, but it had rained heavily the day before and the air was still humid. Also note that the grass in the foreground is brown. Before our heavy rains we had two weeks of record-setting heat. It's been a feast or famine summer in Boulder.

Just a quick note: It's time again for the 2012 edition of the Tour de France pool hosted by Kris Wells. I am the scorekeeper, which I have been for several years.

Of late, there has been a great deal of construction in and around my office. Beginning two weeks ago my office cluster has been repainted, doors refinished, window shades replaced, some carpet has been replaced, and some wires and pipes have been installed and moved. There is still some more work to be done.

Beginning yesterday, and continuing for the next four to six weeks, the scoreboards for the stadium are being replaced. Pictured above is a crane removing pieces of the old one (notice the asymmetry in solid black/shaded regions). This crane is more or less just outside my window, which, as you can imagine, is kind of neat for the first five minutes, and then gets tiresome and annoying after that. The construction has also closed off large amount of space in front of the offices which is inconvenient for us, and they even cut down two perfectly healthy trees, presumably to make space for the crane (insert tree-sitter joke here).

As a matter of fact, the conduit carrying the control wires for the new scoreboards passes by my office. The next time Stanfurd plays the Buffs, don't be surprised if - wait, I'm saying too much.

Here are a few pictures from my ride today at Walker Ranch.

Above: Such a lovely trail!

The wildflowers are out in force.

When I was taking pictures, the California Zephyr rolled by on its westward journey to Emeryville. The full-sized image shows the train better than the preview. This is the train that Melissa and I took last Thanksgiving, and I remember seeing the Walker Ranch trail from the train.

Cowboy Longs Peak

Yes, that's a giant cowboy in front of someone's home, with Longs Peak in the background.

It's too bad the smell of fresh mountain air, cleaned by a recent rain/snowstorm, can't be captured and transmitted digitally.

Below is a kernel-density map showing where and how often I've ridden my bike around Boulder in the last year and a half. I've posted things like this before for my rides in California. The color map (the legend is in the bottom-left corner) indicates that anywhere there's a green dot, I've cycled through there at most a few times, and anything between blue and purple are my usual routes. There are a few red points mainly centered around where I live, which corresponds to places I've been through a few hundreds of times.

Looking at the map, I'm a bit surprised at the amount of exploring I've done out in the plains. I didn't realize I had done that much out there. I also want to note that most of the dead-end segments are due to geography - the roads end where the segments do.

Valmont View

Taken here on Saturday the 25th of February.

Here are a few photos I took on my snowshoeing hike in the mountains behind NCAR. As always, click to enlarge an image. Unfortunately, I broke one of my nearly brand new snowshoes. Luckily, I was nearly back to the car when it happened. By the way, today's high was -7C (20F).

Above is a panorama of some lesser Flatirons.

The narrowly beaten path between the Aspens.

A snowy view. Gotta love Boulder!

It's presently snowing. We've received around half a foot since last night. This is on top of the 22 inches that fell late last week. Boulder is a very snowy place right now!

This is the thirteenth photo I've posted in this series, and was taken only two days short of a full year after I began the project. I think I will cease taking photos of Boulder Creek every month. However, I will continue to post photos that highlight the natural beauty and change of seasons around Boulder.

Here are a few pictures from the hike we just did at Chautauqua. We've hiked there before when it was dry, but it has a special beauty when it's been freshly snowed on.

I just returned home from a trip to Chicago for the 2012 yt workshop. I didn't organize the meeting, but I did give a few talks. I think overall it was a very productive and useful workshop, and I met quite a few people who I had previously only corresponded with over the internet.

I found the Chicago "L" pretty useful, although it's not quite as nice as the New York Subway. Being overground most of the time, it's possible to view the neighborhoods it goes through (which is one benefit it has over a subway). Chicago, and especially South Chicago, is in a state of decay that I rarely see in western cities. Of course it's been going on for decades: the city has lost nearly 1 million people since 1950, but it's interesting (and sad) to see blocks where only a few buildings are standing, where dozens used to be in a vibrant neighborhood.

For fun, I decided to build a plastic 1/20 model of a F1 Mclaren MP4/5B, which raced in 1990. That year it won the constructor's championship, and Senna won the world championship in it. Here are some pictures of my model. I didn't do the best job on it, but that's OK. It was fun to do!

Melissa helped by painting the "HONDA" on the engine, above. Very tiny letters! As usual, clicking on an image will give you an enlarged version.

Taken just minutes ago. It's snowing pretty heavily right now!