Back from Taos...

Greetings. I got back this morning from a short road trip embarked on this past Friday to Taos, New Mexico to see Erica, Ev, Elana, Elliot, Stephanie, Rob and Adelay. Rob's friend Paul (whom went out to the Pacific Northwest with us) also joined us for the duration of my weekend stay.

The short drive (4 hours on the way down, 3.20 on the way home due to a shortcut) was filled with awesome Colorado scenery. Be sure to check out my photos online (http://picasaweb.google.com/aldsmith3).

As of today, I am trying to update more via the blog so I can spend less time talking on the phone to people. That may sound very impersonal and rude but I often find that my free time is taken up doing something and that I am less apt at wanting to speak via the telephone. Sorry guys.

Thoughts from the trip:
The Smith family is moving in a new direction. I can't say I'm part of that but in many ways I am indirectly involved. We have shifted from one big unit of adults to a unit of adults with little ones pooping, crying, laughing, smiling, and cementing new memories. I love to see my little nieces and nephews smile and react to me but I can say that I don't yearn for a child of my own. I often wonder now if I will ever want one of those. I know I'm selfish in the basic picture of my life, but I just don't see myself moving too far past that to make time for a kid. In all respect sisters, too much time is wasted with those little darlings to have a functional doing/seeing/moving/etc family unit. I love my time with family but I miss the days past when things were more simple. The portrait has changed...for the better in some and many regards...for the worse (in the meantime) temporarily. Please don't take offense my emotionally loving sisters and brother in laws. I'm stating it how it is...from my perspective. Yours will differ, as will anyone else reading this.

On an ending note, enjoy your lives wherever they may find you and don't forget to cherish what you have. I know I love living where I am and I was very happy to be back in Gunnison this morning after being away. Hope any and all of you can make it out here to see what I mean. The simple life here goes on day after day...come join in.

Cheers and love,

Alan

Back in Gunny...for now.

Hello all. I am back from my Sacramento trip. All went well. The sunshine was quite a relief because with the sunshine, there was warm weather and not snow! (though it is all about melted again here in Gunny)

A lot was done in the short 3 days we visited. First off, we stayed with my cousins Shawn and Katie Claybomb. Be sure to check out my Picasa website pictures (follow the link to the left, or this one http://picasaweb.google.com/aldsmith3). Secondly, I, Scott, and Tim visited Chico California (just north of Sacramento by about 80 miles) to see one of Scott's former classmates from his doctoral program at Univ. of Northern Colorado-Greely. His friend Chen is a Biomechanics professor at Chico State. The University is a lot like my alumna matter IUP. It is a division 2 school with about 15,ooo students; and the university resides in Chico, which is about 60,000+ residents. Very beautiful campus; in fact, much more so than IUP, possibly because of the longer warm months. I am seriously considering applying there for Graduate school. As I may have stated in an earlier blog post, I intend to apply for a graduate assitantship or teacher's assistantship to defray completely or partially tution. I know I just mentioned that I look to possibly go to school in North Carolina, but perhaps I can do my doctoral work there?! The key difference is the contact I now have in the Kinesiology program at Chico state in the form of Chen (whom is in a few of the pictures).

Not forgetting the whole purpose of our trip to Sacramento though. Tim's 50 mile (!) race was on Saturday. The race started at 6 am sharp so we all got up and ready around 3:45 in the morning! Whew, talk about early. If you follow the pictures in order, they take you through the course in a sequential fashion. Scott and I were crewing for him, so after each aid station we would hop into the rental car and rush off to the next station about 5 or so miles down the course to offer him food, gatorade, water, mental support, etc. Made for a busy morning. Cousin Shawn met me at the 2nd to last aid station (Rattlesnake Bar nature area) and got some photos as well. For those of you that keep in touch with him, feel free to email him for his take and perhaps photos. One nice thing about starting a race at 6 am is that it finishes decently early too! Tim finished 5th overall and was only 12 minutes behind the winner. He finished at 6 hours and 16 minutes! What an accomplishment. 650 people entered the race and an unknown amount probably didn't finish.

The wager for next year is that Shawn will pay for both Scott, Tim, and I's race registration costs, if we all enter it and finish it! Can you imagine me doing 50 miles in a day!? Haha, lucky for me I have a year to train...going to climb lots of mountains as a cross-training effect rather than purely running distances.

Other fun things about Sacramento: Shawn has gotten into Long-Boarding (a longer skate board), and taught Scott and I how to. I took a bit more passionately to the sport than Scott did but at least he tried it a number of times. I will try to put some videos up from our few skating sessions in Shawn's neighborhood. By the way, the pictures of his house and the houses around are quite beautiful. Do check them out please! (http://picasaweb.google.com/aldsmith3)

Things continue to go well. I had 1 Lactate Threshold test in the lab yesterday; one today, and a VO2 max test later today as well as tomorrow! Thursday morning will find me off on a field trip to Denver with the college to tour exercise physiology facilities and sports-related businesses. The trip lasts till Friday afternoon, at which point I am planning to head to Renee Early's (my 1st cousin) house for Easter weekend. Her sister Lory, my cousin as well, will be coming into town Friday night as well. Should be a fun weekend with extended family; though I will be missing all of you back in Indiana for the first Easter in memory. Do take care this Easter season and cherish what you have; never know when it could go away.

Talk to you peoples soon.

Love,
Alan

P.S. Oh and before I forget, I did hear about the job at the country club in Crested Butte; they are still undergoing budget restraints - partially due to the economy, and their 2 million dollar renovation, so if I do get hired it won't be until late May before the grand-reopening. I'm not crossing my fingers on it, but I am hopeful. We'll see. ttyl.

Friday the 13th! (at least here in CO still)

It looks chilly with long pants and a fleece on but just the cool breeze from the ocean kept me a tad chilled. The sun was warm and lovely :)

So there is no big connotation with it being Friday the 13th, just thought I'd mention it....owowoh spooky! haha. Well, here it FINALLY is; the update I promised yesterday delivered a day late. My apologies. I had all intentions of having it out hot and fresh yesterday but a hectic 9.5 hour day at work washing and cleaning cars wore me out! So tomorrow (Saturday) is a big big day for us at Hertz. We have 31 rentals coming between 9 and 5pm. Doesn't sound or seem like much maybe to you, but for small-town airport us, it's huge! Unprecedented possibly since last spring break time. As mentioned, Terri (also an employee at the college like me-who works at Hertz, the reason I got the job) and I have been slaving getting cars cleaned for the big day tomorrow. We had to have about 10 or 12 vehicles brought over from Grand Junction and Montrose CO so that we will have enough for all our rentals. In addition to getting ready for the big day tomorrow, we have had some busy days renting 12+ cars in a day the last 3 days. So you go from cleaning and washing a car as fast as possible to renting cars and back again...what a madhouse of activity and constant physical and mental stimulation. The rental business (at least here) is like playing a board game, you gotta plan your moves ahead so you don't screw yourself in the end.

So, beyond that exciting chunk of news, I was privileged to travel further west to sunny San Diego from last Saturday till Tuesday evening. My friend Madison here at the college was driving back to her home for spring break and invited me. I obliged and proceeded to secure a plane flight home Tuesday afternoon b/c I had to work Wednesday through Sunday at Hertz. It was awesome to get out of CO for a bit and see some new beautiful country. We spent 15 hours driving all day Saturday to arrive in San Diego Saturday evening. Please check out my pictures to see all of the lovely shots I got!!! Here is the link for those that forget to bookmark it!!!! (http://picasaweb.google.com/aldsmith3) Do check out those photos, in may ways, it is self-explanatory, though if you would like further clarification, etc. please feel free to email me (aldsmith3@gmail.com) or call me (724 388 5449).

Let us see...what else. OH! Also another reason why I'm glad I put off blogging till tonight. This morning I had the great opportunity to go up to Crested Butte (the beautiful and much more plush-monetarily speaking-ski resort community 30 miles north of I) to interview at the Country Club @ Crested Butte. I was interviewing for a position as a personal trainer. A non-traditional student and mother of another student at the college personal trains there and she spoke highly of me to the managers. From which of course, I sent a formal cover letter and my resume and 1 week later I am asked to come interview. Yay! Anyways, I spoke with Madelyn (the mother of my friend Tim and non-traditional student) called me later today after my interview saying they were very impressed with me. I thanked her for getting my foot in the door and speaking highly of me. So, it's not official yet but I imagine I will have a job opportunity coming my way soon hopefully! Besides a beautiful drive up to CB everyday that I'd work, the club is undergoing a 2 plus million dollar renovation and everything in the health club is getting updated! What a great way to start for me and for them! (Pending I get the job of course). Oh and also, the going rate for personal training is $60 bucks an hour! Not too shabby eh? I'll keep yins up on that.

For now the love/social life continues to go well. No new developments. I am not upset by such though b/c I have enough women friends to fulfill my company for women (read: non-sexually). Hope all is well else where! Is it me or does it seem like spring will maybe spring early this year?

Take care ya'll :)


Alan

Well, this picture can sum up the past weekend, minus a few other events which I will reveal. If you aren't entirely sure what you are looking at I'll fill you in...It's the Olympic circles obviously at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. There are many more photos (same naughty, some nice) on my picture website (http://picasaweb.google.com/aldsmith3)

We were at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) for the Rocky Mountain American College of Sports Medicine conference. The ACSM is a governing/educating body for us in the Sports Science field and many times the position stands our government adopts on exercise comes directly from them. The Rocky Mountain is just a more local extension of a national group. Back home in PA it was the Mid-Atlantic ACSM.

In addition to attending lectures and hearing various people talk, myself and 2 other students went mountain bike riding at Palmer Park in CO Springs. It is a very rocky and beautiful area just northeast of the OTC. Plus it was nice to have a chance to do some outdoor activity without snow impeding our fun. Anyways, some of the lectures/speakers...one was from a guy who had run across America (from San Francisco to New York City) in 51 days! When free from injury, he was averaging 60-70 miles a day! He'd sleep about 4 hours a night and do it again. What an experience! The other notable speaker was a Medical Doctor who is one of the doctor's in the medical tent for the Ironman triathlon in Hawaii. He has been doing such for a number of years now. His spiel was about hydration, more so along the lines of not only being hydrated, but having the correct sodium (salt) balance. Often times, endurance athletes are hydrated but they are hyponatrimic (low salt). Words of wisdom to those of you planning any intense outdoor sessions where you'll be sweating in the heat...get your fluids and make sure there is some sort of sodium content in them (i.e. Gatorade, etc), but don't overdue it. Secondly/lastly, he also spoke about prevention of heatstroke. If you remember the Minnesota Vikings football player Cory Stringer, who died a few years ago from heatstroke. Often times, the mistake medical personal/trainers/coaches make is to call the ambulance when in essence you can save someone from dying from heatstroke by simply immersing them in an ice bath. 9 times out of 10, cold fluids or even an IV to boost hydration/speed cooling will not work and a simple ice bath will save them. He referenced 2 amateur runners in the Marine Corps Marathon (Washington, DC) where 1 died and 1 lived. The 1 runner who was put into an ambulance and sent to the hospital ended up dying b/c their core body temperature was too high and the life-saving steps to bring it down weren't taken; where as the other runner who suffered from heatstroke was put into an ice bath at the medical tent and lived to run another day. The simple lessons...Rob, this is for you.

Anyways, I didn't mean to write so much about that last deal, but it obviously meant something to me and in ways you can pass it on for those of you that find yourselves running/exercising in more extreme conditions.

In other news, I am currently applying for a job personal training at the country club up at Crested Butte. They currently do not have any or many male personal trainers and are in need. I wouldn't probably start until May and the club is undergoing an extensive make-over so I have hope of being able to work there. A non-traditional student (40 some year old mother) works there now and she put in a good word for me. I'll keep you updated on that.

Hertz Rent A Car continues to go well. I make almost as much money there in a month as I do with my job here at the college, so it's nice to have a 2nd income. Gotta crawl out of the debt hole somehow! haha.

Hope you all are well, I hear from bits and pieces of you and quite frankly, I'm not sure everyone who is signed up for this blog even reads it anymore, so for those of you that read it, thank you!! Take care, be well, and don't forget to smile.

Alan