Month: January 2026

Day 010 of 2026

As you can see I am making an effort to post a little something each day. Today is Saturday so I did sleep in a little until Climber decided to wake me up. An hour extra is all I am allowed to have.

I always get an hour or so of reading time until Jesse gets up. Then it’s out to walk the dogs. On weekends they both get solo walks. Res goes first and then Climber.

Temps were around 20 degrees F by the time I got them up and out. So jackets for all.

Res’s main objective on his walk is to stick his nose into and pee on as many clumps of grass as he can.

For Climber I really dont know what her goal is. But she enjoys her walks and has gotten so much better about her jacket since the first time we put her in it.

Got them both walked and then had a nice breakfast burrito, homemade of course.

Then off to the pool for a long swim. Remind me in the future to never go on Saturday morning. Saturday mornings at the pool suck. Swim lessons and way too many kids. But, once I got a lane I finally broke the 2000 yards I have been trying to break. It was awesome! My times suck, my stamina sucks, but I made my first goal. Now since I broke that I have to see about increasing the distance on my sets, and…..much as I do not like it…. I have to increase the use of freestyle rather than breaststroke.

I really want to be able to do the Mountain Lake Swim Series this Summer and I don’t think I can do it with Breaststroke being 50% of my swimming. Also, I need to try and get a 1 hour swim in for the US Masters Swimming 1 Hour swim competition, though I will never place it is a good activity.

I finally decided to sync my swimming with swim.com as I am serious about doing a few events this year, and of course that led me down the rabbit hole of the different events in US Masters Swimming. Yeh me. But that’s OK, it will help.

Dinner was Pork Loin and veggies. Really good.

Anyways time to wrap up today. See you tomorrow!

2026-01-10
Day 009 of 2026

Started the day with it being a cold and snowy morning. Well, colder than it has been for a while. I took the dogs for their walk this morning and they had a nice time smelling everything around in the snow. Yes, Mr. Res decided that doing zoomies at the end of the leash on ice was a good thing. He almost took me out.

Then we got down to the bottom of the park and it was like we had to sniff every plop of snow around a clump of grass. But, we finally made it home.

Spent the rest of the morning working on our January 2026 newsletter for our technicians. After some back and forth with my manager I got approval to post and send it out. I wish I could share it here but it does contain some confidential information so I can’t. Let’s just say if people follow directions a lot of problems will be resolved.

Got out for a lunch time swim. Made 1700 yards, the longest I have done since I got back in the pool. I actually could have done a few more laps but someone else was waiting for a lane so I decided to be nice and finish my workout. The pool actually felt warm today with the cold outside.

Finished off our day with the dogs evening walk and their dinner. We had Chinese food tonight, my regular of Beef and Broccoli with egg rolls.

Rest and relax for the rest of the evening. Goodnight and see you tomorrow.

2026-01-09
Day 008 of 2026

My office assistant joined me in the basement yard (my office) today for most of the morning and some of the afternoon. He is sort of a useless assistant, good thing he is cute! Seriously he comes downstairs as it is pretty much quiet and no one bugs him. Very little sound in my office.

Started off the day with a few technician phone calls and some training tasks I needed to get done. Found, retested, and document a problem with our app. The afternoon was all about pricing requests and Cause of Loss Determinations (COLDs). This is where I need to review the photographs, readings, and notes that our field technicians submit and then determine a cause of loss and a resolution that will be sent to the insurance company (our clients) as a part of their final reports. There are two of us that do the more complex of these requests. I primarily work with the electrical side of things and one of my colleagues works with the mechanical side of things. Keeps us busy.

I did get out for an early lunch as was able to hit up the pool for some swim time. It’s sort of embarrassing that I am struggling with distances right now. I am the guy that used to swim 5K and 10K open water events. Now I am having trouble increasing my distances beyond 1.5K. I know I will get there eventually, but I am so out of shape. Today was slightly better and I was able to add a little distance, even though I was not feeling that great for some reason. May have been what I ate for breakfast.

Then this afternoon we took the dogs on their evening walk, it was a little bit cooler with some light snow so no one lingered.

Anyway the company I work for, Alpine Intel, has rolled out a new wellness app that is replacing the Coolleaf and Waliba that we used to use. Starting this week we are on Wellright. It’s going to be an interesting change. They are now basing everything on fitness activity time rather than steps. I am really glad to see the move away from steps as this whole idea of 10,000 steps per day was never scientific and the idea of 40 minutes per day of moderate to strenuous physical activity makes a lot more sense. We will see how this works out.

2026-01-08
Day 007 of 2026

Another day another dollar ….. sort of. Anyways, work today as normal. I am finally starting to catch up on all my desk work. I do have a trip coming up late next week, but more about that later.

Went to try to go swim at lunch today, got to the pool area and the water in the lap lane was smooth, I mean like untouched. This is not usual. So, before I got changed I decided to walk into the pool area and ask the very bored looking lifeguard, yup, he was guarding the empty lap pool, what was up. Turns out someone dumped too much chlorine into the pool and they had to add some other chemicals to decrease the levels. No lap swimming for me today.

Since I try to do something physical every day I decided to go around the corner to Great Plains Park and walk in circles for an hour to at least get some activity in.

Rest of day was pretty boring, nothing exciting. See you tomorrow.

2026-01-07
Day 006 of 2026

Busy day today. Unfortunately I cannot share all of the details because of privacy laws, but my morning was spent on an appraisal Zoom meeting. An appraisal is sort of like a courtroom proceeding where attorneys call witnesses and present evidence, but instead of a judge there is a referee and instead of a jury there are appraisal team members. The sicko I am, I enjoy most of these, but this mornings’ was rough, I got beat up pretty badly.

My favorite line of any insurance claim is, “because of ….. [fill in your loss event] it is going to fail in the future.” Well, I can’t disagree with that it is going to fail in the future. Let me be clear, everything is going to fail in the future. Here is an awesome example: You carry your laptop on a plane. You try to sue the airline because the cabin pressure may cause your laptop to fail in the future. Make sense? Yeh, neither do most of these statements. Everything has an expiration date.

Anyways, I spent most of the day dealing with this and a ton of work related pricing requests, as well as reviewing some additional reports. Normal average day to day stuff.

By the time I was done with work, and making sure the appraisal team did not need me further, it was too late for me to go get my swim in. The afternoons at the rec center are too busy for me to get into the pool reliably without a long wait, so I decided just to go for a walk. Did just about 3 miles in a reverse loop than my normal park/power line trail loop. I was not in a rush, it was really to to get out and do something.

Saw my little prairie dogs in their tunnel entrances and they were yelling at me. The are really cute and it makes my day to see them in their city.

And this evening’s scene here at home is this:

Can you just picture this:
Res: DAD!!!! She won’t leave me alone
Me: Chill dude, she just wants to be close to you
Res: I want her to go back to her own corner.
Me: Nope, not happening! I am just happy she is laying down and not jumping on you.
Res: I didn’t sign up for this.
Me: Remember the angel girls? Lady, Leona, Raven? Yeh…. that was the same thing they told me about you.
Res: I was never that bad.
Me: Eh…. yes you were.
Climber: SEEEEE MEEEE GOOOOD!!!!!
Res: Shut it Climber!
Me: Back to your corners.

They both got their afternoon walks, this is the average one:

Have a great evening! See you in the AM.

2026-01-06
Day 005 of 2026

Well, I had hoped for something new, interesting and exciting to share with you all today…. but alas it’s just another boring day at the office. Work today, spend most of my day handling pricing requests and invoice reviews. I need to do some training material but I have to hear from my manager before I go too far down that rabbit hole.

I did get out for a lunch time swim and slightly increased my distance. I will probably miss tomorrows swim because I will be on a meeting most of the morning and may not have time to go get wet.

My times are getting a little better, but not where I want them to be. Also, I need to spend time doing some more 200 yard sets instead of just my warm-up and 100’s.

I guess that’s all for this evening. See you tomorrow. See…. I live a pretty boring life.

2026-01-05
Day 004 of 2026

Sunday!

Started the day off with a few cups of coffee and then taking Climber and Res on solo walks. Res went on his normal uphill walk around the park

For Climber I decided on a different walk, I wanted to take her on a longer option so we went around the block the other direction and then around the park. I think I will probably stick with the Power Line trail with her in the future. I think it is more interesting for her to watch the little Prairie Dogs then the traffic out on Tower Blvd.

After we got back and had breakfast I went for my swim. I added a little distance today, not much, just 100yards more. I really need to get up to 2000 yards in the near future if I want to get rid of this extra weight I am carrying. I have just about decided that I want to do the Mountain Lake Swim series this Summer and that means I really have to increase my distance without hurting myself. A very tight balance.

The rest of the day was a normal sort of day. Played with Climber in the back yard, she likes playing with a tennis ball, and then read some Kindly books I have been working on. Got distracted and went down the Facebook Reels rabbit hole. I also spent some time trying to figure out what and IF I really want to do anymore YouTube training videos. I am not really sure what I want to do yet.

Have a great evening. See you tomorrow.

2026-01-04
Day 003 of 2026

And we started off the day with the dogs solo walks. Yes, on weekends they each get their own walks, it allows them a little bit of “me” time and it also allows me to work with them on walking manners and I increase their distance as well. Res…. well he just does his own thing. It’s mainly sniffing and marking every clump of grass along the way.

Climber got a little bit of a longer walk and had the chance to go explore the power line trail. She was very curious why I would not let her off leash to go “play” with the little prairie dogs.

“Daddy, Let me PLAY!!!”

Anyways, once I got them home I was able to go do my long weekend walk. Got another one of Aurora’s trails connected. When I made it back to the car it was just at 6 miles. Not bad.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

Total distance: 6.05 mi
Max elevation: 5475 ft
Min elevation: 5380 ft
Total climbing: 384 ft
Total descent: -371 ft
Average speed: 4.16 mi/h
Average cadence:
Average heart rate: 122
Average temperature:
Total time: 01:27:56

I know I have done a lot more with faster times in the past, but I have to keep telling myself that I am coming out of a year with many hospitalizations and I need to also loose 20 pounds to get me back to where I need to be. I don’t think I will ever do another marathon, but my endurance needs to be higher than it is now. I would like to do the Mountain Lake Swim Series in the future. May not be this year, but maybe next.

Anyways, it was a beautiful day in Denver, CO and we will see you tomorrow.

2026-01-03
Day 002 of 2026

It was a work day today, what else can I say. Gone are the days of having the day after New Years off. And, I think both of my managers were on vacation as well. I know one was, because he communicates, I am not sure the other one was…. I think so, but not sure. Of course I needed both of them for something that I could not make a decision on. The positive side of that is that I do not have to fly out to Portland, OR the negative side of that is that I will probably have to go eventually. Time will tell.

I was able to break away to go get my swim in during my lunch break. Even better I was able to get a lane to myself for a while. As always near the start of the year the rec center was full, it will probably stay this way for a few weeks and then start to taper off again. It will be even better when all the brats (ooops…. I mean kids) go back to school. I am still not happy with where my times and my stamina are yet. I am going to give it another week of 1000 yard swims and then start working on bringing my distance up again. I need to get back up to my 5K swims.

Ended the evening up with an eye appointment. I have been wearing “drug store glasses” for the last three years because the eye doctors in Florida suck and could never get my prescription correct, but I decided since we have awesome vision insurance it was time for me to get checked and see if we can get some decent glasses again. If the lenses are made correctly and turn out anything like the ones in the doctors office it will be awesome. Yeh, my vision has changed and the glasses I have been wearing are way off. I also am looking forward to getting some anti-glarre coatings on them because driving at night is becoming a problem.

See you tomorrow.

2026-01-02
Nice Day 001 of 2026

Nice start to 2026. Hung around at home, took down the outside Christmas decorations. Wanted to get that done before it decided to snow, as unlikely as that is with today’s temperatures. During the day I also finished an awesome audio book that I have been trying to find time to listen to. “The President Is Missing” could very well be set in current tines. Check it out if you get a chance.

Took Climber and Res on alone walks, they need to be walked by themselves occasionally and I try to do this on weekends when I have time and it gives Jesse a break. Res decided to sniff every blade of grass along the way.

Then went over to Olympic Park to do a section of trail that I have not done before.I wanted to connect my completed trails at Cherry Creek State Park to my completed trails in Aurora. I still have the goal of completing all of the trails sometime in the next year. A lot depends on weather and travel. The long sections I can only do on weekends.

It almost looks like Olympic Park was taken over by Canada’s Air Force – The Canadian Geese.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

Total distance: 5.04 mi
Max elevation: 5698 ft
Min elevation: 5604 ft
Total climbing: 367 ft
Total descent: -360 ft
Average speed: 4.24 mi/h
Average cadence: 58
Average heart rate: 126
Average temperature:
Total time: 01:13:10

2026-01-01