Samosa

https://www.instagram.com/p/DOOd94diXa4/

Samosa made with Beef, Lamb, Camel and Bustard

Critically endangered species?

2025 World Series

I have really been enjoying the World Series.  I started following the series with the division series.  My Cubs were taken out by the Brewers and my Phillies were taken out by the Dodgers.  I watched the Game 7 of the ALCS between Seattle and Toronto and was immediately a big fan of the Blue Jays.

They are not exactly an underdog, but the Dodgers are a powerhouse with a high budget roster, amazing pitchers and a strong bullpen.  The Blue Jays have been able to match them with some upstart young pitchers that are getting it done.  

Game 3 was an epic battle and I have no regrets of watching that 6.5 hour game until 1 AM Denver time.  

The problem with baseball is that I do not follow the entire season.  I usually start with the divisional series or the wild card games.

The last few years:

2024 - Dodgers beat Yankees

2023 - Rangers beat Diamondbacks

2022 - Astrols beat Phillies (watched all of this)

my teams

2016 - Cubs beat Indians

2009 - Phillies lose to Yankees

2008 - Phillies beat Rays

2007 - Rockies lost to Red Sox

1993 - Phillies lost to Blue Jays

1983 - Phillies lost to Orioles

1980 - Phillies beat Royals (I remember watching this in black & white after we moved to Memphis)

Northern Ireland 2025

Giant Causeway

Awards Dinner - Stanley

Clean & Push Press

The Righthand Drive Hyundai Kona

Trinity College, Dublin

Ratna and I had an amazing trip to Northern Ireland as a 20th Anniversary Trip / All-Round Weightlifting trip.

We flew into Dublin and had a chance to site see in town.  The Moxy hotel was very central and we saw Half Penny Bridge and other sites north and south of the Liffe.  Ratna picked up a rain shell as her coat and hoodie was not the best for the rainy weather.  We had dinner at a pub.  I enjoyed the fish and chips and Ratna had the Thai curry.

Friday we met Alex who gave us a tour of Trinity College.  Then we picked up a rental car and drive on the left side of the road to Lurgan.  Storm Amy was coming through and disrupted train service so we had a low key Friday evening.  We did enjoy dinner at the Ashburn Hotel where we were staying.  The vegetable broth soup was amazing.

Saturday was day 1 of competition so I was busy.  Ratna took the train into Belfast to see the Titanic shipyard and a bus tour.  She met some great people who gave great recommendations.  Dinner was again at the Ashburn Hotel.  I had the turnip bacon soup which was meh.

Sunday was day 2 of competition, but Ratna came to watch for part of the time.  I am glad she could come.  Afterwards we walked about Lurgan.  Dinner was a really nice awards banquet at the Courthouse Bar.  Ratna had the Halloumi cheese appetizer, Vegetable curry main and warm brown dessert.  I had the stuffed mushroom appetizer, Turkey and Ham Sunday Dinner main and cheesecake dessert.  It was a lot of fun.  I also enjoyed talking grip with Stanley Hamilton.

Monday was a failed attempt to visit the Game of Thrones Studio Tour (it was closed for maintenance).  Instead we went to Giant Causeway which was amazing.  We also stopped by a castle and had a great lunch at a cafe nearby.  The drive back to Dublin was a long, but pleasant.

Tuesday, we flew out of Dublin and made it back home without delays.

Stuff

I post on this topic from time to time.  Usually after a mini-clean out event or when I consider a move.

I am definitely attached to stuff.  I have way more stuff than I need or can even use and some of it is bulky and awkward to the point that it is more of a hindrance than a pleasure.

I am due for a wholesale clean out if for no other reason than to make room for new stuff in my life.  Ideally, it would be an opportunity to live simply.

STUFF TO CLEAR OUT

• Clothing
• T-shirts
• Professional Clothing
• Ties
• Hoodies
• Shorts
• Sweatpants
• Shoes
• Books
• Coins
• Poker
• Religious
• Sports
• Novels
• Business
• CD/DVDs
• Sports Equipment 
• Gym equipment
• Climbing gear
• Tennis equipment
• Bicycles - Cervelo? Bike parts?
• Ski equipment
• Paperwork
• Professional archives
• Finance documents
• Personal memorabilia

IMPORTANT STUFF

• Clothing
• Socks, Underwear, Carhartt's
• Polo shirts
• Jeans
• Books
• Gupta Dynasty books
• Early United States Dimes
• Federal Half Dimes
• Key poker books
• Key sports books
• Sports Equipment
• Bench, Rack, Bar, Plates, Dumbbells
• Gios, Surly
• Scuba gear, swim gear
• Golf equipment

MIDDLE

• Electronics
• Tablets
• Cameras
• Stereo equipment (speakers/receiver)
• Sports Equipment
• Camping gear

The Offspring - Supercharged 2025

I am not much of a concert goer and would just as soon shun the crowds and the chaos.  However, when I heard The Offspring were coming to Denver, I started to get a little excited.  I enjoy mostly pop music and have enjoyed mainstream music from the 1970's through today.  A couple of quirks that stand out are The Beastie Boys, Blink-182 and The Offspring.  Something about the rhythm, lyrics, etc has put me in a position to buy CD's and play them in their entirety.

New Found Glory and Jimmy Eat World were the opening acts and certainly put on a good show.  I was less familiar with their music.  The Offspring came on and did a great set with their hits, material off of their new album and some covers.

Ball Arena is not designed to be a concert venue.  It was too loud for me and the sound quality is certainly not the studio sound I listen to at home or as good as the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Overall it was a lot of fun and continued a concert season that included Styx at Fiddler's Green and a Fleetwood Mac cover band at Clement.

Fastest Known Time - Gridding

Really great article on gridding.  Posting just to have it for posterity.

https://boulderreportinglab.org/2025/08/24/boulder-athlete-becomes-first-to-summit-bear-peak-on-all-366-days-of-the-year/

I’d like to take a moment to celebrate a friend and Boulder County resident, Jeff Valliere, who just achieved an incredibly difficult, multiyear athletic feat: He summited Bear Peak on every calendar date of the year.

Boulder offers a rare combination of world-class outdoor access and a community packed with highly fit and fiercely motivated individuals. This mix often produces unusual, impressive — and yes, sometimes arbitrary — personal goals.

I was reminded of this while hiking with my family in the Italian Dolomites. We met a Dutch couple who mentioned a friend of theirs with a local FKT, short for Fastest Known Time. It’s exactly what it sounds like: the fastest known recorded time on a specific route. I smiled. That term originated right here in Boulder. 

Bill Wright, a local outdoor legend, is credited with coining “Fastest Known Time” in the 1990s. A few years later, Boulder athletes Buzz Burrell and Peter Bakwin helped formalize the concept by documenting FKTs online. What began as a loose collection of bragging rights evolved into a centralized, searchable database at fastestknowntime.com, now the global hub for this grassroots phenomenon.

One local example: Boulder ultrarunner Ryan Smith holds the Bear Peak (8,461 feet) FKT at a blistering 52 minutes and 2 seconds. That’s for a 4.6-mile round-trip route with about 2,700 feet of climbing. Incredibly fast.

But there’s another local endurance pursuit, arguably even more obsessive, called “gridding.”

The practice originated in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, where hikers began attempting to summit all 48 peaks over 4,000 feet in every month of the year, a staggering 576 ascents. Known as “The Grid,” it took hold in the early 2000s and spread elsewhere. Athletes now attempt grids by summiting a peak, route or set of routes in every season, every month, or most punishing of all, on every date of the year.

That means climbing the same mountain on all 366 calendar dates of the year, including Feb. 29. Miss a date, and you wait a year. Miss Feb. 29, and it’s a four-year delay.

Gridding a route requires extraordinary consistency, dedication and—let’s be honest—a certain level of obsessive-compulsive persistence. John “Homie” Prater, an inspirational local athlete, was the first known person to complete this feat on nearby Green Mountain (8,144 feet), in 2017. A few other Boulder athletes have followed his lead.

Living near the trailhead for Bear Peak, with that same tendency toward persistence, I decided a few years ago to try gridding it myself. Nobody I asked could recall anyone having completed the Bear Peak grid. The race was on. I often bumped into Jeff on Bear Peak, and we’d swap Grid Progress updates. We were both close.

Last year, on Tuesday, July 17, I completed what I call “a version” of the Bear Peak grid. My first ascent was in 2012, and it ultimately took 1,328 ascents to check off every calendar date. I say “a version” because I usually stop at the wooden post just below the summit scramble. So technically, I’m the first known person to have gridded the post beneath Bear Peak’s summit.

Simon Testa’s “version” of the Bear Peak grid — all the days he climbed. Credit: Simon Testa

Jeff Valliere, a contributing editor at roadtrailrun.com, and an FKT holder himself, went further. On Aug. 4, 2025, he touched the true summit on all 366 dates, becoming the first known person to fully complete the Bear Peak grid.

John “Homie” Prater and I had the privilege of joining Jeff for his final ascent.

SCUBA Gear Set Up

Now that I have purchase a wrist computer, I want to continue to streamline my gear and be more put together entering and exiting the water:

Assemble Gear:

1. Tank to BCD
2. Regulator to tank
3. Air inflator to BCD, air on, check pressure
4. Weights in BCD (usually with weight pockets)
5. Connect pressure gauge retractor
6. Dry box secured to BCD

Exposure Protection:

1. Wear rash guard
2. Don wetsuit
3. Don booties
4. Don gloves/hood if required

The rest:

1. Antifog on mask
2. Rinse antifog
3. Don assembled BCD
4. Clip fins to BCD (right bottom D-ring)
5. Secure safe second, pocket, breakaway (I have the Atomic SS1)
6. Secure regulator to BCD with bolt snap (right mid D-ring) - Set this up
7. Secure pressure gauge to BCD (retractor?) (left bottom D-ring)
8. Secure compass to BCD (bolt snap)?, wrist? (right upper D-ring and inner tube strap)

Dive Rite Bellows Horizontal Zipper Pocket w/Daisy Chain - $65

Dive Rite Bellows Vertical Zipper Pocket - $50

Dive Rite Z-Knife - $25

Dive Rite Trauma Shears - $32

Trident Fin Keeper?  Knock off brand? - all around $15

Looking at purchasing Scubapro GO Sport Fins - Facebook Marketplace

Oceanic Viper - 23.5 inches long, 1.79 pounds each = 3.58 pounds

Deep 6 - 21 inches long, 2.25 pounds each = 4.5 pounds

Go Sport Large - 21.38 inches long, 1.82 pounds each = 3.64 pounds (only saving length, not weight)

Go Sport Medium - 20.35 inches long, 1.65 pounds each = 3.31 pounds (saving some weight)

Purchased Go Sport Medium from Kendyll Gooding (Facebook Marketplace) for $60.  She is a dive instructor for Denver Divers and goes on a lot of trips with them.  Her next trip is to Roatan on Friday.  I am looking forward to giving these a try on my next dive.