I took Trammell and Taylor on a quick (couple hour) hike up to the top of Goose Egg Mountain (elevation 4566 ft) this morning. Sunny, but blustery enough to keep the dog ears a-flapping in the breeze. The dogs performed admirably and seemed to enjoy the ridiculous amount of elk crap they consumed. Pictured below at about 4200 ft with frozen Rimrock Lake in the distance. More pictures to come.

Wow, we’re just blowing through nap time, aren’t we? So here’s the three-quarter-January update.

Work continues. Our contract was extended through December 31, 2009 (not unexpected) so I guess that means I can bank on a steady paycheck here for at least one more year. After that it’s a little more up in the air for ’10 and beyond. Neither Mary or I seem to be making any effort to accelerate another potential move though, so I suspect that we’ll probably ride out Yakima until the issue presses a little more insistently. After a lengthy compensation discussion (initiated by me way back in May last year) I snagged a nineteen percent raise for the new year, something I can’t complain about while unemployment rates skyrocket elsewhere, even though it probably just means that I was grossly underpaid for my first year and a half of work. No fortunes being made by any measure, but it’s enough to keep me prostituting my soul to office life for the moment.

Other than that, most of my extra time has been spent at wrestling practice or working out at the gym. One and/or the other every single day so far this year. Not a New Year’s resolution, just a sanity requisite until the weather warms up in another month or so. It’s good to be coaching again and I’ve been enjoying revisiting the halcyon days of daily mat burns and facial bruising. I completely forgot the beatdown that a couple months of wrestling dishes out. After a couple weeks of live wrestling, the stamina came back, but every day something else aches. Usually shoulders, sometimes elbows, always mat burns and scratches. The shoulder I hurt back in November is definitely still wonky, but I trust it enough to hit switches and snapdowns again.

It definitely took me a few weeks to get back into the rhythm of coaching. All the muscle memory is still there, but I had to walk through moves a couple time on my own before being able to communicate the steps. And of course you have to get used to a different wrestling culture. Practices are a little more laid back than what I’m accustomed to, a few moves have different names or the same name for different moves, and emphasized techniques are different (a little more free-wheeling out here as opposed to really hammering home fundamentals). The team is wrestling well though. Last night they wrapped up their first conference championship since 1989. Must be the extra good coaching…

This month we also finally got around to unpacking and hanging up most of our wall decorations. No more painting, laying tile, or just general wall-banging activity for a while.

How to stay warm on a chilly winter day. Step 1: Put on a stocking cap and wrap yourself in a blanket. Step 2: Ask your husband to throw a pile of piping warm clothes (fresh from the dyer) on top of you. Step 3: Wait for your goofy dog to plop down on top of the warm pile of clothes on top of you to take a nap.

This didn’t last too long though due to all the face smothering and all. Seriously, the thermostat was set for 65; I don’t know what the big deal was. I remember loving to open my dorm windows at Calvin in the middle of winter as the snow wafted through the mesh. I guess girls don’t get into that sort of thing.

Actually the weather’s been much nicer here lately. Near record lows replaced by sunny skies and that wet fluffy snow that’s good for snowball packing. Mary and I have been enjoying the few extra days off from work for the holidays. We went to a fun, laid-back Christmas party with Mary’s boss’s family on Christmas, but have otherwise been laying low. I’ve been catching up on my book reading and trying to work my shoulder back into shape at the gym. Mary’s been watching library movies and also making good use of her new gym membership. Can’t complain about back-to-back four day weekends. Especially when the next holiday day off isn’t for another five months.

Just took this picture (a couple hours after the one above). Weirdo.

Trammell was plenty content to have sunshine, soft snow, and a raggedy tennis ball on Christmas morning. And really, what more does anyone really need?

Taylor wanted to wish everyone a very merry and mellow Christmas. But then she got a little frustrated with the whole business of trying to type sans opposable thumbs. So here’s her recorded message of Christmas peace and good will to all (26 seconds, streaming mp3):

Merry Christmas!

Later…

I took Trammell and Taylor for a run through the sagebrush of Cowiche Canyon this afternoon. We had the park largely to ourselves (we went at about noon when most potential visitors were probably sitting down to Christmas dinner), though there were plenty of dog paw prints for sniffing. Sunny skies, but, unlike the last winter run, Mt Adams was obscured by clouds in the distance.

First decent snowfall of the year: probably six inches last night. Lots of neighbors out shoveling driveways, at least fifty kids careening down the steep hill at the park behind our house, and teenagers a-plenty doing donuts in the adjacent unplowed school parking lot (first weekend of Christmas break).

The cold hasn’t been quite so biting and really, when you’re focused on the fun of the snow you don’t notice the temperature anyway. I’m curious how much snow we end up with this year. Last year we had 29 inches for the season and people around here marveled about how abnormally high that was (the two previous years were both about eight inches each for the entire winter).

I got up at seven this morning to shovel the driveway (one of the few chores I never mind doing), then Mary and I ran the dogs through dog-chest-high snow at the park. Predictably, they were amusingly enthusiastic bounding about.

It’s been over four weeks now since the injury, but I think my shoulder is finally starting to heal (after a couple of early setbacks when I stupidly tried to wrestle on it during wrestling practice). I can do limited range of motion tasks without any pain, but motions where I have to reach up and vertical/back aren’t much better at all (like throwing a football or reaching into the back seat of my car while driving). At the gym I started carefully doing pull-ups and other lat exercises again with an occasional twinge, but any sort of bench press or dip is out of the question. Maybe in a couple more weeks.