Life is pretty darn great! (funny how the RN looks like an M in darn)

Funny how you come to realize stuff gradually over time, but somewhere in the last few weeks its seeped into my consciousness that life is very good and that I feel very happy. As I thought about it some I've realized that this right now is one of the happiest times of my life up to this point. Kind of a crazy thing to think about but I'll just ride with it and enjoy it while it comes.

One of the things that I really enjoy right now is seeing my children grow up and figure out life gradually. Each of them is learning who they are and perusing different interests and growing into their own talents and unique and fun personalities. One thing that we have started as a family is after thanksgiving day going down South and exploring someplace new. This year we went down to Capital Reef National Park and spent one day hiking and goofing around. It was one ov those happy family times that I think we will remember for a long time.


Mason's our fearless leader in nuttiness and spontaneous have a good timeatude.


Miki and these three spent a lot of time goofing and scrambling around on the rocks and features.


Caden and I got to spend a lot of time talking and exploring on our own.


Even the cactus spines were fun in a silly picture and slivers under the skin sort of way.


Plus it is an amazing place to see and be out of the normal cubical canyon that I inhabit most weeks. This is the big arch at the end of the trail that we were on.



This is one of the painted monoliths about half way up the trail. All amazing stuff to see. I think that getting out a lot has added to happiness too. That, kids, Miki, job, friends, church and God are really filling up one happy soul. :)

Thanks for taking time to visit and say "NO" to cats. Leave a comment so I'll know you've been here.

Rob-

CG and more CG (Computer Graphics and Chasing Gators)

Hi All,

Last week I got to attend the siggraph conference in New Orleans and listen a lot of cool papers about how they made different cool movies like Up, Coraline, Transformers and GI-Joe (even the presenters joked about this flick). There were some wacky and totally useless research applications that people were working on like a Virtual Reality tactile feedback frying pan simulation and a taste interface game controller. Who cares how Halo or Super Mario Cart tastes!

During the week of the conference, after one days sessions, I wandered the french quarter and got to see some of the raunchier and less family friendly parts. Here's one interesting spot where they kept the front of the building but got rid of the rest. I don't know if this was post Katrina clean up or just I need some place to park my Mercedes.



This statue is in front of the conference center and was made out of random Katrina debris and dedicated to those who did or didn't survive it.



The Mighty Mississippi ran right behind the conference center. Here is a tourist paddle wheeler and a lovely sludge fountain they were spraying into the river. After about 5 minutes of black water it would cycle to white and then back to brown and lovely black.



After the conference was over my cousin Emily picked me up with her kids Huntie, Michael, and Elle and showed me the more family friendly spots in New Orleans.



We went to a market where i got stuff for Miki and the kids and a nappy hat for me. Do you think that it was sending the wrong message to get my boys voodoo dolls and mardi gras beads? The first thing that Caden said was: "Hmmm, who should I voodoo? I think I'll stab Robert in the arm and see if he likes it." Maybe so.


Emily took me to Drago's to get oysters on the half shell. The first thought of it seemed horrible but once I figured out that it was a local thing I thought that I'd give it a try.



Michael here shucked open a big one and handed it to me. It ended up tasting a little salty and well of course chewy. I can honestly say that it was the best less than 10 second's dead thing that I've ever eaten. We had roasted ones after that. I should have tipped Michael more I'm such a retard when it comes to that stuff.




Saturday morning Emily's husband Kevin took me on a swamp tour. This is Lawrence our illustrious tour guide with one of his little buddies.



Here's a typical swamp shot and one of me and Kevin. Kevin got me the best seat in the house (pontoon boat) for gator snapping excitement.




Here's a little one to get things warmed up. He's about 6 feet long just a baby. They said that all the ones we saw were males because the females were on their nests this time of year.



Here comes "crazy Jack" he's about 12 feet long. He was kinda jumpy because he knows he's close to the top of the food chain but not quite at the top yet.





A little video of Jack in action. I still have all my fingers and toes thankfully.

Swamp Tour Excitement from Rob Allen on Vimeo.

Now he's my little buddy too.




Thanks for viewing. Leave a comment so I can know you were here. Rob-

Low Key

A couple weeks ago I was up in Evanston WY for a kayak race. I got last place out of about 30 in the time trial. I think that my time was about 4:37 and the winning time was like 4:03 or something. I got turned around in a couple eddies and that killed my time. In the boater cross I got 3rd place out of 5 in my heat. I had a better line in that one, stayed away from the big eddy that time. Here's a link to a description of the race venue at the Evanston Playpark. It was a good time except for the big thunder storm between races.

After the race I shuttled my car back down to the put in and went back to try to surf a couple of the waves by the finish line. Got all my gear on and got back in the river for a few side surfs and such. Flipped 3 or so times. When I got out my key wasn't where I normally where I clip it in to my life jacket. I checked everywhere. I think I must have set it on my boat when I was putting my gear on and forgot about it while I was getting in water. Being upside down guaranteed the keys a special place in river bed.

Miki and Trent drove up there to rescue me. That was nice of them. I felt pretty stupid.

Hen-Tag Humblification

Hey All,

Last Wed. the 13th I got off work early and drove up to Heneffer to get my first run on the Weber this year. Jeff Bill Clay Buzz Dan and me met up about 5ish. I'd run this about 4 or 5 times before and the flow was an average 500 cfs.

On the first drop into the Rock Garden I thought that I had a good line on the right but I musta been too far right cause I hit a rock and flipped. I was pretty close to the side and when I tried to roll the first couple of times I was pushing up against rocks. I got a breath but was upside down again and thunking my helmet and arms and shoulders on rocks as I flushed down stream. Eventually, I remember having one hand on my paddle and sticking it up out of the water. When my helmet and other arm hit another rock I pushed off of them and flipped back up. I got both hands on the paddle and found the fist eddy. Both my hands were numb and my shoulder and neck were sore. After catching my breath I pealed out and headed down the rock garden. I flipped again but rolled back up with out incident and even flipped going into an eddy. I haven't done that for a long time. Bill kept trying to figure out what was wrong with my boat. I think that it is just a problem with what's in the seat.

Here is a video that Jeff shot of the last drop on the run. I was all settled down and back to normal by then. (orange boat and jacket)

Taggart Falls from Jeff Young on Vimeo.

kayak rolling - FAIL!

Well, welcome to another installment in the mediocre adventures of Rob. Last Tuesday I took Caden up to one of the few remaining kayak pool practice sessions of the Utah Whitewater Club. I was messing around and working on my off side roll which is coming along good enough to work about half the time. Caden was excited to come but he is still not ready to tip over and do a wet exit to get out of an upside down kayak, which is fine. There is no reason to push him to do something he's not ready to do. He spent most of the session just swimming around in the pool not even in a boat. As the session was winding down Jeff Young aka "smurfwarrior" asked if he could shoot a video of me rolling with his new waterproof fuji camera. He put on a mask and jumped in the water. He said that he would drop under the water and start filming and then I could flip over and roll back up. Sounded simple enough. I'd roll on my on side and I was in a long boat that was easy to roll, no problem. So Jeff went under, I flipped over and set up and proceded to miss three or four attemps before I got back up. Jeff told me that I wasn't tucked up enough so we tried it again and it still took three or four time to get back up. By this point I was feeling pretty stupid after some more advice, I tried it some more. Eventually I did one on the first try, which is the way it should happen every time. So bassically if I'm upside down in the river turn off all cameras otherwise it might take me a bit of work to get back up.

Here's the video that Jeff shot. Feel free to laugh at all the failed attempts.





A few weeks earlier a bunch of us went paddling on the Spanish Fork River. I flipped over a couple of times and rolled right back up with no problem. Jeff must have had his camera off at the time Guess. Here are a couple of videos that Jeff made from that trip.




Seal launching set up and execution.




Here's Jeff's video from the Spanish Fork Trip. I'm in there once or twice (red boat, blue paddle). He must have known to not turn the camera on when I might have tipped over.


Take out craziness.

Nice Ice for sale. 10¢ a pale.

Not sure why that little Dr. Suess line popped into my head as I started to write this blog post but it is about ice mostly. Gotta love the Doctor. I miss reading his nutty stuff to my kids.

Any way, Saturday was a busy one for me. Grant had a b-ball game at 9:00. I had one at 10:00. The team we played had 3 guys all bigger than me. Their center was about 6'7" and at least 50 pounds heavier than me. It was my job to take him and plug up the middle. I had two fouls in the first few minutes and it wasn't looking like I was going make it through the first half much less the whole game. Their center must have scored between 20 -30 points on me but I felt like I did a decent job defending him 'cause I was on him tight every time and got him to miss more than half the time. I got maybe 12 points and didn't get called for my 5th foul and we pulled out the win. The point of all this is that I was pretty tired/beat but the fun of the day hadn't really started yet.

At noon I met up with Austin Mills to do some ice climbing on the stairway to heaven in Provo Canyon. All of these pictures are taken and owned by Austin Mills. Thanks for the trip and the pics Austin. Here's a shot of the trail up to the ice where we were climbing. Bridal Veil Falls is on the far left. The top of the stairway is on the middle right. We were one the first terrace which you can't quite see in this shot.


After huffin' my way up the trail I met up with Austin and crew. They had all gone up a couple of times so it was my turn to strap on the axes. That's Austin on belay.



This musta' been my second time up this wall because Austin's dad Howard is belaying me and Austin is half way up the taller wall.

Yeah I made it to the top. By this point is was starting to drizzle and there was a bit of water dripping down the ice.

After the second time on this route, I got on the next one down and picked my way to the top of that one. Fun times.

New Year's Freezalutions

Hey both of you who see this blog. What up? It's been a long time since the last post so here goes.

For a long time the local paddlers around here have had a New Years Day tradition of getting together and going on a "start the year off right by paddling a local river" run. This year we ran the mighty Jordan river from 126th to 106th or something like that. It was the only thing that had enough water to paddle and in a few spots it was a lot of scraping through gravel. Most of these picture were taken by Ken Driscol proprietor of Peak UK store and website. Their gear is great. Thanks Ken!

Here we all are at the put in. Someone said that all of the graffiti cross outs mean dead gangsters. That's a lot of drive by's. I didn't even notice the graffiti when I was there I was just thinking about getting on the river.


I think that there were 20 or more of us crazies that showed up for the fun. I'm hanging around the put in waiting for everyone else to put on.


Paddling up stream for a ways.


Me Chris and Johnnie about half way through the run. By this time my fingers were numb despite my gloves. After a few times of pulling my fingers back into the palms of my gloves and paddling more I got the blood flowing and they warmed back up.


Here's me sliding over the beaver dam. This is about the only drop on the whole run. There was a lot of random stuff that the beavers used to build this up. One chunk looked like it was the railing off of someone's deck. I bet that someone was pretty ticked to wake up and find half there deck gone and nothing but gnaw marks left behind.


Those last couple of shots are by Craig Waddell, notorious Utah kayaker. Well as far a resolutions go I want to paddle more with my family this year. I bought an inflatable 2 person kayak so my wife and kids can come along on trips to the Green river and such. Trent should be ready to get his roll after some fun hard shell runs last year. All in all looking forward to a good 2009 season.