Category: Uncategorized

FIBArk 2021 and the cautious return of group fun

Posted on June 21, 2021July 22, 2021 by Greg Boone

This post is a bit late in the game. FIBArk was back in late June but I didn’t get around to finishing this until now.

Danielle and László got to go to FIBArk 2019. It was a bit by accident, Nancy was in town for a bit and they decided to go down to Salida as a base camp for hiking and hot springs — and to get out of the city for a bit. I stayed home with the mutt and cats. When they returned they were talking about a festival on the river with kayaking competitions and a strange race straight up and down Tenderfoot Mountain. As it happens, she was in town for the oldest whitewater kayaking festival in the country: First In Boating the Arkansas or FIBArk.

We’d hoped to return to Salida last year for FIBArk 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic put a significant damper on our ability to travel and changed not only when FIBArk was held, but also how. The hill climb had a staggered start. It was held in August instead of June, when the water is high. The Hooligan Race Boat event was canceled entirely. This year marked a dramatic, and measuredly triumphant, return of a mostly normal FIBArk.

We go outside

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Greg Boone

About nine months ago, we finally moved to Denver. One of the first things we did was hit the trails, and writing down where we were going, how far, and what we were doing there. Starting with a hike in El Dorado Canyon State Park where our footwear didn’t quite fit the bill, up through our most recent trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. Eventually we decided to make a website showing off our progress, memorializing every trip online.

We’re keeping a log of everything we do together, even if someone else was with us, whether it’s a hike, a snowshoe, a backpacking trip, or a bike ride; no matter if it was in Virginia, Michigan, Colorado, or Wisconsin; nor if it’s a state park, national park, national forest, or national wildlife refuge. If it’s outside, and we did it together, its there.

The homepage is a slippy map with markers showing (roughly) the starting point for each hike. If you click through, you get a close-up on that area, or a path of the actual hike (if it’s available). Check it out, and if you like it, you can even make your own.

About the tech:

The site is generated with Jekyll. Each activity is listed in the _hikes directory with some basic frontmatter. An API is exposed with all the activities in GeoJSON format. The maps are powered by leaflet with tiles from Stamen. The repo needs a license file but it’s open source under an MIT license. Share and enjoy!

Swept Away in Vienna

Posted on January 18, 2011 by daniellemharms

There are thousands of century old books in the State Hall of Vienna's National Library.

As an English teacher living in South Korea last year, I developed a tired habit. Week after repetitive week, I mentally promised myself that I would really, truly contact local Wisconsin newspapers in search of one that might grant me the space for a column. I managed to deftly avoid 52 self-imposed deadlines, but I have finally broken the cycle of procrastination. It just took moving to Kaposvár, Hungary to finally get my act together.

Each month I write a column entitled New Beginnings: At Home and Abroad, for Sun Prairie, Wisconsin’s local newspaper, The Sun Prairie Star. This month I wrote a piece about that priceless moment in every good trip where you get swept away in a moment, and how I found that instant of genuine awe is Vienna’s National Library. You can read the rest of the article here, at the Sun Prairie Star’s website.

After a week of exploring Vienna, the moment I had been waiting for finally arrived. I was utterly swept away. The woody scent of books found its way through the chilled air to my nose as the soaring crescendos of Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier played in homage to its debut a century ago. Overhead stately figures in Grecian robes leaned over a balcony in a warmly painted fresco, and old globes with sea creatures poking out of seas begged to be spun.

Yet all of this decadent beauty was only a secondary compliment to this room’s main attraction: books. Lining shelf upon shelf stretching two stories up were the crinkled pages of books dating back hundreds of years. I was in the State Room of Austria’s National Library, one of Europe’s best, and among the books filling the shelves were pages churned out by the press over 500 years ago.

You can read the rest of the article here, at the Sun Prairie Star’s website. If you’re interested in reading more, rest assured, more articles wait just a click away. Like my October piece about the contrasts between building a new school in Sun Prairie and rural Hungary, or my December column, about spending Thanksgiving with a 30 pound turkey and a dozen ex-pats. And of course, there’s more to come next month.

Pusan International Film Festival

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Greg Boone

We took a trip to Busan (or is it Pusan, you decide!) this weekend for the annual International Film Festival. We’re told it is the largest in all of Asia and in the second largest city in Korea. We’ll have more on all of it soon including details and some photos from the Jagalchi Fish Market. Keep your browsers tuned here for all of it this week. As for now, we’re going to bed.

Cheers.