Saturday, September 24, 2011

Rest in Peace, Cornelius

After 17+ years of faithful mouse-hunting service, our cat Cornelius (Corn) died today.

The day we selected him from a litter of young kittens, he ran away and hid behind a large pile of firewood. We could have simply picked another kitten from that litter, but we really liked Corn, so I moved half a cord of wood to get him. The name Cornelius was actually picked a long time before he was born. One time, Vicky and I drove past Cornelius Ave. in East Nicolaus, CA and agreed that we would call our future cat Cornelius.

Corn loved to sleep in warm places, like on top of my laptop.

Corn certainly wasn't the easiest-going cat. He was a born hunter (on one occasion he took on an adult turkey vulture!) and made sure our place was always rodent and lizard-free. He had a bit of a wild side and would often hide in the grass and jump out. He had little time for staying on our laps; that's just the way he was and always remained. We would always warn kids that came over to be careful--he could strike at any time, as you can see in this video:


Corn in action

Corn was extremely curious and even checked out a few books on HTML5 late in his life.

Everything reminds us of him now.

We buried Cornelius in our backyard today in a spot overlooking the meadow. While we put some flowers down, a beautiful little white butterfly flew by and showed up one more time later. I think he is in a good place now.

"A stone I died and rose again a plant;

A plant I died and rose an animal;

I died an animal and was born a man.

Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?"

—Rumi


Rest in peace, Cornelius. You'll always be in our hearts.


Friday, September 9, 2011

Live: Two TRT Record Attempts

Update 9/11/11:

Both attempts were abandoned at miles 50 (Aaron) and 87 (Michael). Better luck next time, guys.

The TRT is heating up. It turns out there isn't just one unsupported Tahoe Rim Trail record attempt (See my last post about Aaron Sorensen). Michael Popov (who at one time held the JMT unsupported record) is also running, but going the other direction. Both are going for the fastest unsupported time, which currently stands at 85h47m50s (by Adam Bradley), according to Peter Bakwin's FKT site (this also has details about the supported records).


Michael Popov in action

You can follow Michael live via his Spot tracker at this link.

It looks like Michael blazed his way through desolation wilderness already. Good luck guys!

Finally, David Wronsky is going to go for a TRT run in one-shot as well. Barefoot! You can read more about this on his site: www.helpdavidrun.com/LakeTahoe165/ We were both interviewed by Moonshine Ink about barefoot running recently (I will post details soon).

Thursday, September 8, 2011

This weekend: Unsupported TRT Record Attempt by Aaron Sorensen

This weekend, Aaron Sorensen is going to give the unsupported TRT record another try. He's got his backpack ready and he is starting Friday morning going counter clockwise from Tahoe City. Aaron knows the trail well (He and Michael Popov offered to help me on my supported run in 2008, but I fell behind schedule and missed them).


Aaron Sorenson

Complete details here: http://goo.gl/f1Hq5

Aaron: have fun out there and keep us posted—it will be epic!


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