June, July, August

June, July, and August

Hey CBC,

I returned to Boulder for some time, longer than my coach would like, and shorter than I would have preferred to stay. 

a brief interlude to display reasons why I live in Colorado ... 

Somewhere outside Telluride

This is what happens when our range is closed during the week... 
Shooting at poor, unsuspecting dead trees in a yard in Ridgway colorado

My beloved car and I decided to make the journey to New York. This may have something to do with the fact that by the time I looked at tickets, three days before I was supposed to get my rear in gear towards the East, they were quite pricey. NO PROBLEM, I'll drive, I figured. 

I drove out one day, and I called my grandma from eastern Colorado. "Hey grandma!" I said enthusiastically into the phone to my incredibly liberal and ferociously political grandma, "you wouldn't believe how many Trump signs there are in eastern colorado!! Hey, can I crash with you tonight?" There was a moment of silence, as there often is at people trying to digest my chaotic life in the span of a few seconds. "...tonight? In Madison?" At my affirmation, her voice perked up, I imagine she was still recovering from picturing the Trump signs. 

And sure enough, I rolled into Madison that night. Well, that morning. I drove through a world-ending thunderstorm in eastern Iowa, the lightning flashing in 360 degrees around me, the sound so loud I wondered if there was a rock concert in the sky  I wasn't invited to.  I lost my right windshield wiper in that storm, it's somewhere in Iowa, and I think it'll stay there for a while. By the time I arrived in Madison, Wisconsin, the storm had blown through, ripping down entire trees, taking out power lines, and making roads impassible. It took delicate navigating (I drove through some yards) and a lot of patience (I yelled at the unyielding, fallen trees blocking my way), but I finally arrived in Madison to the Heiden home.  

I stayed here a day to visit my grandparents, my grandfather being the owner of my starting biathlon rifle named Forget-Me-Not (Partial story here). My grandmother, whose social life must rival that of the Queen of England, tired me out. We ran around town finding inventive ways of charging our phones, since the power was still out in her house. 

The University Memorial Center at University of Wisconsin, Madison, on the shore of Mendota.
Both my parents and my grandparents went here

I journeyed out the next morning with a new wiper blade, a hug to my little dog, who resides there in Madison, and one for each of my grandparents. 

one grandfather, one dog

His name is actually Einstein

I charged East. Or rather, they charged me to go East. Once you get past Wisconsin, the states make you pay for the privilege of passing through. I kid you not, I saw a brochure in a gas station that said, "seventeen fun things to do in northeastern Indiana!!" One of those seventeen things was probably paying tolls. 

I arrived in Lake Placid at 5am and slept until 2pm.  If nothing else, I'm a champion sleeper. Here I stayed for a week or so, but no more, to the never ending frustration of my coach. 

Halfway through this week we were shooting a 30/30 test. That's where you shoot.... You guessed it.... 30 shots prone and 30 shots standing, and then your coach takes it down and looks really displeased if you didn't put all those shots into the 10 ring (scored based on rings). I went for the spray and pray method here, a most beloved tactic of the CBC. It was going rather well until both my top and bottom butthooks broke, my riser block came loose, and then my cheekpiece actually fell off completely (huh, should have glued that). 

Because I'm a graduate student in engineering, and a bonafide adult (I know this because I can purchase both tobacco AND alcohol), I did the reasonable thing. I called my dad.  "DAD, IT'S BROKEN," I helpfully explained. 

So the next place I arrived was the Bay Area of California, where my parents call home. The trick to flying into the Bay is not to come in during rush hour. So you can fly in between 1 and 4am. I picked 1. Guess who got me from the airport- isn't my mom great?  

My dad is basically a wizard. That's a fancy word for an engineer without an official engineering degree, but with a PhD and a really high IQ. I did the important work of pointing to the parts that were either falling off or broken, and I left ten days later with everything fixed. The bandsaw, tablesaw, dremel, drill press, and the other toys kept in the garage probably had to take naps after all that working overtime. 

My mom is a magician. That's a fancy word for someone who picks up a new skill, sport, or knowledge in the span of a day.  While I performed the helpful task of pointing out my broken butthooks and ghetto looking rifle, my mom molded and remade the butthooks out of carbon fiber, redesigning the entire attachment system to be more robust.  Then she took out her woodburning tools, and adorned Tunkasila (duen-kah-shee-lah, that's the name of my rifle, passed down from my dad, it means grandfather, or great spirit) with the aforementioned naked lady (the lovely lady herself), sanding and re-varnishing the entire stock, complete with riser block.

So with a new pistol grip, new cheekpiece, new butthooks, other modifications of things I just thought about and my parents actually did, and much more stylish than before, I returned to Lake Placid and subsequent World Cup trials.

I decided I didn't like my pistol grip the way it was (small hands).

my mom was super thrilled about the enormous mess I made on the kitchen table

Getting all prettied up (and protected, since a lot of the coating had to be taken off to make those nice designs)

I don't know why the drill was exactly right there, but stuff was obviously gittin' done 'round there

Having a roller range is so great, they said! Just not for the toes of your boots....
Grand prize for anyone who fixes this problem
(I have heard that they make plastic pieces for the shoes of baseball pitchers, who have a similar problem)

-J