CO Backpacking: "I could die now...or...now!"

[Chris] This is the story of a trip in August 2008 to the Mount of the Holy Cross Wilderness in CO with Emily, myself, and our friend, James. It’s an exciting one if you haven’t heard it before. I can't believe it was 3.5 years ago!

Most of the trips Emily and I take have the primary goal of seclusion; we often judge the success of the trip, at least in part, by how few people we see. This trip was different though. Our friend James said he needed more danger and adventure in his life and he said he wanted to accomplish something. Well I suppose I can’t take all the credit, but this trip delivered in the danger and adventure categories.

Mount of the Holy Cross

Emily and I had already done a trip in Pictured Rocks earlier that summer so we thought this would be a good opportunity to do something different. We left early in the morning, got to Denver by dinner time, had dinner with our friend Alex, and then drove the rest of the way to the trailhead. We slept by the car that night and got going in the morning. The plan for the first day was to hike over half-moon pass, down to the stream, and up to one of the lakes underneath the cirque (Lake Patricia). The next day we would try reach the summit of Mt of the Holy Cross (a 14er), and the third day we would hike out. I guess our trip didn’t vary too much from our plan, but the way it happened wasn’t exactly as expected.

Well read posts on Chris's therapy site

[Chris] Here are some "popular" posts on my therapy site from 2011: Posts of 2011. We will post something soon about our recent trip to Chicago as well as try write about one of our previous backpacking trips. Just so little time before classes start back up!

First PhD Semester Done

[Chris] Oh boy, how to summarize my first semester? Well, I think that it is fairly in line with what I expected. I’m extremely grateful to my friends and colleagues in the classes ahead of me for that. I think that I managed to balance my life in a near-healthy way, not going too long without riding or running and spending at least a little time with Emily almost every day. A typical week of school work, classes, meetings, and assistantship stuff was probably around 70 hours, plus 4-7 hours of clinical work. This probably won’t be a very exciting post, but if you care to know what I do, I’ll try to summarize it quickly.

Better video of speech

Click here: http://vimeo.com/31315523

MA Commencement Speech

Click here... http://vimeo.com/30313985

PhD: 4 weeks done, 200 to go

[Chris] Is that it? Only 200 weeks left? Of course, that assumes I get it done in four years. Well, so far it's all going well. I really enjoy all of my classes, am working on building my private practice, and am working on a paper to submit for publication. The program is a great fit for me and I'm definitely happy about my choice.

I've actually been pleasantly surprised at my work-load. I work from 7am to 11pm a few days each week but I have been able to take one morning off each week and don't work too hard on the weekends. In large part, this is due to working for very flexible professors for my research assistantships. There are also a few large projects that will crescendo near the end of the semester. But at least for now, it's all pretty smooth.

My Other Blog

On my website for my private practice (www.CJMtherapy.com) I have a blog that I try post on every Sunday. The topics are almost always related to therapy, relationships, and mental health. Some posts are more informative than others (i.e., sometimes I take time to write something good and sometimes I post for the sake of getting something up). In any case, I could always use more traffic at my private practice's site (it helps Google know I matter)- so check it out once a week, or once a day, or more.

Backpacking below the smoke in MT 2011

[Chris] This is a trip I took with my cousin, Steven, in August 2011 to the Bob Marshall Wilderness and surrounding areas in Montana. Emily and I did a trip on the west side of "the Bob" in 2010 and Steven and I did another trip in MT in 2010 as well. I have not written about those trips yet as Emily and I are trying to work through our trips somewhat chronologically. In any case, I just got back a week ago so I thought I should write about this while it is fresh. It will be short and sweet.

As I wrapped up my last semester for my Masters program and geared up for my Doctoral program, I thought it would be a good time to get away for a bit- not to mention the added stresses of this last year and a half. Steven and I decided drive out to the Bob and do a little backpacking and fly fishing. We planned a loop that would take us past some of the more popular features of the Bob, namely the Chinese Wall.