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The Random Adventure That Is Life (RATIL)

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A collection of 53 posts

Family Road Trip 2021

Family Road Trip 2021

I had to be in Las Vegas for work for a few weeks. Since I was planning to drive anyways, we decided to make a road trip out of it and visit several National Parks along the way and finishing the trip off with a couple of nights in Vegas.

Lost Creek Wilderness Loop

Lost Creek Wilderness Loop

I was getting the itch to do a backpacking trip. Given the pandemic situation I decided to stick close to home and went with the Lost Creek Wilderness Loop. Coming from Denver, the Wigwam Trailhead was the closest entry point. However, that trailhead has about a 3.7 mile spur

Skiing With a 2-Year-Old

Skiing With a 2-Year-Old

We took our son skiing for what could be the last time this season. As such, I thought it would be appropriate to recount the trials, tribulations, and celebrations of a season of skiing with a 2YO. Patience and Expectation Management The key to every ski trip with kids is

Squaw Mountain Fire Lookout

Squaw Mountain Fire Lookout

I am not sure where I first heard about them (probably some click-baity Facebook ad), but for the last few months I have been obsessing over renting a US Forest Service fire lookout tower. In their heyday, there were a couple thousand lookout towers. With the advent of modern technology,

Five Fourteener Frenzy Weekend

Five Fourteener Frenzy Weekend

After planning a Sunday trip to climb Longs Peak with some folks from 14ers.com [https://14ers.com] I decided to fill my Saturday with the DeCaLiBron route. After the Sunday Longs trip fell through, I ended up doing Torreys Peak on Sunday. Altogether I hit 5 fourteener peaks this

DIY Barn Door

A common architectural feature out here in Colorado is to not actually put a door between the master bedroom and the master bathroom. So we decided a barn door was the best option but given the non-standard (wider than normal) size of our doorway, the only pre-made options were going

Mount Evans - 14,264'

Mount Evans - 14,264'

Mount Evans is Colorado's 14th highest peak and also one of the most accessible as it has a road to the top. I tried to summit this mountain a few weeks ago with my 2-year-old on my back. We ended up turning back because he was ready to go home

Pit Stop At Arches National Park

Pit Stop At Arches National Park

The drive from Las Vegas to Denver is a long one. Somewhere in the 11-12 hour range. This length of trip necessitates at least one major pitstop (on top of regular gas and snacks). Luckily Arches National Park is almost exactly half way and made for a perfect opportunity to

Zion National Park - Partial Zion Traverse

Zion National Park - Partial Zion Traverse

I was in Las Vegas for work and had a long-ish weekend due to moving from day shift to night shift. I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to plan a trip to Zion National Park [https://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm] for some wilderness backpacking. The park

10 Years, 10 Things I Have Learned

10 Years, 10 Things I Have Learned

My wife and I have been married for 10 YEARS TODAY!!!! It is insane how quickly time flies and how many life events have happened in that time. I love her more than anything in the world but as they say "marriage is work". I think we would both agree

Olive Ridge Campground - With A 2-Year-Old

Olive Ridge Campground - With A 2-Year-Old

With the weather being so outstanding, we decided to pack up the fam and head up into the mountains to get a weekend camping trip under our belts. We had previously taken the little guy camping [https://ratil.life/camping-with-a-1-year-old/] back in Texas for one night. This trip was a

Mount Falcon Park

Mount Falcon Park

We were looking for a hike on the west side of Denver so that we could meet up with friends in the area afterwards.Mount Falcon Park [https://www.jeffco.us/1332/Mount-Falcon-Park] was in the perfect spot for the time we had between nap time ending for the little

Saint Mary's Glacier

Saint Mary's Glacier

Being in Colorado, I felt the itch to get up into the mountains before our first month in our new home was up. On a suggestion from my brother-in-law, we decided to head up to Saint Mary's Glacier. The glacier is just past Idaho Springs on I-70 so we decided

pfSense With CenturyLink 1GB Fiber

pfSense With CenturyLink 1GB Fiber

We just recently moved into a neighborhood that offers CenturyLink 1GB fiber into the house. I mistakenly though the change would be as simple as plugging in my current setup to whatever modem they provided. Turns out that is not the case and that a little more work is required.

Hack The Box: Irked

Hack The Box: Irked

Irked: Retired If you are interested in learning more about penetration testing, Hack the Box is a great way to get your feet wet in a legal and well built environment. Head over to hackthebox.eu [https://hackthebox.eu] to get started. Enumeration My initial enumeration returned a handful of

pfSense Insights

pfSense Insights

This post will be updated as I find out interesting tidbits while working with my pfSense. Usually this will be getting something in the house to work as expected with out opening up the firewall to everything. Amazon Shopping App UPDATE: The solution listed below no longer works. The Amazon

Big Bend National Park: Outer Mountain Loop

Big Bend National Park: Outer Mountain Loop

I had about 3.5 days of my first quarter time off leftover after trips to Washington (working vacation) and Hawaii and I desperately wanted to do a backpacking trip in Big Bend. Some quick Googling led me to the Outer Mountain Loop. This trip can be anywhere from 25-45

Moanalua Valley Middle Ridge to the Forbidden Haiku Stairs

Moanalua Valley Middle Ridge to the Forbidden Haiku Stairs

Distance: 9.6 miles Time To Top: 3 hours 8 minutes Time Down" 2 hours 25 minutes Round Trip Time: 6 hours GPS Track Of My HikeWith a new baby in the family, it was time to pack up and head back to Hawaii to see the new little guy.

SANS Holiday Hack 2018

SANS Holiday Hack 2018

I have to be honest, life is just too busy this year for me to actually write a full report in the context of the story. Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed this year's challenge, much better than last year in terms of not having to actually play games.

Flying To Dallas With A Toddler

Flying To Dallas With A Toddler

I have been wanting to fly to Dallas for a while and 3 opportunities in a row have resulted in the weather not cooperating. Well, we finally had the weather we needed to make the trip. I generally prefer to fly the Flight School's Cessna 172, but after a recent

Sump Pump Replacement

Sump Pump Replacement

Over the holidays I went over to my mom's house to visit and as I walk in the door, she is pulling everything out of the closet under the stairs and I could hear a high-pitched alarm going off. Her sump alarm was going off. My mom really is not

2017 Acura RDX 'A16' Service

2017 Acura RDX 'A16' Service

DIY car service can save you some serious money, especially when some of the maintenance can be done in your own garage. The A16 service for the RDX is: * Oil change (no filter, that is only with B service) * Rear differential fluid change * Tire rotation Cost Because I had already

Hack The Box: DevOops

Hack The Box: DevOops

DevOops: Retired 13 October 2018 If you are interested in learning more about penetration testing, Hack the Box is a great way to get your feet wet in a legal and well built environment. Head over to hackthebox.eu [https://hackthebox.eu] to get started. Been a while since I

Camping With A 1-Year-Old

Camping With A 1-Year-Old

The Wifey was working on a Sunday so I decided to spring into manly action and plan a camping trip for Saturday night with the kiddo. I really wanted two things out of the trip: 1) to take the little guy on his first camping trip and 2) to use

Friedrich Wilderness Park

Friedrich Wilderness Park

We had an uncharacteristically nice day this week after months of the Summer's oppressive heat and then a month of monsoon season. With a little bit of cabin fever from not having been able to go hiking for months, this was a perfect day to hit the trail. On a