I ride horses and climb poles, I am also a nerd

Stop, before you read this, do yourself a favor by scrolling down to the bottom and listening to some of the epic music I provided you with.  Warning, I am not responsible for any loss of hearing if you have your sound up too loud or if you lose your mind at the sound of such awesomeness.

Are you listening to some now?  Good.  Onward!

Believe it or not, the first show of the season is next weekend.  Crazy huh?  Seems like show season just ended, but I for one am dying to get back out there.  Last season for me did not exactly end on the greatest note from a showing perspective, but Brit and I have accomplished a lot during the short off-season and I feel like we are really ready to get back out there and kick some butt.  A few members of LL Equestrian have already taken their first trip of 2014 to ride in the Hawley Bennett clinic out at Dragonfire in Wilton. This clinic, as always, was amazing.  Unfortunately I am a bit strapped for cash at the moment and chose not to ride.  I did get the chance to go watch, however, which is always an illuminating experience. Hawley is an excellent clinician and I would highly recommend that if you get the chance to ride with her DO IT!  Dana, Adi, and Lauren (trainer, not little) all rode and I was the official videographer for the weekend.

Adi and Lauren repping LLE with our gorgeous new jackets

I think I did a pretty nice job, and Camille definitely did a good job capturing some pretty pictures on Sunday with Dana's snazzy new camera that she got for Christmas.  Maddie was the designated photographer for Saturday, and got some nice shots as well.  Little Lauren and Mackie were also there and were the official Kumo keepers.  Our amazing new jackets also came just in time for the clinic, so we got to look nice and sophisticated out at Dragonfire and we are sure to look awesome at all of our 2014 shows. Hawley brought a lot of interesting exercises that really challenged the horse and rider to be very accurate and adjustable.  We set a few up at Raintree this week for the jumping lessons and they have been a great challenge.  Brit and I can really benefit from this kind of exercise because our biggest problem is not having enough adjustability.  Brit can have an open stride all day long, but it is difficult to get the collected stride on her.  We made a lot of progress in our lesson, but I am going to have another stab at it before the course gets changed again.  Improving our adjustability is going to be a big piece of the puzzle that will make us ready for prelim.

In other news, we have finally taken down the Christmas decorations at Raintree.  Well, most of them anyway.  Somehow we missed the lights in the tackroom... and the wreath on the grain shed... and the stuff in the palm trees... really all we did was take down the things on the front of the barn that for some reason had been stuck up there with duct tape.  Now I'm not really sure how the heck the girls got some of the things up there, but somehow they managed to wrap tinsel around the front posts of the barn.  The tall ones. So how do we get the duct tape down?  Well obviously you climb the pole.  Now most of the girls did not think they were capable of climbing up there and I'm pretty sure most of them did not actually expect me to get all the way up there.  Well you know what?  I climbed that pole and I got that duct tape down.  Bam! That's right.  And I wasn't sore at all the next day... not even a little bit... sort of... maybe... okay.  Below is my picture proof.  I did actually make it all the way to the top, this was just on my descent.

Kumo is unamused.

Ellie climbed the other post to get the tinsel down.  We were all pretty impressed, her mom included, that she was able to get up there.  Apparently she is a tiny climbing machine haha.  I also find it really amusing that I put this picture on facebook with the caption "Climbing the post in front of the barn the other day... because I can. Or because I was getting the tinsel down from Christmas which was stuck to the very top of the pole. Seriously, I climbed all the way up there to unstick some duct tape."  I got the most likes on that post that I think I have ever gotten from any post.  Was my caption that amusing/interesting?  Was my picture that great?  Was my feat of strength that impressive?  I have no idea, but apparently both my horsey and non horsey friends alike were amused for some reason and gave me a like.  Moving on...

Recently I learned that I have the entire soundtrack for Mass Effect 3 on my computer because apparently it came with my collector's edition of the game (heck yeah I bought the collector's edition, it is only my favorite series of all time).  I started listening to the sound track and oh my God this game has the most amazing soundtrack of any game EVER.  This is not up for debate.  Period.  End of story.  I mean, just listen to this song:

How much emotion do you get from that song that doesn't even have any words?  At least EA can get one thing right, they do good soundtracks.  Also, the trailer music from Mass Effect 2 & 3 has now been added to my list of cross country songs, joining "If Today Was Your Last Day" by Nickelback and "Hall of Fame" by The Script.  Entitled "Protectors of the Earth" and "Heart of Courage" (the video below) both are by Two Steps From Hell, who apparently specializes in epic music that ends up in many movie and game trailers. They are 'mazing, nuff said.

So I think that is where I am going to end this post.  I am going to try and do another one before the combined test next weekend.  If I have enough to write about, I would like to try and make this blog a weekly thing, we will see.  Until next time: watch some clinics, ride your horse, climb some poles, and listen to epic music--because you're just that awesome.