I’m pretty bad at planning ahead for long weekends and end up utilizing them for boring things like catching up on laundry or going to the eye doctor. Let’s see if I can change that this year. The next long weekend is President’s Day weekend. I have Monday, February 16th off, and no idea how to take advantage of it. So, what should I do? Please post your ideas in the comments! Something to drive to and explore in Northern California would be great, but I’m also open to flying since it seems like I get on a plane at least once a month anyway.
Telluride, Colorado is one of my favorite places to ski. It’s now also home of one of my favorite blogs, Dave’s Blog (no, not Dave’s Blog), written by Dave Riley, the CEO of Telluride Ski and Golf Resort.
It’s not a press release feed that’s simply mislabeled as a blog. It’s written by a real person who communicates with his readers. My mom introduced it to me prior to our New Year’s trip, and it looks like Dave’s been publishing it since July 2007, shortly after becoming CEO. For a corporate blog, it feels very personal, and I look forward to each entry.
I like the content and style of the posts, because they’re obviously written by Dave himself, and he even takes the pictures. Of course there are nice shots of the mountains and the trails (which I drool over in between trips), but he goes beyond the “postcard” shots and includes cool construction photos and pictures of the Howitzers, yes, Howitzers leased from the U.S. Army, used for avalanche control. Most resorts would probably be too scared to post so much “behind the scenes” material, so I think it’s extra cool that the CEO is doing it at Telluride. The blog is timely too, with captions like “this is what the trail looked like today when I skied it,” rather than “this is something from our marketing department that a professional photographer took last season.”
Dave’s participation doesn’t end after he clicks “publish.” The blog has comments turned on, and Dave replies to many of them. And even with a good number of comments, it’s obvious that there’s some healthy moderation going on, as indicated by the spam/stupidity-free messages. My kind of blog.
And, on top of participating in the comments, Dave publicizes his email address at the bottom of many posts, encouraging people to contact him with questions. At a certain level this becomes unfeasible, but as long as he can keep up with the volume, I think it’s pretty cool that he shares his address.
Just don’t tell too many of your friends about it. I like that Telluride is still able to avoid the crowds. 🙂
When I was in elementary school, my mom told me that my friend’s parents’ car was broken into. I don’t remember exactly when I figured out that it wasn’t split into two pieces, but I do remember it took me longer than it should have.
I often remember my dreams when I first wake up (or at least the last part of them), but it’s rare that I’m still thinking about it on the way to work. Here are some highlights from last night’s epic dream:
I’m home in Pennsylvania late at night and it’s snowing. Reid is there too, and we agree that when the sun comes up we should go outside and take pictures while everything is pristine.
I’m witnessing a burglary somehow (two burglars in one house), and then as often happens in my dreams, at some point my point of view changes and I’m actually one of the burglars, and am breaking things out of frustration. Then I have to go out the window and onto the roof, which is kind of cool.
A drunk woman breaks my car window in a parking lot and I follow her and call 911, after first misdialing the number, getting someone else, and asking, “Umm, is this 911?”
I’m inside the Jeep that I used to drive (in PA), and it’s really clean.
It’s Christmas (or around that time) and my extended family is around. My grandfather is wearing his father’s Christmas sweater that he just recently found in storage.
Want to watch Obama get sworn in live on Tuesday but won’t have access to a TV? Here’s a listing of some places you can watch online. I’m listing a bunch of options, since some of them may not properly anticipate demand and you may have to try multiple sites before you get a working feed. All of these streams require Flash, unless otherwise noted. If you don’t know what Flash is, you probably have it.
Obama will be sworn in around noon Eastern time on January 20th, but the broadcasts will begin hours before that, so tune in whenever you want.
If you’re reading this after the event and are looking for archived video, I’m sure you can find it on many of the same sites listed below. Obama’s YouTube channel is also probably a good place to look.
CNN
Their player wanted me to install some Octoshape plugin when I tested it; it took a while and even crashed Safari on my Mac. It did work after restarting my browser though. There’s no direct link to the feed available yet, so I’d recommend going to their video page and then clicking on “Live Video” at the top of the screen.
My plan? I’ll be bringing in my antenna to work and hauling our game room’s HDTV into a larger conference room so we can watch in HD from one of the local networks. In case the antenna doesn’t cooperate, I’ll have my laptop connected to the TV as well, ready to turn to one of the above sites as a backup.
I’ve been in my current apartment for a year and a half now. As I’ve complained before, I’m not a huge fan of the management’s seemingly endless reasons reasons to enter my apartment, turn off my water, make me move my car, or otherwise remind me that I am not in control of my home. These inconveniences occur at least once a month. Recently, they informed everyone that they had to inspect the bathroom fixtures in every apartment, including the medicine cabinets. I knew my apartment didn’t have a medicine cabinet, but maybe that part of the letter applied to pre-renovation tenants.
Tonight, I found a new letter on my door explaining that they had identified my medicine cabinet as one of the units that needed replaced, because the mirror attached to it was in danger of falling off. Huh? But I don’t have one! Ugh, stupid management… right? I walked into my bathroom and looked at the mirror. It’s right up against the wall, so there can’t be a cabinet behind it. I pulled a little anyway, and WOW, I HAVE A MEDICINE CABINET! It’s just built in to the wall. Man, if I had recessed lighting I’d probably assume my apartment had no light bulbs. I totally see what they mean about the mirror, though. It’s held on with those adhesive circles that you pick up at Target when you want to hang up something light like a postcard. Not that I hang postcards. Matt does with Mariya’s, though. Okay, turning into a rambling post… need sleep.
I wonder if my last apartment had a medicine cabinet. Or the one before that.
I love it when David leaves at the end of the day. He’s always wearing his backpack and a baseball hat (I didn’t have one, so I went with Google since it was black), and approaches with a slightly concerned face and his eyes darting around, looking for who knows what. Snipers, maybe. He then stops and looks into the cube as if he’s just witnessed some traumatic event, and in a nearly out-of-breath half-whisper, says, “See you guys,” before walking off to wrestle a bear or whatever it is he does after work. Here’s my attempt at an impression:
As far as I know, he doesn’t visit my site. Let’s keep it that way.
I’m waiting for my copy of iLife ’09 to arrive with the new iMovie, and I couldn’t find any junk HDV tapes to use for this, so I’m still rockin’ the Quick Capture feature on YouTube.
I recently searched for [riedel crystal cloth] on Amazon. Since I’m a member of Amazon.com Prime, I decided to filter the results to only items eligible for Prime’s free shipping, and clicked on the link shown below:
As you would expect, the list of results was filtered down to one item (from a list of one, actually, but that’s not important). However, the item listed didn’t have the comforting Prime logo in the description. I clicked through to the product page, and sure enough, I saw the following text:
This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime when purchased from CentralChef. See more buying choices
Confused, and convinced that Amazon had a bug (hey, I understand that generating high-quality search results is hard), I sent them a message. Surprisingly, I got a non-canned reply just a few hours later, on a Saturday night. They explained that the item is in fact sold by not only CentralChef (not Prime eligible), but also by Amazon.com itself. In order to buy from Amazon, I needed to click on the “See more buying choices” link. From there, I was able to choose Amazon as the merchant.
So there you go. If you come across an item that at first doesn’t seem to be eligible for Prime, always double-check by clicking on that “buying choices” link.
After departing the Golden State on December 20th of last year, I’m finally back in California a day later than scheduled after what I believe has been my longest absence since moving out here. Here’s a taste of what I did on my vacation:
Family
As one should during the Christmas season, I spent time with my immediate and extended family. I enjoy being with them, even if they do think I’m a little strange.
Food
I had plenty of home-cooked meals and homemade cookies, and learned how to do a solid. On-the-go and in between meals, I got my Wawa fix with an Italian hoagie. And, for the first time I can remember, I tried my family’s popular sweet potato dish. This comes after last year’s pumpkin pie revelation. For years, I listened as my family mmmmed while eating this dish, but didn’t try it myself, even with the tempting marshmallow topping, because I heard the word “potatoes,” saw mushy stuff, and assumed it tasted like mashed potatoes, which I don’t even like the smell of. This Christmas, I took a small scoop and put it on my plate. When my family noted the tiny portion, I explained my fear that it would taste like regular potatoes. They assured me that sweet potatoes and regular potatoes are totally different things. I gave it a try. I wish I could go back in time to all of the family dinners where I’ve passed it up and take a heaping spoonful or two or three.
I didn’t get a specific shot of the sweet potatoes, but here’s a cropped spy-style shot that I was able to pull out of one of the pictures:
What will I try next? Gravy?
Felines
Even though they spent a lot of time hiding due to the many visitors, I still got to spend some quality time with our cats, Potter and Harry. They like Christmas trees and turkey.
Fabergé
Like Stan Brakhage to an ashtray, I was drawn to photographing these candle holders:
Friends
I had my annual night out with friends from home. It’s sad that I’m only able to do this at Christmas. Ted, Meghan, Christine, Elise, Matt, and I had dinner at Chili’s. I had the “Quesadilla Explosion.” Based on the name and my skimming of the description, I was expecting a plate full of chicken quesadillas. Don’t let the same thing happen to you. You want to know what a “Quesadilla Explosion” is at Chili’s? It’s a freakin’ chicken salad with four tiny cheese quesadillas on the side. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what I thought I had ordered. After dinner, a few of us headed to the Drafting Room for a few drinks. And by “a few drinks,” I mean one drink for each of us, because as soon as we sat down karaoke night started… ending our night early. It was fun catching up with everyone. Nobody was in prison or married or had kids or anything, but everyone seemed happy.
Festivities
My family spent an evening in New York City to see the Christmas show. As of this writing, their website’s favicon is the Netscape logo, but fortunately the show itself was more impressive, and not a disappointment as I had feared could be the case. They have updated the show, with an awesome LED screen as a backdrop that really helped to enhance the sets. And just as I remembered, they made great use of the stage’s hydraulic system, making huge set pieces silently appear and disappear on cue. There was also the addition of a brief 3D video segment, but that was pretty corny and even had awkwardly-placed sponsor logos. Oh well. The rest of the show was great, and I thought the orchestra was awesome, especially in the opening and closing scenes when you could see it. Before the show, we had dinner at Del Frisco’s. The food was good; I enjoyed some crab cakes (I’m not a big steak person) and even ate (and liked) the broccoli after I inexplicably accepted it from the waitress. After the show (actually, my dad and I checked it out before the show as well), we walked by the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. We ended the visit with a trip to my sister’s new apartment, which was pretty cool. It’s like knowing someone on Friends.
Fun
After the Christmas festivities at home, my family headed out to Telluride, Colorado for a week of skiing. Why is Telluride awesome? Because this is what you see when you look outside:
We arrived just after a big snowfall, and had five full sunny days of downhill fun. It wasn’t quite spring skiing (my favorite) with gloveless hands and just a pair of sunglasses on my head, but it was in the mid thirties in the mornings and crawled into the forties in the afternoons, so it was far from uncomfortable.
Revelation Bowl, a new addition this season, was open so we tried it out. It wasn’t too special (I can’t remember which place, but I think it was Beaver Creek that has my favorite bowl), but it was fun to have a new area to play in. On the first day I got tripped up by the moguls and rolled down part of it, but that’s all part of the fun. Here are a couple of pictures, first of the bowl itself, and then of the view from the top:
I skipped the sixth day of skiing, which was colder and snowy. Why did I miss out on the fresh powder? Well, I was sitting in the Telluride airport, waiting to hear that my flight was cancelled. Instead of complaining about a bad travel experience (being “stuck” in Telluride for an extra night was pretty awesome), let me tell you how cool this airport is. Yes, I’m excited about an airport. The Telluride Regional Airport is the highest commercial airport in the US. It is so fun to fly in an out of. It’s located on a small plateau, and the runway isn’t even level. You land going downhill, and take off going uphill. If you’re in a prop plane, they’ll run the props up to high speed with the brakes on before takeoff… not risking running out of runway. Here’s a shot I took from the resort area which shows the runway:
And as a special treat, here’s a video of a landing at Telluride. Note how the plateau appears just seconds before landing:
I’d show you the even more dramatic takeoff, where the land drops out just after the wheels leave the pavement, but I didn’t get to fly out of Telluride this time around. It looks like the grade will be reduced in the future, but it should still be a fun place to fly in and out of.
To end this post, here’s how Telluride ends the year, with a New Year’s Eve event where skiers holding torches travel down the mountain with fireworks in the background. Here’s a handheld long exposure of the celebration:
