Face freeze

That's what happens when you spend the morning skiing 18 inches of fresh dry powder. Face shots here, there and everywhere is a surefire recipe for a frozen chin!

We had a late night last night, so even though I set the alarm for 7 am I didn't roll out of bed until 8.20 am and then when I saw 13 inches on the report I panicked! My wife kindly dropped me at the Thunderhead Express around 9.30 am and I shouldn't have worried because there was more than enough powder to go around (and several more inches fell during the morning).

I began with a few circuits on Pioneer Ridge which I've mostly avoided this season due to insufficient snow. But today it was divine, especially some of the lines through the aspens below Fetcher Glade. Only five days ago I skied the same stuff like a dog.

Once I exhausted those possibilities it was back over to my favourite hangout - the trees on the Priest Creek face. I skied a really aggressive Closet/Shadows run with Eric from Boston before continuing with Twilight, 3.30 trees and Sundown Liftline.

After that I decided my legs needed something a little easier so I explored some of my favourite stashes in 'Wally World' where there was plenty of deep and untracked snow. And then eventually my rational mind told me "getting (really) tired, time to go home" while the inner child was screaming "I want to play in the powder some more!" The rational mind won out. I am 43 years old after all!

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 22,824 vertical ft and a season total of 405,465 vertical ft (or 40.5% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

It beats the gym

The skiing today was very ordinary. Windy, grey and crusty. But it still beats the gym as a form of exercise, and it still counts towards my season vertical. So here's the map of today's runs for a total of 10,556 vertical ft and a season total of 382,641 vertical ft (or 38.3% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Hot or cold?

Today was one of those days that it was cold, windy and grey at the top of the mountain but warm and sunny everywhere else, so it was hard to dress just right. But the snow was good enough to compensate for that minor inconvenience.

The 5 am report said six inches overnight at the summit, but if it was that much it was just barely. Certainly not enough to justify getting out of bed early, but still worthwhile. Again it was a day where the best skiing was to be found in the trees on the Priest Creek face - Closet, 3.30 trees and Twilight. I started out skiing like a dog on Pioneer Ridge, but by the time I got to my favourite spots I was really ripping it up.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 16,100 vertical ft and a season total of 372,085 vertical ft (or 37.2% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Easy to like

Today was not one of those days you rave about like Thursday, but it was one of those days which are easy to like. Good snow cover, plenty of sun and no wind, and for a major holiday weekend not even too crowded. I didn't ski anything special today, and yet it was all special. Just being out there is special enough.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 12,220 vertical ft and a season total of 355,985 vertical ft (or 35.6% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Windy Friday

Today was every bit as bad as yesterday was good. It's blowing a gale - 40-50 mph - and messing things up completely.

First up the gondola was closed due to the wind, so I stood in a long line to ride the Headwall Chair, so I could ski down to the Christy Chair to stand in another long line, so I could ski across to the Thunderhead Express so I could, you guessed it, stand in a long line. I hope Steamboat's new owners were watching today, because this mountain really doesn't work when the gondola isn't running.

Then it was down to the Sundown Express because the Storm Peak Express was also closed. There was no line there, but the chair stopped for ten minutes just as I was about to get on. It could have been worse though. I might have been on the chair fully exposed to the wind.

When I eventually got to the top of the mountain after about an hour it definitely wasn't worth it. I expected to find some more powder in the trees since it snowed some more last night, but all I found was heavy, crusty crap. I did eventually find some decent snow lower down the mountain off to the side of Sunnyside, so I rode the Elkhead Chair a few times to savour that, and also some nice soft bumps on BC Liftline and Whiteout. But all in all, I would have preferred to stay in bed this morning.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 9,296 vertical ft and a season total of 343,765 vertical ft (or 34.4% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Awesome powder day

We've been waiting a while for a really good powder day and today it arrived. The 7 am report said 10 inches at the summit and it's still snowing. There was only three or four inches at mid mountain so my first run down Vagabond was just a few inches on top of a groomed base. But once I got into the trees it was deep and largely untracked. So good that I tried Closet, Shadows, Kuus' Cruise, Twilight, 2.30 trees, 1.30 trees, Lights Out. Basically the whole Priest Creek face.

I also found some deep underneath the top of the Sunshine Chair and some nice stashes in the Wally World trees, but the really deep stuff was over at Morningside. It was so good I even hiked to the top to ski Wake Up Call. It was worth it - waist deep and steep and face shots all the way!

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 25,232 vertical ft and a season total of 334,469 vertical ft (or 33.4% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft). That's my biggest day this season so far and in fact bigger than my biggest day last season.

Valentine's dinner

Marie and I celebrated our 22nd Valentine's Day together tonight with a very nice dinner at the Catamount Golf Club's restaurant. Every course was a delight, but for me the lobster risotto was the highlight.


I hope this one stays in business, because the restaurant where we celebrated Valentine's last year seems to have closed down.

Kiwis

I skied with some New Zealanders today - Liz and Rob from Wellington. It turns out Liz worked for my company until about three months ago (she now works for the competition but no hard feelings).

Today was leftovers from Sunday night's storm. The report yesterday morning said 8-10 inches, but I just couldn't get myself out of bed. I'm working on a big proposal right now and have been burning the candle at both ends and it just caught up with me. Although I probably would have managed if it had been true Champagne powder (which it wasn't because it was simply too warm).

So there was lots of tree skiing today. Closet, Twilight and the trees between Priest Creek Liftline and 3 O'clock (twice - does that make it 6 O'clock?)

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 13,580 vertical ft and a season total of 309,237 vertical ft (or 30.9% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft). My legs feel like I skied a lot more than that today because it really is hard work skiing the heavy powder. But it still beats working!

Lower mountain

Today was one of the those unusual occasions when the lower mountain is the place to be. My first few runs on the top of the mountain were not good - the snow was hard and the visibility was poor. So I headed down below and spent the rest of the day riding the Thunderhead Express skiing Vagabond, Concentration and Vertigo which was the best run of the day - nice soft bumps and completely deserted. It remains my favourite spot on the lower mountain. I also swung by the Bashor race course to say hi to my mate Dave Willis who was working today - that's the price he's paying for a free ski pass.

It's been warm for the past week and we now desperately need some more snow, which fortunately is forecast for the next few days.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 16,228 vertical ft and a season total of 295,657 vertical ft (or 29.6% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Lunch break

It's been warm the last few days and cold at night which means hard pack in the morning, so I didn't head out until 11 am today. The first couple of runs were still pretty firm, especially the bumps on vortex which were hard as hell, but after that I managed to find some softer snow and some really nice bumps, especially on the skier's left of Hurricane where the shade of the trees had kept the snow nice and powdery.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 11,912 vertical ft and a season total of 279,429 vertical ft (or 27.9% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Get it before it melts

After last week's bitter cold, today and the next few days are expected to be quite warm - right now it's in the high 30's (F) and the forecast high for tomorrow is 40F. So my goal today was to ski some nice packed powder before too much of it melts.

My best run of the day was definitely Rolex - I skied the bumps at quite a brisk pace, with a tight line and was fluid and smooth all the way through and only stopped once to catch my breath. I could barely have imagined being able to ski bumps like this three years ago!

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 11,468 vertical ft and a season total of 267,517 vertical ft (or 26.8% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft). Not a big day but I've got so much work to do right now that I couldn't really stay out any longer.

Yes we have powder

Only five inches overnight, but 18 inches over the past 72 hours means a lovely packed powder base. It's a little wind blown and crusty in places, and not really Steamboat's famous light and dry champagne powder, but when your skis disappear into it and you start to feel like you're floating it still feels awesome.

Marie dropped me at the Thunderhead Express early this morning so I could avoid the big weekend crowd at the gondola and it was cold, cold, cold. Plus it was windy at the top, so I headed immediately into the trees in Closet where it was like another world and the snow was deep and largely untracked. And then when the sun came out mid-morning it was gorgeous all over.

I met up with my wife's friend Julieann and her husband Bruce around 9.30 am and skied with them the rest of the morning. Bruce is a brilliant skier which is great, because I find when I'm with a really good skier I ski a lot better. I think it's because I'm more aggressive and tend to ski a more direct line as I attempt to keep up.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 15,776 vertical ft and a season total of 256,049 vertical ft (or 25.6% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

It's been 31 days since my last fix

My last powder fix that is. Actually no, it's been zero days since my last powder fix! The 5 am report said 5 inches at the summit but it was more like 7 inches by 8.30 am and 10 inches in the trees. Shadows and Lights Out were fantastic and Twilight was even better.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 13,933 vertical ft and a season total of 240,273 vertical ft (or 24% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Big food, little exercise

It's amazing what five weeks back in Australia with lots of eating and very little exercise will do for your conditioning. Not good. Although I could use altitude adjustment as my excuse for taking it so easy today. But having set out to take it easy and just cruise around on the groomers, I couldn't resist Shadows!

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 10,482 vertical ft and a season total of 226,340 vertical ft (or 22.6% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).


Because I've missed the last five weeks I'm now a long way behind my total at this time last season (375,639 ft) but I missed a lot of days late in the season last year while I plan to ski pretty hard from now on, so I'm still pushing to make my goal. Let's see.

Homecoming

The downside of living in Steamboat is that it's tough when you have to leave. The upside of that is that it feels fantastic to come back. I've liked most of the places I've lived (Manila was 'interesting' but I don't think I could actually say I liked it), and there's several cities in various parts of the world where I've spent enough time that when I return I immediately feel at home, but I've never had the same feeling that I get when I come home to Steamboat.

That's a long winded way of saying we arrived back last night from a month in Australia and it feels great to be home. It's especially tough being away during the ski season, but at least I didn't miss a lot of snow.

So now I can continue to work on achieving at least one of my resolutions for 2007, to ski a million vertical feet this season. My other resolution was to spend less time on planes, but given that I've already done 11 flights and 13,000 miles since January 1 I don't think I'm doing so well on that one!

Time for George to fall on his sword

Once again George W. Bush blames those who don't show him absolute loyalty, removing the commanders who disagree with his desperate last roll of the dice "troop surge".

There's only one commander who deserves to be relieved of his command and that's the commander-in-chief who so willfully and arrogantly led the United States into this unnecessary and disastrous war.

My 2006 in review

So 2006 is over. Time to look back and reflect on the year that was.

For me it was an incredibly busy year.

A year with 57 days and 740,000 vertical ft of skiing, including some awesome powder days like this epic powder Monday on March 13 and the blizzard bonus on December 21.

A year where I took 75 flights travelling a total of 109,000 miles to Australia (four times), NZ (twice) as well as Malaysia, Hong Kong and China and spent 178 days away from Steamboat (most of it fortunately in the company of my wife). Those 75 flights included plenty of engine trouble as well as last week's three day weather delay.

A year with lots of business success, where I played a key part in helping my company win contracts in Australia, New Zealand and China (including one deal which just closed today) worth more than $50 million and potentially much more.

A year with lots of visits to family and friends. My good friends Michael and Peter in Canberra and John in Brisbane who've been my best mates since military college more than 20 years ago. Our German friends Bert and Claudia who live in Switzerland and we hadn't seen in more than ten years but we ran into on our way to Hong Kong. Our friends Dan and Joyce from Wisconsin who we saw in Australia. My father-in-law who lives in Beirut and who my wife hadn't seen for nearly three years, and all the rest of her family in Brisbane who must almost be sick of us visiting by now. My mum and dad, brother and (small) nephew in Tasmania and my sister and (big) nephew on the Gold Coast, and my wife's cousin Naji in LA who must also be tired of us 'passing through' on the way to Australia.

So what are my resolutions for 2007?

First is achieving my 2006-07 ski season goal of skiing one million vertical feet.

And second (two is enough if you're serious about them) is to reduce the amount of flying I do. I figured out that I spent something like 240 hours on planes this year, and in terms of total travel time at least 300 hours getting to and from wherever. If you think of it in terms of an eight hour shift that's an extra 30 or 40 days work which is crazy. So my aim is to make fewer but longer trips, and maybe even spend the entire (Steamboat) summer in Australia.

Every cloud has a silver lining

Including the cloud that brought last week's blizzard.

First there was the extra day of skiing I got last week.

And second travelling on Christmas Day made it easy to upgrade to business class using miles since there's not many paying business class passengers wanting to travel then. LA to Brisbane in the front of the plane (well upstairs actually) is a million percent more enjoyable than travelling down the back!

So we celebrated Christmas today with my wife's family and the kids especially got into the spirit of celebrating Christmas Day again. I was particularly impressed that our nephews had opened only one present each and had saved the rest until we were there. Well done Alex, Aiden and Ramzi.

Bonus day

Today I was supposed to be in transit to Australia, but thanks to the delays caused by this week's storm, I got to ski instead.

It was a lovely sunny day with lots of packed powder and surprisingly few people. I suspect that a lot of the people who were planning to be here this weekend were delayed coming in by the storm, so that just meant more for me!

I found some small stashes of powder hidden in some of the trees, especially in 'Wally World'. All in all a wonderful day that I didn't expect to have.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 18,706 vertical ft and a season total of 215,858 vertical ft (or 21.6% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

The future of Steamboat

The big news in Steamboat this week (apart from the effects of the blizzard) has been the sale of the ski area to Intrawest for $265 million.

It's hard to predict exactly what this will mean for the ski mountain or the town, but based on Intrawest's record it's not too hard to guess that they are going to spend a really big chunk of money on upgrading facilities. That's a positive contrast to the previous owners ASC who have been carrying a lot of debt and consequently investing very little capital.

The obvious place they'll start is the base area which is incredibly dated, doesn't work well and doesn't really generate the sort of return that slope side real estate should. Just look at what they did at Winter Park.

It's not so obvious that there'll be an expansion of the ski area given that Steamboat is already a large resort (3,000 skiable acres) and the environmental hurdles to expansion on public land are not insignificant. But I think we can realistically hope for further lift upgrades, especially a high speed lift from the base area to take the pressure off the gondola, and probably more snowmaking.

In the past 12 months Steamboat has been experiencing a real estate and development boom. I don't see that stopping any time soon because even with the 15-20% appreciation in values this year property in Steamboat is still a bargain compared to other resorts and Intrawest's investment can only add fuel to that fire.

Development can be a two-edged sword but I'm hopeful that the Steamboat community and Intrawest are sufficiently conscious of the unique qualities of this valley not to ruin it. And hopefully growth will bring direct air services to LA, which would certainly make life a lot easier for me!

Even when they do it right...

...they do it wrong.

United's handling of the massive disruption caused to their Denver hub by this week's blizzard has been in some ways quite good. In particular, their offer to allow those of us with cancelled flights to obtain a full refund no questions asked was quite welcome.

However they still managed to inject their standard dose of stupidity. I decided that I wanted to keep the reservation for my return trip and only receive a refund on my outbound trip originally scheduled for today. To which the response was: "After you complete your return journey, call this number and ask for the refund."

When informed that I could have my refund immediately if I cancelled the entire trip, guess what I did? Yep, cancelled the whole thing and re-booked on another airline. And these guys wonder why the can't make money. Their deeply ingrained bureaucratic culture gets in the way of doing the right thing by customers even when they're really trying to do the right thing.

Bad blizzard, good blizzard

A blizzard has been pounding Colorado for the last two days.

The bad news is that Denver International Airport has been shut down and our flights out tomorrow have been cancelled. So instead of arriving back in Brisbane on Christmas Eve we won't arrive until December 27. Bad blizzard!

The good news is that the storm dumped a foot and a half of powder on the 'Boat. What a morning. First tracks on lower Rainbow - deep powder on a groomed base is awesome - and in the trees to the skier's left of Cyclone where it was extra deep (face shots, face shots and more face shots till my face was frozen), and fresh tracks all over the place. Good blizzard!

The map and vertical seems almost irrelevant on a day like this but here it is anyway for a total of 17,342 vertical ft and a season total of 197,152 vertical ft (or 19.7% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).



Update: My wife's birthday is December 26. If we leave Los Angeles on December 25 and arrive in Brisbane on December 27, does that mean that she doesn't get a year older? Do I still have to buy her a gift? Hint: she wants you to say 'yes' to both questions.

Two hours

Two hours was all the time I had spare today but the weather was so nice I had to go out and make a few turns. It's beginning to get busier as more tourists arrive, but nothing like as crazy as it will be next week.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 7,910 vertical ft and a season total of 179,810 vertical ft (or 18% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).


There's a big storm hitting southern Colorado at the moment. Storms from the south don't usually bring much snow to Steamboat but we could be lucky. I live in hope!

Afternoon fun

I usually ski in the morning but today I didn't go out until after lunch. The storm we've been expecting since Friday finally moved in mid-morning and after a couple of hours the fresh snow just looked too good to resist. It wasn't a powder day but it certainly was fun. I like to ski when it's snowing. There's a stillness and quietness that makes you feel like it's just you and the mountain. And it keeps the people away!

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 16,326 vertical ft and a season total of 171,900 vertical ft (or 17.2% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Sunshine and butter

Until now the most frustrating chair on the mountain was the Sunshine Chair - so unbelievably slow. But finally it's been replaced with a high speed quad which opened today. So I made a point of riding it. Twice. Nice. Very nice.

On top of that, the snow today was much better than I expected. Like butter. Warm (it's around 40 F right now, about 10 degrees above average for this time of year), smooth, creamy and soft. But I'm still sweating on the cold front that's due to come through tonight or tomorrow and hopefully bring some fresh powder!

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 16,374 vertical ft and a season total of 155,574 vertical ft (or 15.6% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft). At the same time last year my total was only 111,290 despite the fact we'd had a lot more snow then. So I'm feeling increasingly confident I can reach my goal.

Not quite a powder day...

...but still pretty good. We had six or seven inches of new snow in the past 24 hours, enough to cover the hard pack (and the snow was heavy enough to stick - there are times you don't want our wonderful light, dry Champagne Powder).

Buddy's was a good as I've ever seen it - perfect packed powder, virgin corduroy. While it was a little wind blown in places, especially on the Storm Peak face, there was some nice soft stuff in the trees, especially Twilight, Shadows and Typhoon.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 19,460 vertical ft and a season total of 139,200 vertical ft (or 13.9% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Resort Broadband

My current internet service provider is Resort Broadband, a local Steamboat company.

I previously had a Comcast cable internet service, which was great when it worked. The trouble was when you had an outage you were just one of a million customers talking to someone in a call centre somewhere. The last straw was when I had an outage on a Monday and they told me they could send a technician out on Saturday!

Contrast that with the experience I had today when my internet service went out. I was able to talk directly to a technician (Kim, who just happens to be an Aussie) who diagnosed the problem and called me back within half an hour to let me know the plan for replacing the faulty equipment causing the problem and it was fixed within two hours.

Update: I spoke too soon. These guys have five customers in the off season and five hundred during the holidays when the tourists are in town. So my 1.5M service runs at about 100K when the visitors all come in from skiing in the afternoon and start checking their email. Right in the middle of my working day.

Thin pickings

It's another beautiful day in Steamboat and yesterday they opened a whole lot more of the mountain, so I made the most of it and explored some of the runs that I haven't visited since last season. It was fun, but it will be a whole lot more fun with a decent covering of snow. Rolex in particular was interesting. I've never seen moguls with Christmas trees in them before!

I hope that the snow that's forecast for this tonight turns into a good old fashioned winter storm.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 18,052 vertical ft and a season total of 119, 740 vertical ft (or 12% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Lighting project

Today I replaced this very ugly original fitting...


...with this rather more attractive one

Builders use ^*%# like the original fitting to save money, even though the difference in cost at trade prices is probably four dollars, which is exceeded by at least ten times by the value of the labour involved in replacing the fitting after the fact.

100K

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 15,160 vertical ft, which takes me past 100,000 ft (101,688 to be precise) which seems, at least psychologically, like the first significant milestone on my way to my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft.


For my first nine days I'm averaging a little over 11,000 ft, at which rate I'd need to ski another 80 days, however based on my stats from last year I expect my daily average to increase as the season progresses, so I should hit the target around 75 days.

Boot test

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Steamboat. However my primary purpose of skiing today was to test out my new boots a little more so I could take them back to the shop for some adjustments. Unfortunately my feet a quite wide in relation to their length so it takes quite a bit of work to get ski boots to fit.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 7,470 vertical ft and a season total of 86,528 vertical ft (or 8.7% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

New boots

It was a beautiful bluebird day today and the mountain is virtually deserted.

I bought new ski boots yesterday. For the first run and half I was worried that I'd wasted my money, but as the boots moulded to my feet and the pain subsided, I could feel the transfer of weight to my edges like never before.

There was no additional terrain open to ski today so it was mostly a matter of breaking in the new boots on familiar territory, although I did head over to the Sundown Liftline and skied the upper half. Hopefully they'll open the Elkhead Chair soon so that the rest of the Priest Creek basin is accessible.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 12,130 vertical ft and a season total of 79,058 vertical ft (or 7.9% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Day 6

The weather forecast for today was for it to be cold, so I waited until noon to head out and added a few extra layers. I didn't need to because it was a beautiful day and while the powder is gone, the snow is perfect.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 11,790 vertical ft and a season total of 66,928 vertical ft (or 6.7% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

Unexpected bonus

There was nothing on last night's weather forecast about snow overnight, so I had planned a slow start this morning. Fortunately my wife Marie looked out the window about 7.15 am and uttered my favourite words - "it looks like a powder day."

It obviously took a lot of people by surprise because there were only 20 people in the gondola line when I arrived around 8.20 am.

A quick run down Rudi's and Blizzard and then up on the BC chair. I couldn't believe it when none of the dozen or so people in front of me on the chair took BC Liftline, leaving me with first tracks.

Then it was up the Storm Peak Express and across to Shadows which I've been dreaming about skiing again all summer long. Along with Closet it was a little wind blown but still soft and deep around those beautiful aspens and largely unskied.

Triangle 3, Cyclone and Bar-UE Liftline were also good, but the deepest untracked snow I found was on the skier's right of Sunset. I also found some deep soft snow in the trees to the skier's left of upper Twister, and Hurricane was pretty good too.

Despite all the snow this week, there's still a few hazards out there because the powder hasn't really had time to pack down, especially around Bar-UE Liftline where I spent some time digging for my ski which detached after I got a little too close to one shrub and Typhoon where I did a really cool (but totally unplanned) rail slide along a fallen tree trunk.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 17,060 vertical ft and a season total of 55,138 vertical ft (or 5.5% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).

An offer I can't refuse?

I just received this very attractive email from United offering me unbelievable deals on a skiing holiday.


Lots of places I can choose from, including Steamboat.


Hmmmm, maybe it's an offer I can refuse. It seems a bit excessive to fly from my house to the lifts!

Powder chaser

Today was one of those days where there's a few inches of new powder on top of the previous day's big fall and you go chasing the leftover stashes. I found some good deep snow on the skiers' right of Tornado and likewise on Cyclone (including face shots), all over Triangle 3 (great because it was closed yesterday) and in the middle section of the Bar-UE Liftline.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 11,268 vertical ft and a season total of 38,078 vertical ft (or 3.8% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).


Hopefully we'll soon have enough snow to open more of the mountain. As much as I like some of these runs, I'm itching to ski some of my other favourites, especially Shadows and Twilight!

Update: I forgot to mention that it was much colder today than yesterday. It was about 10F (-12C) when I went out at 8.30 am "warming" to 15F by the time I finished at 10.30 am. Also, check out this picture of yesterday's action from the front page of today's newspaper.

Powder day

Two days ago it was like spring, but today it's definitely like winter, the very best of winter. A major storm rolled in last night and brought with it 8-12 inches of Steamboat's famous champagne powder.

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 11,530 vertical ft and a season total of 26,810 vertical ft (or 2.7% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).


I followed a pair of instructors down BC Liftline for first tracks and was embarrassed to fall on my second turn, but I felt a lot better when one of the instructors fell a few turns further down. Most of the rest was tracked up by the time I got to it because the normal quota of powderhounds was squeezed into about 10% of the mountain, although I did find some very nice lines on Hurricane which only opened later in the morning.

It's still snowing and forecast to continue well into tonight, so it should be more of the same tomorrow, only better!

November spring

The conditions on the mountain right now are like spring skiing which is fine, except that it's November! Today was much like Friday only a little bit more. Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 9,020 vertical ft and a season total of 15,280 vertical ft (or 1.5% of my season goal of skiing one million vertical ft).


And now, since it's already Monday in Asia, I need to get to work.

Back on skis

Steamboat's 2006-07 ski season opened yesterday and today was my first day out. Unfortunately all the snow we had in October and early November has melted because it's been so warm the last few days. They've done a great job with snowmaking but it really needs to snow in the next few days.

While there's not a lot of people here it was still a little crowded since everyone was packed into just a few runs. Upper Buddy's was nice and the bumps on Whiteout and BC Liftline were surprisingly good - perhaps because the warm weather had softened them.

My skiing was also much better than I expected given that once again I failed to stay fit during the summer and that I'd only got off the plane from New Zealand yesterday.

Objectively today was only one star, but it's so good to be back on skis that subjectively I'd have to rate it four stars!

Here's the map of today's runs for a total of 6,260 vertical ft.

Incompatibility

If you want to understand the key to programmer productivity (and any other task that involves the manipulation of a large number of inter-dependent ideas) read Joel On Software.

What it comes down to is this - interruptions are really, really, really bad for productivity when you are doing this type of work (because every time you are interrupted you need to reassemble all the ideas you were holding in your head in exactly the relative positions they were at the point you were interrupted). The lack of interruptions is one of the main reasons I like working from home (the other reasons are being close to my espresso machine, my wife and the ski lifts, but not necessarily in that order).

However when I'm visiting one of my company's offices I usually end up working at a cube in what we call a 'business centre'. The idea is widespread in big consulting companies now and is usually referred to as 'hot desking'. It's driven by bean counters who believe that it saves money which on the face of it is true because you can squeeze a lot more people in the same amount of space. Of course it's only a saving if you completely ignore productivity, which in my experience is about 25% of what it is when you have a quiet private space (like my home office), at least if you measure productivity in terms of producing the stuff that we deliver to clients and actually get paid for as opposed to 'busy work'.

But someone in our office in Wellington, NZ has taken the concept to new levels of stupidity because the 'business centre' is also the coffee break room. Try preparing a presentation to a client to close a multi-million deal while a dozen people are taking their lunch break around you. I really wonder how the guy that came up with this can justify taking a salary.

I love snow but...

..this is ridiculous. I'm in Canberra, Australia where the summer solstice is a little over a month away. I lived here for most of the 1980's and it snowed twice. And yet right now it's snowing!

Storm warning

The snow we had earlier in the week was well on its way to melting when a major storm moved through Colorado last night.


That's about eight inches here in the valley which usually means at least a foot and a half on the mountain. If only the ski mountain was open, today would be a powder day!

We will be in Australia and New Zealand for the next few weeks, so at least I won't have to watch it snow while I wait for the ski season to start!

Snow and sun

It's been snowing the last few days in Steamboat. The great thing about the weather here is that you still get plenty of sun.


And if you can find yourself a spot in the sun and out of the wind, you can sit outside in a t-shirt quite comfortably. Really.

Talk is cheap

Very cheap. I've posted before about my VOIP phone service which gives me unlimited calls in North America and Western Europe for $21.95 a month and three cents a minute to Australia.

Well Lingo has just added New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and yes, Australia to the list of countries covered by the free unlimited calls! That's right, I can call my family on the other side of the world every single day and it doesn't cost a single cent extra (but Mum, that doesn't mean that I'm actually going to call you every day, OK?)

As well as my Lingo service which has an adapter which allows me to plug in a normal phone handset, I also use Skype on my laptop which has the advantage that I can take it with me on the road. For $4 a month Skype also provides me with a virtual phone number in Canberra, Australia which allows my client and colleagues there to call a local number to contact me wherever in the world I am.

To give you an idea how clueless the traditional telcos are, Qwest (the incumbent carrier in Colorado) is now offering a VOIP service in an attempt to compete with the likes of Lingo before they completely lose all their business. Not only is the monthly rate higher, but for that you pay five cents a minute for calls within the US and nine cents a minute to Australia. Doesn't really compete with free does it?

Shopping trip

We took a trip on the weekend to Glenwood Springs to buy some furniture and to the Home Depot at Avon (near Vail) to buy some new light fittings. It reminded me once again how beautiful Colorado is and how lucky we are to live here.

We started out taking CO 131 south to join Interstate 70.


Then we followed I-70 through Glenwood Canyon.



And then back to Avon where the aspens were at their peak.



Sure it was a 250 mile round trip, but are your shopping trips this scenic?

Winners are grinners

I mentioned back in June that I was travelling to New Zealand's capital city (Wellington) to present a proposal to the government there. I received word last night (that's Monday morning New Zealand time) that we won the project. I'm sure it was my presentation that made all the difference!

That means two trips across the Pacific this year for two wins. That makes the pain of the long haul travel a little easier to take, although it means at least one and probably two more trips before the year is over. Unfortunately I don't know if I can squeeze in both trips before the ski season begins in just 58 days.

Hopefully my recent travels to Hong Kong and Beijing, China will also result in wins. That would make for a very good year.

Pardon me but your outsourcing is showing

I decided recently to change my cell (mobile) phone carrier. I've previously mentioned my dissatisfaction with my current carrier Verizon, but that wasn't the reason because I figure the other guys will be just as bad.

I travel extensively in other countries where they use a different standard (GSM) from the common US standard, so I wanted a handset and number that I could use for international roaming. That meant changing to a carrier that uses GSM.

What I got at the end of the process was "the credit department says you'll need to pay a $250 deposit." I could understand that because even though I now have a solid credit rating unlike two years ago when I basically didn't exist as far as the credit bureaus were concerned, you can quickly rack up a very big bill with international roaming and it's real money that your carrier owes the other carrier whether you pay your bill or not.

What floored me was the rest of the statement:

"...and we don't have any way to take a deposit."

Who the hell designs a business process that requires a deposit from a potential customer and then doesn't have a mechanism to actually, you know, collect the deposit? My guess is that either or both of the credit department and the call centre are outsourced. So to save say a buck fifty on the cost of handling the call, t-Mobile has lost a potentially very lucrative customer. Yes, I'm still with Verizon.

This one is close to the dumbest, most baffling business process I've ever seen. Ah, but they have Catherine Zeta-Jones on their ads, so I suppose that's OK.

More snow

Today is supposedly the official end of summer (the autumnal equinox). But winter is keen to get started here in Steamboat.


The run you can see in the centre of the picture is Westside and you can just see a little of Rolex to the left of that.

First snow for the season

Two days ago it was 80 F (26 C). This morning it was 35 F (2 C) in the valley and less on the mountain. This was the view from our window that greeted us around 8 am.


Unfortunately the annual rubby ducky race which raises funds for the hospital was cancelled due to the surge in the river from the run off. The local boy scouts who have to wade in to the river to retrieve the ducks as they cross the finish line would either have been washed away or snap frozen. I wonder what sort of badge you'd get for that?

A different sort of flying

Today I went out with my friend Michael flying radio controlled planes.

First we had to get the car loaded. It's quite tricky arranging all the pieces while leaving enough room for a couple of folding chairs, a thermos of coffee and all the other creature comforts.



Then we drove to the field out past Tharwa on the south side of Canberra. The yellow biplane (above) is an old one he kindly took along for me to practice on. Here's Michael with his plane. Note the plane behind him, you'll see it again soon.


Take off.

In flight.


As impressive as the models are (and they are, because they have an incredible power to weight ratio) , they're engineered to be cheap and fast. The little plastic guys in the cockpit aren't afraid of dying, so safety is not a consideration. So there's plenty of things that can go wrong, and when they do it can be quite spectacular. An aileron servo gave way in mid flight on one of the other planes (the one behind Michael in the photo above) and the result was a complete loss of control and finally a spinning dive into the ground at full throttle. The owner of the plane was suprisingly willing to have the results displayed here for all the world to see!