Feeling young

When I saw the snow report this morning - four inches - I thought big deal (although it is enough to break the record!) and almost didn't go out today. Which would have been bad. Really bad. Because I had an awesome day skiing.

I met a guy called Seth this morning who is nineteen years old, very fit and has been skiing since he was three and we had a great time skiing together. Definitely a cheaper way for a guy my age (45 next month) to feel young than buying a red sports car.

Anyway, here's the map of what I skied today exported from my GPS unit to Google Maps.


Let's use Google Earth to zoom in on the best bits.

We began with the classic Steamboat tree runs - Shadows, Lights Out, Twilight and Closet.


Then we hit the trees off to skiers' left of Sunnyside. There's a steep glade hidden in there with some very large rocks (circled in the image below - the rocks are the white shapes) which provide some great drop offs when the snow is deep like it is this year. As a bonus there were plenty of fresh lines in there too.


Also good after that were the trees between Vagabond and Rudi's Run. For some reason I'd skied the lower half of this before but only the top half for the first time last Friday. But I'll be skiing this a whole lot more in the future. And the (large) bumps of White Out were pretty good too.


Now for the stats:

Vertical ft: 16,530
Maximum speed: 39.3 mph
Distance skied: 14.4 miles
Time skiing: 1:22:15
Time stopped: 1:17:43 (mostly the stop for lunch - there weren't any real lift lines today)
Time riding lifts: 1:30:10

Spring?

Normally this time of year it's warm and sunny meaning Spring skiing-crusty in the morning, perfect in the middle of the day and slushy in the afternoon and don't forget your sunscreen.

Not today. It was cold, foggy and windy on the mountain. And snowing. So maybe the snow gods have one more powder day left for us. The last powder-ish day last year was March 29 so it's still quite possible.

I took my GPS unit out again today but somehow half way through the pause button got pushed so the data is incomplete. I'm also having trouble getting the heart rate monitor to work consistently. So I'm treating the rest of the season as a test run for next year.

Best run of the day was a freshly groomed Rolex. Worst run was probably Two O'clock where the snow was blowing so hard in my face my lips and teeth felt frozen.

But at least the bad weather keeps the tourists inside so I didn't have to worry to much about one of them running in to me in the fog! And hey, it's still skiing and I had fun carving some beautiful GS turns and skiing some bumps...

GPS skiing

I recently acquired a sports GPS watch and I tested it out for the first time today.

Here's my route exported to Google Maps.


And even better, to Google Earth.


And some key statistics produced by the unit:

Vertical ft: 12,762
Maximum speed: 40.8 mph (much faster than I thought I was skiing)
Distance skied: 10.4 miles (much further than I would have guessed)
Time skiing: 49:21
Time stopped: 24:52 (it's Spring Break so there were some lift queues)
Time riding lifts: 1:04:11

Wow. Pow. Pow Wow. Pow Pow Pow!

Yes I seem to have lost the power of articulate speech. At least temporarily. You see today was the end of my medical layoff from skiing for a month and I got incredibly lucky because it was a powder day - in mid-March! So I'm close to speechless.

The report said seven inches of new snow overnight, but I didn't get out early like I usually do since I only got in from my trip to New Zealand at 11 pm last night after 30 hours of travel. For some reason I had this strange desire to sleep this morning.

But there were still plenty of stashes left in the trees even around midday when I got going. I started out with Shadows/Lights Out and Twilight and then headed to the trees to skiers left of Sunnyside where the powder was deep, soft and largely untracked. So good I got stuck in a loop for a while just doing it again and again.

I also found great stashes in the trees off the sides of Norther, BC Liftline, Vagabond and well, everywhere. Even between the zig-zags of Why Not to the right of Vagabond where the snow is now deep enough to cover up most of the scrubby stuff that usually makes this unskiable. And to finish everything off, my favourite route home - Oops and Vertigo. A far better day than I expected this time of year.

With today's fall we're now within a few inches of the all time record of 447.5 inches set in 1996-97. So soon I'll be able to brag about living and skiing in Steamboat during the biggest season ever...

Flying with the PM

I just arrived in Wellington, New Zealand (it's already Monday morning here even though it's still Sunday at home). I have a major presentation to a customer on Wednesday and then I'll be back home on Thursday.

Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand was on my connecting flight from Auckland. They're an egalitarian bunch the Kiwis. Not only does the PM fly commercial, she flys coach. (Well she has no choice since domestic flights are all single class, but still it's an interesting contrast to the US President and Air Force One).

She had one staffer with her but no real security. I suppose the PM of NZ isn't quite as good at making enemies as the President of the United States.

RIAA to consumers: "If it's good, it's not ours"

From a recent Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) press release:

Watch for Compilations that are “Too Good to Be True": Many pirates make “dream compilation” CDs, comprised of songs by numerous artists on different record labels who would not likely appear on the same legitimate album together.

Don't you just love an organisation whose business model is so predicated on shafting consumers that they can keep a straight face while putting out a press release that effectively says, "We produce crap and try to cram it down your throat. If someone is selling the stuff you actually want then it's definitely not us."

Take me to your 'buy a dozen songs you don't want to get the one you do' overlords.

Historic preservation

One issue that's been on the agenda in Steamboat in recent times with all the development going on is historic preservation.

To the credit of the current City Council they are moving in the direction of a completely voluntary code. That is the only approach that is consistent with a meaningful concept of private property. It's one thing to restrict what I can do with my property if it harms others, it another to restrict my property rights in order to benefit others.

Unfortunately there are still plenty of players in this town who are ready to impose costs on the private owners of historical structures for the "benefit of the community." Here's an idea. If historic preservation is so valuable to "the community" how about they put their money where their mouth is and pay private owners to preserve properties. It always focuses the mind to have to pay for one's high minded ideals doesn't it?

Just a little out of my way

Yesterday we drove to Grand Junction, a four hundred mile (650 km) round trip (see the map below), so that I could be fingerprinted for my citizenship application.

I find several things about this annoying.

First, the appointment process. This consists of sending you a letter with an allocated date and time. No pretence of trying to match their availability with your convenience. If the allocated date and time don't work for you then you can ask for it to be rescheduled. But that just results in them sending you another appointment time to which you've had zero input.

Second and more importantly, why do I need to drive four hundred miles for this in the first place? The fingerprints are submitted for checking to a national database that is used basically by every law enforcement agency in the United States. My local sheriff's office (five mile round trip) has the capability to capture and submit prints in the standard format.

And third, why do I have to be fingerprinted again. I submitted fingerprints to the same agency when applying for my green card. Why not just use those (fingerprints don't age the way faces do)? There are lots of functions within the Department of Homeland Security which are integrated in name only, but these two, Immigration and Naturalisation (now called Citizenship) were part of one organisation (the INS) long before DHS was even a bad idea in some neocon's crazy mind.

Apart from those frustrations, the service was excellent. I expected to arrive to find a situation that would make queuing at the driver licensing office look good but was pleasantly surprised to find that there was not a single other applicant in the office and so I had a total wait time, even though I was early, of zero minutes. In fact in the 15 minutes I was there it was just me. Hard to reconcile this with the reports of enormous backlogs in naturalisation processing and advice from CIS itself that the expected wait time for my interview is somewhere between nine and twelve months.

The very nice woman taking the prints had a hard time though. She's trained to take prints from people who've typically never had their prints taken before, or if they have only once or twice in their life. No I'm not a hardened criminal in the habit of being fingerprinted. It's just that I design biometric systems for a living, and in the process of testing and demonstrating such systems I've probably taken my own prints hundreds of times, so I found it really, really difficult to adjust to having someone else guide my fingers during the capture process.

Fortunately we took the opportunity while in Grand Junction to visit Home Depot. We've been thinking for a while about remodeling our kitchen but the price we got from a local kitchen store was just too much in relation to the value of our condo or what future potential buyers would be willing to pay extra for. Looking at the products available at Home Depot convinced us that we could do it at a price we can live with (about half of the previous estimate). Now we just need to decide if we can live with the disruption.

It's hard to work when...

...some guys are shovelling snow off the roof right above your head. Man it's noisy. Like being inside a tin drum while someone bangs on the sides. And a small price to pay for 400 inches of snow!

Update (9pm Thursday 28 Feb): Not only is it noisy but it's dangerous. A man died today after falling from a roof while removing snow. The poor guy survived a couple of tours of Iraq and he loses his life in such a tragic accident. Life really sucks sometimes.

Not so Great Britain

For a country that used to rule an empire on which the sun never sets, it's a long way to fall, but I think the final votes are in: Great Britain has the world's worst major airport in London Heathrow.

If it wasn't enough that (alone of all the world's airport operators) BAA has imposed it's own more restrictive hand luggage policies because it's too damn cheap to hire enough security staff, now we have British Airways telling customers they can't check any bags!

Imagine turning up at Heathrow to fly home (say to Denver, as I've done three times in the past six months) to be told "sorry guv, you'll need leave the suitcases behind"!

The crazy thing is that unlike most cities where there's an element of natural monopoly to the airport business, London actually has huge amounts of traffic along with two major airports (Heathrow and Gatwick) and two not so insignificant ones (Standsted and Luton).

The obvious solution is to have them compete with each other. Of course that's not so obvious to the bright sparks pretending to govern Britain who in their infinite wisdom continue to let BAA operate all four airports at a standard which can only be categorised as a global embarrassment.

Surgery

There's been no blogging this week and more importantly there's been no skiing because I went into hospital on Monday morning for a diagnostic procedure that turned into surgery.

The good news is they found the problem that had been troubling me for the last ten months and fixed it.

The bad news is that I can't ski for three or four weeks by which time I may be away on a project until after the ski season ends. That would mean only 24 days this season (compared to 42, 60 and 37 in the past three seasons). Of course that would be disappointing but I've had some great days and I'm glad to have my problem fixed.

I do have to remember that the 163 days I've skied since we moved here in 2004 probably exceeds all the skiing I did before that (I started in 1985). And when you live in a ski resort there's always next season to look forward to.

President's Day weekend

It's the President's Day weekend which is usually second only to the Christmas-New Year week in terms of crowds on the mountain. But today it was surprisingly uncrowded, despite the fact that it started out a beautiful sunny day. So day 24 for me was another day for sleeping in and then heading out to ski the groomers for a couple of hours.

It was a little crustly in places but overall the snow cover and conditions are still excellent and it looks like a major storm may hit us tonight. It's been a whole week since my last powder day so I'm definitely ready to go again!

Open skies?

Australian newspapers are reporting on plans by Virgin Blue subsidiary V Australia to start trans-pacific flights in competition with Qantas as a result of Australia and the US signing an "Open Skies" agreement.

Unfortunately all this agreement does is allow US and Australian carriers to compete on this route without capacity controls. It doesn't allow for open anything.

What's the effect? Continued daylight robbery on the part of Qantas who compete only with United* for direct flights.

Let me demonstrate. Let's say I wanted to fly business class from Los Angeles to Sydney on May 20 returning June 17 (which I actually do, to attend my cousin's wedding and take care of some other stuff, not to mention catch a couple of Brisbane Lions games). It's going to cost me $US17,778!

Now let's imagine I want to make this trip from London to Sydney on the same dates, also in business class. Now before you see the price remember that this trip is about 75% longer. What's it going to cost me? £3,376 or $US6,621. That's about a fifth of the cost per mile.

The only difference is that excellent airlines like Singapore Airlines and Emirates compete with Qantas between Australia and Europe. Over recent year's they've lobbied the Australian government unsuccessfully to enter the trans-pacific route. The government's justification for keeping them out is that it's somehow good for Australian tourism and jobs. As far as I'm concerned the only jobs this policy is creating are for Air New Zealand.

So when the Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon says he welcomes the competition, what he really means is he's glad he can go on screwing trans-pacific business travellers and extracting excess profits thanks to this artificial market shortage created by the "wisdom" of government regulation. All I can say to Mr Dixon is "you're absolutely full of it mate".


* The world's second worst airline. Exceeded in their hopelessness only by Northwest.

Comparison

Today was not a powder day, but instead a beautiful sunny bluebird day. No need to rush out, so I took my old skis off the rack around noon and headed out to ski the groomers.

After a week of skiing powder on my new fat skis, it was interesting to compare the feel of my old skis. They're definitely easier to get on an edge than the fat skis, and so they're quicker in the short turns. I also expected them to be better in the bumps, but I'm not so sure.

It was warm today, the snow on the lower mountain had that spring skiing texture, but on the upper mountain the snow is in perfect condition.

Best week ever

With only eight inches of new light snow, today wasn't the best day ever (although it was up there as one of the great powder days) but when you combine another powder day today with a powder day yesterday, and another the day before that and another on Tuesday, then this would be my best week of skiing ever. It feels like a continuous blur of floating through the aspens breathing snow!

I was out pressing glass at the gondola at 8 am with a new friend Brian and our parish priest Father Ernest (yes it is wierd skiing with your priest, but he's a nice guy and good snowboarder). We began with a traverse across to Norther for first tracks and then rode up Four Points for more fresh tracks on Nelson's Run.

By then Pony Express was open so we hit the aspens off Middle Rib where there was plenty of deep snow both on the marked trail and in the trees. On the second run, just as I'd completed a really fast, smooth and agressive line through the trees, I snagged the remains of a broken branch with my shoulder, ripping the right arm of my jacket to shreds (I needed a new one anyway). While I was still out skiing in the cold my shoulder felt fine but now I'm inside and it's warmed up I can feel it (not to mention see a rather large bruise) but as potential ski injuries go it's pretty minor so I'm not complaining.

After that we cut through Nash Junction, up the Bar-UE chair and then across to Shadows where the snow was also deep and light. Soon after that Brian and Ernest were ready to call it quits, but in the meantime I'd run into my old friend Dave, so we gave Shadows another go (even better the second time around) followed by Twilight which was a little drifty but still nice, by which time I was absolutely exhausted. On the way back down I decided to try something different from the usual Oops/ Vertigo combo and found some nice stashes to skier's left on Valley View to reward me.

All in all an epic day to top off an epic week.

There are more storms forecast for next week so it ain't over yet, but whatever happens tonight, tomorrow I'm going to rest. I promise. Even if there's three feet of new snow. Well maybe not if there's three feet. But two feet. Well ok, not two feet. But one foot. No, not one foot. But anything less than a foot of new snow tonight and I'm resting tomorrow. Really.

More powder!

It seems like it just won't stop snowing in Steamboat this season. With another ten inches overnight today was another powder day.

Because it was windy overnight, the place to be was not at the top of the mountain where it was cold and the snow was crusty and heavy, but a little lower down where the snow was lighter. The lower half of Shadows and Twilight were much better than the upper half, but the best today was my first run down Surprise and then several runs on Elkhead where I found light, waist deep powder amongst the aspens.

White Out was also good, especially to skiers right where there were still some nice stashes even later in the morning, as was Vertigo on the way home where the best stashes were to the left side.

Did I mention my new fat skis?

Of course I did!

But I have to mention them again, because as good as they were in the "Champagne Powder" on Fat Tuesday, they really showed their worth today.

On Tuesday they made skiing the powder a lot less tiring but they didn't really let me do anything new. But today the powder was much heavier and wind blown with the depth varying from ankle to waist deep. I would have really struggled with these conditions on my other skis but the fat skis really let me rip it up.

I could feel the difference immediately as I tested out the trees between Twister and Hurricane but it was on my next run on Shadows that I really knew these skis would let me cut loose, which is exactly what I did on Lights Out, 3.30, Twilight (twice), Closet (so good that I also did it twice, which I never do) and of course Oops/Vertigo on my way home.

Fat Tuesday, Fat skis

I bought a new pair of fat skis yesterday (last year's model of these) and what better day to try them out than today, Fat Tuesday, on a mountain where we've had nearly 350 inches of snow already this season and three feet in the past 72 hours.

While it was only four inches of new snow overnight that was on top of such a deep base that it was deep and light in so many places that my new skis really got to prove their worth. After a couple of relaxed runs to adjust to their different feel, I really ripped it up, especially in the aspens on Fetcher Glade, Nash Junction, Shadows, Lights Out and Twilight.

And Vertigo on the way home was awesome as usual. It was amazing to stop half way down this great run in knee deep powder and to look back up the hill at nobody, to be all alone in paradise.

To top it off, I got the new skis on a great sale so they only cost about half of what I planned to spend.

There's only one word for day like today. Sweeeeeeeet.

Superbowl Sunday

We arrived home last night from another trip to England just in time to watch the Superbowl this afternoon on my big screen (and drink a little beer, although I could have done plenty of that in England).

Since I managed to predict the winner last year and close to the winning margin I thought I better go on the record with a prediction for this afternoon's game. My head says the Patriots by ten points but my heart says the Giants but only because I'm a Green Bay Packers fan* and I'd feel better if the team that stopped their run was good enough to go all the way.

* How big a fan? I was quite disappointed when the Packers lost to the Giants in the playoffs. But I've come to the game very late in my life and my real sporting passion is Aussie Rules, so I'll never love the Packers the way I love the Brisbane Lions. Which means you'll never, ever see me wearing a hat that looks like a great big piece of cheese!

Skiing trees safely

When you see the heading "skiing trees safely" it's likely that your first thoughts are about not crashing into trees. Yes that's important and you really should wear a helmet, but if you are coming to Steamboat and planning to ski the trees, you really need to understand the dangers of tree wells and how to avoid them.

Too many leftovers

We had dinner guests last night and we cooked enough food for twice as many people so now we have way too many leftovers to eat in the next few days.

Same problem on the mountain today. I went looking for leftovers in Wally World but with the gentler pitches the problem was too much snow. One small turn to miss a tree and you'd lose enough speed that you were stuck.

It was a little more skied out on the steeper slopes although there were still some stashes on Shadows, Lights Out and Kuus's Cruise.

I skied lazy and tired today - I suppose all the powder days this week have caught up with me - which means I wasn't nearly as aggressive with my line as I would like to have been, but it was still a great day.

Numbers can deceive

This morning's report said seven inches but it was the best seven inches you'll ever see, coming on top of nearly 30 inches in the previous 48 hours. While it wasn't the best day ever it was still pretty damn good. Sure the sun wasn't shining and the powder wasn't as light and dry as yesterday, but when you ski constantly from 8.30 am to 1 pm in deep, deep powder and there's still more out there when your legs finally give out, well that's a pretty good day.

I skipped the gondola line this morning and headed straight for the Christie Peak Express and Thunderhead Express combo. After a quick run down Vagabond and the lovely powder covered bumps of Surprise I took the BC Chair to the top of Whiteout for some really big powder covered bumps.

Then it was time for Pioneer Ridge. Today I'd made sure to stay in bounds with a run through the aspens of Fetcher Glade and another straight down Royal Flush. I then met some friends of my wife on the chair and skied Cabin Fever and Diamond Hitch with them.

From the top of the Pony Express I cut down through Nash Junction, Vortex and the Storm Peak Lift Line to meet my Aussie friend Nicole who it seems has forgiven me for pushing her so hard the first day we went out together. I enjoyed my previous runs through Fetcher Glade and Nash Junction so much that I took her back there for a repeat performance.

We found some great lines under the Bar-UE chair which we jumped back on and across to Morningside where we were hoping to find some good lines on Wake Up Call. Unfortunately it was a little cold and windy and the snow was a bit crusty and about that time we realised we were both getting quite tired. So we headed down via Crowtrack, Buddy's, Calf Roper, Twister, Hurricane and Moonlight to the Elkhead Chair and then across to Oops and Vertigo on the lower mountain to finish off with some really great powder bumps.

Best day ever

The report this morning said 15 inches and that was on top of an already soft base, so the snow was deep today - at least knee deep and waist deep in places - and as light and dry as you can imagine. The weather was also perfect. A comfortable 20F / -6C, no wind and plenty of sun.

So the conditions were as good as you could want and today I was ready to ski them. My mind was right, it's far enough into the season that my fitness is coming together, and in my fourth season living in Steamboat I'm now completely comfortable skiing powder.

I was a little slow getting started this morning so I didn't reach the top of Thunderhead until 9 am. I went right past the long line on the Storm Peak Express to the Pony Express which is where you want to be first thing on a powder day. My first run was to skiers' right. I was really excited about the untracked waist deep powder I found until I got to the bottom of the hill and realised I'd gone out of bounds and had a 200 metre traverse back to the lift ( in deep powder)!

Fifteen minutes and three buckets of sweat later my second run was straight down the middle followed by a run to skiers' left of the chair and then finally a run across through Nash Junction to the Bar-UE Chair. That was followed by Triangle 3 and then the trees between Twister and Hurricane where there was deep untracked snow that really shouldn't have been there by 10.30 am.

From there I took Moonlight down to the Sundown Express, deciding that on a day like today I had to ski one of my favourite tree runs. I chose Closet which was just awesome, before picking up some more powder lines on Oops and Vertigo on the lower mountain.

An awesome, epic day. Epically awesome. Awesomely epic. Wow!

Powder Sunday

Nine inches of fresh snow overnight according to the report, a pleasant 25F / -3C and no wind makes for a great powder day.

I was out early and on the Thunderhead Express chair when it opened at 8.30. A quick run down upper Vagabond and then right into untracked powder on the bumps of Surprise. That was followed by an early ride on the Burgess Creek chair which opened 5 minutes ahead of schedule and then first tracks on Sunnyside to the Sundown Express.

After a quick run through the trees of Shadows and Lights Out I met some friends at the top of the gondola. After than it was full on trees until about 12.30 when my legs screamed stop. I finished with a great run down Vortex on the lower mountain.

I'm off the the airport now for a two day trip to DC.

Fourteener*

For day 14 of my 2007-08 season I skied with some Aussie friends, Tony, his daughter Nicole and her husband Peter.

It was reasonably warm today (in the 20's F), the holiday crowds are starting to dissipate and the snow is still a lovely buttery texture. It was a little overcast but other than that it was a perfect day for cruising around the mountain just enjoying the fact of making turns.


*In Colorado the term 'fourteener' refers to (climbing) one of the 54 peaks over 14,000 ft.

Here comes the sun

After two weeks of constant snow today was a beautiful clear sunny day.

It was -10F / -23C when I got out of bed this morning so I didn't head out until around noon by which time it was 20F / -7C, which seemed quite warm after the really cold weather we've been having in the past few days.

Nothing special to report in terms of the skiing, just cruising around enjoying perfect packed powder on a sunny day.

2007 highlights

Well 2007 is nearly over. According to the official judge (my wife Marie) it's been a good year. Here's the summary and highlights:

• 37 days of skiing (21 in January-April and 12 in December) including my most epic day of powder skiing ever


• Seeing my first niece


• 125,000 miles of travel (so much for my resolution to travel less this year) including three trips to Australia and New Zealand, two trips each to Beijing and England, and one trip each to Paris, Hong Kong and Beirut.*

*I keep track of my flights at Flight Memory which has a neat feature to generate a map of all my flights for the year (below). Unfortunately it doesn't indicate how often I've flown a route, for example that I flew BNE-CBR about twenty times.

Cold, cold, cold

I went out today hoping to find some leftovers from yesterday's 12 inches of powder which I missed through sheer laziness.*

I had a few good runs, especially on the lower mountain, but generally the snow was quite wind blown and heavy and it was way too cold to stay out more than an hour and a half. So that's it for skiing in 2007.


* Yesterday wasn't a total waste since I watched Blade Runner, The Final Cut on DVD. The picture and sound on this remastered version are simply awesome.

Expectations exceeded

Today by the time I reached the top of the mountain I almost came straight back down again. It was cold (10F /-12C) and grey and the snow wasn't good enough to justify fighting the holiday crowds.

I'm glad I didn't though because it was quite a bit warmer at mid-mountain and I found some nice powder stashes. The trees to skiers' left of Sunnyside were especially good; good enough for a repeat performance. I also found some soft stuff off to the sides of Oops, Concentration and Ted's Ridge on the lower mountain.

All in all a day that promised little but delivered quite a bit. A day where you go out not expecting much and having a great time is almost as good as a day when you expect a lot and find it.

Leaving on a jet plane

The late, great John Denver wrote those lyrics back in 1967* but until now for a big part of the year in Steamboat the only way to come and go has been on a Dash-8 turboprop, a service I've previously criticised.

Finally we're moving to an all jet service year round come the end of this ski season! As a member of the Yampa Valley Airport Commission I've known about this for a few weeks (and I hate keeping secrets) but I'm still excited at the formal announcement.


* Just in case you've been living under a rock for the past forty years and haven't heard this wonderful song, here's a version performed by John Denver and Peter, Paul and Mary who made it a hit.

Day 10

It was a toasty 2F /-17C at 9am this morning so Marie decided it was too cold today to go snowshoeing as we originally planned, leaving me free to ski.

There was still plenty of leftovers from the foot or so that fell on Monday night especially in the trees where it was waist deep in places especially Twilight, Lights Out to skiers' left and the lower end of the Sundown liftline.

I skied the first hour by myself and then met up with a family I met last night at Christmas dinner, Roy and Ann from Oxford (England) and their son Luke who shares a birthday with my wife and turned 13 today.

After a slow start to the season we're now getting a constant powder pounding with more snow forecast over the next few days.

Christmas Eve

The downside to Friday's awesome conditions was that I was way too sore to ski the past two days despite it continuing to snow all through the weekend.

So today I took it a little easier, not wanting to be unable to lift a cup of Christmas cheer tomorrow. I did ski some trees - Shadows and 3:30 - where there was still plenty of powder, although it was quite heavy going in places. I also managed some bumps, the best being on Vertigo, my favourite lower mountain run which I hadn't skied yet this season but which was every bit as good as I remembered it. For some reason it gets surprisingly few people, perhaps because you can only access it from Heavenly Daze.

I probably won't get back on the slopes until Thursday. Tomorrow we'll be busy opening gifts and then preparing our contribution to Christmas dinner with our friends Vesna and John. Then on Wednesday it's Marie's birthday so we're going snowshoeing.

Lucky eight

As I've mentioned previously, in Chinese culture the number eight is considered lucky. Well today was my eighth day for the season and it was lucky for me. It's been snowing hard in Steamboat for the past 24 hours so it was another epic powder day.

I was out early anticipating a crowd at the gondola and I was right so I jumped on the new Christie Express instead and across to the Thunderhead Express which worked like a dream.

It was deep powder everywhere but nowhere better than the trees of Twilight and Shadows. Even late in the morning there were still plenty of deep stashes. For example, I found some waist deep powder around 11:45 am to skier's left of One O'clock.

I skied the first hour and half by myself and then connected with an Aussie friend Nicole around 10:15 (that's how long it takes to get her five year old and three year old daughters ready and into the ski class!) She's a former competitive skier with an old knee injury that's now more of a psychological impediment than a physical one, so I made a point of pushing her. It seemed to work, but I'll know she's forgiven me when she asks to ski with me again.

It's still snowing hard so it looks like more of the same tomorrow.

Carving

It's a little too early to be carving turkey, but not too early to be carving turns, so that was the main course on today's Steamboat menu.

Only an inch or so of fresh snow overnight but Marie had an early appointment so I was also out early and at the gondola as it opened at 8:30 am. In addition to carving up the groomers all over the mountain I also ventured into the trees on Twilight and Triangle 3, where the snow was a few inches deep if a little heavy, and the bumps of Hurricane.

It's been snowing all day and forecast to continue tonight which means that chances are better than even for a powder day tomorrow. So I'll leave you now so I can get an early night!

Apres ski was drinks at the Ptarmigan Inn with a colleague from Australia who has a condo here in Steamboat.

Cruisy

Cruisy. That's the word to describe a day like today. It was cold and overcast early but by the time I went out at noon the sun was out and it was a very comfortable 25F/-3C. The snow was perfect - packed powder kept soft and dry by cool overnight temperatures - and even though it's less than two weeks to Christmas and the winter jet services into Steamboat have started there were surprisingly few people.

Best run of the day was Rolex. Big bumps but still soft and forgiving which I skied very well. It's no longer my technique holding me back on the bumps so much as a lack of fitness from a very lazy summer. I'm stopping now not because I've lost the line but because I've lost my breath!

Unreal stuff

If Wednesday was the real stuff, today was the unreal stuff. Six inches of new powder by 5 am and still snowing hard when the lifts opened on top of a soft base. Plus they opened the Sundown Express this morning providing access to the whole of Priest Creek.

I was particularly lucky to arrive at the lower half of Three O'clock just as the rope was dropping (that's the second time this season!) That meant waist deep untracked powder over a flat base! The trees of Shadows and Twilight also revealed some deep stashes, especially on the lower half of Twilight.

The real stuff

The 5 am report said only five inches of new snow overnight, but what a five inches it was. Champagne Powder. Super light, dry and fluffy just how we like it here in Steamboat. The real stuff.

And since tourist season hasn't really started yet, there wasn't a whole lot of people competing to enjoy it - I arrived at the gondola around 8:15 and was only about 20th in line!

On the more heavily skied runs five inches is "dust on crust" but in the trees where the previous falls had stayed soft it was a full on powder experience. I found some especially nice stashes down Kuus's Cruise and Three O'clock (almost worth the traverse back to Rainbow Saddle) as well as in the trees of Triangle 3 and between Buddy's and Cyclone. My best skiing performance for the day though was the mid-section of Hurricane.

This is as good as it gets. No it isn't. It will soon be even better!

Lucky guy

Does it count if you ski a foot of fresh powder and no one's there to see you?

Of course. In fact it counts double!

I got a late start and there's been no significant new snow for three days, so how did I do it? I got lucky. Really lucky. I managed to get off the gondola just as they were dropping the rope on Valley View for the first time this season.

Now it's snowing, so it may be a powder day tomorrow. And my wife and I celebrated our 19th anniversary yesterday.

How lucky can one guy get?

Second day

Your legs always feel it the most on the second day. So today I just took a quick trip to the top of the mountain (Storm Peak Express opened yesterday). So in a way I'm glad the forecast storm didn't come through last night. I don't think my legs are really ready yet for a powder day!

My opening day

Today was day one of my 2007-08 ski season. I'm not too disappointed to have missed the first two weeks of the season whilst we were away in England, since the first week was cancelled due to lack of snow anyway.

In fact my timing was almost perfect - it only really started snowing properly in the last few days and today the snow was soft and dry just the way we like it here! I didn't ski a whole lot, having failed once again to keep my promise to myself to stay fit over summer, but the little I did was enough to remind me just how much I love this sport.

A couple of very good bump runs on my first day also confirmed that my progress last season was not imagined. Right now I could hardly be happier, unless of course it keeps snowing for the next two days, which is exactly what is forecast!

Back home

We've just arrived home after my five day trip to England turned into five weeks.

We flew as far as Denver last night and today took the shuttle van to Steamboat. Amazingly there was a family on board from the small town in Australia where I was born and went to high school!

Beirut churches

This morning my wife went to Mass in her old village. Despite the fact than most of the former Christian population have now moved elsewhere many still return every Sunday to the church which has been restored after being badly damaged during the 1975-90 civil war.


Actually there's three churches in the village of which one other has also been restored. The largest church is still a work in progress. Look closely at the column on the left. Yes, those are bullet holes.


And the local Muslim population quite happily send their kids to the local convent school. My wife thinks these are signs of hope. I see them as evidence that people of different races and faiths can live together only until cynical and evil leaders exploit these differences for their own ends - which unfortunately happens all too easily.

Beirut

Last night we flew from London to Beirut where we're visiting Marie's relatives.

The drive from the airport to my father-in-law's house provided a personal snapshot of Lebanon's troubled history since it passes through the 'village' (suburb) of Mreijeh in west Beirut where my wife lived as a child.

During the 1975-90 civil war west Beirut became the Muslim sector and Christian families like my wife's were almost entirely driven out in fear of their lives. To make sure they didn't come back the houses were usually destroyed. This is what happened to my wife's home which had been moved by my wife's grandfather stone by stone from its original site a few kilometres away when Beirut airport was built in the 1950's. I saw the ruins of the house on my first trip to Beirut in 1993. My father-in-law still owns the land but it's now a petrol station.


So I really hope that there's a special place in hell for people responsible for ethnic cleansing.

My father-in-law was elected mayor of the village in 1967 and remained so by default until 1998 (since the Lebanese were too busy killing each other to hold elections). Interestingly he was re-elected in 1998 by a population which by then was overwhelmingly Shiite! He retired in 2005 only to be replaced by his former deputy who of course is also Christian. Who said Lebanese politics is confusing?

After a quick nap this morning (the flight last night was too short to get much sleep) my wife's youngest sister showed us her new apartment which at the moment is a construction site, but it should be fantastic once it's finished. As you can see from the photos, it's in one of the older neighbourhoods of Beirut.



In the afternoon we visited one of Lebanon's most famous Christian shrines at Harissa (Our Lady of Lebanon). I was surprised to discover a significant number of Muslim visitors. I discovered that they were there because Mary is also venerated in Islam which I didn't know.

The shrine is located at the top of a steep hillside overlooking Jounieh bay north of Beirut. This area became a stronghold of Lebanon’s Christian community during the civil war as they were driven out of mixed communities like the one my wife grew up in.

As this shot shows, the mountains rise quite steeply from the sea which is a key part of Lebanon’s natural beauty.


Beirut like most cities in developing countries is not so nice (lots of traffic, smog and general grime), but the suburbs and villages in the mountains are quite lovely.

English weather

Today was spent driving from Cornwall back to London. For those accustomed as I am to the distances and wide open spaces of Australia and the US, driving from one side of the country to the other in a few hours is an interesting experience. Not much to see today apart from lots of typical English weather – overcast and damp! I shouldn't complain since we were blessed with beautiful weather the past two days.

King Arthur was here...

...or so legend says. Here being Tintagel in Cornwall, legendary birthplace of King Arthur.




More likely it was the stronghold of a Cornish king who came to be celebrated by the Celts for holding out against the Anglo-Saxons.

Tonight we’re at Land's End, the most westerly point in England. We're staying at the historic hotel.



Dinner and breakfast are included with the room and the food and service are great and the hotel has lots of charm, but it's a little tired and ready for someone to do a major renovation and turn it into something really special.

Oh, to be in England*

Today we arrived in England. The 8 hour 30 minute flight between Denver and London with British Airways seemed quite easy compared with regular 14 hour flights to Australia.

You might notice that my previous post on 30 September was titled "Back home" so, yes, we only spent two weeks at home before heading overseas again. It's not all work this time though. I’m attending a conference in London later in the week so we decided to spend the next two days visiting Cornwall and next week I'll be taking some vacation and we'll be heading to Beirut to visit Marie's dad and sister (and a whole bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins).

Since we only arrived earlier this afternoon we travelled only as far as Dorset today. We’re spending the night in Charmouth, a lovely little seaside village filled with old buildings, narrow streets and cosy pubs including The George where we had a delicious treacle pudding for dinner (we don't usually eat just desert for dinner, but with the time zone changes your eating patterns get all messed up - that's my excuse anyway!)


* Home Thoughts, From Abroad (Robert Browning)

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Back home

We arrived home last night from seven weeks in Australia and New Zealand.

As if to welcome us home and turn our focus to the fast approaching ski season we awoke to a lovely dusting of snow on the mountain.

Kids rockclimbing

It's school holidays in Brisbane this week and a climbing wall has been set up in the park behind my friend Raj's house. The kids loved it, especially our nephew Ramzi (seven) here on one of his multiple ascents.



My wife's godson Rohan (ten) made it to the top as well.

But the girls weren't intimidated. Here's my goddaughter Priyanka (eight).


And finally our friend Luisa's daughter Jai (nine).


Apologies to our newphew Alex (eleven) who was too quick on his way to the top for my wife to get his photo!

A niece at last

Until now, my wife and I have only had nephews (three on her side, two on mine). So we were really pleased when my brother and his wife recently delivered a girl called Luca. We had the chance this past weekend to visit them in Tasmania and see her.


She looks a lot like my brother did when he was born (I was ten at the time, so old enough to remember it).

Bloggus interruptus

To my regular readers I must apologise for the lack of posts in the past two weeks. I've been busy preparing a major demonstration of a proposed system to a customer.

In the area I work in, the systems we implement are highly modified for each customer, so the demonstrations are not exactly out of the box and require extensive preparation. So I've been busy co-ordinating teams in Australia, US, India and France to ensure the technology works while at the same time preparing and polishing the delivery approach and my own presentation.

The demo was yesterday and I am pleased to say it went extremely well, including the part where the customer brought in identical twins in an attempt to foil our facial recognition software which easily told them apart!

Premium airline review

In the past two months I've had the opportunity to sample business class on Cathay Pacific (LA to Hong Kong), Qantas(Brisbane to LA) and Air New Zealand (LA to Brisbane via Auckland, and (international) first class on United (Beijing to San Francisco).

I'd rank them as follows:

1. Air New Zealand business (brand new, and flat beds with very pleasant and attentive staff)

2. United first (old and shabby with ancient staff, but flat beds)

3. Qantas business (reasonably new, but angled flat beds and indifferent staff)

4. Cathay Pacific business (old, non-flat beds, but very nice staff)

United have just announced that they are about to begin a major upgrade of their premium cabins, finally introducing flat beds which will give me a decent business class alternative to Qantas between LA and Sydney.

Cathay have also begun an upgrade and are going to a similar style seat to the Air New Zealand which is great.

Hidden in a recent Qantas announcement about the fitout of their A380s due to be delivered next year is also the news that that are making some adjustments to their business class seat to deliver a truly flat bed (it looks like the same product spaced a few inches further apart and adjusted to remove the annoying angle).

I also discovered today that my new Qantas Platinum (Oneworld Emerald) status entitles me to use Qantas First Class lounges. So I'm sitting here in the Qantas international first class lounge at Sydney airport on my way to Wellington New Zealand and I can tell you it's really nice. Check out this entrance with a living wall of plants.


And I just had a lovely sit down meal complete with espresso coffee and this fantastic desert, all complementary of course.

New York Times on Steamboat

An interesting article in the New York Times this week on growth in Steamboat and similar places being driven by "location neutral" workers like me.

If we needed more evidence than the boom in property prices in the last two years that Steamboat has been discovered, I think this is it!

Steamboat rugby!

Australia may have lost the Bledisloe Cup and Tri-Nations to New Zealand, and will be lucky to make it to the semi-finals of this year's Rugby World Cup, but at least Steamboat are the Ski Town rugby champs!

The Steamboat team is having a great season. They are 14-0 after yesterday defeating Vail in the final. Their next game is against Aspen who are traditionally one of the strongest teams in the region. Beating Vail and Aspen back to back would be like beating South Africa and New Zealand in successive games.

Egg on Howard's face

Not surprisingly the incredibly flimsy case against Dr Haneef has completely fallen apart with the Director of Public Prosecutions dropping all charges.

Only ten days ago this man was so dangerous that the Government felt the need to revoke his visa and detain him under the immigration laws after a magistrate refused to play the Government's game and granted him bail. Now he's free in the community, the Immigration Minister having sought to save face by placing him on "residential detention" which seems to be something like house arrest but without the arrest part. All that remains is for his visa to be restored after a face saving consultation with the Solicitor-General.

John Howard would have you believe that all this has nothing to do with him or his Government. Let's look at the evidence.

You've got the Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, a political light weight who was surely acting as the Prime Minister's puppet, cancelling Dr Haneef's visa in order to frustrate the decision of a court to grant bail.

You've got the Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, one of Howard's closest allies, complaining that the "presumption against bail" didn't work, meaning that the Government lied when the legislation was being debated in Parliament and they made all sorts of reassurances about checks and balances, because what they really meant was "no bail".

And you've got the PM bleating about needing to toughen the terrorism laws which was clearly intended to inflame the situation.

No, if he sounds like a fear mongering little bastard, and acts like a fear mongering little bastard, you can be pretty sure that he is a fear mongering little bastard.

There is a silver lining in this cloud because there are several players who come out of this smelling quite good especially the magistrate who called the Government right up front on the flimsiness of their case and granted bail to Dr Haneef, and his lawyers and the legal fraternity in general who were fearless in confronting the Government.

As for the DPP Damian Bugg QC, I have mixed feelings. I'm surprised that in such a high profile case he wasn't personally involved earlier, but once he did get involved and saw that there was no evidence he immediately did the right thing. I ought to point out for my US readers that the DPP is a career civil servant, not a political appointee or elected office holder. If this had been a US prosecutor pursuing a partisan political agenda I have no doubt that Dr Haneef would have spent months or years waiting to be exonerated.

Ski with me?

I bought my 2007-08 season pass yesterday (the price goes up significantly on August 15, I'll be out of town and I really didn't want to forget) which has got me thinking about the ski season already.

One of the things I'd like to do this year is to spend more time skiing with other people. Unfortunately most of my Steamboat friends have regular 9 to 5, Monday to Friday jobs (yuk!) and whilst most of them have "powder clauses" everyone knows "there are no friends on powder days."

So if you are planning to ski in Steamboat this year, you're a solid intermediate or advanced skier and you'd like a local to show you the secrets of our mountain, send me an email!

Haneef case unravelling

Looks like the Australian Government's case against Dr Haneef is already beginning to unravel and the Immigration Minister's decision to cancel his visa is becoming even less defensible than the case of guilt by association I discussed yesterday. Even if that were a crime (and it still isn't in anything resembling a liberal democracy, at least for now), the alleged associations aren't even standing up to scrutiny.

According to a report in The Australian newspaper, Australia's leading national daily, under the heading Haneef dossier 'flawed', key pieces of evidence used to justify the visa cancellation and presented to the courts are completely inconsistent with the statements given by Dr Haneef to police.

In particular the claim in the affidavit that Dr Haneef told police that he lived in Britain with the two terrorism suspects, his second cousins is completely inconsistent with the record of interview in which Dr Haneef tells police that he lived at 13 Bentley Road, Liverpool, with several doctors, whom he names. None are the two suspects. Dr Haneef tells police he visited Cambridge on two occasions in 2004 and stayed for up to six days with Kafeel Ahmed and that he had moved out of 13 Bentley Road when Dr Sabeel Ahmed subsequently stayed there.

Similarly "While the police affidavit stated Dr Haneef had no explanation about his one-way ticket, the record of interview shows that he gave a detailed explanation to police while answering questions. Dr Haneef told police that as he did not have funds in his Australian bank account his father-in-law had booked and paid for the one-way ticket with an understanding that when I go there we can arrange for the coming back ticket." I'm actually guessing that wasn't the real reason, that he did panic and flee in fear - fear of being found guilty by association when he heard that his cousins had been arrested. Now why would he think that?

Wikipedia

I believe one of the most remarkable things to emerge from the Internet in recent years, amongst many amazing things, is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

What's so amazing about it? Well it overturns centuries of thought about how knowledge is disseminated, that's what. In the past knowledge was the preserve of a small elite. Until a little over a century ago most of the world was illiterate and even with mass literacy in the 20th century 99.999% of people consumed knowledge but didn't generate it. Whereas Wikipedia is not only available to everyone but it's created by everyone.

So consistent with that theme, yesterday I made my first edit. You can see it here. The sentence on amending the Australian Constitution is my work.

Guilt by association

Recent developments have supported the conclusions I reached about the case of Dr Haneef, the doctor detained in Brisbane in connection with the UK car bombing attempts.

A number of documents pertinent to the case have since been leaked including the transcript of the police interview with the suspect (warning the file is 22Mb) and the documents used by the Minister for Immigration to cancel his visa and lock him up in an immigration detention centre, presumably until such time as the case comes to trial which could easily be as long as two years.

What these documents show is how incredibly flimsy the case is against Dr Haneef. Here's what the reasons used by the Minister for Immigration (marked as "Highly Protected", presumably to save the Government embarrassment) say:


Note that "Suspect 2" and "Suspect 5" are Dr Haneef's second cousins. Completely missing is any evidence or even allegation that Dr Haneef knew or should have known that his cousins were involved in terrorism. The Government isn't even alleging that the mobile phone and SIM card that he gave to his cousin was used in any way in terrorist activity. And read carefully the mention of a 300 pound loan to sit a medical exam. Dr Haneef is receiving the loan not giving it!

So what does this boil down to? Guilt by association pure and simple. A guy is being locked up because he stayed with his cousins when living in a foreign country and left them some things he didn't need when he left.

The positive side to this story is that the Australian legal community is as outraged by this case as I am. When the judge hearing the application for appeal against the visa cancellation tells the Immigration Minister "I'd fail the character test that you have applied" there is a small glimmer of hope. Not surprisingly the judged granted leave to appeal and it is scheduled to be heard on August 8 at which time one can only hope that the courts give the Immigration Minister an almighty kick in the pants.

I have absolutely no doubt that if this ever goes to trial Haneef will be acquitted. But if John Howard has his way, only after Dr Haneef spends a year or two in detention. And then what, they'll deport him for a crime he hasn't committed? Rule of law? Natural justice? What a joke.

As for Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, he wins the gutless wonder of the year award for supporting the Government's action. From what I know of him I'm sure he is only doing this out of fear that he will be somehow painted as 'soft on terrorism' during the upcoming election campaign. Which somehow makes it even worse.

Take me to your SIM card overlords.

Fear mongering

Over the past two weeks I've followed with interest the case of a doctor in Brisbane detained in connection with the attempted terrorist attack on Glasgow airport.

I had hoped for an approach that strikes a better balance between the rule of law and security than we've seen in the United States' "war on terror."

No such luck. Not only was Dr Haneef detained for twelve days without charge, he was finally charged with 'providing aid to terrorists' because he gave his mobile phone SIM card to his cousin when he left England to move to Australia (presumably because it was no longer of any use to him).

Unless there is some other compelling piece of evidence against this guy that isn't being reported (and I'm pretty sure if there was the Australian Government would be shouting it from the rooftops), then we are living in a world, at least in the US and Australia, where the most innocent act can land you in jail for 'aiding terrorism'.

That's one of the basic aspects of a totalitarian state - that no behaviour is beyond the reach or the arbitrary sanction of the state, which keeps the populace in a state of perpetual fear and compliance.

Notwithstanding that, the Prime Minister is making veiled suggestions that Australia's terrorism laws need to be strengthened. Perhaps he wants to take a leaf out of his mate George W's book and set up a gulag on some remote island beyond the reach of troublesome courts. More likely he's just talking tough as part of his re-election strategy. After all it worked for him last time with the Tampa incident.

What a fear mongering little bastard our Prime Minister is.

Update (midnight): I thought for a moment that my worst fears where unfounded when a magistrate granted Haneef bail on a $10,000 surety. But only until the Federal Government promptly cancelled his visa so that they could detain him under the Migration Act.

This is a breathtaking abuse of power designed purely to invalidate the ruling of a court.

Firstly, immigration detention is designed for people who are in breach of their immigration status and are a risk of failing to appear for immigration proceedings.

Secondly, if he's in breach of his immigration status that's only because the government just cancelled his visa!

Thirdly, there are no immigration proceedings since the Government has no intention of deporting him before he stands trial.

Finally, he's now the most watched man in Australia so the chances of him absconding are about zero as the magistrate rightly observed.

All consistent with my original conclusion that this is nothing more than a cynical ploy by the Prime Minister and his henchmen( Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews) to whip up hysteria so they can frighten the public into voting for them again.

Ban politicians banning stuff

There's a report in today's Pilot on a proposal to ban plastic shopping bags. This is not news in the sense that several major cities have already done this, but it is news in the sense that this will affect me directly.

Whenever you get a proposal like this the proponents will always trot out any number of often valid reasons that the item to be banned is bad, bad, bad. But there's never any real analysis of whether those costs outweigh the benefits or whether there are alternative measures available to address the problems.

In a supposedly free society banning things - having the government tell you as a citizen that you can't buy something that you've decided would be beneficial to you - ought to be the absolute last resort.

In this case there's a simple solution that addresses the stated problems without the 'nanny state' knee jerk response. Estimate the costs that plastic bags impose on society, costs such as removing them from rivers and waterways, and levy a tax on plastic bags that covers those costs (and actually use the money raised to address the problem). If people then decide that the benefits of plastic bags still outweigh the costs, let them actually exercise their rights as adults and citizens and make that decision for themselves.

So the only ban I'm supporting is a ban on politicians banning stuff!

Take me to your plastic shopping bag overlords.

Frontier to serve Steamboat

Today's Steamboat Pilot reports that Frontier Airlines is close to announcing a new year round service to Steamboat's Yampa Valley Regional Airport.

The proposed aircraft - the Bombardier Q400 - is just a newer, bigger Dash 8. Qantas fly them extensively on regional routes, which in their monopolistic minds includes services between Sydney, Australia's largest city, and Canberra, the national capital. One of the five daily services between Canberra and Brisbane is also on the Q400 (the other four are on 737's). I usually avoid that flight like the plague but I was forced to take it once back in June. I'd love to get my hands on the bright spark who decided it would be a good idea to use a turboprop on a 2.5 hour trip.

Nevertheless, the nice thing about this announcement is that it is going to be a year round service meaning there will finally be an off-season alternative to United. As if to remind me why this would be a good thing, United managed to mess up my trip home last week. Due to mechanical trouble out of San Francisco I missed my connection in Denver, only by a few minutes but that meant waiting six hours for the next flight (assuming I could even get a seat). I chose to take the Alpine Taxi service instead since that got me home several hours earlier. Here's an earlier post on United's Express service to Steamboat.

Balloon Rodeo

This weekend is Steamboat's annual balloon rodeo where we get a mass launch of hot air balloons on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. I was too tired yesterday to get up early (you need to be a morning person to a balloonist!) but I did manage to get up in time today.

This year the balloon's have moved to a new site due to the development of the old site. It's a comfortable 30 minute walk from home so we also got our day's exercise in the process.

One of the big differences from the old site is you can get up close while the balloons are being inflated.


It's also next to a small lake, so one of the 'challenges' for the balloonists is to skim the water with the basket.

But the real attraction is to see the sky filled with balloons.

Back in Beijing

I'm back in Beijing for the second time this year (and the third time in the past 12 months). If anything the smog is even worse than last time (and the heat makes it seem worse still). I read in the local paper this morning that the government is planning a trial run next month of the "ban all cars" solution to cleaning up the air for the Olympics.

I'm only here for one day and then I'm heading home tomorrow. I've got a direct flight from Beijing to San Francisco on United Airlines flight 888 (given that "8" is a lucky number to the Chinese do you think there's any chance that this flight number is a co-incidence?) then I connect via Denver back to Steamboat (Hayden). I leave Beijing at noon on Friday and arrive home at 4.30 pm. Unfortunately that's a trick of the international date line. It's not a 4.5 hour trip. More like 24 hours of travelling.

Scooter scoots

So President Bush has commuted 'Scooter' Libby's jail sentence.

Of the thousands of people who get a raw deal from the US justice system every year are we supposed to believe that Scooter is the most deserving of mercy? After all, we all know that the system discriminates against rich white men.

It's a great reminder on this 4th of July of why the Founding Fathers fought a war of independence. That was to preserve a system of privilege where there's one law for the rich and powerful and well connected and another law for the rest of us, right?

Hong Kong after ten years

I arrived in Hong Kong last night just in time to catch the very large and impressive fireworks display on Victoria Harbour celebrating the tenth anniversary of the transfer of Hong Kong from British rule back to China.

Whilst there have been occasional concerns about China respecting the agreement to preserve Hong Kong's system of government for 50 years, things have generally worked out much better than most people expected. I know quite a few Hong Kongers who moved to Australia and Canada in the mid-90's in case things went bad, but have all subsequently moved back. As an outsider, albeit one who has spent a lot of time here over the past seven years, Hong Kong is still a fundamentally different place to mainland China.

It's a holiday today in Hong Kong but I'm in the office with my colleagues preparing for a presentation to a potential customer tomorrow. Here's the view from the office. If you look carefully you can see the remnants of the old airport in the middle right.


Fortunately I managed to find a flight to Hong Kong which arrived in the evening, which meant I could go straight to bed after arriving. I find that much less tiring than overnight flights which arrive early in the morning, which is unfortunately the case with all the flights between the US and Australia. So I'm feeling quite rested this morning despite having a 4 am start on Saturday and spending about 28 hours getting here.

I managed to download some good content for my Zune to listen to on the trip, including some podcasts and also video (in a compatible format) of The Chaser's War on Everything (which will be familiar to my Australia readers). I also watched a couple of movies including Bridge to Terabithia which turned out to be a very warm, charming and moving film.