Winter?

It's still summer in Steamboat with highs around 30C / 86F, and it's supposed to be winter here in Brisbane, but yesterday it was 36C / 96F!

Lions great escape

I went to a Brisbane Lions game last night for the first time in two years.

At quarter time when we were 47 points down I wondered why I bothered.

But the only thing better than watching a game that you know from the start your team is going to win, is watching a game that looks lost but ultimately isn't. The Lions looked a different team after quarter time and whilst they didn't hit the lead until well into the last quarter, by half time I was confident that they would get up.

Final score: Brisbane 16.11.107 d Port Adelaide 14.8.92

Go Lions!

Yale is a joke

If the fact that George W. Bush is a graduate wasn't sufficient evidence that Yale's claim to be a world class institute of higher education is a joke (motto "if your daddy is an alumni or has enough money, or better still both, we'll graduate you"), this act of moral and academic cowardice seals it.

Why would anyone spend money, let alone serious money like thirty or forty grand a year, on attending such a place? Sure some employers will continue for a few years to be sucked in by the brand, but if you're actually worthy of an Ivy League education you'll spend the rest of your life knowing that you're associated with a sham.

By the way, here's those notorious images. Like WTF is all the fuss about? And screw you Islamic fundamentalists. And Yale. Seems like I've got more courage than you.



HT: Coyote Blog

Balloon Rodeo

This weekend was Steamboat's 28th annual balloon festival.

I've blogged on this before. But I never get tired of walking out on a beautiful cool and clear summer morning to see the colour and drama of a mass balloon launch.

Last snow

I've been watching the last of the snow on the mountain melt over the past couple of weeks. The last tiny little patch located near the bottom of the Chutes appears to have melted since yesterday. That's OK, since it's only 145 days to next season!

My nephew the photographer

I've previously posted excellent photos taken by my nephew Julian, but now he seems to be getting very serious about the art. Check out this fantastic shot of the Gold Coast.


Here's his technical commentary for those who understand such stuff - it's completely meaningless to me; I've not mastered anything more complex than an auto-focus point and shoot digital camera.

• "Taken using a 1976 Pentax SLR... looks like the 30 year old shutter mechanism and light meter are working perfectly... :)"
• "It's exactly what I wanted, dark contrasts, bright borderline over exposure that brings out the highlights and reflections.. I ran every shot at just above neutral values..."

United still sucks

I've blogged before on how hopeless United Airlines are.

I've just returned from a one night/one day trip to Washington DC. I managed to use some miles to upgrade to what US carriers insist on calling "First Class", but the experience still managed to remind me how bad these guys are.

In United's defence let me begin by at least admitting that the attitude of their staff has generally improved over the past couple of years. I think they've finally woken up to the fact that their jobs are on the line. I should also add that this is the first trip I've taken in ages when every flight was on time, no connections were missed and no bags were lost (the latter helped by only having carry-ons)!

But the cabin environment and especially the food continue to put United at the bottom of the heap (right at the bottom now that Northwest have been absorbed by Delta). On the way out dinner consisted of a salmon salad which was basically some very sad looking lettuce leaves and what looked like the lowest possible quality tinned salmon. On the way back "dinner" consisted of a ham sandwich on the driest most unappetising bread roll I've ever seen.

Watering the cat

Two things to conclude from this photo: my sister-in-law's cat is weird and very spoilt!

Oxford

We visited Oxford today; lunch with some friends and then a bicycle ride around town which is the best way to see the town, especially the areas around the university colleges. Fortunately we had good weather, not something you take for granted here in England!

What global economic crisis?

If there's a global economic crisis going on right now (not to mention a flu pandemic scare as well) then nobody told the hordes of tourists who overran London this past weekend. Sure it was a three day weekend, but there were plenty of Chinese and Indians amongst the crowds and I'm pretty sure they didn't just pop over here after work on Friday.

We were part of the horde as well (here for a little longer than a three day weekend, on my way back from South Africa). On Sunday we visited the War Cabinet Rooms where Churchill and the British War Cabinet ran the British war effort during the worst of the German bombing. It's one of those fantastic sites where you really have the feeling of walking in the footsteps of history. The fact that much of it was simply closed up on the last day of the war and left that way until the mid-1970's, unseen and untouched, is amazing.

Where's the cloaking device when you need it

Only our homeland security overlords in Washington DC could be stupid enough to think that flying a 747 over New York was a mission that could be kept secret. Or perhaps the cloaking device they borrowed from the Star Trek set didn't work...oh wait, that's science fiction and we live in the real world, but clearly someone in Washington doesn't.

More Pretoria rugby

I attended another Super 14 Rugby match in Pretoria last night. This time it was the Bulls vs the Waikato Chiefs, again from New Zealand. The score was close right to the end, which is always good for maintaining interest. The home team won, which is also good for keeping the crowd in a good mood!

The weather was ideal, until one minute from the end when there was an unseasonably late thunderstorm. Not quite like the awesome summer thunderstorms here, but we still got soaked walking back to the car. It was still a fun evening though.

Thanks to Pieter for the ticket and the company.

Paying an eToll in a rental car

I noticed this sticker on the window of the car I rented today to drive from Steamboat to Denver to get my flight via London to Johannesburg.


(apologies for the quality of the image; due to the slope of the window it was difficult to get a shot without the sunlight behind the subject)

I wish Avis in Australia did this. Sydney in particular is a pain with a rental car because there are toll roads everywhere and all of them are electronic payment only. If you don't have an eTag unit (as you wouldn't as a tourist) there is a process to register online to pay the tolls, but the user interface is lousy and in my personal experience it doesn't actually work; the one time I used it, I received an unpaid toll notice even though I'd registered.

New countdown

The counter at the bottom of this blog page has been updated.

Only 226 days to the 2009-2010 ski season (but who's counting!)

And so it ends

Today was closing day for the 2008-09 ski season here in Steamboat.

I went out on principle, expecting it to be mediocre at best, but I must say despite being a bit damp (being warm enough to rain at lower elevations) it was OK. It's wasn't great, but it was good enough to ski Closet, which is not bad for April 12.

Here's today's track for 10,374 vertical ft.


And here's the consolidated track for the season, a total of 450,000 vertical ft in 35 days of skiing.

Five years

Today we've been living in Steamboat full time for five years (notwithstanding the amount of time we spend on the road, it's our permanent and only home).

We owned a condo here since July 2002, but we were living in Singapore at the time which is even further from Steamboat than Australia.

Birthday skiing

I only went out today because I like the idea of skiing on my birthday. I didn't expect it to be great, but it was probably the worst day of the season. We had a warm day yesterday and then the spring slush froze hard overnight, and now it's not warm enough today to soften it again.

So only 5,102 in vertical ft in 45 minutes. That's my least vertical of any day this season. But you know what they say; the worst day of skiing is still better than the best day of whatever...

Abysmal user interface design (but that's not the surprise)

Here's an example of abysmal user interface design. That's not surprising; I see this crap every day. But this is from Apple! (it's part of setting up the "Genius" service in iTunes)


Is the second box for your password or does it have something to do with AOL? And what on earth does the red arrow mean?

This could easily have been fixed by putting the two radio buttons to select whether to use your Apple iTunes Store ID or your AOL ID across the top horizontally, keeping this selection visually separate from the entry of your user ID and password.

Cream cheese

Today's post is not about food; "cream cheese" is an attempt to describe the texture of the 6 inches of new snow that fell overnight. Whatever you call it, in my five seasons skiing this mountain, I've never seen snow quite like it. Usually with conditions like they were last night - the temperature around 30F, the humidity higher than usual, and windy - what we end up with is cement; heavy, sticky and very tiring to ski. Today's snow was definitely crusty, but somehow it wasn't all that hard to ski. In fact it was an absolute hoot.

With the wind, the gondola was still closed when I arrived at the base around 9.30 am, so it was the Christie Express and then across to Thunderhead. It was a little slow, but so much better than the days only two seasons ago before the Christie Express when a closed Gondola meant an hour and a half to get up the mountain.

When I jumped on the Storm Peak Express the word was that Sundown was closed, so I skied Closet with the intention of traversing through Rainbow Saddle back to Storm Peak. But when I hit Duster and saw Sundown running I knew I had to head down that way and ski the trees some more. Almost exactly like Wednesday, from there it became Sundown Express, ski the trees, repeat (six times). The Priest Creek face is the best tree skiing in the world, so who can blame me!

Here's today's track for 17,980 vertical ft in 2 hours and 53 minutes. The final verdict; a better day than I expected and much better than April 4 has any right to be!

Close but no dice

Monday's declaration as the best day of the season stands, but only just. There's been another two feet of snow since then, but the difference today was that it was a little windy and not so cold overnight, so the snow was heavier.

I was in the gondola line at 8.10 am anticipating a big powder day. I began with a traverse from the top of the gondola to the lower half of Whiteout. Days like today make skiing the big bumps seem like cheating.

Then it was onto the BC chair for fresh tracks down Sunnyside. And then, unlike Monday where I circulated on the Pony Express, today it was the Sundown Express. Ski the trees. Repeat. Six times.

After that I decided to head down, but couldn't resist a couple of circuits on the Thunderhead Express. I'm glad I did because the best run of the day was in the trees to skier's right of Ted's Ridge where the snow was untracked and waist deep. Whoa!

Here's today's track for a total vertical 21,498 ft in 3 hours and 10 minutes.


Update (21 April): Just uploaded from my phone (self-portrait). Here I am waiting for the bus after skiing. Looks pretty wintery doesn't it?