Ticketing idiocy

No, not airline ticketing idiocy (although there's no shortage of that) but football ticketing idiocy.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a Brisbane Lions home game on Saturday night and doubly fortunate to see them have their first win for the season (after seven losses to start the season). But I was rather unimpressed that I was unable to buy a ticket for a decent seat, knowing that with the Lions in a "rebuilding phase" the ground would not be even close to sold out. As it turned out it was less than half full (19,000 in a ground that holds over 40,000 people).

So I bought the cheapest ticket I could ($25.50). Where do you think I sat; in my cheap and not very good seat, or in one of the thousands of empty seats in the area where I wanted to sit (where I was more than willing to pay $61 for a ticket)?

I don't know who manages ticketing for Lions games at the Gabba, but they are idiots who are leaving money on the table.

No airline executives were harmed...

Recently I wondered if I would need to ritually sacrifice an airline executive in order to appease the airline gods.

I'm pleased to say such drastic action seems to have been unnecessary. Last week I managed to fly from Denver to Chicago to Ottawa to Washington to Los Angeles to Brisbane without a single delay or disruption. I even got the best seat on the plane (1A) on the Qantas flight to Brisbane!

Seriously Amazon.com. Seriously?

I'm all for free services sponsored by advertising - the entire Googleverse for example. But receiving "sponsored screensavers" aka ads on my Kindle to save $24? You have got to be joking Amazon.com. This must be an April Fools joke that's ten days late.

This is doubly disappointing given the rumours on the tech sites that Amazon would soon offer the Kindle for $99 or even free to Prime members like me!

Sweet closing day

The weird weather, spring one day, winter the next, continues so after yesterday's spring conditions today it was winter again. It wasn't an epic powder day, but it was a powder day and on closing day, April 10, that's epic enough!

The 5am report said three inches but it was snowing hard this morning so it was at least six inches by the time I hit the mountain at 10am.

And it just kept getting better for the rest of the morning. I thought my first run down Triangle 3, with plenty of wind blown drifts, and skier's right of Tornado, where the hard bumps were filled in just nice, would be my best run of the day. Then I thought my run down a completely untracked Priest Creek liftline would be the best of the day, until it was surpassed by the 2.45 trees, then the 2.15 trees and finally by Shadows where I was still able to find fresh lines after noon.

My home run for the day and for the season was, fittingly, Vertigo. It was a little dust on crust but the new snow was heavy enough to provide plenty of grab, so it was definitely skiable. Not the best I've ever seen it, but awesome for April.

Here's the GPS data.

So that's it for the 2010-11 season. I managed 40 days which given my travel commitments and moving house in December I'm happy with. It's way less than the 116 days I managed last season, but I had more powder days this year with the awesome 400+ inch season we've had. Any season where you ski Closet on opening day and Shadows on closing day is a great season.

Today is also our seventh anniversary of living in Steamboat. Living the dream doesn't get any better than this!

A better birthday

Last year on my birthday I ended up at a South African Emergency Room. This year I went skiing. It's not hard to figure out which experience makes for a more enjoyable birthday!

I was out around 10am which was probably 30 minutes too early, so the first runs were hardpack, but by 11am it had softened nicely in a number of places. Best run of the day was my second attempt at Vagabond after the snow had softened.

Here's the GPS data.

Is it really April 6?

For the past couple of weeks the weather has been swinging wildly between spring and winter. Today it was both. More rain than snow at the base, but definitely snow and quite misty and chilly at the top of the mountain (there's a reason it's called Storm Peak!)

It started snowing in the wee hours of the morning, so there was 3 or 4 inches on the ground by breakfast time and perhaps 6 inches by the time I managed to get out at 11 am. But that was on top of a hard base from yesterday's warmth, so you had to pick your spot or it was very dust on crust. My first run down Whiteout was especially bad. My eyes saw powder but my skis felt nothing but hard pack, and my head hadn't yet resolved the the two. It got a lot better after that though.

Best run of the day was definitely this one down the Ridge - largely untracked and deep enough to not feel the crust underneath.


This run down See Ya on the way home was also fun and interesting. On the lower mountain the snow was wet and heavy so it was a completely different feeling skiing through it. And you can see from the water accumulating on the camera lens how wet it was down there.


The other brilliant thing today; being the last week of the ski season there was barely anybody on the mountain.

Here's the GPS data.

Sydney airport deja vu

I'm sitting in my home office in Steamboat listening to the the radio from Australia on the internet.

The Australian Minister for Transport is currently talking about the need for a second airport in Sydney.

I have two words for him: Badgery's Creek.

That was the name of the second Sydney airport announced by the Australian Government in mid-1989. It was a political sop back then. I know this because I was part of the small team that put the proposal together to provide political cover to get approval to build a third runway at the real Sydney airport (whenever I land on 16L/34R, I like to think of it as "my runway").

It's still a sop now. There are very few cities that successfully run more than one major airport. New York, London, Tokyo, Paris and Chicago come to mind. All much bigger cities than Sydney.

One of the things the Minister was just rabbiting on about was that demand for slots exceeds supply. The best way to match supply and demand and to ensure a resource is allocated to its highest value use is via a very secret mechanism economists call price. In the context of airport slots that means auctioning slots off to the highest bidder. Of course that's not how it works. So I have zero sympathy for bleating about excess demand.

Angry airline gods

Clearly the airline gods are angry with me because in the past 2 months I'm 0 for 3 in terms of attempts to travel out of Steamboat without major disruptions.

In early February I attempted to travel from Steamboat to Dublin. It was supposed to be easy - direct flight from Steamboat to Chicago and then direct flight to Dublin. My flight out of Steamboat was delayed and I missed my connection in Chicago, so instead of the direct flight to Dublin I had to go via London which has the world's dumbest immigration process for transiting to Ireland.

In late February I attempted to travel from Steamboat to Washington via Houston. My flight from Houston to Washington was cancelled so I had to overnight in Houston.

Then today I attempted to fly from Steamboat to Washington via Denver. It was snowing hard as I left for the airport and half way there I received the email notification that my Steamboat to Denver flight had been cancelled.

Note that only this last disruption had anything to do with the winter weather in the mountains.

If anyone knows how to win back the favour of the airline gods, please feel free to comment. Do I have to ritually sacrifice an airline executive or something?

Update: 6.24pm: here's the report in today's paper on the storm and flight cancellations.

More than it looks

Here's today's GPS data.

It doesn't look like I did much - only 8,100 vertical ft in 1:46. But most of that was bumps, including three laps on Whiteout which totally jellied my legs. Which is why on Mother Nature on the way home I had my first proper ski came off fall in the bumps for the season.

A nice sparkling wine

With the slightly warmer temperatures of late March, the foot of snow that landed on the mountain last night was just a little too heavy to be Steamboat's famous Champagne Powder, but if it wasn't Champagne it was a very nice sparkling wine.

I had some conference calls with the east coast and Dublin this morning so I didn't get out until nearly 11am, but there were still plenty of freshies in the trees, especially on Shadows and Typhoon. But the best run of the day was definitely the powder bumps on Whiteout, and not surprisingly with a non-stop top to bottom run on a really tight line my maximum heart rate of 181bpm was at the bottom on that run.

Here's the GPS data.

Grabby skis

I had some trouble uploading my GPS data from Saturday so here is the delayed report.

After the warm weather earlier in the week, I had my skis retuned. Then Saturday was cold and wintry, so my skis were so "grabby" I could barely turn them. Which meant I had to stop and get them tuned again for the colder snow. Thanks to Ryan at Edgewerks I only lost 15 minutes.

Here's that troublesome GPS data:

Slush bumps

A lot of people like spring skiing because it's warm. Give me a full on winter storm with a foot of fresh powder any day. But if it has to be spring skiing then slush bumps are where it's at. They're soft and slow so you've got plenty of time to ski them just right.

Today the best slush bumps were on Whiteout. Here's the GPS data.

Bluebird powder

A spring storm dropped more than a foot of powder on Steamboati n the past 48 hours and with the sun shining brightly this morning, that makes today a bluebird powder day.

Picking a best run today is really hard. I'd have to go with this unexpected powder stash found in the trees between Valley View and Heavenly Daze on the way home.



Here's the GPS data.

Need wax

My timing today was much better than on Monday so the snow was nice and slushy by the time I hit the mountain. Unfortunately my skis were inadequately waxed, so the snow was also sticky and slow.

Best run of the day was super slushy bumps on Surprise.

Here's the GPS data.

Cursing DST

Yesterday I was only able to get our for about an hour. Due to work constraints I wasn't able to get out late enough for the snow to really have softened. But the sun was shining, so it was still fun cruising a few groomers on the lower mountain where it gets warmer sooner.

Here's the GPS data.

The problem with not being out late enough was compounded by the ridiculousness of starting Daylight Savings Time in mid-March, an idea brought to us by our DST overlords in Washington a few years back supposedly to save energy. In a rational world the fact that it doesn't (save energy) would have led to the change being reversed by now. Of course politics is the only field of human endeavour where the gap between intentions and results is completely and utterly irrelevant.

And I still have one pesky clock that I haven't managed to change yet!

Spring-ish

It looked like it was going to be a classic spring skiing day when I headed out this morning, but half way up the mountain the clouds started to gather. Fortunately it stayed warm enough to soften the snow a little, but not enough to create slush bumps, so I largely stuck to the groomers.

Hard to believe but best run of the day was Flintlock which is a lower intermediate trail. But when you do railroad tracks in a tuck all the way down it's a hoot.

Here's the GPS data.

How I feel about breakfast

I'm often up early to talk to my colleagues in Dublin and I'm always hungry when I wake up. But I also find when I eat at 6am I need to eat again at 9am. Actually I'm just finishing second breakfast as I write this post!

Another powder day in the Boat

I thought the storm that brought fresh snow yesterday was pretty much over, but today was even better than yesterday. It's hard to pick a best run on a day like this but if I had to choose I'd say the trees between Twister and the Four Points liftline.

Here's some video highlights.


And here's the GPS data.

Fat Tuesday for Fat Skis

It's another Fat Tuesday, Fat Ski day. The 5am report said 2 inches, but that was on top of six inches yesterday. And it was snowing hard all morning, so by the time I hit the mountain at 11 am it was at least 8 inches of fresh. Plus with barely anybody about there were plenty of nice stashes left even that late in the morning.

Shadows and Closet were good, and Vertigo was nice on the way home, if a little dust on crust on the lower half, but the best run of the day was definitely very big, very soft powder bumps on Whiteout. The first time non-stop from the road to the bottom was sweet, but the second time non-stop from the top was even sweeter.

Here's the GPS data.

27 percent

March 5 last year hit 100 consecutive days of skiing. March 5 this year is only day 27.

I've had a lot going on this season and last season I'd taken some time off work, so I'm not too disappointed. I have figured out though that skiing every day is actually easier on your body, at least after the first month. By then you're in such good skiing shape you don't feel a thing. Whereas today, after not skiing for a week, everything seemed to ache.

Nevertheless it was worth the pain. The five inches of fresh snow over the past two days made for a nice soft base, not the normal spring crunch, and there were still some nice stashes in the trees, especially on Closet and Rainbow. And the mountain seemed deserted.

Here's the GPS data.