Maintenance Issues:

I was in Phoenix, AZ for a job interview from Thursday to Saturday of last week. It was…nice. The weather was great, all warm and able to play outside-like, but the air quality there stinks. Almost literally. The traffic isn’t very nice either. And it’s so BROWN. But the job part was cool. I think I interviewed well, which is a very important skill when one is trying to find a job.

On the way back, our plane had maintenance issues, we had a find another plane. I guess they kicked some other people off a plane to make one for us. Sucks to be them, and I felt kinda bad, but I just wanted to get home…and NOT on the maintenance issued plane. When I got back, I had another surprise. The “blue screen of death” had reared it’s ugly head again on my computer…(my old computer now)…and the problem was not recoverable. I got into Munchenstein long enough to recover important files, and then…I shut it off for the last time…possibly. Yes, Munchenstein is dead unless I ‘stein’ it even more. I may just, so that I have two working computers, but I’m not certain. I went to Circuit City on Sunday to purchase a new computer, and that has to be the fastest I’ve even bought anything electronic. In and out in less than 20 minutes. The new computer, who has not told me its name yet, isn’t so bad…it’s just not the same, you know?

So, I’ll post some pics of the Desert Botanical Gardens when I get the chance to load my camera software and upload my pics, and I’ll fill you in more on maintenance issues when I return from my adventure on our metro transit system.

Snowmass Skiing

Well, I'm making good on my promise of more pictures. These are just a few of the many I took, but they capture some of the key moments.

This is the four of us at my cousin Michelle's favorite picture taking location. You can see Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak in the background. I think this one turned out quite nice. This is on the way up to Snowmass.

So, you walked out the door our our condo and this is what you found. Ski in, ski out access. Nice green run here to start and end the day. Look at that nice sunny weather!

At the top of the blue section, you found this view. Those are the Maroon Bells in the background. Aren't they lovely? Again, lovely sunny day. It was about 45 degrees when I took this picture. So nice.

Last run of the day Michelle, Amanda and I decided to do a hike-to blue run called Long Shot. You got to it by hiking up higher from the top of the chairlift that provided the view in the picture above. The hike was labeled "short, but strenuous". No lie. So after hiking, and then sucking air for a bit, and then taking pictures, we started down. Itw as 3.4 miles of tree skiing, powder, or packed powder (no grooming back here folks), and bumps. Even moguls. Here I am, happy to have made it 1/2 way down. (It got harder from this sign on...the smile turned into an 'oh shit' look for a while).

So, I lied above. Long shot wasn't technically last run of the day, because we were way on the other side of the mountain and had to ski back. We couldn't make it back to our ski in/out access point in one run, so we had to go halfway up the Village Express lift and come down one last time. We decided to pretend that one of us was a child so we could go through the family and kids zone and along the way we found these reindeer hanging out. My guess was they are vastly amused by the two legged, funny looking human beings throwing themselves down the hill on sticks. They were very curious, and if you came up to their fence, they came to say hi. We snapped a photo and then finished the little run down the the condo to take off our skies one last time.

It was a great trip, I can't wait to get skiing out in the mountains again. After that, anything around the midwest is going to be disappointing in its brevity.

Garden of the Gods:
On New Years Day Amanda, Michelle, and I went to Garden of the Gods with my cousins Scott and Michelle and their little one, Griffin.

As you drive in and park and begin to walk you will see the 'kissing camels'.


We walked a little farther and I decided to climb some rocks. Griffin got some help up and wasn't sure he enjoyed being that high off the ground without a proper rope and harness situation.

It didn't take long for the climbing bug to bite him thought. He just found more 'Griffin sized' rocks to boulder on.


Myself, Michelle, and Amanda pose for the camera.

Atlas's smaller cousin holds up this balancing rock normally, but wished a small break. I kindly took over.

So there you have it, a pictoral history of some of Garden of the Gods. I'll try to load up the skiing pictures in the next day or so.

Here I am

I know, I suck. It’s been ages since I’ve updated. Where have I been? Well, for starters, I’ve been in Aspen. Aspen was great fun, even if I did catch a cold. We spent New Years Eve in Colorado Springs, listening to some cover band at an Irish Pub that was in love with Green Day and the like. Still, they were really fun to watch. We also played pool and went to Old Chicago for Nachos. Busy night. The next day Troy went skiing at Loveland (the ski area, not the town…he drove to the town first though, a bit out of his way. The town has good shopping though). The girls and I along with Michelle, Scott and Griffin went to Garden of the Gods. So gorgeous and the weather was perfect. A balmy 55, though the wind was a bit strong.

We had four days of skiing. The first run my brother takes me on is this black, powdery, bumpy monstrosity. I haven’t skied much but groomed black out west, and have little experience with powder (plus my skies are NOT powder skies), and I dislike bumps. Still, I made it down alive and then yelled at him. He’s just lucky I can’t keep up with him on skies (unless it’s groomed, and then I beat him in a fair race). He didn’t spend much time on groomed, so he was free from any pummeling I could have wished to inflict. Still, by the third day I was seeking the black runs, as long as they were shorter and within the realm of my abilities. No broken bones were created, and none were desired. Amanda, Michelle and I did a hike-to blue run as our last run out there. There are not many hike-to blues in my experience, but this one rocked. It was 3.5 miles of backcountry tree and bump and powder skiing at steepnesses that I was comfy with. Great bump practice too. Grant it; around here that same run would have been labeled double black. Hehe.

The drive out and back were mostly without hitches, Troy’s car was hit – bumped – in the bank parking lot before we left, but the damage was all cosmetic. It was right by the gas tank, so a near thing, but we could still drive it out there. We would have been in a tight spot if it was not drivable. There was a small hiccup when it was realized that a small ‘necessities’ bag was forgotten in my apartment, but shampoo is easier to replace than ski boots.

The week between that and this was spent getting ready for school, going to meetings and relaxing and getting over my cold. This week was the first week of classes. I have only had one, because I have the majority of my classes on Monday, and Monday was a holiday. Next week is going to be painful as far as classes go. Eep.

Later next week I will be going to Arizona to interview for a job with Intel. I have made it through the phone interview stage, and now move on to the ‘in your face’ stage. So Thursday and Friday of next week I’ll be in Phoenix, interviewing, seeing the town, and trying to decide if I like the southwest enough to relocate. The other option is the Northwest, Oregon, of which I am far more keen to go – simply because I have been there before and loved it. Even the rain (which it didn’t do much of while we where there.)

So I’ll try to post more often again, now that I’ve started, it should be easy. Right?