(Read a personal description of Backblaze here.)
(Read
a personal
description of Backblaze here.)
That's it, the sabbatical is over! I'm back in Cupertino.
I just came from skiing Bachelor, in Oregon. Click here and here for pictures. Click here for some random Oregon pictures that didn't belong anywhere else.
Update Sun, Apr 25: Just got back from the annual Lake Tahoe spring trip! Click here and here for pictures.
I'm in Oregon (skiing Bachelor, Mt Hood, Hoodoo, etc)!
I just came from visiting Debbi and Mike Moxness in Thousand Oaks (click here for pictures of Debbi and Mike's life) and visiting Jim and Judy Young in their new home with their 7 week old newborn in Santa Barbara, California. Click here for Jim and Judy pictures.
HUGE SCREWUP-> Please check out My Spooky Trip Through Area 51 (with Space Aliens and Mutilated Cows) again. I had not uploaded the text correctly before now. Sorry about that.
Update Thu, Apr 8: Visiting Mom and Dad for two days. Click here for pictures.
Update Sun, Apr 11: I skied 18 inches of fresh powder at Willamette Pass yesterday, and beaming sunshine at Hoodoo today. These are the two small areas where I learned to ski about 15 years ago. Click here for Willamette Pass pictures, and here for Hoodoo pictures. Tomorrow I drive to Bend, Oregon to ski Mt. Bachelor fr the next 5 days.
Update Mon, Apr 12: I'm in Bend! Tomorrow I ski Bachelor with Ashmeet, who flew in today.
UpdateTue, Apr 13: Ashmeet and I skied Bachelor, click here for pictures. Click here for some random Oregon pictures that didn't belong anywhere else.
I'm in Mammoth, California! I just came from Aspen, Colorado. Click here to read about Snowmass, and click here to read about Aspen Highlands.
Yesterday I drove through Nevada, and right through Area 51! Area 51 is where the government stores dead Alien bodies and a couple of Alien Spaceships/UFOs. Click here for a map of Area 51 (but don't tell anyone, it's a secret location). Click here to see and read about my Area 51 adventures involving space aliens and mutilated cows. Click here for the Terminator that passed me on the highway at 80 mph just outside of Area 51.
Update Mon, Mar 29: I skied Mammoth for the first time today. Click here for some pictures and commentary. Very nice hill. The town of Mammoth, California is OK, but leaves something to be desired. There isn't any centralized downtown area, more like sprawl that you have to drive through. I prefer ski towns like Telluride, Vail and Jackson Hole where everything is within walking distance and after you arrive, you leave your car parked for the duration of the stay.
Update Tue, Mar 30: I spent the day shivering violently in bed. I seemed to have caught a bug of some kind. It was an Ok day to skip, because the wind was HOWLING outside. It still is (at midnight). It is also snowing outside, although I cannot tell how much because the wind is picking it up and throwing it around. Hopefully I can hit the slopes tomorrow. Oh, I added a postcard to Paige's Taos accident page.
Update Wed, Mar 31: I woke up to 18 inches of light fluffy powder, and the excitement got to me and I went out skiing. It was SWEET, at least as long as it lasted. I got deathly ill about noon, and barely made it back off the slope by 1pm. I spent the next 24 hours shivering in bed, making fevered trips to the bathroom.
Update Sat, Apr 3rd: Skied the morning at Mammoth, then drove to Debbi and Mike's house in L.A. Next skiing in Oregon in 4 or 5 days. The morning skiing was GREAT powder, the good stuff. Click here for pictures of Debbi and Mike's life.
Update Sun, Apr 4th: Drove to Jim and Judy (Young) house in Santa Barbara. Spent the night with the 7 week old newborn. Click here for pictures.
Update Mon, Apr 5th: Drove to Cupertino with Paul Kretschmer. Next stop Oregon!
I'm in Vail, Colorado! But it ain't gonna last unless we get some snow. I talked with the clerk in the hotel I'm staying at, and it hasn't snowed in two weeks. I'll check out the hill tomorrow.
Update Wed, Mar 24: Skied Vail as my 40th day on the slopes this year! Click here for some pictures from my day. Vail has more snow than Telluride, probably because they make more, but it's still running out (just a week behind Telluride). The conditions today were quite good for spring skiing, and I've decided to stay an extra day. The hill itself is mostly intermediate, and is HUGE, so I spent the day screaming down groomed trails like a young man named Carl taught me to do here last year. :-) I found some bumps, but they were all small and on flat slopes, or at least seemed that way since I spent the last two weeks beating my body to a pulp on Telluride's Chair 9 with runs like Mammoth. As Lance said... "Yawn!"
Update Fri, Mar 26: Skied Vail yesterday, and today I got up early and drove to Aspen, and skied Snowmass in the morning (click here for Snowmass pictures), and Aspen Highlands in the afternoon (click here for Aspen Highlands pictures). I'm now out of Colorado, and heading for Mammoth, California!
Update Sat, Mar 27: I drove through Nevada, and through Area 51 today! (Area 51 is where the government stores dead Alien bodies and a couple of Alien Spaceships/UFOs. Click here for a map of Area 51.) Click here to see and read about my Area 51 adventures. Click here for the Terminator that passed me on the highway at 80 mph just outside of Area 51. Tonight I'm in Bishop, California, and tomorrow I'll be in Mammoth.
I'm in Telluride, Colorado!
Update Wed, Mar 10: Two days ago I flew back into Telluride, and got fresh powder on the first ski day back! It was very nice. Today I skied with Lise and Ken in the morning (click here for pictures), and then in the afternoon I took a quick tour of chair 10 (the real estate chair) and created a gallery of "Ostentatious Log Cabins of the Filthy Stinking Rich in Telluride", although I'd like to add more to it in the future.
Update Sat, Mar 13: It snowed all yesterday, even after the lifts closed and some during the night. Today when I got up it was BEAMING down sunshine, on top of a bunch of nice new snow. A truly epic day. I warmed up in the morning on Lift 9 and Lift 6, but because it was Saturday, and fresh powder, and sunshine, there were some crowds and lift lines. So at 1:30pm I decided to do the 45 minute hike up past where the highest lifts go to "Gold Hill". Click here to read about it. This is the first time I ever did this hike.
Update Wed, Mar 17: Been skiing off and on with Lise and Lance. Today started with sunshine, but clouded over. It might snow tonight, or might rain. Let's pray for snow. At night we had dinnner with Johnny Rotten, who is a great guy Lise and Lance have known for years.
Update Fri, Mar 19: Skied nice spring conditions, good (slushy) snow. I created a quick page tonight about the restaurant where Lise works, which is called "221 Oak Street". Click here to see that page.
Update Sat, Mar 20: Took the day off from skiing to let a few aches and pains heal. Click here for a few images of telluride that I hadn't put up yet.
Update Mon, Mar 22: My last ski day in Telluride! Click here for the last few Telluride pictures. I'm moving on to Vail tomorrow for at least the next few days. Telluride is out of snow, so maybe I'll be swinging down to Mammoth in California soon.
I'm in Telluride, Colorado. Today I skied Arapahoe Basin, then drove to Telluride. Click here for some pictures.
Update Wed, Mar 3: Had a great day in Telluride! Lance (who grew up on the same street as I did in Corvallis, Oregon) helped me tune my own skis for the first time (don't worry, I didn't help much!) and then Lance gave me the SERIOUS tour of the ski hill, where we met up with some friends. Click here to see some pictures. I've skied Telluride maybe 10 days over the last 8 years, and I'd never been to half these runs. We skied "Log Pile" which is a beautiful tree run, and "Local's Glade" and "Ho-Chi-Min Trail", neither of which is even on the lift map. We skied "Sully's" and "Coonskin", and at the end of the day Lance talked me (and guided me) through "Mine Shaft" under chair 8. After a quick shower and a bite, I went to a special showing of a film from last years(?) Mountain Film Festival, called "Windhorse", which is a stunning film about a family in Tibet and their dealings with the Chinese occupation. Tomorrow I fly home to Cupertino for a few days, then back to Telluride.
I'm in the Steamboat/Boulder area. Click here for Steamboat pictures, and here for Boulder pictures.
Update Tues, Feb 23: Skied Steamboat today. Some nice snow, about a day old, 8 inches.
Update Wed, Feb 24: Skied Steamboat in the sunshine. Hiked up to the Christmas Tree Bowl, and ended up over my head in a double black diamond. Click here for a photo of me lost. :-) Tomorrow I get up early and head to ski Winter Park/Mary Jane, then on to Garth's house in Boulder. Next login might be a few days. Oh, I found a sign in Steamboat. Do you know what this means to me? How about this one?
Update Thurs, Feb 25: Skied Winterpark/Mary Jane, which is awesome! The mountain (especially the Mary Jane side) is covered with intermediate runs that aren't groomed, so there are miles and miles of ego bumps to play on. Beat down sunshine the whole day. Oh, and the safety bars on the lifts have liftmaps on them! Drove on to Garth's house to stay the night (click here for the view from his front lawn). And I'll ski the Boulder area for the next few days.
Update Sat, Feb 27: Garth is sick, so I got a hotel in the small town of Frisco, which is within 10 miles of Breckenridge, Copper, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin.
I'm in the Purgatory/Telluride area. Click here for Purgatory pictures, and here for Telluride ski pictures.
I'm on my way up to Steamboat tomorrow.
I'm in the Albuquerque/Taos, New Mexico area. Click here for Albuquerque pictures, and here for Taos ski pictures.
Update Friday, Feb 12: Spent the day with Randy and Ramey. Went to Old Town Albuquerque.
Update Saturday, Feb 13: Skied in the sunshine in Taos (click here for pictures). Paige gets taken off the hill in a meat wagon! Click here for the saga!
Update Monday, Feb 15: Skied Taos, then drove back to Randy and Ramey's house.
Update Wednesday, Feb 17: Eli goes to the Motorcycle shop!
Update Thursday, Feb 18: Ramey and I skied Santa Fe in the sunshine. Also, the Sentra narrowly dodges death, and comes back from the shop. We're headed out to Colorado the day after tomorrow!
Update Friday, Feb 19: Tomorrow I ski Purgatory on the way to Telluride, and through to Steamboat. It might be a few days before the next update.
I'm in Sun Valley, Idaho. Click here for Sun Valley pictures.
Update Saturday, Feb 6: Skied about a half day and gave up. Click here to see why. It was socked in at top, this icy rain would cover your goggles and freeze solid. But right now it's snowing down storm, so I'm hoping for some awesome powder tomorrow.
Update Sunday, Feb 7: Skied in 18 inches of new powder. Click here to see the view from my balcony this morning.
Update Monday, Feb 8: Took the day off and slept, because I wasn't feeling all that well. Click here to see a shot of my Sentra under a pile of snow in the parking lot.
Update Tuesday, Feb 9: Stll snowing and snowing and snowing. The locals say they haven't seen a storm like this in years. Skiing Sun Valley tomorrow, then heading south. Next update from Albuquerque, NM in a few days.
Update Wednesday, Feb 10: Skied in beautiful sunshine today, then drove to Albuquerque.
I'm at Clarkston, Washington, at Mark and Cheryl's house. Click here for Clarkston pictures.
I drove into Whistler tonight. The snow is just DUMPING down outside, tomorrow should be sweet!
Update Friday, Jan 29th: Whistler gives, and it takes away. I woke up this morning to pouring rain, and all the powder had melted away. Spent the day by the fire, reading a book.
Update Saturday, Jan 30th: Had a nice ski day on Whistler side today. A little sunshine in the morning, fairly good snow (it rained down below yesterday, but stayed snow up top). The locals called it awesome snow, but I wouldn't go that far. Just a little heavy, a little wet for my taste. I'm getting complaints I haven't used my digital camera much (Giusti), so here's a few random pictures from the mountain today. Robbie Jones shows up tonight, to do some skiing tomorrow.
Update Sunday, Jan 31st: Skied with Robbie today! Bad visibility, AWESOME snow, which dumped down all day long. Check out the random pictures near the bottom to see views from the condo. Light fluffy snow that makes anyone look like a hero. Whistler doesn't mark trails like you might think. Sometimes they mark the center of a trail, and they don't rope of the cliffs to either side. REALLY strange, extremely dangerous on a bad visibility day. I guess Canada doesn't have very many lawyers.
Update Monday, Feb 1st: SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!! It just won't stop! The top was closed today due to 80 km/hour winds, and as I walked up to the bottom of the Blackcomb gondola a Blackcomb "official greeter" I chatted with tried to convince me to take the day off because it was a blizzard and the top wasn't open. I walked over to a little coffee shop, and got some coffee to think about it. Now, I haven't had any coffee for four days, and half way through the big black cup of joe, I'd decided I felt pretty good, and I was going to ski today. By the time I finished the coffee, I felt like I was born to race. :-) So I geared up, unrolled my hood and zipped it up and put my goggles on over the outside, and went on up. It was a GREAT decision. The wind howled all day long, and some lifts that were running wouldn't allow a single to ride alone (the chairs sway too much with too little weight), but the snow was awesome all day long. During part of the day, it would fill in the tracks you left by the next run. I took a pretty bad head over heels fall in this bumped out tree run called "Bark Sandwich" (see the Blackcomb big map, a little to the right of center) when I caught a ski on a root. Until then I was raging, but after that I decided to ease up. Got another 75 days to go, don't need to break a leg yet. Tomorrow I pack up, check out of the condo, then ski Whistler once more, then drive to Seattle. The next update will hopefully be from Lewiston, Washington in two days.
Today I flew back in from Salt Lake City, and I'm back in Cupertino. Tomorrow I leave for Seattle, to see Doug and Mariliz. The next update of this page will be from Whistler the next day.
Addition Jan 27: stayed with Doug & Mariliz, drove to Whistler.
I'm in Salt Lake City! Today we skied Snowbird, tomorrow we ski Alta, and the following day we ski th Canyans.
It snowed the day before yesterday, so we didn't get first tracks today, but the snow was pretty good, and there was plenty of it.
It's snowing right now!! Fresh Utah powder tomorrow morning!
Addition Jan 24: the Alta powder was amazing. About 12 inches, great quality.
Addition Jan 25: Canyans is huge!And they opened up a lift that was closed yesterday, and we skied in 18 inches of still untracked powder. Sweet!
