Raible Designs

2025 - A Year in Review

2025-12-31T16:15:01-07:00

What a year 2025 has been! From Trish's continuing recovery to Abbie's graduation and Jack's 21st birthday, from epic summer travels to family gatherings across the country, this year has been filled with gratitude, growth, and gorgeous moments.

From last year's review:

I have only one goal for 2025: be grateful.

This goal felt crucial given Trish's injuries at the end of 2024. Her wrist and ankle healed gradually, and by spring she was back to skiing and living life to the fullest. Watching her resilience and determination reminded me to be grateful for our health.

I'm gonna review 2025 using the following perspectives:

Personal

We kicked off 2025 with an incredible family trip to Puerto Rico in early January. Trish went to high school there and had been wanting to take me for years. Abbie, Jack, and my parents all joined us for the adventure. We celebrated my mom's 75th birthday before we left. She's a queen!

The island was everything Trish promised and more. We explored Old San Juan and El Morro, hiked through the El Yunque rainforest (the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System!), and kayaked through bioluminescent waters in Fajardo. The trip was paradise, and Trish reconnected with her roots. You can read more in my Paradise in Puerto Rico blog post.

The 2024-2025 Ski Season

The ski season started slowly due to Trish's injuries and a lack of snow. I didn't get out for cross-country until mid-January after we returned from Puerto Rico. My stats for the year: 10 days of cross-country and only 7 days downhill. Not my best season, but every day on the snow contributes to my happiness.

My first day on the slopes wasn't until February 8th, when I skied with my good friend, Matt Good (aka the Professor), at Winter Park. In March, our nephew James visited for spring break, and we hit the slopes together.

You can read more in my Farewell to the 2024-2025 Ski Season post.

21 Years with Hefe the Bus

April marked a special milestone. Twenty-one years ago, I bought a 21-window VW Bus minutes after DU Hockey won a national title. Hefe has been part of countless adventures since then.

Today, 21 years ago, I bought a 21-window VW Bus minutes after @DU_Hockey won a national title. I'm pumped they're trying for another one this weekend! https://t.co/X2emVbkoN8 #GoDU #VWBus #HefeTheBus pic.twitter.com/9OPwjZeGPw
— Matt Raible (@mraible) April 10, 2025

Jack's Internship Search

In April, I shared Jack's search for a summer internship on LinkedIn. The response was overwhelming and heartwarming. Jack is a junior at CU majoring in information science. He just got a job scouting college basketball teams and gathering stats. He's really excited for the opportunity!

Nuggets Playoff Game

In early May, we had a blast at a Nuggets playoff game with the family. Game night was so much fun!

Game night with the family was soooo much fun!! 🤩 #GoNuggets pic.twitter.com/U4jmLad6Tu
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 4, 2025

Abbie Graduates!

In May, Abbie graduated from the University of Colorado with her degree! We couldn't be prouder of her accomplishments. She had already secured a job as a Product Analyst at Spectrum after an amazing summer internship in 2024. The future is bright for our girl!

Abbie moved back in with us after graduation, bringing her adorable pup Gracie along. Having both of them home has been wonderful, even if Gracie does wake me up every morning for walks!

The Summer of Travel

This summer was absolutely epic. We were only home three weekends between Father's Day and the last day of summer! I wrote a whole blog post about it called The Summer of Travel (2025 Edition), so I'll hit the highlights here.

I moved up to Fraser for the entire month of June with the zoo (two dogs and a cat), enjoying the Fraser River Trail daily. Those Fraser sunsets never get old.

Father's Day brought the fam together for gorgeous golf at Pole Creek. The kids got me a "Best Dad Ever" t-shirt that made me a little emotional.

We rafted Ruby Horsethief Canyon (it took us 8 hours to go 8 miles on day two - next time I'm bringing a motor!), enjoyed Blues From The Top in Winter Park, and loaded up our Suburban for the entire month of July in Montana. My parents' place hosted 15 people for the 4th of July celebration!

We moved to The Last Best Place for the month of July! ??#Montana pic.twitter.com/KQri4NSuT9
— Matt Raible (@mraible) July 1, 2025

The annual Pirates at the Pumphouse rafting trip on the Colorado River never disappoints. Captain Trish commanded Pepples through the rapids like a pro.

Stout the Syncro made it to Del Norte for Rhythms on the Rio and BusCamp. Ed, Karen, Bridget, and the Professor joined us for the weekend of VWs and music.

Next, we headed to Cape Cod, where Trish was in her happy place with family. We celebrated Joe's birthday at New Seabury and enjoyed happy hours on the Spit. Then we moved on to Little Sebago Lake in Maine to visit with Kidder and Norm, my pledge class brothers from 1992!

The highlight of the summer was a five-day raft trip through Desolation Canyon on the Green River in Utah. Dawn, Erik, Chris, Brice, and the whole gang made it unforgettable. We had a wet start but the weather turned gorgeous. This is the kind of trip that reminds you what really matters: time with loved ones, connection with nature, and nights spent under the eternal stars.

We returned from rafting and went straight to Red Rocks the next night for Billy Idol. Trish and Jen are huge fans!

Jack Turns 21!

We headed to Vegas in late August to celebrate Jack's 21st birthday in style. We gifted him five laps in a Lamborghini at Dream Racing on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Watching Jack drive that Lambo around the track was pure joy.

The Professor and Dr. Laura joined us for Smalltown for the Cause in Salida afterward. We enjoyed excellent bluegrass music. As summer wound down, we made it back to Fraser to catch the fall colors.

Jack even got a job working Broncos games for ESPN, and we spotted him on TV!

Abbie's 23rd Birthday

In November, we celebrated Abbie turning 23. She's adjusting to life as a young urban professional and bringing joy into our lives every day. Her company has been treating her well, from yoga on Tuesday mornings to golf lessons on Wednesday afternoons. She even got to play in a tournament at Arrowhead Golf Club!

Thanksgiving in Montana

For Thanksgiving, we flew to Montana for quality time with my family. My parents hosted, and we spent the week visiting with great friends, cooking, enjoying the sauna, playing pool at Mike and Mai's, relaxing, visiting local shops, and soaking up mountain time together. My Dad had heart surgery the week before Thanksgiving to put in a cow valve in his heart. He sometimes moos now. 🐮

December Skiing and Winter Fun

December brought snow to Colorado and family time on the slopes at Winter Park. We like to embrace fun, and Abbie joined us by buying a onesie too!

Christmas in Naples with Trish's Family

We wrapped up the year by heading to Naples, Florida to spend Christmas with Trish's family. After all the mountain time, the beach was a welcome change of scenery. The weather was perfect. Sunny and 75 degrees. Our kids got golf clubs for Christmas, so we played golf a lot. We also visited the Revs Institute (an incredible automotive museum), enjoyed many spectacular sunsets, and had quality time with the whole McGinity Clan. All 15 of us, plus three dogs!

You can see more photos from our Thanksgiving in Montana, December skiing at Winter Park, and Christmas in Naples in the Winter Begins 2025 album on Flickr.

Hefe the Bus and Stout the Syncro

Our beloved VWs continued to bring adventure and joy this year. In April, Stout the Syncro saved my life on the way up to Winter Park. I was cruising along in 2WD when the rear wheels started slipping on black ice. We started drifting at 70 mph, first to the left, then to the right, and eventually sideways. As we headed toward the guardrail, I thought, "Oh my, this is going to hurt!" That's when we hit ice again and the back end flipped around. We went down into the ditch backwards and landed with no harm done. The dogs barely noticed.

Stout also loved camping on the Colorado River for Pirates and posing for photos under the spectacular starry night.

Stout made the trip to Del Norte for Rhythms on the Rio and BusCamp, looking magnificent against the Colorado backdrop. The VW community came out in force, and it reminded us why we love these vehicles so much.

Hefe the Bus had a quieter year after his clutch went out at the end of 2024. I wasn't able to get him into the shop until just before we left for Montana in June, and didn't get him back until late September. By then, we'd missed most of the summer shows. But he's back on the road now and ready for adventures in 2026!

The year ended on a high note when Hefe was featured in the Readers' Showcase of the February 2026 issue of Hot VWs magazine! It's an honor to have him recognized by the VW community in one of the most respected magazines in the scene.

Professional

Professionally, 2025 was my first full year at CrowdStrike. I continued to work on developer.crowdstrike.com, creating blog posts, sample apps, and improving documentation about Falcon Foundry, Fusion SOAR, and Next-Gen SIEM. I got the opportunity to speak at Fal.Con 2025 in Las Vegas, which was nicely timed with Jack's birthday celebration.

The work has been rewarding, helping developers understand how to leverage CrowdStrike's APIs and SDKs. I've learned a tremendous amount about cybersecurity, Python, and the Falcon platform. I appreciate the opportunity to work with such talented people at one of the top cybersecurity companies in the world.

Community

I continued my role as co-lead of JHipster, helping shepherd the project through several releases throughout the year. We shipped JHipster v8.10.0 in March, v8.11.0 in May, and ended the year with the v9.0.0-beta.0 release in December. The community remains strong with consistent downloads and active contributions.

On GitHub, I had 2,935 contributions in 2025, with 44% dedicated to code review, 42% to commits, 13% to pull requests, and 1% to issues. I contributed to CrowdStrike's Foundry sample repositories and 73 other open source projects. It's gratifying to see JHipster continue to thrive after all these years. 🤓

The Denver JUG meetings continued regularly, providing a space for Java developers in the Denver area to connect and learn. Even though I wasn't traveling to conferences as much, staying connected to the local community remained important.

2026

Looking ahead to 2026, I'm excited about what's to come. Professionally, I want to push deeper into the Falcon platform's capabilities and help developers solve harder problems. Getting back on stage at Fal.Con and a few other conferences would be the icing on the cake.

Personally, we're looking forward to more adventures. We hope to visit the Ski Chalet frequently throughout the winter and spend the summer riding, rafting, and visiting friends and family in our favorite places. We're heading to the second weekend of Jazz Fest in New Orleans in the spring!

I have only one goal for 2026: live fully.

Living fully means showing up for every moment, whether it's a powder day at Winter Park, a raft trip on the Colorado, seeing live music, or a fun evening at home cheering for the Nuggets with Trish. It means saying yes to adventures, absolutely to friends, and investing in community relationships by showing up. At this stage of life, with the kids building their own paths and our freedom to explore, I want to squeeze every bit of joy and meaning out of each day. Yes, Trish, it’s time for your RV dreams to come true.

I'm grateful Trish is back in the game. Proud of Abbie for launching her career and Jack for chasing his passion. Thankful for family time in Montana and Florida, for gorgeous Colorado and our mountain retreat, and for friends who join us on the slopes, rivers, and at concerts.

If you'd like to stay in touch, please connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on Flickr where I share photos from our adventures.

Here's to 2026! 🥂

Paradise in Puerto Rico

2025-03-01T16:49:37-07:00

My parents live in northwestern Montana, where the winters are cold, and seldom does the sun shine. To combat the winter doldrums, they have an affection for "chasing the sun" trips in mid-winter.

Trish went to high school in Puerto Rico. She has fond memories of her family, friends, and equestrian competitions there. I've been begging her to take me to Puerto Rico ever since we met almost 15 years ago.

This year, she finally took me! Abbie, Jack, and my parents joined us for the grand adventure in early January. My mom's 75th birthday landed on the weekend before we left. We celebrated with much pomp and circumstance! 🎊

We had a direct flight from Denver to San Juan that took just under six hours. Our hotel, Isla Verde, was conveniently near the airport and the beach.

When staying at a resort, Trish and I like to start our vacations with a pool day. The kids and my parents liked the idea of relaxing in the sun. Trish had only been walking for two weeks because of her ankle. The swimming, mermaid floatey, and Fernando the enthusiastic pool host made for a fun day.

That evening, I introduced Jack to blackjack at the hotel casino. We walked to a nearby casino for better luck and gambled until the wee hours of the morning.

Wednesday was full of exploring. We drove our rental van to see El Morro, a legendary fort from the 1500s, and marveled at its history.

That evening, we dined at Marmalade and were amazed by the cuisine and service. The bill was incredible too. We didn't expect to set a personal record. 😅

Thursday, we ventured to El Yunque National Forest. It's the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System.

We hit the club with the kids that evening.

Friday was our last full day in Puerto Rico, and Trish saved the best adventure for last. A night kayaking trip in Fajardo's bioluminescence bay! It was a bit challenging to see the water sparkling because of a bright half moon, but we were grateful for the light as we paddled through the narrow canals to get to the bay. Jack and my Dad never saw any colors because they didn't realize splashing was required. The rest of us giggled with delight as the streaks of light formed while splashing. The guides put tarps over the group to help suppress the light of the moon.

We woke up Saturday refreshed and proud of the new memories we had created. Puerto Rico was fabulous and often felt like paradise!

Trish had a ball reconnecting with her roots. She started chatting with her high school crew again because of the trip, and she already has her next trip to Puerto Rico planned. Spending a week with family on vacation is wonderful, and we look forward to the next chasing-the-sun trip!

For more tropical photos and a few videos, see my Puerto Rico 2025 album on Flickr.

2024 - A Year in Review

2025-01-31T08:44:59-07:00

Last year brought a few challenges and misfortunes. From changing companies to broken bones, Trish and I learned more about ourselves and our abilities than we ever anticipated. I had seven months off from the beginning of February through the end of July. Trish returned to her passion for horses and started competing near the end of my funemployment. A few months later, her saddle malfunctioned, and she found herself with a broken wrist and a broken ankle.

From last year's review:

I only have one goal for 2024: breathe.

I had plenty of time to breathe, so this turned out to be an excellent goal. Whether it was on the ski slopes or mountain biking, I had lots of heavy breathing in the first half of the year thanks to a nice severance package and a zest for adventure.

I'm gonna review 2024 using the following perspectives:

Personal

The year started with a trip to Cabo San Lucas. Trish and I have a friend with a condo down there, so we joined them for a weekend in mid-January. I stayed the following week, working remotely. Another friend flew in, and we golfed on some of the most beautiful courses I'd ever seen: Palmilla and Solmar. Both were all-inclusive, which I didn't even know existed. It basically means that all drinks and snacks are included. On Sunday, we went deep-sea fishing and caught a couple of Marlin. You haven't experienced forearm pain until you've spent 45 minutes trying to reel in a huge fish. The first one got away at the end, but we successfully landed the second one.

Shortly after, my funemployment began.

I started looking for a new gig in April. Since finding a job is often about who you know, not what you know, I flew to Atlanta for Devnexus and networking. There, I attended the JUG Leaders Summit and the Java Champions Summit before the conference. I spoke about micro frontends with JHipster and stayed for the speaker festivities after. You can read about this experience in A Delightful Trip to Devnexus.

The following week, I did a marvelous road trip to the Utah JUG in Stout the Syncro. I skied at Copper, mountain biked at Fruita and Moab, and skied at Snowbird and Alta before my talk. Then, I hit Steamboat and Winter Park on the way home.

We attended our niece's graduation from Michigan in May, watched the Nuggets lose to the Timberwolves in the playoffs, almost won a fowling (bowling with a football) tournament, and my job search started heating up. At one point, I had 15 interviews in one week and interviewing felt like a full-time job.

We did some fun rafting trips on the Colorado River in June. Our rafting family didn't win any permits in the lottery, so there were no week-long trips.

I wrote about our ski season in late June. My only trip outside the Rockies was to a friend's birthday celebration in Sugarbush, Vermont. The conditions were less optimal than I'm used to. When it snowed a foot on the last day, the power went out and the lifts didn't work. 😅

July brought a trip to Montana, my 50th birthday celebration, and Trish started competing with horses again. I started a new job with CrowdStrike at the very end of the month. You can read about these happenings in Life Update: New Job, Same House, and Same Awesome Family!

Jack turned 20 in August. He didn't try out for the CU basketball team, but still plays a lot. Near the end of the year, he made things official with a love interest and is experiencing a whole new range of emotions.

Abbie celebrated 22 in November. It's her senior year at CU and she shocked us over the Christmas break by breaking up with her boyfriend of five years. Her puppy, Gracie, has been a good emotional support companion.

Hefe the Bus and Stout the Syncro

We rested Stout the Syncro again for most of the year, save for my Utah JUG road trip and a weekend adventure to Rhythms on the Rio in southern Colorado. They had a VW-only camping section right next to the stage, which made the community aspect all the more enjoyable.

Hefe the Bus kept truckin' along. He didn't win any trophies at VWs on the Green this year, but we still had a great time.

We did a cruise to Red Rocks with the Colorado VW Bus Club.

And I replaced our mailbox with something more stylish.

Professional

With a new job at CrowdStrike, most of my time was spent getting up to speed on cybersecurity and CrowdStrike's Falcon-related products. I created developer.crowdstrike.com (powered by Hugo) in my first month. I've been practicing Go and Python and published two blog posts:

I've started working on screencasts too, but none have been published yet.

I studied for and achieved a CCSK (Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge) certification. I also got my CCFA (CrowdStrike Certified Falcon Administrator) certification last week, but technically that didn't happen in 2024.

Speaking

According to TripIt, I took 13 trips to 15 cities in two countries. Only two trips were for conferences: Devnexus and KC/DC. Normally, I'd say they were work-related, but since I was unemployed at the time, community-related is probably a better term.

Community

I continued helping the Denver JUG find speakers and a venue for our meetups. We switched to meeting in south Denver, at Thrive Centennial. This was mostly my decision because they have a larger room and it's closer to my house. We return to Thrive Cherry Creek when the Centennial location is booked.

Projects

The main open source project I worked on in 2024 was JHipster. I became a project co-lead in the spring, mostly to help do releases in a timely manner. JHipster had 10 releases and ~2 million downloads in 2024 (up 700K from 2023). Our most downloaded release was JHipster 8.7.3 on November 1st. We started updating and releasing blueprints before announcing releases.

I love the new website we published on August 28th and releasing JHipster 8.8.0 (with Spring Boot 3.4 and Angular 19 support) on Christmas Eve was a nice way to end the year.

2025

Professionally, I'll be writing (and helping others publish) more blog posts about CrowdStrike's Foundry, Fusion, and Next-Gen SIEM. I might speak at a conference or two. I've submitted to a couple of CFPs and got accepted, but getting approval to speak has been a challenge. As one of the top cybersecurity companies, we traditionally make our documentation and tutorials only available to customers. When folks talk about our APIs and (open source) SDKs, it's at one of our Fal.Con conferences.

My leadership team would prefer I do talks and workshops about Foundry, Fusion, and Next-Gen SIEM. Since these are products we sell, I feel like any talk I'd do about them would be a vendor pitch, even if I live-coded the whole time. This is a no-go for most developer conferences. It should work nicely for Fal.Con, though. And that might be all that's required since it sells out every year.

Personally, our big family vacation already happened with a visit to Puerto Rico in early January. I'll write about that in a blog post shortly. Abbie graduates from CU in May and starts her career this summer. We'll be celebrating, supporting, and planning some adventures with her when she moves back in. We hope to work remotely from Winter Park in June and Montana in July. We figure if we can work East Coast hours, we can have some fun rafting/biking/golfing adventures in the afternoons and evenings.

I have only one goal for 2025: be grateful.

I have a lot to be thankful for with an awesome family, a gorgeous place to live, adventurous hobbies, and fun VWs to drive. And, Trish got us VIP tickets to Dead & Company at the Sphere in May! She started following the Grateful Dead in the 90s with multi-day shows and wanted to finish her long strange trip in a similar fashion.

If you want to stay in touch, please connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on Flickr.

2023 - A Year in Review

2024-01-06T18:16:02-07:00

2023 started with a celebration of love in the Philippines. Trish and I traveled with friends to El Nido and Manila to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. It was a two-week trip that filled our souls with lasting memories.

2023 was a milestone year for our family. It's the year Jack graduated from high school!

Then, the Denver Nuggets won the NBA Championship, Jack started college at CU, and we became empty nesters. It was quite the year!

From last year's review:

I only have one goal for 2023: be present.

I live where I work, so this was easy enough on a physical level. However, I was forced to be even more present in Q4 of the year. My manager asked me to step up and be more present on my team in October. Then, sickness struck me down in mid-November after seven weeks of travel, allowing for some quality one-on-one time with Trish.

I will look back on 2023 using the following categories.

Personal

The ski season was excellent with trips to Winter Park, Devil's Thumb Ranch, Crested Butte, and Steamboat.

We celebrated my sister's St. Paddy's Day birthday with a week in New Orleans. We visited my parents in Montana for Mother's Day.

Recharging in the backwoods of Montana with family. Started the day with coffee, mimosas, and huckleberry pancakes. ☕️🥂😋

Happy Mother's Day to all the incredible moms out there! ❤️? pic.twitter.com/sjmChuzNpo
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 14, 2023

We jumped for joy during Jack's High School Graduation at the end of May!

We celebrated our son Jack's high school graduation this week and had a fabulous time with family and friends. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

See the full album on Flickr with Julie and Trish's awesome photos: https://t.co/XSoUZnjOSk

Congratulations, Jack! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/1Ea1LZrFML
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 27, 2023

The Nuggets playoff run was magical, and our half-season tickets came in quite handy. The Denver Nuggets won the NBA Championship on June 12th. Crying from joy is a wonderful feeling. 🥹

I took a long summer vacation for the fourth year in a row. Thanks, Okta's unlimited vacation policy!

In 24 hours, I'll be starting my summer vacation. @okta has an unlimited vacation policy, and I'm taking full advantage with a month off! 😃

What will I do?

⛳️ Golf, raft, and bike
🛶 Live down by the river in a van
⛰️ Shoot the breeze in Montana
🌊 Tour Cape Cod#LifeAtOkta
— Matt Raible (@mraible) July 13, 2023

I wrote about my summer vacation adventures in Summer 2023: Colorado, Montana, and Cape Cod.

Jack started college at the University of Colorado on his birthday. We loved the Coach Prime and CU football experience in September, while the Broncos were terrible. When CU started sucking at halftime during the Stanford game, the teams seemed to swap fates. We relished in the Broncos winning streak in October and November as our CU football fandom waned.

Abbie turned 21 in early November. We celebrated at the CU vs. Oregon State game and again in Las Vegas the following weekend.

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A post shared by Matt Raible (@vwsforlife)

The last months of the year were dominated by real estate transactions. We sold our rental house near the University of Denver in early November.

And we bought a new ski chalet near Winter Park in December. It has mountain views with a river nearby and close proximity to many miles of mountain bike trails. We plan to rent it most of the time. We've experienced many misty-eyed moments of joy in it already.

We spent Christmas in Florida with Abbie, Jack, and Trish's whole family. The sunsets were gorgeous.

Hefe the Bus and Stout the Syncro

We gave Stout the Syncro a lot of rest this year. We bought a relatively new Chevy Suburban as a new tow vehicle for our whitewater rafts. We celebrated our 10-year anniversary by rafting on the Upper Colorado River with both vehicles.

Hefe the Bus purred along with no issues. He won runner-up in his class this year at the Colorado Bug-In!

Professional

For those stumbling upon this post with no context, I'm an open source developer that works at Okta. My title is officially "Developer Advocate Architect" and all the code I write is open source.

This year, my main focus was leading the Java Community team as part of Auth0 by Okta Developer Relations. I worked with Deepu K Sasidharan and Jimena Garbarino to come up with ideas, write blog posts, and author tutorials for the Auth0 Developer Center.

My Americas Developer Relations team has one main function: cultivating relationships with developers via events. Personally, I like creating content more than events, yet I've also found they go hand-in-hand. The content I create often gets turned into conference talks, so I find it important to create new content if I want new talks. I mention this because it's not my main job to produce content. There's another team that does content, but they currently have no Java specialists.

I published two blog posts on the Auth0 blog:

We used the microservices post as the basis for Deepu and my Securing Spring Boot Microservices with OAuth and OpenID Connect workshop at Devoxx Belgium.

On the OktaDev YouTube Channel, I created four screencasts (down from 12 in 2022).

My most popular video was Spring Boot + Vue, with 8.6K views.

My Use React and Spring Boot to Build a Simple CRUD App screencast has 22K views, but it was published on December 29, 2022, so it doesn't count for 2023.

While at Devoxx Belgium, Deepu and I interviewed a bunch of Java community legends.

We had a lot of fun interviewing @errcraft and @Stephan007 at #Devoxx Belgium. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/XtIij77YI8
— Matt Raible (@mraible) October 7, 2023

I did a couple more interviews with the OpenFGA team at KubeCon.

I updated and released new versions of the JHipster and Angular Mini-Books with the help of InfoQ and awesome tech editors.

InfoQ allows publishing them on other sites after six months, so they're both available online at jhipster-book.org and angular-book.org.

Speaking

According to TripIt, I took 21 trips to 37 cities in eight countries. Nine trips were work-related; the rest involved traveling to see family or attending Celebration of Life events. That's three fewer trips than in 2022, and I had 109 days on the road (-14 from 2022). United 1K was enjoyed; I did not qualify for it in 2024.

My Speaker Deck profile shows 18 presentations at 17 events. Thirteen of those were in person. I also attended KubeCon to help the OpenFGA project. My most-viewed presentation was Comparing Native Java REST API Frameworks from the Chicago JUG in August. It had 1.2K views.

While the Midwest and Northeast JUG tours were a lot of fun, the highlight of the year was interviewing James Gosling at Devoxx Belgium.

Digging into all things @Java with the founder himself, James Gosling!

Developer Advocate @mraible had an insightful chat covering @Devoxx, Java and everything in between! 🚀 pic.twitter.com/2pfRIlZVhi
— OktaDev (@oktadev) November 27, 2023

Community

We stopped live-streaming Denver JUG meetups because we wanted to encourage folks to join us in person and grow our community. We're grateful to the folks at Thrive Workplace for donating their space. We hope to start meeting at their new downtown location near Union Station sometime this year.

Projects

I continued to maintain OktaDev Schematics in 2023. The project had four releases. According to npm-stat.com, it had ~42K downloads in 2023 (-20K from 2022).

I updated my Bare Bones Angular tutorial for Angular 17.

I updated my Bare Bones 🦴 Angular tutorial to use #Angular 17.

?? https://t.co/7fsyzOOaNP

It includes:

✅ New syntax for control flow
✅ Standalone components
✅ Unit, e2e, and CI testing
✨ Bonus: Angular Material, Bootstrap, and @auth0

I hope you find it useful!
— Matt Raible (@mraible) December 4, 2023

I also helped with the JHipster project. It turned 10 in October.

Can you believe that @jhipster is 10 years old today?!

Happy Birthday, JHipster! And congratulations to its proud Papa, @juliendubois! 🎊

⭐? 21K stars on GitHub
🤝 52.4K used by
❤️ 696 contributors

It's been an excellent adventure! 🤓 https://t.co/VqZdoDRtBS
— Matt Raible (@mraible) October 21, 2023

JHipster had eight releases and ~1.3 million downloads in 2023 (down 200K from 2022). Our biggest release was JHipster 8.0.0 on November 2nd. We released 8.1.0 in early December, and I updated my Get Started with JHipster 8 tutorial to use it.

My Getting Started with JHipster 8 tutorial is now available!

🤓 https://t.co/6nBfPR33Dk

Features:

🌹 Enhanced UI with Angular
🔐 Increased security with ownership checks
💜 Deployment to Heroku
🤠 CI/CD with GitHub Actions#jhipster #java #typescript pic.twitter.com/xE8Ra9E9w6
— Matt Raible (@mraible) December 14, 2023

I also published a screencast of the tutorial just before Christmas.

2024

Professionally, I'm starting the year with two of my favorite conferences, Jfokus and Devnexus. Then, I'm doing a JUG tour in April to Salt Lake City, Dallas, Tampa, Nashville, and Detroit. I'm trying to make Spring I/O and JNation happen too. September's dev2next is sure to be a fun conference in Denver. You can see where my whole team will be on our events page.

Personally, Trish and I hope to visit the Ski Chalet frequently. The mountains are calling, and we must go. I'll be a half-century old in July. That's sure to be a good party, especially if it's during another month-long summer vacation.

I have only one goal for 2024: breathe.

I often pause, breathe, and smile when I'm skiing, mountain biking, rafting, and frolicking in the great outdoors. Sometimes it's nature's beauty that causes this, but often it's my own satisfaction with the situation.

If you want to watch me connect with developers and opt outside, please follow me on Twitter. I also post pictures of my favorite moments on Instagram and whole albums on Flickr.

2022 - A Year in Review

2023-02-10T09:34:31-07:00

When 2022 started, I was excited to start traveling again. We started things off with a trip to Mexico and worked remotely from the Cabo San Lucas marina for a couple of weeks. In March, the kids and I ventured to the Cayman Islands for spring break. We arrived home to a red-hot DU hockey team and followed them all the way to the Frozen Four. I went to college at DU, aka the University of Denver, and I'm a proud alumnus.

I made my way to Boston to work on a presentation with a co-worker, nicely coinciding with the Frozen Four tournament. A few friends and I had the time of our lives watching DU win the NCAA championship. After staying up late and celebrating, I felt awful the next day. I flew home and still felt terrible on Monday. Figuring it was a bad cold from over-indulgence, I took a COVID test, tested negative, and hopped on a plane to Devnexus on Tuesday. That week did not end well.

I tested positive for COVID this morning. I'm so sorry to all the people and friends I came in contact with at @devnexus this week. I feel like such an ass.

I thought I was OK because I tested negative Tuesday morning and never lost my sense of taste and smell. https://t.co/lR5tdOM2gP
— Matt Raible (@mraible) April 15, 2022

From last year's year in review:

I only have one goal for 2022: smile more.

I rediscovered one of the things that makes me smile a lot: in-person meetups with friends. I had so much fun at Devnexus seeing old friends from the conference circuit. This continued at Spring I/O in Barcelona and at JavaOne in the fall. Being with family always makes me smile too. A trip to Alaska to celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary was a highlight of the year!

I will look back on 2022 using the following categories.

Professional

For those stumbling upon this post with no context, I'm an open source developer that works at Okta. My title is officially "Developer Advocate," but all the code and words I write are distributed as open source.

This year, I focused on creating YouTube videos more than blog posts. On the OktaDev YouTube Channel, I created 12 videos (same as 2021). My most popular video (11K views) was based on a blog post I wrote in January called Full Stack Java with React, Spring Boot, and JHipster.

I published the Angular Mini-Book 2.0. When writing blog posts, I focused mostly on Java, REST APIs, and JHipster, with a bit of JavaScript too. I authored 11 blog posts on the Okta developer blog:

I published four blog posts to the Auth0 blog.

Last year, I was celebrating new teammates Deepu K Sasidharan, Alisa Duncan, E. Dunham, and Tanay Pant. This summer, I moved to the Auth0 DevRel team and have a plethora of new teammates to collaborate with. I'm excited to help grow Auth0 usage in the Java community, and I'm pumped to work closely with Deepu to make it happen.

I continued to stream meetups for the Denver/Boulder JUG and Denver Open Source Users Group (DOSUG). We used StreamYard and YouTube to broadcast our meetups. We published nine videos to the Denver JUG YouTube Channel. We only published two videos to the Denver Open Source Users Group Channel, but we did meet in-person! We're grateful to the folks at Thrive Workplace for donating their space.

Denver JUG is now up to 3,688 members. Our most popular video in 2022 was from Gordon Weakliem on Coding Interviews for Java Developers.

Speaking

According to TripIt, I took 24 trips, to 45 cities, in 11 countries. 13 trips were work-related, and the rest involved traveling to see family. That's 11 more trips than in 2021, and I had 123 days on the road (+46 from 2021). United 1K was achieved.

My Speaker Deck profile shows 12 presentations at 12 events. 11 of those were in-person. I missed Devoxx France because I caught COVID in April at the NCAA Frozen Four tournament. I later live-streamed my presentation on Comparing Native Java REST API Frameworks. This was also my most-viewed presentation on Speaker Deck with 3.1K views.

I had a full room of attendees for my talk on Reactive Microservices at Spring I/O in Barcelona. Even the overflow room was packed!

My @jhipster talk at @spring_io had a lot of awesome people in it! Thank you all for your enthusiasm and smiles. 😃 pic.twitter.com/u4pOtOSbkl
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 26, 2022

I had a lot of fun doing a September JUG tour in Ireland. My folks tagged along. It was a fast-moving trip with new hotels most nights. At their age, they'll unlikely join me for a JUG tour again. 😅

We stopped by the @okta Dublin office this morning in the Bloodstone building. Great location with a fun vibe about it. 👍 pic.twitter.com/vvaeswAvT0
— Matt Raible (@mraible) September 29, 2022

JavaOne returned in October and was held in Las Vegas for the first time. I spoke about Micro Frontends for Java Microservices and loved spending time with the Java community.

The community at #JavaOne is amazing! pic.twitter.com/IwOdr3V7gx
— Matt Raible (@mraible) October 19, 2022

Late October brought me to the UK for another JUG tour. It was a lot of fun hosting it at the Okta office there.

It was a pleasure talking with the @ljcjug tonight about web app security for Java developers. The #Java community is strong in London! 💪

Thanks to @OctopusDeploy for sponsoring and @okta for hosting. It was fun to see a full house with all the seats filled by the end. 😃 pic.twitter.com/SmtvRgw1Jh
— Matt Raible (@mraible) October 27, 2022

I originally planned my UK JUG tour to coincide with the Broncos playing in London, but their record was so bad by then that I flew home early. Coincidentally, they won that weekend.

Oktane followed soon after. It was the first time meeting some of my teammates in-person. I wore an { okta } cape and thoroughly enjoyed the developer track we assembled.

Excited for the developer keynote at #Oktane22! pic.twitter.com/Jy2XPDoIxx
— Matt Raible (@mraible) November 9, 2022

In December, we had our first in-person Denver JUG meetup since the pandemic began. It was awesome seeing everyone again!

Had a blast at the @denverjug holiday party tonight! Thanks to all the local @java folks that joined in the fun. 😀 pic.twitter.com/sI9tsbrlk7
— Matt Raible (@mraible) December 15, 2022

We've had a couple of meetups since then but are still looking for a nice venue to gather. Frank Delporte recently interviewed the organizers for the Boulder and Denver JUGs on the Foojay Podcast. Check out Episode #13 if you're interested in hearing about our group's history.

Community

In the past, I used this section to talk about meetups I've started, like Developer Ski Days and Devoxx4Kids Denver. We didn't host any events in 2022, but I might organize a developer ski day soon. Right before COVID hit, we had a ski train to Winter Park adventure planned. It was supposed to happen right after Venkat's dev.next conference. I'd love to try and do that again.

Projects

I continued to maintain OktaDev Schematics in 2022. The project had five releases. I added support for Auth0's SDKs, which helps ensure I know how to use the latest versions. According to npm-stat.com, it had ~62K downloads in 2022 (+2K from 2021).

My other projects are related to JHipster. I helped upgrade the main generator to Spring Boot 3 and did a lot of QA for micro frontends. We had eight releases and ~1.5 million downloads in 2022 (down 300K from 2021). We've worked hard on JHipster 8 and hope to release an alpha version soon.

I spent most of the year (in fits and spurts) working on the JHipster Mini-Book.

My author *finally* finished updating my intro and chapter 1 for @jhipster 7. He started working on this PR in March!https://t.co/R0h09xXle2

What took so long? 🧵
— The JHipster Mini-Book (@jhipster_book) December 2, 2022

I sent the book to tech editing just before Christmas vacation and got it back from the copy editors at InfoQ this week. Hopefully, it'll be available for download by the end of this month!

I helped create the JHipster Native blueprint in early 2022 and wrote about how to use it in Introducing Spring Native for JHipster: Serverless Full-Stack Made Easy. We converted Ionic for JHipster into a blueprint and updated JHipster React Native. I wrote about them both on the OktaDev and Auth0 blogs:

Personal

We started the year with a trip to Cabo San Lucas with my parents and sisters. My parents like to do a "chasing the sun" trip in the midst of winter because they live in the backwoods of Montana, and the sun doesn't shine a whole lot.

I had difficulties getting my passport renewed in March, but succeeded after learning a local government official can help expedite things. Once I got a new passport, Abbie, Jack, and I had a blast with Trish's brother's family in Grand Cayman.

The 2021-2022 ski season was pretty good. This year is shaping up to be much better! I already have 24 days in, and we're only halfway through the season!

For the third year in a row, I took a long summer vacation thanks to Okta's unlimited vacation policy.

In 24 hours, I'll be starting my summer vacation. @okta has an unlimited vacation policy and I'm taking full advantage with a month off! 😃

What will I do?

🏔 A week in Alaska
🤠 A RV trip to Montana
🛶 A week-long rafting trip
🤘 Def Leppard / Mötley Crüe concert#LifeAtOkta
— Matt Raible (@mraible) June 16, 2022

Celebrating my parent's 50th in Alaska was fantastic!

And so was the Colorado Avalanche's Stanley Cup victory. 🥳

We managed to go rafting a lot in July. Five nights camping on the Green River was our favorite trip.

I celebrated 20 years of blogging in August. Jack turned 18 at the end of the month.

I took the kids to the first game of the Broncos' season in Seattle. Their stadium had a sweet view of the city. We did not expect to lose that game.

We enjoyed a beautiful @Broncos sunset in Seattle last night. 😊 pic.twitter.com/OVchzB6zYe
— Matt Raible (@mraible) September 12, 2022

The fall was filled with a disappointing Broncos season, Abbie's 20th birthday, and an even more disappointing CU Buffaloes football season. We have elevated hopes for both the CU Buffs and the Denver Broncos in 2023!

We had a blast celebrating @AbbieRaible's birthday this weekend! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/69AKuDOp17
— Matt Raible (@mraible) November 7, 2022

In the meantime, we're big Nuggets and Avalanche fans and are excited for their playoff runs this spring.

Trish and I ended the year celebrating love in the Philippines.

Hefe the Bus and Stout the Syncro

Stout the Syncro's Subaru engine died in February. Because of this, I decided it was a good time to restore him like Hefe with a new paint job, interior, and other improvements. We hauled him to our favorite Vanagon mechanics, Mr. Mechanic, to install a new Subaru Outback engine. Trish bought me a temporary Tesla to tide me over because we figured the restoration might take six months to a year. I named it White Lightning.

As luck would have it, we couldn't find anyone to do the bodywork and paint, so we ended up getting it back with a new engine in June. After experiencing several expensive adjustments after the new engine, I'm still driving my temporary Tesla, and Stout is parked in our barn. Trish wants to trade White Lightning for an RV (a 20-year dream of hers), while I'm hoping to swap it for an ID Buzz.

The year's VW highlight was the Colorado Bug-In at Bandimere Speedway. Stout won runner-up in his class, while Hefe won the whole kit and kaboodle: Best in Class, Best Interior, and Best of Show!! 😆

I'm back from summer vacation today and feeling fantastic! #HefeTheBus won Best of Show, Best Interior, and his class at the Colorado Bug-In yesterday!!

Winning Best of Show at the Bug-In was a bucket list item for me when I bought him way back in 2004. So proud! 🥳 #vwbus pic.twitter.com/Vm4p1KQNcl
— Matt Raible (@mraible) July 25, 2022

We're still featured on the Bandimere website as the Best of Show winners.

2023

Professionally, I hope to do some JUG tours in the US this year. I joined the Auth0 product unit at Okta in August, and they're much more regionally focused than my former OktaDev team was. This is largely because we have developer advocates worldwide, and it's more sustainable if Deepu hits the Java conferences in Europe while I focus on the US. If you're interested in seeing where my team will be in 2023, see developer.auth0.com/events.

This will be a big year for our family. Jack graduates high school in May, and we'll become empty nesters in August. He got accepted to CU a couple of weeks ago and will join his sister up in Boulder! With Coach Prime on board, we're hoping for some good CU football games this season. Because it's his last six months at home, I'm skipping conferences that happen while he's at our house.

I only have one goal for 2023: be present.

I've noticed that this is easy if I'm playing with friends or visiting family. Putting down my phone, listening, and paying attention on Zoom calls is my jam this year.

If you want to follow along on my adventures, please follow me on Twitter. I also post pictures of my favorite moments on Instagram and whole albums on Flickr.

Celebrating Love in the Philippines

2023-01-18T11:26:45-07:00

About a year ago, our friends Aris and Jen mentioned they were going to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in the Philippines. Trish and I said "we'll go!" before they even invited us. Not only were Aris and Jen celebrating, but Aris's parents were also celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. We were excited to join in the festivities and booked our flights last September.

Our journey began the day after Christmas, in the early morning. We started with a flight to San Francisco.

Our flight was a bit delayed, as was our from San Francisco to Honolulu. We missed our connection to Guam, so got to spend the night in Honolulu on United.

The next day, we flew to Guam. This was fun because Trish was born in Guam. Another flight to Manila and we were able to rest for the night. Since we were delayed by a day, we missed our flight to El Nido and had to book a new one to Puerto Princessa instead. Puerto Princesa is the capital of Palawan, the island where El Nido is located. We took a five-hour private shuttle from Puerto Princesa to El Nido. The number of dogs, people, and motorbikes on the road was incredible. We were glad to finally arrive at our hotel, the El Nido Garden Resort.

The next day, we took a boat island hopping with our whole crew of 16. We visited a few beaches, a cave, and some folks went kayaking. It rained most of the day, but it wasn't cold and we had a blast anyway.

That evening, Trish and I joined Aris and Jen for dinner at the place they were hoping to renew their vows. To get there, we took a path that turned into a muddy trail, that ended with a walk on two-by-fours over an alligator farm. We gladly accepted the restaurant's offer for a speedboat ride back to El Nido after dinner.

Massages were 10 USD, so we enjoyed as many as we could. Some people even got two in the same day. We celebrated New Year's Eve together complete with illegal fireworks on the beach.

We gathered the next afternoon to renew Aris and Jen's vows. It was a small ceremony with family + Trish and I.

Trish took a gorgeous photo of the sunset that evening.

We did another island hopping tour in El Nido, spent some time at Lio Beach, and splashed around in the resort's pool. We also had several more massages and delicious meals.

We took a flight to Manila for the second half of our vacation. We stayed at the Manila Marriott, where we received lounge privileges thanks to all my travel last year. This was awesome because they had a full breakfast buffet, afternoon snacks, and evening cocktails. We also had a great view of the golf course from our room.

Our hotel was far from the rest of our crew, but it was kinda cool that it had a mall and casino attached to it. We spent a morning exploring it, and I even doubled my money at the Blackjack table one evening.

In the evenings, we'd meet up with the Velasquez family for dinner and entertainment.

One evening, we rented a private karaoke room and spent several hours singing and laughing. Another, we went to Aris's aunt's house and marveled at her rooftop patio with a basketball court.

Finally, we gathered at Gazebo Royale for the 50th wedding anniversary celebration.

We ended the night at a relative's house nearby, where Jen did what she does best, singing her heart out!

It was incredibly fun to travel to the other side of the world with friends. Trish and I've traveled the world together before, but this was the first time we've traveled with so many friends. We're already planning our next trip together in 2025.

For more photos, see my Aris and Jen's 25th in the Philippines album on Flickr.

Thank you soooo much for including us, Aris and Jen! We loved celebrating love with you and your family in the Philippines!! ❤️

How to Renew Your Passport Quickly (aka The Cayman Islands Spring Break That Almost Wasn't)

2022-04-05T11:22:02-06:00

tl;dr Call your member of Congress or Senator if you need help getting a passport appointment.

When we renewed our kids' passports in October 2021, it only took a few weeks for their new ones to arrive in our mailbox. Trish and I sent our passports for renewal in late November, expecting a similar quick turnaround. I received mine back a couple of weeks later because I'd forgotten an essential item - the check to pay for it. Trish didn't receive hers in December, so she set up an appointment at the Colorado Passport Agency. We're very fortunate as this office is just seven miles away from us.

The only appointment Trish could get was on the same day as our flight to Cabo San Lucas in early January. Her appointment was at 9am, and our flight was at 11:25am. She found out during her appointment that she didn't receive a new passport in December because our dogs scared off the delivery driver. She'd ordered expedited delivery; that's why they tried to deliver to our front porch instead of dropping it in the mailbox.

The passport office was able to turn things around quickly and she arrived at the airport, new passport in hand, at 10:45am. 40 minutes wasn't enough time, according to the checkin counter, so she had to reschedule her flight for the next day. This was unfortunate since we waited at the gate for 45 minutes due to delays.

Mexico was fabulous.

I didn't opt for expedited delivery when I re-sent my passport for renewal in late January. I was worried that delivery might fail because of the dogs, everyone else had gotten their passports in a few weeks, and I had no international travel scheduled. February came and went. I realized in early March that we didn't have any plans for Spring Break. As a father with a teenage son flying solo at home and Trish off to ski with a friend during his Spring Break week, I felt obligated to schedule something fun. I contacted Trish's brother, confirmed a niece and nephew had the same Spring Break, and we started planning. We had lodging and flights booked for a week in the Cayman Islands within a few days.

That's when I realized I didn't have my passport back yet. Ten days before our flight, I called the Colorado Passport Agency and tried to get an appointment. I didn't realize you were supposed to call ten business days before your flight. Regardless, I dialed in at 8am EST and was on hold for 2.5 hours before giving up. I kept calling every so often for the next week. I slipped into a funk about a week before our flight. I'd booked this cool trip with Jack, and it looked like I'd be unable to join him. Good job, Dad.

This funk lasted a couple of days as I kept trying to get an appointment and failing. I think it was Wednesday of that week when I changed my attitude. Our flight was the following Tuesday, at 5am on March 15.

Enter the Law of Attraction

I changed my attitude to one that embraced the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction is essentially, "if you believe enough, it will happen." I've only used it once previously in my life. That's when I dreamed up Trish. I texted my in-laws and Trish with my newfound determination and told them it was gonna happen, and they should enjoy watching me succeed. After repeatedly calling on Thursday, I decided to head down to the passport agency on Friday and hang out right by the entrance on the 6th floor. I arrived at 7:45am (they open at 8am) with my lucky Grateful Dead shirt on, hoping that I'd find some sympathy from someone.

There was already a line when I arrived, as well as a woman that was panicking about her flight to Jamaica that night (from Salt Lake City) with her son. She'd recently discovered her son's passport was expired, and she had to get on the flight. She asked if anyone in line would be willing to give up their spot for her. People seemed to know this wasn't an option, and the security guard confirmed she wasn't allowed to do it. I felt the lady's hopelessness, but I also didn't think there was a solution. Around 9am, she walked out of the office with her son. 20 minutes later, she returned, showed her confirmation number to the security guard, and was admitted. "Whoa!" I thought to myself; there's hope!

At around 10am, the Jamaica-bound lady emerged from the office. I asked her how she did it. She said someone in line had told her to call a congress member in Colorado Springs, and they got her an appointment! I received a similar tip moments before I talked to her. I started calling my local congressman and senators frantically, as well as the person she called. I spent the next hour calling folks, leaving messages, and filling out website forms. By 11:30am, I had an appointment for 9:30am on Monday!

Later that day, I received a voicemail hours after it'd been left. My local congressman, Jason Crow, had scheduled an appointment for me the same day at 1pm. Unfortunately, I didn't receive the message in time. All of the other folks I called responded too! Senator John Hickenlooper's office called me Monday morning and was willing to make things happen immediately. Ultimately, it was Liz from Colorado Springs that made it happen. In hindsight, all the others did too!

I was ecstatic. The Law of Attraction had worked once again!

We enjoyed the heck out of Grand Cayman. Abbie even joined us at the last minute. Thanks to my in-laws, Matt and Eva, for planning such a fun trip and letting us tag along!

P.S. We also found it quite convenient that we could take at-home COVID tests before traveling to and from the Caymans. AZOVA made it easy to schedule our tests. They observed us via webcam when we took the tests and emailed us the results as a PDF within minutes.

2021 - A Year in Review

2022-01-02T22:38:01-07:00

I didn't expect to travel much in 2021, mostly because of my promise to myself to take a year off. When I got fully-vaxxed in April, I expected things to return to normal and we'd all be traveling to conferences again by early fall.

I'm happy to announce that I'm #FullyVaccinated. Had 2nd @pfizer shot on Apr 14. I feel lucky 🍀 to have experienced no symptoms other than extreme joy. 🥳@TrishPhoto and I just finished a 23-day sugar detox too. We're feeling good!! ✌️ pic.twitter.com/6chqkFbPB7
— Matt Raible (@mraible) April 28, 2021

2021 was a milestone year for our family. It's the year Abbie graduated from high school! We planned and executed a fun party with family and friends at the Raible Ranch in early June.

She did it! Congratulations @AbbieRaible!! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/G1Zz3QTHa4
— Matt Raible (@mraible) June 4, 2021

From last year's year in review:

I only have one goal for 2021: dance more 🕺

When I mentioned this to Trish, she laughed and pointed to our living room, which she recently re-arranged to open up a nice dance floor. I probably danced more in 2021 than 2020, but that's not saying much. My favorite concert this year was Greensky Bluegrass at Red Rocks. It helped that I was with old friends Bruce Snyder and Matt Good and Bruce got us front row seats.

We tried to go to Jazz Fest in October, but it got cancelled because of COVID.

I'm going to look back on 2021 using the following categories.

Professional

This year, I focused on creating YouTube videos more than blog posts. On the OktaDev YouTube Channel, I published 12 videos (-8 from 2020). My most popular video (13K views) was based on a blog post I published in January called Reactive Java Microservices with Spring Boot and JHipster.

I only published five blog posts to the Okta developer blog. You can see that I focused on Spring Boot, JHipster, and GraalVM.

It's interesting to look back and see I didn't author any JavaScript topics. I like to think that's because I spent all my JavaScript time working on the Angular Mini-Book. I smiled a lot after finishing v1.0 in November.

The Angular Mini-Book 1.0 is now available! 🥳

🅰️ https://t.co/JEKxQ2A9hr #angular #typescript #springboot #kotlin pic.twitter.com/MYcXH5fQ1i
— Matt Raible (@mraible) November 17, 2021

My team published 12 JavaScript-related blog posts in 2021. To compare, we published 20 Java-related posts. We hope to publish more posts for both topics and many others in 2022. I'm super excited to work with new teammates Deepu K Sasidharan, Alisa Duncan, E. Dunham, and Tanay Pant!

I continued to record meetups for the Denver/Boulder JUG and Denver Open Source Users group (DOSUG). We used StreamYard and YouTube to broadcast our meetups. We published 10 videos to the Denver JUG YouTube Channel. We only published three videos to the Denver Open Source Users Group Channel, but we did successfully hold two of those meetups in-person! We're grateful to the folks at Thrive Workplace for donating their space.

Denver JUG is now up to 3,618 members. Our most popular video in 2021 was from yours truly on Reactive Microservices with Spring Boot and JHipster. 🥳

In 2020, I published 15 blog posts on the Okta developer blog. In 2021, I only published five. My reduction in content can be explained by a three-month gap in publishing where I worked on updating 200+ blog posts to use the Okta CLI (because our admin UI changed). My lack of thought leadership posts didn't help either. We publish two types of blog posts: thought leadership and conversion. Thought leadership posts tend to be about a hot topic, while conversion posts are usually tutorials. They're usually quicker to write, and I plan to write more in 2022.

Speaking

According to TripIt, I took 13 trips, to 15 cities, in one country (USA). Only a few were work-related. That's three more trips than 2020, and I had 77 days on the road (-8 from 2020).

My Speaker Deck profile shows 16 presentations at 14 events. Four of those were in-person, the rest were virtual.

jChampions Conferences with Ray Tsang
Richmond JUG
JavaLand
Colorado Springs Open Source Users Group
St. Louis Java User's Group
Denver Java Users Group
SpringOne with Brian Demers

Denver Open Source Users Group
The San Francisco Java User Group with Josh Long
ÜberConf
Joker<?> with Brian Demers
Connect.Tech
The Progressive Web Experience
Garden State Java User Group with Josh Long

My most-viewed presentation was Java REST API Framework Comparison from the Progressive Web Experience with 3.1K views.

My favorite conference experience was Summer Tech Forum in Crested Butte. My involvement was inspired by James Ward.

Look ?? -- I found @_JamesWard in the woods today! #CrestedButte #Singletrack #Colorado #SummerTechForum pic.twitter.com/rKbSMbbOa9
— Matt Raible (@mraible) August 18, 2021

I thouroughly enjoyed traveling to San Francisco to speak with Josh Long at the San Francisco JUG. It was a virtual event, but we spoke together from his home.

Let the games begin with @starbuxman! #Java #SpringNative #JHipster pic.twitter.com/0KSRTd89e5
— Matt Raible (@mraible) September 28, 2021

I hope to do more of this in 2022. ÜberConf, Connect.Tech, and the Progressive Web Experience were also in-person. Hanging out with fellow speakers (especially James Ward and Pratik Patel) after speaking was a rejuvenating experience for my soul. 🤗

There's even some #UsualSuspects here! Good to see you @_JamesWard and @knight_cloud. 😀 pic.twitter.com/2CSBTRvG7U
— Matt Raible (@mraible) October 7, 2021

Community

In the past, I used this section to talk about meetups I've started like Developer Ski Days and Devoxx4Kids Denver. We didn't host any events in 2021, but I might try to organize a developer ski day soon.

Projects

I continued to maintain OktaDev Schematics in 2021. The project had 16 releases. Working on it helps me keep up with changes in Angular, React, Vue, Ionic, and React Native and helps ensure I know how to use the latest Okta SDKs. According to npm-stat.com, it had ~60K downloads in 2021.

My other projects are related to JHipster. I didn't contribute anything significant, but I helped QA Micro Frontends support and Spring Boot upgrades. We had eight releases and ~1.8 million downloads in 2021. 🤓

I did not work on the JHipster Mini-Book in 2021, but I hope to update it for JHipster 7 this year. I said that last year, but it's actually on my calendar for February 1. You can watch my progress on GitHub.

Ionic for JHipster had four releases in 2021 and around ~12K downloads.

Personal

My parents are city kids that retired in the backwoods of Montana. They can't explain why they did it, but they know that a chasing the sun trip is part of what makes them happy in the winter. We started doing this family trip in the last few years, starting with New Orleans in 2020 and continuing with Hawaii in 2021.

I was gung ho for ski season last year and rented a condo for six weeks in downtown Winter Park to ski during the week. My stats for the season were decent: 28 days cross-country skiing, 23 days downhill. I had 51 combined days!

Abbie Graduates!

Shortly after ski season is high school graduations. We had a graduate this year and couldn't be prouder of Abbie! Jack was looking pretty suave too.

We enjoyed a rafting trip near Salida on Father's Day.

I took July off and we traveled to Washington, Montana, and Cape Cod.

Abbie moved on to college at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It's been really nice having her close (60 minute drive) and far enough away that she doesn't plan parties at our house. Jack planned his birthday party at the ranch this year. It exceeded all expectations.

We lost one of our cats, Mittens, while we were in Hawaii. Sagan, our crazy border collie, passed away this fall. They both lived full lives and made us smile a lot. 😢

Hefe the Bus and Stout the Syncro

We didn't do much with Hefe and Stout this year show-wise. I did enter both of them in the VWs on the Green virtual show. They both won first place in their respective categories. I have high hopes for more events in 2022! My favorite car-related event of the year was when I talked some fraternity brothers into bringing their cars to a show in my backyard. If you have a classic car and live in Colorado, you should join us next year. Search for "Chenango Car Show". It's typically in early August.

2022

Professionally, I hope to travel a bit this year. Okta is expanding globally, and I'd love to visit Australia and Japan to help make that happen. I have Devnexus, Devoxx France, and Spring I/O on my radar for conferences.

I hope to contribute frequently to JHipster. Microfrontends support works excellent for Angular; I hope to see the same for React and Vue. My Q1 goal is to make Spring Native work with JHipster. I also hope to help integrate GraphQL. I said that last year, but now Spring has official support with Spring GraphQL!

I'll be on summer vacation for a month, once again. It's a tradition I started a couple of years ago to prove that full-time can be as good as contracting (because of unlimited time off). This year's adventure will start with a trip to Alaska to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary!

Last year, I said I'd like to ski 42 days for both downhill and nordic. Looking back, that seems a bit ambitious. I ended up with 28 days of cross-country skiing and 23 days downhill. That doesn't seem too bad. For 2022, I've purchased both the Epic and Ikon ski passes, and I hope to exceed my stats from last year. Heck, I'll be happy with 20 days of each! The snow conditions have been terrible until two weeks ago.

Last year, we failed to pull any rafting permits. That means we had no lengthy family trips with our rafting family. We had a few day trips, but were often left with a longing for more. Our rafting family is anxious to rendezvous in 2022.

COVID motivated us to become homebodies and our landscaping project turned out quite nice. We now have several beautiful flower gardens, trees, a fabulous fire pit, a basketball court, and a new carport.

I only have one goal for 2022: smile more.

I think that goal will be easily accomplished if I see your smiling faces. I hope 2022 is your best year! 🥳

If you want to follow along on my adventures, please follow me on Twitter. I also post pictures of my favorite moments on Instagram and whole albums on Flickr.

2020 - A Year in Review

2021-01-19T16:34:30-07:00

2020 was an interesting year. It started out pretty awesome, then came a global pandemic, a renewed interest in social justice, and lots of political news to keep your blood pressure up. Doomscrolling became a word, and I found myself doing it often.

As a person that travels frequently and speaks at a lot of conferences, there were a lot of changes. The interesting thing is I planned for many of these changes beforehand. From last year's year in review:

I'm going to stop traveling in August for a year. Abbie will be a high school senior and I want to be around for her last year at home.

It seems I timed this quite well! However, I didn't expect most conferences to go virtual. I didn't expect I could still speak at them without traveling. I expected to speak less and have more time for writing. I didn't expect to stay home all the time and have everything delivered. I didn't expect to have to stop hanging out with friends.

I'm going to look back on 2020 using the following categories.

Professional

This year, I focused on creating YouTube videos as much as blog posts. Our YouTube Channel continues to grow much faster than our Twitter followers, so we continue to invest in it. I published 20 videos on the @oktadev channel in 2020. In addition to doing videos about my own posts, I started doing them for posts written by other Java developers. My most popular video was based on a blog post written by Daniel Pereira. In case you're interested, you can watch Java REST API Comparison: Micronaut, Quarkus, and Spring Boot below.

In the first quarter, I continued to record meetups for the Denver JUG and Denver Open Source Users group. This changed quickly with COVID, and we pivoted to using StreamYard and YouTube for our meetups. This made it easier to record sessions because there's no editing involved. Even though it requires less time, I really miss the in-person meetups and after-hours discussions with the community. We published nine videos to the DJUG channel and three to the DOSUG channel.

Denver JUG is now up to 3,608 members. Our most popular video in 2020 was from Venkat Subramaniam on the Qualities of a Highly Effective Architect.

I wrote 15 blog posts throughout the year on the Okta developer blog. We publish two types of blog posts: thought leadership and conversion. Thought leadership posts tend to be about a hot topic, while conversion posts are usually tutorials.

I focused on Angular, Spring Boot, JHipster, Ionic, and the Okta CLI. We added author pages to our blog this year, so you can see all my posts here.

I especially enjoyed writing a four-part series on Angular and Spring Boot:

In particular, I learned a lot from writing the last post. It required collaborating with a lot of folks to make it happen. Kudos to Benoit Sautel for his help with Gradle + Kotlin, Ray Tsang for help with Jib, James Ward for help with Knative, Josh Long for his assistance with Docker + Cloud Foundry, and Joe Kutner for his buildpacks support.

Rather than rewriting this series for new versions every year, I've decided to use it as a foundation for an InfoQ Mini-Book on Angular.

My post popular thought leadership post was Security Patterns for Microservice Architectures. This was a runaway hit shortly after I posted it, and it remains #1 on Google for "microservice security."

Speaking

According to TripIt, I took 10 trips, to 16 cities, in 4 countries. That's 12 fewer trips than 2019, and I had 85 days on the road (-44 from 2019).

My Speaker Deck profile shows 23 presentations at 19 events. Eight of those were in-person, the rest virtual.

Denver Developer Identity Workshop (Okta event)
Jfokus
Jforum Stockholm
Boulder JUG
Denver JUG
Utah JUG
Switzerland JUG
Oktane 20
Frontend Tech Meetup (Sydney, Australia)
All The Talks

Dev Around the Sun
London Java Community
South West Java & JVM User Group (Bristol, United Kingdom)
ATDmag Microservices & APIs Seminar
SpringOne
JHipster Code
JConf.dev
Vaadin Webinar
JHipster Virtual Meetup

I had a lot of fun in February traveling to Sweden for Jfokus and doing a Rocky Mountain JUG Tour with Ray Tsang.

Community

As part of the Rocky Mountain JUG Tour, Ray Tsang and I started a Developer Ski Days meetup. We only had two meetups before COVID shut us down. We were really looking forward to taking the Winter Park Express train after dev.next. I'll make sure to try again when dev.next happens.

We did not host any Devoxx4Kids Meetups in 2020. Since most kids were on screens for school, I didn't feel we should subject them to more screen time. As of this writing, we have 341 members. I sent everyone a survey about doing online meetups in November and only received nine responses. Eight of them were in favor of it, so we might try to do one soon. I'm still looking for someone to help recruit speakers and schedule events.

Projects

I continued to maintain OktaDev Schematics in 2020. The project had 19 releases, added support for Express.js, and made Capacitor the default for Ionic apps. Working on it helps me keep up with changes in Angular, React, Vue, Ionic, and React Native and makes sure I know how to use the latest Okta SDKs. According to npm-stat.com, it had ~36K downloads in 2020.

My other projects are related to JHipster. I helped add OAuth 2.0 support for reactive JHipster apps. I also integrated Spring Cloud Gateway for microservice architectures. We had 12 releases in 2020. I'm blown away that we had almost 2 million downloads. 🤯

I'm proud to see JHipster's ecosystem thriving with blueprints. I try to test them every so often to ensure they have the same quality as the main generator.

I'm proud to say that JHipster 7 is really close to being finished. We had two beta releases in the last month!

I did not work on the JHipster Mini-Book in 2020, but I hope to update it for JHipster 7 this year.

Ionic for JHipster had eight releases in 2020 and around ~7K downloads.

Personal

I got some good ski days in before the pandemic hit with trips to Whitefish Mountain in Montana, Jackson Hole in Wyoming, and Trysil Ski Area in Norway.

I was super excited to travel to JavaLand in Germany in mid-March and hit the slopes in the Swiss Alps with my family after. That was canceled due to COVID, and we took our kids to Florida for Spring Break instead.

In addition to Florida in March, we had several other trips during the pandemic. We road tripped to see my parents in Montana in May. We flew to Boston for our nieces' graduation in June.

I wrote about these trips in 2019-2020 Ski Season, Quarantining for COVID, and a Graduation.

In July, I enjoyed a dream come true and took the whole month off. We enjoyed a family raft trip through Desolation Canyon to begin.

Then, I headed for Montana with my new eBike in tow. I had all kinds of fun biking on my childhood trails, rafting the Blackfoot and the Middle Fork of the Flathead, and golfing with my folks.

My sister and Mya visited, along with Trish and the kids.

Trish and I celebrated our 7th anniversary at a spa in Evergreen. I highly recommend their "Just for Two Escape" package.

I didn't publish many pictures from the rest of 2020, but a lot still happened. Jack turned 16, got his driver's license, and his mom gifted him a car.

Abbie turned 18 and is enjoying her senior year as much as possible.

how it started how it's going pic.twitter.com/iqjpeowFd6
— Matt Raible (@mraible) November 5, 2020

I'll take this opportunity to discuss our COVID close calls. We flew a few times during the pandemic, always wear masks outside our home, and believe in social distancing. We haven't had many close calls until recently.

The first close call was at Abbie's birthday party—a Saturday—in early November. She asked a small group of friends to get COVID tests before the party. They did, but all the results didn't come in. We let her have the party anyway. A positive result came back from one of her friends on Sunday. We thought for sure we'd come down with it since we were exposed. Their school went fully remote on Monday because of the fall surge. All the kids had to quarantine at home. No one caught it except the friend's sister.

Another scare happened a couple of weeks ago when we were up in the mountains. Jack and I ran into some friends on the slopes and joined them for a little après ski after. I hugged a family member that wasn't skiing that day, and they joked, "you don't have COVID, do you?" That was a Tuesday. They tested positive that Friday. Our whole family got tested Saturday, and the results were negative. Phew!

Stout the Syncro and Hefe the Bus

Stout and Hefe didn't get to make the rounds at any car shows this year. However, we did get to do a fun VW cruise with Hefe in early October.

Stout has been a trusty companion when making trips up to Winter Park to go skiing.

2021

Professionally, I don't think there will be any travel this year. Even if there were, I'm not interested until August. I made a pledge to stop traveling last year, and it's easier than ever now. I'm going to try and limit my speaking commitments to one per month and spend more time on mini-books, at least in the first half of the year. I'm still enjoying my 38" monitor and recommend you get one too.

I plan to contribute frequently to JHipster. Now that reactive support is released, I'll be trying to integrate microfrontends support. Why? Because no one wants a monolithic UI fronting their fancy microservice architecture! I also hope to integrate GraphQL, probably as a module to begin.

I'll be on vacation the whole month of July, again. I had so much fun last year; I can't think of a good reason not to do it again. 😃

Last year, I said I'd be skiing, biking, and rafting a lot more. The ski season was cut short, but I've been making up for it lately. I've been cross-country skiing 17 times since Thanksgiving and downhill 14 times. My goal is 42 days for both, but that might be tough if we don't get more snow soon.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Matt Raible (@vwsforlife)

When it's warmer, I'll take my ebike out on some trails and giggle to myself as the wind whisks through my hair while riding uphill. I'll take my Yeti out every-now-and-then to remember how hard mountain biking really is.

Rafting should come easy with our enthusiastic rafting family and vacation in July. We're thinking of renting a place near Salida in June so we can raft the Arkansas River after work. If Trish has to go back to an office, those plans could change quickly.

Last year, I wrote that I wanted to get more headspace, spend more time with friends, and enjoy being home. I did a lot of meditating in May (with the Headspace app). I gave it up with the busy summer and haven't resumed since. I'm mostly going with a "just get through this COVID thing" attitude. I really miss hanging out with friends. I look forward to that being a regular thing again.

I ❤️ being a homebody, and we're making some investments to make it even more fun. We have a 3-point basketball court being installed right now and a bunch of planted gardens that we hope will bloom with beautiful flowers this spring.

I only have one goal for 2021: dance more. 🕺

If you want to follow along on my adventures, please follow me on Twitter. I also post pictures of my favorite moments on Instagram and whole albums on Flickr.

July 2020: Rafting, Riding, and Relaxing

2020-08-22T14:05:37-06:00

As an American, have you ever wanted to take a month off like the European's do? I'm guessing you have! For the majority of my career, I've been an independent consultant, with unlimited vacation. Vacation as a consultant means you're not getting paid — so it's not exactly unlimited.

A few years ago, I doubled-down and went full-time. The company was called Stormpath and it quickly morphed into Okta. Okta has an unlimited vacation policy. I felt it was my duty to try to make my kick-ass full-time job as cool as my independent consulting gig. Therefore, I asked my boss to take July 2020 off. I requested this vacation in October 2019. He approved! Randall, you're the best!!

If you'd like to read about our April-June 2020 adventures, see 2019-2020 Ski Season, Quarantining for COVID, and a Graduation.

My month-off adventures started with a family raft trip through Desolation Canyon in Utah. We floated down the Green River with 20 members of our rafting family and had a wonderful adventure.

When we first got a raft, I read that Desolation Canyon is an excellent family adventure. We proved that to be true in September 2014 with a number of friends. On July 2nd, 2020, we embarked upon another spectacular rafting adventure with many of the same folks.

We spent five days on the Green River: motoring, floating, and loving the weather. The first day involved strapping the rafts together and firing up motors to get through the flat parts. I brought a boombox for my boat, so we listened to motoring a few times. Days 2-4 were fun with rapids, but it was pretty mellow for the most part.

We always dress up one night on the river. This trip's theme for costume night was disco!

Trish and I had a couple of goals for this trip. We brought two rafts, each with 2-3 coolers. I wanted to have ice on the last day. She wanted to have ice cold water on the last day. I'm happy to say we both accomplished our goals and I'm happy to reveal our secrets. I lined all three of my coolers with dry ice. Trish put a large water-to-ice bag in her cooler and forgot about it. It was solid ice when we started our trip, and ice-cold, delicious water when we ended. She discovered at the very end of our trip (post take-out) and it was the most delicious water ever. She shared it with everyone and we rejoiced with laughter and joy. It was soooo good and the timing was perfect!

July in Montana - 2020 Edition

We took out of the Green on July 7 and I headed for Montana in my Syncro Westy with a raft in tow. I like to name my vehicles. They're also known as Stout and Bam Bam. I had a new toy with me too, a Trek Rail 7 electric mountain bike. I bought it the night before we left Denver.

My eBike is one of my most satisfying and joyous purchases, ever. I cruised all the Swan Valley trails I grew up riding my BMX bike on — with a huge grin on my face. As I cruised up the hills on Rumble Creek road with the wind in my ears, I had tears of joy. I hooted and hollered like it was a powder day as I sailed through the trails along the Guest Ranch road and through Holland Lake campgrounds.

It was, and still is, a magical experience. ✨

Some call electric bikes cheating. I feel like a kid again and can't wait to go riding every day. Call it what you will, but I'm having a blast! I'll write up a full review on the bike in another blog post. Below are some photos from my riding adventures.

When I wasn't riding, I went rafting. My Dad, Daisy, and I spent a gorgeous day fishing on the Blackfoot river.

We did it again with my Mom and long-time family friends, Mike and Mai.

I had huckleberry pancakes for my birthday, watched the dogs frolic in the creek, and golfed in Bigfork with my awesome parents.

I took my buddy Owen and his family rafting near Glacier Park, on the middle fork of of the Flathead.

My Dad brewed an American Pale Ale beer for my birthday and treated me to a private tasting.

My sister, Kalin, and Mya visited for a week. Trish and the kids road-tripped up as well. We golfed, played on the rivers, and enjoyed the heck out of each other's company.

"What about the wildlife?", you might ask. We saw bears on the rivers of Utah and Montana. We saw bald eagles majestically flying along the river banks of the flathead. Spotting deer was a daily occurrence. Being surrounded by nature and its animals was magnificent.

I invited my Dad to join me for the road trip back to Colorado. He obliged and we drove through Yellowstone Park and by the Tetons in Wyoming.

A couple days later, there was a car show in our back yard and Hefe made an appearance. He didn't win anything because we forgot to register. That's OK, he looked really good!

This marks the third time I've taken a month off in my career. I've always ended up in Montana. I wrote about My Summer Vacation in Montana in 2009 and Matrimony in Montana in 2013. It's simply one of my favorite places on earth. I really appreciate that I can always go back home, ride the trails I did as a kid, and bask in the glow of my parent's retirement paradise.

See all 193 photos on Flickr →

Now I'm back in action, the kids are back in school, and live sports are on TV again. Life is pretty good and I'm pumped to hit all the front range mountain bike trails. I hope you've had a chance to relax and recharge this summer like I did. 😊

January Jaunts to New Orleans and Jackson Hole

2020-03-03T22:47:39-07:00

Trish and I started 2020 with a fun trip to New Orleans to meet up with our family. My parents wanted to get out of the snowy cold of Montana, as did Kalin and Mya from Washington state. My Aunt Mary from New York joined us, and we brought the kids. Trish even executed a trip to the Saints vs. Vikings NFL playoff game!

We celebrated "the superiors" birthdays, listened to lots of good music, hung out with our friends Jill and Brian, and savored many excellent meals.

For more photos see The Superiors Birthdays in New Orleans.

We returned to Denver in mid-January and Trish flew down to visit her folks in Naples, Florida. They spent a joyous week together before she flew back to start a new job.

While Trish was golfing with her Dad, I prepared for another trip: a 5-day ski weekend in Jackson Hole. My awesome friends Chris and Ben arranged it all; my friend Joe and I just had to show up and have a good time. We met Jersey Dave and Patriot Tom once we arrived. There were six skiers in total, and we enjoyed some of the best powder days of the year.

I made a video of our adventures with an AC/DC soundtrack. The reason for the music is because we saw Hell's Belles play at the Mangy Moose (footage included) and they were AWESOME! I smile every time I watch it. 😊

Yes, January was awesome. We got some good family time in warmer weather and I experienced Jackson Hole with lots of powder for the first time. Yeehaw! 🤠

2019 - A Year in Review

2020-02-09T20:56:56-07:00

It's time for my year-in-review post! This post sets the record for being the most delayed, ever. Usually, I'm able to get it published by the end of January. Oh well, I hope you enjoy it!

In 2019, I did my best to work hard, play often, and travel to interesting places. I took my Dad to Hawaii, drove through the worst blizzard of my life, traveled to India for the first time, did a UK + Ireland JUG Tour, and indulged in several fun vacations with my family.

We bought some additional rafts for whitewater, rafted in Montana and Colorado, and celebrated a family reunion in Cape Cod. Our classic VWs continued to perform well, and Hefe won his class once again at the 2019 VWs on the Green show. We did have to replace a clutch in Stout the Syncro, but I'm OK with that since he safely transported me through the most treacherous driving conditions of my life.

I'm going to look back on 2019 using the following categories.

Professional

For those stumbling upon this post with no context, I'm an open source developer that works at Okta. My title is officially "Developer Advocate", but all the code and words I write are distributed as open source.

This year I started trying to produce more YouTube videos in addition to blog posts. My team discovered our YouTube subscriber count increases a lot faster than our Twitter followers, so that provided our motivation. I published 13 videos on the OktaDev YouTube Channel. My most popular one was Java Microservices in 20 Minutes with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud.

I upped my videographer skills by learning how to record meetups. I copied Aaron Parecki's portable wireless video setup and started recording Denver JUG and Denver Open Source User Group meetups. We posted the first couple to the OktaDev channel, then decided it'd be better to have the meetups start their own channels. We published 6 to the DJUG channel and 3 to the DOSUG channel. I recommend subscribing if you're into Java or Open Source.

I taught Abbie and Jack how to work the video kit and they've been recording these meetups when I'm out of town. Thanks kids!

I wrote 22 blog posts throughout the year on the Okta developer blog. We publish two types of blog posts: thought leadership and conversion. Thought leadership posts tend to be about a hot topic while conversion posts are usually tutorials. My main topics for the year included Angular, Schematics, JHipster, microservices, and mobile development with Ionic 4 and React Native. Here are some that seemed to be popular.

I wrote a few thought leadership posts too:

Speaking

According to TripIt, I took 22 trips, to 41 cities, in 12 countries. That's four fewer trips than 2018, and I had 129 days on the road (+10 from 2018). I visited twice as many countries in 2019 as I did in 2018.

My Speaker Deck profile shows 39 presentations at 24 events.

Denver JUG
Devnexus
SnowFROC
Great International Developer Summit: GIDS
Denver Microservices
JBCNConf
The Secure Developer (now MyDevSecOps)
Angular SF
JHipsterConf
KCDC
ACGNJ Java Users Group
JavaSIG (New York, NY)

That Conference
Develop Denver
London Java Community
South West Java & JVM User Group (Bristol, UK)
West Midlands Java User Group (Birmingham, UK)
Belfast JUG
JHipster Dublin
Dublin JUG
Cork JUG
Devoxx Belgium
Devoxx Morocco
The Progressive Web Experience

I also attended LavaOne (now UnVoxxed Hawaii) with my Dad. It was during his birthday week, so we played some golf and toured Pearl Harbor after the conference.

GIDS 2019 was incredibly fun with my sister. We hung out with many usual suspects and had a fabulous experience.

I learned how to present without an internet connection and found much joy in serious selfies.

Monday closing crew at #gids19! ???? pic.twitter.com/Axp5uRYqql
— Matt Raible (@mraible) April 22, 2019

I published pictures from Devnexus,

my UK + Ireland JUG Tour,

SpringOne,

and Devoxx Belgium/Morocco.

At SpringOne, I did a talk with Josh Long and James Ward. I've never had so much fun on stage. 😆

I got to do a talk with two of my best friends and favorite technologists, @okta ‘s @mraible and @google ‘s @_JamesWard.

Thanks for making this happen @s1p ! pic.twitter.com/VCB7X7G8v4
— Josh Long (???, ???, ???? ????, ??? ????) (@starbuxman) October 10, 2019

A recording of our talk was published to YouTube.

Community

I was involved in many community activities in 2019. I'm proud to say that Denver JUG won a Duke's Choice Award this year! I flew out to CodeOne for a night to accept the award and celebrate with Java friends.

Wahoo! @denverjug wins a Duke's Choice Award at #CodeOne!! ???? https://t.co/4f7wo9FTPF
— Matt Raible (@mraible) September 17, 2019

We only had two Devoxx4Kids Denver workshops in 2019:

The first one was taught by Abbie and Jack. I taught the second one. It seems I need to do a better job recruiting speakers. In reality, I think it's time to offer the leadership of the group to someone who has more time.

Projects

I developed and released a new open source project in 2019: OktaDev Schematics. It provides a way to add Okta for authentication to Angular, React, Vue, Ionic, and React Native projects. I developed it mostly to make my demos easier. It had 12 releases throughout the year.

My other projects are mostly around JHipster. I support its OAuth 2.0 and OIDC support as best I can, and released seven versions of its Ionic module. Upgrading to Ionic 4 was a big task and I wrote about how to use Ionic 4 with JHipster 6. I recorded a screencast showing how to get started with JHipster 6 and traveled to JHipster Conf.

I did not work on the JHipster Mini-Book in 2019, but I hope to update it for JHipster 7 this year.

Personal

Trish and I journeyed to Jazz Fest in New Orleans. It was my first time and it might become a yearly tradition. So fun!

I was fortunate enough to bring family along with me a few times when traveling for work. Highlights include:

Taking my whole family to JBCNConf in Barcelona. They all speak Spanish, so I knew it'd be a fun adventure.

That Conference with Jack and my nephew, Michael. It was at a water park so the boys had a blast.

Trish and my parents meeting me during my Ireland JUG Tour.

I regret leaving in the middle of a family reunion for KCDC. The location in Cape Cod was fantastic.

Jack got his learners permit to drive in August. He was a little rusty at first, but he's come a long way since. He drives several times a week for practice when he's at our house.

Abbie is now 17 and Jack is 15. They grow a lot when they become teenagers. Jack is the tallest one in our house!

We had a ball with Trish's brother's family and parents in Turks and Caicos. It was part of a double-header Spring Break that started with skiing in Steamboat.

The 2018-19 ski season was fabulous and Stout was quite the hero during our first Bomb Cyclone!

We added two duckies to our rafting fleet so we can take more friends on the river in June. Father's Day on the Upper Colorado was fun with friends, but Chris Morse and the Fesser did have to float through a cold and dangerous class IV rapid. You could say they're were not fans of our duckies.

My Dad made me proud with his cameo in the "What is Okta?" Father's Day video.

We took Abbie's boyfriend, Joseph, with us to Montana for the 4th of July. My Dad and I road-tripped up in our Westfalia Vanagon. We decorated a float for the parade, enjoyed a couple days on the river, and spent some quality time with Owen and Dana.

Trish and I celebrated our 6th anniversary in Estes Park.

Happy Anniversary to us!! #6years ❤️🎉🥰💃🕺 pic.twitter.com/JnzhenOIzI
— Matt Raible (@mraible) July 27, 2019

We stayed at the Stanley Hotel in the "Kissing Cowboy" room. 😱

Trish went big in September and added her own cataraft to our fleet!

We visited Trish's family on the east coast for Thanksgiving.

Christmas at my parent's house in Montana was warm and cozy.

Stout the Syncro and Hefe the Bus

Our classic VWs are surviving and thriving. Hefe won best in class at VWs on the Green for the fourth time. Stout ran well on several road trips and now has a new clutch.

I hope to write a "Story of Hefe" book in 2020 from the pictures and posts on this blog.

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All shined up and ready for a cruise down Colfax tomorrow! #vw #vwbus #vwcolorado #hefethebus #vwec #21windows

A post shared by Matt Raible (@vwsforlife) on Sep 28, 2019 at 3:26pm PDT

2020

Professionally, I'll be hitting some new exotic locations. Voxxed Days Zürich and JavaLand in Germany are on my list. JavaLand happens during Spring Break, so we'll be spending a few days skiing in the Swiss Alps afterward.

I plan to speak at Devoxx UK (London), Spring I/O (Barcelona), and Voxxed Days Singapore. I hope to visit with the Java community in Japan as well. If you're interested in seeing where the @oktadev team will be in 2020, check out oktadev.events.

I'll be on vacation the whole month of July. I've always wanted to live like a European and Okta's unlimited vacation policy makes this possible.

I'm going to stop traveling in August for a year. Abbie will be a high school senior and I want to be around for her last year at home.

In 2020, I'll be skiing, biking, and rafting a lot more. I started Developer Ski Days to help with the first. I'm excited that Thrive Workplace has a new DTC location (at Innovation Pavilions). I'll be renting a desk from them and start bike-commuting soon. Our rafting family just applied for several week-long rafting permits. Spending a week on the river is one of our favorite activities!

Last year, I had a bunch of goals with numbers. This year I'm going to try and get more headspace, spend more time with friends, and enjoy being home.

I believe less travel in 2020 will be very rewarding. I might even get Nuggets season tickets. They're pretty good these days.

If you want to follow along on my adventures, please follow me on Twitter. I also post pictures of my favorite moments to Instagram and whole albums on Flickr.

July 2019: Road Trips, Family, Van Life, Cape Code, KCDC, and NYC

2019-08-26T21:43:50-06:00

This July was one for the books! I started traveling with JHipster Conf and kept traveling until That Conference in August. There was some vacation mixed in (Montana and Cape Cod), but I also worked out of my VW Van for a few days, spoke at KCDC, attended a family reunion, and did a NYC JUG Tour.

I flew home just in time for Devoxx4Kids Denver and Trish and my 6th anniversary. A dream came true for me when I watched Abbie and Jack teach the Devoxx4Kids workshop.

The beginning of August kept the travel rolling with a company shindig in Napa, a friend's wedding in Half Moon Bay, and a crazy flight schedule to THAT Conference and back.

Let's just say I'm glad to be home. 😊

You can find more pictures from my summer adventures on Flickr.

A Beautiful Adventure to JBCNConf, Barcelona, and Boston

2019-06-29T09:33:15-06:00

I love it when school's out for summer. The feeling you have on the last day of school as a kid is like no other. It's a terrific feeling. The feeling of freedom. Our kids graduated from 10th and 8th grade at the end of May. We didn't give them much time to rejoice and whisked them off to Barcelona for a few days at JBCNConf and a bit of family vacation.

Oh my, it was so much fun! First of all, there's nothing like traveling to a foreign land, bringing some of your favorite people with you, and getting to experience it with old and new friends. We arrived on Sunday and experienced a wonderful evening at a conservatory for the JBCNConf speaker's dinner.

Monday was Memorial Day in the US, so we took advantage of our day off and booked a trip with Spanish Trails to explore Montserrat. Montserrat is a rocky mountain range in Catalonia, Spain. "Montserrat" translates to "saw mountain" in Catalan, owing to its jagged, sawtooth appearance.

On Tuesday morning, I took Abbie and Jack to JBCN4Kids and they learned all about game programming in Spanish. Their Spanish skills were tested, and there was an excellent keynote by Brian Goetz in the middle of it all.

That afternoon, Josh Long and I planned and practiced our Full Stack Reactive workshop. We had a nice lunch with my family and Mario that day too. Josh and I delivered our workshop on Wednesday morning.

If you'd like to see the slides @starbuxman and I never used during our Full Stack Reactive Workshop at @jbcnconf, we published them on @speakerdeck:https://t.co/LPyJvCxod6

Thanks to everyone who attended. We had a wonderful time! ??#reactive #java #springwebflux #reactjs
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 29, 2019

The legendary @mraible and I got to close down @jbcnconf with a 2h workshop. Thanks to all those who joined! Couldn’t ask for a better co-presenter, audience, or way to spend the day. I love my life. pic.twitter.com/EbuqdblSsJ
— Josh Long (???, ???, ???? ????, ??? ????) (@starbuxman) May 29, 2019

Our family vacation in El Vendrell began shortly after that.

View this post on Instagram

@1trishphoto in her happy place 💕🥰

A post shared by Matt Raible (@vwsforlife) on May 30, 2019 at 7:00am PDT

We enjoyed the experience so much, Trish and I are thinking about spending even more time in Spain next year.

Goodbye, Barcelona! ?? ????

We had a splendid adventure touring your mountains, city, and beaches. ??@TrishPhoto is intrigued by the notion of visiting again next year.@spring_io and @jbcnconf 2020 with remote work in between? Sounds fun! ???? pic.twitter.com/340myZ1wai
— Matt Raible (@mraible) June 1, 2019

For more photos, see our album's on Flickr: my Barcelona, JBCNConf, and Boston 2019 or Trish's Barcelona 2019.

On the way home, we stopped in Boston and hung out with Trish's brother's family. Our niece, Morgan, graduated high school. We are very proud of her and had a blast celebrating the event.

We started off summer pretty well so far. We've been to Barcelona, Boston, and even had a weekend of whitewater rafting on Fathers Day weekend. Life is good in the Raible Hood! 😊

Farewell to the 2018-19 Ski Season

2019-05-25T15:25:37-06:00

Holy cow! 2018-19 was one of the best ski seasons ever!!

It all started in December with some gorgeous powder days and only got better from there.

Trish and I took her birthday off (December 17) and enjoyed a beautiful day with no crowds.

New Years in Winter Park

I planned things like a skiing dad should, and scheduled a family vacation in Winter Park for a week that included New Years Eve. If you've followed me a while, you'll remember that we made our dreams come true in 2011 with mountain views.

Buying the Ski Shack in Winter Park was one of the best things Trish and I ever did. It had spectacular views and provided an opportunity to make another dream come true: 42 days in a season!

Man, that place was awesome. We had to sell it when I joined Stormpath and we bought the Raible Ranch.

We have many fond memories of Winter Park, and some of our best friends live there. If you're familiar with fraternities and sororities, you'll know what I mean when I say my little brother has a place there. Trish's little sister does too. Joe and Chris are special people in our lives and we always have a blast when we get to fraternize with them.

Chris Caldes is incredibly special since she married us in 2013.

We thoroughly enjoyed partying at her house for New Year's Eve and celebrating with a plethora of folks from our rafting family.

Cross-Country Skiing

Not only did the powder fall like mad, but I rekindled my love for cross-country skiing. It was snowing so much in our backyard that I went out and bought x-country skis. Hiking with our dogs (Sagan and Daisy) in our backyard is fun, but skiing is a whole other level. There's bridal paths everywhere, and they're border collies, so I let them run free and we have a ball. It's one of the coolest parts of living in the country.

It all started with x-country skiing at Devils Thumb Ranch over the New Years Holiday.

I also played hooky a few times. My co-workers wouldn't know because I'm pretty productive at work. In fact, one of my favorite stories of the year was on a Friday morning. I'd put in a lot of hours that week and when I joined the team call for the week, my friend Lindsay said "I just hope you're not working!"

That's when I turned on my my video camera and revealed that I was sitting in Stout the Syncro at the base of Mary Jane. Trish and I woke up early, drove to Winter Park, and joined our conference calls as you normally would. The difference was we were skiing fresh powder and grinning from ear-to-ear. That was probably my favorite all-hands meeting of the year.

Multi-tasking at its best: listening to the company All Hands meeting while getting fresh tracks at #MaryJane. ? #PowderDay #LifeAtOkta pic.twitter.com/WNXH5qjWwT
— Matt Raible (@mraible) March 1, 2019

Skiing at Wolf Creek

The other untold story from ski season is about a ski trip to Wolf Creek. I'd was returning home from DevNexus on a Friday night. As we were landing, I saw the powder forecast in Wolf Creek and texted a bunch of skiing friends.

Alonso is in Wolf Creek for the next week. There's 1-2 feet in the forecast by Tuesday. He has sleeping for 8. Road trip!

I received one positive response from my buddy Ryan Moore on Saturday afternoon.

I'm in on WC.

To make it happen, I worked all day Sunday, writing two blog posts in one day. We departed early Monday morning and arrived in Wolf Creek around 1pm. Along the way, I received a reminder that I had a call with a Fortune 500 company who was interested in Okta's API. I had no reception when I received the reminder, but we found three bars 10 minutes later. We pulled over and I took the call like I was sitting at home.

Knee-deep powder greeted us that day, and we had a ball. We stayed with our friends (Chris, Mary, and Luna) that night. Chris Alonso is a very important person in my life. He was the wicked-smart computer science major that I knew in college. He's the one that showed me coding might be a fabulous career and convinced me (by example) that it's what I wanted to do. It was fitting that his newly-built house in Wolf Creek didn't have internet access, or cell phone reception.

On Tuesday morning, I needed to publish a blog post before we hit the slopes. We had a choice: go into town for wi-fi, or head to the ski resort and hope they had cell reception. We figured, "of course they'll have reception at the resort". We woke up at 6 am, left the house by 6:20 and were in the lodge by 7 am.

They did not have cell reception. Nor wi-fi. There was 24" of fresh powder in the last 12 hours.

We were the only ones in the lodge aside from the folks that were opening up the kitchen. A lady mentioned that she had cell reception. I asked her if I could tether from her phone to get an internet connection. She didn't know what I was talking about but lent me her phone regardless. An hour later, I had completed my task of creating a pull request for my blog post to be published.

The lifts didn't open until 10 am that day because of power issues and so much powder.

The powder was thigh-deep and glorious.

Around noon, I had to fix things in my pull request before the blog post could be published. I found the same lady, borrowed her phone again and took up a cross-legged position in the hallways downstairs (near the power outlet) to publish and promote said blog post. I tipped her $40 that day. I doubt she knows how much she influenced my wonderful skiing experience.

The crazy part of the story happened the next day. There was a blizzard warning in Denver and we knew the pass might close at 6 am (for avalanche blasting). We woke up at 5 am on Wednesday to start our journey home. Since Ryan knew the area better, he took the first shift. When we left Chris's house, he asked, "how many miles does the van get to a tank?"

My answer: the most I've done is 266.

His response: we're at 250.

We drove over Wolf Creek pass and found the nearest gas station on the other side. When we arrived, we were at 265 miles on the tank. Phew!

I drove for the rest of the trip and experienced the most treacherous driving conditions of my life. If you live in Denver, you'll remember this as Bomb Cyclone 2019 #1. We had a DJUG meeting scheduled that night, a Java celebrity speaking, and I needed to get back in time for it. The winds and visibility were absolutely ridiculous along the way. There were many times where I had 10' of visibility and the winds were so strong they almost blew us off the road. Following a snow plow just after South Park was a life saver. When we got to Bailey (1 hour from Denver), 285 was not plowed and there was a foot of snow on the road. 4WD and following UPS trucks with chains got us through it all.

While driving through Denver in the blizzard conditions, I realized that it would be a bad idea to do the DJUG meetup that night. My fellow organizers canceled the meetup around the same time. It's nuts to reminisce and realize the April meetup was canceled too (because of Bomb Cyclone #2).

I have another good story that proves how good it was. I bought brand new powder skis at the end of February. The shop was willing to put my old bindings on my new skis, but they needed 2-3 days to do it. For the whole month of March, I never had an opportunity to do it! The powder was too frequest.

Spring Break in Steamboat

We took the kids to Steamboat for the first half of Spring Break and had an absolute blast!

That was our last ski trip for the year. However, it did snow this week, so I did get one last backyard x-country ski in. My only regret is we didn't make it to Crested Butte this year. That's OK, there's always next year!

VWs on the Green 2019

As is tradition, we showed both our awesome VWs in the Denver's annual VWs on the Green Show. We spent several hours polishing both rigs and are happy to report that Hefe won best in his class! He's only lost one year since we've had him finished. That was last year, and Stout the Syncro won, so we're on a five year winning streak. Next year, we plan to show up, enjoy the crowd, and not enter. We've won enough, so we'd like others to have a chance.

For more photos of this year's ski season, see my album on Flickr.

As I write this, I'm on my way to Barcelona for JBCNConf 2019. I'm taking the whole family with me since Trish is fluent in Spanish and Abbie and Jack have been studying it for a few years. On our way home, we'll stop in Boston to see our niece (Morgan) graduate from high school. It's a great start to a sure-to-be fabulous summer. 🌤

Farewell to the 2017-18 Ski Season

2018-06-12T07:50:32-06:00

Summertime has arrived in Colorado! Typically, I try to write my "end of ski season" blog post in April or May, but this year it slipped until June. Do I have a good excuse?! Not really. Things got busy with my trip to Richmond and Oktane 18, that's all.

I'm going to keep this post short and sweet, to mirror the ski season. We didn't receive a whole lot of snow in the Rocky Mountains so the powder days were few and far between. There were a couple though, and I got to spend a powder day with some old friends at Winter Park!

The kids and I skied a few days in December, but it wasn't anything to write home about. For New Years, we packed up the Syncro and headed for Crested Butte.

Crested Butte had OK conditions, but the real fun happened when we ditched downhill and tried Nordic skiing. We spent a few hours with James Ward and daughter Josie on a beautiful cross country ski adventure. I grew up cross-country skiing to the bus stop, so it was a real hoot to do it with the whole family.

The real magic happened when I visited the Utah JUG in February. I drove through several snow storms on the way and arrived just in time for my talk on microservices, JHipster, and OAuth.

The next morning, there was 17" at Snowbird. That was a lovely morning.

That evening, Trish and the kids flew in and we hit Alta the next day. They still had fresh snow in spots and lots of sunshine.

We spent Sunday and Monday in Park City and got dumped on again. 17" again on Monday. Wahoo! We stayed and skied the morning, then endured a long 10-hour drive home.

Those were the main highlights of the ski season. Both kids are legit skiers now and will ski blacks all day if the snow is good. OK, maybe not all day, but for a few hours at least.

As for the VWs, Stout the Syncro won his class at the VWs on the Green show! Hefe the Bus didn't win anything, but he sure did look good!

Summer 2018

Now it's pretty much summer in our neck of the woods. We spent last weekend rafting on the Upper Colorado and we're hitting the Arkansas near Salida this weekend. I've been riding my bike(s) a lot, but haven't done a lot of single track trails. I hope to fix that soon.

If you're a developer that follows this blog - I hope to see you on the road in the coming months! I'll be at JHipster Conf next week, KC/DC, UberConf, and JCrete in July, and Boston JUG in August. Hope y'all have a great summer.

Spring Break 2018: Sun, Fun, and Disney World!

2018-04-06T15:04:31-06:00

I love Spring break. Who doesn't?! When I was a student, it was a nice break between quarters and led to many adventures with friends in college. As an adult, I love taking a Spring break holiday and spending it with my family. In a recent blog post on the @oktadev blog, I wrote:

I work hard, and I play hard. My family loves to do ski weekends, road trips, and whitewater raft trips. I’m lucky to work at a company like Okta that has an unlimited vacation policy. I’ve heard that most unlimited vacation policies don’t work for people because they tend to work more, and take fewer vacations.

I take full advantage of our unlimited vacation policy and make sure to take a week of vacation during every other six-week plan.

— How to Achieve Massive Productivity at Work

Last week, my family and I spent Spring break 2018 with Trish's parents in Naples, Florida. We saw some incredible cars, enjoyed a day at Magic Kingdom in Disney World, played some golf, took in a couple of sunsets, and relaxed a bunch. I think some pictures describe it best.

Wow! Most impressive car collection I’ve ever seen. Many of them have won races and are virtually priceless! #springbreak #vacation #revsinstitute

A post shared by Matt Raible (@vwsforlife) on Mar 27, 2018 at 10:03am PDT

Q1 Technical Blog Posts

In case you're here looking for technical blog posts, I'm still writing about Java, Spring Boot, Angular, React, and JHipster quite a bit. However, I'm doing it mostly on the Okta Developer Blog. Here's a list of my blog posts from Q1 2018:

JHipster Mini-Book v4.5 Released!

In related writing news, version 4.5 of the JHipster Mini-Book is now available! Please let me know if you find any issues, or would like clarification on any topics.

Version 4.5 of the @java_hipster mini-book is now available! ??

This version has a brand new chapter on building microservices and deploying them to @heroku. Learn more on the book’s blog: https://t.co/nTv6nqvzBH

You can ?? it for free from @InfoQ ? https://t.co/YVnIhUFRV5 pic.twitter.com/fbLygNDeWp
— JHipster Book (@jhipster_book) April 6, 2018

Rafting the Salmon River in Idaho

2017-09-05T11:10:58-06:00

We are a rafting family. We solidified that when we bought a raft five years ago. Since then, we've had many adventures, on many rivers, and met a plethora of good friends along the way. We call these friends our "river family". Our river family gathers every January and chooses where we want to apply for river permits. We wait for a couple months until permits are granted. A person or two usually gets a permit granted, then the planning begins!

This year, we were granted a permit to float the main fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. We started our journey just over a week after rafting, hiking, and enjoying life in Montana. It was a long drive (878 miles / 1448 km) from our house. It took two days to drive there and we stopped in Pocatello, Idaho to rendezvous with my dad along the way. He brought our raft from Montana and we wanted to leave his truck so we wouldn't have to pay $500 to shuttle it. Yep, that's right - the trek from our put-in (Corn Creek), to take-out (Carey Creek) was so long (383 miles / 616 km) that the shuttle company charged $500 per vehicle!

We had 28 members in our river family on the Salmon. There were more children than adults, and something like 15 watercraft in total. It was epic, it was joyous, it is the source of many lasting memories. I think the kids might've even enjoyed it as much as the adults. Their "gossip circles" where a highlight for them, as was floating in their duckies, and the river romances that developed along the way.

This story is best told with Trish's photos, where you can see the many smiles, the clear water, and how the good times flourished.

After the Salmon, I thought we might be done rafting for the year. However, an opportunity to raft and camp the upper Colorado river cropped up last week. Abbie and Trish had a horse show they wanted to attend, so it was just Jack and me this time. When we arrived last Saturday morning, we were surprised to find it wasn't just a small contingency of our river family. 18 people joined us for two days and an overnight of river bliss. The kids outnumbered the parents once again, and we marveled at bald eagles and a mother bear with her three cubs along the river's edge.

What was Jack's favorite part? The cliff jumping, of course.

We arrived home Sunday to find that Abbie and Trish had a stellar weekend too. Abbie and Tucker won their division at the SummerFest Horse Show!

As summer draws to a close, I can't help but look to the fall season with anticipation. Football season, cooler days, beautiful colors, and ski season is just around the corner. Yee haw!

Driving, Rafting, Hiking, and Enjoying Life in Montana

2017-07-29T16:00:00-06:00

I wanted to spend our summer vacation driving our VWs up the California coast, on a mammoth 3500-mile road trip over two weeks. However, when a landslide happened near Big Sur, I knew it was probably best to move this road trip from my yearly goals to my bucket list. Instead, we opted to drive to Montana and spend a couple of weeks vacationing in my childhood playground.

Our journey began with a bit of work involved. Trish's company was sponsoring a family movie night event in Sandy, Utah. We found out that my company was sponsoring as well, so we decided to take the scenic route to Montana. We left Denver at 9 pm on Thursday, June 29, and arrived in Grand Junction, CO at 2 am. Trish needed to be in Sandy for a lunch meeting, so we woke up promptly at 6 am and got back on the road.

The event in Sandy was super-fun. We enjoyed talking to customers, handing out swag, and watching the Despicable Me 3 premiere with everyone.

We high-tailed it to Montana after that, spending two days driving along scenic I-15 through Utah, Idaho, and Montana. We arrived at the Raible Homestead on Sunday afternoon.

The next two weeks were spent rafting, hiking, hanging out with friends, driving a lot, and relaxing with good books. Rafting the Middle Fork of the Flathead was a highlight for me, especially watching Abbie do all the rapids by herself in a duckie.

We also hiked up to Lower Rumble Lake. The trail goes straight up the mountain, with no switchbacks. It can be a grueling hike. My Mom, Abbie, Jack, our two border collies (Sagan and Jake), and I made up the trail crew. About halfway up, I thought, "this isn't as hard as I remember." By the time we got to the top (90 minutes later), it was just as challenging as I remembered. It was probably 30 years since I was last at Rumble Lake; it's still as majestic as ever.

Our final event in Montana was the Bob Marshall Music Festival. We attended the first annual event last year and had a great time. This year was even better, especially since we had one of the bands camped right next to us. Trish and I loved the late night campfire sessions listening to the local pickers.

Trish and the kids flew back to avoid the long drive home. I took the slow, scenic route home with Stout the Syncro, living the #vanlife for a couple days. Waking up with a view of the Tetons was awe-inspiring, as was the view driving through the Flaming Gorge Recreation area. I used an AT&T Unite Explore MiFi device for connectivity, or worked at coffee shops along the way.

More photos on Flickr → Summer Vacation in Montana 2017

I arrived home around midnight on Wednesday, July 19. Total miles: 3450. Issues with Stout the Syncro: none.

Epilogue: On my journey home, I wrote and polished presentations for ÜberConf. I delivered those presentations that Friday and uploaded them to Speaker Deck. You can view them using the following links:

Two weeks later, and I'm writing this from the back of our van on another Raible Road Trip. This time, we're heading to central Idaho for a week-long rafting trip with family and friends. Another couple thousand miles, many more unforgettable memories. There's something special about traveling the country in a VW Van.

Farewell to the 2016-17 Ski Season

2017-05-23T09:26:02-06:00

The 2016-17 Ski Season was a fun one for the Raible Family. Abbie and Jack are good enough that they can zoom down the mountain without looking back. Their preferred runs are now blacks and they're no longer intimidated by moguls. We spent most of the season skiing at Mary Jane and Winter Park, but also had some trips to Crested Butte, Steamboat, and Montana.

On our way to Crested Butte (near the end of January), Stout the Syncro's front drive train started making crunching noises and we had to pull over. It was almost midnight, and we knew we couldn't fix it on the side of the road, so we called AAA and spent the night in a nearby hotel. I rode back to Denver the next day with the tow truck driver on the bumpiest ride of my life. The tow truck's tires were out of balance and it felt like things were going to fall apart at any moment. We later discovered that several things failed that night: one axle broke, a CV went out, and a wheel bearing was gone too. Trish and the kids spent the day at a hot springs in Buena Vista while I drive Trish's Tahoe back to complete the trip. While we missed a day skiing, the day we made it for was great and CB continues to be one of our favorite resorts.

I had some awesome solo skiing adventures too: skiing in Sweden after Jfokus, skiing in Steamboat during Winter Wonder Grass, and Miller Time 2017 in Northstar, California. Miller Time is an annual event to remember a great friend, Jason Miller, who passed on way too early in October 2015.

The highlight of the season was when we traveled to Big Sky Resort in Montana. I'd never skied at Big Sky before and it's been on my bucket list for years. We stayed a week during the kids' Spring Break and experienced some of the best skiing of our lives. When I asked Jack if he had any goals for Spring Break, he said he wanted to "ski 5 double blacks". There were so many double blacks on the mountain, it was unbelievable. We had his goal accomplished by noon on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I didn't remember to use our GoPro until Wednesday. However, that was the day we skipped skiing and did zip lining, so that was a ton of fun. I left my phone and laptop at home that week and thouroughly enjoyed being disconnected.

The video below shows our zip lining adventures, as well as some footage of our best day skiing. It was a powder day, we were on one of the first chairs, and we had fresh tracks all morning. There was an immmense amount of giggline, smiling, and hooting and hollering that morning.

More photos of our ski season adventures can be found on Flickr.

Stout 5.0 and Hefe 3.0

Now that ski season is over, it's time to focus on our favorite summertime activities: VWs, horseback riding, mountain biking, and rafting. Stout 5.0 and Hefe 3.0 were released at the beginning of May and they've both been running great!

Stout 5.0 (painted hood) and Hefe 3.0 (stereo) are lookin' pretty good on this fine Colorado day! ?? #vw?? #vanlife #vwbus #21windows pic.twitter.com/te9OvbJXA3
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 6, 2017

Driving Hefe around with his rockin' stereo has been a lot of fun. You can imagine the kids giggling in the back with no seatbelts and ragtop down.

Hefe won best in class (Custom Bus 49-67) at VWs on the Green last weekend. Two years in a row baby!

More photos on Flickr → Stout 5.0 and Hefe 3.0

Speaking of winning, Abbie and Tucker have been tearing it up at the Colorado Horse Park. They've won 24 ribbons over the last five months!

Ski season is over, summer is almost upon us, and both our VWs are in tip-top shape. I really can't ask for anything more!

Syncro Solstice 2015

2015-05-21T09:35:38-06:00

Our Syncro has been running in tip-top shape ever since we got a new Subaru H6 engine last August. Since then, we've driven it 9000 miles, most of them on trips during the ski season. To begin the camping season this year, we traveled to Moab, Utah for the annual Syncro Solstice gathering. We attended our first Syncro Solstice last year and it's been on our calendar ever since. This year, Trish and Abbie opted out, so it was a boys trip for Jack and I.

We left Denver on the Thursday morning before Mother's Day weekend. We made it all the way to Grand Junction (about 4 hours) before we stopped for gas. That's where our adventures began.

I reached for my wallet to grab a credit card. My heart sank when I realized it wasn't in my pocket and I'd left it at home. Luckily, we had $10 cash in the ashtray. We bought three gallons of gas and drove to a branch of a bank where I keep my checking account. They asked me for my debit card pin number, some other personal information and 30 minutes later, we had $200 and a full tank of gas. We drove with the radar detector on for the rest of the trip.

My parents met us in Moab, arriving from Montana after a 3-day camping/road trip of their own. Our timing couldn't have been more perfect as we arrived within the same minute. That evening, I walked around a bit and shot some pictures with Trish's D700.

On Friday, we joined a group of 10 Vanagons going to Determination Towers via Monitor and Merrimac.

The road wasn't particularly difficult, but it did get my blood pumping at some points. Our engine hangs pretty low in the back. When I hit the first rock that dented the oil pan, I was thankful there were no leaks. However, we did spring a coolant leak when climbing the rocks to Determination Towers.

Luckily, the folks we were with had a spare hose I was able to use to temporarily fix the problem. They also had a bunch of shovels to help clean up the mess. I especially enjoyed watching the van in front of us pop their wheels off the ground a few times. Below is a video I made with the footage I shot on this trail.

On Saturday, we went 4x4ing on Willow Spring Road to Willow Flats Road (into Arches National Park). At about halfway, we got a whiff of antifreeze and stopped to check things out. Similar to our damage on Friday, a coolant hose was sliced through and we'd lost all our coolant. I shortened the hose, clamped it back on, and continued. We stopped at the end of the trail when the red temperature light came on. I looked under the van and it appeared that coolant was leaking from the metal pieces that that connect the hose to the engine block. I became a bit worried since I can fix hoses, but not engine connections.

We headed into Moab with the engine running at 75% on the temp gauge. I replaced the hose in the parking lot at NAPA and threw some Stop Leak in with the coolant. We had a nice lunch at the Moab Brewery, then left town around 3pm for the drive back to Denver. It seemed like everything was good-to-go since we made it to Vail (250 miles) before stopping for gas. That's when it started to snow.

On the way up Vail pass, the light came on again. I continued to the top since the temp gauge wasn't going up too much (60%). I checked everything, relieved some pressure on the coolant tank, then continued. When the light came on again by Copper, we decided to stop and have dinner in Frisco. Luckily, we found another brewery (Backcountry Brewery) and enjoyed another great meal. Before we left, I put a couple more quarts of coolant in.

The light came on again once we got on I-70, so I pulled over in Silverthorne and called AAA. The tow truck driver wasn't willing to haul it back to Denver that night, but he said he would the next day. We continued in my parents rig and I-70 soon became treacherous. In fact, it was closed between El Rancho and C-470. Luckily, I knew a way around it, so we skipped sitting on the freeway and made it home around midnight. I had to drive with the window down for the last 1/2 hour to keep myself awake.

The good news is our Syncro turned out to be in fine shape. I believe there was some air trapped in the cooling system, that's why the red light kept coming on. We've had no cooling issues since we arrived back in Denver.

We had a great time at Syncro Solstice! It was great to meet so many Vanagon owners and drool over so many awesome vans. Can't wait for next year!

Farewell to the 2014-2015 Ski Season

2015-05-12T08:19:03-06:00

My family and I had a terrific ski season this year. Last year was an epic year with 11 resorts and a heli-skiing trip to British Columbia. This year, we skied Winter Park/Mary Jane, Steamboat, Copper, Crested Butte and Telluride. I logged 42 days of skiing, my most ever.

My season started on November 19th at Winter Park. Trish and I skied it again together a few days later. Opening Day at Mary Jane on November 28th was beautiful.

It's a BEAUTIFUL opening day at Mary Jane! #75WPR pic.twitter.com/l3BfKJgz5y
— Matt Raible (@mraible) November 28, 2014

Over Christmas and New Years, we stayed at our Ski Shack near Winter Park and got a number of days in. My buddy Joe Lamont and I skied together on the coldest day, when it was -6°F at the base of Mary Jane. I was pumped when got to ski with Mattias Karlsson and his family just after New Years.

Had a great time skiing with @matkar and his family this morning. Impressed by their skiing and snowboarding skills! pic.twitter.com/7iGZkg36M0
— Matt Raible (@mraible) January 4, 2015

For Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, we escaped the crowds and drove to Steamboat. The conditions weren't great, but we had a fun time nevertheless.

In early February, I did a hut trip in the Roaring Fork Valley with a great friend of mine, Ryan Moore. We climbed uphill a lot, sweated a lot and created some great memories.

For Presidents' Day Weekend, we packed up the kids and drove our Ski Bus to Crested Butte.

We enjoyed a fabulous weekend skiing with the kids and socializing with James and Jenny Ward. I also had fun surprising Trish with a family photograph session with Alison White.

In late February, we hosted our first tailgating party at Mary Jane. It was a powder day and the runs were great. I made some delicious buffalo chili and we enjoyed cold beverages with friends.

The kids had a couple days off from school in early March, so we packed up and headed for Telluride. The kids and I had never been before and boy were we impressed! The weather was beautiful and the kids found the courage and desire to do a number of double blacks. We had a blast that weekend, especially since Abbie and Jack both became fast and fearless.

The trip to Telluride marked an end to 5-weekends-in-a-row of skiing. I wrote about the fun we had in Skiing Adventures with our Syncro in the Rocky Mountains.

On March 13, day #36, I had one of the best ski days of my life (so far). My no-sugar and lots of exercise lifestyle helped me accomplish a 30,000 vertical feet day at Mary Jane. There was seven of us that day and we skied mostly blacks. It was hard to believe I pulled it off without eating or drinking anything all day. I was in the best ski shape of my life.

I slowed down a bit in April due to starting with a new client and visiting Trish's parents in Pennsylvania. However, my company's 9" rule kicked in on April 17th.

We ended the year with a tailgate party at Mary Jane on closing weekend. I spent the night in the Syncro at Mary Jane to get primo parking. A number of friends and kids showed up and we celebrated the end of the season with lots of smiles.

Summary
We had a blast this ski season. Normally, I shave my beard to a goatee at the end of ski season. However, this year I've signed up to a write a book on JHipster. Hipsters often have nice beards and mine seems to be pretty good right now, so I think I'll grow it until I've finished the book. Hopefully my bus will be done by then and I can get a nice author photo with my beard and a finished bus.

Next year, I hope to ski another 40+ days. Jack will be in 5th grade and can get three free days at all the resorts. We asked him if he wanted to travel around like we did last year with Abbie. He said he'd rather stay in Winter Park most of the time and do a few trips like we did this year. I'm OK with that. It was a glorious ski season.

Rafting the Green River through Desolation Canyon

2014-09-20T17:11:17-06:00

After rafting the Yampa in June, we knew we'd experienced a once-in-a-lifetime kinda trip. We never expected to have two in one summer. When we got an invite to raft Desolation Canyon over Labor Day weekend, we jumped at the opportunity.

The trip started on Jack's birthday: Thursday, August 28th. We drove from Denver to Green River, Utah the night before, and had some adventures along the way. As we were heading down Vail Pass, our trailer started to swing from side to side, almost whiplashing us off the road. We quickly slowed down and didn't go over 65 MPH for the rest of the trip. I figured this was caused by the rear spring spacers we added to the Syncro. The heightened rear caused the raft trailer to be out of balance, and we needed a new hitch to drop it down.

We arrived around 1:30am, popped the top on our camper and went to sleep. The next morning, we woke up and met some of our fellow floaters for the first time. An hour later, were were getting ready to leave and I was inspecting our trailer. That's when I noticed one of the wheels was about to fall off. The bearings were shot and the wheel was barely hanging on.

Luckily, one of the guys we just met had replaced all his trailer's bearings the week before and was on it. He knew exactly what to do and went to work. There was a Napa Auto Parts store a mile away. Two hours and several trips to Napa later, we were back in business and on the road.

We celebrated Jack's 10th birthday while driving to the put in, opening presents and having a good ol' time. We also had some cupcakes to celebrate with everyone once we arrived. Jack was especially pumped for the huckleberries my Mom overnighted.

We launched with five families total, 10 adults and 10 kids. We had five rafts, a duckey, an inner tube and two motors to get us through the flat water. We didn't get on the river until 6pm that first day, and only made it seven miles before dark.

The water was muddy and we made jokes that it should be called the Brown River instead of the Green River. On the upside, it was warm and the kids had a blast frolicking in it. We got to know our travel companions and were happy we purchased a new motor to combat the winds and flatness. Yes, there were many references to motoring as we cruised down the river.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. After the first two days, we didn't use the motors much, and there were quite a few rapids. However, there were no Class IVs and the kids only walked for one Class III. The kids seemed to have a great time, inventing new games every night and exploring for hours at every new campsite. My favorite game was the Werewolves vs. the Angry Mob.

The petroglyphs we saw along the way were pretty cool.

Time spent on a river always brings out a few good smiles.

And dress up as a superhero night was simply awesome.

Trish's photo from our last night on the river makes me want do it all again.

2014 will go down in the books as one of our best rafting years. We only made it on the river a few times, but the week-long trips were amazing. Rafting the Arkansas with our Dads was really fun too. I'm proud to be raising river rats and long for the days I can live in our van down by the river.

The Scenic Way to Santa Fe

2014-07-27T11:56:52-06:00

After having a successful run at ski season with our VW Syncro, Trish and I figured we'd see how it performed in the summer. We took it 4x4ing in Moab, rafting in Dinosaur National Monument and camping for Father's Day Weekend. It was a trusty steed for our kids, dogs, skis and raft. Earlier this month, we planned a week-long road trip to Santa Fe to see one of my old college roommates. Because of the holiday weekend, it turned into a 10-day road trip. We left Denver in style on the morning of the 4th.

The motorcycle on the back didn't seem to slow us down much. We drove from Denver to Winter Park, taking the long way over Squaw Pass to avoid traffic.

When we arrived at our Ski Shack, the engine was making a loud knocking sound. We dismissed it as a random occurrence. When I drove to the gas station 45 minutes later, the knocking was loud enough that heads turned when I drove past. After fueling up, I started the van and began driving back to our condo. The engine sputtered, the tires screeched and then the engine died. I pulled to the side, conveniently still in the gas station's parking lot. The engine would no longer turn over.

Below is the email I sent to Mike at Rocky Mountain Westy while walking back to our condo.

Happy Fourth of July! Our van's engine gave up the ghost today. There was a loud knocking, then it felt like is slammed on the back brakes, a screech of the tires and it died. Now it won't even turn over. Sounds like it's seized to me.

This happened in Fraser today. I have AAA so could probably get it towed to you.

Can you help us find and install a new engine? I'd like something with similar HP. Would you recommend a 1.8T, a 3.0 liter or something else?

It was the best breakdown I've ever had. I was able to walk home (one mile) and it didn't even rain on me. From there, we continued to celebrate the 4th and refactor our road-trip plans. With the Syncro, we were planning on camping at The Great Sand Dunes, Pagosa Springs and Mesa Verde. We decided we'd drive our new sedan instead (recently gifted from Trish's Dad). I took the train to Denver, drove it up on July 5th and we departed Winter Park on Sunday, July 6.

Instead of camping in beautiful campgrounds, we changed our plans to stay at B&Bs. In the meantime, Mike replied and said he thought he'd be able to install an H6 3.0 by the end of the month. He recommended it as a good replacement for our SVX engine, particularly because it was more reliable and likely to endure more miles. We agreed to the repairs and had AAA tow it to his shop in Fort Collins.

Our first destination was The Broadmoor. We took the back way through Breckenridge and skipped the holiday traffic. We arrived around 5pm and were warmly welcomed, dogs and all. We celebrated our one-year anniversary early with excellent Italian food, golf on the West course and a fun pub crawl on Monday night.

The Broadmoor was named the #1 Golf Resort in North America by Golf magazine readers. We certainly enjoyed the course, but it's also the first time Trish and I declined beers from the cart lady. Our games were so bad, we weren't in the mood to celebrate anything.

That afternoon, we took our dogs to the excellent Bear Creek Dog Park and sampled some beers at nearby breweries. Our favorite was the Golden Bee and their real yards of Guinness.

On Tuesday afternoon, we left Colorado Springs for Pagosa Springs. There, we enjoyed a country B&B, soaked in the hot springs and had a great hike to Fourmile Falls.

We left on Wednesday afternoon and drove to Taos, New Mexico. We had the best chilli relleno in the world, watched a bluegrass jam, visited Taos Mesa Brewing and hiked to Williams Lake.

On Friday, we left Taos and drove to Santa Fe, our ultimate destination. While arriving, I checked my email and was pleased to see an email from the folks working on my '66 Bus. While flipping through the pictures referenced in the email, I realized there were several videos. I did my best to get us off the road and into a place where I could watch the videos on a proper screen. You can imagine my glee as I watched my bus drive under its own power for the first time.

My "achievement unlocked!" moment was soon complimented by an excellent margarita and tasty New Mexican food. Wow! Those New Mexicans know the right level for the "default" hot sauce. Spicy and delicious!

We spent the weekend with our friends Chris, Mary and Luna and had a great time. The Santa Fe summer weather was beautiful - in the mid-70s most of the time, with nice breezes and sunshine. Trish, Chris, Sagan, Jake and I took a hike on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed their national forest. On Sunday, we marveled at the art on display at Santa Fe's 11th Annual International Folk Art Market.

More photos on Flickr →

The rest of the time, we hung out in their backyard. Trish played her banjo, we watched the firepit crackle and Dino (their new puppy) kept us entertained with his antics. It was one of the most relaxing weekends I've had in quite some time. Thanks to Chris, Mary and Luna - you guys are awesome and we can't wait to visit again!

Rafting the Yampa through Dinosaur National Monument

2014-06-11T22:30:23-06:00

In January, my friend Brice sent out an email to a bunch of folks asking us to apply for a river permit lottery. He sent us links to lotteries for Dinosaur National Monument - Yampa River and Desolation Gray - Green River. There were 10 of us on the email and we all applied for both permits. In mid-February, I found out I won the Yampa permit and the trip planning began. This was a huge deal for some since they'd been trying to get this permit for 10 years.

When we got all the details worked out, we were scheduled to launch on Saturday, May 31 and take out on Wednesday, June 4. Our put-in was Deerlodge Park and take-out, Split Mountain. If you're interested, you can see a map.

Over the next four months, many emails flew between us (33 pages if printed out) and much planning ensued. We had a planning BBQ, endured a permit-award-never-sent-fiasco and I tried to back out for Abbie's 5th grade continuation ceremony. Since I was the permit holder (and had to go), the crew convinced me it was a trip of a lifetime. We left Abbie in Denver for her ceremony and took Jack with us. When we launched on May 31, we had 21 people, 8 rafts and one inflatable kayak. Of the crew, 6 were children (aged 6 - 11).

Day 1 (10 miles)
We knew there was high water going into the trip. We later found out that June 1 may have been the highest flow of the season, with between 17000 and 18000CFS. We were only on the river a couple hours the first day. The river was swift and we marveled that none of the rapids we went through had names. Our friend, The Professor, flipped in his ducky, but had no issues recovering. We camped at Teepee Hole that night.

Day 2 (16 miles)
Sunday morning, everyone was in good spirits. It was our first day with named rapids and we all were looking forward to it.

Sunday started out with TeePee Rapid, a Class III. We all stayed right and made it through just fine. The waves were big, but nothing seemed dangerous. We paddled through Little Joe (Class III) and wondered why they named Big Joe (Class II) "Big". We soon learned why when we saw one of the first rafts flip in the middle of it. It was a blue raft with our friends, Eagle Dave and Jake. A few more rafts went through the same route, then a silver raft flipped right in front of us. It contained our friends, Chris and Brice, as well as their kids (6 and 9).

Yes, things got scary all of a sudden. I instantly realized I didn't want to follow their route and rowed as hard as I could to go right instead of left. Once we passed the flipping hole, I rowed as hard as I could to try and reach Brice on the left. It was the hardest I'd ever rowed in my life, yet I couldn't get across the river to stop and help. Luckily, a couple other friends did reach him and were able to help. Chris, thinking quickly, had grabbed both their boys (while flipping) and swam with them until Erick and Galin (11 yrs old) rescued them with a throw bag.

We arrived at Harding Hole about 30 minutes after flipping/recovering. Emotions were high and all the kids were a bit freaked out. Many asked to go home. Luckily, a ranger and number of trainees were camping nearby. They helped calm nerves by giving us advice and offering to run safety for us the next day.

Day 3 (18 miles)
On Monday, we got to experience the biggest rapids of the trip: Warm Springs (Class IV). We stopped and scouted, as well as let the kids walk around the rapid. There was a tall haystack wave in the middle of it, as well as a huge "Maytag" hole at the end.

Luckily, everyone made it through just fine and spirits ran high with accomplishment. The rest of the day was particularly enjoyable as flat water brought us floating and relaxing. Many water fights ensued between boats and laughter erupted off the canyon walls.

We celebrated 80s night with style at Box Elder campground that evening.

Day 4 (14.5 miles)
Tuesday was another floater in the morning. We stopped at the confluence of the Yampa and Green River and enjoyed the view.

In the early afternoon, we stopped at Echo Park and enjoyed our first non-groover toilet in days. We also gathered water and took the kids on a hike to see some petroglyphs.

As we progressed that afternoon, we hit some more rapids that sent some fright through the kids that flipped on Sunday. We stopped for a couple hours to hike, play Yahtzee and relax in the sun.

Then we continued to camp at Big Island that night. Our last night on the river, we spent in a beautiful camping utopia.

Day 5 (13.5 miles)
Wednesday, everyone gathered their things early and had their boats packed by breakfast. It was our morning to cook, so Trish whipped up huckleberry pancakes and dazzled our taste buds. We had one big rapid, Moonshine (Class III), to get our blood pumping. We scouted, the kids walked, and everyone made it through just fine. There were a few more rapids (SOB, Schoolboy and Inglesby) through the rest of Split Mountain Canyon, but none that inspired scouting. We landed at Split Mountain take-out around 2pm, said our goodbyes and headed home. Trish, Jack and I arrived back in Denver just before midnight.

Summary
Wow - what a trip! When we first read about floating through Dinosaur National Monument, we thought it'd be more of a float trip with some fun rapids. Instead, it greeted us with lots of fast water, tons of rapids and not-so-much floating. In the 2014 Boating Information Booklet (PDF), item #5 in the Safety Recommendations says "Rig to flip!" This was no joke.

Everyone was well prepared and we did rig to flip, we just never expected it to happen on a Class II. With kids in the boat, it shook everyone up a bit, but we became a stronger team because of it. Sloane, one of the most experienced rafters on the trip, wore a GoPro through much of the trip. You can view a video of our adventures below, or on YouTube.

Good times, great friends, fantastic memories.

more photos on Flickr →

Syncro Solstice 2014

2014-05-21T10:21:11-06:00

I like to think I've been part of the VW Community for many years. In reality, I've been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the restoration of my '66 to finish. When we bought our Syncro last year, I became an active participant again. Last Thursday, we took full advantage of this wonderful community - joining a bunch of folks in Moab for The Syncro Solstice.

The Syncro Solstice is an annual Volkswagen Transporter Jamboree produced by enthusiasts in the Intermountain area. The event hosts both 2WD and 4WD vehicles in an off-road desert-style family-camp-and-expedition Jamboree, held late spring in Moab, Utah. Our Eurovan, Bus, Doka and Microbus friends are a hit and also very welcome.

My parents joined us for this camping extravaganza, as did our "we love to go camping" border collies. The people were great, the vans were inspiring and the views, mesmerizing. We love Moab and the weather was gorgeous the entire time.

When we weren't 4x4ing, we visited Arches National Park, Canyonlands and did a few hikes. Did I mention how perfect the weather was?

On Saturday, we cruised along Potash Road for a couple hours before heading back to Denver.

more photos on Flickr →

We made it from Moab to Denver (350 miles) in 5 hours, with only one stop. Our Syncro ran like a dream. On Sunday, we attend our first VW Show as participants - Volkswagens on the Green.

We didn't win any trophies, but we did win a $25 gift certificate to Rocky Mountain Westy. The questions and compliments poured in and we had a lot of fun meeting a bunch of new folks. Kids especially loved our "upstairs bedroom". Having the rig cleaned up fetched comments the rest of the day while driving around: "super jealous", "that's awesome", "wanna sell it"?

All I could think was, you ain't seen nothing yet folks -- wait until you see my '66 Porsche Bus!

Farewell to the 2013-2014 Ski Season

2014-05-10T12:30:54-06:00

We took things up a notch for this year's ski season: we bought a ski bus (a.k.a. The Syncro) and rented our ski shack out for the season. Our goal was to ski all over Colorado since Abbie had free days at every resort. Personally, I racked up 28 days of skiing, Trish had similar numbers and, Abbie and Jack got between 15 and 20.

We picked up the ski bus with a road trip from Sun Valley, ID to Denver. We were hoping to ski at Jackson Hole on the way home. The sub-zero temperatures quickly changed our minds and we learned about its sub-par wind resistance driving through Wyoming.

The kids and I started the season with a trip to A-Basin, followed by a day at Keystone. Then Trish and I hit Mary Jane before heading to Montana for Christmas.

Around this same time, Trish sold her Xterra and we became a one-vehicle family. The Syncro had its first (and only!) breakdown on the way to my parent's on Christmas Eve. We raced Santa Claus to The Cabin, packed in a rented sedan with two kids, two dogs and two cats. We realized afterward the car had bald tires and a broken windshield-washing system. Thank goodness the roads were dry.

The Syncro remained in Bozeman for a week while getting repairs done at Straightaway Motors. We enjoyed the beauty of Montana without it, sledding, skiing at Big Mountain and celebrating New Years with good friends in West Glacier. Taking Trish and the kids skiing in Montana was a ski-life highlight for me. As a teenager, I learned how to downhill ski at Big Mountain and it was really cool to show my family its awesomeness.

Both Abbie and Jack started the season snowboarding. They switched to skiing when Trish took them to Steamboat the same weekend I went heli-skiing in British Columbia.

At the end of January, we stayed with our good friends, the Tillis, and skied at Breckenridge.

The next day we skied Copper and had an 11" Powder Day at Mary Jane a few days later.

The snow continued to fall when we drove to Aspen for Superbowl weekend. It took us six hours to drive there in a blizzard, but the 36" of fresh snow the next day made it all worth it. We skied Snowmass and had a ball.

The Syncro burst a cooling hose clamp going over Vail Pass on the way home. It was Superbowl Sunday and we were rushing home to watch the Broncos. Luckily, I was able to fix it enough to get to a gas station and buy some new hose clamps. I'd rather not talk about the Broncos performance that evening.

In mid-February, I replaced the propane tank on the Syncro and installed a portable heater.

We celebrated with our first winter camping excursion in Mary Jane's Challenger Lot. The next morning, we found ourselves plowed in. We learned you're supposed to move when you hear the snow plows in the middle of the night. We enjoyed first chair that morning and all our runs with fresh tracks.

The next weekend, we camped for two nights in Avon for WinterWinderGrass. We skied at Copper and Vail that weekend. In the evenings, we drank delicious Colorado beer and listened to some really great live music. We left the propane heater at home and got along just fine with sleeping bags.

At the end of February, we took the kids to Beaver Creek, where they had their first 10-run day with us. That was the day we realized they could keep up with us on the blues.

For St. Patrick's Day weekend, we drove to Crested Butte, one of our favorite resorts in Colorado. The kids both had 20 runs that day and impressed the hell out of us. It was a beautiful weekend, and I even got to hang out with James Ward on Saturday night.

In April, we gathered with friends at an A-Basin Beach Party. It was the first time the kids camped with us in the Syncro and they loved it. We woke up at 5am to get a good spot and there were already two cars ahead of us in line. They opened the gates around 7am. We stayed at our friends, the Ellens, in Breckenridge that night and skied there the next day.

The season ended with a few days at Mary Jane and Winter Park. We spent a couple nights at Devils Thumb Ranch on the final weekend.

more pictures on Flickr →

Summary
By my count, we made it to 11 unique resorts this year. That's a far cry from the 25 resorts we have in Colorado. Nevertheless, we had a great time and put almost 10,000 miles on our Syncro since we bought it. It's been a slightly stressful winter as a one-car family. But, like I mentioned, the Syncro has been humming along nicely.

In January, I realized the only way the Syncro was going to work long-term was if I became a VW mechanic. My Dad is an excellent mechanic, so I talked with him and learned how to fix most problems we've had. It's been a fun learning experience so far. We did wrestle with some cooling-system issues every-so-often, but we were able to fix them by tightening clamps and keeping the cooling tank full. Last week, Rocky Mountain Westy upgraded the cooling tubes and tank. Next week, we'll be getting axles replaced and some steering enhancements - things that tend to go bad after 185K miles.

Our biggest regret of the season was renting out our condo in Fraser. We thought we'd enjoy traveling all over Colorado and camping in the van. We did enjoy the trips, but working from the van wasn't great and it was too small to bring all our pets (two cats, two dogs). It also lacks a hot tub.

Next year, we're psyched that Crested Butte has been added to the Rocky Mountain Super Pass. We'll likely hit many of the same resorts again, and I'd like to spend more time at Steamboat, Telluride and Wolf Creek.

In the meantime, mountain biking, camping, rafting and VW show season is right around the corner. We're heading to Moab next week for Syncro Solstice, entering our first show at Volkswagens on the Green, rafting/dancing with our kids at Campout for the Cause and doing a 5-day river trip down the Yampa in Dinosaur National Monument. Yeeeeee haaaw - I love Colorado!

Spring Break in Florida: Golf, Beaches and Boats!

2014-04-14T20:34:59-06:00

Florida is a beautiful state, with sandy beaches, excellent fishing, fun people and a great enthusiasm for golf. When I dreamed up Trish, I knew she'd have an awesome family, but I never expected her parents to have a house on a golf course. Trish's grandma, Claire Stanley, is a legend in her own right. I've never met her, but I knew I loved her when Trish's dad first told me about her "layered shots". When I saw Claire's name listed several times on the walls of the The Country Club of Naples, a deep respect came over me. Claire picked out her house on the 17th hole (Trish's favorite number) of the Country Club in 1966, when the establishment was founded. My bus was born in 1966.

Today, Trish's parents have turned it into a golf and relaxation oasis, complete with beautiful orchid gardens, a sweet pool and Japanese decorations from the country where they first met.

As a golf enthusiast, I'm embarrassed that we've only visited her parents in Naples once before. We bought Abbie and Jack golf clubs last year for Jack's birthday, and they both like to play the game. To make up for our lack of visiting family in Florida, we took our kids on a golf vacation for this year's Spring Break.

We learned a technique for kids golfing in September 2012: have them tee off from the 150 marker so they have a chance to par the hole. We arrived in Naples on a Saturday, had a nice family brunch on Sunday and played golf with the kids that afternoon. The kids had a really good time, even beating us on a couple holes.

The sunset on Sunday evening was gorgeous, especially with the kids frolicking in the waves.

On Monday, we woke up early and boarded the Key West Express before sunrise.

We arrived in Key West around noon and hung out by our hotel pool for most of the day. That evening, after marveling at the sunset, we took the kids on a Key West Ghost Tour. It was a bit long at 1.5 hours, but the story of Robert the Doll was excellent.

Tuesday morning, we met up with Abbie and Jack's Mom, Julie, and her fiancé Dave. They had Dave's kids with them, and we all headed out for a sailing, parasailing and jet skiing adventure together. Everyone had a great time, as is evidenced by the photos below.

Trish and I handed the kids over to Julie that afternoon and spent a few more hours in Key West. We rented bikes, visited the southernmost point in the US and enjoyed a cocktail on the beach. We especially liked seeing the house that Trish's Mom, Maureen, grew up in.

Around happy hour, after visiting the World of Beer, we boarded the Key West Express and traveled back to Trish's parents.

The rest of the week was an ideal vacation: golfing, swimming in the pool, swimming in the ocean, walking on the beach, dinner on the beach and fishing in the Everglades. Trish's Dad, Joe, booked us a fishing trip in the Everglades, starting from Everglades City. He and I had to wake up before dawn on Friday to meet our guide, who was waiting for us at the dock at 7:30. From there, we spent six hours boating, casting, reeling, catching some, losing some and having a fabulous time. Our catch at the end of the adventure was two Trout and one Flounder (caught by our guide, Tony). Nevertheless, we had a delightful day and savored the sun and the water in a beautiful location.

Saturday, we played some more golf and took an evening flight home. It was a fun spring break and I'm glad the kids got to enjoy it with both parents and multiple grandparents. More than anything, thanks to Trish's parents for their hospitality and fun-loving lifestyle. We had a blast!

For more pictures, checkout Trish's Spring Break 2014 or my Spring Break in Florida.

Heli Skiing in British Columbia with CMH Gothics

2014-02-11T11:18:39-07:00

I first learned how to downhill ski in Montana while I was in grade school. A couple times a year, the whole school would go on a field trip to Big Mountain (now Whitefish Mountain). I didn't ski a whole lot in high school, nor in college (at the University of Denver). However, several friends went to DU for the skiing. They'd schedule their classes so they had a couple days off per week, and they'd head for the hills. Two friends in particular, Chris and Chris, were some of the best skiers I'd ever seen. They'd fly through the moguls with legs like rubber bands, upper-body barely moving, legs absorbing the world famous bumps at Mary Jane.

I used to talk about Chris and Chris, long after college, as the amazing skiers with the rubber band legs. I didn't start skiing a lot until I worked for a .com in the late 90s. The VP of Development (whom we now call "The Professor") told us that one of the perks was a "9-inch Rule". The rule was that if it snowed 9", you could take the day off and go skiing, as long as you went to the resort that had the fresh powder. It was crazy how few people took advantage of this, but he and I never missed a day that year. That was likely the first year I'd skied more than 10 days in my life, and I'll bet I skied 20 with him.

I continued to ski a fair bit with my practice wife, then took a couple years off when the kids were born. We got them on skis when they were two years old, and they've been skiing ever since. The funny thing is, I never got really good at skiing until I started taking tips from The Professor. The year was 2010, and I got good enough to be able to ski top-to-bottom bump runs without stopping. Skiing had become a passion for me.

When I met Trish a few months later, I asked her if she skied (hoping to God she did). Her response blew my mind.

"No, I tele."

She went on to explain how she'd started with Alpine, moved to snowboarding for six years and was now addicted to free heeling. I just gazed with a dumb stare and my mouth open.

Last year, Chris M. decided it was high time we did a helicopter ski trip. At first, I gulped at the idea, mostly because of the cost. Then I came around to it, in the sense that confidence is 50% of a skiers ability, and my confidence was up from skiing so much the last few years.

As I sat in Denver's airport on January 17, 2014, I wrote down the following:

It's come to this, the pinnacle of my life: I'm going heli-skiing with the two guys I used to say we're the best skiers I'd ever seen in college.

Except now, I believe I can keep up.

We booked our trip with Canadian Mountain Holidays, or CMH as they're commonly referred to. They have several locations; we chose CMH Gothics Lodge. After a quick flight to Calgary, and an overnight stay near the airport, we boarded a bus for an 8-hour ride to the lodge. There were seven people in our group, with around 35 people on the bus.

After arriving, we checked into our rooms and got settled. Most rooms were singles, with a shared bathroom. We had a two-hour avalanche training session and then settled in for an intro from the Lodge Manager. A delicious dinner followed.

Sunday was the AFC Championship game, so Chris and I wore our favorite team uniforms (he: Patriots, me: Broncos). We made a bet the loser had to wear the winning team's jersey on Monday. We skied all day and it was wonderful. Fresh powder tracks on every run, and only a 5-minute helicopter ride to the top. In the air, we'd refresh with water and Gatorade, provided by CMH. I wasn't in as good of ski shape as I should've been, but I did keep up. At the end of most runs, I was sweating so bad - I could press the top of my helmut and the sweat would stream out. It was similar to mountain biking helmut sweat, but it was happening at -5°C (23°F).

When we got back, one of the other guests had recorded the Broncos game on Slingbox, so a bunch of us got together to watch it. The internet was fast enough for streaming and I had a glorious time watching the Broncos beat the Patriots for the first time in years. Obviously, the Patriots fans didn't have as much fun, especially since there were plenty of guests from Colorado.

Here's some more pictures from this glorious life event. As you can see, the views were unbelievable.

Everyday was awesome, but Wednesday was incredible. It snowed 10 cm on Tuesday night, which turned into knee-deep powder and face shots. The hoots and hollers from everyone floating down forced my face into a sorta perma-grin. For many of us, it was the best skiing day of our entire lives. The video below tries to capture how much fun we had throughout the week, but ultimately fails. It's one of those things you have to experience to really appreciate. I ended up skiing around 80,000 vertical feet in four days.

For more picture, see my Top 5 Skiing Days of My Life album on Flickr. I also published some of my favorites photos taken by Stephen Pope.

Around The World Honeymoon: Last Stop, Fiji

2013-11-04T07:10:31-07:00

In August, Trish and I journeyed on a 'round the world honeymoon, to Ireland, Italy, Thailand and Fiji. Trish had a Fiji poster on her wall when she was a little kid and has always dreamed of visiting its islands. Our first view of Fiji from the plane was stunning.

We left Thailand on Saturday, August 17. Yes, our flight from Thailand to Fiji was long. It was only a few hours from Koh Samui to Hong Kong, but Hong Kong to Nadi, Fiji was 10 hours. Our layover in Nadi lasted a few hours on Sunday morning. When we boarded the "Island Hopper" for Taveuni, Trish turned into a kid in a candy store. Trish earned her pilots license a few years before I met her and something about a 1960s-era plane excited her greatly.

It took about an hour to fly from Nadi to Taveuni. After we landed, a driver from our hotel greeted us and and drove us to our water taxi. The resort Phil booked for us was Qamea Resort and Spa, which we later found out was on an island with no roads.

As we were arrived at Qamea, we immediately noticed the Padi 5-star Diving Resort sign. We'd both been scuba diving certified in the past, but we hadn't planned on diving in Fiji. When we saw it was 5-star diving, we both looked at each other, smiled, and thought "why not?"

We were immediately impressed with our Honeymoon Villa. We especially liked our own private hot tub in the back. Hot Tuuuubbb!!

On Monday, we spent several hours writing post cards to friends and family. It rained the whole day, hard. That evening, Trish had too much Haha, but made lots of new friends.

On Tuesday, I received a "satisfaction survey" from the resort, asking how we liked our first two days. I'd received a plethora of mosquito bites on my legs and the rain was starting to wear on me, so I told them.

"The mosquitos bites and rain kinda stink, but I realize you can't do anything about that. It's been awesome otherwise."

Within an hour, I was introduced to "mile a minute", a local plant that could be mashed into a liquid and take away mosquito bite itching. It felt like a miracle.

That afternoon, we had our first dive, which consisted of a 5-minute "refresher course" and the most unbelievably clear waters and colorful coral I've ever laid eyes on.

From there, the whole trip just got better and better. The sun came out and we quickly realized we were in paradise.

We visited the Qamea Spa and had the best massages of our lives. They had the music that every spa has - the sounds of the jungle. But the music was the sounds of the Fijian jungle through the open windows. The way they massaged your muscles never induced pain, it just warmed them up until they were like pudding. And I still had some itching from the 50+ mosquito bites on my calves. I felt like a dog ferociously scratching his belly while getting petted when the masseuse was rubbing my legs vigorously. It was simply heavenly, the best massage I've ever had. Trish agreed wholeheartedly.

Wednesday night was our first night dive. I sucked on my respirator like I'd just run a 5K, but we still managed to have fun and see lots of cool fish. And when I say lots, I mean around 100,000. The number of fish we saw when diving and snorkeling was unbelievable. We dined in our own private cabana on the beach that evening.

On Thursday, we did a waterfall hike with a group from the hotel. Percy was our guide and he was awesome. We took a boat from Qamea to Taveuni, then drove in a van to the trailhead. We saw two waterfalls, got rained on, sweated up some steep hills, dove into the waterfalls and had a really great time.

Thursday is when we really started to bond with the resort's other guests, as well as the managers. The intimate setting of paradise on an island, with no distractions, was very peaceful and healing for the soul.

We made it back to the resort in time for our 2:00 dive that afternoon.

We went snorkeling a few hours later. It was just as good as diving, without the heavy breathing.

I surprised Trish with Qamea's Night of Decadance that evening. Two Fijian Warriors showed up at our room to guide us to the spa. We bathed in the relaxing goodness of Fijian masseuse hands, followed by an outdoor candle-light, rock-walled shower. After the spa, they led us back to our room, where they'd setup a candlelit dinner on our porch, with steaming lobster and white wine. It was the perfect way to spend our last honeymoon evening.

On Friday, we slept in later than we planned, waking up around 10am. By 11, we'd eaten breakfast and were diving into the ocean for one last snorkel expedition. That afternoon, we departed Qamea with a certainty that we'd return someday.

Our flight from Taveuni to Nadi was equally exciting for Trish the second time around. She loved the analog instruments and how the pilots had to join hands to push the throttle forward for lift off.

We left Fiji on Friday evening and had a brief stopover in Apia, the capital of Samoa, at 1am. It was a strange stopover as they made us go through security and almost took some of the souvenirs we'd purchased in Fiji. Remember, we still didn't have any checked luggage, so we were carrying all our clothes and souvenirs. The bar was open though, so the hours passed quickly.

We re-boarded our plane in the early morning and landed in Honolulu, Hawaii on Friday morning. We were drinking Mai Tais in Hawaii before we even woke up on the same day! We boarded our flight for Los Angeles around the same time we were snorkeling. We landed in Denver on Saturday morning on the same day and time that we had been in Samoa.

We checked our bags for the first time when flying from Honolulu to Denver (via LA). Wouldn't you know it - they got lost and arrived in Denver 24 hours we did.

What was our favorite place of our 'round the world honeymoon? Ireland felt like a big hug, because the people were so warm and joyous. Italy's tunnels, wine and gastronomy were incredible. Thailand's spicy food, views and smiling people were a joy. But Qamea was different. Its intimate settings, wonderful diving and family-like resort staff made it just a bit more special.

In ten years, we hope to do it all again, this time with Abbie and Jack. It sounds crazy after writing about all these wonderful places, but one thing is for sure. There's no place like home. We're over the moon to be married and back in Denver.

We took around 1000 pictures in each country, but managed to widdle it down to the 20% that we loved. Trish's photos of Fiji can be found in Fiji: Around the World Honeymoon - Final Stop, Qamea!, while mine are in Around The World Honeymoon: Last Stop, Fiji.

Around The World Honeymoon: 3rd Stop, Thailand

2013-10-31T18:49:39-06:00

In August, Trish and I journeyed on a 'round the world honeymoon, to Ireland, Italy, Thailand and Fiji. Thailand is somewhere I've always wanted to go, and we were looking forward to some beach time as we boarded our flight from Turin to Istanbul.

We had high hopes for leaving the airport in Istanbul and grabbing dinner. With a six hour layover, we figured it wouldn't be too difficult. After waiting an hour in line to get out, the security guard told us we'd need a visa, which were available for $20 and another hour wait in line. We gave up and headed for the a lounge to relax and do a bit of writing. In fact, that's where I started writing the blog post about our wedding month. The flight to Bangkok started around midnight and arrived in the early afternoon on Monday, August 12. The Bangkok airport was massive and impressive, and we grabbed a bit to eat before boarding for Koh Samui.

Our hotel was the W Retreat Koh Samui and it was spectacular. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the General Manager (Brian Segrave) as we marveled at the view. Shortly after, a driver whisked us up to our bungalow in a "buggie" (golf cart). Our accommodations were exquisite, with a rose petal-filled bathtub, fondu, an outdoor shower and our own private pool. Basically, everything you'd want in a Honeymoon Getaway Suite.

We had the best sushi of our lives that night at Namu, the resort's contemporary Japanese restaurant.

The next day (Tuesday), we slept it, rolling around in the cozy numbness of our jetlag. At this point, we decided it was time to take a vacation from our vacation, something we've always wanted to do. For the next two days, we did nothing but sleep by the pool (getting our first, and last, sunburns of the trip), get massages, drink cocktails, and enjoy the pristine views. The W even created a Mixology course for us on Wednesday and we learned how to make Martinis, Mai Tais and multi-colored shots.

Our first big adventure in Thailand came when we journeyed to dinner outside of the resort. We'd asked our travel assistant, Ms. Tik, to setup a few activities for the remainder of our trip and we requested a Wednesday dinner reservation at Zenzibar. This was a restaurant I found on TripAdvisor, and I thought it was the same one I read about in the W's little red book of restaurant recommendations. Ms. Tik notified us that the restaurant's owner would be picking us up to drive us for dinner at 8:30pm. It sounded kinda strange at first, but since it was the #3 restaurant, we figured it'd be fun.

When we got into the owner's dilapidated truck, we started to worry. When we started driving down a dirt road that resembled The Cabin's bumpy, backwoods road, Trish started singing "Trish is for dinner, Matt is for dessert", light-heartedly, from the back seat. She was obviously concerned. The owner and I talked about his #3 ranking on TripAdvisor and I figured it must be the right place. And it was, just a bit rustic. When we arrived, the owner sat us at their finest table, just inches from the water's edge along the beach. The meal was fantastic, the white wine cold and delicious and the ambience, wonderful.

I realized later that I confused Zenzibar with Zazen Restaurant because Zazen was added to the little red book by "popular demand" and they had similar names.

That evening marked our first encounter with a toilet that consisted of a hole in the ground, and a bucket of water. We saw several after that. When in Rome! ;)

Thursday morning, we rode speedboats for an hour to Angthong National Marine Park, along with a bunch of other tourists. The snorkeling was awesome, but there were tiny jellyfish in the water that made it kinda like swimming with mosquitos. At the main stop, we hiked to the top of a mountain on one of the most steep, jagged hiking trails I've ever accended. We even spotted some Dusky Leaf Monkeys, playing and frolicing in the trees. There were ropes that you could hang on to and many times they were necessary, especially when hiking in flip flops. The view from the top was magnificent.

We were treated like royalty on the way back when the boat dropped us off right at the W's beach. In the getting-off-the-boat chaos, I left my favorite "why does Matt always look like a tourist" hat and flip flops. It was an unfortunate, but bittersweet parting moment.

That night, we dined at Barracuda Restaurant. We walked around the local market beforehand and were deeply impressed by all the exotic foods (e.g. insects) and unique souvenirs for sale. We instantly wished we'd taken more more time to shop and experience the local Thai culture.

That longing quickly went away while experiencing a delectable dinner at Barracuda.

We played golf on Friday at Santiburi Samui Country Club. We were pleasantly surprised to find they required us to use caddies. It was Trish's and my first experience with such a luxury.

Our caddies were very helpful in telling us where to hit the ball, how hard to hit it and what club to use. Later, when talking to the GM at the hotel, I found out the real reason.

Brian: How was your day today?
Me: It was fun! We played golf at Santiburi and had caddies for the first time. By the third hole, I'd figured out why - there were no signs on the course, so we needed them to find our way.
Brian: No, that's not the reason. It's for the cobras. Lots of cobras out there - you need them to fight 'em off.
Me: WTF?!

I neglected to tell Trish about the cobras until we were on our flight home from Hawaii, since I figured they might be in Fiji too.

That evening, we enjoyed an intimate sunset cruise on a catamaran. There were only five passengers on the boat and the food was delightful.

We really enjoyed our honeymoon in Thailand. The W Retreat and its staff (especially Brian, Ice and Khun Nong) contributed greatly to our satisfaction and the food was deliciously spicy. Zenzibar, Angthong, Santiburi, Barracuda and the sunset cruise were breathtaking to experience and beautiful to photograph.

On Saturday, August 17, we boarded a flight from Koh Samui to Taveuni, Fiji (with layovers in Hong Kong and Nadi along the way).

In the next (and final) story from our honeymoon, I'll talk about the place that Trish has wanted to visit ever since she was a little girl. She grew up with a Fiji poster on her wall and longed to visit it someday. I was extremely happy to make her dream come true and to experience one of the most magical places on the planet.

We took around 1000 pictures in each country, but managed to widdle it down to ~20% that we loved. Trish's photos of Thailand can be found in Thailand 2013, while mine are in Around The World Honeymoon: 3rd Stop, Thailand.

Around The World Honeymoon: 2nd Stop, Italy

2013-10-24T14:33:36-06:00

In August, Trish and I journeyed on a 'round the world honeymoon, starting in Ireland and taking a train to Italy. The train ride from Paris to Turin, Italy was amazing. After a few hours, we passed through the Alps, where scenery was steep and plentiful. We drank wine and gazed out the window as we flew through the countryside. We arrived in Turin just before dark and our first official honeymoon tiff began.

Upon exiting the train station, I realized I didn't have any cash, having spent it in transit on vino. Phil had mentioned the hotel was "a short walk" from the station, so I figured we could walk a few blocks and stumble upon it. This only worked for a few blocks before Trish asked me if I had the address. I admitted that I did not, though it was on TripIt and I'd left the printout on the printer at home. Of course, with no phones or internet, TripIt did us no good. We stopped in at a bar to get the address from someone with a cell phone, then proceeded to walk for several blocks in the wrong direction. Then things got a lot better. We found an ATM, caught a cab and landed at our hotel (the NH Santo Stefano) 10 minutes later.

The next day, Tuesday August 6, we slept too late to feast on the hotel's breakfast. Just before noon, we strolled through the heat to Piazza San Carlo. A shaded cafe presented itself as appetizing and we sat down for a bite to eat.

Phil purchased Turin Cards for us and we promptly put them to use. The first recommended stop was the Egyptian Museum, or Museo delle Antichità Egizie. It has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts outside of Cairo. Its history is rich, with six and a half thousand objects on display, plus another 26,000 objects in storage.

We wandered around Turin a bit more that afternoon, then grabbed a nap at the hotel before heading to our first real Italian dinner. The food was exquisite, and the Barolo - delightful.

After dinner, we strolled down to the River Po and took in the nightlights and energy of Turin.

Our first full day in Turin was interesting, but Wednesday is when the fun began. Phil hooked us up with an Alfa Romeo for a rental car. We were were quickly impressed with its speed and nimbleness. The Italian drivers like to keep the road lines in the middle of their vision and they're not afraid to tell you when you're in their way. We sped off on the motorway to Alba (home of the Slow Food Movement), to embark upon The Langhe drive.

After stopping for lunch in Alba, we found ourselves at The Castello Cavour and its Enoteca Regionale Cavour. One was a castle, the other a wine tasting/store establishment.

The wine was tasty and we bought a few bottles before heading southwest toward La Morra. The panoramic view at the top was the most stunning I've ever seen.

On the way from La Morra to Barolo, we stopped to photograph a picture-perfect tree on a hill. The Cedar of Lebanon was planted in 1856 and is now about 50 ft (15 m) in height and visible from most of the villages and cities of Langhe. It doesn't take much to make it happy.

Maneuvering our speedy little car into Barolo, Marchesi di Barolo caught our eye, and we stopped in for a sample of their sweet nectar.

From there, we walked into town a bit more. We stumbled upon a place in the center with a glass elevator and incredible view. The path to Fatelli Di Barolo Castle was pretty spectacular too.

The drive back to Turin was fast and furious. It was about this time that we started to question if there were police patrolling the roads. We saw signs that indicated we were being monitored, but we didn't see any police cars. Later, someone told us it was all camera-based. With speeds ranging from 150-180kph for most of our motorway excursions, it's possible we'll be receiving some tickets in the mail.

For dinner on Wednesday, we enjoyed a delicious meal at a castle-like structure that overlooked the city.

Thursday, we woke up in time for breakfast, jumped in the car and drove like bats-outta-hell ~200km to Portofino. This is an Italian fishing village, with a picturesque harbour on the Italian Riviera. The tunnels we drove through were some of the coolest things I've ever seen on a road trip.

The view from the top of Castello Brown was beautifully captured by Trish. While she was taking pictures, I was enjoying a bottle of Barolo and admiring the Mediterranean.

Shortly after, we offered our wine to some Iranian ladies and had a stupendous time telling our respective stories.

That night, Trish shot a lightning-infused Piazza Castello on the drive home. It's quite possibly her best photo from the whole honeymoon.

Friday, we headed for the hills, taking a drive along the Valle d'Aosta. Rather than follow the recommendations in our guide book, we headed directly for Mont Blanc (the end destination). The tunnel phenomenon from Thursday continued; enabling us to drive straight through the mountains. We were hoping to ride over the top of Mont Blanc, but it wasn't open, so we had to take pictures, bask in one another's company and giggle at the awesome views.

We were thoroughly impressed with Fénis Castle on the drive back to Turin.

Friday evening delivered a reservation at Antica Trattoria Con Calma, where I chewed through my first escargot experience and savored the rabbit.

When we woke up Saturday morning, we hesitated between staying in Turin, visiting the National Cinema Museum and continuing The Langhe drive. We came to Italy for the gastronomy and the wine, so the decision was easy and we drove to Barbaresco.

Barbaresco was even better than we expected, especially our visit to Cantina Boffa Carlo. Next time, I have a feeling we'll be staying at the brilliant Boffa House.

We finished the day by driving through Mango, Benevello and Borgomale before turning around for our jaunt back to Turin. Saturday was a quiet night, where we got lots of rest in preparation for our Sunday journey to Thailand. This rest allowed us to get up early, pack, and venture to the Museo Nazionale del Cinema before our flight. The museum and its panoramic views were remarkable.

On Sunday, August 11, we boarded a flight from Turin to Koh Samui, Thailand (with stops in Istanbul and Bangkok along the way).

While it doesn't appear like we slowed down on the second week of our honeymoon, it was a very relaxing time for me. The lack of phones and computers provided more time in the day. There was more opportunities for conversations and reflection, and it was very special having constant interaction with my new wife.

Italy was fantastic. The Piedmont region's views, castles, wine and gastronomy were unbelievable. The Barolo and Barbaresco wines were exquisite and the driving experience was unmatched. I'd love to have some Italian Road Architects visit Colorado and build tunnels through our mountains!

In the next installment, I'll talk about our honeymoon in Thailand and its ocean views, people, spicy food and how we took a vacation from our vacation.

We collectively took around 1000 pictures in each country, but managed to widdle it down to ~20% that we loved. Trish's photos of Italy can be found in Italy 2013, while mine are in Around The World Honeymoon: 2nd Stop, Italy.

Around The World Honeymoon: 1st Stop, Ireland

2013-10-17T14:35:32-06:00

When I asked Trish where she wanted to go for our honeymoon, she suggested "Ireland, Italy, Thailand or Fiji". They all sounded like wonderful places, so we decided to visit them all! To book the trip, we contacted the Travel Guru, Phil Overton. Phil does all the travel arrangements for No Fluff Just Stuff, so I'd worked with him a bit in the past. Phil agreed to help us out and I sent him an email with countries and dates to get the ball rolling. We asked him to book us a flight out of Denver on July 31, returning on August 23rd, just in time for Jack's birthday party.

The week before we were scheduled to depart, I received our travel book (with itineraries and tickets), and confirmed everything looked good. At that point, all we knew was the dates were correct and we had hotels booked. That weekend, Trish and I got married. On Monday morning, July 30th, we drove back from Montana, arriving in Denver late that night. The next morning we had our first fight as a married couple.

Me: "You can't bring your phone."
Trish: "I'm bringing my phone! What if there's an emergency?"
Me: "There's not going to be an emergency! Besides, everyone knows our hotel information."
Trish: "I'M BRINGING IT!"
Me: "NO!! If you bring it, I can't tell the story about traveling the world without phones!"

-- Deadlock stare for 15 seconds without blinking --

Trish: "Fine!"

And off we went!

Rather than having checked luggage, we took carry-on bags only. No phones, no computers, and backpacks that only fit a few days worth of clothes. We dressed up in hopes of getting better seats on our flight to Ireland. It worked for getting drinks bought for us in Denver and Boston (our layover), but the guy sitting between us refused to swap seats.

We arrived in Ireland on Wednesday morning, July 31st. There we met our Irish Guides, Teres and Fergus. Fergus was the driver that Phil had arranged for us. He drove us across the country to Ballynahinch Castle, near Galway.

Ballynahinch Castle

We were immediately impressed by Ballynahinch, especially when we learned it was a Fly Fishing Mecca. And our room at the end of one wing was just like we'd imagined a Castle Honeymoon Suite to be. We had dinner at the castle restaurant that evening, enjoyed a pint or two, and retired early.

The next morning, we were up and at 'em by 6am and went for a misty 2-hour walk around the grounds.

Then we scarfed down a delicious Irish breakfast, complete with mimosas and liver.

One of the things that amazed me about Trish on the fateful night I met her was all the things she liked to do. She mentioned fly fishing (shortly after tele-skiing) as an interest; my heart leapt. My Grandpa, Oliver Hill, a kind-hearted man from Montana, was an expert fly fisherman. He'd taught me a few things as a kid, and it was a skill my mother possessed.

When we learned there was an opportunity to go fly fishing at Ballynahinch, we signed up. There was a crowd of fisherman in the pub that morning. Telling tall tales and warming by the fire. We quickly picked up that the salmon were big.

"How will we know the difference between salmon and trout?"
"Salmon will bend your pole in half!"

The gear was located just outside Fisherman's Pub, so we got dressed, grabbed our poles and got a lift up the road. We opted for the guideless tour, which means getting dropped off on our own for several hours. Our arrival was greated with light rain, and fish jumping all around.

It was simply the best day of fly fishing we've ever had, and we didn't catch a single thing.

After lunch and a nap, we headed for Trish's favorite outdoor activity: horseback riding. It was pretty awesome, once I figured out how to keep my calves from getting pinched by the saddle straps when galloping.

After horseback riding, Trish found a cool shot of an old boat and we stopped for a pint at Joyce's Bar. The pub's owner gave us a ride into Clifden for some live music and we giggled with glee when he said we could take our Guinness to go. If you've ever been to Ireland and driven their windy, narrow roads, you'll know that drinking out of a glass pint while riding in a car may not be the best idea for your teeth.

The Friday nightlife in Clifden was perfect, lively music, delicious Guinness and open late enough for us to almost get in trouble. We made it back to the castle in time for a last pint at 2am.

The hotel staff woke us up the next morning so we had time for breakfast. In fact, they took our order over the phone and brought it to us. We savored the meal and our view one last time, packed up (which was quick and easily with hardly any clothes), and ventured to the entrance to meetup with Fergus. The drive to Dublin was filled with storytelling, jokes and laughter. Fergus was an excellent storyteller and made a lasting impression on us.

Dublin

The Merrion Hotel provided our Dublin accommodations, right in the heart of the city near Trinity College. I stayed nearby in My Incredible Trip to Ireland two weeks before I met Trish, so it was familiar. The Hotel's Cellar Bar was our first stop after unpacking.

A stroll down Grafton Street was fun, as was the Double Rainbow over St. Stephen's Green.

We did a pub crawl that evening, stopping at O'Donoghue's and Toner's Pub before relishing a delectable meal at FX Buckley. The night drifted into darkness at Foley's and The Brazen Head. The Merrion greeted us with a 24-hour bar when we got back to the hotel and we quickly made friends with the bartender and the 20+ people that were up at 3am.

Saturday, we had the pleasure of sleeping in before meeting up with Fergus and our guide for the Guinness and Jameson Tours. The Gravity Bar at the top of the Guinness Storehouse was as crowded as ever.

The Old Jameson Distillery was equally impressive, and had a very entertaining distillery guide. We picked up a bottle of Midleton Very Rare on our way out. Since we were riding the train to Italy, we figured we had a week to finish before we had to deal with airport security.

We feasted at Pearl Brasserie that evening and turned in before the moonrise. The following morning, Fergus picked us up early and drove us to Dublin Port to get onboard the Holyhead Ferry. Our departure was a bittersweet moment as we did spend a lot of time with Fergus and drew to appreciate each other's company.

From Holyhead, we boarded a train to Paris, with a brief stop in London. We arrived late to the W Paris, discovered we didn't have a reservation, but were able to reserve one on-the-spot when they let me use their computer. My wife, the photographer, has fond memories of Paris from the last two times we visited this wonderfully romantic city. We strolled down the street to the Madeleine so she could snap the shot she's always wanted.

Breakfast provided by Angelina hit the spot, followed by a scenic boat tour along the Seine River. The Notre Dame looked majestic from the canal.

On Monday, August 5th we boarded a train from Paris to Torino Porta Susa, Italy.

As you can tell from this article, we really packed a lot in during the first 5 days of our honeymoon. However, these days stick in our memories as one of the warmest parts of the trip. The Irish people are so genuine, cheerful and loving towards us. It felt like a big hug, with lots of smiles and brilliant memories.

In the next article, I'll talk about our honeymoon in Italy and its wonderful food, fast cars, awesome tunnels and more incredible Trish Photos!

We collectively took around 1000 pictures in each country, but managed to widdle it down to ~20% that we loved. Trish's photos of Ireland are at Ireland 2013, while mine are at Around The World Honeymoon: First Stop, Ireland.

Matrimony in Montana

2013-09-02T13:01:53-06:00

On July 27, 2013, in the late afternoon, Trish McGinity and I were married at the Holland Lake Lodge, in the town I grew up in. The Lodge was a favorite childhood place and getting married there, to the awesomest woman ever, was a glorious experience. There were several planned activities (e.g. horseback riding, rafting, golfing) the week before our wedding day, and many of our friends and family joined the fun. While we couldn't capture every smile, giggle, or loving moment, this is an endeavor to document our matrimony month, our wedding week, and the day we sealed the deal.

We started our month in Montana on Sunday, June 30th. We're officially calling it Raible Road Trip #18. We packed up our pets, raft and golf clubs and left Denver around happy hour.

We stopped for the night in Billings, Montana and arrived at the cabin the next afternoon. For the past 5 years, my parents have been building their retirement cabin, also known as The House. The House is a modern log home, still restricted in size by the length of the logs. However, it's 3 stories tall and has running water, toilets and a dishwasher. It's a really incredible piece of work and the most beautiful log cabin I've ever seen.

Last summer, Trish and I were the first ones to sleep in The House (because the upstairs floor had just been finished). This summer, they were finishing up a gorgeous covered porch and putting the final touches on their guest room. They'd also spruced up The Cabin and The Bedroom (a separate cabin originally built as a sauna) into clean and comfy guest accommodations. We spent the first hour after our arrival admiring all their hard work. Then we proceeded to unload our truck and moved in for the month.

The next two weeks were spent working on The House, rafting, fishing and having a rousing good time. On our first river trip on The Blackfoot (Russell Gates to Roundup), we saw bald eagles, caught Rainbow Trout and giggled with glee as we pounded through the Class III rapids. Hauling our raft up a 100ft super-steep takeout at the end was a challenging, yet memorable experience.

The 2nd week in July, Trish took a business trip to Boston and I tried to get my parents to act retired. We did a nice float trip along the Swan River (Piper Creek to Fatty Creek Bridge), but caught no fish. We took my parents' good friends, Mike and Mai, on the Blackfoot through Box Canyon. One of the most memorable scenes in Norman Maclean's excellent book, A River Runs Through It, takes place here (the movie was filmed on the Gallatin River) [source]. We started at River Junction in the mid-afternoon and and finished 6 hours later and 7 fish richer at Russell Gates. This is when I realized how terrible I am at estimating river trip durations in Montana. It's a good thing it's light until 10pm because we got off the river 10 minutes before dark. This wouldn't be the first time.

In mid-July, Trish returned from Boston. Abbie and Jack flew in from Denver and we celebrated my birthday with golf at Eagle Bend, in Bigfork. We taught them how to ride motorcycles (a.k.a. dirt bikes) and did another Swan River float trip near Ferndale. This time, we had 25 people in various floating devices and were lucky enough to see a moose and her two calves on the river banks.

That weekend, the kids and I went camping with my good friend Owen and his family. Trish stayed at The Cabin to relax and get ready for The Wedding Week. We camped at Hungry Horse Reservoir and quite the adventure getting there. After one of Owen's boat trailer's hubs blew up, we made a trip to town to get replacement parts. 3 hours later, when trying to fix the hub with new parts, we discovered it was the wrong size. Meanwhile, Owen's wife, Dana, had drove our kids (all 6 of them, plus a friend) to Hungry Horse to get a camping spot. To fix our "boat stuck on a trailer in the middle of Salmon Prairie Road problem", we used a floor jack to jack it up and push it to the side of the road. Next, we borrowed Dana's Grandma's pontoon boat and tried to find everyone else before dark.

The Budweiser was cold, the air was chilly, and the pontoon's engine was full-throttle as we drove 27 miles (43 km) across the lake as the sun set. We arrived 10 minutes before dark, much to Dana's relief.

A just-graduated-from-college crew arrived at midnight and camped right next to us. They proceeded to crank their music, run chainsaws and disturb the whole campground until 3am. We thought we could return the favor in the early morn, but they were up and on their boat by 7.

We spent the rest of the weekend fishing, boating, picking wild huckleberries, and marveling at our neighbors' stamina. I felt deep gratitude when Owen's whole family gave me all their huckleberries to serve as dessert at our Rehearsal Dinner.

That Sunday, July 21st, the kids and I return to The Cabin just in time to meet Trish's parents. Our first out-of-town wedding guests had arrived.

The Wedding Week

The wedding week festivities began with Trish, the kids and I all moving into the "Moose Roost" cabin at Holland Lake. Our view of the lake and the Swan Range was spectacular.

Trish's sister, Claire, arrived on Monday, as did her good friend Joanna. Abbie and Jack got to meet the new mouse-hunters at The Lodge, Up and Over. That evening, after even more family arrived, we all went to dinner at the Hungry Bear.

On Tuesday, Trish took a crew hiking to Holland Falls, followed by horseback riding with Swan Mountain Outfitters.

Meanwhile, I took my sister, Aunt Mary, cousins and Jack on a trip down the Blackfoot. Our 6-hour float turned into an 8-hour long haul because of low water and lots of rocks. Nevertheless, we caught a trout, saw a bald eagle, shared lots of laughs and arrived back for dinner around 11pm. We had great timing since Trish said she'd start worrying about us 3 minutes before we pulled up. We had our first late-night campfire by the lake to welcome late-arriving friends.

Wednesday brought us a beautiful day of rafting on the Middle Fork of the Flathead near Glacier Park. We had 35 people spread out over 3 rafts and 3 kayaks, guided by Montana Raft Company. A glorious time was had by all!

That evening, we rushed back to the Swan Valley for dinner at my parent's place. As usual, our rafting trip took longer than expected and we had a caravan of cars driving up our front road around 8pm. My Mom (and friends) prepared a delicious bouquet of culinary options and many folks got to see The Raible Homestead for the first time. We continued our campfire-by-the-lake until 2am, with a full moon.

On Thursday, we held a golf tournament at the Double Arrow Golf Course. Since most folks had joined us for rafting the day before, the turnout was low. However, we still managed to have a great time and I really enjoyed golfing with my Dad and his brother, Jimmy. We had a great time eating Pitchfork Fondue at the Hungry Bear Steakhouse that evening.

Friday was a Lake Day, where we rented WaveRunners and spent the day playing in the water.

The Rehearsal Dinner was late that afternoon, followed by another after-party at the lakeside campfire. The picture below of Trish and Chris (our wedding officiant) is one of my favorites.

The late-night campfires created some of our fondest memories, mostly because we were hanging out with our best friends in the world. Those people that took time out of their lives to celebrate with us will always hold a special place in our hearts.

The Wedding

On the wedding day, we slept in to rejuvenate our bodies. I got to start the day with a massage while Trish headed to The Gordon Ranch (where her family was staying) to get ready. Cindy Koder, an amazing woman and hairstylist, went to work with all the girls' hair. I slipped in for a trim in the early afternoon, then headed back to the lodge to get ready.

Chris Caldes was our wedding officiant and did a fabulous job of creating the ceremony and adding her own spin on things. For the wedding party, I had Jack as my Best Son, my buddy Clint (from the time I almost slept in a snow cave) as my Best Man, Trish's brother Matt, and my soon-to-be nephews, Michael and Jamie. Trish had Abbie as her Maid of Honor, her sister Claire as her Best Woman, my sister Kalin and her nieces, Morgan, Shira and Julia. We had our awesome friends, Jen Hussey and Jason Barton, do readings that brought many smiles and tears.

The picture below of Trish and her Dad is one we will always cherish. In particular, we like how Christian (the owner of Holland Lake Lodge), is in the background making sure everything is OK. Christian and Karen (the wedding coordinator at The Lodge) were amazing in creating the perfect wedding experience for us. Trish likes to call them Angel #1 and Angel #2.

Chris began the ceremony with "Mawwage", immediately bringing a round of laughter and smiles from everyone. She spoke beautiful words about us and our story, and then our mother's lit kerosene lamps (like I grew up with at the cabin) in memory of our grandparents and Trish's Aunt Ellen Thomas. For our vows, I had a surprise in store for Trish. She read hers first, with heartfelt words and a very touching portion where she made promises to Abbie and Jack.

My surprise was that I'd written Trish a book. I based it off all the blog posts about our travels since we met and assembled it into a hard-cover book using Blurb. I composed it while she was in Boston in early July, completing it in under a week, with lots of late nights involved. It resulted in a splendid 162-page book, appropriately titled "The Good Life, Volume I". I started my vows with words from the last page of the book, and finished with words I'd written earlier in the day.

One of the fun moments during the ceremony was when Chris asked me if I took Trish as my lawfully-wedded wife. I croaked out a barely-audible "Yes", followed by a loud, could-be-heard-across-the-lake "YES!". Trish reciprocated with an equally loud affirmation and we were pronounced husband and wife shortly after.

We rowed away in our raft as our first married journey. It was smooth, blissful and fun - very similar to how we'd like our marriage to be.

The reception after the ceremony was a blast. Abbie brought down the house with her Maid of Honor speech, saying that Trish was "loyal, smart, pretty, funny ... oh wait, that's me". The DJ provided a great selection of music, we got almost everyone on the dance floor and Trish and I got to show off the moves we'd learned in preparation. Every time we peruse through the reception pictures, it brings a wide smile to our faces.

We ended our wedding day with lots of congratulations/goodbyes, yet another lakeside campfire, and friends like no other. It was truly a memorable day and I couldn't be happier to be married to the lovely Trish McGinity.

As you can imagine, there's lots of pictures from this event. My photos are all contained in a Matrimony in Montana collection, while Trish's are in My Amazing Wedding. Our wedding day photos were taken by Carrie Ann Photography.

Magnificent Mexico

2013-03-05T10:53:53-07:00

On October 30th, 2012, shortly after I'd woke up, I received an email from my old friend Jess (of Jess and Lili's Legendary Wedding). Its subject: "Wanna go to Mexico?"

We are taking a trip to Mexico Feb 16-24 with some friends from here and have one spot that just came open in the house we are all renting together. It's a sweet spot, 1 hour north of Puerto Vallarta. It has seven bedrooms each with own bathroom, a cook, private beach and nice pool, link below. Works out to about $1100 per week per couple.
...
http://www.laspalapas.tv/home.html

As you can imagine, I was immediately enticed by the opportunity. I checked my schedule, verified they had high-speed internet and responded We're IN! a couple hours later.

A couple weeks ago, we embarked on this journey and had a great time. The house was awesome, the company was fantastic and the views were spectacular. Not only that, but the town we stayed in (Chacala) was very authentic. No resorts, hardly any paved roads and nary a tourist in sight.

We didn't take our kids, but a few families did, resulting in 19 people total. Everyone got along swimmingly, the home-cooked meals were wonderful and the weather was beautiful.

For the most part, we didn't do much throughout the week. I had to work, so I spent my days on the computer with an occasional break to play a game of volleyball. I experienced the same issue I did in Maui and Kauai last year, where my MacBook Pro couldn't find my hard drive. Yeah, it's a first-world problem: my laptop tries to stop me from working when I'm on a beach. Luckily, I had a backup (external) hard drive that I could plugin and work from.

We did a whale watching and snorkeling trip on a Catamaran one afternoon. We didn't get any good whale pictures, but we had many sightings.

I only ventured into Chacala once, but found it to have a lovely beach, good music, and tasty restaurants.

Thanks to Jess and everyone else for inviting us to this magnificent place in Mexico. We had a great time, made a lot of new friends and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

For more photos, see my Mexico 2013 Album or Trish's Mexico Trip 2013!

Happy 40th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

2012-11-16T15:00:52-07:00

Today marks 40 years since my parents got married back in '72. For the past week, we've been living it up and celebrating this wondrous event in Hanalei, Kauai. We rented a house on the beach and when I'm not cranking out code for a client, we've been surfing, riding bikes and enjoying the frequent rain shower. There's no place I'd rather be or people I'd rather be with.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

To commemorate this occasion, I decided to interview them about that special day way back when.

Me: So what made you decide to propose?

Dad: Well, it was the $50 check (from her Dad). We weren't gonna get married. We knew she was pregnant. He was the last to know. Her dad came up (to the cabin) and gave me a check. I said "50 bucks, I'll marry anyone for 50 bucks!" So we got married to please the parents. I liked them both even though her mom cried when she first met me (because we were living in sin).

Me: What was your wedding like?

Mom: We went to the county courthouse. I had a nice dress. My friends, Barbie and Betsy both came. My ex-boyfriend was the Best Man (because Dad didn't know anyone in town). We went to the Justice of the Peace and the secretary gave us a look of disdain. She was dismissed for lunch by her boss. Dad had long hair and a hunting knife on his belt and got escorted out by a detective (for having a weapon) shortly after the ceremony. Then we walked across the street to the liquor store, bought a bottle of champagne and walked around the block drinking it with the wedding party. Then we got in the truck (a '52 International half-ton) and drove home. It actually made it.

Dad: It was one of the few times it made it.

Summer Vacation 2012 in Montana and Maui

2012-08-01T09:30:27-06:00

I started writing about my summer vacations in Montana as soon as this blog gave me an opportunity: July 2003. In July 2004, I didn't travel to the cabin for the 4th, but I did in 2005. Then, 5 years ago, I started writing longer blog posts about our trips. 2008 was Raible Road Trip #12. In 2009, I spent a whole month in Montana. In 2010, I visited after my parents moved there full-time. Last year, I took Trish for the first time.

I don't know what Raible Road Trip number this year's trip was, but I'm going to go ahead and assume #17. This year wasn't exactly a vacation for me. It was what I like to call a workation. I tried to take the whole month off, but my current client needed my services. As a compromise, they agreed to let me work 20 hours per week during July. While I didn't get a chance to fully unplug, I did enjoy the reduced workload and time to spend with friends and family. And the views from The Cabin and Sugar Beach weren't bad either.

Below is our trip itinerary in condensed form, complete with photos from my incredibly talented fiancé.

We embarked on our drive to Montana on June 30th, stopped for fireworks in Wyoming and spent the night in Yellowstone park. Arrived at the cabin, got to sleep in the new house for the first time, built a cabin float, drove it in the parade, went boating at Holland Lake, played golf. Journeyed to West Glacier to celebrate Dr. Barton's PhD at his sister's house. Rafted the Middlefork of the Flathead all weekend. Played some more golf and went waterskiing.



→ Trish's Montana Summer 2012 Album

On July 14th, we flew to Maui and continued to explore. Our good friend's parents have a timeshare on Sugar Beach and got us a screaming deal on lodging. We had beachfront accommodations with a pool, hot tub and sauna. We played golf on my birthday (July 16th). Visited the Old Lahaina Luau, Maui Aquarium and Coconut Festival at Grand Wailea. Drove to the summit of Haleakala. Sipped cold handcrafted ales while watched the kids boogie board. Embarked on a sunset cruise, hiked in Iao Valley, did some horseback riding along the beach, sea kayaked and snorkeled with sea turtles. Savored Shawn's excellent cooking. Flew back to Missoula (Montana), slept for 6 hours and drove 12.5 hours back to Denver on July 27th.



→ Trish's Maui Summer 2012 Album

Mahalo Montana and Maui. Thank you to our awesome friends: Mom, Dad, Owen, Jason, Ryan and Shawn. It was an incredible adventure.

Father's Day Weekend at The Oregon Coast

2012-07-02T09:44:00-06:00

For the 5-year anniversary of our Father's Day Camping Trip, we decided to mix things up a bit. My parents were in Oregon for a friend's wedding, so we decided to fly to meet them there instead of flying them to Colorado. My sister hopped on "Buttercup" (her Harley) and drove to meet us from Washington. We also invited our good friends Clint and Autumn (who you might remember from Costa Rica) and had a great time staying at Gearhart Cottages.

We didn't feel too bad about skipping camping since Trish held a "Boot Camp" with the kids and their friends at Stillwater Campground the week before. You might remember Stillwater from last year's Father's Day trip.

Trish's Uncle John drove out to the coast to meet us and we did a really fun hike along Indian Beach to Ecola State Park. It was a real treat! It was also really fun to meet Clint and Autumn's 9 month old Brodie. As usual, Trish snapped some incredible photos.

That was two weeks ago. We returned to Colorado, had some fun at ÜberConf, rocked out at a Def Leppard concert then enjoyed a few Rockies games before hopping in the car and heading to Montana. We spent the night at Roosevelt Lodge Cabins in Yellowstone and saw a plethora of buffalo, a couple bears and even a beaver while driving through.

This morning, we woke up at the cabin I was born in.

We'll be working on my parent's retirement cabin, getting a float ready for the Swan Valley Parade and having a good ol' time with great friends for the next two weeks. After that, we're taking the kids to Hawaii for the first time.

Here's to summer vacations. I hope yours is spent with great people in beautiful places too.

Cruising around the Western Caribbean

2012-04-15T18:05:57-06:00

I've heard great things about Disney Cruise Lines from friends, especially as a fun adventure for kids. That's why I was super pumped to talk my family into going on a Western Caribbean Cruise for Spring Break. As you might've read in my last post, we spent a week in Crested Butte before embarking on our cruise.

While in Crested Butte, I enjoyed the Java Posse Roundup, but unfortunately had to do client work most of the week. However, that didn't stop James Ward, Trish and me from building a Shot-Ski and doing a 5-minute lightning talk on it. We had a great time doing research, getting locals to help us out and beta testing it with JPR attendees. I'll write a blog post on what we learned in the near future. In the meantime, you can check out Trish's Making a Shot-Ski photos.

We left Crested Butte on Thursday (March 29th) and drove back to Denver to meetup with my parents (who drove down from Montana). Friday morning we hopped on a plane and flew to Orlando, Florida and took a bus to Port Canaveral. Abbie and Jack were at their Grandma's in West Palm Beach, so Trish's parents picked them up on their drive up from Naples. We all met with near perfect timing and boarded the Disney Magic around 4 o'clock Friday afternoon.

We were immediately impressed with our rooms (we had 3 staterooms next to each other on the 5th floor forward) and their nice portal windows. We saw dolphins jumping in Port Canaveral as we departed and witnessed a horn battle between our ship and the Disney Fantasy. The Disney Fantasy was embarking on its maiden voyage and we saw it many times throughout the trip. That evening, we ventured to the first dinner seating (at 17:45). We were pleased to find out we'd have the same servers all week, at different restaurants throughout the ship.

Key West
Saturday morning, we arrived in Key West and had from 12am-9pm to explore. We took a tour in Key West and learned a lot about the history and architecture of the town. Last time we visited Key West, I was super impressed with Mel Fisher Maritime Museum. It was fun to show it to everyone and we savored some tasty beverages at Margaritaville afterward.

We returned to the ship for dinner that evening and enjoyed the service of Omar (our main server) and Marijah (his assistant) once again. A couple hours laster, the boys (minus Jack) returned to shore to do some bonding. We wandered about, set a match to some cigars and made it back on the ship before it departed. We spent the remainder of the evening in the ship's Sports Bar watching March Madness and talking about Trish and my upcoming wedding.

Sunday was a day at sea and we made the most of it. Lots of swimming, relaxing, playing with kids and enjoying each other's company. The ship had two different places that you could drop your kids off and Abbie (9) had a lot of fun attending their activities. Jack wasn't that into it and spent most of his day visiting the soft-serve ice cream machine. That evening, Trish and I journeyed to a romantic dinner at the ship's 18-and-older restaurant and celebrated our 1-year "moved in together" anniversary.

Grand Cayman
Monday, we arrived at Grand Cayman early in the morning and were ashore by 8am. We had a snorkeling expedition planned so promptly gathered and headed out to sea on a snorkeling boat. The weather was beautiful, the water was warm and snorkeling around a shipwreck was a very memorable experience.

We visited the Hard Rock cafe to get my Dad a t-shirt, purchased some Tobago Rum Cakes and finished with a tour of the new Cayman Islands National Museum. We were back on the ship by 4 so our parents could have their own romantic dinner that evening.

Cozumel
Tuesday morning, we woke up in Cozumel. Trish and my parents headed to shore for some exploring while I slept in with the kids and ate at the "something for everyone" breakfast buffet. In the afternoon, we all headed to shore for a submarine ride. The submarine adventure was very cool, going down 120 ft. and even taking us to the edge of a cliff on the ocean floor. We got to see several schools of fish, loads of coral reef and even a sea turtle swimming along the bottom.

The highlight of Cozumel was Manuel. After the submarine ride, we took a taxi to a restaurant with a great view and had a couple margaritas and some excellent steak tacos. While we were finishing up, a man walked up to us and asked if we wanted him to play us a song on his guitar. We said yes and gave him our small change ($1.75) for his serenade.

Shortly after, we got up to leave the restaurant and walk back to the ship. That's when Trish came up with a brilliant idea and asked Manuel if he'd be willing to walk with us around town and play music the whole time. She offered him $20 and he quickly agreed.

What followed was lots of laughs, smiling and dancing through the streets of Cozumel. Not only from us, but also from many of the locals. Manuel was an excellent mariachi musician and provided an exciting sense of celebration around us for the next 20 minutes.

Wednesday was another day at sea as we traveled from Cozumel to Disney's private island in the Bahamas: Castaway Cay. We got a kick out of the ship's activities, from Beer Tasting to watching the John Carter movie in 3D. I snapped some sweet photos that night as we were watching the sun set over the horizon.

Castaway Cay
At first, I thought Castaway Cay was going to be like Disney World, just on an island. I was expecting all kinds of rides and an amusement park. I was surprised to find it was nothing like that, but more of a private beach with all kinds of bars, games, water sports and even a water slide. The kids had a blast building sand castles, learning how to play checkers and exploring the island. I had a massage to the sound of ocean waves in the afternoon and we hopped back on the ship around 5 that afternoon.

That night, we had to pack up our luggage by 10 and put it out so it could be checked into our flight the next day. Disney did an awesome job of handling our luggage both to and from the cruise. All we had to do was attach bag tags in Denver and our bags arrived at our room shortly after boarding. On the way home, we gave them our bags on Thursday night and didn't see them until arriving in Denver.

The last morning on the Disney Magic was a bit early. We had to be at breakfast at 6:45, were off the ship by 8 and at the Orlando airport by 9. Our flight was at 7 that night, so we suddenly found ourselves with 9 hours of free time and nothing to do.

LEGOLAND
Last year around this time, Jack was struggling in school and getting in trouble almost every-other-day. In an attempt to promote good behavior, I told him I'd take him to LEGOLAND if he had 10 days in a row of good behavior. This didn't seem to help and we ended the school year with no trip planned. However, when this school year started, he had excellent behavior (which has continued all year) and quickly remembered my promise.

As we were sitting in Orlando's airport, I remembered this promise and 30 minutes later we had a car rented and were driving to see some legos. We spent a joyous day there, riding the few rides they had and marveling over all the things you could build with legos. It was a fun way to end our wonderful vacation.

This cruise was a first for myself, my kids and my parents. We were extremely impressed with Disney's Customer Service and have never felt more pampered in our lives. All the crew we interacted with knew our names by the second days and were some of the most kid-friendly people I've ever met. The food was excellent, the weather was beautiful and the activities were plentiful. It wasn't until the last night that we realized there were 15 bars on the ship, and by that time it was too late for a pub crawl. Oh well, there's always next time.

For more pictures from our Disney Magic voyage, see our photos on Flickr.

Our Engaging Trip to Paris and Antwerp

2011-12-04T16:02:34-07:00

If you're a technologist, you should attend the Devoxx conference at least once in your life. It's one of the finest conferences on the planet. If you're a fan of Belgian beer, you owe it to yourself to visit Belgium to savor a taste. If you're a romantic, Paris is a recommended destination. Since I'm a technologist, love Belgian beer and consider myself a romantic, I went for the trifecta a couple weeks ago on what's becoming an annual trek to Devoxx. When Trish and I traveled to Devoxx last year, we flew to Amsterdam and took the train to Antwerp. This year, we decided to fly to Paris and take the train.

Much like last year, we witnessed another Broncos over Chiefs victory the Sunday before we left. That night, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning finishing my Devoxx presentation. We left Denver around noon and met up with James Ward at the Red Carpet Club in Chicago. While sipping cocktails and catching up, I wrote a blog post about how PhoneGap rescued me a couple days earlier.

We slept soundly on the flight over, thanks to little sleep the night before. After arriving in Paris, we took the train to the the Notre Dame de Paris and had some breakfast nearby.

We were planning on exploring throughout the day, but quickly realized that hauling our bags around was no fun and headed to Gare du Nord to catch a Thalys train to Brussels. We gasped at the cost of two first-class tickets, but soon forgot when we settled into our seats with free wi-fi, Belgian beers and power. After talking a local train to Antwerp, we finished our 21-hour journey by checking into the Hilton Antwerp in the city center. We were warmly welcomed with excellent Belgian beers on ice in our room and celebrated with a delicious meal at De Godevaart.

On Wednesday, I headed to Devoxx and attended a couple of great talks: Play 2.0, A web framework for a new era and PhoneGap for Hybrid App Development. As you can imagine, both talks were extremely interesting for me since I'd been using Play for several months and was recently saved by PhoneGap. Play 2.0 Beta was announced just before the Play talk and my blog post about the Play 2.0 session was picked up by Hacker News and the hits rolled in.

That afternoon, I headed back to my hotel with James Ward and met up with Trish for a couple beers. We spent a few hours in our hotel lobby updating presentations, editing videos, editing photos and getting ready for our talks on Thursday. That evening, we enjoyed a scrumptious dinner in the dungeon-like Pelgrom and conversations with Kevin Nilson, Sadek Drobi, Guillaume Bort and David Geary. I was pleased to find out from Sadek and Guillaume that Play 2.0 will include many fast website best practices, including concatenation, minification and gzipping of static assets. We retired early to get a good night's sleep before my talk on Thursday.

On Thursday, both Trish and I journeyed to Devoxx to watch James Ward talk about how to deploy Java, Play Framework, and Scala apps on Heroku. My talk was an hour later and I gulped as I stood up front and watched the (very large) auditorium fill up with Devoxxians. Since I'd never rehearsed my talk or timed it, I was a bit nervous. Luckily, it ended up being one of my best-timed performances and there was even time for Q and A at the end. You can imagine the smile on my face as AC/DC's Thunderstruck blasted through the speakers during my video demo. After my talk finished, it was great to see all the positive feedback on Twitter and enjoy an "Atlas Beer" while watching Java Posse Live.

That evening, we had dinner with the Java Posse crew and James Ward before heading to the Devoxx Party @ Noxx.

Yes, we had an awesome time at Devoxx. I was pleased with the positive response from my talk and learned a bunch from the few talks I attended. Thanks to Stephan for inviting me and organizing one of the best conferences I've ever attended. For our last night in Antwerp, we dined at Huis De Colvenier and especially enjoyed our aperitif in the 19th-century wine cellar.

Paris and Beyond
This brings us to my favorite part of this story. I was pretty stressed leading up to our departure to Devoxx because I had so many deadlines. I had a deadline with my current client to finish up some features before I left, I had to finish my Devoxx presentation (and app developed for the talk) and I had a secret deadline to finish my proposal to Trish. That's right, I was planning on proposing marriage to my dream girl. I mean, we were going to the diamond capital of the world (Antwerp) and one of Earth's most romantic cities (Paris). It seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask her to marry me. We did some ring shopping before we left Denver, but she didn't realize I had purchased one before we left.

We're both big music fans, so I decided months earlier that I would propose with lines from songs we both liked. Of course, I waited until the last minute to compose my prose, but I did finish it before we left for Europe. However, with all the Devoxx shenanigans, I didn't have time to memorize my proposal. Instead, I recorded it using the "Voice Memos" on my iPhone. I did this in the wee hours of the morning on Friday, while I was watching the Broncos game on the internet.

Saturday afternoon, we traveled to Paris via Thalys and checked into our hotel around sunset. When we stepped outside an hour later, I remember saying to Trish, "the Eiffel Tower looks pretty small, I thought it'd be bigger". After walking for a bit, it turned from small to big to huge. My plan that night was to propose on the tower. As Trish snapped pictures along our walk, I was taking out the piece of paper I had the proposal printed on and trying to memorize it. As you can imagine, I had to to this stealthily and by the time we reached the Eiffel Tower, I had enough memorized to propose. We arrived around midnight and were disappointed to find it was closed. This terminated my proposal plans for that night, but we still enjoyed the sparkling tower lights and took several pictures.

The next day, Sunday, we traveled to the Château de Versailles. This was a recommendation from my good friend Eric, who had recently traveled to Paris with his wife, Heather. In fact, I owe a lot to Eric. He recommended we extend our trip to Paris (he'd traveled there disgruntled about not doing a beach vacation, then fell in love with the city) and suggested a number of great locations to visit. He also recommended proposing in the Gardens of Versailles, a very romantic location according to him. I had this in the back of my mind as we did an audio tour through the Palace of Versailles. As we ventured out into the Orangerie, I started hatching a plan to get Trish down to the gardens and try to rent bikes. We both love biking and the outdoors, so I figured it'd be a nice way to spend our memorable moment. As we strolled closer and I didn't see bikes to rent, I spotted the Grand Canal and noticed they had row boats.

When we first arrived at the boat dock, there was a long line, but it magically disappeared moments later. We stepped into the boat, rowed to the center of the canal and paused for a bit to take in the beautiful day and the setting sun. Trish asked me to row to a better spot so she could photograph the sunset, but instead I said "here, listen to this" and handed her my headphones. I pressed play and watched her face light up as she heard my voice in her ears. 90 seconds later, I asked "Trish McGinity, will you marry me?" She responded with, "Of course!"

The rest of our trip in Paris was quite romantic and fun. We decided to wait until we got back to The States before telling anyone we were engaged. This meant we had three days of just us, Paris and some of the most beautiful art in the world. We explored the Louvre for 5-hours on Monday, marveling at the low-rider on display near the entrance and all the famous paintings.

We imbibed in $40 martinis at The Hemingway Bar and scarfed down some delicious pizza at Gambino's. We had breakfast at Angelina's, toured La Sainte-Chapelle, hiked up Arc de Triomphe and wandered through the shopping districts Champs-Élysées and Faubourg St-Honoré. Yes, we fell in love with Paris and can't wait to return for Devoxx France in April.

We departed Paris on the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving and arrived in Boston that evening. We spent the next three days with Trish's family and our good friends, Chris, Julie, Lili and Wes. We did a 5K Turkey Trot on Thursday morning, followed by football watching and eating succulent turkey while basking in everyone's joy for us. We smiled, giggled, laughed, guffawed, smiled some more and had an all-around great time the rest of the weekend.

We returned home on Sunday evening, departing Boston's Logan airport only minutes after the Broncos kicked a field goal in overtime to beat the Chargers. Our flight was delayed just long enough (3 hours) that we got to watch almost the whole game. It was the perfect ending to a phenomenal trip.

To see more pictures from this adventure, see Trish's fantastic photos and mine on Flickr.

Mahalo Kauai

2011-09-26T10:19:54-06:00

I've heard great things about Hawaii for most of my life. My Dad was stationed at Barbers Point when he was in the Navy. His sister, my Aunt Mary, was born there. My sister and I sent my parents to Hawaii for their 30th Wedding Anniversary. You can imagine my excitement when Trish sent me an email on January 25th:

It's only 40,000 miles for both of us to fly to Kauai!! I picked the week after Labor Day just for fun :)

My response:

WAHOOOOOO! BOOK IT!!

She booked it that night. For $10.

We left for Kuaui the morning after the disappointing Broncos home opener and a fun sports weekend with Abbie and Jack. Our trip started out great, sneaking into the Red Carpet Club for free at LAX and getting a slew of free drinks from a super-cool flight attendant (Anthony) on our flight from LAX to Kauai.

After landing and marveling at the open-air airport, we picked up our rental Jeep and drove to the north side of the island. A friend recommended we stay at the St. Regis Princeville Resort and we were very impressed when we checked into our room overlooking Hanalei Bay.

The next morning, we vowed to do nothing but relax by the pool. We enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast at the Mekana Terrace, complete with Bloody Mary's. We had to have Bloody's since the St. Regis in NYC claims to have invented them. We spent the rest of the day napping, swimming, sunbathing, snorkeling and sipping on Mai Tai's.

After enjoying a beautiful sunset ...

... we visited the concierge to book some activities for the rest of our trip. We wanted to take things up a notch and enjoy all the cool stuff Kuai had to offer. So we arranged for Stand Up Paddling and the Mailani Dinner Shown on Thursday, golf on Friday, a doorless helicopter ride on Saturday and a kayak trip along the Na Pali coast on Sunday.

We woke up Thursday refreshed and ready to go. Our view out the window was exceptional.

After a delicious room service breakfast in our room, we wandered down to the beach to meet our SUP guide. He warned us that girls were generally better than guys at SUP and we proceeded to prove him correct. Trish never got her hair wet and I had to abandon ship several times.

That afternoon, we headed to the The Kalalau Trail for a hike. Our SUP guide recommended it and said it was "so easy, your grandma could do it". His Grandma must be a lot younger than most, because the trail was not easy, but we certainly enjoyed the challenge.

We were rewarded with some spectular views at Kalalau Beach.

We made it back to the hotel just in time for the dinner show and another marvelous Hanalei sunset.

At the dinner show, we sat with honeymooners from Houston that worked at NASA. Since they both spoke Russian, we had fun discussing Russia, our trips there and how we learned the language. The dinner show was great and they featured quite a few of the top Hula dancers in Hawaii.

The next morning, we grabbed Huevos Rancheros in Princeville and headed to the Makai Golf Club for a one-of-a-kind experience. Not only did they let us bring our full-stocked cooler on the course, but they rented us some fantastic Callaway clubs. We golfed for hours with no one in front, and no one trailing behind.

Trish's photo of the Bougainvillia on the back nine is one of my favorites.

We enjoyed some Blue Hawaii's at the St. Regis afterward, in a cabana that's normally reserved for $1000/day. We snuck in and even got the honeymooner's discount from a hometown waiter.

On Saturday, I booked a tour at the Ahonui Botanical Gardens. The gardens where amazing, built by Bill and Lucinda Robertson. They converted a jungle of 8 acres into an elaborate garden with trees, flowers and plants from around the world. Since you can grow almost anything on The Garden Isle, they planted many exotic fruit trees that we had the pleasure of snacking on throughout our 3-hour tour. About halfway through, Lucinda treated us to an adventure in making and tasting delicious chocolates.

We rushed from the garden tour to the helicopter ride on the other side of the island. The concierge had booked us with Jack Harter Helicopters, because they were the only ones that flew without doors (for better pictures). As soon as we lifted off, I knew it was going to be an experience of a lifetime. We flew over the Waimea Canyon, along the Na Pali Coast, over Hanalei Bay and back into the mountains to the wettest place on earth. It felt like an amusement park ride combined with an IMAX movie. Our pilot was a Hawaii native that knew the whole island and gave us an excellent tour of its features. I cannot recommend this tour enough if you're ever in Kauai.

The next morning, we had to get up early for our kayak trip. We had a wakeup call at 4:30, breakfast via room service arrived at 5 and we were packed and checked out of the hotel at 5:30. We arrived at Na Pali Kayak at 6 and quickly realized we had our work cut out for us. Both Trish and I expected the kayak trip to be like paddling across a lake and didn't know we were in for the Everest of kayaking - a 17-mile journey that would take most of the day.

We borrowed some sea-sickness medication, bought some water from our hosts and got ready for a good challenge. Unfortunately, we couldn't take Trish's camera, and the waterproof camera she bought took mediocre pictures. However, we did get to see two schools of dolphins (one even jumped into the air for us) and a couple turtles along the way. Having to paddle in unison turned out to be great couples therapy too.

We enjoyed lunch on a beach along the coast around 1, took a nap and hopped back in the boats for the last 5 miles. We pulled out around 4 and were on the road by 5 for the 2.5 hour drive back to Hanalei Bay. It was country dark when we arrived. We hopped in the Jeep and drove an hour back across the island to stay at the Sheraton Kauai (the St. Regis was full) for our last night.

At the Sheraton, we had one of their best rooms and enjoyed awesome views and a final relaxing day before heading home.

The Tunnel of Trees on the way to the airport was one last reminder of how beautiful Kauai is.

Mahalo Kauai. You are one of the most breathtaking places I have ever been too. Your views, your waves, your rainbows - all spectacular. Trish and I will be back, you've made an impression on us that will last forever.

If you'd like to see many of the places we visited in a movie, check out Soul Surfer. It takes place in Hanalei Bay and we recognized many of the locations while watching it. For more pictures, see my Shareholders Meeting in Kauai or Trish's magnificent photos.

Oregon, Cape Cod and Fun in Winter Park

2011-08-27T13:50:52-06:00

I'm proud to say it's been almost a month since my last blog entry. This can only mean one thing → I've been having too much fun to blog. The good news is I finally found time to write about our recent adventures, so grab yourself a tasty beverage and read on.

Within hours of my last blog post, Trish and I hopped on a plane to visit my good friends, Clint and Autumn, in Oregon. We flew into Portland and spent the weekend hiking in Silver Falls and drinking good beer at the Oregon Brewers Festival and Edgefield. Edgefield is one my favorite places on Earth, encapsulating a farm/resort environment with 27 different features. The features range from a soaking pool to a winery to a pool hall to scotch tasting in a shack next to a garden.

The weekend was especially fun since Autumn was pregnant and it was two weeks before the due date of their first child. Broderick Jordan Wilburn Foster was born yesterday and I hear the whole family is doing well.

Trish and I spent the night at Edgefield on Saturday and caught an early flight from Portland to Boston the next morning. Her brother (also named Matt) lives near Boston and we drove our rental Volvo convertible (to fit in with the New Englanders) to his house Sunday night. On the Hertz Bus from the airport met Nigel Parry, a professional photographer. Not just anybody, but someone that's shot pictures of some very famous people. Trish is also a photographer, so they had a long conversation and it inspired her to resign from her sales job last week. Actually, it wasn't that meeting, she's been wanting to be a famous photographer since she was in high school. Now that dream shall happen. She's awesome.

On Monday afternoon, we picked up Abbie and Jack from the Boston airport. They flew up from West Palm Beach on their first unaccompanied minors flight. We drove them to Cape Cod and settled into Trish's parents house near the water. The rest of the week, we had a blast with our friends Chris and Julie and the entire McGinity clan. We boated, grilled, flew down the water slides, played miniature golf and toured Martha's Vineyard. We had a pool party, played some pool and sang our hearts out at karaoke. Trish's brother's kids are the same age as mine, so you couldn't wipe the smiles off our kids' faces, especially when we had the tunes cranked with the top down on the convertible.

For more pictures of this super-fun trip, see Summer Fun in Oregon and Cape Cod part 1 and 2.

After returning from Boston, we had a week without kids and lived it to the fullest with a John Butler Trio concert at Red Rocks and the Winter Park Beer Festival. Trish's friend Joanna and my good friend, "The Professor" joined us for a weekend of mountain biking and sweet mountain views. We even got to hang out with James Ward and his wife Jenny at the beer festival. Sunday, we hiked up the beautiful Columbine Lake Trail. Trish's dog, Sagan (named after Carl) chased sticks and was his crazy self as usual.

We drove back Monday morning to be there for the kids first day of school. They sure start early these days don't they?

I rode my bike 168 miles to and from work throughout the following week. The next weekend, we took the kids up to the Ski Shack for their first time. I hired a guy to make queen-size bunk beds for them, so they had a blast in their new roomy beds. On Saturday, we had a garage sale since the previous owners left a bunch of beds and couches and we didn't need all that furniture. The turnout was great and we got to hang out with Jodi and James, Suzie, and The Lamonts. All of these folks are old friends that just happened to be in the mountains for the weekend. One of Trish's best friends, Chris, has a place less than a mile from us and we had a blast with her on Saturday night. Thanks for the fun memories Chris!

On Sunday, we took the kids the Winter Park Base Area where they have Disneyland in the Mountains as I like to call it. An alpine slide, miniature golf, a maze, a climbing wall and a Chili Cook-Off to keep Daddy happy. We met our good friend Suzie there and had a lot of fun with Chris, Brice and their crazy kids. Enjoying an Avery White Rascal at the Cheeky Monk's happy hour was the perfect way to end the day.

Sunday night, we were graced with the presence of a beautiful sunset.

That pretty much catches you up-to-date with the goings on in my life. As you can tell, it's been a great summer so far. I'm really looking forward to the fall too. Broncos season, a trip to Hawaii, learning new technologies, talking about them at Devoxx and a new gig.

I've decided to leave Overstock because I'm a die-hard Broncos fan and I can't work for a company that supports the Raiders during football season. There's a good chance I'll be back after the season, just in time for The Greatest Snow on Earth.

This weekend, my parents are meeting us in Winter Park for Labor Day weekend. We plan on fishing, hiking, smiling and enjoying each other's company a whole lot. Tomorrow is Jack's birthday. I gotta run ... it's time to go buy a bike, play a little golf, hit the pool and go to the BBQ before tonight's CD Release Party.

4th of July Adventures in Montana

2011-07-19T09:24:54-06:00

Montana is one of my favorite places on earth, especially the The Cabin. Like last year and the year before, I spent a couple weeks at the cabin for this year's 4th of July. Last year was interesting because I met Trish two days before my vacation. This year, she joined me for the 2nd week, along with her Dad. It was also the "90s Reunion" for the Seeley Swan High School, which I attended my freshman and sophomore year.

My parents have lived at the cabin for a little over a year now, having retired there last year. It now looks like it did when we were kids. That is, it feels like home rather than just a cabin in the woods. Their retirement cabin is coming along nicely and the finished bathroom with a toilet + shower provides a nice break from the outhouse and sauna. It was interesting to see all the logging being done on The Homestead. My parents hired someone to clean things up and it looks great so far. They're not clear-cutting, just thinning the forest to reduce fire danger and give more resources to the big trees.

There were several highlights of the trip, but one of my favorites was our Float in the Swan Valley Parade. Abbie came up with the idea (Happy Birthday America) and we decorated an old trailer with streamers, balloons and a birthday cake to celebrate. Abbie made up a song and sang it throughout the entire parade (with a portable microphone and amp). We all got dunked afterwards, drank some cheap beer and had lots of fun fiddlin' and swinging. The fireworks that night were epic and Trish and I were amazed late night when we smiled on a crowded campfire with many of my parents' old friends.

The next day, we woke up, recovered a bit and then headed for Glacier National Park. We spent the afternoon at Big Sky Waterpark and had a great night's rest at Glacier Mountain Lodge. Trish woke up early the next morning for some sunrise shots at Lake McDonald and we enjoyed a short hike to Avalanche Lake that afternoon. Unfortunately, Going-to-the-Sun Road was closed due to snow so we were unable to drive to the top. 2011 is the latest they've ever opened.

The rest of our vacation was spent doing early morning airport runs, riding the 4-wheeler, golfing and hanging out with old friends. For the trip home, we took the scenic route, driving through Yellowstone and Grand Teton. We stopped along the way to spend the night at Jackson Lake Lodge, shortly after marveling at a Grizzly Bear and her two cubs along the highway. Trish snapped some some magnificent sunset and sunrise photos and we packed up the car for the final journey home. After being gone for 3 weeks, I've never seen the kids happier to cross the Colorado State Line.

As far as vacation destinations go, Montana is one of my favorites. This year was special because I had the pleasure of sharing it with Trish. She's always wanted to photograph Glacier National Park and the Grand Tetons and we were lucky enough to visit both. I also got to share a lot of smiles and memories with old classmates and friends. I experienced the joy of seeing my parents back home, living as Montanans once again and loving every minute of it. I smiled proudly as Abbie thought up the "Happy Birthday America" float and then sang on it the whole way through the parade. I simply loved spending so much time with my family in such a beautiful place.

Finally, I'd like to share a picture montage that Trish put together of the trip. Below that are some of her best shots from our adventures. As always, you can find see my latest photos on Flickr.

A Sweet Trip to Switzerland for Jazoon 2011

2011-06-28T12:52:33-06:00

I've always enjoyed speaking at conferences, especially those in exotic locations. Earlier this year, I saw Jazoon's call for papers and thought, "I've never been to Switzerland, sounds fun!" I proceeded to submit a talk, got accepted and booked a trip with my girlfriend, Trish. We left Denver last Tuesday and arrived in Zürich on Wednesday around noon. After settling into our awesome accommodations at Hotel Opera, we journeyed to the conference location, which was held at a movie theater.

We were quickly impressed when we learned the conference had reserved a theater for an evening showing of The Hangover 2. We grabbed some drinks from the bar and settled in for a couple hours of giggling and barely staying awake from jetlag.

Zürich quickly made an impression on us the first day. We experienced its excellent transportation system (trains, trams, buses and boats) and saw a number of fancy cars (a Bently, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari). Prices were high, but the food was excellent.

On Thursday, we woke up and Trish realized she'd left her expensive Nikon lenses on our flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam. This realization hit her hard and she scrambled to try and find them by contacting the airlines. I rushed off to the conference to catch Frank Kim's What Every Developer Should Know About Application Security. This was a great session and I especially enjoyed that he selected Apache Roller as the application to hack. After that, I attended Ed Burns' Hyperproductive JSF and published my notes.

Then I met Trish for lunch at the conference and we went to the room for my talk. We had some technical difficulties to start (my brand-new Mini-DVI connector was bad) and I started about 10 minutes late. During this mad scramble to fix things, I started having some stomach issues, but ignored them thinking I could make it through my 50 minute talk. As I was doing demos and sweating profusely, I realized I couldn't make it and ran out of the room with 10 minutes left. The whole experience shook me up a bit. It was definitely not my best performance, but it could've been a lot worse.

Friday, we tried to sleep off our jet lag and woke up in the early afternoon. Trish had three places she wanted to visit and we managed to see them all in the same day. We climbed the tower at Grossmünster, rode the train to Rhine Falls and celebrated our anniversary at Gruelich, the highest-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor. We arrived at Guelich around 10pm and were very happy when they agreed to serve us. We did the 4-course meal and had the Sommelier choose our wines. It wasn't cheap, but definitely worth the experience.

After dinner, we took the 8 Tram back to our hotel. However, it somehow turned into the 9 and we ended up on the opposite side of the lake. This turned out to be a nice diversion as we had a nice walk around the lake with some nice swans and lights on the water.

Saturday, we woke up early for a big day of travel to the Swiss Alps. We enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast at the hotel and headed for the central train station. My good friend, Fernand, recommended we visit Grindelwald, while one of Trish's best friends thought we'd love the quaintness of Gimmelwald. We gulped at the price (500 USD) of the train ticket to both locations, but were impressed that you could buy all the tickets we needed (including the bus and trolley ride) at one place. We both quickly forgot the cost as we passed through the beautiful town of Interlaken and arrived in Grindelwald. An hour later we were hiking through Gletscherschlucht (Glacier Gorge) and marveling at the craftsmanship of the trail.

After enjoying a beer on a patio with a view, we boarded the train for Gimmelwald. A transfer, bus ride and cable car ride later, we were standing in the picturesque town, marveling that it had a lower elevation than Denver and perplexed that everyone seemed to be American. We strolled around, took a number of cool photos and had a scrumptious dinner at the Pension Gimmelwald.

On our train ride home, we missed our connection in Interlaken. This was no surprise as we regularly encountered very short layovers between trains. The Swiss are incredibly efficient and our brief stop in a store (that had a line at the cashier) was enough to miss the next train. The hour layover turned into a nice opportunity to stroll around town and snap a few last pictures. I especially like the sunset below, taken around 9:30 at night.

Trish and I both were super-impressed with Zürich, the friendliness of the Swiss and especially the Swiss Alps. Yes, it was definitely expensive, but everything was top notch and beautiful. There's a very good chance we'll visit again. Thanks to the Jazoon Organizers for having us and providing us the opportunity to explore their gorgeous country.

Farewell to the 2010-2011 Ski Season

2011-04-28T09:40:08-06:00

I'd call the 2010-2011 the best ski season ever, but it's really just the best ski season so far. In 2008, I wrote about a great 21-day season. This time last year, I wrote about an amazing 25-day season. This year, I took it up a notch and aimed for 30 days. I'm proud to say I accomplished my goal and had an awesome time doing it. I skied with more people I'd never skied with before (largely in part to my cool co-workers from Overstock) and shared many days with the lovely Trish McGinity.

The season started with a trip to Copper, shortly after Abbie's 8th Birthday. I remember that day clearly as the kids were a bit rusty and had a heckuva time on their first run. Sobbing, whining and fear surrounded them the entire time. After the first run, I had some hot chocolate with them, calmed them down and then proceeded to the bunny slope for some turns. The lift was broken when we got there so we had to hike for a few runs. Amazingly, Abbie said it was the most fun she'd ever had skiing, which surprised me after her meltdown on the first run.

It's fun to compare that day to the last day I took them this season. We did the same run (a blue at Copper) and both kids were doing parallel turns and having a blast. Actually, Jack was the only one doing parallel turns, Abbie was flying down the mountain, not turning at all. She was going so fast her legs looked like rubber bands, weaving and bobbing over the bumps in the snow. I'm awful proud of my little skiers.

As for me, I happened to land a new gig in Utah, home of the greatest snow on Earth. My interview with Overstock.com was two days, with the 2nd day on the slopes at Snowbird. It was easily the best interview I've ever had.

That week, I returned to Denver for 3 days of skiing Breckenridge and A-Basin for Trish's Birthday Weekend. After returning from Christmas in Florida, I got a couple days in at Mary Jane and then accomplished 10 days before 2011 while skiing in sub-zero temperatures at Steamboat for New Years.

The next 4 months of skiing were fantastic with many firsts. I experienced Alta, Crested Butte and thigh-deep powder for the first time.

We finished up the season with a hut trip after TSSJS in Vegas, a weekend with the kids at Copper (as mentioned above) and Spring Splash at Winter Park.

For next year, I think I'll keep my goal at 30 days. If everything works out as planned, we'll have a place in the mountains this fall and it'll be a bit easier to hit the slopes without sitting in traffic. For now, I'm pumped about the beginning of mountain bike season. I took Trish and I's Gary Fisher Hi-Fi Plus's to the shop for tune-ups yesterday and we have a trip planned to Moab for Memorial Day. It's gonna be a great summer.

Crested Butte

2011-02-01T17:57:41-07:00

Last week was a great one for my ski season and happiness meter. First of all, I had the pleasure of skiing Alta for the first time while traveling to Overstock.com. I started working early on an overcast day and was delighted to drive into sunny blue skies above the clouds of Salt Lake City. I never expected it to be so nice and was super impressed with the mountain and its powder stashes.

I flew back to Denver on Thursday night, had a gorgeous lunch ride in 70°F weather on Friday afternoon, then picked up my lovely girlfriend Trish and drove to Crested Butte for a weekend of skiing with James Ward and friends. It was my first time visiting Crested Butte and I can see why people call it Paradise.

We stayed at a sweet location right in town, ate some exquisite cuisine and had some of the most beautiful days I've ever had skiing. Hopefully the pictures below convey how beautiful it was. You can also checkout the full set on Flickr.

Trish and I are up to 17 ski days for the year so far, and hoping to hit 20 by Valentine's Day. Not bad for a couple Flatlanders.

An Awesome Trip to Amsterdam and Antwerp for Devoxx 2010

2010-11-25T12:36:10-07:00

I've often heard that Devoxx (formerly Javapolis) is one of the best Java-related conferences in the world. I've also heard it has the best speaking and viewing facilities (a movie theater) of any conference. When I was invited to speak earlier this year, I jumped at the opportunity. When I met Trish last summer, I even used it in a pickup line: "Wanna go to Belgium with me in November?"

Last week was one of the most memorable weeks of my life. It all started with a tremendously fun Broncos vs. Chiefs game at Invesco Field in Denver. Trish's company, FishNet Security, was hosting a tailgate party and had rented a suite for the game. I was irrationally confident that the Broncos would win, so proceeded to place bets with many of her co-workers. Since FishNet is headquartered out of Kansas City, most of the folks in the suite were Kansas City fans. You can imagine my excitement when the CEO's wife agreed to chug a beer every time the Broncos scored. I talked a couple of other folks into the same bet and proceeded to giggle and grin for the duration of the 49-29 routing.

I tell this story because it put us in the perfect mood to begin our trip to Devoxx the next day.

Trish and I left Denver at noon on Monday, stopped in Chicago for a 2-hour layover and continued to Amsterdam on an overnight flight. In Chicago, we journeyed into the Red Carpet Club, where I performed a long overdue release of AppFuse. We'd both started to come down with my kids' cold, so we popped some NyQuil a couple hours into the flight and slept through the night.

Amsterdam
We arrived in Amsterdam on Tuesday morning and proceeded on a walkabout of the city. We stumbled into Dam Square, found some breakfast and checked our bags into a nearby hotel. Our first stop was the Van Gogh Museum, where we proceeded to enjoy the audio tour and learn about the life and works of Van Gogh. From there, we headed to the Heineken Brewery for a tour and some extra cold beers. While walking back to Amsterdam Central Station to catch a train to Antwerp, we stopped in at the Ice Bar to experience drinks in sub-zero temperatures. All the brochures said it was the #1 attraction in Amsterdam, but that was obviously just good marketing. Regardless, we enjoyed the "4D" experience and cool bartender tricks.

Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities in the world, offering some of the best scenes and photo opportunities I've ever seen. We marveled at a gorgeous sunset over a canal on our walk back to the train station.

On the train to Antwerp, we scarfed down delicious bread and cheese, chased it with wine and watched a movie on my iPad. Upon arrival, we were instantly mesmerized by the architecture and beauty of the Antwerpen Centraal Station. We hailed a taxi and proceeded to our accommodations at the Holiday Inn Express.

Devoxx
I knew that Devoxx was a great conference and I could learn a lot by attending. However, it was also my first time in Belgium and I knew there was a lot to learn by exploring too. Much to my delight, while lying in bed on Wednesday morning, I quickly realized I could get all the key highlights via Twitter. I also learned that, as a speaker, I'd get full access to all the sessions via Parleys.com. So Wednesday was spent registering for the conference and traveling to Antwerp's shopping district to explore and drink a few delicious Belgium beers.

That evening, we attended the Open Source Dinner at Zuiderterras with Mathias Bogaert, Tom Baeyens, a couple ZeroTurnaround guys, a few Struts 2 Developers and many other fun folks. We walked to Pelgrom after dinner and savored a few Kwaks in the coolest beer-drinking establishment I've ever been to.

On Thursday, we woke up early and walked the 35 minute journey to the conference to catch The Future Roadmap of Java EE talk. The session was so packed that many overflow rooms were created and we nestled ourselves into the front row of one across the hall. My talk on Comparing JVM Web Frameworks was next and I fought the crowd to get into the keynote room to deliver it. I don't know how many people attended (est. 500), but it was definitely the largest audience I'd ever spoken in front of. Based on Twitter mentions, the majority of people seemed to enjoy it and that put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

Since Trish and I didn't have time for breakfast, we walked back to the hotel, dropped off my laptop and headed downtown to find some grub. We found Madre Tierra, had a delicious breakfast and continued on to Cathedral of Our Lady. The artwork inside was amazing, as demonstrated by the pictures below.

That evening, we joined the Java Posse dinner at Pelgrom. This was a fun dinner where we got to sit with Dick Wall and Carl Quinn on one side and Mark Reinhold, Chet Haase and Romain Guy on the other. Good food, great beer and excellent conversation. From there, we met up with James Ward and other Adobe folks before attending the Devoxx party to close the night.

Friday, we slept in and tracked down some delicious Belgium Waffles at Désiré de Lille before catching a train to Ghent. We arrived at sunset, but that didn't stop Trish's Nikon D300 from capturing many spectacular shots throughout the night.

On Saturday, we began our journey back to the US, starting with taking the fast train from Antwerp to Amsterdam. We checked into a fancy hotel and snuggled in for a cozy dinner at Tibet Restaurant. We spent most of the night walking around, taking sweet photos and making our Irish heritage proud.

Traveling to Belgium and speaking at Devoxx was definitely a highlight of my life. Not only were the sites fantastic, but the conference attendees were super nice and I had the best travel partner in the world. The beers were delicious, the food was excellent and I can't wait to return in the future. Thanks to the Devoxx Crew for having me!

To see all the pictures I took on this trip, check out my Devoxx 2010 set on Flickr.

Jess and Lili's Legendary Wedding on The Lost Coast

2010-07-29T23:54:00-06:00

If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you'll know I've been to some great weddings in the last couple years. This past weekend, I had the pleasure of experiencing yet another fantastic celebration with two old and close friends, Clint and Jess. You might remember Clint from his wedding in Costa Rica or when we almost slept in a snow cave. I'm happy to report we didn't get in any trouble and everyone survived the weekend without a scratch.

My trip to Jess's wedding (on the Lost Coast of Northern California) started with a flight to Portland, Oregon. After arriving, I drove to Clint and Autumn's house in Eugene where we enjoyed some sweet Oregon micros and reminisced about Costa Rica. The next morning, we headed for the wedding; an 8-hour drive. Our road trip was awesome, especially when we started driving through the Redwood Groves on 101.

We stayed in a sweet beach house for the weekend. While it was foggy most of the time, the sun did come out on Saturday. We quickly became surrounded by beautiful views and headed to the beach to relax with Jess.

The wedding was on Sunday, a mere block from where we were staying. The ceremony was one of the most heartfelt I've ever heard, especially since the Wedding Official was a friend of the bride's since she was born.

The reception afterwards was a truly spectacular party that lasted well into the evening. Clint and I vowed to go to bed early, but we ended up having so much fun we closed the place down. Jess and Lili were an instrumental part in creating a spectacular night, especially with their wedding dance and infectious happiness.

The next day, we woke up on time, embarked on the 10-hour road trip back to Oregon and enjoyed a quick detour through the Avenue of the Giants. I did end up missing my flight home, but it was worth it. Thanks to Lili and Jess (and their families) for showing us such a great time. It was truly spectacular.

For more pictures, see albums on Flickr, Facebook or the slideshow below.

Fantastic Fun in Jackson Hole

2010-03-12T07:04:57-07:00

For the last couple of years, I've done a ski trip with college buddies to an out-of-state destination. Two years ago, we went to Tahoe and had a great time. Last year, we did it again and I (amazingly) flew and rented a car without a driver's license. This year, we decided to switch things up a bit and head for Jackson Hole.

In previous years, only a couple of us went, but this year was organized by my good friend from Boston, Chris Morse. He managed to take it up a notch and invited a great group of guys, 9 of us in all. I knew about half the group, and met everyone else upon arrival.

The only unfortunate part about the trip was that no new snow fell. However, the Spring Skiing was warm and beautiful, somewhat making up for the lack of snow. The thing I enjoyed the most about this trip was how well the group jelled. Kudos to Chris for assembling such an awesome group and putting such a spectacular trip together. Can't wait for next year.

For further action of what the conditions where like, checkout the YouTube video I made. If only I'd recorded it for another 5 seconds to catch the digger that Corey takes at the end.

To see all the pictures we took on this adventure, checkout my Jackson Hole Set on Flickr.

My Sister's Fabulous Wedding

2009-10-07T20:46:46-06:00

Last week, my kids and I flew to Chelan, Washington for my sister's wedding. Unfortunately, I had to work most of the week, but I woke up early and actually had a very productive week. My sister hooked us up with an awesome 3-bedroom condo on Lake Chelan and I thoroughly enjoyed my new office and its view. The bonus of getting up early was finishing early.

I think the best way to describe the fun I had at Kalin's wedding is by posting the speech I wrote for the ceremony and showing you some pictures from the event.

My sister and I share the most unique childhood of anyone I've ever met. We both grew up without electricity or running water in the backwoods of Montana. If you know us, you know that in itself isn't that special. What is special is the parents that provided the unique atmosphere and experience that made us who we are today.

If you know my parents, you're probably friends with them and wouldn't hesitate to stop in and say hello if you happen to be in the same town as them. (Tip: if you're stopping by, make sure and bring some good wine or microbrews - it'll make it more fun for everyone.)

I've always been impressed with my parent's ability to inspire friendships among people they meet. However, they don't hold a candle to Kalin's ability to create really cool friendships. She has an excellent ability to identify "really good people" and bring them into her life. The type of people that make you laugh and feel good about yourself. The type of people that make you want to live your life to the fullest. The type of people that you fall in love with.

Kalin is always go, go, go. For proof, ask her about her recent Karaoke performance. Mya is always slow, slow, slow. Let's stop and smell the flowers, have a good time, or just simply sit here and relax. She's a welcome addition to our family and I'm proud to have her as my new sister today.

In my opinion, the most important thing in a marriage is that you help each other. Mya and Kalin have this type of relationship. I've watched them live together, learn together and love together. I look forward to watching their love continue to grow.

More than anything, I really enjoy how my sister has found the ultimate place to live her life. Chelan is one of the most beautiful places I've ever had the pleasure of visiting. I hope she lives here for many, many years. If you combine a great location with an awesome relationship, I don't see how you could help but be happy.

To my sister, Kalin, I'm very proud of you. You've set yourself up for a life of happiness and I couldn't think of a better person to do it with.

If you'd like to see more pictures from Kalin's Wedding, please see Kalin's Fabulous Wedding on Flickr.