Raible Designs

Music, Mountain Biking and Memories in Moab

Moab is one of my favorite place on Earth. It has been ever since I first journeyed there in college for a float trip down the Green River. Last year, I mountain biked in Moab for the first time and had a great time at Desert Rocks. This year, I made the trek again, but this time with the lovely Trish McGinity. The story of our drive out there last Friday is one of my favorites.

I've been a longtime fan of nice car stereos. You know, the ones you hate when you roll up to a stop light and their bass shakes your car. I, probably like you, don't enjoy someone else's nice stereo - but I've often enjoyed having one in my own car. It's been quite a few years since I've had a bass-tastic system in my car, but I still have the music on my iPhone.

So Trish and I are driving down I-70 in her Xterra and one of my old bass songs comes on. I say, "We can skip this one, it only sounds good on stereos with bass". She looks at me, cracks a half-smile and says "Oh, you don't think I have bass?" She then proceeds to turn some nobs and press some buttons and seconds later my seat is vibrating and the mirrors are shaking. I was appalled, overjoyed and super-impressed all at the same time. Turns out she has a Rockford Fosgate system with a subwoofer under the drivers seat and it sounded awesome. A wicked fun roadtrip ensued.

Shortly after my oh-my-god-you're-so-awesome-woman moment, we stopped in Fruita for a mountain bike ride on Horsethief Bench. This was a beautiful ride along the Colorado River with tons of flowers along the way.

The purpose of our trip was 1) camping and enjoying the outdoors in Moab and 2) listening to great music at Desert Rocks. Our good friend, "The Professor", had driven out to Moab earlier in the week. He scored us a great camp site and we promptly set up our tent when we arrived. We installed some tikki torches, rolled out a small living room rug and settled into our camping chairs for cold beers. That evening, we saw several good bands and danced into the wee hours of the morning.

The rest of the weekend was spent 4x4ing, mountain biking, dancing and hiking in Arches National Park. We enjoyed tons of great music, with our favorites being Scenic Byway, Great American Taxi, JGB feat. Melvin Seals, MarchFourth Marching Band and Hot Buttered Rum.

One of the best way to describe good memories is with pictures. When you have a professional photographer with you, it only makes sense to end this post with some of Trish's best photos.

For more pictures, checkout my Moab and Desert Rocks 2011 Set on Flickr.

Denver Yard Harvest Kick Off Party

When I first moved into my house, I was pumped to have fruit trees in my backyard. However, I quickly realized the downside:

I have the biggest apple tree I've ever seen and it drops apples like they're going out of style. I counted them in a 24-hour period last weekend and there was 100 new apples! I thought it was cool when I first moved in, but now it seems like a lot of work. However, it's such a good shade tree, it'd be a shame to do anything to it.

I've since grown to love my apple tree, plumb tree and grapes. They produce a lot of fruit, but I rarely pick and eat it.

Because I have so much fruit, I was pumped when my good friend Jason Barton moved back to Denver and started Yard Harvest. Their homepage explains their mission:

What We Do: Each fall, homeowners who register their trees with us call when those trees are dropping apples, cherries, peaches, and other food in their yards. Our volunteers harvest the fruit, leave as much as the homeowners would like, and deliver the rest to daycare centers, homes for the elderly, community kitchens, and other places that serve people around Denver who are at risk of going without fresh, healthy food.

Jason started a similar initiative in Vancouver, BC a few years ago and had great success. I'm writing this post to create awareness of Yard Harvest in Denver and invite you to the Kick Off Party. Below is a picture of the flyer that's being passed around and you can download the PDF if you want to print it out and help spread the word.

Hope to see you there!

The Basement Sauna Project

I grew up in a cabin in the backwoods of Montana. We had no electricity and no running water. We used an outhouse to do our business and bathed in a sauna. The Cabin was built by my great-grandpa Matti Hill, who had come to America by way of Finland and a Russian navy ship. Matti and his wife Ann received 120 acres from the Homesteading Act of 1862, and built a cabin and sauna on the property in 1917 and 1918, respectively.

When my sister and I started going to school, we started getting teased by the other kids because we smelled like goats. Since we had a whole bunch of goats, and they did smell, there's a good chance the kids were right. My sister and I told my parents, and they bumped the saunas up from once a week to twice a week.

I have many fond memories of the sauna in Montana. It has a huge 55-gallon stove; made from an oil barrel. A tub of water sits on the top of the stove and throughout my childhood, I developed the ability to make the water sing with a blazing fire. I've always loved that sauna, as well as most saunas. My parents built one in their basement in Oregon, but that went away last year when they my Mom retired and they moved back to Montana.

I've always wanted to build a sauna in my own basement. When my parents visited for a few weeks this past February, I finally began the project. The prep work, installing a drain and getting 220-volt electricity installed, in the basement was the hardest part. Not from a "doing it" perspective, but from a "stomaching the cost" perspective.

By the time my parents left at the end of February, the main infrastructure was completed. The framing was done, the stove was installed and the insulation was mostly finished.

Over the next couple months, I spent a few hours here and there finishing the cedar walls, building benches and trimming to make it look good. We hired someone to do the tile work and build a custom cedar door. One of my favorite things we did was have a custom piece of glass made with the Montana Sauna's picture sandblasted in it.

I can't take credit for how good it looks in the end. That praise goes to Trish and her tile design, as well as her decorating of the dressing room. My favorite thing is the shower in the sauna. It's great for rinsing off after sweating the day's stresses away. When it gets up to 112°C (233°F), stress goes away pretty fast.

I'd like to thank my parents for raising me with a sauna and my Finnish ancestors for inventing the idea. I think Jack summed it up best when I asked him, "Isn't it great having a sauna in our basement?" His reply: "No Dad, it's not great ... it's AWESOME!". Well said son.

More Pictures » Flickr Set or Facebook Album.

Farewell to the 2010-2011 Ski Season

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.

Peter Estin Hut Trip in Colorado's High Country

Last weekend, after returning from our trip to Las Vegas, we packed up our stuff, got a good night's sleep and headed on a hut trip in Colorado's High Country. The name of the hut was Peter Estin Hut and it was a bit of a hike to get to. My friend, Joe, set my expectations correctly when he warned me it'd be a 5 hour death march. It took us 4 hours, 30 minutes and we skied up 2200 vertical feet of switchbacks.

The hut itself was great. It was a lot like The Cabin, but bigger, slept a lot more people and was at 11,200 feet. It had an old fashioned cookstove, heat stove (where we melted snow) and a two-room outhouse.

On Sunday, we hiked up to the top of Charles Peak (12,000') and had a nice (albeit choppy) run down and packed up to hike down.

This was the first hut trip I'd been on since Last Dollar Hut near Telluride in college. It was definitely a physical challenge, but was a lot of fun thanks to good friends, nice views and "summit push" music from Joe's boombox.

For more pictures from this adventure, check out my Peter Estin Hut Trip photos on Flickr.

The Greatest Snow on Earth

Last week, I traveled on my monthly trip to Utah to work on-site at Overstock. Unlike previous visits, snow was in the forecast and it didn't disappoint. I woke up early on Friday, worked a few hours and then met a couple co-workers at the office at 8. We arrived at Solitude by 8:40 and were in line for the lift by 8:55. We were the 5th chair on the lift and quickly skied to The Summit Lift. It was here we found thigh-deep powder and face shots on every run. The video below has shot by my co-worker, Eric. You can also view it on YouTube. The face shots start around 0:45.

After an awesome morning of skiing, I returned to work and later picked up Trish from the airport for a weekend of powder. When I started working at Overstock, I told myself that I'd buy a pair of "Utah Skis" if the powder was good. It seemed like the right time, so I picked up some Bluehouse Powder Skis on the way back from the airport. That night, we saw Hot Buttered Rum and woke up early for 27" of fresh powder at Alta.

The skiing was incredible all day and it never stopped snowing. That night, we headed to The Canyons and stayed slopeside at The Hyatt. We got upgraded to a great room and enjoyed some nice views.

We slept in on Sunday, grabbed some breakfast and hopped on the lift around noon. It was a Bluebird Day and we skied as much of the hard stuff as we could find.

Several weeks ago, I said I thought Colorado's powder was better than Utah's. After experiencing knee-deep powder at Solitude and sweet, fluffy powder at Alta, I'm officially changing my stance. In my opinion, Utah has the greatest powder on earth. If Colorado happens to get that much powder, and I get to ski it, I'd be more than happy to reconsider.

Crested Butte

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.

Alta

Had my first Alta experience this week. It was awesome.

Will post pictures from Crested Butte on Monday.

A Fun Week in Florida at The Rich Web Experience

Last week, I traveled with my fun-loving company photographer to Fort Lauderdale for The Rich Web Experience. Both my talks were on Wednesday afternoon, so we had plenty of time to enjoy our hotel, the beach and the beautiful weather.

After hitting the Hard Rock Casino on Thursday night, we decided to take things up a notch. Friday afternoon we rented a 2008 Corvette Convertible and drove to Key West for the night. I was a little hesitant to spend the money at first, but when I fired up the car and realized how fast it was, my buyers remorse quickly disappeared and an evil laugh ensued. Having zero to sixty in 4.3 seconds was a whole lotta fun!

We drove 200 miles to Key West with no plans for the night and quickly found the last room available at the Ocean Key Resort. It was right on the water, had close proximity to the nightlife and a fantastic breakfast on the balcony.

On Saturday, we relaxed at the pool for a couple hours and then headed to the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum to learn about the Spanish Galleons of 1622. This was a very cool exhibit that explains Mel Fisher's $200 million treasure hunt as well as the history and other happenings of the 1600s. I highly recommend going if you're ever in Key West.

Thanks to Jay Zimmerman for inviting me to The Rich Web Experience. The combination of a sweet room, an awesome travel partner, great weather and a fast car made for a heckuva vacation. For more pictures from our trip, checkout my Rich Web Experience 2010 set on Flickr.

Note: I shot the last 3 pictures of the bottom two rows using the Pro HDR app for my iPhone. Thanks to Tim Berglund for recommending it.

Abbie's 8th Birthday and Other Happenings

This past weekend, we celebrated Abbie's 8th birthday. In the wee hours of the morning on November 5, 2002, I became a father for the first time. It's hard to believe my little girl has grown up so fast. As a 2nd grader, Abbie is into singing in the shower, playing piano, anything pet-related and teasing her brother. She also excels at school where's she's won a couple awards and recently got published in a book of poems.

In addition to last weekend being a wonderful weekend of celebration, it was a weekend of introductions. You might remember my "super-fun friend Trish" from the Epic Weekend in Estes Park. Trish is an Amazing Woman I met this summer and someone I've nicknamed my Double Rainbow because I've been so mesmerized with her. Yeah, it might sound a bit over-the-top, but that's somewhat the mantra of our relationship. This weekend was the first time I introduced Trish to Abbie and Jack. The meeting went smooth as butter and I'm relieved to say everyone got along great.

In other news, Jack recently lost his first teeth the same way Abbie did, by getting them yanked. He had his first adult tooth coming in and had 4 baby teeth that were getting in the way. Before and after pictures are below:

Coincidentally, when I wrote about Abbie getting her first tooth, I spoke at the Colorado Springs Open Source User Group and visited The Bus. Just over two years later, Jack got his first tooth and I spoke again in the Springs. I tried to visit The Bus on that same trip, but ran out of time. To make up for it, I drove down last weekend, met with Motorworks Restorations and formulated a plan (911 engine, airbags, 5 speed tranny, Porsche wheels and brakes) for finishing the restoration. With any luck, I'll be driving it next summer.

On the work side of things, my co-workers and I recently moved to a new office in LoDo. The new space has been awesome so far. Next week, I'll be traveling to Devoxx with Trish. The following week, I'll be at The Cabin. Then it's off to The Rich Web Experience in Florida. If you happen to be in Antwerp, Northwest Montana or Fort Lauderdale in the next few weeks, maybe I'll see you along the way.