Raible Designs

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.

An Epic Weekend in Estes Park

A couple years ago, a good friend and I headed up to Estes Park for a day at the Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Festival. I was so impressed with the venue, views and music that I vowed to return. Last weekend, I invited my super-fun friend Trish for a party in the hills. I'm happy to report it was once again an awesome festival, with perfect weather.

Highlights of the weekend included: dining at The Rock Inn, the parade, riding bikes around town, lunch at The Stanley Hotel, fly fishing along the river, Ed's Cantina and many hours of excellent Celtic music. For more pictures, checkout the full set on Flickr.

After leaving Estes Park on Sunday, we drove back to Denver, hoping to watch the Broncos game in LoDo. At one point, I thought I'd have to listen to the whole game on the radio. Luckily, we got hooked up and got to watch the 4th quarter. My sadness over the Broncos loss was erased within a couple hours as we celebrated Jason Giambi's walk-off home run at the Rockies game. You gotta love that it's already been documented on WikiPedia.

In other news, Jack's turned 6 a couple weeks ago. He's in 1st grade now and currently into Super Mario on Wii, Bakugans, and Transformers. He also seems to have an intense addiction to Angry Birds on my iPhone. We had a blast celebrating his birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese and the Broncos game.

As summer fades and fall starts to kick in, I'll be attending the Great American Beer Festival, the Denver Broncos home opener with my sister, training for ski season and (hopefully) enjoying Rocktober. I love fall in Denver.

The First Day of School

Summer isn't over, but my kids' summer vacation is. Today, Abbie and Jack went to their first day of school for the year. I've never seen them more excited, except maybe on Christmas or their birthdays. While taking pictures this morning, I told Jack to smile like he was playing Wii. I was expecting a huge smile, but instead got the pose below.

I remember loving the first day of school when I was a kid. It's great to see Abbie and Jack doing the same.

I especially like the thought of the things that follow the beginning of the school year: Broncos Football, DU Hockey and (my favorite) Ski Season. It's gonna be a great year.

Related: The First Day of School, 3 years ago.

Jess and Lili's Legendary Wedding on The Lost Coast

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.

My Summer Vacation in Montana

My favorite time of year is summertime. My favorite place to spend it is in Montana, often called "The Last Best Place" by natives. This year was no different and I spent the last two weeks at my family's cabin celebrating the 4th of July. Shortly after returning from our Father's Day Camping Trip, my parents packed up Abbie and Jack and headed on a 3-day road trip through Wyoming and Montana, camping and sight-seeing along the way. I followed them a few days later and made the 950-mile drive in just over 14 hours. With scenes like the one below, the trip was very enjoyable, despite it being so long.

The first week I was there, I worked remotely. It's always fun to tell people The Cabin has no electricity or running water, but it does have DSL. To be fair, it does have electricity, but it's not "on the grid" electricity - it's my Dad's concoction of generators, batteries and inverters. While I worked most of the week, I did manage to get a nice mountain bike ride in along the Foothills Trail to Holland Lake.

My real vacation began on the 4th of July weekend and we did it up right with the Swan Valley Parade and lots of big fireworks I picked up in Wyoming. The kids dressed up as Woody and Jesse (from Toy Story) and walked in the parade all by themselves (first time w/o me). They were especially excited when their pictures appeared in the local paper the following week.

Last week was spent hiking to Glacier Lake in the rain, golfing in Seeley Lake and Columbia Falls and hanging out with my good friend Owen Conley and his family.

The kids and I drove home last Sunday and it only took us 15 minutes longer than it did for me solo. I think they're quickly becoming road-tripping professionals.

My favorite part of this year's trip to The Cabin was seeing it as a home again. My Mom retired in April and my parents moved back to Montana shortly after. Seeing how happy they are there is truly magical. I especially enjoy the thought of visiting them and all the wonderful folks in the Swan Valley many, many times in the future.

To see all the pictures I took on this trip, check out the slideshow below.

P.S. An interesting note about all the pictures I took - they're all from my iPhone 4. I forgot my camera's battery at home and it seemed like a good experiment.

Another Fun Father's Day at The Great Sand Dunes

For this year's Father's Day Camping trip, my parents drove down from Montana and we headed to the Great Sand Dunes (like last year). My friend Jason and his Dad joined us, as well as my co-worker Noah and his family. The weather was beautiful, the sand was hot and we had a blast flying kites while admiring the Medano Fire.

On Saturday, we spent several hours on "the beach" watching the kids play, flying kites and sipping on cold ones. A good time was had by all.

To see all the pictures I took on this trip, see my Great Sand Dunes 2010 set on Flickr.

A Nice Riding Weekend before heading to the Emerald Isle

I'm writing this post while waiting to board a flight to the Irish Software Show in Dublin, Ireland. Before I go, I thought I'd let y'all know about the killer weekend I had tooling around on my bike.

Saturday was Big Head Todd and the Monsters at Red Rocks, so I had the pleasure of joining Bruce and The Professor for our annual Ride to Red Rocks. We were slow getting out there (as usual), but had a great time at the show. 17th row seats and plenty of excellent music. The ride home was dark and fast; arriving at my house at 1:30. After late night Jerusalems, I crawled in bed at 2:30.

Six hours later, I hopped out of bed, jumped in my car and drove down to Castle Rock for Elephant Rock. I did the 25-mile off-road ride on my mountain bike. Unfortunately, there was no singletrack, and I'm pretty sure I was the last one to start the race. The ride itself was nice and windy with plenty of sun. When I reached the highway on the backside of Castlewood Canyon, I caught a stellar tailwind and had a blast cruising to the finish line.

If you'd like to see more pictures from my weekend biking adventures, checkout my Big Head Todd and Elephant Rock set on Flickr.

If you're going to be at the Irish Software Show this week, be sure to stop by and say hi. I'll be speaking about The Future of Web Frameworks on Wednesday at 7:30pm and Comparing Kick-Ass Web Frameworks early on Thursday morning.

Life without TV

As a Denver sports enthusiast, April started as a great month. The Nuggets and the Avs both made the playoffs and both appeared like they would do fairly well. Of course, neither of them did and by April 30th, both teams' seasons where over. I watched the final Nuggets game of the season in Seattle and was so disgusted I decided to turn off my TV for a month.

When I first told my kids (who spend 50% of their time at my house), Jack's lower lip started to tremble (mostly because it meant no Wii). Abbie quickly asked "What about the iPad?" I said that was OK and both kids quickly cheered up. I don't generally watch a lot of TV (~10 hours/week), and I grew up without electricity, so this wasn't a huge change for me. However, I do have some shows that I've been following this year. Namely, 24, FlashForward, The Office and American Idol.

For the last 6 months, I've been developing an online video site, so it wasn't long before my brash "no TV" decision turned into a nice opportunity to research other sites offering online video. Here are some observations from my month without TV.

• Almost no online video sites work on the iPad because of Flash. I get the feeling that most online video sites aren't doing HTML5 <video> because of DRM and progressive download vs. streaming.
• Netflix is a cool app for the iPad, but most of the streaming content is crap. My kids found plenty to watch, but I never found anything.
• Hulu is the bomb if they have shows you like to watch.
• The ABC app for iPad is great if they have shows you like to watch.
• I watched a lot less movies because I didn't have onDemand and didn't feel like renting/ordering DVDs.
• I found my laptop offered a better viewing experience than the iPad.
• My kids found the iPad offered a better viewing experience than my laptop (easier to hold/share).
• The iPad isn't loud or comfortable enough to replace the modern TV.
• My TV (and surround sound) offers a much better viewing experience than a computer.
• Ads on Hulu are short and sweet (15 seconds) and seem to inspire higher engagement because you're willing to wait for the show to resume.
• My team has developed both a webapp and a native app that work on the iPad, but I was never inspired to use either due to lack of shows I wanted to watch.
• American Idol was difficult to find online. When I did find it, it was very poor quality.
• I did not use BitTorrent because I forgot what a good resource it is.
• I found myself going to bed a lot earlier.

Overall, it was a great experience and I recommend others try it. However, with the Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Finals and World Cup this month, I'm glad I turned my TV back on.