Raible Designs

Traveling to Tahoe without a Driver's License

This past weekend, I had quite the adventure traveling to Lake Tahoe. On Thursday night, I flew into Denver from LA and had a busy night tidying up loose ends. After 3 hours of sleep and a late start, I was on my way to DIA early Friday morning. As I was approaching the parking garage, the lights went on in my review mirror.

When the cop asked me for my license and registration, I opened my wallet and felt my heart sink.

My driver's license was missing.

I quickly realized I left it in my pants the night before and explained this to the officer. Luckily, I found my birth certificate in my car's console and was able to show him that. He still wasn't convinced. Then he looked at my coat and said "What about your ski pass?" It had a picture on it and seemed to satisfy his identification criteria.

The cop then asked me why I was speeding (63 in a 45) and I politely explained my flight was departing in 30 minutes and I was hoping to make it. He said, "You won't make it. They won't let you check-in." I said I checked in online. He seemed to know this might work and quickly filled out the rest of my ticket. At this point, I didn't think it was possible to make my flight. I felt defeated and dreaded waiting all day until the next Frontier flight to Sacramento.

I arrived at the counter (to check-in my skis) 20 minutes before the flight was scheduled for departure. Frontier was awesome - they checked in my bags and sent me on my way as fast as they could. TSA wasn't too bad; I just had to go through the extra screening. Of course, I had to run all the way through Terminal A to make my flight on time.

While taxiing to the runway, I reflected on how awesome it was that I was utterly defeated 30 minutes prior and how the good people of Frontier Airlines made it all possible. Of course, when I arrived in Sacramento, my adventures continued with late baggage and rental car issues.

The good news is it all worked out in the end and I had a great weekend of skiing at Heavenly and Kirkwood. The snow wasn't great, but we skied in t-shirts all weekend. The Tahoe Trip seems to have become an annual tradition. Next year I'll make sure and bring my license.

R.I.P. Giant FCR3

This week, I started a new gig at a new office in downtown Denver. On the first day, I was disappointed to find our building doesn't allow bikes inside. The next day, I went out and bought a new lock. Today, I walked out for the ride home to discover my bike had been stolen.

At first I was shocked, then pissed, and then I noticed my lock was still there. This means, 1) I didn't wrap it around a tube or 2) someone cracked the lock and re-locked it. Of course, I find it hard to believe after all these years that I'd miss the tube when locking my bike. However, it'd be pretty strange if someone stole it and then went through the trouble to lock the lock again. Regardless, the awesome commuter I bought over 3 years ago is gone. You will be missed my friend.

Rather than buying a new one, I think it's a good opportunity to take things up a notch and start running to work instead. It's 6 miles and surely doable with some practice. There's also a good chance it's the worst idea I've had in a long time.

Update: Running wasn't too bad.

Happy Birthday Mom!

For the last couple weeks, I've been enjoying a great Christmas vacation in Oregon with most of my family. Abbie and Jack didn't join me, but they got to spend 3 weeks in West Palm Beach, Florida. Poor kids.

I made sure the end of my vacation would land on a very special person's birthday. My Mom. Not only is my mom one of the coolest people in the world, she also has an excellent job title: Burn Boss. Growing up in Montana, I was always proud that Barb Raible was my mom. She was famous for her kindness in the Swan Valley. I hope she's always famous for her story about nailing a bear's nuts to a tree.

My mom is a Montana Native who wasn't afraid to raise her kids in the backwoods at her family's homestead. It sounds like a crazy idea to me, but she made it happen - cooking over a wood stove every day and working at the Swan Valley Ranger Station to make ends meet. She was responsible for getting us out of Montana and onto Oregon. She went back to school in her early 40s, got a degree in Forestry from the University of Montana and moved the whole family to Oregon for a job with the BLM.

I moved to Oregon on June 14, 1990 driving a '73 Plymouth Duster with a homemade International trailer in tow. We certainly looked like we were from Montana when we rolled into town. We moved into a house on Felony Flats. My sister and I got jobs at McDonald's (Dad's advice) and started school at North Salem High school in the fall. I met many good friends at North Salem - Jess, Matt, Clint and Michelle becoming favorites over the years.

For New Years, Jess, Clint and I rented a condo in Bend, Oregon. Matt joined us on Friday after most of us experienced an Epic Powder Day at Mt. Bachelor. It was the first time we'd all been together in 9 years. We had a blast.

This vacation in Oregon has been very special to me. I've reunited with many old friends, enjoyed 2 epic powder days and had a great time with my Mom, Dad, Sister and her fiancé Mya.

As much fun as I've had, I'm looking forward to getting back to Denver and hanging out with my kids. January 2009 is sure to be one for the books. I start a new gig at a new office tomorrow. On Wednesday, the kids return from Florida to a mountain of presents at my house. My parents are coming to town next weekend, followed by a trip to Tahoe and a weekend in Steamboat to finish out the month.

Yeah, 2009 is going to be a lot of fun. Maybe I'll see you on the slopes.

My "almost slept in a snow cave" Adventure with Clint Foster

Yesterday began innocently as one of the best ski days of my life. I woke up early, drove to Eugene (Oregon) to pick up my good friend Clint Foster, then headed up to Willamette Pass. It was an Epic Powder Day with over 2 feet of fresh pow pow and face shots on almost every run. After lunch and some liquid courage, we stepped it up a notch and skied some cornices and awesome trees.

Around 2:30, our luck began to change. In our quest for untracked powder, Clint led us off the back side of Willamette Pass. There were no out-of-bounds signs or ropes to indicate this was a bad idea. The steep tree run we found was great, but our attitude changed quickly when we reached the bottom.

With 2 feet of snow and no trail, we found ourselves trudging down a flat path that got us nowhere fast. For two hours, we slogged through the deep snow down a cross-country ski trail (there were blue signs with arrows). As we started to pass the 2nd lake (I believe they were called Rosary Lakes), we decided it was time to bite the bullet and turn around. We had no map or compass. If we kept going in our current direction, we didn't know when (or if) we'd get out. If we turned around, we knew it would take 4-5 hours, but at least we knew it would get us out. "And besides", Clint said, "the trail is already broken." The time was 4:30 and it was starting to get dark.

Yes, the trail was broken, but it wasn't broken for hiking sideways up the mountain we'd skied down. We couldn't take our skis off because we'd immediately sink up to our waste in the snow. It was slow going, sometimes only a step or two at a time. If I wasn't sweating and breathing hard, I'd start to get cold and shiver. We were soaked on the outside from the snow and soaked on the inside from sweating. It was snowing pretty good too, so we knew we might lose our trail if we dug a snow cave and spent the night.

The scariest part happened when we were about an hour from getting out. Clint started to cramp up and it seemed for moment that we were destined to spend the night in a snow cave. While it was his idea to take the trail, he was the reason I made it out last night. He broke trail for most of the hike out. I tried, but would get tired so quickly it didn't help much. So when he, the trail breaker, started to cramp up, it began to look grim. I don't know if it was the thought of sleeping in a snow cave or because we could see the top of the ridge, but Clint's cramps subsided and we were able to make it out. We ended up on a groomed run and had to hike another 45 minutes to get to the top of the mountain and ski down the front-side.

As for Search and Rescue, they were looking for us, but had only recently started searching. The resort had night-skiing and it wasn't until 9:00 that anyone thought we might be missing. Clint's wife, Autumn, was on the ball and had contracted the authorities to inspire their search. We couldn't have asked for a better concerned relative. Autumn is a special person who has a way of making things happen. If we'd spent the night in a snow cave, there's a good chance she would've had the National Guard looking for us the next day.

We made it back to the car just after 10 PM. We first started our run at 2:30 PM. From the point we turned around, it took about 5 hours to hike out. I've never been so tired after a day of skiing. We arrived back at Clint's place just after midnight after a 2-hour drive in the blowing snow and rain. Autumn greeted us with warm clothes, hot tea and the best hugs I've gotten in a long time.

If you ever get a chance to meet Clint and Autumn, I'd highly recommend it. They're the ones who got married in Costa Rica recently. As far as skiing with Clint, that's fun too, but I wouldn't recommend following him out-of-bounds.

My Christmas Travel Adventure

I'm currently sitting at the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) waiting to board a flight to Portland (the real one, in Oregon). The flight is delayed an hour, but I'm confident it won't be cancelled and I'll arrive there later this evening. This is a story about my adventure getting to this point. It's not that exciting, but it certainly has the potential to become exciting. Hence the reason for this post.

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed the weather was getting kinda nasty in Oregon. Soon after, I talked with my Dad in Salem. He confirmed the bad weather and told me their power had been out for several hours. Then I noticed Patrick's tweet that he was having trouble getting from San Francisco to Portland.

This morning, I used KATU's Flight Status page and flightstats.com to setup text message alerts for my flight and the earlier one I was hoping to catch. At 9:49 this morning, I received a text message that my flight was cancelled. I realized this could be a very bad situation with everyone traveling for the holidays and began to think the worst. I knew it couldn't get much worse than renting a car and driving the from LA to Salem.

Yesterday afternoon, when I first suspected my flight might be cancelled, I called Alaska Air. It was busy. Today, I called them over 10 times with the same result. I called Orbitz (since I'd booked through them) and they couldn't help much either. While I was musing over how much fun my evening was going to be, a co-worker suggested I call American Express Travel. I'd used my Amex to buy my ticket, so it seemed like it might work.

Not only was Amex Travel extremely nice, but they were actually able to help me. The guy who helped me was named Tim and he said they had connections to a travel-agent-only line for Alaska. He said he'd call Alaska to find out what my situation was. He took my cell number and called me back in less than an hour. Unfortunately, I was in an important meeting and couldn't answer his call.

I didn't get a chance to call Tim back until I was on the way to the airport. This time I talked with Wendy from Marathon Travel. She had talked to Tim and while we were talking, she 1) booked me on the later flight at 8:40 and 2) sent me an e-mail with my confirmation number. She noted in her e-mail that it might not work:

If they give you any trouble or want to make you pay for the ticket, you may have to resort to your last option of renting a car and driving. I hope they cooperate and everything works out well for you. In any case have a safe journey and Happy Holidays.

Thanks to Wendy and especially Amex Travel for being so helpful. I never realized they had such good customer service. I'm very impressed.

The good news is everything did work out. Or at least it has so far. There's still quite a journey that has to take place. My sister drove from Chelan, WA to Salem, OR earlier today and it took her 3.5 hours to get from Portland to Salem (a 40 mile drive). Apparently, 6 inches of ice on the freeway can mess up traffic a bit.

I just got off the phone with my Dad where I gave him the good news (I'm coming) and bad news (please pick me up). There was no hesitation on his part and I'm hopeful that my bad-ass family won't let a little snow and ice get in their way. Now let's hope Alaska Air cooperates and holds up their end of the bargain.

Update: The rest of the trip was completed without a hitch. It took 3 hours for my sister and dad to drive to PDX and another 2 hours to get home. 6 inches of unplowed ice on I-5 was very interesting. We saw several rigs spin off the road in front of us. We made it safe and sound to Salem just after 3 AM.

Abbie is a Blue Skier!

On Friday afternoon, the kids and I headed up to Winter Park for a night at Zephyr Lodge. The drive up was great (no traffic) and it started snowing as soon as we got off I-70. 45 minutes later and the kids were on the slopes for the last few runs of the day. There was a few inches of snow that turned out to be great - it slowed them down enough that they didn't have to turn or worry about "pizza".

On Saturday, we put Jack in Ski School and Abbie and I had a "Daddy + Daughter" day on the mountain. She didn't want to hit the magic carpet and instead opted for the lift right away. We skied a couple greens and w/in an hour she was ready to try a blue. She did quite well on the blue and even skied a few bumps on the side. Yes, she did fall a few times, but she got up by herself and always had a smile on her face. I was extremely proud. Below are a few pictures and a video from our weekend.

I'm glad I took the kids skiing yesterday. It's been dumping with cold temperatures ever since we left. It's currently -15°F in Denver (a new record) and it's snowed 2 feet at some resorts. Now I just need to figure out a way to make it up a couple of times this week.

Costa Rica was Awesome!

After entering The Golden Period almost two weeks ago, I boarded a flight bound for Costa Rica early on the morning of Thanksgiving. I knew Costa Rica was going to be a great time since good friends (the bride and groom, Autumn and Clint) and my parents were going.

On Thursday night, I had a room booked at Villa Pacande. As they suggested on their website, I took an Orange cab (for $4, not $22 like the driver tried to tell me) to my hotel. 30 minutes later I ended up at the Hotel Pacande and quickly negotiated for another cab to the Villa Pacande. 30 minutes later, I was swinging in a hammock on my room's balcony. As you can see from the picture on the right, it was a pretty nice room. I enjoyed the sunset, tipped back a few cold ones and waited for my friends to arrive at 11. After they arrived, we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning and had a fun time sharing old memories.

On Friday, we boarded a private bus that transported us from the Villa to Hotel Esperanza. It was pretty nerve-racking watching our driver navigate the narrow roads at high speed for 5 hours. We safely arrived in Playa Carrillo on Friday afternoon and soon after walked 10 minutes to the local beach. As we were walking there, my parents showed up in their rental car (they'd been in Panama for the week). Soon after, we saw some monkeys in trees then ran for the beach and splashed around in the waves of the Pacific. We entered darkness to a beautiful sunset that evening.

On Saturday, I woke up early (6:30), went on a run with my mom (very hot when the wind disappeared), had a dip in the pool and enjoyed a delicious breakfast from Dennis, the host of Hotel Esperanza. I should probably talk about the hotel a bit since that was one of the best parts. Hotel Esperanza is owned by an American (Dennis) from Florida and he and his right-hand man (Erwin) provided some of the best service I've ever seen at a hotel. The hotel had 7 rooms, and our wedding party took up 6 of them. The bride and groom occupied one, I had one, the maid of honor (Angie) had one and the other 3 were occupied by parents (mine + parents of the bride and groom). We had the place all to ourselves and it was simply magnificent.

After breakfast, we headed down to Jesse's Gym for some surfing lessons. We were told to come back at 2:30 when the tide was good. We walked down the beach to Samara and had some lunch while we waited. After lunch, 5 of us got surfing lessons and had a blast. I'm definitely hooked on surfing now and hope to get some more practice in when I make trips out to LA this winter.

Sunday was the wedding day and we started things off by taking a horseback ride in the pouring rain. It was a warm rain, so the ride itself wasn't bad. The lack of views at the top of the mountain wasn't too great though.

For the wedding ceremony, all the guys traveled down to the local beach and built an altar. The ceremony was a couple hours later and we had a ball toasting, eating and dancing the night away. At the end of the night, after everyone else had crashed, Angie and I walked down to the beach with a bottle of wine and enjoyed a spectacular site: 15-20 boats that were glowing in the distance off the shore. Sure, it could've been the booze, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't.

On Monday morning, people started to head their different directions. Clint's parents were staying another week, so they rented a car and headed north. Clint and Autumn jumped on a bus to enjoy their honeymoon in many different parts of Costa Rica. Autumn's parents hopped on a shuttle to San Jose to catch a flight back home. The rest of us (my parents, Angie and I) stayed at Hotel Esparanza for one more night. Angie and I got massages, napped by the pool and enjoyed one last walk on the beach. Tuesday was spent driving back to San Jose. We dropped Angie off at Hotel Pacande and boarded a plane for Panama City.

After arriving in Panama City, we rented a car and drove to Ivan's Bed and Breakfast (highly recommended) for the night. On Wednesday morning, we toured the Miraflores Locks (part of the Panama Canal) and drove to our friends' house in El Valle. In El Valle, we talked, read, relaxed and watched it rain. A lot. It was a nice way to wind down the trip before flying back last Friday.

My favorite part of this vacation was enjoying the beautiful beaches with really cool people. Good friends are always fun to party with, especially when they bring along other good friends. I love destination weddings and I'm pumped to enjoy two more in 2009: one in West Palm Beach and one in Cancun.

It's a strange feeling being back in the snow after surfing last week. Hopefully I'll get over it soon. Skiing last weekend was good therapy. 5 more days before the end of the year and I should be fully recovered.

For more pictures from this trip, see my Costa Rica 2008 set on Flickr.

Jack's Mohawk

Last weekend, we celebrated Abbie's birthday with friends and family at Julie's house. My parents and I had a great time, but left a bit early so I could take them to their first DU Hockey game. Towards the end of the game, I received the following text message from Jack's soon-to-be Uncle Jason.

Jack wants a mohawk? Is that OK?

My response:

Absolutely! Please take pictures.

Below are pictures from what ensued shortly after.

Jack looks pretty darn cute with his new haircut and he's received nothing but compliments from everyone. Personally, I dig it.

Happy Birthday Abbie!

Today marks the 6th anniversary of Abbie's birthday. Happy Birthday kiddo!

To see how Abbie has grown up over the years, see past Happy Birthday posts: #1, #3 and #4, #5. To celebrate, I'll be getting off early and having lunch with Abbie's class at school. After that, we'll be embarking on a Daddy/Daughter day where she gets to pick everything we do. I did this with Jack on his birthday and had a lot of fun.

Great Weekend in Montana

After the Software Summit last week, I sped down I-70 towards Denver. I made it to DIA with no time to spare. I had to run from the train to the gate, where the lady told me she'd been calling my name for the last 5 minutes. The fact I made the flight was a nice beginning to a wonderful weekend with my Dad in Montana.

It's been awhile since I've been to The Cabin in the fall. The Tamarack's were dressed in yellow and the sun warmed the land the entire weekend. It was cold at night, but we had my Grandma's ol' wood cookstove to keep us warm.

Hunting was a blast.

I haven't done it since I was a kid and I have memories of boredom. This time was different. My Dad and I basically trounced around the woods at the ol' homestead (120 acres) for hours on end with guns in our hands. What's not to like about that? Anytime outside of hunting season, people would think you're crazy and you'd probably believe them! Besides hunting and target practice, I got to hear a lot of stories from my Dad, explore all 4 corners of our property, chop wood, haul water and create super-hot saunas.

On Sunday, my Dad spotted a doe on our front-road and got a shot off, but missed. 20 minutes later, I got a chance at the same deer when she poked her head out from behind a tree 30 feet away from me. Unfortunately, I had a .30-06 strapped to my shoulder and couldn't get in position fast enough. After she ran off, we hunted her for a couple hours. We saw her a few more times, but didn't have any success.

The best part is we still had a ton of fun. One thing's for sure: I'll be at The Cabin during hunting season from now on.