Raible Designs

What a forecast!

This weekend, I'm planning on heading up to the hills for two fun-filled days of great Colorado skiing. Since it snowed a bit in Denver tonight, I figured I'd check the weather forecast:

Thursday Jan 31, 2008: 3 to 4 inches of accumulation
Friday Feb 01, 2008: 3 to 5 inches of accumulation
Saturday Feb 02, 2008: 3 to 5 inches of accumulation
Sunday Feb 03, 2008: 4 to 7 inches of accumulation

Sweet.

Friday Update: It looks like we'll be skiing at Steamboat tomorrow instead. Checkout their Straight Talk Snow Report from this morning:

Snow Report

    * Time: 02/01/08 05:00 am
    * Conditions: Powder
    * Lifts: 16/18
    * Trails: 163/163
    * 24 Hour Snow: 18"
    * 48 Hour Snow: 22"
    * Base: 77"
    * Total: 308"

Steamboat Straight Talk Snow Report: 2/1/08

Good Morning to you, indeed!

Remember earlier in the week when we had a loud, brash, windy storm 
roll through the mountains and bring us snow? Last night while no one 
was looking, a quiet storm tiptoed in like a whisper, under the cover 
of darkness, and silently dumped a foot and a half of the choicest 
"Champagne Powder" while we all slept. All over town, people woke up, 
looked out their windows, and let out a "Holy Cow"!

I could write this report with fill in the blanks, as in... My first 
run down___________ (insert any trail name) was sweet. I got face 
shots the whole way. Then I skied over to the __________(insert a run) 
trees and the snow was just blowing over my head.

I think you get the picture. The whole mountain is in epic condition.

On one chair ride, my chair mate said, "You know it's a good day, when 
you hear Monkey noises coming from the forest." Everywhere folks were 
hootin' and hollerin'.

Weekend warriors, don't despair, there is plenty powder left to be 
skied tomorrow.

Have fun. Be safe. Look out for your buddy. Peace.

Straight Talker
Kat Murphy
Grinning like a Chimp
Telemark Skier

Hike up Green Mountain

I can't believe these two actually hiked up to the top of Green Mountain. It must've been the promise of a picnic at the top that motivated them -- or maybe the ice cream afterwards.

Nice Day in Denver

One of the reasons I love Denver so much is we usually have extremely mild winters. One year, it was 75°F on Christmas Day (no kidding). Back in college, I have fond memories of playing hacky sack outside in January. The last two winters, we haven't been that lucky. Our high temperatures have been mostly in the 20s and 30s for the last two months. Today, we got up to a balmy 53°F and it felt like spring time. Believe it or not, it actually made the news.

To celebrate, the kids and I took a walk to a nearby park and spent the better part of two hours swinging, sliding, playing tag and enjoying the nice weather. Abbie and I wore shorts and never noticed it was winter until the walk home with the sun setting. Tomorrow's high is supposed to be 60°F. You can best most of Denver will be outside enjoying the sunshine - I know we will.

Traveling to Tahoe, Whistler, Oregon and Vegas

Last fall, I got pretty burned out from traveling so much. Not only did I fly out to Mountain View monthly for LinkedIn, I also attended JavaZone, Colorado Software Summit and ApacheCon US (fun was had by all). In addition, I spent a week in New York teaching a class for GE.

Photo from Webshots

At the end of the year, I resolved to travel less and so far I've been quite successful. However, something happened in the last week and now I'm traveling like mad for the next 2 months. This time, I don't think I'll get burned out though. Why? Because this time the travel is more for pleasure than for work - with two trips booked to help satisfy my New Years Resolution (ski more). In addition to a couple trips to Mountain View, I'll be spending President's Day weekend in Lake Tahoe. Two weeks later, I'll be meeting up with some friends at Whistler. Two weeks later, I'll be working remotely at my parent's house in Salem, Oregon. I'll end the whirlwind of traveling in Vegas for TSSJS at the end of March.

I'm really looking forward both ski trips. I've never been to Tahoe or Whistler before.

What are the must see places and things to do in Dublin and London?

A good friend sent me an e-mail this afternoon asking for some advice.

I am headed to London & Dublin next week for a quick trip with my friend who's a pilot for US Airways. I am pretty sure you've visited these 2 places, let me know if you have any good advice or must see places or things to do, or even a good place to stay. We haven't booked any hotels yet but booked our flights.

I haven't been to Dublin since 1998 and I've never been to London - so I figured it might be a good question for readers of this blog. What are the must see places and things to do in Dublin and London? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

The National Western Stock Show

Last night, a friend and I went to the Rodeo at the National Western Stock Show. We had really nice seats (thanks to Cletus from Nebraska) and had a great time watching the Bareback Ridin', Bull Fightin', Bull Ridin', Mutton Bustin' and Barrel Racin'. The highlights were the bull fighting (the bulls almost always won) and the Mutton Bustin'. This is where they plop little kids on the back of a sheep and they hang on for deer life. I shot a video for your entertainment.

Click here for more pictures from the event. Sorry about the picture blurriness, the high action and bad results from my camera made me realize I might need to upgrade.

Action Packed Week in California

Morning light on the Golden Gate Bridge
Originally uploaded by TravelnFotog

This week is shaping up to be quite the action-packed week in California. First of all, the MacWorld 2008 Keynote is happening today. This is the event where new Apple products are announced and everyone yawns. I hope they announce some interesting stuff, but I'm not getting my hopes up. The only thing I'd likely buy is a screaming laptop with 8 GB of RAM.

Tonight, there's a presentation on GWT at Google. Since this is only a few blocks from LinkedIn, I'm going to try to make the meeting and checkout the "Googleplex" for the first time.

Finally, tomorrow night a bunch of us are getting together for a Silicon Valley Tech Meetup at The Old Pro in Palo Alto. Start time is 6:30.

Snow White gets Molested

I walked out to Snow White on Tuesday morning to discovered she'd been molested by a thief. In other words, my stereo got stolen on Monday night. It was a fancy one too - navigation system, DVD player, XM Radio and many other bells and whistles. I filed a police report and reported it to my insurance, so hopefully I'll be able to replace it in the near future. For some reason, the perpetrator decided not to take the DVD player that powers the TVs in the backs of the front seats.

While the sounds system is busted, I was pleased to discover this evening that the DVD still powers the TVs and the kids' wireless headphones still work. This should make for a much easier ski trip tomorrow. With ski traffic on I-70, I've spent a lot of time traveling to and from the slopes on the weekends. We hope to miss the morning traffic by leaving early (6:30). However, they don't get out of ski school until 3:00, so we might be smack dab in the middle of the afternoon jam.

With fresh powder in the forecast, I think it'll be worth it. I just hope my knee holds up. I promise I'll go to the doctor in a couple weeks - after a few more powder days.

Bad Knee

The first time I went skiing this season (back in mid-December), I had a lot of pain in my left knee. It hurt tremendously when I'd get on and off the lift. It seemed to be caused by bending it. I tried skiing a bump run in the afternoon, but that hurt even worse and it took me about 30 minutes to work my way down Drunken Frenchman at Mary Jane. The next week, I went to the doctor and he said it looks like I have a cartilage tear. He said I could relax and reduce my activities for a month and I'd have a 50/50 chance of having to have surgery (notice that he didn't say should). Apparently, the surgery is pretty minor and I could be back in action in a week or so.

The rest of December, I stuck to blues and my knee quit bothering me so much. Even the powder day at Steamboat wasn't too bad. Earlier this week, I was able to ski 7 runs in 2 hours at Mary Jane - 5 of those being bump runs. So am I back in action w/o surgery? No, not really. I am able to ski blacks w/o too much pain, but afterwards it does tend to be pretty sore. Same thing after riding my bike to work or playing basketball.

What would you do? This is turning out to be one of the best ski seasons ever and I feel like I'm at 80% of where I could be w/o the torn cartilage. I feel like I can make it a couple more months, have surgery in March and be ready for mountain bike season in April. Am I putting my knee in grave danger or is it just a matter of handling the pain at this point?

The Wrong Day

Apparently, today was the wrong day to ride to work.

This morning when I rode to work, it was a sunny winter day. When I walked to lunch with some office mates, it was pretty nice out. Around 3 o'clock, I looked out my 18th floor office window and gulped - it was snowing like the dickens. Then I remembered that riding in the snow (or rain) always makes me feel more alive. When I unlocked my bike for the snowy ride home, I had a smile on my face. I wasn't smiling when I wiped out in Wash Park trying to take a corner too fast. Luckily, I didn't get hurt and made it home just fine.