Raible Designs

Teaching the kids to ski

Our trip in Steamboat has been awesome so far. The condo we're staying at is actually on the mountain. This means we can ski directly from it to the lift, as well as back to it after a run. I headed out for 6-7 awesome runs before stopping back at the condo to pick up the kids. Abbie's first time (a lesson) was last year at Breckenridge and she cried the whole way through it. Afterwards, she said she wanted to wait until she was 4. Today, Julie took Abbie and I took Jack.

All Jack kept saying was "faster" and "MORE!" He didn't bother to power himself, but he did enjoy skiing down between my legs. We did about 4 runs on the bunny slope this afternoon. For more pictures, see my First Time Skiing set.

Heading to Steamboat

In a few hours, we'll be packing up the kids and heading up to Steamboat for our Christmas Vacation. The forecast looks excellent for skiing - it's snowed 14" on Thursday and there's a chance it'll snow tomorrow as well. I hit up some killer deals at the local ski shops today and managed to get a new coat and pants for $100, as well as some nice new boots. I even bribed the guys at Colorado Ski and Golf for a quick tune. I'm ready for a great week of skiing. With any luck, we'll be able to teach the kids how to ski too.

I'm taking my laptop, but I don't expect to do any blogging. Hopefully you won't hear from me for another week. Happy Holidays everyone!

P.S. I've posted the status on 2.0 to the AppFuse mailing list. Please post any questions or comments on AppFuse 2.0 to that thread.

Snowed In!

We woke up to another foot of snow this morning. There's about two feet outside right now. It's still snowing and the forecast says we'll be getting another 2-5 inches today.

Julie's sister, a nurse at Swedish, had to abandon her car while driving home this morning at 6. She turned down her street, discovered it wasn't plowed and quickly became stuck. Luckily, last night Julie talked her into taking snow clothes suitable for getting stranded. She scoffed at the time, thinking it was absurd that she might need them. This morning, she was very thankful. We plan on hiking over to her car (a Land Rover 4WD) and shoveling it out sometime today.

There's too much snow for us to drive our cars. If we're going anywhere - it's on foot. I have a few college buddies that live within walking distance, so it might be time to buy a keg and have a snow party. First things first though - I told the kids I'd take them sledding at Harvard Gulch (a park 3 blocks away).

Update: I knew I married Julie for more than just her good looks!

Update 2: Little did I realize, Julie was building a kick-ass sledding hill!

Blizzard of 2006 - Wednesday Afternoon

It's coming down pretty good now. There's 8-12 inches of snow on the ground, with varying degrees of depth because it's so windy. I just walked down to our local Sushi place and the snow was up to the top of my Sorel boots. While I was waiting for my order, I noticed the snow is actually coming down sideways thanks to the wind. On the way back, I learned it's pretty fricken' nasty - walking into the storm gives you a whole new perspective.

From the looks of it, this town will be snowed in tomorrow. The airport is pretty much shutdown already. If you were planning on flying out of Denver for Christmas, you're not going now. The flights are already booked for Christmas, so there will be no extra room for those with cancelled flights today.

Here comes Winter!

Tomorrow should be an interesting day. The news says 12"-16" in the Denver metro area. Here's the forecast:

... there will be a couple of inches of snow by Wednesday morning and the storm should intensify throughout the day. There could be 10 or more inches of snow in the metro area by Wednesday evening.

I love the fact that it's going to be a very White Christmas. I wonder if this one will rival the Blizzard of 2003?

Speaking of local news, NBA basketball in Denver just got really interesting. The NBA's two top scorers on the same team? The Answer is Here. The first game that Iverson and Melo play in is on January 20th - it figures that I'd have tickets for the LaBron game on the 19th.

Update on Wednesday morning: The blizzard begins. It looks like they've upped the ante on snow levels too:

The metro area is expecting 14 to 24 inches of snow by Thursday morning.

Ironically, my sister happens to be flying through Denver today. Airlines are canceling flights, so we may get to visit with her for a day or two.

The kids love it, they couldn't wait to play in the snow this morning. So far, there's about 2-3 inches on our deck. Here's the view from my office:

Back in Denver

After living out of a suitcase for most of December, it was nice to arrive back in Denver last night. I left here on December 3rd to travel to Boise, Idaho to teach a Spring course. From there, I flew to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to attend The Spring Experience. This was an excellent show, and I blogged most of the sessions I attended. To read about my AppFuse talk on Saturday night, see my Spring Live blog.

After TSE, I spent the next week with my family in Florida. We drove up to Disney World on the 2nd day of our vacation and had a blast. No one was there, so lines where short and the kids couldn't stop smiling.

While watching the kids' faces light up at Disney was cool, driving Julie's Mom's Cayenne Turbo S around all week was a highlight for me. It was definitely a gas-guzzler, but 520 horses is an awful lot of fun. It rained a lot the remainder of the week - almost 8 inches in 12 hours one day. Even when raining, the temperature still hovered around 80°F all week long. As crazy as it sounds, I'm actually happy to get back to the cool weather in Denver (high of 30°F today).

I'll be in the office all week, trying to tie up some loose ends before the end of the year. This weekend, it's back to vacation mode for another week. This time we'll be heading up to Steamboat for skiing, holiday cheer and (hopefully) lots of snow.

Florida Bound

I'm getting ready to hop on a plane at the Boise airport. I'll be stopping in Denver to pick up our puppy and then flying to Ft. Lauderdale to attend The Spring Experience conference. Should be a fun weekend. I'll be staying on Singer Island, which sounds pretty nice after being in cold Idaho all week.

Update: It doesn't look like I'm going to make Rod's Keynote tonight. Hopefully someone else will blog it.

Vacation in Denver

This afternoon, Julie and I are heading downtown to checkin to The Westin Tabor Center. Tonight is my company's Holiday Party and we figured it was a good excuse to spend the night out. James Goodwill turned me on to the idea about a year ago. The idea is to take your spouse "on vacation" in the town you live in. It's quite cool, because you rarely get a chance to enjoy the town you live in. We're only doing one night, but Jim recommends you do 2 or 3. The last time we did a vacation in Denver, it was our anniversary and we had a blast.

For the party tonight, we'll be dining at La Fondue, with the Parade of Lights just happens to pass in front of. After that, we'll all be heading to Denverginity. It should definitely be a fun night!

Back in Denver

Raible Road Trip #11 was an excellent vacation. Our plan to drive through the night worked out splendidly. Not only did I make it to 7:30 a.m. (with the help of a bit of Red Bull), but I got to jam to my favorite tunes all night long. We left at 11 p.m. and I handed over the reigns to Julie just outside of Billings. She drove for the next 3 hours, and I took over again for the final 3. Total time: 14 hours.

We arrived at the cabin at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Actually, I should say we got stuck at the cabin at 1:00 because we made it all the way up the "bumpy road", but didn't make the last hill. 40 minutes later and at 40 miles an hour, I made it up the last hill. The next 3 days at the cabin were great. We took Cookie the Dog and she loved it as much as the kids did. The drive home over the last 2 days wasn't nearly as pleasant as the drive there, but listening to "Little Einstein's" on the DVD player is never as much fun as listening to your favorite tunes.

Click on the images below to view pictures from The Cabin.

The next couple weeks will likely be hectic. This week I'll be writing AppFuse 2.0 documentation. Next week I'll be delivering a Spring + Hibernate class in Boise, Idaho with Country Bry and Scott from Virtuas. Then I'll be flying to The Spring Experience on Thursday for a weekend in paradise. Better yet, I'll be spending the following week in Florida on vacation.

Raible Road Trip #11

Sometime before midnight tonight, we'll be departing on Raible Road Trip #11. This time we're going to The Cabin for Thanksgiving. Of course, we'd prefer to fly, but neither ticket prices nor arrival times are cooperating, so we're doing the road trip.

It's a 15 hour drive, which is pretty brutal for the kids. In an attempt to alleviate their pain, and get there in one fell swoop, we're going to try something new. We're going to leave at night (as soon as Julie's done with her Barenaked Ladies concert) and drive straight through. I'm in the midst of conditioning myself for the drive. What does that mean? It means I slept in yesterday, took a nap in the afternoon, and then stayed up all night. The good news is I got quite a bit of work done. The bad news is I didn't get nearly as much done as I'd hoped.

As I write this, it's almost fully light out. I should probably hit the sack and get plenty of rest for tonight. The Cabin doesn't have internet access nor cell phone service, so I'll be completely out of touch for a week. Should be nice.