Denver Weather
Yesterday it was 82°F in Denver, today it's snowing. Here's the view from our office in downtown Denver. Drab and dreary - perfect for the Avs Playoff Game tonight.
The Angular Mini-Book is a
guide to getting started with Angular. You'll learn how to develop a bare-bones application, test it, and
deploy it. Then you'll move on to adding Bootstrap, Angular Material, continuous integration, and authentication.
Spring Boot is a popular framework for building REST APIs. You'll learn how to integrate Angular with Spring Boot and use security best practices like HTTPS and a content security policy.
For book updates, follow @angular_book on Twitter.
The JHipster Mini-Book is a
guide to getting started with hip technologies today: Angular, Bootstrap, and Spring
Boot. All of these frameworks are wrapped up in an easy-to-use project called JHipster.
This book shows you how to build an app with JHipster, and guides you through the plethora of tools, techniques and options you can use. Furthermore, it explains the UI and API building blocks so you understand the underpinnings of your great application.
For book updates, follow @jhipster-book on Twitter.
10+ YEARS
Over 10 years ago, I wrote my first blog post. Since then, I've authored books, had kids, traveled the world, found Trish and blogged about it all.
RECENT ENTRIES
- The Summer of Travel (2025 Edition)
- Happy Birthday, Jack!
- Farewell to the 2024-2025 Ski Season
- Paradise in Puerto Rico
- 2024 - A Year in Review
- Life Update: New Job, Same House, and Same Awesome Family!
- Happy Birthday, Abbie!
- Happy Birthday, Jack!
- Farewell to the 2023-2024 Ski Season
- My Marvelous Road Trip to the Utah JUG
The 2007/8 Ski Season comes to an end
Yesterday, I woke up early and drove to Winter Park/Mary Jane for an 8" Powder Day. I arrived in the Challenger Lift parking lot at 7:30, took a nap until just after 8, then hopped on one of the first chairs up Mary Jane. Knee-deep powder at the top of Mary Jane Trail, fresh tracks the rest of the way down. Next run was Derailed into Short Haul. Then I hit the chutes off Challenger and called friends to see when they were showing up. It was 9:30 and everyone was still on their way. One friend recommended I head over to Vasquez Cirque and Eagle Wind lift. 3 runs of knee-deep, fresh-track face shots and I was spent. I skied to the bottom of Mary Jane for some lunch and a beer.
As I was entering the bar, everyone showed up and I changed my plans to join them on their first run. 2 more hours of powder on Eagle Wind and it was (finally) time for lunch at 1:30. After lunch, Outhouse, a tree run near Challenger Lift and Bluebell to Corona Way back to Snow White. It was 4:00 and quite possibly the longest ski day of my life.
I was sad to hear that today marks the last day of skiing at Winter Park and Mary Jane. Thankfully, I got to end my ski season on an epic powder day. What a great year: 21 days, including Steamboat, Tahoe and Whistler. Next year, I'm shooting for 30.
Bring on Mountain Bike Season. I plan on riding a few races in the Winter Park Mountain Bike Racing Series as well as the Fat Tire Classic.
Audi A6 Quattro
A few weeks ago, a friend recommended I join Hertz #1 Club Gold. His reason was simple - you can walk out of the airport, read your name on a board, jump in the car and go. No talking to anyone, just get your rental car and you're on your way. It sounded like a good idea, so I signed up.
Last week, I went online to reserve a car for this week's trip to Mountain View. I chose the cheapest car, and was subsequently prompted to choose an Audi A6 from their "Prestige Collection" for less money. I went for it.
This morning I hopped in the car at SFO and was immediately impressed. It's probably one of the nicest cars I've ever driven. It's not as fast as the Cayenne Turbo I drove for a week in Florida a couple years ago, but it's certainly a slick car. You can even talk to it to get it to change radio stations and such.
It's too bad I only have the car for one more day. I'm heading to TSSJS tomorrow night in Vegas. I wish there was a way to cancel my flight and drive instead.
An Irish Pub moves into the Neighborhood
In August 2006, I described how happy I was to be living in the DU Neighborhood and how we had so many good restaurants around. Today, I discovered there's a new Irish Pub that opened this week. While I don't live in the same house that I did in August 2006, I still live close by, a mere 5 blocks from Julie's house. While the old location was excellent, with Sushi, Indian and Liquor on the same block - my new location is 6 blocks from the Light Rail and a 1/2 block from the Elementary School Abbie and Jack will attend next year. DU is 5 blocks away - which is great for hockey games and gym memberships.
Why am I rambling on like this? I don't know, I just wanted to write down how much I like this neighborhood. With Spring starting yesterday, a beautiful day today and DU beating North Dakota last night - life is very good.
Today's agenda: skiing with the kids at Copper. WCHA Championship tonight.
Lake Chelan
Today I woke up in beautiful Lake Chelan, Washington. It's a 50-mile long lake that's nicknamed "Microsoft's Playground" because all the Microsoftees vacation here. Here's the view from our condo this morning:
My Mom, Dad and I are all in town to celebrate my sister's birthday (on St. Patty's Day).
Today's agenda: Wine Tasting. 
Scott Bain on Writing and Publishing a Book
Scott Bain has an interested blog entry called Writing and Publishing a Book:
I recently completed the process of getting a book published ("Emergent Design"). It was my first time doing this, and I thought it might be valuable to some of you if I shared some of the things I learned about writing a book, and about the publishing world.
...
Now, it turns out that I made a bit of a mistake, but got lucky.
The mistake? I wrote the book, then went to the publisher. This can lead to a real disaster. You may have written a beautiful, smart, compelling book for which there is no market whatsoever. Even a great book that nobody wants to read is worthless.
In my case, I knew there was a market because the market had asked me to write the book. Still, if I'd gotten involved with the publisher earlier, several things would have happened:
- They would have kept me on a writing schedule. From time to time I got lackadaisical about getting the book done, and the publisher would have held my feet to the fire a little. That would have been healthy for me.
- They would have reviewed chapters as I wrote them, which would give me early and frequent feedback. In other words, I would have gained all the benefits of using a Lean/Agile approach.
- They would have helped me write. I didn't realize that publishers have extensive support mechanisms to help their authors; access to peer-review, copy editors, technical editors, and so on.
Good to know - thanks Scott! I've been thinking about writing a book again and was actually considering writing first and shopping for a publisher later. I guess that's the wrong approach eh?
Spectacular Weekend at Whistler
This past weekend, some friends and I headed up to Whistler Blackcomb for a weekend of great skiing. We have a college buddy who's getting his PhD in Vancouver, so that's what motivated the trip. I've never skied in a place where the mountains were so huge. I've skied Jackson Hole and Mammoth, but apparently Whistler has a lot more elevation gain. This was proven when we skied the "Peak to Creek" run on the last day. We didn't do the 6.5 mile run because one guy was on a snowboard.
It snowed 8" on our first day and a few more on our last day. There was plenty of powder and lots of really steep runs. I highly recommend it - especially if you want to spend some money. It's not a cheap place to visit and it'll likely get more expensive since it's hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. The good news is I got a 50% discount on lift tickets with my Winter Park pass. Whistler Blackcomb is owned by Intrawest - the same folks that own Winter Park and Steamboat.
For more pictures, see Whistler 2008 on Flickr. This weekend's destination? Vail for day #19.
A Look Inside the Guinness Brewery
Guy Kawasaki has a post about The Art of the Perfect Pint Pour. In it, he posts a number of pictures from a tour he took of the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. I was in Dublin with my parents in 1998 and we missed the tour by 5 minutes. It's nice to see what the inside actually looks like.
Speaking of Guinness, do you have any special plans for St. Patrick's Day this year?
It's my sisters birthday (on March 17th), so I'm heading to her place (Chelan, Washington via Oregon) next weekend. My Dad booked train tickets from Salem, Oregon to Seattle. I love trains - especially now that I've re-activated my EVDO card. Its download speed isn't much faster than my BlackBerry Pearl (38.8 KB/sec vs. 25.4 KB/sec), but its upload speed is quite a bit faster (13.5 KB/sec vs. 2.3 KB/sec). Should be a fun trip.
Powder Day at Whistler
We arrived at our hotel late last night in Whistler. It was pretty warm out and we didn't believe the 20cm forecast for today. When we woke up this morning, we were pleasantly surprised. A Powder Day at Whistler - what more could you ask for?
Jack's got a bead stuck in his nose!
This morning around 9:45 AM, I got a call from Jack's Teacher. She said, "Jack's got a bead stuck in his nose!" I heard a screaming kid in the background, so the first thing I asked was - "Is that Jack?" She said yes, and I was out the door a few seconds later.
Several minutes later, I arrived at his school and picked him up to take him to the Emergency Room. His teacher handed me the bead you see in the picture on the right. This was a replica of the one he jammed into his nose. I figured the ER was the best place to go considering all I saw was blood when I looked in his nostril.
10 minutes later we were in the ER and within a half hour we were talking to a nurse. Julie arrived just as the doctor walked up to talk to Jack. The first thing he suggested was that Julie hold one nostril and give him a CPR-type breath/blow into his mouth. She tipped his head back, plugged the free nostril and "pop!" - it came right out!
I wish I'd known that trick early this morning. How cool would it have been to walk into Jack's class, grab him by the head and blow that sucker out like I knew what I was doing? The good news is now you have this knowledge and you can be the hero in your kid's class someday.