Raible Designs

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.

Boys Weekend

Julie and Abbie left on a jet plane this morning to spend the weekend in South Carolina. Abbie's best friend, Annabelle, moved there in May of this year. Julie thought it'd be fun to get them together again, as well as attend a Doodlebops concert. So the girls are off, and it's me and the boy for the weekend. We plan on having a great time.

First off, the new Light Rail opens today and Jack loves trains. So we're going to hit the grand opening in about an hour, and then he's going to join me in "going to work". I don't know how long he'll last in the office, but I'm sure he'll have fun regardless. Tomorrow, there's a DU hockey game, as well as free passes on the Light Rail all day. Should be a fun weekend, especially with all of the good football on tap. Now it's time to head out for some pancakes and eggs, I'm not much of a cook when Mommy's out of town.

Hug your kids

I saw this story in the headlines last week. It's a tragic story that I never expected to hit close to home. Today it did. The little girl, Macie, was one of the four girls in Abbie's ballet class. Julie and Jack used to hang out with Macie's Mom and little brother while Abbie was in class. I can't imagine what the father is going through right now.

Hug your kids. There's no such thing as showing them too much love.

Denver Weather

Denver has two seasons, Summer and Winter. Sometimes summer seems to creep into the winter months. Checkout today's forecast:

Of course, it's supposed to snow on Friday.

Voting Sucks

This morning, I stopped by my local voting center to vote. When I got there, the line seemed awful long (maybe a 30 minute wait), so I left. My goal was to come back around 2:30 in the afternoon, when the line would (hopefully) be a lot shorter. Of course, I got caught up with work and didn't make it back until 5:00.

It figures, now I'm standing in an enormously long line (est. 2-3 hour wait). Oh well, it's a nice night - currently 68°F. I can't help but think that there's quite a few folks who won't vote because the lines are so long. I know I'm awful tempted to abandon ship. ;-)

Update: My total time standing in line turned out to be 2:45. Apparently, the long waits were due to overwhelmed computer systems. Here's a great quote:

The system became so bogged down by 1 p.m. that election officials were forced to shut down the computers and reboot them, Dillard said.

Sounds like they were running Windows, doesn't it? The one cool part of the night was Mayor Hickenlooper came by to thank all the everyone for their patience.

Happy Birthday Abbie!

Today marks the 4th birthday of Julie and I's daughter, Abigail Grace Raible. It's been a great day of reflecting on what Abbie did to our lives and how it's been so much better with kids involved. Granted, it's no picnic, but it's certainly worth it and we wouldn't change a thing. Abbie's birthday party consisted of a number of friends, a plethora of presents, and enough hard cider and beer to make everyone happy. I love my kids. In a perfect world, every day would be like today.

Chelan Hard Cider

My sister, Kalin, flew in last night for Abbie's birthday. With her, she brought a case of her hard cider from Chelan Cider Company. It's was pretty impressive watching her pull all of it out of her luggage. It should be a good weekend for sure.

Kalin's blog can be found at blog.chelancider.com.

It's getting cold around here

This week, I started riding my bike to work again. It figures that it just happens to be one of the coldest weeks in quite some time. This morning, when I was riding home, the thermometer read 27°F on the 7News sign. It's really not too bad once you start riding, but it is tough to get going in the morning. It's one of those things - if you dress for it, you're more than comfortable.

I've ridden my bike to work so much in the last year that I had to buy a new chain and rear cassette yesterday. My chain was so stretched that it was skipping, no matter what gear I was in. Of course, after spending a bunch of money getting everything fixed yesterday - I got a flat tire on my way to work this morning. It was the first flat I've gotten since I started working downtown a year and a half ago. I wasn't too far away though - it only took me a 1/2 hour to finish the commute on foot. I fixed the tire with slime this afternoon, so hopefully it'll be another year and a half before my next flat.

Abbie and Jack - October 2006

Abbie and Jack had their picture taken at school this week. The picture turned out so cute, I couldn't help but post it. It's hard to believe that Abbie was born 4 years ago and Jack is just over two. They sure grow up fast!