Raible Designs

Driving to OSCON: Day 1

Today, Jim and I began our road trip to OSCON. We got up early and were able to get out of Denver around 5 a.m. We stopped at 5 p.m. in Boise, Idaho. We drove around town, found some swanky hotel, and settled in for the night. We've been enjoying free wireless and Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale in our hotel bar for the last couple of hours.

Wyoming was definitely lacking scenery, as was Utah and most of Idaho. We made the Wyoming border by 11 and Idaho by 2. It's been a great trip so far. It looks like we have 7 hours left until we arrive in Portland. Below is a nice picture of Boise I found on Flickr.

Posted in General at Jul 23 2006, 09:03:17 PM MDT 1 Comment

Glacier Park

James Duncan Davidson recently took a road trip through Montana. In particular, he journeyed through Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It's a similar trip to the one I'm about to embark upon. Pictures from his trip are available on Flickr.

I especially like his photos of Glacier Park. It's been far too long since I've visited this incredible place. Since it's a mere 2 hours from the cabin, I hope to add it to our list of "fun things we did in Montana."

Posted in General at Jul 22 2006, 09:58:55 AM MDT 4 Comments

Julie's House

For the last 3 months, Julie has been doing the "flip this house" thing. Today, it went on the market. Click on the image below to see the listing and pictures. She thinks the pictures look best in the 2D mode.

Nice work darlin!

Update: Believe it or not, it's now under contract. Sold in under 8 hours!

Posted in General at Jul 13 2006, 09:45:53 AM MDT 7 Comments

The Dark Side of Business Travel

The current gig I'm on is quite fun, mainly because I'm doing it with a bunch of co-workers and we get to write code all day. The downside of it is we have to fly out to the client site every other week. The traveling isn't too bad because we're all good friends, and traveling with good friends is quite a bit of fun. Today, the "fun" part of it is getting stretched.

We're flying back to DC this week, and Jim picked me up from my house at 11:30 this morning. We headed to DIA for a 1:30pm flight. When we arrived, we discovered our flight wasn't leaving until 4:30pm.

At 4:30, United cancelled the flight.

We're still at DIA, scheduled to leave on an 11:40pm flight for Orlando. We get into Orlando at 5:00am, then jump on a flight to DC, arriving at 8:00am. Ugh.

Should be an interesting day tomorrow. Our current plan is to grab a few hours of sleep when we get there and show up at the client shortly after noon. As for the Wednesday night Tech Meetup, we're still planning on Brickskeller, but are open to other suggestions.

Posted in General at Jul 09 2006, 11:04:47 PM MDT 3 Comments

Ouch

This past weekend, I hurt my back pretty bad and I've been in severe pain all week. I did a back flip on our trampoline, and even though I landed it, I tweaked something pretty good. Now I'm like an old man: hobbling around, groaning when I get out of a chair, etc. I even thought about calling room service this morning to tie my shoes. My co-workers don't think I can hurt it anymore by not getting help immediately, but the pain certainly isn't going anywhere. In fact, it seems like it's getting worse. Good thing I brought a heating pad to work today.

Posted in General at Jun 28 2006, 07:43:14 AM MDT 8 Comments

Washington, DC

It looks like I'm going to be in Washington, DC on and off throughout the rest of the summer. Besides the regular touristy stuff, what's fun to do in this town? I'll be traveling with good friends from work, so I'm actually looking forward to the trip(s).

Posted in General at Jun 22 2006, 11:45:51 PM MDT 20 Comments

Raible Road Trip #10

Raible Road Trip #9 was to the cabin last year for the 4th of July. This year, we're taking it a whole new level. Going to the cabin for the 4th is a good time, but the huckleberries aren't ripe yet. This year, we've decided to go the first week in August instead.

OSCON is at the end of July and visiting Portland in late July is awesome. My parents have agreed to watch the kids during OSCON, and July doesn't want to travel to Oregon (she's rather enjoy some "down time"). Because of all this, I've come up with quite the travel plan for Raible Road Trip #10.

On Saturday, July 22nd, James Goodwill and I leave from Denver and drive to Salem, Oregon - where my parents live.

According to Google Maps, this trip should take about 21 hours. We expect to arrive in Salem sometime Sunday night. We'll hang out in Oregon until Tuesday morning. Then I'm flying back to Denver to pick up the kids and return to Portland the same day. On Wednesday and Thursday, I'll hit up OSCON and its festivities. Thursday's Geronimo Live event followed by the Oregon Brewers Festival on Friday should be a lot of fun.

On Sunday, my parents, the kids and I will be heading to The Cabin.

Julie's flying into Spokane, WA that Sunday, so we'll pick her up on our way and hopefully arrive at the cabin sometime Sunday afternoon. From there, we'll all enjoy a week of relaxing, huckleberry picking and good family fun. We'll head back to Denver late that week, spending a night in Yellowstone Park along the way.

Julie thinks I'm nuts for all the driving I'll be doing on this trip. She calculated it up tonight and it's something like 46 hours. I'm pumped about the whole idea and can't wait for it to begin. I love road trips, especially when doing them with family and friends.

Update: As Sanjiv mentions in the comments, Yahoo Maps has a much better representation of this trip.

Total Distance: 2920.6 miles, Total Travel Time: 48 hours 8 mins

Posted in General at Jun 21 2006, 10:51:55 PM MDT 5 Comments

Happy Father's Day

Father's Day has been great so far. We started off this morning by opening gifts. The kids gave me some new framed pictures, as well as a whole bunch of huckleberries. I couldn't ask for better gifts. After that, we headed out to breakfast at my favorite joint, Pete's University Park Cafe. From there, we headed up to Tiny Town and rode around on the "Choo Choo Train". We stopped for ice cream on the way home and now I'm sipping a cold one while watching the US Open. Life is good.