Raible Designs

Farewell to the 2024-2025 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 09:47:22 -0600

The 2024-25 ski season was a bit delayed due to Trish's injuries and a lack of snow. I didn't even get a cross-country day in until mid-January, shortly after we returned from Puerto Rico. My stats for the year: 10 days of cross-country and only seven days downhill.

My first day on the slopes wasn't until February 8th, when I skied with my good friend The Fesser.

In March, our nephew James visited for his spring break. We had a beautiful afternoon on the Fraser River Trail before hitting the slopes the next day.

James inspired Trish to try skiing for the first time since she broke her ankle and wrist in October. She found it didn't hurt at all, except for the $200/day price tag, because she pushed her pass to next year. We had a lot of fun times with friends in March and April. These are typically our best months for snow in Colorado, and this year didn't disappoint. We experienced many powder days at Winter Park and Mary Jane.

We traveled up to Winter Park for our last weekend of ski season a week ago. On the way up, I had quite the experience. I wrote about it on Facebook the next morning:

I'd like to thank Stout the Syncro for saving my life last night. As I was leaving Idaho Springs, the roads were dry and I had it in 2WD.

A mile before I turned off for the Winter Park exit our rear wheels started to slip and all of a sudden we're drifting at 70 mph on I-70.

First to the left, then to the right, and eventually sideways.

As we were heading towards the guard rail, I thought, "Oh my, this is going to hurt!"

That's when we hit ice again and the back end flipped around. We went down into the ditch backwards and landed with no harm done. The dogs barely noticed.

A tow truck stopped to help us out as we had just passed him. He wasn't necessary.

I put it in 4WD and drove out. Yeehaw! 😁 ❤️

The corduroy that morning was epic!

Trish and I both had our Nuggets gear on that day for their first playoff game. We thoroughly enjoyed their victory that afternoon!

The highlight of the weekend was seeing a couple of moose walk by while we were hot tubbing. Click on the image below to watch a video of the event.

This was the first season that we didn't ski with Abbie and Jack. I guess they're finally all grown up. 🥹

For more ski season photos, see my 2024-25 Ski Season album on Flickr.

Life Update: New Job, Same House, and Same Awesome Family!

Matt Raible — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 09:31:40 -0700

It's been over eight years since I wrote a life update blog post. At that time (2016), we'd just moved into the "Raible Ranch", the bus was finished, and the kids were in high school. I'd just started one of my few-and-far-between full-time jobs at Stormpath.

Fast-forward to today. Our kids are in college at the University of Colorado during the Coach Prime Era, we're empty nesters with an affection for live music, and our pet zoo is cuter than ever.

You probably know me. But in case you don't, my name is Matt Raible, and I'm married to a fabulous woman named Trish McGinity. She's been a hero in my life ever since I met her in 2010. She dazzled me so much, I asked her to marry me at Versailles in 2011. We married in my hometown (Condon, Montana) in 2013, on the most beautiful lake you've ever seen.

When I met Trish, I was an independent consultant, and she was in cybersecurity sales. On a fateful night in 2010, on a friend Jarvis's birthday, I asked her what she had done for a living. She said, "Have you ever heard of OWASP?"

My heart lifted and I felt a moment of joy. This woman was speaking my language! 14 years later and Oh My!, Trish has had an incredible influence on my life and career.

You might think of me as the AppFuse guy, the JHipster promoter, or some dude who talked about Okta a lot. I'm cool with that, but it's irrefutable to say that Trish hasn't influenced my career. She encouraged me to lean into cybersecurity and constantly said I was "doing it wrong" with my carefree attitude toward security.

These days, I'm a Senior Cloud Engineer at CrowdStrike, the foremost cybersecurity company in the world. My previous gig was with Okta, where I spent seven years educating developers about OAuth and OpenID Connect.

I'll admit, I had a lot of anxiety about joining CrowdStrike. In late June, after enjoying funemployment, I had three excellent offers from FusionAuth, Yugabyte, and CrowdStrike. It's the first time in my life that I've had more than one offer at the same time.

The first two opportunities were excellent. But, both had maybe equity. As an old fogey in the twilight of my career, I thought guaranteed equity was a better opportunity. I chose the company trajectory over my passion for open source and Java. I accepted the CrowdStrike offer on July 3rd as we were departing for a 4th of July trip to Montana.

At that time, I felt totally confident about my decision. I was taking the path less traveled and abandoning all my Java celebrityism for a skyrocketing company that was kicking ass and taking names. You're supposed to do things outside your comfort zone, right?

Take the road less traveled.

I was a little worried about the equity though. After all, CrowdStrike's stock price was at an all-time high.

I turned 50 on July 16th. We hosted a backyard party at the ranch the weekend before (July 13th), complete with a local Grateful Dead band. Shakedown Street was excellent and everyone had a good time.

The Incident

On my birthday, while blowing out candles, I wished for CrowdStrike's stock price to drop.

On Friday (July 19th), I woke up to more unread texts than I received on my milestone birthday. A lot of friends were aware that I'd accepted a new job at CrowdStrike and were texting me about an incident.

Apparently, CrowdStrike had just caused a worldwide computer outage. If you were flying that day, you were probably affected. I received more text messages that morning than on my birthday.

My response was positive: this situation will be very good for my equity grant's strike price!

I quickly realized that CrowdStrike was way bigger than I originally thought. There were computer issues at the golf club I ventured into that morning. Their systems were down and they apologized. I smirked, apologized back, and mentioned I recently accepted a job offer from CrowdStrike.

I started working for CrowdStrike on July 29th. 10 days after the incident. I quickly realized that making developers aware of CrowdStrike wouldn't be a problem. Everyone knew about us because of July 19th. In a sense, it was a blessing in my DevRel journey at CrowdStrike.

I worked at Okta for seven years and there were a couple of incidents. CrowdStrike's response was waayyyy different than Okta's.

First of all, CrowdStrike's incident wasn't a breach. It was a bug that they shipped. It was totally their fault. Okta had a full-on breach that they didn't disclose for a month. Regardless of the incident details, as a tech worker for said company, it's a severe morale hit when it happens to you.

That's been one of my biggest struggles. I was extremely proud to join CrowdStrike as a Senior Engineer. Heck, I passed the coding test using Java, and they were a Go shop! When this all happened in June, I was so proud of my non-traditional path to excellence in the tech industry.

I wasn't hired as a senior engineer who cranks out code, maintains functionality, and implements new features. Instead, I was hired as a "Senior Engineer - Cloud" that's focused on DevRel. I'm still a developer advocate, but my title indicates I can still sling some code.

I've been coming up to speed on Go and Python as fast as I can. I've also been doing a lot of CrowdStrike Foundry tutorials, finding/fixing issues, and improving our learning materials as fast as I can. I even published my first CrowdStrike blog post!

Get Started with Falcon Foundry

Now that I've filled you in on the life of Matt Raible, I feel like I've ignored the best parts of my life: Trish, Abbie, and Jack.

Trish continues to excel as the Head of Cybersecurity Communications at Empower. Yes, the Empower that has the naming rights to the Empower Field at Mile High where the Denver Broncos play. We haven't experienced box seats yet, but we're still hopeful. Trish is the star of her team, and it's her favorite job, ever. She's delighted at the fact that I'm asking her if SIEM and SOAR are acronyms or just fancy industry terms.

You're probably wondering if we're evil parents at this point. You've learned about Trish and me, but what about the kids, the pets, and our parents? I mean, this is a life update after all!

The kids are doing great. As a casual blogger, I still managed to post about both of their birthdays this year. Jack and Abbie are thriving!

They're still in school at CU Boulder and enjoying the Coach Prime Era. Abbie's a senior and already has a job. That's quite an accomplishment, and we're very impressed!

Jack's thinking about dating. He didn't try out for the CU basketball team, but he's still interested in making it happen.

The pets are currently spoiled. Trish's best friend, Caroline, has moved in. She takes the two dogs (Daisy and Kai) on daily walks. I tend to like the same activity, and they're very good at pretending it's their first walk of the day with both of us!

Our parents are thriving too! I recently attended Trish's Dad's 85th birthday celebration. He's doing splendid and likes to swim and play tennis daily.

My parents are still loving life in Montana. A friend of theirs has a photo trap set up for wildlife on the homestead. He captures some amazing photos! Check out his website for more fabulous shots.

Trish has more to her story. She's experienced some of the most extreme ups and downs of her life. In July, shortly after we celebrated my birthday, we spent a week in Estes Park. The reason was simple: she wanted to compete in a horse show and I wanted to support her, explore the nearby trails, and visit the local breweries.

We decided to make her lifelong dreams come true and leased the most kick-ass horse she could find. His name is Athos, and he was the horse she competed with in Estes Park. He's 18.2 hands tall, which means he's 6' at the saddle. Trish is only 5'1". They won Reserve Champion on their first collaboration!

Trish and Athos were a match made in heaven. Until they weren't.

A month ago, Trish fell off Athos after a jump in a training lesson. It was a tack failure while demoing a new saddle, and the stirrup strap slid right off. She almost saved it, but proceeded to fall and injure herself badly in the process. When I met her at the ER (Emergency Room), her pain level was 9.5/10 for her wrist and 3/10 for her ankle. She broke both her wrist and her ankle in the same accident. It wasn't Athos' fault, but rather a faulty stirrup bar.

Since this happened, we've learned I'm a terribly grumpy caregiver, she's had her wrist surgically repaired, and her ankle had surgery a week later.

Breaking two bones at the same time really limits your mobility. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. Trish is optimistic that she'll compete with horses in the future, but she's also realizing it gets harder as you get older.

What's Next?

Trish, Jack, and I have all had midlife crises this year. Trish cranked things up a notch to be a world-class eventer with horses, then got hurt. Jack was going to be an aeronautics engineer, then took a helicopter flight over Glacier National Park and changed his mind. I abandoned all my Java experience and chose CrowdStrike, a Go and Python shop.

Abbie's a senior in college and already has a job. I think she's winning the family badass contest!

We have no idea what's next. But we're proud of Abbie for securing her first job.

As for the rest of us? We'll figure it out. Raibles and McGinitys are known for thriving in the face of adversity. 💪😃

For a photo and video experience of our summer adventures, see my Summer Adventures 2024 album on Flickr.

Farewell to the 2023-2024 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 09:30:45 -0600

This year's ski season was delightful! This was largely due to our acquisition of a new condo in the mountains, lots of free time to ski, and some epic powder days with friends. I achieved 30 days of skiing, with 19 being alpine and 11 being cross-country. The season started for me on October 30 when we got enough snow to go cross-country skiing in our backyard.

We didn't make it up to the mountains for downhill skiing until mid-December. That's when we closed on our condo, nicely coinciding with Trish's birthday weekend.

Happy Birthday to my winter-loving Wonder Woman, @TrishPhoto! 🎉❤️ pic.twitter.com/1Ec60gLlN4
— Matt Raible (@mraible) December 17, 2023

I started my Funemployment experience on February 1st and spent the following week in Winter Park, skiing with glee and my newfound freedom. I skied nine days in February, mostly during the week.

In March, I flew to Vermont and went skiing at Sugarbush for a friend's birthday.

We frolicked in Winter Park and Steamboat during Spring Break.

I threatened to not purchase the kids' ski passes for next year if they didn't ski four days. They both fulfilled that obligation in April and we had some fun family weekends on the slopes.

I did a marvelous road trip to the Utah JUG, hitting Copper, Snowbird, Alta, and Steamboat along the way.

We celebrated our final weekend of skiing with a tailgate in the parking lot at Mary Jane on Saturday and a bluebird day on Sunday.

Now we're in the dawn of summer and I'm excited for car show, mountain biking, golf, and rafting season. Hefe looked smashing at the VWs on the Green car show in May!

It's showtime at VWs on The Green! 😃 #vwotg #vwbus #HefeTheBus pic.twitter.com/VG0QcEgvYF
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 19, 2024

I especially like this photo I captured that afternoon.

We went rafting a few times on the Upper Colorado in June. On Father's Day weekend, the CFS was above 5300!

The mountain biking has been excellent in the high country and the views are magnificent.

I ❤️ Colorado! For more ski season photos, see my 2023-24 Ski Season album on Flickr.

Farewell to the 2022-2023 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Fri, 7 Jul 2023 08:26:24 -0600

You can tell your Spring is a whirlwind when you don't have time to write your end-of-ski-season post until July!

My ski season started way back in October, on Halloween at A-Basin, to be precise. It ended with an Okta + Gradle Developer Ski Day on April 13th. I'm proud to say I achieved 39 days of skiing, with 15 being alpine skiing and the rest being cross-country skiing. A lot of the cross-country skiing was done in our backyard, on the neighborhood bridal trails. We got lucky this year because it snowed in early January and stuck around until February. That's rare in our neck of the woods.

The highlight of the ski season was celebrating Trish's 50th birthday at A-Basin. We rented a few spots on the beach, invited a bunch of friends, and had a blast.

The onesies were Trish's idea. 😅 You can buy your own from Tipsy Elves.

Other big moments include skiing with the Morse family and friends in Winter Park, cross-country skiing in Crested Butte during Winter Tech Forum, and skiing with Jack in Steamboat during his Spring Break.

I partnered with my friend, Brian Demers (now at Gradle), for a Developer Ski Day at A-Basin. He was in town speaking at the Boulder and Denver JUGs, and we're thankful our management approved the event!

After we put away our skis for the season, Jack celebrated his last prom with friends, I took the kids to a Denver Nuggets playoff game, and we got Hefe ready for show season.

We visited my parents in Montana for Mother's Day.

Recharging in the backwoods of Montana with family. Started the day with coffee, mimosas, and huckleberry pancakes. ☕️🥂😋

Happy Mother's Day to all the incredible moms out there! ❤️? pic.twitter.com/sjmChuzNpo
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 14, 2023

And we celebrated Jack's High School Graduation at the end of May. Congratulations, son!

We celebrated our son Jack's high school graduation this week and had a fabulous time with family and friends. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

See the full album on Flickr with Julie and Trish's awesome photos: https://t.co/XSoUZnjOSk

Congratulations, Jack! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/1Ea1LZrFML
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 27, 2023

June was fun too. We traded in Trish's Tesla Model X for a Chevy Suburban because the latter is a much better tow vehicle for our whitewater rafts.

Jack and I got to go to NBA Finals Game 2. We had a great time, even though it was the only loss by the Nuggets in the Finals.

We were afforded this luxury because we bought Nuggets half-season tickets this year. What a year to start being a season ticket holder! The Denver Nuggets won the NBA Championship on June 12th. I may have gotten misty-eyed a few times after they won. 🥹

Now that it's summertime, we're getting back on the river, polishing our VWs for shows, and excited that both Abbie and Jack are going to CU Boulder in the fall. Next ski season, we're looking to get a place in the mountains again. I can't wait to see what the future holds!

For more ski season photos, see my 2022-23 Ski Season album on Flickr.

Farewell to the 2021-2022 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Tue, 24 May 2022 11:10:55 -0600

I had a lot of fun this ski season, but I didn't make it to the mountains as much as I thought I would. I bought both the Epic and Ikon passes with high hopes at the beginning of the season. The rest of the family had Ikon. The ski season started for me on Nov 24, 2020 with a backyard cross-country ski. It took me another month until I ventured up to the high country. A-Basin didn't have a whole lot of snow on Dec 23.

I got to ski with the Makofsky family at Copper on New Years Eve.

The next day, Trish and I enjoyed a fresh blanket of snow to ring in the new year. 🎊

There was a boys trip to Jackson Hole in late January.

And more nordic skiing with our pups, Daisy and Kai.

We skied with the Morse Family and played with the Snyders in Steamboat.

And closed out the year with a day off the internet at Mary Jane.

My stats for the season:

15 days downhill
11 days cross-country

26 days combined is a far cry from last year's 51! It makes a big difference when you rent a place in the mountains like we did last year.

There weren't that many ski days with Abbie and Jack this year. Abbie ended up skiing a lot with friends from CU Boulder. Jack is looking as handsome as ever. Here's his prom photo with friends.

Trish was the fantastic photographer for the big night.

Hefe the Bus is ready for summer, as are we.

We're traveling to Alaska with my folks for their 50th anniversary, Trish just rented an RV for adventuring to Montana, and we have a week-long rafting trip starting at the Gates of Lodore. I hope you get a chance to opt outside in the next few months too. Giddyup and get out there! 🤠

Farewell to the 2020-21 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Wed, 2 Jun 2021 13:31:07 -0600

This ski season was interesting to say the least. Because of COVID-19, most Colorado ski resorts required reservations in order to ski. This wasn't too painful because we did most of our skiing during the week.

We recognized that social distancing might be an issue on weekends, so we rented a condo in Winter Park for the season. This allowed us to ski weekdays while working remotely. We didn't have it the whole season, just a week every month.

The ski season started for me on November 24, 2020, with some backyard cross-country skiing.

I was super pumped when I drove our Syncro Westy to the condo and discovered it fit in the garage! My first day on the slopes was Friday, December 4th.

The Fraser River Trail was just across the road from our condo, so it was easy to get some cross-country skiing in too.

That weekend, Trish and Jack joined me and we went Nordic skiing at Snow Mountain Ranch's Nordic Center.

We took the day off on Trish's birthday; skiing corduroy groomers in the morning and cross-country in the afternoon.

I'm normally a big fan of taking two weeks off for Christmas and New Years. Since everyone stayed home for the holidays this year, I chose to work through them. I took off the first week in January instead.

I worked in Stout the Syncro in the C-Lot at Mary Jane when I returned in February. That's the day I learned that four hours of Zoom costs about 7 GB in bandwidth. I tethered on my T-Mobile phone the whole time and only had to buy an additional 10 GB (for $10) at the very end. The fresh powder at the end of the day made it worth it!

Hawaii Adventures in Kauai

My parents like to get away from Montana in the middle of winter. Before the pandemic hit, we ventured to New Orleans. This year, we decided to head to Kauai for two weeks. There were many COVID protocols in place for this trip.

We had to have a negative COVID test 72 hours before departure. We had to show those results when we landed in Kauai. Then we had to quarantine in a "resort bubble" hotel for 72 hours. Next, we had to take another test and receive negative results. After that, we were free to rent a car and start our island adventures. Abbie brought her boyfriend, Joseph, and best friend, Rory, along with us.

We left early for the airport because my parents took an at-home test and hadn't received their results yet. Since they had a 3-hour layover in Denver, we figured I could take them to a local Walgreens to get tested and everything would be good to go.

When we were driving to the airport, Trish's engine light came on in her Tahoe. By the time we arrived at the airport, the vehicle was obviously dying. We called AAA to pick it up and I jumped in a Lyft with my parents. The local Walgreens was hesitant to test without an appointment, but we told them our situation, and a manager there did his best to make it happen.

The manager was successful—I received the results on my phone as the plane was taxiing down the runway!

On our last night, Trish and I saw live music for the first time in over a year!

Trish ordered a new lens for her camera when she saw the Albatross nesting nearby. It arrived just hours before we flew home.

March Madness

When we arrived home in March, I headed back to the condo for our week. I arrived late at night and texted the owner to tell him I couldn't get the hot tub to turn on. He texted me back three times before I woke up the next morning. I had the wrong dates! People were checking in that night, so I had to wash all the sheets and get out of there quickly. I got all my work done in the morning and hit the slopes in the afternoon.

I returned the following week and had a blast skiing with my buddy, Bill Lyons. He's been a ski instructor at Winter Park and Mary Jane for decades and showed me some hidden trails. Thanks, Bill!

We'd just returned from Hawaii, so we figured we might be able to skip Spring Break. Then we learned Abbie had senioritis and wanted to rendezvous with her similarly-minded cousins near a beach. Trish's parents have a place in Naples, Florida. Since they weren't using it, we made a plan, bought some tickets, and spent a splendid week with Trish's brother and his family.

The owner of the Winter Park condo offered us a few free nights in April, so Jack and I headed up for the weekend. Just before leaving, Jack approached me and asked, "Do I have to go? It's so boring up there." I agreed with him. It was boring and I liked that. I told him to bring a good book and get in the van. We cross-county skied and had a beautiful day of corduroy runs to end the season.

My stats for the season: 28 days cross-country skiing, 23 days downhill. That's 51 combined days! 😊

Detoxed and Fully Vaccinated

At the beginning of April, Trish and I started a 21-Day Sugar Detox. Abbie, Jack, and I were fully vaccinated by the end of the month, and Trish was well on her way.

I'm happy to announce that I'm #FullyVaccinated. Had 2nd @pfizer shot on Apr 14. I feel lucky 🍀 to have experienced no symptoms other than extreme joy. 🥳@TrishPhoto and I just finished a 23-day sugar detox too. We're feeling good!! ✌️ pic.twitter.com/6chqkFbPB7
— Matt Raible (@mraible) April 28, 2021

The following week, I rode my bike into Thrive DTC and marveled at their remodeling project.

The Graduate

May came quickly and with it, the end of the school. I snapped photos of both kids on their last days.

Abbie graduates from high school this Friday. My family is flying into town today. Trish's arrives tomorrow. We have the VWs all cleaned up, our landscaping/carport/basketball court project is finishing up, and we're grateful for everything that brought us to this point. 🥰

See all 148 photos on Flickr →

A Beautiful Adventure to JBCNConf, Barcelona, and Boston

Matt Raible — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 09:33:15 -0600

I love it when school's out for summer. The feeling you have on the last day of school as a kid is like no other. It's a terrific feeling. The feeling of freedom. Our kids graduated from 10th and 8th grade at the end of May. We didn't give them much time to rejoice and whisked them off to Barcelona for a few days at JBCNConf and a bit of family vacation.

Oh my, it was so much fun! First of all, there's nothing like traveling to a foreign land, bringing some of your favorite people with you, and getting to experience it with old and new friends. We arrived on Sunday and experienced a wonderful evening at a conservatory for the JBCNConf speaker's dinner.

Monday was Memorial Day in the US, so we took advantage of our day off and booked a trip with Spanish Trails to explore Montserrat. Montserrat is a rocky mountain range in Catalonia, Spain. "Montserrat" translates to "saw mountain" in Catalan, owing to its jagged, sawtooth appearance.

On Tuesday morning, I took Abbie and Jack to JBCN4Kids and they learned all about game programming in Spanish. Their Spanish skills were tested, and there was an excellent keynote by Brian Goetz in the middle of it all.

That afternoon, Josh Long and I planned and practiced our Full Stack Reactive workshop. We had a nice lunch with my family and Mario that day too. Josh and I delivered our workshop on Wednesday morning.

If you'd like to see the slides @starbuxman and I never used during our Full Stack Reactive Workshop at @jbcnconf, we published them on @speakerdeck:https://t.co/LPyJvCxod6

Thanks to everyone who attended. We had a wonderful time! ??#reactive #java #springwebflux #reactjs
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 29, 2019

The legendary @mraible and I got to close down @jbcnconf with a 2h workshop. Thanks to all those who joined! Couldn’t ask for a better co-presenter, audience, or way to spend the day. I love my life. pic.twitter.com/EbuqdblSsJ
— Josh Long (???, ???, ???? ????, ??? ????) (@starbuxman) May 29, 2019

Our family vacation in El Vendrell began shortly after that.

View this post on Instagram

@1trishphoto in her happy place 💕🥰

A post shared by Matt Raible (@vwsforlife) on May 30, 2019 at 7:00am PDT

We enjoyed the experience so much, Trish and I are thinking about spending even more time in Spain next year.

Goodbye, Barcelona! ?? ????

We had a splendid adventure touring your mountains, city, and beaches. ??@TrishPhoto is intrigued by the notion of visiting again next year.@spring_io and @jbcnconf 2020 with remote work in between? Sounds fun! ???? pic.twitter.com/340myZ1wai
— Matt Raible (@mraible) June 1, 2019

For more photos, see our album's on Flickr: my Barcelona, JBCNConf, and Boston 2019 or Trish's Barcelona 2019.

On the way home, we stopped in Boston and hung out with Trish's brother's family. Our niece, Morgan, graduated high school. We are very proud of her and had a blast celebrating the event.

We started off summer pretty well so far. We've been to Barcelona, Boston, and even had a weekend of whitewater rafting on Fathers Day weekend. Life is good in the Raible Hood! 😊

Farewell to the 2018-19 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Sat, 25 May 2019 15:25:37 -0600

Holy cow! 2018-19 was one of the best ski seasons ever!!

It all started in December with some gorgeous powder days and only got better from there.

Trish and I took her birthday off (December 17) and enjoyed a beautiful day with no crowds.

New Years in Winter Park

I planned things like a skiing dad should, and scheduled a family vacation in Winter Park for a week that included New Years Eve. If you've followed me a while, you'll remember that we made our dreams come true in 2011 with mountain views.

Buying the Ski Shack in Winter Park was one of the best things Trish and I ever did. It had spectacular views and provided an opportunity to make another dream come true: 42 days in a season!

Man, that place was awesome. We had to sell it when I joined Stormpath and we bought the Raible Ranch.

We have many fond memories of Winter Park, and some of our best friends live there. If you're familiar with fraternities and sororities, you'll know what I mean when I say my little brother has a place there. Trish's little sister does too. Joe and Chris are special people in our lives and we always have a blast when we get to fraternize with them.

Chris Caldes is incredibly special since she married us in 2013.

We thoroughly enjoyed partying at her house for New Year's Eve and celebrating with a plethora of folks from our rafting family.

Cross-Country Skiing

Not only did the powder fall like mad, but I rekindled my love for cross-country skiing. It was snowing so much in our backyard that I went out and bought x-country skis. Hiking with our dogs (Sagan and Daisy) in our backyard is fun, but skiing is a whole other level. There's bridal paths everywhere, and they're border collies, so I let them run free and we have a ball. It's one of the coolest parts of living in the country.

It all started with x-country skiing at Devils Thumb Ranch over the New Years Holiday.

I also played hooky a few times. My co-workers wouldn't know because I'm pretty productive at work. In fact, one of my favorite stories of the year was on a Friday morning. I'd put in a lot of hours that week and when I joined the team call for the week, my friend Lindsay said "I just hope you're not working!"

That's when I turned on my my video camera and revealed that I was sitting in Stout the Syncro at the base of Mary Jane. Trish and I woke up early, drove to Winter Park, and joined our conference calls as you normally would. The difference was we were skiing fresh powder and grinning from ear-to-ear. That was probably my favorite all-hands meeting of the year.

Multi-tasking at its best: listening to the company All Hands meeting while getting fresh tracks at #MaryJane. ? #PowderDay #LifeAtOkta pic.twitter.com/WNXH5qjWwT
— Matt Raible (@mraible) March 1, 2019

Skiing at Wolf Creek

The other untold story from ski season is about a ski trip to Wolf Creek. I'd was returning home from DevNexus on a Friday night. As we were landing, I saw the powder forecast in Wolf Creek and texted a bunch of skiing friends.

Alonso is in Wolf Creek for the next week. There's 1-2 feet in the forecast by Tuesday. He has sleeping for 8. Road trip!

I received one positive response from my buddy Ryan Moore on Saturday afternoon.

I'm in on WC.

To make it happen, I worked all day Sunday, writing two blog posts in one day. We departed early Monday morning and arrived in Wolf Creek around 1pm. Along the way, I received a reminder that I had a call with a Fortune 500 company who was interested in Okta's API. I had no reception when I received the reminder, but we found three bars 10 minutes later. We pulled over and I took the call like I was sitting at home.

Knee-deep powder greeted us that day, and we had a ball. We stayed with our friends (Chris, Mary, and Luna) that night. Chris Alonso is a very important person in my life. He was the wicked-smart computer science major that I knew in college. He's the one that showed me coding might be a fabulous career and convinced me (by example) that it's what I wanted to do. It was fitting that his newly-built house in Wolf Creek didn't have internet access, or cell phone reception.

On Tuesday morning, I needed to publish a blog post before we hit the slopes. We had a choice: go into town for wi-fi, or head to the ski resort and hope they had cell reception. We figured, "of course they'll have reception at the resort". We woke up at 6 am, left the house by 6:20 and were in the lodge by 7 am.

They did not have cell reception. Nor wi-fi. There was 24" of fresh powder in the last 12 hours.

We were the only ones in the lodge aside from the folks that were opening up the kitchen. A lady mentioned that she had cell reception. I asked her if I could tether from her phone to get an internet connection. She didn't know what I was talking about but lent me her phone regardless. An hour later, I had completed my task of creating a pull request for my blog post to be published.

The lifts didn't open until 10 am that day because of power issues and so much powder.

The powder was thigh-deep and glorious.

Around noon, I had to fix things in my pull request before the blog post could be published. I found the same lady, borrowed her phone again and took up a cross-legged position in the hallways downstairs (near the power outlet) to publish and promote said blog post. I tipped her $40 that day. I doubt she knows how much she influenced my wonderful skiing experience.

The crazy part of the story happened the next day. There was a blizzard warning in Denver and we knew the pass might close at 6 am (for avalanche blasting). We woke up at 5 am on Wednesday to start our journey home. Since Ryan knew the area better, he took the first shift. When we left Chris's house, he asked, "how many miles does the van get to a tank?"

My answer: the most I've done is 266.

His response: we're at 250.

We drove over Wolf Creek pass and found the nearest gas station on the other side. When we arrived, we were at 265 miles on the tank. Phew!

I drove for the rest of the trip and experienced the most treacherous driving conditions of my life. If you live in Denver, you'll remember this as Bomb Cyclone 2019 #1. We had a DJUG meeting scheduled that night, a Java celebrity speaking, and I needed to get back in time for it. The winds and visibility were absolutely ridiculous along the way. There were many times where I had 10' of visibility and the winds were so strong they almost blew us off the road. Following a snow plow just after South Park was a life saver. When we got to Bailey (1 hour from Denver), 285 was not plowed and there was a foot of snow on the road. 4WD and following UPS trucks with chains got us through it all.

While driving through Denver in the blizzard conditions, I realized that it would be a bad idea to do the DJUG meetup that night. My fellow organizers canceled the meetup around the same time. It's nuts to reminisce and realize the April meetup was canceled too (because of Bomb Cyclone #2).

I have another good story that proves how good it was. I bought brand new powder skis at the end of February. The shop was willing to put my old bindings on my new skis, but they needed 2-3 days to do it. For the whole month of March, I never had an opportunity to do it! The powder was too frequest.

Spring Break in Steamboat

We took the kids to Steamboat for the first half of Spring Break and had an absolute blast!

That was our last ski trip for the year. However, it did snow this week, so I did get one last backyard x-country ski in. My only regret is we didn't make it to Crested Butte this year. That's OK, there's always next year!

VWs on the Green 2019

As is tradition, we showed both our awesome VWs in the Denver's annual VWs on the Green Show. We spent several hours polishing both rigs and are happy to report that Hefe won best in his class! He's only lost one year since we've had him finished. That was last year, and Stout the Syncro won, so we're on a five year winning streak. Next year, we plan to show up, enjoy the crowd, and not enter. We've won enough, so we'd like others to have a chance.

For more photos of this year's ski season, see my album on Flickr.

As I write this, I'm on my way to Barcelona for JBCNConf 2019. I'm taking the whole family with me since Trish is fluent in Spanish and Abbie and Jack have been studying it for a few years. On our way home, we'll stop in Boston to see our niece (Morgan) graduate from high school. It's a great start to a sure-to-be fabulous summer. 🌤

Life Update: Thanksgiving in Montana, RWX2018, Devoxx4Kids, DJUG, and Trish's Birthday

Matt Raible — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 09:20:02 -0700

For the first time in many years, we flew to Montana for the holidays. We typically drive, and it takes around 14 hours. It was quite nice to take off and land in just a couple of hours.

I thought it'd be fun to take some pictures of the cabin I grew up in. It's just a guest cabin now, but it still seems very cozy.

My parents have been remodeling the sauna lately, which was built in 1916. My Finnish ancestors built the sauna before the cabin back in the day!

We had a wonderful time with friends and family at Thanksgiving dinner...

...and while burning slash piles on Black Friday. #OptOutside

Our friends, Mike and Mai, have a real working phone booth, so Abbie had fun checking it out. The light from a kerosene lamp reminded me of growing up without electricity.

The Rich Web Experience 2019

After traveling to Montana, I had a week at home before the Rich Web Experience. I gave a new talk on Bootiful Development with Spring Boot and Vue. It was conference-driven development at its best. Because I was giving the talk, I had to base if off a blog post. I even thought it'd be cool if the blog post was published the same day as my talk. It all worked out in the end, but I had an in-anger encounter with Vue and TypeScript for a couple days there. Then it all magically worked and I became very happy. I published blog posts about Spring Boot 2.1, Bootiful Vue, and Angular 7:

I gave other talks at #RWX2019 on Bootiful Angular and JHipster + Microservices. The venue was marvelous.

As usual, I really enjoyed talking to developers about the open source frameworks I love. I published all of my presentations from RWX 2019 on Speaker Deck.

Devoxx4Kids Denver

While attending CodeOne this year, I had a chat with Stephen Chin about Devoxx4Kids Denver. I mentioned we'd love to have a hands-on Raspberry Pi class like the one I attended at a remote ski resort in Sweden. His response was music to my ears: "If you want, I can come out and teach the workshop. Or better yet, my daughter can." I was flabbergasted and jumped at the opportunity. "Yes!", I said.

Cassandra and Steve showed up in Denver a couple months later and taught a Devoxx4Kids Denver Workshop.

The kids loved it and they left us some equipment we can use to teach a future class. I'm currently discussing possibilities with the principals of my kids' schools. I hope that both Abbie and Jack can teach classes at their respective schools in 2019.

Denver JUG (DJUG)

The week after RWX, I was back in Denver and celebrated a great year with the Denver Java Community at the Denver JUG Holiday Party. Combining lightning talks with a holiday party turned out to be fun and we'll likely do it again next year.

Happy Birthday, Trish!

My lovely wife's birthday was just a few days ago. We both believe you shouldn't work on your birthday, so we took the day off and headed for the hills. We experienced a gorgeous Colorado day, smooth/fast runs, and smiles from ear-to-ear.

We had a fabulous day, and Trish got a birthday nap on the way home in Stout the Syncro. There's nothing like having a comfy bed in the back of your van.

What's Next?

Vacation! I'm on vacation at the end of this week and plan to relax a lot during the following two weeks. The first week, we'll be in Pennsylvania with Trish's fabulous family. Then we're back in town for a couple days. It'll be a turning point in our lives if Abbie passes her driving test (for her real license) on December 27. After that, we're heading back to the hills for a week of skiing, smiling, and good times.

I hope y'all have a fun holiday break. I'll see ya next year!

For more photos, see my Flickr album Life Update, December 2018.

Farewell to the 2017-18 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 07:50:32 -0600

Summertime has arrived in Colorado! Typically, I try to write my "end of ski season" blog post in April or May, but this year it slipped until June. Do I have a good excuse?! Not really. Things got busy with my trip to Richmond and Oktane 18, that's all.

I'm going to keep this post short and sweet, to mirror the ski season. We didn't receive a whole lot of snow in the Rocky Mountains so the powder days were few and far between. There were a couple though, and I got to spend a powder day with some old friends at Winter Park!

The kids and I skied a few days in December, but it wasn't anything to write home about. For New Years, we packed up the Syncro and headed for Crested Butte.

Crested Butte had OK conditions, but the real fun happened when we ditched downhill and tried Nordic skiing. We spent a few hours with James Ward and daughter Josie on a beautiful cross country ski adventure. I grew up cross-country skiing to the bus stop, so it was a real hoot to do it with the whole family.

The real magic happened when I visited the Utah JUG in February. I drove through several snow storms on the way and arrived just in time for my talk on microservices, JHipster, and OAuth.

The next morning, there was 17" at Snowbird. That was a lovely morning.

That evening, Trish and the kids flew in and we hit Alta the next day. They still had fresh snow in spots and lots of sunshine.

We spent Sunday and Monday in Park City and got dumped on again. 17" again on Monday. Wahoo! We stayed and skied the morning, then endured a long 10-hour drive home.

Those were the main highlights of the ski season. Both kids are legit skiers now and will ski blacks all day if the snow is good. OK, maybe not all day, but for a few hours at least.

As for the VWs, Stout the Syncro won his class at the VWs on the Green show! Hefe the Bus didn't win anything, but he sure did look good!

Summer 2018

Now it's pretty much summer in our neck of the woods. We spent last weekend rafting on the Upper Colorado and we're hitting the Arkansas near Salida this weekend. I've been riding my bike(s) a lot, but haven't done a lot of single track trails. I hope to fix that soon.

If you're a developer that follows this blog - I hope to see you on the road in the coming months! I'll be at JHipster Conf next week, KC/DC, UberConf, and JCrete in July, and Boston JUG in August. Hope y'all have a great summer.

Farewell to the 2016-17 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Tue, 23 May 2017 09:26:02 -0600

The 2016-17 Ski Season was a fun one for the Raible Family. Abbie and Jack are good enough that they can zoom down the mountain without looking back. Their preferred runs are now blacks and they're no longer intimidated by moguls. We spent most of the season skiing at Mary Jane and Winter Park, but also had some trips to Crested Butte, Steamboat, and Montana.

On our way to Crested Butte (near the end of January), Stout the Syncro's front drive train started making crunching noises and we had to pull over. It was almost midnight, and we knew we couldn't fix it on the side of the road, so we called AAA and spent the night in a nearby hotel. I rode back to Denver the next day with the tow truck driver on the bumpiest ride of my life. The tow truck's tires were out of balance and it felt like things were going to fall apart at any moment. We later discovered that several things failed that night: one axle broke, a CV went out, and a wheel bearing was gone too. Trish and the kids spent the day at a hot springs in Buena Vista while I drive Trish's Tahoe back to complete the trip. While we missed a day skiing, the day we made it for was great and CB continues to be one of our favorite resorts.

I had some awesome solo skiing adventures too: skiing in Sweden after Jfokus, skiing in Steamboat during Winter Wonder Grass, and Miller Time 2017 in Northstar, California. Miller Time is an annual event to remember a great friend, Jason Miller, who passed on way too early in October 2015.

The highlight of the season was when we traveled to Big Sky Resort in Montana. I'd never skied at Big Sky before and it's been on my bucket list for years. We stayed a week during the kids' Spring Break and experienced some of the best skiing of our lives. When I asked Jack if he had any goals for Spring Break, he said he wanted to "ski 5 double blacks". There were so many double blacks on the mountain, it was unbelievable. We had his goal accomplished by noon on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I didn't remember to use our GoPro until Wednesday. However, that was the day we skipped skiing and did zip lining, so that was a ton of fun. I left my phone and laptop at home that week and thouroughly enjoyed being disconnected.

The video below shows our zip lining adventures, as well as some footage of our best day skiing. It was a powder day, we were on one of the first chairs, and we had fresh tracks all morning. There was an immmense amount of giggline, smiling, and hooting and hollering that morning.

More photos of our ski season adventures can be found on Flickr.

Stout 5.0 and Hefe 3.0

Now that ski season is over, it's time to focus on our favorite summertime activities: VWs, horseback riding, mountain biking, and rafting. Stout 5.0 and Hefe 3.0 were released at the beginning of May and they've both been running great!

Stout 5.0 (painted hood) and Hefe 3.0 (stereo) are lookin' pretty good on this fine Colorado day! ?? #vw?? #vanlife #vwbus #21windows pic.twitter.com/te9OvbJXA3
— Matt Raible (@mraible) May 6, 2017

Driving Hefe around with his rockin' stereo has been a lot of fun. You can imagine the kids giggling in the back with no seatbelts and ragtop down.

Hefe won best in class (Custom Bus 49-67) at VWs on the Green last weekend. Two years in a row baby!

More photos on Flickr → Stout 5.0 and Hefe 3.0

Speaking of winning, Abbie and Tucker have been tearing it up at the Colorado Horse Park. They've won 24 ribbons over the last five months!

Ski season is over, summer is almost upon us, and both our VWs are in tip-top shape. I really can't ask for anything more!

Raible Road Trip #70: To Jekyll Island and Back

Matt Raible — Thu, 4 Feb 2016 10:43:09 -0700

My Dad's 70th birthday was January 16, 2015. Years ago, we started talking about celebrating this event and suggested we go somewhere warm. Trish and I proposed Hawaii, Mexico, or even Cuba. My Dad had his own idea: he wanted to go to Jekyll Island, Georgia. He spent a few high school years in Brunswick, GA and had fond memories of the place and weather. He also wanted to drive there, because road trips are awesome. At least they are in my family. We've done many family road trips over the years; the last one was in July.

One of the great joys in owning a VW Vanagon Westfalia is having the ability to sleep anywhere. Home is where your van is. We did a bunch of van repairs and upgrades last fall: rebuilt the transmission, added modern headlights, installed a Truck Fridge and a Propex heater. It was finally in tip-top shape for winter camping (or a road trip), so I suggested to my parents that we drive it to Georgia, via New Orleans. They agreed and we all smiled with thoughts of visiting the Big Easy. We'd never been.

My parents flew to Denver a few days before we started. Our journey began early Sunday morning, January 10th. We left Denver around 6am and I spent the first couple hours driving in the dark, eastbound on I-70. Within the first hundred miles, the van's odometer quit working, so we had to rely on the gas gauge to know when to fill up. For anyone that's owned a vanagon, you'll know their gas gauges are fairly unreliable. Tom Hanks even talked about this on the David Letterman show.

My mom took the second shift and when she asked me if we had enough gas to make it another 50 miles, I say "yep, it sure looks like it". 20 minutes later, we were on the side of I-70, out of gas. We grabbed the empty jerry can off the back and started walking to the next exit, which wasn't far, but it was cold. Within a couple minutes, a trucker stopped to give us a ride. I hopped in and my mom walked back to the van. The trucker, Don, was super cool and drove me to a nearby gas station and back. It was the first time I'd ridden in a semi truck and it turned out to be a pretty cool experience. We decided to stop for gas whenever the fuel gauge hit the orange zone from then on.

We spent the first night with my Aunt Donna and Uncle Dale, in Clever, Missouri. We had a lot of fun visiting with them and talked for hours, both before bed and the next morning.

I spent that night in the van and tried out the new Reflectix insulation my dad and I made the day before. It was 12°F outside that night and plenty warm inside the van.

The next day, we drove a few hours to Hot Springs, Arkansas. We marveled at the bathhouses from a bygone era and stayed in a Hot Springs National Park KOA.

Tuesday, we drove south, across the mighty Mississippi to New Orleans. We arrived at Ponchartrain Landing, just after dark and enjoyed dinner at the RV Park's restaurant. We were impressed with the food and the live music. We caught an Uber into the French Quarter and enjoyed live music from the Treme Brass Band at d.b.a..

The next day, we spent touring the French Quarter, learning about its history and basking in the soulful atmosphere.

Thursday, we continued our journey, driving to Panama City, Florida and stopping to see the USS Alabama along the way.

When we started driving on Friday, the Syncro had a loud knocking in the left year. I posted this to the Vanagon Owners group on Facebook and they quickly diagnosed it as a bad CV joint. The noise went away at highway speeds.

We made it to Jekyll Island by late afternoon and I took a quick nap before picking up Trish and the kids from the Jacksonville airport around midnight.

My dad's brother, Jim, and sister, Mary, arrived in Jekyll Island before we did. Jim's wife Maryann shares a birthday with my dad, so we celebrated on Saturday with cards, laughter and lots of smiles. We rented bikes from a shop nearby and had a blast biking around the island and walking on the beaches.

One of the highlights of the weekend was doing Jack's science experiment. He'd brought a kit to grow bacteria in Petri dishes so we rode our bikes around the island and stopped at various restaurants. We asked kitchen managers to swab their countertops for us, then we captured the result in different dishes. It was a warm sunny day and all the restaurants were very helpful. We completed our mission in time to watch the Broncos beat the Steelers that evening.

I returned Trish and the kids to the airport on Monday and they flew back to Denver. I worked remotely for the rest of the week while my parents, aunts and uncle spent long hours together exploring the island. They talked about memories of their youth, took a lot of walks together, did some shopping and did what older people do: watched The Weather Channel. A historic snowstorm was headed for the east coast and it could alter flights home to New York, as well as our route back to Denver.

Our trip back to Denver began early Friday morning, January 22nd. I was eager to get home for the AFC Championship game on Sunday. We dropped my Aunt Mary off at the airport in Jacksonville around 7am and drove through Florida, staying south on I-10 to avoid the storm. There was lots of rain and wind, but only for a few hours. We made it to Shreveport, Louisiana that evening and stayed at a KOA. We made it 900 miles the first day. With 960 miles left, we knew Saturday would be rough, but we could make it back in time for the game!

Saturday was sunny in Texas and we spent most of the day driving through it.

The knocking noise from the CV came back, but we knew there was no stopping now. We pulled into Denver around 11pm that night, finishing our 4000 mile road trip to Jekyll Island and back.

What a fun trip! It certainly helped that we had no breakdowns. Yes, we lost a hubcap, the CV needed to be replaced and the odometer stopped working. However, these were all easy to fix and the odometer even started working again on the way home. We made it back in time for the Broncos game and Trish and I had a blast at the tailgate before watching the Broncos beat the Patriots.

One other highlight of the trip was that The Bus was this close to being finished. The shop working on it was sending me pictures the whole time and set the expectation that it would be finished within days. Unfortunately, they discovered some issues while driving it (dead battery, leaks in the gas tank), so they determined there was still work to do. Nevertheless, they invited us down for a test drive. My parents and I drove down Monday afternoon, hopped in it for a ride and quickly broke down within a couple miles. The battery was charged enough to start it, but when the engine died at a light, there was no juice left. We pushed it off to the side of the road, called for help to get it jump-started and drove it back to the shop. With all the snow on the ground in Denver, I'm OK if it takes a few more weeks to complete.

More on Flickr → Raible Road Trip #70 Album

I also named both our VWs on this trip. The '66 21-Window will now be known as "Hefe", and we're calling the '90 Syncro Westy "Stout". Hefe can be attributed to its German roots and one of my favorite beer styles, Hefeweizen. In Spanish, El Jefe means "the boss", so that's fitting too. As for Stout, both Trish and I have Irish roots, we love stout beers and we've turned it into a thick and strong vehicle.

Now it's February. It's been dumping snow in the mountains and we completed our first winter camping trip with the kids last weekend. The Broncos are in the Super Bowl this weekend. Life couldn't get much better right now. ;)

Farewell to the 2014-2015 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Tue, 12 May 2015 08:19:03 -0600

My family and I had a terrific ski season this year. Last year was an epic year with 11 resorts and a heli-skiing trip to British Columbia. This year, we skied Winter Park/Mary Jane, Steamboat, Copper, Crested Butte and Telluride. I logged 42 days of skiing, my most ever.

My season started on November 19th at Winter Park. Trish and I skied it again together a few days later. Opening Day at Mary Jane on November 28th was beautiful.

It's a BEAUTIFUL opening day at Mary Jane! #75WPR pic.twitter.com/l3BfKJgz5y
— Matt Raible (@mraible) November 28, 2014

Over Christmas and New Years, we stayed at our Ski Shack near Winter Park and got a number of days in. My buddy Joe Lamont and I skied together on the coldest day, when it was -6°F at the base of Mary Jane. I was pumped when got to ski with Mattias Karlsson and his family just after New Years.

Had a great time skiing with @matkar and his family this morning. Impressed by their skiing and snowboarding skills! pic.twitter.com/7iGZkg36M0
— Matt Raible (@mraible) January 4, 2015

For Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, we escaped the crowds and drove to Steamboat. The conditions weren't great, but we had a fun time nevertheless.

In early February, I did a hut trip in the Roaring Fork Valley with a great friend of mine, Ryan Moore. We climbed uphill a lot, sweated a lot and created some great memories.

For Presidents' Day Weekend, we packed up the kids and drove our Ski Bus to Crested Butte.

We enjoyed a fabulous weekend skiing with the kids and socializing with James and Jenny Ward. I also had fun surprising Trish with a family photograph session with Alison White.

In late February, we hosted our first tailgating party at Mary Jane. It was a powder day and the runs were great. I made some delicious buffalo chili and we enjoyed cold beverages with friends.

The kids had a couple days off from school in early March, so we packed up and headed for Telluride. The kids and I had never been before and boy were we impressed! The weather was beautiful and the kids found the courage and desire to do a number of double blacks. We had a blast that weekend, especially since Abbie and Jack both became fast and fearless.

The trip to Telluride marked an end to 5-weekends-in-a-row of skiing. I wrote about the fun we had in Skiing Adventures with our Syncro in the Rocky Mountains.

On March 13, day #36, I had one of the best ski days of my life (so far). My no-sugar and lots of exercise lifestyle helped me accomplish a 30,000 vertical feet day at Mary Jane. There was seven of us that day and we skied mostly blacks. It was hard to believe I pulled it off without eating or drinking anything all day. I was in the best ski shape of my life.

I slowed down a bit in April due to starting with a new client and visiting Trish's parents in Pennsylvania. However, my company's 9" rule kicked in on April 17th.

We ended the year with a tailgate party at Mary Jane on closing weekend. I spent the night in the Syncro at Mary Jane to get primo parking. A number of friends and kids showed up and we celebrated the end of the season with lots of smiles.

Summary
We had a blast this ski season. Normally, I shave my beard to a goatee at the end of ski season. However, this year I've signed up to a write a book on JHipster. Hipsters often have nice beards and mine seems to be pretty good right now, so I think I'll grow it until I've finished the book. Hopefully my bus will be done by then and I can get a nice author photo with my beard and a finished bus.

Next year, I hope to ski another 40+ days. Jack will be in 5th grade and can get three free days at all the resorts. We asked him if he wanted to travel around like we did last year with Abbie. He said he'd rather stay in Winter Park most of the time and do a few trips like we did this year. I'm OK with that. It was a glorious ski season.

Skiing Adventures with our Syncro in the Rocky Mountains

Matt Raible — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 06:01:09 -0600

Our Syncro Westy was returned to us in early February, after being in the shop since just before Christmas. It was in the shop for body work caused by an accident that was my fault. Luckily, no one was hurt and the damage was minor. The morning after we got it back, my awesome friend Ryan Moore and I packed it up and headed on a hut trip near Aspen, Colorado.

The next weekend was one of the most popular skiing holidays: Presidents' Day Weekend. We packed up the kids and drove our Ski Bus to Crested Butte. I took my guitar and Trish took her banjo (we both started taking weekly lessons at the beginning of the year). Our drive was smooth and our weekend was fabulous.

Saturday was Valentine's Day and I surprised Trish with a photo shoot of our family. I'd secretly hired Alison White to take our pictures and we met with her to talk about what we wanted on Saturday morning. After a fun consultation, we ventured to the mountain, picking up James Ward along the way. We skied a few runs together, stopped at the Ice Bar for a car bomb, then whisked off to our photo shoot.

We are extremely pleased with the results. Thanks Alison!

The next weekend, Trish and I packed up and headed to our Ski Shack in Winter Park. We stayed up late that Friday night, preparing chili and other fixins for a fun tailgate on Saturday. We didn't get much sleep, but we were in "C Lot" by 7:30 and on the lifts shortly after they opened. It was a powder day, and the runs were great. We met up with friends at our van around noon and enjoyed some tasty chili and cold beverages.

The last weekend in February, we met Trish's brother (also named Matt) in Vail. He was on a ski trip with a number of friends and Trish drove up to ski with him on Saturday morning. The kids and I slept in a bit and arrived at Copper just in time for free parking near the lifts. We skied all afternoon, then met up with Trish and Matt for some cocktails, then dinner. That night, we did some winter camping in the van.

The final weekend in my 5-weekends-in-a-row of skiing was a wonderful trip to Telluride. The kids had Thursday and Friday off of school last week, so we loaded up and drove to Telluride on Thursday. It took us most of the day to get there (7.5 hours), but the weather was beautiful and the roads were dry. Our van was too tall for our hotel's garage, so we had excellent parking spots all weekend.

This was the breakout weekend for Jack. Abbie's been skiing awesome all year and Jack's been pretty timid (lots of turns, going slow). There was something about our first day at Telluride that inspired him, because he loved their double blacks. We skied lots of steep runs, did laps on the terrain parks and flew down the mountain on blues. Telluride had a Spring Break atmosphere and our ski-in/ski-out accommodations didn't hurt. It was a glorious weekend. Trish and I were both very proud of the kids and how fast and fearless they've become on skis.

Full Album →

I'm extremely happy with our Syncro's performance and its new H6 (Subaru Outback) engine. It's been averaging 20mpg, most likely because I drive 55mph in the slow lanes up the passes. I figure we drove it just over 2000 miles on our 5-ski-weekends-in-5-weeks adventure. We thoroughly enjoyed skiing at Crested Butte, tailgating with powder at Mary Jane and shredding the double blacks at Telluride. I know we'll be back to all of them, some sooner than later.

In fact, I'll be meeting a few friends at Mary Jane this morning to attempt 30,000 vertical feet in one day. It'll be my 36th day of skiing this year. Happy Friday! Life is Good.

McGinity Photo on the cover of Whisky Magazine!

Matt Raible — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 10:24:00 -0600

A couple years ago, my dad and I were driving to get some materials for a home improvement project we were working on. It was during a gorgeous Colorado sunset, one so beautiful that I called Trish and told her "You have to go outside and see it!" Not only did she capture the sunset that day, but she shot one of her favorite pictures of all time. She calls that photo "Stranahan's Truck" and its been one of her best sellers. In fact, this month it's featured on the cover of Whisky Magazine!

The original version of this photo is available on her website. Her description:

I love this photo I took of Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey Truck and Distillery last spring. Rob Dietrich is the head distiller of Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey and this is his 1938 Dodge that John "the Duke" Wayne used to drive when he stayed in Aspen, Colorado.

Way to go baby! You're awesome!

Father's Day Weekend on The Arkansas River

Matt Raible — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 08:53:10 -0600

I really enjoy being a father. I consider it one of my greatest responsibilities, one that has many rewards. There's nothing like hearing your son say "Dad, I'm really glad you made me go on this trip" (on our Yampa trip) or your daughter making you a Happy Father's Day book that says "you invented FUN!" Like many years in the past, we celebrated Father's Day Weekend with a camping trip.

Trish and I both invited our Dad's to join us, and they delightfully agreed. Trish transported her Dad to Denver by flying to Pennsylvania last Wednesday and road-tripping back with him. I flew my Dad in and picked him up from the airport Friday afternoon. We had a bit of road-tripping ourselves, with a drive to Fort Collins (to pick up our enhanced Syncro), then to Winter Park (to pick up our raft), then back to Denver.

Saturday morning, we packed up our sleeping bags, life jackets and border collies and drove to the Cotopaxi KOA on the Arkansas River. We arrived late afternoon, and were quickly impressed with the KOA's glamping attributes. We had an excellent riverside spot, with RV hookups for the van and a sweet concrete patio. We enjoyed a wagon ride, frisbee, fishing, and marshmallows by the fire before retiring for the night.

On Father's Day, we rafted the Upper Bighorn Sheep Canyon, putting in at Salida East and taking out at Vallie Bridge. The rapids wild and wet, but easy to navigate. Our favorite was Tin Cup Rapid; it was sloped like a bunny hill, with a nice big wave at the bottom.

On the way home, we stopped to see the Royal Gorge. We were disappointed to find "America's Highest Bridge" was closed. Later, we found out on June 11, 2013, they suffered extensive damage caused by the Royal Gorge Fire. This wildfire destroyed 48 of the 52 structures on the Bridge & Park grounds, including their Aerial Tram and antique carousel, as well as the park's visitor center. Trish snapped some good photos of the kids while we marveled at the view.

After the Royal Gorge, we drove to Colorado Springs and stopped to see the '66 Bus Project. The brakes, clutch, accelerator and shift linkage is all installed. Now they're working on custom fitting the back seat and air tank (for the air bags). There's a good chance it'll be able to start and drive by the end of the month.

Speaking of Volkswagens, we got some new bumpers installed on our Syncro last week by Rocky Mountain Westy. Coupled with a new set of tires, the ol' van is looking pretty good these days.

Thanks to our Dads for making the journey to see us and spend such an awesome weekend together. You both are always fun to hang out with. We can't wait to do it again soon!

For a more extensive picture collection from this weekend, see Trish's 2014 Father's Day Weekend album.

Past Father's Day Trips:

2008: The Father's Day Camping Trip
2009: A Fun Father's Day at Great Sand Dunes
2010: Another Fun Father's Day at The Great Sand Dunes
2011: Good Times on The Annual Father's Day Camping Trip
2012: Father's Day Weekend at The Oregon Coast
2013: Father's Day Weekend on The Colorado River

Rafting the Yampa through Dinosaur National Monument

Matt Raible — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 22:30:23 -0600

In January, my friend Brice sent out an email to a bunch of folks asking us to apply for a river permit lottery. He sent us links to lotteries for Dinosaur National Monument - Yampa River and Desolation Gray - Green River. There were 10 of us on the email and we all applied for both permits. In mid-February, I found out I won the Yampa permit and the trip planning began. This was a huge deal for some since they'd been trying to get this permit for 10 years.

When we got all the details worked out, we were scheduled to launch on Saturday, May 31 and take out on Wednesday, June 4. Our put-in was Deerlodge Park and take-out, Split Mountain. If you're interested, you can see a map.

Over the next four months, many emails flew between us (33 pages if printed out) and much planning ensued. We had a planning BBQ, endured a permit-award-never-sent-fiasco and I tried to back out for Abbie's 5th grade continuation ceremony. Since I was the permit holder (and had to go), the crew convinced me it was a trip of a lifetime. We left Abbie in Denver for her ceremony and took Jack with us. When we launched on May 31, we had 21 people, 8 rafts and one inflatable kayak. Of the crew, 6 were children (aged 6 - 11).

Day 1 (10 miles)
We knew there was high water going into the trip. We later found out that June 1 may have been the highest flow of the season, with between 17000 and 18000CFS. We were only on the river a couple hours the first day. The river was swift and we marveled that none of the rapids we went through had names. Our friend, The Professor, flipped in his ducky, but had no issues recovering. We camped at Teepee Hole that night.

Day 2 (16 miles)
Sunday morning, everyone was in good spirits. It was our first day with named rapids and we all were looking forward to it.

Sunday started out with TeePee Rapid, a Class III. We all stayed right and made it through just fine. The waves were big, but nothing seemed dangerous. We paddled through Little Joe (Class III) and wondered why they named Big Joe (Class II) "Big". We soon learned why when we saw one of the first rafts flip in the middle of it. It was a blue raft with our friends, Eagle Dave and Jake. A few more rafts went through the same route, then a silver raft flipped right in front of us. It contained our friends, Chris and Brice, as well as their kids (6 and 9).

Yes, things got scary all of a sudden. I instantly realized I didn't want to follow their route and rowed as hard as I could to go right instead of left. Once we passed the flipping hole, I rowed as hard as I could to try and reach Brice on the left. It was the hardest I'd ever rowed in my life, yet I couldn't get across the river to stop and help. Luckily, a couple other friends did reach him and were able to help. Chris, thinking quickly, had grabbed both their boys (while flipping) and swam with them until Erick and Galin (11 yrs old) rescued them with a throw bag.

We arrived at Harding Hole about 30 minutes after flipping/recovering. Emotions were high and all the kids were a bit freaked out. Many asked to go home. Luckily, a ranger and number of trainees were camping nearby. They helped calm nerves by giving us advice and offering to run safety for us the next day.

Day 3 (18 miles)
On Monday, we got to experience the biggest rapids of the trip: Warm Springs (Class IV). We stopped and scouted, as well as let the kids walk around the rapid. There was a tall haystack wave in the middle of it, as well as a huge "Maytag" hole at the end.

Luckily, everyone made it through just fine and spirits ran high with accomplishment. The rest of the day was particularly enjoyable as flat water brought us floating and relaxing. Many water fights ensued between boats and laughter erupted off the canyon walls.

We celebrated 80s night with style at Box Elder campground that evening.

Day 4 (14.5 miles)
Tuesday was another floater in the morning. We stopped at the confluence of the Yampa and Green River and enjoyed the view.

In the early afternoon, we stopped at Echo Park and enjoyed our first non-groover toilet in days. We also gathered water and took the kids on a hike to see some petroglyphs.

As we progressed that afternoon, we hit some more rapids that sent some fright through the kids that flipped on Sunday. We stopped for a couple hours to hike, play Yahtzee and relax in the sun.

Then we continued to camp at Big Island that night. Our last night on the river, we spent in a beautiful camping utopia.

Day 5 (13.5 miles)
Wednesday, everyone gathered their things early and had their boats packed by breakfast. It was our morning to cook, so Trish whipped up huckleberry pancakes and dazzled our taste buds. We had one big rapid, Moonshine (Class III), to get our blood pumping. We scouted, the kids walked, and everyone made it through just fine. There were a few more rapids (SOB, Schoolboy and Inglesby) through the rest of Split Mountain Canyon, but none that inspired scouting. We landed at Split Mountain take-out around 2pm, said our goodbyes and headed home. Trish, Jack and I arrived back in Denver just before midnight.

Summary
Wow - what a trip! When we first read about floating through Dinosaur National Monument, we thought it'd be more of a float trip with some fun rapids. Instead, it greeted us with lots of fast water, tons of rapids and not-so-much floating. In the 2014 Boating Information Booklet (PDF), item #5 in the Safety Recommendations says "Rig to flip!" This was no joke.

Everyone was well prepared and we did rig to flip, we just never expected it to happen on a Class II. With kids in the boat, it shook everyone up a bit, but we became a stronger team because of it. Sloane, one of the most experienced rafters on the trip, wore a GoPro through much of the trip. You can view a video of our adventures below, or on YouTube.

Good times, great friends, fantastic memories.

more photos on Flickr →

Farewell to the 2013-2014 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Sat, 10 May 2014 12:30:54 -0600

We took things up a notch for this year's ski season: we bought a ski bus (a.k.a. The Syncro) and rented our ski shack out for the season. Our goal was to ski all over Colorado since Abbie had free days at every resort. Personally, I racked up 28 days of skiing, Trish had similar numbers and, Abbie and Jack got between 15 and 20.

We picked up the ski bus with a road trip from Sun Valley, ID to Denver. We were hoping to ski at Jackson Hole on the way home. The sub-zero temperatures quickly changed our minds and we learned about its sub-par wind resistance driving through Wyoming.

The kids and I started the season with a trip to A-Basin, followed by a day at Keystone. Then Trish and I hit Mary Jane before heading to Montana for Christmas.

Around this same time, Trish sold her Xterra and we became a one-vehicle family. The Syncro had its first (and only!) breakdown on the way to my parent's on Christmas Eve. We raced Santa Claus to The Cabin, packed in a rented sedan with two kids, two dogs and two cats. We realized afterward the car had bald tires and a broken windshield-washing system. Thank goodness the roads were dry.

The Syncro remained in Bozeman for a week while getting repairs done at Straightaway Motors. We enjoyed the beauty of Montana without it, sledding, skiing at Big Mountain and celebrating New Years with good friends in West Glacier. Taking Trish and the kids skiing in Montana was a ski-life highlight for me. As a teenager, I learned how to downhill ski at Big Mountain and it was really cool to show my family its awesomeness.

Both Abbie and Jack started the season snowboarding. They switched to skiing when Trish took them to Steamboat the same weekend I went heli-skiing in British Columbia.

At the end of January, we stayed with our good friends, the Tillis, and skied at Breckenridge.

The next day we skied Copper and had an 11" Powder Day at Mary Jane a few days later.

The snow continued to fall when we drove to Aspen for Superbowl weekend. It took us six hours to drive there in a blizzard, but the 36" of fresh snow the next day made it all worth it. We skied Snowmass and had a ball.

The Syncro burst a cooling hose clamp going over Vail Pass on the way home. It was Superbowl Sunday and we were rushing home to watch the Broncos. Luckily, I was able to fix it enough to get to a gas station and buy some new hose clamps. I'd rather not talk about the Broncos performance that evening.

In mid-February, I replaced the propane tank on the Syncro and installed a portable heater.

We celebrated with our first winter camping excursion in Mary Jane's Challenger Lot. The next morning, we found ourselves plowed in. We learned you're supposed to move when you hear the snow plows in the middle of the night. We enjoyed first chair that morning and all our runs with fresh tracks.

The next weekend, we camped for two nights in Avon for WinterWinderGrass. We skied at Copper and Vail that weekend. In the evenings, we drank delicious Colorado beer and listened to some really great live music. We left the propane heater at home and got along just fine with sleeping bags.

At the end of February, we took the kids to Beaver Creek, where they had their first 10-run day with us. That was the day we realized they could keep up with us on the blues.

For St. Patrick's Day weekend, we drove to Crested Butte, one of our favorite resorts in Colorado. The kids both had 20 runs that day and impressed the hell out of us. It was a beautiful weekend, and I even got to hang out with James Ward on Saturday night.

In April, we gathered with friends at an A-Basin Beach Party. It was the first time the kids camped with us in the Syncro and they loved it. We woke up at 5am to get a good spot and there were already two cars ahead of us in line. They opened the gates around 7am. We stayed at our friends, the Ellens, in Breckenridge that night and skied there the next day.

The season ended with a few days at Mary Jane and Winter Park. We spent a couple nights at Devils Thumb Ranch on the final weekend.

more pictures on Flickr →

Summary
By my count, we made it to 11 unique resorts this year. That's a far cry from the 25 resorts we have in Colorado. Nevertheless, we had a great time and put almost 10,000 miles on our Syncro since we bought it. It's been a slightly stressful winter as a one-car family. But, like I mentioned, the Syncro has been humming along nicely.

In January, I realized the only way the Syncro was going to work long-term was if I became a VW mechanic. My Dad is an excellent mechanic, so I talked with him and learned how to fix most problems we've had. It's been a fun learning experience so far. We did wrestle with some cooling-system issues every-so-often, but we were able to fix them by tightening clamps and keeping the cooling tank full. Last week, Rocky Mountain Westy upgraded the cooling tubes and tank. Next week, we'll be getting axles replaced and some steering enhancements - things that tend to go bad after 185K miles.

Our biggest regret of the season was renting out our condo in Fraser. We thought we'd enjoy traveling all over Colorado and camping in the van. We did enjoy the trips, but working from the van wasn't great and it was too small to bring all our pets (two cats, two dogs). It also lacks a hot tub.

Next year, we're psyched that Crested Butte has been added to the Rocky Mountain Super Pass. We'll likely hit many of the same resorts again, and I'd like to spend more time at Steamboat, Telluride and Wolf Creek.

In the meantime, mountain biking, camping, rafting and VW show season is right around the corner. We're heading to Moab next week for Syncro Solstice, entering our first show at Volkswagens on the Green, rafting/dancing with our kids at Campout for the Cause and doing a 5-day river trip down the Yampa in Dinosaur National Monument. Yeeeeee haaaw - I love Colorado!

Spring Break in Florida: Golf, Beaches and Boats!

Matt Raible — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 20:34:59 -0600

Florida is a beautiful state, with sandy beaches, excellent fishing, fun people and a great enthusiasm for golf. When I dreamed up Trish, I knew she'd have an awesome family, but I never expected her parents to have a house on a golf course. Trish's grandma, Claire Stanley, is a legend in her own right. I've never met her, but I knew I loved her when Trish's dad first told me about her "layered shots". When I saw Claire's name listed several times on the walls of the The Country Club of Naples, a deep respect came over me. Claire picked out her house on the 17th hole (Trish's favorite number) of the Country Club in 1966, when the establishment was founded. My bus was born in 1966.

Today, Trish's parents have turned it into a golf and relaxation oasis, complete with beautiful orchid gardens, a sweet pool and Japanese decorations from the country where they first met.

As a golf enthusiast, I'm embarrassed that we've only visited her parents in Naples once before. We bought Abbie and Jack golf clubs last year for Jack's birthday, and they both like to play the game. To make up for our lack of visiting family in Florida, we took our kids on a golf vacation for this year's Spring Break.

We learned a technique for kids golfing in September 2012: have them tee off from the 150 marker so they have a chance to par the hole. We arrived in Naples on a Saturday, had a nice family brunch on Sunday and played golf with the kids that afternoon. The kids had a really good time, even beating us on a couple holes.

The sunset on Sunday evening was gorgeous, especially with the kids frolicking in the waves.

On Monday, we woke up early and boarded the Key West Express before sunrise.

We arrived in Key West around noon and hung out by our hotel pool for most of the day. That evening, after marveling at the sunset, we took the kids on a Key West Ghost Tour. It was a bit long at 1.5 hours, but the story of Robert the Doll was excellent.

Tuesday morning, we met up with Abbie and Jack's Mom, Julie, and her fiancé Dave. They had Dave's kids with them, and we all headed out for a sailing, parasailing and jet skiing adventure together. Everyone had a great time, as is evidenced by the photos below.

Trish and I handed the kids over to Julie that afternoon and spent a few more hours in Key West. We rented bikes, visited the southernmost point in the US and enjoyed a cocktail on the beach. We especially liked seeing the house that Trish's Mom, Maureen, grew up in.

Around happy hour, after visiting the World of Beer, we boarded the Key West Express and traveled back to Trish's parents.

The rest of the week was an ideal vacation: golfing, swimming in the pool, swimming in the ocean, walking on the beach, dinner on the beach and fishing in the Everglades. Trish's Dad, Joe, booked us a fishing trip in the Everglades, starting from Everglades City. He and I had to wake up before dawn on Friday to meet our guide, who was waiting for us at the dock at 7:30. From there, we spent six hours boating, casting, reeling, catching some, losing some and having a fabulous time. Our catch at the end of the adventure was two Trout and one Flounder (caught by our guide, Tony). Nevertheless, we had a delightful day and savored the sun and the water in a beautiful location.

Saturday, we played some more golf and took an evening flight home. It was a fun spring break and I'm glad the kids got to enjoy it with both parents and multiple grandparents. More than anything, thanks to Trish's parents for their hospitality and fun-loving lifestyle. We had a blast!

For more pictures, checkout Trish's Spring Break 2014 or my Spring Break in Florida.

Around The World Honeymoon: Last Stop, Fiji

Matt Raible — Mon, 4 Nov 2013 07:10:31 -0700

In August, Trish and I journeyed on a 'round the world honeymoon, to Ireland, Italy, Thailand and Fiji. Trish had a Fiji poster on her wall when she was a little kid and has always dreamed of visiting its islands. Our first view of Fiji from the plane was stunning.

We left Thailand on Saturday, August 17. Yes, our flight from Thailand to Fiji was long. It was only a few hours from Koh Samui to Hong Kong, but Hong Kong to Nadi, Fiji was 10 hours. Our layover in Nadi lasted a few hours on Sunday morning. When we boarded the "Island Hopper" for Taveuni, Trish turned into a kid in a candy store. Trish earned her pilots license a few years before I met her and something about a 1960s-era plane excited her greatly.

It took about an hour to fly from Nadi to Taveuni. After we landed, a driver from our hotel greeted us and and drove us to our water taxi. The resort Phil booked for us was Qamea Resort and Spa, which we later found out was on an island with no roads.

As we were arrived at Qamea, we immediately noticed the Padi 5-star Diving Resort sign. We'd both been scuba diving certified in the past, but we hadn't planned on diving in Fiji. When we saw it was 5-star diving, we both looked at each other, smiled, and thought "why not?"

We were immediately impressed with our Honeymoon Villa. We especially liked our own private hot tub in the back. Hot Tuuuubbb!!

On Monday, we spent several hours writing post cards to friends and family. It rained the whole day, hard. That evening, Trish had too much Haha, but made lots of new friends.

On Tuesday, I received a "satisfaction survey" from the resort, asking how we liked our first two days. I'd received a plethora of mosquito bites on my legs and the rain was starting to wear on me, so I told them.

"The mosquitos bites and rain kinda stink, but I realize you can't do anything about that. It's been awesome otherwise."

Within an hour, I was introduced to "mile a minute", a local plant that could be mashed into a liquid and take away mosquito bite itching. It felt like a miracle.

That afternoon, we had our first dive, which consisted of a 5-minute "refresher course" and the most unbelievably clear waters and colorful coral I've ever laid eyes on.

From there, the whole trip just got better and better. The sun came out and we quickly realized we were in paradise.

We visited the Qamea Spa and had the best massages of our lives. They had the music that every spa has - the sounds of the jungle. But the music was the sounds of the Fijian jungle through the open windows. The way they massaged your muscles never induced pain, it just warmed them up until they were like pudding. And I still had some itching from the 50+ mosquito bites on my calves. I felt like a dog ferociously scratching his belly while getting petted when the masseuse was rubbing my legs vigorously. It was simply heavenly, the best massage I've ever had. Trish agreed wholeheartedly.

Wednesday night was our first night dive. I sucked on my respirator like I'd just run a 5K, but we still managed to have fun and see lots of cool fish. And when I say lots, I mean around 100,000. The number of fish we saw when diving and snorkeling was unbelievable. We dined in our own private cabana on the beach that evening.

On Thursday, we did a waterfall hike with a group from the hotel. Percy was our guide and he was awesome. We took a boat from Qamea to Taveuni, then drove in a van to the trailhead. We saw two waterfalls, got rained on, sweated up some steep hills, dove into the waterfalls and had a really great time.

Thursday is when we really started to bond with the resort's other guests, as well as the managers. The intimate setting of paradise on an island, with no distractions, was very peaceful and healing for the soul.

We made it back to the resort in time for our 2:00 dive that afternoon.

We went snorkeling a few hours later. It was just as good as diving, without the heavy breathing.

I surprised Trish with Qamea's Night of Decadance that evening. Two Fijian Warriors showed up at our room to guide us to the spa. We bathed in the relaxing goodness of Fijian masseuse hands, followed by an outdoor candle-light, rock-walled shower. After the spa, they led us back to our room, where they'd setup a candlelit dinner on our porch, with steaming lobster and white wine. It was the perfect way to spend our last honeymoon evening.

On Friday, we slept in later than we planned, waking up around 10am. By 11, we'd eaten breakfast and were diving into the ocean for one last snorkel expedition. That afternoon, we departed Qamea with a certainty that we'd return someday.

Our flight from Taveuni to Nadi was equally exciting for Trish the second time around. She loved the analog instruments and how the pilots had to join hands to push the throttle forward for lift off.

We left Fiji on Friday evening and had a brief stopover in Apia, the capital of Samoa, at 1am. It was a strange stopover as they made us go through security and almost took some of the souvenirs we'd purchased in Fiji. Remember, we still didn't have any checked luggage, so we were carrying all our clothes and souvenirs. The bar was open though, so the hours passed quickly.

We re-boarded our plane in the early morning and landed in Honolulu, Hawaii on Friday morning. We were drinking Mai Tais in Hawaii before we even woke up on the same day! We boarded our flight for Los Angeles around the same time we were snorkeling. We landed in Denver on Saturday morning on the same day and time that we had been in Samoa.

We checked our bags for the first time when flying from Honolulu to Denver (via LA). Wouldn't you know it - they got lost and arrived in Denver 24 hours we did.

What was our favorite place of our 'round the world honeymoon? Ireland felt like a big hug, because the people were so warm and joyous. Italy's tunnels, wine and gastronomy were incredible. Thailand's spicy food, views and smiling people were a joy. But Qamea was different. Its intimate settings, wonderful diving and family-like resort staff made it just a bit more special.

In ten years, we hope to do it all again, this time with Abbie and Jack. It sounds crazy after writing about all these wonderful places, but one thing is for sure. There's no place like home. We're over the moon to be married and back in Denver.

We took around 1000 pictures in each country, but managed to widdle it down to the 20% that we loved. Trish's photos of Fiji can be found in Fiji: Around the World Honeymoon - Final Stop, Qamea!, while mine are in Around The World Honeymoon: Last Stop, Fiji.

Around The World Honeymoon: 3rd Stop, Thailand

Matt Raible — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 18:49:39 -0600

In August, Trish and I journeyed on a 'round the world honeymoon, to Ireland, Italy, Thailand and Fiji. Thailand is somewhere I've always wanted to go, and we were looking forward to some beach time as we boarded our flight from Turin to Istanbul.

We had high hopes for leaving the airport in Istanbul and grabbing dinner. With a six hour layover, we figured it wouldn't be too difficult. After waiting an hour in line to get out, the security guard told us we'd need a visa, which were available for $20 and another hour wait in line. We gave up and headed for the a lounge to relax and do a bit of writing. In fact, that's where I started writing the blog post about our wedding month. The flight to Bangkok started around midnight and arrived in the early afternoon on Monday, August 12. The Bangkok airport was massive and impressive, and we grabbed a bit to eat before boarding for Koh Samui.

Our hotel was the W Retreat Koh Samui and it was spectacular. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the General Manager (Brian Segrave) as we marveled at the view. Shortly after, a driver whisked us up to our bungalow in a "buggie" (golf cart). Our accommodations were exquisite, with a rose petal-filled bathtub, fondu, an outdoor shower and our own private pool. Basically, everything you'd want in a Honeymoon Getaway Suite.

We had the best sushi of our lives that night at Namu, the resort's contemporary Japanese restaurant.

The next day (Tuesday), we slept it, rolling around in the cozy numbness of our jetlag. At this point, we decided it was time to take a vacation from our vacation, something we've always wanted to do. For the next two days, we did nothing but sleep by the pool (getting our first, and last, sunburns of the trip), get massages, drink cocktails, and enjoy the pristine views. The W even created a Mixology course for us on Wednesday and we learned how to make Martinis, Mai Tais and multi-colored shots.

Our first big adventure in Thailand came when we journeyed to dinner outside of the resort. We'd asked our travel assistant, Ms. Tik, to setup a few activities for the remainder of our trip and we requested a Wednesday dinner reservation at Zenzibar. This was a restaurant I found on TripAdvisor, and I thought it was the same one I read about in the W's little red book of restaurant recommendations. Ms. Tik notified us that the restaurant's owner would be picking us up to drive us for dinner at 8:30pm. It sounded kinda strange at first, but since it was the #3 restaurant, we figured it'd be fun.

When we got into the owner's dilapidated truck, we started to worry. When we started driving down a dirt road that resembled The Cabin's bumpy, backwoods road, Trish started singing "Trish is for dinner, Matt is for dessert", light-heartedly, from the back seat. She was obviously concerned. The owner and I talked about his #3 ranking on TripAdvisor and I figured it must be the right place. And it was, just a bit rustic. When we arrived, the owner sat us at their finest table, just inches from the water's edge along the beach. The meal was fantastic, the white wine cold and delicious and the ambience, wonderful.

I realized later that I confused Zenzibar with Zazen Restaurant because Zazen was added to the little red book by "popular demand" and they had similar names.

That evening marked our first encounter with a toilet that consisted of a hole in the ground, and a bucket of water. We saw several after that. When in Rome! ;)

Thursday morning, we rode speedboats for an hour to Angthong National Marine Park, along with a bunch of other tourists. The snorkeling was awesome, but there were tiny jellyfish in the water that made it kinda like swimming with mosquitos. At the main stop, we hiked to the top of a mountain on one of the most steep, jagged hiking trails I've ever accended. We even spotted some Dusky Leaf Monkeys, playing and frolicing in the trees. There were ropes that you could hang on to and many times they were necessary, especially when hiking in flip flops. The view from the top was magnificent.

We were treated like royalty on the way back when the boat dropped us off right at the W's beach. In the getting-off-the-boat chaos, I left my favorite "why does Matt always look like a tourist" hat and flip flops. It was an unfortunate, but bittersweet parting moment.

That night, we dined at Barracuda Restaurant. We walked around the local market beforehand and were deeply impressed by all the exotic foods (e.g. insects) and unique souvenirs for sale. We instantly wished we'd taken more more time to shop and experience the local Thai culture.

That longing quickly went away while experiencing a delectable dinner at Barracuda.

We played golf on Friday at Santiburi Samui Country Club. We were pleasantly surprised to find they required us to use caddies. It was Trish's and my first experience with such a luxury.

Our caddies were very helpful in telling us where to hit the ball, how hard to hit it and what club to use. Later, when talking to the GM at the hotel, I found out the real reason.

Brian: How was your day today?
Me: It was fun! We played golf at Santiburi and had caddies for the first time. By the third hole, I'd figured out why - there were no signs on the course, so we needed them to find our way.
Brian: No, that's not the reason. It's for the cobras. Lots of cobras out there - you need them to fight 'em off.
Me: WTF?!

I neglected to tell Trish about the cobras until we were on our flight home from Hawaii, since I figured they might be in Fiji too.

That evening, we enjoyed an intimate sunset cruise on a catamaran. There were only five passengers on the boat and the food was delightful.

We really enjoyed our honeymoon in Thailand. The W Retreat and its staff (especially Brian, Ice and Khun Nong) contributed greatly to our satisfaction and the food was deliciously spicy. Zenzibar, Angthong, Santiburi, Barracuda and the sunset cruise were breathtaking to experience and beautiful to photograph.

On Saturday, August 17, we boarded a flight from Koh Samui to Taveuni, Fiji (with layovers in Hong Kong and Nadi along the way).

In the next (and final) story from our honeymoon, I'll talk about the place that Trish has wanted to visit ever since she was a little girl. She grew up with a Fiji poster on her wall and longed to visit it someday. I was extremely happy to make her dream come true and to experience one of the most magical places on the planet.

We took around 1000 pictures in each country, but managed to widdle it down to ~20% that we loved. Trish's photos of Thailand can be found in Thailand 2013, while mine are in Around The World Honeymoon: 3rd Stop, Thailand.

Around The World Honeymoon: 2nd Stop, Italy

Matt Raible — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 14:33:36 -0600

In August, Trish and I journeyed on a 'round the world honeymoon, starting in Ireland and taking a train to Italy. The train ride from Paris to Turin, Italy was amazing. After a few hours, we passed through the Alps, where scenery was steep and plentiful. We drank wine and gazed out the window as we flew through the countryside. We arrived in Turin just before dark and our first official honeymoon tiff began.

Upon exiting the train station, I realized I didn't have any cash, having spent it in transit on vino. Phil had mentioned the hotel was "a short walk" from the station, so I figured we could walk a few blocks and stumble upon it. This only worked for a few blocks before Trish asked me if I had the address. I admitted that I did not, though it was on TripIt and I'd left the printout on the printer at home. Of course, with no phones or internet, TripIt did us no good. We stopped in at a bar to get the address from someone with a cell phone, then proceeded to walk for several blocks in the wrong direction. Then things got a lot better. We found an ATM, caught a cab and landed at our hotel (the NH Santo Stefano) 10 minutes later.

The next day, Tuesday August 6, we slept too late to feast on the hotel's breakfast. Just before noon, we strolled through the heat to Piazza San Carlo. A shaded cafe presented itself as appetizing and we sat down for a bite to eat.

Phil purchased Turin Cards for us and we promptly put them to use. The first recommended stop was the Egyptian Museum, or Museo delle Antichità Egizie. It has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts outside of Cairo. Its history is rich, with six and a half thousand objects on display, plus another 26,000 objects in storage.

We wandered around Turin a bit more that afternoon, then grabbed a nap at the hotel before heading to our first real Italian dinner. The food was exquisite, and the Barolo - delightful.

After dinner, we strolled down to the River Po and took in the nightlights and energy of Turin.

Our first full day in Turin was interesting, but Wednesday is when the fun began. Phil hooked us up with an Alfa Romeo for a rental car. We were were quickly impressed with its speed and nimbleness. The Italian drivers like to keep the road lines in the middle of their vision and they're not afraid to tell you when you're in their way. We sped off on the motorway to Alba (home of the Slow Food Movement), to embark upon The Langhe drive.

After stopping for lunch in Alba, we found ourselves at The Castello Cavour and its Enoteca Regionale Cavour. One was a castle, the other a wine tasting/store establishment.

The wine was tasty and we bought a few bottles before heading southwest toward La Morra. The panoramic view at the top was the most stunning I've ever seen.

On the way from La Morra to Barolo, we stopped to photograph a picture-perfect tree on a hill. The Cedar of Lebanon was planted in 1856 and is now about 50 ft (15 m) in height and visible from most of the villages and cities of Langhe. It doesn't take much to make it happy.

Maneuvering our speedy little car into Barolo, Marchesi di Barolo caught our eye, and we stopped in for a sample of their sweet nectar.

From there, we walked into town a bit more. We stumbled upon a place in the center with a glass elevator and incredible view. The path to Fatelli Di Barolo Castle was pretty spectacular too.

The drive back to Turin was fast and furious. It was about this time that we started to question if there were police patrolling the roads. We saw signs that indicated we were being monitored, but we didn't see any police cars. Later, someone told us it was all camera-based. With speeds ranging from 150-180kph for most of our motorway excursions, it's possible we'll be receiving some tickets in the mail.

For dinner on Wednesday, we enjoyed a delicious meal at a castle-like structure that overlooked the city.

Thursday, we woke up in time for breakfast, jumped in the car and drove like bats-outta-hell ~200km to Portofino. This is an Italian fishing village, with a picturesque harbour on the Italian Riviera. The tunnels we drove through were some of the coolest things I've ever seen on a road trip.

The view from the top of Castello Brown was beautifully captured by Trish. While she was taking pictures, I was enjoying a bottle of Barolo and admiring the Mediterranean.

Shortly after, we offered our wine to some Iranian ladies and had a stupendous time telling our respective stories.

That night, Trish shot a lightning-infused Piazza Castello on the drive home. It's quite possibly her best photo from the whole honeymoon.

Friday, we headed for the hills, taking a drive along the Valle d'Aosta. Rather than follow the recommendations in our guide book, we headed directly for Mont Blanc (the end destination). The tunnel phenomenon from Thursday continued; enabling us to drive straight through the mountains. We were hoping to ride over the top of Mont Blanc, but it wasn't open, so we had to take pictures, bask in one another's company and giggle at the awesome views.

We were thoroughly impressed with Fénis Castle on the drive back to Turin.

Friday evening delivered a reservation at Antica Trattoria Con Calma, where I chewed through my first escargot experience and savored the rabbit.

When we woke up Saturday morning, we hesitated between staying in Turin, visiting the National Cinema Museum and continuing The Langhe drive. We came to Italy for the gastronomy and the wine, so the decision was easy and we drove to Barbaresco.

Barbaresco was even better than we expected, especially our visit to Cantina Boffa Carlo. Next time, I have a feeling we'll be staying at the brilliant Boffa House.

We finished the day by driving through Mango, Benevello and Borgomale before turning around for our jaunt back to Turin. Saturday was a quiet night, where we got lots of rest in preparation for our Sunday journey to Thailand. This rest allowed us to get up early, pack, and venture to the Museo Nazionale del Cinema before our flight. The museum and its panoramic views were remarkable.

On Sunday, August 11, we boarded a flight from Turin to Koh Samui, Thailand (with stops in Istanbul and Bangkok along the way).

While it doesn't appear like we slowed down on the second week of our honeymoon, it was a very relaxing time for me. The lack of phones and computers provided more time in the day. There was more opportunities for conversations and reflection, and it was very special having constant interaction with my new wife.

Italy was fantastic. The Piedmont region's views, castles, wine and gastronomy were unbelievable. The Barolo and Barbaresco wines were exquisite and the driving experience was unmatched. I'd love to have some Italian Road Architects visit Colorado and build tunnels through our mountains!

In the next installment, I'll talk about our honeymoon in Thailand and its ocean views, people, spicy food and how we took a vacation from our vacation.

We collectively took around 1000 pictures in each country, but managed to widdle it down to ~20% that we loved. Trish's photos of Italy can be found in Italy 2013, while mine are in Around The World Honeymoon: 2nd Stop, Italy.

Around The World Honeymoon: 1st Stop, Ireland

Matt Raible — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 14:35:32 -0600

When I asked Trish where she wanted to go for our honeymoon, she suggested "Ireland, Italy, Thailand or Fiji". They all sounded like wonderful places, so we decided to visit them all! To book the trip, we contacted the Travel Guru, Phil Overton. Phil does all the travel arrangements for No Fluff Just Stuff, so I'd worked with him a bit in the past. Phil agreed to help us out and I sent him an email with countries and dates to get the ball rolling. We asked him to book us a flight out of Denver on July 31, returning on August 23rd, just in time for Jack's birthday party.

The week before we were scheduled to depart, I received our travel book (with itineraries and tickets), and confirmed everything looked good. At that point, all we knew was the dates were correct and we had hotels booked. That weekend, Trish and I got married. On Monday morning, July 30th, we drove back from Montana, arriving in Denver late that night. The next morning we had our first fight as a married couple.

Me: "You can't bring your phone."
Trish: "I'm bringing my phone! What if there's an emergency?"
Me: "There's not going to be an emergency! Besides, everyone knows our hotel information."
Trish: "I'M BRINGING IT!"
Me: "NO!! If you bring it, I can't tell the story about traveling the world without phones!"

-- Deadlock stare for 15 seconds without blinking --

Trish: "Fine!"

And off we went!

Rather than having checked luggage, we took carry-on bags only. No phones, no computers, and backpacks that only fit a few days worth of clothes. We dressed up in hopes of getting better seats on our flight to Ireland. It worked for getting drinks bought for us in Denver and Boston (our layover), but the guy sitting between us refused to swap seats.

We arrived in Ireland on Wednesday morning, July 31st. There we met our Irish Guides, Teres and Fergus. Fergus was the driver that Phil had arranged for us. He drove us across the country to Ballynahinch Castle, near Galway.

Ballynahinch Castle

We were immediately impressed by Ballynahinch, especially when we learned it was a Fly Fishing Mecca. And our room at the end of one wing was just like we'd imagined a Castle Honeymoon Suite to be. We had dinner at the castle restaurant that evening, enjoyed a pint or two, and retired early.

The next morning, we were up and at 'em by 6am and went for a misty 2-hour walk around the grounds.

Then we scarfed down a delicious Irish breakfast, complete with mimosas and liver.

One of the things that amazed me about Trish on the fateful night I met her was all the things she liked to do. She mentioned fly fishing (shortly after tele-skiing) as an interest; my heart leapt. My Grandpa, Oliver Hill, a kind-hearted man from Montana, was an expert fly fisherman. He'd taught me a few things as a kid, and it was a skill my mother possessed.

When we learned there was an opportunity to go fly fishing at Ballynahinch, we signed up. There was a crowd of fisherman in the pub that morning. Telling tall tales and warming by the fire. We quickly picked up that the salmon were big.

"How will we know the difference between salmon and trout?"
"Salmon will bend your pole in half!"

The gear was located just outside Fisherman's Pub, so we got dressed, grabbed our poles and got a lift up the road. We opted for the guideless tour, which means getting dropped off on our own for several hours. Our arrival was greated with light rain, and fish jumping all around.

It was simply the best day of fly fishing we've ever had, and we didn't catch a single thing.

After lunch and a nap, we headed for Trish's favorite outdoor activity: horseback riding. It was pretty awesome, once I figured out how to keep my calves from getting pinched by the saddle straps when galloping.

After horseback riding, Trish found a cool shot of an old boat and we stopped for a pint at Joyce's Bar. The pub's owner gave us a ride into Clifden for some live music and we giggled with glee when he said we could take our Guinness to go. If you've ever been to Ireland and driven their windy, narrow roads, you'll know that drinking out of a glass pint while riding in a car may not be the best idea for your teeth.

The Friday nightlife in Clifden was perfect, lively music, delicious Guinness and open late enough for us to almost get in trouble. We made it back to the castle in time for a last pint at 2am.

The hotel staff woke us up the next morning so we had time for breakfast. In fact, they took our order over the phone and brought it to us. We savored the meal and our view one last time, packed up (which was quick and easily with hardly any clothes), and ventured to the entrance to meetup with Fergus. The drive to Dublin was filled with storytelling, jokes and laughter. Fergus was an excellent storyteller and made a lasting impression on us.

Dublin

The Merrion Hotel provided our Dublin accommodations, right in the heart of the city near Trinity College. I stayed nearby in My Incredible Trip to Ireland two weeks before I met Trish, so it was familiar. The Hotel's Cellar Bar was our first stop after unpacking.

A stroll down Grafton Street was fun, as was the Double Rainbow over St. Stephen's Green.

We did a pub crawl that evening, stopping at O'Donoghue's and Toner's Pub before relishing a delectable meal at FX Buckley. The night drifted into darkness at Foley's and The Brazen Head. The Merrion greeted us with a 24-hour bar when we got back to the hotel and we quickly made friends with the bartender and the 20+ people that were up at 3am.

Saturday, we had the pleasure of sleeping in before meeting up with Fergus and our guide for the Guinness and Jameson Tours. The Gravity Bar at the top of the Guinness Storehouse was as crowded as ever.

The Old Jameson Distillery was equally impressive, and had a very entertaining distillery guide. We picked up a bottle of Midleton Very Rare on our way out. Since we were riding the train to Italy, we figured we had a week to finish before we had to deal with airport security.

We feasted at Pearl Brasserie that evening and turned in before the moonrise. The following morning, Fergus picked us up early and drove us to Dublin Port to get onboard the Holyhead Ferry. Our departure was a bittersweet moment as we did spend a lot of time with Fergus and drew to appreciate each other's company.

From Holyhead, we boarded a train to Paris, with a brief stop in London. We arrived late to the W Paris, discovered we didn't have a reservation, but were able to reserve one on-the-spot when they let me use their computer. My wife, the photographer, has fond memories of Paris from the last two times we visited this wonderfully romantic city. We strolled down the street to the Madeleine so she could snap the shot she's always wanted.

Breakfast provided by Angelina hit the spot, followed by a scenic boat tour along the Seine River. The Notre Dame looked majestic from the canal.

On Monday, August 5th we boarded a train from Paris to Torino Porta Susa, Italy.

As you can tell from this article, we really packed a lot in during the first 5 days of our honeymoon. However, these days stick in our memories as one of the warmest parts of the trip. The Irish people are so genuine, cheerful and loving towards us. It felt like a big hug, with lots of smiles and brilliant memories.

In the next article, I'll talk about our honeymoon in Italy and its wonderful food, fast cars, awesome tunnels and more incredible Trish Photos!

We collectively took around 1000 pictures in each country, but managed to widdle it down to ~20% that we loved. Trish's photos of Ireland are at Ireland 2013, while mine are at Around The World Honeymoon: First Stop, Ireland.

Matrimony in Montana

Matt Raible — Mon, 2 Sep 2013 13:01:53 -0600

On July 27, 2013, in the late afternoon, Trish McGinity and I were married at the Holland Lake Lodge, in the town I grew up in. The Lodge was a favorite childhood place and getting married there, to the awesomest woman ever, was a glorious experience. There were several planned activities (e.g. horseback riding, rafting, golfing) the week before our wedding day, and many of our friends and family joined the fun. While we couldn't capture every smile, giggle, or loving moment, this is an endeavor to document our matrimony month, our wedding week, and the day we sealed the deal.

We started our month in Montana on Sunday, June 30th. We're officially calling it Raible Road Trip #18. We packed up our pets, raft and golf clubs and left Denver around happy hour.

We stopped for the night in Billings, Montana and arrived at the cabin the next afternoon. For the past 5 years, my parents have been building their retirement cabin, also known as The House. The House is a modern log home, still restricted in size by the length of the logs. However, it's 3 stories tall and has running water, toilets and a dishwasher. It's a really incredible piece of work and the most beautiful log cabin I've ever seen.

Last summer, Trish and I were the first ones to sleep in The House (because the upstairs floor had just been finished). This summer, they were finishing up a gorgeous covered porch and putting the final touches on their guest room. They'd also spruced up The Cabin and The Bedroom (a separate cabin originally built as a sauna) into clean and comfy guest accommodations. We spent the first hour after our arrival admiring all their hard work. Then we proceeded to unload our truck and moved in for the month.

The next two weeks were spent working on The House, rafting, fishing and having a rousing good time. On our first river trip on The Blackfoot (Russell Gates to Roundup), we saw bald eagles, caught Rainbow Trout and giggled with glee as we pounded through the Class III rapids. Hauling our raft up a 100ft super-steep takeout at the end was a challenging, yet memorable experience.

The 2nd week in July, Trish took a business trip to Boston and I tried to get my parents to act retired. We did a nice float trip along the Swan River (Piper Creek to Fatty Creek Bridge), but caught no fish. We took my parents' good friends, Mike and Mai, on the Blackfoot through Box Canyon. One of the most memorable scenes in Norman Maclean's excellent book, A River Runs Through It, takes place here (the movie was filmed on the Gallatin River) [source]. We started at River Junction in the mid-afternoon and and finished 6 hours later and 7 fish richer at Russell Gates. This is when I realized how terrible I am at estimating river trip durations in Montana. It's a good thing it's light until 10pm because we got off the river 10 minutes before dark. This wouldn't be the first time.

In mid-July, Trish returned from Boston. Abbie and Jack flew in from Denver and we celebrated my birthday with golf at Eagle Bend, in Bigfork. We taught them how to ride motorcycles (a.k.a. dirt bikes) and did another Swan River float trip near Ferndale. This time, we had 25 people in various floating devices and were lucky enough to see a moose and her two calves on the river banks.

That weekend, the kids and I went camping with my good friend Owen and his family. Trish stayed at The Cabin to relax and get ready for The Wedding Week. We camped at Hungry Horse Reservoir and quite the adventure getting there. After one of Owen's boat trailer's hubs blew up, we made a trip to town to get replacement parts. 3 hours later, when trying to fix the hub with new parts, we discovered it was the wrong size. Meanwhile, Owen's wife, Dana, had drove our kids (all 6 of them, plus a friend) to Hungry Horse to get a camping spot. To fix our "boat stuck on a trailer in the middle of Salmon Prairie Road problem", we used a floor jack to jack it up and push it to the side of the road. Next, we borrowed Dana's Grandma's pontoon boat and tried to find everyone else before dark.

The Budweiser was cold, the air was chilly, and the pontoon's engine was full-throttle as we drove 27 miles (43 km) across the lake as the sun set. We arrived 10 minutes before dark, much to Dana's relief.

A just-graduated-from-college crew arrived at midnight and camped right next to us. They proceeded to crank their music, run chainsaws and disturb the whole campground until 3am. We thought we could return the favor in the early morn, but they were up and on their boat by 7.

We spent the rest of the weekend fishing, boating, picking wild huckleberries, and marveling at our neighbors' stamina. I felt deep gratitude when Owen's whole family gave me all their huckleberries to serve as dessert at our Rehearsal Dinner.

That Sunday, July 21st, the kids and I return to The Cabin just in time to meet Trish's parents. Our first out-of-town wedding guests had arrived.

The Wedding Week

The wedding week festivities began with Trish, the kids and I all moving into the "Moose Roost" cabin at Holland Lake. Our view of the lake and the Swan Range was spectacular.

Trish's sister, Claire, arrived on Monday, as did her good friend Joanna. Abbie and Jack got to meet the new mouse-hunters at The Lodge, Up and Over. That evening, after even more family arrived, we all went to dinner at the Hungry Bear.

On Tuesday, Trish took a crew hiking to Holland Falls, followed by horseback riding with Swan Mountain Outfitters.

Meanwhile, I took my sister, Aunt Mary, cousins and Jack on a trip down the Blackfoot. Our 6-hour float turned into an 8-hour long haul because of low water and lots of rocks. Nevertheless, we caught a trout, saw a bald eagle, shared lots of laughs and arrived back for dinner around 11pm. We had great timing since Trish said she'd start worrying about us 3 minutes before we pulled up. We had our first late-night campfire by the lake to welcome late-arriving friends.

Wednesday brought us a beautiful day of rafting on the Middle Fork of the Flathead near Glacier Park. We had 35 people spread out over 3 rafts and 3 kayaks, guided by Montana Raft Company. A glorious time was had by all!

That evening, we rushed back to the Swan Valley for dinner at my parent's place. As usual, our rafting trip took longer than expected and we had a caravan of cars driving up our front road around 8pm. My Mom (and friends) prepared a delicious bouquet of culinary options and many folks got to see The Raible Homestead for the first time. We continued our campfire-by-the-lake until 2am, with a full moon.

On Thursday, we held a golf tournament at the Double Arrow Golf Course. Since most folks had joined us for rafting the day before, the turnout was low. However, we still managed to have a great time and I really enjoyed golfing with my Dad and his brother, Jimmy. We had a great time eating Pitchfork Fondue at the Hungry Bear Steakhouse that evening.

Friday was a Lake Day, where we rented WaveRunners and spent the day playing in the water.

The Rehearsal Dinner was late that afternoon, followed by another after-party at the lakeside campfire. The picture below of Trish and Chris (our wedding officiant) is one of my favorites.

The late-night campfires created some of our fondest memories, mostly because we were hanging out with our best friends in the world. Those people that took time out of their lives to celebrate with us will always hold a special place in our hearts.

The Wedding

On the wedding day, we slept in to rejuvenate our bodies. I got to start the day with a massage while Trish headed to The Gordon Ranch (where her family was staying) to get ready. Cindy Koder, an amazing woman and hairstylist, went to work with all the girls' hair. I slipped in for a trim in the early afternoon, then headed back to the lodge to get ready.

Chris Caldes was our wedding officiant and did a fabulous job of creating the ceremony and adding her own spin on things. For the wedding party, I had Jack as my Best Son, my buddy Clint (from the time I almost slept in a snow cave) as my Best Man, Trish's brother Matt, and my soon-to-be nephews, Michael and Jamie. Trish had Abbie as her Maid of Honor, her sister Claire as her Best Woman, my sister Kalin and her nieces, Morgan, Shira and Julia. We had our awesome friends, Jen Hussey and Jason Barton, do readings that brought many smiles and tears.

The picture below of Trish and her Dad is one we will always cherish. In particular, we like how Christian (the owner of Holland Lake Lodge), is in the background making sure everything is OK. Christian and Karen (the wedding coordinator at The Lodge) were amazing in creating the perfect wedding experience for us. Trish likes to call them Angel #1 and Angel #2.

Chris began the ceremony with "Mawwage", immediately bringing a round of laughter and smiles from everyone. She spoke beautiful words about us and our story, and then our mother's lit kerosene lamps (like I grew up with at the cabin) in memory of our grandparents and Trish's Aunt Ellen Thomas. For our vows, I had a surprise in store for Trish. She read hers first, with heartfelt words and a very touching portion where she made promises to Abbie and Jack.

My surprise was that I'd written Trish a book. I based it off all the blog posts about our travels since we met and assembled it into a hard-cover book using Blurb. I composed it while she was in Boston in early July, completing it in under a week, with lots of late nights involved. It resulted in a splendid 162-page book, appropriately titled "The Good Life, Volume I". I started my vows with words from the last page of the book, and finished with words I'd written earlier in the day.

One of the fun moments during the ceremony was when Chris asked me if I took Trish as my lawfully-wedded wife. I croaked out a barely-audible "Yes", followed by a loud, could-be-heard-across-the-lake "YES!". Trish reciprocated with an equally loud affirmation and we were pronounced husband and wife shortly after.

We rowed away in our raft as our first married journey. It was smooth, blissful and fun - very similar to how we'd like our marriage to be.

The reception after the ceremony was a blast. Abbie brought down the house with her Maid of Honor speech, saying that Trish was "loyal, smart, pretty, funny ... oh wait, that's me". The DJ provided a great selection of music, we got almost everyone on the dance floor and Trish and I got to show off the moves we'd learned in preparation. Every time we peruse through the reception pictures, it brings a wide smile to our faces.

We ended our wedding day with lots of congratulations/goodbyes, yet another lakeside campfire, and friends like no other. It was truly a memorable day and I couldn't be happier to be married to the lovely Trish McGinity.

As you can imagine, there's lots of pictures from this event. My photos are all contained in a Matrimony in Montana collection, while Trish's are in My Amazing Wedding. Our wedding day photos were taken by Carrie Ann Photography.

The Trifecta 2013!

Matt Raible — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:25:09 -0600

The last time I pulled off a Trifecta (3 ski resorts in 3 days), it was in 2010. I hadn't met Trish yet and DU Hockey had started their we're terrible in the playoffs streak. Last weekend, I decided to go for it again, this time with fiancé and kids in tow. We originally intended to ski Friday afternoon, but Abbie had an important "Mayor Election" at school and we were unable to leave early. By the time we arrived in Winter Park, the lifts were closed.

When we drove to Steamboat on Saturday, we only intended to ski 2 days. We dressed up in our outfits and got ready for the warm, mashed-potato conditions on Steamboat's closing weekend.

The conditions weren't great, so we only skied for a couple hours. Then we hung out with Trish's friends (Jenn and Todd) for the rest of the afternoon, swimming and frolicking with our kids like good parents do. On Sunday, we woke up and checked the ski report. While Steamboat did get 8" of fresh powder, Copper had 13 inches! So we packed up the car, puppies, and kids and drove 2 hours to Copper. When we arrived, we weren't disappointed. The kids were loving it and the conditions were great.

When we stopped for lunch, I was a bit disappointed that our ski weekend was about to end. Then I checked the Winter Park forecast, was pleasantly surprised, and asked "Hey, kids - should we complete the Trifecta and skip school tomorrow?" Of course, they said "YES" and our plans were set. We did a couple more runs, listened to some good live music at the base, then headed to our mountain views in Winter Park.

Sunday night is when the fun started. I didn't call the kids in sick for school, nor did I call in sick for my current client. I simply told them both we had a unique opportunity to complete a Trifecta and the snow was too good to leave.

Monday morning we woke up to 7" of fresh powder and by the time we got to Mary Jane, it was knee-deep. The runs were unbelievable. I skied several bump runs on Mary Jane without ever hitting bottom. It snowed hard all day long and by 2pm, they'd closed Berthoud Pass. This meant we had to stay another night. Some friends were stranded, so we offered them to stay with us and we enjoyed a nice evening reminiscing about all the fluffy snow and face shots. The first photo below is the snow accumulation on Monday morning; the second is from Monday at Happy Hour.

Skiing a Trifecta with my family seems like a perfect way to end the ski season. However, it's been snowing all week and I've had several powder runs since Monday. It's snowed 37 inches in the past 7 days and there's more snow in the forecast this weekend. Winter Park's Springtopia starts tomorrow. Live music, fresh powder, the Nuggets in the playoffs and a place at the base with good friends.

The fun ain't over yet!

Paris and Iceland, A Photographer's Paradise

Matt Raible — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:31:24 -0600

In February 2012, Trish and I traveled to Stockholm on Icelandair. We were immediately impressed with the airline's excellent service. Trish was also a bit miffed that we had a layover in Iceland without an opportunity to get out and see the sites. You see, Iceland is a Photographer's Paradise, and she's the best photographer I know.

This year, when planning our trip to Devoxx France, I set out to correct this missed opportunity. Since Icelandair now flies direct from Denver, and offers free stopovers, our planning was easy.

The conference was in Paris; one of the most magnificent cities to photograph. Trish has some great photos from 2011. She'll be showing many of these photos at an upcoming exhibit at Paris on the Platte in Denver. However, she wanted more.

We arrived in Paris for Devoxx France on Tuesday, March 26th. The first day's excursion started with visiting the Latin Quarter, the Panthéon and Notre Dame.

We had a nice dinner that evening while watching the Fútbol match between France and Spain. On Wednesday, we hung around the hotel in the morning, then took the metro to La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre and Moulin Rouge.

From there, we journeyed to the Eiffel Tower for a hike. We climbed the stairs to the second floor and enjoyed the spectacular view.

Wednesday evening, we attended the Devoxx Speakers Dinner. We had a great time chatting and drinking wine with Martin Odersky, Guillaume Bort, the many Nicolas', James Ward and Josh Long.

On Thursday, I delivered my talk on Comparing JVM Web Frameworks in the early afternoon and did Play vs. Grails Smackdown with James Ward in the evening. I published an article about these talks the next day.

While I was talking about frameworks, Trish was galavanting around Paris taking some amazing photos.

Thursday night, we had a wonderfully authentic French dinner with many of the folks from the conference. Around midnight, Trish captured the beauty of Les Invalides.

On Friday, we slept in a bit and then headed to the airport for our flight to Iceland. A few hours later, we were snuggled into the cozy bar at Hotel Reykjavik Centrum. A few hours after that and we were bouncing up and down on a Super Jeep tour to see the Northern Lights. Our driver kept telling us "if you believe, it will happen". And boy oh boy, did it ever. The green and purple lights dancing in the sky overhead were mind-blowing!

Saturday came quickly after a late night, and we opted for a scenic tour of the area by helicopter.

Saturday evening, we journeyed through the ages with a tour and tasting at the Icelandic brewery Ölgerðin. The Grillmarkadurinn restaurant afterward was delicious.

Easter Sunday was our last day in Iceland and we enjoyed most of it at the Blue Lagoon. Despite the plethora of tourists, the hot springs, saunas and cold beer were a lovely way to prepare for the long road home.

Visiting Iceland and photographing the Aurora Borealis was an awesome experience. Speaking at Devoxx France, photographing Paris and having lots of good times with new (and old) friends was equally delightful. For more pictures of our travels, see my Paris and Iceland Album or Trish's Devoxx France, Iceland or Northern Lights albums.

Devoxx France: A Great Conference in a Magnificent City

Matt Raible — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:14:30 -0600

This week, my lovely fiancé and I traveled to the City of Light. Our journey was designed around some speaking engagements at Devoxx France. Devoxx is one of my favorite conference franchises and Devoxx France has been special to me ever since the Devoxx (Belgium) I spoke at in 2011.

2011 was the year I spoke about my experience with Play, Scala, CoffeeScript and Jade. I wrote the presentation on my flight over, composed the demo video the night before and made it all happen in the nick of time. Of course, this was after 120 hours of research and preparation, so the presentation composition process had all the data I needed. You can imagine my sense of relief after pulling off that talk and getting an enthusiastic applause from the audience for my efforts.

One of the first audience questions I received was from Nicolas Martignole, asking if I'd speak at Devoxx France the following year. I whole-heartedly agreed to do it and was excited for the opportunity. It was with great disappointment that I later found out I couldn't attend Devoxx France in 2012. My client didn't like me taking so much time off and I agreed to scale my two week vacation back to 1 week. This year, I was determined to go, so I submitted some of my favorite talks: Comparing JVM Web Frameworks and The Play vs. Grails Smackdown with James Ward. I was extremely pleased when they both got accepted.

Side Story: I met Martin Odersky shortly when he sat down next to me for the Java Posse presentation in Belgium in 2011. After shaking his hand and introducing myself, I had to politely ask him to leave because it was Trish's seat. Talk about awkward; but Martin was very gracious and promptly found a new seat close by.

Comparing JVM Web Frameworks
Both talks required a bit of updating. For Comparing JVM Web Frameworks, I started reading The Paradox of Choice and found many parallels to the agony that developers experience with choosing a web framework. I described how I didn't think good framework decisions were based on the many, many features that frameworks have, but often on pre-defined constraints. There's those lucky developers that get to choose a Full Stack Framework because they're doing greenfield development. Then there's those that want a better Pure Web Framework that replaces something (e.g. Struts) that's not satisfying their needs. And lastly, there's those that've found it possible to leverage a SOFEA and use a JavaScript MVC framework with an API Framework on the backend. I don't think it makes sense to compare all web frameworks and I tried to use these pre-defined constraints (language, platform and application type) argument to separate into categories and help make choosing easier.

I took out the parts of the presentation that've pissed people off in the past - particular the JSF bashing by James Gosling, the Rails gushing from Craig McClanahan and the Pros and Cons sections of each framework. I added the history of web frameworks and research from InfoQ and devrates.com.

The best part of the JVM Web Frameworks talk was the audience's reaction and enthusiasm. Devoxx always seems to attract passionate developers and Devoxx France was no different. Developers packing the room, clapping after your intro, laughing at your jokes, signifying that they agree with you about JSF. As a speaker, it's an unbelievable experience.

You can view my Comparing JVM Web Frameworks presentation below or on Slideshare.net.

Play Frameworks vs. Grails Smackdown
To prepare for James Ward and my Play vs. Grails Smackdown, we had a number of goals. First of all, we wanted to update our apps to use the latest versions of each framework. I documented what it took for Grails, James just checked in his code to GitHub. It was interesting to see that Grails 2.0.3 -> 2.2.1 caused a number of issues with testing, while Play 2.0.3 -> Play 2.1.0 required API changes, but nothing for tests. Secondly, we updated all the stats for our pretty graphs and ran load tests again.

This is where the fun started. On Tuesday evening, I decided to challenge the notion that Play was twice as fast as Grails. James had proven this with Apache Bench tests. With Play 2.0 and Grails 2.0 (last summer), we clocked Play at 251/requests per second and 198 for Grails. After upgrading each app to the latest releases, we found the numbers to be 233/second for Play and 118 for Grails.

However, Apache Bench only tests until the first byte is received. Since I've done a lot of browser optimizations recently, I fired up whichloadsfaster.com, captured a screenshot and added it to our presentation. The next day, James added a CDN and a bunch of caching to his app and re-ran his AB tests.

Now he was smoking Grails, so I added a CDN and caching as well. However, the best I could do was just over 1000/requests per second, while he was around 2200/second. When he ran live tests during our talk, Play was around 2800/sec and Grails was around 900.

It was great to see how much better performance we could get with caching and a CDN. The best part is this should be available to most applications, not just these frameworks. By adding a CDN (we used Amazon CloudFront) and caching, we were both able to 10x the performance of our apps. You can find our presentation here or view it below.

Summary
This was a very enjoyable conference to attend as a speaker. First of all, it was in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but it's also a very special place for Trish and I. We got engaged just outside of Paris in Versailles after the last Devoxx conference I spoke at. Trish has some amazing photos from that trip. Secondly, the Devoxx conference attracts a special kind of developer - one that is passionate about and eager for knowledge. Lastly, speaking with my good friend James, in an exotic city about something we love - that was special. Asking for beers and having them brought to us at the start of our Smackdown. That was magical (thanks Nicolas!).

To all the Devoxx organizers and crew - well done on a great show!

Magnificent Mexico

Matt Raible — Tue, 5 Mar 2013 10:53:53 -0700

On October 30th, 2012, shortly after I'd woke up, I received an email from my old friend Jess (of Jess and Lili's Legendary Wedding). Its subject: "Wanna go to Mexico?"

We are taking a trip to Mexico Feb 16-24 with some friends from here and have one spot that just came open in the house we are all renting together. It's a sweet spot, 1 hour north of Puerto Vallarta. It has seven bedrooms each with own bathroom, a cook, private beach and nice pool, link below. Works out to about $1100 per week per couple.
...
http://www.laspalapas.tv/home.html

As you can imagine, I was immediately enticed by the opportunity. I checked my schedule, verified they had high-speed internet and responded We're IN! a couple hours later.

A couple weeks ago, we embarked on this journey and had a great time. The house was awesome, the company was fantastic and the views were spectacular. Not only that, but the town we stayed in (Chacala) was very authentic. No resorts, hardly any paved roads and nary a tourist in sight.

We didn't take our kids, but a few families did, resulting in 19 people total. Everyone got along swimmingly, the home-cooked meals were wonderful and the weather was beautiful.

For the most part, we didn't do much throughout the week. I had to work, so I spent my days on the computer with an occasional break to play a game of volleyball. I experienced the same issue I did in Maui and Kauai last year, where my MacBook Pro couldn't find my hard drive. Yeah, it's a first-world problem: my laptop tries to stop me from working when I'm on a beach. Luckily, I had a backup (external) hard drive that I could plugin and work from.

We did a whale watching and snorkeling trip on a Catamaran one afternoon. We didn't get any good whale pictures, but we had many sightings.

I only ventured into Chacala once, but found it to have a lovely beach, good music, and tasty restaurants.

Thanks to Jess and everyone else for inviting us to this magnificent place in Mexico. We had a great time, made a lot of new friends and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

For more photos, see my Mexico 2013 Album or Trish's Mexico Trip 2013!

November Travels to Kauai and Wenatchee

Matt Raible — Wed, 5 Dec 2012 20:59:00 -0700

For the last two Novembers, we've celebrated Abbie's birthday, watched the Broncos beat the Chiefs and then headed to Antwerp, Belgium for Devoxx.

2010 was awesome. 2011 was even better.

This year, we chose to celebrate my parent's 40th wedding anniversary instead. It wasn't a hard choice, since they chose Hawaii as their destination of choice. After visiting last year and this summer, we're pretty much in when anyone suggests Hawaii. We got our flights for $10, rented an awesome beach-front house and had a great time with my parents and sisters.

Below was the view from our backyard.

The purpose of this post is to 1) show off some of Trish's spectacular photos and 2) tell you a bit about what we enjoyed.

First of all, the location was fantastic. If you get a chance to stay at Nani Nani Hale, I highly recommend it. We could walk to the beach in seconds and spent a few hours each day on the lanai, enjoying each other's company, playing games, napping and reading. The sunsets were spectacular.

We felt like we never had to leave and really enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere.

When we did leave, we played golf, went stand up padding or surfing.

We did a lot of surfing; almost every day.

It was awesome seeing my parents so happy after all these years.

And it was great spending so much time with my family and their long-time friends Mike and Mai from Montana.

Thanksgiving in Wenatchee
We flew back from Hawaii on Monday, November 19th. A red eye brought us to Denver, where we picked up Abbie and Jack and headed to Washington on Wednesday.

My sister and her wife recently moved from Chelan to Wenatchee and Thanksgiving at their house was the name of the game. My parents were already there, since they started their journey to Hawaii from Seattle. We rented another nice VRBO and enjoyed ourselves while cooking, watching football, playing games, hot-tubbing and watching movies.

I love Trish's panorama of Wenatchee in the early morn.

The kids had fun...

As for the adults? I'll let the photo speak for itself.

For more pictures, see Trish's Kauai 2012 and Wenatchee 2012 albums.

Cruising around the Western Caribbean

Matt Raible — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 18:05:57 -0600

I've heard great things about Disney Cruise Lines from friends, especially as a fun adventure for kids. That's why I was super pumped to talk my family into going on a Western Caribbean Cruise for Spring Break. As you might've read in my last post, we spent a week in Crested Butte before embarking on our cruise.

While in Crested Butte, I enjoyed the Java Posse Roundup, but unfortunately had to do client work most of the week. However, that didn't stop James Ward, Trish and me from building a Shot-Ski and doing a 5-minute lightning talk on it. We had a great time doing research, getting locals to help us out and beta testing it with JPR attendees. I'll write a blog post on what we learned in the near future. In the meantime, you can check out Trish's Making a Shot-Ski photos.

We left Crested Butte on Thursday (March 29th) and drove back to Denver to meetup with my parents (who drove down from Montana). Friday morning we hopped on a plane and flew to Orlando, Florida and took a bus to Port Canaveral. Abbie and Jack were at their Grandma's in West Palm Beach, so Trish's parents picked them up on their drive up from Naples. We all met with near perfect timing and boarded the Disney Magic around 4 o'clock Friday afternoon.

We were immediately impressed with our rooms (we had 3 staterooms next to each other on the 5th floor forward) and their nice portal windows. We saw dolphins jumping in Port Canaveral as we departed and witnessed a horn battle between our ship and the Disney Fantasy. The Disney Fantasy was embarking on its maiden voyage and we saw it many times throughout the trip. That evening, we ventured to the first dinner seating (at 17:45). We were pleased to find out we'd have the same servers all week, at different restaurants throughout the ship.

Key West
Saturday morning, we arrived in Key West and had from 12am-9pm to explore. We took a tour in Key West and learned a lot about the history and architecture of the town. Last time we visited Key West, I was super impressed with Mel Fisher Maritime Museum. It was fun to show it to everyone and we savored some tasty beverages at Margaritaville afterward.

We returned to the ship for dinner that evening and enjoyed the service of Omar (our main server) and Marijah (his assistant) once again. A couple hours laster, the boys (minus Jack) returned to shore to do some bonding. We wandered about, set a match to some cigars and made it back on the ship before it departed. We spent the remainder of the evening in the ship's Sports Bar watching March Madness and talking about Trish and my upcoming wedding.

Sunday was a day at sea and we made the most of it. Lots of swimming, relaxing, playing with kids and enjoying each other's company. The ship had two different places that you could drop your kids off and Abbie (9) had a lot of fun attending their activities. Jack wasn't that into it and spent most of his day visiting the soft-serve ice cream machine. That evening, Trish and I journeyed to a romantic dinner at the ship's 18-and-older restaurant and celebrated our 1-year "moved in together" anniversary.

Grand Cayman
Monday, we arrived at Grand Cayman early in the morning and were ashore by 8am. We had a snorkeling expedition planned so promptly gathered and headed out to sea on a snorkeling boat. The weather was beautiful, the water was warm and snorkeling around a shipwreck was a very memorable experience.

We visited the Hard Rock cafe to get my Dad a t-shirt, purchased some Tobago Rum Cakes and finished with a tour of the new Cayman Islands National Museum. We were back on the ship by 4 so our parents could have their own romantic dinner that evening.

Cozumel
Tuesday morning, we woke up in Cozumel. Trish and my parents headed to shore for some exploring while I slept in with the kids and ate at the "something for everyone" breakfast buffet. In the afternoon, we all headed to shore for a submarine ride. The submarine adventure was very cool, going down 120 ft. and even taking us to the edge of a cliff on the ocean floor. We got to see several schools of fish, loads of coral reef and even a sea turtle swimming along the bottom.

The highlight of Cozumel was Manuel. After the submarine ride, we took a taxi to a restaurant with a great view and had a couple margaritas and some excellent steak tacos. While we were finishing up, a man walked up to us and asked if we wanted him to play us a song on his guitar. We said yes and gave him our small change ($1.75) for his serenade.

Shortly after, we got up to leave the restaurant and walk back to the ship. That's when Trish came up with a brilliant idea and asked Manuel if he'd be willing to walk with us around town and play music the whole time. She offered him $20 and he quickly agreed.

What followed was lots of laughs, smiling and dancing through the streets of Cozumel. Not only from us, but also from many of the locals. Manuel was an excellent mariachi musician and provided an exciting sense of celebration around us for the next 20 minutes.

Wednesday was another day at sea as we traveled from Cozumel to Disney's private island in the Bahamas: Castaway Cay. We got a kick out of the ship's activities, from Beer Tasting to watching the John Carter movie in 3D. I snapped some sweet photos that night as we were watching the sun set over the horizon.

Castaway Cay
At first, I thought Castaway Cay was going to be like Disney World, just on an island. I was expecting all kinds of rides and an amusement park. I was surprised to find it was nothing like that, but more of a private beach with all kinds of bars, games, water sports and even a water slide. The kids had a blast building sand castles, learning how to play checkers and exploring the island. I had a massage to the sound of ocean waves in the afternoon and we hopped back on the ship around 5 that afternoon.

That night, we had to pack up our luggage by 10 and put it out so it could be checked into our flight the next day. Disney did an awesome job of handling our luggage both to and from the cruise. All we had to do was attach bag tags in Denver and our bags arrived at our room shortly after boarding. On the way home, we gave them our bags on Thursday night and didn't see them until arriving in Denver.

The last morning on the Disney Magic was a bit early. We had to be at breakfast at 6:45, were off the ship by 8 and at the Orlando airport by 9. Our flight was at 7 that night, so we suddenly found ourselves with 9 hours of free time and nothing to do.

LEGOLAND
Last year around this time, Jack was struggling in school and getting in trouble almost every-other-day. In an attempt to promote good behavior, I told him I'd take him to LEGOLAND if he had 10 days in a row of good behavior. This didn't seem to help and we ended the school year with no trip planned. However, when this school year started, he had excellent behavior (which has continued all year) and quickly remembered my promise.

As we were sitting in Orlando's airport, I remembered this promise and 30 minutes later we had a car rented and were driving to see some legos. We spent a joyous day there, riding the few rides they had and marveling over all the things you could build with legos. It was a fun way to end our wonderful vacation.

This cruise was a first for myself, my kids and my parents. We were extremely impressed with Disney's Customer Service and have never felt more pampered in our lives. All the crew we interacted with knew our names by the second days and were some of the most kid-friendly people I've ever met. The food was excellent, the weather was beautiful and the activities were plentiful. It wasn't until the last night that we realized there were 15 bars on the ship, and by that time it was too late for a pub crawl. Oh well, there's always next time.

For more pictures from our Disney Magic voyage, see our photos on Flickr.

Our Engaging Trip to Paris and Antwerp

Matt Raible — Sun, 4 Dec 2011 16:02:34 -0700

If you're a technologist, you should attend the Devoxx conference at least once in your life. It's one of the finest conferences on the planet. If you're a fan of Belgian beer, you owe it to yourself to visit Belgium to savor a taste. If you're a romantic, Paris is a recommended destination. Since I'm a technologist, love Belgian beer and consider myself a romantic, I went for the trifecta a couple weeks ago on what's becoming an annual trek to Devoxx. When Trish and I traveled to Devoxx last year, we flew to Amsterdam and took the train to Antwerp. This year, we decided to fly to Paris and take the train.

Much like last year, we witnessed another Broncos over Chiefs victory the Sunday before we left. That night, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning finishing my Devoxx presentation. We left Denver around noon and met up with James Ward at the Red Carpet Club in Chicago. While sipping cocktails and catching up, I wrote a blog post about how PhoneGap rescued me a couple days earlier.

We slept soundly on the flight over, thanks to little sleep the night before. After arriving in Paris, we took the train to the the Notre Dame de Paris and had some breakfast nearby.

We were planning on exploring throughout the day, but quickly realized that hauling our bags around was no fun and headed to Gare du Nord to catch a Thalys train to Brussels. We gasped at the cost of two first-class tickets, but soon forgot when we settled into our seats with free wi-fi, Belgian beers and power. After talking a local train to Antwerp, we finished our 21-hour journey by checking into the Hilton Antwerp in the city center. We were warmly welcomed with excellent Belgian beers on ice in our room and celebrated with a delicious meal at De Godevaart.

On Wednesday, I headed to Devoxx and attended a couple of great talks: Play 2.0, A web framework for a new era and PhoneGap for Hybrid App Development. As you can imagine, both talks were extremely interesting for me since I'd been using Play for several months and was recently saved by PhoneGap. Play 2.0 Beta was announced just before the Play talk and my blog post about the Play 2.0 session was picked up by Hacker News and the hits rolled in.

That afternoon, I headed back to my hotel with James Ward and met up with Trish for a couple beers. We spent a few hours in our hotel lobby updating presentations, editing videos, editing photos and getting ready for our talks on Thursday. That evening, we enjoyed a scrumptious dinner in the dungeon-like Pelgrom and conversations with Kevin Nilson, Sadek Drobi, Guillaume Bort and David Geary. I was pleased to find out from Sadek and Guillaume that Play 2.0 will include many fast website best practices, including concatenation, minification and gzipping of static assets. We retired early to get a good night's sleep before my talk on Thursday.

On Thursday, both Trish and I journeyed to Devoxx to watch James Ward talk about how to deploy Java, Play Framework, and Scala apps on Heroku. My talk was an hour later and I gulped as I stood up front and watched the (very large) auditorium fill up with Devoxxians. Since I'd never rehearsed my talk or timed it, I was a bit nervous. Luckily, it ended up being one of my best-timed performances and there was even time for Q and A at the end. You can imagine the smile on my face as AC/DC's Thunderstruck blasted through the speakers during my video demo. After my talk finished, it was great to see all the positive feedback on Twitter and enjoy an "Atlas Beer" while watching Java Posse Live.

That evening, we had dinner with the Java Posse crew and James Ward before heading to the Devoxx Party @ Noxx.

Yes, we had an awesome time at Devoxx. I was pleased with the positive response from my talk and learned a bunch from the few talks I attended. Thanks to Stephan for inviting me and organizing one of the best conferences I've ever attended. For our last night in Antwerp, we dined at Huis De Colvenier and especially enjoyed our aperitif in the 19th-century wine cellar.

Paris and Beyond
This brings us to my favorite part of this story. I was pretty stressed leading up to our departure to Devoxx because I had so many deadlines. I had a deadline with my current client to finish up some features before I left, I had to finish my Devoxx presentation (and app developed for the talk) and I had a secret deadline to finish my proposal to Trish. That's right, I was planning on proposing marriage to my dream girl. I mean, we were going to the diamond capital of the world (Antwerp) and one of Earth's most romantic cities (Paris). It seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask her to marry me. We did some ring shopping before we left Denver, but she didn't realize I had purchased one before we left.

We're both big music fans, so I decided months earlier that I would propose with lines from songs we both liked. Of course, I waited until the last minute to compose my prose, but I did finish it before we left for Europe. However, with all the Devoxx shenanigans, I didn't have time to memorize my proposal. Instead, I recorded it using the "Voice Memos" on my iPhone. I did this in the wee hours of the morning on Friday, while I was watching the Broncos game on the internet.

Saturday afternoon, we traveled to Paris via Thalys and checked into our hotel around sunset. When we stepped outside an hour later, I remember saying to Trish, "the Eiffel Tower looks pretty small, I thought it'd be bigger". After walking for a bit, it turned from small to big to huge. My plan that night was to propose on the tower. As Trish snapped pictures along our walk, I was taking out the piece of paper I had the proposal printed on and trying to memorize it. As you can imagine, I had to to this stealthily and by the time we reached the Eiffel Tower, I had enough memorized to propose. We arrived around midnight and were disappointed to find it was closed. This terminated my proposal plans for that night, but we still enjoyed the sparkling tower lights and took several pictures.

The next day, Sunday, we traveled to the Château de Versailles. This was a recommendation from my good friend Eric, who had recently traveled to Paris with his wife, Heather. In fact, I owe a lot to Eric. He recommended we extend our trip to Paris (he'd traveled there disgruntled about not doing a beach vacation, then fell in love with the city) and suggested a number of great locations to visit. He also recommended proposing in the Gardens of Versailles, a very romantic location according to him. I had this in the back of my mind as we did an audio tour through the Palace of Versailles. As we ventured out into the Orangerie, I started hatching a plan to get Trish down to the gardens and try to rent bikes. We both love biking and the outdoors, so I figured it'd be a nice way to spend our memorable moment. As we strolled closer and I didn't see bikes to rent, I spotted the Grand Canal and noticed they had row boats.

When we first arrived at the boat dock, there was a long line, but it magically disappeared moments later. We stepped into the boat, rowed to the center of the canal and paused for a bit to take in the beautiful day and the setting sun. Trish asked me to row to a better spot so she could photograph the sunset, but instead I said "here, listen to this" and handed her my headphones. I pressed play and watched her face light up as she heard my voice in her ears. 90 seconds later, I asked "Trish McGinity, will you marry me?" She responded with, "Of course!"

The rest of our trip in Paris was quite romantic and fun. We decided to wait until we got back to The States before telling anyone we were engaged. This meant we had three days of just us, Paris and some of the most beautiful art in the world. We explored the Louvre for 5-hours on Monday, marveling at the low-rider on display near the entrance and all the famous paintings.

We imbibed in $40 martinis at The Hemingway Bar and scarfed down some delicious pizza at Gambino's. We had breakfast at Angelina's, toured La Sainte-Chapelle, hiked up Arc de Triomphe and wandered through the shopping districts Champs-Élysées and Faubourg St-Honoré. Yes, we fell in love with Paris and can't wait to return for Devoxx France in April.

We departed Paris on the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving and arrived in Boston that evening. We spent the next three days with Trish's family and our good friends, Chris, Julie, Lili and Wes. We did a 5K Turkey Trot on Thursday morning, followed by football watching and eating succulent turkey while basking in everyone's joy for us. We smiled, giggled, laughed, guffawed, smiled some more and had an all-around great time the rest of the weekend.

We returned home on Sunday evening, departing Boston's Logan airport only minutes after the Broncos kicked a field goal in overtime to beat the Chargers. Our flight was delayed just long enough (3 hours) that we got to watch almost the whole game. It was the perfect ending to a phenomenal trip.

To see more pictures from this adventure, see Trish's fantastic photos and mine on Flickr.

Oregon, Cape Cod and Fun in Winter Park

Matt Raible — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:50:52 -0600

I'm proud to say it's been almost a month since my last blog entry. This can only mean one thing → I've been having too much fun to blog. The good news is I finally found time to write about our recent adventures, so grab yourself a tasty beverage and read on.

Within hours of my last blog post, Trish and I hopped on a plane to visit my good friends, Clint and Autumn, in Oregon. We flew into Portland and spent the weekend hiking in Silver Falls and drinking good beer at the Oregon Brewers Festival and Edgefield. Edgefield is one my favorite places on Earth, encapsulating a farm/resort environment with 27 different features. The features range from a soaking pool to a winery to a pool hall to scotch tasting in a shack next to a garden.

The weekend was especially fun since Autumn was pregnant and it was two weeks before the due date of their first child. Broderick Jordan Wilburn Foster was born yesterday and I hear the whole family is doing well.

Trish and I spent the night at Edgefield on Saturday and caught an early flight from Portland to Boston the next morning. Her brother (also named Matt) lives near Boston and we drove our rental Volvo convertible (to fit in with the New Englanders) to his house Sunday night. On the Hertz Bus from the airport met Nigel Parry, a professional photographer. Not just anybody, but someone that's shot pictures of some very famous people. Trish is also a photographer, so they had a long conversation and it inspired her to resign from her sales job last week. Actually, it wasn't that meeting, she's been wanting to be a famous photographer since she was in high school. Now that dream shall happen. She's awesome.

On Monday afternoon, we picked up Abbie and Jack from the Boston airport. They flew up from West Palm Beach on their first unaccompanied minors flight. We drove them to Cape Cod and settled into Trish's parents house near the water. The rest of the week, we had a blast with our friends Chris and Julie and the entire McGinity clan. We boated, grilled, flew down the water slides, played miniature golf and toured Martha's Vineyard. We had a pool party, played some pool and sang our hearts out at karaoke. Trish's brother's kids are the same age as mine, so you couldn't wipe the smiles off our kids' faces, especially when we had the tunes cranked with the top down on the convertible.

For more pictures of this super-fun trip, see Summer Fun in Oregon and Cape Cod part 1 and 2.

After returning from Boston, we had a week without kids and lived it to the fullest with a John Butler Trio concert at Red Rocks and the Winter Park Beer Festival. Trish's friend Joanna and my good friend, "The Professor" joined us for a weekend of mountain biking and sweet mountain views. We even got to hang out with James Ward and his wife Jenny at the beer festival. Sunday, we hiked up the beautiful Columbine Lake Trail. Trish's dog, Sagan (named after Carl) chased sticks and was his crazy self as usual.

We drove back Monday morning to be there for the kids first day of school. They sure start early these days don't they?

I rode my bike 168 miles to and from work throughout the following week. The next weekend, we took the kids up to the Ski Shack for their first time. I hired a guy to make queen-size bunk beds for them, so they had a blast in their new roomy beds. On Saturday, we had a garage sale since the previous owners left a bunch of beds and couches and we didn't need all that furniture. The turnout was great and we got to hang out with Jodi and James, Suzie, and The Lamonts. All of these folks are old friends that just happened to be in the mountains for the weekend. One of Trish's best friends, Chris, has a place less than a mile from us and we had a blast with her on Saturday night. Thanks for the fun memories Chris!

On Sunday, we took the kids the Winter Park Base Area where they have Disneyland in the Mountains as I like to call it. An alpine slide, miniature golf, a maze, a climbing wall and a Chili Cook-Off to keep Daddy happy. We met our good friend Suzie there and had a lot of fun with Chris, Brice and their crazy kids. Enjoying an Avery White Rascal at the Cheeky Monk's happy hour was the perfect way to end the day.

Sunday night, we were graced with the presence of a beautiful sunset.

That pretty much catches you up-to-date with the goings on in my life. As you can tell, it's been a great summer so far. I'm really looking forward to the fall too. Broncos season, a trip to Hawaii, learning new technologies, talking about them at Devoxx and a new gig.

I've decided to leave Overstock because I'm a die-hard Broncos fan and I can't work for a company that supports the Raiders during football season. There's a good chance I'll be back after the season, just in time for The Greatest Snow on Earth.

This weekend, my parents are meeting us in Winter Park for Labor Day weekend. We plan on fishing, hiking, smiling and enjoying each other's company a whole lot. Tomorrow is Jack's birthday. I gotta run ... it's time to go buy a bike, play a little golf, hit the pool and go to the BBQ before tonight's CD Release Party.

4th of July Adventures in Montana

Matt Raible — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 09:24:54 -0600

Montana is one of my favorite places on earth, especially the The Cabin. Like last year and the year before, I spent a couple weeks at the cabin for this year's 4th of July. Last year was interesting because I met Trish two days before my vacation. This year, she joined me for the 2nd week, along with her Dad. It was also the "90s Reunion" for the Seeley Swan High School, which I attended my freshman and sophomore year.

My parents have lived at the cabin for a little over a year now, having retired there last year. It now looks like it did when we were kids. That is, it feels like home rather than just a cabin in the woods. Their retirement cabin is coming along nicely and the finished bathroom with a toilet + shower provides a nice break from the outhouse and sauna. It was interesting to see all the logging being done on The Homestead. My parents hired someone to clean things up and it looks great so far. They're not clear-cutting, just thinning the forest to reduce fire danger and give more resources to the big trees.

There were several highlights of the trip, but one of my favorites was our Float in the Swan Valley Parade. Abbie came up with the idea (Happy Birthday America) and we decorated an old trailer with streamers, balloons and a birthday cake to celebrate. Abbie made up a song and sang it throughout the entire parade (with a portable microphone and amp). We all got dunked afterwards, drank some cheap beer and had lots of fun fiddlin' and swinging. The fireworks that night were epic and Trish and I were amazed late night when we smiled on a crowded campfire with many of my parents' old friends.

The next day, we woke up, recovered a bit and then headed for Glacier National Park. We spent the afternoon at Big Sky Waterpark and had a great night's rest at Glacier Mountain Lodge. Trish woke up early the next morning for some sunrise shots at Lake McDonald and we enjoyed a short hike to Avalanche Lake that afternoon. Unfortunately, Going-to-the-Sun Road was closed due to snow so we were unable to drive to the top. 2011 is the latest they've ever opened.

The rest of our vacation was spent doing early morning airport runs, riding the 4-wheeler, golfing and hanging out with old friends. For the trip home, we took the scenic route, driving through Yellowstone and Grand Teton. We stopped along the way to spend the night at Jackson Lake Lodge, shortly after marveling at a Grizzly Bear and her two cubs along the highway. Trish snapped some some magnificent sunset and sunrise photos and we packed up the car for the final journey home. After being gone for 3 weeks, I've never seen the kids happier to cross the Colorado State Line.

As far as vacation destinations go, Montana is one of my favorites. This year was special because I had the pleasure of sharing it with Trish. She's always wanted to photograph Glacier National Park and the Grand Tetons and we were lucky enough to visit both. I also got to share a lot of smiles and memories with old classmates and friends. I experienced the joy of seeing my parents back home, living as Montanans once again and loving every minute of it. I smiled proudly as Abbie thought up the "Happy Birthday America" float and then sang on it the whole way through the parade. I simply loved spending so much time with my family in such a beautiful place.

Finally, I'd like to share a picture montage that Trish put together of the trip. Below that are some of her best shots from our adventures. As always, you can find see my latest photos on Flickr.

A Sweet Trip to Switzerland for Jazoon 2011

Matt Raible — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:52:33 -0600

I've always enjoyed speaking at conferences, especially those in exotic locations. Earlier this year, I saw Jazoon's call for papers and thought, "I've never been to Switzerland, sounds fun!" I proceeded to submit a talk, got accepted and booked a trip with my girlfriend, Trish. We left Denver last Tuesday and arrived in Zürich on Wednesday around noon. After settling into our awesome accommodations at Hotel Opera, we journeyed to the conference location, which was held at a movie theater.

We were quickly impressed when we learned the conference had reserved a theater for an evening showing of The Hangover 2. We grabbed some drinks from the bar and settled in for a couple hours of giggling and barely staying awake from jetlag.

Zürich quickly made an impression on us the first day. We experienced its excellent transportation system (trains, trams, buses and boats) and saw a number of fancy cars (a Bently, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari). Prices were high, but the food was excellent.

On Thursday, we woke up and Trish realized she'd left her expensive Nikon lenses on our flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam. This realization hit her hard and she scrambled to try and find them by contacting the airlines. I rushed off to the conference to catch Frank Kim's What Every Developer Should Know About Application Security. This was a great session and I especially enjoyed that he selected Apache Roller as the application to hack. After that, I attended Ed Burns' Hyperproductive JSF and published my notes.

Then I met Trish for lunch at the conference and we went to the room for my talk. We had some technical difficulties to start (my brand-new Mini-DVI connector was bad) and I started about 10 minutes late. During this mad scramble to fix things, I started having some stomach issues, but ignored them thinking I could make it through my 50 minute talk. As I was doing demos and sweating profusely, I realized I couldn't make it and ran out of the room with 10 minutes left. The whole experience shook me up a bit. It was definitely not my best performance, but it could've been a lot worse.

Friday, we tried to sleep off our jet lag and woke up in the early afternoon. Trish had three places she wanted to visit and we managed to see them all in the same day. We climbed the tower at Grossmünster, rode the train to Rhine Falls and celebrated our anniversary at Gruelich, the highest-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor. We arrived at Guelich around 10pm and were very happy when they agreed to serve us. We did the 4-course meal and had the Sommelier choose our wines. It wasn't cheap, but definitely worth the experience.

After dinner, we took the 8 Tram back to our hotel. However, it somehow turned into the 9 and we ended up on the opposite side of the lake. This turned out to be a nice diversion as we had a nice walk around the lake with some nice swans and lights on the water.

Saturday, we woke up early for a big day of travel to the Swiss Alps. We enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast at the hotel and headed for the central train station. My good friend, Fernand, recommended we visit Grindelwald, while one of Trish's best friends thought we'd love the quaintness of Gimmelwald. We gulped at the price (500 USD) of the train ticket to both locations, but were impressed that you could buy all the tickets we needed (including the bus and trolley ride) at one place. We both quickly forgot the cost as we passed through the beautiful town of Interlaken and arrived in Grindelwald. An hour later we were hiking through Gletscherschlucht (Glacier Gorge) and marveling at the craftsmanship of the trail.

After enjoying a beer on a patio with a view, we boarded the train for Gimmelwald. A transfer, bus ride and cable car ride later, we were standing in the picturesque town, marveling that it had a lower elevation than Denver and perplexed that everyone seemed to be American. We strolled around, took a number of cool photos and had a scrumptious dinner at the Pension Gimmelwald.

On our train ride home, we missed our connection in Interlaken. This was no surprise as we regularly encountered very short layovers between trains. The Swiss are incredibly efficient and our brief stop in a store (that had a line at the cashier) was enough to miss the next train. The hour layover turned into a nice opportunity to stroll around town and snap a few last pictures. I especially like the sunset below, taken around 9:30 at night.

Trish and I both were super-impressed with Zürich, the friendliness of the Swiss and especially the Swiss Alps. Yes, it was definitely expensive, but everything was top notch and beautiful. There's a very good chance we'll visit again. Thanks to the Jazoon Organizers for having us and providing us the opportunity to explore their gorgeous country.

Good Times on The Annual Father's Day Camping Trip

Matt Raible — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:38:01 -0600

Four years ago, I started an annual tradition with my kids: The Father's Day Camping Trip. The last two, I've flown my Dad in and we've journeyed to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. This year, we decided to stay a little closer to home and head up to Lake Granby. Both my parents flew in again, the kids returned from a month in Florida, and Trish and I packed up her puppies for a wonderful weekend.

When we arrived, the weather wasn't great. We showed up an hour before sunset and had just enough time to setup our tents before the rain started. It proceeded to rain throughout the night, but our tent help up nicely and we never got wet.

On Saturday, we did some fishing, hiked along the East Shore Trail, rode our bikes, and had a great time relaxing and enjoying each other's company. It only rained for a bit in the afternoon, the rest of the time we sat back and enjoyed beautiful views.

On Sunday, we drove back through Rocky Mountain National Park, saw a moose and her two calves and enjoyed a delicious lunch at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. I really enjoyed spending so much time with my family this weekend. The good news is we get to do it again when I meet them at The Cabin in Montana next week. In the meantime, Trish and I are off to Jazoon for a few days of fun in Switzerland.

If you'd like to see more pictures from our Father's Day Camping Adventure, please see my Father's Day at Lake Granby album on Flickr.

Music, Mountain Biking and Memories in Moab

Matt Raible — Fri, 3 Jun 2011 10:15:25 -0600

Moab is one of my favorite place on Earth. It has been ever since I first journeyed there in college for a float trip down the Green River. Last year, I mountain biked in Moab for the first time and had a great time at Desert Rocks. This year, I made the trek again, but this time with the lovely Trish McGinity. The story of our drive out there last Friday is one of my favorites.

I've been a longtime fan of nice car stereos. You know, the ones you hate when you roll up to a stop light and their bass shakes your car. I, probably like you, don't enjoy someone else's nice stereo - but I've often enjoyed having one in my own car. It's been quite a few years since I've had a bass-tastic system in my car, but I still have the music on my iPhone.

So Trish and I are driving down I-70 in her Xterra and one of my old bass songs comes on. I say, "We can skip this one, it only sounds good on stereos with bass". She looks at me, cracks a half-smile and says "Oh, you don't think I have bass?" She then proceeds to turn some nobs and press some buttons and seconds later my seat is vibrating and the mirrors are shaking. I was appalled, overjoyed and super-impressed all at the same time. Turns out she has a Rockford Fosgate system with a subwoofer under the drivers seat and it sounded awesome. A wicked fun roadtrip ensued.

Shortly after my oh-my-god-you're-so-awesome-woman moment, we stopped in Fruita for a mountain bike ride on Horsethief Bench. This was a beautiful ride along the Colorado River with tons of flowers along the way.

The purpose of our trip was 1) camping and enjoying the outdoors in Moab and 2) listening to great music at Desert Rocks. Our good friend, "The Professor", had driven out to Moab earlier in the week. He scored us a great camp site and we promptly set up our tent when we arrived. We installed some tikki torches, rolled out a small living room rug and settled into our camping chairs for cold beers. That evening, we saw several good bands and danced into the wee hours of the morning.

The rest of the weekend was spent 4x4ing, mountain biking, dancing and hiking in Arches National Park. We enjoyed tons of great music, with our favorites being Scenic Byway, Great American Taxi, JGB feat. Melvin Seals, MarchFourth Marching Band and Hot Buttered Rum.

One of the best way to describe good memories is with pictures. When you have a professional photographer with you, it only makes sense to end this post with some of Trish's best photos.

For more pictures, checkout my Moab and Desert Rocks 2011 Set on Flickr.

Farewell to the 2010-2011 Ski Season

Matt Raible — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:40:08 -0600

I'd call the 2010-2011 the best ski season ever, but it's really just the best ski season so far. In 2008, I wrote about a great 21-day season. This time last year, I wrote about an amazing 25-day season. This year, I took it up a notch and aimed for 30 days. I'm proud to say I accomplished my goal and had an awesome time doing it. I skied with more people I'd never skied with before (largely in part to my cool co-workers from Overstock) and shared many days with the lovely Trish McGinity.

The season started with a trip to Copper, shortly after Abbie's 8th Birthday. I remember that day clearly as the kids were a bit rusty and had a heckuva time on their first run. Sobbing, whining and fear surrounded them the entire time. After the first run, I had some hot chocolate with them, calmed them down and then proceeded to the bunny slope for some turns. The lift was broken when we got there so we had to hike for a few runs. Amazingly, Abbie said it was the most fun she'd ever had skiing, which surprised me after her meltdown on the first run.

It's fun to compare that day to the last day I took them this season. We did the same run (a blue at Copper) and both kids were doing parallel turns and having a blast. Actually, Jack was the only one doing parallel turns, Abbie was flying down the mountain, not turning at all. She was going so fast her legs looked like rubber bands, weaving and bobbing over the bumps in the snow. I'm awful proud of my little skiers.

As for me, I happened to land a new gig in Utah, home of the greatest snow on Earth. My interview with Overstock.com was two days, with the 2nd day on the slopes at Snowbird. It was easily the best interview I've ever had.

That week, I returned to Denver for 3 days of skiing Breckenridge and A-Basin for Trish's Birthday Weekend. After returning from Christmas in Florida, I got a couple days in at Mary Jane and then accomplished 10 days before 2011 while skiing in sub-zero temperatures at Steamboat for New Years.

The next 4 months of skiing were fantastic with many firsts. I experienced Alta, Crested Butte and thigh-deep powder for the first time.

We finished up the season with a hut trip after TSSJS in Vegas, a weekend with the kids at Copper (as mentioned above) and Spring Splash at Winter Park.

For next year, I think I'll keep my goal at 30 days. If everything works out as planned, we'll have a place in the mountains this fall and it'll be a bit easier to hit the slopes without sitting in traffic. For now, I'm pumped about the beginning of mountain bike season. I took Trish and I's Gary Fisher Hi-Fi Plus's to the shop for tune-ups yesterday and we have a trip planned to Moab for Memorial Day. It's gonna be a great summer.

The Greatest Snow on Earth

Matt Raible — Wed, 2 Mar 2011 00:11:59 -0700

Last week, I traveled on my monthly trip to Utah to work on-site at Overstock. Unlike previous visits, snow was in the forecast and it didn't disappoint. I woke up early on Friday, worked a few hours and then met a couple co-workers at the office at 8. We arrived at Solitude by 8:40 and were in line for the lift by 8:55. We were the 5th chair on the lift and quickly skied to The Summit Lift. It was here we found thigh-deep powder and face shots on every run. The video below has shot by my co-worker, Eric. You can also view it on YouTube. The face shots start around 0:45.

After an awesome morning of skiing, I returned to work and later picked up Trish from the airport for a weekend of powder. When I started working at Overstock, I told myself that I'd buy a pair of "Utah Skis" if the powder was good. It seemed like the right time, so I picked up some Bluehouse Powder Skis on the way back from the airport. That night, we saw Hot Buttered Rum and woke up early for 27" of fresh powder at Alta.

The skiing was incredible all day and it never stopped snowing. That night, we headed to The Canyons and stayed slopeside at The Hyatt. We got upgraded to a great room and enjoyed some nice views.

We slept in on Sunday, grabbed some breakfast and hopped on the lift around noon. It was a Bluebird Day and we skied as much of the hard stuff as we could find.

Several weeks ago, I said I thought Colorado's powder was better than Utah's. After experiencing knee-deep powder at Solitude and sweet, fluffy powder at Alta, I'm officially changing my stance. In my opinion, Utah has the greatest powder on earth. If Colorado happens to get that much powder, and I get to ski it, I'd be more than happy to reconsider.

Crested Butte

Matt Raible — Tue, 1 Feb 2011 17:57:41 -0700

Last week was a great one for my ski season and happiness meter. First of all, I had the pleasure of skiing Alta for the first time while traveling to Overstock.com. I started working early on an overcast day and was delighted to drive into sunny blue skies above the clouds of Salt Lake City. I never expected it to be so nice and was super impressed with the mountain and its powder stashes.

I flew back to Denver on Thursday night, had a gorgeous lunch ride in 70°F weather on Friday afternoon, then picked up my lovely girlfriend Trish and drove to Crested Butte for a weekend of skiing with James Ward and friends. It was my first time visiting Crested Butte and I can see why people call it Paradise.

We stayed at a sweet location right in town, ate some exquisite cuisine and had some of the most beautiful days I've ever had skiing. Hopefully the pictures below convey how beautiful it was. You can also checkout the full set on Flickr.

Trish and I are up to 17 ski days for the year so far, and hoping to hit 20 by Valentine's Day. Not bad for a couple Flatlanders.

Abbie's 8th Birthday and Other Happenings

Matt Raible — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:45:30 -0700

This past weekend, we celebrated Abbie's 8th birthday. In the wee hours of the morning on November 5, 2002, I became a father for the first time. It's hard to believe my little girl has grown up so fast. As a 2nd grader, Abbie is into singing in the shower, playing piano, anything pet-related and teasing her brother. She also excels at school where's she's won a couple awards and recently got published in a book of poems.

In addition to last weekend being a wonderful weekend of celebration, it was a weekend of introductions. You might remember my "super-fun friend Trish" from the Epic Weekend in Estes Park. Trish is an Amazing Woman I met this summer and someone I've nicknamed my Double Rainbow because I've been so mesmerized with her. Yeah, it might sound a bit over-the-top, but that's somewhat the mantra of our relationship. This weekend was the first time I introduced Trish to Abbie and Jack. The meeting went smooth as butter and I'm relieved to say everyone got along great.

In other news, Jack recently lost his first teeth the same way Abbie did, by getting them yanked. He had his first adult tooth coming in and had 4 baby teeth that were getting in the way. Before and after pictures are below:

Coincidentally, when I wrote about Abbie getting her first tooth, I spoke at the Colorado Springs Open Source User Group and visited The Bus. Just over two years later, Jack got his first tooth and I spoke again in the Springs. I tried to visit The Bus on that same trip, but ran out of time. To make up for it, I drove down last weekend, met with Motorworks Restorations and formulated a plan (911 engine, airbags, 5 speed tranny, Porsche wheels and brakes) for finishing the restoration. With any luck, I'll be driving it next summer.

On the work side of things, my co-workers and I recently moved to a new office in LoDo. The new space has been awesome so far. Next week, I'll be traveling to Devoxx with Trish. The following week, I'll be at The Cabin. Then it's off to The Rich Web Experience in Florida. If you happen to be in Antwerp, Northwest Montana or Fort Lauderdale in the next few weeks, maybe I'll see you along the way.