Liz comes to town

Our friend Liz Hervatic came to visit this weekend. We met Liz in Raleigh back in our IBM days, but she is now out in Santa Monica. She was a wonderful host and tour guide when we went to the Rose Bowl two years ago.

Liz came in to catch a little Sundance, ski a few runs, and hang out.



We spent Friday over at Deer Valley. It was a gorgeous, sunny, bluebird day. Of course, you can't tell that from the way Liz is dressed. She is a big fan of staying warm, so I guess southern California is a pretty good choice. She's much happier surfing than skiing.



Good times were had by all.

Blogging Sundance 2009

On Thursday night, the annual party/fiasco/event for Park City began. The generally accepted expectation was that the recession (depression?) would hurt attendance quite a bit. That doesn't seem to be the case. Once again, our town of 8,000 has filled up with 40,000 visitors, very few of whom seem to know how and where to drive. Restaurants and bars are full and there are no parking spots in the city. Just the same, it can be a lot of fun.

Julie is volunteering again this year. She works over at Eccles Theater, which seats about 1250 people. This means that it gets used for the movies that are more likely to draw large crowds. She will get to see quite a few movies as she works four days, starting on Tuesday.

So far we have seen 3 movies. All were pretty good. None were outstanding.

Brooklyn's Finest: This was a violent movie about the lives and personal challenges of several policemen in Brooklyn. The story was good and the production was excellent, but the violence was hard to get passed. Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke and Wesley Snipes were all excellent. Richard Gere was good, but we all agreed he was the wrong person for the part.

The Yes Men Fix The World: These guys are great. Two men go around duping the corporate world in ways beyond most of our imaginations, in an effort to make the world a better place. As one example, they were frustarted that Dow (who bought Union Carbide), never did anything to clean up the Bohpal, India chemical plant disaster. They built a web site that appeared to be from Dow and sure enough, got invited to do an interview (as Dow PR people) on BBC World. In the interview, they said that Dow was facing up to what it had done and was committing $12B dollars for clean up and reparations. Dow stock lost $2B in an hour and Dow had to come out and deny the whole thing. Hilarious and impressive. Check out their web site at http://www.theyesmen.org/

World's Greatest Dad: Sad. Funny. Well acted. This was Bobcat Goldthwait's second Sundance movie. He is a standup comedian turned director. The main actor was Robin Williams and he did a great job. He played the role of a dad with a real troublesome son. He goes through a huge range of dispair and happiness in ways that were always conflicting. I won't give it away, but it was good. Even better was the Q&A at the end of the movie. Putting Robin and Bobcat in front of an audience is hilarious.

More movie reports as we see them.

Bad, bad snow

You may have heard about all the people out west that died in avalanches last month. Here is a picture that shows why.



We had some pretty heavy snow in the beginning of December, followed by two weeks of bright warm sunshine. This is what happens to the snow. The avalanche people call it "rotten snow". The freeze-thaw cycle leaves really flaky, fragile snow. Then it snowed a lot on top of this crap. That makes for a wonderful recipe for avalanches. So far I think we are at around 20 dead.

Of course, they provide awesome information for avalanches here, but the alerts are often ignored.

On a related topic, a 15 year old girl died over at the Alta ski resort yesterday. She was skiing in the trees without a helmet and fell in a tree well. She was trapped upside down for 40 minutes and suffocated. Lessons:

• Wear a helmet
• When in the trees, ski with a buddy
• Sometimes shit just happens

Very sad.

Snow shoeing over at Solitude

Rob Schumacher (our builder) got a crowd of people together for a field trip over to Big Cottonwood Canyon for snow shoeing. Big Cottonwood has the Solitude and Brighton ski areas. We had perfect conditions: recent snow, but a bright sunny day.

You start at the Nordic Center up at Brighton and head off across a frozen lake.



Spectacular views everywhere!



... and the snow was deep.



From left to right: Julie, Lisa, Theresa, Candy, Carol, Loris, Rob, Jim, Ron, Chris and Bill.



Beautiful women everywhere! Loris Benson.



My wife, Julie Joyce



Rob's wife, Theresa Schumacher.



Rob grabbed the camera and got one of me trudging out of the woods.



We went down to the Solitude resort for lunch. While waiting, we saw some guys with a rough job. They were shoveling a huge pile of snow off a steep roof. Fortunately they were attached with a rope. We didn't see them fall, but they did drop a good sized shovel to the sidewalk below.



An awesome day. Thanks to Rob for setting this up!

One last shot that you have to double click on to see the detail. In this canyon, people drive up, strap on their skis and hike up the mountain, all just to get one run. I guess if you are going to that much work, you might as well do it perfect. The tracks down this face are all gorgeous, nearly perfect, consistent turns. Wish I could do that!

Skiing in Vail

You may have already seen this on the news, but apparently this guy was challenged with using the lift system at Vail. He fell, but was caught by his ski. He got to hang upside down with his pants ripped off until they could save him. Would have been fun to be a mountain host on duty that day.

Once, twice, three times a moose

Three Dog Night may have sucked, but yesterday was a three moose morning. It was snowing pretty hard when I took Jasper up the hill for his morning romp. I saw three moose, all hunkered down on the hillside, hding from the storm. Fortunately, dogzilla didn't see them.

There is a wine you can buy here in Utah called "Three Blind Moose". It has a very stylish label, but the wine was pretty poor.

Brrrr

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day. However there was something about the way that the wisps of smoke came out of chimneys that seemed odd. As best I can figure, the smoke was freezing on its way up. Probably not, but with temperatures starting at 6 below zero I know I could freeze. By late afternoon, it had soared to 9.

When you watch the Salt Lake news on days like that, you hear so many stories about pipes bursting and flooding houses, black ice forming on roads, and the homeless struggling to survive. Up here in Park City, we are better equipped to handle the cold snaps, but it makes me happy not to own too much of the mining history. Many of the original mining houses in Old Town (near Main Street) are built directly on the ground with no foundation. The insulation in the walls is crumpled up newspapers from the late 1800's and early 1900's. I just can't imagine the bill for keeping a house like that warm, even if it is small.

Fortunately, we built our house with 6" walls, extra insulation and triple-pane windows. It's big, but at least most of the heat stays inside.

Today is warmer and another snow storm is coming in. Yeah!!

A cool day on the slopes

We went out to Deer Valley today with some friends. From left to right are Kathy Covaleski, Jim Covaleski, Julie "the wife" Joyce, Loris Benson, and James and Lydia "friends of Covaleski". OK, that isn't their real last name.



The two things that made this an unusual ski day were both from nature. The seven of us were heading down an access road, me in front. A fox ran up onto the run, went down the run about 100 feet, then turned and ran up the hill. I was catching up with him pretty quickly and thought I was going to have my own fox.

About fifteen minutes later, Loris noticed a good sized moose off the ski run. It was chomping on some tree branches and staring back at us. It was too far off and in the trees, so I didn't bother trying to get a picture with my tiny camera.

Thanks for a great New Year's Day mother nature!

Hope everyone else is having a great start to 2009.

Three Dog Night

Looking for something to do on New Years in Park City? A group of people got tickets to go see Three Dog Night. Yes, they are still alive (although perhaps not alive and kicking). They had more Top 40 songs during 1969-1974 than any other band.

The first entertainment was even before the show started. It is rare to see a crowd for a concert with a median age of 55 or 60.



Three Dog Night should have quit about 10 years ago. They were terrible. They were overweight. They dressed funny. They had a hard time moving to the music. They couldn't carry a tune. The light show must have been borrowed from a high school garage band. I won't even tell you how much it cost.



Julie was the lucky one. She wasn't feeling well and didn't go. At least I sold her ticket.

Tired of collecting money from Africa?

I was one of the proud recipients of the letters from the nice gentleman in Africa who needed to send me money to get it out of the country. This week I got a new one that seemed like a minor variation on the theme. Don't these people have spell check? It would seem any easy step to increase your authenticity.


-- Greetings .A letter from me to you .Mrs. Rosemary Collins, 56yrs old from Switzerland.You might be wondering where I got your contacts from but I have really takenmy time in searching thoroughly. You came into my mind has the lord hasdirected me to and am willing to do so. I have noticed that you are Godfearing, courageous, fulfilling and ambitious in life. I want you to know thatyou have been the chosen one and please, try and do my will because each of mywords or statements must not go unfulfilled reaching the unprivileged,orphanages and the needy as you are blessed.Dear Beloved One, I am the above named person but now undergoing medicaltreatment in Zurich, Switzerland.

I am married to Mr. Tom collins who worked as a world contractor for over a decade before he died on 5th of July in the year2004. We were married for fifteen years without a child. He died after a briefillness that lasted for two weeks. Before his death he made a vow to use hiswealth for the down trodden and the less privileged in the society. Since hisdeath I decided not to re-marry or get a child outside my matrimonial home.When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of Five million UnitedStates dollars ($5,000,000.00 millions us dollars) with a Vault with abank .Presently, this money is still there. Recently, my Doctor told me that Iwould not last for the next six months due to cancer problem. Though whatdisturbs me most is my stroke. Having known my condition I decided to donatethis fund to an individual or better still a God fearing person who willutilize this money the way I am going to instruct here in. I want anindividualthat will use this to fund and provide succor to poor and indigent person I understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I do not have any child and relatives. Ido not want my husband?s hard earned money to be misused or spent inthe mannerin which my late husband did not specify. I do not want a situation where thismoney will be used in an ungodly manner, hence the reason for taking this bolddecision.I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know thatI am goingto be in the bosom of the Almighty. I do not need any telephone communicationin this regard because of my health .

With God all things arepossible. As soonas I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank. I will alsoissue you a letter of authority that will empower you as the originalbeneficiary of this fund, through my Lawyer or by myself. I want you to alwayspray for me. My happiness is that I lived a life worthy of emulation.Whosoeverthat wants to serve the Almighty must serve him with all his heart andmind andsoul and also in truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.Please assure me that you will act according to my specification herein.Lastly i want you to also reply me with some vital information ofyours such as: Full Name :country
:sex:
phone number:occupation etc.........
Hoping to hear from you.
Thank you and May the Almighty bless you.Yours sincerely, Mrs. Rosemary Collins