Sundance part 1

Sundance doesn't start until tomorrow night, but the town is already filling up and getting weird. I was walking by a sporting goods store today and heard a conversation between two people wearing Sundance credentials. One exclaimed "I can't believe you didn't bring a coat". Why is this funny? Because the high here today is 11 and the low this morning was well below zero. How stupid can you be?

Ski Clinic

When we started spending winters in Utah, I suddenly got to ski a lot more than one week a year. My skiing skills improved quite a bit and I was able to do more difficult terrain and even look a bit more competent doing it. Recently I found myself in a rut. Apparently, just going out and doing something a lot doesn't make you much better at it.

I signed up for a three day ski camp over at Deer Valley. It was created and run by the twins Phil and Steve Mahre. Both are Olympians, with Phil winning gold over his brother's silver in one Olympics.



This bundled up group was mine. They took the 46 attendees and split us up into 11 groups. Each group was supposed to have people of similar skills, although some adjusting was required to make this real.



Our third morning was the only bright and sunny one. This picture gives you some idea of why to live on the mountain instead of in the valley. The white fluffy area in front of the skiers is the socked in Heber Valley. The spent all day thinking it was a dark cloudy day. Up above it was gorgeous blue skies.



Just another view looking back towards Sundance and Mount Timpanogas. It really is gorgeous scenery on a nice day.

The ski clinic was a good one. I discovered a number of problem areas to work on and got some good drills to practice. I am hoping that over the next month, things improve. The downside was skiing one afternoon with Phil Mahre. He is a very nice person and a wonderful teacher. Unfortunately, after seeing him ski, I was left wondering what to call the thing that I do. Clearly what he does and what I do can not have the same name. He was truly a treat to watch.

Man versus Nature

Today's topic is how we deal with the man versus nature issue here in Park City during the winter. First, how do you know if nature is winning? You can tell because the plowed snow is starting to obscure the stop sign. Note the almost 60 pound dog for size reference. They do road clearing in several steps. First they plow out a lane or two so that four wheel drive vehicles with snow tires can get through. Then they come later and try and get close to the road so most anyone can get through. Then trucks come along and try to widen the road. Finally, front end loaders come along and either move the snow or load it into dump trucks to haul out of town. Remember that each of these steps puts a big pile of snow in front of your driveway.



Next, you notice the ice hanging off the roofs. Here is a nice 20 footer.



While not quite as long, this one adds some bulk.



And here is our definition of an ice dam, which will almost certainly cause leaks in the house.



This one I call, man versus man versus nature. Nature comes first and dumps a ton of snow. Then a man driving the plow comes along and finds any of the big trash cans left along the street. Then another man (the loser) comes and digs out whatever is left of his trash can.



The guys next door to us have done a remarkable job framing the house through all this. Lots of shoveling, but they have a roof on. Now they just need windows. Jasper and his buddy Dozer are in the foreground.



Unfortunately, we aren't immune. When we first moved in, we had a small leak caused by ice building up along our chimney. We put up heat tape. It melted the ice as planned. Then the water ran down and froze again, lower on the roof. We had another ice dam and another leak. You can see where the roofers cleared the snow and ice. Today we added more heat tape, hopefully getting the water all the way to the ground.



When we have a lot of snow, the skiers get all excited and happy. The bummer is that it leads to an incredible amount of shoveling, water damage, ice damage and such. Then of course there is the expense of all that damn heat tape!! You really, really have to love the snow.

Now that's some snow

Although we aren't getting the 10 feet of snow predicted for some of the Lake Tahoe mountains, it sure is piling up. We got about a foot last night and it apparently snowed so fast, the snow melt system on the driveway couldn't keep up. It is hammering right now, combined with some big winds.



The snow monster machine struggles with a foot of fairly wet snow. It has to throw it up on the wall, about 10-12 feet high. They are calling for more snow on Sunday, Monday, and into next week. Gotta keep up!



And in an unrelated picture, Cosette seems to have no problems discovering the newest piece of furniture in the house and laying claim to it.

Free 411

I have grown tired of having my cell phone, but not having the right phone number. You can call information, but they charge you way too much. Here is a free alternative from our friends at Google. It was announced about 8 months ago, but I missed it. Apologies if you have already seen it. I went ahead and programmed the number into my cell phone.

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Apparently the beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks have been bubbling over at Google labs lately as its group of lab fiends have brought us yet another fun trick in a long stream of goodies, "GOOG-411," or voice local search. Bringing Google's powerful search mojo into yet another realm (they are, after all, bent on world domination), the free service enables voice-prompted search of local businesses and will SMS you the results and even connect your call. Various mobile and landline companies already have this feature -- including the SMSed results -- but will typically charge you for the privilege. We love when Google gets its lab coat on and brings goodies like this to us; we just hope to see it extend to home numbers, other languages, and of course other countries. Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any handset to give it a go.

Christmas in Portland (Hillsboro)

Julie and I went to Hillsboro, Oregon to celebrate Christmas with Julie's family, including her mom Joan, her sister Sue, Sue's husband Marty, and the three daughters, Kelly, Laura and Jacki. Yes, the last one seems to be a spelling error, but she goes through phases on how she would like her name spelled and this is the current one. Oops, can't forget the dog Buddy and the cat Midnight.

In addition to our normal gorging on food and beer, we did celebrate the Christmas holiday in more appropriate ways. On Christmas Eve, we headed to the local Catholic church for the kids' sermon. These are always my favorite!



You just can't have a Christmas play without a bunch of tiny kids. They didn't get speaking parts, but did get to dress up as animals for the manger scene. I would swear they were wearing Ewok costumes from one of the Star Wars movies. They even walked liked little wobbly Eowks.



They invited all the kids at the service who weren't in the play to come down front to watch. This girl was interesting for two reasons. First, she seemed wonderfully attached to her big (but little) brother. Whenever he moved, she was right there with him. You can see she has her arm around him. However, the reason she caught our attention was that she apparently gets her hair done exactly like Posh Spice. If you want something similar, check out hairstyle.com.



Now this little girl took a different approach at fame and fortune. Apparently she wasn't invited to be a part of the play, so she patiently waited until it ended. Then, while the priest was giving his sermon, she wandered up and followed him around, answering any rhetorical questions that popped up as part of the sermon.



Ah, the real reason we were at this sermon. Kelly (in the red dress) was one of six singers invited to perform at the service. Very nice!

On to Christmas.



This is Jacki modeling her stylish Christmas fashions.



The package frenzy begins, although not with nearly the energy level of a few years ago. When the girls were little, you needed to step back or risk losing a hand. Much calmer now and they remember what they got at the end.



From left to right, Joan (mom), Sue, Julie, Kelly and Laura.



A nice shot of mom in her festive wear.



Although the day started with the traditional Portland drizzle, it actually started snowing. The last time Portland had measurable snow on Christmas day was 1937. Unfortunately, none of this stuck so we didn't break the string. It did seem a lot more Christmassy though.



Even Buddy was getting into the Christmas spirit. In this photo, he is enjoying his new treat from under the tree.



I wish I had more pictures of this activity, but too often I was in the scene instead of observing it. Can you tell what she is doing? She is boxing with the new Nintendo Wii. If you haven't seen one of these, you should. The game controllers recognize movement, both speed and direction. To play the tennis game, you swing the controller just like a racquet. In this case, Jacki is practicing the boxing game by swinging both fists with a controller in each hand.

I wish I had taken some pictures of the Christmas dinner. Sue did a wonderful job and it was delicious. We used dinner to celebrate my 46th birthday. Made it through another one. AARP, here I come!

As I type this, we are back in Park City. We have had snow showers today and the temperature hammered up to a balmy 15. We would consider skiing, but there are so many vacationers on the slopes and we are quite spoiled.

Lots of additions

The most important addition at the house is more white. We have had a few feet of snow over the past week or so. Very nice to build up the base for skiing right before Christmas. The skiing has been good, but not awesome.



The next addition was a TV. Notice that it isn't very pretty all wrapped up. That's because it is defective. After Christmas, some nice people will bring a replacement and pick this one up. Very sad.



Then comes some new furniture. This wave included a few night stands and our spiffy new game/card table. As all card tables should be, it is next to our bar.



No house is complete in Park City without a hot tub. We decided not to move the one from our condo. The realtor's convinced us the condo would sell better and we were worried about damaging it during the move.



The last addition, and perhaps most exciting, is my new office desk. The desk itself isn't exciting, but the delivery was. With all the snow on our roads, the big semi from FurnitureLand South couldn't get the last few hundred yards up to our driveway. They took about 30 minutes in 10 degree weather putting on chains. Even then, navigating a semi through frozen neighborhood streets, with snow piled on each side, is quite the challenge. If you start the clock when they got close to the house, the desk took about 90 minutes to deliver. My office is beginning to take shape. Next comes a desk chair, and then some decorations.



Now, off to Portland to see Julie's sister for Christmas.

Rainbow

It just doesn't photograph well, but Julie and I saw the most unusual rainbow. It was surrounding the sun, a complete 360 prism. It doesn't look like much in the picture because the poor camera is coping with a look into the sun. However, the rainbow was as clear and sharp as any you see, just huge and round.



UPDATE: I have gotten some notes explaining what this is. Click here for more info.

The snow aftermath

After all the snow last weekend, we have had a lot of sun, but very cold temperatures. Our day yesterday started around 3 degrees and the afternoon high was only 19. This adds up to some huge icicles. The sun cooks the snow on the roofs. It drips down and freezes quickly. Icicles like the one below start to form. These things weigh hundreds of pounds and can do a lot of damage to a roof. Given our weather forecast, these will continue to grow and grow. This one is about 12 feet long, so far.

Back to the snow

We have returned to Park City, ready to settle into our new house and to get in some good skiing. Unfortunately, even though we had snow back in September, October and November brought almost no snow. Life works out though. Between Thursday night and Sunday morning, we got between 18 and 24 inches at the house and about 30 inches on the mountains.

This is the deck on our new house. As you can see, the snow is piling up and coming down hard.



Once the storm left, we had a sunny view looking down into Park City and out at Deer Valley.



Our house, with the snow-laden Gambel Oaks behind.



To combat the deep snow, you need a deep snow blower. Ours is pretty serious.



Snow just wouldn't be the same without a game of Where's Waldog? Double-click on the picture to see the bigger version.



You can't run through chest deep snow, so every step is actually a leap.



But what goes up, must come down. Jasper spent a lot of his time buried deep.



Finally, a charging dog that looks too much like Kujo.



The saying would go something like: You can take the dog out of the snow, but you can't take the snow out of the dog. This doesn't work though. We have a really tough time taking the dog out of the snow.