Skiing 2008

Another year, another great vacation in the mountains.
This year started off with an unexpected passenger, Phoenix the Dog. She is being transported to her new mommy in California. She went across the state with Rachel and I, the first leg of her trek.
Once we got to KC, we stayed overnight at George and Julies. Saturday morning, we all piled into the truck and headed to Colorado. I drove the the whole way out, while George and Julie kept Phoenix company in the back seat.
Upon reaching Denver, we dropped Phoenix off with the next person. For the entire time we had her, she was great. Fun and happy when out of the vehicle, and very calm in it.
The drive from Denver to Silverthone was fun because it was snowing. Slow going got us there.
We had planned eat at our favorite pizza place, but it was no more, so after driving around for a while, we gave up and went to "Old Chicago".

For our first day, Sunday, we went to Loveland. We started off on a the bunny slope to get our ski legs back. After a couple quick runs we were off to slopes. There was a lot of new snow. Ah the powder, well actually, the powder kinda sucked, as none of us had really skied on powder, so we (I mean George and I), had some difficulties. (Some may say maybe it was the skier that sucked rather than the powder, but I beg to differ ;) Once we where back on groomed, or pre-skied snow, we where doing great. George had some issues with his boots, so that evening we went and replaced them.

With new boots in hand, George was skiing up a storm on Monday. After making breakfast at the condo, we went to Copper Mountain.

Rachel had to sit today out do to migraines. She just can't catch a break. She stayed at the ski lodge and we swung by several times to check on her.










The snow is flying on our drive.



This was a good day of skiing. This year I brought my hand held GPS and had it attached to my right forearm so I was able to create track logs for all of our runs. Also, I was able to tell how fast we were going. It was amazing that when it felt like I was barely moving, I was cruising at 7-10mph, and when I really opened it up, I was normally doing about 25mph. Only once did George and I hit 30mph.


For Tuesday, we made breakfast again, and then headed back to Copper. It was another beautiful day for skiing. Helped Rachel get the hang of cutting. As the day went on, she managed to earn her nickname 'Speed Demon'. She managed to get herself pointed straight down the mountain. Once George and I noticed she wasn't slowing down, we bolted after her. According to the GPS, she was screaming along at 25mph. Luckily, she finally just sat down and came to a stop without injury.

Julie, Rachel and George resting between runs

During all of our escapades over the three days, Julie managed to stay upright the entire time. She gets the 'No Falls' award for the year.






The drive home Wednesday was uneventful, but long. About 11 hours back to Kansas City, then another 3 back to St. Louis. In Kansas, there is a big wind farm outside of Salina. That was a beautiful sight to see. Which reminds me, that on all the Copper Mountain Ski lifts there was a sign stating that all of the lifts are powered by wind farms.

Phoenix the Rescue dog

PhoenixWithGeorgeAndJulie
Originally uploaded by FotoMeister

This is Phoenix, she is a rescue dog that needed to go from St. Louis, MO. to San Diego, CA.
For the first Leg, Rachel and I drove her across Missouri.
Once there, we piled into George's truck and headed across Kansas to Aurora, CO.
We were kind of packed in there all the way across the state.
She was the nicest dog.

breakfast face

Laura's Birthday /First try out of Flash

I went to Laura's birthday Sunday evening and figured this would be a great time to really try out my new strobe (Vivitar 285HV). Since its not a fully automatic flash, it does take a little finesse to work with it. It cycles fast enough on low power setting that I could put the camera in multi-shot mode and it would fire for each one (3-4 times a second).

Here are some pics. The party was fun her mom brought lasagna, it was yummy. It was funny watching her try to wack the "30" pinata. It finally broke loose of the ceiling.

Remodelling My parents Kitchen

For Christmas we desided to update my parent's kitchen so that it will be more sellable next year when they retire.




Here's a pic of the kitchen before replacing the counters, sink and dishwasher:






Here's another pic with the cabinets removed to be cleaned and lightly sanded. They did not get painted at this time as the weather went south, and snowed.



In removing the counter, we had to remove the bottom row of tiles because the new counter is 3/4 of an inch taller, and what looked like a little metal "L" trim actually went under the tiles and was nailed to the wall. This was one thing that was not expected and took some extra time to get those tiles off without destroying the other ones. We have no plan of replacing all the tiles in the kitchen.




Once the old counter was off, the new one fit like a glove (not a bloody, this glove's too small kind of glove, but a nice well-fitted one).





The counter came with the sink hole only partially routed out so that it remained strong in transit, so I had to use a sabersaw to cut that out. No sweat.


The next unexpected pain was getting the counter screwed down to the cabinets as working in the tight cabinets really required a contortionist.



Here I am working under the sink to get the water connections setup.









Here's the counter and sink done:





And here is the finished product. The old dishwasher is on right and got taken out the next day. That really opened up the the room.


The cabinets still need painting, and a new row of tiles that will tie-in the counter, walls and cabinet colors.

Halloween

We had a nice Halloween this year. Martha carved a couple pumpkins and we put a bunch of candles in the the windows.

We managed to give out all the candy by about 8:30. One group of kids did this song and dance after we had handed out the candy. It was funny.

Those Home Improvement Projects

So, we got this new ceiling light fixture to provide reading light while in bed a while ago, and so I finally decided to tackle it on Sunday. The complexity of the project was that there was not fixture there before, and it is being installed in a ceiling of a bay window.
luckily, the main roof is the bay window roof too, so there was access to the attic. So I cut my hole, pushed a bunch of wire up it, and then went to the attic to pull it over to where the light switch is. Murphy's Law kicked in and the wire had gotten hung up on a roofing nail. So, now I had to go body surfing head first down the vaulted ceiling to were the roof and ceiling meet to fetch the wire. Even though it was cool on Sunday, it was still sopping wet with sweat hot in the attic.
Figure 1

The rest of the installation went smoothly. I ran the wire to the existing switch box in the room and added a switch fixture with three switches and a dimmer.