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Eric and I had been planning on going skiing yesterday- I work up early and it turned out they have had so much snow the road was closed and they decided to close for the day. This morning we were going to go again, but again they were closed because they were digging out and they had no power.

Wow, over 3′ fresh during the past couple of days. Can’t wait to get out there, plus rafting season is going to be great!

Once again this year Whistler was blessed with the best early season snow in the continent, although it wasn’t anything close to last year. They opened a week before Thanksgiving (US) and we decided to make a quick trip the weekend after Thanksgiving.

On Saturday they opened the Harmony lift and we got to take advantage of some really good snow. It was really exciting for me that Kat was enjoying boarding some of the powder and her feet were not killing her.

Saturday was sunny and we headed over to Blackcomb where the coverage was quite a bit worse. At least it was sunny and beautiful-

This is just too cool. Whistler is putting in a Gondola between Whistler and Blackcomb peaks. This should make it way easier to get around, ski one mountain but meet people for lunch on the other one, plus it seems like an awesome view. 1.8 miles of unsupported cable, 1300 feet above the creek at one point. Hopefully opening in December 2008.

I do hope at the same time they continue to work on some smaller improvements to make it easier to get around. They have added new terrain like Symphony Bowl that make the slopes fairly uncrowded even with hordes of people but there are still bottle-necks in uplift in the morning and it can be really difficult to get around between various parts of the mountains.

I went up to Stevens yesterday with Eric and some other friends. Conditions were great, especially
in the afternoon when temperatures got up to 50 degrees and the sun came out. Seventh Heaven was great
and I took some of the steeper routes down under the Southern Cross chair that I haven’t skied for years
due to a combination of my being out of shape and poor conditions. What a great day and I’ve now already
almost half paid for next year’s weekday pass.

I did a lot of research on hosting and co-location. Matt recommended 1 and 1
since they let you have shell access and run cron jobs on their shared servers. Eric suggested
rbwtech and Peyman suggests Server Beach
for co-location / dedicated servers. I’m just not quite there yet since I don’t have the actual usage load to justify paying
$100/month rather than $10/month right now.

Given their money-back policy I’ve signed up for 1 and 1 for now and this site will likely be moving there in the next couple
of days. I will be doing some performance testing on the site and will report results back here.

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Rich’s post about spring skiing
reminds me that its soon time. I love spring skiing- its not at all the same thing as good winter skiing
but if you have a good snowpack there is nothing better than swishing down the mushy hill in 60-70 degree
(ok, I’ll take 50s too) weather with a light jacket on and few crowds. I think it was my first winter in
Seattle where Crystal was even open a couple of days in June. A couple of years before that Tahoe got
so much snow that I was up at Kirkwood the last day of the season and it was the last week of June (I think-
I can’t promise that my memory is actually holding up here).

So far this ski year got off to a good start and I’ve already got about 10 days in (probably double what I’ve
done for the past few years). But we didn’t get out at all in February because of some trips we planned and Kat’s
studying for her exam. We ARE planning on hitting the slopes right after her exam (two weeks!) and I’m hoping to
catch some great days in April (at least for the part of April when I’m not in Spain). So while its not one of those
super-epic years, we should be pretty good this spring as long as some of the areas are willing to stay open.

Also- A quick cartoon from the Aero News Network that just possibly
might explain what I experienced at American Airlines. I certainly feel like I experienced “a poop vortex”…

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Once again for the holidays we took off for Snowbird for some skiing. I’ve been getting a ton of crap for my beautiful
10-year old “classic” straight skis with a full 203cm length to handle carving the toughest ice. Ok, I suppose they are getting
a bit old, so I decided to demo for a couple of days to try to find some new ones.

I suppose my first concern was that I wouldn’t really be able to tell the difference between the various sets of skis. Who really
knows what kind of difference a bit stiffer or a slightly different curvature makes? To my surprise the different skis were
dramatically
different and some of the skis that were supposed to be best for my skiing
style were my least favorite. Some sets of skis just made me distinctly unhappy when I tried to
push them. They would try to decide the direction to go themselves or they
had big vibration problems. Some others were nice, but unexceptional. Two
sets- the Atomic Metron B5 and Rossignol Zenith Z9’s both created a distinct
“happy grin” effect. The Rossignol’s were $300 cheaper so I bought a pair
of those last night and skied on them all day today. Maybe it was just the
nice dump of fresh snow we got today but they were great today across
different conditions and I’m really loving how much better it is to have
shorter skis with some nice wide scoops in the thick powder.

Official Demo Results-

Unhappy-
Atomic Metron M:EX,
Volkl Supersport
Nice-
Dynastar 8000,
Nordica Top Fuel
Big Grin-
Atomic Metron B5,
Rossignol Zenith Z9s
Other-
Goode. These are all composite construction just like my airplane and are super-light
and have a ton of stiffness and spring. I’ve
had a pair of their poles for a long time and they are great and totally
indestructible. The skis seemed like they might be great for some special
purposes but they weren’t good enough general-purpose skis for me (although I
have to admit I was on a pair that was too short for me). They have a great
bounce that was fun in the moguls, but not enough weight to deal with crud and
when I was trying to ski fast on a steep run with a fairly bare surface they
almost vibrated me to death.

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