Last week I drove 110 miles round trip to ride Goat Camp in the White Tanks Mountain Park on the far west side of the Valley. i am not even sure what town it is in. So I thought, if i drive the Prius i will pay $6 entry fee plus 2 gallons gas, for a total of about $12. Driving the truck would be 5 gallons and likely carpooling with someone, for a net expense of $21. The Prius only holds one bike, so can’t be used for carpooling. If I carpool, my rider would hit with the entry fee, so my cost would be $15, my rider’s $6, and I would save my rider about 3 gallons in gas. Net gain to my rider is about $9, net loss to me is $3.
For my time, money and my contribution to the environment the Prius is the way to go. For my rider and I collectively, carpooling is a net $6 advantage. For environment, the gallonage is a wash. The Parks and Rec Department loses $6, actually suggesting the Parks Dept — which supports the environment — would have its best interests served by not carpooling.
From a financial point of view, the offset of the Parks Dept makes carpooling an absolutely equivalent decision. A case could be made that total utility is furthered by one less car on the road, and 2 people having pleasant conversation and not isolated in their cars, but the impact of both issues is of nominal value at best in the big picture.
The fate of the planet hangs in such a precarious balance.
yesterday was the first time i have heard the baby say her name. i asked her to say it, she did, then she did not say it again.
she knows mommny, daddy, kila, turtle, jo, slim, monkey, bebe, horse, and rabbit, gina, sam, bradly etc etc and immitates like a good parrot and has been saying complicated phrasese like ‘water filter’ for some time. wtf?
i think this is more than purely cognitive, i think there is something psychological about this – or some deeper cognitive reason beyond just ability, such as self-awareness. i do not know, i will inquire, this will be great conversation fodder with countless mom’s at countless xmas parties, and for my troubles they will think i am a sensitive dad and if i am lucky i can stare at their boobs!
the most fugged-up sensation overcame me today. it wasn’t climbing National and descending Geronimo is my regular street shoes cause i accidentally grabbed Beckie’s mtb shoes instead of mine (spd vs time), though that was fugged up.
G was in the bath, for quite some time, and getting pruned and the bath getting cold but not wanting to leave. and she made a pouty face, and pouted, and then pressed on with waterplay even though we both knew it was getting lukewarm and unpleasant. and in her expression i now see oftentimes sadness and resignation that she is not in charge but in fact subject to my whims. and while i am a benevolent dictator…noted by 10 minute excursion to ride the toy car in the excercise room at the gym while staring at self in mirron; and also so noted by 5 minute tear through the bedding aisle of Blood, Bath and Beyond; and even further noted by the chocolate chip cookie i poached for her at Fry’s…the sense of disempowerment weighs heavy on the baby.
maybe it was this feeling that was the bond, as i have always had a very instinctual dislike of authority. but i swear i felt like i had looked up pruned and chilly and wanting my bath not to end. its a pretty simple feeling to connect with, virtually a motif, but still the sensation was so real… it would be my first memory if true. The oldest memories i have i am no longer sure if they are memories or memories of stories. but this…i have never felt this before, but it felt like i had experienced it. so perhaps, as the memory is more feeling than intellect, it took a very base moment to remeber it.
She said goodbye to her daycare teachers by name – bye Sam, bye Gina. i never heard her yet say goodbye to anyone other than me, beckie or kila. well Jo, but 11oz. does not count.
She brought me a box with a roll of scotch tape inside, and she knew there was something inside the rattling was not just the inherent behavior of the thing, and she wanted me to open it, and then she wanted me to open it some more. oooooohhh, pattern recognition.
She could actually start the Prius if she just got tall enough to reach the Power button. bet the dipshit eye-candy engineers at Toyota never thought of that.
She grabs her tray to tell me she is ready to eat, as if i don’t yet recognize hunry. she tells me what she wants, and what she doesn’t, and when she is done
Here’s the best one: while we were hiking, she first let me know that she wanted to be sherpad and not walk, then she let me know she would rather go home than go to the park. swear to god…it wasn’t that hard if i just listened.
12-13 — 12 -16: Byron and my 3rd annual low-overhead, highly-flexible ski trip.
NB: photo taken on Saturday, after storm
Wolf Creek got 10 feet in the past 2 weeks, and fresh was due for our first day. So we finalized details the week prior, made our excuses and bolted from Phx thursday at 3:30. The drive was mellow and mostly uneventful. we got to see parts of the Geminid meteor shower during the drive. It took shooting stars to a whole ‘nother level – they looked big and bright and you could see the smoke trails. More like the ending part of fireworks than a typical brief shooting star.
I was typically nervous about diving into such big conditions. Byron teased me on the way up that he and Matt were talking shit about how long it would take til I started worrying…apparently “leaving the driveway” was the consensus. and that was almost true – I think it took til we passed Phon D on the ride out Bush Highway. But it turned out that i damn near picked up where i left off in March. the low stance, attacking attitude, and frequent small wiggly carves in tight spaces came right back to me on the very first run. .
i felt good in the powder too, but quickly realized this was the deepest stuff i’d ever been in. skills are all well and good, but boarding is so subject to the conditions that you just have to take what the day gives you and let it dictate what you will do. today would be quite epic. 1st tracks on anything but steep pitches buried the board, and i spent part of my first few runs fighting to get out of the most innocuous deep patches in the flats. It probably took til mid-morning til i got it through my head that an easy, beautiful patch of virgin powder was absolute death. On the flip side, for the first time ever the steeps totally did not scare me and it was all i could do to go faster. leaning back on the board to float above the powder buried the back, and leaning forward to pick up speed buried the nose. over the course of the weekend i flipped so many times i lost count, and just resigned myself to keep clawing my way back up to being vertical and pointing downhill again. i’ve come to take a very holistic attitude towards boarding, its a sport that uses your whole body and makes you really embrace the hill, the hike, the kneel-down, the double-black cattracks, the act of pushing yourself up off your ass…as long as there is powder its at worst an exercise in silliness and at best better and cleaner and longer the X. Byron could not fathom this multi-positional mindset, every time he flopped it was a lost ski or an experience in modern yoga to get his act back together. Me…i just watched the world turn in a circle, shook the powder out of my helmet, and tried to use the momentum from my roll to keep moving forward. very different approach to hitting the ground than in mountain biking.
so the operative theme for the day was to maintain momentum, and this meant not letting the churn or the tight tracks i was following get the best of me. the improvements I made last year from riding with Matt and Anita down Canus Lupis were huge. i felt very in control of my direction and the changing terrain. having to go fast to maintain momentum, however, was a challenge. i kept wanting to slow down, and kept sinking if i did. either way it seemed i was gonna go down, so eventually the fear and unease just transformed into a big “aww fuckit, step up and quit whining…just don’t hit a tree.” and then it got to be a lot of fun.
Byron meanwhile was having his own break-in period with the conditions and some new gear. He looked very sexy, and thus he was dubbed McLuvin for the weekend.
It was easy to spot the yellow boots. and the genius of Superbad is that no matter how many times you hear it, yelling “McLuvin!” out on the slope is damn funny!
after about 3 runs, we bolted for the far side and the Alberta lift. without any hesitation, we pointed right to the Waterfall Area. damn damn damn those steeps were just so easy and so fun. i shot down one of the softest easiest powder funnels i’ve ever hit, and splashed down through the bottom with abandon. last year i got stuck several times at the bottom of this run, and the run out to the lift was very long and very flat — i was only on day 18 on the board when we hit Wolf Creek last year, but this year with 10 more days under me, the bottom-outs and run-outs were not so bad. its cool to get better!!! mostly i ran through them in frantic control, and when i had to walk, i just popped off the board and got to it without fretting. it helped with the walking that i’ve given up on my board strap – it freezes and never holds shut anyway, and is such a pain in the ass, the only time i’ve ever needed it was when i was hiking anyway and had dropped the board. i should get a simple clip-on if i can ever find one…
we hit the Waterfall several more times.
around 2 we were both burning our legs and it was coooooooold, so we took a break with proper amenities.
and i saw this bluebird hanging out in the middle of the storm!
Back on the hill! some runs down the lodge side where we found a few easier steeps leading into some fun blues, i rode non-stop til close.
the hot tub was cold, there was a hot tub guard telling us what not to touch, and a bunch of big hairy guys trying to get in…so we rolled quickly and hit Kipp’s – a 10 table restaurant built on the ground floor of a house. we ate there last year, and the food and vibe were cool and low-key. Byron spotted El Jimedor at the bar, and we drank a shot of our Casa V brand.
we hard-partyers stayed out past 8 , then time to crash.
Peter Rabbit is totemic baby
Saturday was a bluebird day.
we got our first run about 8:50, great conditions, and the mountain was still nearly empty!
After a few warm-ups, we hiked off Treasure Lift to a face that our ex-Ulty friend Tamara showed us last year. Its a very easy hike, Byron poled it all, for a nice deep shot of about 10 turns. It led into a great corner that held powder all day, then a fun easy tree shot, then the Waterfall again en route to Alberta lift. After a few runs down Alberta, we decided it was time for the hike up Knife Ridge we had been eyeing for the last 2 trips.
The hike starts with a snow staircase of about 75 steps straight up, then a beautiful walk along a knife-edged cliff. The trail was pretty stamped-in, so it wasn’t too scary, but looking off to either side was vertigo-inducing.
Knife Ridge, with Alberta Peak in the background
Knife Ridge was humbling, and both of us sucked-ass on the descent. i know with more practice i could get better at this, but it was without a doubt the most vertical thing i’ve tried. we then ended up far into the trees where tracks were hard to find. i flopped, i floundered, and generally looked like a rookie. fatigue, misdirection and sucking combined for us to opt onto the first cattrack back to the lift.
A couple more runs, and then we decided it was time to try the Alberta Peak hike before we were too tired to press on. same climb up the staircase, and similar but different hike out the other direction. Byron was having a harder time hiking in his McLuvin boots, so i went a bit further out onto the peak, and was rewarded with what might have been my best descent ever!
Alberta Peak, looking down on the drop-in
looking back on the trail i climbed
i dropped off Alberta Peak into waist deep powder, and floated down on a cloud of bliss. i aimed for the existing tracks through the treeline, not knowing exactly what was ahead but sure as hell knowing it would suck getting stuck. a short shot through the trees led to an even steeper 2nd pitch, multiple-boardgasm was had!
back at the lodge for a long break and a beer, then out for more runs doing the hike off Treasure Lift til close. the hottub was hot this night, and we went to a nice restaurant called Plaza Grill – Byron wanted some comfy amenities, I wanted a salad bar, Odell’s Porter was served, we were both happy with our choice. and another wild night ending at 9.
Day 3 we packed and cleared out of the hotel, got on our first lift at 8:45. the conditions had gotten a little icy and a little crispy, and the churn from the day before had gotten hard in spots. adding to the fun, my legs were completely shot. i was falling all over the place – i didn’t even get my tired-legs very tired, cause i couldn’t stay vertical for very long. both of us dialed it back a little, and just cruised the easier blacks for most of the day. My one signature run was another hike up Alberta Peak, this time even further than the first, and whatever falling i was doing i left behind for one phenomenal fun run down the first 2 pitched and then straight into the Waterfall Area again. my legs were faded by the last pitch, but it was an incredible 50 minute run bottom-to-top-to-bottom, made even more exciting by the thrill of doing it all alone.
a few more runs, then 2pm came and back in the car, back on the road, back home at 11pm. very tiring 3 days, but can’t beat the conditions and only $350 each for 3 days of waist-deep powder.
typically i do not write about work. this is for several reasons – when i am at work, i am packaging my words and personality in order to present an image of a good employee and teammate. Its not dishonest, but it is a role i play, and role-playing is not why i have the blog. publishing my completely honest thoughts about work, when some of my co-workers have read this blog, is just stupid. Finally, i just don’t wanna think about work when i’m not there — it obsesses my thoughts plenty enough.
but one of the fun things of working for a big-name company is when what we do is all the buzz. Our upcoming Kiosk project, the Olympics, even the Access ManagerPalm scanning product that is difficult to work on but cool to see in action…this is some seriously cool shit and I’ve had an important hand in all of it. 2 years ago i worked significantly on the Ticket Exchange project – a secure, reliable, authorized forum for ticket resale on the secondary market. For all the work the Dev team did on this, it seemed to me that we never got the big splash for it i was expecting. You constantly hear of StubHub and Ebay (which owns StubHub), but rarely heard of our program. I never understood it — completely trustworthy, delivery is a non-issue since we can issue electronic tickets, and guaranteed tickets — seems like we should be a huge hit. The program has grown, albeit slowly and more notably, quietly. A lot of the users — pro teams — don’t loudly announce that their fan resale sites are in fact our site.
Last week, Greg Easterbrook wrote in Tuesday Morning Quarterback that the acceptability of ticket reselling would lead to NFL teams using auctions as a tool on the primary market. Again we were overshadowed by StubHub and Razor Gator. I thought the line he drew from “scalping on the internet is ok” to “we will let market forces determine ticket prices” was too direct. The ability to use auctions on the primary market is another tool we offer customers (and one I also worked on), but you are still talking about primary vs. secondary sales and all the other considerations therein: public perception, guaranteeing income irregardless of upcoming performance, getting your revenu all upfront, etc. Embracing the legitimacy of a secondary market does not come at the expense of the primary market, it only proves that the market will support a higher average ticket price. Easterbrook failed to acknowledge, however, that tickets available on the secondary market in part derive their prices from scarcity. If all tickets are priced higher, demand would fall and many would not fetch the secondary prices that they do.
Meanwhile it was announced today that we have inked a deal with the NFL to become their official secondary market. Woohoo! have to check back next year to see how much biz we take from StubHub!
Slim died finally about 2 weeks ago. we found her in the backyard. I never liked Evil Slim. she was surly, loud, dirty, smelly, bony, shed, puked, disrupted the existing balance of cat-power in our house, and required a litter box. G probably helped push Slim over the edge since she was always grabbing and manhandling her. it might have been me that finally did her in. about 2 days before she died, Kila, G and I were crowded around the front door and i noticed Slim at the bottom of the pile on the welcome mat — not sure if I was stepping on her or if it was G. i have mixed feelings about this — i would never want to hurt an animal even one as horrible as Slim, but at the same time, she was a cat and if she cant manage to get out of the way of G and everyone else it is time for her to move on. she was certainly one animal i did not want to keep alive with expensive treatment and vet bills. So i’ve preferred not to think about the possible guilt or blame specifically affiliated with her last few days, and just assume she was failing and it would have happened one way or another soon enough.
Genevieve needs to know where everyone is. When I picked her up from daycare last night, she was, as usual, very happy to see me, but after she got over her initial joy at seeing mom, she began to wonder about the rest of the family. The conversation:
G: where’s Kila?
Me: at home.
G: Where’s Daddy?
Me: Skiing
G: Where’s Turtle?
Me: at home.
G: Where’s Slim?
Me: Slim’s Dead, baby.
G: Slim’s Dead…Where’s Kila?
Maybe you see where this is going. Eventually we got home and solved the mystery of where Kila and Turtle were, but Daddy and Slim are still open questions in G’s mind. We hope the mystery of Daddy’s whereabouts will be solved by Sunday, but I expect a lot of discussion of the subject between now and them. As far as Slim goes, I seriously doubt G has any idea what “dead” is, but hopefully she will soon get the idea that she won’t be torturing Slim anymore. Turtle is certainly a poor substitute as she won’t take any of G’s bullshit. We’ve already had several instances of Turtle letting G know she ain’t Slim in the week since Slim passed over to the great beyond.
I have done it! I have successfully taught G to say I love you. My life is complete, I am now fulfilled, and I now fully understand why a peniless 15-year-old might want to get pregnant…she can create a fully formed person that LOVES HER, even if the loser father doesn’t. What power.
G is such an imitator now; she tries to repeat everything you say, and she will say things over and over and over (and over) until she is sure what the words mean. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she eventually learned “I love you”–I say it to her all the time. The best thing about it is that she definately seems to know what it means…she says it at the right time, and it is usually accompanied by a kiss (or two or three). Very cute.
You don’t realize the power of words until you hear something like this. I never would have thought hearing my two year old parrot back such an incredibly overused phrase would make me so happy, but there it is.
Seems like a long time to live with anyone. Jason alleges that I have forgotten our anniversary, which is partly true. In reality, I did not forget the anniversary, I merely forgot what the current date was; how could it be December 11 ALREADY? Does this mitigate the sin? Probably not, but frankly, if I don’t have time to figure out what day it is, I definitely don’t have time to ponder that question. Bottom line, I remembered eventually, and have secured a gift. Sure it was free, and I would have gotten it anyway, and it required no work on my part, etc., etc., etc., but it’s still……
FOOTBALL!!! Sure its the Cards and Falcons, but hey, it’s the suite and jason’s off the next day!
That tops flowers in my book. Take that, chollaball.
On a sad commentary on our lives, Jason will likely learn of this fabulous present through the blog before I get to tell him in person. How romantic.
.
, then time to crash.
