Stranahan's

Ray and Kerry turned me on to Stranahan's in Denver. Every few weeks or so they have a bottling and for helping out you get....a bottle! I had nothing better to do today so I signed up. Good times! Cool place and great whisky. They were overstaffed so after an hour they gave me a bottle and said "good day". Ray and I then took a self-guided tour....and found the mother load.....

Vail

Just got back from three days at Vail. 6" of snow every night and pretty good conditions all around. It was Amber's birthday on Monday and we celebrated all weekend. Made it to the Breckenridge snow carving on Saturday and scored a $150 gift certificate for not going to a time share meeting. They gave us the gift card before the meeting! Doh!! Had company for the first night and hit the slopes two days in a row. Hot tub and wine afterwords.

Hot and sunny!

67 Tuesday, 71 Wednesday (a new record) and 65 today. Played golf at City park with Ray yesterday. Damn near got warm! A cold front is (thankfully) coming through this evening. We need snow in the high country! Planning on heading to Vail Friday or Saturday for the weekend to celebrate Amber's birthday.

Looks like my car will be ready in a week or two. Should be better than ever. Someone had backed into my front bumper last summer while I was at the library and they took off. That would bave cost me $500 to fix but I blew it off. Now that will be taken care of. The wheels were pitted pretty bad and I looked at fixing them but blew that off too. Now I'll have new wheels. Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. I've had it for nearly 11 years and by the time this repair is done I'll have over $14,000 in insurance claims on this vehicle.

Low-rider for sale

I'm tired of worrying about this damn car. Think I'm paranoid? at 12;40 am a Denver Police Officer buzzed my door. He met me on the stairs with "are you Mark"? He asked if I had a red Acura. I thought that someone broke in and stole the stereo. He said "they took your wheels and the car is sitting on the rotors". Punk ass kids. I had no idea 11 year old pitted wheels were the bomb. A neighbor saw this take place and eventually called the police. Quit a bit of damage to the car. Not sure what will happen. Will they total it? How will they move it? How can I get tires installed? What were these punk ass kids thinking? What would I have done if I had caught them? There were four and I don't have any weapons. I'd like to break their arms and legs with a steel rod though. Maybe even take out a knee or two. And smash a few hands. Maybe bust a jaw. Not that I'm bitter.

Another great weekend

Just got back from a three day stay at a condo in Silverthorne. Made it to Beaver Creek and Keystone. Beaver Creek was nice but pretty icy. Ambereen, Paula, Darren and I made it down Birds of Prey - a 2008 World Cup course. Very steep, icy and fast!
Looks like we're headed to Vail again this weekend then Silverthorne the weekend after that.

Vail

Just got back from Vail where we had 17" of snow in 48 hours. Tuesday was nice with some fresh powder so Ray & I hit it pretty hard all day. Spent most of the day in the back bowls looking for staches of powder. Had some great runs and basically wore ourselves out. On Wednesday his Macedonian buddy Dragon, who works as a Beaver Creek Ski Instructor, came over to join us. He wanted to show us the best places to go. Seeing as how Vail is H-U-G-E (over 5,ooo acres of skiable terrain) we were stoked! Started off on the backside of Game Creek Bowl and made it to China Bowl where we tried to head down Genghis Kahn. Except there was too much snow! I tried to head down and ended up with snow up to my waist and couldn't move forward! It took over 10 minutes to push myself over the edge. It was crazy! Our goal was to get to Blue Sky Basin and we ended up in one of the first chairs. The snow report had 11" of fresh but we were seeing twice that. To end up on one of the first chairs in Blue Sky was a huge score. We had first tracks most of the rest of the morning. It was truly epic. And exhausting. I had cramps in my quads by 2 pm. People were hollering for joy all over the place. What a great day.

The picture is from an incident that ocurred on a lift in Blue Sky Basin the day we got to Vail. Here's the story -

JANUARY 6--In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado's ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday morning. The January 1 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier, 48, and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail's Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair's botched boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair. The images on page four and five were taken by a local photographer who happened upon the rescue scene. In a statement released this afternoon, Vail Resorts, which operates the ski area, reported that the skier was not injured after being "suspended for approximately seven minutes." The press release did not explain how the mishap occurred, only that "the man was caught on the chair."

Welcome to 2009

It's been a pretty busy last two weeks. Went to the condo in Silverthorne for Christmas and skied at Breckenridge on Christmas day. The condo was fun as always, exp. w/ the indoor hot tub. Watched Bad Santa and had some wine. All in all a very nice trip. Paula and Darren joined us as well.
Last week started off with warm weather on Monday so I played 9 at City Park. Three pins were frozen like popsicles. Tried to repair a few ball marks on the greens and they were frozen solid. Tough to stick a T in the ground! But played pretty well. Got to use the R7 Draw and hit the snot out of it! Thanks Dad....and Larry....for my X-Mas gift.
Skied on Tuesday at Keystone with Christian and Brandon. Christian took us hiking to the North Bowl where we found all kinds of powder staches. I tried to keep up with those kids but it was tough. Pretty steep and deep. Had a great time and slept well that night.
Ambereen had a New Years Eve party and I got to meet her Sister and her family.
Darren called Friday morning to see if I wanted to ski and since it was going to be in the 60's in Denver I suggested we play golf. Went to Willis Case to play 18. Nice public course with great views. I'll go there in the summer for sure.
This week promises to be fun as well, although I REALLY need to start looking for employment opportunities. The condo in Vail is open this week and I'm thinking of taking Ray up there for a few days to get some runs in. They've had about a foot of fresh over the weekend.