Uphill battle

Well I guess Basso is off of the Discovery cycling team. I just new it. Right before the Giro. Dang! I wanted to watch him race. They had suspended him as the Italian Olympic Committee looks into his alleged involvement with doping uncovered by Operacion Puerto. It ended the career of Jan Ulrich last year. Basso just quit because Discovery is trying to get a new sponsor. So now it will be up to my fellow Montanan Levi Leipheimer or Tom Danielson to lead the team at the Tour de France. Leipheimer is riding well so we will see. They are both great hill climbers.


I did a hill climb a few years ago that Leipheimer had done. He did it many years before me as a teen and set a hill record for his age group. I didn't set any records but I did exceed my goal of breaking 20 min. I did it in 18 min something. I think Leipheimer did it around 14 min. I'll tell you, the minutes and seconds start going by pretty fast in the last few hundred yards when you can see the finish. Leipheimer also had a weight advantage as a little teenager. They did put my photo in the newsletter however. (left) I have no business in a hill climb race as I'm too big, but it is exciting. It's really tough also. There is a long straight that climbs away from the start and it only goes up from there. You have to go as fast as possible all the way. They start you at 1 minute intervals and you can tell how well you are doing by if you are passing people or getting passed. I passed 2 riders and did not get passed, but I kind of sucked anyway. In fact, I was really sucking air at the end. :)


Photo credit; Greg Siple. Click on it to see it bigger. He recently had an exhibition of his cycling photos in Missoula. Hundreds of photos all black and white. He's really a good photographer. This one was printed on colored paper, cropped like this and took up a large part of one page. I was kind of flattered when the newsletter arived in the mail. It was a nice consolation, un-intended I'm sure. I've seen him around and I know he has taken a few other photos of me. One time he had me just stand by my bike. So I might be in the mix somewhere in his exhibition.

Meet the Flintstones

Rock placement has become popular here for landscaping. I'm into hard rock and everything, but some people go a little overboard with this, and it's kind of irritating. This guy gets the award for most rocks placed. Yabba Dabba Do!

The alfa female

I hate it when it is windy on garbage day. I've blogged about this before. My lot is on a corner and it is kind of big. I have almost a field for a yard. I have it looking pretty darn nice right now. Across the street from it are several neighbors who put their garbage cans out. It gets really windy here when it is windy. Today was such a day. Winds in probably the 25 to 35 mph range. That blows over the garbage cans and plastic bags, wrappers and cans, you name it. The things these people eat is something that was garbage even before it was used, and something nobody should eat. To their credit the guys up wind of me keep their lawns in pretty good shape. But there are several serious rednecks around. I'm kind of a closet redneck myself, but I keep fighting the urge.

There is this one guy who moved in down the street a while back. A great big guy who has long hair a beard and a ponch gut. He wears button up shirts un-tucked with the sleeves torn off of them. He kind of reminds me a of those guys in those comercials who are vikings and get regular jobs. This guy would look cool with one of those viking hats with horns on it. "What's in your neighborhood?"

He seems to be a good natured fellow however. I was cycling one time and he came up along side in a pickup and gave me some positive words about my speed. That was kind of cool, considering sometimes I get yelled at and have even been shot at with a BB gun. Hit me right in the butt. I'm just glad it didnt' hit my bike. In all of my years cycling in Montana when I was growing up, nobody ever yelled at me. But he, like many other people, doesn't do much about weeds in his yard but his daughters were working on it today. Thankfully many people do and this is actually a pretty nice place to live. The other side of the river where I work is much higher density. Part of the reason for that is that there is a sewer system over there. Here everyone has a septic system. So they put the houses farther apart. I imagine that when they put a sewer system in over here then they will start packing houses in.

It's dandelion season here though. There are several pastures and fields around and some of them are pretty yellow. It's kind of an agriculture area with housing developments here and there. I've never seen a worse place for dandelions, and these are the Amazon variety. It's such a fast growing plant that it has been studdied to understand cancer. My neighbor downwind from me has a very neat yard. Plus he is a triathlete so I can relate to him. But I have to admit that I have a more weed free yard than he has now. Neener neener. When I moved in my front yard was solid yellow. So I'm pretty proud of myself in that respect.

Anyway I chose not to cycle today due to the wind. I did go by the trail head at lunch and did not see the Alfa Romeo. So the Alfa female must have felt the same way about the wind as I did.

In bloom (serviceberry bush/ jam update)

I took my bike down to the bike path at lunch for a short ride. Everything is in bloom. I think these are dogwood bushes. I could be wrong. They make a canopy over parts of the trail and it is really something. I didn't quite capture how overwhelming it is in this photo. It's kind of a cool bike experience anyway.

My new bike computer worked flawlessly. I didn't break any speed records. I listened to NPR while riding along. I did notice a woman whom I've seen on the trail before. Actually I first noticed her car. She has a red Alfa Romeo Spider. Italian sports car. I noticed last year that she was going to the trail during lunch. I wanted to say something about her car but never got the chance. I got a look at her today. So If I see her again I'm going to strike up a conversation. She's cute.

I"m thinking that the Spider isn't a car a married woman would normally drive. But who knows?

***
Update, My mom thought these were serviceberry bushes. My dad used to love jam made from them. We always had it when I was growing up. It's kind of a brown jam, at least what we had in Montana was. My dad would collect the berries and them my mom would make the jam. I remember we'd be driving somewhere out in the country and dad would spot the berries and we would stop and pick. Dad was a hunter gatherer. It's different but really good. It was kind of a special treat and a flavor that I can't describe. It's kind of subtle like a good wine is. You have to collect a lot of berries to get a little jam and they have a lot of little seeds in them. My dad would eat it on a roll, like a dinner roll. The odd thing about my dad was that he always had some sort of bread and butter and jam with every meal. It was one of the things that was always on the table. No matter what we were eating there was always a plate with bread on it. So we had lots of homemade jam in our house. The berries are also used to flavor pemmican, which is a dried berry and dried meat mixture like jerky made by native Americans.

It's Alec on the phone

Alec Baldwin was recently on the morning news programs chewing out his daughter on her answering machine for missing a phone call or something. My gosh, it he sounded pretty scary. Not sure I'd want to talk to him either. Messy divorce with Kim I guess, but I'm not sure an eleven year old girl is going to process something like that in a positive way despite whatever motivated him to do it. And then to have it played infront of the whole world like that. If things were bad before, they're probably worse now.

I was talking this over with a guy at work. He had a little daughter. He and his friend had been working on a truck all day and sent his wife to the store to get them a six pack of beer for when they were done, and some aluminum foil for the BBQ. So his wife went to the store with his little daughter. The little daughter wanted some candy. The wife said no we are just getting a couple of things. Then daughter started to pull some strings. "I want milk!" she said, thinking she could manipulate her mother. Her mother told her that they didn't need milk and was starting to loose her patience. When they got to the checkout line there were all of these people in line. "I want milk!" the daughter said again. "We don't need milk the mother said again." Then the daughter said "You buy Daddy beer but you won't buy me milk!" I know that girl and can just imagine her saying that. I guess the checker looked pretty disgusted as did all of the people in line. The wife was pretty upset with the daughter when they left the store and I don't imagine she was too happy about giving the beer to the father.

New bike computer

My bike computer konked out again. I was riding to work and it would cut out. It powers down if you stop riding. But it would power down and I was still riding. That throws off all of the data. Since it is the start of the cycling season I decided to replace it. I realized I had a nice computer on my mountain bike. I hardly ever ride my mountain bike so I decided to put it on my road bike. The battery was dead but as it happened, it takes the same battery as the computer that kept konking out. So cool. I did need some zip ties to mount the sensor on the fork. I found the right size in my bike tool box. So I had everything I needed to get a nice speedo back on my bike.

I mounted it up and did a very nice job if I do say so myself, but then I couldn't find the instructions to set the wheel size. So I goofed around with it until I got to the menu for wheel size. I did a roll out of my wheel along a metric tape, and entered that number. It works. Both of my wheel sets have exactly the same tires on them, so it won't matter when I change wheels. I don't really care about that data for riding to work or working out, but if I go on a tour I really want information about how far I've gone and how fast. It's almost critical to measure your effort in that situation if you haven't done the ride before. I could manage without one but I'd probably ride more conservativley. That can be a problem. You want to ride as fast as you can manage as you will be on the bike for a shorter period of time. Riding too long is as bad as riding too fast when it comes to distance riding.

Boris Yeltsin

I thought I should say something about Yeltsin. A guy I work with gave me a bio on him as he found it cheap at a book store. A hard covered 800 page book. Not exactly an easy read for me. The author would throw in a Russian word once and then expect you to remember it and keep using it. So I started a notepad of these words. Then I decided that that it was kind of silly as it wasn't in cyrillic, so I started to work on that.

Anyway, back to Yeltsin. You can find out a lot about his life now online and in the news now because of his death so I won't go into it. He had his ups and downs. All I have to add, is that I came to the realization from this bio that he earned or worked hard for everything he got. And he worked his way up through the ranks. That is the way those guys got into power. They didn't just come into power out of nowhere or because they spent the most on advertising or they came from a rich family. First he was a prorab, supervior, then a nachalnik, boss, and then a pervyi, regional manager. And the strange thing is that he was a Moscow outsider. But a lot of the soviet industrial power was east of the Urals, so that gave him a certian political clout, and he got into the politburo.

The other thing about Yeltsin that I came away with, was that I think he must have been a good guy to hang out with. A gung ho sort of fellow that could rally people behind him. Liked to play volleyball and would organize games. I can relate to that.

I think he would have been a good guy to know.

Part of it

The bay was calm this morning and the air was still. A loon kept crying out its haunting call. It came from a great distance, and it gave perspective to this still, quiet, vast space. I don't know if it makes you bigger or smaller, but you become part of it. You can't help it. It's as if it were calling me to join it. Where I don't know.

Shooting stars

Every spring the wild flowers bloom in the mountains. These little flowers are called shooting stars. They are very small and perhpas you've seen them. They bloom in the grass behind the Gouchenour cabin where I took this photo. You usually see them in an alpine area, but you have to be there at just the right time. I think they must have come in with a bird. There are some very big mountains only a few miles away. Every year they come back about this time for a week or two and then they are gone without a trace. I've kind of cultivated them by not mowing until they go to seed and I don't use any weed killer, and each year we get more and more, but nobody else has them where we are. I've never seen so many in one place. Now and then there will be a white one. Click on the photo to get a better look. (I really think you should!)

Perfume

It's a strange thing and a difficult thing for me. Sometimes perfume smells good to me. Scented things like lotion. Other times it honestly gives me what is like an alergic reaction. The tricky thing about it is that women are just trying to smell good. So if you tell them that you can't stand their perfume they take it as an insult.

Some of these things go into my nose, up into my sinus, give me a headache and make me feel sick. It's one of those things that if it doesn't happen to you then you can't realate to it. Perhaps like RLS.

In the mornings if I can't sleep I have a great big old vintage Zenith trans-oceanic radio next to my bed. I can get the CBC from Calgary on it. It's pretty cool. They have some good programing including Polish radio. I can get KSL out of Salt Lake and a number of other radio stations from places pretty far away. But on the CBC There was recently a situation in which a Calgary bus driver refused to allow one woman to ride due to her perfume. To my surprise, they found in favor of the bus driver.

When I was at MSU in Bozeman I had a pretty girlfriend. She was sweet and I really liked her. But she was over the top with this perfume that really irritated me. To the point of an alergic reaction. It was hard for me to be around her when she had this on and that was all of the time. So I decided to bring up the issue with her. Well she dropped me for a football player.

It's strange because not all perfume does that to me. It isn't just women's perfume. Some of the men's products do it too. There was this one guy in a design class that wore something every day that I had a problem with. This guy had a big adam's apple and a really bad overbite. It was the worst smell to me. Horrible. I tried to get as far away from him as I could. But clearly he thought it was good.

I think there are a few factors. The perfume is old. It doesn't match the person. They use too much. Or it comes from an animal product that I can't tolerate. I suspect that there is one ingredient that I can't deal with, because when it bothers me it always smells the same. It acutally hurts when I breath in.

There's more to this story but I have to end it here.

Becoming Mr. Gouchenour

I'm going to head up to the cabin in Montana. Turn the water on and de-winterize. Mow if I need to. There are two "cabins", and usually I stay in the so called "Gouchenour Cabin". Shown in this photo. Pronounced "gook-en-our". It has lake frontage with a pier and a boathouse. That is my Hyundai next to it. There is also another cabin that is more like what you would expect a cabin to look like.

It's kind of funny. When my brother-in-law first heard about the "Gouchenour Cabin" he pictured a great big barvarian timber framed structure in the mountains, and guys standing around in lederhosen with mugs of beer. I got a kick out of that.

The "cabin" gets it's name from Mr. Gouchenour who first built it/ put it together. He was an old rancher from over by Great Falls. He got two shacks from the Libby Dam project and put them next to eachother for the back half of the building. It was a time whe a modest house to get away on the weekends was the norm. Now people are making these great big mansions, and pushing the prices of lake frontage beyond the reach of a regular guy. My father built the room on the front when he bought it and also the deck. He put in a bathroom and plumbing. It's really cute inside. It has a really old stove and fridge both from the 40s or 50s. It's one of my favorite places to be. I need to find someone to share it with. I guess I can share it here a little. The view of the bay from it is really nice.

If someone bought this property I'm sure they would just tear this little house down. Even if I could afford to build a great big house here I don't think I would. I wonder what Mr. Gouchenour would think about that. If he were still alive he would sit down in the kitchen with me and have a cup of coffee. We'd go out fishing in the morning. I liked Mr. Gouchenour. Mr. Gouchenour was a friend of mine. I'm tempted to say that I'm no Mr. Gouchenour, but I'm kind of becoming him.

Until next season

I'm going through ski withdrawl. I told myself that I could never live too far from a ski lift. Just one of those quality of life things. Skiing is kind of huge to me. Thankfully there are five places that I can drive to from were I live here. This is a shot from the top. Every day when I get off of the lift on my first run, I ski off in this direction like this guy. I can drop in or take it easy and warm up. But I always feel good when I get off of the lift and ski. It's the first thing I'll do next season. But until then I can only dream about it. Click on the photo to make it bigger.

Another Flathead Lake photo added.

I've added another Flathead Lake photo. I left it bigger than usual so if you click on it, it will give you an idea of how things look up there. I tried to post it here but it wouldn't work for some reason. I really need to work on my html. Veronica has posted a bunch of photos of Moscow at Neeka's Backlog. I love looking at her pictures.

15%

I heard on the TV that only 15% of people do their own taxes by hand like I do. Curious. I'm such an idiot when it comes to working with numbers, Most people use a program, e-file or have someone else do it. It used to be more complicated when I had more deductions and my first time home buyer credit, but now my standard deduction is more than if I itemize. The only thing I don't know right now is how much my phone excize tax credit is, and by gosh, I'm going to take it! I suspect it is only about $30. $30. will fill the gas tank of my Hundai once. That would last me almost a month if I don't go on a road trip.

***
You guys are all done, but I found out that my standard phone deduction is $30, and it ranges from $30 to $60 depending on exemptions. If you use actual phone records then you have to use form 8913.

Broken

I think I broke a bone in my foot. I can hardly walk on it. I don't know how I did it.

I was driving home from work yesterday stressed out. I had an SUV right on my butt. The road goes through a cut in the rocks where the mountain comes down. A MARMOT ran across the road right infront of me. I swerved and hit the brakes and just missed killing it. My tires screeched. The SUV behind me backed off then. Its driver must have seen the whole thing and then cut me a little slack. I looked in my mirror and saw the animal scamper back to the other side of the road but it was close. It was really close.

The last thing I needed was to kill an animal on my way home yesterday. I would have seen it's body for many days back and forth to work and just I don't need that.

I've added Flathead Lake photos

I've added a couple of Flathead Lake photos. Click on the link on my side bar to see them.

Local cyclist dies/ Brandenburg gets 3rd in GS

A local cyclist was killed last Thursday night when he ran into a Dodge Ram pickup on a ride I often do above a local lake where I work. The same road that I took my friend Yulia down to a windsurfing lesson, if you are reading Yulia. It was a beautiful evening and I did notice lots of cyclists out after work. I thought about going out but had to get ready to ski the next day, plus it was a little windy.

I don't know too many details about the accident except that the cyclist was coming down hill and the truck couldn't avoid him. He was wearing a helmet. Usually I would question the the car/ truck as I've been struck by a car as has most of the serious cyclists that I know. When I got hit I was in the right and this person turned into me. Didn't see me.

I don't know who is at fault in this case. If this guy does this ride like I do, then I suspect that the cyclist is at fault. I haul ass down that hill and around those corners. I try to stay in my lane but it is a narrow twisting road. A big truck coming up at any rate of speed would probably be impossible to avoid. I'll have to re-think that ride.

On a brighter note, a young guy from Spokane, Will Brandenburg, and from where I ski has made the US Ski Team development team and just got third in the US championships Giant Slalom in Alaska.

Ligety, who has been the men's combined gold medalist for three straight years (and slalom champion in 2005 and a year ago), led the first run and had the second-fastest final run to win in 2:22.34. He caught a break of sorts in the second run when defending GS champion Bode Miller (Bretton Woods, NH), second in the first run, became sick and didn't race to defend his title, while Erik Fisher (Middleton, ID) - third in the first run - was a DNF in his second run.

Junior Will Brandenburg (Spokane, WA), named earlier in the week as the Ski Racing Alpine Junior of the Year, was silver medalist in 2:24.66. Cody Marshall (Pittsfield, VT) had the fastest second run to move up five places as he completed the podium (2:24.78).

So that is really cool. The first kid from SARS (Schweitzer Alpine Racing School) to get onto the US Ski Team. I haven't seen him ski but I did talk to one of his coaches a couple of weeks ago about it. I have seen Bodie Miller ski. Something to behold. Bodie didn't actually become sick on the second run. From what I understand the snow became mushy and he decided to not risk an injury. I can totally relate to that. Anyway if Brandenburg is getting times up with those guys then he has to be awesome. Pretty exciting for Spokane and SARS. It sounds like they are going to put him on the "B" Team. That is huge! I set my VCR to record the race and I actually got it right so I will get to see his runs.

Another look

The organist played Bach for the prelude on the old pipe organ this morning at the Easter service. I don't know how many ranks that organ has, but in her hands it is really something to experience. I'm amazed how people don't notice the things around them. That organ is kind of hard to not notice, and yet people are talking and laughing as if this is background music in a department store. The skill level of this lady is, and the quality of the instrument is about as good as it gets. There was a time when the prelude to the service was a time to be quiet and get in the right mindset for what was about to come. I don't know what to think about these people now. It's friendly and everything, but it's a little disrespectful at the same time. What they should have for some of these people is "Easter Lite." Half the calories of the regular service for those who are on a diet.

My mind wandered after that. I kept looking at three pretty girls seated in pews in front of me. Other than the prelude, they were more interesting than the service. They were all charming in different ways. The one directly in front of me was beautiful in a very plain way. She came in late and took one empty seat. She must have been in college. Her hair was brunette, long and straight. It looked kind of greasy, but in a healthy way. The back of one of her ears stuck out of it from time to time. It looked to me like she didn't fuss too much over her hair. One time she pulled her hair to one side and I could see her neck. She had a long lavender skirt and a cashmere sweater on. Something I'd never think of dressing her in if I were to pick. But there was an honesty to her that I admired.

Saturday night I slept upstairs on a side of my mom's house that prevented me from hearing the party next door. The houses there are really close together compared to where I live now. People get used to being so close together. On one side of our house was a party with perhaps thirty or forty people drinking and laughing and on the other side a house with a man who was on his computer. I could see him through a window I guess he never closes. I wanted to go to the party and have a beer and then go to the other house and check my e-mail, but it had been a long day of skiing, so I read a couple of chapters in the book I'm reading, and then I zonked out.

I skied five of the last eight days. Here is a photo from Friday. Just some dead trees. They were probably in a forest fire at some point. Perhaps I'm seeing something that isn't there there anymore, the ghost of the trees, a record of two lives that once were.

After church, I started to put my skis and clothes into my car for the trip back home. A woman came down the street on a cruiser bike. It's such a cool town in a bicycle way. I really belong there. She was really pretty. I looked away as to not stare. Then after she went by I snuck another look. I caught her looking back at me. Nothing like that ever happens to me here.

Second to last day skiing

Here is a self-portrait that I took looking into my car window. You won't see too many photos of me. I'm not very photogenic. There's something about taking a self-portrait. Natalia Antonova said on her blog once that nobody could take a photo of you like you can. Or something like that. There might be something to it.

These are my last turns from old chair 1 as they are going to remove it. I try to make clean railroad track turns when I free ski. That is the way to be fast in the race course. It's easy to do with shaped skis. Instead of lifting up the inside ski and skidding the downhill one, you just keep both skis on the snow, lean forward and roll the skis over into the turn. The shape of the ski will make the turn. Practice this on the bunny hill and once you get it you will never want to skid your skis again. Unless of course it is really steep. You do need to have shaped skis to do it however. I'm not sure if some of the park and pipe skis will do this. I've never skied on any of them. Probably never will.

Then I faked an injury to get this ski patrol's attention. There's something about a nurse outfit....

So she called in the med star chopper to have me hauled away.

New side bar things

I've added a couple of things to my side bar.

I've added a cyber tree museum. Kind of been working on that one for a while as it evolved over time. Now I'm going to add a tree each month. There are a few of reasons for the tree museum and I'll share two of them. It has been said that taking photos of trees is easy and not a very serious or valid subject matter for photography. I don't know where I read that or heard it but I don't subscribe to that viewpoint. Probably that school I went to that did everything they could to turn me off to photography and art in general. And one of other reasons for the cyber tree museum is that it is based on Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi song, of which I really like the Amy Grant version. So sing that song to yourself when and if you go there. they paved paradise and put up a parking lot...

I've also added a place on my side bar for photos that I take. I started with ones that I've already posted of Flathead Lake in Montana and I will add to that one as I take lots of photos of that lake. The lake and the sky always change so it is and endless subject matter. It is really an interesting place. When I'm there, the lake is like the center of everything and it constantly draws my attention. It draws me out onto it and into it. The light up there is different than other places I've been. The lake is so big and the sky so big that colors are different. I've heard that said about other places around the world, but the light at Flathead lake is special. It's a great place for an artist to work. I'll add other catagories there also.

I'm going skiing tomorrow for the last time at my regular resort. I couldn't resist as it will be eight months before it all starts over again. Then on Saturday I'll ski at another place on the way to Montana. It's smaller so I'll just use my little slalom skis and get as many turns as possible in. And that will end my ski season unless I go XC skiing. I did loose count a while back, but I think I've skied about 45 days this year. Thankfully I did not get hurt. I crashed twice racing and did not get hurt, but I banged up my right elbo pretty bad and might have cracked it from just clearing the gates over and over. It's been better now that I haven't been running gates, but sometimes it really hurts to straighten my arm out. No big deal.

Flathead Lake Photos

My photos of Flathead Lake
I reserve all rights to my photos, please ask before using

Dayton Bay left and Skeeko Bay center from Wild Horse Island

The view from Wild Horse Island

Sunrise on Big Arm Bay

Big Arm Bay
October sundown, Elmo Montana

Morning breaks over Big Arm bay as Canada geese fly over their winter home.
Wild Horse Island

Coming out of Skeeko bay, Wild Horse Island
Looking west into Big Arm bay and towards Elmo where the cabin is. The orange on the horizon is forest fire smoke.

Looking north towards Glacier Park.

Looking east towards the Mission Mountains in the distance as the moon rises over the lake. The lake goes behind the mountains in the foreground.
A Thistle class sailboat moored along the shore of Wild Horse Island.
A girl windsurfing on a longboard in Big Arm Bay.

Looking east out of Big Arm Bay.

Sailing to Skeeko bay to spend the night

Big Arm bay as you approach the lake from the west.

The view from my morning bike ride.

Cromwell Island and Dayton Bay.

Sometimes the sky is filled with forest fire smoke. This is Dayton bay.

The west shore of Wild Horse Island in the morning

You can see other photos of the lake and read about my bike ride around the lake last year HERE

Cyber tree museum

I took all my trees and put them in a tree museum. And I don't even charge twenty five bucks just to see them.

Click on the cyber tree label link to see them.

A carrot for the Easter Bunny

I rode the bunny hill chair with a little ski school kid today as they always try to get adults go with them. It sort of turned into the Easter Bunny hill chair. And now I think I sort of understand this whole Easter Bunny thing. I've been wondering about it for years.

So my little kid, Wil, was four years old and a blue bib. Second to the best skill level. I asked the instructor if he could get off of the chair ok at the top, and the response was sort of mixed. That meant be ready to grab him and haul him off. His legs stuck straight out. One of those. The lift operator had to place him on the chair and then I put my poles infront of him and grabbed the back of his jacket.

Wil struck up a conversation the moment we left the ground. Told me about his skate board that has fire on the bottom of it. Complimented me on my ski poles, and told me black was his favorite color. So I asked him if he was going to hunt for Easter eggs. He was, and he had done it before so he knew what he was doing. I said he would be good at it then, and he agreed.

Then he told me that he had put out a carrot for the Easter Bunny but some animal had eaten it. "What kind of animal?" I asked. "I don't know." he said. "Was it a gopher?" I asked. "No." "Well, was it a squirrel then?" "No it wasn't a squirrel." He said. "Was it a bird?" "No,.. it was a chicken." Wil Said. "A chicken!?" I questioned. "A scary wild chicken." He responded. A scary wild chicken had eaten the carrot that he had left out for the Easter Bunny.

I did notice a few rabbit tracks in the snow looking down from another chair. So I'm thinking that perahps rabbits come out onto the snow about this time of year. And this gave rise to the whole Easter Bunny thing. I just never put the whole thing together until today.

Nice day

I don't know what happened to the comment section of my last post. Perhaps I goofed around with it too much. What a nice day to not be at work!

They lie

I was wrong,.. This is the last week of ski season. They advertised that they would be open another week but they are going back on their word. They lie. Everyone says, "Well nobody is coming up so they have to close." And everyone thinks it's ok! Well what about me? I have a season pass! I guess they don't care now that they have my money. I'm just getting the hang of it!

Having said that, It snowed today and was cold. Cold is the main thing but it was really snowing. When it's cold the snow stays nice and fast to ski on. So I checked the NOAA weather and here is what it said,...

TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY...SHORT TERM MODELS ARE IN GOOD AGREEMENT IN REGARD TO THE LONG-WAVE PATTERN EVOLUTION...AND ARE IN FAIR AGREEMENT IN THE SYNOPTIC SCALE. IN THE BIG PICTURE THE LONG-WAVE TROUGH OVER THE REGION MIGRATES ENE AS A RIDGE BUILDS OVER THE PAC NW. THIS WILL END SHOWERS OVER THE REGION TONIGHT...BUT A SHORT-WAVE SYSTEM MOVES IN ON WEDNESDAY TO INCREASE PRECIP
CHANCES AGAIN.

Um... That means it's going to be nice tomorrow so I'm going skiing.

April cyber tree

Here is Miss April cyber tree. I took this photo last Wednesday. The snow conditions have depreciated quite a bit in the last few days, but it was trying to snow yesterday when I left the mountain. Today is a blue bird day and much cooler so the skiing will be better. I found $10 on the ground on Friday so that paid for my gas yesterday. Only 2 weeks of skiing left.