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So I’m back from my Christmas in Vail trip, and oh what a blast it was.. In the few days right before I get to Vail, it’s just my luck that a HUGE storm blew through Denver, dropping 3 feet of snow on the mile-high city, closing the airport (which is known for its ability to deal with inclement weather).. But, lucky for me, my flight went without a hitch.. SFO-DEN actually landed early, and I caught my connection to Eagle in plenty of time. The drive from Denver to Eagle is only about 3 hours, but when I was looking for plane tix, it wasn’t that much more to just hop the 26 minute flight. And I was upgraded to first class… So, it sounded like a great plan… except that my bag didn’t arrive. Ugh. I arrived at like 10pm, so they said that my bag should arrive by noon the next day, but for that night, I was SOL. Crap. I joined Kathee and her friends at Garfinkel’s for a drink, where luckily, I saw that they sold t-shirts, so I was able to procure myself a Garf’s t-shirt to at least sleep in for the night.. Thank goodness I had my big winter coat cuz it was 1 degree out when I landed.

The next day I tried contacting United (and got their call-center somewhere in India, which is actually my first time dealing with an Indian call center..) — anyway, United had no idea where my bag was, so I was forced to buy some new gear and rent a snowboard in order to ride that first day, which was AWESOME since they got an additional 8 inches of fresh powder that morning… wahoo.. So, I looked a little goofy riding in my big non-snowboardy city coat and rented board.. as Elena explained it, I was a snowboarding contradiction — I looked like a goofy first-timer tourist, but I was able to snowboard.. My slopestyle didn’t match my riding.. I guess that’s a compliment. In any case, I’m hoping that United will recoup at least a portion of the money for gear and rental that I was forced to shell out because of their pooeyness.

So after that day of epic snowboarding, we drove over to the Super Walmart where I was soo excited to buy myself some new underwear and maybe some sort of cheap Walmart clothing.. but, it was Christmas Eve, and they closed early. Ugh. We ran over to the supermarket, which was still open, where I was faced by a dilemma. Hooray, the supermarket had some clothes. But the only thing they had was a Denver Broncos sweatshirt and sweatpants. Ugh. I can’t do that. The Broncos caused so much pain and anguish to this lil’ Cleveland Browns fan, that I actually decided that I’d rather just go snowboarding another day in my jeans and button down than wear the blue and orange.

Luckily for me, at that moment, I got a phone call telling me that my bag had arrived. Phew. Crisis averted.

Anyway… The next two days of snowboarding were equally epic. Vail is a magnificent mountain. The snow was plush, and the trails through the trees were sooooo awesome.. Vail is huge.. Just one of the peaks would be comparable to one of the mountains in Tahoe, and they have like six or seven of them or something. I guess it IS the biggest ski resort in the nation.

One of Kathee’s friends, Amanda, drives a cat for Vail (she’s the crew lead, actually), and… I got to go along with her for a bit. How awesome is that? I hope she didn’t think I was too goofy for being so giddy whilst I tagged along, but it was really, really cool going along with her as she groomed the mountain.

She leads a team of like 7 cats as they drive in formation, grooming as they go.. Since Vail grooms 24 hours a day, and they don’t close the slopes when they do, they have to constantly sound the siren and shoo skiers and boarders away. Anyway, it’s pretty damn cool sitting in the cat as they drive headfirst down a black diamond. Woo.

So yah, that was pretty damn cool. Oh, and to top it all off, I saw some wicked aspens. Aspens are the coolest trees evar.

That is all. Vail. Cool. Yah.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas or Hanukah or Festivus or whatever..

Well.. I’m off to Vail for a few days.. Denver was slammed these past few days with over 2 feet of snow, closing the airport down for awhile, but hopefully I’ll be able to get there without any hassle so that I can enjoy that freshie snow snow.

This is my first visit to Colorado during the winter, so I’m hella excited. Woo. I’m coming back to SF on the 27th, and then I’m headed down to LA for NYE, so if you’re down there, be sure to give me a holler.

Happy Holidays.

After celebrating Andy’s Birthday tonight (Happy Birthday, Andy!), we had a little 3.7 magnitude earthquake at 10:50pm, centered near Berkeley.. I definitely felt it — it started off slow, kind of like.. wubba-wubba-wubba-wobbly, and then.. BAM, a really hard jolt. It was the biggest quake that I’ve felt in recent memory, and Bailey’s first quake.. Supposedly dogs can feel quakes a lot earlier than we can, but she didn’t seem to notice it until the jolt at the end — I guess trusting her as an early detection device isn’t such a great idea..

Andy pointed out that exactly three years ago, on his birthday, there was a 6.5 magnitude quake… Hmm, I guess something about that day is quake-friendly. I was on my computer at the time, so, of course I immediately did a google search for “earthquake” (and also twittered it). Doug and I were chatting afterwards, and he says “i think google queries for “earthquake” are a pretty good sign of activity.” — which, in turn, made me wonder:

If you were able to get the number of queries for “earthquake” and plot it, with location, on top of a map of the Bay Area, would it look very similar to the shake map above? C’mon — someone at google send me the data*… I’ll make the pretty chart.

* Yah, I know there’s inaccuracies of getting someone’s location by IP and blah blah blah, but still.. I bet someone at google is working on solving that little problem — like they could correlate an IP address or cookie with the most commonly used address that someone puts into google maps when they ask for directions or something… Hmmm.. now we’re talkin’

Barney is staying with us now for a few days while Pang and Ben head to Singapore and New York, respectively… It’s been a bit of crazy (running around for hours, endless humping), but they’ve finally calmed down..

Oh, and I like this pic too..

So, I got word this weekend that I was granted an entry into the escape from alcatraz triathlon in June.. I was already planning to do Wildflower in May, so this will be really fun. Awesome. I’m excited and scared at the same time. The drive you out into the bay on a ferry right next to alcatraz and then.. you jump off and swim 1.5 miles for shore.. then, 18 miles of bike riding all around San Francisco’s super hilly parks. And then, 8 miles of running along baker beach. Hmm. fun. I was motivated by this, so this weekend I got things started with some running work with Kristin at Kezar Stadium, and then a 40 mile bike ride with Dana, Dan and Dave along Paradise loop.. I better really stick to the training schedule this year, or I’ll end up as sea lion food. Woohoo. Fun fun fun.

I thought I’d share a little gem that i came across today…
http://www.cayugaswaiters.com/new/downloads/mp3/harvard.mp3

omg. scary. wow. simply. stunning.

And why, pray tell, was I looking for acapella.. Well, the xmas party I’m going to tomorrow just emailed everyone saying that the evening’s entertainment is going to be provided by this super hot acapella band (yah, I know you’re jealous.) And well, yah, one thing led to another, and I found this track… to think that in almost 10 years, i hadn’t thought about acapella, and in an instant, I was transported back to Cornell Night. Whoosh.

See all you kids at reunion, right? (well, I guess not *all* you kids, but all of you Cornell ’97 kids, I guess.. although I think Kim’s coming and she didn’t even go to Cornell)

It’s my favorite time of the year.. hooray for the holidays. “Dennis’ Xmas Mix 2006″ is done and ready to distribute (ask me if you want one), and I’m even almost all done with my holiday shopping..

This Saturday was Santarchy aka Santacon here in San Francisco.. Approximately 500 Santas descended upon Fisherman’s Wharf around noon, and then proceeded to wreak good cheer and mayhem upon the unsuspecting tourists and residents of San Francisco..

After starting off at Hooters, the group wandered up Hyde, and then to the top of Lombard, blocking traffic, of course, as we all meandered down the crooked street. After Lombard, we headed for Washington Square Park, where free beer and hot dogs were distributed (Santas are hungry and thirsty) and a wicked game of Twister was played.. But then.. when a wedding come out of the church on the park, we all mobbed like some sort of wicked swarm of red bees..

After leaving the wedding, we continued to North Beach, where we frequented several NoBe bars, ultimately ending up at good ol’ Larry Flynt’s place… Oh.. good times, good times. It was quite a scene.

Most of my pics are here. (Yah, ahem.. some aren’t posted.)

Riding sans bike helmet is safer than with a helmet? Hmmm..

Walker decided to find out — putting his own neck on the line. He rigged his bicycle with an ultrasonic sensor that could detect how close each car was that passed him. Then he hit the roads, alternately riding with a helmet and without for two months, until he had been passed by 2,500 cars. Examining the data, he found that when he wore his helmet, motorists passed by 8.5 centimeters (3.35 inches) closer than when his head was bare. He had increased his risk of an accident by donning safety gear.

Statistics are fun.

[thanks james]