A week and and a day...

Skier Days: Sara(24), Caroline(8), Susan(7), Charles(17)

How to get back to posting after a long hiatus is the first challenge.   I can use an excuse that I was not actually up north for the week...  Well lets start with the speed reading version of Christmas week.    Ordered Snow Tires online, spent a morning working at the Toyota dealer so that they could diagnose the problem with the read door motor and order the part so that we would have to come back.  Listened to Ellen in the background.  She is kind of funny, but not as funny as th people in the waiting room thought she was.

Got in a full day of work in the office on Tuesday.  Went to Caroline's 5th grade play on Tuesday night,  very funny group of kids with lots of personality and a clever plot.   Wednesday I spent another morning working at an auto dealership,  this time the Mini dealer. More Ellen in the background and more free coffee from the one cup coffee makers.  It is kind of funny how these business patterns emerge and proliferate.  The Mini/BMW dealer definitely caters to a more professional clientèle and provides for a much better working environment.   I have to give a giant plug for my man Mark Ravin who is the customer service guy at Mini.  He is by far the best at what he does.   Truly outstanding.   New tire and working ski rack in hand I headed home. Hit the stores on the way home from Boston an got all of the remaining Xmas shopping done.

I was up early in Christmas Eve day and had every intent of working a full day.  I cleared out my email, dealt with a couple of outstanding questions and then realized that it was going to be pointless to try to work the rest of the day.    We had Zoe and Ewan hanging out for the day and it looked like it was going to be an early day anyways.  I decided then and there to just take a vacation day.

We ended up spending th evening with the Kennedy's.  We went to Mass at their church up in Lynnfield and then getting Chinese food for dinner.  Note to self, do not order Chinese food on Xmas Eve when you have a house full of hungry kids waiting to eat.  In the end it turned out all right as I got to catch up with Dan and the food was pretty darn tasty.  The company was all around good and it was a nice way to spend the evening.

Christmas...


We were up at 7:30 on Christmas and the presents were all unwrapped and distribute by 8:30.   My tires had been delivered at 4pm on Christmas Eve so I had to install them myself.   Despite the first one that I change being a bit on the locked up side.  I managed to change them all in a little over an hour and was all proud of myself for having done so.   We packed up both the cars for a week away and headed over to my Mom and Dad's house.  They did a fantastic job with dinner  They never seem to show their age, but it was clear that this was a lot of work for them, and we were very grateful for all of the effort that they put in.

It was great to catch up with the three generations of cousins on my Dad's side.  My Aunt Mary is now 88 and yet is somehow ageless.  My cousin Kyle had taught me every game I knew as a young kid and was among my favorites.  Adrienne, who I remembered as a little girl,  now married.  Time passes much too fast these days and I can only imagine my only little girls in just a few more short years.

We headed back to Maine after dinner and were there just after dark.   Caroline had fallen asleep in the car on the way up after a long week and a long day.   It was great to be back in Maine and at the mountain again.

Saturday...


The day after Christmas it hovered right around freezing.   The fog was hanging over the mountain and glazed the goggles quickly at elevation.   Skiing in conditions like this is very disorienting.   You fly along and there is very little to gauge distance and structure.  Your skis will suddenly drop out from underneath leaving you floating in the air.  Alternatively, they will rise quickly and unexpectedly driving your knees towards your chest.   Caroline was having known of this and bailed out back to the condo on the condition that she vacuum the place and walk the dog.   Sara caught up with her friend Sondra and then Margaret and spent the day adventuring.   I made it down to Barker to pick up my sweatshirt and got some runs in across all of the mountain.  The Rioux family showed up late in the evening and the kids were beyond happy to see each other.

Sunday...


For the second time this season the mountain would not be spared the evil green amoeba that worked its way up from the mid Atlantic and up through New England.   Despite all of our fervent prayers to the contrary the very little bit of snow that started the evening before turned to a hard driving rain.   The Rioux's cashed in their tickets for a voucher and ee spent the morning playing some games and hanging out.  I got out late in th afternoon for a couple of hours and proved to myself that my gear could actually keep me dry.  I was the only one to rack up another day on the slope today :)  As we wrapped up the day the Miller's arrived.  It is really great to share with some many friends...

Monday...


Whew!!  I am almost caught up and only one more day to log.  This day we all got out skiing and it was a great one at that.  The mountain had recovered really well,  the snow was soft, and there were lots of good friends to ski with and there were no lift line.  What more could one want from life...

 4-8" of snow tonight.  That would be sweet.  I may be taking more time off than I had planned to this week.

Into the weekend.

Skier Days: Sara(22), Caroline(6), Susan(5), Charles(14)

Well it turned out to be quite a week.   I have been somewhat remiss in keeping up my blog posts as we have had some internet problems starting late Wed. night and through the end of the day Friday.

Wednesday...

The temperatures continued to be super cold dipping below 0 degrees Fahrenheit both Wednesday and Thursday.  We had new window and blinds installed over the summer and the blinds do such a good job at insulating that each morning there was a few inches of frost on the inside of the window.   It would quickly thaw and disappear once the blinds were raised and I turned on the gas fireplace. In general we keep the electric heat off and rely on the fireplace to heat the place.  It is on a one hour timer so we don't turn it on over night and the condo has been around 56 degrees when we awaken.  

I dropped Sara down at campus and worked the day away back at the condo.   After lunch I managed to get in a few fast runs and with my warm gear on it did not even feel that cold. I picked up Sara late in the day on Wednesday as they had a talk on nutrition after dinner was complete.  Our internet connection grew slower as the evening went by and it got frustrating to the point where I just shut it down completely in hopes that it would recover the next morning.  

Thursday...


In the morning it was no better and in fact it was worse.   I dropped Sara down at the competition center and called Time Warner.  A couple of different technicians determined that there appeared to be something wrong with the signal and that the line speed was not all that great.   Because it was still technically functional they scheduled an appointment for Tuesday, yikes.   Not long after I got off the phone it was completely toast.   I worked on some offline tasks in the hopes that it would improve as the temperature came up.  No such luck.

I decided to get my time in skiing today early but when I got out there it was so cold and windy that the lifts were barely running .    I skied just a couple of runs before heading in.   So that it was not a complete loss I tried the exercise of one footed skiing all the way from the top of the South Ridge Quad.  One time down on each foot.  This is an exercise that they often use with the race kids and something that Sara can do to an almost savant like degree.  I therefore held out hope that I was somehow the source of those genes.  While I did not approximate her skill level, I did manage to do a passable job after a challenging start.

With no internet I packed up my stuff and moved down to the lodge where I setup on the corner of the Barker Lodge.  It was really quiet all afternoon, sunny and comfortable.   It was a really productive day of work after getting off to such a crappy start.  I worked until a little after 6pm.  I called into Time- Warner and the agreed that with my connection now 100% down they would send someone out tomorrow.  

It got very cold and when I went out side the biting wind and cold slapped me in the face.  I saw a couple of mountain ops guys coming up the stairs and it was again an odd coincidence that one of them was our friend Adam.   He and his partner had just walked all the way down from Obsession backwards to cut through the wind.   I offered to take Sara out for dinner but she declined as all of the kids were heading down to Rite-Aide to pick up presents for their secret Santa the next day.   I decided to go anyways and went to Cho Sun for a smoking hot bowl of KimChee Chi Gae.   My nose ran and my eyes waters and I felt like I had enough heat to last through to the spring.   I collected Sara at the Rite-Aide and we headed back to a chilly condo and an early bed.


Friday...


I dropped Sara in Bethel the next morning and then went straight to the lodge to work and await a call from the cable guy.  I got a perfect spot right in the corner under the wireless router and set to work.   A lot of things were coming together, so I felt super, extra productive.    Susan was coming up early today and Caroline was staying at Molly's tonight so she could have some extra time to work on the big play.   Susan got in at midday and ended up skiing with a friend of ours from home that happened to be up on business.    I got a call from the cable guy around 4 o'clock and I met him at the condo promptly.   Within an hour or so we had resolved most of the issue and I was back to my computer again.

We went down to Gould for the evening and had a great time first with a lovely dinner, and then with a great Christmas Concert that showed off some of the really talented musicians at the school.  There was a reading of the "Night Before Christmas" to collection of little ones in PJs, and then some top rate classical piano, chorus,  band, jazz band and even more singing.   All and all it was quite impressive.   We finished the evening with cookies and coffee and the back to the condo.

Saturday...


The girls were slept in late on Saturday morning and so I went out and skied a bit on my own.  We all met up at 10am with the BDP and Sara tagged along for a bit with the standard crew.  We skied fast and hard and did  laps on Northern Light which was probably the best trail on the mountain and there were no lines at all at the Aurora chair.

We were driving back separately to Medford and the excitement for the day involved a nail in the tire of my Mini.   It has run flats and the indicator light is often falsely going on so i tended to ignore it.  Something felt different this time so I stopped at a gas station with an pressure gauge and discovered that it was indeed flat and had a nice long nail in it.  My suspicion is that it was related to the construction going on in the condo below us and that it had gotten plowed up in the now.  It managed to go into the sidewall and a can of the fix-a-flat was a waste of $7.  I made it to "the Wal-Mart" and the folks there were super nice.   They showed me how to use a repair kit to fix it myself because they were technically not allowed to fix it at all for fear of liability.  In the end the plug held and I drove super slow all the way back to Boston  New tire will be needed for sure though.
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Made it back in time to shower and head out to dinner with our gang of local friends.   A great meal at Temple Bar followed by some beers and desert at our friends home.

Sunday...


Sunday brought a foot of snow in Boston, but none up north.  I am local this week and now I am really tired and ready for bed after a long day of shoveling.  I love my home here, but already miss having a mountain outside my back door...

Monday.... Tuesday

Skier Days: Sara(18), Caroline(6), Susan(3), Charles(11)

Monday we woke to a Bluebird kind of day and some fresh snow.  Sara had a busy day of classes ahead.  She had skied the last 4 days and having had the chance to fore run the J1/J2 course the day before,  it was probably good that she took a day off.  I got back for my morning meeting, worked for a while, and then waited for a second meeting of the day at 11:30.  When there was noon dialed in after 15 minutes I decided to take an early lunch and get a couple of runs in.  The weather was warm and the skies were a pretty blue with just a few puffy clouds.

I laid out a plan to hit all of the lifts that are currently opened and managed to do so as well as get in six runs and be back at my desk before 1:15.   The trails that were groomed were much better than they were when they had been skied off at the end of Sunday.  The bumps were still pretty soft at the bottom of Risky Business as well.  I was going to head in early when I realized that the Aurora chairs was spinning so I took one quick run from the top of Spruce down Sirius and Aludra and the bottom of Northern Lights.  When I got to the top of the Aurora chair who did I spy but Stan and Alycia who had decided to take the day off and avoid driving home in the snow the night before.

I continued to work the rest of the day and managed to get my status report done early for once..  I picked up Sara and we did a pass through the grocery store picking up supplies for the week.  Sara seemed so mature and was a bit help.  I have been working on playing the Owl City, Fireflies song and she sang along with me. While she wrapped up her work and exchanged messages on Facebook with her pals.  

Tuesday we were up early again and she started they day off great.  She got everything together and we were packed up and to the competition center right on time.   Today was her first day on the new GS skis that are fully 170s (holy cow).   I got my Mini back up to the lot but it had snowed another couple of inches of slush snow overnight and it had not yet been plowed.  High performance tires and slushy snow covered dirt parking lots do not mix.  I ended up parking at the other end of the lot in a spot where I can easily roll out.  There was a small panic about having clothes for formal dinner night, but that turned out to be cancelled.

I had my weekly meeting with the boss and managed to crank through a bunch of my to do list.   I got out for a few runs today,  but the conditions were pretty marginal.  I got my first run down Wildfire, but that was not nearly as pleasant as I was hoping for with no real structure to the bumps and big piles of mash potato like snow.   Someone had managed to poach agony by coming in from Goatpath as can be evidenced by the picture above.

I picked up Sara at 7:30 after she had attended an after dinner talk on nutrition.   Sara had ended up having a self imposed very bad day and was pretty wiped out by the time we got everything unpacked and put away.  Fortunately, tomorrow is a new day and a fresh start.  I can hear the snow guns running again as the temperatures are finally back down below freezing tonight. Tomorrow it will be cold and white and fresh.

I just finished reading "Practicing Catholic" by James Carroll last night.  Tonight it is on to "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" :-)

- C

A very busy weekend....

Skier Days: Sara(17), Caroline(6), Susan(3), Charles(9)

It is Sunday night and it is snowing again...  Susan, Caroline and Maggie are back in the car, heading to Medford.   Sara and I are quietly catching our breath and getting ready for another busy week.

Friday...


On Friday afternoon we replaced our stove.   It was the original stove that came with the condo and the plug in coil burners were temperamental and did not always work well.  We had a credit from our last purchase of a a dryer at Sears and so cashed that in for a sleek new black, flat top stove.   The delivery guys worked the miracle of getting the old unit down and the new one all the way up to the third floor.  I cleaned out nearly 20 years of gunk from underneath the stove.    Susan and Caroline had left early from school today so as not to have to drive up in the dark in the mini.  They arrived late afternoon and Susan had made a really yummy lasagna for the dinner this evening.

Sara was late getting home this evening as she was taking her second set of dance lessons in preparation for the big Snow Ball that was held on Saturday night.   After we all ate and got to spend some time together Susan rode down to Bethel to get Sara and spend some quality time in the car on the way back.

Saturday...


Sara had classes today and a bit more skiing.  They have been working hard on slalom gates and she is really proud of the improvements she has made in being more aggressive in hitting the gates.   After classes Saturday morning, she had skiing, in the afternoon, and then the formal dance.  I dropped her early down at campus for 7:45 and barely made it back to see Caroline out the door to get to the start of her program at 8:30.

It was super cold and windy today and sadly Susan's boot warmers had died.  She managed to make due with some air activated toe warmers and we met up with the whole gang from Black Diamond Program.  BDP is a program by which folks of varying abilities ski with a group of instructors.  It run for the entire season and meets for a couple hours on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning each week.   The members and the instructors break up into various groups based on ability and style of skiing.  It is a great deal for the money and it also means that on the very busy weekends you get to skip the long lines. And on top of it all of that there is a great social component to the group.

Sara went to her Ball and had a wonderful time.  She danced the night away and I drove down to Bethel to get her at 10:30 pm.  In the meantime Susan, Caroline and I went to dinner with Rod, Jenny, Nat, and Drew.  Nat and Caroline became fast friends last year as J5s and we have gotten to be know the whole family really well.  We had dinner at the Phoenix and it was pretty decent food.  The menu has changed a bunch since last year, but everyone's dinner game out pretty tasty.  The kids really enjoy it because they have a great video game section and pool tables in a room off of the dining room.     I spent an hour or so before and an hour or so after tuning up skis down in the locker.  It is pretty crazy all of the activity layering that goes on.   It is pretty amazing that it all manages to get done.

Sunday...

The excitement for today involved Sara's first chance to fore run a real course for the J1s and J2s.  Caroline did her regular program as did Susan and I with BDP.   Sara was down at the competition center early and did some training and helping throughout the day.   She had two chances to run the course before each of the main races.  She is still coming up to speed on the slalom, which is really technical, but we were really impressed on the progress that she has made so far this season.

She is really starting to get the hang of taking a close line and finishing her turns as she gets to the gates.  Pretty soon she will be making that awesome thwack, thwack, thwack sound.   Skiing behind her on Saturday as she carried down coats for the older kids I was amazed at how quickly she and her teammates move from edge to edge and how elegant they are becoming even on the crowded uneven terrain from below where the course completed down to the lift.

I ended the day watching the Patriots in the Barker Bar and Susan kindly came over and picked up the lot of us as she had headed back to the condo as soon as Sara had finished her run. We made it back to the condo, and got everything in order and the girls headed back on the long ride back to Medford.

All and all it was a very busy weekend and now I am tired and ready to go to bed and prepare for another busy week ahead of meetings and hopefully a couple of ski breaks.  The finally got Escapade open and it is now possible to ski directly out the back door of the building.   On top of that we got another 4-5 inches of snow this evening and it looks like there is more in the forecast and more cold weather as well.

The First Big Dump of Snow

Skier Days: Sara(14), Caroline(4), Susan(1), Charles(7)
Powder Days: Charles(1)

Now we are talking!!!  When we woke this morning and switched on the news you could see the storm crawling like an amoeba up the east coast and enveloping Boston and all the way up to Portland.  By 8am when we walked out the door it was flurrying and when we got to Bethel it was coming down pretty hard.  I got back to the condo and settled into to a busy day of nerding away.  Looking out the window with the snow coming down hard it somehow felt like the snow days that one remembers from childhood.

 I tried really hard to focus on my work and the meetings and the writing and the technical digging, but managed to hang in there almost the entire day.   Sara's classes finished around noon and she sent me a text that they school had decided it was too unsafe to bring all of the students up to the mountain and that she would be staying in town until the evening.  She was going to a Dance class at 7pm in preparation for the big "Snow Ball" that is coming up this Saturday night and that marks the beginning of Christmas break for the Gould Campus.  I labored on and managed to keep on task all the way through 2pm.  I kept telling myself that I should not bother going out since it was too windy, blah, blah, blah.

Well I finally smartened up and realized just in time that this was what it was all about and that if I wanted to actually experience the first powder of the season I had better get cracking.   I quickly put on my ski pants and a warm jacket, the thermometer still read only in the mid 20s and was down stairs in a flash.  The walk was quite a bit shorter as there was now snow covering all of the trails on South Ridge.  I had grabbed my big fat Mantras and I floated down to the Barker lift over the untracked snow coming that forms the hillside above the lift.   All of the trails were filled from side to side with big soft bumps and only occasionally would you happen to hit the bottom and feel the scratchy "packed" powder below.   I was so happy to discover that I had not forgotten how to ski bumps over the summer and this was definitely "hero" snow.  Hero snow is the snow that is just so forgiving that you feel like the best bump skier to ever have lived.  There is nothing quite like the feeling of busting through a giant pile of fluff, being rebounded into the air, and dropping softly into the next big powder puff.  You know that you are skiing well and feeling good when you are not talking to yourself and you make it to the bottom gasping for breath from all the hard work.   After 6 of these runs in 1 and 1/2 hours I was ready to head back.  The slog through the foot deep powder back across the trail was exhausting.  By some amazing surprise I bumped into Meghan's bo Adam who is working in Mountain Operations and was getting up to speed on all of the equipment.

I got back to work and managed to check off a bunch more boxes on my list before I had to run down to Bethel and get Sara for 8pm.  The IGA had closed early so it didn't look like we were going to have cream cheese for the morning :-(.  I had a bit of time to kill so I walked Maggie around the Gould Campus for a bit and felt like I had stepped back in time to one of those Norman Rockwell scenes of a snow New England town.  God, it is pretty around here


The next morning I was up early again to get in a walk for the Maggie Dog.  We hiked around a bit and I took a few pictures.   Did I mention that she looooooooves the snow.  She romps and frolics and tears around in it as if she were back in her prehistoric wolf pack days.  The snow flies every which way and generally you are looking at her running directly away from you or directly you towards you.  I have been trying for a couple of weeks to get some decent running pictures and it is only by luck that  I managed to get a couple this day.  

Sara and I are getting better at staying organized but this morning she had forgotten to bring her ski pants back from down at Bethel where they had been hung up to dry.  She did not realize this until after we were half way down the hill at which point we managed a solid recovery by running back up to the condo, grabbing her speed suit and training short before heading down to Barker to get her a temporary day pass. All was managed before 8:30 and I raced back to get to a scheduled meeting scheduled that early with some of the guys in India.

I worked until 10:30 and then made it out for a much shorter set of runs, just enough to work up a sweat.  The Mountain had opened up Spruce Peak and Risky Business was good in parts but had giant whale backs of ungroomed snow that made it terribly untrustworth.  I bumped into Chris C. who was up with Alan G. working on the first round of training for Ski Patrol.  Sigh,  maybe next year for me, when there are less demands.

I was back at my desk by Noon and ticked off a bunch more items off my to do list throughout the afternoon.  I went for my evening run to Bethel and got back to find that my lovely daughter had not yet completed her weekly paper current events issue which was due in the morning.  She is very smart,  but has managed to bring procrastination to an entirely new level. Arrrrrrggggggh!!!  She did manage to get it done by not too late. Alas,  it is just part of the maturation process and learning how to focus on priorities is not innate for many of us.   I hope that I applied the right combination of patience and urgency.  In the end it is really all up to her.

Oh, and check out lettering on the wind shield of the the jeep below.   These guys take care all sort of stuff around the condos and this morning they shoveled us out.   They are super nice guys and salt of the earth Mainers.

For those that don't have bionic eyes the lettering at the top of the window reads....

Two really long days...

Skier Days: Sara(13), Caroline(4), Susan(1), Charles(5)

Mondays really are the longest days of the week.  Sara had a full docket of 5 classes on Monday with no skiing and I started off the day with 4 straight hours of phone conferences.  The brain starts getting a bit goofy after about three hours with head phones on.   I was pretty productive throughout the afternoon and managed to stay focused and to caught up on a bunch of outstanding work.   The day ended with yet another spec review, that one was not so bad with the time in between to recover.

I had set up a Facebook page for Sara on Sunday to surprise her when she got home.  She was in a super mood when she returned from going to Portland with the whole crew on Sunday, having schemed to meet up with her pal Margaux, who lives just outside of  Portland.  She set right to expanding her friend list and since then has seen it grow rather quickly.  Her approach has been very mature so far and to date she has managed to limit her time online fairly responsibly.  

By the time I got her home on Monday night we were both completely wiped and were in bed and asleep just after 9.   I woke up crazy early at around 4:30 AM on Tuesday morning.  Maggie needed to get a walk in so I dressed in my ski stuff and took her for a walk all the way up and around to the top of the quad by way of Dreammaker and the access road.  The snow squalls from the last two days have started to amounts to something and the mountain is all around frosty.

They have been pounding out the snow and there is a thick coating from the top of North Peak all the way down to the base lodge at South Ridge.  None of it is groomed yet,  but it is all prepped and looking good for the weekend coming up.  I finished my mini hike by 6:30 am and got back in time to start picking up and helping get Sara's packing for the day started.   I woke her at 7 and we ate breakfast together and had her delivered to the Competition Center by 8:15.   Back to the condo for an hour long meeting with my boss by phone and then a few clean up items.  I managed to sneak out to the slopes for a few runs and be back long before lunch.  The afternoon was filled with reading and reviewing and some writing.  It ended with two hours of phone conferences and a bit more reviewing.

I made myself some dinner (salad and pasta with marinara sauce) and then I headed down back down to Bethel to pick Sara up for 8pm.  She had stayed late tonight to take the Impact Test which they use to manage head injury.  The idea is that you take the test now and it establishes a baseline so that if you get hurt later it is possible to gauge your recovery.  This is a great thing to do for any kid that plays competitive sports...

She looked very pretty in her dress up clothes tonight and I am really proud of how well she is handling this all.  She had her late night snack and we got all of her stuff put away and organized. Now it is really late, and I am ready for bed once I finish folding the laundry.

Wednesday is not normally going to be a ski day for me, but there are 9-14 inches of snow predicted!!   It may be a decent ski winter after all..

Reunited! At least for the weekend...

Skier Days: Sara(12), Caroline(4), Susan(1), Charles(4)

December 4th - 6th


Friday...

This morning came waaaaaaay to fast.  Sara had to be down to campus by 7 to have breakfast and for the morning assembly.  Neither of us could get to sleep and so I ended up with maybe 6 hours of sleep.   The ride down 26 was a really pretty one as it always is on sunny mornings.  I had skipped breakfast and coffee this morning and decided to stop in at DiCocoa's write on Main St. There I got a good cup of Coffee and a very yummy Nutella scone.  All before 7:15 AM.  The gas tanks was running really low so I stopped at the gas station on Route 26, filled up and took the picture above that is of Mt. Abram.

View Larger Map

I walked around the base of the mountain to see how things were looking.  There was still piles of snow along the trails where they had been blown.  Hopefully these will form the base of the next round of snowmaking when the temperatures finally get down below freezing again... There were lots of small tufts of grass poking through the stark white snow and the light was really amazing.  It is going to to make a lot of practice to get good at taking pictures again,  but this light was perfect.

It was a long day of reading, reviewing and meeting.   I had promised to make dinner for the family and had picked up the ingredients for Taco Stew.  It came out really yummy and made the entire house smell deliciously for the entire afternoon as it stewed away on the stove...  I had one last review that was supposed to run from 4-5 but it went quite a bit longer and it was nearly 6 by the time the call completed.   Just in time for me to run down and help Susan carry up a bunch of bags.

I got a giant hug from Caroline and a huge waggie tail from Maggie.  It was great to have the whole family reunited again.  Susan decided to run down to Bethel and pick up Sara, who was still finishing up classes and having dinner with her group at Gould.  Caroline and I got to reconnect a bit over a bowl of hot taco stew and I heard all about the process of selecting the topic for the play that they are putting on in Mr. Allen's class.   It sounds like is going to be a classic.

When Susan and Sara got back we all just hung out and caught up on the week.  Sara was in a super great mood and more talkative than ever... We all were really tired after this first demanding week and crashed pretty early.

Saturday...


Sara had her first day of Saturday classes and given the limited skiing and conditions their group was planning on doing "dry land" training.  For those not familiar with the ski lingo, "dry land" means any physical training that is not on snow.  In this case it meant playing soccer.  Susan is trying to maximize her time with Sara and volunteered to be the one to run her into town.

Caroline had her first day of GACP this weekend and so she and I walked over to the mountain with our gear. Did I mention that it was a really short walk?  I carried the skis and she carried the poles.  I got her checked into with her group and then just hung out in the competition center and chatted with a couple of other parents until they started an Orientation for J5s  Susan had decided not to ski today and so she walked over with Maggie.  They seemed even more organized than ever this year with a booklet handout with everything you would want to know about the program, the training plan for each age group and the race schedule,   Deb took my compliment, but in her typical modesty felt that things were not quite as organized as she had hoped with the crazy snow conditions to start things out.

I caught up with Mark P. and skied a bunch of runs.  The conditions were even rougher than they had been most of the week.  It had become colder overnight and they had been able to fill in some of the dirty, muddy spots.   There were only to really scary sections down at the bottom.  At the top of T2 the large stones which littered the top of the snow revealed just how shallow the snow was here.  This happens when the groomers go all the way to the bottom.   We bumped into a number of folks from Black Diamond and called it a day early to try out our Mugs.  I managed to put enough peer pressure on Mark such that he caved in and got himself on.

We picked up Caroline and walked back to the Condo.  Peter P and Steve S. came by to talk about the Facebook page and the setup of a web page for the Black Diamond program.  We ended up doing more talking and hanging than actually working out the details.   Steve told me about a really cool hike that he had completed that morning up the back of the White Cap, around a couple of cliffs and up to the top of White Heat.

When they headed out we rode down to a "Meet the Coaches"  open house at the Competition Center.  It is amazing how much it is starting to feel like home up here.  In just three short years we are starting to feel integrated into the life around the mountain.

Sara was exhausted when she got back to the condo and the entire family was crashed by 8:30 pm.   The good news is that it had started to snow...

Sunday...

dawned cold and clear.  The thermometer read 27 Fahrenheit, there was a coating of white on the hill outside the windows, and the sky was that shocking blue that it gets in the winter in Maine.   Sara was dropped really early at the competition center and then Susan, Caroline, and I walked down to Barker.  This was day one for Susan, and the feet were feeling just a little cramped and achy.  She managed to get the kinks out and we got in a bunch of runs by 9:30.

On top of the 2-3 inches of natural snow they snow guns had been running all night and the conditions had dramatically been improved over night.  Susan and I skied a couple of runs and then met up with Mark P.  It was "Santa Sunday" and apparently they had forgotten to shut off the registration and ended up with 580 registered Santas for the day.  While only around 300 showed up, it was till quite a site.  Susan quit after the break, which included our first sticky bun of the year.  For those not familiar with the sticky buns at Sunday River they area Cinnamon bun that is drowned in a sticky, gooey coating of white sugar paste that is enough to satisfy even the most hardened of sweet tooths.

I intended to sneak in a couple more runs, but the crowds were out in force and the limited terrain was already getting pretty scratchy.  The long lines at the bottom were enough for me to end up calling it a day so that was that.   I went back to the condo with Susan and we cleaned up a bit and took care of a few odds and ends.  She is desperate to use the credit we have at Sears so we are looking into a new stove to replace the slightly shaky 20 year old one in the kitchen.  I also figured out how to pay the cable bill so that we won't get our internet shut off.

Back down to the competition center to pickup Caroline and the over to South Ridge to get some Power Straps put on Caroline's boots as well as new poles for our now incessantly growing second child.   The stack of skis waiting to be tuned on the machine was absolutely crazy and our favorite operator could not resist getting in the picture.

Well  Susan and Caroline took the Mini Cooper back to Medford this week and decided to leave Maggie up with Sara and I so that she could experience a bit more exercise.  I watched the Patriots lose their second in a row :-( and it is now very quiet here, almost too quiet.   Time to throw together a dinner and then head down to the locker to do a bit of ski tuning before I run out to get Sara,  who went down to Portland with the kids from Winter Term for the afternoon.  

The good news is that it is going to be really cold all week and there is a snow storm in the forecast for Thursday!!    

- C

Here Comes the Rain Again...

Skier Days: Sara(10), Caroline(3), Susan(0), Charles(2)

Just when you thought it was safe to go on the ski slopes mother nature sends you a big sloppy kiss straight out of the Caribbean.   My personal theory is that they there were not enough hurricanes this year to suck all of the energy out of the warm tropical waters.   You could see this one coming up the coast from a long way away and there was not going to be any avoiding it.  The only good thing about this storm was how quickly it came through.

Sara was actually supposed to have been brought to campus this morning for breakfast and assembly, but we are still getting the hanging of things so I brought her straight to the competition center.  Something to remember for next week.

The rain was still coming down pretty hard when we got there.  While this not to good for the snow,  it does make for some interesting pictures.  The mountain had completed a major construction project the summer before last after a huge rain storm and washout.   It was obvious to see just how well worth it that effort was.

Ski slopes are a friend to erosion and only with the hiking that I have done over the last year have I come to appreciate just how much work goes into controlling run off.  The sheer number of erosion bars, culverts and tunneling that go into avoid environmental devastation is quite impressive.   Most skiers never see these because by the time the show up it is all covered in a thick blanket of snow.   If  you hike off season or make it to the slopes early or late in the season, they become a lot more obvious.

I heard very little from Sara today and buried myself in my work.  It is so easy to get lost in the technology.  You start out on something that you think will be pretty easy, and the solution evades you, until suddenly it all just works.  This happened to me this morning.  I also got to catch up with a fellow Oracle colleague that I had not checked in with for quite a while.   I am excited because a piece of shared code that I had worked on quite a bit a year ago has finally made it out the door.  I then had hours of reading and commenting on specifications ahead of me.

By late morning the sun was streaming through a foggy background and the temperature read in the mid 50s so I opened the windows and let it air out some.   I took a short break mid afternoon and did my run from North Peak to Aurora again. What is amazing is how predictable the human body is sometimes. This run has 500 feet of elevation change and goes along a rugged access road, yet I finished it just 15 seconds faster than the last time that I had run it. Oddly, I felt like I had paced myself and run it more slowly and steadily than the last time. Comparing the two runs was pretty interesting. High-technology is pretty stark sometimes.



Perhaps my perception that this run was easier was because of the sights and sounds of running water that surround me.   Man made and natural streams and waterfalls alike were babbling and singing everywhere.  While I felt taken in by the feeling of nature around me, it was clear that careful civil engineering was at work just about everywhere to preserve the careful balance between man and nature.


I read a few more documents and then headed down to Bethel a little early to pick up supplies for Taco Stew for when the girls arrive tomorrow night.  Sara had gotten much of her homework done but had been procrastinating on her one assignment that was due tomorrow.  She seems to be struggling a bit with the independence and the easy access to media.  The idea was there, but the work was below par.   With a little coaxing she got it in pretty good shape.

In the meantime I got the place all spic-n-span.  Cleaning out the fridge of the leftovers,  vacuuming up all the mud and dust from the parking lot,  running the dishwasher, and doing a load of laundry.   All before bed and another early day tomorrow...

The First Real Days of School (Tues. and Wed.)

Skier Days: Sara(9), Caroline(3), Susan(0), Charles(2)

Monday night and into Tuesday morning it finally made it down into the twenties.   Sara starts the day skiing on Tuesday and Thursday so she gets to sleep in and doesn't need to be down at the Competition Center until 8:30.  It was like a miracle the amount of snow that the mountain had put out overnight.   The guns were blasting every where and the difference from the day before was marked.  The snow had crept down nearly to the bottom of the lift and they were clearly working on filling in the distance.   I zipped back up to my desk and had my weekly "face to face" with my boss Mac and then dug into my ridiculous backlog of emails and what appears to be an ever growing to do list.   I had worked quite long the night before and so decided to give myself my first treat of the season and sneak out for an hour or so.

I walked down to the locker grabbed my stuff and walked across to the bottom of Barker.  I usually leave my pass on my pants, but since my pants are back in Medford in the basement I managed to forget to bring it along :-(  Fortunately the lifties knew me and let me slide since going back for it would have pretty much been the end of it.  Once I got up top I was able to get in 7, all be it short, runs in just over an hour and be back at my desk in just about an hour and a half.  It was well worth it as the day was a real beauty.

The only down side was the need to stop periodically and wipe the frost of the goggles.  Punch was pretty slushy as well since the snow makers had not had the time to really let it "cure" by letting the moisture settle out of it.  T2 had a lot more attention and was really pretty good with only a few sections that had that yellowish glare to it.   The legs are just starting to get in shape so I made the hard decision to head back and skied to the bottom, took off my skis and walked back.


The rest of the day flew by and I managed to at least stay even with the list of tasks that were backing up.  The good news is that a number of the projects that I had been nursing along for a while are all starting to come to fruition.   Sara had to be picked up at 7pm and this time I was right on time.   She had enjoyed her first day of school and her first "Formal Dinner" night, though she was a bit under dressed.

Wednesday started out equally sunny and was my first day driving into Bethel.  We efficiently packed everything up and had an easier start as Sara was eating breakfast at school.   The drive is 14 miles round trip and the mountains, river and fields were particularly pretty in that light.  The only thing that could make them look better would be a coating of white.

Another day of work blow by.  I have been dutifully eating up all of the left overs from the weekend and at this point I am getting ready for a change from BBQ and Thanksgiving leftovers.  I think that I will have vanquished most of it by the weekend though!  Sara seemed happy again this evening and when we got back she gave her skis a quick tune.   You can barely see the hole now that it has been fixed.

Find the right balance of allowing her to go it alone and providing a little experience is not easy.   That and tolerating 97.9 and its steady diet of rap and hip-hop are probably my greatest challenges as a Dad.  Not too terrible in the big scheme of things.  Oh well,  let's hope the rain that is predicted gets in and out of hear quickly.

Back to Work

Skier Days: Sara(7), Caroline(3), Susan(0), Charles(1)


Having taken last Wednesday as a day off, this was the first work day in 5 days.   It started off well as Sara got up and going quickly.  We seem to be getting into a bit of  groove.  She  was the first one at the Competition Center this morning.   There was a light mist, fog and low hanging clouds that were not at all what we are hoping for.   I got back to my desk and dug into the back log of emails.   The day just blew by with one two hour phone conference dominating the morning and some digging into a new issue filling a bunch of the afternoon.   No pictures today.  I had one trip down to Bethel mid-afternoon to bring Sara some money, the crew was going to head down to Walmart to pick up supplies.

I took a short side trip to the local hardware store to pick up a fresh pair of insulated work gloves, a windshield scraper, a folding shovel and some cool blue duct tape (you can never have enough duct tape).   My skis were ready to go when I checked in at South Ridge.  They have a super cool tuning machine that is run by an equally cool professional tuning women.  She and the machine did the most awesome job on my skis that I thought they were a different pair.  You get one free tune per season with your Gold Pass and I definitely think I may take them up on it sometime later in the season.   The machine has put my hand tuning skills to shame.  It is a beast and well worth it..

When the fog lifted the mountain looked just a bit browner and dingier than it did yesterday.  Fortunately the temps have dropped down into the twenties tonight,  the sky is clear and you can hear the snow guns running non-stop right outside my window.  It looks like they are going to give it another try on filling in the distance to the lifts at the bottom.  I'll try to post some picture then.

Sara crashed quickly tonight and I was able to finish up my status report while watching the New Orleans Saints just smoke the Patriots.   (sigh...).   Tomorrow is going to be another busy day on the mountain with Sara training in the morning and having her first classes; Algebra, Science, and Humanities.  Dad might even try to get out for a couple of runs before lunch...

Skier Days: Sara(6), Caroline(3), Susan(0), Charles(1)


Yeah, thats right, day numero uno for the 2009/2010 ski season.

Last night the Millers came over for a swim and dinner.   Our friends Quentin, Julie, Brennan and Owen had booked a weekend of skiing for this weekend.  They were clearly hoping that the skiing was going to be as good as it had been last year.   Sadly, the rain of the last week had made the terrain pretty limited and somewhat on the advanced side shall we see (as you saw in the pictures yesterday).   They made the best of it and enjoyed the pool and met up with of our other friends from home that have a place in Andover.   They came by our place around 5 bringing beer and wine :-)  The kids went down to the pool on their own (joy of joys,  they have no passed the age milestone such that I must no more wait in the cold doorway of the locker room while they wait for the one shower at the pool) and the adults hung out and chatted about the day.  Quentin had brought along a bottle of Maudite, which I had just happened to be looking at on Wednesday at Atlas Liquors in Medford on my Thanksgiving packy run.   It was really smooth and we followed that on with a bottle of the Alligash Trippel that I had bought.


 Quentin and I ran down to Bob's "Real Pit" BBQ to pick up a large tray of meat, beans, cold slaw, and cornbread.     So that you can get an idea of what Bob's is all about I snagged the picture on the right from a Google search.  Yes, even Bob's tiny roadside barbecue got a whole slew of hits.   Clearly this picture was taken a bit later in some prior season, but you get the idea... Not only do you get dinner at Bob's, but you invariably get some really interesting chatter and trivia (Who was the starting short stop for the 1967 Dream Team Sox? Reggie Smith).   We also learned the etymology of Hip and Bummer while learning about the fineries of good barbecue.



The night was capped off by the first fireworks of the season viewed form the end of the parking lot.  It was a really great display on a background of white clouds whipping across a waxing moon.   The wind made the fireworks dance and float in a way that I have never seen before,  with the circular spirals collapsing dynamically and other rockets being driven into the trees..  The best part of all was hearing the snow guns up high on the mountain.  


The next morning it was finally sunny, and the wind had died down.   Caroline, Sara and I loaded the back of the Highlander with skis and drove down to Barker.   The girls went directly to the competition center and I found a spot upstairs in the lodge with in range of my cherished number 7 mug.   

The boots were not nearly as painful going on as I anticipated that they might be and my Carhartt's were working pretty well as ski pants.  I climbed up the muddy slope to the Locke Triple and rode up for the first time this year.   It worked out that I rode up with one of Sara's coaches from last year.  Kaz is a really great guy and a former member of the Japanese national team.   We talked about my fancy Carhartt ski pants and the finer points of which set of cheap work gloves make the best ski gloves.  I have learned over the last couple of seasons that this is the way to go for warm rugged ski gloves.  Add some extra water repellent spray and you are good to go.




Looking at the mountain on the ride up it became really clear just how busy the snow makers had been last night.  It was truly amazing what they had been able to accomplish just since sundown the night before.   T2 and Sunday punch were now solidly open and there was snow making all across the top of Locke and even over onto Barker.    I have to hand it to the crew, they have truly saved the day.    


I started down the top of T2 thinking that it would be relatively soft and was kind of sitting back when I came over the first lip and got a goggle full of icy snow gun goodness.  Not being able to see at this point I immediately went into a long skid that took a couple of attempts to get under control.  After this inauspicious start to the ski season I managed to get my ski legs back and after some time waiting in line managed to get in 5 whole runs.  The line time was not even that bad, and I was able to catch up with a bunch of folks and kill some time while waiting.     Sunday Punch had some nice smallish moguls that reassured me that I had not forgotten how to ski them over the summer, so I did 3 runs down that.   The most exciting part was the dangling 10 year old that didn't quite make it onto the chair at the mid station and was being held in a death grip by his Mom.  He was just low enough that the lifties were able to pop off his skis and a few heroic types were able to catch him and bring him down to a safe landing to a rousing cheer from the onlooker from the line.   


I skied the bottom of Sunday Punch to where there was real snow and then walked the rest of the way down.  It was entertaining to watch folks skiing over the barely hidden rocks, then the slush then the dirt and grass as you got further down.   Susan and Maggie had walked over and we met up with Jenny, Rod, Nat, and Drew as well as Adam (Meg's bo).   Rod got himself a mug (apparently there are 37 remaining, so get them while the last) and I gave old number 7 its inaugural.


We went back to the condo and did a bit of cleaning and packing and I ran out and got some water repellent. My plan is to see if I can waterproof my old Carhartt work pants and use those as proper ski pants for the couple of times I am likely to get out this week.  I may be crazy,  but I think it might just work.


At 3pm we went into Bethel as they had an informal reception for the parents and faculty of the winter term.  I am really impressed by the teaching staff.  They are young and enthusiastic and I think that Sara is going to have an fantastic academic, as well as athletic experience.  I am proud of her for wanting this and working for it and proud that Susan was so immediately supportive.   It didn't take me much convincing,  but I am glad things have worked out the way that they have.


Anyways, I just dropped another pile of money at Artech, my favorite online provisioner of ski equipment.  It is time that I wrapped this up and got an early nights sleep as tomorrow it is back to work and school.  Sara has a bit of training in the morning and then orientation in the afternoon with honest to god classes starting on Tuesday.


- C

Finally some snow

Skier Days: Sara(5), Caroline(2), Susan(0), Charles(0)

We packed up and cleaned up again, bidding farewell to the family unit and drove up in both cars this morning. It pored rain the entire drive up and it was only when we got close to the condo itself that it started to look like a sleety, slushy mix. Susan and Sara had arrived before us, speeding ticket last week apparently having not really had too much impact on the weight of her foot. The girls are getting much better at helping to unload the cars and it was only about 3 trips up to the third floor for each of us. It amazes me just how much stuff we can fit into the small space that we have here. Despite all of the stuff that we have brought up here I managed to neglect to bring my ski pants. I scoured the condo for 30 minutes before it dawned on me that I had left them in my pack in the basement.

At the end of the season last year the plan was to hike up Tuckerman's Ravine on Mt. Washington and I had brought a bunch of stuff home and packed it in preparation. It only finally dawned on me that this was something I had told myself I was going to bring up, and then promptly forgotten. The first reaction was to try to solicit Grammy Ellie to swing by the house on her way back home, she had stayed down in Halifax to visit with Jenny and to shuttle Jon and Marybeth back from the Vineyard. In the end it seemed like a lot more effort than it was actually worth. It looks like I am going to have to be a really Mainer for this week and ski in my Carhartt working pants.

With everything unpacked I walked over to Barker Lodge as tonight was the lottery for the number for the new Mug Club. $45 gets you a collectible 20 oz. Mug with a picture a of a Viking on it and a cool retro hoody. There were a ton of regulars there from Black Diamond club,  including Alicia who has somehow managed to get in 9 days already,  and quite a few from GACP. It was a great time and I ended up with lucky number "7" on my mug. Not a bad deal at all.  Susan and the girls made it over after a while.  Caroline hung out with her pal Maddox and they managed to mostly stay of out trouble and managed to line up a sleep over. While we were hanging out and socializing the rain outside turned into snow and the general mood around the place lifted just a bit.   Sara had been in electronic contact with her pal Margaret and they ended up going to see "New Moon" at long last.    So a movie night it was.

Overnight and into the next morning you could hear the wind howling through trees outside the window.  Sara was to meet up with Margaret to get their day of skiing this weekend.  Despite continued protest she walked over to the competition center through the mud.   It really wasn't as bad as it was the previous night when I had walked across.  There was a coating of white on everything which made the whole place look a lot more like a ski area for the first time this season.   It was actually warm, too warm to make snow unfortunately.

Maggie game with us and was having about as much fun as a dog could have.  She really does love it up here in the mountains.  After dropping Sara and her stuff off at the Comp. Center I plotted a course up the hill so that I would at least get some exercise.  I hiked straight up Monday Mourning to where it crossed Over Easy and then crossed over until I hit the top of the Tempest lift.

It started out as only barely speckled mud and snow but grew gradually slightly deeper.  As I crossed this elevation it seemed to be a good 3"-4"deep with occasional drifts that were 8"-10" in erosion bars.   Maggie ran every which way sniffing out rodents buried beneath the snow.  At one point she was truly on the scent and buried her entire head in the snow trying to get at what ever was underneath.  The fortunate creature managed to avoid capture and we continued on up the hill.

The conditions themselves were not all that bad and certainly a lot better than I would have expected looking from the base lodge.   With the correct camera angle things actually looked pretty darned good.   Despite some bits of mud here and there the top of T2 actually had pretty good cover.  They had set up a little terrain park for the twin tip crowd and it was possible to load from the mid-station.  I stood and waited a while and started to get the itch to go skiing.  Maybe tomorrow.

The line at the mid station went from short to fairly long in a very short time and that was a bit on the discouraging side.   In the big scheme of things it didn't seem that terrible considering.   We really, really need some much colder temperatures and one wicked snow storm to get this season moving.  I cut through the woods across from lift and ended up on Southpaw, perhaps my favorite trail on this side of the mountain.  It is a fairly steep trail and the further down the mountain I got the slipperier it became.


 I ended up boot skiing down big stretches which was pretty fun.   Agony cried out for snow and Sunday Punch was as slimy as the moss on the bottom of a brook and downright treacherous.  I longed for some really crappy old rock skis.

It ended up being a day to work on a few chores around the condo and do some blog writing.   I think the next job will be to head down to the locker and see if I can file some of the nasty burs and get the skis waxed and ready for when the snow does finally arrive.

Home for Thanksgiving (Day 4 + 5ish)

Skier Days: Sara(4), Caroline(2), Susan(0), Charles(0)

I picked up Sara last evening at the competition center. They coaches had put together a pizza party (one gluten free pizza please, courtesy of Pat's Pizza) that included some high intensity Wii playing on the new big screen TV mounted on the wall over the summer. By the time I got there it was just Sara and Tyler waiting in the dark. He really is an awesome coach and a really nice young guy. I am really pleased that he will be working with the kids this winter. He is not much more than a kid still himself and brings a lot of energy to the mix. The whole group seems to be melding really well. Sara was still hungry when we got back so we made a little bit of extra pasta and after a shower we laid out everything for the morning and dropped into bed.

I meet with my manager, Mac, every Tuesday morning and send him a little recap of he week every Monday. Somehow I always managed to procrastinate putting it together and today was no exception. So I was up just a bit longer before crashing myself.

Having a teenage girl is quite a roller coaster. This morning Sara was right on the ball. We got up with plenty of time, had breakfast and repacked her stuff for the day. The plan was to ski slalom gates today so we had screwed on her face bar and stowed her shin pads the night before. She had been scolded yesterday for not having sharp edges so the plan was to run the stone over them this morning. We did this together and they were looking pretty good, even with the hole still staring at us from the middle of the ski.

What a great morning and we even had some time to spare. I was planning on calling Mac at 8:30 so I suggested we head down early. Apparently the moon poked through the clouds because my previously princess like daughter was instantly transformed into a strange creature that I did not recognize. She refused to go down early and went back up to the condo. I was okay with a few minutes delay and so went out to take some picture of the not so snow covered slopes.

I ambled over towards Barker out on the trails and realized that I was practically where she needed to go in less than 5 minutes. I called her on her cell phone and told her that I would carry her stuff over and we could just walk. What came from the phone ear piece could be described most accurately as the type of feedback you would hear at a speed metal concert. Ten minutes of repeated cell phone calls and lots of screeching I ended up caving in and driving her down. During the ride down I managed to lay on a rather thick guilt trip and extract a promise to walk back at the end of the day.

I sent back and worked the day attending my first remote face to face, catching up on a thousand emails, generating a project status and working through a number of other open issues. I walked over at lunch and sat and ate lunch the deck of the lodge. Sara finished up for the day just in time to walk back. She was pretty beat after a hard day of skiing. We packed up the condo, did a bit of cleanup and then hit the road. Stopping once to drop off skis at Jack Frost and then by Gould to pick up Caroline's ski clothing that she had left with her pal Maddox's family. I am struck by how really nice everyone is on the campus and in town in general. Todd and I chatted a bit about the upcoming Thanksgiving and we hit the road again.

Sara was unusually talkative and for about the first hour we had some decent conversation about her day, her skiing and the kids in the program. We petered out and she started playing games on the laptop for the next couple of hours. We arrived home to find Jonathan there and MaryBeth on the way that evening. After unpacking the car we hung out for a bit and crashed.

In the morning I ran 3.5 really slow miles with Maggie and felt pretty good. It was much easier than running up Dreammaker, but I did run up the really steep hill in the neighborhood to wrap it up. While I was sweaty and dirty I finished up a little bit of left over yard work, vacuumed the downstairs of the house and did a bunch of other cleanup. Yummy lunch at Tom Yum Thai ...

Marybeth had a college project to see some history so we all drove up to Lexington and Concord and learned all about the revolutionary war. Caroline and I drove back together and hit up Trader Joe's to stock up on ready made food stuff for Maine. We ended the day hanging out and preparing for the crowd that is coming by tomorrow...