We didn't have formal engagement photos taken, but we did a mini session at my cousin's house last weekend. This one was the best, out on her dock.

Ryan and Christine and I went to see the taping of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me at Chautauqua last night. If you listen really closeley this weekend, you'll hear me swooning over Carl Kassel's voice.

I made the following observations during the taping:

-Peter Segal is much hotter than I'd pictured him.
-Carl Kassel's voice is even hotter in person than on the radio.
-Every time Paula Poundstone made a quip, she'd look at the audience and laugh in a way completely reminiscent of Statler and Waldorf. Heh heh heh...head bobbing up and down.
-Tom Bodett sounds older than he looks.
-Kyrie O'Connor is even less funny in person. Why is she on that show?

A beautiful couple, a beautiful example of what love should be, a gathering friends who think the world of them, and lavender martinis. A perfect night.



Congratulations, Livia and TiFou! I'm so happy for you and I love you!

After spending a fortune in shipping back and forth with online retailers trying to find just the right shoes, I discovered that not only does Zappos have a brand of shoe that I love (Kenzie) but has free overnight shipping. And free shipping if you send it back. I really can't believe I haven't ordered from them before.

I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

High on my list of answers to the "things that you didn't know about me" game is that I helped found a chaper of a fraternity. Theta Tau is a professional engineering fraternity. Not an honor society, not a typical social fraternity, but something in between and yet completely different.

The Anniversary represents an event I put a large part of my life into for a time. I was the Regent (President) of the chapter while we were going through the process and had the sometimes overwhelming task of coordinating 20 members through the ridiculous number of hoops that the national organization set up. It was basically a full time job...on top of the hardest two semesters of engineering school there were. People hate change and so there were personal situations to deal with as well. As a mildly socially awkward 19 year old, I think I handled it about as well as I could have. But after it was over, I remember wanting to celebrate and quit the chapter all at the same time.

It's funny to look back on it from a distance. Theta Tau was the source of many of my close friends in college. I learned a lot about leading a group both from a business perspective and a social perspective.

But in some ways, I can't believe I joined an organization like that. Pledging to be part of an organization no matter who the future members might be? Pledging to be part of a group no matter what fellow members might do? There's no way I would join now.

I found the rituals interesting from a historical perspective if nothing else. I also ended up liking most of the members while I was a student. And I can't deny that being stuck together like that is the cause of many friendships I wouldn't have had otherwise. I'm sure I would have been too shy to make them as strong as they were.

But still, keeping people stuck together has almost inevitable consequences, the most important of which is forcing people to coexist when they should really part ways. It happened more often than I thought possible, and it seems to happen more and more with the chapter that remains. I tried to stay active with the chapter after I graduated, but I finally realized that while I enjoyed my memories of Theta Tau, I didn't particularly enjoy spending time with them as an alumnus. I encountered situations that I wouldn't have even put up with at work, and certianly not in my social life. So I opted out.

Tomorrow night, there's a 10 year Anniversary bash that we're going to. I'm excited to see the dear friends that I miss and I'll ignore the rest of the consternation that seeps into emails that I still get from the alumni mailing list.

It's an interesting opportunity to reflect on the past. As much as I miss some of the things that were possible in college (all night chats, long trips to Europe, reading whole books in a day) I wouldn't go back for anything. Whoever said college is the best time of your life must have had it pretty bad. As it is, I'm looking forward to the 30-something version of my friends from that time and introducing Jason to an interesting part of my past.

Powder Day!

First Tracks!

(We got to Teacup Bowl just as the ski patroller was opening the gate. The three sets of tracks are Owl, Rabbit, Chick from Left to Right.)

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!

(We found pristine snow all day by going off the beaten track.)

Happy, Exhausted!

(We skied first lift to 2pm without stopping. We stumbled into Belle's Camp in Blue Sky Basin for some rest and to meet Tortoise and decided to call it a day. Of course, at Vail, it takes more than an hour to get from Blue Sky to the parking lot. That was fine with me.)

Photo credits: Owl (aka Jason S.)

Love the snow, but could you hold off for a bit until we get up there?



Thanks,
Shana

It's ski season again!

Snow at Vail in the last 24 hours: 8 inches
Snow at Vail in the last 48 hours: 15 inches
Snow at Vail expected in the next 24 hours: 10-16 inches
Guarantee of powder to be found tomorrow with the rabbit and the owl: Priceless

Wooooohoooooooooo!

I'm amused that lately, I'm most likely to get birth and engagement announcements, holiday greetings, and other big news by text message. So much fun to pull out the phone and see that a friend's life has changed for the better. Talk about instant gratification...

I've caught myself holding my breath more often lately. It's usually when I'm working or otherwise concentrating hard. I don't know if it's a cause or co-effect of the headaches and tension I've felt in my back and neck lately, but I need to change it somehow. I spend enough time in my head at work that I could kill myself through suffocation (a girl's got to have some hyperbole in her life...)

I'm not sure there's much more I can do at work to help it, but I might need to start yoga again to convince my body to calm down.

You can't read a nesting blog lately without seeing entries about "no-knead bread". I have to admit that if I hadn't seen so many articles about it, I might not have tried it, but if all the cool bloggers are doing it...

The basic idea is that you mix flour, water, salt, and a small amount of yeast together, let the mixture rise for a looong time (12-18 hours recommended, though I actually let it rise for 24), put in a heavy covered pot and bake. You barely touch the dough at all, which is actually a little disappointing since I love kneading bread.

The main thing I don't usually like about homemade bread is that it never gets the outer crust with the really soft chewy inside like at good bakeries. This one had it. And it tasted very very very good, especially dipped in some olivey olive oil.

I will definitely be making this again. Besides waiting for it to rise, there's basically no effort involved and man, it was delicious. So in case you're curious about the latest internet phenomenon...

( No-Knead Bread )

Wishing you a year of waist-deep powder, travel adventures and exceptionally good coffee.



*mmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwaaaa*

Ask someone from the East Coast what Colorado is like, and you usually get something along the lines of this: the state is 80% mountains, it snows all the time all year long, and it's really really cold, even in the summer. Of course they're wrong. It doesn't snow much in Denver in the winter (the mountains get most of it), it's sunny almost every day (we actually get more sun than Arizona), the lack of humidity makes it so that even a cold day doesn't feel cold, and any snow that falls in the city usually melts within a few days.

Of course, the last month has brought the misconceptions to life: 3 major snowstorms in 3 weeks, including 2 bonafide blizzards; a huge windstorm last weekend that caused an avalanche onto a highway which made CNN headline news for quite a while; same windstorm that caused a 30 car pileup just outside of Boulder because of blowing snow; more wind today closing the two major trafficways in and out of Boulder.

If this isn't a sign of the coming apocalypse, I don't know what would be.

Despite TWO blizzards in one week (completely unheard of for Colorado), Summit County got almost no snow. Since the weather patterns usually come in from the West, the snow gets pulled out mostly before it hits the Continental Divide, dumping much more snow on the mountains and leaving Denver pretty snow-free for most of the winter. Both of these storms came from the Southeast, hammering Denver and leaving the ski resorts with next to nothing.

*sob*

Still, we had some decent skiing over the holidays.

Day 5: Chrismas Day, I skied at Copper with the Dyers. We managed to find a few pockets of powder that kept us entertained for the whole day.


Day 6: The Friday before New Year's, the Dyers, Jason and I skied at Breck. Tourists + not much snow = bleh. Better than working, though.


Day 7: New Year's Eve, we had a posse of 8 that hit Keystone. Again, no new snow, but we found some powder in North Bowl after a Kat ride. We hiked for the prospect of fresh snow, but didn't quite find it until we got into the trees. Not the best day of skiing, but fun to be with so many good people.


I think we're taking this weekend off and we'll hit Steamboat in a few weeks. Mmmmm...champagne powder...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit for your viewing pleasure Jason's hilarious explanation of how to repair a gouged ski or snowboard. Click on the image to follow the continuing saga.

A few of us celebrated Annette's 20th birthday last night by gorging ourselves at Yummy Yummy Tasty Thai. Any birthday dinner that involves discussion of blow-up dolls, the midget/monkey/mullet trifecta, panties, and syphillus must mean another great year is coming.

This is pure gorgeous genius. The only problem is that I'd have to start eating dry toast because I wouldn't be able to bear covering up the pattern.

I use iTunes to manage my music library for DJing. I've always liked it, but this latest version has some really great features, especially if you need to sort a large music collection in ways that developers didn't necessarily think of.

Lifehacker has a great summary of the latest and greatest.

I'm really looking forward to playing around with having a library just for swing music. I'm also looking forward to being able to hide playlists in folders so that I don't have to scroll to get to the ones I use frequently. I'm still waiting to be able to open multiple instances and specify which sound card gets what music, like Winamp has had forever. My workaround (using Winamp to play music to the sound system and itunes to queue) is fine. Not great, but fine.

If you (like me) get your RSS feeds through your LJ list, you can add Snowhugger to your syndication list for witty commentary* on one of the best joys in life: skiing. Enjoy!

*by one of the best joys in my life