Happy 2011 from Sydney!

We had amazing New Year's Eve here in Australia. Though we'll never do it again, the twelve-hour wait was worth it: seeing fireworks from in front of the Sydney Opera House was spectacular! I hope you all had great NYEs, and have a great 2011!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday.  As for us, we're headed to Australia this evening!  Stay tuned for updates.

A quick jaunt to Utah

I returned last night from a very nice visit to Park City.  I got to spend time with my family and the dogs, which was great.  It snowed nearly the whole time, which made for some interesting driving conditions.  We did manage to get a bit of shopping in, too!  All in all, it was an excellent trip.  Now it's time to start packing for the next one!

BoCo to PC

Tomorrow, I'll be taking a quick jaunt to Utah for a night to visit my family and its associated hounds.  There's no snow on the ground here in Boulder right now, but I've been reassured that the situation is quite different in Park City.  Once I return to CO, I'll have to get into packing mode quickly, as we leave for Australia and New Zealand in just a few days!

Boulder Milestones: CLE #1

Okay, as a "milestone," this one is pretty pathetic -- and it was technically in Denver, not in Boulder.  But I did attend my first legal education class today.  Titled "Practicing with Professionalism," it's a required class for admission to the Colorado bar, which is the only reason I dragged myself out of bed this morning.  (Well, that and the fact that I had to prepay for it.)  The sky on the drive in nearly made up for the early hour.

However, the next six hours effectively canceled out that nice view.  They were, to put it mildly, less than exciting.  To illustrate (literally) how dull the course was, as well as how generally uninformative it was, I present you with the sum total of the notes I took in those six hours:

I kid you not.

However, I really can't complain.  Well, that's not true at all, as evidenced by the above paragraphs.  Make that: I really shouldn't complain.  Neil and I just had a lovely weekend in Aspen, completely with a great snowfall and a friendly dog.  Though Neil did manage to injure himself on what turned out to be the last run of the day (diagnosis: separated shoulder), we've been told he will make a full recovery and that no amputation will be necessary, though I did sharpen my knives just in case I should be called into service.

And two days later...

Two days after the white stuff was originally forecast to come down, it actually has!  We awoke this morning to a blanket over the ground, trees, and roofs, and the big, fat flakes keep coming.

However, we will be leaving Boulder shortly for Aspen, so this snowfall is rather wasted on us.  But perhaps there will be some residual cover -- and preferably not the gray, slushy stuff -- when we return on Sunday.

Below is a picture of the space I'm using to study for the bar.  Note the white roof out my window!

So much for the snow

There wasn't any snow by the time I went to bed last night, so when I got up this morning, I went eagerly to peer out the window to see...nary a flake!  Guess the weather forecasters got that one a little wrong.  The morning forecast is still calling for a 40 percent chance of snow this afternoon, but I am currently wary of such predictions.  I had been hoping to wake up to a neighborhood blanketed in white!  (Easy for me to say, of course: my "commute" is only as far as my computer, where my bar-review lectures await.)

Let it snow!

Well, it has't started yet, but according to Weather Underground, we Boulder residents (are we "Boulders"?) should be seeing some snow about an hour from now -- despite the fact that I was walking around without a jacket earlier today!

Conditions in Aspen are looking similarly snowy, which is great because Neil and I are heading there this weekend.  With any luck, the snow will stop right about Friday morning.  That would give us decent roads for the trip there but also decent coverage on the mountains for skiing.  Fingers crossed!

And in case you were wondering about what I will be having for dinner -- as I'm sure you were doing all day -- I'm thinking that pho sounds like a good snowy-weather meal.  Now I just have to pinpoint a good source for said pho.  For recommendations, I shall turn to Yelp, a website on which Neil and I are becoming quite dependent for restaurant ideas.  I've even posted a couple of reviews of my own, which you may see here.

Boulder Milestones: Visitor #1

This weekend, we had our first visitor to Boulder!  My friend Liriel came out from California, and we had a lovely weekend of trying area restaurants and skiing at Eldora.  Though I accidentally took Liriel down a blue run for her first foray into skiing in fifteen years, I think she has forgiven me -- and she was certainly able to handle the challenge.

Today, we toured the Celestial Seasonings factory (the tea company is based in Boulder) and, in doing so, experienced the potency of a room full of mint: our eyes waters and our sinuses cleared.  To memorialize the occasion and to support my efforts at studiousness, I took home a limited-edition, caffeine-enhanced tea called "Fast Lane," which features more caffeine than the average cup of coffee.

On the way back to Boulder from dropping Liriel off at DIA, I got to see the whole expanse of sky fill up with a beautiful sunset.  Sample below.

Good morning!

Things have gone to the dogs

This has no relevance to Boulder or life therein, but it's my birthday, so I claim prerogative to post whatever material I want, however irrelevant.  (I guess I always have that right, given that I maintain sole control over this blog...)  Regardless, enjoy!

Stopped in our tracks

The ski season has begun!  Well, it started a while ago, but we just got out to the mountains this weekend.  We hit up Keystone on Saturday and A-Basin on Sunday.  Some of the runs had nearly bare patches, and not all lifts were open, but considering how early in the season it is, the skiing was pretty good!  We enjoyed it, at any rate.  Neil's former mentor was in town from Texas, so we were able to spend the weekend with him.

One thing that I have never before witnessed in my 25+ years of skiing was the temporary closure of a run in order to let a series of about eight Sno-Cats pass by.  There we were, happily gliding down the mountain, when all of a sudden we encountered yellow-clad men, bleating their whistles at us.  They held us there for a good five-or-so minutes, with more and more people accumulating on the slope as time passed.  I found the scene so amusing that I documented it (photo below).

In related news, I really enjoyed my new ski equipment!

Princeton-in-Colorado

While picking up my skis this morning, I was pulled back from my waiting-in-line reverie by the guy in front of me, who asked, "What class?"  Momentarily confused, I then realized I was wearing a Princeton baseball cap.  I summoned my wits and replied, "2002."  He shared that he too was a Princeton alum, class of 1994.  He also mentioned that there weren't many Princetonians in Boulder, "so it's good to know someone else has joined our ranks."

To mark the event of running into a fellow Tiger, I'm posting a picture of Mount Princeton, located in Buena Vista, CO.  (And should you have any interest in buying property in Buena Vista, contact my parents, currently the owners of a lot there.)

Back in BoCo

Just for clarification, that's my new nomenclature for Boulder, Colorodo.  It's entirely possible I have drunk too much coffee this morning.

Regardless of my Blood Caffeine Level, I did return to Boulder last night, after a hiatus to visit the District of Columbia and Texas.  Both trips were lovely, with lots of visits to old friends.  Now that I'm back in Boulder, adventures await -- namely, skiing this weekend.  I will head over to the ski shop shortly to pick up my skis (newly mounted with bindings) and the one lone boot I left with them (to configure said bindings).  In other news, the Barbri lectures went live online today, so I can start studying for the Colorado bar.  Try to top that for excitement!