New Video

So I finally threw a new video together seeing as Alex and I got out to Ski Sundown this morning. It turned-out to be a great day despite an hour of rain early-on. Alex got her first taste of seeded moguls. Thanks Jeff and Tim for the encouragement!

Now that that's out of the way...

New year's resolution this year was to work less and start getting my life back. The reason (excuse?) for not posting since early October is that I was putting in about 80+ hours a week at work. It really was getting out of control, I'd start around 6 am and work until at least 11pm on most nights. Stopped going to the gym and became an out-of-shape fat-ass again after 2 years of hard work getting back into resembling some kind of human. So now with that, I hope to get back into more frequent blog posts. Of course, I've been on Facebook since June-ish and that has almost replaced the blog here, but its still not quite the same. And what's the point of linking to here if there's nothing going-on?
So, what else has been happening? The holidays came and went. Thanksgiving was cool, to save room in the oven, we bought a smoker at Cabela's (I swear, it's better than DisneyWorld) We smoked a 15 lb turkey for the dinner and it was, if I can say this without spraining my shoulder with the pat-on-the-back, the best damn turkey I ever ate. Seriously, try it some time. Xmas was different for the first time in 12 years. We switched places, going to my folks on the Eve and Daniela's Sister's on the day. We may be on to something here.
Alex's Soccer team finished 1- uh... the rest. The Portland victory was the only one for the Fall season, however, the teams they played weren't all U-9s like hers. They took on U-11s and also had to play some pretty big towns. Alex also played a short indoor session in East Windsor before the holidays and went 2-1, against their same nemisis, Granby, who they lost to during the Fall session due to really lousy officiating. YA RLY! Long story, ask me some time...
The '08/09 ski season has officailly begun but unfortunately, I haven't taken any pics yet. Next time, I promise... Daniela and I hit Sundown to shake off the rust on the 20th. We all have new skis this year, so there's a bit of a learning curve. Daniela has K2 TrueLuvs, Alex has K2 LuvBugs, and I had to be different and went with Dynastar Legend 8000's. SWEEEEEEEEET!! I took a day on my own up at Attitash on the 22nd, right after getting about a foot of fresh the day before. It was a Monday, almost no one was there, and I was finding untracked, knee-deep powder, untracked cord, and unbelievable conditions everywhere. We also have spent a day at Pat's and Okemo. So far, so good.







Yes, I stole this Xmas Eve pic from Marcy's Facebook page
Hotlinked, because I care...

Congratulations Jim Rice!!!

I do understand the arguments against Rice getting into the Hall, but as one of my favorites growing-up (alongside Evans, Fisk and Yaz) I'm glad to see Jim finally make it. It does seem stupid that it took 15 tries, but Hall voting is only somewhat slightly less retarded than NFL Pro-Bowl voting. It's going to be a great induction ceremony. not only to see the first Red Sox player in quite some time getting in, but I REALLY can't wait to hear Ricky Henderson give Ricky's acceptance speech to Ricky's fans. Because, after-all, Ricky is the greatest player ever. Ricky.


On a related note, the John Henry / Scott Boras showdown should be pretty entertaining.











Oh, and....




















LET'S GO EAGLES!!!!!!!

Still perculating...

Ya... got more to tell, deck is done and stuff... Busy busy.

Meanwhile, here's a website I'm rather fond of.

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/

Urgh... Just over 2 months. Its been a really busy time around here. The deck is mostly done. Yes like all my projects there are still a few details remaining... I hope to have it completely done by next weekend. Just in time for cold, shitty weather.
We spent a few days up in Bartlett, NH in the end of August. Alex bagged her first 4000 foot peak by hiking up to the summit of Mt. Pierce. Only 47 more to go in NH! We also finally got to do some Mountain Biking at Great Glen Trails, on the shoulder of Mt. Washington.
Alex started school after Labor Day, and things at work have only gotten busier. This month I'll be in NYC, Buffalo, Boston, the Cape and I'm supposed to be in Albany as well. Alex's soccer is going well also, the team is 1-4, but they play teams like Glastonbury, Granby, West Hartford and Wethersfield. (Their win came against Portland :-D) They have, however, been showing a lot of improvement over the last few weeks. Alex lately has been playing her favorite position, Striker!
Its late, the Sox game is FINALLY starting, so I'll add more later....

You didn't really expect me to update often during the Summer, did you?

Yeah, its been 3 months since the last post. A very busy 3 months. I still have things to do from Mexico, videos to edit etc... At any rate, A lot has happened. I learned right after getting back from Mexico that I was offered the job that I interviewed for right before leaving. Yes, still at AT... oops, I mean at&t. This time, I'm on the wireless side of the business. Still engineering, but now I'm designing cellular data networks for businesses in New England. Its a much more interesting job, but there's a pretty steep learning curve. That curve got a lot steeper one month in when the person who was training me, left for another company. I'm not sure if there's any correlation. So, instead of covering the CT, RI and upstate NY markets, I now cover CT, RI, NY, MA, ME, NH and VT. I've been insanely busy.
What else? Alex finished school and will actually be moving on to the Third Grade in September. She also finished-up with her town-league soccer and tried-out for, and made, the travel team. This fall we get to drive all over to watch her play. It is pretty exciting because unlike the town league, you have to make this one.
We finished the Great Park Pursuit again for the third year in a row. And for the third year in a row, we made it to the finals. Unlike last year when we came in fourth (they award for the first three finishers) we came in the middle of the pack of 30 finalists.
Also of note, we tore down our crappy $400 deck the last week of June, and are in the process of building a new one. I'll try to update more often as we go along.
So, aside from that, not much else. Been trying to get out Mountain biking at least once a week, Alex is back at Girl Scout Camp Laurel this summer, and we're taking Bode to obedience school again.










Alex and Bode letterboxing at the Salmon River Park. Finally, the GPP is close to home!











Deck demolition begins (and ends). 6/28















What the Hell? They didn't even bury the posts?












Yay, the new holes are dug....mostly... 7/4












The old "deck" meets its fate.













Feets go in 7/12












The new deck starts taking shape 7/19











Basic framing is done. 7/26

Still more....

More Slides....

Chichen-Itza Slideshow

!Hola Amigos!

It only took a year of planning, well, ten years if you count the fact that that was when we initially decided to do this, but I finally have an excuse for not posting to the blog for awhile. We just got back from a week in the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. Daniela and I Honeymooned in Cozumel (an island off of the coast of the Yucutan) 10 years ago this coming week. Since I forgot to load my camera with film on the day we explored the island, we realized we would need to head back. We were going to go for our fifth anniversary but La Seniorita Pecito (pictured, with the pink sombrero next to the handsome caballero in green and red) made that a little unrealistic.
We headed out from Bradley early Friday morning, and arrived in Cancun at about 5 in the afternoon. We rented a real pedazo de mierda Jeep with no effin' top and drove the metric assload of kilometers to our resort, just North of Playa del Carmen. For some reason, it seemed like a great idea tooling around the Western Caribbean with a Jeep Wrangler, with the top down and the wind blowing...
I knew it would be hot. I knew it would be sunny. I knew it might smell a little funky...
I didn't know that there would be a cement producing facility every 3k (about 1 3/4 miles) Apparently, in order to make cement and concrete, it is essential to constantly produce a thick fog of very fine limestone dust. Dust that somehow also smells like shit.
The resort we stayed at is called the Grand Mayan. It is a "sister" resort to the Mayan Palace. The two resorts are on the same piece of land, and are practically the same. Except that those of us in the GM could use all of the Mayan Palace's facilities, but not vice-versa. Yes, there was a bit of confusion. This place is big. REALLY FREAKIN' BIG!!!




See? Even the pool is REALLY FREAKIN' BIG!!!






Yeah, so how did a couple of skinflints like us get into digs like this? We were able to trade our week in our timeshare in New Hampshire for it. Believe it or not. We also were able to get another 20% taken off our bill by sitting through yet another wonderful timeshare sales pitch. Ugh, half a vacation day spent fending-off Sales manager after Sales manager doing everything possible to try to get us to spend (I swear to God, I'm not making this up) $200,000 for 2 weeks a year for 100 years. That's right. 200,000.00 U.S. dollars. 2,000,000.00 Mexican Pesos. This place was really amazing, but I could buy a house for that. And use it 52 weeks a year. And it wouldn't expire with my Grandchildren. At any rate, we got out of the sales pitch alive, and got a great price discount on our stay, and on a trip to Chichen-Itza which I'll get to later.

After getting the lay of the land, we ended-up spending about 2 1/2 days outside the resort, and 3 1/2 days in. The first day, Saturday, was sales pitch, pool, bar day. Sunday we ventured out to Delphinus The park that allows you to swim with Dolphins. Daniela and I did a Dolphin encounter before, in Roatan, Honduras. It was pretty cool. You stood around waist deep and the Dolphins would swim-up and you got to pet them. This was different. Here, they put you in a regular Dolphin pen. Here, you float (yeah, you have to wear a flotation vest) around while the Dolphins swim all around you. The staff shows you the signals and you get to have to Dolphins do tricks. (usual stuff, jump, clap a fin, make noises) The coolest thing, though, is that they have you float prone on the surface, then one (or two, yes I needed two) Dolphins push you along by your feet, fast enough to get you right out of the water. It was REALLY FREAKIN' COOL!!!







This is a bit better than the one in Honduras.






No, Daniela doesn't usually move that fast. There's really a Dolphin (or two) under her feet.










Dolphins are REALLY FREAKIN' COOL!!!!!



Oh yeah, even Alex got pushed along by one of her new friends, just like Mommy did above.

On Monday, we took advantage of suffering through Timeshare Hell by taking a chartered tour of Chichen-Itza Good thing, too, because it is about a 3 hour drive across the jungle to get there. Our plan initially was to drive there ourselves. I'm really glad we didn't. Also, the toll to cross from one Mexican State to another (Quintana Roo to Yucatan) is 202.00 pesos. $20. Yikes!
The tour rocked. It was a large, air-conditioned coach and included breakfast, a big lunch buffet at a Cenote (where we got to swim as well. I'll post more about that when I get the photos developed) at Ik-Kil. (the pics in the link are of the Cenote we swam in) Admission to Chichen, a tour guide who not only was a REALLY FREAKIN' COOL guy, but was also working on his PHD in Pre-Columbian culture. And, most importantly, all you could drink on the 3 hour ride back. We met a really cool couple from Wisconsin and I proceeded to get pretty shitfac.....
Chichen-Itza is as impressive up close and personal as it is in books and on websites. And Mel Gibson is full of shit.








Mommy and Alex take some pics (thank goodness for digital) of "El Castillo"









They used to rip still-beating hearts out of their sacrifices' chests at the top of those steps. Say "Cheese!"










Those Mayans were REALLY FREAKIN' NUTS!!!!







The "Superbowl" of the Mayan ballcourts. This was the 13th one. Wonder if it had the best commercials as well.





After the trek to Chichen, we slowed down a bit. Tuesday was spent over on Cozumel, which is about a 40 min. ferry ride from Playa del Carmen which is about a 20 min. car ride from the Grand Mayan. Pretty nice. Its changed a hella lot. The street-urchins selling their crap, however, remain the same. What was also the same was this little restaurant along the town square in San Miguel called La Cocina Mexicana a Los Dorados. We ate there a few times on our H-Moon and it still has some of the best damn enchiladas anywhere. The next two days were spent getting sunburnt and peeling around the two pools at the resort.
The last night we went to a Grande Mexican Fiesta at the resort. The food was awesome, the stage show was....interesting, and the tequila was free and a little too abundant. We sat with a couple who was celebrating their 50th anniversary. It seemed only fitting.




Cozumel












This pool just keeps on going...and going...and going....











There's even a pool on the patio of our room!









OI! Look at this little beauty.....












FIESTA!!!!





There's more, but I'll spare you for now. I'm going to host all the pics (including the various wildlife like crocs, flamingos etc) and link to it. I'm also working on a video, so check back in a bit, maybe I'll post again about how I'm going to get around to doing these things.....

Aw Crap, another month gone by....

Yeah, so I said I was going to try to be better about posting and here we go again. Another month between posts. So, what's been keeping me (us) so busy? Well, to tell the truth, not a whole hell of a lot actually. Two weekends this month were spent fighting-off various Spring-time ailments. Alex was sick one weekend, then Daniela and I got it the following. So two whole weekends spent doin' a whole lotta nuthin' Except eating rice, Saltines and broth. Blech!

We did spend some time visiting Family, though, so that was nice. One Sunday spent with Daniela's side, one Saturday with my side. Not much to report, everything's pretty status quo. Well, other than the fact that it seems the Arizona Daniels-Souder-Daniels clan will be moving to the People's Republic of Massachusetts soon. Good Luck! You'll need it *snicker*

We had a conference with Alex's teacher, Mr. Gowac. Alex is doing very well in school. She is reading at a 4th Grade level! She is also doing exceptionally well in Math, Science and Social Studies. But one thing...What the hell ever happened to Spelling and Penmanship? Things have sure changed in the last 30 years....

"But Paul," you ask, "Don't you have more boring skiing stories? Or can we finally move on?" Glad you asked. Looks like we may have gotten our final ski trip of the 07-08 season in last Sunday at Stratton. Yeah, we told everyone that we were headed there on Easter Sunday, but we took another look at our lawn which has been forlorn and forgotten since August and figured we should give it a little attention. Seeing as we will be heading off to Playa del Carmen, Mexico on the 11th, and spending everyday from now 'til then preparing... I digress. We had a free Stratton lift ticket that was given to us by Sam at Alpine Haus in Wethersfield Thanks Sam!! Not wanting to lose out on $78 (I know, can you freakin' believe it?) We headed-up on a beautiful, clear, sunny day. Awesome conditions in that they also got over 6" of fresh snow Friday night. Great way to end the season, everyone got a little of what they wanted. We all skied together, Alex and Mommy skied together, and Alex and Daddy got some time together, so Mommy and Daddy both got a few solo runs. Hopefully, after we return from Mexico, we'd like to try to get on the hill again, but that's not too likely. If this was it, it was a perfect way to end it. No pics, but I put together a little video of Alex's ski season. Most of it is from this past Sunday. Enjoy!!!






By the way... This is the Low-res Windows Movie version. I have a much higher res .avi file, but at over 560MB its way too big to upload. I'll try to upload it to YouTube. Leave a comment here, or email me if you want it.

Curiosity, cats, and all that jazz.....

So, I'm thinking to myself as I added that last post, does anyone actually read anything here? I've had some feedback, but not a heck of a lot. I'd like to use this one as a sort of roll call. Please hit the comment link below and say something, anything, I don't care. I'm just curious as to how many read this, and who you are. If the number is fairly significant, I may start to say something witty.

Enough about skiing already!

Okay, so I've been posting a lot about skiing recently. Alex and I hit Mohawk Mountain in Cornwall last Sunday, by the way, Alex took a lesson which REALLY improved her form and confidence. She really looked great afterward, and we had a great time at a great little local hill. But that's not what I wanted to get into. I'm sure by now all, 1 or 2 of you who actually read this drivel are getting pretty sick of ski related posts. Only about a month left, I swear!!
So what else is going on? Alex is participating in an acting workshop on Friday afternoons after-school. She just started and is very excited. The program is being led by one of the folks from Epoch Arts, right here in town. She's got a lot of encouragement as well, considering her favorite author, Adrienne Kress, is an actress as well as author. Also, a very close friend of the family, Elena Araoz is an acclaimed actress and director as well. Maybe Alex can get some pointers. Even her old Dad was involved in theater and film for awhile...

Wildcat 2/24/08

Look at this, another post! Yeah, I could've combined them since this one and the one below are from the same weekend. But its my Blog, and if I want to be a post whore, I will. So there.
Another nice thing about this trip to N. Conway (our eighth, I believe) is that we finally ate at some new restaurants. Well, new for us that is. That's right, for the first time we skipped The Red Parka Pub. It was strange, kinda felt like we were cheating, or blowing-off an old friend. At any rate, we ate at Tuckerman's Tavern in the New England Inn in Intervale. Nice place, good food. Its really hard to go wrong anywhere in the MWV. We also finally checked-out Horsefeathers right in N. Conway village. Not bad either. I can see why the tourists like it, which is why we'll probably be back at the Red Parka next time.

Oh yeah, this is supposed to be about Wildcat.
We got up early again and this time had breakfast in the car on the way up. The 'Cat is about 15-20 minutes further up Pinkham Notch than Black is. Again we were among the first to arrive and juuuust barely missed first chair. I think we might've been about 4th chair. We went straight for the summit since it was an amazingly clear morning. Summit temp was around 9 degrees F but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We took what I think is the longest trail in NH, 2 3/4 miles down enjoying the view of Mt. Washington the whole way. There is a little less "something for everyone" here as it is much more of an expert mountain. The glades are all a bit too advanced for Alex, and most of the wide, straight groomed trails that Daniela prefers were closed for racing. I, on the other hand loved it. Took a few runs off both sides of the summit and we all spent some time together on the right side of the mountain, working on skills.













Going-up. Right across from Mt. Washington.











Tuckerman's Ravine. Someday, we'll ski there....










No, Dad. There's a bit too much gnar on that trail...










COME-ON!!! JEEZ!!!! Let's GO!!!!!

Black Mountain of New Hampshire 2/23/08

In my Quixotic attempt at becoming a better blogger, I'm going to add yet another post about our latest exciting adventure. Since Alex was on her school vacation last week, and we had a discount card that we received by making a donation to the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, and this particular card had extra-good discounts to Black Mountain of NH and the infamous Wildcat on Feb. 23 and 24th respectively.... and this sentence is running-on too long... At any rate, we made reservations through our timeshare to stay in one of their "hospitality" rated resorts in North Conway, ironically enough where our actual unit is. This was a different resort. A much different resort. Okay, it was a converted motel. But hey, what the hell, we were there to ski, and Apres-ski. We only needed 4 walls, a ceiling, and 2 beds. Which is almost what we got. The walls and ceiling were there along with a Murphy and a pull-out with what I assume were mattresses at one time, and some flat, limp things that approximated pillows. I guess for $200.00 for an entire week, that's not too bad. What was too bad was we were only staying for 2 nights.

Meh... whatever, the skiing made-up for it. The drive up on Friday was fun, it snowed the entire time with not a lot accumulating until we reached the Spaulding tpke in NH. It made for pretty slow going and with 2 rest stops, and a lunch break, it took just over 6 hours to get there. Usually it takes about 4.5. I was a little bummed-out because I wanted to see just how many minutes I could shave-off by using our new, Super-Cool E-Z Pass.
Of course, that which makes for a sucky drive, also makes for Epic ski conditions. We got-up first thing in the morning to about 5-6 inches of fluffy champaign powder. A quick breakfast and it was off to one of the truly overlooked gems of White Mountain skiing.









Black Mountain

Yes, that's a hyper-link above, I'm too lazy to go into detail, click it and see for yourself...
Awesome. We got there about 5 minutes after the lifts started turning. In fact, I think we were only about the 10th car in the lot. After gearing-up, and getting our discounted tickets. ($64 for all three of us for the whole day) We went right on the lift no lines. In fact, the lines for the lift never went more than 3 deep. We skied from 8:30am to 2:00pm. The only reasons why we stopped were because we were so tired from getting over 12 runs (maybe more) in that time. That's almost unheard-of. Also we had to rest-up for Sunday's trip to Wildcat.










The summit double chair. A rarity in this age of High-speed Quads and Six-packs. Nice, it keeps the crowds to a minimum










View of Mt. Washington from the summit. Yeah, yucky clouds, wait 'til tomorrow!!!!











Something none of us have ever experienced, Untracked Powder!










Yes, I let my daughter have the honor of making First Tracks.










Alex has some weird obsession with crappy, old surface lifts. First handle-tows, then that damn T-Bar at Bromley, now the Platter-Pull. UGH!!!!

Really great day. Everybody got a little of what they like the best. Daniela found some nice, long groomed trails and was able to test-out her new boots. I was able to try a pair of Volkl AC30s I've had my eye on, and take them out in the powder and off-piste. Alex found some glades she enjoyed and rode the stupid Platter-pull. Twice.

Man..I'm really bad at this. Okay, its been like, another month. P.J. O'Rourke, I'm not. So, lessee, in the meanwhile, we've been skiing every weekend until now. We think 4 weeks in a row is pretty good, and we could use a breather before heading-up to N. Conway again next week for a day at Black Mountain and Wildcat. We hit the Mighty Pat's Peak twice, Berkshire East and Stratton this past month. Both Pat's visits and Stratton were freebies, so our plan to "Ski Cheap or Die" is doing quite well, so far. (Special thanks to Chris Kofer for the slogan usage) Alex is doing well in school, but is a little frustrated with the "Everyday Math." Daniela and I think it sucks as well. Its a sad thing that all the schools do is teach to a standardized test. Thanks for that whole "No Child Left Behind" shit Dubya, the only thing the movie Idiocracy got wrong was the year. We'll be a society of morons within a generation....

At any rate...

Thought to be extinct, the semi-elusive "Denim Daredevil" makes an appearance at Pat's Peak. Seems to be a safe habitat for them.

Remind me never to ski in Asia. Long Duk Dong here was walking around on the Lodge deck clicked into his skis. Interestingly enough, in this shot he is informing his friend that he is having "some difficulty." No shit?

Alex says "No way I'm gettin' in that line....stoopid gapers!!!"

As much as we like to laugh at the Denim Daredevils, nothing quite delivers like the Awesome 80's Fartbag. I like this one, because we have a Father/Daughter combo, notice how protective the Male of the species is of his offspring. Note also the brilliant, colorful plumage of the immature one. I wonder if they're Canadien?


Sometimes... ya just gotta take a break to play with your Dragonfly...

Til next month....