Took the trash to the transfer station...

Went in to work and asked Tim if i could take the next week off so that i could visit NM. He said no.

Tim wasn't in, so no progress on taking a vacation, but pretty much figured that it wouldn't happen.

Mentioned going to NM again and Tim said that he hadn't ruled it out completely. He had a talk with Bruce, the General Manager, and Bruce said to try to make it happen, so Tim said yes and i went home and bought my plane tickets.

Videoed the WAA groups today, then took some pictures of the Mountain Operations crew building an igloo using the Zaugg halfpipe cutter. The marketing department was going to call it the IgloOkemo, and when i sent a couple of the pics i took to them, i put "Bigloo" in the subject line. They ended up calling it the Bigloo.

Got up and checked my flight status - on time. There was a HUGE blizzard crashing in on the mid-Atlantic states, but i was flying from Albany (above the storm) to Atlanta (below the storm) to Albuquerque (west of the storm).

When i got to the Albany airport, i discovered that there was a mechanical problem with the plane and my flight was delayed 2-1/2 hours. I used the free wi-fi in the airport through my iPhone (Daddy gave me his old one, but it doesn't have cell service, so it's really an iPod Touch) to email Caroline and Charlie to tell them that i might be late.

We landed in Atlanta at 4:40 and my flight to ABQ left at 4:55, but we had to wait for a gate and then parked in terminal B and my flight out was in terminal D, so after hurrying through the airport, i arrived at the departing gate about 5 minutes after the flight left. So i had another couple-hour wait for a flight to Dallas. Paid $5 for an hour of internet access at the airport to email the news, then got to the Dallas flight late because i was listening to music and lost track of time.

No free wi-fi at Dallas either, but there was a couple free internet kiosks (as long as you looked at a few ads). Again, i got on the ABQ flight at last call because i was listening to music. Dangerous thing. The Dallas airport was pretty empty at that time of night.

Charlie was waiting for me in ABQ when we got in at about 11:00 pm. We drove over to the Frontier and i got a couple of chicken soft tacos, yum, then out to Edgewood where Caroline's house is.

Hung out at Clack's, then Charlie and i drove down to Johnson Field to play ultimate there. Thomas met us there, and Caroline stopped by with Daniel. It was a little rainy, but not too cold and it was a fun game. Good to get my legs moving again.

After the game, it started raining harder, then hailing. We dropped off Thomas at his band practice, then Charlie and i went down to Ian's house, where we visited and watched the first half of the Superbowl.

During halftime, Charlie and i picked up Thomas and went to a party at Charlie's friend Evan's tiny apartment. I felt a little old.

Hug 9: Crystal Ford

Charlie and i got up early and drove into Albuquerque so that Charlie could get his ski jacket from his dad's house, then we stopped at Dos Hermanos for a couple breakfast burritos, yum.

Just before La Bajada on the way to Santa Fe, the traffic on I-25 almost came to a complete stop. After slowly crawling along on a slushy road, we got through the bad patch and continued on to Santa Fe. Due to the time it took just to get there, we decided to abandon our original plan to go to Taos and headed up to the Santa Fe Ski Area instead.

The snow was awesome, it was uncrowded, and it snowed most of the day. We headed off into the trees (pic 2) and popped out into an untouched bowl (pic 3), and kept doing that all day. Good tasty burger for lunch at Totemoff's. The run i was going down (pic 4) was a LOT steeper than it looks in the picture. I only ran into one tree, but it tweaked my right knee a little and gave me a big bruise on my right thigh. Owie.

On the way home, we went down North 14 and i snapped the picture of the windmill as we drove past, then stopped a couple times and i took some pictures of the scenery. Beautiful.

Had a birthday dinner for Thomas that evening, then we all played the Beatles Rock Band video game.

Hung out with Charlie in the morning while he packed. I dropped him off at his dad's house and he flew off to Buenos Aires, Argentina that afternoon. I went down to Chuck's house and spent the afternoon with him and his daughter Kailee.

At around dinner time, i went over to Amy's house and visited with her for a while, then down to Ian's, where we had a late dinner and where i spent the night.

Hug 10: Charlie Eisenhood
Hug 11: Amy Carrara
Hug 12: Amy Carrara

Drove up to Sandia Peak. Travis was going to go with me, but he ended up having too much work to do, so i went solo. It was fun to remember little cuts and places that i'd used to ride all the time. Rode in untouched tree glades a LOT and of course took a few runs down Suicide.

I met Debo for an early dinner at Los Cuates, then met up with Caroline's and Ian's families for another dinner. Went back to Ian's, then drove over to Travis's office, where he was working late. We had a dessert over at Flying Star.

Hug 13: Debra Orlofsky
Hug 14: Debra Orlofsky
Hug 15: Caroline Eisenhood
Hug 16: Travis Driscoll
Hug 17: Travis Driscoll

Ian dropped me off at the airport in the morning and i had an uneventful flight to Atlanta, slightly delayed flight to Albany, then the two hour drive back to happy dogs.

Hug 18: Pat Teter

First saturday of February Break week. I got called out of the signshop to help out with afternoon lessons at Jackson Gore.

Totally forgot that it was Valentine's day until about 9:00 pm.

Worked as a supervisor at Jackson Gore.

Hug 19: Meri Westbrook
Hug 20: Shannon Deihl

Worked at the signshop, then out to Jackson Gore where i was the only snowboard supervisor and dealt with all the lessons.

Woke up at 3:30 with a horrible sore throat and turned off the alarm. Got up at 8:30 and called in sick, then went back to bed. Got up at about 12:30 and had some lunch, then back to bed until about 7:00. Got up, fed the dogs, ate, back to bed.

Sick again, better by the end of the day, but spent most of the day in bed.

Back to work. Since i'd missed a couple days, i didn't go out for any snowboarding duties.

Came home and shoveled 6" of snow off the driveway.

I went in to work today (after shovelling another 4" of snow off the driveway) and Scott Clarkson, the Vice President of Marketing called me up and asked if i could go out and shoot some photos in the powder. I had been planning to take a long lunch break to ride, but hey, if they want to pay me for it, i'm not saying no! I went out with one of the Marketing interns and met up with a couple other guys and we got to the top and then the Ski Patrollers took us by snowmobile over to the Southface area which hadn't opened yet. Absolutely fresh tracks through the glades! I was toting the camera, so i wasn't going all out, but so what, i was riding freshies ON THE CLOCK!!! Whoooo!!!!

On our last run down, i was shooting pics of Jeff and Nuge and i ran into each other. Took a little slam and got snow all over the camera, but all was OK.

Rode my board all the way down across the parking lot to where i was parked by the Marketing department, then went back to work at the signshop. I had to stay late to get a billboard design done and it took me 45 minutes to get the last 2 miles to my house because there so much snow on the roads, traffic (yes, we occasionally get traffic in VT) was stopped dead.

I arrived home to no power, a huge limb from the maple tree in my front yard half over my driveway, and 18+ more inches to shovel out. WHEE!!! Seera could barely make it through the snow in the yard.

Just about when i finished shoveling, the power came back on. I turned on the 'puter, checked email, and was about to heat up some dinner when the power went off again. It didn't come on again until late the next morning. I heated up my dinner on the wood stove.