Tonight we went out for Dad's 75th birthday. Mom and Dad came by the house, and I made martini's. Kira and Aaron met us there, and we went to Fogo De Chao, a great Argentine steakhouse, or churrascaria, as they call it down there.

Afterwards, we went to Kira's apartment for dessert. Lots of fun, too bad Rick & Claire couldn't have been there.

Late.

Day 6

Going home day. Contintental flies direct from Vail to Houston, so no problems. Robin's bag tested positive for explosives, we think it may have been the hand warmers she uses, but once we got through security, no problems.

Late.

Day 5

We took the shuttle to Aspen. It's about a 30 minute bus ride, about 10 miles, and all the shuttles are free. Nice deal. The town is beautiful, sitting at the bottom of Aspen mountain, you ski right into the center of town.



Every ritzy store you can think of is in Aspen, like a very exclusive mall. We had dinner at a cajun place (Robin wanted cajun, despite the fact that I spent the previous two weeks in southern Louisiana) that was superb. Very nice trip.

Late.

Day 4

This is the day we usually take a day off from skiing, but since we had four days instead of five, we decided to ski three and then go to Aspen to see the town and do some shopping on the last day. We slept in (to Robin that's 9am) and walked out the door of our hotel room onto the slopes of Snowmass. Another beautiful day! We were beat, after the previous day's exertions, and only managed a half-day skiing. I left my skis out on the slopes, and went out for a couple of runs late in the day. Still, a very good day.

Late.

Day 3

We got up even earlier this morning (I hate getting up early on vacation, but Robin is a morning person) and got on the free shuttle to Aspen. There are four mountains in the area, Snowmass, Aspen, Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk. Buttermilk has the most intermediate runs, so we decided to try that and then decide which of the mountains to ski on Wednesday. I had to nix Robin's suggestion that we try all three on Wednesday.

I had the best day skiing I've ever had. Since we got there so early, we basically had the entire mountain to ourselves, and conditions were beautiful. It was perfect spring skiing, sunny, warm, good snow, wonderful. We skiied the entire mountain, made a couple of mistakes and ended up skiing much more than we had planned. We were beat, took the shuttle back to Snowmass, and then went tubing in the evening.

Late.

Day 2

We got up first thing and got our equipment, and on the slopes by 8:30 am, right when the lifts started operating. Snowmass base is about 8,000 feet, and I had terrible altitude sickness when I woke up. Headache, nausea, weakness, kind of like a hangover, but you can tell the difference. I had been drinking a lot of water, I even woke up twice to drink more, and still I felt really badly. I took a couple of aspirin and by the time we got out on the slopes, I was fine.

What a fantastic day! We were out early and it seemed like we had the mountain to ourselves. The sky was clear and the sun was shining and the skiing conditions were excellent. We skiied for a while, had lunch, then skiied some more. We took the shuttle into town to have a pizza. Great day.

Late.

Day 1

We flew into Vail, flying into Aspen is prohibitively expensive, and even with the hour-long shuttle it's much cheaper. We got to Snowmass about 3 and checked into our hotel. Very nice. Instead of getting our equipment lined up, we went straight to the local apres-ski establishment the Mountain Dragon to have drinks and eventually dinner.

Late.

My vacation starts today, and I decided to leave the laptop at home. I'm going skiing at Snowmass, CO, the poor man's Aspen, with my friend Robin (as seen on my home page). There won't be any postings to the blog until Saturday when I return. I'm going to keep a written diary and post it when I get back, over the weekend, so the blog will be time-delayed, kind of like the Grammy's. Hopefully I'll have enough pictures and stories to create a new page.

Late.

I hate this day.

Late.

Watched the movie Gosford Park. I recorded it on the TiVo a few months ago. One nice thing about the hard drive upgrade. It was very enjoyable, although I missed some of the dialogue because of the accents and English vernacular, and a lot of it was utterances and asides. Great movie, highly recommended if you're into that kind of thing.

Late.

I confessed at the last Houston Book Club meeting that one of the reasons I created a web site is my aspirations to be a writer, or at least, to do some writing. One of my friends asked me if I was writing every day, and I described this web log as "writing every day". Hah!

I always wanted to keep a diary, and they always ended up being a list of restaurants where I had eaten. But now I get to subject everyone on the Interet to that list.

Sunday: Outback Steakhouse
Monday: Blue Dog Cafe
Tuesday: Paul's Pirogue
Wednesday: Poor Boy's Riverside Inn
Thursday: crawfish boil in New Iberia (projected)

Late.

Quote of the day:

"I think it's alot to do about nothing"

Reporter covering the Grammy's discussing Janet Jackson's breast exposure at the Superbowl

It should be:

"I think it's much ado about nothing"

Shakespeare

Late.

We went to a restaurant owned by the artist George Rodrigue, who paints the Blue Dogs. I think I'm going to buy one when I go to New Orleans next month for the NACE convention. I want just a plain one, with a solid color as background, like green or yellow.

Late.

Back to Lafayette.

Late.

I was talking to some dudes about my new iPod, and one guy said that the batteries weren't replaceable and older models had to be junked when the rechargeable battery died. This site, iPod Battery FAQ, gives you the 411 on iPod batteries.

Late.

Quote of the day: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women

Late.

Ate crawfish for the second night in a row, at Camile's Cajun Cafe in Edwinville, LA. They have an all-you-can-eat crawfish night on Wednesdays, and even though it's about 50 miles from Lafayette, about eight of us drove out there anyway. I ate about 15 pounds.

Late.

Ate crawfish at Paul's Pirogue, a famous cajun restaurant in Carencro, LA. They have mild, medium, hot, and "kick-ass". Guess what I ordered.

Late.

Wow. I guess I need to start watching the Superbowl half-time show more carefully.

Late.

My new home for the next two weeks.

Late.