So loni wanted a Christmas tree this year, to which I replied: “No, we don’t need the hassle. You got to decorate the crap outta the house on Halloween, maybe next year.” And she seemed content with that. Well then it turns out her mom and a family friend were coming up here to pick someone up from the airport and so she was just going to cut down a small 3 foot tree from their front yard. Ok, I can deal with that. Well, when they showed up at our doorstep it wasn’t exactly what we discussed.

It was this:

A just shy of 10 foot tall bonafide Black Hills Spruce freakin’ Christmas tree. Yay.

-Matt

I made it home from work yesterday by some sort of miracle. A Christmas miracle? I passed many a ditched SUV and truck and was beaming with SD pride when I braved it all the way to my driveway. The Governor declared a state of emergency and roads are closed everywhere. It’s crazy out there.

I awoke this morning to find that it was still snowing as predicted and to find my car completely buried. Luckily I’m able to VPN in to work and can still function at about 90% capacity from home. Several people from my group ended up staying in a hotel close to work last night because they couldn’t make it home.

I got a handful of pictures up on Flickr so check ‘em out.

-Matt

Massive blizzard in the midwest currently pounding Denver right now… looking out my window here it’s a whiteout. My car has been in the lot a whole 3 hours and it looks like there’s a damn foot of snow accumulated on it.

First major blizzard of the 06/07 season… damn I wish I was up in the mountains… stranded… at a resort of course

Tomorrow’s supposed to be worse… wow

-Matt

I traveled up to Copper Mountain this past weekend with a handful of friends and we had blast. Initially the plan was to board Saturday, stay at Copper Saturday night, board Sunday and stay at a buddy’s condo in the area Sunday night and board again Monday. Well, that’s pretty much how it happened except my dumb ass left the keys to his condo in my car, which I didn’t end up driving up there… I was kicking myself when I realized it.

Saturday was good riding, it was sunny and nice out and the snow was still pretty good even though there hadn’t been any fresh snowfall in a few days. We were still able to find good powder in various parts of the mountain. Saturday night we did it up right between the liquor store and several bars and the high elevation–everyone got fairly lit up. The condo we rented was muy primo. 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, an upstairs and main level, fireplace, full kitchen, heated floor tiles, and about 50 yards from the lift to boot. We ended up in some outdoor hot tubs, in 15-20 degree temperatures mind you, and it was exactly what I needed… and some people probably didn’t need. That was the capper and we all slept pretty soundly.

Sunday was pretty similar weather to Saturday but the snow was a little more crusty and tracked up from the previous day. Loni had spent the first day teaching a friend to ride so it was nice to have her back in the pack for day 2. The evening was a little more calmer than the previous night and we got to see some fresh snow start to fall around 6PM. We ended up renting a smaller room at Copper since a few people had to head out and we took much easier than the night before… but we still raided the spa and hot tubs at a late hour.

It snowed all night Sunday and all day Monday and Monday was by far the best riding day. My first powder day of the year though and with 2 days of riding already stacked before it was a little grueling getting around but definately worth it in the end. We got some great runs in and headed back to civilization.

I got a few toys this year too. Loni bought me a Zune, which is essentially Microsoft’s iPod, but with much better video support than the iPod. It’s pretty damn sweet. The playback is high quality and I dig the user interface. It’s got built in WiFi so you can transfer stuff without cables, or without even being around your computer. It’s got an infrared beam for Zune to Zune transfers and a built in radio. Of course it’s got all the MP3 and picture funcitionality as well.

Then I bought myself a new phone since my work had a killer deal on ‘em. It’s the new Cingular BlackJack and it’s pretty damn sweet. It’s got a ton of featrues and I finally have the damn internet in my pocket. This thing’s probably gonna get me in a car accident some day…

Until next time…
-Matt

New header graphic. Pretty snazzy, aye? Props to Ryan once again.

The old one shall be archived here for nostalgia purposes.

-Matt

So I turned 24 today. This would seem a day/occassion worthy of writing something about, but I’m drawing a bit of a blank. I suppose I could re-cap the past year as a sort of annual review of being 23 to being 24… but I’m not really feeling up to that sort of detail so I guess I’ll put the effort in for at least the high-level. Just before I turned 23 I joined the group that I’m currently in at work, moving over from a different group in the same company. I like my new group a lot better in terms of the challenges and daily learning opportunities it presents. My previous role was extremely process driven with not much changing in my daily activities. Now I work a plethera of issues and challenges and am constantly learning new things… it’s a lot more stressful sure, but more fulfilling in the end. So I’ve been doing this gig for the past year and it’s really kinda flown by. Without school it seems that work has become a biggest part of my daily activities.

I bought a new house, my first house, in February of this year so that’s been a big part of my past year as well. From landscaping the backyard to decorating the inside to staring coldly at mortgage payments. I suppose those have been the major events in the past year anyways… that and the new dog.

Went to Mexico for the first time. I guess I never really posted much about that… it was great, went to Cabo San Lucas. We’ve got 80% of the pictures online actually, for some reason some of the photos didn’t upload… another house cleaning project put on the back burner. Here’s the photoset that Loni posted, along with her comments. I’d say those were the major points of the last year in general, while there was nothing special or unique to being 23 I’d say it was a good year and progressive in a lot of areas.

I’m done. 23 was good, and I’m sure 24 will be fun as well…
-Matt