Jenn's visit

Jenn showing off her mad photography skillsJenn made it out for a visit last weekend. She was here for a very quick 4 days. She was suppose to stay only 3 full days, but the opportunity came up to get bumped on her ticket home and stay an extra day (and get a free ticket!).

IN 4 days we managed to go on two hikes, make it to the beach a few times, go wine tasting, hang out with the SLO hash, and see a sunset at the beach. Here are a few pictures from Jenn's visit. Maybe someday I'll get around to uploading more picts.

Jenn showing off her mad photography skills

Some kind of lizard. I tried to look it up but there's like a million different lizards that look like this in Cali.

Wine tasting in Edna Valley.

Sunset at Pismo beach.

Ski trip to Sierra Summit

Finally got a chance to get some skiing in this year. Took a weekend trip to Sierra Summit on Huntington Lake. It's not a huge mountain but it had great terrain. Weather was amazing. Not quite power amazing, but 50 degrees and sunny w/ almost no one on the mountain. It's defn a good deal to ski there. Tickets are around $50/day (less if you go with more than one person and stay over night). Season pass for end of this season and all of next season is $250 w/ no black out dates. Only odd this is the hotel that you stay in. I had a room on the ground floor w/ a popular walkway out side my window. Couldn't control the heat so it was about a million degrees in there and had an odd smell of cinnamon. So I had to leave the window pretty much wide open. Thing is the curtain didn't exactly cover the whole window. So pretty sure people could just watch me sleep or potentially poke me with a stick...

Drive out was great. Book on CD and great views. Starting in SLO it's op and over the grade (mountain range) and thru a very hilly and green wine country. Then its a fast flat stretch thru the valley, then a windy twisty 7000 foot climb to the base of the ski area. I think Sierra Summit tops out close to 9000 feet. For some pictures of the ride out and skiing click here. 

 

SLO-SFO-IAD-BOS-DEN-SFO-SLO

Just got back from a week long trip to DC, Boston, and Denver. A productive 7 days but felt much longer. Spent my birthday in a smoky hotel in Virginia working my @$$ off.  I won't go into detail, but my birthday in Boston was far better. Started when I got to see Jenn late on wednesday after a 2 hour flight delay. We met at a bar after work on thursday and to my surprise she had a present for me. I thought it was from her, but turns out my mom overnighted fresh baked cookies to Jenn's work. Thanks mom and Jenn! The cookie were great! Oddly enough I don't have a picture of the cookies, but I do have one of personal sized cake Jenn got me. 

Friday night was a self planned surprise party at Beacon Hill Pub in Boston. it was a great time with a lot of great friends. For some reason didn't have the camera on me. Maybe I learned my lesson after my going away party or maybe I just forgot it. 

The celebration continued with Dinner at Zen near government center. 

The plan was to head back to SLO on sunday night. But nothing ever goes as planned especially when United can add several hours of delays and make me sit b!tch for 7 hours. So it was on to a quick stop in Denver for a meeting (if anyone needs an excellent company for PCB manufacturing and assembly, let me know). On the upside, the views from the plane were very nice. On a map it always looks like the rocky's are a single line of mountains. After flying over snow capped peaks for over an hour, you get the idea that it's a very big range. 

 

Had a good trip with no delays for the 55 min flight from SFO to SLO. Had time to grab a few pictures of the sunset. 

It's nice to be back in SLO, but wish the I could have had dinner with my family (last I check predicting 12" of snow when 4" falls is an error of 75%. Weathermen still get paid. I pay 25% of my rent and I get kicked out... WTF!).  And of course I miss...

BTW, if anyone knows a better way to blog other than using google's stock web interface please let me know. I have 24" screen and can only use about 5" of it to compose a blog. Importing pictures make me want to cry...

Coming later this week. My new Roomba, how does it work (Thanks mom and Dad!). Ski trip picts to Sierra Summit, and maybe a book review.