Unexpected Friday Night

Joe and I were out road riding on Thursday night and on our way back on Main St. we saw that the new Indiana Jones movie was playing at the local theater. We were too late that night but decided we would go on Friday night. So last night we get home from work, cook dinner and then head out to the theater. It only has on screen so we just walked in, paid our money and took our seats. We sat through 20 minutes of trailers and ads before the feature film. The first scene is the New York skyline and I was kind of suspicious then the first name appears "Cameron Diaz" and I was like "I did not know she was in this movie" then the next name..."Ashton Kutcher" and we are like "f*ck this is the wrong movie". So we watched What Happens in Vegas. Yeah.

Trip to Europe

As many may know Joe and I have recently returned from two and a half weeks in Europe. We flew into Paris and stayed there for 5 days then took a sleeper train into Venice. From there we spent 4 days in Florence, including a day trip to Pisa, and then 5 days in Rome. It was in essence our honeymoon and like our wedding it went by too fast.

My grand plan was to have a separate blog for the trip outlining everything that we did but since I have been back I have had little time or motivation to do this. Since a pictures says a 1,000 words...I will let our photo gallery tell the story for now.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7527772@N05/collections/72157605416722150/
Enjoy the pictures and feel free to comment or email us!

New Office in Park City

Last week I moved into my new office space in Park City's Bear Hollow neighborhood, thus ending the "maybe I'll shower tomorrow" era of my career. I'm still working for FetchDog in Maine, but I now have the ability to work from home or "the office". Working from home had its benefits, but I missed some fundamental and highly underrated aspects of the daily grind.

I rarely left the house during the week. Although I had the freedom to work out or go for a bike ride after work, I rarely did. without the structure of a daily routine, I lacked the motivation to leave my cozy little house.

I had little to no social interaction. I loved having my dogs lay next to me all day, but they were horrible creative consultants and frankly their gas was unbearable.

I never actually LEFT work. Working in an office allows you to turn off your work-related stress (assuming you experience any) at the end of the day. Now I have a place to leave it at night.

Anyway, my new office is in an commercial building within a high-end residential complex beneath the ski jumps of Park City's Olympic Park. It's a mile or two down the road from the entrance to The Canyons resort and it's offers direct access to Park City's great mountain biking and other local activities. Plus, I'll actually be in town when someone says "hey, wanna go for a bike ride?" or "hey, wanna grab a drink?"

The space is a 10x12' room I'm subleasing from an interactive agency called Flashpoint. They all seem very nice and welcoming as they're letting me share their kitchen, conference room, wireless internet/utilities, and printers etc. I'm also sharing the space with my friend Max, who you may remember as my office-mate at American Skiing Company. Max works independently as a web designer and developer. Out my office window is a nice view of the dog courtyard, complete with poop-bag stations. So the dogs may come in on occasion if need be.

So here's hoping that this new development means more biking and more fun this summer.

Blogging? It runs in the Family

So my sister, Jessica has started building a Chiropractic Practice in Glen Arbor, MI. In recent weeks there has been some rush on brand identity and some kind of web presence. So I put together a quick site today for her and now she's already blogging! Check her out.

http://revivechiropractic.com/

Swept Away in Tampa Bay

OK, I'm not panicking because I know the Sox' offense will start to click whenever it feels like it. But this weekend was a new low. Being swept in Tampa Bay only to hear Neal Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" played following the final out as a well-deserved taunting gesture was just cruel.

As part of a 5-game (for now) losing streak the Sox's bats took a nap on Sunday, flacidly watching Josh Beckett deliver one of the most dominating performances of the year with 13 strikeouts over 7 innings. His only real mistake was an errant pickoff attempt to first which allowed Jason Bartlett to score after another throwing error from J.D. Drew back to the infield. Other than Beckett, that the only Sox highlight was Manny Ramirez inexplicably stealing his first base since 2005, only to be stranded at second. After the game he was quoted as saying "It's a contract year, I'm stealing bases."

Saturday was a similar situation as the youngster, Clay Buchholz tossed a great start only to have the offense leave him out to dry. He may have also been left out too long by Terry Francona, since he was at one point flirting with a 1-hitter. But the 2-run homer he gave up to Akinori Iwamura came just as his pitch count approached 100. By then it was too late.

Anyway, I know things will get better. Lowell's coming back this week from his thumb injury, Papi will hopefully sacrifice a live chicken to lift the hex from his bat, and Manny will be continue to be Manny. So I'm not panicking. But for now it's annoying.

Ban Comic Sans

Those who know me as a designer know that there's one surefire way to make me cringe: Mention the font known as "Comic Sans". This horrible font was designed by Microsoft as an attempt to humanize and perhaps hip-up their characterless operating system and software. In fact, it has done the opposite by proving that they just don't get it. This font is atrocious, yet its wide availability especially in the context of Microsoft's banal alternatives has granted it's prevalent abuse from do-it-yourself-ers and anyone with a PC.

My position may sound elitist, but I can assure you that I have your own best interests at heart. The font was originally designed to be whimsical, a more personal alternative to more traditional old-style serifs (Times new Roman or better yet, Goudy) and Sans Serifs (Arial or better yet, Helvetica). Instead its childishness undermines any credibility of its user's intentions and essentially makes them look stupid. There, I said it.

Take for example, this passage from a recent spam email I received...Would you ever fall for this? I hope not. Would it somehow seem more credible if it were written in a more professional font? Perhaps.

Anyway, although I believe I developed my contempt for Comic Sans on my own, It's always nice to have validation by like-minded people. So here you go. Leading the movement against Comic Sans is this organization: www.bancomicsans.com
Enjoy.

FetchDog comes to Utah

This Winter, FetchDog investors David Shaw and Glenn Close came to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. Sarah and I were fortunate enough to meet them at the Egyptian Theatre and then to ski with them at Sundance Resort for Sarah's birthday. While riding the lift with Glenn, Sarah and I suggested that she should feature Sundance Ski Patroller Tracy Christensen on her Lively Licks Blog. Tracy is a great patroller but he's also the handler of Mick, one of Sundance's Avalanche Rescue Dogs. We explained the important role that Avy dogs play at Utah's ski resorts and how sophisticated their training is. We also encouraged her to participate in Mick's training by allowing herself to be buried in a fake avalanche to let Mick show off his talents. She was of course completely game, and went along with the idea.

Upon meeting Tracy and Mick, Glenn was immediately impressed and couldn't wait to feature them on FetchDog. She also had her step-son Ben shoot some video for the blog post which is now live at FetchDog. The video shows Glenn and David being buried into the snow at Sundance and waiting for Mick to rescue them in a very realistic simulation.

VIEW IT HERE »

You'll also be able to make a donation to Sundance Avalanche Rescue Dogs in Tracy's Charitable Shop. Just start your shopping with Tracy's recommendations and a percentage of sales (of those items or not) go to benefit Sundance's Avalanche Rescue Dogs and their vital training.
Check it out!

Pond-skimming, Utah Style

Saturday was one of those perfect spring days. As the afternoon festivities approached at the Canyons, the place just got sunnier and warmer. When Sarah and I showed up at the contestant area, we bumped into our buddy, Chris Petty who hooked us up with VIP passes for the winners circle. We hung out for a bit and caught up with Canyons locals, but once the event kicked off we were totally focussed on mayhem and nonsense. The crowd was thick and costumes were intense. Have a look.















We were also psyched to hook up with our friends, Chris, Richie, Max, Liz, Regina, Ahdena, Eddie, Brian, and Katie. But what really sucked is that after the "festivities" I was left with the most ridiculous sunburn. My forehead immediately blistered up and started weeping by Sunday night. But I deserve it for not remembering my sunblock! D'OH!

WHOAH, This Just In: Discrete Earns Adobe Site of the Day!!

WOW! Just as I was writing the last post I got word from Adobe that they've elected to feature DiscreteSport.com as tomorrow's site of the day. Check it out!

This is my 4th site of the Day from graphics industry standard software developer, Adobe. It's always an honor since I check their showcase every morning for inspiration. My previous winning submissions were Northeastern University's "Discover Northeastern Flash Tour", Sunday River's Interactive Golf Course Tour, and American Skiing Company's MeTicket.com.

Discrete Earns Cool Home Pages Award

Again, it's not a big deal. But once in a while it's nice for a designer's ego to know that colleagues think you're doing something right. Discrete is a site I did a while back for Utah-based freeskier, Julian Carr. Julian and the late Billy Poole founded Discrete Sport, an enigmatic, ski inspired headwear brand focussed on the individualistic lifestyle-oriented pursuit of Newtonian research. That's long-hand for the fact that they love to jump off stuff. Billy, who recently gave his life to this pursuit, is remembered by the big-mountain skiing community on this site and others around the industry.

You can also vote for this site's recognition at MyDesignAward.com

or vote for Fetchdog and/or Joe-art.com (please).

The Circus Comes to Town

This weekend was a blast from the past as a bunch of my old high school buddies converged on Salt Lake from across the country. The occasion was Chad Knowles' Bachelor Party. Two ski condos in Sandy played host to several Berwickians (Chad, Peter Clarke, Tom Beattie, Brett Richer, Chris Knowles and Pat Knowles) and various other really cool guys from Middlebury and Vail — about 14 guys in all, armed with alcohol, testosterone, and a raging passion for powder. They were here to ski hard and party harder. One theme of the weekend was their creative facial hair competition, the winner of which is anybody's guess. They also spent some quality time in a dirty hot tub which I dubbed "New England Man Chowder".

I met up with the crew Friday night as they were already well on their way to long night. I decided it might be best to crash on a spare futon downstairs, much to Tom Beattie's dismay as I snored him out of the room. The next day, we hit Snowbird for some great turns despite less than ideal snow conditions following 5 straight sunny days (yuck). The group of guys turned out to be pretty hard core and the pace was intense. That night, it was straight back to partying. I'll leave it at that. But I managed to sneak back to Patty and Gary's house for a much needed night of sleep.


Sunday morning — POW! The forecast was conservative, calling for perhaps up to 8 inches. Instead, we woke up to about 16 inches of fresh Utah powder. The group was ready by 6:30 am. From the first chair it was an epic day. There was hooting and hollering all over the mountain, and the large group quickly dispersed, invoking the "No friends on a powder day" rule. But Pete Clarke, one of my oldest friends in the world stuck with Sarah and me. I didn't grow up skiing, so it's a relatively new form of bonding for these two boys from Epping, NH. It was great catching up with Pete and charging fresh lines with him. We even egged each other on to huck a cliff or two.


Overall it was a fantastic weekend and I'm just glad no one was seriously hurt. Good times.

What it’s like to visit Utah

My brother Jay came out for a couple days this week. He flew to Phoenix from New Hampshire on Saturday night with his wife Jeannine, and daughter, Nichole to visit Jeannine's parents. He then took an early flight to SLC, arriving at 8:30. We were on the hill in about an hour. He brought his ski boots and used a pair of Volant Chubbs from Sarah's parents' collection. That morning we hit Deer Valley for a nice warm up. The weather got pretty dicey as the wind picked up and the hail started. But the snow conditions made it well worth it. We met up with my friends, Chris and Jody and then went out for an early dinner at Red Rock Brewery in Park City.

Day Two, we spent at Park City Mountain Resort, where my friend Bryan played tour guide for the morning, since he works there and I have not had the chance to learn my way around their 33,000 Skiable acres. Park City, had received about a foot overnight (at least) and there were fresh turns to be had in all directions. McConkey's bowl provided an epic first couple runs. And a late opening at Jupiter and Scott's bowls made the powder-day, and the resort tour complete.

That night we also made a trip to the Homestead in Midway (5 minutes from the house) to swim/dive at the famous "Crater". The Crater is an underground thermal pool inside a volcano-style cave with a hole at the top. You can swim or scuba dive in water that's 90° or more all year round. The water is about 55' deep and about 50' wide. Since Jay was already certified to dive he was allowed to rent scuba gear and explore the depths while Sarah and I watched with masks and snorkels from above.

Day 3, we hit Alta. Another 6 inches or so fell overnight while the wind swept the hill smooth. The sun came out early to a bluebird sky as we ate french toast and chicken fried steak at a trucker's diner in Heber. After a 45 minute drive into the valley and up Little Cottonwood Canyon, we made first chair on the popular Collins Quad. Our first run at Sunspot, off the Rustler traverse set the tone for another sweet day. We made an effort ride each of the four major chairs. We capped it off with a scenic overlook from the top of Supreme where we pointed out our house in Heber City over the Wasatch back. After a Mexican dinner at Cafe Rio, I dropped Jay back off at the airport to rejoin his family in Phoenix, exhausted and and satisfied.

Grand Targhee, What a Trip!

We took a weekend trip to visit our newlywed friends, and former neighbors, Neil and Mary in their new home in Driggs, Idaho. Joe's former co-worker at ASC, Neil has been working at Grand Targhee resort just across the border in Wyoming for a couple months now and is loving his new position. Mary has left as the Marketing Manager at the Park City Chamber and is currently doing contract work and enjoying the outdoors of her beautiful new surroundings.

The trip started out fine. We left Park City a little late and knew we'd be making the 5-hour drive in the dark. What we didn't count on was a fundamental oversight, that could have been easily avoided if we had simply remembered our trusty atlas. Upon exiting route 20 in Rexburg, we innocently took a left (west) instead of a right and proceeded to drive in the wrong direction. The road predictably narrowed, street-signs and marks of human involvement lessened, while low-lying layers of fog engulfed the car like sheets of wax paper blowing in the wind. We found ourselves driving at half-speed. The fog then yielded to happy sightings of fluffy bunnies on the road-side. At first we saw one or two alarmed little bunnies as we drew their attention from road-side bunny business. Then the frequency increased exponentially. Bunnies everywhere! Again we drove at a tortoise's pace, while making eye contact with each of the thousands of bunnies and evaluating their will to live. Some would dive towards the car in a last-ditch suicide attempt. We successfully dodged dozens bunnies before finally decapitating one determined hare. After that ordeal, we were able to maneuver around the rest of the population and escape bunny-ville without further casualties. Then came the deer. Pronghorns. And entire heard crossing route 33 in the dark. We of course waited for the last stragglers to pass and considered ourselves lucky once again.

At this point it occurred to us that we had seen nary a headlight in about an hour or so. We also noticed the mile-markers were counting down almost to zero and we weren't sure what that meant. Most disturbingly, we hadn't seen a single sign for Driggs and thought we might actually be lost. Could it be? We stopped at the end of route 33 as it met route 26 and called Mary who had been waiting up for us and had started to worry. As she tried to locate us on her map she confirmed the worst of truths, that we had been driving for the better part of two hours in the wrong direction. In fact, as we sheepishly made our u-turn, we immediately happened upon a sign saying 79 miles to Rexburg, our original point of digression. And worse still, we had to pass again through bunny-ville.

After arriving in Driggs at 2:30 Saturday Morning, we found the rest of our weekend to be a stress-free alpine delight. Mary and Neil treated us to some of the best hospitality in the west. The skiing was outstanding. The area was gorgeous. And the resort is very cool. We're very happy for our friends having this new, fresh start and we wish them the best of luck. But we hope they steer clear of the bunny patch.

World Cup Dual Moguls Competition

On Saturday, February 2, Joe and I braved 14 degree weather to go to the annual world cup dual mogul competition at Deer Valley Resort. You can see the course in the background.

For anyone who has not watch this event, 32 of the world's best mogul skiers compete side by side on the course which is made up of 3 mogul sections (all different lengths) and two jumps. It is amazing to watch these athletes negotiate the entire run. This is the last event in the overall world cup event so you get to see the top three men and women skiers for the event as well as the overall man and women event winners, Shelly Robertson and Vincent Marquis.

And the best was yet to come, De La Soul performed after the competition. It is by far the coldest I have been all winter but it was so worth it.

Super Sunday

No, I am not talking about the football game, in fact I didn't even watch the game ( I was passed out from skiing all day and 2 hours of shoveling snow). After dropping Joe off at the airport 35 minutes before his flight, we drove through white out conditions at 6a, I went skiing with my dad at Solitude Ski Resort. It was the most incredible day, we skied run after run of untracked powder. At one point I was up to my waist in Honeycomb Canyon just gliding through the trees. My skis were not even touching the trail. It is the greatest sensation in the world to ski bottomless powder. And...it snowed 17" overnight. The only down side to this is that I arrived home to 10" of snow our driveway. It is only February and we have a 7' snow bank around our driveway and then a 3' snow banks around the perimeter of our property. I wish I had pics buy our small digital camera is in Maine with Joe. You will just have to use your imagination.

One of Those (sick) Days

Wow. This week was crazy. we got 60+ inches since Monday (today is Friday, BTW) and finally I couldn't take it any more. I had to get some runs in this morning at The Canyons and it was the most amazing day you can imagine. Tough to say if it was the best ever, especially since Sarah wasn't there and I had to cut it short for work. But Damn. I'm just speechless. Face-shots all day long...almost every turn in fact. Max snapped a nice action shot of me in Silverado Bowl under the Golden Eagle Lift, a slow double on the front side running parallel to the Gondola. I may have had more runs if i skied a different lift but it's ok. That spot is empty and I can't imagine a better place to ski, in-bounds. Wow. Again.

Billy Poole, Freeskier Dies in Wasatch Mountains

Billy Poole: 1979 - 2008

Billy Poole, an extreme skier from Montana living in Salt Lake died today in Big Cottonwood Canyon. He was being filmed hucking Wolverine Cirque between Brighton and Solitude Resorts, a jump he had probably skied away from dozens of times. This particular time, his landing was not clear of rocks and he sustained fatal injuries and pronounced dead at the hospital.

I have recently had the pleasure of meeting Billy's best friend, roommate and business partner, Julian Carr. I've been corresponding with both Julian and Billy over the website their ski-inspired headwear brand, Discrete. My few dealings with Billy were extremely sincere and I'm inspired by his passion and dedication to skiing. I respect and admire his life's work and hope that his legacy is one of ambition and intoxicating love of life. Our condolences to his friends and family.

The bottom line is that guys like Billy serve as heroes to guys like me. Billy and I were the exact same age and yet I was in awe of him. In his 28 years, Billy lived more than most of us do in 100. He's done things and seen things from perspectives most humans will never know, and in doing so he achieved iconic status among his peers and the ski industry. He will be remembered as someone who squeezed every last drop out of life, and died doing the same. I believe there is honor in that. I'm reminded that life is a fragile and previous gift that must be savored every moment.

Don't Tase Me 2.BRO

In the wake of "Tase-Gate", you may be asking yourself "Where can I see MORE tasings?" Fear not. Today, my friend Chris let me in on his dark and twisted side. Apparently he gets a sadistic kick out of watching impudent morons rendered even less coherent by the stun of non-lethal force. And I love him for it. In fact, his new site Tase.tv will let you in on his delightful perversion with clips and stories of all the best tasings from around the internet world. It's so much fun it's shocking. He he he. And the best part is that most of the people you'll see getting tased COMPLETELY deserve it. There are some cases where the use of force was with questionable judgement but what's NOT up for debate is that it's hilarious. See for yourself!
http://www.tase.tv/

Sunday at Deer Valley

On Sunday Joe and I finally got a chance to take advantage of the Deer Crest Gondola at Deer Valley, just five minutes from our home. The gondola is an ideal way to start the day; you board in a heated building, ride on padded leather seats and unload inside another heated building all without having to carry your skis more than 5 ft. Now don’t get me wrong this is not our typical ski day but it is nice to see how the other side lives some of the time.

Back to the point - skiing. We headed over to Lady Morgan a section of the mountain that a group of us had hike and skied with our dogs last year. The skiing off the lift was awesome, weaving through aspens in fluffy snow. After a few runs there we ventured into Empire Canyon, scoping out our next line on each chairlift ride, cheering fellow skiers on as they floated below us.

Later in the morning we met up with Kristin and Cory for some runs off the Sterling Lift Chair. Getting off this chair is a truly surreal experience with 4 high speed lifts all unloading within yards of one another. Joe led us down a sweat run which still had fresh snow at 12n. Cory was laughing the whole way down and loving the snow. The entire day was filled with powder and our smiles were ear-to-ear as we arrived at our car at 3:50p. It was the perfect Sunday in my opinion.

Storm Coming...

I've been hearing various murmurs about a potentially huge storm system moving in this weekend. They say it should start tonight and last into Monday with totals anywhere from 1-5 feet. That's exciting and I'm starting to believe it. So far: nothing. But I'm being patient. People tell me there is such a thing as TOO much snow. I'd like to see for myself. We're planning on taking tomorrow off to take the dogs out for a long hike and pick up our Sundance Locals tickets. But Sunday should be awesome. We'll keep ya posted.