Monkey

Helen and I just returned from a long weekend in San Francisco, and we had a great time. We originally decided to go because Helen wanted to see Goldfrapp in concert and of the 3 tour dates in the US, Saturday’s was the closest. Well, it turned out some DJ’s I’ve been a fan of for a long time were playing the same venue the night before, so we went for an extra day and saw Sasha and John Digweed on Friday night. Both played at the Warfield, which is a pretty nice venue (like a smaller version of the Paramount in Seattle.)

We also spent a lot of time walking around the city and seeing the sights. We went all over: Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, the Castro, the Mission district, Japan Town, Chinatown, Alcatraz, etc. Helen got the good pictures, and when she puts some up then I’ll add a link. Here are some snapshots I took for now:

Mt. Baker is replacing Chair 1, which a very, very old fixed grip double, with a quad this summer, and they decided to sell the old chairs. They auctioned off 55 chairs via a silent auction, and I got one! I’ve always wanted a ski lift chair, and now I’ll have one in a few weeks. I’m not sure yet where I’ll put it, but I’m sure I’ll find a good spot. Maybe in the Monkey Shop, maybe on the porch, who knows.

Here’s a picture Helen took in February 2005 of the top station for Chair 1. I’ll miss the “death ramp”…

I went up to Mt. Baker on Sunday, 4/20. Coverage remains excellent, and there was even some tracked but still fluffy powder to be found here and there. Some of the runs showed the effect of a little sun and warmth the day before, i.e., chunky crud. But on the whole it was a good day. I ended up lapping a chute that I don’t know the name of skiers right of Chair 1 which had some really nice snow at the top and at the bottom, though it was pretty darn firm in the middle There were no lift lines to speak of, which was quite nice.

I’ve decided to switch my personal pages over to a blog format using Wordpress, which so far looks pretty darn good. I’ve never done this before, so it will take a little while, but on the whole I think it will be a vast improvement over my current pages.

I’ll slowly add old content from my old site, the interesting stuff anyway, and I’m giving them dates to match when the content is from, but all the same time of day: 12:00. Those will be the only retroactive posts, and all are before 2008/04/19.