Well, I had a wonderful weekend, thank you. The family trip to Whistler -- meeting up with Amanda and Ivy from the Seattle project, and Ivy's mother, friend Eliza, and boyfriend Jeremy -- was a great success. Air Canada mysteriously failed to lose our luggage in either direction, and Kate's car mysteriously survived the trip in both directions (dripping oil and bleeding rust), and although the weather on Saturday and Sunday was cloudy (and snowy!), Monday turned into a cold but sunny magical ski day, the sort that is rare and to be cherished. The snow conditions were generally good -- some icy bits here and there, the sno-cone sensation in the warm bits near the base, but otherwise a nice mix of powder and groomed, packed runs -- and the lift lines were blessedly short.

It was actually the first time that all four family members were together since last Thanksgiving in Victoria, and everyone was in fine form. Unfortunately the snow conditions in the valley were poor (i.e., no snow,) so Dad and Kate's plans to do cross-country at the Nordic centre were foiled. Dad was a trooper and tried some downhills, but it isn't really his thing. As for Kate, she rented telemark skis and managed a very credible performance. On the (glorious) Monday, they managed to find some trails with snow at Cougar Mountain and had an energetic day skiing up the mountain.

It was great to see Ivy and Jeremy again. Ivy's friend Eliza turned out to be a terrifyingly good skier, but after leading us up into whiteout conditions on top of Whistler on Saturday, she tired of waiting for the rest of us and took off to conquer the rest of the mountain. Unfortunately she had to head off early Sunday to make it back to Boston via some complicated, multi-leg route. It was great to meet Ivy's mom Lynda, very friendly and enthusiastic, and all in all the two-worlds-colliding potential weirdness (work meets family) went off smoothly and easily for both Ivy and me. Definitely have to plan a repeat trip (or two!) next year.

I'm back, in the office, and working on my newly reformatted laptop. My computer's sporting a spiffy new operating system -- Windows 2000 Professional -- and is, predictably, 1000% more stable than it was running Windows 95. Also predictably all my personal applications have been blown away and it will take me weeks to figure out where everything is. Good thing I have some between-projects downtime...
posted by Tom at 4:13 PM | link |