This is not a tag line!
snowboard
Tension
Apr 3rd
The weather is starting to warm up and it’s enticing me to take my bike for a ride. At the same time, each time I go out, I can see the surrounding mountains still very white (and I know that it has snowed a bit higher up) and it makes me want to grab my board and go ride some freshly covered canyon. Tension between wanting more winter and spring now! 
Snowboarding Breckenridge
Mar 17th
I went to Breckenridge, CO a couple of weeks back. It was nice to ride some real mountains for a change!
Despite being used to the French Alps, I’d actually never been that high up for as long before. The base elevation is 9,600 feet (2926 meters) which is already pretty high and goes all the way to 12,998 feet (3963 meters) at the top of the Imperial lift on Peak 8! Going down Lake Chutes was fun. It wasn’t too powdery and not as difficult as the extreme terrain denomination would make you believe, that is, unless you chose a trajectory that takes you on rocks 
. We took about the same line as can be seen at 1:29 and again at 2:09 on the previous video. You could definitely feel the altitude, though, especially on the hike up!
I had a lot of fun and put some pictures up on flickr for your enjoyment!
Don’t mess with my Beaufort!
Sep 6th
Global warming might alter the taste of cheese as the flora is evolving because of warmer conditions, affecting the cows diet. First, less snow (or at least, it isn’t sticking as long as it used to), now different tasting cheese! Is it going to impact everything I like >_<?
And, yes, I am well aware there are a lot more important consequences (too numerous to list her) to global warming than my selfish little desire of being able to snowboard in deep powder and eat good Alpine cheese afterwards… but it just keeps adding up and getting more personal. Maybe, people will eventually start to care when they feel the impact more directly. And let’s face it, it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better soon…
Still alive!
Jan 15th
It’s been a long time coming but I’m finally posting again! Lots of things have happened since last time I posted so I guess I should summarize a little bit…
First, of course, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy New Year and lots of happiness and health for 2006 (and beyond)!
Then, I’d like to congratulate the Denver Broncos for their divisional playoff win over the New England Patriots. It had been a long time since they last won a playoff game and it’s nice to see them advance to the AFC championship for the first time in 7 years. While I haven’t blogged about it this season, I have been following their play (like I always do) and I was extremely pleased with the way they handled the end of the season to secure a second seed (bye and home game, baby!). Of course, while it’s a nice achievement, there is still two games to play and win before they can be where they want to be. But, first thing first, they’re going to have a tough game next week against a very good Pittsburgh team (sorry, Sylvain, but I hope they’ll beat the Steelers soundly and advance to the Superbowl).
So what have I been up to? As mentioned in my last post, I spent a month in France. It was really nice and relaxing to be able to come back home after having stayed in the US for more than a year and a half. I got to spent some quality time with family and friends and that’s something which importance is easy to underestimate. It was also really nice to finally go back to the Alps and snowboard on some real mountains (despite the now traditional lack of snow of the early season). The only trouble spot with that trip was the fact that, while tweaking my board settings, I forgot to screw all the screws tight of one my bindings which basically got removed from the board the first time I applied some pressure to it on the slopes… End result: a nice fall with my binding still attached to my leg but free from the board, making my left leg hit the edge of the board which cut through my just recently bought pants and a still-not-healed gash on my shin.
I also got upgraded on the return trip after giving up my seat on my originally scheduled overbooked flight and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t wish to always fly business. 
I’m also starting to get a better understanding of the JBoss Portal code base so I should become more productive soon. I have also been looking for a new place to live in visiting lots of houses and it’s taken up a lot of my free time. Hopefully, everything will slow down soon and I’ll be able to blog some more.
Moving on…
Nov 29th
It’s pretty amazing the amount of crap useful stuff that one can amass on a desk and on a computer… I wish sorting through all this stuff would be easier/faster and wouldn’t leave me with the paranoid feeling that I’m forgetting to transfer something important… Then again, maybe it’s time to start implementing some changes to live simpler without accumulating as much junk as I currently do. I am thinking about getting started with GTD to improve efficiency on that front (tracking important things is the first step towards controlling chaos) and help me stay on track while working from home.
On the plus side, I now have a shiny new PowerBook 15″ (the ones with the improved screens) and, despite not being able to get the faster hard drive due to time constraints, I have to say that it’s very, very nice. Let’s try to keep it that way! Also coming up, after a very-interesting looking training, some time in France with my family (I hadn’t gone back since June 2004) and some good snowboarding in the Alps! Yay!
Goddess on a Highway from the album Deserter’s Songs by Mercury Rev
Getting back in business
Jul 6th
Since I haven’t posted in a while I figured I would post something light so as to ease myself back in!
Let’s start with a great (though unintentional summary) of how marketing people approach technical problems, courtesy of Overheard in the Office:
Marketing guy: I don’t want you IT guys wasting a lot of time figuring out what’s wrong before you fix it!
More of the same still from Overheard in the Office:
Marketing exec: If we didn’t have to spend so much time telling you our requirements, you could be done with the code already!
Isn’t marketing great?
More seriously, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs called the family of a teen who got murdered by thugs who wanted his iPod. While it’s extremely sad that someone would kill to get an iPod, it says something about the icon status of the little white gadget. The fact that Steve Jobs would call the victim’s parents and not sound phony doing it says a lot more about him and his company. I doubt that anyone would kill to get a Dell DJ (or whatever these things are called) and I doubt even more that Michael Dell would call the parents and sound sincere if that were to happen… In any case, let’s hope we will never have to find out and that Steve Jobs will never have to call someone’s parents in similar conditions ever again.
Let’s conclude this little post with something that had me green with jealousy when I read it: Snowbird’s ski season ended on Monday, as in Monday July 4th!!! Snowbird is a great resort and I haven’t been able to get some real snowboarding this winter (sorry but Pennsylvania/Maryland hills don’t count) so you can imagine how I can feel when I read such reports… Oh well, always next year, right?
From The Inside from the album Meteora by Linkin Park
I need to get out there…
Feb 14th
… and quick! James Duncan Davidson took quite a nice picture at Heavenly on Lake Tahoe: nice light, lots of snow, damn, it’s so painful to look at when you’re stuck in rainy, grey D.C.!
Blifil from the album Peel Session 2 by Autechre
First snowboard trip of the season
Jan 19th
It took me a while to finally go snowboarding this season but I finally made it to the slopes on Saturday. I went to Whitetail with a fellow snowboarder.
It took me a couple of runs to get back into a riding groove but it was well worth it. My gear is pretty sensitive to settings and I had to tweak them some to adjust them to attain the level of control that would bring the familiar snowboarding grin on my face!
We had the pleasure to experience an OK weather (meaning not too cold, not too cloudy) before it started snowing. Contrary of what you could think, I actually enjoy riding when it snows, provided that there is no fog. As it so happened, there wasn’t any fog so it was all good! Since it was snowing pretty hard, we got to enjoy some fresh powder after a while which made the experience all the more enjoyable. I also had the nice surprise to discover that Whitetail was actually bigger than I thought: a whole pan of the mountain was open that I had never seen opened before during previous trips. I guess the lack of snow the last time I was there contributed to keeping that side closed. Anyway, the hill sure is not the Rockies or the Alps but it was still pretty fun!
We were scheduled for a Laser Tag game in the evening so we decided to leave around 6pm to leave us time to face the drive back home on snowy roads which turned out just as difficult as we thought it would be. I’m just glad I’m driving an AWD car!
All in all, a very refreshing first sortie which left (as did the Laser Tag) its imprint on my body: I spent Sunday mopping around, exhausted from all the unusual exercise (and this, despite regular Kendo practice)!
The Nasty from the album Bricolage by Amon Tobin
