No More War . . . and Peace

After nearly 9 months, I've finished reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace". I consider this quite an accomplishment, especially since I'm such a slow reader. All this airport and plane time I've had recently is conducive to plowing through books. I'm now working my way through Darwin's "The Origin of Species".

Today I traveled back to Challis, Idaho. We begin drilling tomorrow and it's supposed to snow all day. Before I left Boulder, I'd planned to bake Ashley a birthday cake since I won't be around on April 22. Keith convinced me to make it from scratch instead of from a box. This turned out to be a bit time consuming, but surprisingly simple. The cake, complete with homemade frosting, turned out fully edible and shaped kind of like a birthday cake. The most difficult part turned out to be melting the unsweetened baking chocolate. I was convinced that the chocolate was immune to melting in the microwave. After about 3 minutes with no observable change in the chocolate, we discovered that our brand new microwave wasn't working.

Back Home for the Weekend

I spent last week in Challis, Idaho on business. We're drilling holes in a tailings embankment at a Molybdenum mine in order to characterize the soil and bedrock and design a way to store an additional 100 million tons of tailings material. Challis is the hub for all the towns within about 50 miles and has a bustling population of 909. It includes 3 restaurants, two of which serve everything: steak, ribs, and burgers. There is a smaller town closer to the mine (Clayton), which has a population of 26 that somehow manages to sustain 2 bars.

I returned to Boulder on Thursday and have thoroughly enjoyed my time back by engaging in the usual activities (skiing, biking, etc.). Today Keith, Melanie, Ashley, and I went skiing at Eldora. As it was the last day of the season, we dressed up like yahoos and had a fabulous BBQ in the parking lot before heading home.



I leave on Tuesday to return to Idaho to resume the drilling program. After 10 days of drilling, I should get a few days off which I plan to use to visit my brother, Wes, in Idaho Falls. Ten more days of drilling after that should bring my time in Idaho to an end and me back to Boulder.

I'm Famous

I shall forever be known as the idiot who boated Bear Creek.

Boulder Daily Camera Article

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Sevski Weekend

My good buddy, Adam, currently living in Missouri, decided to take a last minute road trip out to Colorado for a quick bout of skiing. He managed to convince the unsuspecting Dizzle to join him and share in the driving. The two of them arrived at our place in Boulder around 3:00 am on Friday morning. Adam, Dizzle, Ashley, and I somehow managed to make it to the Loveland Ski Area by 9:00 on Friday and had a great day of skiing powder.



Before making our way to the Peter Rabbit Hut up on Berthoud Pass, we stopped by The Mint, a grill-your-own steak house where the counter of meat is the menu. The hut we went to is only about 1/2 mile off the road and Adam, Ashley and I had all been there before, so skiing to it in the dark was not a problem - especially under the nearly-full moon. After waking up leisurely the next morning and cooking a bunch of trout that Dizzle brought for breakfast, we skinned part way up the hill behind the cabin and got a fantastic backcountry run in before we had to head back to Boulder.






Skiing back to the car from the hut, Ashley battled a tree and apparently won based on the souvenir lodged in her backpack.



Ashley and I needed to get back home so we could get ready to go to my friend, Navead's, wedding. Navead is a member of the Bahai religion, which made the ceremony slightly unique and different from a more traditional Christian wedding. It was great to finally meet his fiance-turned-wife, whom I'd never had the chance to meet before.