Merry Christmas

Every now and then I get these gentle reminders that I need to update my blog. Usually they're in the form of "NOAH WHERE IS YOUR NEWS!?!?!?!?!?!?"

Very gentle and subtle.

Before I start, I'd like to congratulate my grandfather, Bobba, for successfully navigating the intra-web and posting a comment on my last blog. *smattering of applause*

So it's December 21st today - shortest day of the year. It was dark before 5:00 today, which was..interesting. Didn't get light until about 9:00 too. Hehehe.

Town is in full Christmas-gear now and all that's left is to wait for the hordes to arrive. Christmas lights are up all over town, we have the world's ugliest town Christmas tree, and the weather is back to substantially below zero, instead of just a little bit.

As far as those holiday hordes are concerned, I deal with them through a wonderful method that I choose to call "duck and cover". Stay out of their way lest I get trampled and left for dead. People are cut-throat when it comes to vacationing.

Me? I'm hoping for a fun/relaxing vacation next week and I'll trample anybody who stands in my way.

Merry Christmas all!

3 Feet of Fresh Powder? Seriously? Oh yea

You you heard me. It snowed solid for FOUR DAYS last week. We are, officially, buried out here with no sign of warming up - though the snow has at least stopped for now. Overnight we went from "kinda cold looking" to "full-blown Christmas wonderland." We also went from pre-season skiing conditions to ZOMG LOOK AT ALL THIS SNOW.

Was out with some friends on Friday. This is a groomed run, but I had to take the shot to show the scenery. Powder shots in a moment



It was one of those days that happens well...almost never. Not a cloud in the ski, not too cold (but also not too warm), powder everywhere, and no wind. It was so good that they were able to open up Goat's Eye Mountain for the first time this year. Sunshine Village has 12 lifts. Goat's Eye is almost as good as the rest of the lifts combined. We're talking runs down of 2 miles or more and, because it was the first day, we're talking nearly 2 miles of powder. Some of the flatter areas were groomed, of course, but wow there was powder everywhere for the poaching. Check it out!



That ski you see is being lifted up to get some perspective in there. Just try to find the other one :p

And finally, here we are up top of Goat's Eye. Or rather, here I am, looking pretty dumb. Just look at everything else.




In other news, taught my music history students about Handel's "Messiah" this week, and, as luck would have it, the Calgary Philharmonic was playing it the very next night. So I took them to see it and, much to my surprise, all of them loved it. I knew most would, but I expected at least 1 to say "not my cup of tea". It was a fabulous production of it too with 4 strong singers (including one countertenor - read "male alto"). Guess who their favorite voice was? The guy that sounded like a girl! Good kids, all of em. Definitely some good kids right there.