I went skiing up at Ragged Mountain in New Hampshire this weekend, and had a blast. The snow was the best I’d ever seen on the east coast, and the mountain was pretty empty. Absolutely couldn’t have been better.
In the course of the morning, I went to riding the lift up with my roommate. Just after we’d boarded the chair and while we were chatting (only about 20 yards from where we’d boarded), my ski tip got caught on a mound of snow, and I got yanked off the chair into a snow bank. In near-cartoon fashion, my roommate felt the chair jump a little, and all of a sudden I wasn’t sitting next to her anymore; she was talking to no one.
Uninjured, save my pride, I skied down to the boarding area, dodging the oncoming chairs, and got on again. On the ride up, my new chair-mate and I had the following conversation:
Her: I just skied this amazing double black diamond [the hardest terrain to ski] off the back side of this lift. It was amazing!
Me: My ski tip got caught and I fell of the lift.
Oh yeah.
posted January 12, 2003 – 7:59 pm
As one parting gift, my old boss & colleagues bought me a copy of The Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components, a 1000 plus page behemoth of a book detailing all kinds of mechanical goodies. Hmm, I now have a desire to go build things with lots of gears, springs, cams, etc. Go figure.
Home Depot, it turns out, does not rent biscuit jointers, in case you were interested. I was, and now I’m just disappointed. Anybody got one they’d lend me for a weekend?
I just finished Word Freak, a great book on the Scrabble subculture. I’d definitely recommend it, unless you’re worried about becoming obsessed with the game just by reading the book. I should’ve thought of that before I read the book, but I guess that just means the author (Stefan Fatsis) did his job well.
posted January 9, 2003 – 10:37 am
My search for employment has ended happily, and it looks like I’ll be starting a new job on Monday. This round of retirement wasn’t sitting as well with me as the last (which lasted five months and included a trip to Paris), and the work appears pretty interesting, so overall I’m quite excited about things.
The one thing that gives me pause about the job is its location – Peabody, MA. I’ve been spoiled for almost five years with commutes that involved public transportation, so to have to buckle down and drive to work every day seems barbaric. For the time being, my brother’s generously offered the use of his to commute, but I’ll eventually have to buy a car – any recommendations? Any ones to avoid? What about hybrids? Fill me in.
posted January 7, 2003 – 10:30 pm
I asked at the Star Market in Porter Square in Cambridge yesterday for some anchovy paste, and they looked at me as if I had walked into their market without pants or had grown horns (or both). Now I understand that not everyone uses anchovy paste, but it’s not that foreign a concept, and for chrissakes, they’re running a supermarket! And it was the manager of the place who had this reaction! I imagine they get requests for unusual things all the time – was it just the stigma of anchovies that garnered such a harsh response or do they do that every time someone asks for a slightly strange food?
At least dinner turned out well. Thanks mom for the recipe.
posted January 4, 2003 – 3:27 pm
I posted some pictures from my dino-tastic New Year’s Eve – check ’em out here. My apologies for the water drops in some of the photos – it was so misty that the flash reflected off the droplets and clouded the pictures.
I also put up a page (resurrected from the old site) about the camera dolly we made. Check it here.
posted January 1, 2003 – 9:44 pm