18 inches…

18 inches. That’s how deep the snow is going to be tomorrow morning when I drop into it. That means that one turn and it’s over my head. I’m going to spend my morning before work in the “white room.” That’s what they call it when the snow is blasting up over your head. It’s going to be difficult to stop skiing and go in to work tomorrow. I already told them I might get in a bit late. They knew. Jenny, my boss, got to go up Tuesday when she covered the Winter Special Olympics. It’s snowed another 6 inches since then. I can’t wait.

Jess is all sick again. She’s got to have the weakest immune system ever. Mine on the other hand is relatively tough. So while Jess is knocked on her butt trying to get better, I’m fine and keep on rolling. Of course with my luck I’ll get sick Friday and Saturday and be fine again on Sunday… so my weekend will be ruined but I’ll be fine for work. Just the way my life works. I’m going to go out and be healthy in the morning though. Then I’m going again on Friday. If Jess remains ill I may just go up again on Saturday.

I don’t really have too many other things to report on at the moment. I’ll just have to save it for tomorrow.

What a riot

Do you have cable or satellite? Do you get BBC America? If you do, you should watch the show Top Gear. The show is brilliant and hysterical. I’ve set my DVR to record it because it’s so much fun.

For those unfamiliar with the show,  it’s three British guys (hence being on the BBC) that talk about cars. They generally have some kind of crazy challenge on the show. In one they had to build an amphibious vehicle. So they each picked a car and turned it into a car/boat. Needless to say, 2 of the 3 sank. In the episode I just finished watching they came to America and the challenge was to buy a car for less than $1,000 then drive it across the Gulf Coast. Challenges along the way included an acceleration/braking test that ended in a pond filled with gators, finding road kill for dinner,  trying to get each other killed (literally… they painted each other’s cars with slogans to get them harassed) and then driving back to Florida.

They always do the craziest things and it’s amazing they live through some of it. I can’t watch this show and not laugh at their antics. I highly recommend it.

Mmm… snow…

We went skiing today. I love skiing. Have I ever mentioned that? I love skiing. I finally got back in my groove on my boards today. Now it’s on for the rest of the season. I’m goin’ nuts.

I love skiing.

Moving on up!

You are now reading the blog of the newest member of the Ravalli Republic editorial board. Word.

The members of this board are my editor, my publisher and the publisher at the Missoulian, who oversees our paper as well. This means that I will be responsible, at some point in the near future, of writing the editorial that appears in the Tuesday and/or Thursday edition of the paper. Woohoo!

I have no idea what I’ll get to write an opinion on, that has to wait until we have an editorial board meeting or two. Then I’ll get thrown to the fire with writing an opinionated column.  I’m actually really looking forward to this because I’ve been forming opinions on a lot of things I see in the paper since becoming more familiar with the goings on of our small town.

So when I get to write something I’ll be sure to put a link to it here so everyone can read it and get a good laugh.

Still cold…

We’ve had a couple days now of sub-freezing temperatures. It’s just plain cold out. Our highs are not even in double digits. I think the high today was 6. The low was supposed to be something like -3. Seriously? Brr. It’s not too bad during the day cause the sun is out and that helps… but at night it’s just bone chilling. This affects me big time because I walk to and from work. During the day, when I walk TO work, I can make it though my ears definitely get cold. At night I put on a hat and bundle up but I’m still a Popsicle by the time I get home. We have some crazy huge icicles growing outside too. They’re fun.

The weather is supposed to warm up as the week goes on which is good cause I’m not sure I could ski this weekend if it stayed this cold. It’ll be cold enough as it is even if the weather man turns out to be right. Hopefully he will be right because they’re predicting more snow. I’m starting to like skiing fresh snow every week and it’d be a shame if it got this cold and never snowed.

Somebody forgot to turn the heat back on

It’s cold here. We’re getting down below zero now. Brr. For example, it’s 1:00 p.m. right now. It’s also 1 degrees outside. That’s probably going to be pretty close to our high for the day. Brr. The ski area is open today but since it’s so cold and my back is hurting I decided I wouldn’t bother going up this morning.

We had a good time over the weekend though. I got up for some skiing Friday and enjoyed a few good hours before having to head back to town. I came home, got cleaned up and then went and got my hair cut. So now I have short hair again. Maybe I should have let it keep growing since we’re apparently going to be cold for a little while now.

Saturday Jess and I went up with the father-in-law for another day of skiing. This was Jess’ first trip up for the year and also her first time on her new skis that we got her. She did a lot better than I expected. If she goes regularly enough I think she’ll develop into a much better skier than she’s been. She seemed to gain confidence with each run and also seemed to really enjoy the day. So yay for that!

Sunday was a pretty slow day. We slept in then went out to the in-laws for lunch and to watch a little football. I only got to watch half of the first game before I had to leave to go to work but it was a pretty easy going day. Too bad the Packers lost. I’d much rather watch them than the Giants in the Super Bowl. Hopefully they will manage to beat the Patriots though… and hopefully the commercials will be good this year.

I work at a small paper. There aren’t a lot of people on staff. We only publish five days a week. Monday through Friday. Since the paper gets printed at night the last night of the week for work is Thursday. That means Friday is my day off. (As is Saturday) For some reason though, anytime one of the “important” people from the Missoulian (they oversee our paper) needs to come down to visit they always schedule it on a Friday when most of the staff is supposed to be off. That means we either miss whatever is happening or we have to go in on our day off.

Tomorrow, my day off, the new publisher for our paper is going to be in to meet everyone. The publisher of the Missoulian is coming down to introduce them. It’s my day off but I have to go to work to meet the new boss. Kinda sucks. At first they were going to come tomorrow afternoon so I had planned to ski in the morning then come back for the meeting. I got an appointment for the afternoon to get my hair cut so my day was fairly well planned out. Then they changed the time to 10 in the morning… So that kind of messes with my day.

So now I’ll be meeting the new boss in ski clothes cause I’m going up right after I meet them. I’ll get a couple hours on the slopes before I have to come back down to get my hair cut. It’ll be a bit of a hectic day but hopefully worth it. Maybe the new publisher will realize that coming in on everyone’s day off is not a real cool way to treat the staff.

Not much to say

Today was a fairly dull day. I got up, went to the gym then off to work. The gym was rough cause I’m out of shape in a big way and I’m just getting back into the workout routine. It took a lot out of me. If I keep it up though it’ll get better and I should start dropping the pounds I’m supposed to lose thanks to my New Year’s resolutions.

Work was slightly interesting because we switched to a new process for creating plates for the press. It’s a tad faster than what we’ve been doing and is a bit easier. It should also help the quality of the print job so it’s a good move. We’ve been working on this switch for a good six months so it’s kind of fun to see it actually come to fruition.

Fruition is an SAT word. Bonus points for me for using it in a sentence!

Tomorrow is my Friday. One more paper to put together for the week and then it’s the weekend again. Jess and I are going skiing Saturday which should be fun. She and I haven’t hit the slopes together in a couple years. It’ll be good to share the experience with her again. I’m sure she’ll wear out quickly though since she is just getting back into the gym too and hasn’t been skiing every weekend like I have.

That’s about all I can think of to write about today… Guess I’ll go to bed now.

Humpity hump hump

Hump day has come and gone. Only two more papers to put together this week. That means it’s all downhill toward the weekend. (Notice I said toward, not towards… there’s no need for the “s”… when you edit newspapers everyday, you learn these things and they start to annoy you.)

Today I got the receiver all hooked up. It’s SWEET. I had forgotten how good things can sound. Once I got it all working the way it was supposed to I was reminded just how full a home theater can sound. It’s just so much better than the cheesy speakers on the TV. We haven’t watched a movie with it, just TV but it’s so nice.  I can’t believe I went this long without it. Hopefully that’ll never happen again!

For now though… I’m off to bed. It’s far too late to still be awake.

Awesome

Today was a fun day. Well, once I finished up work anyway. Work wasn’t bad, very productive actually, but it wasn’t the most fun.

When I got home I had two boxes waiting for me. The first was the cables I needed to finish the set-up of my home theater. I still need a shelf for the center channel speaker but now I’ve got all the cables so I can at least start running everything through the receiver. I’ll have to get them all plugged in over the next day or two so I can start enjoying the brilliance of home theater sound.

The second box was my little gift to myself. I got a new Oakley ski jacket. I know what you’re thinking… expensive gift… but it wasn’t! There’s a website that has super sick deals all the time and they put up the jacket I’d been wanting. So the $200 jacket was mine for only $65! It’s a sweet light blue color that’s going to look sick with my black ski pants. (or the red ones or white ones for that matter!) I love it and I’m so excited to wear it this weekend.

So today was a fun day. Even though I had to go to work!