Archive for February, 2007

Pictures from the first three days of the trip can be found in the gallery.

Wow! What a week! My plane took off from DIA around 10am on Monday morning (Feb 19). It was fun flying out with all of my co-workers. Even though the first flight was a bit too roller-coaster-y for my tastes, the mood in the planes was festive and excited.

We landed in Kauai at around 6pm local time that evening. There’s something so wonderful about stepping off a plane into a warm, breezy, tropical atmosphere. The airport was basically outdoors, with three of the four walls open to the breeze, and the sound of palm trees swaying and roosters crowing filled the air.

It was wonderful to be in the warmth and sun of the islands. But my conference was three days long, and located on the rainy north shore. I soon learned that tropical rain storms are great! One minute the sun is beating down, the next the heavens open up and water simply pours out. Then, a few minutes later, the sun is out again, and there is almost always a rainbow.

We worked hard for those three days. I got great input on my masters project, and a serious learning experience as I presented it to the group. I met people from all over the world who were working on similar topics as I was, and I volunteered for more work than I probably should have. The group in general made great progress, as people seemed excited to be here, excited about their past work, and excited about all future prospects. Except, perhaps, whether you can call a 17km-grid model a true Cloud Resolving Model. Probably not.

I was so busy that I only got about an hour one day to go down to the beach and take pictures of the beautiful Hanalei Bay. While we had a great view from the conference room, I was in Kauai for two days before I was able to actually touch the water. And even then, it was just a little bit of wading, as I had to go back in for more work soon. But the Bay was incredibly beautiful. With huge waterfalls in the distance, surfers, boogie boarders, and snorklers peppering the water, and such warm water and sun!

Even though it rained every day, there was some sun every day too, and a very productive conference. Definitely a great place to be and to work.

We’re back, and I’m getting the photos sorted out. I hope to be able to put together a nice, detailed trip report in a day or so.

For now, the overview of the trip is simply: I had a team meeting/conference in Kauai on the north shore in the Princeville resort last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Mark had a trade show in Las Vegas on Tuesday and Wednesday. After his conference, Mark flew out to meet me in Kauai, and we spent a long weekend exploring as much of this incredible island as we could. It was a great trip, we both had a great time!

Eight hours of flying, 6 hours in airports, five different security screenings and one long shuttle ride later; Mark and I collapsed inside of our front door. We’re home! Sorry about the lack of blogging, but it’s been an awesome week and I took over 700 photos. I don’t know where to start! :)

I saw a famous person in Las Vegas airport. I was looking at him and thinking… yeah… that is him, so I asked and got to meet…

I got to shake hands with Greg Proops from “Who’s line is it anyway”. This is the first time in the 10 years I’ve owned a cell phone that I wish it had a camera in it.

-Mark

We had some locally grown eggs today for breakfast. The yolks are quite orange. Tonight we’ll try some fresh pasta with them and then perhaps some cookies or other egg-based desert. I’m hoping to repost some findings as to how they are to cook with. So far, looking really good.

Ok, well, my forecast this morning BOMBED. BIG TIME.

I thought the chinook winds today were going to keep the skies clear and help the snow melt, but that didn’t happen. Instead, the storm moved east of us, and a little back-door cold-front brought another couple inches of snow to the Front Range.

I was angry at the snow this afternoon, so I took off for a little storm chasing. This shot was taken out north-east of Ault this evening. The windmills are actually in Wyoming, part of the Wyoming Wind Project. We are lucky to be able to pay a little more and buy wind power from the local electric utility. I think it’s interesting that many of these windmills weren’t running on a day like today when the wind was blowing at more than 50mph. Actually, when the wind blows too hard, the blades lock down for the safety of the machinery. Pretty cool deal.

Well, as much as the last post glorifies the mountain powder surrounding us, the hard-packed left over snow (that’s nearly a record-setting ground cover) that has been covering Fort Collins all winter has not been as much fun to play in. Today, I think we’re beginning to see the real end. Today, we have a real, serious, Chinook!

I’m not going to go into the dynamics of the whole situation, if you want to learn more about down-slope wind events, wikipedia has a nice entry. It’s enough to say, the winds are gusting at almost 70mph, the temperature rose 35 degrees over night, and the humidity is down to a nice, snow melting, 30%.

We’re supposed to have it all day long! I’ll update with more stats tonight.

So, one more post on the trip up to Lake Agnes last weekend. It’s so much fun to get out and explore the mountains and wild places near where we live, but it’s so much more fun to do it with good friends. My pictures from the day are up in the photo gallery.

Check out the shot of Mark, Ann and I attempting salamba sirsasana (supported headstand) on a frozen Lake Agnes. Well, we tried. Headstands in snowshoes are much harder than they look! Plus, Liv really wasn’t helping.

Dylan recently acquired a split board, and was anxious to get in some good “turns”. I’m still learning all of the ski/snowboard lingo, but I think the sport is fascinating. Dylan makes it look so fun and easy!!

The split board is a big snowboard that comes apart into two halves. The bindings rotate so that each half becomes a short, wide, backcountry ski! With a pair of skins, he can ski up any hill, on soft powdery snow, and then snowboard down! What a cool piece of gear! Wish I could ski or snowboard. I’d be on this one in a second! When we got up to the lake, Dylan headed out across the icy expanse to quickly climb a beautiful, pristine slope on the far side, and had a ball snowboarding back down.

In the end, a great day was had by all. I hope we get to do it again soon!