In person

We were walking around town this morning after watching the morning session of the World Cup races when we decided to pop into Durrance Sports on the Cooper Mall.

It turns out that they actually had a pair of the AHSP Folsom Custom Skis with Steve's graphics.

So we had a little photo op.

Bragging

I hope you don't mind but I'm going to brag for a bit here.

See this super cool ski?

Well, the graphics were designed by none other than my very own husband.

The ski is the Aspen Highlands Ski Patrol custom ski by Folsom Custom Skis out of Boulder, Colorado.  These skis will be built with a customized flex for the patrollers and an AHSP signature topsheet.

 So cool.

Not only that but today (thanks to our observant friend, Jill) we learned that the skis are featured in Aspen Magazine's Holiday 2009 issue.  There they are, pictured on page 38 in the magazine's Insider section. 

Super cool.

What a talented guy!

Maybe I'll keep him . . .

Twitter

As usual, I'm late to the game but I'm making up for it with a vengeance

I checked Twitter out a while ago (December 13, 2008) and didn't quite get it.  A few of my friends were on Twitter but nobody seemed to be doing much of anything.

Didn't check back again until August 24, 2009.  Still, just didn't get it.

But then, I found Twitterberry.  Suddenly, I could tweet to and from my Blackberry.  Very cool.  Then I started following HuffingtonPost, the New York Times and Newsweek.  Breaking news came streaming into my Blackberry.  I was able to follow the Fort Hood news while sitting in the airport.

And then, I discovered Seesmic.  Now, on my desktop, I get my Facebook and Twitter feeds all in one place.  Not only that but I can follow hash topics in real time too.  All in one place.

Recently, I started following #hcr or health care reform tweets and this weekend, with the Senate debate and vote on health care reform, it all exploded.  Now, I just can't shut up.

Oh, I'm still selective on what I say and to whom I respond   I've typed many a reply that I've then canceled.  But I tweeted 32 times between December 13, 2008 and November 20, 2009 and I've tweeted 28 times in the last two days.

Yikes.

Tomorrow's PostSecret favorite

since they're posted at midnight eastern time, sometimes I get to see them before I go to bed on Saturday.

Sold out

I say it often but we're spoiled in Aspen, especially when it comes to seeing movies.  There were only a handful of people in the audience for the last two movies that I saw at the Isis, Men Who Stare at Goats and Disney's A Christmas Carol and that's the norm.  Although sometimes our selection is rather limited, we get the experience of the big screen without all the annoyances of crowded theaters.

Not tonight.

I knew that with New Moon premiering, there would be sell-outs at the Isis but I didn't think that the Blind Side would also be in that category.  What I didn't bank on was that the entire Aspen High School football team would be in attendance.  They're hosting a state high school playoff tomorrow so had their entire evening scheduled for them by the coach and one event on their schedule was to see The Blind Side.

And yet, the audience was fairly well behaved.  The people behind us moved around a bit more than I liked and there were a couple of talkers but overall, not much to complain about.  I do have to say that I think the heating/cooling system is unused to so many bodies in one place as it was uncomfortably toasty in the theater by the end of the movie.

Oh, and the movie?  Quite good. 

Wings of Defeat

Rachel brought this DVD home to watch tonight for homework or more accurately, as a make up for the IB history class she missed last Monday when we were in Chicago.

A documentary done by a Japanese American born in New York whose uncle was a Kamikaze pilot who survived World War II, Wings of Defeat is a thoughtful, almost peaceful dissection of the oft-misunderstood and demonized Tokkotai which is what the Kamikazes called themselves.  The film features former Japanese pilots telling their stories of becoming Tokkotai, fighting as Tokkotai and most surprisingly, especially to themselves, surviving the war.  Also included are interviews with survivors of the USS Drexler, a destroyer sunk by a Kamikaze attack.

In English and Japanese with English subtitles depending on who's being interviewed, Wings of Defeat puts a sympathetic human face on young boys who were simply doing their duty as they understood it, even after they understood the futility of it.

Getting Motivated

What with this time of year's incredibly short days, it seems like it's always dark whenever I'm not at work.

I walk to work when the sun has barely shown its face and I leave work when it's already gone to bed.

I also have a habit of getting way too sucked into work while I'm there, to the point that I find it basically impossible to even muster the energy to get out during lunch time or at any point during the day.  Once I'm at work, I'm at work and I rarely venture out.

This means that during this time of year, my life is led in the dark.

In an attempt to alleviate this state of darkness, today, I took Steve's Nikon D40x SLR to work with me, hoping that it might entice me to leave my office during the daylight hours to take some photos for my other blog, Aspen Daily Photo.

No such luck but between the camera and a timely article in the Aspen Times, I was inspired to stop on the way home (or more accurately, go out of my way) to photograph the holiday window display at the Louis Vuitton store.  I even made Steve act as my model by asking him to stroll through my photo to add the human element.

At least this way, I made a stop before going straight home from work and throwing on my comfy clothes . . .

Disney's A Christmas Carol

A new holiday classic?

Hard to say.

Maybe for the first time viewer.

It was visually engaging but suffered from familiarity.  I kept trying to watch it through fresh eyes and could see where it might have some staying power.

It was also odd watching it so early in the season.  Whatever Disney's rationale was for releasing it so early, it just made me wonder.

This week's PostSecret favorite

Doesn't every office have one of these?

This week's PostSecret favorite

Chicago

We're in Chicago for the Columbia College Chicago Open House.  It was pretty incredible.  It's a school of 12,000 and there were 8000 people at the Open House.  They had two Welcome Sessions and, at least for the one we attended, they filled up the 4000 seat Auditorium Theater.  We then attended break out sessions in various buildings and departments.  It was a gorgeous fall day in the 60s so when we were finished with the Open House (and watching a wrecking ball doing its work), Steve and I stayed downtown to explore.

We walked along the lakefront and through Millenium Park, then headed up Michigan Avenue which was packed.  Seems like everyone decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather.  We were going to go up to the Signature Room in the John Hancock Building but the line was a deterrent.

Instead we headed up Rush Street, stopping at Butch McGuire's for a drink and to scope out the Xmas decorations, after which we headed back down to Ra Sushi for dinner.  Very tasty.

We then hustled on foot back down to Union Station and missed our train by 2 minutes.  Ugh.  Since the next train wasn't for 2 hours, at Mom's suggestion, we walked back to the subway.  Our ride to Howard was punctuated with the theater of the streets, a yelling match between a racist white ass and two loud attitudinal black girls.  The rest of the crowded late night subway car looked on in skeptical amusement.

Dad was a knight in shining armor, coming out after midnight to pick us up at the Linden Ave Station in Evanston.

Today's PostSecret Favorite