AlexAitken.net

Rear-wheel drive from Denver to Vail in surprise 12-30 storm.
5:45am 12-31 de­par­ture for 9:00am 0-de­gree As­pen trail­head.
REM, Dylan, Jimmy Vaughn, Son Volt, Tokyo Po­lice.
21 ski­ers, 4.5 hours, 2,000 feet…
16 beds, 2 days, 42 ski boots.
East Coast Rockies time zone.
Sparklers and down coats.
Eu­k­er, Pigs, Celebrity, Comet, Jenga, Dice, Hearts…
Laphroaig, Red Bull, Vodka, Egg­plant, Ba­con, Pine­apple Ex­press.
Skins, skis, snow.
Blisters, tape, and short on joe.
High­lands Bowl…
And a wrinkle in time.
Thanks y’all… and Happy 2011!

6:30 trailhead
3,300 ft up
14,270 ft high
45-degree commit
2,800-ft ski down
6 feet (2 in tele boots) across 5 stream crossings
3 beers on the way back home
90 degrees in Denver

March was hard. A year of plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment of the bank’s new on­line pres­ence cul­min­ated in a couple of weeks, then a few even more in­tense days whose out­come ba­sic­ally wrote the ver­dict on the en­tire ef­fort (we got mostly good marks). At the same time as mis­sion-crit­ic­al cli­ent-side cor­por­ate rol­louts con­sumed my days, I found my­self burn­ing the candle’s oth­er end on backend php script­ing by night. I star­ted smoking, grew some stubble. Said hi to my fam­ily in passing…