Vail Archives

27 April 2004Goodbye to My Quiet, Little, Redneck, Podunk, White Trash, Mushuggeneh, Mountain Town
I'm leaving Colorado this morning. Details to come....
18 April 2004What Happens When the Season is Ending and 125 becostumed, IQ-Challenged, Alcohol-Fueled, Adrenaline Junkies Try to Ski Across a 50 Foot Pond Filled with 39 Degree Water? Well, You've Got Vail's World Alpine Pond Skimming Championships.
39 FUCKING DEGREES!!!!! Better them than me. More pictures to come. I promise. UPDATE (29DEC05): Finally, the pictures are online. OK, they've been online for a long time. I'm just getting around to updating this post now through. Hope...
17 April 2004Report Card
With only two days left in the Vail ski season, it's time to assess this little Colorado adventure....
15 April 2004Caption Contest
Can you caption this photo? The winner gets a year supply of pisupo* and the undying admiration of your peers. *since no one should eat pisupo, a year's supply consititues zero cans...
13 April 2004Spring Comes Back With a Vengeance
After a winter snap that brought 2 feet of new snow over four days last week, spring has come back to wreak havoc on the bottom part of the mountian again. This shot of lower "Bwana" is from the base...
10 April 2004White Trailer Park Spring
We woke up this morning to a beautiful sight. 9 inches of snow had fallen in Avon (the first snow since I arrived towards the end of March). The previously springlike trailer park was blanketed with lovely, fresh snow....
06 April 2004Brian Arrives
My brother Brian arrived from DC last night. He was a little jet lagged so we didn't do much. We drove into Vail Village and had a beer at the Tap Room, but it was raining (sigh) and it was...
05 April 2004Sushi Night in Edwards.
Last night a group of us from the store went to eat sushi at Sato's in Edwards, the neighboring town to Avon. There was some sort of ocassion, but it was really an excuse to socialize outside our "normal" realm....
04 April 2004I'm Psyched
Why am I psyched, you ask? Well, I'm psyched because my twin brother is coming out to Vail tomorrow night for a few days of skiing. It's hard to beleive but we haven't skied together in more than 15 years....
04 April 2004It's Raining, It's Pouring...
Almost as depressing as watching the snow on the mountain deteriorate over the last few weeks is the sound of a massive downpour outside. Rain is just about the most detrimental thing that can happen to an already troubled ski...
01 April 2004$2.05
That's the cheapest price you'll find for regular unleaded gasoline anywhere in the Vail valley. I wouldn't have even noticed it before when I lived in West Vail, took the bus to work and maybe used my car one day...
30 March 2004It's a Beautiful Morning
The sun is shining, the snow is perfect and I have my lazy ass out of bed and at the base of lionshead 10 minutes before the lifts open. I just need to put my contacts in, my boots on...
28 March 2004How Many Pictures Did I Take Today?
If you said "zero", you'd be correct. It was a first, and hopefully a last. It's hard to make money when you're on commission and you don't snap a single frame. So what happened? I finally decided to leave the...
28 March 2004Check Out Vail
You don't have to take my word for anything I say about Vail, whether it's the weather or the stunning views. You can look at the multiple webcams around the mountain here: http://web.vail.net/local/livecams.cfm...
28 March 2004The Snow Continues
When I woke up this morning, there was a solid two inches of snow on my windshield. The roads were icy and nasty. The snow continues to fall on the mountain here in Vail. We probably got about 5 inches...
27 March 2004Single Wide Days I
I don't want to write too much about my new digs now. Soak it up. Bask in it's white trash glory. Get an eyeful and try to imagine living with a guy who keeps a cool 30 pack of...
27 March 2004Snow, Snow, Snow
It rained a little again last night and then snowed all day today. It was beautiful but a serious bitch to work in. I took about 600 shots in the blizzard and sold exactly none of them. If it weren't...
24 March 2004Percipitation Disaster
It rained here in Vail last night. That is not a good thing. In fact, quite the opposite, it's a disaster. The season is supposed to go for another month, but already it's rain. Why is rain bad? Number one...
22 March 2004American Ski Classic
Last weekend, the "celebrities" were town for some race event called the American Ski Classic. Only the celebrities were of a lower grade this season for some reason. There were ski legends like Billy Kidd and Klaus Obermeyer (pictured right),...
18 March 2004Anatomy of a Wipe Out
18 March 2004Colorado, Maybe it's Not Such a Bad Place After All
I heard on the radio today that Gov. Owens signed a bill into law that will make it illegal to drive slowly in the fast lane. Finally there's something sensible coming out of this facakta state....
18 March 2004Boys in the Sled
I don't know why, but I take at least one shot of every Ski Patrol that comes by with a sled. Maybe it's some reminder of my own inevitable accident. I don't know. I had never sold one until...
18 March 2004Some Guy
The other day, a kid came into the shop with his mom in the morning while I was uploading some images and his mom convinced him that he needed a 24x20 poster of this picture I shot of him earlier...
15 March 2004New Snow
There is a fresh blanket of snow covering the Vail Valley. Where there was mud and grass, there's now snow. Sidewalks and streets are icy and dangerous again. Critters have gone back to hibernation. I woke this morning to little...
13 March 2004Trailer Trash
My efforts to find a new place have yielded little fruit. It's hard enough to find a reasonably priced place let alone one that allows pets, is furnished and doesn't want a lease more than 6 months. The one place...
13 March 2004Spring Skiing
Not only have we seen no snow for a week, it's been over 50 degrees Farenheit everyday since Sunday. Winter is over and spring is definately here. So what does this mean? Pine cones are starting to form on the...
06 March 2004Next Stop...The Twilight Zone
Last night, I was home sitting on the couch watching the tube when Roy comes upstairs and asks me the seemingly innocuous question, "So how long are you planning to stay in Vail?" I'm thinking, what the fuck is going...
29 February 2004It's Still Snowing
I don't think it ever stopped snowing last night. The flurries tailed off to a trickle of tiny flakes, but it just kept on coming down. Now it's dumping again which means a another rough day for photography but a...
28 February 2004Let It Snow. Let It Snow. Let It Snow.
I woke up this morning to a world of white. The snow is coming down in massive dumps and the whole valley is blanketed with white stuff. This means a few things. One is that portrait photographers are going to...
27 February 2004Can You Ski Under the Stars in Colorado? Damn Straight You Can
The other night, on a whim, I drove 45 minutes or so to do something that I've wanted to do as long as I can remember, ski at night. Night skiing has been around for a long time. I can...
25 February 2004What? Me? A Homeowner? Please.
Lilla and Roy have put the house on the market. The asking price is 380,000 furnished. I have no idea if this is a good deal or not. I'm hoping it's not going to sell, because I don't want to...
23 February 2004Help, I'm having an Orgasm
Ok. So some people really enjoy skiing and snowboarding. Who can blame them? Skiing is damn fun. But rarely are people as outwardly expressive of their enjoyment as this woman who came by yesterday. Her boyfriend came in and bought...
11 February 2004Rodent on a Snowboard
Sometimes you see some odd things on the slopes at Vail. Sometimes those odd things inlcude a 6 foot rodent on a snowboard....
11 February 2004Oddly Fun Day
Last Friday I was shooting on Lost Boy, which is furthest we ever shoot from our store. The run is the furthest east on the entire mountain, but it's a good place to shoot because on a clear day, you...
08 February 2004Flying on 'Born Free'
Born Free is one of the runs on the Lionshead side of Vail that I usually shoot. This guy came flying by as I was setting up my signs in the morning. He, like many riders on this section...
05 February 2004Great Day
I woke up Wednesday morning to massive snowflakes and world of pure whiteness outside my bedroom window. It was a day off, and I would have loved to sleep in, but the kittens simply won't allow me to sleep past...
05 February 2004Get Me Out of This Gondola
Yesterday I was heading up the Eagle Bahn Gondola in Lionshead for the last run of the day at about 3:50. There were two other guys in the gondola. This one guy, maybe about 60, wearing a read and white...
26 January 2004Apres Ski
Last night I was waiting for the West Vail Red bus to whisk me home, when the radio crackled and the bus driver on the other end was saying how one of his passengers had passed out and he wanted...
25 January 2004Near Disaster
Last night I was driving home from a dinner party at my manager's place up in the hills above Beaver Creek in a place called Wildridge when I looked in my rear view window to see those oh so familiar...
25 January 2004Online Above 10,000 feet
Sprint runs a communications center at the top of the Eagle Bahn gondola where I am now trying to thaw out my little toes. Internet connection is super fast and, best of all, it's free. So you can expect daily...
25 January 2004Bring on the Snow
Since I arrived on Tuesday, the weather in Vail has been nothing short of amazing. It's been sunny and warm every day, getting up to about 40 degrees at the top on the Gondola. I've picked up more of...