Burritoless in Seattle

A staple of my diet is the newest thing here in Seattle. It seems burritos and more importantly Chipotle Burritos are just making wake here in Washington. Not a trip to Chipotle goes by where I do not hear the persons behind me in line explaining to their friend what makes these burritos special. "They seem so plain" i hear and "Chipoltay," it makes me want to cringe. The struggle choosing what type of beans to order, asking for veggies when you didnt order a fajita burrito, and needing clarification that guac costs more have me wishing for colorado-ites. 2 of my 3 trips to Chipotle near the UW campus have let me down. The guac is good but the burritos leave something to be desired. Stale chips and crispy black beans have caused me headaches here. I guess I'll learn a little bit about Washington while they learn a lot about burritos.

Easter egg hunting

Well i regret to say I didnt go egg hunting today, nor did my roommates. Instead we cleaned the garage, mowed the lawn, and went boating. Yes thats right a Colorado boy is now a boating enthusiast. I mowed our 100sq foot lawn in the sun and by the time we got to the water to meet our boat-owning-friends the clouds had rolled in. A nice cloudy/rainy boat ride led to an early docking and dinner at a local restaurant. If today's weather is a hint towards summer then im ready for it. I even took the roof box off my car with the anticipation of ski season winding down.
Its kinda like california here... only the waters much cooler/ rains far more/ and the burrito places are few and far between. Cheers to fish and chips

crazy days

I did some math today and found I have worked 103hours in the last 8 days. And unfortunately all this working really takes away from Andy's relaxing time. But its been worth it, i've learned more at work in the last week than I would in a month and met some really cool people. Yesterday was ski test day where a group of athletes/designer/marketing peeps/ took our prototype skis out. We skid 10pair of skis and judged what we liked, didnt like, wanted to push further and what we wanted to nix from the lineup. This is a very cool process that I will volunteer for anytime. Leading our tests was the guy who started Line skis and for our meetings post-skiing a few big named pros stopped by to give a few words and show some clips from next years videos. I'll elaborate on all this later but I felt the need to describe my last few days as they havnt been documented here. This work will continue at a more relaxed pace for a bit and I am looking forward to catching my breath. I need to sleep now.

still working, and working

Well I must apologize for not writing for 10days, I have been busy to say the least. Catherine came out last week and we had a great time in Canada/Seattle and following her departure I have been living at the factory. I will write later about our Whistler trip. This week I have worked about 16hrs a day making new skis for an upcomming ski test this week. We are designing and building our 08 protos right now and need some working pairs for an on upcoming onsnow test leaving me with no option then to sleep on Vashon Island and work too much. I cant write much now, too busy and need for sleep, but I wanted to check in. I am alive, and will be freeing up time soon to write in this blog again. I hope something really exciting happens so I will have something interesting to say.

Work work work work

That sweet desk is where the magic happens for me at K2. Thats right, thats where I work, eat my snacks, and eat my lunch. I hope I get an upgrade at somepoint, really its embarassing sitting at that little desk staring out at all the bigger desks, but it will do for now. I spend most of my time in the press room where new skis are actually made so this desk really works fine for now. The title of todays blog is not only the reason I have not been blogging as much but also to why I will continue to not blog as much. This week I have been on the 610am ferry to work and coming home on the 530 boat. We are entering the season of prototyping 08 skis and I am terribly busy getting new stuff ready for ski tests. Its good and bad, but mostly good. This week will also be capped by Catherine coming to visit thursday after work and staying until early next week. We are planning a trip to Canada to ski whistler and see the town. I havnt been to Whistler since I was in 10th grade and visited Bev and Luke there with my parents. I only remember thats its a huge mountain, Im looking forward to exploring it with Cat.

In addition to exploring Whistler, Cat and I will tour Seattle a bit. I was able to work it out with my boss for catherine to join me on the island monday and tuesday, she will be sorting and inventorying our skis on hand. It will be a great way for her to see what I do all day, and where I work.

The next post will be from north of the border in Jordys homeland, where maple syrup flows like the salmon of Capistrano and mounties check your passports. Since my desk at work is so terrible, heres a picture of what makes it worth it, although I still havnt ridden in it yet.

Ski Test numero Uno

This past Tuesday at work required a planning meeting, one held at a local ski area. While other planning meetings are often 2 days ours was only one, but it was still better than your average day at work. I started the morning at 630 driving the company pickup truck to get my boss and another engineer before heading up to Snoqualmie. Up at the ski area we met up with 4 others to begin our day of testing. We initially strapped into AT setup skis with skins, and hiked up the mountain. Im not a huge hiker, nor am I in much aerobic shape, but this was actually pretty fun. I was wearing my usual ski boots, everyone else in their more forgiving flexible ski boots. I sported my "borrowed" rental ski poles everyone else with their expensive adjustable light trekking poles. I'm a little bit like a fish out of water when it comes to nordicish skiing, I didnt look much the part nor feel like I was good at it. It had been raining much of the week so the snow was more like solid ice, less ideal but still ok for hiking uphill on. We hiked to the top where the ski lift ends and took a brief break. From here we skied down to the parking lot where round 2 of skis to test was. The skiing was terrible. It reminded me of early morning spring skiing and I was on the worst skis for this type of snow, the K2 Shuksan. At the bottom we dawned our new skis for some serious product testing.

A short 100cm dorky looking hiking ski, supposed to be a sliding snowshoe. The skin on the bottom helps with uphill performance, and full metal edges help with the skiing... well or so they say. I couldnt get these to turn for the life of me. More like standing on 2 saucer sleds and going downhill fast. A wild and scary time but still pretty fun on these little skis. We are working on the new versions of these, we hope to improve on them greatly. After testing several pairs I have been working on in the lab and deciding what parts we like/dont we headed off to lunch and then to meetings. The meetings followed up with a dinner and finally my home afterwards. Not a bad day of work, I look forward to the alpine ski test days where we can ride lift accessible terrain without having to hike up.

Fiddler in the living room?

Well last night one of our neighbors had people over as a meet-your-neighbors occasion. Kinda felt like something my parents would have done but it was good to finally meet the owners of the cars I park next to. Awkward silences were broken with "conversation cards" one of the girls had brought. "What band would you most like to see from the front row," I naturally responded with Def Leppard. Meeting others that had moved here for jobs we found common ground in our lack of knowledge of our surroundings and agreed to go see new places together. About an hour into the gathering one of the neighbor guys brought down his fiddle and played some irish jigs. I've never sat so close to a fiddler, he was very good. Reminded me a little of the time I went and saw Riverdance but without all the dancers and elaborate lighting. While I dont remember all their names now, I will be sure to say hello in the street and possibly explore the city with them.

Seattle's reputation is correct. To tell you the truth when I was moving here I expected the weather to actually be nicer than its reputation. I thought maybe everyone was making up a story to keep the outsiders out, well that isn't the case. Today's weather was mixed drizzle with the occasional downpour and mixed dry spells. Its not bugging me yet, so far I'm used to it but I do miss the days of direct sunlight. About 3 more months of this I hear, then a beautiful summer of a constant 75degree days.

Sorry for the lack of coolness in this blog, I cant always live the exciting life and I felt bad letting another day go by of no-blog-ness.