It was January again and with it the annual meeting in Salt Lake City. However, since I do not work for KW any more, I had to organize my own trip. So MK and I packed the snowboarding equipment and got there. It is funny how short the flight to SLC is from here. We spend snowboarding four days and though initial plans were to visit some other ski resorts, we end up hanging out at Snowbird all the time.

Snowbird was phenomenal as always. They just received lots of fresh snow, so it was powder most of the time. Also, because of the overcast weather, there were not a lot of people there. This was also the first year I tried the new tunnel that goes through the mountain. And the last day I took couple of nice videos of SP snowboarding. This was of course right before I smashed my camera.

It was a fantastic trip. Beside spending awesome time on the slopes, I managed to visit some of my ex coworkers and some other friends that attended the meeting. I also ended up eating in my favorite vegan restaurant in SLC called Sage’s Cafe.

Tags: Snowboarding,Veganism
Categories: Outdorsy, Travel
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There are two types of people out there: those who get it and those who do not. Well, I am somewhere in between. I get some things and I don’t get some other things. Let’s start with things I get and then work our way to the whatever… I spend last week in Salt Lake City. I was here on business for good portion of the week, but I managed to also have lots of fun.

So, there are several awesome things in life. Somewhere on the top of the list are music, biking, snowboarding, gadgets. I like them all. Pretty much the first thing I did when I came to Salt Lake City is find NA and go on a wild goose chase trying to find this vegan restaurant. We were finally on this parking lot where it was supposed to be, when we decided it is best to call them. Well, turned out that hotel’s list was wrong, so we find another one. And it was totally worth it. This one, called Sage Cafe, was one of the best vegan restaurants I was ever in. The food was really good, and even the non-vegan people enjoyed it. Not learning from the wild-goose-chasing experience, we did the same thing next day, except now we were five people and the hike involved about three blocks one wrong way, then ten blocks the other wrong way and finally a short taxi drive to the restaurant. It was a great restaurant three blocks away from the hotel. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there is some insane cold over Utah, so we did all this walking in about 5-10F (-15 – -12C).

Anyway, Friday afternoon the meeting was over, so bunch of us rented cars and equipment and went to do some serious skiing and snowboarding in a local resort. The nice thing about Salt Lake City is that you drive 30-45 minutes and you are in the most awesome snowboarding in the world. The resort we went to has night skiing, so we stayed there until late at night. Saturday we continued the vacation part of the trip and we went to Snowbird, which is in my opinion the best snowboarding place. Unfortunately, this year the snow conditions are not that good, so they only have 50 inches of snow. Usually they have more like 100. Also, there was little to no powder. But, we had great time, except SP who lost her wallet. So, for the next couple of days, I was her sugar daddy. Finally on Sunday we went to another resort in Park City, where we had actually better conditions than in Snowbird. According to the guy in the shop rental, because of the wind all the snow is blown to Park City. Incidentally, the same guy managed to guess the places I went based on the scratches on the board.

Monday, I had to say goodbye. My flight was at 2pm, so there was no way to do any boarding. So, I spend the day doing work and feeling sad that the short snowboarding trip was over. Well, there will always be next year.

Now, to the weird stuff. Well, I think the most weird thing are people who do not get it. Living life that is. Imagine, there are people out there who wake up in the morning, go to work, come home, watch TV or something and so on every day. And I am not talking about somebody who cannot afford to go snowboarding or biking or anything. I am talking about people who make lots of money.

And finally the weirdest of all. One night after snowboarding, bunch of us went to the Sage Cafe to have some warm vegan cocoa, and some awesome food. The waitress was awesome. She was, and I quote, “a bionic woman” (according to her). She was super excited and really nice. So, J?, if you are reading this, You rock!! But she was not weird. The weird thing was what happened afterward. WS and I walked to the car at 11pm or so, and this woman on the street stopped us. She asked us if we could confirmed that house, van, figment of her imagination, or something, looks like a ship. Since we had no idea what she is talking about, we classified her as the most weird thing in Salt Lake City.

Tags: Snowboarding,Travel,Veganism
Categories: Outdorsy, Random, Travel
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Generally, I am really surprised, how a little business trip can become such a milestone. The word milestone in this case is maybe a bit of an overkill, but overall, this trip changed my life, if possibly just a little bit.

Our company is in an alliance with a bunch of other institutions and as a part of work for this alliance, we have a yearly meeting in a really cool skiing place in the middle of skying season. Whoever figured that one out, deserves a medal. That said, wherever there is good, there is even better. For example, on Saturday the snow was great, but on Sunday it was so awesome that I almost cried. But, beside snowboarding, we actually did some work. Oh, and drink.

I meet some really good people. I knew SP from before. I also meet JS last year and there are still photos of that floating on the web. But DJ was the new guy. And let me tell you something. Words cannot describe him. You cannot help but fall in love with him. Coworker and friend MM did not know anybody, so for him they were all new friends. So, we all spend several evening together doing all sorts of crazy stuff, including driving to the great Salt Lake and spend several hours doing nothing but, well, taking pictures.

Once the week was over, it was really hard to say good bye. I guess the notion of seeing each other soon was the only thing that made departure bearable. The experience with these people was something incredible and I will probably not forget it. However, the time came to go back to the suburbia. Hopefully the future will bring more events like this and I will be assiduous enough to take as much out of them as possible.

Tags: Snowboarding,Travel
Categories: Travel
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Who said winter can be boring. This week I first went snowboarding on Tuesday and mountain biking on Wednesday. Oh, and the week is not even over yet. This does not including going to the gym and working more than eight hours a day.

I was expecting to gather a large group of people to kick-off the snowboarding and skiing season. Initially several people said they are coming. But, sooner or later, most of them canceled. Their excuses were things like going to France, being sick, something dropped on the hill and cannot walk, .. But, who cares.

KK, UA, SJ, and me drove to Jiminy Peak. This is the first time I tried my ski rack, so I asked UA to drive. This way if something goes wrong we had enough space in cars to put all the equipment in. I did drove all the equipment, which means we can do four people with my car. The rack worked fine, just wiggle a bit. The Jiminy Peak was great as always in the evening. We bought four hour night skiing tickets, which after New York state discount on Tuesdays and value card discount cost only $11. Both KK and SJ had a problem because their bindings were too small. KK managed to clip anyway, but SJ could not, so he had to rent equipment. After snowboarding we stop at the usual place, which is the only restaurant open after midnight.

For Wednesday JH send e-mail around for going biking and only me and RR responded. So, we met at the Lock 7 trail and there was five of us all together. Before coming to the park, I stopped at RR where we installed my brand new studded tires that we made on Thursday.

Biking in the snow is kind of unusual at beginning, but you get used to it fairly quickly. When the snow is deep, the bike seems to want to slide around. Once you are on the ice, the studs kick in and you go perfectly straight. It actually seems easier than on the mud. We were biking for about an hour and a half, but it went by really quickly. The temperature was really low. By some accounts it was about 10F. That said, the only part of my body that was cold were my toes.

Both trips were really nice relaxation from working hard. Both the biking and snowboarding coterie were great company and I am looking forward what the next weeks will bring.

Tags: Cycling,Snowboarding
Categories: Outdorsy
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