Whistler rain check

Well, I was back in Vancouver this past weekend. Cheryl and I went up to Whistler Saturday morning. It snowed 20cm overnight, and the snow level was a bit high, but promising as "the web" said it would be a high of 1300m. Unfortunately when we arrived in Whistler the snow level was already at 1800m, and it was pouring rain. If the peak was open it would have been ok, but it wasn't. We got to the top of the red chair, and did one run. The snow was too thick, slow, and sloppy, so we cut bait, skied down to the bottom, got a rain check, and headed to the village for breakfast.

I talked to a coworker later and they mentioned things got better throughout the day. Harmony opened and that area was worth the effort.

Anyhow, on Sunday Mr, and Mrs Hale flew into Vancouver on their way to Sydney. We picked them up at the airport, and walked the seawall and toured around Stanley Park. It was great to see them again.

It's Cheryl's birthday this week, so wish her a happy birthday!

Finished GoW finally...

I just finished Gears of War solo on Insane (which is the most difficult level.) This took way to much of my time. In retrospect it's hard to believe I spent so much time on it, but that's usually the way it is with video games. It was fun though.

GoW had Mad World as the theme song in its trailer, I was hooked on the game from there on in. After the first few minutes of game play I knew it was more interesting than other first person shooters like halo 2 etc. The duck-and-cover aspect of the game is really well done, and makes you feel much more like you're there, the sweet graphics, the chainsaw, and the language made the game feel a lot less like a cartoon.

It was a pain to beat this on insane difficulty. I'm glad I never really got into World of Warcraft because that would have been a much bigger waste of time.

Wine tasting: We knew it was a real party when...

Well, as they say, it's not a real party until someone's erupted in flames. By this measure our wine tasting party became legit when Jeff leaned back on one of our mood candles. Luckily we were able to get the fire out without any real damage other than his shirt, but it could have been a problem. We decided to blow out the candles...

Otherwise our wine party was a great time. 18 people in total came out to sample some of the crowd's favorite "value" wines. In our world value means under $15.

We had a blind tasting which meant that everyone put their wines in a paper bag, labeled them with a letter, and put them into the mix. People could rank the wines from 1-10, or just put a green or red sticker on the wines they liked or disliked.

Our entrance:

 

Wines began collecting:

 

The party:

The entertainment (Shawn on guitar, myself on the didge):

The spread:

 

From right to left:

A) Sterling Vinter's Collection, 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (Central Coast)
B) Northwest Cellars, 2003 65% Cab 35% Merlot
C) Cheap Red Wine, California
D) Terra Blanca, 2002 Merlot, Washington
E) Chateau Beaulieu - Comptes de Tastes, 2003 Bordeaux
F) Rabbit Ridge, 2003 Syrah (Paso Robles)
G) Fat Bastard Chardonnay, 2005, France
H) Cheap Red Wine, California (again)
I) 7 Deadly Zins - Lodi Appellation - 2005 Zinfandel
L) Kahurangi Estate - Old Vines Riesling, 2004 Riesling, New Zealand
J) El Paseo, 2002 Tempranillo, Spain
K) Lockwood Vineyard, 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, Monterey

And the winner of the night? Rabbit Ridge 2003 Syrah:

 

I have a bunch of photos from the event up on my flickr account.

Go check them out!

Special thanks goes out to Cheryl and Megan for helping get our house together for the party. It was no small feat.

Until next time!

- Aaron

Curling and Whistler

Last weekend Cheryl and I went up to Whistler with Henry and Trang, then competed in the 2007 Hewitt & Friends Curling Bonspiel. Cheryl posted a few photos, and put a blog post up on her site with more details.

We didn't win this time around, but we played hard and had a good time.

Whistler and good food

Had a great weekend last weekend.

Went to Whistler Saturday morning for some sweet powder with Glade. We ripped up the hill all morning, and left in the early afternoon to get back for a bbq on the north shore. We asked the butcher to cut us some 1 3/4" NY steaks, then went to T&T (a Chinese grocery store) to get some dungeness crab and prawns...  Sweet. After grilling the steaks, boiling the crabs, roasting the prawns in garlic and butter, and uncorking the wine it was time to eat.

Sunday I went to the Sombrio warehouse sale and bought a few cheap bike jerseys.

This weekend Henry, Trang, and I are going up to Vancouver for the annual curling funspiel.  Let's see how that goes :)

In other news Windows Live Messenger is launching their "I'm Initiative". Check it out.