Ryan's Journal

"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell

Excessive Coldness

Posted from Culver City, California at 12:56 pm, February 13th, 2011

I’ve spent the past two weeks in Park City, Utah, trying to remember what warmth felt like – the temperature bottomed out at -17°F, and my first night involved a forty mile drive through a snowstorm on roads that caused a pickup truck in front of me to fishtail for a good thirty seconds before the driver was finally able to regain control. Luckily I had been given a Chevy Aveo by the rental company, a car that was apparently designed to handle as much like a boat as possible during inclement weather; I was fairly relieved to eventually arrive at the hotel alive and in one piece.

The work this time around has thus far primarily been technical project management, which means lots of meetings, spreadsheets, and tasks other than coding – it will be nice when/if things move on to design and programming, but in the mean time I am the master of the SWAG.

Outside of work, last weekend was spent in Carmel visiting Audrey, who was working on a studio in the downtown area. A free room in Carmel is all good, and when she wasn’t working we enjoyed the scenery and some good food. I attempted two runs while there, but a note for anyone considering doing the same: one of the reasons why Carmel is pretty is because of the evil, evil hills that will sap your will to live should you decide to do some jogging. The 17 Mile Drive is much less appealing when you realize that the first mile is all uphill.

In addition to Carmel, last week included a trip to meet Aaron, Dave Pugmire, and Dave’s family for dinner. The Goob was driving from Vail to San Francisco after spending the winter snowboarding, and Dave lives in Heber, twenty miles outside of Park City. I’m not a big fan of kids, but Dave managed to make a couple of good ones, and we enjoyed a fun dinner and a nice trip out to Heber’s ice castles before I had to head home.

Evelyn and Ryan at the Ice Castles

Dave’s progeny and me at the ice castles in Heber.

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