Back from Ninole

{moszoomimglink:The staircase in full daylight}This month saw a late visit (due out from November, but I was moving then). The piece de resistance was the staircase, a real beauty that replaces the dreaded ladder. It is a thing of elegance and solidity, and it is the most impressive result of this month of work.

Unfortunately, no matter how happy I am about the progress, it just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen by the deadline. Don’t get me wrong: I love the work done. At the same time, I am always surprised at how slow progress is and how much the contractor moves faster if I am around.

Heavenly East Peak Cam

This is the webcam picture from the Heavenly web site: skiheavenly.com

The Move

It was Wednesday. First thing in the morning, the phone is disconnected not to be used until the move is over. I go to the gym (thanks, J.P. for the class!) and get back home, just to find a message telling me the guys are going to start moving me around lunch time.

I continue packing, labeling, framing. I put stuff in one corner if I don’t want the movers to take it because it’s too fragile. Then the call comes in, and the three guys from Delancey Street Movers come in. They were the most professional and just plain nice movers I have ever dealt with – so much so that I still remember their names: Edwin, John, and Arturo (who goes by Art).

First Snowboarding Day: Sunday, 12/4

Was it fun? More fun than I remembered!

After a long hiatus and with the tentative and hopeful approval of the snow gods, D. and I drove up the mountain and stopped in Heavenly. The drive was very uneventful, getting up the mountain not a problem at all yet, with the snow barely making it to the pass.

In Heavenly (California Lodge), I stood in line for my season pass. It took about 45 minutes, and it could have been organized better, but in the end we were all happy and ready to go. With the $319 passes (4 days left!) the mountain is a really good deal.

Site Back!

After moving into the new house, DSL made me wait a few days for a connection. This was followed by the usual problems in finding cables, hardware, keyboards, etc. Long story short: the site is back up!

Site Going Down Tomorrow Until DSL Is Up

Since I am moving tomorrow and DSL won’t be started until the 5th, the site will be temporarily down. I will have diva.homelinux.org point to www.marcogazzetta.com and remove the redirect there, but the content will not be updated.

If you get a chance before the site is down, check out the pictures of the new house!

Heavenly Opens Tomorrow, Wednesday 11/30!!!

Well, if the headline doesn’t say it all… They even had an interview on NPR with the head of South Lake Tahoe CC, and he was extatic!

Sunday? Anyone? I’ll be up, and it looks like some of my colleagues are going, too.

Moving Into New House

{moszoomimglink:44. Hazelwood}So I got lucky! I was struggling to find anything livable during the whole month, and got deals denied at the last second because the owner didn’t want cats, after all… In the end, a strange mix of serendipity (I had read about this open house because I had typed in the wrong search), circumstances (the owner wasn’t able to rent to anyone else) and perseverance (I stuck with this house throughout my search) got me in at the last second, after all other options were exhausted.

House of Wax (2005)

Well, what did I expect? A bunch of teenage rowdies crowds to the opening game of the season, gets stranded in a back country hole and all hell breaks loose. Predictable to the point that my main activity during the movie was hitting fast forward on the remote, and the whole experience shrank down to possibly 30 minutes.

Someone had told me this was the best horror thriller they had seen in years, so I thought it can’t hurt if I watch it. Wrong! I should have read my IMDB before renting it: turns out the whole cast was chosen around the firmament star Paris Hilton. If that wouldn’t have been the clue, then seeing Chad Michael Murray play the bad hero would.

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

That’s one movie that I wish I hadn’t seen.

2004 (when the movie was released) marked the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. The majority Hutu people killed about a million minority Tutsis to free themselves of the spectre of tyranny. Within 100 days they carried out one of the most vicious and devastating attacks on fellow humans that a nation ever attempted.

Why do I wish I hadn’t seen this movie? Because I was sitting at the sidelines, unable to help, unable to do anything, praying that someone would finally send troops to help in Rwanda, to help stopping a senseless slaughter whose main weapon ended up being the machete.