Every time I visit the Banff Mountain Film Festival , I leave... ...amazed by the skill of the skiiers, paddlers, and climbers ...awed by natural grandeur which so completely dwarfs the terrain in my backyard ...suspecting that these people live more in a month than I will for all my days

The legal pipeline moves slowly indeed. My first patent application for a project completed at the beginning of my career has just received its "allowance", which means that it's approved but not yet issued. My employer at the time owns the property, of course, but my name is on it. Regardless of your feelings on the patent system (mine are "mixed" at best), it's still cool to have some official...

Here's the thing about beginner skiiers: they're easily deterred. Someone with the Addiction will head out in rain, crust, wind, and thin cover with a hangover. But if you're tentative, it's easy for gear issues, weather, or sickness to keep you at home by the fire. Few of my guests for this weekend's all-abilities ski trip actually got onto the hill, but fun was had by all xc-skiing, cooking...

Awesome lineup at Great Scott last night: favorites Goli, Jaggery, and Army of Broken Toys played interspersed with screenings of local indie film "The Why". I had thought that the artists were featured on the soundtrack of the film and would be playing along with the movie, but the setup was a more conventional alternating presentation. Unfortunately, I got sleepy before the Army went on but...

After years of toprope climbing, I finally snagged a spot in MetroRock's learn-to-lead class on sunday. I escaped with torqued arms, a knowledge of how to climb with bolted anchor points, and some rope burn on my wrists. After the required 24-hour waiting period, I passed my lead test and now possess a coveted purple ID card. This puts me near the top of the heap in the gym heirarchy: above...

Why would I want to start using Google Latitude ? It's a service which broadcasts your location to friends, who can view it on a mobile phone or computer. I have received my first invitation from a friend. This has pressed the issue of whether or not I want to sign up. Here's the only situation I can see in which I would want this service: I have nothing planned for the evening and I'm hanging...

I had originally proposed using the anyvite comment section as a clearinghouse for recipes and reviews, but it looks like this crowd is about 75% LJ-enabled, so we'll just exchange recipes here. Fill the comments section with your instructions and have at it, folks. Curried Black Eyed Pea Soup was our veg option. We doubled all of the recommended spice measures on the advice of the...

This year we grew again to 20 swappers and 17 soups. A few veterans invited their best chef friends along, expanding the reach of the Swap and welcoming some new swappers. With so many soups this year, all swappers had to maintain razor-edge concentration to track their favorites and optimize selection strategies on the fly. Some were temporarily unlucky as their favorite soups were scooped...

I finally lured ert and aerynne up north for snow-based adventure. Cannon was better than last time , but still cold enough to chase us off the mountain around lunchtime. There is still not enough groundcover to play on mitersill's backcountry. Fortunately, with good company it makes hanging around the ski chalet a fine way to spend the rest of the afternoon. The photo...

With its recent cutbacks, Google has EOL'ed Notebook . This is my favorite google service after gmail and the rss reader. Since I switched from my palmpilot to the iphone, there has been no good place to keep all of my important text notes organized. Notebook is not perfect for this use, but it's good enough and the ability to share notes is great for planning group outings. I'm sure that...