What to do for the Thanksgiving Break

This year is turning out to be a late year to start skiing. Normally I would have skied 5 days or so by this time. Unfortunately we don't have any snow and so that will be tough to do. It also has me questioning what I should do during the Thanksgiving break. Normally we throw the turkey in the oven and go skiing.

My daughter suggested the idea of driving down to Cedar City where she lives and skiing at Brianhead, which is open for skiing. Then my wife looked at the ski resort's website and saw they have a single run open. That is a long drive for a single run. Then I got a call from my ski buddy Jim. He asked if I had skied yet this season and I confessed I have not. He then gloated that he spent the day at Mammoth in California skiing some great runs. I decided I needed to be a bit more creative.

I know that the storms have split and gone north or south of Utah. I looked at the conditions at Banff and Lake Louise. They have a good covering of snow and have a lot open. I checked airfare prices online and decided $1300 is too much to spend for early-season skiing. That didn't include hotel nor rental car, both of which would be needed. I looked at some northern ski areas a bit closer to home. Big Sky is about a 5-hour drive and they open Wednesday. Furthermore I can get half-price lift tickets because of my Alta/Bird season's pass. I'm not sure I will go but I could do all this research from the comfort of my desk courtesy of the Internet.

My research today is a far cry from my teenage years. One day I didn't have much to do and wanted to know when ski season would begin. I called every ski area in and around Lake Tahoe to get opening dates. I felt proud about my research and had a pretty good idea when to start planning the first trip of the year. A relatively short time later my parents received the phone bill and I got a lecture about asking before making so many long-distance calls. You see, before the ubiquity of Internet phone calls and unlimited mobile phone plans, it cost money to make phone calls outside your local area. This is one of those things that surprises the young kids of today. My research didn't cost anything other than my time. I think that is a win for modern technology. 

Thankful for Technology

I have had a nearly perfect Thanksgiving today and so I thought I would post some thoughts about the technology I am thankful for right now. After all, I do try to focus that in this blog on technology.

My oldest daughter and my youngest son are both in Ohio celebrating this special holiday. We would have liked them to join us in Utah but that just is not possible because of work schedules and the cost of travel. While my middle two children joined us with family and friends, my oldest and youngest joined in on the celebration with a video call. Furthermore it didn't cost any money for the call. Think back 30 years ago when you counted minutes for long-distance phone calls because every one cost money. The ability to make video calls is one thing I am very thankful for.

This morning I got to head up to Alta and go skiing with my family here in Utah. We had the luxury of riding on high-speed detachable quad chairlifts. When I first started skiing, everything was slow-fixed-grip chairlifts. The new lifts whisk you to the top of the mountain in about a quarter of the time of the old ones. On cold days I would turn into a popsicle long before reaching the top. Now I hardly spend any time at all and that is perfect for when I am skiing with my grandchildren who hate riding the lifts but love skiing.

In thinking about this post, I thought about some of the bad things associated with technology. There are computer viruses, identity theft, and other woes we did not have to worry about 20 years ago. Fortunately the conveniences technology provides greatly outweighs the problems. If it was the other way around, we would stop using it. So life moves on and while it may not necessarily get easier, technology at least makes it more efficient and for that I am thankful.

Internet Data and Telephones

We have a school holiday in Utah during the month of October for the Utah Education Association or UEA. It is a 2-day conference where teachers go and learn how to be better educators. The rest of us refer to it as Utah's Exodus to Anaheim as it is a great time to take the family to Disneyland. I know that Disneyland can be crowded and so I wanted to avoid it at all costs. Instead I took my wife and son someplace else. Unfortunately I still found myself yesterday morning at the Los Angeles International Airport trying to catch a flight back to Salt Lake. Chaos is the only word that can describe the situation.

Our previous flight had a mechanical issue and so we were late getting to Los Angeles. We landed with 20 minutes before our next flight was scheduled to depart. While we all managed to get to the new gate with 10 minutes to spare, the airline saw fit to give our seats away. We were told it was an oversold flight. There was one remaining available seat and so I sent my wife home assuming my son and I would be able to catch a flight later in the day. Unfortunately there were no available flights to Salt Lake and the best any airline could do was put me on a plane the next morning. That was unacceptable as I had to catch a 6:45 am flight this morning out of Salt Lake.

I was glad to have my iPhone with the Southwest app as I could verify that they didn't have any flights. You see, I was on another carrier and the rest of the airline industry doesn't get along with Southwest and so they don't share flight information. Being able to look that up on my own helped me realize what a dire predicament I was in. It also illustrates that just because you have Internet accessible data, doesn't mean your problems will be solved. In my case it only illustrated how really screwed I was.

With no flights available it was time to go to plan B: Hertz rental car. Salt Lake is only a 9-hour drive from Los Angeles. A single phone call later to 1-800-CAR-GOLD and I had a reservation for an economy car. I then spent the rest of the day having quality time with my son while we made the drive. I arrived at home just after 9pm. When I asked my son where he wanted to go next year for UEA, he replied, "Let's just stay home."