Off to Greece via Berlin

I'm at Denver International Airport right now waiting to board a flight to Berlin. About a month ago I signed up for a contract to work with a European telecom company, training and coaching them on agile software development. The company Agile42, based in Berlin, is leading the project and they subcontracted much of the work to independent consultants such as myself. Besides getting over the jet lag, I'll spend Thursday and Friday preparing with the team of consultants at Agile42's office in Berlin. On Sunday, we all fly to Athens, and then from there it's a few hours' ride West to the city of Patra, on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece. On Monday, the two-month first phase starts. Yep, I'll be living in Patra for 2 months. Amy and the kids will be joining me on February 10, but not until they've enjoyed a week-long vacation in Cozumel - a vacation that I had to cancel when I snagged this gig.

But wait, there's more! After two months in Greece, we have two weeks off. We're planning to do some traveling, and we're leaning toward Egypt since it's a short flight from Greece. I'd also like to see some of the Greek islands if we have time. Anyone have suggestions on sights to see in the region?

After our two-week tour, we all fly to Shanghai, where I'll start phase 2 of the contract - another two months. I'm looking forward to the adventure!

Andrew's first double diamond

Amy and I went skiing with the kids on Sunday at Beaver Creek where we met my college buddy Michael Acosta and his kids for a great day of skiing. Michael and I took Andrew and Michael's son Alex on Golden Eagle - a double black run that was the course for the 1999 World Championship downhill race. It's steep. Really steep. But the boys did awesome! Andrew made great turns - without poles - to control his speed.

 

Not quite 'Rain Man', but impressive

At dinner tonight, I was explaining how I did some code complexity analysis today and found a class with a complexity number of 39 versus the project average of 1.8. Serious nerd talk, sure, but that's not the point of this here post. Somehow this nerd talk led to the question "what is 39 divided by 6?" I asked Andrew, age 6, if he could figure it out. Here's a play-by-play.

Brad: So what is 39 divided by 6? can you figure it out?

Andrew: Hmmm. (pause...some mumbling) "36...What's 39 divided by 3" (a brief pause) "13...so what is half of 13...there is no half of 13!"

Brad: "There is a half of 13, it's just a number and a half."

Andrew: "Hmm... (brief pause) 6....six and a half."

Brad: "So what is 39 divided by 6?"

Andrew: "Six and a half."

Brad: "Awesome, buddy! How did you learn how to do that? Did someone teach you?"

Andrew: "No, I just figured it out by myself."

Fancy jack-o-lanterns for little tykes

We got some fancy-schmancy patterns for jack-o-lanterns and put the kids (and ourselves) to work for a few hours last weekend carving. The pumpkins were courtesy of my dad, Dean; his pumpkin plant was thrashed to shreds in a July hailstorm the broke windows and destroyed the roof, but somehow it make a comeback and produced two huge pumpkins by October. One of them weighed about 45 pounds! Unfortunately they were still green, but they worked! Andrew carved the spider, mostly by himself, and Elizabeth worked on the skeleton with daddy. Mommy gutted the pumpkins.

 

 

 

Yellowstone vacation

Our big "summer" vacation for 2009 was a trip to Yellowstone from June 5-12. I write "summer" in quotes for reasons that we become apparent when see some of our photos below. Amy's parents Ron and Dena joined us and brought their pop-up camper, which was a nice ammenity, especially with the kids. We broke up the long drive north with a Friday night stay at Sinks Canyon State Park near Lander, Wyoming. The "sink" refers to a spot where the Popo Agie (pronounced popo zhia), a substantial river, disappears underground and comes up again a quarter mile downstread after meandering through caverns for 2 hours.

Andrew and Grandma Dena at Sinks canyon near Lander, Wyoming

Amy and Elizabeth at the sink

The family on a hanging bridge over the Popo Agie river

Andrew with sparklers at our Sinks Canyon camp site

On Saturday we drove the rest of the way with a fuel stop in beautiful Dubois, Wyoming - home of the giant jackalope! Pure Americana kitsch.

Summer in Yellowstone! We arrived in the park on Saturday and set up camp at the muddy, treeless Bridge Bay campground. We had a white surprise on Sunday morning and spent the day seeing the sights in the Yellowstone valley.

Snowy Sunday morning at the Bridge Bay campground.

Snow covered bison

Brad & Elizabeth watching the bison

Elizabeth hiking with an umbrella in the snow

Steaming mud pot

Bison shedding winter coat

Bison close up

Andrew overlooking the upper falls of the Yellowstone river

Family at the lower falls of the Yellowstone

Lower falls vista

Brad at the brink of the lower falls

Bison Calving season

By Monday morning we'd had enough of the sloppy conditions at Bridge Bay and moved to the lower elevations and slightly warmer conditions at Madison, and saw the sights along the Firehole river.

Ron, Dena, Amy & Andrew at the Firehole falls

Paint Pot at the lower geyser basin

Amy & the kids at a steaming pool in the middle geyser basin

Andrew watches the White Mound geyser

Elizabeth and the steam of Steady Geyser

On Tuesday we enjoyed the nicer weather by watching Old Faithful and hiking a few miles to see a bunch of other geysers nearby.

Andrew & Elizabeth in Granddad's camper

Andrew & the Madison river valley near our 2nd camp site

Andrew watching Old Faithful

Brad and the kids watching the Sawmill geyser

A colorful hot spring

Amy & the kids at the Daisy geyser

Bowl shapedcauldron

Andrew roasting marshmallows at the Madison campground

On Wednesday Ron and I went fishing on the Gibbon river, Obsidian creek, and the Gardner river. We caught fish on each, and kept some Rainbow trout which we ate for breakfast the next day. Amy, Dena and the kids split off and went to see Mammoth hot springs, stopping to watch a bear (a grizzly?) along the way.

Dena & the kids at the upper terrace of Mammoth hot springs

The bear. A grizzly?

Ghostly trees at Mammoth's upper terrace

Mammoth hot springs wasteland

Andrew at the Mammoth terraces

On Thursday we left the park for some canoeing and fishing on Hebgen lake in Montana near West Yellowstone. Andrew and Elizabeth both caught their first fish (Whitefish), and Andrew got full credit for casting, reeling, hooking and landing the fish!

Andrew, Liz, Brad and Ron on the canoe in Lake Hebgen

Elizabeth's first fish

Andrew's third fish

Elizabeth & Granddad fishing

Thursday evening after a restaurant meal in West Yellowstone, Ron and Dena took the kids and Amy and I took advantage of the northern latitudes' late sunlight, and the lack of kids, to go for a 6-mile hike to Fairy Falls and the Imperial Geyser. One advantage of the late day hike is that we had both sites all to ourselves. Priceless!

Amy at Fairy Falls

Brad hikes past a bison hiking near fairy falls

Amy hikes past the steaming creek flowing from the Imperial geyser

The Imperial Geyser

The Grand Prismatic Spring

Middle geyser basin at sunset