Job Update

I just accepted a job offer in Oregon. Guess I'll have to change the title of my blog.

Halloween

My pumpkin last year was pretty challenging, but I wanted to make a better one this year. It's really a pumpkin sculpture, because the design goes all the way around it. It took several hours to complete, but I think it turned out pretty cool.

Job Update

This week has already been very busy for me. Over the past three days, I had three interviews for three different positions with two different companies in two different states. When I woke up Wednesday morning for my last interview, there were already ten inches of snow on the ground. The interview was still on, though, so I ate a quick breakfast, pulled waterproof pants and a coat on over my interview clothes, cleared the snow from my Jeep, put her in 4 wheel drive, and set off. I had about 50 miles to drive through the mountains on snow packed roads. It was slow going, but I made it to the interview about 15 minutes early. Dealing with snow is just part of living in the mountains.


I think all of my interviews went pretty well. I should be hearing back form the companies over the next two weeks. With any luck, by the end of the year, I'll have a real engineering job.

Fall Pictures

I just went through my pictures and found some pretty good ones from the fall around here.
This is a panorama I made from pictures taken around 12,000 feet on my way down from the top of Argentine Pass (around 13,000 ft) on the 4 wheeler.

Click the picture for the larger view.

This is the view across the highway from outside the cabin after the last snowfall.


There was a double rainbow over the cabin when I came home from work one day.

Click the picture for a panorama of the rainbow.

Finished Painting!

It's taken a while, but since the Railroad is only operating on weekends now, I've had plenty of time to do some work around the cabin. I finished painting the shed yesterday. Here's a before and after shot:


I painted the trim a little differently than it was originally. It matches the way I painted the trim on the house. I also finished painting around the new windows we had installed. The house doesn't look any different, though, because the new windows match the style of the old windows.

Winter Is Coming and more...

Fall was very pretty up here this year (it was short last year because it was very windy when the leaves changed). Here's a picture of the mountain side above the cabin.


We had our first significant snow of the season on Saturday. We got about eight inches of snow Friday night through Saturday afternoon. Saturday was also the first day that Loveland started making snow and they've been making it continuously since then. They announced their official opening date today: it's this Friday.


It was pretty cool to see snow on the mountain while the Aspen still had yellow leaves on them


I worked at the train on Saturday, so I spent the entire day scooping and shoveling snow and throwing salt on ice to melt it. I worked a double that day (12 hours straight), too, so the day was extra long. It's been relatively nice since then. A lot of the snow has melted, but there is some snow left on the ground.

A couple weeks ago I dropped the 4 wheeler off at a shop in Summit County to have the carburetor re-jetted for the high altitude. They had trouble getting new o-rings for the carb (it had to be totally rebuilt), but I finally got it back at the end of last week. I took it for a ride up Argentine pass and it ran great all the way up to 13,000 feet (from starting altitude around 9,000 feet). It's nice to have the 4-wheeler running, though winter will put a damper on being able to ride it.

I'm still on the job search and don't have much to update on it. The railroad is only open on the weekends now, so I only have to work on weekends, giving me plenty of time during the week to work on getting a real job.

I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks working on my website. I'm still working on getting my custom domain name to work, and the website is definitely not finished, but it's getting better.

I haven't finished painting the shed yet. Between work and the poor weather we've had, I haven't gotten a chance to work on it. It only needs a couple more hours of trim painting, and it will match the cabin perfectly: bright green!

I finished my Christmas lights last week. It's nice to know I won't have to deal with them later, when it's cold and snowy. All I have to do is plug them in! I'll put up a picture of them closer to Christmas.