Cross Country Rockets
Originally uploaded
by Big Dadoo

I took my new cross country skis out for their first “spin” this morning. It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been on cross country skis. Needles to say my old equipment is really “old”, so these are the new kids on the track, and they are very nice. They are Solomon Equipe 8 Classic Skis, and on the Solomon site they are classed as racing skis. Whoa there, racing? Perhaps I bought a little over my ability, or perhaps I’ll just grow into them. Needless to say, they are fast.

They will be even faster when their owner gets them under a little better control and technique. Perhaps a few brush-up lessons are in order. Fortunately, the cycling conditioning helped out, but of course my legs are “discovering” some new muscle groups.

I cruised around the easier Green Trail to warm up and get the feel of the skis. I seems I put on the wrong wax as there was a lot of slip sliding going on and not the good kind. After waxing up again I tried out the more challenging Blue trail and got quite a good workout with the trail going up and down the banks of the river bank wanders through the golf course.

Bottom line, it’s still lots of fun and a good outdoor workout. Who knows, perhaps a little racing is in the cards.

Cube Dwelling

Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

This has been my work home for the last year. It’s a cube, just like so many other cubes in the corporate work environment these days. If you think it looks a little sparse for a guy who’s been there are year, it’s because I’ve just moved out.

Moved out might not be quite the correct term, perhaps bugged out would be more representative. I got a call from my manager late of Friday afternoon, while I was at home on Christmas vacations, requesting that I clear out all my personal and corporate property from the client’s site. You see there has been some turmoil on the project and now there are contract issues. So, until they are resolves I’m now a displaced person, one of the corporate homeless in and in between state. Not quite jobless, but without a project. It’s a weird feeling of just suddenly leaving an assignment without completing, without transitioning off to a successor, without saying goodbye, just vanishing in the night.

I’ve had this happen one other time in my career. The contracts were successful resolved and I went back to the assignment, actually for several more years. I hope things get resolved favorably and I can complete the assignment and finish on good terms with the client. We’ll see what happens, but for now I’m on vacation and enjoying the Christmas Season.

TSO Light Show
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

Last night we were at the Alerus Center in Fargo for the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert. What an incredible show, and of course the pictures just can’t do it justice. The lights, lasers, fireworks, flames and kicking sound system were incredible.

We misses a bit of the start because we cut the time too close in getting over to the Alerus. We were only 3.5km away at 7:30 and at 8pm, when the show was starting, we were within sight of the doors but stuck behind hundreds of other cars in a major traffic jam. Our estimate was that it could take an hour at the rate cars were moveing. The center was charging for parking and that slowed cars entering down to a snails pace. After a couple of phone calls to check things out, Shirley and I let the kids drive the van in and we hiked back up the road and cut across a snow filled ditch. We found out later that they stopped collecting the parking fee and the traffic moved much more quickly and the kids were only a few minutes behind us getting into our seats.

Wow, what a show! The sound was intense and so was the lighting. Each bass note resonated in your chest. The immense and movable lighting system was an entertainment piece in it’s own right as lighting frames moved up and down and angled throughout the performance creating some very unique effects. I was cautioned by site staff not to take any pictures after I had a few, but manages to sneak another couple closer to the end of the show, but it was impossible to frame up a good shot while shooting from the hip and keeping the camera under your coat.

After almost a solid 2 hour performance, it was all over and the roadies were quickly breaking down the set and loading the multiple semi-trailers to head off to Minneapolis to get set up for a 3pm show the next afternoon. We heard there were 75 on the crew that move the huge amount of gear from site to site.

We left for Winnipeg after the show and got back home at about 2am. What a great trip. A fun birthday with the family and a great show to top off the day.

I think birthday road trips could become a tradition!

Eric & Scott

Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

Oooooh, I’ve got a new camera and it can do a lot of tricks.

I’ll post some more pictures on Flickr later in the day, especially some of the illicit Trans Siberian Orchestras photos. The concert last night really ROCKED!