:: Intrepid Spaniel ::

SUN VALLEY, ID. – Starting now and running through the end of Sun Valley’s 2007-08 ski season, all college students and faculty with current I.D. can ski for only $29 per day.

To receive the discount, college students and faculty must show current identification when purchasing ticket.

For more information, go to sunvalley.com

$20 lift tickets, $10 if you are in costume. Dummy race Saturday at 2, more events and details here. http://pebblecreekskiarea.com/spring_celebration.htm

Some of you may not know that I’m a ski and snowboard instructor, I am, I’ve been teaching at Pebble Creek for about 15 years.

In my drive to improve my teaching and provide student-centered ski and snowboard lessons, I’m missing a piece of the puzzle as the end of the season approaches. Students!

Now maybe you are thinking about golf, or gardening, or numerous other hobbies, but the snow is still great, here’s my attempt to encourage you to get out and enjoy it before it is gone.

To remedy this shortage of students this time of year, I’ve decided to offer you a completely FREE half hour ski or snowboard lesson at Pebble Creek. (subject to fitting it into my schedule). This short lesson would be ideal for an intermediate or advanced skier or rider that feels like they are at a plateau. Due to safety concerns, I’ll ask that you have skiied or snowboarded before, I won’t have time to get you safely down in a half-hour your first time, there is just too much to cover!

Combine this with twilight skiing at Pebble Creek, and you have an incredible deal. (though there are only a couple days left for 2007-2008, plan on it for next year) I plan on keeping this offer open indefinitely unless it becomes too hard to schedule or impacts paying customers.

How do you claim your magnificent prize? (Read more…)

Join us for twilight skiing at Pebble Creek, the Aspen (beginner) lift is free from 3:00-5:30pm. If you want to ski the whole mountain for the same time, tickets are only $10.

Extended due to great snow, open April 4th, 5th, and 6th. Join us this weekend the weather looks like it will be nice.

What a great time to learn to ski or snowboard, or a cheap way to try it again. Sunny, warm, afternoons and great snow! Even though the snow is melting in the valley, we still have great the hill but hurry because it won’t last long. Rentals are also at a reduced rate, so it can be one of the cheapest times to learn.

If you would like to schedule a lesson with a AASI/PSIA/ACE certified ski and snowboard instructor in this time period, please contact me at learn.to.snowboard@gmail.com or call the Pebble Creek office and ask about a lesson with Ben. (tell them to call me, and I’ll schedule it with you)

Check the snow report and the base area weather online

This is from the perspective of a person setting up a machine from scratch and shows the possibilities of OSS. Good descriptions, covers the obvious and the not-so-obvious, provides URLs, and indicates clearly what closed source software each package can replace. A great list for someone setting up a new machine or updating one.

This list can save you some serious cash, but I would use some other BitTorrent client and Sunbird is nice but doesn’t really replace the calendaring functions in Outlook. Google calendar is nice for that if they’d just build in more device sync options.

Any one else have some favorites??

The Simple Dollar » 30 Essential Pieces Of Free (and Open) Software for Windows

On Sunday the Idaho State University Idaho Balloon Rise program launched a balloon near Twin Falls, Idaho, under the direction of Dr. John Chadwick. The balloon was carrying several capsules containing temperature sensors, cameras, tracking equipment including GPS receivers and amateur radio transmitters, a Geiger counter to measure cosmic rays and other scientific experiments, and a video camera sending video to a ground station. The launch and flight were successful, and although we had some difficulty with the radio communications and tracking, it was a easy recovery south of Burley. The balloon reached approximately 90,000 feet above sea level before bursting and falling back to earth on it’s parachute. This parachute performed well on it’s maiden voyage. I’ll add pictures and data as I get them scanned.