Spring in Utah can ben a very bizzare time of year.  Some people will tell you that most of the time we kinda go right from winter to summer, but there really is a spring in there somewhere.  I maintain that Utah is one of the few places in the world where you could hold the summer and the winter Olympics at the same time.  There are certainly people who go golfing all year round (though I don’t understand the appeal).

So in the last couple weeks the weather was generally pretty good.  The trees are starting to bloom and the flowers are coming up.  Of course that means that the pollen is flying and the allergies go crazy.  Time to break out the Claritin and Zyrtec (or the generic brands which are way cheaper).  It is actually really pretty outside, I have even done some headshots outside which came out great.

At the same time though, there is still snow in the mountains and at least one ski area is still open.  Then we got to the past two days and bam!  I woke up the other day and it was snowing down here in the valley!  There were a whole bunch of tweets from Snowbird talking about how they were having a powder day in late April.  I considered pulling my skis back out of the shed, but I really had everything packed up.  I suppose there may be some novelty to going next weekend, just to say that I went skiing in May, I am pretty sure that the mountain will still be open.

Spring is certainly a great time of year.  I often will say that I love the winter, but spring and autumn are right up there.  In all reality, I probably really like all the season equally.  The really cool thing about spring is that when you wake up in the morning the sun is shining.  I feel like I have more energy and life is good.  It is amazing what a little extra daylight will do for you.  I can’t say that the fresh air is good as it is full of allergens, but it is so nice to be able to spend time outside on green grass.

Of course every day also brings me closer to the end of the season at the theatre.  That means that it is almost time to head out to the desert for the photo workshop.  Then off to the east coast for my sister’s graduation and camp.  So, summer will be fun too.

Well, when I thought about putting this thought together I think it was better in my head, but hey, it happens.

Yesterday was closing day at Deer Valley.  Deer Valley is usually the first ski area in Utah to close, they like to maintain their image and it does get expensive to keep the place open.  This season may not have been as epic as past seasons, but it sure was a lot of fun.  Closing week was even spiced up by a couple decent snow storms at the beginning of the week, in fact we got almost 21 inches at some of the resorts.

Spring skiing is always fun.  It is great to break out the light weight gear and have to put on sun screen to go out on the slopes.  Spring skiing also brings out the wakyness in many people, especially on the last day of the season.  We saw lots of people in funny costumes and some that just didn’t wear much.  There was a family with crazy colored wigs and fairy wings, we saw a guy in a wetsuit with a SCUBA mask and snorkel, and we saw quite a few people dressed in drag.  It is also the time of year when people break out the old wild ski suits, so we raided the cedar closet and this is what we came up with:

Deer Valley Closing

That is my uncle in the middle and his two daughters and me in front.  Yes, they skied with the martini glasses.  They didn’t do that all day though, it isn’t easy to ski without poles.  We could outfit anyone from the cedar closet at my uncle’s place, and we do, as long as you don’t mind looking like a blast from the past.

It is kind of sad to be hanging up the skis now, but it was a good season.  I got a lot of skiing in and I suppose it is time to move on to the next set of activities.  Lots of great stuff coming up this spring and summer that I am looking forward to.  I hope that all you skiers and riders out there had a great season as well.

It is quite possible that yesterday was one of the best ski days of the season.  You know that it is going to be a good day when you get to the canyon road and they are advising 4×4 or chains.  You also know that it is going to be a good day when you get to the mountain and you hear the avalanche guns going (I really want to see them actually shoot the guns, that would be cool).  Of course there is always the question of whether or not you will actually be able to get up to the mountain, but I don’t think they ever actually closed the road today.

I kicked off the day with a little fun.  Being originally from Boston I am still a Red Sox fan and I always will be.  So Sunday night was opening night at Fenway Park and they kicked off the season with quite possibly the best thing you have ever seen.  They had a five-year-old who had memorized and modified Herb Brooks’ “Miracle” speech to apply to the Red Sox.  It is amazingly cute and pretty darn cute.  Certainly inspirational and hopefully the Sox will have a good season.  Below is the clip from the game:

Of course, after seeing that video I had to call my grandparents and see if they were at the game.  They have season tickets and they usually go to opening day.  It turns out that they hadn’t been feeling up to going that night so they weren’t there.  However, they did tell me that they would be happy to take me to some games this summer or let me have tickets for a couple.  I like going to the games with them, it is a lot of fun.

So, after that I headed out to the slopes and we got off to a great start of a very strange day of skiing.  Down here in the valley it was just cloudy, not snowing or raining or anything.  By the tame we got up to Alta we were in a storm.  It wasn’t terrible in the morning so we just went for it.  The skiing was great and it was snowing, which was nice.  It was snowing so hard that almost every run our tracks filled in by the time we got back to the top.  It only started to get strange when it became a thunder storm.  Really, I can’t think of the last time that I was in a snow storm that was an electrical storm.

Just before noon all of the lifts went on lightning hold.  So, we, along with everyone else, were stranded.  Good news was that it was about lunch time, bad news was that’s what everyone was doing.  Somehow we managed to get ourselves a table.  We ended up sharing with some other people which was great.  By the time we had finished lunch they had the lifts running again.  So we hit the slopes for about another hour and a half before the storm struck again and the lifts hit a hold again.  At this point, it just made more sense to head home rather than wait it out as it seemed to be getting bad.

I am just trying to wrap my head around the fact that it is April and it is snowing like crazy.  I really do think that we have been getting the best snow of the season right now.  We have even been getting dumped on in the valley!  I dig it.

I suppose it has only been a couple days since my last post, but I finally feel like I have time again in my life to sit down and write a new post.  We opened the show on Friday night and so far it sounds like all is well with that.  At the same time though, my brother came in for a few days to do some skiing, so as soon as I was free from the theatre I was off to spend time with Dan.  It was a lot of fun, we got in a lot of skiing, and I am still pretty wiped out from that.  It is a lot of fun to ski hard, but you feel it later!

I of course still had a full schedule over the weekend.  On Saturday I did photos for Youth Theatre at the U’s production of James and the Giant Peach.  It was a cute and fun little show and I am sure that I will do some business with the photos.  If you are interested in taking a look at the images you can find them at this site.

YTU was not the only photo engagement that I had on Saturday.  I also went to a performance of Ruth’s which was to raise money to fund her class’ trip to France over their spring break.  The “French Connection,” as they are called, is a group of students who are going to spend a week in France studying, performing, and working with similarly inclined theatre students at a school in France.  It sounds like it should be a fun trip.  Through various fund-raising efforts including two such performances as this one, they have raised all the money that they need to go on the trip.  So, since I would have been at the performance anyway, I took some photos from them, it was a lot of fun.

I did have one other photo adventure this weekend, though this one was not very significant (at least in my mind).  I was walking up Main Street in Park City with my brother and we stopped, as usual, in the Thomas Mengelsen galley.  I love looking at hi work, and he is going to be in town later this month!  As we left the gallery, we ran into a family on the street trying to figure out how to get a good photo of themselves.  They asked if I would shoot the picture for them and of course, I was happy to.  Had to take a couple to get the tiny little flash on the P&S camera to actually light them up.  They were very grateful, at which point my brother decided to point out that they had happened to ask a professional photographer to take their picture.  At which point they wanted to know more about me and my work and I unfortunately didn’t have a card on me (which reminds me I should have more printed).  So, kind of fun experience.

So, I do have to make a couple appearances at the theatre this week, even though I don’t have to run the show.  We have lots of prep work to do for our final production of the season, 42nd Street.  We have a lot of things that need to light up, and if all goes well, I will get someone else to spend their money on it so that I can save my budget for other things!  I am usually pretty good at that.  So, all things considered, I should probably get off my couch, eat something and go to work.  I like relaxing and writing, but I can get paid to relax and write if I sit in my office, it is just not as comfortable as being at home!

I have also heard that the shop is having a party today and the team drawing for March Madness will happen this afternoon.  We do two different pools, one is a standard fill in your own bracket and the other is a random drawing.  I don’t follow college basketball at all really so doing a bracket is kinda moot for me.  The random lottery is fine, cheap to buy in to, but can make you a few bucks.  Plus the party at the beginning and at the end is fun.

So, that is about where things are.  I have lots of blogs to catch up on reading and maybe I can get ahead on a post or two with some of the ideas that I have thought of (and probably forgotten) over the past week.

It seems like it has been a while since I wrote anything about what is going on in life.  It has been a nice relaxing week since I don’t have to be at the theatre every night pushing the GO button.  I have been able to do things like get in a lot of skiing, see some theatre that wasn’t mine, and watch the Olympics.  I think that I only interrupted my “vacation” as-it-were, once to go to a production meeting for our next show, Our Town, in which I had nothing to say on account of the meeting was really a week earlier than usual.  In fact, pretty much no one aside from the costume shop had anything to say.

I kicked off the week skiing with friends from temple, and now I am finishing up the week skiing with my uncle and cousin.  We seem to be getting some snow at the moment which should make tomorrow pretty nice.  Probably another good day for taking out the new wider skis to go bomb around.

Aside from the skiing, probably the most fun thing this week was going to the opening night of the U of U Theatre Department’s production of The Rocky Horror Show.  It is so fun to finally see another musical produced by the department and Rocky is just a fun show to see.  the cast was great, they seem to have a great time dong the show.  While there are a couple of singers who are not the strongest, they certainly make up for it in the rest of the production.  The tough thing was finding the balance of what audience response to give and how much to just watch the show.  In any event, if you like Rocky, it is worth going to see if you are in the SLC area!

Other than that I will be hanging out with my uncle the rest of tonight and tomorrow.  Good times.