Just incase you were wondering, the snow is still amazing. Today was 24 degrees, sunny clear, and great for cruising.



Doesn't it look like we are having fun?

Monday I headed to the bay area to meet up with a couple companies about this whole 'find a new job' situation I'm currently dealing with. The experience was rather intense not fully because of the grill sessions you are privy to as a developer, but because flying anywhere when it's -35 degrees outside is a bit of a challenge.

At 5:00 AM I woke up, showered, somehow got over my delirium and headed out to the car to start the de-thawing process. After sitting in the car scratching ice off the inside with my fingernails and a spoon I was finally ready to roll off down the snowy road through the canyon and down to bozeman to jump on my plane. I arrived nice and early as any frequent flyer should and cleared security pretty quickly. I then sat in my chair until 8:00 AM when I was supposed to be departing when I was told that after trying to de-ice the plane for multiple hours in Butte, we would have to wait until the temperature warmed up enough for them to de-ice and fly down to get us. I believe that the plane finally took off around 10:30, another partially satisfying nap, some crackers and a glass of tomato juice.



When I finally got some lunch and got to my gate in Seattle I was informed that the conditions at SFO weren't good and that we would be waiting an extra two hours to take off. Finally I arrive at SFO at 4:00 PM, get a car, drive south down the Peninsula to have my first set of interviews.



The next day I continued the interviewing, handled a couple things I had on my list while I was in the bay area and then headed back. The first flight went off without a hitch, but if course at 8:00 at night in Salt Lake the crew was supposed to be flying in from Houston and was two hours late. On my drive back from Bozeman to Big Sky I looked down to see if I had bars on my phone and looking up saw a herd of elk standing in the highway -- you don't see that every day.

Anyways I made it home, had some really cool conversations with some really bright people and look forward to my results. It can be difficult to read how people are interpreting your personality, skills and ability to be a good addition to the company. All you can do is your best, and then let life take it from there but I am pretty comfortable with my area of expertise so I have high hopes!

As this process is pretty involved there are emails whizzing around like crazy, I will keep you updated on any interesting happenings.

So Meg and I have done a little research about this mysterious dude we have seen a few times wandering around Big Sky Montana and we have made some headway. Just seeing this guy cracks me up by the pure awesomeness of the fact that he can live in a rad limo with the coolest haircut I have ever seen.



So far the things I know about him are:

- He lives in a huge limo with a small snow mobile hooked onto the back.
- He claims to have invented the mullet while touring with the Grateful Dead as a roadie.
- The word is that in 1987 he was the 27th fastest skier in the world.



He sort of shows up at various establishments for short periods of time, everyone seems to know him and all the sudden half the bar leaves and there is a party cruising around in his limo in the snow.

Anywhoo, here are the photos we nabbed for your viewing pleasure. If you know anything about this dude let us know!

Yesterday we decided it would be a good idea to get up at 6am, drive down the treacherous highway 191 in the dark, put on many layers of Arctic gear and spend 8 hours cruising through Yellowstone on a snow mobile. We saw Buffalo, Elk, Coyotes and swans as well as miles of amazing woods, rivers and geysers.

It was pretty cold, but it was definitely awesome, interesting exciting and exhausting!

My camera has a pretty crappy video recorder in it, but I am a big nerd so I made a little video that anyone can check out and a whole bunch of pictures of the park.

We would recommend the trip for anyone interested.. however it is way out here in the middle of no where. West Yellowstone is one of the weirdest little cities I have ever seen.. would make an interesting weekend.

After sleeping for an entire day basically I am feeling rested and getting ready to head down stairs and watch some NFL and eat salty chips. :)

We have now settled into Montana and are having fun exploring. The wildlife amazes me out here, Big Horns, Moose, Elk, Deer and wolf tracks in the snow. We took a trip to Bozeman to check out MSU, the Museum of the Rockies and get some reasonably well priced groceries. It's pretty impressive how the second you exit the canyon you come out into a massive open wide open space.



We learned a bit about the rich dinosaur hunting there is in Montana and were reminded of how terrible it is to be in states that allow indoor smoking. I had totally forgotten how much I liked bars where you can't smoke!



Last night Meg and I went to an ice bar up near the base lodge at Big Sky Resort, the second you pay your $5 bucks and enter you are given a pretty sweet multicolored flashing piece of 'Bling' and are allowed into the huge igloo full of flashing lights and rockin music. The prices were reasonable and it was just plan fun to be ordering beers over a 5 foot wall of snow.




Tomorrow I have a pretty hefty lineup of phone interviews, and Tuesday we have a date with the snow -- hopefully this awesome weather continues. I have uploaded a bunch of pictures to Picasa Montana Pictures since I now have the cable to download pictures of my camera (Thanks Mom and Peter).




Off to eat some dinner and watch the cowboys.