Brian Ulmer’s Web Site

Here we go again

Well, it looks like another storm is on its way. The warning out at the moment says 10-20 inches Tuesday night through Wednesday. I think I recall the news saying were 18-19 inches away from the DC record set in the 19th century. Might as well go for it. I posted a few more pictures today from around Ballston in Arlington. There are 4-8 foot piles of snow everywhere. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like if we get another 20 inches…

The day after

Well, the sun was out all day and lots of snow cleanup is going on. There are a number of people driving around but lots of roads are still unplowed or blocked by big piles of plowed snow. I drove around a bit today and managed not to get stuck. They were loading snow on Wilson Blvd into a dump truck as I drove through, since there was nowhere to put it all. I’ve never seen that in Virginia. Pretty impressive storm.

So here’s the after picture of the car unburied. A crew with a snowblower cleaned out the rest of the lot today, but the pile of snow in the pic is about 90% mine.

It snowed this weekend

As you’re probably well aware, DC got a crapload of snow this weekend. I don’t know what the official number is but in Arlington, we’re pushing two feet in some areas. I was supposed to go on a cross country ski trip in western Maryland today, but that was very much canceled due to road conditions.

Instead, I took the opportunity to ski in town! The route ended up being Rosslyn, Iwo Jima, Arlington Cemetery, Memorial Bridge, and back. All in all, probably three miles so not too crazy. Thankfully, there were tracks from people walking that I was able to stay in most of the time. XC skiing through two feet of untracked fresh snow is only slightly easier than walking through it.

After getting a decent skiing workout, I topped it off with an hour or two of shoveling my car out. For the December snow, I was parallel parked on the street. I’m parked just off the street in a little parking lot this time, which has it’s advantages and disadvantages. While I won’t get as massively plowed in, I had to shovel out a path to the road as well. The end result was a giant snow berm that’s probably 6 feet tall and 12 feet long. That baby won’t melt until April. I’ll take a picture tomorrow. Here’s the before picture and click here for the rest of my pictures from today.

Snow Tubing at Liberty

On Saturday, I went snow tubing at Liberty Ski Resort with Tommy, Meghan, Darren, Kristen, Justin, Jason, and Melissa. I wasn’t sure how exciting it would be but figured it would be a fun way to spend the day. We started off at Lost Dog for lunch, drove up, tubed, and then hit Foster’s Grille for dinner on the way back. Tubing was pretty fun. It was two hours and we bypassed the long wait to get back up the hill on the conveyer belt and walked it up about 15 times. We also did some wild racing. Concluding with an unprecedented eight lane race. Click for all my pics from the day.

Christmas Goats

I’m back in Arlington after a 4-day Xmas weekend in Richmond with the family. Jared was home from Seattle and it was great having everyone in the same house for a couple days. Some friends of ours from college live about 10 miles west of us and have a mini farm going at their place. My parents volunteered to tend to their goats and chickens while they are out of town, so of course I brought the camera along. Here are a few pictures and a movie.

20 Inches of Snow

As I’d imagine you’re aware, DC got about 20 inches of snow over the weekend. It started Friday evening and was pretty steady through late Saturday evening. I mostly just hung out inside on Saturday and watched it come down. Saturday evening, I ventured out on foot and metro to meet some friends for dinner and to see Avatar. The movie was pretty great. Plot was fairly average, but the visuals and 3D were pretty amazing. It was nice to get out and roam around with almost no traffic around town too. Today, I slept in nice and late and spent a while digging my car out of a snow plow created snow bank using only a cookie sheet. It was an interesting challenge. I’m all set to be able to drive in to work tomorrow hopefully… Here are a few pictures.

The Sedona and Grand Canyon trip pictures

I’ve been procrastinating big time on getting these pictures up. The remainder of the trip went really well. The weather stayed pretty nice, if a little on the cold side. We did some great little hikes into the canyon on the second day in the park and then headed back through Sedona to Phoenix the next day. One night in Phoenix and it was a smooth trip back to DC. I’m certainly planning to return and do more extensive hiking in the future. Here all the pictures from the trip.

Sedona & Grand Canyon

Kristin and I arrived in Phoenix on Wednesday afternoon to begin our Sedona and Grand Canyon adventure. A quick dinner at In-n-out and we headed off to Sedona in our super sports car Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder rental. It was dark when we got to Sedona so we missed out on the nice views as we made our way to our lodgings. On Thursday we hiked in the Bell and Cathedral Rock area, got a huge late lunch, and explored around town. On Friday, we awoke to a serious rain and packed to check out. As we loaded the car, it started to hail. We bailed on our morning hike plans and ate a giant breakfast instead. On Friday afternoon, we went on a 3 hour jeep tour in chilly, windy, intermittent rain. The conditions were unexpected but it was still a lot of fun. We spent one more night in Sedona at a different hotel and then drove up to the Grand Canyon this morning. Arriving at the park around 1 pm, we walked the rim trail for a bit and then took the bus to Bright Angel Lodge for some lunch. Following lunch, we hiked down the Bright Angel Trail for a mile or so before heading back up and eventually to the car. Tomorrow, we’re going to spend most of the day in the park and hopefully hike farther into the canyon. Here are a couple pictures from the trip.

Lunchtime ride!

I’m trying to ride during lunch once or twice a week now that it’s dark after work. Today I went with Mike to ride the Arlington loop and we stopped at the Weenie Beenie for lunch! Everyone I know has always made fun of this place because it looks like the biggest dive ever and it’s in a semi-shady location. They make a tasty chili dog though. I think I’ll go back as long as there are no unforeseen repercussions…

DC night photos

On Wednesday evening, I met up with a group of friends who are doing a self-taught photography class to do a little night photography in DC. We ended up heading down to the Washington Monument and WWII Memorial, which is always great after dark. Here are a few pictures from the evening.