OT: Hurricanes Lounge XXV: Snowstorm Panic Edition

[Finnish Jerk Train]

For me, it's JetBlue, then Southwest, then everyone else. Sometimes I'll take Frontier to Trenton since Philly is oddly expensive to fly into, but I do hate all the nickel-and-diming.

The only airline I have a story about is Delta, who made me spend the night in New York after a "logbook error" delayed my flight out of Boston and made me miss my connection at JFK. They put me up in a disgusting motel near the airport, then refused to reimburse me for it until I argued the point for a week. I'm sure any of the other legacy carriers would have done the same thing, though. Anything to save (or make) a buck.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

gregdek

come at me bro

wow, youre legit, you even wrote a blog post on chess.com?

yeah im gonna lose to you lots and lots to get better...

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Yep. I typically play unrated in blitz and bullet though so if you're looking for someone to farm points off I'm probably not the best bet.

Happy to play unrated too!

 

[RodTheBawd]

Southwest has always been my favorite, it just takes a few minutes to adjust to the porta potty smell.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

wow, youre legit, you even wrote a blog post on chess.com?

yeah im gonna lose to you lots and lots to get better...

That does not make me legit, I assure you. I can't even beat Bad Chessplayer DaveG when he plays the godawful Pirc. I am a fish.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

(we should totally have a canes chess tournament tho)

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

(we should totally have a canes chess tournament tho)

That'd be super fun...

 

[the halleJOKEL]

Halle, where in Vermont did you go?

smuggler's notch

it was pretty neat. beautiful state, too

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

smuggler's notch

it was pretty neat. beautiful state, too

Ah, Smuggs. I used to have a season's ski pass to Smuggs for many years when I lived up there. Nice resort, nice slopes and really good for families, it's where all my kids learned to ski. The lift system wasn't great though (not sure if it's since upgraded) and the lodge was long in the tooth back then, but I liked the place.

If you ever get up there in the summer / fall, traveling through the Notch, which is closed in the winter, over to Stowe is a nice trip. There are some fantastic hiking trails along the way as well.

 

[the halleJOKEL]

Ah, Smuggs. I used to have a season's ski pass to Smuggs for many years when I lived up there. Nice resort, nice slopes and really good for families, it's where all my kids learned to ski. The lift system wasn't great though (not sure if it's since upgraded) and the lodge was long in the tooth back then, but I liked the place.

If you ever get up there in the summer / fall, traveling through the Notch, which is closed in the winter, over to Stowe is a nice trip. There are some fantastic hiking trails along the way as well.

the lifts seemed fine when we were there. the lodge is still pretty eh, though. honestly the most fun thing we did was snowshoe on some of the trails they had by the nordic center. hiked 4 or 5 miles one day doing that. my wife had never skied before, so she got to learn there. morse mountain is pretty good for it, honestly. lots of variety there with some pretty wide trails. we never ventured over to the madonna or sterling mountain because none of my family had skied in 10+ years (or ever in some cases).

if we head back to vermont any time soon, it will definitely be in the fall. seemed like an awesome area to be in that time of year, and we love hiking.

 

[raynman]

Vermont is pretty awesome, I love it in summer time too. Haven't been in a long time but I'd love to vacation there soon. When I was a kid I went skiing at Sugarbush one Christmas vacation. We were supposed to try Mad River but they didn't make their own snow and there wasn't enough that year. At Sugarbush someone threw a snowball at me from the lift when I was going under it. I didn't really think much of it but the ski patrol caught up with me at the bottom and told me they clipped the dude's ticket. They got my info and said they were gonna make him bake me some cookies. Never did get those cookies, *******.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

the lifts seemed fine when we were there.

I should have clarified. There was nothing wrong with the lifts, just that compared to other ski resorts, there were fewer of them and fewer high speed quads so on busy days, the lines could get longer. They worked fine though. I was mainly referring to Madonna Mountain.

the lodge is still pretty eh, though. honestly the most fun thing we did was snowshoe on some of the trails they had by the nordic center. hiked 4 or 5 miles one day doing that. my wife had never skied before, so she got to learn there. morse mountain is pretty good for it, honestly. lots of variety there with some pretty wide trails. we never ventured over to the madonna or sterling mountain because none of my family had skied in 10+ years (or ever in some cases).

Yeah, it's a perfect resort for that.

if we head back to vermont any time soon, it will definitely be in the fall. seemed like an awesome area to be in that time of year, and we love hiking.

Yep, hiking in Vermont is fantastic. It never gets too hot, there are a wide variety of trails, fantastic views, etc. Reminds me a lot of Western North Carolina out near Asheville. In fact, Burlington Vermont and Asheville NC could be sister cities and have a lot of similarities.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Vermont is pretty awesome, I love it in summer time too. Haven't been in a long time but I'd love to vacation there soon. When I was a kid I went skiing at Sugarbush one Christmas vacation. We were supposed to try Mad River but they didn't make their own snow and there wasn't enough that year. At Sugarbush someone threw a snowball at me from the lift when I was going under it. I didn't really think much of it but the ski patrol caught up with me at the bottom and told me they clipped the dude's ticket. They got my info and said they were gonna make him bake me some cookies. Never did get those cookies, *******.

Sugarbush is nice and probably the place I went to most after Smuggs. Mad River Glen is a throwback and a place you have to try once. Not sure if it still has it, but it used to have a single chair lift there. Killington and Stowe are great, but more commercialized and usually busier. Probably the slopes I liked the best were Jay Peak. Great skiing there, but more of a drive and usually just too damn cold as it's up near the Canadien border so you had to make sure it was a warm day before deciding to go there.

 

[the halleJOKEL]

I should have clarified. There was nothing wrong with the lifts, just that compared to other ski resorts, there were fewer of them and fewer high speed quads so on busy days, the lines could get longer. They worked fine though. I was mainly referring to Madonna Mountain.

yeah, could be the case. no idea what the situation is like on madonna or sterling. morse had three lifts, i believe, but they were all doubles and pretty slow

Yep, hiking in Vermont is fantastic. It never gets too hot, there are a wide variety of trails, fantastic views, etc. Reminds me a lot of Western North Carolina out near Asheville. In fact, Burlington Vermont and Asheville NC could be sister cities and have a lot of similarities.

we flew through burlington and that statement is 100% correct. all of vermont reminded me of a colder larger asheville, and asheville is like my #1 vacation spot in NC so it was right up my alley

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

we flew through burlington and that statement is 100% correct. all of vermont reminded me of a colder larger asheville, and asheville is like my #1 vacation spot in NC so it was right up my alley

Yep, very similar, even the culture down on Church Street, other than Burlington also has Lake Champlain and the shoreline.

A guy I used to play hockey with up there just recently opened his own brewery in Burlington. He used to always bring growlers of his brew to our hockey games, which sounds similar to what Dave did?.

He won a huge competition many years ago for one of his brews which was fantastic and as part winning the competition, he was hired by the Vermont Pub and Brewery in Burlington to brew it for them for a seasonal brew which ended up being quite a challenge. He told me that that to brew it, he boiled the wort in an oak bucket by taking hot stones from a fire and dropping them into the wort, and rotating them continuously. While this was fine for his small batch, it was quite the challenge trying to scale this up for a brewery's seasonal beer.

Haven't been back up there since about 2008? but my wife and I are planning to go back, maybe as soon as this summer.

 

[Novacane]

Is the ice really still a problem in Raleigh to cancel schools again?

Ohio just dealt with a little ice as well today

 

[the halleJOKEL]

ehhh not really

some patches of ice in subdivisions that are shady, but not to the point of needing to cancel school i wouldn't think

 

[Unsustainable]

ehhh not really

some patches of ice in subdivisions that are shady, but not to the point of needing to cancel school i wouldn't think

That's been my experience down this way west of Charlotte

 

[DaveG]

Some of the side roads in the more wooded areas are still pretty ****** right now TBH.

 

[Unsustainable]

Some of the side roads in the more wooded areas are still pretty ****** right now TBH.

It's all water down this way since 7am

 

[tarheelhockey]

I figure it has to be a matter of liability if anything were to happen with a school bus going through shady neighborhoods. Like, if even one place is still iced over then the whole system waits for them because you can't just cancel school for select streets.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I figure it has to be a matter of liability if anything were to happen with a school bus going through shady neighborhoods. Like, if even one place is still iced over then the whole system waits for them because you can't just cancel school for select streets.

Yeah, it's on of the pitfalls of a consolidated school district. While you "supposedly" gain efficiencies for each town not having it's own school district, the one size fits all approach to situations like this need to be applied which isn't always optimal.

 

[RodTheBawd]

I barely saw any snow/ice this morning in HS and Apex, but when I got around west Cary, there was still plenty on roads/sidewalks. Pretty sure NW Wake County was even worse.

 

[Savant]

Mrs. Savant and I are likely moving to the area from New Jersey in February/March. Of course we picked this weekend (not knowing about how the Triangle handles the weather) to finalize our home search. It was quite the adventure and the rental car place lied to us about the car we got having 4 wheel drive so that was fun. Still love it down there though

 

[tarheelhockey]

Congrats on the move. Hope you guys find a steal on a house.