Checklist for an awesome snow day

Janae and I went up to Araphoe Basin today for some snowboarding.

The night before, we were ambivalent about going. But we decided to go ahead with it. I'm sure glad we did because it turned out to be one of the best days of the season so far and definitely in my top ten lifetime snow days to date.

So that you might be able to experience such a day yourself, I have prepared this handy check list to make sure you have the exact same experience I did:

1. Toss and turn the night before to make sure you don't oversleep. Check.
2. Wake up sleep deprived. Check.
3. Fail to shower. Check.
4. Forget to make french press coffee. Check.
5. Remember french pressed coffee accouterments, incl. hemp milk and agave syrup (mix the night before). Check.
6. Beat Janae to park and ride. Check.
7. Fit Nae Nae's skis into single snowboard holder on MINI for first time ever. Check.
8. Stop for starbucks. Apply french pressed coffee accouterments to starbucks to make it tolerable. Check.
9. Rock the MINI up the curves on Loveland Pass in SPORT mode. Check.
10. Get rock star parking at A-Basin's beach. Check.
11. Guilt Janae into wearing helmet. Check.
12. Ignore Nae Nae's complaints about helmet "feeling weird. Check."
13. Get first chair to warm-up run on lower mountain. Check.
14. Proceed to the run with the most vertical. Repeat. Check. Check.
15. Dehydrate. Check.
16. Sunburn. Check.
17. Lose feeling in big toe. Check.
18. Break: Eat french fries, yogurt with M&Ms added, and mangoes at 10:30 am to beat the crowds. Check.
19. Mix some new killer Genius Playlists on the iPhone. Check. Check.
20. Get lost in trees on backside of mountain. Check. Hike back to chairlift. Check.
21. Traverse the circumference of Montezuma Bowl on one edge at warp speed. Repeat. Check. Check. Check.
22. Appreciate how just three weeks ago Jodie said you'd be able to do it. Check.
23. Write reminder to thank Ashley for adding multiple types of squats to workout for snowboarding. Check.
24. Go down black diamond run. Check. Fall only once. Check.
25. Ride up chairlift with 4-year-olds in ski school. Check.
26. Accidentally lead Janae through snowboarding terrain park. Check.
27. Discover muy excellente new run in the Zuma Bowl. Name it Independence. Check.
28. Rehydrate. Check.
29. Get in 20 runs before 3:00 pm. Check.
30. Have killer run from top to bottom. Decide to make it the last and end on good note. Check.
31. Obtain new A-Basin chotchky like ordinary tourist. Check. Check.
32. Rehydrate. Check.
33. Rock the MINI down the mountain for record time home. Check.
34. Lament excessive pine beetle kills along I-70. Commit to redouble efforts to stop global warming after sabbatical. Check.
35. Rehydrate. Check.
36. Return to 60 degree F temperature in Boulder. Try not to hit cyclists with car. Check.
37. Discover raccoon face in rear view mirror. Vow to use sunscreen next time. Check.
38. Send next installment of e-mail to Michael Ritter making him feel bad for not being in Boulder, Colorado, like yourself. Check.
39. Rehydrate. Check.
40. Nap. Repeat. Check.
41. Gluten Free Pizza at Beau Jo's with the Heinbaughs. Have the Little Italy. Do not share. Check.
42. Bajito at Zolo with Mon. Check.
43. Call Mancake. Put Franklin the helper monkey to bed. Check.
44. Disable alarm for tomorrow morning. Check.
45. Blog. Check.
46. Sleep... Check.

A yoga-esque workout that will kick your butt

Here is a Boulderific workout my personal trainer Ashley made me do today. It totally kicked my butt, and I think it will kick yours also.

It has hints of yoga in it to help align your chakras while you build your burly muscles:

1. Treadmill for 10 minutes at a speed of 4.0 to 4.2, with an incline of at least 1.0. You should vary the incline and speed over the course of the ten minutes to keep you on your feet. (Also, it helps to tie your shoe laces good and tight before you do this). The idea is to mimic a very brisk hike.

2. On a mat, do a set of the following on both sides of your body:

• low lunge
• high plank position for 3 breaths
• 10 push-ups
• child's pose for 3 breaths
• lift your hips a la downward dog and bring your other foot forward to repeat on the other side.

3. After a short break in child's pose, staying on the mat, go into plank position for 5 breaths, then lift your right leg into the air for a hold of five breaths, then back to plank, then lift your other leg for 5 breaths, and back into child's pose for a rest. Repeat.

4. Mosey on over to the leg-lift/knee-up contraption in the corner and do 10 knee-ups, bringing your thighs all the way up while your personal trainer dances in the corner. Combine this exercise into a super-set with 10-reps of weight-assisted pull-ups. I'm currently working at assistance level 15-16, but I want to get that down soon. Repeat this super-set a second time.

5. On a bench in front of a mirror (so you can see your form, not so you can check out the hotties working out behind you), do 3 super-sets of reverse flys followed by dumbell flys. For this exercise, we are doing 3 super-sets.

If you don't know what either of these exercises are (I certainly didn't), here is how they go:

• Reverse fly: sit sideways on a workout bench, bring a 10-12 lb. pair of dumbbells over and place them behind your feet, under your thighs. Then bring your chest forward (back straight!), grab the dumbbells with bent elbows, and slowly pinch your shoulder blades together while you bring your arms out, extended parallel to the floor. Slowly repeat for 8-10 reps. Be sure to keep your neck relaxed and looking straight down at the floor.

• Dumbbell fly: lay back straight (or gayly parallel, as the case may be) on a workout bench, making sure your head doesn't hang off. Take the 12 lb. dumbbells that you are grabbing close to your chest out to your sides, and then pretend that there is a giant California Redwood on top of you. Give it a big-ol tree hug. But do this very slowly for 8-10 reps.

6. Wander into the gym, where a few hotties are no doubt playing hoops. Trying not to stare at them, find a portion of the wall that is padded (if you can; if not, suffer). Place your back against the wall, sit like you would in a chair for 45 seconds (or more if you can; our goal is to get to 1 minute, 30 seconds). Keep your feet hip-distance apart for this one.

Take a 30 second break, then stand away from the wall, your feet wide and pointed outward like a sumo wrestler. Squat thyself down so your thighs are somewhat parallel to the floor. Place your arms out in front of you in that tree-hug pose I was referencing above, but make a diamond or triangle with your hands together: index fingers touching and thumbs touching, palms faced away from you. Hold for 45 seconds, working up to 1 minute, 30 seconds.

This is called "horse pose." Grrr! You are strong, like animal!

7. Go back into the aerobic area and find yourself a mat. Now we are going to end with some core. First, do 10 reps of "assisted boat." This means that you sit on your ass, feet on the floor and legs bent in front of you. You lean back slightly (maybe 30 to 45 degrees?), place your hands on the mat behind you (but not wider than your shoulder width), and then take your feet of the ground and extend your legs forward, almost straightening them, then bring them close to your chest using your ab muscles.

8. Finally, do two super-sets of oblique sit-ups (10 reps each side) and peel-ups (5-8 reps). Obliques involve you laying on your back, bringing your knees to your chest, rolling them over on one side of you, then putting your arms behind your head while you crunch upward. To complete the set, you need to flip over to the other side and do that too.

For peel-ups, it is really a yoga move: you sit on your ass as in the start of assisted boat, then you slowly lower down with your arms to your sides, bone-by-bone, making sure you start by moving your lower back. One rep here is all the way down, then all the way back up again.

Don't forget to repeat the super-set!

9. We ended stretching out our backs by laying on a bouncy-ball for some seconds.

A final thought: What I really liked about this workout was Ashley's instructions that I should turn the exercises into meditations where I was visualizing how strong I wanted to be and the physique I wanted. This, and paying attention to slow breathing in and out while doing the reps really helped.

Getting a clean line with orange peel

I hate orange peel.

People who purposefully install orange peel on their walls are the same people who like wall-to-wall carpeting in bathrooms and matching Big Bird Yellow oven range/refrigerator combos.

Mon and I have been struggling with orange peel wall texture as we rush to transform her house's motif from Late '80s Seaside Retirement to Outdoor Vegan Earth Goddess in just six short weeks.

The peach walls and aquamarine trim had to go.

But how do we get a clean line with orange peel? Well ordinary tape-and-paint schemes won't work on the stuff. Despite your best efforts, the paint will seep into the crevices and produce an effect similar to letting a 90-year-old with the shakes paint for you.

Further, the way the ceiling intersects the wall with orange peel texture is inherently uneven. Because of all the bumps and crevices, you can't demarcate a straight line -- even if it is technically straight, it will not look so to the naked eye.

Shizzle. Now what?

Here is how we got around it and a clean line around both the ceiling line and the baseboard trim: using the optical illusion of "light on dark." If you have a line you are trying to create between two colors on textured walls, here is one way to do it:

1. Paint the wall or ceiling that has the lighter color first. Get it all done. Don't worry about taping or getting the lighter color on the wall that will eventually be painted darker. In fact, you want to make sure you get it on that wall nice and good. Get all your coats on nice and good.

2. Let paint dry for a day. Drink to excess. I recommend Two Mile Margaritas myself.

3. Tape off the line where on the ceiling/walls where the two colors will meet. I prefer using 2" wide blue painters tape myself. If you want to spend the extra cashola, then using this type of tape that is also specifically designed for "delicate surfaces" will make the tape easier to remove later on.

Tape so that the lighter color will ever so slightly come down on to the wall that is going to be the darker color -- that is to say, try not to let the dark color get up on the ceiling. And when I say "every so slightly," we're talking about the width of a thin water color brush here.

If it is not exact, don't worry. This is not the last step.

4. Let all your paint dry for a day. No, seriously, it needs to be dry. Not "dry enough to put another coat on" but dry enough to press your 18-month-old nephew's face up against without remorse.

5. This is the fun part: Get yourself out that water color brush I mentioned before and a yogurt cup worth of light paint. Get a stepping stool if you are under 6'3". Get up in the line all nice and close, and use your small brush to cover up any oopsies where you got the dark color on the ceiling.

Also use this opportunity to straighten out that line, filing in the crevices and otherwise making the light color come about a small water color brush's width down onto the dark color.

At this point, some people choose to snap a chalk line to follow like the old paint-by-numbers. You could also use a level, piece of cardboard, or something else to guide yourself to keep your line straight. It's up to you. If you haven't had too much caffeine, and with a little practice, you should be able to do it.