New snow around the Birch Ridge Inn

New snow around the Birch Ridge Inn

I have been laying low the last few days. We have been lucky in this economy to have a very busy inn. Combined that with a nagging shoulder injury and a slight cold, the net effect is that sleep has been at a premium over the last week or so. But the cold will take care of itself, a MRI is scheduled to peek at the shoulder, and the winter season will be winding down at Killington in the next 6 to 8 weeks...it all will come full circle....so it goes!

Snow has returned to Killington today. Warm weather the last week has eaten at the snow pack, but not today. About 4 inches of the white stuff has fallen thus far, with a couple more inches expected before the little clipper system hugging the southern New England coast clears out of the area. Even with the warm weather of last week there is still a foot and a half of natural snow around the inn. Much more snow is still on the mountain, setting up the resort to enjoy a nice long spring skiing and riding season.

Last week, I had one of those AH HA moments. As many of you know, I use Apple computers almost exclusively around the inn. (I do have a copy of Microsoft Vista installed on a IMAC running in a Fusion virtual environment to allow running financial software, and a copy of Windows 2000 running on an old Dell for web site testing...but that's it.) Last spring, I purchased an Ipod Touch to use as a netbook to allow access to email and our web applications while we travelled on vacation. It works great in that application as along as you have access to a WiFi signal, which is basically everywhere. But I have never used it as an "Ipod" for music.

Last weekend we hosted a surprise 60th birthday party for one of our friends. I received a packet of photo's about our friend to put together a compilation to run on the television in our Great Room. I had done this before for some other friends in a pre-ipod time...scanning all of the pictures into my computer, stringing them together into a video, dubbing in music, cutting a dvd....All quite doable with the technology of 5 years ago.

I still needed to scan the photo's into my computer...but this time around instead of creating a movie, I took advantage of Apples IPhoto and ITunes to automatically create a slide show dubbed to music from my music library. I connected the IPod into our audio visual system with a RGB cable with audio. Voila... Pictures of our friend for his 60th birthday on TV complimented with music though the sound system. Nothing earth shaking here, mind you. It just worked! And that's the whole point.

When I got the IPod Touch almost a year ago, I did not really get the IPod phenomenon. I consider myself very technically savvy, so I did not view the technology as much of a big deal. But having a real world opportunity which caused me to put every piece of the puzzle together, not just some fun mashup for personal entertainment, I get it!

Now if everything else just worked as well.......Let it snow!