Christmas in Vermont with some good snowboard action thown in as well. Even if it was -20F. Plus the fun of industial heating and trying to connect a mobile phone when you don't have a US credit history. And this is the country that put a man on the moon…

A White Christmas in Boston

Well it had to happen. I have actually managed to get this together, a lot later than planned but I guess that’s to be expected by now, but the thing that had to happen was I have succumbed to the tech toys at last. What started out as just a Palm IIIc (for business honest) led to a Digital Camera. And of course, it didn’t stop there because once you have the camera you need to process the pictures, but as I use a PC at work that wasn’t a problem. Then my flatmate bought a Camcorder. Not a problem you say, and ordinarily it wouldn’t be a problem. Except that a camcorder needs a seriously hefty PC if you want to start doing digital editing, so he went and bought an iMac (please don’t go out about Mac not being PCs, or Mac not being powerful enough for anything other than surfing etc. Please keep your religious opinions to yourself thank you). That was the final straw, so I had to get a PC and we’re now looking at building a house network again, with Cable modem or wireless LAN, colour printer, scanners and all the rest of the stuff that goes with it. Arrrrrrrrgh!

It is a miracle! I have actually found a decent curry in Boston. Strangely enough (hey, this is Boston y’know) I found it in Legal Seafoods, probably the best fish restaurants in the world. It was a mild Caribbean pineapple and shrimp curry, but it was full of flavour and nicely spiced so it counts. And it did follow on quite nicely from a starter of their famous Clam Chowder (served at the last five Presidential Inaugurations (before Dubya’s that is - I haven’t been back to check in the last few weeks)

The local Star Market (where Good Food Costs Less - guess who they’re owned by?) is now selling Patak curry sauces imported from the UK. They’re even putting the curry type on rather than just mild/medium/hot although I’m sure they’ve reduced the heat slightly. But this is a good sign. We can also get genuine Covent Garden Soup Co products now as well, and I they also had a few packets of McVities Chocolate Digestives which was very good timing as I was looking for local biscuits to make a Mud Pie with as we had some friends round for dinner. Let’s just say that my reputation for this remains as excellent as ever, although supplies of the vital ingredient (Bournville Dark) are almost exhausted and that is one thing I cannot find over here.

But enough of that for now, I’m getting hungry again. As always things have to start at a more basic level and around here that is never as simple as you may think. Take central heating for instance. For most people, it’s just taken for granted. As the Autumnal weather approaches you notice that the house seems a little cooler in the mornings until eventually you flick the switch from HW to CH and the radiators spring to life and heat is restored. Or sometimes you have to spend ten minutes with a light hammer gently tapping the pump to free it of the crud that has built up over the summer and you swear that next year you’ll run it for a few minutes once a week so you don’t end up late one night trying to coax it back to life before bits of you turn blue in the sudden cold snap that the weathermen have been warning of for a few day but you ignored because you had absolute faith in the system. Yes, this happened to us every year in London, and yes, nobody else could remember the hammer trick. And yes, there was a cold spell while I was away for a few days and my old flatmates couldn’t get hold of the landlord and they had quite a miserable time. And no, of course I didn’t extract the mickey afterwards.

Now as we all know, in America everything is bigger. I am living in a small apartment so it goes without saying that it has industrial style heating with 2” pipes leading up from a furnace in the basement. And it can go from freezing to boiling in here in no time at all. So there we were, we were used to the radiators hissing all the time as the system switched itself on and off as it’s a steam system and it has to vent cold air out of the radiator for it to fill with steam to give out heat. And it is not a good idea to play with the vents and it is a really bad idea to block them up so you can get a good night sleep. Put it this way, you may not sleep for long, or possibly you’ll sleep for a very long time. (Incidentally, most of the houses around here are built from wood, and the fire departments are quite busy. Can anyone spot the link?)

Anyway, there we are enjoying the industrial symphony of the pipes when one of the radiator vents starts spraying brown foam up the wall like Roy Hattersley on a bad day. This strikes us as being a bit odd, but the marks on the wall suggest this is not unusual and there’s not a lot we can do about it.

And then one day the heating stopped working. Now it’s very dark in the basement where the furnace is so we just put up with it for the night. The following day we try to contact the landlord and there’s no answer. That night was a lot colder. (The hot water is on a separate system thankfully.) By this time we’re getting pretty desperate and resort to turning on all the oven burners and pointing a fan to blow air from the kitchen to the rest of the house, but of course that’s not a particularly bright idea to leave running during the night (wooden house remember?) and that third morning was bad. The thermostat was stuck fast at the bottom of the scale at 45F, which is pretty close to freezing. It was only a chance remark to one of the guys in the office that we found that we are supposed to refill the furnace with water every month.

Now is it me, or in this modern age where we have put men on the moon and split the atom and even created an edible Kebab it is too much to expect the central heating to have a simple valve that opens when it gets low on water, and shuts off when it’s had enough to drink? Instead it just sits there with a little red light showing until you personally open the tap and watch as a glass tube fills with up and the red light goes out and then you turn it off and forget about it for another month.

Oh yes, if you overfill it, then it makes one god-awful racket all night. Which is definitely not good…

It seems as though central heating has been the topic of the moment. I spent Christmas in Vermont (home of that famous British company: Ben & Jerrys) with some of my flatmates relations, which was very nice of them. And yes, I did have a very white Christmas thank you very much, by at least a couple of feet. And yes, I did take my nice shiny new snowboard to play with.

Sunset in East Albany, VT
We were staying in a cabin in a place called East Albany that is just 20 miles from the Canadian border and is a typical rural Vermont town. And the fun started before we even left Boston.

We had rented a car from those ever so nice people at Avis and asked for a roof rack to put the boards on because the car would be full of people and luggage. This was the first mistake. They don’t have roof racks. Eventually they realised that we actually wanted a ski rack, which was fine right up to the moment we saw it as it had little plastic clips to hold skis that were not going to be much use for a snowboard. As luck would have it, they had just received a snowboard rack earlier in the day, so we spent nearly an hour standing in the cold at Logan airport trying to work out how to build this thing with the “help” of an Avis mechanic.

Eventually we get it sorted and taking our lives in our hands we drove home through the Boston traffic, which is actually much worse than London and the route is never quite the same from one day to the next thanks to the big dig.

Getting everything packed up wasn’t a problem and we made good progress, although the whistle of wind in ropes drove us to the brink of insanity. Almost as much as the road signs which are arranged so that you only know which exit you want after you have gone past it at 65mph. But on the plus side the main roads were very well gritted.

The minor roads were a different story. For the last five miles it was most entertaining as we were driving a big heavy car on untreated roads at night in unfamiliar territory. The cabin was at the bottom of a hill, and if you don’t start braking at the top of the hill, then the best description is “wheeeeeeee!”

The other notable thing about the cabin is it had two wood stoves for heating which was very quaint and toasty right up to the moment you go upstairs and you discover that the rest of the house if freezing cold. And the hot water supplies were also rather limited. As I discovered on the first morning when the lukewarm shower suddenly went icy cold with no warning. What did concern me slightly was a couple of days later the hot water worked perfectly well. Not a problem perhaps, except that it was fixed by a nuclear physicist which makes you think for a second or two before stepping in.

Oh, and you’re never alone in Vermont cabin. They are always inhabited by Cluster Flies. They look like small bluebottles and they come out to play when it’s warm (by Vermont standards that is, i.e. above freezing) and they bring all the mates along as well. And there is nothing you can do about them. We spent a couple of happy hours with fly swats and rolled up newspapers but by the following evening there were just as many.

But what about the snowboarding?

Jay Peak, VT. Too cold for most people
Only one word: Fan-tas-tic. The closest resort was Jay Peak and although it’s not as big as the Alpine resorts it’s pretty good by East Coast standards. Even if it was -20F before you factored in wind chill. They actually closed the resort on one day because it was too cold for to safely go up the mountain, and on the following day it wasn’t much better, but we were so desperate we went for a few rides, even though the only way up was on a T-bar lift. For skis, this is not much of a problem, you put the bar behind you, lean back and off you go. On a board, where you ride sideways on to the world, it’s a bit more uncomfortable. And a lot more effort as you have to hold onto the bar while it’s hooked around one of your legs, maintain your balance and steer all at the same time (boards aren’t so good in a straight line).

Owls Head, Canada. Not as cold.
We actually gave up on Jay after this and went over to Canada and a mountain called Owls Head. Which was immediately much more familiar to us as everyone was speaking French, no surprise really since it is in Quebec province and they’re just weird like that.

There was only one run worth serious consideration at Owls Head as it is a very small resort, but thankfully it is slightly more sheltered. There was another run, but the start was stupidly steep, icy and wind blasted, and the middle was too flat. Oh, and there was a side trail that was closed, but you couldn’t see the sign until you had passed the point of no return which means short but steep hike out.

I worked it out the other day. So far this year, I have had more snow time since Thanksgiving than I would normally manage in two years back home. And the season is only just getting started.

We went back to Sunday River a couple of weeks ago for a long weekend, just because we could. This time, all the runs were open and we made the best possible use of them all. I also found one run that I just defies all sense. Put it this way, the sign is not kidding. If anything, it should be a triple-black run. There’s a reason why this is the only photograph: It was too stupid to attempt any more. The top is OK, in fact it’s dangerously OK because it doesn’t seem like anything special. Then the ground just drops away to near vertical in places and if you did slip it would be a long way before you came to a stop. Let’s just say we were exercising the utmost caution and will not be going back there again in a hurry.

Something that has surprised me about boarding here is the number of people who wear crash helmets. And when you think about it, it makes good sense on two counts. Firstly it keeps your head warm, and secondly it’ll save injuries if you catch an edge, or turn a little too slowly when doing an “Endor Run” thorough the trees. Yes, it’s not enough now to go carving down the piste leaving a wake of snow and looking pretty damn cool while your at it. It’s not even enough to go bouncing down a mogul field while the skiers are trying to remember where to put the poles and to keep their knees together. No, what you really want to do is to find a mogul field in a forest and to recreate the speeder bike sequence from Return of the Jedi. Much more fun!

I have also found one of the worst restaurants so far, but unfortunately I cannot remember its name right now. On the plus side, we did meet up with a couple of girls from Portland (it’s that English accent thing) while waiting for a table, and it was easier to get a table for six rather than two tables of three, (and a lot more sociable besides), but I have not found such incompetence in a waitress yet. I don’t think any of us actually got everything we ordered, and certainly not at all at the same time. What really got to us was they put the bill back on the table after we had paid with the amount circled in red three times. They should have given us a tip for actually staying long enough to pay the bill!

On the Sunday we met up again for lunch after a gentle morning as neither of us were up for much after the previous two days silliness and after a leisurely lunch we spent some time filming and generally taking things easy before driving back.

That’s the problem about taking a camera on a mountain; you keep getting the urge to film things. So as my contribution to the filmmakers art, The Boston Cube proudly announces the upcoming blockbuster “Boardin' Ed”. Just as soon as I have finished the final edit and found a server to hide it on as it’s a bit big…

Filmed in glorious VGA / CIF formats on a web-cam with pretensions to be a Nikon, it’s not up to the same quality as The Matrix, Babylon 5 or even Tron, but with a price tag that would not hurt too much if I dropped it down a mountain, waddaya expect?

I was browsing around CompUSA (as you do) and they had a selection of web cams, and one also doubled up as an ordinary camera by the simple addition of a viewfinder, battery and memory card. It can take about 100 VGA pictures, 200 CIF (basically half VGA) picture or 15 10-second film clips, and it also has a motor-wind feature that takes five frames in quick succession at CIF quality.

All in all, it’s a really good camera, and for a lot less than an Ixus or the new Olympus 6 megapixel models, and all I want to do (for now at least) is take pictures and put them on a web site. Unfortunately the download software that is supplied will only run on Windows 98, and the editing package is so limited that it's virtually unusable. I was on the point of taking it back to the shop when I had to install Windows 98 on part of my main office PC, and then I found a package in Best Buy (were good technology costs less - guess who owns them as well?) called Ulead VideoStudio. The latest version costs over $100, but as I don’t need a million effects, Firewire or DV support, I was able to buy an earlier version for $10, which by the time I reached the checkout had reduced to $2.99, which is not a bad discount really. OK, so I did end up getting a 1GHz Athlon PC with more disk space than you could possibly want (except for digital photography), DVD, CD burner, big monitor etc etc but that’s beside the point. Actually, it is the whole point. Using my trusty old laptop it took over a minute to process 1 second of video clip. By the time you’ve edited together the clips with stills, added captions and a soundtrack you’re looking at about 3 minutes of video, and every change requires a re-compile so you get to do an awful lot of other things while you wait. With the new PC, it’s pretty close to a 1:1 ratio on compilation time, and I’m sure that with cleverer software it could compile and play in real time. The danger now is I’ll get really hooked and go an blow a pay-check (arrrgh - an Americanism!) on a Sony PC-110.

I don’t know why, but it seems like I always get the really big complicated projects to work on. As I’m now going to be on one particular project for the next six months, and I’ll probably be going all over the country as well, I have been inflicted with a mobile yet again. This time around it is fully expensed (yippee!) well, apart from obvious personal calls, and all I need to do is to get the phone reactivated. Not a problem, this is the land of the credit card and the can do approach to customer service. Hahahahahaha!

In the UK, you can walk into almost any corner shop these days and buy a phone over the counter and off you go. It’ll work almost anywhere in the country with fairly good reception and not too many dropped calls (OK, I’m pushing it a bit there, but this is relative). So I thought it would be the same if not better here. Oh no, not even close. Firstly, they think that digital phones are still a pretty revolutionary idea, and that to have coverage more than 20 miles from the nearest major city is asking a bit too much really.

To connect the phone, you’d think that all you’d need is a credit card, especially as I’m trying to connect it to a business rate plan, with a corporate card. Oh no, that would be far too simple. First they need your Social Security number. I mean why? It’s not as if I’ll earn pension benefits by making telephone calls now is it? Secondly they want a credit card number, which is not a problem. Then they want a driving licence number. Do you need a driving licence to use a mobile phone? I can imagine it. “OK Mr Neighbour, at the first turn I’d like to call directory enquiries, and then when I tap the dashboard I’d like to do an emergency voice mail while remembering at all times to speak clearly and loudly so that everyone in the room can hear how you got on at the club on Saturday night.” As I don’t have an American licence I had to take my Passport into the shop in person to prove who I am, and then they tried to do a credit check on me, which is always good for a laugh as I’m in that Catch 22 situation of not being here long enough yet to get a credit history, so I can’t get any sort of credit, so I don’t create a credit history. Even though the big UK credit reference agencies are all American owned.

Anyway, after two attempts to sign up on the Internet, two or three phone calls and two visits to the shop, I finally get a connection. Only to discover that the connection fee has exceeded the credit limit (despite the fact it is billed to a credit card) and that I cannot pay by credit card until they send a bill because the billing address and credit card address don’t match.

Not even Cellnet were that screwed up!

The VCR has finally defeated us! Now that it’s been repaired again, it turns out that while it will play PAL (European) tapes, it also outputs a PAL signal to the TV. Which is really useful as the TV, being an American TV, expects an NTSC signal. Now this isn’t a major problem right now as I only have three tapes and two of them I could replace for a lot less than buying a new VCR. And there’s nothing that I have a burning desire to import from home right now.

But what would be really useful is the ability to record programs to watch later. All I can guess is the record function is on a remote control, which we don’t have. And as programs like Stargate are shown on Friday evening when we’ll hardly ever be in, this is no good at all. Perhaps with suitable encouragement I’ll get a machine that can play and record any format.