Thank goodness! It’s been a busy week. Fortunately it was fast as well. Hope everyone has a good weekend. More from me next week.

I prepared this recipe the other night and must say it was really delicious.   I wanted to not only share it but also get it up online in-case I ever lost it.   It comes from a recent issue of 5280 Magazine from Holly Hartnett owner of Venue.

• olive oil
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 6 cloves garlic, slivered (I used minced)
• 1 cup light cream (I used heavy whipping cream)
• 6 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
• 16 ounces frozen young peas, blanched
• 2 jars marinated artichoke hearts (I used 1 regular size can)
• lemon juice to taste (I didn’t use any)
• salt and pepper to taste
• cayenne to taste
• 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
• 1 pound fettuccine, cooked and strained

In a deep saute pan, heat three tablespoons of olive oil and add chicken.   Sear until golden; remove from pan.   Once you are able to handle the chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces.   Lower heat and add more olive oil if necessary.   Add garlic and cook until lightly golden.

Add chicken, cream, and goat cheese to the pan and simmer until chicken is cooked through.   Add peas, artichoke hearts, lemon juice to taste, sale, pepper, and cayenne.   Add Parmesan to desired consistency.   Add cooked pasta to the pot and combine all ingredients.   Serve additional cheese on top.

Friday night I decided to order in some pizza for dinner.   After scoping out the coupons online, I decided to order from Domino’s.   They had a coupon for two medium pizzas for $5.99 each, and I wanted to try their new pizza anyway.   So I placed my order using only vegetable toppings (such a good Catholic) and noticed that they had a sauce called Hearty Marinara Sauce in addition to their New Robust Tomato Sauce.   I decided to try each of the sauces on separate pizzas since my coupon was for two anyway.

When they arrived, I immediately noticed that the one that had the Hearty Marinara Sauce actually said Original Sauce on the box.   I was thinking that both sauces would be new, and was therefore disappointed.   But I decided to turn the situation into my own taste test.   I started on the pizza with the New Robust Tomato Sauce and immediately thought that it tasted just as I had remembered Domino’s to taste, rather bland.   After a slice from the new I moved to the Original Sauce and immediately was struck by how awful it was.   So they have managed to improve their pizza, though I still don’t think it’s as good as the other chains.   The one thing that I did like was the new garlic butter that is brushed on the crust edges.   It helps enhance the flavor of the rather boring crust, though it can be a little messy.

So far this week I’ve split my time between my old and new projects at work.   Mornings have been spent with the old, and afternoons are spent with the new.   It’s actually a pretty nice divider for the day, especially since I’ve worked my mornings from home and then coming into the office for the afternoon.   As of now, I can’t really work from home on the new project, so this is a good way to do it for the next month or so.   After that point I’m supposed to be dedicating more time to the new project, so I’m not sure what I’ll be doing then.   I’m enjoying the new work so far, even though it’s mostly been meeting thus far.   I’m sure that will all start changing really soon though.

I’m happy to report that the conditions at Keystone have greatly improved since the beginning of the season.   I’m still not sure that they are operating at 100% open, but it’s close.   I headed up on Saturday morning with my friend Rob.   We arrived plenty early, and were one of the first few out on the slopes.   We immediately headed out to the Outback and eventually found ourselves hiking out to the North and South bowls.   On our second run out there we hit some nice powder that was nearly knee-deep.   By the time we made it out there again, others had found the stash as well, so it wasn’t as good.   Rob is a good skier and we were quickly able to move through the runs and beat many of the crowds.   Once the Outback became too crowded, we headed back toward the other mountains.   We hiked out to The Windows area, which I had never been on before.   We were able to find lots of snow, but the run we picked was too filled with trees to truly enjoy all the snow.   After that exhausting run, we were ready to head out and beat the traffic back home to Denver, besides we had already got in about ten solid runs.

Team USA men’s hockey team just had a huge win and is now in the gold medal game on Sunday.   They will face-off with either Canada or Slovakia, who play in three and half hours from now.   I’ll try to watch the game tonight, but will definitely be tuned into the final game on Sunday.   I watched the end of the women’s game last night, where the Canadian women beat team USA 2-0 to take the gold medals.   Today everyone is all upset about the celebration the players had after most of the crowd had left the arena.   Fourteen players returned to the ice with beer, champagne, and cigars.

I really don’t think it’s that big of deal, though smoking cigars on the ice seems pretty strange.   There is a poll on nbcolymics.com and currently the vote is split right down the middle whether the celebration went to far or not.   The only thing I thought was really strange was that some of the players appears to be drinking Coors Light.   Not that there’s anything wrong with that finely made Colorado product, but shouldn’t they all be having Molson’s or Labatt’s?   What do you all think, did they take it too far or should we just let them have their fourteen minutes of fame?

I just wrapped up another uneventful trip to the dentist, which is a good thing, right?   I had a quick cleaning and evaluation with no problems found.   I really like this dentist that I’ve been seeing for the past year.   The office is pretty much a two women shop, obviously one is the dentist and the other is just the receptionist.   That’s right, there are no hygienists in this office.   Instead, the dentist is the one who actually cleans teeth, while doing the evaluation at the same time.   So rather than just seeing the dentist for a few minutes at the end of your appointment, you get to spend your entire visit with one.   I think this leads to a great quality of care, not to mention that she is really nice and efficient.   If you are in the Denver area, I highly recommend seeing Pamela Rotwein.

In addition to my curling addiction, I’ve tried to keep up with as much of the Olympic hockey action as I possibly can. Fortunately, nbcolympics.com has a very nice Silverlight player that is available for streaming lots of live events, especially hockey and curling. I was able to follow along with the USA hockey game this afternoon, even if I only listened to the audio most of the time. The really cool thing is that the video player seems to automatically adjust the quality based on your connection. So rather than dropping out and buffering the video, it can simply display a lower bit-rate and then automatically switch to a higher one when the connection improves. I’m not really too familiar with Silverlight, but this feature seems really desirable compared to current flash video players.

Kim and I headed down to the Pepsi Center last night for the rescheduled Billy Joel and Elton John show.   The “Face To Face” show was originally scheduled for November 22nd, but it was later rescheduled.   We bough some of the cheapest tickets in the arena, which were still $50, and we were pleasantly surprised when we found our seats.   We were slightly behind the stage, but felt the view must have been better than from the far side of the arena.   We could easily see both performers and their entire bands and only really missed out on the large video screen across the top of the stage setup.

The show started with both performers trading verses on Elton John’s “Your Song.”   They then moved through “Just the Way You Are,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” and “My Life” in the same manner.   It was neat to hear each sing on the others songs.   And their voices actually complimented each other really well.   From there, Elton John’s backing band arose from the stage trap-doors to accompany him in an hour-long set of hits.   I had honestly forgotten how many hits he had.   Some of the songs in the set included “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Levon,” and “Rocket Man.”

From there, the backing bands switched spots, and it was Billy Joel’s turn to run through some of his hits.   Kim has always been a huge fan of his music, and has helped introduce me to more songs than just the hits.   However he stuck to mostly the hits in his hour-long set, which included “Allentown,” “Don’t Ask Me Why,” “She’s Always a Woman,” “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song),” “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” (Kim’s personal favorite), and “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.”   Though Elton John appeared a little reserved in his performance, Billy Joel was up dancing and even grabbed the guitar for “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

Rather than taking a drawn-out encore break, Elton John simply joined Billy Joel up on stage at the end of his set for another round of duets.   This medley of songs was especially good, including “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues,” “Uptown Girl,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Candle in the Wind” and “Piano Man.”   Every one knew “Piano Man” was going to end the show, but it was still a perfect ending to a great three-hour night of music.

Finally!   I had my first real powder day of this snowboarding season.   Actually, I had two.   Kim and I spent the weekend at Copper Mountain with her sister and her boyfriend.   I had never been to Copper before, though I’ve wanted to for a while, so we finally found a good excuse to go.   We picked up our visitors on Friday after work and headed straight up into the mountains.   We reserved a last-minute condo immediately next to a couple of lifts at the center village of Copper.   After a rather long and snowy drive, we finally arrived at the condo and rested up for the next morning.

Saturday morning, we had an early start on the slopes.   Though the first couple of runs were mostly groomed with a little powder on top, we quickly found some other runs with tons of powder.   Over the past week they had received nearly two feet of snow, so the conditions were the best we’ve seen all season.   After taking a run down a steep and mogul filled slope, we didn’t quite make it a full day.   We had a couple of après-ski ski drinks before dinner and Olympics viewing at Endo’s.   I must admit that Copper isn’t the most happening town I’ve ever stayed in, but there was enough to keep us busy for a couple of days.

Kim and I got another early start on Sunday, while our visitors went out for breakfast and enjoyed their vacation.   With the snow continuing to fall, we headed immediately for some of the bowls hoping for lots of powder.   And we were rewarded handsomely!   This was definitely the best day we have had all season.   We spent most of our time around the Union Peak area.   After a draining ten runs, we headed back toward the front-side of the mountains to meet up with the others.   We somehow managed to stay out all the way until the lifts closed at four.   What a weekend!

Copper Mountain on Dwellable