Yesterday Jordan and I headed up to Vail for a day o’ skiing with some friends.  The snow was falling most of the drive out I-70 and when we arrived the mountains were sporting a nice fresh layer of powdery goodness, not exactly a powder day, as the snow was pretty heavy, but it was the next best thing.

3 or 4 runs in Ofer and I were scooting down Northstar when I bit it.  Hard.  I went over the bars, sailing headfirst down the mountain.  From what I’ve pieced together from the evidence, my head hit right above my forehead, then my face slid along the snow, smushing my goggles into the bridge of my nose.  My arms were out ahead of me as though I were diving into a pool while holding onto poles.  I slid for what felt like forever, but was probably just a few feet, before coming to a stop with my head still aiming downhill.  My first thought was that at least my skis are fluorescent green so Ofer will see me and know it’s me.  …not realizing that the only thing visible were the bottoms of my skis.  A snowboarder came over as I was untangling myself and asked if I was ok.  My arms hurt and I knew I hit my head really hard, but I was ok…I think.  Ofer had been in the trees so had missed the action, but came over when he saw the aftermath.  He quizzed me on the obvious: “Who are you?” Amy  “What day is it?” sometime in February  ”What day of the week is it?”  Thursday.  Everything was as usual (it’s rare I know the date off the top of my head), but the answers took a little longer to come around into my head.  And my head hurt.  

We skied down and met back up with everyone, did another run, then went back to the top to venture into the back bowls.   At the the top Ofer convinced me to go see the mountain patrol to just get checked out really quickly.  After some time I gave in and we went over.  The patroller asked me questions similar to what Ofer had and I answered them all just fine, though I could sense with a little delay.  He urged me to go down to the base to talk to a paramedic and I said sure, as long as I can ski down.  No no no…I would have to ride in the toboggan.  No way!!  Toboggans are for the unconscious and people with broken limbs.  He did his best to coerce me to go,  but instead I high-tailed it out of there and headed to the China Bowl.  

As we headed down along Poppyfields I knew I was in trouble.  The visibility was awful and it was impossible to see any variations in the snow’s surface.  I got dizzy.  It felt like I drank a bottle of wine at the top and was trying to get down.  Only not as fun as that sounds like it might be. 

I had been laughing a lot since the fall and thought that was a good thing because it obviously meant I was fine.  Then, out of nowhere the laughter turned to tears for no reason at all.  Except for the headache and sore arms, I was totally fine!  What was my deal?!

After another run I called it a day and killed some time at Two Elk’s.  The headache and emotional instability lasted through this morning (special thanks to Jordan for not killing me!) but now I’m feeling a-ok…except for the achy ribs, arms, neck, and head.  

The take-away from this unnecessarily verbose entry (which I will blame on still being slightly out-of-it)?  ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET!!  I’m sure I would’ve left behind some nasty innards had I not had mine on.

All smiles post-crash.

If you only do one race this summer, make it this one.

The Great Colorado Triathlon will be held for the first time in Evergreen, Colorado on August 16th.  The Olympic distance race will be a unique event with a swim in Evergreen Town Lake, a hilly two-loop bike leg on surrounding roads, and a flat and fast run.  It’s an ideal race for Front Rangers/Denverites looking to get in a late summer race and make the most of living near the foothills of the Rockies.  Check it out, it will be a good time.

Link: greatcoloradotri.riptidemultisports.com

This just in, Tropicana is going back to what works: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/business/media/23adcol.html?ref=business

Special thanks to Phil Shaw for sending this my way this morning!  

Last night I picked up a carton of Tropicana OJ from Albertson’s.  Having seen the new packaging before and knowing it hides important information such as, lots of pulp, no pulp, low acid, and low sugar, I know I have to pay extra attention to my product selection.  Ever the super-picky consumer I only drink no pulp.  I looked over the selection, grabbed one, and off I went.

Once home I poured myself a glass of the vitamin-C rich goodness.  No pulp, but something wasn’t quite right.  Looking at the carton again, the fine print glared at me: Low acid.  Noooo!  How did this happen?

The newly designed Tropicana packaging: front view.

No pulp is easy enough to see, but the low acid sneaks in under the radar. Notice they also ditched the oh-so-drinkable orange with the red and white straw stuck into it, the symbol for the most delicious OJ ever for as far back as I can remember.

New Tropican design: top view.

The top of the container that is easily viewable from eye-level (important for high shelves or shorter people) makes it seem like the contents is just free of pulp. You need a bird’s eye view of the container to see that it’s low acid. The new color-coding they put in place is therefore useless, since it is in an inconspicuous place on the carton and is so small a potential buyer can’t see it from an arm’s length away.

The easily recognizable old Tropicana packaging.

The old design was easily recognizable.  Very clearly Tropicana, with its original typography that could be spotted from down the grocery aisle.  It’s obvious this package contains no pulp, and because they don’t try to hide other information elsewhere, I don’t have to hunt around the fine print checking to ensure it doesn’t say low acid as well.

Though I am mostly concerned with conveying information in a logical, appealing way online, this example shows just how annoying it can be to not provide customers with what they desire, and what they expect.  Translated to web design this is often what makes the difference between a great site and a poor one.  As the world becomes more reliant on the internet, professionally designed websites are no longer an option, but a standard.

For real.

Next month Jordan and I are taking off for Miami to race in the Miami International Triathlon and spend some time with my brother and his family.  We’ve been debating whether or not to go for awhile, but when we saw how cheap the airfare was this weekend we jumped on it.  Hopefully Denver will actually have some wintry weather over the next month so the tropical air will feel even better.

Now the pressure is really on to get my run into respectable shape.  It’s been really up and down; the high being a 10 miler with Taylor two weekends ago averaging around 7:10s, the low being a really ugly tempo run this past weekend.  I think I have 5-6 weeks before the race so that gives me just the right amount of time to improve my tempos a bit.  I’m planning on racing the Snowman Stampede 5 miler on Feb 21st so that should provide some indication of where I am.

Mmmm Miami…

Today I’ve been trying out several online wireframe/user experience flow tools.  Normally, I would just use Fireworks but thought it would be fun to try something different.  I’ve briefly experimented with Balsamiq Mock-ups, RapidRabb.it, and Gliffy.  Gliffy stands out far from the others, though I need to add an asterisk to my reviews and say that my “test” was based largely on intuitive usability.

So far my design mediums of choice are CSS + XHTML, but I’m planning on launching a Flash component of a race website in coming months.  Ideally, the Flash site will contain pro athlete interviews, race course footage, and additional multimedia to get potential entrants excited about the race.  This is a [very incredibly raw] mock-up I created using Gliffy.

A really raw mock-up of the Flash site that is to come.

It’s not much to look at, but serves its purpose for the planning stages of the site.  For example, if I am debating between two different page layouts, I can create two mock-ups and then survey potential users which one they prefer.

Same content, but with a different layout.

Gliffy has a library full of useful icons and site elements that you can drag and drop onto your blank page. There’s an optional grid view that makes aligning elements precisely a breeze (something the other online tools lacked).  Also helping to win over my heart is the ability to upload images for use in the mock-up, such as the header for The Great Colorado Triathlon that I had already created.

Hats off to you, Gliffy.  After just a 20 minute foray I’m already hooked.

More in-depth reviews to follow.