This is the first weekend since finishing my thesis and getting back from defending it. I have taken a few weekends off in the last six months but not too many. This is the first weekend that I have time to do whatever I want and won't feel bad that I'm not at work. I'm really itching to get out and do some mountaineering. Lacking a plan, I would likely end up doing a solo trip this weekend. But, checking the NOAA's weather site, I find this:

Yeah. Solo mountaineering in that sort of weather is not my idea of smart¹. Pretty much all of the mountains in Colorado and New Mexico are forecasted to have snow starting tonight and going into Sunday afternoon.

So I'm going to have to change my plans. Highpointing and mountaineering are definitely out. Caving is pretty much out of the question as I have no time to arrange for permits. I may go do some geocaches up in the mountains right behind Los Alamos, I can handle bad weather there--and it might give me a chance to really try out my Arc'teryx bibs and jacket that haven't seen significant weather since I bought them last summer.

¹ - It's a shame I didn't have a camera with me today... there was a delegation of people from all over the world visiting our facilities and watching demonstrations on some of our detector technologies. One of the guys (from Iraq, if you can believe that) had pants with a small label on the rear pocket that read, "Smart Man." They seemed like pretty run-of-the-mill khakis. The guy did look pretty nerdy, though. I can't find any mention of the Smart Man label on the web; maybe it's a startup in Iraq somewhere. But if they do exist, I want some.