Cold sucks

Always remember to zip on Zap...

Last weekend was my second-ever attempt at downhill skiing. I went to The Canyons in Utah, a nice little resort about half an hour's drive through the mountains from Salt Lake City. I hadn't been skiing since 1997, so I was curious to see how much ability I had retained over a decade of inactivity.

Surprisingly, quite a bit. We started off on the bunny slope (named "Sweet Pea" to ensure that you're as embarrassed as possible) and I rocked it - I went down three times and was easily the most skilled skier on the slope. All of the ski school students were jealous. I swear.

An actual shot taken from a Canyons webcam on Saturday, when I was there. That could be me on the lift!

From there we got on the lift, where we discovered that The Canyons only has three green (beginner) ski runs - and only two of them, Boomer and Meadow Way, were accessible to me. I spent all morning schussing down them, never falling down, and came away feeling like a pro.

After lunch I got braver, and we decided to try the last green run, called Winding Lane. The only way to get to Winding Lane was by negotiating a short blue (intermediate - egad!) run called Zap. I'd been skiing all morning, so how hard could a very short run with a comical name like Zap really be?

This is what Zap felt like, except this person is in control and I was not.

Basically, I fell down about twelve times (every time I tried to turn to slow down) and wound up sliding down most of Zap on my butt. As I did, my wallet worked its way out of my back pocket (which I'd forgotten to zip up) and went up into the snow. When I finally emerged, bruised and battered, at the bottom of Winding Lane, I realized it was gone and had about eight successive heart attacks - I had to be on an airplane in about sixteen hours, and it didn't look like I'd see my wallet again until the snow melted in April.

Michelle got back on the lift and made a quick run down the trail again (she's a good skier; at one point she actually got yelled at for going too fast) but the wallet was gone. I started making mental lists of everyone I needed to call, every card I needed to cancel, etc. We also called the airline to figure out how the hell I was going to get on the plane.

Long story short - some helpful Utahn found my wallet and returned it to a lift operator, who called me a few hours later. We drove back out to Park City to pick it up. I'm the luckiest person in the world, hands down. I'm also an OK skier, but I'm going to take more lessons before I attempt any more blue runs. And I'm going to remember to zip my pockets.

Valentine's Day gift idea

Overheard in the locker room yesterday (verbatim):

"I'm gonna dress up like a clown and fuck her."

This isn't out of context, I heard most of the conversation. Poor, poor undergrads.

Maybe they do know why I fly.

After my Pittsburgh travel adventure (see below) I decided to be a bit of a squeaky wheel and send an email to American Airlines voicing my displeasure. They responded with quite a bit of 'grease' - in the form of 10,000 bonus miles.

Holla.

Right now, on Animal Planet

Puppy Bowl III

"Puppies cavort in a play area that looks like a football stadium in the third annual event that offers an alternative to the Super Bowl. Included: a halftime show featuring kittens."

I have just spent fifteen minutes watching this. They have instant replays, and "Bowl Cam" (a water bowl with a glass bottom with a camera underneath to look at the puppies while they splash), and "water time outs" to replenish the water bowl. But the very best part is the soundtrack of a sports crowd that cheers when the puppies do something.

Gotta love it.