We got a pretty good accumulation. We’ve been apartment bound since Friday afternoon. Diana must be restless…she is on my balcony making a snowman! Ski areas in the mid-Atlantic got at least 30″ which is about what we got here. Ski areas in Vermont like Killington and Mount Snow got nothing which doesn’t bode well for Sessions in the Snow in early March.
Category: Skiing
Skiing
Holiday in Switzerland
I am in Geneva, Switzerland, for the Christmas holiday visiting my brother and his family. My parents have flown down from Wales for the holiday also. My brother’s wife’s niece who attends college in Munich, Germany, is visiting too. As such, we have a full house but it is quite big enough for all of us to hang together and/or spread out as necessary. The location is out in the country on a road with three houses, a river in the back yard, and France on the other side.
We have been out and about to the city of Geneva, to the historic town of Gruyere for fondue, to Borc to tour the Cailler Chocolate factory, hit the farmers’ market in Vivonne-les-Bains, France, and walked the burg of Nyon on the shores of Lake Geneva. As it may sound, we have kept busy touring and also shopping for food for meals and presents for Christmas. I have taken a number of pictures that I am posting when I can. They can be seen by accessing the link on the right hand side of my home page under photography. I’ll add a couple here for convenience.
Briefly Back
I have been bad about blogging which if you care about following me you already know. I can’t say what the problem is but I am trying to get past it. It has been a wacky seven or eight months what with starting work again as a contractor for a major corporation and then getting the opportunity to apply for the same job at the corporation as a full-time employee w/ benefits.
Forgive me if I don’t mention any company names. A few years ago I would not have worried about doing so but, even though I have never made good or bad comments about a company I have worked for or am working for and would never do so in my blog, I still feel it is risky to be too specific. So much for free speech, eh?
The new job involved a major learning curve mostly for call center support but also for systems/desktop support. I feel like I have done quite well. I may not be the star for the newly established support center but am certainly one of the stars. Finally starting as a full time employee this week has been the cap on the whole venture.
I finally have health benefits which is mucho beuno as you will see later in this entry. Additional benefits besides health such as education and training with the company are a big positive. As I have mentioned to some of you who might read this, the pay is subpar, from my point of view, as much as 25% less than many of us in the group have earned, but the benefits help to make up for the direct loss in income. I think the opportunities for the future with this company are very good. I am already enrolled for a web server admin class in May which bodes well.
On the personal side, I have been laying kind of low. Having been w/o health insurance since last June, I haven’t been riding my motorcyle or skiing much. My last health insurance quote was for $450 a month due to pre-existing conditions. Thanks “Obamacare!”
I did get up to Vermont for my good friend Linda’s 50th birthday in December. I stopped in Avoca, PA, about halfway up, to see my friend Terry and his boys. I think that Linda was surprised when she saw me with the crowd at her house but who knows. That was an 1100 mile road trip crammed into about three days but well worth it. I did get about 2.5 hours in on the slopes at Killington on the way up which was nice. Only time I have skiied since I tore my ACL at Seven Springs in 2008.
Turkey Day was spent with my sister Julie who lives about a mile away from me. Christmas was spent with my sister Kim in SE Virginia. We went on Christmas morning to her husband’s parent’s house for breakfast and the ceremonial tearing apart of the Xmas presents for the kids and grandkids. Madness I say!
It took a longer than I expected drive to go camping at the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay a month or so ago. And I didn’t have the cash I needed to get into the “unattended” gate at the park. Of course, I saw 3 or 4 park staff members there including one who stopped by my campsite to give me the money I had overpaid for the site. I figured it would just be a donation to the park system but… I was at Elk Neck State Park.
For those of you in the know, I am playing in a Cornhole league that friends of mine have sponsored for a few years. On Fridays, when the WX is good, we all get out and throw some bags. Unfortunately, the WX has sucked so my partner and I have to hook up w/ the teams that we missed games with and make them up.
I mentioned that I was glad to have health benefits again through my employer, who wouldn’t’ be, eh? Recently my blood pressure and cholesterol levels have skyrocketed despite my efforts to keep them down using natural supplements. My blood pressure was so high the other day I almost went to the emergency room. Being a man, that was of course out of the question.
I did go to “Urgent Care” at my doctor’s office the next day. My blood pressure was still high. I got an EKG which was okay but had some possible anomalies. I got an immediate referral to the cardiologist at my “doctor’s office” and since I was paying out of pocket I had no insurance “people” to deal with, which was nice. Unfortunately, the cardiologist scheduled me for a “Nuclear Stress Test” for which I had the insurance coverage but no documentation.
I have had to put the test on hold. Hope I don’t die first….
It Snow Secret
It has been a month since we had the last snow, 28-30 inches of it. Here is what we had:
Here is what I have left (click to enlarge):
Note the scooter at bottom left. I rode twice this week but we have rain coming in so I’ll have to take a break. At least the bike isn’t covered in snow anymore. It is hard to believe that we, in Virginia, got over five feet of snow as of 11 February this year and that, today, one month later, I was sitting on my balcony in a t-shirt reading the Washington Post as the temperature neared 70 degrees.
Virginia Winter Wonderland?
Well, we are into our fourth or fifth snowfall of the season. They are predicting 20-30 inches for this one which started at 10:00 AM this morning and is supposed to run until 10:00 PM tomorrow. We shall see… Everyone is stocked and locked for the storm weekend, including Super Bowl parties. The grocery stores have been zoos since Wednesday evening of course. Perhaps everyone got a good head start on their shopping. When I stopped at the Giant this afternoon to get my sister a birthday card, the store was relatively deserted.
Here’s some pics from snow we got Tuesday night. I watched the branches shed the snow all morning long…they were bare again by mid-afternoon. Driving around yesterday there were bare patches of ground right next to patches of 2-3 inches. Seemed odd. I’ll be cross-country skiing tomorrow!
Snowing in Centreville, VA
We are having our first snow of the year. It looks great but who knows how much we’ll get and/or how long it will last. I slept on my sister’s screened in porch last night and woke up to rain at some point in the wee hours. Since I really never pay attention to the weather forecasts, I forgot that it was supposed to snow.
I was reminded once yesterday when I made the mistake of going to the grocery store at five pm. That is bad enough on a Friday but a Friday before the potential for a snow storm? Forget about it. I got my beer and headed for the hills!
Anyhow, I was back home this morning reading and listening to the rain when I realized it had stopped. I looked out and saw that the rain had changed to snow. Since it is only about 40 degrees out I was a bit surprised. It’s fine with me though. I just started some turkey soup and we’ve got West Virginia football on the tube at noon.
Maybe I’ll be able to break out my cross country skis tomorrow morning. I think we’ve only had enough snow here to cross country ski once in the five years since I bought them.
It’s No Fun Anymore!
I know everyone says you cannot look back or do the retroactive “what if?” scenarios but I cannot help it. Had I not skied out of my comfort zone on the last run of the last day of three days of skiing last month, I would be in Vermont skiing this week. I had a three day package booked for Killington. I would have been in the Baja Cantina at the Chalet Killington right now having drinks and eating a half-price burrito or appetizer.
If I were not drooling over the food, I would have been salivating about the conditions. They got 11″ inches of snow in the last 48 hours and a total of 44″ for the last week. The conditions were as good last year when I skied there at the end of February. 13″ of snow fell the day before I arrived on the mountain. It was awesome. I am sure it is just as good right now if not better. The conditions were pretty darn good when I was there in early January this year.
Ah me. What is one to do? I guess I just have to keep working on getting my knee strong. Hopefully I will be in my kayak paddling and on my motorcycle riding in a month or two and skiing again next winter.
Getting a Leg Up After Skinny Skiing
I sprained my knee in a bad way three days ago on our last ski run of the day. Over the course of three days, we had been occasionally dropping/jumping off this eight foot or so drop off from the Giant Boulder trail at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in PA.
We have a group trip there every year that is good skiing and great companionship. Last year we started doing a race that is comprised of the four Black Diamond trails on the north side of the resort. The race went well this year though we had only four participants. Two of them took the wrong lift up after the first run and ended up winning the race. More on that later.
We had figured for a more leisurely run down one of the Blacks to wind up the day when Dan Elbon suggested we hit the drop off one more time. We were all game for it but both Dan and I ran into problems. According to friends and family on the lift that had a great view of the action, Dan didn’t stick well and rolled down the whole drop zone.
I got a good stick but lost it shortly after that. Dan was okay but with skis and poles akimbo. I somehow managed to keep everything close. My downhill (right) ski bindings finally popped, albeit too late for my knee, and one of my poles broke loose. I got one good roll in that smacked my, thankfully helmeted, head into the ground. I think perhaps I should have just taken the fall. I may have tried too hard to stick to my line which torqued my knee. What can I say? Can’t look back, eh?
So why “Getting a Leg Up After Skinny Skiing?” I am keeping the knee elevated per the doctors orders…I guess to keep the swelling down. What to I know? And I broke my streak of not falling. Then last night I watched Caddyshack on TV. Chevy Chase is talking to Judge Smails niece who says she likes “skinny skiing.”
I haven’t fallen in four or five years. It was my mantra. Then I kept bringing it up so I had to have jinxed myself…truly. I skied in Vermont for five days in a row two weeks ago and stayed erect the whole time!
As regards the knee…it did not feel good on the mountain. I could not put weight on it in a way that I felt like I could get down the rest of the run. As I mentioned, a few people I know saw me take the spill and there was a ski patrol shift supervisor going up the lift right about the time I realized that I needed help. We talked, he came right down after he got to the top. After a quick evaluation, he called for a sled, they splinted my leg, loaded me on a sled, and took me down to the First Aid shack
…that was scarier than getting out of control on a speed run…I was strapped into the sled upside down with my head on the down slope…perhaps the ski patrol dude was pissed off at me…he did not waste anytime getting down the hill…
where they loaded me up in a Suburban to take me to ski patrol central. There they did another evaluation and someone like “Stuttering John” took my personal and accidental information for the records. My sister Julie had tracked me down and had her hubby bring my hiking boots down for me so I could get out of my ski boots.
As I reflect back on the questions they asked about the whole incident, I wonder why they didn’t ask what the hell I though I was doing running off the drop off. I have only seen a few people do it and they mostly just drop off from a dead stop where as we were keeping up speed going off the thing. Oddly, the ski patrol guys that I was talking to as they loaded me up in the sled agreed with me that it was a good drop off. I guess they figured if I had the balls to go off the thing, I was probably okay. They said it was awesome earlier in the week when there was some fluff and the snow in the drop zone was softer.
Even considering the spill and risk I took, the ski patrol did not give me any grief. I am sure that they had seen me on mountain. My Budweiser pants are hard to miss. We had actually almost got shut down after the first run of our race. Could have been anyone of us that got called for it because we came into the lift area hard but Lee and I passed through to the next, and correct, lift while Matt and Dan stopped. I think it was Matt who was chastised for coming into the lift line too fast.
So I am sitting here with a leg, actually both, up the sofa. It has been three days but I can put weight on the right leg and walk without support, though having my walking stick helps. I got some crutches when stopped at my doctor’s on the way home yesterday but they suck.
Many thanks to Julie and Ed…Julie took Ryan back to school at WVU and Ed drove me and my car home. And thanks to them for taking care of me including moving all my baggage around and such.
I was able to put my socks and shoes on by myself Monday which was good. Today my knee feels much better. I think the swelling is going down. I am mobile. I can feel the soreness in my right leg muscles which I gather are compensating for/protecting the ligaments or is a result of the overall strain on my leg. Flexibility is increasing and swelling decreasing daily.
Wiping out was a sorry way to wind up the trip but at least there seems to be no permanent damage and it was the last run of the day on what probably would have been the last day I skied on the trip. At least I got three good days in.
News from the Road
I have been on the road since last Friday when I left to head up to Vermont to ski. En route I stopped to see my old Navy buddy Terry Boone in Avoca, PA. We did our usual…head out with Terry’s boys and his dad for dinner and then went out for few drinks. Terry’s hospitality is endless. I always enjoying seeing him and his family.
Saturday I drove from Avoca up to West Addison, VT, to visit my friend’s the Devino’s. There’s another crew with endless hospitality. They put me up a couple of times a year with hardly a whimper. That night we got about 8 inches of snow. I was dying to be on the slopes for the freshies but was committed to making chili. Once that was going well and needed only the occasional stir, I headed off to do some snowmobiling with little Ed and then cross country skied for about two hours.
I had to cook the chili because everyone that tried it the the last time I made it there requested a repeat performance. Did this one with venison. I doubt most people would have known the difference but I could taste it in the cubed parts that I added. It went over quite well again. Linda made, at my request since it was my birthday, a pineapple upside down cake. I love that stuff and rarely ever have it. They all got me a six-pack of TB’s for my birthday…how well they know me.
Monday I had a good 2-3 hours of skiing at Mad River Glen before my legs gave out. Tuesday I drove down to Killington and tacked a half day onto my 3-day package. Once again I got in about 2-3 hours on the mountain. When my legs are in good condition, I can ski about about 5.5 hours a day. Yesterday I got about four hours in but it was in the single digits. Today it was -8 at the bottom of the mountain when I got started at 10:30 and -1 at the top when I headed down for my last run at about 3:45.
I managed to stay reasonably comfortable by doing some serious layering, slathering my face and ears with Vaseline, and adding a thin fleece hat on top of the the balaclava I wear under my ski helmet. Unfortunately, the toes are usually the first to get cold. Thankfully you don’t really notice that when you are pounding down the mountain. I did break down and buy some serious mittens at the end of the day today. My gloves, though quite a nice pair, just weren’t cutting it.
One last note on managing the cold…as in lesson learned. At one point yesterday I was moseying down a long cruiser trail. I didn’t have any wind breaking pants on. Take that as you will… Also, for some dumb reason I was going camo. Even though I had three layers of clothing on the lower half of the body, I darn near froze my you know whats off. It was mighty uncomfortable. Never again
Tomorrow it is supposed to be a few degrees warmer. I’ll get out first thing and stay on the sunny side and try to get 4 or 5 hours in before I call it a day and head back up to Linda’s. I’ll probably head out early Saturday to get back home. Then we are off next Friday for 7 Springs for three more days of skiing. Then I really have to start looking for a job.
Here are a few pics from the trip. There’s nothing special. Though all but one day on the mountain has been beautiful with views for miles, it has just been too damn cold to take pictures.
Leanto’s in DAR State Park in Addison County, VT. I was cross-country skiing from my friend’s house.
View across Lake Champlain to NY from DAR State Park.
Mad River Glen Ski Area.
View from near the top of Mt. Killington.
Cat’s Meow and Why I Really Have to Find a Job
My cat Hamlet just will not shut up. If he is not meowing at me, he is roaring at something else unknown, doing his Tony the Tiger imitation. He meows when he is hungry, meows when he wants me to go to bed so he can cuddle up to my overweight, warm body, and he meows when he thinks I should get up, even if all that means is that I am going to go back to bed to read.
I found something on the Internet that reflects my cat’s behavior almost exactly. It is called “Rippling/Rolling Skin Syndrome.” I never thought it possible that my cat was anything other than whacked, he is Korean, but there may be some some scientific basis for his behavior. He is 18. I just figured he was old. Ironically, the article says the syndrome is most common with younger cats. Unfortunately, he is also so deaf that I don’t think he even realizes how much noise he is making.
I thought it was bad when I was working and not home all the time. Now that I am around so much more, it is making me even crazier. If monetary needs and Hamlet don’t drive me back to the job market, nothing will. I do have a couple of work arounds planned though. I have three multi-day ski trips planned between now and the end of February so at least I’ll get some respite before I start working again.