batman returns

2002.02.21 1.00

Last night I seriously considered just blowing past the ski trip and going to work instead. I decided I'd still set the alarm clocks to go off at 4 AM. I'd decide then. When I woke up I thought, ''what the hell?'' and got ready. I used Yahoo Maps to find my way to the station. Yahoo Maps SUCK in Philadelphia. They always want you to drive through the worst parts of the city. I started to freak out that I wasn't going to make it there in time. I had to stop and ask for directions two times because the intersections are so poorly marked. I did find it, though. Upon my arrival I was promptly greeted by a cute intern named Leigh who handed me an envelope containing tickets and an itinerary. She then pointed me to the coffee and donuts which I snarfed. I then climbed into the bus and took a nap as we drove to Blue Mountain

We arrived about an hour before anything opened, so I got to inspect the premises for quite a while. Eventually the rental shop and lift ticket booth opened up and I made my purchases. Lift tickets are actually ''zipper passes'' that you clip to your jacket zipper. I tried on my skis. They did fit. I then FOOLISHLY thought I would ski down to the lift. Big mistake. I was able to maintain balance but I realized I had no idea how to stop. So I wiped out. I did a fair degree of damage to my right hand. That was injury #1. Ouch. Not pretty. I took off my skis and walked back to the lodge via a dirt road. At that point I hated skiing. I went back to the lodge and tried to relax. I called my coworker (Will) on my cell phone to inquire how anyone could like this sport? Skiing. Swimming. Skating. All of these are insane opportunities to take a brush with death. How many people die from playing basketball, I ask? None! Totally safe. No water to drown in. No solid objects to ski into. Will had some advice for me: Take a skiing class. What I didn't realize at first was that practically all of the contest winners with me were already expert skiers. In Texas, we don't ski. We eat snow cones and say things like, ''Wow, this snow cone sure is cold.'' We never say, ''Wow, I could take 500,000 snowcones and spread it across the side of a mountain and ski on it!'' Oh, we don't have mountains either, did I mention that? So, anyway, I took my extra lift and rental tickets and sold them to people waiting in line. This allowed me to finance the purchase of gloves from the ski shop. Next up was a trip to the First Aid station to clean up my bloody hand. It was self serve so I just did the usual alcohol pad and bandaid dealy-y0.

The lesson was fantastic. I got one-on-one treatment with the instructor as it was so early. My instructor was named Brian Vick and it turns out he runs an online store called SuperDairyBoy.com specializing in ''unique toys.'' He'd even been to the New York Toy Fair just this past week. Why does everyone get to go to that thing? I wanna go! We discussed marketing and traffic generation tips everytime I had to side step back up the bunny slopes where I practiced stopping, and turning, and turning and turning. After a solid hour of practice I was ready to tempt death once again on the bloody slopes of Blue Moutain. My blood. Everything turned out great after the lesson. I was able to get to the lift without a problem. Matter of fact, I only briefly stopped skiing the whole day to eat lunch and grab a snack later on (pretzels + mustard = goooooood). I think I got in a good six hours of skiing before we had to leave at 5. I skied all over that place. I never ventured into the more dangerous routes, however. Maybe the next time after the next time. My final bodily battle damage includes: bruised/cute right hand (cause: wipeout), sore left shoulder (cause: wipeout), extremely sore left knee (cause: my left knee has always sucked), some minor aches in my ribs (cause: wipeout) and a sore right ankle (cause: previous injury). I obviously wiped out a number of times to do all this, but the gloves saved me from any more digital damage. I only wish I wouldn't have forgotten them on the bus when I got back to Philadelphia. Frustrating. I'm now back in the good ol' Best Western and trying not to move anymore. Ever.

In older news, I signed up for something like 10 different singles websites before I went to bed last night. Today in retrospect, however, I am starting to think this is a really bad idea since the results have been fruitless. While it is true that the ski lodge was filled with many girls, most of them were either married, dating someone, too young, too old or too ugly. I'm talking Lassie would be able to hold entire conversations with them, but I digress. While I was on the ski lift I spotted this mom totally checking me out. I, uhhhh, pretended to be looking at my phone when that happened. Uhhh... yeah. ;-)

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are my own only and in no way represent the views, positions or opinions - expressed or implied - of my employers both past and present. « 2 A.M. \| Main \| stood up » batman returns 2002.02.21 1.00 Last night I seriously considered just blowing past the ski trip and going to work instead. I decided I'd still set the alarm clocks to go off at 4 AM. I'd decide then. When I woke up I thought, ''what the hell?'' and got ready. I used Yahoo Maps to find my way to the station. Yahoo Maps SUCK in Philadelphia. They always want you to drive through the worst parts of the city. I started to freak out that I wasn't going to make it there in time. I had to stop and ask for directions two times because the intersections are so poorly marked. I did find it, though. Upon my arrival I was promptly greeted by a cute intern named Leigh who handed me an envelope containing tickets and an itinerary. She then pointed me to the coffee and donuts which I snarfed. I then climbed into the bus and took a nap as we drove to Blue Mountain We arrived about an hour before anything opened, so I got to inspect the premises for quite a while. Eventually the rental shop and lift ticket booth opened up and I made my purchases. Lift tickets are actually ''zipper passes'' that you clip to your jacket zipper. I tried on my skis. They did fit. I then FOOLISHLY thought I would ski down to the lift. Big mistake. I was able to maintain balance but I realized I had no idea how to stop. So I wiped out. I did a fair degree of damage to my right hand. That was injury #1. Ouch. Not pretty. I took off my skis and walked back to the lodge via a dirt road. At that point I hated skiing. I went back to the lodge and tried to relax. I called my coworker (Will) on my cell phone to inquire how anyone could like this sport? Skiing. Swimming. Skating. All of these are insane opportunities to take a brush with death. How many people die from playing basketball, I ask? None! Totally safe. No water to drown in. No solid objects to ski into. Will had some advice for me: Take a skiing class. What I didn't realize at first was that practically all of the contest winners with me were already expert skiers. In Texas, we don't ski. We eat snow cones and say things like, ''Wow, this snow cone sure is cold.'' We never say, ''Wow, I could take 500,000 snowcones and spread it across the side of a mountain and ski on it!'' Oh, we don't have mountains either, did I mention that? So, anyway, I took my extra lift and rental tickets and sold them to people waiting in line. This allowed me to finance the purchase of gloves from the ski shop. Next up was a trip to the First Aid station to clean up my bloody hand. It was self serve so I just did the usual alcohol pad and bandaid dealy-y0. The lesson was fantastic. I got one-on-one treatment with the instructor as it was so early. My instructor was named Brian Vick and it turns out he runs an online store called SuperDairyBoy.com specializing in ''unique toys.'' He'd even been to the New York Toy Fair just this past week. Why does everyone get to go to that thing? I wanna go! We discussed marketing and traffic generation tips everytime I had to side step back up the bunny slopes where I practiced stopping, and turning, and turning and turning. After a solid hour of practice I was ready to tempt death once again on the bloody slopes of Blue Moutain. My blood. Everything turned out great after the lesson. I was able to get to the lift without a problem. Matter of fact, I only briefly stopped skiing the whole day to eat lunch and grab a snack later on (pretzels + mustard = goooooood). I think I got in a good six hours of skiing before we had to leave at 5. I skied all over that place. I never ventured into the more dangerous routes, however. Maybe the next time after the next time. My final bodily battle damage includes: bruised/cute right hand (cause: wipeout), sore left shoulder (cause: wipeout), extremely sore left knee (cause: my left knee has always sucked), some minor aches in my ribs (cause: wipeout) and a sore right ankle (cause: previous injury). I obviously wiped out a number of times to do all this, but the gloves saved me from any more digital damage. I only wish I wouldn't have forgotten them on the bus when I got back to Philadelphia. Frustrating. I'm now back in the good ol' Best Western and trying not to move anymore. Ever. In older news, I signed up for something like 10 different singles websites before I went to bed last night. Today in retrospect, however, I am starting to think this is a really bad idea since the results have been fruitless. While it is true that the ski lodge was filled with many girls, most of them were either married, dating someone, too young, too old or too ugly. I'm talking Lassie would be able to hold entire conversations with them, but I digress. While I was on the ski lift I spotted this mom totally checking me out. I, uhhhh, pretended to be looking at my phone when that happened. Uhhh... yeah. ;-) « 2 A.M. \| Main \| stood up »