tanners again

Tanners is maybe my favorite chute in Little Cottonwood Canyon. And even though it’s been a crappy snow year, Tanners skied like butter, totally filled, creamy corn, and the approach was as good as I’ve ever seen it.

Also Steve almost died.

I’ve taken some heat for taking noobs on difficult hikes. (Difficult for normal people–not for those supermen who bag 10 peaks a day in tights.) But Steve snowboards and doesn’t have a splitboard, so a straight-up booter like Tanners is perfect. I mean, sure, it’s 4,000 feet of vertical, and the skiing is a touch steep at the top. But mostly it’s a straightforward endeavor.

Apart from over turning a bit on his first backcountry turn ever and then sliding and tomahawking about a quarter mile down the upper chute, Steve totally nailed it. And he says he wants to go again. So win/win.

Some pics, then a video.

Hobear negotiating the water hazard

Rob n Steve enjoying finally reaching the sun.

Hobear says it’s getting steep

It’s definitely getting steep

Crawling the last 10 of 4,000 feet.

Hobear ripping the first of 4,000 feet

Me enjoying a bit of the picturesque ridge

Me n Hobear enjoying the sun

I think one more time before we’re done this year.

WAT

As I’m sure you know, WAT is the new WTF. It’s the hot meme right now.

Wait, you mean I’m late to this party, it’s played and now lame?

WAT

Anyway, I just spent two days with the Bobs. They weren’t actually named Bob, but they might as well have been. Two days in a Motivating Change seminar. In a conference room. Two days. About Motivating Change. With the Bobs.

WAT

Several hours in, I started amusing myself by capturing WAT moments on the notepad they provided me. I used to call these Hedgehog moments. Now I call them WAT moments. Whatever.

Here’s the annotated list.

1. The speaker referred to a study, and gave us the numbers, something like “3 out of 4 dentists recommend Trident.” But then he said “I mean, whatever, that’s not empirical data, but . . . ”

WAT? Of course it’s empirical data. It is a study conducted by studiers, on the studied. It resulted in data. That data is empirical.

2. Passerbys. Bob, in an offhand way, said something like “He ignored all the passerbys and stayed focused.”

WAT? It’s passersby. You speak in front of people for a living. You’re welcome.

3. Foyer. He said Foe Yay. Which I know some people do when they are pretentious or funny. This guy was neither. I mean, if you know how to say “passersby” you can go ahead and say Foe Yay to be funny, but anybody who says Foe Yay straight up is a @#!*% . Just stop it.

4. Bob loves quotes, some more than others. Bob had a quote from Machiavelli on a slide. Except he didn’t say Machiavelli. He said Mack uh velli. If you’re going to go to all the trouble of calling out a quote by putting it on a slide that you use as part of your job, in front of lots of paying customers, maybe look up how to say his name. I’m not Italian. But I know how to say Machiavelli.

5. How do we help people through change? We need to be humble. We need to avoid hubrisnous.”

WAT? Hubrisnous? Is that like Hubricity? Hubristitude? Hubriscosity? Or perhaps just Hubris. As in, this entry is the height of Hubris.

6. We watched quite a few clips from movies to illustrate the stages of change. Many clips came from Remember the Titans. Which is a good movie. No complaints. Until he said, as he queued up a clip, “By the way, best soundtrack to a movie, all time, hands down, no question.”

WAT? Now, I know, lists are subjective. But no list I can find lists Remember the Titans’ soundtrack as even exceptional, much less best EVER. In fact, it’s not on most top one HUNDRED soundtracks. It’s a soundtrack full of standard oldies like “I heard it through the grapevine” and Ain’t no mountain high enough.” The TWILIGHT movies have better soundtracks for crying out loud. Has this guy never seen Pulp Fiction? Or The Godfather? Or a Hard Day’s Night? Or even Amadeus. WAT!

Okay, I have a notepad full of this. But I’m sure you’ve seen enough.

Here’s a final sample. On a key slide, a bullet point said “Employees will have allot of questions.” Really? At $1500 a head, you couldn’t have an editor or your mom go over the slides?

Thanks Bob.

Bonus WAT moment–“The change went by super fast, like a light year.” WAT? I’m not sure that word means what you think it means.

the primrose path

I’ve been wanting to get Kim’s dad out on a bigger type day for a long time. Cuz it was Kim’s dad that got me into backcountry skiing in the first place, and then took me n Kim to Italy to practice it.

Our objective was to go from Aspen Grove and get as high as we could up the Primrose Cirque, maybe to the lake, and if the weather and Senior’s knees held, to the south summit of Timp (and then ski back the way we came).

Well, contrary to all early weather forecasts, Saturday’s weather was as blustery as Pooh’s day, no sun, and constant snow flurries. Since when does a storm come in early?

Oh, and I should mention that there wasn’t much snow down low. That is, we walked with skis on packs past the first waterfall. Two years ago, on Memorial Day, me n Steve n Rob went up the Primrose Cirque en route to the East Ridge of Timp, and were on snow almost from the car.

Oh, and once past the waterfall, the snow was so firm that except for a small flat patch, we didn’t even bother taking our skis off our packs. Just booted the whole way. No big.

Senior and I were joined by Hobear and Kim’s brother Daniel and Kim’s sister Jaynann. Kind of a family affair.

When we all finally got back to the car, I heard a lot of jokes about the route and conditions. Like, what if I had emailed the crew beforehand and said “hey, how bout we go hiking with skis? We’ll walk a mile or two on dirt, then boot/crawl 3,000 feet with skis on packs, then ski variable snow for 2500 feet, the totally bushwhack a while before finally getting to walk on some more dirt to the car. Oh, and we might fall 50 feet or so into a waterfall.”

Well, if I’d put it like THAT, who would have come? See? And now they’re all happy they did. You know what they say–there is no bad snow, only bad skiers. It’s pretty rare to regret a backcountry skiing outing. We didn’t regret this one.

K, here’s lots and lots (and lots) of pics, and then a video.

jay is very excited at 5 in the morning

still dark, still not aware of how far we would have to walk to hit snow.

Notice how optimistic we are, some of us even carrying skis on shoulder, just waiting for snow.

 

We hit snow finally, it just wasn’t skinnable (by us anyway)

Still happy

Jay crawls alone

Still smiling

Almost to the top of the cirque

Hobear got tired of waiting, and crawled on ahead

Hanging out top of the cirque

Just wandering around the upper massif behind Timp

We also skied

Jay skied

Daniel skied

There was some lounging

Some route finding

More “route finding”

Does it go?

It sort of goes. Yes, I thought I might die.

Some heinous bushwhacking

And we finally ran out of snow

And, here’s that video I was telling you about. (It’s about 3:40 where I thought one of us might not be coming back. Spoiler–we all came back.)

it is time

I kind of feel like Rafiki.

It Is Time!

yup. all good.

And while we’re here, I want to pose a question.

You know what a farmer blow is, right? Or a “snot rocket”? I’ve been known to blow a few of those in my time, especially while riding my bike. Cuz you know, when you’re climbing faster than you should, you need all your orifices for air.

So I don’t really care what we call that thing. What I’m asking is, what do you call it when you blow the blow? That is. you plug one nostril (for lack of a better word–maybe “blowhole?”), and you blow to enable breathing, and somehow the seal you created at the back of your throat (or the front, if you’re pressing your tongue to roof of mouth–this is not the preferred method) to direct all air out the blowhole, blows. You blow the blow.

And you make a sound kind of like Gollum makes. And if you’re lucky, you also feel like you’ve scraped some skin off the back of your throat.

Okay, all that. So, the question is, what do you call that?

snowbird con la familia

I remember a couple years ago, Ian wanted to go to Park City to ski with a bunch of friends, and he was working out logistics of rides and lift tickets and all that.

He worked it out, but sadly, with no help from me. Cuz I told him, “so, Ian. We are a Snowbird family. You’re on your own with this.”

Saturday, taking advantage of the 20-30 of new they got up in LCC, we used the last of our 10 to shares .

Kyle gave me some good advice today.

“If your kids are throwing real tricks off the cat track, maybe you shouldn’t jump. It just looks lame.”

Sage advice.

save it for later

Occasionally I get emails from alert readers and friends who (reasonably) think that something ridiculous or obscene or disgusting fits right in my blog wheelhouse. I have no idea where they get this idea. So mostly I simply ignore these “helpful” suggestions.

But today, Jon, friend, beloved bike builder, and all around good guy, sent me two pics from a bathroom in St. George that I could not leave alone.

First, the scene:

seems innocent enough

Okay, no big deal. Just a regular bathroom. But let’s zoom in a bit. What’s that on top of the soap dispenser?

yup. there it is.

Why, that’s gum.

And that’s a thing that makes you go Hmmm. Because

1. the gum is chewed.
2. there is a trash can nearby, but the gum was instead carefully placed on top of the soap dispenser.
3. if the gum is chewed, and not thrown away, does that indicate the chewer needed the space in his or her mouth for something else?
4. after consuming the “something else” (in the bathroom!?) was the chewer planning on retrieving and chewing the gum again?
5. this is a bathroom. most things, including solids, give off some form of airborne particulate matter.
6. ew.

Jon, thanks for sharing. These things are too much to carry alone, and we are with you.

 

snogression session

My friend Burke told me about Snogression over a year ago, but the idea of a foam pit kept me from visiting before now. Watch the video below and you’ll see why foam pits and I don’t get along. You know how nobody gets out of Dante’s Inferno? Foam pits just barely missed the cut. I have it on good authority that Dante was totally on the fence with the foam pit, and only went with the Harpies because foam pits hadn’t been invented yet.

Anyway.

I took the boys to Snogression last night and we spent two hours on the kicker. Holden and Ian got their big air groove on, and I let the steep kicker work its magic. Big night for me. That is, well, let’s let Gene Wilder say it:

From that fateful day when stinking bits of slime first crawled from the sea and shouted to the cold stars, “I am man.”, our greatest dread has always been the knowledge of our mortality. But tonight, we shall hurl the gauntlet of science into the frightful face of death itself. Tonight, we shall ascend into the heavens. We shall mock the earthquake. We shall command the thunders, and penetrate into the very womb of impervious nature herself.

Okay fine, maybe I’m overstating it. But I did a backflip or five. Which, tragically, we did not capture on video. No, just me getting out of the foam pit like a beached whale.

I’m not bitter. Ian didn’t get any pics, but at least he got video.

Some pics. Then some video of the rescue operation.

Will he? Won’t he?

He will!

Holden gets a new perspective

Holden getting crossed up

I think Dante was wrong–foam pits are waaay worse than Harpies.

pearls before swine?

You know how if you share something super important to you, like, say, your favorite movie, or a favorite restaurant, and they hate it, you know how that sucks? Or even suckier, if they’re indifferent?

So I’m talking to Ian the other day. You know, the Ian who is totally into electronic music, some dubstep, Bonobo and the like, and who wants me to listen to it all the time whenever we’re in the car. Or everywhere.

Anyway. Earlier that day (the day when I was talking to Ian), I had watched the first song from Stop Making Sense, Psycho Killer, and had this wave of nostalgia wash over me–Stop Making Sense was my first midnight movie (that I stayed awake for–my first was The Song Remains the Same–who can stay awake for that at midnight?), and it’s awesome, and I love it, and so should everyone. EVERYONE!

So I pulled up the Psycho Killer video on my phone and said to Ian (who loves music, so of course would love something as awesome and groundbreaking and important as this) “hey Ian. Watch this.” (No pressure, right? It’s just my soul I handed to you just now.)

He watched it in silence. And then said “That was weird.” And handed my phone back to me.

Remember the movie Broadcast News, when Jack Nicholson rips Albert Brooks’ heart out on the set, and Albert leans in and whispers to Holly Hunter “I’m going to go outside and cry. When I go, laugh like I just told you something hysterical so nobody knows I’m dying inside.”

It was kind of like that.

(Except, right after that, Ian said “hey, can we watch the next Godfather movie tonight?” And then later he said “so I’ve kind of been listening to nothing but Radiohead lately.” It’s hard to be mad at someone who says stuff like that.)

 

a good day to do scotties

Me n Holden n Mark, we few, we happy few, did the early morning thing in Scotties Bowl this morning. And even though the skinner was in, even though we had that Wasangeles feel with headlamps ahead of us and headlamps behind us, and LCC got a foot while other places, you know, like BCC, got mostly nuthin, we still had a pretty good day. On a shot where you pretty much ski 2500 feet of north facing powder car to car.

hey, i can see my car

holden chasing his sluff

crazy how you can see the city, kind of, over there

there goes holden

there went holden

the skiing was good. real good.

Just before we dropped out into the bowl, Holden yelled “Hey, there’s a nice air to get out of the chute.”

I said “Um, mandatory?”

And he said “Don’t be such a baby.” And he turned and aired out into the bowl.

The whole drive home, he kept turning to me and saying “Hey Dad . . . Mandatory?”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

little mandatory air exit from chute

Yes, I “aired” it

good all the way down

Here’s the motion picture version:

 

big days day

Me n the two Tylers got out Saturday trying to get deeper into Days. About 4,000 feet later we were satisfied. There’s good snow in them thar hills. The helis beat us there, but they left a little for us.

I’ve only been getting video of the descents lately, cuz I broke my Contour, but I still have my magic goggles.

Maybe I should sell the magic goggles and buy some new base layers. Because now, I can wash my smart wool base and new Artcteryx shirt over and over, but the moment the hike begins, all the stink returns, like Hamlet’s sins. I don’t know if I’m attracting or repelling the wild life.

Don’t answer that. It wasn’t a question anyway.

groundhog day on lone peak

I loves me some Lone Peak, and weather and conditions aligned perfectly on Groundhog day for another outing. I think I’m going to make this a Groundhog day tradition. (I’m not sure I have a choice. Do I?)

We started with seven from Alpine, and first to drop was Kyle, who later found out he was sporting a nasty fever. Second to drop was Rob, who hiked to the second hammongog and had to bail for family stuff, meaning he hiked halfway, and before the sun did its work on the snow, he had to ski the old road back to the car on what he called “the worst snow he has ever experienced.”

The rest of us kept at it, and the day turned glorious. Not a cloud in the sky, no wind at all, and not another soul in sight. For a while I thought we were going to be skiing breakable crust for 6,000 feet, but the higher we climbed, the better we felt about the conditions–the descent was going to be good. Not real corn, but soft, fast, creamy goodness.

But enough talk. Pictures tell the story.

Tyler at the first Hamongog.

Burke making his way to the lunch spot above the second hamongog.

Tyler enjoying lunch at the halfway spot.

Yup, he hiked in that. All day.

Back on the trail

Plenty of snow, just need it to soften (it did).

That’s Holden up there. Leading. By a lot.

Did you see that sky today? Talk about blue.

Tyler and Jon on the summit ridge

Holden looking down on the valley

Tyler above it all

Jon’s rock star pose

Holden thinks about that Lone Peak East Chute

Holden looks into Bells Canyon

Elevensies

And, yes, I was in fact, there.

Burke tags the view out his back window

And, then we enjoyed the awesomeness

I should mention here, that Holden, all 14 years of him, led most of the day, including all of the second half. I hear we have Whitney’s spin class to thank. So thanks Whitney’s spin class.

The descent was fast. Or, rather, the descent to the second hamongog was fast. Then the descent to the first hamongog was half fun, half tricky, half super tricky. And then the descent to the water tank was icky. But we all agreed, a thin veneer of snow on dirt and rock was waaaaay better than booting down that last mile with skis on packs.

Here’s a little summit video. Just as a bonus. (Just summiting really, with a start on the descent, but camera battery issues prevented good video.)

See you next Groundhog Day. Duh.

just between you and me

I don’t want to belabor the topic, but I finally burned a lunch break and drove my defunct Comcast remote down to the Comcast service center and traded it in for a shiny new remote, all shrink-wrapped and everything.

Last night I set about teaching my remote to connect with my TV. Which is easy, right? You just look on the handy instruction sheet for the code that matches your TV, then follow the steps that seem a little like the fancy dance Vin Diesel does in The Pacifier (You know, the Peter Panda Dance–“Roll like a log till you can’t roll no more! Better jump up quick like there ain’t no floor, Hold your breath, and jump/step/slide to the left; And that’s the Peter, I swear that’s the Peter, That’s the Peter Panda Dance!”–Remember NOW?)

Anyway, I forget what I was talking about. Oh, right, I’m training my Comcast remote. Which feels a lot like being punked with all the clicking and pointing and waiting. And it’s NOT WORKING.

I try it like 20 times, with every code on the page. I go behind the TV with my iPhone flashlight app, to see if I can get more specific on the model number. And finally, I sit in front of the TV, and dial up Comcast support, get in the queue, put the phone on speaker while I wait, and watch Predator (what a serendipitous little surprise that our TV should be stuck on Predator).

Finally, right as Arnold squares off in the mud with the ugly alien, I get a live one on the phone.

“No problem sir, I can walk you through that.”

Cool.

“What’s the make of your television?”

It’s a Mitsubish . . . . um, well, it’s a TOSHIBA.” Aaahhhhhhhhhhh!

Me, now knitting my shaming hair shirt which is waaay less shaming than to tell all y’all about this.

Let’s just keep it between us okay?

channel 4 will do

Remember Commercial Free?

I’ll raise you a Cable Remote.

Our digital cable remote recently had a stroke. And, like a stroke victim, the remote now works on the left side, but not the right side. That is, volume control, on/off, but no channel or guide control.

So, rather than examine the root causes of stroke (um, straining at bowel movement?), we . . . well, we did nothing. We are stuck on channel 4.

At least it’s the HD version of channel 4.

Or, we crawl up to the cable box, and squint or use the iPhone flashlight app and find the channel buttons on the box.

Last night I had enough–I dialed up Comcast support.

After 35 minutes of wading through menus and waiting on hold, I hung up, crawled up to the cable box, and changed the channel.

not crazy at all

Yay me. I have discovered a new permutation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. My last discovery centered around the su . . . er, around the process of drying oneself after a shower.

In a nutshell, the discovery was this: You can dry yourself in order, but you can’t KNOW the order of the drying. Simple, yet crazy.

So last night, I was leaving work, got in the elevator, which was a bit crowded and cramped, and then tried to put on my jacket.

Well, I was blocked to my right, so I put on the left sleeve first. And then I froze. “Ahhh! I can’t find my other sleeve. I’m trapped in my jacket, help.”

Bile rising, panic setting in, I bit my lip until we reached the ground floor and I could burst into the hallway and take off my left sleeve, and put on my jacket properly, right sleeve first. I hesitate to describe the process for fear of violating Dug’s Uncertainty Principle, but it’s like this:

1. right arm in.
2. swing jacket around the back, while left hand reaches behind looking for the armhole.
3. push left arm through.
4. shrug the jacket up to the shoulders.

See? Perfectly rational. Not crazy at all.

Just don’t screw it up.

skiing is fun

I like backcountry skiing. I’m not awesome, and I’m not fast, but sometimes the awesome and fast guys accidentally include me on the invite, and then are too embarrassed to uninvite me.

That happened twice recently. Yay me.

First, we got a big group out to hit the Pink Pine upper ridge in LCC. Once you’re past the booter, the whole northeast face of that ridge is a series of great shots, all of which are skiable.

Well. That is, we had skis on our feet. The middle portion gets a little spicy, at least for the likes of me.

Then last week, we hit the Superior shoulder in LCC with a well-deserved afternoon tour. We conga-lined our way up to Pole Line pass, and along the ridge to Two Trees, the first real south facing shot once you’re around Cardiff Peak. While we could feel the bottom (ha ha ha ha ha), the boot-top super light on top was well well worth it. And sometimes the apron is the best part. This time, for example.

 

now you have something to write in your blog

In a Friends episode, Joey, Chandler, and Ross are out trying to party like rockstars, but they run out of steam around 10pm. To make themselves feel better, they talk about how it’s okay because they’re not so young anymore:

Chandler: I’m 29 years old, damn it! And I want to sit in a comfortable chair, and watch television, and go to sleep at a reasonable hour.
Joey: Yeah, yeah. And I’d like to hang out in a quiet place where I can talk to my friends.
Ross: Yeah. And so what if I like to go home, throw on some Kenny G, and take a bath.
Joey: We’re 29; we’re not women.

Well, I’m no Ross, but, here it comes, I like to throw on some Pinback, grab a glass of cold milk, a big pile of double stuff Oreos, my magazine, and take a bath. There, I said it.

So, tonight, I’m taking a bath. Kim’s in the bedroom, reading. And I realize I’m missing some key ingredients.

“Hey, do we have any Oreos?”

“No. But we have some black licorice.”

Who among us is not, in this instance, reminded of something Jesus said?

“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?”

I share Jesus’ admonition with Kim. And, without looking up, Kim says “Whatever, now you have something to write in your blog.”

backyard magic

It was about this time last year that I returned from a bit of a sabbatical. Last year I needed some time away, cuz like Peter Cetera says, “everybody needs a little time away.”

This year, I got lazy and thought the newfangled short form would suffice as an outlet. So I’ve spent some time on Facebook and Twitter (and Instagram–although, I’m not giving up on Instagram cuz it’s awesome. I commit to keeping my dog pictures on Instagram).

Turns out, Facebook and Twitter suck. That could be the grumpy old man in me talking.

Anyway. Enough old man ruminating about how letter writing is a lost art. Today’s feature is a video of Holden trying tricks in the backyard. We used to build tube runs and sled tracks in the backyard, but the kids growed up. Now it’s all kickers and stuff.

Holden is trying to perfect the switch 360 and the 540. I’m trying to get my 300 down. I think I’m just about there.

 

moab reboot

Reboots are all the rage these days. And almost always for the better. We’ve got darker, moodier, bloodier Batman, Spiderman, Superman (due out soon), and even a James Bond with Oedipal issues who cries (CRIES!).

Let me go on record–I’m in favor of all of it. Stories are all about execution. There is no story that won’t be interesting or funny or intense or at least watchable in the right story telling hands. Execution is the thing, not the play.Which brings me to something I said about Diet Coke many years ago.

I don’t know what happened between 2002 and 2004 at the Coca Cola think tank, but apparently the right person died, because there’s no way the same dipweed who came up with the crap that is Diet Coke with Lemon and the mess that is Diet Vanilla Coke also invented the sublime flavor bouquet that is Diet Coke with Lime. Somebody in Georgia deserves a promotion. And a big hug. And a night with an expensive hooker. I could go on. I’m just really, really grateful.

Diet Coke with Lime–execution at its finest.

This last weekend we held Fall Moab 2013, and I’m here to tell you, Moab has been re-booted. Maybe I’m late to the party. But somehow I missed the reformation. Somehow Moab changed from Jeep road heaven to singletrack paradise.

Here’s what I think happened–I think somehow the demographics shifted, and the old miner segment with a locals only mentality is finally the minority, and someone had the bright idea that alienating tourists by sneering at them in the grocery store, running them off the road with pickup trucks, and marking remote yet popular trails just enough to get someone into the middle of nowhere but not back again isn’t the best route to economic sustainability.

Someone is embracing the new world.

Because instead of going to Moab and choosing between Slickrock, Porcupine Rim, Amasa Back, Poison Spider Mesa, and Gold Bar Rim (ALL trails that are either old motorcycle playgrounds or abandoned Jeep roads, except for the lower section of Porcupine), we got into town Friday morning, and spent 6 hours exploring all the new trails in the Klondike Bluffs area, which is no longer just a quick and dirty family ride to an overlook and some dinosaur tracks and an overlook of Arches, but instead sports miles and miles of beautifully constructed singletrack like EKG, UFO, Giant Steps, and more.

Saturday, instead of just doing our usual all day outing on Gold Bar Rim (which is awesome), we started at the top of the old Gemini Bridges road, took aim at the Magnificent Seven, and did an endless amount of wicked awesome singletrack descending to the bridges, past the bridges, and up and around Gold Bar, finishing with the old Portal Trail.

And Sunday, we sampled just a portion of the Bar M area, doing Deadman’s Ridge and Lazy EZ and more.

Wow. All I can say is Wow. THIS! I WANT THIS!

Thanks Moab person who decided to re-invent himself/herself. You have raised the bar. The ball is in St. George’s court.

Oh yeah. Fall Moab. Me, Elden, Bob, Paul, Cori, Kenny, Steve, and Kris. (No Brad. No Gary. No Ricky. No Sunderlage. No Sleepy. Booooooooooooooo.) We rode. We had fun. We had seasons in the sun (mostly–the storms kept brushing us without actually hitting us).

Some pics. Jus fer fun.

Yup, the human Wilhelm Scream was along for the ride.

That storm brushed us like 5 times. Never really got us.

The brats were fresh, and the bread warm. And I had heartburn for 3 days.

There was some disagreement over how close is too close

This sort of thing was just lying around, just waiting for us to ride on it. I love Moab.

The “messer” becomes the “messee!”

Back in the day (before the advent of his children), Bob jumped the gap between these two twins.

The sign says “Walk your bike.” Elden laughs in the face of danger.

Kris stares into the beast on the Portal

The Piece de Resistance

Just esplorin

And finally, here’s me riding a bit. I followed all the standard rules (hands on the bars, feet locked in the pedals), but did poke my heels out a bit to let the rock know I was there.

here we go

After last year’s horrible snow year, we have high hopes for this year. Holden has four standard questions for me. He asks them of me every day.

1. When is it going to snow?

2. What day will Snowbird open?

3. Will this year be better than last year?

4. I want to ski.

Okay, technically, that last one isn’t a question. But still.

Anyway. Holden also asks me if we’ll ski before Halloween this year. Asked and answered:

Alta got 12 inches. Powder Mountain got 42 inches. So when Mark called (well, texted–men don’t call), it didn’t take much convincing. We faced the long dark of Moria and made the drive. 1.5 hours.

Totally worth it.

commercial free?

So, recently we’ve been having sort of a cinematic education/indoctrination series at the house. That is, I’ve been forcing the kids to watch movie series that are important to me. We watched all the Rocky movies (1-4–the rest never happened). Watched all the Star Wars movies. The Bourne Movies. The Lord of the Rings movies. And the Terminator movies. I have others still on the list. The Godfathers. The Screams. Back to the Futures. The Bonds.

But that’s not really the point. The point is, yesterday, we were flipping around between football games, and came across Terminator Salvation. So we settled in.

And two or three commercial cycles passed before we realized, um, so, we actually OWN this movie. Why are we watching a non HD, commercially interrupted version of a movie that is about visuals and sound and should not be interrupted?

What’s amazing is there was argument about whether we should do this. Keep watching this stupid TV version, or, if we were actually wanting to watch it, take the 20 seconds and slap the DVD into the player, and find the current scene.

Why this weird indecision? Is it because we didn’t plan to watch it, so we can’t take it seriously? I would get that if it were, say, Weekend at Bernies. But for Terminator Salvation?

We went ahead and put in the DVD. But now I kind of need to make two lists of movies–those you leave on the TV and those you stop and put in the DVD.

I’ll put that in my “projects” file.