bike vs. ski

There's a couple of ways to go about this. You can bike and ski on uphills, downhills, and flats. Biking gets the edge on uphills because when you ski uphill, you're basically walking with really heavy feet. You can't do sweet tricks or wheelies. Biking uphill, you can do cool stuff. On flats, you can generate a lot more speed and cover a lot more distance on a bike. Downhill, however, goes to skiing, and it goes huge. So the score is 2-1 in favor of bikes, but the downhill aspect has more impact. I give it a pretty solid tie, but the slight edge goes to bike because you can do it in any weather, whereas skiing is only on snow. Suck it, skiing.

Rain vs. Snow

Rain makes things green in the spring, whereas snow makes things white in the fall. Rain gives life to many things while snow covers and kills stuff. You'd think that people would like rain more, but in reality, people like it when it snows. Snow's more fun. You can do stuff when it snows, but can't really do stuff when it rains. Either that or people just don't want to.

warm fall

it's mid-november and really grey and warm. it rained all day yesterday, and i don't think there's a person in stowe who wishes it wasn't snow. on the plus side, you can see really well into the woods, and tree trimming and pruning is at its best.

Janette told me to.

I am finally getting to my blog because Janette told me to and I thought it was a good idea. I'm psyched to be back and I look forward to many more posts.

First Day

First day of golf today.  Shot a 46, which if you times it by two equals 92.  Not too bad considering the farm's greens were all sorts of burnt up.  So fun hitting the ball, though.  Had a few sweet iron shots and that really kept me in the game.  Lost two balls...also not bad for nine.  It's wicked sweet how you can go from skiing to golf so quickly around here.  

Last Day

What an amazing amount of snow on most of the trails!  That's thanks to snowmaking and grooming equipment and personnel who work tirelessly to provide fantastic snow surfaces.  Spring bumps are the best...especially on 198 Rossignol 9SM's.

Basketball versus Soccer

These two sports are total polar opposites.  In one, you can't use your feet, and in the other, you can't use your hands.  In one, you put a big ball into a small, unguarded hole ten feet off the floor fifty times in forty-eight minutes.  In the other, you put a small ball into a huge net maybe once every hour and a half.  The rush of excitement when a goal is scored in one is vastly different from that of the other.

East vs. West Skiing

There's been a lot of beef about which coast is better.  From rappers to basketball teams, and from skiers to snowboarders, east versus west has been an America-long debate.  Having just returned from the west, I have noticed some interesting differences.  In terms of skiing, there is simply no contest.  The Colorado skiing is really awesome.  I've never had a "bad" day skiing in the rockies, whereas I've probably had close to two hundred "bad" ski days in New England.  I don't think that there's such a thing as an intrinsically "bad" day on skis, it's totally what you make it.  But the aesthetic appeal of skiing the rockies, and especially in April, is extraordinarily high.    

Stowe

You know what's fun about Stowe?  During the week, there's nobody there and you can ski really, really fast without crashing into other people.  Stationary objects? Yes, but only if you look at them.  It's called "object fixation."

Speed

Yesterday I went skiing in the morning and bike riding in the afternoon.  I think that's a pretty sweet combination of activities.  One of the things that I like about those two activities is the speed.  The snow in the AM was really, really fast, and the roads in the PM were quite quick as well.  The fun/scary thing about going really fast for me is that the faster I go, the calmer I get.  I'm not sure if it's adrenaline in reverse, or if there's some other chemical thing going on, but I feel like I get in a groove where the faster I go, the more slowly everything else seems.  Perhaps it's like Einstein's theory of relativity, but on a much, much smaller scale.

Ski Town

I think I would like to live in a town in which everyone skis all the time.  But maybe only for half the year.  I guess I wish that it would be ski season half the year and then green season/summer the rest of the year.  Is there a way to stay in the same place and have that happen?  Also, what two cars would you drive then?  I think a big pickup truck and a souped up Honda Civic would be the way to go.  

Summertime

Is it too early to look forward to summer?  I like riding bikes, playing in the rivers, and working on grass and trees and dirt and rocks.

Powder

Can you technically call it powder if there's rock-hard ice underneath?  Even if Lower Goat is untracked six inches?  I guess you could call it fresh snow.

Sunny and Cold

What to do when it's sunny but cold?  You know the snow's gonna suck for the most part, but the sun feels so good, especially coming out of winter when so many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder, which I never believed was true until this January.  What is it, Vitamin A or E that the sun gives you?  It feels really good and you can tell that your body takes in the rays and converts them into happiness.  

Skiing in the East

It's tough to ski in the east, especially when it's raining.  My general rule for skiing in the rain is that it's a good thing to do once in a while.  Although visibility can be extremely poor, and you can get really wet really fast, there are generally no crowds and the snow can be quite good.  My advice is to go skiing in the rain until you can't stand it anymore and then go home and take a hot shower.  If you go inside for a break, you really shouldn't go back out.  Putting on wet gloves is perhaps the worst feeling in the world.  

I'm not that tall.  It's just the shadow that makes it look that way.

90210

What is it about that damn show that is so awesome?  From Brandon's first date with Marianne Moore to the Peach Pit After Dark totally rocking the late night LA scene?  It's certainly the original Laguna Beach/Hills show and I love it.  

Skiing

The Ski School Director in "Aspen Extreme" told T.J. Burke that "Skiing's the easy part,"  Implying that everything in T.J.'s life that isn't skiing is difficult.  This includes, but is not limited to: hanging with Robin Winterbottom, fighting with Dex, and banging that weird looking rich chick.   It takes all kinds of skiers to make a sport and a lifestyle.  Nobody's got it right so far, but I think Glen Plake is the closest that I've seen.  Beyond his annoying voice and strange appearance lies the most true skier in every sense of the word.  His Down Home Tour where he and his wife travel to small, unknown ski areas and rip around with the kids and the locals is the most creative, productive, and philanthropic ideas around.