Category: Daily Life

Daily Life

Are You A Good Human?

Something happened yesterday that made me smile. I was taking the hound for a hike in the foothills. At this particular trailhead there’s a few garbage cans in the first quarter mile or so for depositing of pet waste. The hound did his business almost as soon as he started running, so I gathered it up in the poop bag and keep walking up the trail to where the garbage can is. I come around the corner and… no can?? I was standing there looking perplexed and then noticed some guy was coming towards me, walking back to the trailhead.

He said, “I’ll take your bag. I’m going that way anyway.” I thanked him and said I really appreciate it. He said, “No problem we have to look out for each other, right? Just be sure to pay it forward”.

I don’t know why, but that simple act put a smile on my face. There’s a lot of negativity in the news lately so it was nice to encounter a good human.

This reminded me of something called the “Shopping Cart Theory”:

The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it.

What kind of person are you? Do you always return the cart? Only when the return stall is close by or if someone is watching you? Never return it?

Now go enjoy the weekend. Get outside. Pay it forward.

And return the damn cart.

Daily Life

Weekly Wrap Up

It’s Friday people. It’s been a pretty good week. Lots of news going on, plenty of activities happening. Time for some random contrarian thoughts.

  • Wednesday was in the top 5 of my all-time best ski days. We ended up with 8-9 inches of the fluffy stuff dumping overnight in town. Up on the hill there was 16+ inches up on top. Hard to describe how much fun it was. We skied until the last lift stopped running. A great way to finish out the season. Still a few more weeks of spring skiing to come…

  • I finally stopped being lazy and built out the wall-mounted ski rack in the mud room I’d been promising to finish for at least a year (or two). I’m very pleased with how it came out. I’m not very good with that sort of thing, so it’s a great feeling of accomplishment when I do some sort of home improvement like that. (insert Tim the Tool Man grunt)

  • I had to back a large trailer up a narrow, icy driveway. A little ugly, but I got it done. Backing a trailer is an interesting skill that takes a lot of practice. Not something I ever had an opportunity to do as a young adult. Should be one of those mandatory basic dude stuff skills.

  • Ukraine surfaced again as a topic in the pending presidential race. DeSantis had the audacity to call it a territorial dispute. The warmongering class clutched their pearls in horror and called him a Putin stooge. Recall the two main questions I’ve asked for a long time. 1) How is this in our strategic interest? 2) If you actually think Russia’s plan is to continue rolling into Poland after Ukraine, why is Europe not fully funding and massively mobilizing a defense?

  • The United States (and NATO) have done everything in their power to provoke this conflict. Don’t believe me? I highly recommend reading this short book on the subject: “How the West Brought War to Ukraine“. It may open your eyes a bit. If nothing else, it will give a prospective other than what the chattering class on the nightly news gives you.

  • My weight loss has completely stalled. I’m below maintenance calories. I haven’t snacked, cheated or otherwise sabatoged my eating. High protein, low carbs. I’ve completely cut out alcohol. I Nordic or alpine ski 4 days a week. My weight has remained static for over a week (even gone up a few of the days). Extremely frustrating. It’s hard to remain motivated to deprive oneself day after day when you see zero progress. Sigh.
  • I read a great substack this week (that I can’t find now) that described the technical details of what happened to the SVB bank fail. It reminded me of the ’08 financial crisis. The root causes are extremely complicated, despite the simplistic news summaries we see. Ultimately, it’s a systemic lack of oversight that enabled the failure (similar to ’08). I see no appetite for the financial or political world to make any changes. It’s not a good long-term recipe.

  • I’ve been following a gal who has set the record (demolished it) for consecutive ultramarathon runs. She’s on day 132 of running 32 miles a day. It just shows what we’re capable of if we choose to. Meanwhile, I ski two days in a row and tell myself I better take a break so I don’t overtrain. LOL

  • We’re down to the last ten episodes of the last season of Walking Dead. (no spoilers please!) We’ve gone from why did we ever stop watching, to this is dumb, to this is great. At the moment we’re back to this is just stupid. I’m ready for this series to be put out of its misery. I hope it finishes strong.

The weekend in my part of the world is looking to be sunny and 50+ degrees. We haven’t seen that for a while. I see motorcycle rides, dog hikes, and yard work in my future. Ya’ll go enjoy the weekend and try to be good humans.

Daily Life, Motivation

What’s Your Special Purpose?

“My dear family, guess what. Today I found out what my special purpose is for. Gosh what a great time I had. I wish my whole family could have been here with me. Maybe some other time as I intend to do this a lot. Every chance I get.”

– Navin R. Johnson, The Jerk

A few days ago, I was scrolling through YouTube and watched a clip of Lex Fridman talking about truly smart people. Lex has a BS and MS in computer science, and a PhD in electrical and computer engineering. He’s a research scientist at MIT (among other things). If he thinks someone is smart… they’re smart. He observed that the one common trait he sees in these folks is a complete and total mastery of whatever their field is.

I would agree. I’ve met a handful of people in my various careers who’d I consider experts. They just had an encyclopedic knowledge of their field. They could recite studies and papers off the top of their heads. They knew obscure formulas and calculations without needing to look up references. They knew the who’s who in that field. I am not one of those people. While I was good at my job and did well, I was never interested enough in my field to really dive in and truly master the subject. I suspect that’s true of most folks.

Last night I watched a silly movie called Burnt with Bradly Cooper. It’s about a chef who had a fall from grace and tries to make his mark in the food world again. What struck me was the complete and total passion the protagonist had for food. Actually, you could see it in all the chefs portrayed in the film. They all had a sincere love for what they did. Even at home you could see the care they put into making a simple meal.

Yes, I know it’s a movie. But I suspect the sentiment is largely true in the higher ends of the cooking world. And then it dawned on me. I don’t think I’ve ever had a passion for any pursuit. Like, ever.

Are there hobbies and things that I like to do? Of course. But I’m not passionate about them. I don’t have one hobby that I’ve completely dove into and understood from beginning to end. I don’t research the latest technology or who the current big names are. I don’t lose track of time reading about the latest and greatest aspects of whatever it is. I drift in and out of my hobbies over the years.

And it occurred to me that this may be what’s missing in my new retired life. A passion and a focus on something… anything. I find myself drifting from activity to activity, day to day, without any real purpose. If the snow’s good, I’ll ski. I hike the dog. Reading when the weather is bad. Household chores. My daily planning consists of looking at the weather report to decide what activity to do. I’m certainly not bored. But it’s beginning to feel a little like just killing time.

I wish I’d cultivated a passion for something years ago. If I had, now that I have the time, I could be wearing a train engineers’ hat and spending all my waking hours building a model train empire in the basement. So, I think it’s time. Time to dedicate myself 100% to a hobby. To become an expert in something.

I don’t know what it’s going to be yet. Cooking? Photography? Video? Start a business? Or maybe I pick a sport and devote myself to it? I don’t know. Like I said, I enjoy all the things I do. But none of them jump out at me as something I want to completely immerse myself in.

Maybe passion is learned? Maybe the passion comes after you dive in and begin the process? I don’t know. But I do know that I need to do something. Maybe I’ll just put all the activities in a hat and randomly pull one out?

Although, I do like trains. And I have a basement. Do they even make model trains anymore? Hmmm…

Daily Life

It’s Too Late

“Point of no return” noun

: a critical point at which turning back or reversal is not possible

The mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, lost her bid for reelection yesterday. This is a good thing. She was a truly awful mayor who did real harm to that city. The problem is that it made no difference if she won or lost. If you live in one of the larger cities in this country… it’s too late to recover. All the bigger cities are headed rapidly towards societal and economic collapse. There is nothing that can be done about it.

Rudy Giuliani managed to make a huge difference in New York during his tenure in the ’90’s. He did it via aggressive policing and prosecution. This was before the modern cell phone camera and instant social media. Officers were free to do their job without ten people filming their every encounter, just hoping some outrage will happen that can go viral. Today an officer has zero incentive to do anything other than write up a report after the latest mugging or smash and grab.

Work from home has decimated commercial real estate in big cities. Amazon and the big box stores have killed downtown shopping districts. Why go downtown to shop when you risk dealing with mentally ill homeless people and the chance of being mugged, when you can order online and have it delivered the next day?

Today, there is no mayor who would risk implementing the level of aggressive policing it would take to clean up a major city. No mayor or city council would approve pushing out the homeless and their camps or stopping panhandling. Even if there were, the city’s legal team would put a stop to it right away. The city would be mired in lawsuits from day one if they tried any of this.

Nope. It’s too late. I don’t care how much you love your big city. If you value your family, it’s time to get out. Like a drug addict who’s fallen off the wagon time and time again, at some point you have to recognize they can’t be helped. Things aren’t going get better. Homelessness is going to get worse. Crime will keep increasing. Your taxes will continue to increase. Sorry. That’s reality. The sooner you accept it, the better off you’ll be.

It’s happening everywhere. My little city is rapidly becoming a medium sized city due to a massive influx from California and Washington. The signs of decline are starting to appear here as well. More panhandlers. Small homeless camps here and there. For the first time ever I’m starting to see graffiti and gang signs. Drugs are showing up. We have a very liberal mayor and city council, so there’s no way they’ll attempt to do anything to nip this in the bud.

Don’t get me wrong, I still live in a very safe city. I’m comfortable walking downtown at night. But as growth continues, that will change. It’s the broken windows theory. Visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior, and civil disorder creates an urban environment that encourages more crime and disorder. If you don’t take steps to combat those minor crimes, the problem will get away from you.

Unfortunately, nobody has the appetite to honestly discuss building more prisons, prosecuting criminals, dealing with mental illness, or letting police be proactive again. Those topics have become the new third rail of politics. Until we’re willing to face reality… society will continue on a downward spiral.

I laugh at the socially liberal folks who honestly think if they just implement the right social program, pay enough money, and encourage people to just be more compassionate… the problem will magically fix itself. Nobody wants to be intentionally cruel or uncaring. But in the real world, a little tough love is the only solution that actually works.

It’s a little depressing to think about. But I managed to get myself out of a big city years ago. Fingers crossed, my little piece of the world won’t collapse in my lifetime. My family is in a good place. Take a long hard look at the city you live in. Whatever the condition it’s currently in – it’s going to get exponentially worse. When it does, do you still want to be there?

Confirmation bias, Daily Life

It’s Not What I Thought

Every once in a while, a book manages to surprise me. A great example is “World War Z“. I saw the movie first, so when I started the book imagine my surprise when I realized the only thing the book shares in common with the movie is the title. Seriously. Someone bought the movie rights to a great book and said, I love it. Let’s change everything. I don’t get that. Interestingly, it was written by Max Brooks. Son of Mel Brooks.

This week I found another gem to surprise me. Someone suggested “Starship Troopers“. I was very reluctant as the movie was awful. It couldn’t decide if it wanted to be campy, a spoof, or an actual science fiction flick. The end result was just stupid. Like World War Z, the novel version of Starship Troopers shares the name with the movie and that’s about it. It’s a great read with some pretty deep insights. In a nutshell, the book covers societal structure, the morality of war, and moral breakdown.

First published in 1959, it’s eerie how closely it parallels some of the issues society today is facing. At one point I had to go look up the publish date because I didn’t believe it wasn’t written recently.

And since this seems to be the week of surprises, I had another one yesterday. I had a preconceived notion of someone’s political leanings, and was gob smacked to find out I was completely wrong. If you haven’t followed cartoonist (creator of Dilbert) Scott Adams’ controversial blow up this week, it’s a doozy. On his live stream he made some controversial statements. You can listen here. I had just assumed he leaned towards the right side of the political spectrum. When he made those comments, I thought oh great – more ammo for the left to claim republicans are racist.

After making his comments, Adams sat for a long podcast interview, and I was shocked. He’s very left-wing. Contributed to BLM, supports reparations, and strongly believes systemic racism is the cause of many issues. The exact opposite of what I assumed his beliefs are. It’s a good interview and worth listening to. His rational for making those comments are certainly not how the media is portraying them.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his premise, he intentionally risked everything to say it. Within a day his comic strip has been dropped from every newspaper in the country and his book publisher canceled him. It takes guts to throw yourself on the sword in the name of starting a national discussion about race.

It’s only Wednesday. If there are any more surprises coming… I hope they’re good ones.

Daily Life, Health, Motivation

Facing A Challenge

Did you ever wonder how you’d manage if you faced true adversity? I always liked reading and watching inspirational stories of people struggling with seemingly insurmountable odds, battling the inner demons, and overcoming the challenge. The classic tale of the protagonist who suffers a terrible woodchipper accident. The montage of scenes showing the struggle of learning to walk again. Fighting a corrupt system that won’t give him the fancy new titanium prosthetic legs. The triumphant comeback to kick the winning field goal in the Super Bowl. Who doesn’t love a feel-good story like that?

How do you think you’d do in that situation? Would you be the hero or would you end up in a wheelchair, addicted to opiates, and yelling at all the nurses in your skilled nursing facility? I don’t know why, but I think about that. Knock on wood, I’ve never faced true adversity, so I don’t know how I’d react. But lately, I’m not sure I’d be the hero.

Health-wise, I’ve been pretty damn lucky. Not through any skill or effort on my part – just dumb luck and good genes. I’ve never really been injured. I didn’t seriously “exercise” when I was younger but managed to stay active enough to remain functional over the years. My weight and fitness fluctuated over time, but never horribly. Blood pressure, blood work, and general health markers have always been good. It’s rare that I get sick. I’ve been pretty fortunate. Until this last year.

I’m not sure what happened. Suddenly my weight ballooned up. Normally I’ve been able to tweak the diet, ride the bike a bit more and I’d be back to normal. It hasn’t worked this time. My balance and fitness level noticeably declined. Then I hurt my back this summer. That was a wake-up call. If you’ve been reading this blog for any time, you’ll know that I hired a trainer and worked hard to rehab. That’s gone great, and the back is stronger than it was before. So semi-protagonist-hero-mode. But it definitely made me grumpy being injured. I never thought I was a complainer, but that side of me suddenly appeared.

And now… I’ve been hit with a new health challenge. It’s been creeping up for a while and finally hit with a vengeance. Last week, for the first time, I had to pass on skiing with friends and hiking the dog. Several days were spent curled up on the couch, feeling sorry for myself. We’re still working through the process, but most likely we’re looking at some permanent lifestyle changes. In the long run it will probably be for the best anyway. But at the moment, it kind of sucks.

I’m left asking myself, how will I manage this pseudo-adversity? I haven’t done terribly well so far. Mrs Troutdog has been super supportive, but I know I’ve been quiet and grumpy. I thought I’d be the person that would be chipper and positive every day as we work through things, but I’ve trended more towards frustration and slightly depressed. So much for the hero protagonist.

In the grand scheme of things, this won’t stack up to be that big of a deal. Certainly not compared to woodchipper accidents. But I’ll admit, I was caught off-guard at how hard mentally it can be to deal with a slightly negative situation. I was sure I’d morph into hero mode when faced with making some minor changes. Instead, I sat on the couch for a week. I can’t imagine the strength it takes for people who face down truly serious adverse scenarios.

There’s a quote I like – “Life gives you what you settle for”. I can take something that ultimately will end up being a minor annoyance and turn it into a healthier lifestyle, or I can resent it and use it as an excuse not to do things.

I choose the former.

Daily Life

Contrarian Thoughts

I had a few thoughts that were slightly contrarian to close out the week:

  • Apparently, we have a Chinese spy balloon drifting over Montana. How is it that we don’t have some sort of air defense that detects these things before they drift over the country? This seems like an issue.
  • Do you think we’ll ever see Senator Fetterman giving speeches on the floor of the Senate or asking questions during committee hearings?
  • The Covid virus has killed what, almost 7 million people? Don’t you think it’s odd that we don’t seem to have any real interest in figuring out where it came from?
  • Where did all the service industry workers go? It’s like they all disappeared overnight. I can’t find any reasonable explanation as to why an entire low/minimum wage group vanished. It’s not like they all learned to code during the shutdown and are now working high-tech.
  • I love watching hockey, but the penalties are still mostly a mystery to me.
  • I added up our fuel costs for 2021/2022. The same number of miles cost $1,000 more in 2022. That’s real-world financial pain for a lot of folks in this country. It gets glossed over by most politicians. Seems like the Keystone pipeline would’a been nice to have coming on-line right about now.
  • I wrote an email to one of my senators a few weeks ago. I was surprised when I received what appeared to be a personal reply that was well thought out. Maybe they’re not all dumb as a box of rocks.
  • Ukraine has lost 150,000 men, with 35,000 more MIA. Ukraine is running out of fighting age males. They’re outnumbered by at least 5:1, with 300,000+ Russian troops massed at the border. The math does not look good for Ukraine.
  • Russia is the number one supplier of fertilizer in the world. We’ve shut that down with sanctions. Does anyone else think this might impact global food supply and prices in the next year or so?
  • I haven’t watched an NFL game for at least two years now. I recently got sucked into watching the playoff games the last few weeks. Not sure how I feel about that.
  • Rep Matt Gaetz was on Tim Pool’s podcast. It was an eye-opening insight to how congress actually works, even for a cynic like me. Worth a watch/listen.
  • I thought this online app was a fun time sink. It displays 5 photos, and you have to guess what year they’re from.
  • With the advent of retirement and winter, my book budget has significantly increased. I guess that’s a good thing? I need non-fiction suggestions. What are you reading?
  • I skied with someone in their early 70’s last week. He blows by me like I’m standing still. Clearly, age is what you make of it.

Speaking of skiing, we’ve got two days of good powder forecast in a few days. I’m off to see what sort of trouble I can get in. Enjoy your weekend!

Daily Life

No More News

Decade after decade without a natural predator to trim the deadwood has turned Americans into herd animals. All they want to do is chew their cud and watch television.

Clay Martin, Wrath of the Wendigo

It used to be a routine. Read the paper in the morning. Sundays were the best. A full three pounds of newsprint (I still remember delivering those big boys on my bike as a little kid). Hours of reading. Plenty of longer form content, opinion pieces, the comics, Parade magazine, sports. Evenings was a half hour of local news (mostly watched for the weather), followed by an hour of a “serious” evening news program so you’d know what happened in the world. If you were a real news junkie, you’d subscribe to at least a few other national newspapers as well as some monthly magazines. Throw in a few publications like Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Powder Magazine (Ski Magazine wasn’t cool enough) so you could be hip, and boom – you’re reasonably in touch with the world.

Then came CNN. 24 hours of news? Who in the world would watch that? I distinctly remember watching Bernard Shaw reporting from Iraq at the start of the first gulf war. Wow. We were seeing war in real-time. What the news industry could morph into was mind-blowing and exciting. Fast forward to today and 95% of all news media, video and print, is now basically a news version of the early Maury Povich or Morton Downey Jr. trash TV shows.

The point of “news” today is to generate clicks, likes, and engagement. Like Maury Povich’s “who’s the daddy” segments, the point is to get that gasp or cheer from the audience. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not as long as you capture the eyeballs. Turn on any of the alphabet news channels and you’ll see one of two formats. The most popular is to give a twenty second intro, to a hopefully controversial topic, and then turn to a panel of media personalities that yell at each other. Your other option is a thirty second description of a story, then bring on an “expert” calling in via Zoom from their living room and give them twenty seconds to babble before cutting them off. Whoo hoo, journalism bitches!

It is becoming exceedingly rare for me to watch any sort of news channel. It’s pointless. Not only for the aforementioned trash TV format, but because I’ve already read or watched anything news related that day via Twitter. Twitter, as Elon has said, truly has become the public square for information. Anything that happens in the world shows up on Twitter long before the mainstream media outlets begin reporting on it. Want long form opinion? It seems everyone with a pulse now has a Substack or podcast. I can read opinions on any subject under the sun.

The beauty of Twitter? I get to curate what I see and have the freedom to decide what I think is truth, opinion, or tin-foil-hat conspiracy. If you are sad enough to only consume CNN… you get a slick used car salesman, Joy Behar version of the news.

So, here’s the million-dollar question. Is the media doing it because that’s what they think we want, or have we truly become that dumb? Have we reached the start of the Idiocracy era? I’m not naive enough to think the early versions of the news I grew up with didn’t have an agenda. Government absolutely attempted to influence the nightly narrative we were fed by Walter Cronkrite. But at least back then, they had to tread somewhat lightly… people still practiced journalism from time to time. Today, the government has an actual private pipeline to all the social media platforms (as revealed by the Twitter file dumps).

My gut feeling? We (the US) have become that dumb. We all want nothing more than to be Instagram influencers, buy cheap shit from Amazon, and binge the latest celebrity expose series on Netflix. If the government tells us we all need to subscribe to a national digital ID, well super! It will make everyday life so much easier. Just make sure I know what the latest thing is, so I can post my solidarity flag on Facebook.

Clearly, I’m feeling a bit cynical today. But for good reason. The crash is coming. Deglobalization is happening, and the Ukraine conflict will produce ripple effects in oil prices, energy scarcity, fertilizer supply, and food prices that are going to hurt. Very quickly, everything that comes from someplace else… is going to be harder to get and more expensive. Oh, Don Lemon isn’t talking about this on CNN? Hmm. The gap between the haves and have-nots in this country is going to accelerate rapidly. Throw in a non-stop media barrage of racial division and, well, you get unrest. People who can’t afford to buy eggs or fill up their cars will want to vent their anger towards someone. And when you split the country like we are now… whoever the other side is a perfect target.

Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll defeat Putin (whatever that means). Everyone will have an electric vehicle. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion rules will solve all those pesky social issues. We’ll tax the rich enough to solve our budget and inflation problems. We’ll finally get around to replacing the police with conflict therapists. AI will free us from the mundane of day-to-day jobs. Peace. Love. Harmony.

Maybe.

Or, become a Contrarian. Question everything. Become ungovernable. Oh, and prepare. You’ve been forewarned.

Cool, Daily Life, Motivation

Extreme Sports, Attempted

I’m not sure what I was thinking. I suspect my improved leg strength gave me a false sense of skill. Regardless of how it started, I found myself panting heavily, staring down at a series of steep drop-offs and surrounded by cliffs. How did I get myself in this predicament? Too late to back out, nothing to do but take a deep breath and 3..2..1… go.

Let’s rewind to the beginning. I am an average skier. A rockstar on the intermediate groomers, more tentative on the steeper stuff, a disaster in the crud and moguls. My problem is that I really, really like the idea of skiing in the trees. Off-piste as the Europeans would say. I just can’t figure out how to get good at it. I watch others flow through the trees and smoothly navigate big bumps and obstacles. Me on the other hand on the same terrain – a series of awkward hop turns, sliding, skidding, often ending up in a snow covered, contorted upside-down position.

This year I vowed to master the off-piste. To be one of those guys flowing through the trees. I started out with vastly improved strength, due to the time I’ve spent in the gym. That new-found strength has given me the confidence to ski hard, all day. I’ve been fortunate to be able to ski every 2-3 days, which has certainly improved my form. I started making small forays into the trees and seeking out ungroomed snow. As my skill improved, I started eying a valley known as an “experts only” area. One of the groomed runs borders the area and I kept flirting with the edge and eying the trees and chutes in the valley.

A few days ago, we had a big powder dump. I got to the resort early and did a few warm-up laps on the groomed runs. Finally, I skied down the run bordering the off-piste area and stopped at the edge. I spent quite a bit of time looking down and going over in my head what could go wrong if I dropped in. Eventually I told myself that I’d never know If I didn’t try.

Down I went. And it was awesome! While I don’t know if I was actually flowing through the trees, I handled it without any problems. I spent the rest of the day dropping in and playing in this new playground. I had a blast. The next day I skied with friends who stick to the groomers. I spent that whole day diving in and out of trees bordering the runs, seeking out all the crud and powder remnants I could find. My confidence was through the roof!

Yesterday we had another overnight snow. I hit the slopes and warmed up with a few runs. I was going to drop in where I spent the other day, then thought to myself why not drop in from the very top? With my newfound confidence, I rode the lift up and traversed around to the entrance of the expert area. There were ominous signs posted indicating this was an area for experts only and ski patrol was limited. I paused for a moment, but my excitement over my new skills won out. I went through the gates.

Things went bad from the beginning. The “trail” was a very narrow, slick, twisting route full of bumps and awkward off-camber turns. My speed was increasing, but I had no way to slow down as the trail was too narrow to turn or even snowplow. I was now flying along, borderline out of control, and definitely did not want to slide off the edge. Up ahead I spotted a wider spot in the trail and did a hard slide to bleed off speed. Unfortunately, immediately around the corner the trail turned steeply uphill and I no longer had the momentum to make it up. I came to an awkward stop on the edge. Fuck.

Now I was stuck. No way to get my skis off and hike anywhere. My only choice was down. I was looking down a narrow chute with trees at the bottom and unknown terrain below that. It took a while to get my breathing under control. I will say, committing to that first jump turn was one of the harder things I’ve done. I made my way down the chute. Jump turn. Slide, slide, jump. Over and over.

Finally, I reached the trees. This was a little easier, but there were steep cliffs everywhere and I couldn’t always tell if the edges I was skiing up to were vertical or navigable. I kept traversing across the slope, dropping down in places my skill allowed me to make turns. Eventually I made it to the wide open part of the bowl and terrain I could handle. I was drenched with sweat and my thighs were quivering.

I turned around and looked back up at what I had come down. I realized I’d come down a double black diamond called Chinook Chute. Probably one of the hardest areas in the resort. Wow. I couldn’t believe I’d done that. I started feeling pretty proud of myself. It was ugly and more sliding and slipping than actual skiing. It certainly won’t make any Warren Miller ski film highlights, but I did it and managed to not crash.

If you told me at the beginning of this season I’d be going down that, I wouldn’t have believed you. Trust me, I’m in no hurry to go back up there. It really is above my skill level. But… I’m not that far off.

The lesson is that you are capable of way more than you think you are. All it takes is the willpower to try. Yes, you may crash and burn. But if you don’t try, you’ll never know.

My problem is balancing my age, true skill, and good decision making with my new-found ego. I need to remind myself that I’m no longer twenty. At this stage of my life, do I really need to be flirting with cliffs and double black diamond runs? Probably not.

But man, it felt good to accomplish that. Hmm… maybe I could become that guy effortlessly floating through the trees?

Daily Life

Whiteout Conditions

I went skiing the other day with some friends. A typical day, although a bit foggy when we rolled into the parking lot. We pulled on our gear and trudged across the icy parking lot to the lifts. I stretched a bit and tried to loosen up before our first run. As we clicked into our ski bindings, the fog suddenly went from 4/10 visibility to 0/10 visibility. As in, we could barely see the lift ten feet away. No matter, we are hearty soldiers and got on the chairlift anyway.

As the lift climbed the mountain, visibility remained poor. But we held out hope – it’s not uncommon in our area to have the fog/cloud layer dissipate at the summit. Alas, it was not to be. The summit was socked in with thick pea soup fog. We slowly made our way to the first run we could find, just to get down the mountain. Skiing in zero visibility is weird. It’s not uncommon to get a bit of vertigo, as your brain wrestles with slopes and angles without any visual clues.

We stopped about halfway down the run and just looked at each other. One of the guys proclaimed, “This sucks. I’m going to the lodge and getting a beer.” So down we went, carefully picking our way through moguls we couldn’t see. At the bottom, the pessimist headed straight for the lodge. The other optimist and I debated and decided to do one more run before calling it a day. As the chairlift carried us up, the fog started getting thinner and thinner. We looked at each other and laughed – wouldn’t it be funny if the cloud layer burned off and the pessimist missed out?

Sure enough as we neared the top the fog dissipated, and it was nothing but bright blue skies. Beautiful! We headed down a run, whooping the whole way. We stopped several times and texted and called the pessimist, telling him to get back out here. At the bottom we zoomed right back to the chairlift so we could head back up. More texts and voicemails telling our lodge-bound friend to dump the beer and join us. No word from him, so we went back up into the sun and bombed down another run.

Once at the bottom, we ran into the lodge and convinced the pessimist to abandon the beer that had just been delivered and come back out with us. He reluctantly gave up the tasty beverage and trudged outside to put skis on again and make his way with us back to the chairlift. He was quiet on the ride up. And disturbingly, the fog seemed to be thicker than the last two trips up. Visibility dropped the further up the mountain we went. And sure enough, we reached the summit and… whiteout conditions again. Zero visibility. Mr. pessimist just looked at us without saying much. There wasn’t much we could say other than, “honest it was blue ski fifteen minutes ago.” Down we went into the soup.

Back at the bottom, tail between our legs we all went into the lodge for some adult beverages. We spent some time enjoying the warmth of the bar and mostly ignoring the elephant in the room. As everyone was finishing, I looked out the window and it appeared as though the fog was lifting a bit. I got smart this time and used my phone to bring up the live summit webcam. Sure enough, bright blue skies! I excitedly showed the video to my friends and suggested we hurry up and get at least one more run in while the sun was out. I was met with very skeptical looks. I kept pointing to the video – it’s a live look and I see sun! Let’s go!

Skis back on, hop on the chairlift, and back up we go. Do I even need to say what happened?

I have officially been fired as a weather and conditions prognosticator.

P.S. A bad day skiing is still better than being at work. Just saying…