Happy New Year!

Rachelle and I met up with Ken and Shelley to celebrate New Year 2007. The weird part was we met at 3:30 p.m. Turns out an English pub near us was celebrating the New Year on London time. Sweet! I might not make it all the way to midnight in Cali (hell, I'm damn near 40), but I can sure as shit make it until 4:00 p.m. Free champagne-ish type beverage (calling it "sparkling wine" would even be a stretch), a round of Auld Lang Syne and some decent stout. And home in time to feed the dogs at 6:00. We did hook up again to celebrate the real, American New Year. Hit Sky for sushi and then Sartory for wine and live "music". Music kind of sucked, but it was nice in a laid-back way. I'm waaaay past the days of crowded, loud bars. I really like being able to talk to the people I'm out with. So sue me, I'm 37. Anyway, Happy New Year to everybody reading. I hope you all have a great 2007. I plan to start my new year with a tall stack of pancakes and some really good mimosa's. Maybe. Depends on what time the dogs get me up.

Ski Bunny (Rachelle)

OK, so I last posted a picture of the ski resort we hit a couple of weeks ago in Tahoe. Tahoe's great, but we went to my Dad's surprise birthday party in Salt Lake City and hit the Utah slopes. Much scarier. We spent all day at Sugar Bowl in Tahoe on the bunny slopes. BORING! As I said in my last post, I was tearing up the bunny slope in Tahoe, and I was all ready to hit the blue slopes in Utah. We took the UTA (some sort of Utah mass transit bus) up from a Park & Ride in Salt Lake City for $3. Damn good deal considering the weather. Anyway, we were ready to rip up some pansy-ass Utah slopes after taking on some of the best (?) Tahoe had to offer. Ummm, not so fast. All was good until we actually hit the lift. We got up to the little "Wait" line and waited for the lift to swing around. Still good. Lift scooped us up and started moving us up the hill. A little faster than Sugar Bowl, but still good. I leaned back to pull the safety bar forward... Uh, oh. Not so good! Apparently, Alta doesn't seem to understand the need for "safety bars". Personally, I don't really like the idea of swinging 100 feet off the ground on a slippery vinyl seat in a high wind with blinding snow and 160mm skis strapped to my feet (tiny for a 6'2" dude, but plenty long for a crap-ass skier). There might have been a slightly damp spot on the lift when I slid off, but I'm not saying for sure. We got to the top (thank God) and had to figure out the best way down. My suggestion was to follow the sign that said "EASIEST WAY DOWN". Sounds good to me! Turns out the "easiest way down" wasn't really "easy". There was lots more falling down in Alta that there was in Sugar Bowl. Fortunately, the snow was so fluffy and powdery that I didn't actually get hurt. Cold, yet. Hurt, no. Not even my pride. I know full well that I can't ski, so the "pride" thing wasn't a big issue anyway. Even though the toughest run I took was called "Dipsy Doodle". No shit. Dipsy Doodle was a serious ass-kicker. Whatever. It was so friggin' cold, snowy and windy that we didn't take too many runs down the slope, but I can safely say that I was truly impressed with the Utah slopes. Oh, and we took the wrong bus back down the hill. Turns out we didn't want the #96 bus, we wanted the #95 bus. Soooo close, but the #96 didn't actually go to the Park & Ride where we'd "parked". Ooops. All worked out well, but a little awkward when we had to tell our bus driver (who looked EXACTLY like a clean Danny Bonaduce) that he was taking us to the wrong place.

Ski Bum

Rachelle and I went to Tahoe this weekend for a little early season skiing. Pretty much because some of the resorts offer a "Learn to Ski" package this weekend. $25 gets you two hours of lessons, skis, boots and a lift ticket. That makes it somewhat affordable when you have to add in a night at Wag for Lucy, two dog-sitting sessions for Bo and a rental 4x4 to make it up the hill. Whatever, it's not a bad deal at all, especially considering that of the 20+ people there for the lesson, everybody but me and Rachelle were there for snowboarding. Since apparently everybody already knows how to ski (except me and Rachelle), we got a private lesson. OK, Rachelle already "knows" how to ski, but I've got minimal skills. That said, I didn't fall all day. And I kicked some serious ASS on the Black Bear run. The Black Bear run is the fastest, scariest, baddest portion of the "beginner" slope. "Beginner" being the politically correct term for what used to be called the "Bunny" slope. The actual scarriest part of the beginner slope was the lift. This is the part of the ski park where they put the tiny kids and the big, fat dudes who might be a danger to real skiers. I fit in the big, fat dude category. Pick the White Pine run and you're getting a "hill" in the loosest sense of the word. Anyway, even though the beginner slope was just barely past horizontal, it was a great day on the mountain. If anybody wants to hit a nice ski park where the staff is friendly and the bar is large, give Sugar Bowl a shot. Nobody will even laugh (out loud) at you if you spend all day on the "beginner" slope and you are well into your 30's. A lot of sad head-shakes, but no laughs.