It sucks to suck

Today was day two at Beaver Creek and after a couple of crashes there is only one conclusion to be reached; I fucking suck at skiing. I should be wearing a fools hat but I guess just watching me come down the hill a la Zamboni is proof enough that I fucking suck. Maybe it's time to pack skiing in and go back to my board. At least I didn't look like a complete idiot on it. It's embarrassing to look like a complete fool and certainly I have done enough of that shit this year. After I make a complete fool of myself I then decide to beat myself up physically and mentally. There's a rational response. Maybe I am a fucking masochist. Yeah that's it a masochist. Sadly I'd probably fucking suck at that as well. FUCK!!!!!!
So I have now had some time to cool down and the realisation is this is the worst ski season I have ever had. I have never been more clueless as to what my problem is. I know it has everything to do with my left side but what. As much as my right boot feels perfect I can't get my left  boot to give me any feeling of edge control on a consistent basis. I have lost confidence completely in my ability to get my left ski under control all the time. Everything feels wrong about it. It sucks. I suck!

Beaver Creek, Vail 2012

I am back in Colorado once again for some end of the year spring skiing. We arrived in Beaver Creek around 3:30 yesterday and checked into our very nice condo. There are 4 of us, Cam, Lori, myself and boot fitter extraordinaire from Kenmark Snowsports, Tom. If you are ever in need of ski boots Tom at Kenmark is the man to see. Sadly I drank too much and was in bed very early last night but that means I am ready and rarin to go this morning.

The Ritz Carlton

I am back now from what can only be called a great spring skiing day. The conditions were icy this morning and it is obvious that skiing will end here soon. We had a liquid lunch basking in the sun at the Ritz Carlton. Lori decided to check out the sale in the shop there and saw a very nice base layer Bognor  turtleneck. She figured it might be $50-$60 but got a rude awakening checking the price tag. It was $399, marked down from $499. Wow. We then made our way over to the Birds of Prey run which was nothing short of fantastic. Great snow and beautiful warm temperatures. After a couple of runs on it we made our way to the Chophouse to finish off the day. It was certainly the warmest day I have ever been out skiing and although it's not primo conditions it's impossible not to have a lot of fun.I just checked the EpicMix website which I signed up for this morning. We all have a credit card sized IDcard which is read at every chairlift and at the end of the day you can get your total vertical, all the lifts you have been on and a ton of other information. I totalled out at 24,000 feet of vertical today and for the first day thats OK I should think. The technology just amazes me.

Staffordshire Terriers, a week later

It has now been a week since the incident involving the two Staffordshire Terriers I was watching and the small white Shih Tzu (I think). I have had many phone calls from different health departments and have also had to deal with animal control officers. I have learned a lot.
The first thing I should have done before accepting the job was research the kind of dogs I was watching over. If I had done that I would have realized that it is a law in Ontario that this breed be muzzled when outside of the home. I do feel that the owners also had a responsibility to inform me of this but certainly it would have taken mere minutes to find out that information for myself. The owners were in possession of muzzles but neglected to tell me that.
The owners also ended up having to pay the vet bill for the Shih Tzu which had an operation and now has three inches of stitches on its belly. I feel that was harsh punishment and paying half the bill would have been more fair because after all, their dogs were not running around off leash. I am very  happy that the little dog is doing well and it seems will live a long dog life. All three dogs are still in quarantine for another three days.
There have been many calls from various health departments (some bureaucratic ping pong) but rabies from dogs is now extremely rare. According to the doctor in emerg there has not been a case of dog related rabies in Ontario for thirty years. My thumb is healing well and the stitches were removed yesterday. I have almost full movement and holding a ski pole in Vail next week will be no problem.
I hope to dog sit again and the lessons I have learned from this episode will only serve to help me.

Staffordshire Terriers

For the past week I have been dog sitting 2 Staffordshire Terriers. Twice a day at 8 AM and 5 PM I have gone over to the house and fed them, walked them and just made sure everything was alright. They are wonderful friendly dogs who are thrilled to see me, mostly because of the walk that I take them on. The one issue with them is they go crazy if other dogs come near and have to be restrained. When approaching other folks walking their dogs I warned them of the anti social behaviour of the 2 dogs and did my best to stay as far away as I could. I started to warn the dogs as well by a good yank on the leash the second their attention veered towards any other dogs. This seemed to work well and they paid less and less attention to other dogs.

Before stitches

On my last day I even wrote a report for the owners on how good the dogs had been. Sadly I jumped the gun, tempted the fates you might say. I was 300 yards from finishing the last walk when a small (10 lbs) dog came running out from its backyard, saw the 2 terriers and made a full speed dash towards them. I held them firm but the little guy was acting aggresively and the male got a hold of it and the insanity began. Because I had two dogs it was impossible for me to grab the one and help the small dog without the female going for the poor little thing. Before I knew it I was on my knees fighting to free the struggling dog. I punched and kicked the male to get it to release the little guy only to have the female take over and attack it. At some point while on my knees I looked down to see the little guy fighting for her life by biting down on the meaty part of the base of my thumb, not knowing that I was trying to help. Funny though, I could see its teeth bared and digging into my hand but at no time did I notice any pain. It must be that so much adrenaline was pumping into my system that I simply felt nothing. I finally freed the little guy and the owner of her scooped her up, actually thanked me and ran back to the house. There was a child crying. I got up, bloodied, muddied and stuck with burrs, and walked the terriers home. They were completely calm as if nothing at all had happened.

After

There is no doubt about one thing, I was in a state of shock after it all. It was the most insane 30-45-60? seconds of my life. Both my hands hurt and were bleeding and filthy so I covered them in plastic gloves so as not to mess up the car and headed to the hospital. In the end I only had a few puncture holes and a scar on my thumb that I have had for 50 years was ripped open and took 4 stitches to close. A puncture hole took another stitch. I have to get some antibiotics as well today due to the risk of infection from dog bites.
The little guy is at the vet now having surgery and I hope it will be OK. I guess it had no idea that challenging a pair of Staffordshire Terriers wasn't a good idea but it may now.

Singer and Bella

OOPS

I have just noticed that I wrote an "I lied, there's another post in me" post but sadly I have little memory of doing it. I guess there was a slight bit more alcohol involved than I let on because although there is a vague memory forming now of that post I don't think I intended to put it out for human comsumption until there was more meat to it like............more words. It was supposed to remain as a draft but in my stupor I suppose it somehow made it to an actual post. OOPS.
As it stands I am back from Aspen now. I had a great time skiing on real snow although I must admit my nightlife was limited because I was tired for a lot of the vacation. It may have been altitude induced or it may have been caused by this bug that I am fighting for a second week now. There is no doubt about one thing though, there is a lot of money floating around in Aspen. I have never seen so many private jets in my life. There must have been close to 80-90 parked at the airport and apparently there were more parked at another airport not far away.
I skied for five days and on the sixth we went to a sulphur spring which was nice but not something that I would do a second time.

Trixie, Hansi,Steve and Willy.

Thanks to Hansi for inviting me and showing all of us a great time. The accomodations were excellent. Everyone loved the skiing and the apres afterwards. I now have to wait four weeks and then it's off to Vail for another week of fun. I could learn to like this retirement thing. 

I lied. There is at least one more post in me

So I lied. My last post was not my last post.....not that anyone would notice but here I sit in Aspen Co., drunk on great skiing and alcohol and thinking what a great life this really is. Yesterday we skied Snowmass under the brilliant sunshine and today it was Buttermilk in the morning and Highlands in the afternoon.

This is it.

I would like to thank those of you out there who have spent time over the last 11 months reading my blog. It has been interesting writing, certainly a learning experience and I have enjoyed doing it but it has become increasingly difficult to do new posts because for the most part I am doing them for myself. I have a few friends out there, you know who you are, who have read on a regular basis but that's about it. I have received hits from many faraway places but often those hits came upon my site in error. Only one post has been really popular, that being the "Some things never change" blog which dealt with my ill tempered forays onto the golf course. For this reason I am not going to post again for the forseeable future. I don't believe having a legion of readers neccessarily means you are a great writer but I do believe having virtually none means I should channel my energies into something more constructive.
Thank you one and all for dropping by. Tomorrow is a new day. To celebrate I am going to dress up in orange, red and yellow and head to the ski hill, Why the colours? Because I have looked like a clown all year long on my skis so I may as well dress like one.