'Tis the Skison

Let the winter games begin! I can’t think of a better way to end a Thanksgiving weekend than with a few feet of snow in the mountains (neither can the ski resorts). Despite the warmer than usual beginning of November, the end of it has lived up to typical Utah snow seasons. Thank goodness too, because the state’s full of skiers and snowboarders who were ready to riot against the weathermen for holding the snow back.

My younger brother can probably think of a better way to end the Thanksgiving weekend other than ending it with a broken face. According to his doctor, the cheekbone below his left eye has a tripod fracture, all due to a helmet. Everybody touts the safety of helmets, but my brother is now a dazed and confused victim of such a helmet. Sure, the helmet protected the snowboarder’s head that he collided with, but my bro’s face is shattered. Ruined. No girls will like him now. Guess he’ll have to become a monk. The doc says he’ll be able to ski again, but who will want to ski around someone with a broken face? (Jonny, if you’re reading this, I love you, man.)

As with any sport, safety cannot be stressed enough. Thanks to people like my brother, though, we have a constant reminder of how important safety measures are. In a way, the less safe people in the world create a lot of excitement and an “x-factor”-ness to the world. People like me can sit across from people like my brother and say things like, “Well golly gee! You shoulda’ been wearing a helmet too!” but really what I’m thinking is, “Man, that’s going to leave a cool scar that people will ask about and he’ll be able to relate a pretty good story.”

I hope to have my own exciting stories by the time ski season is over. Not that I’m going to attempt and create my own (could be fun, though, to stage falling off a cliff or slamming into a tree…or maybe not). As long as I’ve got my brother by my side, I’m sure we can experience some unplanned antics. He’s the most accident-prone in the family (don’t worry, Jonny; I won’t ever tell my readers about the time you rolled dad’s car). And sports are nothing if not surefire ways to expose ourselves to some sort of danger or risk.

Life’s not worth living for many of us unless we are fighting for it some of the time. Sports like skiing can put us smack-dab in the middle of a life-and-death situation, and as long as we come out alive, we long for the next adrenaline-pumping moment when we can show ourselves just how capable we are at surviving the worst. I salute my little bro for taking the shot to the cheek like a champ and hope he recovers well. Somehow he drove himself back down the canyon and to my older brother’s home before he made it to the emergency room.

My little brother knows how to grab the ski season by the horns and I know he can’t wait to be back on the slopes even after his brain-jarring accident. The snow has just begun to fall and we’ve got a good three or four months of skiable weather ahead of us. Enjoy the powder and watch out for helmets!

Snowed In

If a snowstorm rolled in now and stayed until late spring, I’d be happier than a jaybird. That is, as long as I had plenty of supplies and food to remain comfortable for the storm’s duration. I’ve always wanted to live where the snow all but swallows my house up. Especially when I was a kid. What kid doesn’t dream of being unable to attend school for days on end because of the snow? Now that I’m an adult and have adult responsibilities, I’d give anything to be snowed in. All I need to keep me entertained is a small shovel to make snow caves with and I’m set for the winter.

Now that I have a small son who still isn’t quite big enough to go skiing with me (my wife insist three months is NOT a reasonable age to start teaching a child how to ski; I say the sooner the better), I may as well be snowed in this winter. Don’t worry; I’m not complaining. I’ve plenty of things to do around the house, but I know I won’t be participating in too many outdoor adventures this winter. Perhaps a ski trip or a sled ride here or there. Nothing extremely dangerous and life-threatening; after all, I’ve got to survive long enough to teach my son how to take ridiculous risks in order to show nature that man is a formidable opponent in the never-ending conflict of Man vs. Nature.

I’ve considered building my own snowmaking machine in my yard. By using the back part of my roof I could create a small ski/sled hill, maybe even with a jump at the end of it to launch me over the back fence. The neighbors might not be happy with the extra snow I’m creating, though. My roof would probably cave in too. Better scale down the operation.

The Iditarod is a little over three months away. I already own two dogs that love the snow; I’ll only need about ten more. We can head over to the nearby park every day and practice pulling a sled around. Okay, never mind. I just read the rules for the Iditarod and I’m already unqualified because I haven’t ever run a dog sled race before. But that doesn’t mean I can’t train for other sled races that aren’t as grueling. I’m sure my 15-lb. dogs won’t mind pulling my 160-lb. body (plus a sled) around for a couple of hours every day.

The most reasonable wintry idea I’ve recently come up with involves a pair of snowshoes. Who needs a mountain to enjoy snowshoeing? I’ll walk around on the snow in my yard. I’ll even shovel the snow into random piles to fool myself into believing I’m walking along mountainous terrain. If I become tired of my own yard, I could venture out onto my neighbors’ snowfields. And if I neglect to ask for permission to snowshoe in their yards, that would add a risky element to the whole scheme. Avalanche danger and wild animal encounters would be replaced with neighbors demanding an explanation for my tromping through their yards. Might just be the most adventurous winter yet…

Bagging the Perfect Bird

There I stood, surveying the large group of plump turkeys, trying to decide which one to take home for Thanksgiving. Some were small, probably around five to ten pounds. Others were approaching the twenty-pound range. And suddenly I saw it. The perfect bird. It had to be at least twenty-five pounds. Enough to feed the whole family we would be enjoying Thanksgiving with.

Had I lived back in the early colonial times, I’d be using a blunderbuss right now. You know, one of those guns with a funny bell-shaped muzzle that most likely scared everything off after you shot it, it was so loud. Nowadays a shotgun is more practical, but there are those who insist on continuing to use old-fashioned guns such as the blunderbuss to make their bird hunt more exciting.

Me? I don’t even use a gun. “Then surely you must be an archer, hunting your turkey with a bow and arrows,” you say. Nope. Not even that. I use my bare hands. That’s right, I rely on nothing other than what God saw fit to give me. None of those fancy inventions and contraptions that give humans a completely unfair advantage against wildlife. Don’t think I’m judging you if you do use one of those unnatural devices. You are much safer with those items, especially since we don’t have sharp teeth and claws like most of the creatures out there.

Humans have been actively defying the old “survival of the fittest” theory for thousands of years now. We walk out there in nature, where newborn deer, sick moose, and aging pheasants are typically the ones picked off by predators, and we flip the natural world upside down by looking for the biggest and strongest prey and removing it from the gene pool. If you ask me, dinosaurs didn’t go extinct from some natural disaster or from shifting ecological trends; they went extinct because humans decided to go after the biggest prey imaginable. Unfortunately back then there wasn’t a group of people dedicated to preserving various animals, like the World Wildlife Fund, and thus the largest and most ferocious predators became extinct due to the ingenuity of humans. That’s what I think.

Anyway, after looking for the best way to approach the perfect bird I had just discovered, I slowly made my way toward it. I literally had to nudge an old woman out of the way in order to get to it. Apparently I wasn’t the only one shopping early for Thanksgiving. As I grabbed the frozen bird wrapped tightly in white plastic, my eyes shot down to the weight. Dang! I was off a couple of pounds. It turned out to be only twenty-three pounds. Oh well.

I’m thankful this Thanksgiving season for people who are willing to kill my food for me, because I’m a softie and don’t even like killing the occasional spider or bee that finds its way into my house. I would definitely be a vegetarian if it weren’t for butchers and slaughterhouses. Well maybe not; if I can gut a fish, I can work my way up to bigger animals, right? At any rate, it’s nice to be able to go to the store and simply pick up a pound of meat without having to deal with the whole butchering process.

I hope you are able to find the perfect bird for this Thanksgiving, whether you shoot it with a gun or bow and arrow or you pick it up from the grocer’s. And remember: Be thankful!

Slip-Sliding Away

Funny how snow seems to surprise some people every year. “Whoa! Why’s my car sliding across the road toward that power pole?!” It’s as if the rains of spring and summer have washed away all memories of the inevitable white stuff that falls in Utah and has made it a favorite destination for skiers and snowboarders around the world. Snow begins to flutter and there are suddenly numerous reports of vehicle accidents caused by the iciness on the roads. Didn’t we all just finish mastering the art of controlling our vehicles in wintry weather eight months ago or less? I’m convinced most of the accidents that occur involve driver’s who have recently moved to Utah from sunnier and warmer climes. (I’m not pointing any fingers at you, Californians. Arizonians are just as much to blame as you.)

Many of you are like me. We own a vehicle meant for rougher driving conditions. We have 4-wheel or all-wheel drive capabilities. That means our vehicles are invincible to snow and ice, right? Unfortunately, a vehicle is only as safe as its driver, and sometimes that’s not even true.

I remember coming down Parley’s Canyon last year in a driving blizzard that eventually shut the road down. As I crept down the canyon at a safe 10 mph (and even then the wheels slipped now and again) I noticed a pair of headlights coming up behind me. I could tell by the way the orbs of light increased quickly in size that the vehicle was going much faster than I. Since the snowplow I had been following had exited to load up on more salt, the lines on the road were nonexistent, and it was extremely difficult to judge where the shoulders were. I attempted to scoot over to the right of the road, out of the path of the juggernaut behind me, but as the vehicle neared me it was clear the driver had no real control over the pathway of the car. I could tell the other driver was applying his brakes as he came up on my rear, because his car’s backend began to swing around on him. Lucky for me that shifted the car’s trajectory enough that he narrowly missed me and shot toward the left side of the road, spraying snow 15 feet into the air as he entered the median. Lucky for him the median was quite flat and he was easily able to backup and return to the roadway. I’ll never know if he made it down the canyon safely, because even after that harrowing encounter he continued on his speedy journey as if nothing had happened.

Unlike most people out there, I love driving in the snow almost as much as I love skiing or making snow angels in it. I enjoy driving in it because, for the most part, it slows everybody down. The roads are not as intimidating when everyone is putting along at 20 mph, trying to avoid sliding around.

Please take the time this year to ensure you are not that seemingly ignorant person on the road who thinks his souped-up truck is any match for the combination of freezing temperatures and water on roads. 4-wheel drive does not equal untouchable. Make sure your vehicle is well stocked with emergency supplies too, such as water, food, chains, a first-aid kit, tools, and even flares. You never know what icy weather will do to your vehicle.

Time Management

It has been three and a half weeks since my baby boy was born and I still haven’t fully adapted my schedule so I can stay active and care for him. I am taking three months off of work to learn all about my new baby. Call me Swedish if you like. I have a couple more months to figure out when I can squeeze in a run or a desert excursion or an eight-hour nap. Really what it comes down to is finding the energy at the same time I have an extra hour or two to do something.

I’ve never been good at time management, but I’m discovering that without a structured schedule I’m prone to lazing about and neglecting any sort of physical activity. Usually anything before noon might as well not be planned. Yesterday I had planned on waking up a bit early and taking my vehicle in for safety and emissions testing (I know it’s not really physical activity, but, hey, it requires some effort). Yeah right. After waking up at 7:45 AM, I moved from one sitting position to another as I surfed the Internet and played games on my laptop until suddenly, it was well after noon. Where had my day gone? Talk about dragging butt.

Now don’t get me wrong; I am finding a few moments here and there to take my family on small drives into the mountains, but I can’t really go on a hike. You see, I’m responsible for all the diaper changes and I can’t walk twenty feet without that kid filling up his shorts. I’d take him with me, but you know how finicky doctors are with newborns and how they insist on keeping babies indoors for weeks on end to avoid any illnesses. Anyway, I do what I can to get out of the house and expose my baby boy to the outside world.

Day planners have never worked well for me. If I buy one, I typically go all out for the first two days writing everything I can think of to remember in the coming weeks. After I’ve written all three events that I could think of, I begin writing in birthdays and holidays. Then I start filling in each workday with the word “work.” As if I wouldn’t remember that.

Right now I just need a simple system to help me remember what I want to accomplish each day. Since I’m a night guy, I should plan most of my activities later in the day and into the evening. It’s interesting to see how tired I am in the mornings and how that fatigue melts away as twilight approaches each night. I always get an energy rush around 7 or 8 PM and it lasts until 10 or 11 PM. Most of the time I end up pacing the house trying to come up with an idea of what to do with my energy until my wife places the baby in my arms and tells me to rock him to sleep. That helps because I can at least bounce the baby and use up some of my energy.

At this point I am dead-set on running every other night around 9 o’clock. We’ll see how long that lasts. Perhaps at the end of two months I will have a wonderful schedule system. And then I’ll go back to work and the schedule will be shot to pieces. I suppose that’s just the curse of being a living creature: adaptation. The new baby phase is only the beginning of the long road of adaptation ahead of me. Can’t wait for the teenage years.