Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Good morning crew,

I am not overly blessed with patience under good circumstances, and last weekend at the ski resort in Wisconsin was anything but good circumstances.

After a 2 hour ordeal just to rent boots and skis, we finally got out onto the snow. Now my sister-in-law is the only one with any recent ski experience. The rest of us had to find our ski legs before we started tackling any real slopes.

Most people think the Bunny Slope is the easiest slope on the course, but they actually have something with a gradient of one or two degrees called the Turtle Hill, which is reserved for three-year-olds and maladroits like myself. This is what we started on.

And when I say three-year-olds I'm not kidding. There is a tow rope to pull skiers to the top of the 'hill' (for lack of a better word) and this was populated almost exclusively with terrified toddlers and their parents who were desperately trying to keep them upright on their skis. Every ten seconds one of the little kids would fall while being pulled by the tow rope and the entire line would have to stop. This made each trip to the top of the Turtle Hill about ten minutes long.

Of course, since the entire length of the Turtle Hill is barely 50 yards it only takes about 20 seconds to ski down it, even if you are snow ploughing the entire way like I was. So ten minutes on the tow rope versus a 20 second ski run was giving me a waiting-versus-skiing ratio of 30 to 1.

After 30 minutes of standing in the zero degree wind chill and watching little kids being dragged up the Turtle Hill on their faces I was ready to retire to the bar for the rest of the day. But my wife came to the rescue. In her two or three runs down the Turtle Hill she had mastered the snow plough and convinced me to follow her and her niece and nephew on to more challenging hills.

The next most difficult slope is about 5 times as long as the Turtle Hill and is equipped with a chair lift, so the wait was much shorter for a much longer run. But the chair lift presented its own problems. Namely getting off the thing. It only moves at maybe 5 miles-an-hour, call it a slow jog, but when you reach the top of the hill and you have to scoot your butt off that chair and onto frozen snow, 5 miles-an-hour is a lot. Needless to say, both the wife and I fell immediately after getting off the lift. If fact, I almost fell on top of her.

But that little humiliation aside, our first green slope (green being the easiest slopes on the course, followed by blue for intermediate and black for hard) proved to be much more fun and productive than the Turtle Hill. When you are heading downhill at 20 miles-per-hour you tend to learn fast.

Both I and my sister-in-law managed to make it down without a spill, but the wife and the kids all wiped out. They had fun, though. Adrenaline does a lot to keep you happy even when you are sliding down a hill on your ass at 20 mph.

After that everybody's improvement was dramatic. We mastered the next two green slopes pretty quickly, but that is where the wife and the kids gave up. I pushed my luck with a blue hill and managed to make a few successful runs before my second wipeout of the day.

By that time it was getting dark and everybody was starting to feel pretty numb. But while finally getting the hang of the skis and learning how to make 180 degree turns without slowing down or snow ploughing was pretty exciting, I have to admit the best part of the day was finally taking those God-forsaken boots off of my poor, tortured feet.

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"Valentine's Day was yesterday. So, if I look like I didn't get much sleep, it's because the couch was really uncomfortable." -Seth Meyers

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"I make my choice for president based on how well each candidate would handle an alien invasion." -Jimmy Kimmel

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"The former president of Trader Joe's is opening a store that sells only expired food. The new store will be known as 7-Eleven." -Conan O'Brien

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Millions of years ago, there was no such thing as the wheel. One day, some primitive guys were watching their wives drag a dead mastodon to the food & fire area. It was exhausting work; the guys were getting tired just watching.

Then they noticed some large, smooth, rounded boulders and they had a great idea! They could sit on top of the boulders and get a better view of their wives working.

This was the first in a series of breakthroughs that ultimately led to television...and later to the remote control.

[From Dave Barry.]


*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
Two friends are discussing the possibility of love.

"I thought I was in love three times," one friend says.

"How so?" his friend asks.

"Five years ago I deeply cared for a woman who wanted nothing to do with me."

"And that wasn't love?" his friend asks.

"No," he replies. "That was obsession. Then two years ago I deeply cared for an attractive woman who didn't understand me."

"Was that love?"

"No," he replies. "That was lust. And just last year I met a woman aboard a cruise ship to the Caribbean. She was smart, funny, and a great conversationalist. And everywhere we met on that boat, I would get this strange sensation in the pit of my stomach."

"Was that love?" his friend asks.

"No," he replies. "That was seasickness."