Cage Your Ego Dude

Wedge, Wedge, Wedge...that's all I heard tonight and despite my best efforts, I can't wedge to save my freaking life.

Unless, of course, you count me wedging all the way down the main slope (Missi's) right under the main lift (Gateway) and right onto the grass at the edge of the snow. Wedge...you betcha, all the way to the most graceful faceplant there ever was.

So, here's this newly minted stud ski patroller, bright and shiny red jacket with the big white crosses, super sharp ski's and polished up boots, with the really fancy NSP hat. If nothing else, at least I'll look the part.

So, while working on my wedge, I was damned and determined to wedge all the way down the main slope - that is until my legs started to go soft and I lost general control and managed to wedge my way to a massive ego crushing garage sale.

Nice . . . and I thought the skiing part would be easy.

I'm HIRED!

Happened last night.

Spent 2 days with a client and while heading back to the Detroit airport I got a call from the Snow Sports School Director, Merle.

"Hello, Brian . . . I'd like to offer you a position on our ski school staff".

YESSSSSSS!

More training and skiing tonight, in-processing and all that.

Can't wait!

Ski Season Is Here!

It finally happened . . . ski season at Hidden Valley!

Man, I thought it would never get here but suddenly, Opening Day is behind us and there's 75 days of skiing to be had.

Saturday started with a couple of hours of free-skiing, catching up with Ski Patrol buds (Emilio, Charles, John, Hans, Ian, Gene and several others) . . . Man was it ever fun!

Then, at 2pm, Ski School for Newbie Instructors began led by Hawkie Moore. This guy's a stud - seriously. And not in a "too cool for the room" sort of way. He's just really good and really smooth and a real teacher. His task is to turn skiing-enthusiasts with some level of skiing capability into instructors good enough to safely take completely untrained "wanna be's" into wedge-stoppable capable skiers in 50 minutes.

The instructor class had about 10 of us, a couple of 'collegiates', several school teachers and of course, career guy that "just wants to have fun" this winter (that'd be me!).

Very odd thing started to happen, about an hour into Saturday's clinic I started to realize that my simple goal of "helping people have fun with this new thing they're doing called skiing" was really pretty short-sighted. While a reasonable and worthy goal, my focus really needs to be on making sure people get how much fun skiing can be and are able to do so in a safe and consistent manner. Yeah, I knew all of that 25 years ago but in the interim, I forgot that people allowing you to be their instructor is the highest complement they can afford you . . . in return, you promise to make sure they're safe and are going to have an enjoyable experience.

So, we spent several hours learning the 4 basics: Balance, Rotational Motions, Pressure and Edging and fought with Hawkie about them for the better of that time. Eventually, even thick-skulled me got how important the rotational motion element is in skiing and even I started to notice my technique improving towards the end of the day.

Then, it was time to go free-skiing!

Not that the clinic wasn't enjoyable . . . it was . . . but hey, I've got to start assimilating all this new knowledge and there's no better way than to cut a few turns.

So, off I went into an amazing sunset lift. Smartly, I didn't do any shooting while I was skiing, I think my ski patrol friends would have certainly found it amazing if I wrapped myself around a tree, camera in-hand. Didn't want to give them the pleasure of sledding me off the hill.

All I can say is, it's a great time to be a skier in St. Louis . . . this is going to be fun (and, it already is!).

Oh, one last thing to notice . . . the ski industry is definitely changing. I guess I never noticed how many ski-boarders there are but man, they're everywhere. You'll notice that in this picture, there's only one set of ski's (mine) and the rest are boards.

I'm not one of those skiers that shreds shredders, frankly, I think they're all pretty cool and especially since my daughter's are two of the best all-around shredders that I know, I really enjoy the scene.

Spent some time over at the terrain park, very cool stuff going on. Maybe, one day, if I'm brave enough . . . we'll see. It's kind of cool to be around when an industry is re-inventing itself. This winter's going to be a fun observation.

OK, you know the drill, email, or comment . . . enjoy!

What...No Skiing?

No snow, too warm, no skiing.

Aaargh!

At least we're talking about skiing! A bud of mine and I are organizing a local group to head to the mountains this winter. Likely, a trip to Jackson Hole late Feb with my buds, likely Breck mid-to-late March with my daughter's (and then a meet-up with my wife in Cabo) and then one more time to Snowbird mid-April for The National Ski Patrol Snowpowder, or Powderfall, or whatever it's called.

I'm either going to be so addicted I can't stand it, or totally burned out on skiing once May rolls around.

I'm betting on addicted!

So, if I play my cards right, I'll have about 50 days on-hill by the time Hidden Valley shuts down mid-March, and then an additional 15 or so by the time May rolls around.

This could be an awesome year of Ski Patrolling, Ski Instrucing and just plane old free-skiing.

Yeeehaw!

A Day In The Life of A Patroller

Click the title of this post for a really good series of articles on what it's like to patrol at a major Colorado resort; Loveland, near Denver.

I'm going to include this link, on the right . . . defintely worth the read but I don't think it's updatedtoo frequently.

CPR...Kinda Cool

Completed the CPR course today with my wife Sheri, Katie and a former colleague Mark Lammert.

Interesting story Mark, he would have been the 3rd partner of ours as we started the company but he got cold feet at the end and stayed on the safe course. Too bad, he didn't look like his career is fulfilling him.

Anyway, had a very nice time with Sheri and Kates and learned a bunch about primary care and first responder elements. Captain Smith of Valley Park was the instructor. Very good guy, knows his stuff and super accomodating.

Finished in about 6 hours, took the test and now all we await is our cards.

This stuff is kinda fun.

But, the most important and best thing about today is that it's Kimmy's 19th birthday. She's out with all her buds and going to the Blues game tonight (our insurance guy gave me 4 tickets yesterday for her birthday...thanks Myles!).

Kimmy's a great young lady. Looking forward to spending a bunch of time with her this winter as she's employed at HV in rentals. Last year she was in the ticket booth but I think she wanted a little more action . . . and she'll get it. Rentals is always hopping - gonna be cool!

Ski Hill Web Site

I know I'm a web snob. I truly believe that my company produces the best technology products on the market.

Notice, not web sites, that's only a part of what we do . . . but nonetheless, I've been watching the local ski hill's web site and especially the snowcam. See anything wrong with this picture? Anything? Nothing?

Here's a hint: There's no people, yet!!!

I hope this is the last time that we have pictures of Hidden Valley with this much snow and nobody on the slopes. If we're lucky, we'll get 90 days this season . . . I plan to be on at least 60 and with a trip to CO and then UT, it could be a really good year!

So, I can't wait until we finally get to shred-it-up on the slopes. Hidden Valley is such a sweet slope, especially for St. Louis where we're pretty darned flat compared to other places in Missouri.

The best thing about HV is that it's darned close to my house (same distance from Breck to Vail) and with pretty fast lifts and decently long runs (if you get a bit creative), it's an ideal ski-venue.

Really nice facilities, the lodge is right next to the Patrol Head Quarters (PHQ) and it's just a really fun/family place.

With a pair of black runs, mostly intermediates and a slug of greens, it really can be a place to start, learn, improve and even challenge yourself boarding or skiing. With the advent of a pretty significant shredding community in St. Louis, the folks at Peak Resorts have made a commitment to terrain parks that allow the two communities (skiers and snowboarders) to exist together and enjoy watching each other.

My oldest daughter Kimmy is a big-time boarder, as are most of her friends . . . and she's really good and not for a girl, she's just really good. Last year, she started to pull some bigger air and in Colorado, it was fun watching her in the parks, in the bowls, in the pipes and moguls and in general free-riding. I can't wait to see what she advances to this year, she's a cool kid!

OK, back to the web for a second...keep in mind, I'm a web snob: I just don't understand why anyone would switch from a fully functioning .asp site to a so-so, kinda blah, .php site. The old site had all the industry-standard functionality that was needed and then, the decision's made to go Open Source? Uhhhh, what? Not that I have any of the inside picture on why that's been done, hopefullyit has something to do with an inside resource being able to more easily maintain the systems, or a less expensive web host. If it was made because a web developer "sold them on the idea of this cool new tool", well, then, I'd question that pretty seriously.

But, since switching, the snowcam has gotten a new address . . . finally figured out where it is (eventhough it's not publically available) and have been watching the Hill Crew push stuff around. One more week, and we'll be skiing!!!

Oh, one last thing . . . got a call from the Ski School Director and hopefully, I'll be able to earn my way onto the School Staff. Interviews and auditions are next week . . . wish me luck!

You can do that by commenting or emailing . . . enjoy!