The walls around me are crumbling but Gmail has helped restore my faith in America.

So I know that I said we would only be discussing the wonders of the slopes but I am, as we have previously discussed, a fickle person. That is not to say that I am no longer obsessed, because I am. It is just that sometimes in life something will present itself to you and it will be so unexpected that you must talk about it, even if it is something wildly inappropriate like sending human poop to someone in a pretty gift wrapped box.
I will now explain. Because there is disruptive construction going on in our building that causes the already maze like layout to take on a much more frightening labyrinth-esque feeling (I can actually hear David Bowie singing and I think my cubicle may be upside down) I am more isolated than usual heare at the office. Because of terrible weather (oh my God! A melting snowflake! At sea level! RUUUUUNNNN!) I am stuck in said isolating, upside down cube rather than getting to spend some time in the field like I was becoming accustomed to doing. In short, the walls are falling down around me and I am alone (I sit next to some guys but they are engineers and therefore do not qualify as significant human contact) Therefore all e-mail has become important. Every comment on this blog, every notice from my student loan lender, every ticketmaster update is being read and relished as a form of semi-human contact. Therefore, I have become one of those people who will forward you anything slightly amusing in an attempt to get a response.
I received a mildly amusing European condom commercial from my friend yesterday and this morning I forwarded it to many people (including my mother, who has not responded) hoping someone would write me back and someone did. I got this response a little while ago.

You know, when I saw this, I thought, "I wonder if it's going to be that old condoms commercial?"

And it was. :) I agree, that's a fantastic commercial. And so un-American. Which makes it awesome.

The response in and of itself is not shocking or particularly riveting. And I would like to point out that nowhere in this response are poop or delivery-grams of any type mentioned. Still the good folks at Gmail decided that this response and “fecal-grams” are directly connected. Yes I said (or wrote rather) “Fecal-grams”. Now for those of you who don’t have Gmail, it is a different kind of e-mail service and one of its many different things is that you get sponsored links that pop up on the side of you e-mails. Gmail scans your correspondence for key words and then brings up things that are supposed to be related to you conversation. So like if I have a conversation about an upcoming ski trip (See I brought it back around) I may get links to ski resorts or online discount stores selling ski gear or online ski report sites. Usually I ignore them but they have on occasion come in handy but in this instance I am just vacillating between amused and disturbed. Amused because, lets face it, poop in a box is funny, especially when it is sent to someone else. But I am disturbed because it is scary to think that one day you could come home to one of these on your porch and it must be a rather confusing interpretation of our conversation to have been linked to such a site.
In conclusion America the land of the free is an amazing and joyful place to live and no greater evidence than the successful business that is fecalgram.com is needed to persuade me into believing in my country. I will, as long as I live and breathe, cherish my God given right to order and ship a stranger’s shit to anyone I know. Now that, my friends, is what freedom looks like.

The crack that is skiing has moved Brittney Spears into a position of importance.

Did you know that a season pass to Crystal Mountain Washington for a child is $25.00? That is ½ the cost of a single adult lift ticket. You can outfit a small child with skis boots and bindings for about $150.00, less than the cost of a pair of boots for an adult. Why? It is because the ski/snowboard industry has learned a lot from your neighborhood crack dealer. If you let these fearless speed daemons tear down the mountain when they have less than 3 feet to fall and no sense of mortality, they will get good at it. They will crave the freedom and intensity of the slopes. They will grow up, get jobs, make money, and spend it on better gear, bigger thrills, and longer runs. Most likely they will even have children. Unaware of the traitorous plot behind it all, they will be pleasantly surprised at how inexpensive it will be to tech their children the joy of high speed snow sports. They will sign their kids up for lessons, strap some type of something to their tiny feet and drag them down the tunnel of addiction, gleefully leading the way.
I know this because I am one hundred percent hooked on skiing. I went last weekend, and the weekend before that. This coming weekend I am going up to whistler to ski the whole time. I dream of skiing, I look at skis online, I talk about snow conditions and have decided that when I get married I no longer want a honeymoon on a beach with drinks that have umbrellas in them. No, now I want a ski vacation full of snow and hot tubs and hot buttered rum.
All this and really hate to be cold.
Until now I would have classified being cold as one of the top 5 things I hate the most in the history of the universe. It would be like, The Holocaust, Wal-Mart, washing dishes by hand, spiders, and being cold. Now I will have to remove it from my list and actually acknowledge Britney Spears as significant in some capacity. The fact that it is in the position of being one of the worst things in the history of the universe is some small consolation but it is still a bad state of things.
The point is that this site will now be about skiing and how much I love it for the next few months. If you don’t like the slopes you should and I say that with all the authority of an overzealous convert. Much like a newly baptized Mormon, my enthusiasm knows no bound so get ready. So to sum it all up; taking up Skiing is like joining a cult that loves crack and I have joined wholeheartedly and am addicted and Britney Spears is significant only in her determent to the human race. Now, back to browsing REI outlet for some boots.

Slip-Sliding Away

For his birthday, Boyfriend wanted to go skiing; with me. Even after I explained that his teaching me how to ski was going to be fun in the same way that plucking your pubic hair with rusty, red hot tweezers would be fun, he still wanted to go with me. Before we went to rent skis I had another talk with him, attempting to make him understand what he was really in for. You would think that a sane person would take warning when a conversation begins with “I have had a lot of anger management therapy but there are situations where it has had no affect on my behavior whatsoever.” Still, he wanted to take me to the mountain. I explained to him how we could best avoid breaking up over this. I told him that we would start the day out all excited and happy but about the 3rd time I fell I would tell him I hated skiing. The 5th time I fell I would scream at him that I hated skiing and wanted to go home. I would then need to go to the lodge and drink some hot chocolate flavored Bailey’s before continuing. The retreat would do me some good and the alcohol would do me some better and I would fall down 5 more times before telling Boyfriend that I hated him and making him leave me alone to fall on my ass in peace. I figured that I would then get in two more runs before retreating to the lodge for the rest of the day where I would spend more than the cost of my lift ticket on drinks much stiffer than Bailey’s and hot chocolate. I told him that our relationship would survive only if he left me alone when I told him to and did not come into the lodge attempting to get me back on the slopes. He was still relentless about the idea of going but seemed duly concerned after listening to my predictions.
Upon arriving I was excited. After putting my skis on I was worried. Before I even got on the lifts I was upset and the second time I fell down I cried. In fact, I cried a lot all morning. I yelled a bit, but only about how I hated skiing and I couldn’t do it. I did not release the slew of degrading insults that came to mind every time Boyfriend worriedly gave me much needed pointers. In fact my harshest words were slung unthinkingly at a kind stranger who helped me untangle myself on my third run. When he smilingly asked me if I was going to make it I snapped at him that I had to get down this damn mountain somehow. Sorry Nice Ski Guy, I was having a hard time of it.
After that incident I did send Boyfriend away so that he could have some fun and I could fall down and yell at people I did not have to ride home with. But after 3 runs by myself on the bunny slopes I decided to venture further up the mountain with Boyfriend and the rest of the day was spectacular. I have never had so much fun outside in the cold before. We squeezed in as many runs as we could before closing. He would ride up with me and then take another lift to the top and catch up with me on the way down as I slowly and carefully switch backed down the mountain.
I want to go again. I would go right now if I had money and did not have to work and wasn’t so sore that THINKING about moving is excruciatingly painful. I might use my long weekend to go, maybe twice. Now excuse me while I reapply the icy-hot to my entire body.

Hot Geeks

I am, as we have discussed before, a huge geek. My sister/roommate and I were both raised to value this particular trait in ourselves and others to a point beyond reason. I am impress by people who know which characters crossed over from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” I find people who frequently discuss the math and science I have no hope of ever understanding inspiring. And I have a major soft spot for themed parties.
Because I am broke and stubborn, I decided we would not turn the heat on until the 12th of November. Because we are geeks, we decided that “Turnin’ up the heat” is a reasonable excuse to have a party. But not just any party, a party with HOT buttered rum, HOT mulled wine, HOT spiced cider, HOT Cheetos HOT tamales candies, and fire HOT jolly ranchers. See, we are big geeks.
The party was a success in that most of our friends had a good time and much of the HOT food and beverages were consumed. The party was not a success in that 2 people had their wallets stolen. The party was a success in that one of our guests brought us “Down in Flames” t-shirts (thanx Ben!). There are no pictures because I am not much of a picture taker. In fact there is little evidence that this party happened at all save Aarwenn’s missing wallet and the fact that I finally put my guest room together. It now has a bed and does not have any of the following 1) an Ikea hanging pan rack, 2) 15 sets of cheep Venetian blinds banished from the windows for their complete lack of tastefulness 3) empty cardboard boxes which originally contained such things as “hand painted ceramic oil/balsamic vinegar and bread service for six” No sir, all those things are now under the basement stairs where they will live full and happy lives with the spiders until their whole society is consumed by spring cleaning (scheduled for late summer 2008).

"I am Back" or "The Slippery Slope of Downhill Skiing"

You may have noticed I have been MIA lately, well no more. I have been blessed with a temporary government job and long with it, internet access. The wonders of this new job (which I LOVE) will be discussed ad-infinitum at a later date right now I want to talk about being broke and skiing. You see, because I was unemployed for a week or so and I am on the standard 2 week delay for a paycheck I will not see any money until thanksgiving. I have no more extra cash. In fact my not-so-minor transgressions at the Minus The Bear show last Friday (Such a cute zip up!) have left me “delaying” my credit card payment. And to think I have a less than average credit score.
All this could be considered par for the course but I decided I want to learn to ski this year and that takes a lot of money especially if you have no ski experience or gear. I know it is shocking that a person of my ability and class does not know how to downhill ski but in my defense, my parents are into cross country. I spent many a winter weekend skating around behind my mother on skinny ass “skis” thinking I was on a ski trip. Oh the horror of discovering in the 7th grade that other people were referring to a far more dangerous, expensive and therefore better sport when the spoke of skiing. The shock has left me dumbfounded and paralyzed until this year.
Last years terrible season (or lack of season at all) left many of my close friends sitting around with me all winter. As I watched them suffer and sat through night after night at the bar listening to them whine I thought “hey, downhill must be something a person can be addicted to!” In general I LOVE anything a person can become unhealthily addicted to and therefore I decided this was the year I would start my hopefully damaging relationship with the slopes. So now I have my determination to love skiing, my total lack of experience, my desperate withdrawal from any type of retail therapy, lots of advertising for ski gear and slopes, and absolutely no cash. Good thing I got offered overtime tomorrow while all my friends are going skiing, otherwise I might have decided to “delay” my student loan payments too.