The DragonChicken

As I've always feared, a woman was backing me into a corner. Toss. Turn. Whimper in the agony of paralyzing fear, and pathetically hope for the best. The air is heavy with that familiar aroma of sex, but I am sure it is just a trap. "Run for your life," that dependable animal voice bellows from inside my quaking skull. There is no where to go, so I have to settle for restless sleep. I wake occasionally to check that she hadn't run to the kitchen for a knife, and then double check that it isn't hovering above my ribs, ready to dig like a backhoe.

At one of these brief bouts with consciousness, I recognize the siren call of space - a bit of breathing room. She had backed off for a moment, likely to stretch her legs and prepare my demise. What sweet call for domestication would she use as a ploy for my evisceration? First a dog, then likely seven children, my testicles, youth, and dignity. Or maybe she'd ask for a run to Bed Bath & Beyond. I don't know if we'll have time for Home Depot. I'll have time for my own personal hell, that's for sure.

I settle back into wary sleep.

I'm walking through the woods above Boulder. My sanctuary for so long, these trails are familiar in their piney beauty. Huge stone faces, brown and red, loom above and offer me refuge if the need arises. Then, as I round a switchback on my way to those boulders below the Third Flatiron, a mountain lion appears. She's with her cub, and I immediately recognize the danger. Cougars are rough stuff. I know. My roommate's dating one. But if there's one rule, and after all, there's really only one Golden Rule Number One, it's that you don't startle a puma in the company of her junior genes. Shite.

Here she comes, pissed off, all claws and fangs. Thank God I'm wearing my hockey gloves. How'd those get there? Who cares, man! Start swinging. Batman style onomatopoeia. Boom! Bam! Scraaaaw! And she slinks away. Too close for comfort, PattyP. A man's gotta be aware when he roams them hills. Check for damage, and only minor scrapes appear. I flirt with my consciousness again, and then fully embrace it.

Awake now. She's back. That need to move about, away from my prostrate body, must have been extinguished. Now she's gone so far as to throw a leg over my kidneys. Must be where she's aiming with that knife of hers. Christ. Back up, slither. Squirm out from her thigh, and then it's only one slender calf holding me back. Only that, until the cold chill of drywall against my bare ass. Nowhere left to run. And here she comes, sensing me pinned. Again, I drift away.

Now I'm in Old Mother England; the Dark Ages and little hope for prosperity. Peasants by the thousands crowd the dingy town square. Stone buildings, all squat and shoddy, hem us into the tight public space. What the hell are all these people doing here? I see! It's a public execution, and I'm here in my best woolen cloak to bear witness. It's me and all of the other serfs. I slide between the stinking bodies of my neighbors, intent on settling my view upon the stage and the unlucky bastard destined for death.

Oh. My. God. Where the hell did they catch that thing? And I can't believe they are going to try to take its life in full public view. Half proud rooster, half ferocious dragon, the beast is hooded and chained. Thank god it's chained. If that were to get free, we'd all be eaten alive, torn limb from limb.

It snarls, a serpent tongue darting from beneath the black sheet covering the demon's eyes. A razor beak tears at the cloth, and I can feel it searching for me. Just me.

"You!" the executioner exclaims and points me out in the throng. I immediately recognize my fate. I've got another fight on my hands, and have to TCOB. Take care of business. That line comes from my old high school friend, Will Gorman. He was caught by the cafeteria staff in Keystone, a ski resort in Scum-mit County, CO, trying to stuff an entire quarter of a pizza into his face while in the checkout line, presumably so that he wouldn't have to pay for it. When asked what the hell he was doing, he calmly replied "Takin' care of business." The staff made him pay for the pizza, anyway. Now it's my turn to pay.

So I saunter up the creaky wooden stairs, a few thousand eyes searing my back. Face to face with the heaving beast, I look towards the same executioner who'd called me up to the stage. I nod my readiness, and he releases the chains. I put up my fists, ready to fight. Those same golden gloved fists, surrounded in hockey padding and still swollen from my bout with the mountain cat, are again called upon for battle. The hood comes off, the full might of the DragonChicken stares into my soul.

I can't fight that fucking thing! Look at it! I'll be killed!

Quickly, I realize that the only available tool is intimidation. My fists, cinder and stone as they might be, have no chance against such a prehistoric man-eater. I growl. Mind you, this is no normal growl, but everything I've got. I take any desire to live and extrude that hope out through my throat in the deepest, most animalistic intimidation I can summon.

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLL!"

And then I awake. Again. Though this time, I'm face to face not with any DragonChicken, but a fair lady who's now staring back at me. Our noses touch, and the last note of my battle cry fades into the midnight. She blinks.
"What the hell?"

I ask her in the morning if she remembers. Ummm, yeah. She does. She assures me that one doesn't forget being awoken by a rabid bedmate, gurgling for space and screaming his "defense against the last great monster."

Maybe I should go back to see my therapist.

TD/HBI 2

Today's the day. The second Thought of the Day/Half Baked Idea comes at ya, and it's fueled by some incredible new musical scores. Bassnectar for beats, Boombox for grooves. Each of these DJ's seems to have found the perfect beat per second ration..these tracks just melt into your soul.

Just bought a shirt online. I'd been in the market for a new sleeveless T-shirt because I'm a placidly stupid American who has the time to concern himself with his sleeveless T-shirt selection. Further, I've got to worry not only about the shirts, but I need multiples because I'll wear them out climbing on rocks for days on end, and just for fun. Jesus. We've certainly made life easier for ourselves, us humans.

Think about it. We started out as a species out in the wild, just another animal on the steppe. Naked, homeless, and still millennia removed from the invention of the Internet, the beast that allows me to talk in your general direction via keyboard. Damn that information superhighway, I'm sure you're thinking.

So we're out with all the animals, equally at their mercy as to the cold winds blowing through the trees. See those nuts and berries in those trees? Good. Now go eat them. Think you can sling a rock at that bird and kill it? Whip it, Scotty. Dude! You nailed it! Nice job. Now rip off it's feathers and beak, char it over a fire, and let's eat it. Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving today, we sit around in our living rooms, eat massive calorie loads, and watch the Cowboys beat the Lions on our gigantic plasma screen TV's that were made in China and then shipped halfway across the world. I'm not trying to say this is a bad thing, but it sure is a far cry from where we've come, and it sure is pretty cushy.

I think that fact that life today has become so easy is what makes me bummed out. There's so little challenge in our basic day to day.

Normally I don't make impulse buys for the reason that doing so makes me feel like just that American.

But then I remember that I bought that shirt to go climbing. Climbing: my salvation and the one thing that feels really fucking hard. I'm not out killing bears, but I can be scared or pummeled and bloodied pretty easily clinging to edges of Granite. I can be reminded that I'm just an animal and am nothing special and that this easy, flaccid life of shopping, the Internet and eventual death by Diabetes is for the birds.

And that takes a little of the sting off my new threads, and the self loathing they bring me.

Fanning's Flamingos

Even though she was basically a walking corpse, I shouldn't have treated my sixth grade teacher with such abject contempt. In these past fifteen years, I've hopefully gained a modest perspective. Now I think back on Ms. Fanning as someone's grandmother. I imagine her narrative as a tale of an educator who devoted her life to improving the intellectual faculties of Wheat Ridge's youth. When I was 12, however? She was just a dumb old hag getting in between me and my recess.

Up until about sixth grade, I was such a sweet boy. I remember launching my hand skyward at any unsolved blackboard puzzle. Ms. Key, my kindergarten teacher, would direct the class' attention towards my amazing displays of acumen. Same with McNally, Etter, McCall. Misters Fays and Ingram received my utmost respect and attention. My speech was colored with polite deference to each, my homework done with earnest effort. The mere threat of punishment weakened any inkling of mischief I might have been courting.

Wilmore Davis' equivalent to the death penalty was The Bench. This famed purgatory awaited any misbehaving student who incurred the wrath of Mr. Taylor, our lunch room attendant. I remember now that Mr. Taylor was little more than a harmless, wounded veteran there to ensure that no food fights broke out and that schedules ran precisely. Early in my Wilmore career, though, he was the warden to Sing Sing prison, and I dare not piss him off and earn my inaugural trip to "The Bench."

Around the time of my final year in elementary school, something changed in my general attitude. Blame it on the hormones, Beavis and Butthead, or maybe some troubles at home. Whatever the cause, I found myself bereft of any residual innocence. Instead of an intense yearning for a teacher's approval, I went for cheap laughs. Making a spectacle of the situation was far superior to another gold star. I'm sorry, Mike Urbana, that I punched you in the nose because everyone thought you were ugly.

And I'm sorry, too, Ms. Fanning. I'm sorry that I took your stuffed animal, a moose named Bullwinkle, from your desk. I'm not asking you to admit that the name was contrived and unoriginal. I'm just telling you that each time I hid him from you, a little piece of my youth was dying. Sure, it looked like I was taking pleasure in your calls for his safe return as I rolled in laughter. The dismay as you searched the room for his coffee colored hide might have kept a younger, kinder me in check. Instead, I loved to sneak him onto high shelves, behind bookcases, or, most maliciously, dangling from the cord on the projector screen, a noose around Bull's neck. My fellow students loved to see you searching, and I knew they basked in that light by an act of my bratty hand.

Towards the end of the school year, any veil of respect I maintained finally disintegrated. Field Day was approaching, and God how I loved Field Day. How could I not, a youth with boundless energy and a penchant for sports? Indeed, some of my fondest memories revolve around that springtime tradition. The ribbons, the return of warm air. It meant that another year was upon us. With it, a slightly bigger, faster, more rambunctious me.

Back when I was still a decent child, when Ms. Etter was my teacher and the Fourth Grade my home, I was allowed to carry the flag during the National Anthem. Had you been in the crowd that day, you might have thought I had been awarded a Silver Star from then-President Clinton himself. The pride on my face must have looked positively awkward, given the fact that I was merely walking across a crumbling basketball court with a five foot long wooden flag pole driven into my belly. Even more awkward was my sock selection. Mid-calf, forest green. I'm an iconoclast, what can I say?

Again, a sweet memory derived from Field Day. My seventh birthday, September 10, 1988. My recollection tells me a story of my father. He knows I love Field Day so dearly that he themes a party for me and my friends based upon the idea of an Olympiad of sorts. An autumn Field Day with ribbons for footraces, basketball marksmanship, a bean bag toss. My father understood just what I wanted, and without my insistent asking, he gave it to me.

I don't really know if that's how things went down. It very could well be that the party was my mother's idea. Even if my theory that my father truly connected with me that day is false, I'll keep it. There are few times when I feel so close to him.

But then fast forward roughly half a decade, and I wasn't the young, giggling son I once was. This new incarnation was seated in the front row of Ms. Fanning's class; close enough to be supervised. Far enough away, I'll also note, from her desk; abode of one now tattered and soiled stuffed animal with a name lifted from a cartoon.

And on this magnificent spring day, only a week before the whole of Wilmore Davis poured out onto the spacious green behind the school for a full day of recreation and competition preempted only by a pledge of allegiance to a flag held aloft by some unsullied soul, each class selected a mascot. Behind these self ascribed monikers, etched with associated art and pertinent information (grade, teacher's name) onto a large piece of butcher paper, the whole class would parade into the anticipating vision of parents.

Ms. Fanning held the chalk in her bony fingers preparing to list our suggestions. We were 12, and the limits of our creativity, even collectively, were oppressive. Alliteration seemed to garner much attention as the hopeful called out their best attempts to name our class.

"Fanning's Flames!" A cheer rang out. Swiftly, though, as it's wont to do, the rumor mill claimed a victim. Mr. Fisher, the fellow sixth grade teacher, was just across the hall. It was a known fact that he would consider just such a nickname.
Nix the fire.

"Fanning's Flamingos." Oh! Intriguing. A bit unorthodox, and while normal behavior dictates the selection of mascots sporting teeth, a stilt legged pink bird might be just the thing to tame banality. Flamingos it might be...

"Fanning's Panthers": alliteration be damned. "Fanning's Wildcats": traditional, and again forswearing the "f." "Fanning's Flatworms," "Fliers," and "Fiends." All could be considered. Surely we as a class could improve upon these suggestions. Perhaps my hat belonged in the ring.

I found myself drawn to the alliteration, perhaps out of habit after being inured with Key's Kickers, McNally's Monsters, Etter's Eagles, and McCall's Macaws. What could I possibly suggest that could compete with a semester and a half of animal abduction? How could I enumerate my hurt at the irony of my father's introduction to my "wicked" stepmother at, you guessed it, Field Day. That fucking traitor! That was our day!

"Ha!" I thought. "That old bag of bones won't even know what I mean, I'm so smart." The hubris rattled in my brain like a grenade. "Fanning's Ferocious Fellatios." I offered quietly. A secret between an old woman, those two lucky students seated adjacent, sadly ignorant of the punchline's definition, and myself.

"Are you sure you want to name our class that?"

My inside joke with myself became instantly less funny when she was in on the ruse. I'd put the final nail in the coffin of Field Day's mystique, though she politely let it drop.

We marched onto the fields led by a pink bird of doom. In several weeks, we'd relinquish this playground for youth's ultimate space; summer. We were finished with Wilmore Davis. And I've no doubt, it was ready for me to go.

There's a Lesson Here

My original plan was to see the email arrive on my Blackberry, and immediately get to work on a post detailing my reactions to the news from Berkeley's graduate school. I wanted to keep the email unopened, write an introduction, and then essentially press "pause" while I read the news. I'd then finish the post accordingly. My reaction was going to be vivid, immediate, unscripted.

But then, I was at work when I got the email from the ERG graduate group, the office who's decision to admit or deny me into their program would largely determine the next few years of my life. Williams doesn't allow me to access my blog from the office, so I was kind of stuck. I really wanted to find out their decision and post the blog according to my formula, but waiting until I got home from work to post seemed like an eternity. After about 5 minutes of agony, I said "The hell with it," and opened the news.

____________

Growing up, soccer was everything to me. The games, the practices, and the teammates largely defined my physical reality, as well as my social scene. I played club soccer until high school, then moving into an even more rabid mode consisting of Wheat Ridge High School games during the fall, and then played on a club team for the remaining eight months. I would practice five days a week with the same 15 or so guys. I'd known all of them since we were toe-headed rug-rats terrorizing teams from the neighboring suburbs like some sort of white, privileged gang warfare.

Once we got about halfway through high school, our club team fell apart. That same tight knit group that had played together for years would all be funneled into another club, and we were thrown in with about 30 other unfamiliar guys in a massive tryout. The powers that be would form three new teams without a guarantee that the old friends from Wheat Ridge would stick together.

I remember the tryout as a nerve wracking experience. I'd soon be scythed away from some of my best friends. Things went predictably awry, and I ended up on the second of the three teams. Solace came in the fact that a couple of my close friends were also on that team, but I watched as about five familiar faces were given first team jerseys. I hated to see them dissipate onto another team almost as much as I suffocated under my wounded pride. Bitter poison, knowing you're second tier.

The night we were assigned to our teams, many of us ended up meeting over at a friend's house. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to go, but I figured it would look pretty bad if I got cut and then didn't show up. I opted to take my medicine and go congratulate the one's who'd made the "A" team. When I got to the party, I walked towards the group of assembled players but couldn't say a word. I could only put my head down and cry. Keep in mind, I was 16 years old. I think I've always been a total pussy.

I played one season with the "B" team, and eventually found that the lowered pressure and reduced expectations were probably a good thing. Our coach was an erudite ex-pro who, instead of X's and O's, had us watch Glengarry Glen Ross as a means of explaining what it meant to close the deal and win a game. We flew to a tournament in California, but this location was selected primarily so that the team could enjoy the beaches, and not necessarily picked for the quality of the competition. When we played the "A" team during the season, they beat us 5-3. It didn't seem to matter that much. I think the mood following our defeat sprung from the fact that the game fell the day after a funeral held for a classmate. Soccer, for me, was beginning to matter less and less.

After that club season, I realized that a schedule of 200 or more days a year of games, practices, and singular focus were overrated. I decided to pull the plug on my club career, opting to play on our school's team during the fall, but trading my shin guards for a helmet during the spring's lacrosse season. My Junior and Senior years of high school allowed me to ebb and flow with the seasons. In large part, I was able to avoid a total burnout from uninterruptedly kicking a ball. I found that I loved lacrosse, too, and this break let me refresh my desire to play other sports. My passion for soccer would be reignited at the end of each summer, and though my skills were somewhat blunted, they'd come back waving a flag of realization that I wasn't ever going to play for Real Madrid or Chelsea, anyway.

_______________________

Trading soccer for lacrosse led to an interesting fallout. I ended up looking at colleges before my senior year of high school, and relished the idea of playing club lacrosse at a university. This probably played a part in my decision to go to St. Louis, and that certainly led me to Spain. Spending time in Europe sparked my love of climbing, and also introduced me to my two best friends. I can't complain about how it worked out.

As I digest the news that I didn't get accepted into Berkeley, I'm trying to remember the lessons I learned a dozen years ago. I'm not going in the direction I thought I would, but there is a greater good that will come out of this. To start, I am somewhat relieved that I don't have to move away from Boulder. I've come to adore my friends here, and find such comfort within this incredible climbing community.

Within just a few minutes of posting the news on Facebook, two good friends have offered the autumn alternatives of Burning Man and a climbing trip to The Valley. And you know what? I think I'm taking them up on them both. If I'm not going to school, I'm still going to live big.

Dispatch from the Field

I love how many comments that first TD/HBI generated. Thanks, Voyeurs!

Over these last two days, I've been out on the Western Slope. Work had been piling up while I was skiing in Jackson, and I had to run out for meetings with the Federales and Exxon in Meeker and BFE. Fortunately, neither Robert nor Cody were interested in awkward pseudo-dates a la my previous work junket, and I've largely put any such interaction out of my mind through thousands of dollars in therapy.

While I've been driving around the natural gas fields north of Rifle, I've had two distinct ideas bouncing around in my head like superballs.

First, I sure wish it was climbing season. Driving around just a few miles from The Canyon without my climbing gear in the car is torture. Ok, Ok, honesty alert: It's in there. Rope, shoes, harness, quickdraws. I just can't use any of them. There's snow on the ground, a chill in the air, and little call for climbing outside the temperature controlled confines of Movement Climbing and Fitness. Maybe that's what's so painful.

I have had a few days of climbing outside this winter, sure, but the weather this winter hasn't been nearly what I'd been hoping for. It seems like every January and February bring a week or two of mid 50's, and a promise of an early spring. This year, there's been no such luck. A couple of those days of outdoor climbing have come in the form of Hueco bouldering, and if you've got to drive nearly to Mexico, I'm not sure it counts.

When I'm not worrying about when the air will warm, allowing me to trade skis for that harness in my trunk, I've been thinking about school. Berkeley is supposed to let me know my enrollment status (in or out) at some point in February or early March. I'm not necessarily the most patient person, and now that we're more than halfway through that first month, I'm ready for news.

The two alternatives keep cropping up in my mind, and it's hard for me not to get anxious thinking about what my life is going to be like based upon a decision made by strangers that's entirely out of my hands. I'll bounce between a belief that I'll be accepted, be told of a deadline by which I'll have to be in CA, and find the freedom for my hedonistic, recreational tendencies to run rampant until classes start. Further, my buddy Nuno is going to be living in the Bay Area come autumn, and if all things align, we might end up spending time in the same house as a depraved pair of roommates. I guarantee it will be a house of horror and sin, and one (or both) of us will be arrested or killed (or both.)

Quickly after those visualizations of climbing trips, pal pow-wow's, and educational/intellectual demand fade, I sink back into the understanding that only about 5 percent of applicants get into the program. The strength of my application and experiences may matter not at all in the face of fierce competition from an accomplished pool of perspectives aiming for admission into one of the best grad schools in the country. I have nothing else to do but pull back from my pending move and admit that I might very well be spending the summer doing exactly what I've been doing this past year: traveling, climbing, and having a blast with great friends.

Wait, that's not so bad, either. And come to think of it, summer will likely play out identically, regardless of Cal's call.

I can't even say which reality I'd prefer. Both of these outcomes are sure fire ways to continue to push my life in a direction that I can be proud of. Either path will be rewarding. But what I really want right now is a clear picture of what my fate's going to be over this next year or two.

Soon enough, I suppose.

The Maiden Voyage

Boys and Girls! Voyeurs and Voyettes! Welcome back from your adventures along the gray cliffs, the golden shores, and the toils of the fields. You've stumbled back to Abaluba, and with it, the first installment of TD/HBI. I implore you to make a strong decision in your life, put down your work, and read the following rambles. These ideas might not always be connected, but I hope to heaven that you'll find them entertaining.

What kind of person are you? The question is too damn vague, and if I don't shepherd you towards my intended response, you'll wander the woods like a herd of cats, pouncing on mice and looking cuddly, but wriggling with ringworm and quick to bite. I need you to winnow down your essence, and decide between being Spontaneous and Formulaic. Neither answer is good or bad, in my mind. And truthfully, I'd love to hear your comments.

The question stems from a conversation my roommate and I just had concerning relationships. We were talking about friends of ours that had gotten engaged after a short period of time with boy/girlfriends, and, separately, the relative commonplace that we find among the ages of women who almost always determine they want children.

I asked Brian if he could empathize with his cousin's decision to marry her boyfriend of only six months. He could not. His response had nothing to do with his opinion of either his cousin or her boyfriend, of both he spoke highly. In fact, Brian was more concerned that the pair hadn't had sufficient time to "learn" the intricacies of the other's behavior and personality.

We reasoned that in general, there could only be two responses to such a decision. Either "you know when you know," trusting in the intuition of the body when presented with a person/relationship, or you believe that in fact that there's a certain number of interactions you need with someone before you largely are able to predict their response to a certain stimuli. Once you can predict their responses, you can then determine if this outcome, presented a certain percentage of the time, is something you can deal with in a partnership.

Brian said he felt that the latter was his perception. I find it really interesting that this is how he approaches rock climbs, specifically projecting routes of a certain grade. Brian will approach each climb with a very strategic plan for eventually redpointing the route. His training regimen leading up to his eventual success on the route will have a designed proportion of endurance, power/bouldering, anabolic and anaerobic components. He'll have done a certain number of routes at varying levels of difficulty proceeding his desired project. He perceives and runs his life largely the same way he spends his energy towards his greatest passion - climbing.

When he asked me how I saw things, I told him I'd like to think you know when you know, but in fact I was probably more mechanical. Largely, I believe you can control a situation and engineer certain desired outcomes based upon behavior. I find it very interesting, however, that my biggest conflicts during serious relationships have been times when I go straight from emotion to action, effectively neutering my ability to analyze and prepare myself, planning my actions. I'm no longer behaving in a way designed, so to speak, to bring me the most "good."

And the second behavioral concept we were talking about might be entirely driven by hormones. Take that with a grain of salt and the reality that it could very well be an uneducated and misinformed judgment by the author when he speaks of a group he doesn't usually understand: women.

My friend Jesse (boy) has heard of a a theory, and is fond of passing it along, that when women turn 31.5, they have a chemical change that says they want a kid. First of all, 31.5 is a great number, as it sounds so precise and scientific. It's probably just an ingenious detail that provides a great hook, or at least some sort of rounding for average.

If a woman is 31.5, her biological odds of having a healthy baby are widely understood to begin to decrease dramatically. It seems plausible to believe that through evolution, humans have come to largely exhibit similar behavior. So normal a group can't be spontaneous in the face of estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and human chorionic gonadotropin. Can they?

This isn't to say that ALL 31.5 year old women will all feel the exact same way about kids. Lots of them may, though, and that might be enough to wonder if, in general, similar demographics are going to turn out a certain way most of the time.

Speaking of Jesse...he is a third grade teacher, and will ask his kiddos a "question of the day." He'll write the question on the board and provide a list of possible answers, and the kids move a name tag into the answer with which they most agree. Some of his recent questions:
Q: What Would Make Colorado a Better Place (Pick one)
A1: Monkeys
A2: The Beach
A3: Disneyland
A4: Volcanoes
A5: Dinosaurs

(Q: The sad winner? A3)

I wonder if he'll ask the kids if A1: humans are willing to throw caution to the wind, marry a sweetheart and knock her up when she's 24 (regardless of whether she's biologically facing a deadline,) or A2: are we nothing more than robots programmed with an identifiable quota of chemicals and experience that make us all largely predicable. Me? I'll always vote for the stegosaurus. A5.

Whatcha reckon?

In a perhaps related twist of my neurons, I've been wondering if I'll find a woman with whom I'll finally fall totally in love. Will she come to pass me in a supermarket, smile a dashing hello and turn out to intertwine so perfectly with my heart that I'll find it impossible to walk away? Or will I merely wake up one day and decide that another year of solitary bachelorhood is something I couldn't abide, finally feeling the comfort in certainty when I decide, once and for all, that an 84/100 is a very winnable hand, and I might as well throw in my chips to make sure.

Jackson Equipment Troubles

Getting back up to Wyoming with my buddy Ethan has largely been a great time. Fortunately for the visual integrity of this blog, we've taken a bunch of pictures. Some of the good ones are attached. We've also been eating great food, drinking lots of beer, and skiing a ton. Well, we had been skiing a ton. He's up on the mountain right now, and I'm running around town, pissed off at all of my stuff.

I've broken a binding that's been giving me trouble all season, and am about to head over into Idaho (just over Teton Pass, not nearly the journey I make it out to be) where they're made to try to get the manufacturer to warranty the trouble. But that's really the minor trouble, given my spare pair of skis in the car. I was able to swap the bindings and not miss a beat. The real trouble began yesterday when i was getting ready to call it a day and flying down the mountain on the tamest run of the day, some groomer named Hanna.

Like a sniper had taken me in his sights and pulled the trigger, I hit the ground before I knew anything irregular had happened. After sliding down the snow for about 200 feet, snow all down my pants but physically fine, I looked down at the damage to try to figure out what the hell happened. My boot had broken in a crucial place, and the tongue was torn from the shell. Oops. I was leaning into the turn right when the plastic gave way, and I'm just glad I didn't get hurt.

I've got to rent a pair of boots for the last day of skiing tomorrow, but luckily there's a shop that has what I need, and snow is in the forecast. Hopefully, lots of it, because the snowpack is pretty bony right now. Oh well.

Jackson Report

Well, wireless at the condo in Jackson is weak. Ethan and I raced down to The Bunnery, a little bakery in town with an internet connection, and we're currently inhaling croissants and coffee. About to head out for a mellow ski day touring on Teton Pass, and just wanted to give a little nod to my Voyeurs and let you know I didn't forget about ya.

The snow is a little bare, but we've been blessed with insane views of the Grand and nice, spring-like conditions.

More soon, hopefully.