Portfolio
December 24, 2008
An attempt to post my portfolio.
this is what my life has become
December 21, 2008
My friend David explained to me what he was doing last weekend – going out with some friends, drinks with coworkers. He was really excited, let me know that he felt like he had such an exciting life, but he did it half kiddingly. He then asked if that was what my life felt like – if it was really exciting. I laughed, and told him that might have been what it once was like, but not anymore. Now it’s just silly; David asked for examples.
At 10:30 this morning, my friend Janna picked me up to go cross country skiing. I was really interested in it, because, having opted out of doing a long run due to inclement weather yesterday, I thought it would be a good work out. We got into the car assuming that the roads would be cleared, but were woefully disappointed. The trip, that would normally take ninety minutes (68 miles), ended up taking 3 hours and involved pulling over two or three times to scrape ice off the windshield before we invested in a spray-on de-icer. Worked like a charm for the last 15 miles.
When we arrived at the ski area, we decided that it would be a good idea to, instead of trying to make up the steep highway that had at least two electrical trucks on it, parking on the side of the road and walking up. I think the electrician men, or whoever was operating the trucks looked at us oddly. When we made our way to the ski shop it took us about one second to realize that there waas nobody there, but maybe another 20 to realize that the power was out. We noted that they didn’t take credit cards. There was a fire in a wood stove in the corner. A man came in to tell us that all the trails were closed because an ice storm had torn down more than a few trees all over the park and that we couldn’t, after all, go cross country skiing. I needed to pee.
When I returned to the ski shop – the restroom was on the second level – I found Janna sitting on a chair a bit despondant. We sat and read a local newsletter about cross country skiing. Did you know you could cross country ski a marathon? Why would you want to? We sat and waited for nothing in particular, texted cha-cha to see what else we could do. A new man walked into the lodge. He told us the same sad news about his skiing operation: no power, no phone, no skiing.
When I asked for what else we could do that was fun, he offered snow shoeing and we jumped at it. Not before we acquired a cupcake though. Here’s the conversation:
Me: Is there any food we can buy?
Owner: Well, to start, here’s a cupcake for each of you. (Hands us each a cupcake that’s clearly from a holiday party 3 days ago). And, we have power bars upstairs…
Me: Before we go upstairs to buy power bars, let’s see how much cash we have.
Owner: Ok, I’ll just charge you…$20 each.
Me: Oh, great, do you have an ATM?
Owner: Well, there’s one in town, and we don’t have electricity.
Me: Hmm, we’ll let’s see how much money we have. I have…7 dollars.
Janna: Let’s see, I have…17 dollars.
Me: Okay, so we have 24 dollars.
Owner: Ok, well…that’s fine.
We then proceeded to get lost in the woods in the snow, find a warming cabin, build a fire, and leave after 2 hours. I think we saw four other people. I think they lived or rented some of the cabins out in the ski area. We didn’t see the owner again, but we left a thank you note. It was great, and I’m beat. I highly recommend this place, because the owner was so nice.
