Good riddance, 2006

2006 is almost over, and I for one am glad. Because, for me, this has not been exactly a banner year. Sure it started out good. I had two pretty good months. But than things sort of took a nosedive in March. The following sequence of events occurred in March and April alone: my girlfriend dumped me, I got thrown out of my apartment, a CT scan revealed new lesions in my lungs, I broke my leg- canceling my cross country ski trip, and I had a chunk of my lung removed.

Than it was not exactly a great summer, either. I did not ride my bike a single kilometer the entire month of July. Than, while hospitalized on interleukin II in NYC, it was revealed that Floyd Landis had failed a drug test at the Tour de France. And, of course, there was that whole anxiety of going through hell, wondering if it was all for nothing.

Which it turned out to be, since the I.L. II didn’t seem to do the trick. Than I decided to move to Vermont, only to arrive in time for the warmest December in memory. Global warming is not a myth people, ask any skier in New England.

Now, here is my theory: years that end in a “6” just plain suck. For example, 1986- Exhibit A. Like 2006, ’86 started off pretty good. But it wouldn’t last. After the high point of seeing “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, things began to turn rough. My grandfather died a few weeks later, and on the day of his funeral it started to rain, and pretty much rained the rest of the summer. But that was nothing compared to what was in store for me in September: Mrs. Race. The most evil sixth grade teacher in the history of upstate NY. This woman was the real life version of Nurse Ratched from “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. And 1996 sucked too. Bad jobs, bad apartments, bad roommates, and turning 21 but not going out on my birthday.

But, I figure that I should not end the year on a negative not, so I will list the good things about 2006, to close out the year on a good note. I met a bunch of really great people, skied a whole lot (even if the snow wasn’t all that good), and got a new bike. Despite being stuck in the hospital, my friends from TGR made sure that I wasn’t alone in there and made it almost fun to be there at times. Than of course there was seeing Pearl Jam, meeting Ingrid Backstrom at the MSP “Push” premiere in New York, and the Borat movie.

See you in 2007.

Finally Winter?

Well, it finally looks like winter. I am posting today from downtown North Conway, New Hampshire, where the White Mountains are living up to there name. After a long drive from the parental units in Upstate NY, I barely saw any snow along the road. Until I entered the Mt. Washington valley, and Finlay- snow was falling. And it was sticking! After a LONG time of seeing grass on the ground, it was finally beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Too bad it was two days too late.

So today was the first real ski experience I have had in a year. I even went back to my viking heritage and tried telemark skiing. If both my legs were 100%, I would probably have gotten the hang of it. But nagging injuries prevented me from being transformed into a nordic god. Oh well, at least Ullr was finally beginning to bless us.

Tomorrow it's back to Vermont to close out 2006. I for one, am glad to see the year end, but I'll save he reasons for my New Year's Eve posting.

Change the Channel

I think I really need to change my television viewing habits. Mainly, I have to quit watching hospital shows. Which kind of sucks, since two of my favorite shows, until recently, were House and Gray's Anatomy. But It seems every week there is some sort of a story line involving some cancer patient dying a painful death. Not the sort of thing I really want to be thinking about, and the type of negativity I should be avoiding.

So the question now is what to watch instead. Fortunately, up in Vermont, my cable package includes RSN (Resort Sports Network), which seems to show some sort of ski movie every night. Granted, this might have the unintended consequence of inspiring me to do something marginally insane, which could just as easily put me in the hospital anyway. But I would like to think that after two consecutive years resulting in season-ending injuries, I have learned a few things and will now be skiing more safely. But I haven't learned anything in truth, and the only thing keeping me from participating in random acts of stupidity is the fact that my left leg is still not at 100%, and I just don't feel safe going full throttle.

I have a rather extensive DVD collection as well, so whenever regular TV fails, I have the option of watching whatever movie I please. With a library that ranges from Altman to Zemeckis, I can usually find something to fit my mood. Of course I don't need to have an extensive DVD collection to keep me happy. The truth is, I'm rather simple to please. So the next time I turn on my television and hear some doctor telling a patient about an untreatable tumor, I know what to do. Yell "Shut the fuck up, Donny!", change the channel, and put in The Big Lebowski (letterboxed, of course).

Sometimes, I become overwhelmed with negative thoughts. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get them out of my head. Fortunately, this time of the year I can always head to the mountain, make a few turns, and for a few hours clear my mind. When I'm skiing, everything else is irrelevent. My only concern is the line I'm skiing. When I'm riding he lift back up, my only concern is the next line. So for those few hours on the mountain, nothing else matters. Cancer, money, lonliness, laundry, all leave my conscious thought, replaced by skiing.

In the summer, I don't have this option. I spend hours on my road bike, miles passing under my wheels, but unlike skiing, on the bike I am less than focused. My thoughts tend to wander. However, my time on the bike is usually not filed with negative thought. More often than not, it is creative. Some of my best ideas occur to me when I'm on the bike. Not all the time. Climbing up a steep hill, heart rate at 90% of it's maximum, the only thing I can think of is getting over the hill. Or when a large German Shepard wants to see if he can outsprint me, I am generally not rewriting my latest screenplay.

The next few weeks will be filed with uncertainty. I have a CT scan on January 4th, and that will weigh heavily on my mind. But as long as the lifts are turning, for a few hours a day I can be focused on one thing, and one thing only. My next turn.

White, powdery, and addictive

Alright, the Weather Channel was WRONG!!! They didn't say anything about snow today. But around 2 PM today, as I was riding up the North Face side of Mount Snow with my friend Brian, it began falling. And not just flurries, either. We're talking about some big, fat flakes! Trails that were brownish green in the morning were beginning to get a layer of white on them by the time we made our final turns of the day.

And it's about time, too. Everyone has been getting real antsy in the Northeast. Last night I headed to the Silo, a local watering hole, where I proceeded to down plenty of Labatt's drafts and twenty cent chicken wings. The end result was a hangover this morning, but while AK heli skiers often head to the bar in order to "drink it blue", my imbibing had the result of drinking it white!

So it's finaly beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Hopefully the Weather Channel continues to be wrong, since ther don't have any more snow predicted for this week.

Global cooling? Uh, NO!

Today, driving south on Vermont State Highway 100, I passed a thermometer outside the Aspen East ski shop. It read 51 degrees farenheit. This was December 15, in Kilington, Vermont. A place that only a few years ago opened for skiing around Columbus Day. Now they are barely able to keep enough snow on the ground to remain opening. The worst part is, this isn't exactly a freak weather pattern these days. It has been very warm recently. Last night I couldn't even see my breath. And if anyone thinks Global Warming is a myth, I suggest that they pull their heads out of their asses and take a deep breath. They might discover that there is a bit more carbon dioxide than they expected.

I'll be the first to admit that my opinions wre dramatically changed by Al Gore's movie. After all, isn't it possible that this is just the result of climate changes that naturally occur over time? That could partially explain things, but the truth is that we are hotter than ever, and the temperature increases are happenning faster than they have in previous climate changes. Much faster. These things shouldn't be producing such noticable reults in 20 years.

A freind of mine, someone who I know is very inteligent, claimed that what is actualy hapenning is Global COOLING, the result of glacial melt lowering the salinity of the oceans, causing them to cool. But the glaciaers wouldnt be melting in the first place if the planet wasn't getting warmer. Now I don't have the answers to save the world, but I'm sure that there are a lot of folks a lot smarter than me that do. And we should stop living in denial, and start listening to them.

Last Chair

For most skiers, first chair is a special thing. First chair usually means first tracks, first turns, and first to the bottom. But very few people ever talk about last chair. True, unless you are a patroller, you can't truly get last chair. But there's something about the mountain after 3 PM. By this time of the day, most of the tourists are already back in the bar, many locals back at home (or for a good many of them, tending the bar that those tourists are at). The snow takes on a bluish grey tint, not like the shiny white that it was under the midday sun. By this time of the day, the snow is far from perfect, the runs bumped, rutted, and scraped into icy obstacle courses by hundreds of metal edges. While first chair of the day is part of a race to get to the best snow, the same can hardly be said about last chair.

But Last chair isn't about a race. If anything, it's time to ease back on the throttle, and go tranquillo back down to the baselodge. I have to admit, I often don't take the time out to enjoy the mountains I'm in when I'm skiing. I'm too focused on my line, my next air, or little technical details that are supposed to make me a better skier. But sometime around 2:30, when the Alpenglow begins to set in, I start to take note of my surroundings. The colors that the mountains turn in the last hour of daylight are unreal. My last run always follows the longest time I stand at the top of the mountain. I'll take one last look across the mountains, illuminated by the final rays of that day, before descending, like the sun itself, into the valley below, another day ending.

The GREEN Mountain State

Well, I am posting this from the parking lot at Mount (a little bit of) Snow. If that isn't true ski-bum cred, I don't know what is. I didn't ski today, because today was spent driving back from NY, where I spent the weekend not eating at the Dinosaur BBQ in Harlem because it was a two hour wait for a table on Saturday, followed by watching the Jets choke as usual in an important game on Sunday.

Anyway, driving into VT, there was a little bit of whilte stuff on the North facing and shaded aspects, but most of them thar hills were brownish green. Which means the next couple of days I will spend watching the Weather Channel and looking for virgins to sacrifice to Ullr in hopes that we get some snow.

I'll be skiing tomorrow, though, and will finally post up some pic of the pistes (I feel so Extremo Mountain Dude usuing that term) tomorrow.

A Title!

Well, I've decided to name my blog Kicking Cancer's Ass? Why? Because that is what I am doing every day I'm alive. For over three years now I have been battling malignant melanoma, and I absolutely refuse to lose.

The best part is, I don't even have to keep any sort of theme to my posts. Because anything and everything I do means that I am kicking cancer's ass.

Of course, the bad thing about cancer is that it sometimes makes you think unpleaseant thoughts. I often think about how I might die. I have decided that I will die in 70 or more years, in bed with a beautiful woman, and I will have biked, skied, and /or surfed on that day. Yeah, I know I'm kind of ripping off Evel Kenievel, who said he planned to die at the age of 105 and in bed with Elizabeth Taylor.

Anyway, today I helped my parents put up there Christmas Tree. Tomorrow I head back to Mt. (I hope there's still some) Snow, VT. I'll let you know how the snow is in a future post.

Well, here it is- I have enetered the blogosphere. Who knows what the hell this blog will be about. Perhaps it will be chronicling my days of balls deep powder days, but since I live in the East, I don't think so. So it will probably consist of whatever random thoughts I have for the day. Maybe I will come up with a title later. But for now, I will just post whatever comes to mind.