33 Weeks 0 Days: Finally a Northwesterner

{You can click on any image to see it bigger}

I finally went snowboarding! I've lived in the Northwest for 25 years and had never been skiing or snowboarding. So I finally got to go with Krystal and our friends Mike and Sarah.

Here's Krystal and I at the Timberline Ski Resort. Mike is an experienced snowboarder so I just got the Discovery 123 pass. That pass gives me 3 days of lift ticket, gear rental and a lesson on each day. And I can use the three days any time during the season. The first day I was limited to the Bruno run, which is the beginner slope. And that's fine because I wouldn't have tried any other run. The other two days I'll have an "all mountain" pass.

Here, Mike is helping my strap my boot into the binding. It's really hard to do when you're overweight. Eventually, he left to do some other runs and I had to do it myself and it got easier after I limbered up a bit.

Standing up was one of the harder things to do. As soon as you get up your board starts sliding all over the place. And it doesn't care which way you're facing.

I finally got up and got the board to go the way I wanted. The next problem I encountered was not knowing how to stop.


Which brings us to my inevitable toppling. I actually fell many more times up until that point.


And then the easiest part of the day, the chair lift back up. Mike is in front of me, I'm in back.


And then, after a little break, back at it.

The first 4 runs I did left me completely exhausted after each one. Climbing back up after every spill took so much energy. And I've had a cold so I was out of breath way easier. The first two runs I had a break in between. The after the third run I had to go into the bathroom and remove 75% of my clothing layers. It just wasn't cold enough to be wearing everything I was. Then after the fourth run I took a little break and waited for my lesson which started at 1:00pm. That was really helpful. Once I got through the basic lesson and we went down as a group to do a run, I was finally able to balance a lot better and after a few tries I was making it all the way down the run, cutting back and forth across the slope, not falling nearly as much and most of the time I was just dropping to my knees. And that took much less effort. After my first post-lesson run, I got off the chair lift and realized I wasn't exhausted. So I went straight back down. And then after that run I was still not tired. I was finally getting the hang of it.

Krystal and Sarah had lunch and hung out in the lodge by a giant fireplace and the conditions on the mountain were getting pretty grim, so I ditch out on the last 30 minutes of lesson. The instructor showed me a few more things to practice for next time and I went and turned in my rental gear. I was the only one in the group that he didn't really need to hold's hand while teaching. He'd just show me and give me a few tips and I'd practice it on my own until I got the hang of it. So next time we go up, I'll practice those new things before my second lesson.

There were a lot of little kids around, learning and I'm already excited to bring our kid up there and get her started whenever she gets big enough. It's great exercise and it's just kind of a nice setting. Being on the lift with all the people skiing below you. I like the snowy mountain setting with people just gliding around wherever they want. It's very graceful... Unless you're me on the Bruno. The people there were all really friendly. I'd lose control and get close to running into someone and I'd yell out, "Coming through! Sorry about that!" and they'd all go, "No problem," and move over. It was a nice and maybe one day Krystal can get some lessons and we can have some family or multi-family trips up there.

Here's Krystal and Sarah with Bruno, the Timberline dog.
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32 Weeks 5 Days: People Helping People

I know I tend to be pretty negative all the time. I'm really not. My blog is kind of like the news: The news rarely plays good-will stories because the stories with destruction, crime and violence get more ratings. They have a saying, "If it bleeds, it reads". If they get a last minute story of someone being injured, they will pick a nice story (fluff piece) and drop it like 3rd period French. I use this as a forum to express all the things that are idiotic (hence the title of the blog). But 75% of the time I'm happy with things. The world isn't a perfect place but it could definitely be worse.

Me and contractor friend of mine, Mike, are working a project right now. It was initially planned to take about 7 working days. Not a huge project and we were all on schedule and doing really well until one of the homeowners had a major medical problem and had to go into surgery and will now be in the hospital for at least a month. We were able to keep working, but the homeowners were planning on doing some of the interior work themselves. So we added insulation and drywall to our bid at the last minute and a few other things which added a few days of labor. Well, I ended up giving her a free day of labor just to help them out in a rough time. And they were planning to remodel their attic as well and their friends and neighbors have offered to help out wherever they can. A community of people that are looking out for each other and if one person fails, the rest help pick them back up. Now, I know that's the definition of Socialism, which is apparently evil, but doesn't that seem like a good way to live? Even small things. A few months back I was in a hurry and grabbed a few things out of my garage and then took off without closing it. My next door neighbor noticed and closed our garage for us when he was leaving for work. Just looking out for your neighbor so nobody steals their stuff. And I'd do the same for them. Why is that so hard?

Instead we have people just ignoring a guy stomping an infant to death on the side of the road. Just drive on by because, "I just don't want to get involved". Or people being so sue-happy that it makes other people afraid to get involved because you could help someone and then they might turn around and sue you. Which is ridiculous (there is supposed to be something called "the good Samaritan law" but there are so many legal loopholes it doesn't matter). Or people saying, I don't want to pay for other people's healthcare out of my taxes (even though you pay for everyone else's now with increased medical bills). Everyone just looks out for themselves and ignores everyone else. And that will work fine until something happens to you and you need someone else's help. Then you hippocrates are fine with socialism.

And we're all afraid of each other. The other day I saw a car broken down in the middle of the road. There's nothing more frustrating than a car just sitting in the road with it's hazard lights on with the driver making no effort to get the car out of the road. This driver was a little old lady so I understand that she couldn't push the car. But she was right next to a parking lot and there were a couple of young guys standing at a bus stop right by her and they were trying to offer to push her car into the parking lot, to get it out of the road, but she just ignored them and kept the doors locked. So there was a huge traffic jam because she was afraid of a couple of guys who were just trying to help. We don't need to fear everything. I know the news tells us to, but they're lying. Like I said at the beginning of this post, the news only plays crime ridden stories, so it seems like that's all that's going on in the world. If they played good and bad stories at the same ratio as they happen in the real world, you'd rarely hear a story about crime.

If your community is the kind that band together and help each other out and work as a true community, you should be very thankful. I have to admit that I don't even know most of the people who live on my small street and I should change that. Soon. But I'd still help them out if I saw them in need...

31 Weeks 6 Days: Merry X Mas

From the Oregonian:

Police responded to a tussle that broke out at the Jantzen Beach Toys 'R Us store as shoppers who'd started the line on Thanksgiving night clashed with late-comers gathering by the door. At the Northeast Portland Best Buy, shoppers complained of line-cutting and shoving.

Frayed nerves are often the norm on Black Friday. Yet this year the potential for tension seemed higher, as even more folks are financially crunched than in 2008 and retailers, too, are hurting and have cut back inventories.

"People were really pretty rude and pushing," said Tarin Elliot, who arrived at Best Buy around 12:30 a.m. and was leaving the store with a Nintendo Wii for her kids at 5:15 a.m.

She and others complained that fellow shoppers were selling -- for as much as $50 -- the free tickets Best Buy employees handed out to early birds to assure them they'd get a certain doorbuster deal.

That wasn't the only tactic aimed at calming shoppers that backfired.

Following last year's fatal trampling of a Wal-Mart employee in New York, the discounter kept most stores open all night to prevent another door-opening surge. But what that really meant, Portland shoppers said, was that they could fill their carts all night, but couldn't check-out until 5 a.m.

"People were standing there all night with their full carts. They were grumpy," said Carol Brashear of Gresham, who didn't know about the all-night deal and was irked to find the laptops and movies gone at Clackamas Wal-Mart.

"We almost got run over by crazy moms with shopping carts," added her daughter, Ashley Brashear.

At a Target store across town, Megan Clohessy, 21, of Troutdale said people seemed more selfish this year.

"People were going into the stores for that certain $3 something and they didn't care who was in their way," said Clohessy, who said she was pushed even though she's pregnant. "I've been doing this since I was 12 and this is the craziest year yet."


-Man it's great to celebrate Christmas isn't it? We can prove our love to our family members by putting ourselves thousands of dollars in debt in order to buy them crap. Because if we don't buy them presents, they may not know how cool we are...

And people wonder why we don't celebrate this holiday of misery.

Let's not forget about the Walmart worker who was KILLED by inconsiderate pricks who were so focused on Christmas shopping they didn't realize that they had trampled a human being to DEATH.

31Weeks 5 Days: Autism Schmautism

I just heard a commercial on the radio warning everyone that 1 in 166 kids are diagnosed with autism. "Your kid has autism!!!". I'm sorry but 1 out of every 166 kids is not autistic. 1 in 166 kid are diagnosed with autism. You figure it out.

31 Weeks 4 Days: More Shit You Don't Need

Here are some links to some stories about some crap you don't need for your kid.

"Revealing how Dentists profit by abusing children" - An investigative report on a local dentist who was doing unnecessary, painful procedures in order to make more money.


"Children exposed to harmful radiation from unecessary CT scans" - An article giving CT scans for children with minor head bumps that are low risk for head trauma. A great example of parental paranoia mixed with a doctor being will to do it to charge for it


A Video of Obama taking about how doctor's are taking out a kids tonsils when it isn't necessary because they make more money than just diagnosing it as allergies.


"Many kids get unnecessary ear tubes" - A study that shows many kids who get Tympanostomy tubes because of ear infections don't actually need them.


"Flexible flat feet in children: a real problem?" - The American Academy of Pediatrics did a study of flat footed children and concluded that and excessive amount of orthopedic treatments have been prescribed unnecessarily.


Basically, people are paranoid and want a to "fix" their children and the doctors are greedy and want to charge for the proceedure which equals a lot of unnecessary treatments. So first, calm down. Everything is going to be alright. And next, don't just do it because the doctor says it. He is not perfect, above greed, infalible and he only knows about how 1% of the human body actually works, the rest is guess and check.