Working Hard for the Money …
Posted by Sarah - 27/12/05 at 08:12:40 pm
At the end of December my temporary job with Vermont Ski Areas Association will end. I’ve greatly enjoyed working there and may come back again next year. One of the perks of the job is free skiing and snowboarding for the staff, and each year we also have a ski day at one of the resorts. I was hesitant at first, as I have never skied or snowboarded before, but eventually I decided to participate by taking a snowboarding lesson.
My first experience was challenging and exhausting, but fun too. People warned me that I would spend several hours doing nothing but falling down on my butt. Well, it wasn’t quite that bad, but neither can I say that I have much natural skill for this activity. I’m more used to roller skating and blading, where you have to have a certain amount of control and balance, but where gravity plays a much diminished role. Much diminished. In snowboarding (or “riding”), gravity is a major factor, and for the beginner, it is an adverse force. It will pull you the wrong way, or before you are quite ready. It will even take your board away from you at very high speed if you aren’t paying attention and let it slip (this almost happened…almost). And after every run downhill, you get to battle gravity as you hike back up to the top with the (heavy) snowboard bound to one foot.
During the 90 minute class, I glided, fell, practiced turns, fell, got going really well and then panicked and fell in order to keep from riding off into the parking lot, and did a lot of hiking up the hill. After a while we moved to a steeper section of terrain and practiced “traversing”, where the aim is to go across the grade of the slope rather than taking a straight shot downhill. The idea is that, after a lot of practice one will be able to build up a repertoire of moves (straight gliding, J Turns, traverses) that allow one to regulate their speed and direction as they navigate a trail. Snowboards don’t have stops or breaks like skates do, so you have to tame gravity by learning how to subtly shift your weight and stance. I understand these concepts in theory. Putting them into practice is another matter.
Still, I did enjoy myself and got one of the best workouts I’ve had in recent memory. In the afternoon we went snow shoeing, which takes more energy than snowboarding but is much less technically difficult to master. (Yes I was painfully sore the next two days.) I will be buying snowshoes as soon as possible, and hopefully in the not too distant future I’ll be able to take another snowboarding lesson.
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Muttluk Love …
Posted by Rick - 05/12/05 at 09:12:25 amWhen we first told our friends in Maryland that we planned to move to Vermont, most responded by asking “how will you deal with the cold!?” Since we honestly had no clue what the answer to this question was, we eventually established a sort of party line response: “We don’t mind the cold, it’s the commuting in the cold that we don’t like.” This is true. Sarah and I are both more comfortable when we are cold than when we are hot, whether it is inside or out. We also hated commuting to our jobs in the city on cold days.
On cold works days we had to bundle up to walk a mile to the Silver Spring Metro stop, where most days we had to wait on the elevated platform while the wind whipped around us. Once we were on a train, it would inevitably be blasting the heat, and as more people got on at each subsequent stop the train would get very warm. The fact that more people took public transportation on colder days—especially if it was snowy or icy—meant that in addition to being hot, one would have a great deal of difficulty removing layers for the 30-45 minute ride due to the extra bodies, all of whom were wearing extra layers themselves.
Once we arrived at our respective stops, we had to walk various distances to our offices, again bundling up against the cold and or wind. Once at our offices, we would strip our layers to work. I can’t speak for Sarah’s office, but mine was frequently warmer than I would have liked. (My office mate next door to me, however, was always cold and blasted the heat in her office.) If we didn’t bring lunch, we had to also bundle up to go out for food as well. At the end of the day, we’d turn around and do it all again in reverse.
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