Into the weekend.

Skier Days: Sara(22), Caroline(6), Susan(5), Charles(14)

Well it turned out to be quite a week.   I have been somewhat remiss in keeping up my blog posts as we have had some internet problems starting late Wed. night and through the end of the day Friday.

Wednesday...

The temperatures continued to be super cold dipping below 0 degrees Fahrenheit both Wednesday and Thursday.  We had new window and blinds installed over the summer and the blinds do such a good job at insulating that each morning there was a few inches of frost on the inside of the window.   It would quickly thaw and disappear once the blinds were raised and I turned on the gas fireplace. In general we keep the electric heat off and rely on the fireplace to heat the place.  It is on a one hour timer so we don't turn it on over night and the condo has been around 56 degrees when we awaken.  

I dropped Sara down at campus and worked the day away back at the condo.   After lunch I managed to get in a few fast runs and with my warm gear on it did not even feel that cold. I picked up Sara late in the day on Wednesday as they had a talk on nutrition after dinner was complete.  Our internet connection grew slower as the evening went by and it got frustrating to the point where I just shut it down completely in hopes that it would recover the next morning.  

Thursday...


In the morning it was no better and in fact it was worse.   I dropped Sara down at the competition center and called Time Warner.  A couple of different technicians determined that there appeared to be something wrong with the signal and that the line speed was not all that great.   Because it was still technically functional they scheduled an appointment for Tuesday, yikes.   Not long after I got off the phone it was completely toast.   I worked on some offline tasks in the hopes that it would improve as the temperature came up.  No such luck.

I decided to get my time in skiing today early but when I got out there it was so cold and windy that the lifts were barely running .    I skied just a couple of runs before heading in.   So that it was not a complete loss I tried the exercise of one footed skiing all the way from the top of the South Ridge Quad.  One time down on each foot.  This is an exercise that they often use with the race kids and something that Sara can do to an almost savant like degree.  I therefore held out hope that I was somehow the source of those genes.  While I did not approximate her skill level, I did manage to do a passable job after a challenging start.

With no internet I packed up my stuff and moved down to the lodge where I setup on the corner of the Barker Lodge.  It was really quiet all afternoon, sunny and comfortable.   It was a really productive day of work after getting off to such a crappy start.  I worked until a little after 6pm.  I called into Time- Warner and the agreed that with my connection now 100% down they would send someone out tomorrow.  

It got very cold and when I went out side the biting wind and cold slapped me in the face.  I saw a couple of mountain ops guys coming up the stairs and it was again an odd coincidence that one of them was our friend Adam.   He and his partner had just walked all the way down from Obsession backwards to cut through the wind.   I offered to take Sara out for dinner but she declined as all of the kids were heading down to Rite-Aide to pick up presents for their secret Santa the next day.   I decided to go anyways and went to Cho Sun for a smoking hot bowl of KimChee Chi Gae.   My nose ran and my eyes waters and I felt like I had enough heat to last through to the spring.   I collected Sara at the Rite-Aide and we headed back to a chilly condo and an early bed.


Friday...


I dropped Sara in Bethel the next morning and then went straight to the lodge to work and await a call from the cable guy.  I got a perfect spot right in the corner under the wireless router and set to work.   A lot of things were coming together, so I felt super, extra productive.    Susan was coming up early today and Caroline was staying at Molly's tonight so she could have some extra time to work on the big play.   Susan got in at midday and ended up skiing with a friend of ours from home that happened to be up on business.    I got a call from the cable guy around 4 o'clock and I met him at the condo promptly.   Within an hour or so we had resolved most of the issue and I was back to my computer again.

We went down to Gould for the evening and had a great time first with a lovely dinner, and then with a great Christmas Concert that showed off some of the really talented musicians at the school.  There was a reading of the "Night Before Christmas" to collection of little ones in PJs, and then some top rate classical piano, chorus,  band, jazz band and even more singing.   All and all it was quite impressive.   We finished the evening with cookies and coffee and the back to the condo.

Saturday...


The girls were slept in late on Saturday morning and so I went out and skied a bit on my own.  We all met up at 10am with the BDP and Sara tagged along for a bit with the standard crew.  We skied fast and hard and did  laps on Northern Light which was probably the best trail on the mountain and there were no lines at all at the Aurora chair.

We were driving back separately to Medford and the excitement for the day involved a nail in the tire of my Mini.   It has run flats and the indicator light is often falsely going on so i tended to ignore it.  Something felt different this time so I stopped at a gas station with an pressure gauge and discovered that it was indeed flat and had a nice long nail in it.  My suspicion is that it was related to the construction going on in the condo below us and that it had gotten plowed up in the now.  It managed to go into the sidewall and a can of the fix-a-flat was a waste of $7.  I made it to "the Wal-Mart" and the folks there were super nice.   They showed me how to use a repair kit to fix it myself because they were technically not allowed to fix it at all for fear of liability.  In the end the plug held and I drove super slow all the way back to Boston  New tire will be needed for sure though.
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Made it back in time to shower and head out to dinner with our gang of local friends.   A great meal at Temple Bar followed by some beers and desert at our friends home.

Sunday...


Sunday brought a foot of snow in Boston, but none up north.  I am local this week and now I am really tired and ready for bed after a long day of shoveling.  I love my home here, but already miss having a mountain outside my back door...