Getting back into the groove....

Skier Days: Sara(36), Caroline(16), Susan(15), Charles(30)

Sara and I have been up here since Christmas Day, which makes it 16 days straight. It it is starting to feel like a regular routine.   As you may recall  the original plan was for me to go home this last week, but Caroline was not feeling all that well last weekend and it looked like she was winding up for an asthma attack.  It was decided that it was wiser for Susan to go home and keep an eye on her health in case she needed to go in to the doctor, or worse yet the hospital.   I rescheduled my plans for the week, which was just as well, because I had plenty of issues to follow up with on the current release that we are working on.

The week was a rollercoaster as it followed the ups and downs of teenage girlhood.   As a young man I always found girls and their relationships confusing,  as a father I am no less confounded.   Suffice it to say that I have compassion for all of them and wish that some of the unpleasantness that they put each other through could somehow be lessened..  As you suffer through them, the challenges seem so significant.  It is only in hindsight you realize that they are just bumps in the road.  Navigating them as parents can be one of our biggest challenges.  At any rate things now seem to be going in the right direction and with any luck we should now be able to focus on academics, skiing and building friendships.

The weather this week has been consistently cold which has allowed them to make a significant amount of snow.  The only challenge has been the wind, which has been kicking up hard ever couple of days or so and th lack of any new natural snow in the forecast.   The power of the wind to completely scour a slope of snow and blow it into the woods is amazing..   The tops of many of the lifts were blown down to "good old New England boiler plate" and granite.  On the other side of the battle are the mountain operations team blowing an amazing amount of snow on  the days that the wind did quiet down.   On Thursday afternoon at the top of Aurora the trail Airglow was nothing but the hardest of the hard but then on Friday there were 6 foot deep mounds of snow.

The obvious lack of  interesting pictures in this posting is a testament to just how cold the weather has been.   I have not really had the courage to take the camera out on the trail with me and without Maggie to walk in the morning there have been fewer opportunities for picture taking.  Part of it may also be that things are settling in a bit more and some of the novelty is wearing off.  This is not a bad thing,  it just means that we are starting to feel more like we are at home.

I have found that working remotely is starting to become more and more natural.  I have been putting in a good 10 hours a day, but it is broken up into smaller segments.   An hour or so before breakfast is followed by getting Sara ready and down to school or the competition center..  Four hours through to lunch is followed by a lunch break of an hour or two of skiing.    Three or four hours of work is followed by dinner and a ride down to Bethel to get Sara.   An extra snack and some guitar playing is followed by one last check in to IM and the opportunity to work with the team in China or India before bed.  Being home I find that I can do a quick vacuum or start a load of laundry as part of my "think time".  "Think time" is what you need when you get stuck on a challenging problem or while writing a technical document. You need to get up, walk around, and think.  It is amazing how many tough problems are solved this way.

In the realm of skiing Sara and the team have been focusing very heavily on Slalom as today was the first J3 Slalom Qualifier of the season.  Slalom skiing requires a great deal of technical skill and it is a discipline that Sara is just now starting to develop.  The excellent coaching that she has been getting has helped to increase her confidence in the gates and she managed to complete both of her runs in reasonable  times, improving by 5 seconds from her first run to her second.   Not a bad showing at all  and a good place from which to build.

I have managed to get out for a little bit of skiing everyday and my physical and mental well being is all the better for it.  At home I find that it is really hard to find the time to work out.   Here, the pull of the snow has managed to motivate me each day.  Even on those days when the wind roars through the trees I seem to be able to muster the courage to make it out.   I find that my skiing is improving for having the opportunity to spend a little bit of time each day on the snow.   The variety of condition really forces you to understand how your skis work and how slight variations in weighting impact how your skis perform.

The weekend was fun but busy and it has gone by all to fast.   Sara is in bed very early tonight and Susan and Caroline I home safely.   It went by way to fast and now we are quickly back into the grind...