In the first three hours, I at least doubled my knowledge of skiing. I arrived and was whisked off to a waxing lecture where the Swix expert talked about putting on base waxes, all kinds of fluorocarbons and molys and then powdering the skis. I was completely floored to learn that there were multiple irons that might be used to apply the wax and the temperature was absolutely critical. The take home point was when in doubt wax for colder temps rather than warmer. It became apparent that I needed three days just on waxing and even then I still might not understand waxing. With our registration, we were given free Swix waxing aprons that proved to be incredibly useful. After going to the waxing lecture, it was obvious that I had waxed skis way too little in my previous years of skiing so we headed to the waxing shed. With Peggy's gentle coaching we managed to wax our classic skis and my skate skis. The fog in my head from the lecture began to clear and I realized that I needed to buy waxing tools. Today at lunch I went to the ski shop to buy waxing tools. The woman at the store completely demystified the art of waxing in a ten minute conversation. Although I was very happy I had had the Swix primer the night before, I thought the ski shop version was more my speed. I can hardly wait to wax my skis and take them out for spin.
Well I always new that I was not the best skier out there but with years of skiing under my belt and two semester long classes, I didn't think I was that bad until today.... when I was put in the most remedial of groups. In the morning, with skate skiing, I expected it. I haven't skate skied that often, with the classes, the instructor was a stereotypical coach, leaving us behind if we couldn't keep up. There was no way to blame the equipment because for skate skiing, I had just bought a new pair of boots that really purred. My skis were actually waxed properly unlike the last two years where I've been skiing on waxed skis but I didn't know I was supposed to remove the wax, leaving only a thin layer of wax. With all the new improvements to my equipment, there was no one to blame but myself. Norm Bishop, a nice older gentleman gave me an accurate assessment of my skiing. He gave me multiple drills to help improve my techniques. By the afternoon session I was ready to show someone that really could ski. Yes and ski I could but I still had no technique.
In the afternoon, Norm realized that we had vintage three pin bindings and quickly tracked down some demos skis for us. He was worried that our three pin bindings would tear up the track. The truth is the track was already in poor shape but I thought it was a great excuse to demo skis. However, I do believe the beautiful equipment was lost on my skiing ability. We were treated to trying Salamon demo skis and boots which came complete with a waxing job from the pros. While everyone himmed and hawed over which wax to use the Swix experts had out two sets of skis waxed and ready to go in seconds. The highlight for me was not the skis but listening to experts melodic Midwest accent. I was delighted to discover the waxing experts were from North West Wisconsin (my stomping grounds) and I relished listening to the long "O"s in their dialogue. They didn't seem quite as delighted to discover that I was from Wisconsin, in fact I think they were surprised to learn that I had lived most of my life there. Maybe they were just distracted by the waxing task at hand. Or maybe I'm losing my accent. weep, weep. Shoot have to go back to my people to pick it up again. They pushed us out the door and asked us if we need poles. We said no but they probably would not like our poles either (they were almost as old as the three pin classic waxable skis.). The instructor humbled me with pointing out my many skiing problems. He also had valuable feed back and good drills.
Tonight after eating a Thanksgiving meal that was not traditional but very yummy, determined to get my money's worth out of the clinic, I dragged myself from the hotel for a lecture on technique. Unfortunately I don't know the lecturer's name but he had some very good take home messages: watch experts because we learn from aping others, work on balance, poling is really the same in diagonal and classic, etc. All of it made sense but the highlight of the presentation was when he told us of his first trip to Norway. He told us of his expectation that all Norwegians would be exceptional skiers. It turned out that none of them had any technique (just like me) and they all loved to be outside (just like me). Nothing made my bruised ego feel better than to learn that a whole country that is looked up to for their skiing abilities actually has no technique. Additionally, he said they don't want to learn to lift their feet or learn technique because they think "it's flashy.". Well I'm still going to try to improve my technique, but in the mean time, I will just take comfort knowing there are others out there. Maybe it's my Scandinavian (Swedish) heritage rebelling against technique, but until I learn it, I just need to remember getting outside with mother nature is what it's all about.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Good Reads
I had an epiphany today and it is: I judge people based on what books they are reading. I know I should not admit to judging people at all and if I was a good person I would not judge people. However, I am an honest person and recognize my short comings. Recently a friend asked me to join Good Reads and I had some apprehension about joining a social network where everyone looks at what I'm reading. Not only do I not want others judging me but I know I will judge my friends based on what they are reading and how they rate a book. I think people generally assume from my quiet persona that I am well read but I am not. I can justify my being a "book judge" and my justification is this: books are my good friends and just about everyone forms an opinion about someone based on their friends.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Mom for Town Board
On the drive over to my grandparents, my parents starting talking about the town board and I realized how much power they have. I am trying to convince my parents to run because they would be so good. My dad gets mad, which for him just means he kind of growls out, "Heidi, why are you always trying to ruin everyone else's life?" So I switch to trying to coerce my mother into a new political career. My mom decides to say she is fed up with them telling her what to do. She tells me that she just got a letter from the county telling her that their records indicated they had not had their sewage pumped in the last 3 years. So I think, if you don't have your sewage pumped in a timely manner, don't you have bigger problems so why is the county regulating this? My mother says exactly. Turns out they have had their sewage pumped 2 years ago which is one of the many reason she is so upset with getting this letter. She wants to write them a letter back that says she only uses the bathroom at school and my dad only goes in the woods and there for they don't need to worry about her sewage. I say, you could turn this into your campaign issue, create a tag line for your campaign. While I sit in the car and try to pull something clever out of my youngish brain, my mother whips out, "I may be full of B.S., but that's my business." I like it, I think my mother is going to decide she needs a career in county politics yet.
Coffee Clutch Chatter
Boy I think if there is something that everyone can relishes is listening to a good story. There's such a knack for being able to deliver a story well and knowing when to embellish. My brother was amongst the best storytellers. I used to beg him to tell me stories.
Amongst my favorites was a story he would tell about fishing with my grandpa and my grandma's brother, Richard. My very strong willed grandpa was in the navy and has no fear of water or at least none that he would admit to. In fact he always says, "Anyone can survive in the water, it's fear that kills you." And Richard although having spent his entire life in Northern Wisconsin, a landscape dotted with lakes, as a defense against drowning, he was taught to be fearful of water. Even though he grew up fishing on the lakes in all seasons and I have driven out with him on a frozen lake with only the thinnest of ice, he would never dream of jumping out of the boat and going swimming. Richard is also a very serious fisherman, he has always seen it as a way of providing food for the table. My brother, of course it was never critical that he catch enough food that he would not go hungry, was still a very serious fisherman. My grandpa on the other hand, although he liked fishing and would pay huge amounts of money to go on extravagant fishing trips was not as serious about fishing.
One hot summer day, my brother, grandpa, and Richard were in the boat at North Lake and apparently bored with fishing, my grandpa proposed that he could jump out of the boat with all of his clothes on and swim the length of the lake. Wanting to enjoy the good fishing, my brother and Richard tried to ignore my grandpa. My grandpa has always had a "By GOD I'll show you attitude" and kept trying to spark interest in his swimming across North Lake idea. North Lake is not large by any standard but not pond size either; certainly enough water that one could drown. Richard can't swim a stroke and is also a perpetual worrier was very upset that my grandpa was considering jumping ship and also probably annoyed that he had ruin the fishing with the interruption. "Now Chuck, why would you do that?" Richard's fretting only caused my grandpa to become more and more animated about his prowess swimming abilities, even wagering money, that he could swim the entire length of the lake. For much of my grandpa's adult life, he has always had lots of money and generous by nature, he has always had the luxury of buying forgiveness. So my grandpa kept winding up, making my brother and Richard more and more nervous that he was going to jump in with his shoes on. At this point, when my brother would tell the story, imitating my grandpa, he would puff out his chest, broaden his shoulders and straighten out to his full six foot three inches bellering, "I'm buoyant, buoyant as duck." We would all be roaring with laughter, knowing Richard would be sick with worry and Grandpa would have been determined to show them and Hansel was just thinking, "Here we go again." You got to hand it to my grandpa though for having such faith in his 70 year old body. I don't even think at 33 that I would wager money on my swimming abilities in all of my clothes.
Now that he's gone, when I hear other people telling stories and they almost always seem inadequate, I find myself wondering what the qualities of a good storyteller are. I have determined that being a good word smith does not hurt. He was a word smith and one my fav terms that he coined was "Chronic Slug Bug." Being able to make good noises also helps. I've never been able to make good sound effects except for imitating the sound of bison in rut and only my good friend Jessie really seems to appreciate this talent of mine. My brother and my grandpa had a habit of rubbing their ear in the middle of a story. Some good storytellers still remain though. When visiting my parents, I really enjoy listening to my dad and uncle and friends talk over coffee. Even if the talk is just talk, the sounds are melodic. I wonder if they are better at oral communication because that is what the entertainment for their generation has usually been? They seem to always remember details for things 30 years ago much better than I can remember something from the day before. I wonder if this is because today we are so bombarded with information that our brain just doesn't remember the details. Also there are more ways of recording life events (videos and pictures). Being male and since eating is a recreational activity in the Midwest, it also happens to be one of their top ten topics for coffee chatter. Of course none of them are incredible cooks (my dad does fix a mean breakfast) but they all seem to posses the ability to critique restaurants as if they were being paid by Savour magazine. One morning the conversation swung to a supper club that is nearby and the quality of food has fluctuated over the years. They described the bread with sound effects: "as if they took an air hose and filled up the bread." Of course in the Midwest light foods are not looked up as delectable and they were not being complimentary.
Later on my dad took me for a tour of his new logging job. Where I learned, and for the record, IKEA does not buy tropical lumber. My dad, an ol' logger, who has no idea how trendy fabulous etc, IKEA is, casually pointed to a log pile and told me those logs he sold to a mill in Stanley that sold them to IKEA. For all of you who I've walked through an Ikea store with suspiciously looking at the wood, I'm sorry, little did I know that they really do buy wood from our country. I admit, I probably would not have believed anyone but my dad but he does not lie. As my dad continued the tour through the woods, we came across my Uncle Bobby coming to the job for load of logs. He's amongst the very best storytellers and always can make a person laugh. At the logging job he jokingly asked my dad if he was giving me the scenery tour. Then told my dad that my great uncles were coming at noon to see the job. I really wanted to just hang out and wait for them to show up. All three of them have this strong Swedish Brogue that reminds me of my grandpa, who was a pillar of kindness but also had wonderful stories. So my uncle told my dad that the other sawyer, Larry, was not limbing the trees well but "Joe [skidder operator that my brother referred to as loader joe] is always pinching Larry's butt." So if you've ever been to a logging job you will realize it's hard for the cutters to limb trees well if the skidder is right there waiting for you.
Amongst my favorites was a story he would tell about fishing with my grandpa and my grandma's brother, Richard. My very strong willed grandpa was in the navy and has no fear of water or at least none that he would admit to. In fact he always says, "Anyone can survive in the water, it's fear that kills you." And Richard although having spent his entire life in Northern Wisconsin, a landscape dotted with lakes, as a defense against drowning, he was taught to be fearful of water. Even though he grew up fishing on the lakes in all seasons and I have driven out with him on a frozen lake with only the thinnest of ice, he would never dream of jumping out of the boat and going swimming. Richard is also a very serious fisherman, he has always seen it as a way of providing food for the table. My brother, of course it was never critical that he catch enough food that he would not go hungry, was still a very serious fisherman. My grandpa on the other hand, although he liked fishing and would pay huge amounts of money to go on extravagant fishing trips was not as serious about fishing.
One hot summer day, my brother, grandpa, and Richard were in the boat at North Lake and apparently bored with fishing, my grandpa proposed that he could jump out of the boat with all of his clothes on and swim the length of the lake. Wanting to enjoy the good fishing, my brother and Richard tried to ignore my grandpa. My grandpa has always had a "By GOD I'll show you attitude" and kept trying to spark interest in his swimming across North Lake idea. North Lake is not large by any standard but not pond size either; certainly enough water that one could drown. Richard can't swim a stroke and is also a perpetual worrier was very upset that my grandpa was considering jumping ship and also probably annoyed that he had ruin the fishing with the interruption. "Now Chuck, why would you do that?" Richard's fretting only caused my grandpa to become more and more animated about his prowess swimming abilities, even wagering money, that he could swim the entire length of the lake. For much of my grandpa's adult life, he has always had lots of money and generous by nature, he has always had the luxury of buying forgiveness. So my grandpa kept winding up, making my brother and Richard more and more nervous that he was going to jump in with his shoes on. At this point, when my brother would tell the story, imitating my grandpa, he would puff out his chest, broaden his shoulders and straighten out to his full six foot three inches bellering, "I'm buoyant, buoyant as duck." We would all be roaring with laughter, knowing Richard would be sick with worry and Grandpa would have been determined to show them and Hansel was just thinking, "Here we go again." You got to hand it to my grandpa though for having such faith in his 70 year old body. I don't even think at 33 that I would wager money on my swimming abilities in all of my clothes.
Now that he's gone, when I hear other people telling stories and they almost always seem inadequate, I find myself wondering what the qualities of a good storyteller are. I have determined that being a good word smith does not hurt. He was a word smith and one my fav terms that he coined was "Chronic Slug Bug." Being able to make good noises also helps. I've never been able to make good sound effects except for imitating the sound of bison in rut and only my good friend Jessie really seems to appreciate this talent of mine. My brother and my grandpa had a habit of rubbing their ear in the middle of a story. Some good storytellers still remain though. When visiting my parents, I really enjoy listening to my dad and uncle and friends talk over coffee. Even if the talk is just talk, the sounds are melodic. I wonder if they are better at oral communication because that is what the entertainment for their generation has usually been? They seem to always remember details for things 30 years ago much better than I can remember something from the day before. I wonder if this is because today we are so bombarded with information that our brain just doesn't remember the details. Also there are more ways of recording life events (videos and pictures). Being male and since eating is a recreational activity in the Midwest, it also happens to be one of their top ten topics for coffee chatter. Of course none of them are incredible cooks (my dad does fix a mean breakfast) but they all seem to posses the ability to critique restaurants as if they were being paid by Savour magazine. One morning the conversation swung to a supper club that is nearby and the quality of food has fluctuated over the years. They described the bread with sound effects: "as if they took an air hose and filled up the bread." Of course in the Midwest light foods are not looked up as delectable and they were not being complimentary.
Later on my dad took me for a tour of his new logging job. Where I learned, and for the record, IKEA does not buy tropical lumber. My dad, an ol' logger, who has no idea how trendy fabulous etc, IKEA is, casually pointed to a log pile and told me those logs he sold to a mill in Stanley that sold them to IKEA. For all of you who I've walked through an Ikea store with suspiciously looking at the wood, I'm sorry, little did I know that they really do buy wood from our country. I admit, I probably would not have believed anyone but my dad but he does not lie. As my dad continued the tour through the woods, we came across my Uncle Bobby coming to the job for load of logs. He's amongst the very best storytellers and always can make a person laugh. At the logging job he jokingly asked my dad if he was giving me the scenery tour. Then told my dad that my great uncles were coming at noon to see the job. I really wanted to just hang out and wait for them to show up. All three of them have this strong Swedish Brogue that reminds me of my grandpa, who was a pillar of kindness but also had wonderful stories. So my uncle told my dad that the other sawyer, Larry, was not limbing the trees well but "Joe [skidder operator that my brother referred to as loader joe] is always pinching Larry's butt." So if you've ever been to a logging job you will realize it's hard for the cutters to limb trees well if the skidder is right there waiting for you.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Snickering over Sugar, Baby!
The evils of sugar. Day two of saying good bye to refined sugar, at least for awhile. Yesterday I was jonesing for some sugar so I called my sister and left her a desperate message that I needed some inspiration to not eat sugar. She called back in all earnestness with this response. Her advice: " You need to go to the store and buy a back of snickers hallo ween candy because snickers really satisfies you. Then you can just eat one bite size candy bar a day and wean yourself off of sugar." Well I just started laughing because what sugar addict is satisfied with a little candy bar??? And who ever really believed that tag line that snickers really satisfies?? So I called my best friend and told her my sister's gold star strategy. She called me back and said she had a better idea that would be more effective. Her plan: Go to the grocery store and buy 3 or 4 bags of snickers bars. Then eat them all in one sitting or however many it requires to puke my guts out. Then, she thinks that should take care of the sugar craving for awhile. I've decided to not try either plan but just keep thinking about how EVIL the white powder is.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Return to the Midwest
Here's all the things I forgot that I LOVE about the Midwest....
1. Can go barefoot even in the most unruly Charlie horse infested lawns. Even the worst lawns in the Midwest beat the Montana stubble by a long shot.
2. As many tomato sandwiches as you can eat....
Recipe for tomato sandwich
2 pieces of bread toasted (I like a good white bread best)
butter
mayo
Garden fresh tomato
butter bread, slap on mayo, put tomato slice to 1/4" thickness in between
3. The woods smells so good and the trees are sooo beautiful.
4. Seeking reprieve from the sun in teh hardwood shade and FINDING it!!
5. Blackberry picking
What I like about Train Trips
Here's my quick thoughts on what I like about the train trips.....
1. Most of the crowd is still not "virtually" connected or at least if they are they don't talk incesstantly on their phone. Or even more annoying is the text messaging absolute nonsense. They still know how to get to know their neighbor. I guess you are also trapped on a moving train and forced to get to know your neighbor. It's too easy for me to get to know someone via email/phone but the train provides a good ol' fashioned venue for just talking.
2. The train is similar to being snowed in in a snowstorm. Of course with global warming and plows, getting snowed in seldom happens anymore either. One of my best Christmas eve memories is getting snowed in. While the snowstorm raged outside, my mom, sista, bro, and I played cards into the wee hours with the neighbor visiting at our house. It was a partner card game and my sista and I kept making outrageous bets, bringing us further into the hole and preventing anyone else from bidding. At some point I decided to use my brother's buck grunter as our call to victory. I kept commenting on the awful smell but both my sister and I were too intoxicated on our silliness and spiked egg nog to realize the smell was doe pee that was sprayed on the buck grunter (too hide the human scent while bow hunting). By the time the game was finally over, even though our neighbor lived less than 1 mile down the road, she had to spend the night. So being on the train is similar to being in a snowstorm; you can play cards, read a book or just watch views of heartland and all without feeling guilty because what else is there you can do. It's forced time to be selfish. If you were trapped on a tropical island, you'd have to hunt and gather and try to figure out how to get off. So yeah sitting on a train can get old but for the most part it's just forced relaxation.
3. How nice is it to have to anticipate your destination? Almost anything we want these days can be instant, where as train travel is slow and you have time to think about who you are visiting or contemplate the time spent with them.
4. Easy to eaves drop and hear the political views of multiple people without becoming involved in conversation. It can also get annoying so ear plugs are a good thing to have with.
TIP: The train if cold. I thought I would reduce the crap I brought with me and just wear warm clothes. Well I had on a 2 long sleep shirts, a polar fleece jacket, wool socks and I was still eyeing the train curtains enviously, trying to figure out how I could take them down and wrap them around me. I also considered asking the conductors for a bag of pillows so I could create a cocoon of warmth for myself with them. On the way I snagged a fleece blanket from my parents and wished that I had brought a down sleeping bag with to escape the fridge.
1. Most of the crowd is still not "virtually" connected or at least if they are they don't talk incesstantly on their phone. Or even more annoying is the text messaging absolute nonsense. They still know how to get to know their neighbor. I guess you are also trapped on a moving train and forced to get to know your neighbor. It's too easy for me to get to know someone via email/phone but the train provides a good ol' fashioned venue for just talking.
2. The train is similar to being snowed in in a snowstorm. Of course with global warming and plows, getting snowed in seldom happens anymore either. One of my best Christmas eve memories is getting snowed in. While the snowstorm raged outside, my mom, sista, bro, and I played cards into the wee hours with the neighbor visiting at our house. It was a partner card game and my sista and I kept making outrageous bets, bringing us further into the hole and preventing anyone else from bidding. At some point I decided to use my brother's buck grunter as our call to victory. I kept commenting on the awful smell but both my sister and I were too intoxicated on our silliness and spiked egg nog to realize the smell was doe pee that was sprayed on the buck grunter (too hide the human scent while bow hunting). By the time the game was finally over, even though our neighbor lived less than 1 mile down the road, she had to spend the night. So being on the train is similar to being in a snowstorm; you can play cards, read a book or just watch views of heartland and all without feeling guilty because what else is there you can do. It's forced time to be selfish. If you were trapped on a tropical island, you'd have to hunt and gather and try to figure out how to get off. So yeah sitting on a train can get old but for the most part it's just forced relaxation.
3. How nice is it to have to anticipate your destination? Almost anything we want these days can be instant, where as train travel is slow and you have time to think about who you are visiting or contemplate the time spent with them.
4. Easy to eaves drop and hear the political views of multiple people without becoming involved in conversation. It can also get annoying so ear plugs are a good thing to have with.
TIP: The train if cold. I thought I would reduce the crap I brought with me and just wear warm clothes. Well I had on a 2 long sleep shirts, a polar fleece jacket, wool socks and I was still eyeing the train curtains enviously, trying to figure out how I could take them down and wrap them around me. I also considered asking the conductors for a bag of pillows so I could create a cocoon of warmth for myself with them. On the way I snagged a fleece blanket from my parents and wished that I had brought a down sleeping bag with to escape the fridge.
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