MY NEW FRIEND IS HERE!

I would just like to show you all my newest friend! I just got it, after a long drive. I haven't taken it out yet, well, because it is winter. But we just had a lovely ride on rollers this evening. I worked all weekend for the Holiday weekend and it was incredible. The people I work with are really fun and the clients, well, they tip REALLY well. Oh, and we have incredible teaching terrain! Our "bunny" slope has LIFT! And we have three magic carpets. Not that I spend much time over there, but it sure makes it nice for those who are. Many people I work with are here in MA and they told me of a new way to get to and from work and it cuts off at least 15 minutes each way, and it is 10 miles less. That is unbelievable. That means I get up there in about an hour...not bad! And it is a beautiful drive, and I'm hoping to do it as a ride in the summer.

Well, when I get a name for the new pony I'll let you all known. I hoped you all had a great weekend!

What PhD students get excited about

It was like Christmas for me today. I finally got a book I had ordered (see picture) and I went around showing some of my Profs because I new they would appreciate it. Silly I know, but hey, what can I say? A day in the life of a PhD student. And yes it is long, it is 672 pages of really small type font! WOO HOO!

Let it snow, and some more and some more!

So this week has been pretty uneventful. We haven't seen the sun in over a week, I taught my first week of classes, and I worked way too hard on an assignment that I later found out was only supposed to be a bit of calculation and no writing. ( I wrote 2 pages of text and added 7 tables of data, oops! ) As you can see it snowed yesterday at work. The morning started off as a warm, cloudy day. I taught a group lesson of two adult women in the morning. But get this. If they bought an "adult lesson" then it is only an hour, if you have fewer than three students. If you have three or more, it is two hours. If someone comes up with a "day one/two/three" ticket, it is two hours. If one person comes up with one of those tickets and the other person in your group has a "normal" ticket, you teach a two hour lesson. So confusing, and I'm not sure why, but I can tell you that one hour lessons are hard. It has been so long since I have taught a one hour, and I taught two yesterday. Later in the day I had a one hour private. I had another one hour no show me, but again I got paid for it. FANTASTIC! I had another two hour private as well. So, it was a easy 5 hour day ending in snow, Snow, SNOW!

As I said, it was a totally different day in the afternoon. About 130 it started snowing, and I was thinking it was just windy and cold, and that there hadn't been that much snow. By 430 when I got to my car there were three inches on it and slow moving traffic. It took me almost 45 minutes to get out of the "mount snow" area, about 4 miles from my parking spot (which by the way isn't that far from my locker, which is nice). The snow had begun to pile up on the road and cars were slipping everywhere. The whole time I was thinking how lucky I was to have a Jeep. All those poor people from CT and NY who had Infinities, Hondas, and Toyotas were having a lot of trouble. Ultimately it only took me 2 hours to get home, which is amazing. If you knew where I actually go that would amaze you. Sure it is only 62 miles away and in another state, but it seems like a whole different world. That is just the way this place is, everything you want to do is close, so you can do so many things in a day. Since I work I don't really have a day to go off and explore around here in the winter, but that is ok, I get to drive to Vermont EVERY WEEKEND! We have received even more snow today and we are expecting more all week long. So, president's day WEEK should be fun. Maybe I'll have funny stories for you all.

Oh, I do have a funny story. I was teaching a little girl on Saturday who was really funny and kind of fun to ski with, although I did have to yell, "Sydney, slow down please!" a few too many times for my health. But she loved to hang on the "strings" in the lift lines. At Mount Snow we get a "service" line that we share with the ski patrol. No matter what type of class you have you can use the line. She was a private, so we went in there no mater what, but we would be in there all by ourselves waiting for the lift operator to tell us we could go. I had strategically put her on my right every time, but she could play with the "string" on that side anyway, even though I would ask her not to. On the final ride, the string on the right was down, and I had slid to the left. Being pretty quick, she said I'm going to go on this side this time. I said, no, no, I need you on my right. She said why, there is no string over there? I said, I know, but i need to be able to help you get on and I can only do that with my right arm. She asked, WHY? I told her that my thumb was hurt and that I wouldn't be able to lift her. She said let me see. I told her if she moved to my right I would show her on the lift. We got on pretty uneventfully. I then took my glove off to show her my left thumb all taped up, and even showed her the lovely dark bruise in the crick of my joint. She looked at me and said OH. I asked, did you think I was teasing you? She said (with a sad look on her face) yes, I just thought you didn't want me to play with the string! It was a pretty good exchange, and hopefully she learned that not everyone is teasing her :)!

OH and by the way, yes, I did re-injure my thumb. It totally bruised up and I have lost a lot of my motion. I went to Urgent Care last night and I got a brace for it and a referral to a hand specialist. I won't have anything done until after ski season if anything has to be done, but I'll keep you all updated on the "thumb status." :) But it is true, I've returned to being half a lower life form: no opposable thumb! :)

Mount Snow

So, I worked my first day at Mount Snow today. It was so windy only three lifts were open. That made teaching at a new resort very interesting. But I made it to the proper terrain for the students AND I didn't get lost. Oh, and I only had to look at the map I stashed in my pocket once :)! As you can see, we might not be tall, but we are fairly big. Big enough to get lost on the first day. I also included some pictures of the drive: an open valley with a dairy farm, the cute little town I turn right to go and left to go home, and the view from one of the peaks I drive over. It was really cloudy and windy so the pictures aren't too clear. When the weather is better I'll get more up.

Thought you all might like to know, too, that Mount Snow is not named because it is so snowy or because we are trying to make our 250 inches of annual snowfall sound any better than it is. In 1953 Mount Pisgah was purchased from Mr. Snow by "Walt" a Russian immigrant who moved to VT to live in the snow. Funny where names come from!

More Mount Snow facts:
Summit Elevation: 3,600 ft (1,100 m)

Vertical Drop: 1,700 ft (520 m)

Skiable area: 768 acres (3.11 km²)

Trails: 135

Snowmaking: 86%

Lifts 19 Total: 4 High Speed Quads: 3 - Fixed Quads: 1 - Triples: 7 - Doubles: 4 - Surface Lifts: 3 - Rope Tows: 1

Trail ratings:

Green Circle (novice): 20%

Blue Square (more difficult): 63%

Black Diamond (most difficult): 17%

Parks & pipes

The Gut: a 460-foot (140 m)-long, 18-foot (5.5 m)-high competition superpipe. The Vermontster: The longest, and most poorly named, terrain park in the East at 4,940 feet (1,506 m) to be installed in the 2007-2008 season. Un Blanco Gulch: The East’s original snowboard park. Jiblet: A specially designed park with smaller features. Grommet: Another specially designed park with smaller features. Au Natural: A terrain park designed from natural snow. (So, I better get my park and pipe skills honed!)

My comment: it has FANTASTIC teaching terrain and the people I work with are very friendly and fun. And while there are no BIG, majestic mountain views, looking out over the famous ridge lines of Vermont which are lined with leafless birch trees right now is beautiful, too. And while I miss Sundance and all its people, sometimes a change of "scenary" is good. To mix it up and get out of ruts is often fun, exciting, and helpful in so many ways! As it appears that so much has changed in my resort, somethings haven't. We are still horribly understaffed (we need at least 50 more people to keep up with the demand), we struggle with no shows (with no notification) and we struggle with being so busy there isn't time for training. Somethings change, somethings always stay the same. ;)

YOU ALL SHOULD COME OUT AND ENJOY SOUTHERN VERMONT SKIING WITH ME! (If for no other reason, but for breakfast before skiing with REAL maple syrup!) :)

Holy SLEET!

WE got some moisture
today, but nothing white and fluffy...we got an inch to two of SLEET! It accumulated as slush on the roads and made it yucky to walk home from the bus stop. Just thought you all might like to see the sleet we saw today....blech!