I am still alive

Well family and friends I am still alive despite my disappearance on my blog posting. On Dec 30th I went to a wonderful orthopedic practice here in Jackson called Teton Orthopedics and they have been nothing but wonderful. Turns out I only have a partial tear of my MCL (learn more about knee ligaments here) which means that I will recover very quickly. As far as knee injuries go the MCL is a good one (looking on the positive side here, haha) because unlike the ACL it has its own blood supply and can repair on its own without surgery. This means that on January 13th I am clear to try skiing again. Although, the first day I will only be on the bunny slope, it will be nice to be out there again. The really nice part is that everyone at work is super supportive and they are all going to come out there with me and support me. I really enjoy the people I work with and they have been nothing but amazing. Today I went back to my doctor to get fitted with a new brace because I realized on Thursday that my brace had gotten really big since my knee is no longer so swollen so the brace wasn't supporting at all. My brace was also too long and was down into my ski boot which simply wouldn't do. They were really nice about it and just traded out my brace for a new smaller size. Here is the brace I have been wearing, it is meant for the most support in the highest impact situations. I guess it ought to be since it is a $700 brace.

All braced up and ready to go.

So this brace I have the joy of wearing 24/7 until the end of January, then for the month of February I will wear it any time I am out of bed, for March any time I leave the house, and beyond April any time I am doing any type of weight bearing sports until December 30th 2009.

I am really looking forward to Tuesday though, especially since all of my roommates (Kerry, Mike, Caroline and Melanie) all went skiing today. It sucked to see them all leaving, but it has been nice to have some time to bum around the house and do some napping which I am in desperate need of. Soon Caroline, Melanie and Els (our other house guest) will be moving into their apartment and we will go back to having just three of us here in the house, that is until the next visitors arrive, haha. I guess that is the plague of living in a ski town. Over the past week there have also been a bunch of UVM folks in town because the annual UVM Ski and Snowboard trip was here. Some of my friends were in town so I spent a fair amount of time visiting with them. Tomorrow I am thinking about driving to Idaho Falls, ID which is about 2 hours away. Idaho Falls is the nearest city that has normal chain stores and the like. Here in Jackson we only have one store that sells yarn and they run about $8 for a small ball of yarn, so being poor we have to drive to Idaho to buy some yarn we can afford, thank god gas is only $1.61. Well that is all for now, I will try and do a better job keeping this updated, but my apologies I tend to slack on this.

Day at Targhee

Kerry and I went on a big adventure today. Since we are Jackson employees we can go to Grand Targhee for free. They are 100% open and they have gotten crazy amounts of snow in the last few days. The drive over there was quite interesting. We came across a pair of elk running right in front of my car and went through some very small little towns in Wyoming and Idaho. The pass that takes you into Idaho was a bit slippery and the access road to Targhee was crazy slippery. We made it there safely thank to my sweet new snow tires.


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Roadtrip to Targhee.

The pass with huge rocks, sharp corners and 10% grade.

Elk.

Targhee access road.

Welcome to Targhee.

When we got there we ran into another guy from the retail shop that I run into all the time named Andrew in the ticket line. We jumped on the first lift and we were amazed with the wide open nature of the mountain. Once you are above the tree line it is literally a wide open snow field, you can only imagine what that is like in the wind... brrr. When we got off the lift there was a million choices of ways to go and beautiful blue skies. We headed off to the right and we were greeted with windblown powder, but after a few hundred yard the snow softened right up and we were in soft powder about shin to knee deep. Once we got near the bottom I was cruising along a traverse and I recognized our friend Jake from the rental shop. He was there with his roommate Adam. We ended up skiing with them until lunch. We all had our fair share of graceful falls, but it was a great time.

Not a bad view of the Tetons.

Perfect blue bird and snow trees.

Loving it.

Reflection.

We ran into Adam (left) and Jake (right).

Me skiing in the pow.

Action shot.

After a lunch break and warming up our toes, Kerry and I went out for a few more runs, but during lunch the clouds rolled in and the light turned totally flat. We ripped down a groomer and when we hit the bottom we both agreed we were feeling pretty tired and sloppy so we decided to head home before the snow in the pass got too bad. We stopped on the way home for a little snack and because I was feeling sleepy and needed to get out of the car. As we came over the pass on the way home a guy in a 2 ton pickup decided to pass another car, which meant he was barrelling down the hill while fishtailing heading straight at me in my lane. It was super scary, I don't know why some people have to drive like idoits in the snow. Overall a great day, I can't get over how amazing things are right now. I wake up every day and I think I must be dreaming. It is nice to be surrounded with so many nice people and to live in such a beautiful place.

Classic.

In the evening we watched a movie and then me and the boys (Kerry, Mike and Brandon) went on an adventure to Subway for dinner. Meatball subs were thoroughly enjoyed and we learned that here in Jackson they put way more meat on your sandwich than a normal Subway would, good deal.

Roadtrip to WY

After spending the Thanksgiving holiday in Vermont with my family and friends I flew back to Portland OR. Kerry picked me up from the airport and then we headed back to my aunt's house for a few hours of rest before getting up to drive to WY. The first day we drove from Vancouver, WA to Boise, ID, 440 miles. The first day was rather uneventful, it rained a bit for the first hour and then it cleared off to be quite a beautiful day. By the time we stopped for lunch it was in the mid-60's and sunny. When we got to Boise we went to get some pizza at a great local place. We shared a pizza and some PBR in honor of the start to our ski bum life. Kerry woke me up at 6am the next morning because he wanted to get an early start, I told him there was not a shot in hell I was getting up and he let me sleep until 7am. We got ready and checked out and then headed in search of breakfast. We ended up stopping in downtown Boise, which was a very cute little city. Our second day of driving took us another 367 miles into Jackson, WY. Once we got off the highway the terrian began to become much more hilly. We didn't hit any snow until the last 20 miles once we crossed the Wyoming border. My car did great though, the new tires I bought did awesome even going down a 10% grade. We got to our condo and it was better than we could have ever guessed. Everything we need is here and we have awesome landlords too.

the previous chapters

Back in May I graduated from college with a degree in engineering and a great internship at Nike to look forward to. Having lived in Vermont for 9 years (including college), I was ready to spread my wings and fly a bit, so I was excited to be offered a summer internship as a manufacturing design engineer with Nike out in Portland Oregon. I accepted the internship having not been to Portland since I was about 6. About 3 weeks after graduating I set off on a road trip across the country with my dad. We took 5 days to drive 3,100 miles with all of my worldly possessions stuffed into a Ford Focus.

All packed up and ready to go.

State lines.

Nike was great and being part of the intern crew was awesome. Kevin Carroll, an inspirational speaker, came to Nike one day and did a program called "What's your red rubber ball?" and it really got me thinking. The whole program focused on following your passion and doing what you love. This workshop made me realize I need to follow my passion before I set into a full-time career as an engineer. I decided to ask for a leave of absence and travel to Wyoming to spend a winter living out my dreams. In the end, I decided not to accept the full time offer from Nike and instead spend a winter skiing and living the dream. Basically, I was loving my job at Nike, but that was really the only part of my life that I loved. I wasn't fond of the city, I hated the traffic, and I missed my family and friends (as evidenced by the 1,600 minute a month phone bills). After Wyoming, I plan to head back to Vermont so I can be closer to my family and friends that I have missed dearly since I have left.