Today's Sign of the Apocalypse

From Rocky Mountain News:

VAIL — A 60-year-old man is taking an 8-year-old boy and his dad to court, claiming the third-grader caused a ski-slope collision that left the older man with a shoulder injury.

What's up with this guy? According to the article, this dude is seeking $75,000 in lost vacation time, physical therapy, and other medical and nursing bills. Does he really think the 8-year old has 75 large just sitting around? And the lawyer that's representing the 60-year old - I want to know how many lawyers he talked to that just laughed at him. Is John Edwards representing this guy in his spare time?

The victim works for Reader's Digest and is anxious to get back to work. Um, what exactly is preventing him from working at Reader's Digest? He hurt his shoulder, not his eyes. Sound like someone is a prime candidate for some insurance fraud charges.

In the bigger picture - skiing isn't some risk-free venture. Every time I go skiing, I fully expect to end up with a broken leg, scratched up face (sorry, Sean), or some other injury that would be consistent with going down a snow covered hill with 5 foot sticks strapped to your feet. It's not supposed to be safe. The mentality that everyone else is responsible for your mistakes and / or accidents has got to stop.

Oh well - it's Friday, and the last day of work for me before Christmas. The brain isn't working too well right now, so I apologize for the lack of interesting posts. I'll keep looking and perhaps I will get inspired.

Review of Breckenridge

I spent the past weekend in Breckenridge, Colorado. To say the least it was a very quick trip. I flew into Denver Friday night and was "wheels down in Nashville" (the name of my country song that hasnt been written yet) Sunday night. Saturday and Sunday were spent trying not to break anything.

Overall it was a great trip. We stayed in a condo complex (Grand Timber Lodge) that was ski-in sorta ski-out (there was a trail we got ski down but it stopped in a parking lot and we had to walk a little bit). Grand Timber had 6 huge hot tubs that provided some nice relaxation after a tough day of green runs...or black, whatever you fancy. They didnt really offer any type of breakfast service (at least that I knew of) so we had to make due with rations (granola bars) until lunch. Like any big time resort in North America they had plenty too choose from when it came to food/lodges on the mountain.

Saturday was a bit rough. It snowed all day and for some reason they were making snow at the same time. The effect was brutal on your face. Since it is the beginning of the season they did not have the entire mountain open so that limited what we could do. We made the most of it and besides the ice pellets hitting our face it was a good first day. Breck does a nice job in sectioning off the trails on the mountain. We had some novice skiers in our group and they had a lift that was dedicated to only green runs (Quicksilver 6). Then they had some nice lifts that serviced all terrain so the group could go up together and meet at the bottom. Most of the difficult stuff was not open Saturday but Sunday they opened the gates.

Sunday turned out to be great. Fresh snow on the ground, I was on the first lift of the day and they opened some harder stuff. Icing on the cake was the sun decided to make an appearance. Very few things top a blue sky day when you ski. I stayed mostly on Peak 7 and 8 and by the end of the day I was feeling it. They did not open the very top bowls before I left and I was hoping they would. I made due with what was available and it made for a great trip. Sadly though, I had to pack up around 1:30pm to get ready to head back to Denver.

A word to the wise. When you attempt to drive to Denver Sunday afternoon from Breckenridge...give yourself about an extra 2 hours. The drive sucks. Another word to the wise. I flew Frontier...they are great. Not only do you get a cool animal picture on your tail, you get 24 channels of DirecTV (you don't get that on Southwest). You also get a seat assignment (something else you don't get on Southwest).

So, my advice to the faithful readers of D&F. If you are ever out in that area of Colorado, give Breakenridge a try. Not my favorite place to ski, but it is very good especially when you get good weather.

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P.S. Do not ski with blue jeans on. For some reason, people feel this is an appropriate thing to do. If you fall once (which happens to everyone) your day is ruined because now your pants are wet and you are going to be freezing...and you look like an idiot because you have wet pants on.