I got you babe

The very first time I went on a ski trip was two years ago with the V-Dala international club in Uppsala. We went to this ski town called Romme, which incidentally is in the province the Swedish Chef supposedly hails from. My girlfriend at the time was a snowboarder and suggested I try to ski instead since snowboarding is so much harder to learn and much more painful. So I took her advice, rented some skis and was all set to have my girlfriend teach me to ski. Unfortunately, critical pieces of information were left out from her instructions. Most notably, she didn't tell me how to brake until after I crashed into a barricade. After watching me fall a couple more times, she went off to go snowboard with her friends. Her last bits of advice to me before she left me to fend for myself were, as I recall, "Don't worry, just have fun!" and "There's only so much I can teach you, you have to learn it on your own." The next two hours were a Sisyphusian ordeal of walking up a hill, falling down, walking back up and falling down again, making absolutely no progress whatsoever. My day was cut short when my girlfriend injured herself while snowboarding and I kept her company for the duration of the trip.

Flashing forward to last weekend, I went on another ski trip—this time to Pinetop. Given the utter futility of my last attempt I was a little concerned about how well I would do. The slopes we went to didn't really have a practice area for noobs and so my education was a bit of a trial by fire. This ultimately proved to be a very good thing. The ski lifts, which I had never even made it to in Sweden, are a challenge in themselves. It is surprising, though, how natural it feels being on the ski lifts when any other time sitting on a shaky bench suspended fifty feet above a icy, rocky slope would be completely nerve wracking. Maybe it's because you can't really gauge distance as well cuz of the uniform whiteness of the snow, but whatever the reason the only time you feel even the slightest bit of acrophobia is when you pass the supporting towers. Getting on and off the lifts, on the other hand, is far more stressful. Though I only had one incident getting on the lift which resulted in me losing a ski, each time was a little frantic. You have to ski up to a red line, wait for the people ahead of you to get scooped up, then make a mad dash (which is really hard with skis) to the green line they were just standing at, align yourselves with the lift so you don't get picked up sideways, and sit down quickly when it scoops you up.
Disembarking never went well for me. Granted, if you don't know how to ski then it's no surprise that you fall when a machine is pushing you off. (That difficulty is compounded when you only have one ski.) The worst one was when I tried to push off the lift like I was told to do, but my glove got caught where the seat meets the side rail. When I pushed forward my right hand held me back and I fell on my ass. Still attached, I was whipped to the left–in what I can only imagine was a hilarious fashion– when the lift swung back around and took my glove with it. Thankfully, it threw the glove clear and my friend got it for me otherwise it would have been a short trip.
Skiing itself was really rough at first and snow plowing works muscles I was never even aware of. Just like before, I was told to make a wedge go slow down and narrow the wedge to speed up. Unlike before, my friends were skiing as well and not only demonstrated what to do but stayed with me the entire way. My progress was slow and there was still a lot of falling, but by the time I got down the mountain I had all the basics covered and could then actually enjoy skiing.
The next day I was able to jump right into it and while going down the mountain was able to notice some of the more subtle things about skiing and slopes in general. For instance, I quickly learned improved ways to turn and when I discovered this I asked myself, "Why didn't they teach me this? This is so much easier. All they had to do was say..." At that point I realized that, because it consisted of minute shifts and movements, it was something that could not really be explained or taught–you just had to learn it yourself. Thus, that claim as well as "just have fun" are useful things to know, but only after you've learned how to actually ski. If those are the only things someone tells you, no matter what you're trying to learn, then you need a new teacher.

Some assorted bits of wisdom I learned over the trip include:
-Asshole is a terribly vindictive game that, with the aid of alcohol, demonstrates the cruelty of human nature. And yet, it's surprisingly fun.
-Some people were born to play Guitar Hero. I am not one of those people.
-I do, however, have enough coordination to learn DDR.
-Jerks will prefer to snowboard rather than ski. This is demonstrated by the fact that you never see skiers stopped in the middle of the slope just hanging out or waiting for their friends.
-The "Easy Out" slope is so named not for its ease but because suicide is often called "the easy way out". Seriously, how are beginners supposed to successfully make a U-turn in a forest on a slope the width of a car lane?
-Arizona is probably the only place on Earth where one can find both avalanches and sand storms.
-Singing the theme song to "Speed Racer" in your head while skiing will only end badly.

And a word I learned from a 99 year old forestry book in the cabin: mensuration- the branch of geometry that deals with the measurement of length, area, or volume; the act or process of measuring. (I thought geometry was the measurement of length, area and volume)

Yeesh

Aliens Vs. Predator-Requiem with the Predalien, the Predator and a bunch of human fodder. Fuck. I mean good Lord! Well, it was definitely an entertaining movie and they most certainly earned their R rating. I've heard the phrase "pornography of violence" before but never fully understood it's meaning, now I know. Everybody dies. Many in a most gruesome fashion. They pull no punches. Over the top? I'm going to go with perhaps. Had it been a standalone movie I would have gone with yes; the deaths of children, babies and pregnant women is indeed disturbing (had they actually shown the babies getting eaten I'm certain it would have gone from R, right past NC-17 to U: Unsuitable to ever be filmed) but because there already is a rich back story in the AvP universe it's simply expanding on it and the violence is simply the most effective tool to do so. While the other movies show soldiers getting killed you now see exactly what the Aliens do to a civilian population.
If you expect a complex and spellbinding plot, well, then you need to learn the difference between genres. Of course it's predictable, and that's what's good. The 1st AvP tried to have a plot, and that's why it sucked. This one realizes that humans are not the stars of a franchise called "Aliens vs. Predator". A story doesn't need to be totally unpredictable to make it good, otherwise no one would ever buy movies to rewatch them and remakes of classic movies would be a joyous thing. A film, even a gruesome sci-fi horror flick is to be judged not just by what they do but how they do it. And by that I say this movie delivered exactly what it promised, and then some.

Cold War

Charlie Wilson's War with Tom Hanks and Amy Adams. One of the better historical political movies I've seen in a while. It's also rather illuminating in terms of how the Afghanis ended up with all the weapons and aid. Not surprisingly, the movie is not entirely accurate and the truth is a bit more convoluted, but essentially the movie got it right. I also like the fact that they showed the human aspect and reasons for the operation. Popular opinion, from the people I've talked to anyway, was that the US was so eager to help the Afghanis and they only did it to stop the Soviets. While that is definitely a big part of it, the movie shows their desire to help the people fight back against an army that slaughters women and children. It also demonstrates that it took effort to get support for the operation and that there was an attempt to give humanitarian aid after the war, but it was stymied.
Aside from the history of it, the acting was superb and it was quite lighthearted and funny. That, in combination with its poignance, definitely made the movie worthwhile.