Now Boarding

For the first time in my life, I went to a ski resort. Our department at work all went to A-basin for a day of skiing/snowboarding and eating and drinking. I skateboarded a little in high school and I love sledding, so snowboarding always appealed to me. One of my friends had a complete set of extra gear including a snowboard.

I got all geared up. Another friend said he would go with me on the bunny hill for my first run. He pointed to a wide, mostly flat area. It had about as much slope of as my backyard. That? That's the bunny hill? That's nothing.

They have to show me how to get my feet into the board. I got tired just doing that. I'm not joking. Then I had to take the lift. The hill looked small enough that it seemed easier just to walk up it, but fine. I get on the lift easy enough. And then I realize I'm going to have to get off. I manage to do so, only partially falling.

I take my first run. From the top, it looks much, much steeper than from the bottom. As I'm going, the board twists around me and I switch my stance. It feels good. I'm going fast. I fall. I get up. Another friend helps me work my way to the bottom. It's fun. The friend that helped me on the run said I would be doing greens by the end of the day.

I'm excited to do my second run on the bunny hill. I take the lift and depart much smoother this time. All my friends are now on greens/blues, so there's no pressure of people watching me. I take off and get going real fast. And then I fall. Hard. On my ass. I scream out. I sit there.

It hurts really, really bad. It is at this point that I no longer want to ride ever again. I'm sitting 1/4 of the way down on the bunny hill, just sitting in the snow. I want to take my board off and walk down but I know that's not an option. After a few minutes, I get up. It's not easy to get up. But I start again.

And then I fall again. Just as hard on my ass. I scream again. Later people will tell me that the bunny hill is basically ice and it hurts much less to fall on a blue. I'm now 1/2 of the way down. And it hurts like hell.

I really don't want to go down the hill anymore. So I sit. Three-year-olds pass me doing just fine. I just want to get off this board. So that's my motivation. Get the bottom and get me out of this board.

I get going and fall again. But this time I purposefully fall on my knees. Hurts much less. I make it to the bottom.

I take the board off and change out of the heavy boots. I put on my sneakers. It hurts to sit because my ass is in so much pain. I make my way to the bar. It's 10:30 and I'm done boarding for the day. I start drinking and watching the first day of the tournament. I see Baylor and Iowa State lose.

In fact, it's over 24 hours since I fell and my ass still hurts more than just about anything I can remember. Maybe the only thing worse was the softball injury where I couldn't lift my arm. Thus concludes my snowboarding career.

I wasn't lying about my injury

This was taken 5 days after the collision. It's hard to see but my whole arm is covered in a bruise. At the wrist there's an extra purple layer of bruise and towards the elbow there's an entire region on yellow-green nastiness. It hurts. This might be the worst injury I've ever had.

The Greatest Play I've Ever Made

The softball game was already going well. We were holding a comfortable lead, and I was 2 for 2 on the day. I was sitting on second after my best hit of the year, a tall line-drive to deep center. My bench was yelling for me to take 3, which I probably could have. But with no outs, there was no reason to risk it.

The next batter takes a couple pitches, giving me chance to catch my breath. And then she hits a sharp line drive that gets past the infield. I'm approaching third and I decide to go home. As I am passing 3rd base, I realize the 3rd base coach was telling me to stop at 3. But I'm already past the base. I'm going home.

As I get about halfway from 3rd to home, my bench starts to groan. They see the relay throw coming home and it's going to beat me there. But I can't stop. The catcher catches the ball on the bounce as I am 5 feet away. I did the only thing that I could do. Slide head first, to the left of the catcher. Avoid the tag, and swipe my left hand around to tag home.

The bench goes from groans to cheers. The catcher appeals to the ump because she didn't think that I could make it. But the ump tells her it was a nice slide. I get up, high fiving everyone intensely, forgetting for a moment that this is the company softball team.

It isn't until about 5 batters later that I seed a thick trail of blood streaming down my right leg. This is what it looked like after I got it cleaned up:



Line from yesterday: 2/3, 2B, 2 rbi, run
Line on the season: 3/5, (2) 2B, 3 rbi, 2 runs

Also my aggresive base running lead to the batter reaching 3rd. Which she later scored, and then said that it was her best hit ever. But if I had stayed on 3, and she only got a double, would it still have been her best hit?

When deciding to call this the best play I've ever made, I had to think about what was already in the running. "Pylon" from football in college, diving ultimate frisbee catches, a birdie from 50 yards away on the fairway, an ace in tennis, playing basketball at Adam's house...I only wish I had a video camera on me to record a top ten highlight reel.