Snowboarding is for the young and the stupid

As many of you now know, I go on a ski trip every year with my wife.

Unfortunately the older I get, the more I hate ski boots. They're skinny and hard and they put your ankles at angles that are really only useful while you are, you know, skiing. Typically, however, I spend a lot more time getting into position to ski than I do actually skiing. This year, I thought I'd be clever and try snowboarding.

Just because the boots look more comfortable.

Which totally sounds like a recipe for success.

And it was. I was walking pain-free circles around my wife. Even managed to strap one foot in, scoot around and get on the ski lift without any trouble. "How hard can it be?" I thought. Heck, even a Kardashian could probably do it.

Let's just say that I snowboarded with all of the suave and grace you could reasonably expect from a man of my size and age who had never snowboarded before and who was never all that great at skiing in the first place.

I fell for the first time after getting about 6 feet off of the ski lift (for those of you scoring at home, that's 2 inches of snowboarding and 5'10" of me falling forward). Twenty-five feet down the mountain I had fallen approximately 50 more times. Little people (the child kind) and old people (the old people kind) zipped all around me. There were actually a few times where I stayed on my feet for a minute, then I'd have to attempt something crazy like "turn" or "slow down" and the whole "fall, curse, flip around awkwardly, stand, slide, and fall" routine would start all over.

It was around this point that I became perfectly aware that if I was going to stay on that board for one more second that someone (and probably not me) was going to die.

It was a long walk down the hill. I care too much about the little people (of all kinds).

STL Ski Trip

Every year some old friends of my wife (and more recent friends of mine) organize a ski trip that always starts in St. Louis and usually ends up in someplace like Wisconsin. The trip (branded as "a beer trip with skiing included") never fails at being a good time. The basic schedule usually goes something like this:

1. Meet at noon at a local car drop off point. Board bus.
2. Drink beer for 5 hours nonstop. 
3. Visit rest stop, which you only need if you smoke because you've been peeing every twenty minutes on the back of the bus.
4. Drink on bus for three more hours.
5. Arrive at resort, eat twice your weight in pizza, drink hot tub while sitting in beer.
6. Heave snorily.
7. Wake up early, go skiing, knock back a few at lunch, leave slopes early, drink until dinner.
8. Eat dinner, race back to resort rooms and commence formal drinking games.
9. Wake up the next morning and "prepare to leave" (an Algonquin word for packing super fast then drinking Bloody Mary's while watching people who actually care to ski).
10. Drive back on the bus, be surprised how drunk you get on the ride back, be thankful your wife chose to just watch the movie and not be like [waves at all of you] you, then sweet-talk her into White Castle on the drive to your house.

Do I enjoy skiing? Sort of, but I generally only ski enough to justify going on the trip (riding to Wisconsin for the skiing would be a little like riding to Wisconsin for the wine). I mostly go on this trip because A) kids aren't allowed, and B) the trip provides the perfect mix of "romantic get away for two" with "party like a freshman blowing his student loans on spring break."

Details aren't available for next year, but if you are interested in going (and if you suck or are in any way a party pooper, please don't be interested) feel free to "Like" the very much in-progress Facebook page.

Y can't everyone get customer service right?

After a relatively frustrating experience signing my two younger boys for basketball at the local YMCA, I was forced to send in the following email.

I just signed two of my boys up for basketball at your Shady Springs, St. Peters Y. The staff was extremely helpful, but I was really caught off guard when they told me how much it would be. 

 I am not a member of your Y (the RecPlex is literally at the end of my street), but I love your basketball programs. I was going to sign my 5 year old, but on your website (http://www.ymcastlouis.org/st-charles-county-family-ymca/sports) it said, in effect, that the Rookies program, that my 4 year old could do, would basically be an extra $25. I asked him if he wanted to play, he said yes, so I told him I would. 

When I called in to register, I was told that I would be charged the full $99 for my second child. for 6 hours of basketball clinics which I wouldn't have paid for except I already told him that it I would because your website told me it would only be $25. 

I'm very displeased.

Honestly, I didn't expect much of a response. And if got one at all I wouldn't expect that I'd be very satisfied by it. This is, after all, an enormous non-profit organization, which means it will be pretty bureaucratic, which usually means no one is really enabled to help. Also, I didn't have a problem with their pricing (hey, it's their business) but the website was completely unclear. 

I am very pleased to report that I was wrong.

Less than 24 hours after sending in that email, I received a call from someone that sounded genuinely sorry about the mix-up. He said that the website had already been updated to be far more clear about this policy (and I checked the site while on the phone with him -- it was definitely now clear that the $25 second kid was only for members) and he went ahead and changed my total payment to be $124, which is what the website had previously led me to believe (this was, in my opinion, really above and beyond). 

In the end, the YMCA was really able to turn this situation around for me, and I wanted to make sure to broadcast that as message as far as I could. Don't forget that your local YMCA is a great place to get started on belated resolutions and to help make your community a stronger place. 

We hereby resolve

Seems like this is the time of year where everyone makes fun of people who make New Year's Resolutions. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but New Year's resolutions make a heck of a lot of sense.

Why? Because they happen during the post-holiday lull. I can barely remember to dress myself during the holidays. And I'm not the only one. You think these were planned?

OK, maybe this was not the best example.

In any event, it makes sense to try to make life changes during a lull. You don't want to try a new diet during Thanksgiving and Christmas, when as a parent you basically run on the neighbor's rum cake, the cookie crumbs  your kids leave behind, and whatever popcorn tin a vendor drops off at your office water cooler. Your best chance of success is during a period relatively unencumbered with other demands, when you can change your normal behaviors, not your egg-nog inspired abnormal behaviors. 

One thing I don't agree with is starting them on January 1st. Trying to start working out at 5 am and eating nothing but bran while you are nursing the biggest hangover of the year just doesn't make good sense. Top yourself off with biscuits and gravy, slide on into a soul food stupor, and try to change your life on the 2nd. 

Next year, anyway. I'm sure you've already blown this year.

If this were a buddy cop movie, I'd be too old for this crap

When I was in high school, I was an avid soccer player. In this context, by "avid" I mean that I played a lot, not that I was good. I was blessed to go to a school small enough they couldn't cut people, and by the time I was a senior I was a starter, a captain, and All-Ohio (Academic, anyway).

Anyway, since then, I've largely stopped running (and moving when possible) so I'm a little out of shape. About 2 years ago I answered an online ad for an indoor soccer team needing a goalie. I didn't play goalie (or "keeper" as some "football" snobs call the position) for my high school team but had played a few games in the net for a club team I was on, so I thought it would be a great way to get back into it slowly (as goalies obviously move less than other players).

I bought some shinguards, some cleats, and some gloves, and played for about a year. My team was great, in all fairness, considering some of them were really, REALLY good at soccer. It would have been very easy to get frustrated with me (as I'm barely, BARELY adequate). I had a great time, but didn't get into great shape. After about 6 months I told them to look for another goalie, as I just couldn't commit to the hour every week (I am, after all, a bid-ness man first and foremost). Shortly thereafter they found one, and I enjoyed some much needed time off.

A few weeks ago the team reached back out to me. Apparently after I left they hopped up a division (not surprising since they had a real goalie) and then their new goalie got hurt so they dropped back down a division. As all of them are in average shape, they're perfectly content running all over the field and NOT having people kick things at their heads as hard as possible. Suckers. Anyway, I missed the game (which is a huge contributor to success) so I jumped at the opportunity generated by the injury of my replacement.

Since coming back we've had three games, and we've won all three. It took me a little while to remember the rules, and to get my sea legs back, but this week I was pretty awesome for a thirty-something fat guy playing out of position with a bunch of youngsters who started out better than I am. So I'm having fun.

I'm also painfully, painfully sore. Both wrists are messed up and the first three steps after any period of sitting are sort of half-leaning forward. But I made some great saves, some great drop kicks, and nobody has cussed me out since I came back.

If this is what winning feels like, call me Charlie Sheen.