The earth is not a cold, lonely place...
...Just Idaho. Well, no, that's not true either. It is, perhaps, cold, but at least it's friendly and there's lots of stuff to do if you're into being outside.
Audrey and I gave cross-country skiing a try, with mixed results. On the one hand, the free clinic with free rentals they were doing at Schweitzer was a great idea, but they didn't anticipate nearly enough interest in it, and thus were chasing their tails on equipment, release forms, and volunteer staff. There was a bunch of confusion and we wound up standing in the snow for two hours, which did not go over well with my toes (I have long legs; my feet get cold). On the other hand, cross-country skiing is not difficult to pick up, so within about five minutes I'd gotten my rhythm... or as much of it as someone as tall and goofy as I am can get. Admittedly, I had a head start- we had a Nordic Trac in Jacksonville that I'd play around on sometimes, and that's actually a fairly good approximation of the motion and feel of Nordic skiing. So we followed the track for a while with a bunch of other novices, then we went back. The scenery was nice, and of course if you get into it, cross-country is a fantastic workout... but then again, so are plenty of other things. Neither Audrey nor I have perfectly aligned feet (in fact, mine are what you might call severely splayed out), so it's really not something that we can do for a long time comfortably. Anyway, if we got into every winter sport, we'd never have time to get good at any of them.
In summary, we tried it, I liked it, Audrey was ambivalent- we might do it again if someone invited us out, but other than that we're all set.
After that, I actually had some work to do for a couple hours, so I went in. I'm starting to get my bearings a bit better. Still remembering a lot of theory, but at least it's coming back fairly well. I can wrap my head around the reasons why we do what we do, and the programs and spreadsheets we use and generate make sense. I heard I'd learn a lot at this job, and I fully believe it. Of course, I'm learning by working like 167 hours a week, but that's OK. Being such a small company, A) everyone's in the same boat and B) it's pretty casual so it doesn't feel that long.
-The Proprietor
Audrey and I gave cross-country skiing a try, with mixed results. On the one hand, the free clinic with free rentals they were doing at Schweitzer was a great idea, but they didn't anticipate nearly enough interest in it, and thus were chasing their tails on equipment, release forms, and volunteer staff. There was a bunch of confusion and we wound up standing in the snow for two hours, which did not go over well with my toes (I have long legs; my feet get cold). On the other hand, cross-country skiing is not difficult to pick up, so within about five minutes I'd gotten my rhythm... or as much of it as someone as tall and goofy as I am can get. Admittedly, I had a head start- we had a Nordic Trac in Jacksonville that I'd play around on sometimes, and that's actually a fairly good approximation of the motion and feel of Nordic skiing. So we followed the track for a while with a bunch of other novices, then we went back. The scenery was nice, and of course if you get into it, cross-country is a fantastic workout... but then again, so are plenty of other things. Neither Audrey nor I have perfectly aligned feet (in fact, mine are what you might call severely splayed out), so it's really not something that we can do for a long time comfortably. Anyway, if we got into every winter sport, we'd never have time to get good at any of them.
In summary, we tried it, I liked it, Audrey was ambivalent- we might do it again if someone invited us out, but other than that we're all set.
After that, I actually had some work to do for a couple hours, so I went in. I'm starting to get my bearings a bit better. Still remembering a lot of theory, but at least it's coming back fairly well. I can wrap my head around the reasons why we do what we do, and the programs and spreadsheets we use and generate make sense. I heard I'd learn a lot at this job, and I fully believe it. Of course, I'm learning by working like 167 hours a week, but that's OK. Being such a small company, A) everyone's in the same boat and B) it's pretty casual so it doesn't feel that long.
-The Proprietor