Saturday, January 17, 2009

Winter Wonderland

Happy New Year to all my blogger friends. Well, 2008 is over. Good riddance! In four days America will end an error, the Big three have at least temporarily survived, and winter is in full swing. A temperature of -25 (with windchill) broke the record for the coldest day in the D (Detroit). It was not enough to stop me and my son, Derek from skiing at the local ski hill, Mt. Holly .


Me on the left, Derek on the right. Cold as it was, it was a bright, sunny day. Perfect for getting out and shaking off that cabin fever.

This is the top of Derek's favorite run, Canyon. The little shack you see there is the start of the shalom racing course. It drops off steep right past the shack and has a nice combination of speed and ridges on the run to make it interesting...
My favorite run is Thunderbolt. White Lightning is the run off to the left, Thunderbolt is on the right. You can't see the end of either run. The end is past those trees, about 1/4 mile (30 seconds or less). I've thought about trying snowboarding, but they are always sitting on their butts at the top of the hill reattaching their rear binding, which they must unhook at the bottom of the hill to board the chairlift...

The ski patrol. I'd love to join it, but there is a 16 week course that must be completed. Mainly it's first aid, but there are also techniques for transporting injured skiers down via toboggan and such. They are all volunteers, but the big plus is that you get to ski for free all season, on duty or off. It is also reciprocal anywhere in the US. If you are a ski patrol in Michigan you can patrol in Colorado, etc. So if you like to ski and like helping people it's a win win scenario. It would fit nicely with my Coast Guard experience. With all of the traveling I do I don't know how I'd ever get through that long course.
Mt. Holly trailmap.

10 comments:

Chuang Shyue Chou said...

Tim, I just finished reading 'The Three Trillion Dollar War'. The implications are staggering.

dmarks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dmarks said...

Whatever the error was, a worse error would have been electing the other guys.

The economic crisis probably would have come a few years earlier if Kerry had been elected and attacked the economy with his tax hikes. Which he would have supported before he opposed them before he supported them before he opposed them.

I now wonder if the new guy is a mistake too, lowering the bar on ethics by pushing a serial tax criminal for Secretary of Treasury, his promising not to hire lobbyists (now he does anyway), promising change (yet wasting money as before) and signing bad executive orders like the one last week denying workers' rights and the one before wasting money to promote abortion overseas.

Tim said...

Look, DM. We could go round and round about why you think it's all the liberals fault, but I'm really not going to go there. At the very least, Republicans didn't stop them when they had the chance. Now the people have DECIDED that they want a new direction. Myself included. Yes, I am not going to agree with every thing Obama does, just as I didn't disagree with W.

Tim said...

One more thing: Right to Life and other evangelical groups seem to be more concerned about the unborn than they are for people who are already here.
I don't think anybody wants to see one abortion happen ever, but there are times when it may be considered a reasonable choice. Safe, legal, and RARE.
This is the one issue that will marginalize the Republicans and further diminish their support.

dmarks said...

"Look, DM. We could go round and round about why you think it's all the liberals fault, but I'm really not going to go there."

Good, because it's not all the liberals' fault anyway. I am thinking more of Kerry's campaign promise to significantly increase spending compared to Bush, coupled with economy-clobbering unnecessary take hikes. Regardless of the historical perspective of the 2008 economic meltdown, that was a prescription for disaster.

"At the very least, Republicans didn't stop them when they had the chance."

Bush did try to rein in the Fannie-Mae/Freddie-Mac excesses (which started the ball rolling on the crisis), but was balked by a thick blue line of Democrats. Bush could have tried a lot harder on this.

"Now the people have DECIDED that they want a new direction."

Only slightly more than those who wanted McCain to lead this new direction. If a merge 3.7% of Obama voters had gone for McCain instead, McCain would have won.

The recent NBC News / Wall Street Journal Poll shows the country still evenly divided on "for" or "against" abortion.

"One more thing: Right to Life and other evangelical groups seem to be more concerned about the unborn than they are for people who are already here."

Well, that is "Right to Life" issue, isn't it? To save children first. And the unborn are already here, not on Mars.

"I don't think anybody wants to see one abortion happen ever"

Except for President Obama, the Congressional Democrats, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and others who fight for and/or profit from more abortions.

"Safe, legal, and RARE."

It's never safe, because the life of one person is lust during it. And the next two words work against each other.

"This is the one issue that will marginalize the Republicans and further diminish their support."

See the polling numbers.

Tim said...

As always, on these issues we disagree and so do most Americans, otherwise the GOP would still be running the show. Actually, I would like a more moderate GOP, but they are going the other way and getting more reactionary. If L Brooks Patterson had run against Grandholm instead of DeVos, I'd have voted for him, but alas, people like myself must look elsewhere.

dmarks said...

By the way, is Mt Holly near M59?

Tim said...

It is north of M59. Alpine valley is off M59 (about 5 miles from my house, but I usually drive a half hour to Holly because it is much better). Holly is right off I-75 15 miles south of Flint.

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