KingLou Drops Science 2.0

Probably some of the warmest skiing I have done in a long time. The trails are in good shape. Not fresh powder but even all the way across.

Made turkey tacos and drank a ton of soda. I am totally thirsty all the time! This hasn't changd in 4 days. No matter how much I drink I get thirsty all the time.

We've been skiing slightly longer each day. Today was probably the longest I boarded. I was able to overcome yesterdays crazy foot pain and leg exhaustion.

We ate 2 or 3 to times at the base lodge. It was really weird because the outdoor grill was staffed entirely by Jamaican guys. "Whatchu want on de grill mon?", "Help jurself to a hot cocoa, mon", "dis cash register be drivin' I and I crazy mon!" The food was pretty good. We also ate at the Peak Nine restaurant (overpriced) and the Ten Mile Station. The food was better but it was crazy there. I also basically passed out both times we ate there. I think it's either lack of sleep or maybe some kind of diabetes thing, too. I haven't been diagnosed I am just being crazy.

Jodi and I have gone out for two nice meals out. And not surprisingly they were at the the two different Mexican restaurants in town. It was the fancy popular Mi Casa versus the more Milwaukee style Jalisco place. First I would like to say that both places have gigantic margaritas. And they both came in huge heavy glass goblet style things. Mi Casa definitely won the ambiance and food prize. I had a delicious pork taco or burrito or something. Someone needs to tell Jalisco about the concept of mood lighting. But someone needs to tell Mi Casa to put a sign up at the door I was sitting next to. It was the only door on the way to the restaurant and the actual restaurant entrance was terribly marked. The restaurant was inside a crazy maze building. So people kept yanking on the door and I had to flag them to move on.

For the most part people we ran into here fit the stereotypes. Mainly spread between Bearded hippie goofball, Frat Guy/Business Guy party clown and young snowboarder jerkoff. Pretty much what I expected.

Ace meltdown at ski school. Every day we've taken Ace to ski school and every day he cries like a monster is eating him because he doesn't want to go. It's all very heartbreaking and we witnessed the same behavior from a bunch of other kids, too. Eventually he gets whisked away by the people who work there and he has a great day. It's classic ouot of sight out of mind. We did find out one little riddle. The other day after skiing ace pooped a really weird green poop. We couldn't figure it out. It turned out that he he had licked the paint off the window mural in an attempt to see if he could peek out and see one of us waiting for him. I assume it was some kind of non-toxic water based paint but I was surprised when I saw that green poop. It was like space green colored!

Watched 24. The local Fox news isn't as lame about it's 24 coverage. There is no Denver Fox Blog about 24. There is however a large amount of stories about murders and boulders falling on people. There was actually a boulder that fell through a guys roof. It didn't kill him but it fucked his car. The kicker is that he was from New York and was like "In New York you could be lying in the street bleeding and no one would help you." Of course this is kind of an exaggeration. I mean I wouldn't personally help a bleeding dude but you know there are a lot of people there so I'm sure someone else would help... eventually. There was also a dog attack and some other weird stuff. Mainly all local news was obscured by Anna Nicole Smith and Britney's hair. Stuff no one should give a shit about.

Jodi take down. Today the lift lines were totally slippery. I was trying to get into the gate and I slipped and just reached out blindly and happened to snag Jodi's hood. The rest is a blur as a totally took her down hard. We both ended up on our asses in an instant. No one was injured but I felt like a total n00b. Luckily Jodi wasn't angry about it for more than a second.

Wiped out in the woods yesterday. It was really scary. I had gotten really into riding on small trails that people blaze in the wood and been really rocking them. Then I got a little cocky and went on a trail a little too fast. I lost control and was headed straight for some trees. I was able to sacrifice the bottom of my board to save myself. It was a pretty jarring and made me think 2x about buying one of those crazy helmets. At least then I would probably only shatter my collar bone instead of my grape.

5th day - stamina is finally where it should be. Was able to board all day w/o having to stop for aching body parts or to catch breath, We explored all kinds of new trails today. I am really considering buying a helmet after today. I really enjoy snaking through the woods and junk like that but trees are pretty hard and don't give when they meet flesh and bone.

In a classic ridiculous twist to our trip my mom decided to return the car this morning but didn't get directions. Instead she got off the highway too early and is now totally lost and stuck in the blizzard. I mean it's totally retarded and hard to believe. Yesterday she didn't ask for directions for how to get to the hotel we were going to. All she knew was it was near the airport. The only thing that got us to the airport was Mike calling a friend who looked it up on the internet for us. Now this.

Last night we got food from the Pizzaria Uno that was down the street from our hotel. I went and picked it up and was greeted with a scene of total chaos. a huge line. Lots of empty tables. Harried servers. People complaining that they were never told their table was ready. My food was sitting arms reach from me and yet I could not get it. And when I finally did my request for the Pepsi I ordered extended my wait another 10 minutes.

UPDATE 1: My mom was following some guy and he eventually pulled over because it was white out conditions. She got out and asked the guy what was going on and the guy said basically you have to wait it out . She was just sitting in her car what she estimated was about 5-10 miles out of the airport. I recommended that she call Hertz for emergency help. She was dubious. UPDATE 2: Mom called from the road. She had crossed the median and was heading back towards the airport. UPDATE 3: She called to say she was finally about 5 minutes out of the airport She called as I was boarding the plane. Unless we are delayed (which is majorly possible due to this crazy weather) there is no way she is gettig on this plane. I keep having final scene in La Bamba thoughts. Thats the scene where the Big Bopper and that La Bamba guy take a plane in a storm and crash into a lake and die.

Final Update. My mom missed the flight and had to buy a new ticket which had a 3 hour layover in Milwaukee. It was $950 for the one-way ticket. She was pissed.

But we all made it home safe and sound. Trip rated MEGA SUCCESS +++ EXTRA DOUBLE GOOD.

My mom turned 65 in January and to celebrate she decided she wanted to go on another fun travel vacation like we did when she was 60. For 60 we went skiing in Switzerland. Of course it was the worst conditions in 50 years. Total snow drought. So this year we decided we wanted to go skiing again but more stateside and less Vermot. So we decided to head to Colorado. Breckenridge to be exact. None of use had ever been there and Colorado has been dumped on this year so it was a win win. What follows is weird notes from the trip.

Flight was oversold. Travel party is Mom, Mike, Jodi, Ace & Me. Everyone scattered all over the plane. I am sitting in front of Jodi and Ace. Frontier Airlines is pretty nice. There are 24 channels of TV for $5. I decided it was worth it. There was a decent selection of shows but there were still commercials. I felt like "Hey I am paying for this... NO COMMERCIALS" so I ended up flipping the channels constantly and reading the magazine of the woman next to me. She likes redecorating. How unusual....

For the trip I bought some games for my iPod to kill time. I bought the mini golf and the texas hold'em poker game. The reviews of the mini golf game were right on. It looks good and it's fun but it only took me 3x to destroy the first course. I was 2 over par the first 2 tries and 10 under par that last one. The 2nd course was a lot harder but do-able. Texas hold'em I bought because I don't know shit about poker and I know that it's like poker for retards. I ended up playing a bunch of it. I now know more about poker but I am still not good at it. In the end my brother really took my ipod video. He probably watched most of "It's always sunny in Philadelphia." and he beat all the golf courses in Mini Golf and advanced in Texas Holdem. I saved my iPod Video time for the flight home. I watched the Trailer Park Boys movie. It was great as usual. Not crazy about them using a different girl for Trinity but the original one is probably 16 by now. Too fucking old.

Plane arrived in Denver w/o incident. Then the waiting began. We waited for an hour for our luggage and that didn't even include our skis and stuff. So my mom and I decided to go get the car while Mike, Jodi and Ace waited for the skis. Getting the car turned into a 2 hour wait. The line to get a car was retardedly long. We were given a car but told it was brand new and needed to set up. When it finally arrived we had to wait for the Hertz guy to install the ski rack and the child seat. That took like 45 minutes. Also when the car arrived another woman came out and was like "This is my car" because the geniuses at Hertz gave her the same car as us. But since we were already waiting for the Hertz guy to install all the shit we ordered she went inside to vent on the desk jerks. So were finally got on the road about 3 hours after arriving Denver. The drive to the mountain was 2 hours more. So we rolled into Breckenridge at 12:30am. Which of course was like 2:30am in New York. We were exhausted.

The lodging is interesting. I think we're spoiled by the condos in Vermont. This place is kind of low rent in comparison. I don't know if it actually IS low rent. In fact I doubt it. It's very close to the mountain. we walk there rather than wait for the free van. But the condo itself is kind of crummy. There is no "in-unit" laundry. The laundry room itself was in the basement and if we didn't happen to have a flash light we probably wouldn't have been able to use it. There are barely enough towels, too. The in condo literature plainly states that they have given you enough for the amount of people that should comfortably fit in the unit and if they are dirty to wash them in the laundry. Again, its in the dark scary basement. The condo space is ok but there is a crazy hum in our bedroom. Origin unknown. The last day it was mysteriously gone. I am assuming someone was degaussing a huge collection of 8 tracks tapes. Thats the only reasonable possibility. Another bad thing about the condo is that when we arrived Ace said "Someone died in here.... a lady died." Which was totally creepy. It made me think about that recent movie promo about kids experiencing paranormal phenomena. I don't want Ace to see dead people. I want him to see people's social securtity #'s and other personal info so we can become Identity Thieves!

First ski day - we got going too late for Ace's ski class. Good bye money. We split the day into 2 halves. Jodi & my mom went skiing until 1 and then Mike and I went. Really great conditions. Probably some of the warmest skiing I have done in a long time. The trails are in good shape. Not fresh powder but even all the way across.

While the girls ski'd Mike and Ace and I went to the grocery store. I love grocery stores outside of NYC. So much awesome bounty. And the discounts! I mean it's cheaper than NY already and then for no reason it's cheaper again. We saved $17 on groceries just for signing up for the stupid grocery card. How awesome is that. Bought some Tommyknocker beer that was was wheat beer spiced with lemon grass. Delish! The only problem with the supermarket is that it's the only major food source in the area and on a Sunday it's been totally raided of most major food stuffs. There was almost no eggs, yogurt and other assorted goods and sundries. There was still enough sustenance for life to be had. I made turkey tacos and drank a ton of soda. I am totally thirsty all the time! This hasn't changd in 4 days. No matter how much I drink I get thirsty all the time. Hello diabetes.

Nope. Not me. Actually Jodi's mom did. She got a brand new spanking MacBookPro. It's 100% overkill for what she will do with it. I think it may be the most powerfuk email station in all of South Eastern Wisconsin. The story of how she came to it is pretty amazing. Just happened to be walking by the Apple Store at Mayfair and went in to talk to someone about a computer. The floor staff said she had to make an appointment with a sales person and pointed her to a kiosk. She is not very savvy so she couldn't figure out how to sign up so she left. About 2 weeks later she was back at the mall and decided to go back in. This time she found an older woman working the floor. She was relieved to find this lady more receptive. She told the lady "I have never had my own computer before" so what does the nice sales lady do? Sell her a MacBook? No she goes for the whole kit'n'kaboodle and talks her into buying a $2500 laptop plus .Mac account and some other stuff. CRIMINAL! They also signed her up for a year of computer classes which is probably the best thing they could do. She already took a class and learned how to email obviously. Jodi has since receieved 5 emails from her mom. A whole new world of communication has been opened. Here's the funny part. Jodi's dad was kind of cheesed that her mom dropped almost $3k on a laptop so he bought himself some toys. Did he buy himself a new Windows box to replace his 5 year old HP junker running WinME? Nope. He bought a fax machine. Better plug that in immediately! There is probably an important fax message from 1985 wait to come through. He also bought some other junk but it seems minotr compared to the fax. The best buy geek squad is busy with those two now. They had to come and wire the house for Wifi so Jodi's mom can surf wirelessly. Now when we visit I can finally hop on! Hooray!

We're going on vacation tomorrow. Flying off to Colorado to ski/snowboard and relax. I am ready to relax for a while thats for sure. Of course as seems to be the way it goes there is a giant work related event going on the week I am going to be out of town. I don't plan it that way thats just the way it goes. Things were crazy this week. I hired a new student worker. We had to uninstall a podium set-up Kevin and I spent a ton of time working on for no good reason. One of my Macs i record lectures on died. Yeah. It pretty much sucked. UNTIL....

Big news on the Fernandez family front. Jodi was offered and accepted a bigtime job at the Queens Museum! We are totally excited. It's a huge bump and career shift but one that she felt was long overdue. What a way to start your vacation! Now Jodi has to get a car. Which is crazy. If she takes the train it's over an hour train ride if you are lucky. If you drive its probably 20-30 minutes barring insane traffic. I have a feeling Jodi will learn to hate the BQE. I hate it and I don't have a car. So we get back and we need to find a car immediately.

Gotta go to bed. Flying tomorrow!

February has crawled into place and with it came this dumb beard I have been growing. It's probably the longest it's ever been. I haven't shaved since I had that crazy stomach flu so like 3 weeks now. I would shave but the only shaving cream I have is Jodi's leg shaving cream which smells weird and intense like perfume and I have some old like "fancy gel" shaving cream Jodi bought me ages ago in one of her attempts to introduce me to another level of personal products. I's okay shaving gel I guess but when I use it I seem to have a higher percentage of ingrown or irritated hairs or something. Something ain't right about it. Gimme my Egde Gel and I'll be happy. I almost broke down and shaved this morning. But as I was looking in the mirror I was hit with the same urge I always have when my beard grows in. And thats to shave my beard in a really stupid way. Like should I give myself the weird Ohmish beard I had? I preferred to call it a robot jaw beard. Or should I give myself a John Waters moustache? I balked. More thought must go into stupid bearditry.

On Saturday I subbed in as cameraman on the latest AcidTest.tv studio shoot. It was a good time. Funny improv and nice lively conversation. I was hanging out with people from the dearly departed sketch group YOUR MOM that I used to be in. Funny people.

My train ride home wasn't funny though. The stupid 1 train inexplicably slowed down between Franklin and Chamber street. It went so slow in fact that the 2/3 train flew by and I missed it at Chambers. Why did it go so slow? There may or may not have been actual workers on the tracks but I doubt it. I ended up waiting 50 minutes for the next express into brooklyn. If I didn't have my iPod Video to watch Aqua Teen Hungerforce I probably would have lost my mind.

It's retardedly cold here in NYC. We've had broken windows in our bedroom for like a year. Not like shattered glass but one one stay open and the other one won't snap into the frame right so it's always got a draft. That was totally evident this morning as there was a large spot on the window where steam from the shower wasn't sticking showing up. I put a towel up there and it kind of stopped it. Now I have a freezing cold towel but at least the draft is less.

I started watching the Louis C.K. sketch show that was on HBO last year "Lucky Louie" on the way to work this morning. It was actually pretty funny. I don't think it caught on. It's pretty foul mouthed, he plots are a little weird and the characters are pretty unlikeable. I do like that Laura Kightlinger is in it. She was one of my favorite comedians in the 90's. She's just got a really fucked up sense of humor.

Since i got the video iPod I have been pounding through the media. catching up on all the shows I don't have time for. It's been great! However I have totally stopped reading the paper...So not caught up on current events but I've seen all the Frisky Dingos and Assy McGee's I can handle.

Word.