Christmas with Family

We spent Christmas weekend all together with my mom's whole side of the family in Kentucky.  We rented a hunting lodge and had a great time with family.  On Christmas Eve we had 27 people all together in the house.  It was a great time spent with family.  Here is my immediate family the day after Christmas.

Toby had some anxiety issues so he laid under the bed for a while.  I think he is not used to all the people especially just hanging out in my room in Utah.

I got the worst white elephant gift in the world but my brother was a close second with head bands.  O well.

I had breakfast with some friends today from school where I did my student teaching.  It was a blast hanging out with them and sharing stories about what we are doing now.  I head out of Chicago tomorrow evening so hopefully the weather is not bad.  I received my new ski so maybe on Thursday or Friday I will be rocking my new equipment.  It has been a great time at home with family for sure.

Home For Christmas!!!

Sorry to all who have so faithfully followed my blogging experience.  I know it is only like three people but here is to hoping my fan base grows.  My hacked internet connection finally gave out in Park City.  There were about three hot spots in the house and they are now all not working.  It could be the massive amount of snow on the roof or the people that own the hot spots just got wise to all the people using their connections.  Onto good news...I finally have heat!!!!!  That is ... not a space heater but it is actual heat in the house.  I am so excited.  Now I just have my fingers crossed that the hot water heater gets finished when I am at home so my showers can be longer than a few minutes with ideally hot water.

The past few weeks have been great.  I have observed in the ski center, worked with a soldier unit with sled hockey, worked one on one with a student in seventh grade in sled hockey and had some good days of personal time on the mountain.  The only down side was a minor injury to my elbow during one of my lunch breaks.  Other than that it has been awesome and the snow is consistently falling.  I think the mountain base is around 85 inches of snow.  It is crazy.

When I get back from vacation I will begin teaching in the ski center.  I am super excited about it.  I will teach individuals with all abilities to ski and it should be a really cool experience.  My lunch break went bad though in training.  I was going down the Payday run and caught an edge right before the slow sign.  The slow sign poles were taken out and my elbow suffered the brunt of it.  I waited a few days and then got it checked out.  The doctor said I chipped a bone on my radius near my elbow.  "I said what does that mean."  She said, "Take it easy" and I said, "So I can still ski blue runs?" She smiled and said, "Yes."  Here is some of the bruising on my left arm.

The next cool work experience was working with another round of Wounded Warriors.  They did some sled hockey with us last week.  It was a great time with some of the men and women.  Check out the news feed from Salt Lake City and you can read the link about some of the things we did with this group of soldiers.  Click on the link below and there is a story as long as a video describing some of the activities we did with the soldiers.  I am the guy in the red pants you can see a few times.

Wounded soldiers come to Park City to heal - ksl.com

http://www.ksl.com/

After working with the soldiers I was contacted by a local school that was going on a field trip with their P.E. class.  There is a student who needed a sled to get around on the ice and they contacted us to see if we could help.  It was great working with this girl and seeing her discover that she could still do some of the same things her classmates did on the ice, just in a different way for her.

Here is me on the last day before I came home.  It was snowing so much and the mountain was great.  I have resorted to "feet shots" since I can't balance and turn my camera around to get a full shot.  Here is a view of the resort to where a lot of snowmobile traffic occurs.  Those boots are awesome I must say.

One last cool news announcement.  I received a grant from the Kelly Brush Foundation.  They are an organization out east.  Kelly was injured in a skiing accident and they give back to fellow skiers and race organizations to help with safety.  They helped me get a Torino Nissan Mono Ski.  It is a ski manufactured in Japan.  I received it in the office yesterday so when I get back I can modify some things and start making some turns on my new ski.  It has been great working with them and I thank them for their huge support.  Thank you Kelly Brush Foundation.  There is a cool write up on the link below and my brother Tanner even made the newsletter.

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=xqsgy7cab&v=001KvOA9nYSxsrqQDgxM_6Vkh0hBnsJQNO5uZuMt6IqqsO2iR0ozSHQKkT7HWp_H9FHpalNiu0a05w76pVN4oR_40QLyJ42Q4JtAqShu3hyUlayb3xd1iNLnA%3D%3D

Merry Christmas to All.  It is great being home with my Mom, Dad and Tanner.  It will be great seeing Whitney and Jared and Cason and Karen tomorrow.  It has been fun sharing stories and catching up.  Have a wonderful holiday season.

Forty Hour Work Week!!!

This week was great!  We started our new hire training at the ski and snowboard center.  On Monday we received pointers from a ski instructor at Park City Mountain Resort.  It was good receiving some good pointers and things to really work on throughout the season.

Tuesday we learned how to teach a beginner skiing lesson and how to progress from very basic skills to less basic skills.  It was a slower day but we all had a chance to practice our teaching and how to show the techniques to our peers we were teaching.

Wednesday we learned how to teach a beginner that would be using tip clamps to help them keep their equipment in a wedge shape or as I learned when I started skiing, pizza and french fries.  We also learned how to use a ski slider.  This is pretty much a walker with ski equipment attached to it.

On Thursday we learned how to help with individuals who may have visual impairments and how to help guide and teach.  We also learned how to teach someone to use outriggers.  These are what I use for my balance.  Some individuals will use them even though they stand up and we call that four track skiing.  Individuals who may have lost a limb will use outriggers as well and we call that three track skiing.

Friday we tested on our knowledge and how to use all of the adaptive equipment and then had an orientation about specific National Ability Center employee guidelines.  It was a great week learning new things and developing some good friendships with people who are just joining the organization as well.

The only bad part of the week was our extended lunch on Thursday.  Me and a friend decided to take a free run on the slopes and I was doing fine until I took a bad spill on the last turn.  On a scale of one to ten I thought my left arm was at about a seven for being broken.  I took the afternoon off and iced up my forearm and elbow.  I took a sweet picture of the bruises but it does not show up real well on the computer.  It does look pretty sweet as my first war wound on the slopes but hopefully it will be my last of the season.

Here is a quick video of the slopes today.  It is pretty short but it is a little taste of the greatness of Utah skiing.  I will post some more pictures of actual equipment and different things hopefully next week.

Thanksgiving

It was Thanksgiving weekend this week and the snow was falling and about half of the lifts are open at Park City Mountain Resort.  I now have seven days of skiing under my belt and my body is getting used to some of the tumbles and runs on the mountain.  Here I am on the mountain.

On Thursday the resort was open so I met some people I work with to go skiing.  It was bitter cold, but it was Thanksgiving and I was thankful to ski.  After we did some runs and warmed up I went home and watched some football and then we all met at Amanda, Erin and Erica's house to do the Thanksgiving meal.  There were nine of us that got together.  We all brought something to share for the meal.  Here is my plate.  It was a good time of eating and then we played some games after.

Friday morning I got up early and went to the resort again and was able to work out with Rip and Sue.  They are the National Ability Center's ski team coaches.  We did about five runs together and they gave me some great pointers on making my ski turns faster and more race worthy.  It was awesome getting some coaching insight on my skiing.  I have a lot to work on but now I know what skills to focus on.  I went out again this afternoon after church and really worked on getting those turns fast and smooth.  I ate it good a handful of times today.  I will be sore tomorrow.  We start our ski instructor training tomorrow.  It goes the whole week so it should be really good learning instructor techniques and being on mountain.

Here is Toby.  He is really struggling to find good places to walk in the snow.  His legs are just a little to short.  He enjoys eating the snow and would rather stay on the plowed areas.

Veterans / Hockey / Biking and Snow

This week the National Ability Center had a group of Veterans come out for some programs.  These Veterans are coming home after a tour of duty but they are still on active duty.  They are getting ready to go back to combat zones or preparing to return to their families and civilian life.  On Tuesday, we took them to Salt Lake City and played sled hockey.  It was a good time.  The guy in the white helmet competed in Vancouver on the USA team and won gold.  He is crazy fast on the ice.  It is pretty amazing.

Here is one of the slowest guys on the ice.  It was my second time in a sled.  The push is a lot like the racing wheelchair where you have to do quick fast strokes to get your speed up and then longer strokes to keep you going.  The trouble with sled hockey and skiing is the balance and the turns.  It is really fun and the hits and checks are pretty cool unless you are on the receiving end.  When you can dish it out, it tends to be a lot less painful.

On Wednesday we did cycling fitness with the Veterans.  It was way too cold to get my handcycle out so I rode in the truck.  We just picked up the tired people who would rather ride in the heated truck.  It was fun watching able bodied troops try out handcylces and deal with some of the altitude up here in the mountains.

I finished out Wednesday with another Jazz game.  It was cool and they won again.  On Saturday I went to a sled hockey practice that the National Ability Center helps fund.  There were four of us and the coach  worked with me and helped me get my pushes and turns down.  It was good to get some instruction.  After sled hockey I rushed over and got on the mountain for a few hours for the opening day of Park City Mountain Resort.  It was depressing how not in shape and out of practice I am but it will get better.  On Sunday I practiced with the team and there were about eight of us on the ice.  I did another few runs on the mountain this afternoon as well.  I had to check out the sled hockey thing on Sunday but hopefully the Sundays will be pretty open in the future.  Here is the Sunday morning snowfall.  As you can see I don't do the two foot snow banks real well.  It was bad.

If anyone wants to come build me a garage you can!

First Day on the Snow

This week we started work as a group at the ski and snowboard center right on Park City Mountain Resort.  The National Ability Center has a double wide on mountain where we have offices and equipment.  It is very accessible for when lessons start.  I spent Monday through Thursday at the center.  It was good being involved and getting stuff done.

On Thursday, Caleb and I were talking about the upcoming ski season. He said that a couple of resorts had opened down near Salt Lake.  The weather patterns through the canyons get more early snow than Park City.  We decided late on Thursday night to give it a shot.  I woke up and made some calls on Friday and we decided to shoot out early and get on the mountain.  It was a great choice.

This is the view of our drive up the canyon to get to Brighton Ski Resort.  It was a 45 minute drive from Park City.  The views on the drive up were pretty stellar as well.

This was the first picture on the mountain.  I think it was the first ride up.  I had a new ski on my rig and it worked pretty well except for the binding kept popping out.  I will have to fix that before I ski on that ski again.  Caleb was pretty patient and helped out a lot on the first day on the mountain.  We did one run were it was really bumpy and not groomed.  I had a tough time of it during that run but the rest of the day was well worth the trip.

This is a picture on the top of the mountain.  If you look picture left, the town of Heber is down mountain.  It was funny looking at all the places that had no snow.  Brighton made a good amount of snow and had some natural stuff as well.  They had two lifts open and about six runs but it was better than any Indiana / Michigan skiing.

Here is one last picture.  The funniest part of the day was when we went to get tickets at the ticket booth.  The lady said, "I assume you would like a fifty percent off disabled ski pass."  I did not know what to say.  I just shook my head and smiled.  Man it pays to ride a mono-ski.  So I got about four hours of mountain skiing for half the price.  Not bad, not bad.  Park City Mountain Resort opens in a little over a week so I can't wait to ski for free on my season pass I got last week.  Skiing is only going to get better, and I look forward to it.

Onto other good news, Notre Dame romped over the Utah team on Saturday.  I have never been more proud to wear my shirts, jackets, hats and whatever else I have that says Notre Dame.  GO IRISH!

Utah Jazz

This week on Tuesday I had the opportunity to do my first speaking arrangement with Ryan.  Ryan is the marketing and outreach director and we went to the FBI headquarters in Salt Lake City.  They were presenting organizations that the company and individuals can choose to donate a portion of their earnings to certain organizations.  I was able to share how adaptive sports in general can help promote an active lifestyle.  We highlighted the Wounded Warrior Project and how adaptive sports can help wounded veterans in their lifestyle after an injury.  We had to check all of our electronics at the beginning of our stay with the FBI but right before we left I snapped a picture of the Top10 FBI Most Wanted.  Hopefully my name won't be on there for sneaking the picture.

On Wednesday night Caleb and I were able to go to the Utah Jazz game.  Caleb is a fall intern at the National Ability Center.  It was a cool game.  They played Toronto and easily took care of them.  We got to see Gordon Hayward.  He was the Butler player who almost made the last second shot in the game against Duke in the NCAA Finals. 

 Here is another shot from our seats.  A girl at work has season tickets and was not able to go because of class so she gave them to us. 

Well it was not much of a picture week.  The snow is supposed to come this week so we can only hope to be skiing by the end of the month.  I hope to find out about a grant I wrote for a ski this coming week as well so that will be really good if I find out as soon as I can.  On other good news, Notre Dame did not lose this weekend so we can only hope for them to take care of a bruised and battered Utah team that totally biffed here in Salt Lake this weekend so we will see.

Halloween Week and Weekend

Last weekend started with the first snow and the snow has stuck around most of the week high in the mountains.  I am itching to get going.  I have talked with some people and friends that have gone to Alta which is a resort about 45 minutes away from here and they hiked the mountain and went skiing down.  Trouble is I am not going to hike very well but I am anxiously waiting the mountain to open and the lifts to run.

Here is my car on the first snowfall of the season.

Here are some of the runs that are snow covered but the lifts will not open until the middle of November.  I cannot wait.  I think I have said that a few times for sure.

I do not think I have shown a picture of my house yet.  My door is the second door on the right and I think you can even see the ramp that is now part of the building.  It only took a month and hopefully the steepness won't get to me during the snow and long winter but we will see how it goes.

Due to the early snow and the annoying sweeping and make shift shovel strokes I do from my chair, I took the liberty and bought some big wide knobby tires for my spare wheels that I can put on my chair.  They are crazy large and I just might have to do some down hill chair runs.  No just kidding.  That would be terrible.

 My chair looks pretty crazy with the wheels.

I was trying to smile even during the cold bathroom break for my dog outside but the snow is beginning on the mountains so it was not that bad.

Saturday I once again had to miss a little bit of my Notre Dame game but in hind sight it probably would have been better to miss the last play.  It would have been great if our automatic field goal kicker would have kicked for the win at the end but I was not calling the play.  I got to see the second half which turned out pretty  terrible at the end.  The better part of Saturday would be the ski sale at the National Ability Center.  People donated used and new skis, boots, clothes and other winter gear.  We made a store out of it and sold a lot of the stuff .  It was good talking to people looking for gear and I even picked up another good set of skis and another jacket for a great price. 

After the ski sale and the mourning for my team, we went to a friends house for a Halloween Party.  I was a hot dog.  It was some sweet food and good times for sure.  It was good hanging out.  I did not win the best costume but I took a picture with Erica who I work with and she had the best costume.  She was Yoshi from the Mario Brothers  Nintendo Game. 

I pulled into work on Friday and looked to my left and saw a herd of elk coming from the left.  I dropped my chair out of my car and snagged my camera.  I got some good shots and then observed them for a little bit before heading into the office.  It was really cool.  I just need to see a bear in the wild to round out my wildlife observations but hopefully it will be from a lot further away than the moose and elk sightings.

Well that is it from me for this week.  I have enjoyed doing this so far.  If you want to see anything more or hear of anything else let me know.  I find out this week more about specifics of the marketing department and how I will be helping with that.  It should hopefully make my work time more profitable and actually doing different things.  Enjoy your week and hope for the snow wherever you are and push it this way so the slopes open soon.

First Snow

This weekend was the first snow.  It has been raining all weekend here in Park City but you can see the snow on the mountains above through the fog and haze of all the clouds.  I was watching the Denver Broncos game on TV this afternoon and they showed some of the resorts open there.  It will be very soon when the mountains are open!

Friday night we went paddle boarding.  It was a cool experience.  My board was broken so I had to sit down but the rest of the group stood on the paddle boards and you just paddled.  It was very similar to a kayak without a skirt or anything on it.  We went right at dusk and paddled for about an hour on The Great Salt Lake so it was very nice and dark when we came back.

 This was the view from The Great Salt Lake before we got out on the water.

 These were a few of the girls in front getting used to paddle boarding.  It was pretty fun to do and only Erin fell in.  I was so glad it was not me.  The people were freaking out that I was on the water and so worried that I would have someone with me the whole time.  I told them I could swim but they did not believe me.

This is a little hard to see but it is all of us about midway through the paddle.  It was pretty dark at this point.

Saturday was good except for the fact that I missed my Irish play once again.  This is killing me with all of these activities on Saturday when all you should be doing is watching your team play but o well they played really bad I hear so I guess I did not miss much.

I will take some pictures of the snow tomorrow when the clouds lift a little.

Moose Week

This week was good and it ended last night with a bang as I rolled onto a mamma moose and her two little mooslings.  I was coming home last night after hanging out on Main Street downtown.  I was rolling down the last hill and I looked up and saw the two young moose.  I slowed down and then looked to the left and saw the mamma.  She did not looked thrilled to me so I started talking to her and backed up pretty quickly while carrying on a decent conversation.  I looked around and found a better way home rather than the way of the moose and came back in my car with my camera.  It was pretty cool.  It was very dark so the pictures are not that good but I have a new appreciation for a very big animal.  It was neat to see.

The first picture is mamma moose and then the next one is her two young ones.  I wish it would have been light out but maybe that won't be my first interaction.  Thankfully my dog was not with me to scare them up a bit.  It could have been a little longer of a night than I had planned for.

Monday we worked on certification on the high ropes course.  I was able to climb to the bridge and get out in another chair they had and experience another high ropes course.  It was pretty cool to do.

 This is me and Michelle belaying people on the ropes course.  I am the one on the right!

 This is how I "climbed" up.  The winch that my left hand is on pulled me up so I reached for it above my head and then pulled down to lift myself up.  It was a good work out.

After I pulled myself up I got in another wheelchair and then rolled around up there a bit.  I was on belay about 20-25 feet up in the air.  It was a new experience to say the least.

On Saturday Andrea and I went to Weber State University.  It is a Division 2 school and a family was having a one mile fun walk for their daughter who passed away from epilepsy.  We were there with a booth for the National Ability Center because the family was raising the money in awareness of what epilepsy is and how people can participate in programs and sport regardless of different abilities.  It was a good day.  The only downer was the wrong turn on the way back home and the missing of about half of the Notre Dame game.  O well they won and I will watch them once again next weekend.  I just wish I could be at the games.   It is just not the same for sure.

 This was me and the booth.  I had no one to take a picture with so me and this sled hockey player posed pretty well.

 They gave Andrea and I some cotton candy.  I ate it so fast.  Not a good idea but it has been so long since I have had that stuff.

I met this man.  His name is Jim and he is a ski volunteer for the National Ability Center.  I learned so much about Utah.  I learned things that I did not even know existed as well.  He was fun to talk to and I hear he is a bit of a character in his ski outfits.  It will be fun to see him on the slopes.

After church today I stopped by the outlet mall and then stopped again to get some shots of the mountain fall color.  It is so pretty out here.  This is a barn on one of the main roads.  I think it will be more pretty with snow on the mountains but I will have to wait a few more weeks.

 Totally random non nature picture but I thought it was kind of cool for a reflection picture.

These are the mountains on the way to the Canyon's resort.  They don't ski on these but they are kind of the foothills of some really cool ski slopes.  The fall colors are amazing for sure.  Until next week.  Maybe I will have some cool animal sightings but hopefully nothing too dangerous.  Have a great week.

10 / 10 / 10

Today was the Chicago Marathon.  I missed it because of the travel day that I would have had to take off of work.  Chicago was the first marathon I ever did and was hoping to keep it a yearly consecutive race but it was out of my control.  I was able to give my bib number to a friend who pushed his first marathon so the bib was used.  Here is all of my bibs for the past couple of years.

This was the first full week of work.  It seemed a lot like staff training at Camp Tecumseh minus the other 100 counselors.  There are six AmeriCorps workers and we trained through the different National Ability Center procedures.  We did a lot of team building activities that I either led, or participated in at Camp Tecumseh.  It was interesting to see how different and similar team building and facilitating  goes.  Here is the group of AmeriCorps after a team building exercise.

Andrea, Erica, Erin, Michelle and Laura.  Our AmeriCorps Director Kim did not make the cut.  Sorry.

On Tuesday I took Toby out in the morning to the park and it was a little bit chilly.  I turned around and looked mountain side and there was a good dusting on the ground.  It was exciting, and I literally can't wait for the mountain to be covered so I can get my ski on.

Part of AmeriCorps is doing different volunteer hours.  I started this weekend at the Park City Film Series and at Recycle Utah.  The Park City Film Series was really cool this weekend.  They showed "The Way I See It."  It was an opening ski film and showed some stellar athletes skiing some pretty crazy mountains.  They had athletes there on Friday and I was able to score some autographed posters and some pretty sweet ski gloves as well.

Here is Toby in the park.  He is getting along with most of the other dogs in the park but we have yet to cross the line of getting along with the rommies cat.  I will keep you posted.

 Here is a token shot of me from the park.  My house is on the the left of my right shoulder.  It is a pretty cool place with some pretty cool views.

Here is the view of the mountains and some of the neighborhood without me in the picture.  Come on snow.

Well that does it for the week.  It was a good week.  I am eager to get into the groove of working on stuff and putting my own spin on different things but it was good getting involved in some of the volunteer opportunities and meeting some pretty cool people along the way.  On Saturday morning we as an AmeriCorps team worked with a camp that specializes in reaching out to participants with different needs.  There were about 15 participants and we worked with them in a craft activity and a horse back riding activity.  Here is the team again before we worked with the camp.

Erin, Laura Andrea, Erica, Michelle, and me.