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.

Race Weekend

Saturday I flew out of Salt Lake City to the Twin Cities in Minnesota.  I had the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday.  I had been relatively lazy in my training since I have moved to Park City with the move and the new job and all.  I finished the race in a less than stellar time but it got done and I was not all that sore today during the day like I thought I would be.  It was a good time and it was nice to spend time with the guys that race.

I was able to see Will and Renee and spend time with them at their house on Saturday.  It was good spending time with them and seeing their six month old son.  It was a good time and Renee made a good meal of pasta.  It was good catching up with them.

The worst part of the weekend was the drive back to the airport after the race.  The stooge that was supposed to know where he was going drove the wrong way and brought us to some random neighborhood.  He then drove the wrong way around the city.  What should have been a 15 minute ride to the airport turned into an hour and a half on the road in all sorts of wrong directions.  Needless to say I missed my flight but was able to get another connecting flight back so I made it home and into work today.

We did more paperwork at work today and then our supervisor sent us out to experience the life of a disability.  Well I thought I had the covered but she took the use of my thumbs away for the duration of the time.  The other people I work with had to ride in wheelchairs and one wore a blindfold to represent blindness and another was not able to speak.  It was interesting but I have already dealt with the looks so it was not different at all for me.  We then spent some time training at the pool and taught some swimming lessons for four different children today.  It was good to involved in some different program areas as well.

It is getting cold in Park City and the radio said today that their might be snow this week so the good times are coming soon!!!