Tuesday, December 28, 2010
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.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
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.
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.
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