It was cold out, in fact it was Out Cold

I just got back from my ski trip to exotic Galena, Illinois and man I am sore. It was a wild couple of days there. Filled with laughter, cheap hotel rooms, skiing, major accidents, and insults. Basically go rent the movie Out Cold and you'll get an idea of what went on. It was more or less like that sans a fat bearded guy. I mean, we invited Michael Moore but there was some issue with the mountain supporting so much weight... I'll break it down by days to make the whole thing more digestable.

Sunday:
Ah, the splendor of America's Heartland. We spent the whole damn day driving through the backwoods to get to our destination: Dubuque, Iowa. We stayed in Iowa, because it was cheaper. Also it gave me the fun of insulting the local populous with my Iowa jokes. (Loudly in public: "did you know IOWA is an acronym? Yeah, it stands for Idiots Out Wandering Aimlessly. Roosevelt decided that during his 'let's go crazy with letters' days." and "Wisconsin hates Iowa, and vice versa. There was even a battle between the residents of the two states. It was pretty intense, the people on the Iowa side were throwing sticks of dynamite at the Wisconsin people...Then the people in Wisconsin were lighting them and throwing them back")

We rode up in my van, and as anyone who has ridden with me over a long distance knows; it was really fun and kind of scary. It's like a roller coaster that has an even chance of crashing or making it through its run. We got there around 7, after a few questionable manuvers and some creative driving. Brody went in to check us in, and Josh and Barrett got to work unloading the van. For some reason I thought it was funny to pull up a little bit while they were trying to grab the bags. After one or two times Barrett just stood up fully and gave me a "fuck you" look. But he didn't realize he was standing up where the hatch back was highest, as I pulled forward the handle of the door smoked him on the head. I just about peed my pants, it was hilarious. That'll teach him to give me the indignant look.

Other than seeing Blade III (worth it for Jessica Biel sexy-ness, and Ryan Reynolds humor...but not much else), we just went to bed that night.

Monday:
We woke up at the crack of 7:00 and showered (which was later questioned...why shower to go ski?) and ate breakfast. I managed to give them a fake room number at the hotel restaurant leading to problems the next day. But other than that...smooth.

I drove us up to the slopes which was just a hop across the river to Galena, Illinois. We got there and got our stuff ready. I rented boots and used Brody's ludacrisly nice (and as yet unused) skis. But it had been a year since I skiied and I was being a timid little bitch. So my first run was down the bunny slope. But I will say I friggin owned it. After that the confidence built exponentially. There was a black diamond slope that scared me however. For those that don't know there are different rankings of slopes. A black diamond is expert. I had no intention of doing it...until Brody mentioned that Karen had. From that point on my own survival didn't matter. He said she did it after lunch, it was 11:38 at the time....that gave me about 20 minutes to prove my manhood.

To give you an idea of what I was getting myself into, from the top of the hill, you can't see the bottom. All you can see is the Mississippi River at the base of the valley. The grade is like 30 degrees or something equally menacing. I'd beat this 90 pound girl or die trying I was thinking. So down I went. And you know what? It was great. +1000 to confidence.

Now if at this point you're worrying that I might be getting too confident, I can't blame you. Because I was. Basically I felt prepared to ski in the Olympics. So I decided that I didn't need to turn and bleed off speed anymore. I went pretty much straight down the mountain, from the black diamond. People said it was pretty ovbious I was going to crash when I was getting air from a slight bump in the snow. But they had seen nothing yet. The last 30 feet of the hill are a very sharp downward grade, above this it had flattened out somewhat. I didn't account for how much speed I had and never touched those last 30 feet. That's right, I flew.

And you know, flying is great...it's landing I need to work on. The landing was a spectacular wipeout. I kind of landed on my ski's and then sommersalted a few times, ending up on my back. I knew if I survived, but broke Brody's brand new performance skiis he would finish me off. So I, while spinning on my back, put my feet and skiis straight up in the air in a move that shall forever be known as the Helicopter Wipeout. I wrenched my knee a bit, but I was still in the game for the rest of the day.

Thank God lunch was up next. At lunch I showed my friends my proficiency at hacking Coke machines. A trick I can thank the internet and my nerdy college friends for. You can set the machine to give out free soda, tell you how much it's made since the last reset, do a two for one special, etc. Even change the password so no one else can get into the Coke machine utilities. I showed Barrett with no problem. I looked great, but Brody missed the show. So I went to show him. But the second time around, I didn't pay as much attention. Well...as it turned out I kind of broke it. Instead of displaying things, it just read NONE. And did little else. We're not sure what came of it, but the next day we saw a new coke machine being brought in on a truck. I think I'm a wanted man.

The rest of the skiing that day was uneventful. After the slopes, we decided it would be a good idea to come in from the cold and get in the hotel's hot tub. Sadly, we had no swimming trunks. So we went to the nearby Target and looked around. I found fur lined Santa boxers that came with a hat that I felt were just rediculous enough for me to buy. I also found a nice pair of basketball shorts to hot tub in. Score! Sadly, the hot tub wasn't quite up to Real World standards. Frankly it sucked. It was made of concrete and shaped like a little boat. There weren't really jets but there were a few bubblers. Unfortunately there wasn't a lot of water filtration, which turned our hot tub into a Gravy Boat of Disease. Still, it was relaxing.

That night we went and saw The Incredibles it was my second time and I'll reiterate; Elastigirl is hot. Too bad she's voiced by an old harpy by the name of Holly Hunter. But the voice was nice enough for the role. And Craig T. Nelson as Mr. Incredible? Brilliant. Way better than his 46 seasons of Coach, wrapped into 2 hours.

Tuesday:
At breakfast I gave them the right room number, they were like 227? How many people are in that room. I said "...four." And they said "did you pay for four." I replied, "Well one of us was pregnant and squeezed out a kid after we payed for three, so we figured it didn't count" They were not amused. After a scowl and the insinuated threat of spitting in my food I said "yes, we paid for four."

The weather report said it'd be zero out and they were right. What they failed to mention is that there would be wind bad enough to push you back up the hill. Literally, on the bunny slope if you didn't haul ass down it you'd stop then slowly be pushed back. Riding on the lift and looking down you felt like you were watching some piece on the artic, there were little torrents of snow blowing all over the ground and we were pretty much the only people dumb enough to be out in it. Today I had to rent boots and skis because Brody seperated his shoulder on a wipeout from the terrain park. I should mention that 2 seconds later Barrett face planted from the same jump and sustained a mild concussion. As you can imagine, it was awesome.

After lunch we didn't feel like we could go on. I felt like we needed a morale boost, and what is better for that than a huge wipeout. The lodge is at the top of the bunny hill and we were headed down it. I tucked in for speed against the wind and was actually getting some nice speed. I just leaned a bit too far forward at the wrong time and...wham flipped down the hill losing my skis, poles, hat, goggles, gloves and slid backwards getting snow up my coat. I flipped over quite a few times, once I landed hard on my back and it hurt for the next 2 days. All in all it was pretty hilarious. (But I'll own up, it wasn't intentional, if only it were. I'd have a carreer!)

We skiied the rest of the day and froze our asses off. It was pretty bad so we cut the day off an hour early, went back, hopped into the Gravy Boat of Death, and relaxed. I was feeling pretty good so I decided to try something I'd always wanted to try: to use one of those life saving hooks at the pool to polevault across it without touching the water. It was a learning experience, the lesson was that polevaulters don't use aluminum poles. As I plunged it into the water and put my weight on it the rod folded like a cheap tent. What a pisser, and into the freezing cold pool too. Ouch.

We went out that night and ate at Fat Cat pizzza. I spent 5.20 total and got fresh drafted root beer and a large pineapple pizza. It was the Tuesday special, if you're ever in Doobuuquue I suggest it. We decided to head back on Wednesday without skiing when we heard that the temp was going to be even colder than zero. "Colder than zero! That'd have to be....like negative or something" ah the quotes of blonde girls. We spent our last night on the town at a mall where I bought a maxim, knocked over a rack of DVD's at Suncoast, and shouted at Buckle employees. That's pretty much it. At the hotel we watched Collateral, and Josh gave us the quote of the trip. In the climactic scene at the end of the movie where Jada Pinket Smith is hiding from Tom Cruise in the dark of her office and Tom can't find her Josh blurts out, completely deadpan: "Good thing she's black"

And with that I end my marathon post. There's more to tell, but I'm tired of typing and you've read enough. Who needs reading? Go watch TV. I'm out like Jimmy McGreevey.
- Scott