tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

I actually didn’t watch 24 last night in order to watch the Winter X Games. Don’t worry, we tivo’d it. But I was too tired to even watch the tivo’d version after X Games were over. Gasp!

Anyway, men’s superpipe finals were on, which was pretty freaking cool. Such a night and day difference between the men’s and women’s. It was kind of embarrassing for me to watch the women’s. I mean, their skill level was just so much lower than the men’s. Now, I know, typically women get paid less in professional sports, and like in tennis they play less sets than the men, are not as strong, blah blah blah….but I would think that would mean that instead of say doing two 1080’s in a row like the men, they would do at least ONE 1080. Or even just more than one spinning trick in a row. But no. They get rewarded just for doing a grab? I don’t get it.

I know, I know, I will likely never be able to even come close to doing a grab, so who am I to talk. But still, I hope the bar gets raised for the women in the next few years.

UGH.

I tried a Body For Life protein bar (chocolate fudge) this morning for breakfast, and it was absolutely disgusting. It had the consistency of cardboard and all the flavor of a piece of chalk. At 200 calories and 15 grams of protein, I had high hopes for it. But never again!

My all time favorite protein bar is the South Beach Cinnamon Raisin. It tastes so freaking good. And South Beach in general has a good balance of calories/fat/protein. I just wish it was bigger. I need two of them in the morning, and that gets expensive.

I believe I also like the Balance Bar Gold chocolate peanut butter. But I haven’t had one in a while so I don’t really remember.

I just bought about 10 different bars this week to try out, and see which ones are edible, and which are crap. Stay tuned for the review! (Oh so exciting, I know. But it’s better than testing for bugs….)

This weekend Aaron and I went to Snowshoe for three days of snowboarding with Mary Ann and Don. It was such an awesome trip. We stayed at the Silver Creek lodge, which turned out much better than I had hoped – we had a huge apartment, full kitchen, washer and dryer, balcony, tv, dvd player, fireplace, AND we could walk out the front door and be on the slope. Perfection!

Unfortunately it rained most of the day Saturday when we arrived. Mary Ann and Don (hereby known as MaD) had a lesson in the rain, while Aaron and I took off for the main mountain to check out the Village. We did a little window shopping, trying to stay dry, and grabbed some pizza. When our waiter brought us the check, he told Aaron he looked familiar. Turns out they used to skate together in high school. Small world.

The rain finally stopped and we hit some of the green trails at Silver Creek. It was pretty icy, so not as much fun as it could have been. Plus, the lines for the lifts were insane. I guess Saturday is NOT a good day to go.

We went to a mexican place for dinner. The food wasn’t great, but the margarita’s were good. We walked past a huge outdoor pool and hot tub on the way home, which looked like so much fun. Too bad none of us brought our bathing suits! Who knew?!

We ended the night at Misty’s sports bar (still weirds me out because our cat is named Misty) where Aaron and Don played pool with two other guys and MA and I had some girl talk. And more margaritas. Saw some passed out drunken fool get dragged out of the bar, still in his ski boots. Now THAT is dedication to drinking. Who needs to change? Get me to the bar!!

Sunday we slept in and then headed back to Silver Creek. Before lunch Aaron and I got some great runs in on a pretty steep green run. We were both totally in the zone, having perfect runs.

Then we stopped for lunch. And the zone disappeared.

It started raining again, and we were definitely lacking some precision in our runs, so we called it a day. When we got back to the hotel we wandered around looking for restaurants, and lo and behold, we had our OWN outdoor hot tub! (And an indoor one). The only thing lacking was bathing suits. But never fear, the gift shop had quite the selection of ’80s wear suits. MA and I picked out some hideous flowery things. Aaron and Don had to get matching board shorts, which apparently had an interesting lining which had to be cut out before they could be worn comfortably.

We made quite the entrance to the pool area, let me tell you. Nothing like walking around in a bikini in hiking boots, those being the only shoes you brought with you other than snowboard boots.

The hot tub was very soothing on our sore muscles, and I don’t know how we would have felt on Monday if we didn’t get a chance to soak. Mental note: next year pack bathing suits!

Monday we had to get up early to check out, so we headed over to the main mountain. The snow was SO much better over there. The green runs were nice and long and twisty, too. Plus, it was pretty dead since most people headed home on Sunday. Next time we’re definitely going mid-week. Aaron and I had an awesome day all around. We were in the zone the whole time. Took some really steep hills pretty fast, no major wipeouts, and I even caught some air on bunny hops off the hills. We were having so much fun, every time we said, “This is the last run,” we just had to have another one.

MA didn’t board Sunday, and Don only went on one run with us, so we finally met back up with them at the Village for some pizza, and then headed home.

It was almost a perfect trip…we were driving back home on 33, and had just passed a semi carrying a bunch of chickens (feathers EVERYWHERE!). Aaron was only going 10 over the limit, but suddenly we see a cop pass us going the other way, then flash his lights and whip a 180 right in front of the chicken truck! MaD were behind the truck and said the truck had to slam on his brakes to avoid slamming into the cop. Doh! So, Aaron pulled over and we waited. The cop was really cool, asking us how Snowhoe was, and telling us a story about a Falls Churh couple who got completely lost going to Snowshoe. He ended up just giving Aaron a warning. Phew! He told us, “You’re almost at the Virginia border, so slow down – they’re not as nice over there.” Too true! Of course, as Aaron pointed out, a VA cop wouldn’t have pulled us over for only going 10 over the limit. Oh well, c’est la vie.

So all in all, a perfect trip all around. Pictures to follow!

If I worked in a mailroom in an office building, where my only job was to process incoming and outgoing mail, I think I would find it difficult NOT to be an expert at these two tasks. These two being special because they are the ONLY two which I have to do.

Now, I happen to know that stamps went up to 39 cents recently. I know this, in spite of the fact that my job does NOT entail being an expert in mail related things, such as someone who, say, works in a mailroom.

Being thusly knowledgeable of aforementioned stamp rate hikes, I placed a postcard in the outgoing mail slot at work, with a 23 cent stamp and a 1 cent stamp on it. Clearly, the postcard had 24 cents worth of stamps on it.

(This just happens to be the exact amount required to domestically mail a postcard in the US).

I walked past the outgoing mail slot this afternoon, and noticed my postcard still lying there. Upon taking a closer look, I saw a post-it note sticking to it saying, “Stamps went up to 39 cents. – The Mail Clerk”. Some Do-Gooder had kindly written in the corner of the note, “Even postcards? They usually cost less.”

Two noteworthy items here.

1) The man whose sole job is to transfer mail in and out of the building has no idea how much a postcard costs. Nor is he clued into the fact that (and this involves more common sense than a trip to usps.com) that a postcard costs less than a regular letter.

2) People in this office are damn nosy. Smarter than the mail clerk, at least a little, but nosy nonetheless. Stop reading my postcard!!