Snow play with the bunny

This weekend I took my daughter snowboarding at Mountain High Ski Resort with a few families from my son's Boy Scout Troop. I enrolled the bunny in an all-day beginner's snowboarding class (heh heh. Now she's a snow bunny ;) while I signed up for two beginners' skiing classes, one in the morning, and one in the early afternoon.

At the morning class the head instructor asked us if we'd been skiing before; the two young ladies standing next to me both said no, I said yes. So the ladies went with one instructor while I went with another. My "group" lesson was almost a private lesson until a teenager turned up late, and when he said he had skiing experience he was assigned to my "group". So there were two of us plus Alex the instructor, which is almost the same as a private lesson. By the end of that morning's lesson Alex had us working on hockey stops and parallel turns, which are basically hockey stops but where you don't actually stop, so not really "beginner stuff" any more.

The bunny's class included lunch so I didn't see her during the middle of the day. I had a break between the morning and afternoon's class, so I scarfed my lunch down then got a quick run where I worked on my hockey stops and parallel turns. I finished my run at the class meeting spot where the students and instructors had already gathered and yes, I pulled up with a hockey stop. When the instructor looked up at me, before he could even ask I announced, "Not my first time." As if my "showboat entrance" hadn't announced that already ;)

Once again I got bumped up to the "advanced beginners" class and when I saw Alex standing with the other instructors I waited for her to look our way, then waved and called out to her. She came over and we chatted briefly and I asked if she was going to be our instructor her again. She said she was working on it, and I think it helped that her Dad was one of the head instructors because she did get assigned to my group again. For me, that was good because she was able to continue my instructions from where we'd left off before lunch.

By now I was getting pretty cocky and my over-confidence resulted in a couple of spills. Although all four of us in the afternoon class would take a tumble, I was the first one of us to go down when my snow plow didn't plow enough snow and I wasn't able to stop in time. Fortunately the others managed to sidestep and leave me a gap to wipe out into and I literally fell down at their feet.

Alex laughed and made a comment about this being the true test of a skier's athleticism. I got one ski under me, stabbed my poles into the snow and heaved myself up. Alex laughed again and said that I'd defied the laws of physics by getting back up the "wrong way" while somehow making it look easy.

"You did say it was a test of my athleticism," I replied. "I had to rise to the challenge."

Near the bottom of the mountain we stopped next to where I knew the snow bunny's class was being held and...there was her red and black jacket! "There she is!" I exclaimed eagerly, like a proud father, "there's my daughter."

I watched as she took a turn on her snowboard. One of the intructors held her hand, holding her in place, then when it was her turn he gave her a gentle shove to get her going and...she was snowboarding!!! My snow bunny was riding her board! Just like a real snowboarder. She rode it down, down, down, all the way to the bottom of the children's run before running out of slope, stopping, then sitting down as casual as anything. Was I a proud Papa? You bet your arse I was! :D

When I finally finished my class I made my over to where I'd seen her earlier and there she was with her Instructor. When she comes back next time, he told me, she can go to Level 3.

From novice to Level 3 in one day. Definitely a proud Papa moment.

I asked her if she was done, or if she wanted to keep going.

"Keep going!" she exclaimed. I took her across to the chairlift which took us up to the easiest of the runs, and as we waited in line I instructed her on how to get on without falling over. And then up the mountain we rode, daddy and daughter, on the ski lift. It's a good thing Mama wasn't there to see us because there were no safety rails on this ski lift.

She avoided getting cleaned up by the chair when we got off, but she did take a spill down the exit ramp. But after strapping her rear boot back in (SOP for boarders is to unbuckle your rear boot while riding the chair lifts) we were off, down the mountain; the bunny in the front, me following keeping an eye on her. When she started to go too fast she bailed and sat down, and she did that a few times. I'd pull up next to her and wait as she stood back up, got her balance...and back down the mountain we went.

And then she didn't sit down as she built up a little too much speed, and she didn't fall over either. I watched incredulously as she spun her board 90-degrees, dumped some speed, then continued to spin the board, essentially doing a 180 with a brief pause in the middle, and when she was done she continued riding. As if it was nothing. As if she hadn't just learned to ride a snowboard that very day.

Proud Papa? Absolutely! That's my snow bunny!

Unfortunately I'm not sure how often we can get up to the snow. She obviously had fun, and she picked up snowboarding fast. So it would be something the two of us could have fun doing together. At least until she surpasses her old man and starts boarding down double black diamonds as if they're a walk in the park. Which would probably be on her third or fourth lesson ;)

Coffee politics

I'm not in charge of the Office Coffee Club any more, and haven't been for a couple of years. We don't have the K-cup machine any more now, either, we just have a drip pot.  If you're a frequent coffee drinker you can pay $10 per month and drink all the coffee you want. If you're an infrequent drinker you can pay $1 per cup. Either way it's a good deal.

Instead of joing the Office Coffee Club, the ladies in the next aisle over started their own coffee club. They brought in a drip pot of their own and set it up in an empty cubicle, and they all chip in and buy their own supplies.

And this morning they ran out of coffee. They're pretty fastidious about making their coffee (as any serious coffee drinker should be; can't fault them there) and they apparently needed one more scoop of ground coffee so the coffee-to-water ratio was correct. But they had no more coffee.

So they came to me - well, one of them did - to ask me if she could take a scoop of coffee from the Coffee Club's supplies.

The Coffee Club's supplies are not at my desk, they're in the breakroom. She could have just gone in there and taken a scoop, and at 6:30am nobody would have been the wiser. But no, she wanted someone to tell her it was okay to take a scoop. And because I'm in early, and because I'm probably forever going to be known as "the coffee guy", she came to me.

I don't manage the coffee club anymore, I told her, I'm just a member.

We just want one scoop, she repeated, showing me the scoop again.

I'm just a member, I repeated right back at her, I can't tell you it's okay. You'll need to ask Mandy; she manages the coffee club now.

In hindsight, I should have said, 'sure, just leave a dollar in the cup.' knowing she didn't want to pay; she wanted to take a scoop and if someone caught her she wanted to be able to say, "John said it was okay..."

Except I wouldn't tell her it was okay.

I'll ask someone else, she said, walking off.

Mandy will be in soon, I called after her. You should ask Mandy.

I'll ask someone else, she muttered.