Digital Analogue

Day One

I'm writing this from a Best Western in Wausau.

For the first time in nearly twelve years, my family is taking a vacation; Kathy's spring break and mine coincided, and my mom organised a ski trip at Granite Peak/Rib Mountain. We left Palatine this morning at 10:30 or so, stopped for a late lunch, and got to the motel at 4.

Kathy's ski trip nearly ended early, when in getting out of the car she wiped out and whanged her arm---briefly being scared that she broke it. That would have been a great story, eh? "Yeah, I broke my arm on a ski trip. No, no... no... not that... it was sort of when we were getting out of the car...."

After a lot of going round and round about what to do tonight, we decided to do night skiing, with Kathy snowboarding instead---just for today, and then she'd go ahead and skit tomorrow.

Funniest thing ever.

I was on regular skis, at which I'm moderately competent, and watching her was really funny. Wish I had a camera for some of the more spectacular ones. Getting off the lift the very first time, her heroic efforts at staying upright earned her the nickname "Grace" from the lift operator. About a half hour later, at the bottom of the hill, a teenage girl asked "Grace" if she was having fun. Happily, this girl did give Kathy some tips and helped her down the next run, to the point where it wasn't completely ridiculous and she had some things to practice.

Eventually, Kathy, Dad, and I got tired and we went to dinner. The place we went was "Hereford and Hops Brewhouse", and the food was fantastic; their headline menu item is steak that they bring out raw and you grill it yourself. Kathy and I exercised this option, she with a 7 lb filet that she requested be thick so she could make it rare; the waiter brought out a steak that was almost literally a cube. It may have even been taller than it was wide. She had no problems keeping it rare. :) My ribeye was incredibly tender and tasty as well---I cooked it more rare than I usually take my steak, but it was all for the good. Their in-house root beer was also good, and Dad quite approved the stout that he had.

And finally, we came back and hot-tubbed for a while. Kathy's still really sore from today's escapades, and claims great relief that she's going to be skiing instead for the next few days. Me, I can't wait to get going on the intermediate hills....

On Tomb Raider: "Nonetheless, the movie did have its moments. Especially when they strung Angelina Jolie up and had her kick ass on wires. Unlike Crouching Peter Hidden Pan, the wires were *supposed* to be there, and it kicked all the more butt because of this." --Jonathan Prykop