X Games Silver!! or How I helped or Why I'm a bad person . . .

Amidst all of the chaos which was my life last week (I exaggerate, it really wasn't all that chaotic but it's such a good lead in), our houseguest from Montana, Kevin Connolly, (one of our many houseguests) won the silver medal in the X Games on Saturday.

Very cool.

I got to hold an X Games silver medal. It's heavy. Which accounts for how Lindsey Jacobellis' lip got split during her medal ceremony. But that's another story.

Kevin is pretty incredible. He was born without legs and has had quite the adventurous life. He has hitch-hiked through New Zealand and is currently a student at MSU in Bozeman, Montana.

We went out to X Games on Saturday, just us and 70.000 other fans (Saturday was Winter X's record breaking attendance day), to watch the mono-skier competition, two qualifying heats and the final. The first heat consisted of an individual skier against the clock and during this heat, it became clear that the course was taking a toll on the monoskis, with lots of falls. (Interestingly, there were even more falls and injuries the next day during the Skier Cross qualifying runs.)

The second heat was supposed to be made up of the top eight finishers from the first heat but not enough competitors were able to finish.

In addition, the US Disabled Ski Team were late arriving due to travel problems involving the Aspen airport (another story for another time but suffice it to say that a lot of people are having problems with the Aspen airport this season!) so they only had time to slip the course, not actually run it.

Due to these complications, the second heat was modified so that it was two races with three skiers in each race. Kevin was racing Kevin Bramble, his arch rival, and Sarah Will (the race was a combined men's and women's event). Kevin C. took the lead out of the gate but was then passed by Kevin B. who opened up a slight lead. Remembering how many skiers had fallen in the first round, I started yelling, "Fall! Fall! Fall!" at the video monitor which was focused on Kevin B leading the three skiers much further up the mountain. No sooner did I utter the third "Fall!" when . . .

Yep, Kevin B. fell. We went crazy. Pete, Kevin C.'s support crew, turned to me, exclaiming, "You made that happen!! You're a witch!!" Laurie, another of our houseguests, got the whole thing on video.

The crazy part of it was that the first two finishers from this heat advanced to the final so there was no reason for Kevin B. to be going all out like that. He was passed by both Kevin C. and Sarah and was done for the day.

In the final, Tyler Walker led start to finish but Kevin C. kept the pressure on and took silver, coming in only 0.062 seconds behind Tyler.

Here are some more pictures of Kevin:

Wow, I suck! Part Two or Where there's smoke?

Introductory note: In these situations, I clear all correspondence, facts, conversations and courses of action with my bosses.

Dear Bridget's Boss:

I just wanted to let you know that I did enjoy working with you. All I can say is that I am very glad that your administrator, Bridget, doesn't run my office. She has unbelievably poor customer relations as far as the big picture. She is adamant about being right and not listening which is fatal for any office. I think you should know about it because I have great respect for you.

I felt my bill to be exorbitant and I feel that I was overcharged. The bottom line is that I have to feel that I am treated fairly. I don't want to be lectured by an administrator about what happened based on notes that could have been written a month later. Ultimately, Bridget feels proper protocol is to threaten me with collections over $230. Small consideration and a big loss for your office to make me feel like I am heard and to end up losing potential business which would translate into income for more than tens (sic) years. In the end to also be lectured by Bridget that Bridget's other boss would never have told me a price is just an outright lie that I am unable to swallow.

I feel you need to know how she handles these issues because I am SURE I won't be the first or the last customer to take their business elsewhere over her determination to be right and refusal to hear the customer. Maybe you won't care but I would want to know as a fellow business owner.

Sincerely,

Bellyacher

Footnote: Bellyacher paid bill in full.

Question: Why would Bellyacher want to continue to do business with an organization which Bellyacher feels is so deceitful ("notes that could have been written a month later" and "just an outright lie I am unable to swallow")?

Good morning!

When Steve left for work this morning, he told me he had left me a list.

I thought, "Oh great, what's he want me to do?"

Here's his list:

Someone in this room I love
You are my treasure trove
Home on the range and stove
You told me drive, I drove
out to the old orange grove
You told me dive, I dove
under 'Pair of Eyes' Cove
You fit me like a glove
You told me heave, I hove
You make my bloodstream move
I used to own a Nov . . . a?
I have nothing to prove
If we're not home, we roved
The mystery's been solved
You tell me weave, I wove
You are my treasure trove
Someone in this room, I love

Nice!!

Housecleaning

We need to have guests more often.

The last few days have been a frenzy of domestic activity. We have friends coming to visit and we've been busy styling the house.

Steve returned from Hawaii with a spartan mentality. Our house is hardly spartan. He had just spent 3 1/2 months, living with the bare minimum and he had gotten comfortable. He returned to our small, cluttered life and was immediately overwhelmed with all of our stuff. He's been weeding out clutter ever since.

Housing in Aspen is very expensive. Space is costly. So we all live in small spaces. Our house is approximately 1400 square feet. 3 bedrooms/2 baths with a loft office. It's awesome for us. Rachel has her own room, Steve has an art studio, I have an office. We each have our space.

But it's small. We also live in a place where we do lots of activities. Activities take lots of gear and lots of toys. We have bikes, we have skis, we have kayaks, we have camping gear, we have rafting gear . . .

We juggle the gear. What season is it? Time to cycle the gear. Bring out the ski stuff, put away the camping stuff. Our storage space is like a puzzle. It all fits but if you want something, you have to untangle it.

I need that, so I have to move this and this and this, get that and then put back this and this and this.

But guests are good. We look at our space with a fresh eye. What's necessary? What works?

We need to have guests more often.

Come visit.

Small Town Perks

Aspen styles itself as a very green place to live.

Among the many reasons this is so is the Roaring Fork Valley Vehicles program.

RFVV is a car share program which allows my husband and I to completely cut out the cost of a second vehicle. For $10 per month, I have access to one of six vehicles, 2 sedans, 3 station wagons and a pickup. When you use a car, you pay for time and mileage but gas is included. There's no car note and no hefty insurance payment. There is a nice easy toll free reservation system.

RFVV was a life-saver today. For $70 (the full day rate), my mom and I were able to take the car share car the 260 miles round trip to Grand Junction to pick up my poor little "Miss Eliza Doolittle" (Rachel's name for the Toyota).

So convenient and so green all at the same time . . .

Only $500!

I had basically convinced myself that the problem with the car was major, really major.

I was thinking $1500 or so.

Did I have any reason whatsoever to think this??

No.

But I must have been sending some serious subliminal pessimism to my husband because he spent Sunday evening googling new cars.

So my reaction when Max from Integrity Auto told me yesterday that it was the water pump and the timing belt was, "Really??? That's all?"

"Only $500?!?"

Adventures in Babysitting

I was going to next write about my fabulous day of skiing yesterday, a day so cool I kept saying, "Wow, I feel like a good skier!"

But instead I'm going to tell the story of why my poor car is 128 miles away and I'm $100 poorer (so far).

Oh well, the skiing thing probably would have been boring anyhow.

Rachel has an awesome trip scheduled for this summer and in addition to paying a lot of money to make it happen, I also get the privilege of taking her to once a month meetings 2 hours away.

The first monthly meeting was scheduled for today. There have already been an orientation meeting which we missed (we weren't informed of it) and an interview which we attended, but the first monthly meeting was today.

Since we weren't invited to the orientation meeting, I've been feeling a bit in the dark so it was important to me to attend today's meeting even though we're in the midst of a winter travel advisory. We even got an email from one of the trip leaders giving us permission to beg off due to the weather.

But I was trying to be responsible and so off we went.

The roads had been bad for the first hour plus and we were a bit behind schedule. We had about 15 more minutes until the meeting was supposed to start and we were probably closer to 20 minutes out when there was a thump under the hood (on I-70 doing 75 mph).

The car immediately started decelerating. The oil light came on followed quickly by the check engine light and then the alternator light. Fortuitously, I was at an emergency pull off so I coasted in and noticed that the power steering was dead too.

Hmmmm.

Of course I had neglected to renew my AAA membership last July and it had expired. I had just sent in a check last week to renew it but knew that they wouldn't have it posted yet. I have a handy little phone book under my car seat but it's for Aspen, not Grand Junction.

I called AAA and was told by their automated operator that the hold time was 20 minutes. 20 minutes to find out that I wasn't a member? I hung up.

I called my husband because there was so much he could do from work up on a ski mountain.

I called the Grand Junction Police Department who patched me through (don't I sound official?) to a tow truck guy. No sooner did I leave a message for the tow truck guy than I decided that it was stupid (not to mention potentially more costly) not to try AAA again.

This time I called the membership line and got through after a fairly short hold (remember that if you're ever calling AAA roadside assistance). I found out that since I had had a renewal mailed to me I had some sort of a grace period during which I could receive assistance and they would bill me full fare if they didn't receive my membership fee.

A short while later after a brief confusion over my location during which Rachel and I amused ourselves with a Gilmore Girls dvd, Aaron from Pro Tow arrived.

Rachel who has never been in a tow truck was having flashbacks to the John Ford Noonan character in Adventures in Babysitting.

Aaron (who was nothing like Handsome John Pruitt) dropped the car at Integrity Auto Repair (with a name like that, how could I go wrong??) and then was kind enough to take us to the airport where we happened upon a High Mountain Taxi (Aspen's home town taxi service) driver picking up some riders who had gotten stranded at the GJ airport since the Aspen airport was closed (I told you there was a winter travel advisory). (wow, that's all one sentence!)

Did I mention that Gay Ski Week starts today?

We had a quick (as quick as a 2 hour ride can be) and conversational ride back to Aspen whereupon I discovered that the sleazy taxi driver was secretly charging the tourists less than he was charging the low-paid, hard working local. Or at least it was a secret to me.

So I called him out on it.

We missed the meeting, are sans vehicle, are in the dark about the extent of the damage and are unsure if Integrity Auto Repair is even open tomorrow (what with it being a federal holiday).

And the adventure continues.

I'm really not sure why I'm so calm about all of this. It's kind of out of character and scary . . .

Dueling banjos?

One of the things that makes Aspen more interesting than, oh say Vail, is that Aspen has a history. Aspen, the ski town, is just the latest incarnation of the settlement in this locale.

Aspen was a mining town, a bit of Wild West anarchy, which was only slowly tamed.

At least some of the local residents still embody that rebellious spirit. The miners at Smuggler Mine are a fine example.

Smuggler Mine (where one of the largest nuggets of native silver, weighing in at 2,350 pounds, was found in 1894) is just above town, in very close proximity. The McMansions have slowly surrounded it. The locals hike past it every day as they "go up Smuggler." It's right there.

Every Fourth of July, at 6 am, the miners at Smuggler Mine fire off a cannon. A big, booming cannon. A shake the windows kind of explosion. More than once.

A few years ago, due to complaints, the miners were told not to do it anymore. There were articles in the paper about it. There was controversy. (Now realize that it doesn't take much to create controversy in any small town, let alone Aspen.)

And at 6 am on July 4th, there it was, the first of those window shaking, sleep interrupting, dog frenzy inducing, car alarm erupting cannon booms. The miners were thumbing their noses at the authorities and at all the newly minted Aspen residents who just didn't appreciate tradition.

I cheered. Then rolled over and went back to sleep.

All of this comes up because last night was Winterskol. Winterskol was started in 1951 in an effort to improve tourism during a slow time in the ski season and it has traditionally been an irreverent, crazy carnival. In recent years, it has lost some of its luster but the highlight still is the fireworks display.

As I've written before, Aspen has more than its share of fireworks. But the Winterskol fireworks top them all and this is due to the miners at the Smuggler Mine.

Every year during Winterskol, as soon as the fireworks display over Aspen Mountain concludes, the miners answer with an equally stunning fireworks display over Smuggler Mountain. Every year, they are coy about whether or not there will be an answer and every year (so far), there is.

At my house, we watch the Aspen Mountain fireworks from the front porch and then we rush to the back balcony to watch the Smuggler Mountain fireworks.

I'm waiting for the year that the volunteer firefighters on Aspen Mountain answer the miners back. And get yet another response . . .

A special invitation

They're opening a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Aspen, like tomorrow.

Last night and tonight, they were doing a little dress rehearsal.

By little, I mean that they filled up the restaurant with invited guests and fed them all for free.

Feeding a restaurant full of patrons Ruth's Chris cuisine at no charge is quite a proposition.

Last night I was one of those invited guests. Actually, I basically rode in on the coattails of a friend who really was an invited guest.

It was awesome! There were four of us, all women, and we had a great time. They had a New Orleans band (I don't mean New Orleans style, I mean a band from New Orleans) parading around the restaurant while we waved our handkerchiefs in the air in the style of the Second Line. We ate something like $350 worth of food and it was all fabulous.

We started with the Barbeque Shrimp, Seared Ahi Tuna and Sizzlin' Blue Crab Cakes.

We moved on to the Sliced Tomato & Onion Salad and Caesar Salad.

Next we had the Filet and Shrimp, Grilled Portobello Mushrooms, Petite Filet and T-bone, with a side of Sauteed Mushrooms.

We finished with the Warm Apple Crumb Tart, Chocolate Sin Cake and Creme Brulee.

Quite the marketing event.

Market to me like that anytime!

A day to relearn a love of skiing

Last Friday, a friend called me to see if I wanted to go skiing on Saturday, more specifically to see if I wanted to do a Local's Clinic (think ski school).

I had not been skiing yet this season. The mountains opened before Thanksgiving. I didn't even get my pass until the middle of December.

Let's just say that I've had no interest.

So, I said yes.

And immediately wondered why. And wondered why frequently in the next 19 or so hours before I met my friend at Highlands.

I had exit strategies, all kinds of exit strategies. George Bush, eat your heart out, I had multiple exit strategies.

But . . .

We got on the lift. We took a run. It was fun.

We found a class. Our instructor was good and his pointers were helpful. It was fun.

The snow was fabulous, pure ego snow. It had snowed something like 19 inches in a couple of days. It was fun.

The morning was clear and although it was cold, there was no wind, so the high altitude sun kept us warm. It was . . .

a day to fall in love with skiing all over again.

Your New Year's Resolution

Just because I love tweaking her, I authored a post on Rachel's blog wherein I provided Rachel with a New Year's Resolution, being nice to Mom. (To her credit, Rachel had an awesome comeback for me.)

Since my post on Rachel's blog, I've decided that everyone's New Year's Resolution should be Be Nice to Bridget!!

It's not too late.

Wow, I suck!

Dear Bridget's Boss,

It is employees with attitudes and service standards like Bridget's that can be the last straw in pushing dissatisfied customers into an attorney's office. Though she has collected $895.62 in your name, I can assure you that in the long run, she will cost you much, much more. In lost customers, lost referrals, in community ill will. She is a huge liability to you. And though she tacks a law degree designation to her title, she apparently doesn't have the proper skill set to practice in that field.

The time I have spent on correspondence with your office is for me, significantly out of proportion with the $895.62 involved here. This is with me, as you will find with most customers, an issue of fair pay for services/benefits received, i.e. principles. I am admittedly enraged by Bridget's attitude and her apparent assumption that all customers are morons, and am tempted to write an open letter to your colleagues in the area from the customer's perspective concerning my experience with your establishment.

Disgruntled

Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama

I purchased this book used from eBay in October after it was recommended by a friend as a good book club selection. I picked it up now since I thought it would be an interesting follow-up to Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

And so it was.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan ends in the 1920s just as Women of the Silk is beginning. Both books are set in the same general area of the country so many of the customs portrayed in Women of the Silk were already familiar.

Women of the Silk is the story of Pei, a headstrong, inquisitive middle daughter of a poor farmer who is sold to work in the silk factories to help her family survive a near famine. While this is traumatic for both Pei and her parents, in Pei's case, it turns out to be a positive and possibly life-saving move.

The book has a strong but subtle feminist streak and it does not dwell on the negative aspects of the silk workers' lives.

Neither the ups nor downs are presented in an overly emotionally gripping fashion but the author does create a well-crafted sense of foreboding towards the end of the book that enhances the book's page-turning appeal.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Thumbs down (for now)

Since it was redeveloped 6 or so years ago, Aspen Highlands Village has been known as the DarkVillage. While Aspen Highlands itself draws quite a following of loyal local skiers, the village mostly functions as a pass-through with little to entice those mountain bound to stop and dwell. Most of the storefronts have never been rented and the main restaurant space at the base of the mountain is now in its 3rd incarnation (The Commonwealth Pub, Iguana's and now ZG Grill)

It is in this atmosphere that Crust operates. Crust is a new pizzeria which opened in May, filling the space previously occupied by the long-shuttered Thunderbowl Deli. As Aspen is devoid of any place where a former Chicagoan can procure a deep dish pizza, the advent of Crust and its Chicago style deep dish pizza was met with anticipation.

We ventured in for dinner for the first time last Wednesday and our experience was less than stellar.

We walked in a little after 5 pm to a basically empty restaurant. The server who greeted us asked us where we wanted to sit so we indicated that we wanted to be in the back room. As we were walking that way, the manager (owner?) quickly approached and gruffly told the server that she could not seat us there as they were setting up for a large party. So we relocated.

We then ordered two deep dish pizzas, fully understanding that they would take 30 minutes. We would have ordered an appetizer such as garlic bread or the like but there were no options on the menu but soup or salad. We were not in the mood for soup or salad.

30 minutes later, our server approached and apologetically informed us that there had been a problem in the kitchen and our pizzas would be another 30 minutes. We were dismayed to say the least. Our server offered us a small pizza while we were waiting which we accepted.

Only when it was time to pay our check did the manager (owner?) offhandedly throw out an apology for our long wait. He only approached our table at all because we were waiting to pay and he had a party waiting for the table.

While the small pizza was comped, there was no accommodation on our bill for the two pizzas for which we waited an hour. The manager was less than friendly and when we left, even after our extremely long wait, the large party for whom we had been so unceremoniously booted from the back room had yet to arrive.

The only bright spot of our evening was our server who was unfailingly polite and attentive.

Ironically, although we ventured in solely to try the deep dish pizza, we all enjoyed our thin crust pity pizza more.

I must say that, as of now, I'm not eager to repeat my dinner experience at Crust.

Let me also say that I had been in with my husband for breakfast on Christmas morning and was pleased with my experience then. The coffee was quite good and the breakfast sandwich was tasty and gooey.

For now, I've got to go thumbs down on the dinner experience at Crust but I'm open to another try.