Sledding in Carnation

We went sledding with Morgan's siblings on Monday and Tuesday. There is a great hill near their house. What did I learn? Pavement covered with one or two inches of snow, in many regards, isn't all that different from regular pavement.




Mitch looked stellar in his Viking attire for the festivities.

What I Learned Last Night (A Lesson in Stupidity)

As Mitch and I were driving home from the Seahawks game last night, we witnessed a pretty bad wreck on the Redmond-Fall City Highway. In fact, we narrowly missed being in the accident ourselves (I'm talking a matter of feet and milliseconds here). Mitch called in the accident, and we ended up out in the snow for a couple hours directing traffic, waiting for the State Patrol, and filing witness reports. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt. I will sum up the story with a list of things I learned, in chronological order, thanks to the "driver at fault":

1. If it is snowing, don't drive.

2. If you do choose to drive in the snow, make sure you're sober.

3. If you choose to drive in the snow drunk, make sure you're not driving a VW Rabbit.

4. If you choose to drive your VW Rabbit in the snow drunk, make sure you don't get into an accident. You will lose to a Ford Explorer.

5. If you get hit by a Ford Explorer in your VW Rabbit while driving in the snow drunk, make sure you don't leave the scene of the accident.

6. If you leave the scene of the accident (which you lost after driving your VW in the snow drunk), and you choose to dive into the bushes to hide, make sure they're not blackberry bushes.

7. If you drive your VW Rabbit in the snow drunk, get destroyed by a Ford Explorer, and leave the scene of the accident by running down a private drive and jumping into the blackberry bushes, make sure you're wearing more than a sweatshirt and jeans.

Let it Snow...

Bellingham was re-blanketed in snow yesterday, this time more than just a dusting. School is cancelled, and Morgan and I are mustering our courage to go out and play, despite high winds and low temperatures.

Yesterday there was less wind, and when I left Shuksan Middle School at 2:00, I went straight home to rig together a way to pull sleds behind my bike. I wiped out before I even left the parking lot, much to the excitement of the Life Skills students playing outside! It was a shaky ride home, but with my cross tires on it was better than it could've been.

I met Mark at Woburn and Sunset, and we made our way to Woodside. The roads weren't as fast as we had hoped, because there was not yet a layer of compact ice under the snow. Instead, we went to the short but steep hill across the street, alongside a set of stairs. A few runs there was enough to give us our kicks. I wish I had a photo of Mark with the icicle eyebrows he developed on one of his runs!

Jamie showed up just as we were leaving, and demanded that I pull her behind my bike. I did feel a little bad, so I obliged. To be honest, I did not thnk a bent coat hanger would work to pull the sleds, let alone with her in them, but they held up.

The bike was an adventure to be sure! Two wipeouts and a dozen or so close calls kept my heart racing at all times. I would definitely try it again in the snow, but I may want to look into some studded tires...

Holiday Decorations

Tommy didn't go out into the woods this year to cut down the "perfect" Christmas tree. Instead, we walked to Broadway Park and ripped a smallish branch off an evergreen tree. Also, Shari cleaned out her Christmas ornaments to reflect her more sophisticated decorations - so we decorated our branch with the fragile Swedish snowflakes she bestowed upon us.

Our other decorations:

Christophersoned!

I used to be pretty good at ultimate (frisbee), playing 5 years for WWU. I wasn't the best player on my team, but we had a darn good team; in 2006 we were ranked 12th in the nation, and that among Division I schools. It was fun to be good.

A few of my closer friends dabbled in the ultimate world for a year or two, and got pretty good also. Still, I played for 5, and it was fun to play a sport with all my friends where I knew I was the best player on the field.

All that changed yesterday. I went out to play a little bit of pickup, and was utterly destroyed on numerous occasions by my friend Mark. This was not a situation where he got the best of me on one or two plays; I'm talking about the entire game. I won't go into the details, because that would be boring for anyone not familiar with the game. It also should not have come as a surprise, Mark has been playing ultimate as of late, and I have been out riding my bike. But regardless the reasons, I had to come to grips with a good friend of mine surpassing me in a sport that had been "my thing" for so long.

I read an article by Mike McQuaide in AdventuresNW on the topic of competition (if you're interested, the magazine is free on stands around downtown). It basically spoke to the notion that competition is about you and your friends pushing each other to do better, not about being a testosterone-overloaded jerk.

I'm glad that I have friends with whom I can compete, however informally, and remain just as good of friends with after facing off on the field/track/whatever.

Advent Conspiracy

I like this.

Christmas can [still] change the world.



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