Today, I went skiing with my dad. It was a blast.

Earlier this year, mom had purchased a 4-ticket deal, but only used 1 of them. They are going to expire soon, and she said she wasn't going to get around to using them in time. (For those who don't know, my mom might be a contender for the title of world's most pathetic skier. When we went on Christmas, she took one run, snowplowing all the way down, and then decided to be done for the day.)

So, since mom wasn't inclined to go up again, she gave me her pass. :)

This morning, dad and I got up bright and early and took off up to Copper.

It was a bright, clear, warm sunny day on the slopes. There was also a good amount of powder after the recent storms. Due to it being a weekday, there were no crowds on the trails, and virtually no lines at the lifts. This time, I also managed to have my goggles and other stuff readily available. (Unlike a few months ago, when it had managed elude me in the unpacked boxes.) In short: Awesome skiing!

We skied mostly blues, where both my dad and I are most comfortable. At one point, I convinced him to go down "Too Much", a steep black run full of moguls. A totally wacky challenge. I like to stretch myself beyond my skill limits.

My "comfort zone" is skiing fast down smooth blues, using slightly less-than ideal form, feet shoulder width apart. One of my goals during the day was to try to improve my form, both by challenging my ability on black runs (which are an inate challenge, no matter how I ski them), and to improve my form on the "easy" runs. Skis always just a few centimenters apart, making crisp, quick, clean turns, resisting the urge to get out of control and spread my legs.

On the Too Much run, my dad decided to try to photo me while I was in the process of going over jumps. Most of the time, I just ended up wiping out on those. (The best jumps always seemed to happen spontaniously when they weren't staged. But we tried anyway.)

Anyway, a bunch of these pics just landed in my inbox. Here they are.

@$picture == @words[0..1000]; # or some such expression

Now I'm off to check in on Yanthor's Kohan challenge. Peace.