I'm impressed that I'm still getting better at snowboarding at all despite only doing it once very three years or so. It's one of the few things I am improving at.
Presumably nobody reading your words is skiing at that exact moment.
When does Parsimon show up to scold LB?
This post reminds me that it's been far too long since I've picked up a basketball -- the season makes outdoor courts less attractive, but I really should pick a dry day and go shoot around.
1: I was very impressed because I first read that as "despite only doing it once three years ago." Continuing to improve would be very impressive indeed!
I would think that, as a government employee, you might want to be more circumspect about your cocaine habit.
Every government worker gets free cocaine in Obama's America, Natilo.
I really should pick a dry day and go shoot around
See you on the court in July.
LB is competing in the Winter Olympics! And she's so modest about it.
I hate you.
As far as getting better goes, sustained individual or small group lessons from a good instructor can help. It can't just be a half day. At least a few days with constant feedback is what's needed. And it's a crap shoot. Most ski instructors IME are more like very expensive paid skiing companions. Or continue as you're doing and just enjoy yourself.
I'm taking a few days off skiing to see if my leg pain/cramps goes away. So far, it doesn't look good. (I think it might be sciatica. What remedies do you people favor?)
I would really like to go snowboarding at least once more this winter, but it's looking unlikely.
Charley took the title as a personal challenge since he is basically always skiing. It was like LB somehow *knew* he was hurt.
I last went skiing two weekends ago, to get groceries and otherwise get around when two days of snow crippled my city, which apparently owns one plow. I can still feel the effort in my groin muscles (...laydeez). Yes, to the extent that I comment at all, I'll be bitching about the weather for the next few months.
I went skiing for the first time in 20 years this winter, and I was still pretty good. The really fun part was the super-rapid confidence gain -- going from hesitantly threading my way around all the seated snowboarders on the green slope to the sheer joy of skiing straight down the (blue with a spot of black) slope for a few seconds before having to slow myself down in about a dozen runs.
3: because the water in the snow could better be used for brewing kombucha? Honestly, what's the crime here? I'm perfectly happy to deprecate LB; I just need a bit of guidance.
I just spent the weekend in the snowy woods, hiking for hours (well, 2) up and down steep slopes without paths or trails, plus chopping wood and staying up late and not looking at any EVIL blue screens, yet I slept for shit all 3 nights. That seemed very unfair.
Actually, since I turned 40 (roughly), I've gone from being a very good sleeper to being a pretty mediocre one. Rarely do I have true insomnia, but I probably sleep poorly 2-4 nights a week. Hmm.
Who needs to travel to ski when your neighbors can just fail to clear sidewalks of snow?
What remedies do you people favor?
Have you tried limping?
Oh wait, you want a remedy. Try buying a few copies of my book. It cures cholera.
My entire family now owns skates, yet we don't skate that much. I don't know if it's inertia/laziness, cheapness, or a vague feeling that the weather needs to be perfect to do it. But it's annoying. All of us like it, but it doesn't happen enough.
I assume this is just a general winter activity comment thread.
11: mine clears up after I have a baby. Try that.
I've gotten pretty good at limping, actually.
I want the answer to be eau de vie and raclette. And Advil, I guess.
(I interpret 22 as a suggestion that I drop 20 lbs. Which probably wouldn't hurt a bit. Except cut into my raclette and eau de vie diet.)
It hurts depending how you drop it.
Those raclette wheels are pretty damn heavy, but the things you racle the raclette with aren't that sharp so no need to worry about cutting yourself.
Last place I skied was Titlis. Hooray!
Titlis, Hooray! I've been there, but only as a glacier tourist, not a skier.
I have to admit that I don't get skiing at all. I've been twice in my life (ages 12 and 17, roughly), wasn't terribly good at it, and was not at all inspired to spend any time or effort getting better or doing it again.
Most ski instructors IME are more like very expensive paid skiing companions.
I mentioned this at the other place, but holy shit are people atrocious at teaching physical skills. I've been watching a ton of YouTube videos trying to figure out how to properly shoot a soccer ball, and literally every video I've watched has utterly failed to provide any cues for doing it right. No wonder the US is so far behind technically!
29.last: How are you with adrenaline sports in general?
31: Lousy? I'm not sure I know what's in the category. Fencing was fun. Never liked the idea of racing cars or motorcycles or bungee jumping. Roller coasters can be fun.
32: Yeah, if you don't like the thrill of going fast (and potentially crashing) skiing probably isn't going to do much for you.
I didn't like skiing at all after trying it about 3-4 times as a teen, mostly because it involved snow, which is cold, and also the skis got all crossed up and that snowplow thing felt stupid. So I didn't do it. Then I learned snowboarding as an adult in my 30s and it turned out to be just an incredible amount of fun, once I got over a very steep but short beginner learning curve.
Where you go makes a big difference. I went up to Big Bear in high school once or twice and thought it was awful. But then I moved up here and discovered skiing is ridiculously better in Rockies powder.
We finally got some serious snow yesterday, so while I'm not actually skiing at the moment, I certainly could be.
Propensity to vertigo and no attraction to speed = no inclination to ski. Spent only extended time at a ski resort (many years ago, Megeve) bribing my "ski instructor" to skive off in the direction of raclette and eau de vie. Did not care in the slightest that this meant I had to ride the camion of shame back from lunch at the top of the mountain. Very good beef tartare, at least back in the day.
Now child seems to have inherited all my disinclinations and the deadline for the school ski week fast approaches. Better half firmly of conviction child should attend. Suspect child would truly enjoy apres ski activities with classmates and yet and yet distinct lack of parental solidarity. This is wrong of me, I know it, and yet can't seem to get with the program. Have only resolved that child shall not learn from me that ballet master has a crazed anti-ski position. Its apparently all wrong wrong wrong, the ultimate antithesis of turnout. He waxes ardent on the subject and usually ends up muttering in Russian. If child gets wind of this there is no way he is going on ski trip.
Re: sciatica alas having baby didn't result in mine going away. Working on 13+ years here! If you find anything that helps, pass it along.
I was taught to ski by the Ottawa Park District in the early sixties. My skis were rudimentary but we went through a large variety of techniques. Probably better to be part of large groups so you didn't get too much attention. They showed you how to do it then you tried it.
Then I didn't ski again until I was seventeen, and found I picked it back up quickly. Coolest thing about that trip was going into a bar for the first time by myself. I was underage but I'm big and wasn't challenged.
And I haven't done it once in the 45 years since.
Place near Mansfield, not the one near Bellefontaine--pronounced for the 2-3 Unfoggers not steeped in the lore of Columbus, Bell, fountain.
Propensity to vertigo
I get dizzy walking along the edges of ravines in Minecraft, let alone real life.
For whatever reason, despite having enjoyed both downhill and cross country skiing when I was younger, I occasionally miss cross country but wouldn't oppose but also don't really miss downhill.
But then I moved up here and discovered skiing is ridiculously better in Rockies powder
Going from icy VT slopes to powder on the dry side of the Cascades was pure awesome. I can only imagine that going the other direction would utterly suck and might put one off skiing for good. On the plus side, if you're on Nordic skis in icy, iffy conditions all the time, you get to learn all about the many varieties of hard waxes and klisters.
Reviving a dead thread:
So FB just bought a messaging company for $16B. Relevant stat: 14M users per engineer. So Atrios' questioning of Twitter's manpower wasn't ignorant at all: he correctly identified that all those people were doing something other than making the service (qua service) work. Specifically, they were exploiting users in order to create revenue (the FB-acquired company charges users $1 per year and eschews ads).
Interesting.
Have zero interest in skiing, although I do like going very fast on bicycles*. But in general I'm not an adrenaline junky. I'm basically ok with a lifetime compromise of no hospitalizations against mostly conservative physical activities. I did have to go to the emergency room after wiping out on a road bike at 30 mph last August, but it was just some stitches, and I've topped 50 before, so.
* road and MTB, although my mountain bike experience is fairly tame (relative to MTB people, not to civilians)
Have zero interest in skiing, although I do like going very fast on bicycles*. But in general I'm not an adrenaline junky. I'm basically ok with a lifetime compromise of no hospitalizations against mostly conservative physical activities. I did have to go to the emergency room after wiping out on a road bike at 30 mph last August, but it was just some stitches, and I've topped 50 before, so.
* road and MTB, although my mountain bike experience is fairly tame (relative to MTB people, not to civilians)
once I got over a very steep but short beginner learning curve
honest curiosity - steep learning curve would show very rapid progress in a short time. why do we always say this when we mean a flat learning curve?
I love almost all forms of sliding on snow. A friend invited me to go ski a glacier this weekend, but it turns out it's closed from a nasty avalanche two weeks ago. People are still trapped in a hut.
I always imagined the graph as being ability against time. So if you improve a lot in a short time, it's a steep curve. What are you picturing?
I think people just get it wrong. You're right -- a steep learning curve means learning quickly -- but people get confused by 'steep' meaning hard to climb, and think it means learning slowly.
Generally, is there a term for the social drinker version of an adrenaline junkie? I really like speed and danger, but in very small, limited, sensible doses that I am completely in control of, and I don't build up much of a tolerance.
I mean, the speed and the thrill is what I'm skiing for, but you'd never know it to look at the cautious way I'm serpentining down very moderately difficult trails.
I think the traditional interpretation of "steep learning curve" is that the learner finds it very difficult initially, not that they get much better quickly.
Snowboarding is definitely like that - even compared to skiing. It's very, very easy to catch an edge and smack into the snow without warning, and you do it constantly when you first start out. Until you get a handle on weight shifting, and even for a good while after, it's a very painful process. Whereas with skiing, falling over tends to be a more drawn out process. That said, it's probably quicker to get to intermediate proficiency than it is with skiing.
Generally, is there a term for the social drinker version of an adrenaline junkie?
Thrill meeker.
The colloquial expression "steep learning curve" has always meant "initially very difficult", though. More!
In British English, "steep learning curve" refers to the time it takes an individual to become proficient at making tea.
I think we can all agree that saying the learning curve was steep but short is humblebragging.
53 - yeah, that's true. I think I've always had the connotation in mind that you have to get better quickly, that you don't have the time for a long slow learning process. I don't really use the phrase, and I've never discussed this with anyone, so this is probably only in my head, not an actual thing.
Or that your well meaning new friend took you out on the worldfamous black run telling you to disregard the big skull and crossbones festooned signs with 'Risk of Death' in multiple languages as just legal boilerplate and you left the run dangling from a helicopter. Not that I would ever be involved in anything like that...
In my defense I was thirteen and a pretty mediocre skier and figured if I could get down it so could he and I was just following my parents' example from a year or two earlier. But I was a very experienced mediocre skier, and he was a very inexperienced even more mediocre one, and he was unlucky in his bounces down the long steep bumpy face. But he did avoid the big boulders. And he got a really cool ride.
'Risk of Death' in multiple languages
No problem. I only speak English.
53: thanks for the excellent link
I love thrill meeker! This is something fun about cross country skiing - surprisingly wild ride on the downhills at very low speeds.
I find cross country skiing far scarier than downhill. Super narrow super long edgeless flexy skis where your heel is detached but the non-releasing binding offers very little lateral flex always seem like a recipe for ankle and knee injuries.
Haven't read the thread yet, but I'll taunt you right back. Sunday, I'm flying to Colorado to ski. Yipee. It'll be better snow than you got.
I don't even know from graphs, but what I meant is that snowboarding is really hard in the first few days, because you're falling a lot, but you also make rapid progress and (istm) can get to a place of relative competence quickly, more quickly than skiing, even if the initial two days or so are more challenging. So a steep climb in a short time, as opposed to a less steep climb over a longer period of time. Now, graph that for me, nerds!
Or what Ginger Yellow said. Onwards!
50.2 roughly describes my mountain biking. I'm sure there are literally 10-y.o.s out there who'd look at me on a mountain bike and say, "Christ, what a pussy*". I mean, I'm not creeping down mild slopes or anything, but I'm basically just as aggressive now as I was when I started 15 years ago. On any unfamiliar terrain, I slow to a crawl, and I'll clip out before taking any real chances.
*because they're not feminists
63: yes, I knew what you meant. I have seen this pattern for my kids learning to board. I want to learn too, but I've still got a little one on skis who I need to be competent enough to caretake a bit. Plus my middle son - who is the most committed boarder - likes it when I can tow him across the flats.
I'm kind of seeing nothing but (underlying) comity on the learning curve thing. Whether you emphasize the "initially very difficult" or the "fairly quick advancement" is purely a matter of weltanschaung.
It would be a very odd incline that was steep without raising your elevation at a high rate.
10-y.o.s out there who'd look at me on a mountain bike
once met a kid (I thought he was high school age but it turned out middle school) on a lift and he showed me around the downhill mt bike trails. I was pretty proud when he told me I rode ok (for an old guy). He was also kind enough to point out the sections I would want to walk around - "couple weeks ago a guy broke his femur on this drop - everyone had to leave the woods cause of the screaming".
I made some representative ascii learning curve graphs, but these comment boxes appear to strip out lots of repeated spaces, so, nevermind.
69 gets a gold star.
68.last is horrifying, and reinforces my 45.middle.
My dad broke his femur five years ago when he didn't get his feet out of his clips when stopping at a light (his conclusion, use plain pedals, mine, go clipless). A couple years later he fell down a twenty foot cliff onto some rocks and was just banged up. The latter was on a wide dirt road type path. He's also managed to bang himself up pretty badly on objectively non-hazardous skiing situations. Yet never on hard slopes or in objectively dangerous exposed scrambles. Go figure.
44: So, can I drop my text plan now or are there times when texting will work but internet is down?
44: So, can I drop my text plan now or are there times when texting will work but internet is down?
Is everyone you want to text on WhatsApp? If not, no.
reinforces my 45.middle
yep, I've got a reinforced 45 yo middle too.
Rather than look it up, I'll just see what
it does.
I suppose I could have hit Preview instead.
