Monday, July 25, 2011

Chile Up, Sticking it to the Woman

Holy heat!

It's hard to focus on skiing, even if it's right around the corner, when the heat index where I am currently living (Washington DC) hit 115! It is times like that when I am profoundly shocked that the country was founded on this swamp, but I digress....

I take off Wednesday for a little more than two weeks of training and more equipment testing at El Colorado Mountain in Chile. El Colorado is great because the training lanes are pretty long without too much change in terrain, allowing for a high level of consistency in training. This makes El Colorado ideal for equipment testing and volume loading. The area is also at about 10,000 feet but unlike Zermatt which had a peak elevation of 12,700ft, we will be sleeping at the same elevation and not at 5,500ft.

The good news is that El Colorado just received a pretty big snow dump (2 feet and counting) so snow depth shouldn't bee too much of an issue. I hope. I have been to Chile many times before but each time I get excited because it means that the summer is starting to wane and fall/winter is right around the corner....

Changing gears here I wanted to share this small piece of obnoxious behavior. Earlier this month upon returning from my Fourth of July trip to Alaska I got a bag of Chex Mix in SeaTac to accompany me on the transcontinental flight back out East. We were approximately over Ohio when to my dismay I realized that the Chex Mix was missing some of its "mix", specifically the bagel chips. There were none in the whole bag. Those little salty nuggets happen to be my favorite part of the Mix, and with a Betty Crocker guaranteeing me on the back of the bag that she would not disappoint, I felt only slightly ridiculous voicing my complaint. 7 to 10 business days later I received my response from General Mills, posted below. I am currently somewhere between embarrassed and satisfied about this whole event and will continue to be so up until the next chapter of this event, when I attempt to redeem my coupon good for one bag of Chex Mix at any store in the country....I'm thinking using it at a 7-11 during the night shift.

Betty Crocker Fessing up to her Sins

See you in Chile!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Shots From Europe Training

First Day, First Run of the New Season!

Warming up for Training



Touring the Head Ski Factory