New expressions for the blindness of reality

It's been good.
I've had an enjoyable couple of weeks. While my sports picks for the bowl games were horrendous and I hated to see Florida win the national championship, Oklahoma and Big Game Bob Stoops gave it away.

Thursday watched the NC game at a bar. There is this Texas Music Fest thing in town that brings 1,000's of our friends from the South to Steamboat for concerts, skiing and partying. While the ratio of guys to girls is never good here, Thursday night pushed it to a new level. Literally it was 12-1 with 10 of those being horn ball, liquored up Texas college students. Of course I was with three of the dozen or so girls in the place. This made things relatively awkward and uncomfortable. Needless to say I left relatively early.

The weekend was good as well. Me and the Geenis went up to Rabbit Ears with two girls on Saturday night to go snow shoeing under the full moon. Pulled in at around 9:30 and set out. Because of cloud cover, the moon wasn't out but it still lit up the clouds enough to where you didn't have to have a light. Despite getting lost half a dozen times it was a blast. It's almost surreal up there at that time of night. It's real quiet and peaceful and you can see forever. We got back to the car around 1:30 a.m.
Sunday, Gee made some historic beer-brats that were delicious. Enjoyed football all day, then went to the hot springs and to Gran Turino.
On Gran Turino — It's certainly a good flick. A little predictable, but overall it's one of the better flicks I've seen in awhile. Which brings up the big question. Is Clint Eastwood the greatest male film figure of the last 25, 50, 75 or 100 years. I think he has a great argument. Unlike DeNiro or Pacino, he hasn't just mailed it in. His work just seems to keep getting better and better. I can probably count the Eastwood flicks I don't like on one hand.

Monday I went skiing all day with Spenny. Starting to get my legs under me a little. The first time out this year I was like a baby doe. Now I'm getting back into the swing of things. The good — Was tearing up the first run down under the Gondola. Just flying and hit a lip, flew 30 feet, landed and continued to look like a badass. The bad — Probably like fifth run of the day, was getting wild in the trees when I got out of control, crashed and landed in a tree. It took me roughly 25 minutes to get out, I was covered in snow, my goggles were fucked and that was that.
But fun times all around.
Went to happy hour and dinner with a girl I hadn't talked to in a real long time Monday night. It was fun and always good to catch up with people you haven't in a while. This girls and I have had an interesting relationship. At times we've disliked each other and others liked each other. Either way, we had a lot more in common than I thought.

What else.
Been reading a bunch still. The problem with reading is I've got like four books going on at once. People keep giving me books that I want to read so I start them and get like halfway through. THen feel guilty I didn't finish the other book. Yeah, so right now I'm reading three books. They're all good though.

Here at the paper we also own a T.V. station that has a morning show. My buddy and one of the hosts left a couple of weeks ago for New York. So I've been hosting on Tuesday's. It's a blast. I do the weather and the green screen gives me trouble, but there's some comedy in saying Florida is experiencing some nasty weather while pointing to Oklahoma. Plus on the green screen you can see yourself and I'm always reminded of the scene in Tommy Boy, when Tommy's college buddies are watching him on T.V. and the one guy goes "Is it me or does Tommy look severely bloated." To which his other friend replies "No, T.V. just adds a couple hundred pounds."

Five places to visit in '09
1. Montreal
2. Idaho
3. Old buddy Kev in Utah (thinking March)
4. Montana
5. ????
I've decided I'm going on more adventures in '09. This is just the short list. I'm sure I could add or take off destinations.

The old man is coming into town to ski in a couple weeks. That should be good as he'll bust my balls endlessly for a while. Nothing like pops putting you in your place and bringing you down a notch.

My grandma just moved into a new place in the same complex. She's stressed out so I might try to make a trip down to Denver here in the future.

What else. I'm not sure what it is but it seems like everyone I know, or at least a majority of people I know, that are in relationships here are miserable in them. Maybe it's just the people I know, but I've got a couple married friends who are really unhappy, a couple in serious relationships who aren't happy and ones who are just getting out of relationships who can figure things out and are unhappy.
It must be something in the water. Maybe it's the air. Maybe cupid cursed the Valley in the last year. Either way, it always makes for interesting conversation.

This weekend, we're thinking of snow shoeing up on Rabbit Ear's before building a snow cave and camping out for the night. Sunday I'll probably ski and watch football. Monday I'm thinking about skiing and I have tickets to the Charlie Daniels Band. Hey you can't beat $25 for some good ole Charlie.


HEF of the WEEK
Was at the high school waiting for basketball practice to end. I was in the hallway by myself. i found a girls basketball and was playing with it while I waited. I started to bounce it against the wall across from me. I was thinking to myself "Damn Graham, you still got those soft hands," when the ball deflected off my palm and directly into my balls. I hit the ground and was coughing when practice ended. I had about 25 girls walk past me looking at me funny.