The end of Killington

I believe that I'm over my concussion. My bruise is going down, my eye is still itching, but things aren't getting worse. I'm going to have my stiches out on Tuesday and hopefully that'll take care of most of the itching.
Yesterday I took a walk down the slope to the accident scene. The slope didn't look very familiar. The trail curved sharply to the right in a hairpin turn. This was definately NOT something that I should have been sledding down really late at night, with noone in the lead. Near the end of the turn, a black diamond branched off and lead straight downhill. The place where they found my blood was at the very top of this intersection but it had all melted. It was about 10 feet into the black diamond, still on a relatively flat spot. It was about 10 feet away from a treeline, but still it didn't seem highly likely that I hit them. The snow did dip down a lot- maybe a 2 foot drop-off onto the black, which is where I was headed. What was assumed happened is that I droped over this lip at a high speed, my sled caught, or I tried to bail. Instead of a graceful dismount, I did a face-plant. There was an exposed rock which would have nicely done the damage to my face. Also, going at high speed, the snow would have done a pretty good job as well. One thing did come back to me: I remember standing at the top of the black diamond and looking down the hill to the chairlift and parking lot at the bottom and knowing that I had to go in that direction. I couldn't see the lodge itself, but I knew that people and help were down there somewhere.
Earlier in the day, Dave and I took a trip to the base of Bear Mtn. and watched some of the aerial ski jumping. This was awesome! Some of the jumpers got over 30' of air while doing 720's and up to four flips. We just stood with our mouths gaping open at some of the tricks they were performing.
Today, being the last day at Killington, a few things were acomplished- cleaning the house top to bottom was rather impressive and completed by 9am, I aquired a new pair of ski poles more suited to my size, and I offically won the best crash award. This prestigious plack is voted upon by all members present with only 3 rules: 1)Someone must witness your crash 2) a trip to the hospital is an automatic bid to the final voting round and supercedes the witness 3) If you die, the plack gets burried with you.
There was no debate this year, and I'll soon have a plack to decorate my apartment wall.

More or less concussed

Day 3:
Yesterday four of us went to the Vermont bear factory, and to Ben and Jerrys Icecream factory. The drive all over Vermont was well welcoomed. After being in and out of consisousness(or so it seemed) for the past 2,3 or 5 days I was glad to be out of the house. Driving out of the Killington area, I remembered some of the drive up, and meeting at Outback Pizza on my first night. Some of the buildings and signs now looked familar as well. I rembered getting lost and I was able to pick out the roads that we took the wrong turn onto. Things are slowly being pieced together. All but the actual sledding...
At Ben and Jerrys we had a little tour of the factory, sampled some icecream and picked up 12 pints of icecream. Sounds like a lot of icecream.... not really it was promptly taken care of the moment we walked in the door. I loved driving thru the mountains and the twisting and winding roads were a beautiful change from Pittsburgh.
This morning breakfast consisted of butter fries(exactly what they sound like- fries sauteed in a pan with a stick of butter) and some eggs... oh theres also the experimental Sunny Delight and Vodka...this is a new concoction this year and has seemed to go over very well with the hungover breakfast crowd. I'm sticking to straight oj. Hopefully we're going to watch some ski jumping a little later.
On a side note, I have some new colorations to add to my injury list: I'm convinced that the Rutland hospital uses super glue to adhere bandages to patients arms. While peeling off my tape that held my iv bandage on, I exfoliated, waxed, and removed numerous arm hair and several layers of skin. My arm is now a few shades of light purple due to bandage removal! Also, my left eye is starting to develop a little coloration. The bruise/blood from my forehead is starting to ooze down my face and settling nicely in my left eye socket. My right eye is also turning some very deep shades of purple and becoming a little splotchy. The itchyness is continuing and half of my forehead is still numb.

Concussion Upate...

Day 2:
I remember most of the things that have happened yesterday and today so far. I still joke around with people a lot and found out that I was rather jovial with the doctors in the hospital too. One Doctor came in to visit me and was asking me if I had any questions. I askd him what his social security number and bank account numbers were. He didn't want me to joke around and asked if I had any questions about my injury. Apparently being good humored was good, but not when the guy was trying to find out if I had brain damage. I still find the situation funny...
I remember everyones names(there are about 20), except for the people who came in this morning and can probably name off all the things I had to eat yesterday too. Sleeping a good 10 hours last night helped a bit I think. I was woried about sleeping because it felt like I was going to go into a relapse and not remember anything. The time between pittsburgh and yesterday morning felt like I was experiencing a vivid dream, and if someone said, yes you were asleep for the entire time, I' probably believe them. The passage of time has no real meaning to me, and I can't remember events for myself; I just have to rely on others to fill me in. So if I would go to sleep, things would pass and happen that I wouldn't know about. That thought frightened me and I really didn't want to go to sleep. I fought it, and finally gave in.
This morning I felt great...well, considering. My eye has turned a lovely shade of deep purple and maroon(I think I described it earlier as eggplant) It has started oozing down into my cheek a little and now my left eye has a little coloration to it. Both are ITCHY! It's driving me crazy. My stitches feel fine, just the itchy eye and a bit of a headache. My left arm hurts where I had my tetnis shot, and my right arm had an IV in it and is a little stiff. Other than that I'm alright. My Vicadin perscription is still sitting around somewhere, so if I need it I'm sure someone will drive me to the nearest drug store. There are plenty of others skiing right now so I'm sure they'll be put to use...
Alright, all for now. I'll update later.

Killington 06

Ok heres the deal. I have no short term memory right about now. So if there are numerous posts all saying about the same thing, I apologize, I don't exactly remember much...
Heres what I do remember, or what I've been told(and have retained):

I left Pittsburgh yesterday morning and drove up to Vermont arriving late in the evening. Hot-tubbing, some Coronas(bad idea) and sledding were on the agenda for the night. So, off we went with our sleds, down the mountain. The Great Eastern slope is a nice lenghty green that meanders its way down to the base. Being 3/4 the way down the mountain, we still could have a 15 minute sled ride to the bottom. I took off in the lead down the slope, equiped with my sled, helmet and goggles. The helmet saved my life. I'd be a bit dead or paralyzed without it. Somewhere along the way I hit something...we don't know what, but the rest of the group passed me, and I ended up walking down with my sled the rest of the way. I had been severly bleeding from my forehead, and couldn't remember anything. They took me to Rutland hospital where I was stiched up, shoved thru a cat-scan and given a good bit of morphine :) I love that stuff. I had codine(when I had my teeth out)... morphine is more intense, or is just made so by the concussion. I had been asking the same questions over and over again and not retaining anything. The nurologist saw me this morning and said I had no perminant brain damage and that I could go home.
Heres what happened:
We went sledding around midnight and I was tied for the lead with another person for first until I missed a turn or droped off an edge. This happened near the bottom so I was able to walk down the rest of the way. They put me in the car and took me to the Rutland hospital. Today Jesse checked out the site of the accident and said "It looked like a wolf killed a groundhog" at the place where I wiped out(the slope was kinda bloody). I want to walk down the slope and see the spot. It may help me remember what happened, but more than likely, not. Nevertheless, I'm retaining more(or so i've been saying for the past 12 hours) and I'm getting names straight. My right eye is swolen over, and I have several stiches above it. My cheek is bitten and my forehead bruised. my helmet had blood smeers on it, Daves goggles are broken, and the sled has streaks of blood still on it. There are several pics of this endeavor on numerous razar cell phones and I believe Jesse has video footage of the scene of the accident. Lovely! I'll post some pics once I can download them.
I'm concussed, bruised, banged up, and get to hang out in a house with a perscription for Vicodin and watch some skiing championship skiing this weekend! Plus I have about 3.514million chanels on tv. I'll be set. If I repeat repeat anything, I apologize(that was intentional), It'll take me a while to get over this short term memory thing. more to come....

Trip to Deutchland

Adam recently went to southern Germany for a school-sponsored trip. Why wasn't my undergrad like this? Oh wait, New Zealand.












Thats 4 liters of beer by the way.

Kilimanjaro

One of my hiking buddies, Bill Hearne just visited Mt. Kilimanjaro. I was introduced to Bill in Colorado when we hiked Mt. Elbert, the highest in the state, and 2nd highest in the continental US. He has climbed the Adirondack Forty-Sixers(numerous times I think) and is close to completing the 100 highest peaks in the North-east. Needless to say I have much admiration for this man. Now retired, he can spend more leisure time relaxing. By relaxing I mean hiking. He recently climed Kilimanjaro and apparently had a very good time. As an untechnical hike, it's farily easy(use your own discression), aside from the oxygen levels. Difficulty adjusting to the altitude is a comon problem for most groups. The sunrise and fog shroud mountain are of Kilimanjaro.
I would kill for breakfast with a view like this...

The last image is of ia glacier. Who knew such things existed in Africa...

Lunch Break

Killington is right around the corner.
This is the "backyard" at the house as viewed from the hot tub. Notice the close proximity to the trail.
This makes it ideal for skiing all morning, grabbing a beer while soaking the sore muscles; then stumbling back on the trail for some afternoon fun.


No we really don't ski drunk, we just sled down the slopes drunk at night.




I just found this pic of the house. I'm salivating.

80s night experience

I love 80s night. Something is always happening, be it getting hit on by the bartender, or by gay men. Let me recount some of the events of last week. I walk in the door and show the bouncer my ID. He comments "Oh, someone from that same hometown just walked in the door about 5 minutes ago". Now I wouldn't think this strange if I happened to be a native of Pittsburgh, or hell, a town remotely close to Pittsburgh. However, when the population of my hometown is about 2,000, AND over 4 hours away...that's another story. It turns out a girl from my high school currently goes to Pitt and I ran into her that night. Coincidence? Maybe it's just a small world.

and on a different note...

Throughout the night a strange guy just kept hovering over our group. Being a bit bothersome to us females, Geoff decided to take matters into his own hands. It suddenly dawned on him that causing this guy discomfort may make him leave. What better way to do so than by unrelentlessly grinding. He succeded. Not only were we free of weirdos, but I have a distinct mental image of Geoff grinding with some guy who had suddenly become very frightened. If only I got my cameraphone out sooner.