Jeff Billimek’s Journal

It’s such a wonderful feeling to wake up naturally without any alarm clock. For me this is a rare occurrence unless it’s on a weekend or while I’m on vacation. Today I’m on vacation and I woke up at my leisure at 8am. Considering that I went to bed at 3am the night before this wasn’t a whole lot of sleep, but I felt completely rested and excited about the day. The bed was so comfortable with the big fluffy blanket which helped me sleep quite soundly.

Jim was out getting some groceries from the store. I took the opportunity to snap some photos of the condo using my 15mm fisheye lens. Mom was sitting in the living room reading some literature.

When Jim came back, they made a big breakfast. We had fried eggs, strawberries, toast, and orange juice. It was great to have such a hearty breakfast.

After breakfast we went out to the sporting-good store called ‘GART Sports‘. We rented skis for Mom and me. It was a great deal at only $10/day for skis, boots, and poles. We also bought lift tickets for keystone. These were also a great deal. It was about a third less than the normal ticket price.

Back at the condo we changed into our ski gear, grabbed our equipment, and headed out to the shuttle stop. We just barely missed the shuttle so we had to wait over thirty minutes for the next one to come. It was cold outside.

When we arrived at the Keystone resort base area, we got Mom signed up for a beginners ski lesson. Once she was all set, Jim and I headed to the crowded lift. By this time it was around 11:30am.

It was an exhilarating feeling to snap my feet into the skis again. The last time I did so was a year ago with Craig in Jackson Hole. Eventually we got onto the lift and glided up the mountain.

We skied all the way down on a long and windy green run. I had no trouble getting my ski legs back and thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of skiing again.

When we came up the second time, I used my cell phone to snap a photo from the top of the mountain. I then sent the photo via email (through my phone) to Larry and Jen. What cool technology.

(Taken with my cell phone)

After a couple of runs, I felt confident enough in my abilities. I extracted my camera out of my backpack (which I always wear skiing) and placed it around my neck. I wore it underneath my ski jacket and strapped to my chest via the chest strap I use when hiking. It worked out quite well.

Today I used only the 15mm fisheye lens. I wanted to get some wide-angle shots and the lens is faster than the 28-135 (despite the 28-135 having IS). It also has such a huge plane of focus that I don’t have to worry as much about getting the correct focus, which is good when trying to take a picture as quickly as possible. I had to remove one of my bulky ski gloves to operate the camera so my hand got quite cold whenever I stopped to photograph.

(with a 15mm fisheye, it’s quite easy to take self portraits like this.)

I did a few more runs with Jim (mostly blues) and then he decided to call it a day and went back down to the base of the mountain to join Mom as her lesson should be wrapping up soon.

I stayed on the mountain a while longer and skied down all blue trails. It was so much fun being able to ski again. Despite having the big expensive camera strapped to my neck, I still went fast and wasn’t too cautious. I have that insurance, after all.

In fact, I was feeling so good that I did some moguls and actually liked it.

One of the great things about ski resorts is that there are so many cute girls all around. Of course I have to remind myself now that a lot of them are probably literally ten years younger than me. I feel so old. I never had to worry about that sort of thing before and now I do. They all look so much older than they probably are. I think it’s all of the growth hormones we have in our food supply these days.

Around 3:30pm I headed down to the base of the mountain. I checked in on Mom who was sitting in one of the bars with Jim. She wasn’t in a happy mood. Her first experience learning how to ski was bad and she hated it. She said she doesn’t understand how people _want_ to get all sore and tired out. She never wants to ski again.

I changed back into my hiking boots and after a short while we headed back to the shuttle stop. Everyone was pretty tired, although I didn’t feel that sore. I took a shower and then called Jegan who was still at the office working late. Everything seemed to be going ok at work.

A couple of hours later we left for dinner. On the way we stopped at the sporting goods store and returned Mom’s skis.

For dinner we went to a steak & seafood place called ‘Pug Ryans‘. I had the prime rib steak but it would have been better with horseradish sauce.

On the way back to the condo Larry called and we chatted about laptops. It turns out that he’s in the market for one too. He’s pretty tired of his iBook and wants to get a PC-based laptop.

Back at the condo I went to bed fairly early because I was pretty tired. I only got about five hours of sleep the night before.