So, 2008 had to have been one of the worst years in recent times for me. Well, maybe not the WORST but it’s really up there in terms of all round blah. There are a couple of highlights including heading down to New York City to meet up with Paul and Ali for four days and a couple of other random family moments and an inkling of some sort of a relationship that fizzled into a heap of uncertainty and then failure. What started out good, ended into confusion and blah. I think I’ll dub 2008 as “The Year of Blah”. Also, the weather really sucked (bad winter, awful rainy summer and then a crappy beginning of another winter).
2009 has already started off fairly decent. New Year’s Eve was pretty good. I got to spend time with Darcie and her husband who brought their friends Michelle and Jake and Darcie’s brother-in-law, Damon. My brother and his girlfriend had some of their friends over and we had a house full of laughing, Guitar Hero, Jello shots, lap dancing and a torn ankle (not me this time!).
January 1st, yesterday, Darcie, Matt, Michelle, Jake, Damon and I headed to the slopes (Blue Mountain) for a day of boarding. Let me preface this next part with stating that I haven’t been skiing since 1992 and I’ve never boarded in my life.
Damon was to teach Darcie, Matt and I how to board. How hard could it be right? After a few hours of barely being able to stand up for longer than 10 seconds I decided that I was going to trade my board in for skis. I had had enough. I was frustrated, as was Darcie who wasn’t able to even stand up, because the physics of it, I got, but the practise, not so much.
So after we had lunch I traded in my board and got skis no problem. Darcie was determined to actually learn to board because her Australian husband who’s never boarded or skied in his life, was making a decent go of it and was actually able to stay up.
We went up the lift for the first time after lunch. Being on skis for the first time since ‘92 I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t remember but as soon as I got off the chair and skied over to where we all met up to go down the mountain, I realized I was fine. I knew how to stop (without looking like a snow plowing fool), turn, slow down, speed up, etc. Poor Darcie however was defeated. She couldn’t stand up and stay up long enough to actually try going down. She was done and walked down the hill.
I enjoyed skiing down the mountain and my only regret was not picking up the skis when we first got there. But at least I tried boarding. After a handful of times down the mountain, I offered to swap with Darcie so she could at least get a run in before we left. So I stayed at the bottom and off she went. She also regrets trying to learn to snowboard because she didn’t fall once coming down on skis.
It was getting dark and even colder out so we decided to pack it in for the day. It was a long drive home for everyone else back to Niagara Falls and an early start was needed. They dropped me off at my place, we said our goodbyes and I went in to have a hot soak in the tub, crawl into my warm pyjamas and veg with my brother and his girlfriend (Ashley) and watched 4 hours of a COPS marathon on Showcase ACTION. Good times.
Today, I’m heading down to my parent’s place to hang out, then tomorrow it’s down to the city to meet up with a couple of friends, then it’s over to Scott’s place for the night. Sunday Scott, I and a bunch of folk are heading to the Raptors game at the Air Canada Centre. First NBA game ever for me so that should be fun especially since we have a private box to watch the game from.
To my friends and blog readers, Happy New Year and the best of everything good and great in 2009.
