Sergeant Guy

I had Ski Utah in the afternoon. When I got up in late morning Josh and Mike were just leaving for Park City. Josh offered me a ride but I preferred to take my time and have a late breakfast.

I went up the gondola in moon boots to get my work jacket, though it was so hot today I didn’t need it. I just took the sunscreen from there, and wore my vest for the first time. On my way back I met Bridget, a pretty waitress from Smokie’s, and a couple other girls who were up there to teach themselves to ski (they snowboard normally.) Bridget recognized me but it took me a few moments to place her.

Somebody had a lot of free time at Carvers check-in and scribbled all over the master list. There were two snowboarders on the Carvers list today. Zero skiers. I was told there weren’t any yesterday either. Ski Utah had 80 kids. Only 4 instructors were on line up when they poured in, but the others joined from somewhere and we each took 8.

My kids were all young boys in camouflage clothes so I tried to make it a military theme, but that was hard to do when half of my group could barely stand. A teacher politely warned us some would have better balance than others. I did say they could call me Sergeant Guy. When I noticed I was getting frustrated and snappy, I just got them gliding down the hill and they had fun with that. It was a very tiring lesson for me because I was mostly just trying to keep track of all my kids and keep them up and moving, not teach them anything. I didn’t even try to remember their names. I made an effort to teach them the very basics and sidestepping, but in the end they only learned through necessity. A few of them figured out how to turn to a stop, which was impressive. Their attitude was better than mine, and they did enjoy careening down the bunny hill until they crashed into something.

I skied a couple of runs to de-stress after work. It always takes me a run or two to get used to newly waxed and tuned skis. They were gliding very quickly and the edges engaged smoothly on any snow, so that’s good.

Crammed into the bus, I was squashed between other people so I could barely move. Tomorrow the Sundance Film Festival begins so I shudder to think what that will be like, if the buses are so packed today in the slowest part of the season. To my surprise, people actually tried to let passengers off the bus before shoving in today.

I disembarked soon to do some grocery shopping, and bought few enough items that I could use the express lane. There was some problem with their computer though, and of course I just missed the bus home by a few minutes. To kill time I also went to the liquor store and bought an overpriced six-pack of ale, and then I ate all my nigiri-sushi at the bus stop. I even made myself a sandwich, but the bus arrived on time so I ended up eating most of it on the bus.