Obviously, I am a natural snowboarding talent
I have taken up snowboarding this year and while I certainly am bone headedly persistent I am without a doubt no natural talent. Don’t get me wrong, I am not completely inept, I can manage to zigzag my way down the slope but have some turning issues – to the left no prob – to the right (the famous toe turn) *KERBLAMMO* major faceplant!
I took a couple of lessons during my Easter vacation, the instructors were great! They were patient, kept the laughter to themselves (although I did see a chuckle or two on my most entertaining yoga like faceplants). And you know me, I aim to please so I provided them with faceplants aplenty!
The undeniably gorgeous Norwegian instructor gave me a private tour of the gondola engine house – thank you oh, skiing God (she says drooling in reminiscence)! I am though, particularly grateful to the Swedish instructor who held me tightly around the waist on the lift keeping me from falling. Who wouldn’t be happy to have a strong buff Swede holding one tightly around the waist with a T-bar between the legs. – Just sayin’
On Saturday I had my second lesson of the trip (above buff Swede with T-bar lift sequence), I met up with the rest of the group after my lesson about halfway down the slope, we (read they and I didn’t want to wimp out) decided to ski down. My fantastic friend Line stayed back with me as I sluggishly made my way down, she was pretty patient though I think she wanted to bail a couple of times. I was so exhausted by this point both hung-over and worn out from all the faceplants, that I just couldn’t keep up, not to mention that snowboarding in slush (I swear the same consistency of a Slush drink) is just not fun… It took me probably an extra hour to get down the slope, I took some ribbing from the others but I am extremely proud of myself.
WOW, I cannot believe that I have wasted so many years of Norgie winters, so many opportunities to provide entertainment for those around me and not to mention the joy of slowly learning a new skill! Prepare one and all for more excitement on the slopes!
I am a Geek groupie!
What can I say I love geeks, there is just something about them, their sense of humor, their cute innocence, their unparalleled intelligence and in Norway – believe it or not – they are seriously cute too! I want to also point out that I am always amazed at the amount of hot developers there are at every conference I have attended all over the world! So not just in Norway, but Norwegians – being Vikings – got it goin’ ON!
I have just spent the weekend skiing with 13 male geeks and 1 female geek, you would think that that could be kinda dangerous, you know everyone gets squiffy and strange things are afoot in the Jacuzzi…
But no, no chance, they discussed geeky things (being a wannabe I could only understand the periphery of what the hell they were talking about), drank inhuman amounts of alcohol, skied like Gods (Geeky Gods) and spent time discussing at what temperature water boils in the mountains in order to figure out how long to boil the eggs (there were SEVEN of them discussing this over an empty pot), I said “Dudes for F**Ks sake at least fill the pot with water and discuss it!! – MULTITASK!!”
It has been a great weekend, I was challenged to Snowboard, and as it is sports year I said yes, it took like 2,5 hours to get down the mountain, but there are no limits to how proud I am, towards the end my body actually figured it out – AND I WAS SNOWBOARDING without falling and actually being able to steer right and left and even stop!! WHOHOOO! Mind you this was an excruciating experience, I fell and fell and fell, hurting my ass, elbows and pride in equal measure and am indescribably sore. I am sore in places I didn’t know existed and am actually sore in about a foots circumference around my body, I feel like I have a bubble of pain around my whole body – wow, is that my gizzard, I didn’t know I had one but duuude it hurts! And if this is day one, WTF will day two be like.
I am definitely going to go snowboarding again (actually in a couple weeks at our kick-off).
But my point is that these wonderful Geeks took such good care of me, holding my hand, helping me up, cheering me on, showing what I am convinced is genuine pride in my achievements. I felt so lucky to be with these people, lucky to work with this group of talented, committed, engaged, intelligent and hilarious Geeks.
I wish there was more I could contribute to this group of people, I feel on the periphery, included (absolutely) but not quite being able to add value.
I could not imagine working in any other field; I love this environment and am so impressed with the contribution that tasty, lovely Geeks make to the world.
Now, all I have to do is find out how to contribute, so I can stay forever in the realm of Geekitude 
