Learning is Fun (I Think)

After skiing for 20 years, I decided that I wanted to learn to snowboard this year. I did this for a couple of reasons: although I loved to ski, I was always a bit curious about what all the rage about snowboarding was about; many of my friends had 'converted' from skiing and said they would never go back; the equipment is a whole lot more comfortable; and I thought, learning something new would be fun. Plus, Christian said he would do it too so I thought it would be something neat for us to do together.

Everyone who snowboarded warned me that the first few days would be spent pretty much exclusively on my a**. Over New Year's weekend, we took a group lesson and after the lesson was over, it took 45 minutes to get down one of the bunny slopes. But I guess because I had been so conditioned to expect so little, the day was mostly enjoyable. After being rained out the rest of the weekend, we were back on the mountain with our friends Ryan and Tom, who were both just learning as well. It snowed all day, so anytime I fell, it was like falling into a pillow. After a few trial runs on green dots (that's the easiest slopes) and not falling much, we were collectively emboldened to try some blue squares (intermediate). I really felt like I was catching on, and was hooked.

Well, 2 months went by, and for one reason or another, we didn't make it back up to Tahoe until this past weekend. I knew I'd be a bit rusty, but expected to pick right up where I left. Um, not quite. Getting off the lift became the terror it was on the first day, I couldn't go more than a minute or so without falling, and couldn't even get close to riding on my toes. (To non-snowboarders-- the idea is to go back and forth between riding on heels and toes) We decided to take another lesson and ended up with Bibi, an instructor whose accent was so thick, I could barely understand her. It didn't help that Christian picked up what she was teaching quickly and I just couldn't get it. Bibi kept barking empty praise at me that I finally had to tell her 'I need a minute' to get her away from me. After the lesson, we did one more run and I sorta felt like I sorta was getting it, but overall, the day was a wash. I left the mountain pretty disgusted. I was so frustrated that I wanted to turn in my snowboard and get skis for the next day-- I just wanted to know what the hell I was doing.

Alas, I didn't swap my board out for skis and it was back to the mountain on Sunday. After a first few couple of rough runs, something changed. I was able to be up for a bit longer and I was starting to actually get it. Of course, there was still a lot of falling-- a lot of falling. But I was getting the feel of what it's like to ride on your toes and get the "S" turns. Yes! So then what do we do? Follow our bonehead friend Peter up to a run called Siberia Express. It was a crazysteepnarrow run that we had no business being on. After a brief freak out and throwing some expletives at Christian (sorry, honey), we somehow got down the hill. But over the next few (less steep) runs, the feeling was there again. Awesome! We stopped for lunch and were back out on the mountain. After each time I fell, I could stay up a bit longer and carve longer. However, at this point, even though my brain was totally in the game, my body said no. After 2 long days of falling and falling and falling and twisting in ways I didn't know it could, I was done. As we walked off the slope, I felt good about the improvements I had made and can't wait to get back out there again.

I think our culture of immediate gratification has taught us to expect to master things right away. Any software package I open or website I go to, I feel like I should be able to get right away. I felt like after a day or two of boarding, I should be as good as I was at skiing. Well, it didn't work out quite like that, but I think I'm okay with that. It's an important lesson to remember - learning can be fun again.

A Part of Something Good

When I started my job at Yahoo, which is about 30 miles south of San Francisco, I assumed there would be gay folks everywhere. I mean, the only thing gayer than working at an airline is living in San Francisco, right? Yahoo had the requisite domestic partner policy (that was great for us since Christian was in school) and this being the Bay Area, there was a very open environment. But I was surprised to find that there really just wasn't much of a presence of gays and lesbians at Yahoo!, or so it seemed. That is, until an acquaintance of mine named Brady, who went to Stanford with some of my other friends, started at Yahoo and decided to change all that.

Pretty much single-handedly, he created a GLBT (that's Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered) employee group called Yahoo! Pride that held a number of social events and what do you know, there were a lot more folks there than I thought! He began a number of initiatives to raise awareness of GLBTs across the company. He started a email list where people could communicate with each other (messages like 'Anyone up for a karoke night tonight' or group screenings of Brokeback Mountain were common). A wonderful achievement was last summer, not long after the group formed, during Pride month when a rainbow flag was hung in the cafeteria for the week. Having your workplace place something that is so commonly associated with a group you are part of is a tremendous feeling.

Additionally, he worked to educate how marketing to the GLBT audience could benefit the different businesses that are part of Yahoo. One of these such initiatives was to create a station in the Launch internet radio service that would cater to the gay audience, and he was looking for help to program it from members of the employee group. Dubbed 'Gay Club Mix', this was pretty much right up my alley. I poured through my catalog of songs and created a spreadsheet of 300+ songs and sent them in.

Well, the station went live last week and has been an instant success. It debuted in the top portion of audience members listening of all the stations on Launch and after listening myself for a few hours, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Yes, the icons like Madonna and Cher are there, but there were also some less mega-popular songs that I had suggested made their way in as well (Mike Rizzo's mix of Becky Baeling's 'Getaway' was one of the such surprises.) So next time you forget your iPod at work, give this station a shot. (Note: a Yahoo! ID may be required) But beware-- you will be tapping your feet and dancing in your chair!

The Good Life

Ahhh, the good life. It's something we all aspire to live. I'm pleased to report we just got back from the big birthday celebration for Christian in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and got to live that cherised good life for a few days...

Casa Nautilus, the home where we stayed, proved to exceed my (and I think everyone's!) expectations. It was about 7 miles south of the city, perched right on the side of a cliff overlooking The Arches, a stunning Vallara landscape icon. There was a staff of a house man, a cook and a maid who had margaritas and guacamole waiting for us when we arrived, cooked us breakfast every day, and dinner two of the nights we were there. Good life, indeed.

Beyond being waited on hand and foot at the house when we were there, we also had some amazing dinners. The first night out was recommended to us by good friends from C's school and it proved the perfect locale for us all to re-connect; the staff even sang Happy Birthday in Spanish to Christian after dinner. Sunday night we had dinner at an exclusive hotel with a terrace on the side of a hill overlooking the city. We had the deck all to ourselves and got to watch the sun slowly sink into the Pacific Ocean as we sipped cocktails The terrace only had 3 tables capped off with a mariachi band playing. The food was of the fresh out of the sea variety and even though I've had more expensive bottles of champagne before, I don't remember them tasting quite so good.

As shocking as it may be though, this wasn't the best meal experience we would have. Having a staff to serve you food is a great concept -- if you have arranged in advance for them to have the food and for them to be there to cook it for you. Unfortunately, we didn't plan ahead so well on one of the days, and what we thought was the legendary Hotel of the Black Iguana next to the house was certainly a hotel and legendary as promised, but it hasn't been open in years. Miles from anywhere closeby to get food and unable to reach cabs, I had to reach back into my 'Logistics Man' playbook and pull out a full house. We ended up wandering a little bit down the road on the search for something, anything, when a local who worked at one of the mega-houses like the one we were staying in happened to walk out front of the house. We accosted her and she recommeded Le Kliff, which was about 3 miles down the road. However, this being rural Mexico, the roads were quite narrow and there was no way to get a cab.... she recommended the bus and before I could say 'Lady, I don't even ride buses in my home country, much less one that is notorious for rickety old machinery..', one pulled up behind us, she flagged it down, and 50 pesos later, we were on our way. The bus was an old beat up school bus painted blue and the bus driver's four year old sun was sitting with his back to the dashboard collecting the fare. Oh, don't ask me why, but a teddy bear was taped to the area above the dashboard. But little did we know what would be there when we arrived-- simply one of the most stunning restaraunts I have ever had the pleasure of going to. Nestled on the side of the cliff, the picture to the right was taken right by our table and was but one of the many stunning ones I snapped while there. That's why you have to love when unplanned things happen when travelling-- we went from destitue on the side of a road to a decadant experience in about 5 minutes. Even when we weren't trying to lead the good life, it seemed to find us!

Iit probably doesn't matter where we would have gone, being with 7 of my best friends plus Christian is a formula for fun no matter what. But given the choice, I'd take the good life route anytime.