Chris's Rants

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

A Day at Whisler

A bunch of us here in Vancouver, BC for the WS-I Community Meeting went skiing at Whistler yesterday. Actually, we spent the day on Blackcomb.

The conditions were akin to spring conditions in New England, but ungroomed so in places very crunchy-granola in texture. Kinda like skiing on a concrete rumble-strip. It was extraordinarily foggy at various times, with visibility measured in feet, and the lack of contrast made for interesting if not tentative skiing.

I took the boobie prize for the most spectacular fall. Chris Kurt said it was like one of the classic scenes from Roadrunner where Wyle E. Coyote finds himself suspended over an abyss with terra firma hundreds of feet below and realizes he's cooked... after a second, he falls and leaves behind a comic balloon that sez "pfftt".

We had just gotten off the quad chair and were assembling off to the side. The fog was so bad that you couldn't see more than a few feet at best. I skied over to where Chris was standing to wait for the guys in the chair behind us. Having never skied Whistlet-Blackcomb before, little did I know he was standing on the edge of a precipice with something like a 70-75% pitch. As I came to a halt, my left ski found itself unsupported by the ground below. As I fell straight down a foot or so to a narrow ledge, I let out a brief "Whoa!". I tried to balance myself, only to find my skis were again no longer in contact with terra firma. This was immediately followed by a more sustained "Ahhhhhh!" and I pitched over and slid straight down the embankment, probably about 30-40 feet before I managed to spread-eagle myself to stop my slide.

Fortunately, I was uninjured save my bruised ego. I am really glad that I was wearing my helmet as it could have been more serious for me had I not. The other guys didn't know whether to call for the ski patrol or laugh... once they realized I was fine... well, I'll leave that to your imagination.

While in certain fora, we represent our respective companies (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, webMethods) as fierce competitors, we had a great day and managed not to talk about work, which is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Good fun, good friends...

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