roblog: Wrapping Up the Ski Trip

No letter theme today. Many apologies if you were wondering which direction my Sack-phabetical order would take next.

I just realized that tomorrow it is already a week since my last post, so here comes another rush job. This week I started back up at Kyungsung University after an absence of eight years. It has not been terribly hard, but it has kept me from writing. I'll tackle that in my next post.

Skiing was fun, but I am getting too old for it. Not because I got hurt, or couldn't learn the skills, but because I was absolutely unable to think about how much it would hurt if my meager skills proved insufficient. Another factor is the cost, which is something between kind-of-expensive and ridiculous. I would have gotten more satisfaction out of buying a new t.v.

Quiz time!

Math: When is 15 divided by two equal to zero? Answer: when you buy a $15 pair of ski gloves and lose one the first time down the hill. The gloves were too hot, so I put them in my pockets and wore by biking gloves. By the time I got to the bottom of the slope, I had only one glove. What's the value of one new ski glove? Just about zero. It joins the other single right-hand gloves in my drawer nonetheless, because someday I will lose a right hand glove and be ready to have a mismatched pair.

Literature: What is irony? Answer: when you laugh at all of the ski poles, gloves, hats, skis and other stuff on the ground under the ski lift, only to realize that one of those gloves is very likely the missing left hand glove from the pair you bought that day.

Physics: Which will go downhill on skis faster, a little girl, or her too-large-to-fasten-his-snowpants daddy? Answer: the person who is slowest to learn how to snow plough.

History: When was the last time I went skiing? Answer: pre-kids, pre-wife, pre-Korea, pre-Nepal, pre-graduating from K.U. I went skiing in Colorado with my then-girlfriend. She grew up skiing, and was very patient with me in this regard. I got a touch of altitude sickness halfway through the day, and don't really remember much about it.

Physical Education: List the muscles which do not tense up when learning to ski. Answer: This is a trick question. There are no such muscles.

Music Appreciation: If your child sings the same song repeatedly, how many times must you allow it before you make them get out of the car and drive away? Answer: This one was kind of surprising to me. You are actually not supposed to abandon your children by the side of the road, even when they do this!

Economics: If you pay $10 for pork soup at the ski resort, compared to $6 in town, how do you expect the food to compare? Answer: The resort food will have smaller portions and taste terrible.

Ethics: You lose the ski poles that you rented for your youngest child. You would expect the ski instructor (who works for the rental company) to:
a) assure you that they will be returned eventually, and not to worry about replacement costs.
b) urge you to try to find the missing poles, as you will have to pay the replacement costs.
c) offer to let you pay half of the replacement costs now, to avoid the full fee later.
d) pick up a random set of ski poles and tell you that they are all the same anyway.
Answer: The answer is d, the one I couldn't imagine on my own.

Chemistry (sort of): When does a beer taste best? Answer: after a hard day's driving to a new place, learning to ski, then soaking in the hot tub for an hour.

World Religions: In which religion is it considered a blessing to hang a dried fish over a doorway? Answer: Dude, that's not a blessing. They're just saving it for later.

Enjoy the pictures.