Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

There's 5 feet of snow on the ground, the temperature frequently drops below 0, the yuppies are in Vail, the Christmas Tree is up, and I've already skiied enough to make my season pass worth it's price. It is officially the "in-season."

As for the snow and cold, I've gotten used to layering up every morning. It's a routine that takes all of about 15 seconds anymore. Underwear, socks, two layers of pants, shirt, sweater, coat, (snow pants if skiing), gloves, and hat. It's funny how you can used to the bitter -25 days though. I'm able to run to the dumpster in meer scrubs, slippers, and a tank to throw out the trash. It must be amusing for the neighbors.

The yuppies are what amuse me. I can't believe the cash that is dropped in this town. People will throw money at you for whatever luxury you can provide. There are restaurants up on the mountain that serve 5 course meals for $100 a head (not including any alcohol you may get), including children. I'm sorry, but I'm not paying $100 for any 5 year old of mine to eat mac 'n' cheese. Apparently there's a dog one can "rent" in Vail. He costs about $50 an hour. You walk him. You pay $50 to walk a dog so he can shit. And as for the merchandise, you can't walk out of a retail store without paying at least $150. All this cash-dropping has its perks for me of course. People will walk into the Brewery and order expensive bottles of wine and entrees and throw a credit card at you without even looking at the check. High checks = mad tips.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying my life as a local. We bought a live Christmas Tree and put it up Saturday night. Problem was, when we first got the tree home, it was frozen. (Christmas trees can freeze??) Justin strung some lights around it and it finally thawed. The finished product, along with the steps to it, are pictured above.

I went Christmas shopping today. Got a lot of fun stuff for me. As for the rest of you, well, I'm out of money. Don't worry Ryan/Andrew/Alex, you'll get presents.

Oh! The Places You'll Go!

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any
you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you'll head straight out of town.

It's opener there
in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen,
don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don' t
Because, sometimes, you won't.
I'm sorry to say so
but, sadly, it's true
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You'll be left in a Lurch.

You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.

And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping,
once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don't.
Because, sometimes, they won't.

I'm afraid that sometimes
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike
and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!


-Dr. Seuss

Look at me keeping up with this...

So skiing is the best sport ever. I'm not too shabby either. I've been thrown down my share of black diamonds now in a couple feet of powder and I've held my own. No broken bones or mishaped limbs yet. However I'm taking good advice involving some groin icing.

One of the more interesting hobbies I've taken up in the past week or two is conversation with whatever random person I end up on a lift with. It's amazing how many people are my age, are from back East, and are taking a year off from school. I've met several different people from New Jersey, many of who live a few miles from my house. Unlike myself, most of these people were lucky enough to know someone already in this area. Housing and a social life came much more easily.

Come to think of it, I'm pretty proud of myself for what I've accomplished this year. Most of my major accomplishments in life have almost always involved academics. However, I have not done one academic thing since I've been out here (with the exception of "saying" I'm going to grad school next year). I decided not to live in New Jersey, decided that Colorado sounded cool, found a place to live, drove on out here, got a job, am currently holding a steady income, making lots of friends, experiencing new things, skiing almost every day, and I'm truly happy as a result. I feel very liberated. It's as though I've been given the realization that I have the power to steer my life in any direction I choose. It's pretty damn cool. Funny, because I could've done these things all along.


I remember thinking to myself this Summer, that if I pulled this off, I was damn good. Ha.

Thanksgiving Festivities

Today was my first Thanksgiving not spent with my family. Going into it, I was a bit bummed, knowing that I wouldn't be watching football with my Grandad, making gravy with my Grandmom, and fighting with my brothers. But I ended up having one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember. A bunch of my friends from the Brewery came over and we ate a ton of amazing food and boozed on mimosas the entire day. I haven't laughed that hard since, well, a long time.

I feel like I'm finally settling in and that I can call this place Vail my home. I have some great friends, a fun job, and I ski almost every day. What's not to like?

I won't be back to Jersey for Christmas either. Regardless of how many people grace the beer pong table that day, Christmas will be the hardest. It's my favorite holiday and to think about not spending it with my family kills me. What makes it worse is that I have to work double time in the couple weeks around it. Which means working all day Christmas Eve and New Years Eve (aka my birthday) and not skiing for a week due to blackout dates. I guess it's a small price to pay for my lifestyle this year though.

It looks like I'm finally getting a new roomate in a few days. I guess I can't walk around naked anymore.

Vivid Dreams

I'm not very creative, and I usually can't think of witty sayings or comebacks on the spot. I'm not inventive and I'm not a great problem solver. However, my dreams will surpass yours any day.

My dreams usually consist of very detailed traumtic events that I could never come up with if my subconcious wasn't running the show. I find I'll wake up and have to take a few minutes to make sure that the dream didn't actually happen. People have told me that I dream more when I'm stressed (they've also told me that I'm crazy). But here I am, in laid-back ski country, and they're just as wild as ever.

For instance, I used to have dreams while at Penn St about certain science professors (which shall remain nameless so I don't get arrested or something). I had dreams that these professors would actually be trying to kill me. There were characters (usually my friends), rising actions, exciting incidents, detailed plots, but usually no resolutions. I'd wake up in a sweat and dread the next few classes as a result. Sure, these could be contributed to stress. That makes absolute sense. What does not make sense is that I had another dream a couple nights ago that one of those professors was trying to kill me again. Only this time I was fighting back with snowballs (?????).

Could it be impending Grad/Medical School stress? Perhaps. I don't want to think about what my dreams will be like when I'm actually in Medical School. Someone's going to have to tie me down.

I sound like a crazed manic (ha ha ha), but not all of my dreams are horrible. They're all just incredibly intense. I'll have wonderful dreams about friends, family, skiing, and life in general. And they're just as detailed as the murderous rampage dreams.

It doesn't matter what I'm thinking about before I go to bed. All that matters is what's on the mind of my subconscious at the time (oxymoron?). Perhaps I should start a dream journal. Some are so detailed, I bet I could publish a book and make some actual money off these things. Who wouldn't want to read something about your physiology professor trying to poision you and your friends at the HUB?

And on a completely unrelated note now, I miss Panda Mondays and feeding the fish.

So much for being unique

So I've decided to give in to one of the Internet trends I swore I wouldn't. Online journalism. But it's not Facebook, so I'm still OK with it. Plus, I find it's a new procrastination to Grad School applications. (Why do you require 8 essays Drexel??)

I don't expect to keep up with this, nor do I expect any highly profound epiphanies to come of this. But it seemed like a good thing to start on a boring Monday night after a couple glasses of wine. I can only hope that it helps me put some of my own scattered thoughts together. That's what this year's for, right?

As for now, for those who are unaware of my situation, I am currently living in Avon, Colorado. A stone's throw away from one of the most renowned ski resorts in the country, Vail. I could not imagine a more beautiful place. After graduation from Penn State this past May, I realized that school was not an option for September. Besides the fact that I had not applied anywhere, and no where would really want me anyway, I couldn't bring myself to accept that I was ready for another 10 years of school (including Medical School, residencies, and all that jazz). So, seeing that I did not want to spend another year in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, I high-tailed it out in my brand new Mitsubishi Outlander (love you Dad) towards the colorful state. I had a best friend with me which made the drive all that more feasible, along with the stop in breathtaking Michigan. However, after dropping him off at Denver International Airport a few days later, I was on my own, in a really big state, where I knew no one except my 23 year old male roomate whom I had met on the Internet a couple months before I got out here. The first couple weeks were some of the loneliest in my life, and I don't think I've ever been quite as terrified as I was during that time. However, I'm still alive (no my roomate did not kill me) and I have a job (at a brewery no less). I left amazing lifelong friends and my entire family, but I still maintain I made the right decision with coming out here. Hell, what's 2000 miles, right?

I'll more than likely end up on the East Coast next year due to academic reasons. If I can't live in the mountains, I don't want to be in the Midwest. I'm coming to terms with that decision, and this is even before ski season has hit. I'll just have to wait until I'm 65 years old when I'm a rich doctor and the kids have left the house to buy a 20 million dollar home on the side of a mountain out here. It'll be worth it in the end.

It snowed a foot today and there's supposed to be more as the week goes on. Vail opens its lifts Friday and you can be sure I'll be one of the idiot locals buying a one day pass because my season one hasn't come in yet.

O, and I finally bought a snow shovel.