Went to Blue Mountain for skiing today with 2 coworkers. Weather forecasts predicted freezing rain and +5 C temperatures today, which scared most people away. This was the last chance the three of us had at skiing this season. At 7:30am, we decided to go-ahead with the trip. BM had a snowbase of 140cm, which should have been enough to take on the freezing rain.
The rain stopped by the time we got to Collingwood. However, there was a dense fog around the area. It was bad enough that we couldn't even see the top of blue "mountain" (aka hill). More on this later.
Blue Mountain totally upgraded their IT facilities from last year. For rentals, you walk to one of many computer terminals, and enter your personal info, weight, shoe size, height, etc. When you go up to collect your rental equipment, they just call up your information, and the computer has all the appropriate equipment and settings laid out for the staff. The overall process was very efficient, and I was out on the slopes with my equipment in 15 minutes.
We started off at Central Lodge, and took fast chairlift #2 up to the top. Halfway up the mountain, we entered the dense fog, which was eerily cool (unfortunately, I didn't take a picture. :(). Everything had a haze around it. The snow was very slushy and sticky, definitely sub-optimal conditions. With the fog, everything just looks like slush. We decided to head north over to chairlift #3 area, as it was less crowded in that area. The north area happened to be where all the black and double black trails were located.
As a first run of the day, we decided to take on a blue trail, just to wet our appetite. I stopped at the top of the hill, looked down (visibility maybe 10m). The slope didn't seem so bad. I started heading down, then felt huge bumps in the hill under my feet. Two seconds later, I realized I was on the moguls. Two more bumps later (you really can't make out any of the moguls), I flew off the top of one of the bumps, panicked, and fell face forward into the snow, lightly spraining my right thumb (racquet hand :-( ). Ironically, last time I went skiing, I had promised that I would go on the moguls on my next "ski trip". I didn't expect to try them on the 1st freaking run of the day. After getting back up, I made my way down the moguls very slowly. Almost fell a few more times. This first run really shook my nerves. Later on, we found out that the blue trail was called MOGUL ALLEY. When the sun came out and you can actually see the moguls, it's really amazing how I only manage to fall once going down that thing.
Rest of the morning, I did the rest of the northern trails, except for Elevator Shaft and the Expert moguls (I'm not going anywhere near moguls in the near future). I went down Spectacular (double black), came out of the steepest part fine, but somehow lost my edge later, likely due to a combination of speed, and lack of concentration. During the fall, I lost my skis, and slid on my back for a good 30m. Fortunately, some good Samaritan collected my skis for me. When he handed them back to me, he said, "That was a spectacular fall!" -_-;;;; My coworker was laughing, "You fell on the FLAT part" and "Stay away from the green trails!" -_-;;;;
Unfortunately, during this particular fall, I jammed my right knee into the snow, and re-aggravated a latent injury. My knee really started acting up. I took it easy the rest of the day, and just stuck with blue and single black diamonds. The day got progressively better, and the sun actually came out. The temperature was a balmy 6C, which is a nice change from the freezing temperatures. I was sweating a lot, and actually wanted to take some layers off. If only the snow wasn't as slushy.
Finished the day off at 4:30pm. I was dead tired. Since I didn't have to drive this time, I was zzzz for most of the trip back. I tried really hard to stay awake too. Waking up tomorrow is going to be interesting.
Lesson of the day: Always read the trail NAME. If it's foggy, study the trail map first.
My initial impressions after a few days with Tochii:
Wii
The Good:
- Wii Sports - Tennis rocks. Boxing is tiring, but a KO is awesome.
- Fast startup time - 2 seconds to boot up, 5 seconds into channel menu.
- Channel Menu is simple and intuitive
- Controllers
- Internet channel is cumbersome. If you have trouble connecting to their "site", your Wii takes forever to time out. You cannot "cancel" midway (Wii Menu button is disabled!).
- Long updates - 40 minutes to update my Wii "software".
- Download times are very slow. Took 5 minutes to download the Wii Opera browser. It maybe be some sub-optimal router or wii settings, but as customer, it's annoying.
The Good:
- Air Hockey and shooting ducks is pretty cool.
- All the other games are crap.
Zelda - Twilight Princess
The Good:
- Hyrule Field isn't as big as in OoT!
- Aim with the Wii-mote is so cool. You get the boomerang so early in the game. :)
- It's Zelda, non-cartoon version.
- Perhaps it's FF influence, but the lack of voice-overs really stands out. The "AHH"s and "Hey"'s just don't cut it.
- The fighting controls could have been tuned a bit better. I'm just waving both controllers, and I'm still winning.
I've only been limited to the single player missions. Will give the party games a try very soon.
The Good:
- Very intuitive gameplay.
- The ability to "jump" makes going off the edge so much easier :-)
- That banana collecting mini-game during game credits is way too long.. 400 bananas!?!! My arm was sore afterwards.
Gonna keep this short and sweet. Tochi got his Wii, fittingly nicknamed Tochii! Got up at 5:30AM, found out there were at least 40 people who got to the local Toys R Us before me (only 20 Wii's) Drove 20 minutes to Newmarket (another township), and found only a little kid in line. Tochi was #2. Waited till 9am to get my hands on the Wii (which ironically, was 30 minutes BEFORE my local Toys R Us store opened). Also picked up another nunchuk, Zelda and Super Monkey Balls.
Stupid Amazon decided to ship my Wii Play, at the last possible minute - last night at 11:29pm. I could have just brought my Wii Play along with the system today. However, since I can't cancel my Amazon order now that they've shipped.... I won't have a second controller until Monday... sigh.
Tochii is really taking its time to update. Reminds me of FFXI days. -_-;
UPDATE: The reason why Newmarket's line was so much shorter is their lack of Asian population... The entire line had 3 asians including myself. Those crazy asians who get up before 5:30AM for a Wii....
Last night, I was chatting with a couple friends from Seattle area, where they apparently got 3" of snow yesterday. We were making fun of how the west coast is so poorly equipped such that "the smallest snowstorm would paralyze the whole area." Even if Seattle doesn't use salt on the roads, I'd say de-icing fluid as a replacement is pretty nifty. Canadian taxpayers can never afford such a luxurious solution.
Anyway, a day after making fun of our west-coast friends, I found it really ironic that Toronto got slammed with a pretty bad snowstorm this afternoon. I came out of a meeting, looked outside and saw only a white WALL of blowing snow. I could barely see 10m out the window. The wind must have been 50+km/h. "OMG" "Holy Crap" "I'm going home now!!"
Driving home was essentially sitting in traffic and moving 5m per traffic light. Took 1 hour to travel 1 major intersection block. After the long trek home, Tochi mobile was able to make it up the driveway and into the garage. Unfortunately, I then spent the next 30 minutes shovelling the driveway. Better now when the snow is fresh and light.
Man, I admit defeat. I'm sick of these storms. I'm really looking forward to getting away from this cold weather now.
UPDATE:: Right after I finished this post, I heard some loud sounds outside my house. The freaking city snowploughs paid a visit and left behind this:
They really need to give me a break. If you are wondering how tall that bank is, let's just say it's above my knee cap. I am amazed at how quickly the city got to my street, which is probably the least important street in the neighbourhood. At least the drive tomorrow should be pretty good. My back is so sore right now. I have no idea how I'm gonna survive four games of badminton tomorrow.
ETAA: Don't let this scare you from Toronto.
ETAAA: Nothing beats the sense of accomplishment when you have one of the few cleared driveways on your street. The sore back is worthy price to pay... until the next morning.
The Toronto Star reported some guy's quest to find the location the following default Windows XP background titled 'Serenity' was shot. After an exhaustive search, he found it in Burlington, a stone throw from Toronto.
While the $300 Windows XP background is certainly a nice picture, I didn't have to go all the way to Burlington to find 'serenity'. Just last week, the most beautiful snowstorm swept through Toronto. The snowflakes were so big and fluffy. They just floated down slowly from the sky and settled. A stark reminder of how how beautiful winter can be. The following 'serenity' photo was shot from Tochi's street.
TOCHI PHOTO