1. Hang Gliding
2. Skydiving
3. Whitewater rafting in West Virginia
4. Outer Banks (learn to surf and parasail)

And intending to do some other excursions off the radar. San Francisco and a cruise. I think that’s enough for the summer.

Man…so many great stories to come out of some of these trips and people that I met. We can spend a night around a campfire telling some of them….

Video produced with Animoto for those who want to do something similar.

To recap some highlights from the trip;

1. Karl and Gina are my must have members for any weekend trip now. Both are my domestic god and goddesses, respectively. Karl doesn’t play around when it comes to cooking. Everyone else in the cabin was disposable but these two!
2. Karl seems to have this fixation of KY Jelly and using that as the punchline for every other joke. Hmmm….
3. Tricia and Lindsay were the only snowboarders out of the group and I barely got to see much of either of them on the slopes. But here’s to Tricia trying to quit her dayjob and becoming the first black female snowboarder Olympic medalist.
4. Mo’s homemade Jello shots were way too strong for most of us. Nice try guy.
5. Despite what Gina may say, Lindsay and I are seriously funny! Inside joke.
6. 30 mph gust of winds and a blizzard like no other didn’t stop alot of us from skiing on Saturday night at all.
7. We had this huge wrap around patio that could easily fit 50 people on the front side of it alone. That would’ve made for some serious partying…if only we had 50 people
8. We didn’t have the sort of crazy characters like I did on the NYE Snowshoe trip, but sometimes it’s nice to just have a normal group without the drama.

And imagine that this season was my first time ever learning to ski and I just absolutely fell in love with the sport. I can’t image that I was the same guy who kept falling and couldn’t even learn to turn appropriately and holding back the entire group on my 2nd day of skiing at the NYE Snowshoe trip. And now I felt comfortable enough to do black diamond slopes by this trip. But I knew I had to try to do it again on Sunday. It’s a great way to end the ski season by doing back to back black diamonds and not falling once. Truly amazing what we can do if we only put our minds to it. And to think that I’m the same guy who almost didn’t want to ski after being frustrated with the bunny slopes on my first day of skiing.

Next year, I’m gonna see if I can learn to snowboard and pick it up as quickly as I did with skiing.

But anyway, enough talking. Here is the gallery with Rooney’s “When Did Your Heart Go Missing” as the track.

Here is the link to Flickr Flash Gallery to browse without the music. To download photos, just click on the text link at the bottom left hand corner. http://deandreaming.com/2008/03/13/flash-gallery-for-wisp/

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It was an absolute joy to produce this one because the amount of fun pictures and video footage that I got of everyone. It was amazing how much dancing footage that I got of people including John and Melissa. I picked Matchbox Twenty’s “How Far We’ve Come” as the track because I think the upbeat mix really goes well with the footage that I had and helps reinforce the shear fun that we had on this trip.

Just watching the video makes me want to go back for more! This was my first time ever skiing and you could not have picked a better trip to learn skiing and having fun with everyone than this trip here. So here you go. And here is the flash photo gallery of the entire Snowshoe picture collection as well. Thanks to Evan, Dawn, and Mo for providing me additional pictures. Enjoy!

watch?v=iGMJ9fnffdA

1. Seeing Marinel get on the dance floor. I never even knew the girl could dance the way she could. She owns the freaking dance floor as far I’m concerned. Girl can dance.
2. Lin finally did something other than the bunny slopes. Yay. But now she has to stop going 1 mph and let go of the snow plow technique!
3. I took 9 shots of Rum in a 30 minute time period and lived to tell about it the next day. Never been drunk a day in my life and people were probably placing bets if this lightweight could wake up with a clear head the next day. And I did! Mo says I was drunk, but I have at least 5 other people who said that I was okay. Sorry buddy- but let’s face it; I took my shots and managed to find a way to stay sober. I’m the man . Thanks to Bobbi for getting on the dance floor with me and helping me shake it off.
4. Ski conditions were horrible. Too icy. But I paid all this money so I had to go ski. Still fun though.
5. The Connection Nightclub was hopping on both nights I was there.

Here is the flash video production that I put together of the trip complimented with photo gallery below. For those who were at the club, then you’ll understand why I chose Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin” as the music for the video. Everytime that song played at the club, we were busting a move.Thanks to Lin, Steve, and Lea Ann for lending me their photos as well.

I’m also embedding the Youtube version for those who don’t have flash installed on their browser. Enjoy

It gives us a chance to face down some of our worst fears. Fear of falling down and fear of failure are two at the top of this list.

It allows us to constantly decide if want to always play it safe or decide to go full throttle.

For some, we start out small and eventually want to start climbing ever so higher. For others, we start out small and fall and never choose to go back again.

For those who continue to come back, we find ourselves taking different trails that would eventually lead us to the same meeting point. As we find ourselves getting off a lift and looking down a new trail, our first thoughts are constantly, “Wow- how am I ever gonna get down this thing!” But we know there is no other way but to just simply do.

The thought of staring down the hill and zooming down with complete freedom is just too much to pass up.

And that’s why we do it over and over again.

I absolutely love the first pic below of Lin falling. Not so much that she’s falling but that she’s enjoying herself as clearly shown with her laughing. While there is a way to go on her technique, that is only expected as it’s only one day of skiing. I was more proud of my student because she eventually learned to get rid of that negative talk such as “I can’t” or “I’ll fall”, etc… As I told her, I didn’t want to hear any of that on my watch. It’s all mental. But I was glad to see she got rid of that talk and now she wants to go back again and again. Hey, maybe we can do Colorado next winter!

A few other things;

1. We found Estella, The Peruvian Princess. I guess she was taking lessons all day, but I’m glad she enjoyed herself.
2. It’s Coach Moran from this point forward. Who wears his high school wrestling jacket on the ski slopes? Apparently, Chris does.
3. Mo is getting very very good for a beginner. When you can jump little hills and not wipe out, then you’ve got a future.
4. Saw Melissa for 5 minutes in the early day and never saw her again. Too bad. I love seeing her snowboard.
5. Kristen didn’t kill me for my little ass-slapping incident. There was some junk in that trunk!
6. And Victor’s GPS is like every other GPS system- unreliable.

Next stop- February Snowshoe. Who’s ready to be my next student?

I always love the weekend getaway trips where we get to stay overnight because alot of great stories occurs from the camaraderie.