JC Ski trip results (and pictures!)

jtrain609

Antisocial Monster
QUICK NOTE: I have no idea why the pictures won't load, but it seems like the forum software does not like the links. If you copy and paste them into your address bar they'll load. If an admin has any ideas please let me know!

Heya everyone,


As I'm sure most of you know this past weekend a few folks from here at the Jetcareers.com forum decided to get together and do something skiing. This could have also been described as a test with as to whether cats and dogs and live together.

We started the weekend off a little bit shaky. Before we even left, we didn't actually have the key to the condo that Tony had hooked up with (Thanks again for that Tony! I owe you a beer!). After lots of freaking out (Thanks for the help with trying to figure out how to contact the condo owner, Doug and Chuck!) we finally got in contact with the person that runs the condo and we decided that she'd meet us at the condo to get the key from her. So with that, we all made our merry way to our respective airports to come from all over the country to spend a few days with people we had never met before.

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The above image is me being really out of at something like 6:45 a.m. at Detroit Metro waiting for our Delta 737-300 to take us away to Salt Lake.

We jumped on our plane and landed about 20 minutes early in Salt Lake. We had to wait for another plane to leave our gate, and then we taxied on in. We walked in and Kelly (montanapilot) spotted Emily and we headed off to get our rental car. We were planning on doing a half day of skiing at Deer Valley with a free pass thingie we got for flying in that day. Well...that was the plan at least...

We jump in our rented Dodge Stratus and head off to the condo. About 30 miles later we're on the last street to actually get to our condo. We're thinking that we've finally made it and that we're going to be skiing within 30 minutes! BUT NO! The last 1,500' to the condo is on a 12% grade and is covered in snow and ice. I think to myself "Well crap, I've driven in horrible snow and ice all my life in Michigan, I can get through this!"

Yeah, right.

The long and the short of it is that we got about 200' from the condo (the whole street was MAYBE 1,500' long) and started sliding backwards. There was NO WAY we were going to be up to the condo. We called the condo lady and she told us that they should have the streets plowed by now, but alas they did not. We decided to just suck it up and get an SUV. We drove back to Salt Lake and exchanged the Stratus for a Ford Escape. This thing made quick work of that stupid hill and we moved ourselves into our new home.

Once we had setteled in a little bit, we left to go pick up Mat (stultus, which we found out means "The fool" in Latin) and Russ (FL270). Within about 2 minutes of meeting Russ for the first time I think we had already cracked a few liberal/conservative jokes at each other expense. This would continue throughout the weekend, though I have to say outright that no one held anything back the entire weekend but it stayed completely civil. It actually looked like the squawk box half the time with the various factions tossing political arguments back and forth at each other. We were all VERY happy that even though we don't agree on politics AT ALL that means little and we all got along REALLY well. I don't think we could have had a better group of people come along and do this trip. It was a really great time, and I'm really glad that I got a chance to meet everyone.

At this point we headed off to PF Changs Chinese Bistro for dinner. About halfway through dinner Chuck (Ophir) stopped by and chatted us up a little bit. Chuck has got to be one of the coolest dudes ever, and he's really been the guy behind the scenes on this one. If it were not for Chuck and Tony, none of this would have happened. Chuck provided us with ideas on things to do, where to ski at, where to eat at, everything. If he were not there, we would have been lost. Don't let him tell you any different, he was the real factor that made this all happen. I don't think those of us that were there can thank him enough.

Oh but it gets better. Near the end of dinner my friend Dave calls. Turns out, he's already in Park City!

Now, who's Dave you may ask? Well my friends, this is Dave...

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Or Dave on a more normal note...
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Dave is a friend of mine that goes to school here with me in Kalamazoo. A little about Dave; he drove from Michigan. That's 24 straight hours of driving. I can attest that he is a madman, but also one of the coolest dudes I know. Dave is also a snowboarder, which would be why he came out. When Tony dropped the condo, we asked Dave if he wanted to come along and he would me he would let me know. Well Wednesday night he said "What's the address of the place ya'll are staying at? I'll drive out." Sure enough, 24 hours later he rolled into Park City after sleeping about 3 hours in a 36 hour period of time. Some people would call him stupid, and others would call him crazy. If you know Dave...well...Russ, Mat and Kelly know now. Another aspect of Dave is his political leanings. He's studying political science with me here at Western, and is doing a double major in economics. This kid is REALLY smart, and REALLY gets into politics. He's also so far to the left that he makes me look like a republican. Thankfully, Dave equaled out our ranks with three conservative leaning folks, and three leftists. It made for fair fighting in the hot tub. Though I have to hand it to Russ right here; he stood up quite well to both me AND Dave going after him one night in the car when we had to drive into Salt Lake.

Once we were all together we pretty much skiied, talked politics and had a few adult beverages. We did Snowbird on Friday and Park City on Saturday. Everyone else did Park City again on Sunday, while me and Emily went off to ski Alta with her father (who happened to be in town to do some skiing also). The skiing was killer. I'd try to describe it, but I'll let the pictures at the link at the bottom speak for themselves. They really do mean "Best Snow on earth" in Utah.

One highlight I'd like to talk about for a minute is dinner at Michelle's. Before we got there, there was some talk of whether or not Corbin existed, or whether this mysterious "Michelle" girl was just trying to get us out into the woods to kill us. Turns out, Corbin does exit and he's one REALLY cool dude. Dinner at Michelle's went off REALLY well, and I have to thank her again for a wonderful meal with great company. Joe (fly22) also showed up for this one. Once dinner was done, everyone except for me, Emily and Michelle went down stairs to talk airplanes. Me and Emily stayed up in the kitchen to chat with Michelle a little bit. I'm going to be really honest here, Michelle is not ANYTHING like I thought she was going to be like. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but Michelle is ultra cool and laid back. The same goes for Corbin. Those two are some really great people and their kid's really cute too! I'm not a huge fan of some kids, but I liked this one for the few minutes he was around. I also have to say something about fly22 here. I never really paid much attention to his posts that s
 
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Michelle is not ANYTHING like I thought she was going to be like.

[/ QUOTE ] LOL-do I not make a good internet impression?
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Well I did the cut and paste things. Good pics! What's with the gay fluffy pillow on the couch?
 
heh, I wouldn't quite say that. I'd just say that you can't judge who a person is over the internet. Everyone was totally cooler than I could have hoped for. Not to say that people would be uncool, but...well...you know.
 
The Eagle picture is hilarious. By the way, you may not be aware, but according to a recent post from FalconCapt, Eagle has been removed as a moderator and his access revoked from this message board.
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Post From FalconCapt
 
John - et. all - I've noticed that the forum software won't load a picture unless the file name ends in (exactly) *.jpg .. if you use *.jpeg or *.JPG or anything other than *.jpg (lower case andthe * is the file name) it won't load.
 
I think it's the space you have in the file name is having trouble parsing. take the space out in the file name and retry maybe?
 
Wow... I wish I could have made it. It sounds/looks like you all had a boatload of fun. Only complaint I have is that I've now seen WAY too much of FL270's legs.
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test

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I see a slight resemblance to Gollum AKA Smiegel
"Don't mess with my ribzes, they are the precious." Definately not a good pic of you." The other photo you look good.
 
Yeah yeah, the hobbit is trixie.

Lemme tweak the edit time... I tried to do a search/replace in notepad to correct some of the image links, but for some reason it wouldn't parse correctly.

Then I had to go run some errands else Mrs. Taylor would have had my head on a platter.
 
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By the way, you may not be aware, but according to a recent post from FalconCapt, Eagle has been removed as a moderator and his access revoked from this message board.
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[/ QUOTE ]

Not any public incident, but more or less a mutual decision in a way. And that's about all I'll say about that!
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I'll make sure he gets a copy of the picture by the way.
 
Heya everyone,


Since a few pictures got cut off, if you didn't click on the link here are a few more pictures from the trip. If you want to see more go to

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~egalopin/JCSkiTrip

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That's right, we skied that.

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Then Kelly fell down it.

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Me and Emily in Jupiter Bowl.

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From left to right; Emily, me, Michelle, Corbin, Russ, Kelly, Joe, Mat.


Cats and dogs CAN live together!

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Eagle.jpg

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Mat, falling.
 
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