evolution is a farce

So, I found myself having to balance counter-intuitively most of today. As a result, I landed on most of the major (and some minor) parts of my body.
One fall that I will carry with me for at least a week helped remind me of two central truths.
Here I am falling, aiming my accelerating body towards 'groomed' ice, with mr. glutimus maximus and its relative softness to cushion the fall. But do lefty and righty do their jobs as designed? Do they stay in the same spot they've been positioned in the previous 13 millions years? No. They scatter: lefty one way and righty the other, leaving mr. tailbone (who had been taking a nap up until this point, minding his own business) open for impact. He's pretty mad at them at the moment. They've got one job (cushion), but they proved cowards.
And they proved that God has a sense of humor: 'If you're going to slide down a mountain on a butter knife, you are on your own.'

when life hands you a lemon...

First and foremost, a bad day of skiing is better than...
That being said, the local ABQ skisandia resort was test-run by me today. It was 1:15 faster drive than skisantafe, and a bit cheaper. While the specs on the resort (lifts, runs, acreage, elevation change) matches others, it has no personality and is almost complete ice.
After two runs, I was pretty mad. Mostly b.c of I knew how nice the other options were.
SO, rather than burn in frustration at the pitiful conditions, I turned my skis in and signed up for snowboard lessons. And while I fell more in 3 hours than I have in the previous 15 years of skiing, I had a good time, really challenged myself, and learned a little bit.
The lessons came with a free tongue piercing, which I thought was a nice touch.

Mountains - 1, Sok - 1

I began the day driving up from Glorieta towards Taos for a ski day. At 8am, I called the skitaos office and asked how long the drive? '3 hours to the resort from Santa Fe'. This mis-information caused a chain of reactions that led me to skisantafe, 30 minutes away.
skitaos is without question THE ski resort of new mexico, but I want to ski, not drive.

skisantafe completely exceeded expectations. A shortage of blue triangle trails forced my hand on the black diamonds, mostly in the form of spiderweb interwovens amongst towering evergreens. I completely stretched and exhausted myself, which is an enlightening experience.

P.S. - Santa Fe Brewing Co. Nut Brown Ale is fantastic.
P.P.S. - Santa Fe itself is ridiculously overrated, confirming Maggie and my assessment from 2000.