last year, the ’skis read the book three cups of tea by greg mortenson. ’twas a nice book. a book about hope and peace.
but, as you may notice, the ’skis don’t really read books about hope and peace. we read books about terrorism and mountains. thankfully, the book also contained its fair share of tales of islamic radicals nestled amongst the 7000m peaks of the karakoram range in pakistan and afghanistan.
the book told the story of how greg mortenson, after a failed attempt to scale k2 stumbled into a pakistani village and discovered a need to educate the youth of the village. upon returning to the states, mortenson founds a non-profit organization dedicated to building schools in afghanistan and pakistan. as you can imagine, a western man building schools in poverty striken communities in fundamental islamic cultures has many great stories to tell. hence, three cups of a tea was a really great read.
we were inspired by his book and noticed on his website that he was coming to speak near us. we went to his talk tonight at the belmont high school.
belmont is a pretty affluent neighborhood so you can imagine the type of audience that would come out to a hear an author talk about how to “spread peace through education.” the phrase “liberal elite” definitely came to mind as i scanned the crowd.
anyway, a relatively good talk. mortenson has great stories to tell and it was fun to listen. even though we had to block out chorus of ”yes we can“ everytime mortenson said the word “hope.”
Big news in the ski household! The ski’s picked up a dehydrator over the weekend at Bass Pro Shop where we waded through the throngs of hunters and fishermen alike to claim our prize. To be precise we snatched up the excalibur model.
Since Sunday we’ve been experimenting with various delicious treats and have created everything from spicy beef jerky to fruit rollups! We certainly have been expanding our culinary talent!
the ’skis celebrated president’s day by watching “bucket list” with morgan freeman and jack nicholson.
if you’ve seen the commercials, you know it’s a movie about two men (freeman and nicholson) that have been diagnosed with cancer and given 6 – 12 mths to live. the men react to the news of the pending deaths by doing all the things on their “bucket list” — or all the things on their list of “things to do before you kick the bucket.”
it was pretty hokey (i know, real surprise there) and i’ll spare you the review because you can read it here.
however, the movie featured two highlights:
freeman’s character set the goal of seeing mt everest before he died. they arrived after monsoon season started, so they didn’t actually see the mountain, but they talked about it and showed other scenes from the himalaya. of course, they weren’t actually in the himalaya, but rather some stage in LA, standing in front of a large digital image that resembled a buddhist monastery in the himalaya……but gee, it wasn’t that obvious…..
secondly, the oncologist in the movie was played by rob morrow….also known as doctor fleischman from northern exposure. i’m mildly obsessed with this tv show, so i am overjoyed at any spotting of the marginal tv actors from the show.
as you can guess, it was a pretty lame movie….but thankfully we went to the matinee and didn’t have to pay full price.
Obama is getting a lot of hype lately about being the best thing since sliced bread. Yes, he’s a great orator and campaigner, but as the latest issue of the Economist has stated: “But could he deliver?”
The article has a couple good points that try to get past “Obama the Phenomenon” and determine what Obama the President would look like. Great quote from the article:
”Budgets do not magically cut themselves, even if both parties are in awe of the president; the Middle East will not heal, just because a president’s second name is Hussein. Choices will have to be made—and foes created even when there is no intention to do so.”
Obama’s idealistic campaign slogan “Yes We Can” sounds a lot like another idealistic campaign slogan that we are familar with: “Together We Can”….. but I guess that’s not all that sounds similar to our governor:
boyski decided to bring back a unique souvenir from our recent trip….
oh yea, that’s a bruise from his little tumble down the ski slopes. apparently he was good at skiing, but not so skilled at stopping. he turned his ski tips downhill and let it ride. of course, when he couldn’t make a corner he kept on riding…..off the trail, over the rope, and into the “out-of-bounds” area. he’s just lucky he didn’t land on a roof of a house below.
hi friends. we returned from a mini-vacation in jackson hole, wy. we planned a last-minute trip to snowmobile in yellowstone and enjoy the winter life in jackson. i’ve visited yellowstone and jackson numerous times in the summer (at last count, i think my number of visits is around 15) but never made it out to the park in the winter. since winter is my favorite season and jackson is one of my favorite towns, you can imagine how much fun i had during this past weekend.
we stayed in rustic cabins that supposedly had beautiful views of the tetons. however, it snowed every day we were there, so we never saw the tetons from our cabin. only during one evening on a drive back from togwotee pass did the skies parted and we saw a portion of the beautiful peaks.
i can’t possibly summarize our entire trip in a single blog post, but if i were to talk about one thing… it was snow. lots and lots of powder. snow everyday. 3 feet of snow on our cabin roof. drifting snow closing down the highway to yellowstone. snow on the slopes of snow king resort – supposedly the steepest ski restort in america which made an interesting choice for my brother/sister-in-law to cut their teeth on their first ski runs. blustery snow that cancelled our flight into jackson. more blustery snow giving us a rough ride out of jackson. 61 inches of base in togwotee pass. 163 inches of snow since october 1st. soft, beautiful, white powder…. so soft that you could take a 4 feet fall off a snowmobile and not feel a thing! it was fantastic!
the ’skis are having a great time participating in the political process tonight. first, we ventured down the streets of boston to find our new polling location. the line into the polling station trickled out of the door and onto the sidewalk. we were encouraged that so many citizens took the time to play a role in our government process. we waited in line for 30 min before we were able to cast our votes.
after helping to select our next commander-in-chief, we head back to our place and flipped on the news to see how the rest of the super tuesday states voted. of course, as of the time i am writing this, there are many results outstanding….and since the ’skis are the world’s oldest young couple, we won’t be staying up to watch how california votes….
however, before we drift off to dreamland let me spend a few moments reflecting on missouri’s importance in this primary. my home state is getting a lot of attention tonight because it is a winner-take-all state and it is a close race for both parties.
some of the classic quotes that pundits uttered about the show-me state:
“missouri is a microcosm of america”
“missouri is the lynch pin of the race”
honestly, i’m not surprised by the big role that missouri is playing in the future of our country. i’ve known for years that the show-me state is at the crossroad of most national and world events.
Saw John McCain at Faneuil Hall today. Quite the spectical as Phil Graham, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman were also in attendance to support ole John. Kinda neat to see a presidential heavy weight speak and I had a great seat as well.
Another weekend whirlwind at the ski residence once again! This weekend saw my parents venture into the heart of the city for a weekend stay at the ski’s. The time was spent catching up with one another and then taking a trolley tour around the city to only have the trolley break down half way through our tour. Nevertheless we slowly walked through the city so that I could point out the more interesting aspect of our fair city – the people. So my parents “people watched” all the way back home and absolutely had a blast doing it to my chagrin. My father, never one to miss an opportunity to strike up a conversation talked to everyone from the hoodlums slinging “candy” on the side of the street to the homeless. For the sake of my father, I will not speak about his conversation with the Spanish speaking lady selling roasted peanuts on the side of Washington Street. Bilingual my father is not.
All in all I think my parents had a good time in the city. For an interesting fact, the last time my father slept over in Boston was back in high school when his brother was attending Northeastern. A lot has changed since then.
Anyways after my parents departure on Sunday I took in a quality film entitled Rambo. Very bloody but the movie ended the Rambo series quite well. My favorite part of the movie was when hired mercenaries were making fun of John J Rambo and calling him a “pansy”. Boy they were surprised……
Then to finish off the weekend, the ski’s had a good group of friends over for the Superbowl only to watch the Pat’s lose. Oh well – next year. Giants were the under dogs and they wanted it more. Hat’s off to them.
boyski
girlski
