Love/Hate Relationships - Just Awful

This theme seems to just flow through West Point. Although the "hate" part is often way more evident then the "love", I still have to remind myself how truly blessed I am to be here. I feel myself noticing that even more now as there are more and more people being separated for small stuff
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On a lighter note, I also have a love/hate relationship for my new favorite shoes, the New Balance Minimalists. I would argue that they are my favorite shoe ever, but the Nike Free's still hold the top spot as a great overall shoe. Returning back to the Minimalists, they are awesome for crossfit. I have even noticed that there is a growth in wearers over the past few months; perhaps due to the growth and attention that crossfit has been bringing? I can't say that the two are tied together but I can say that they definitely complement each other. The love part of these shoes are that they are perfect for Olympic lifts, short runs and box jumps.....the hate part means that when I wear them I usually do Olympic lifts, short runs, and box jumps. Its worth it though. The religious crossfit workouts have been going well and I have already noticed an improvement. We shall see what next month brings

In continuation with the theme, ski instructor club is the essence of a messy relationship. I ski for free and get hot coco, but I have to babysit crazy 8 year old's 2 times a week. The past time wasn't bad because I had a good group of kids, but the time before I had a devil who just wouldn't listen. He ended up taking off on the chair lift by himself. So I got his mom and had him be grounded for the day. Luckily he did not come back the next week. I have decided that I will give my kids 10 years to prove themselves worthy. If they still do not listen or coroperate I will find a tall cliff, abondon truck stop, or a tropical rain forest and make an example of them. I figure if I have 5 kids then the other 4 will listen a whole lot better after the example has been made


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Lazy Is an Art Form

I feel that there is a certain level of laziness that has to be reached before relaizing that it has gone to far. I am feeling that now as I sit in front of my computer typing on a blog, because I am to lazy to take off my ACU's to go to bed.... Even as I write this I can't help but feel a pitiful sense of how pathetic this really is. If only my bed wasn't 3 feet away it wouldn't be so hard of a decision... if only my boots were already off... if only I didn't have to brush my teeth still...

on that note, I'm going to attempt to motivate myself into bed. More updates following tomorrow.

"Running Sucks"...In a Blizzard

The title of the post comes from one of my favorite Nike shirts. I bought it because it is somewhat true, but also in a sense, ironic seeing as I have grown an addiction towards it. That all being said, Jocelyn and I have been talking about planning a trip down to Mount St. Mary's for a day, where I wake up, run down there, and just hang out. After waiting long enough to try the expedition, I decided that Saturday was the day, regardless of how I was feeling or what the weather looked like. That was probably a mistake because I woke up with 4 inches of fresh snow and another 2-5 inches expected by noon. There was also a 15-30mph wind that was whipping down the Hudson making it actually feel like 8 degrees. Yet even seeing this all happen out my window I still threw on my North Face Onesie (the tron suit as Brian Gerardi and I like to call it), a thin pair of sweat pants, and a thin long sleeve shirt. Keep in mind that the last time I used the Onsie, I was sweating, so I fully expecting to do the same on this run, regardless of the snow.

(North Face Onesie)

It is actually kind of funny how the miles were broken down. It wasn't just a "run", where you start and end. It was more of a 12 part series on how running went from "running is exhilarating!", to "running SUCKS!". The best way to do this is a break down of mile per mile. That way it shows that transition a little better.

Mile 1: "Snow storm! awesome! ....Rangers lead the way!!"
Mile 2: "Its colder than I expected it.... wish I had a hat"
Mile 3: "well, at least its snowing"
Mile 4: "I probably should have worn longer socks; there is a snow drift in my shoe"
Mile 5: "I think my eye brows and Onesie hood have ice frozen to it"
Mile 6: "Yep, my eye brows def have ice on them...also, if I blink for to long my eye lashes freeze together...Awesome.."
Mile 7: "Water break?....crud, the bottles are frozen shut"
Mile 8: "Well at least there is only a 30 mph headwind that makes the snow feel like ice bullets"
Mile 9: "Rangers lead the way!......Shut up... I want a shower."
Mile 10: "I honestly cannot tell what is snot, snow, or tears"
Mile 11: "My fingers have decided to stop responding to me... its alright, I didn't want to change the song anyways"
Mile 12: "My face has frozen into this stupid wide-mouth-bass look, my hands can't open a door, I can't look up more then 5 feet in front of me without have snow fly into my eyes....is that Jocely's dorm?!?! HECK YES! I'M SAVED!"

I did end up actually yelling for joy when I saw the street that turned up to the back of Jocelyn's college. No one was even driving on the street so I wasn't to worried about being judged.
That ended up being one of the top 10 best showers I have ever had. I had it on the scald setting and just sat in it for a good 20 mins.

Winter Wonder Land

The past few days have been pretty awesome for me. Granted, school is still ruining things for me but the extra curricular part is fantastic. I really feel that I might be abusing the power of a free lift ticket that the instructors get. Add that to the free hot coco in the lodge and they are practically kicking me off the slopes every night.
Thursday was my second lesson. It was a little bit better simply because I knew what to expect, but it was still awful trying to get the little kids to listen to me. I really gotta Google ski lesson tips. All they want to do is see how fast they can go down the hill... kind of defeats the point of an instructor. I was the duty driver on Thursday, so I ended up dropping most of the people off and then coming back to ski with Wilson for another hour. It was a pretty awesome way to spend a no HW Thursday.
Then on Friday I busted out of class and quick did a Crossfit workout before walking up to the slopes. The Crossfit was cleans and dips so my legs were smoked. Dunlap and I still got to stay till the hill closed. On the last run, I brought the pipes up and got to smoke them on the top. The joy doesn't stop there either; as soon as I got back inside, I asked for my free cup of hot coco and the lady asked if I wanted a free slice of BBQ pizza because they were throwing away the extra's. Of course I said yes, so I saddled up to the fire place eating my pizza, sipping hot coco and watching the lift lines close up. Could ask for a better Friday night at West Point, right?

Looking Stupid Never Goes Out Of Style

It has been quite some time since I last posted on here. I believe that I was talking about my underwear getting me in to more trouble? Thanks to my wide vary of selected styles, I have a pair that actually was useful this weekend. As you can see by the picture, they are my latest ski instructor pair that have little elfs on skis... which basically sums up the past three days.

This weekend we gave up our three day break to become certified at the Victor Constant (The VC) ski hill. We managed to luck out with the weather, but there was still only one run open. It was about 15-20* both days and they were trying to make snow all day long. It basically meant that if you stopped for more then 2 minutes on any given part of the slope, you were going to look like a dusted snow ball. The training was somewhat of a let down for me because it felt like ski school for us rather then ski school on teaching ski school. . . if that makes any sense. By Monday I was left more aware of making a pizza then I was of teaching it. On that note, I had my first class yesterday (Tuesday). I guess I got lucky with the group but they were two 8 year olds that wanted nothing better to do then go straight down the hill as fast as possible. Its kind of hard to teach little kids how to be under control when all they want to do is break the land speed record. I am going to try and bribe them with chocolate kisses next week... I just honestly don't know what to teach them if they already know how to turn and slow down.

In theme with the title, yesterday was also the 3rd lesson of Military Movement. For that lesson we were learning how to do forward rolls, backward roles, 360's, and rope climbs. This was the second lesson where they were teaching a rope climb technique and it was awful. I can do the lock climb pretty well, but this new clinch thing was awful. I managed to muscle my way up using mostly my arms and just barely reaching the 5pts marker. You might think that would be the hardest part, but the back rolls are going to be the death of me. I can do the jumping roll with a fair amount of height and distance but that stupid back roll about knocks me out every time. It took me about 6 tries before I actually applied the "chin-to-chest" approach; by that point I had slammed the back of my head to the mat so many times that I sounded like Rocky after 23 rounds. I guess when you stop all your momentum with your dome piece then its hard to keep rolling over yourself. I will hopefully retest on that soon.

Thats about it for now, I will try to update again on Thursday or sometime this weekend. Off to do homework, take a yearbook picture, and then crossfit.