Jan 15 - my 600th post

Can you believe it ? Who'd want to read all this stuff ? After I'm gone will someone treasure it ? Will children and grandchildren read it trying to understand what I was like ? Hello ? Hello ?

There's a song from the rock group Chicago entitled "When all the Laughter Dies in Sorrow" that is spoken, rather than sung:

When all the laughter dies in sorrow
And the tears have risen to a flood
When all the wars have found a cause
In human wisdom and in blood
Do you think they'll cry in sadness
Do you think the eye will blink
Do you think they'll curse the madness
Do you even think they'll think
When all the great galactic systems
Sigh to a frozen halt in space
Do you think there will be some remnant
Of beauty of the human race
Do you think there will be a vestige
Or a sniffle or a cosmic tear
Do you think a greater thinking thing
Will give a damn that man was here

The words could be re-cast these days, referring to blogs, twitters, i-reporters, pundits, the volumes that are written about anything and nothing. At the end of most CNN articles on cnn.com there are comments from ordinary people, often hundreds of comments from people around the world, having their say, looking for their 1 minute of fame or just venting. Never before could an ordinary person's voice be heard around the world. We're buried in commentary and blogs. As a diary, I'm finding mine useful for future reference. It's an outlet for me too, a way to write, exercise my mind to a certain extent and exercise my fingers :).

Ok, enough ... I started this when I realized that I'd already written 599 of these things and did not want to lose sight of the fact that I'm about to hit 600. I'll post it later.

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It's morning again. We had a good day skiing, but the highlight for me was when we came back from Blackcomb and found that one of the alpine t-bars was operational and did one run into the Harmony Bowl. The Harmony chair itself now has chairs ... but according to the "what's open" section of the website this morning, the Harmony chair will not open today. I'm still hopeful though.

Our skis have taken a beating with many scratches and burred edges, so we took them in at the end of the day for a "minor tune-up". They'll fill the gouges in the p-tex, sharpen the edges and wax the bottoms on their machines. That will keep us going for another day. It's been two years since they've been done so they are long overdue. Last year, with all the snow that we had, edges didn't matter. This year, with the icy base showing at the end of the day, edges matter ... a lot.

As usual yesterday we spent much of the day at 7th Heaven. Today's weather is supposed to be the same but I'm not sure yet where we'll ski. As I said ... I'm hopeful about Harmony. We could also ski the open t-bar which gives access to new terrain albeit a slow approach to the mountain. After taking the t-bar we end up at the base of the green chair then need to take it and the t-bar to get back up to that level in the mountain. it wouldn't be the preferred circuit if there were more open.

We heard some rumors yesterday that they might not open the Peak chair at all this year -- that the frozen base which is the problem is now under a meter of snow that could slide at any time. It would not be a good year to have booked a month out here and have a season pass !

It's interesting though, I rode up a chair with a fellow from Austria who was saying that he liked skiing here because the snow is better. Just think what he might have said if this were a good snow year ! He's been here five months now, going to school ... and mostly snowboarding.

We went into the Village last night and did some shopping then ended up at Caramba again. We each ordered one of their individual-sized pizzas. Sandy ordered the "La Rua" with spinach etc. while I ordered "Melanzana" which has roasted eggplant. Both were excellent. We had calamari as a starter -- not breaded, but sauteed -- wonderful.

Today ... we shall see. We'll try and avoid the rocks with our freshly tuned skis. Tonight we'll be packing, ready for an early start tomorrow a.m. and a long day of travel.

Stay tuned ...