Warm warm warm... the snow is almost all gone and what's left is thin thin thin! After work i went over to Totem Pole Ski Shop and met the Arbor Snowboards rep.

Ran the morning line-ups, then taught an afternoon level 1 group of 1 person with Evan shadowing the lesson. During the morning i stopped by a snowmobile that caught fire on the side of the Lower Arrow run. Pretty cool.

Ran another all-day "Teaching 101" clinic. This time i kindof ran out of things to say, but thought of enough stuff to make it to 3:00.

I was given the "B" group of instructors to clinic with today. I started out on my own, but then Aaron joined his "C" group (all 2 of them) in with ours and watched me teach the clinic, which was a little unnerving, but i got through it OK. In the afternoon he did the same thing, but i moved things along a little better this time.

Only 1 lesson in the morning, so a horde of instructors (about 12 i think) all hit the hill and rode mostly down the Sapphire run, hitting all the rails and boxes. Pretty fun. At the end of the day i met two of the new Australian instructors who'd just arrived and got them oriented and off to their winter housing.

Turned 41. Day off.

Ran line-ups. Not much business, but nice sunny day. Cold though.

Ran line-ups again while the other trainers ran clinics.

Snow! I went up and boarded on fresh powder for an hour or so, then came home and took the dogs over to the park so they could run around in the snow. Also i took the requisite "new camera selfie" with my new Canon pocket camera.

Ran a "Teaching 101" clinic again today, with 8 instructors under my scattershot tutelage.

Ran line-ups. Taught an 11:30 1-hour private and then didn't get to have lunch until after the 1 o'clock line-up. Then i tagged along on a clinic being run by Gordon.

Good snow today. I started riding a little more aggressively today. It works my legs more. Only a couple lessons.

Day off. Started getting a sore throat late in the day.

Cold! Both outside and "i have one". I tried not to talk much at work. Took a couple runs but mostly stayed inside.

Finally picked up my truck today. I got a ride over to Clarendon after work with Gwen, Rob's mom. Then i saw Rob as i was coming out of the supermarket with a load of groceries.

Day off. Slept in. Snowed all day.

Lots of extra instructors, not that many lessons for a Saturday. Good snow though.

VERY few instructors. I ran all of the lower snowboard line-ups and ran out of instructors and had to teach part of the 11 o'clock lesson, but finally got to take a run to the top (a "toppy") in the afternoon when things relatively calmed down.

Got to work and found out that someone requested me for a 6-HOUR private lesson, and Rob let me take it. So i spent the day riding with Nick and Alex. Rode over to Jackson Gore and South Face for the first times this season. Not a bad day.

It was my day off, but once again i rode with Nick and Alex for another 6-hour requested private lesson. No more days off until January.

3-hour requested private with Nick, then back to supervisor-land.

Rode in to work for the 8 AM full-timers meeting, then went home and took the dogs out for a walk. I came in later and picked up the care-package box for Maeve and mailed it off to her.

Not as busy as we expected. I test-rode an Atomic Triarc 155 in the afternoon but didn't really like it much.

Christmas. Also not terrribly busy.

Day after Christmas. Super-surprisingly not too busy again.

Day after day after Christmas. Colder, super-windy, and getting pretty busy. I weaved in and out of the traffic on my unicycle on the way home.

Oh lordy. Slammed. Tons of people, but the lesson groups maxed out at 10-12 students, so manageable. The torch-light parade took place in the evening. A ton of Okemo employees rode up the lift in the dark then skied/snowboarded down, all carrying road flares. After the "parade" we stood around the base area and watched a fireworks display.

Misty, foggy, not a ton of business, then rain.

Everything froze over night. The slopes were like ice-rinks. The rails in the terrain parks were LESS slippery than the slopes around them, AND, the wind was HOWLING over the peak so that 3 of the lifts stayed closed for most of the day. Kinda miserable.

Nice day, VERY busy. 336 private lessons were sold.