J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Dave Mac

Pav, Mike,

I am away for a weeks hill walking. You have a week to concoct the rules!

Pavel, where do we start? I don't live my ski life now as I did in my seasons in Niederau. Like you, I no longer keep tabs on my ski costs. Like everyone else, I have a limited amount to spend, and a wish to maximise my skiing. I just love to ski.

In my first season, I drove to Austria, took less than £200, bought skis and boots, worked for half of the winter, and survived, arriving back at Dover with £5! Made it! During the season, couldn't afford to go out at night, except on a Friday night, when the ladies bought the drinks! Don't ask why! The red sweater with the blue armband was dynamite!

Now, I guess I am a Lancastrian Scot, (the definition of a Lancashireman is a Scotsman with all the generosity squeezed out of him!) However, I have progressed, and mellowed. I am now prepared to spend a bit more, on the theory that our chancellor, Gordon Brown, is subsidising me. Yes, I know he is PM, but for sure, he remains chancellor.

On the other hand, old habits die hard. One benefit of returning to the same resort, is that buying a season pass pays back very quickly. Counterbalancing this, is that although I am fortunate enough to have skied in many places, there are still a lot of places on my hit list, and we try to go for one big one each year. Unfortunately, it seems that most of my hit list includes expensive places.

Now then, what do we include? If you are putting your wife's flowers on your list, I guess I am already $20 ahead. Oh, sorry Pav, $30. Can we exclude alcohol? Mike sounds a bit too keen for me, he is probably not drinking his fair share.

On the other hand, if we start from Sept 1st, that has a benefit for me, I will already have paid for my for the flights and car hires on the first two of my Niederau trips.

The big integer is how much skiing we do. I may be curtailed to 5/6 weeks this year. So if you guys are doing 10/15 weeks, and mostly on a season pass, I have no chance.

Also, if I am free skiing, and knocking up 22/25 runs a day, look out. But on the days I ski with friends/frau/ski buddy/passing vagrants/go off piste/come across a music/guitar session at the top of the mountain/sit down and look at the Kitzbuhleralpen with a gluhwein, I am a gonner.

If there is a real clear day, with strong deep shadows, I stop and paint. Yes I know, but there you are.

I have a skiing friend who used to be a Niederau season skier, with the sole season aim of getting his ski pass cost down to a schilling a run! Mike sounds to be a similar sad case. Is the wind resistance calculated from the outside or the inside of the ski suit?

It's a great challenge, I will join in. You will need to level the playing fields. How about the best ten cost/mile days of the season?

This thread has migrated from exciting to grim. But that is life. My ski buddy was first treated for C in early 2001. He never even mentioned it in winter 2000/2001. Since then he has undergone two years of major treatments.

But every winter, he and I have hit the slopes at Niederau, and he is still as competitive as ever, both fast and stylish. He is a constant source of ski stories, mostly, as I frequently remind him, occured when I was still at college. His only complaint is that he can't compete in bike races as used to do!

And in a way, isn't it exciting to have a ski buddy that is so optimistic about his life? It puts a dodgy knee into perspective.

M&S Y-fronts, under cheapest TK Max salopettes. Warm, and gives fast access when required.

Rossfrae, knob-itch, really!

When I was into marathons, cross country, fell running, penile frostbite was a significant winter risk. :shock:

Rossfrae wrote: i've flown-fully flat beds in Business as well!

Rossfrae! You're supposed to be a teenager. ~ Staying in YHAs, on camp beds, washing dishes to pay for the privelige of eating!

Here am I competing with Pavel for having the lowest cost of existence in our respective first seasons. There is you, lording it up, pretending to be a ski bum, or not?

Explain yourself!

We heard about our next, (third), guide dog pup yesterday, will receive her in late September, a golden retriever. So will have a one month crossover with two pups, before our second dog, (a cross lab/retriever), goes up for ongoing training.

We learned a few weeks ago, that our first dog, a black lab, was fully accepted and placed with a blind man near to Edinburgh. It is a wierd feeling, very, very satisfying, and a heap of hard work and commitment, mostly by the OH.

Errm nope.

The budgie died last year.

Surely, you are all booked up for the winter. It's just a question of packing.