Tidbits
- After seeing this I said, “F*ck this I can’t go back.”
- The absolute mayhem on a 2 foot pow day.
- Did these just save my ski season?
March 2023
| Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 3/1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 4/1 |
Where In The World Was I?
- Salt Lake City, UT
- ⛷️ Solitude
- ⛷️ Snowbird
- Sandy, UT
Inputs (☕️ 💻)
- Publik
- Coffee Garden
- Sugar House Coffee
- Granite Library
- Alpha Coffee
- Honeysuckle (Sandy)
Outputs (✏️ 📈)
- Twitter, Twitter, Twitter
- Engaging and posting, engaging and posting
- Researched Dan Koe’s content strategy and created a thread on that
- Booted back up the Tweet Synthesizer and added some improvements
- Decided on pursuing the content strategy idea/problem to validate first
Mayhem Pow Day at Solitude
2 FEET of snow dumped at Solitude.
I had finally decided I had enough pain and suffering from my skiing. I was gonna finally pay for a lesson to get some tips on how to improve and get rid of my knee pain. I was on a mission for clarity, finally.
With a snow-covered road, I decided to not risk my van (and others) and take the ski bus up instead.
I was hopeful.
I was there, ready, in line, at 8am, 5 minutes before the scheduled bus time.
But I checked the locator app and… the bus wasn’t even close to the stop.
“Ah that’s alright, a little off schedule is fine” I thought.
25 minutes later that bus showed up COMPLETELY PACKED with other stoked pow-day skiers.
So I had to wait for the next bus… another 20 minutes.
Thankfully I made it on that bus. It was packed though and stood the whole ride up, shoulder to shoulder with other skiers, in a blazing hot bus, for another hour – of course there was a line of traffic on the way up.
I barely made it, having stood up in my ski gear for nearly 2 hours straight.
I took 5 minutes to breathe fresh cool air again before making my way up to the ski lessons desk.
I was 15 minutes too late…
I was a bit distraught because a ski lesson was the thing I needed next, but I decided to ski the day anyways and just try my best.
It was an okay day! Some highs (some fresh deep snow pockets, just pure bliss) and some lows (piercing pain in my right ankle from my boot’s pressure point). I called it after just a couple hours.
Getting back down was another story… The bus schedule was all messed up again. I waited over an hour to get on a bus (they’re scheduled for every 30 minutes) and very thankfully found a seat so I didn’t have to stand the whole way down.
That day was… an experience.
I kinda ended the day thinking, “yeah I’m never gonna do that (take the ski bus) again.”
The skiing was kinda “how it’s been” so I decided to take a day break before regrouping and grabbing a ski lesson another day.
Downtown Metro Day
I’ve been getting into some routines here in Salt Lake City. I was in the mood to spice things up a bit.
I learned that there’s a “free-fare” transit zone in the downtown SLC area, so I had the idea to take the metro in for a coffee shop morning and do some exploring!
I worked at Alpha Coffee for the morning before heading out on a little exploration walk.
First, I stopped by Harmons Grocery which I thought was a grocery store but was MUCH MORE than a grocery store. It had a huge “salad bar” with all types of foods, freshly baked bread, sushi, a cafe upstairs, burgers, and tons of people on their lunch breaks.
SUPER cool.
I then walked a couple blocks down to Spitz (I went to the Sugar House location of Spitz a couple weeks ago).
It was also packed with business-people on their lunch breaks, but the food was nonetheless delicious. A bit more expensive than I wanted which was a point of heavy internal friction… Also, I learned my lesson from last time and got the vegan wrap with falafel instead of the beef/lamb. Stuffed but not lethargic ✅
Then, rather than taking the (free) metro back to the van, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to get some steps in and walk all the way back. It was a nice break and opportunity to just explore and clear the mind.
One of my biggest takeaways from this morning was not what I expected though…
I saw a TON of business-people, dressed up in suits and “business casual” with their badges clipped to their belts going to work, on their lunch breaks, and walking around. It was to-be-expected being downtown, but I just hadn’t been around people like that in a while.
It brought me back to that same place I was at a year ago. Those awkward superficial lunch conversations with coworkers, feeling trapped in my life, having to spend my time not how I wanted, just the whole package.
I saw myself in those people. I saw someone that wanted to travel, to have the freedom to chose how they wanted to spend their time, to work on their purpose and something fulfilling.
I just could help but think… “F*CK that, man, I can’t go back. I don’t want to go back to that. I need to make this work.”
I feel very fortunate to be where I am today. I’m grateful I had the courage to make the calculated choice to step into the unknown. I’m grateful for this opportunity.
But… I have to make it work.
I can’t go back.
Saving My Ski Career at Snowbird?
Back to the skiing thread… I decided to call the Christy Sports here in SLC to see if they would exchange my troublesome ski boots, and they did, for free!
Oh my lord, my saviors!
The boots I got in exchange were also a bump up in flex from 85 (old boots) to 100 (new boots) meaning they should be a bit more appropriate for how I’m skiing. That was the theory at least…
With hope re-established, I decided to ski Snowbird to try out my new boots.
Against my previous decision, I made the last minute decision to take the ski bus up to Snowbird, praying things wouldn’t end up how they did last time…
Fortunately the bus was on time and I got on the bus at the FIRST stop this time so I was able to score a seat instead of standing.
I got up there early enough (8:15am) to score the first tram as it opened (9am)! Oh man that was so clutch.
Despite what it looked like at the base, the visibility at the top of the mountain was… quite bad 😅
It was another day of trying to work around visibility and actually see where I was going, but other than that (large factor 😅) the ski day was incredible.
The snow was super soft, a couple inches of fresh overnight and throughout the day, and my ski boots were SOOOOO much better!
I felt so much more confident pushing my skis and boots, I didn’t have any sharp pressure digging into my ankle, and I wasn’t being thrown around as much as my 85 flex boots.
It was back to just “me vs the snow” which is such a great feeling.
Also, my knee pain didn’t start cropping up until about 4 HOURS into heavy skiing and it wasn’t even that bad…
Maybe it IS my old ski boots causing all these problems… 🤔🤔🤔
It’s incredible what happens when you actually use appropriate ski gear for how you ski 😅
I had started to think about just throwing in the towel for the rest of the season but this day restored my stoke for skiing. Such a relieving feeling.
OH and not to mention, when I finished for the day and headed back down to catch a bus, my experience went like:
- Get to the base
- Unclip my skis
- Check the locator app for a bus
- Walk down the stairs to the bus stop
- Wait 2 minutes
- Bus shows up
- Nobody’s on it so I get a seat to myself
The timing! My faith in the ski bus has been restored!
Just such a good day overall.
The Legendary Pasta
I’ll end this post with the unbelievable pasta I made that you must see.
For some context, I’ve been dreaming of eating at Due’ Cucina Italiana back in Seattle, WA. I ate there twice this summer and it was soooo good. Freshly made fast-casual pasta. I’ve been looking for something that fits that ever since.
(From Aug 2022 at Due’ Cucina Italiana)
I thought, maybe I’ll just try making my own pasta dish, something more than: cook pasta, add pasta sauce, eat. I did 10 min of research, then winged it.
And oh my lord 😍
It was so good. Definitely a keeper.
DM for recipe, on sale for only $1997 $97.97 for the next 24 hours. Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity!
I cannot wait to eat this tonight for leftovers.
Here’s some of the week’s other meals:
What’s Next?
Q: When are you leaving Utah???
A: See last week’s response 😂