Personal:

Oooooooooouuuuuuuuuuch....

I went skiing for the first time in a couple of years today.

I'm really, really, really, REALLY out of condition, so exerting myself at a high altitude isn't really a good idea, especially since I just celebrated the end of my 40th trip around the sun.

(An aside here, the French can't believe I weigh 185 pounds, they needed to know to set my ski binding release correctly... Apparently, to them I don't look fat, and since all Frenchmen are skinny [I can't find shirts that fit in the shoulders, and let's not even mention the pants...] I'm supposed to weigh around 145-150 pounds. I haven't weighed that little since I was in high school, over 20 years ago. No wonder the French surrender all the time, they're too damn skinny to fight...)

Despite being out of condition, and two years out of practice, I managed to complete several expert-level runs today (they label them a bit differently here, green to blue to red to black rather than green to blue to black to double-black in the US) and I only had one fall where I lost a ski, and that was on the first run of the day. I managed to do several runs on black (double-black in the US) in an avalanche zone (apparently they're a bit more casual about that here... given the number of avalanche remains I saw from the ski lifts, and the number of people I saw ducking under the barriers to the runs closed because of the avalanche risk) without wiping out.

Staying vertical all day after my first run (on an expert trail) is a Good Thing.

Unfortunately, it took its toll.

The aspirin and single-malt Scotch are starting to kick in now, so the pain is easing, but tomorrow is going to be the biggest bitch I've had to deal with since I got divorced.

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I have plans to go skiing again Saturday.