Big news today! I got my first official copy of "Living the Dream: An Inside Account of the 2008 Cubs season," written by yours truly. That's how the day started, by picking it up at the post office. I now am an officially published author. I must admit, a few tears rolled down my cheeks as I flipped through it. They're shipping me a case and I'm going to begin selling them next week to some of my instructor friends at Heavenly, who seem genuinely interested.

So what else is new? Well, I forgot to include the story in my last blog of sitting in the hot tub in our community center at our place when Scott Aspen and Sky McAlpine were in town. Chip was staring intently off into the dark when he said, "Woof!" I thought he was looking at a dog. When I turned, I saw a coyote about 10 feet way from the deck of our tub, staring right back at Chip, who literally was the boy who cried wolf! There were two of the coyotes, in fact, no doubt hoping to scoop up one of the condominium caretakers three little yappy dogs.

The next day, when Ziggy, Jeff and Chip went on a hike near the shores of Lake Tahoe, Jeff spotted an Alaskan huskie trotting out of the woods. "Wolf!" he exclaimed. So he was the second boy who cried wolf. We also played games of Jenga in which we integrated about a 4-foot wooden door stop into the game. 

OK, so this week has been one of sharpening our skis. No, that's not to say peeing all the time. I worked Monday and skied with Zig and our buddy Eric the other two days. Conditions quickly changed since the big dump and it's not so good off the groomed paths. So we've been working on our form, getting ready for our Level 1 exam, which will be in a couple of weeks, right before I take off for Mesa.

We did a lot of skiing in Milky Way Bowl and I took my first run down Mott's Canyon, a double-black diamond canyon that is about as difficult terrain as there is out here. I did some mogul runs down Waterfall, which used to be the windshield to my bug when I first got here. Now I'm the windshield! Same with West Bowl, a mogul run near the Cal base.

Today we had our Level 1 clinic with Weavin' Steven. We took turns doing teaching drills and worked on our demos (straight run, wedge stop, gliding wedge, wedge turns, wedge christies). He is ready to sign off on us for most everything; then all that's left is to take the test.

We haven't been going out as much, except for last night, when we visited the casinos to try to get tickets for G. Love this weekend and then stopped by Mott Canyon Bar on the Nevada side--I won $9 on the slots! Saw an impressive home pot-growing production by a friend who will remain nameless. (He's got "the card" from California that allows him to grow I think it's 10 plants for medicinal purposes.)

That's about all. Just a quick update. Attached are a couple films of Ziggy and I skiing. You be the judges. How do we look?