First annual spiney / ADR ski reunion!

[mmglobal]

4/23/07... edit to put video link here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJNLwV8pdNs

4/23/07... end edit
_________________________________________________

Regarding skiing this season.... continuing discussion from this thread....

http://www.ispine.org/forum/showthread.php?p=564

Let's pick a long weekend in January... maybe Wednesday through Sunday... Thursday through Monday? There is a cabin to rent near Paulette. It'll be the first annual spiney / ADR ski reunion!

The only question is if January will give Paulette enough time to train for skiing with 'the old man'.

Gramps

[letteski]

The cabin across the street from me is what I call old Tahoe. It sleeps plenty just very rustic and is 2 minutes away from Heavenly. For those of you that skiing is not your bag there are great places to snow show right across the street and South Lake Tahoe is well known for it’s night life.

Queen of Hearts is in are there any other takers?

Gramps may need someone his own speed

[mmglobal]

I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this. Doreen and Paulette are among the toughest few women I've ever met... I sense that they may gang up on me. 3 ProDiscs against 2 Charite's... how can that be fair?

[chasswen]

hahah looks like mark may be in trouble.
for some reason i dont feel bad for you!!
chuck

[letteski]

Hi All

Mark and I have scheduled a ski trip for Feb 22-25 here in Tahoe. We need snow bad so I'm asking for your prayers with our crazy weather these days. I hope that this trip is able to go off. I will be getting rooms at The Ridge Tahoe if anyone else is interested in joining us. Queen of Hearts are you still game?

[mmglobal]

Wow... flights from Orange County are < $200. They get in late at night and depart early morning. I'm thinking of arriving Thursday or Friday night and departing Monday morning.

OK... now I've got two weeks to get in shape. Does anyone have a magic program that will take me from totally deconditioned to ready to kick Paulette and Doreen's butts in just 2 weeks?

[queenofhearts]

Airline ticket to Tahoe - $200

New Skis & Boots - $800

Beating Mark down the mountain - Priceless!


Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I can make it. I've only got a little over 48 hours off between shifts at work that weekend, which doesn't leave much time to get there, ski, and get home. Mark, it looks like you'll be safe from taking a double hit from both me and Paulette!

If something changes with my schedule, I'll let you know. Dang it, I was really looking forward to this.

[mmglobal]

Doreen... you can't bluster like that and then not make it... The shame of chickening out will be a dark cloud that hang over you for the rest of your life... a monkey on your back that you'll never get rid of... Don't do this to yourself!

I'm glad that we spoke last night after you posted... I hope to hear that you'll really be there. It will be great to ski with you.

Paulette, I saw Dr. Delamarter yesterday and told him that we'll ski together in a few weeks... it brought a huge smile to his face. The more time I spend with the docs the more I appreciate how much of their payment is in hearing about the positive impact they make on so many lives.

Mark

[queenofhearts]

Mark - I'm glad the snow conditions are poor enough right now to have this rescheduled for March. The humiliation of being last down the mountain behind the girls will still be all yours! I certainly hope you'll use this short delay to get some conditioning in and give us a little competition. It wouldn't be completely fair to just beat some poor old guy down the hill every run.

Oh....and the last one down buys the first round in the lodge....so bring some money, you'll need it!

[chasswen]

mark i think there picking on you.
chuck
p/s i may try skiing next year if i am still up here in the north

[queenofhearts]

Hopefully Mark didn't get scared away and is out training!

[mmglobal]

Front page of the LA Times a few days ago had an article about the poor ski season... June mountain closed after just 23 days... a disaster for local businesses. I hope we get some snow for March 10th!

Mark

[letteski]

I skied for 4 hours today and it was great. Yes we have a very low base but I was plesently surprised how good the conditions were.

The wether report is calling for 2 feet on Thur. I am still expecting you this weekend Mark please call so I can know if you are coming.

[mmglobal]

I just spoke to Paulette.... sorry about any confusion... that date is still March 10. That will give her a greater opportunity... more practice... more getting into shape. I'm just eating donuts and wondering if I even remember how to ski.

Doreen... you still in for the 10th? Anyone else?

Mark

[queenofhearts]

I'm in....

Any info on accomodations? Cost?

Doreen

[mmglobal]

flights are booked... arriving very late on the 9th... leaving very early on the 12th. We'll be able to ski all day Saturday and Sunday... I'm so looking forward to this that I've stopped eating donuts and have been training hard. Here's a picture of me running a marathon last weekend!



This is going to be fun...

Mark

[letteski]

2 feet yesterday and another foot today, 2 more feet expected tonight. Now this is the way it should be in the Sierras a face shot weekend. It was blowing so hard the only place you could see anything was in the trees. Check out Powder by Prodisc. That was great fun.

[mmglobal]

Bo knows baseball.
Bo knows football.
Mark knows spine.

Mark don't know powder!

I think I might have to clean my refigerator that weekend... maybe we should reschedule?

[queenofhearts]

Wow! Last time I skied powder like that was 9 years ago in Montana - I can't wait! We don't get snow like that here in Washington very often.

Don't worry Mark - just wear an RV flag so we can find you in the powder......and are those chicken noises I'm hearing from the south?!

This is going to be fun.

[ans]

There's even snow in Southern CA now. Looking better..


http://www.skicalifornia.com/

[queenofhearts]

Well....the weekend of beating Mark down the mountain is finally here! Bags packed, skis waxed and ready to go.

This is going to be so much fun that I really don't care what the weather will be like (preferably a ton of snow tonight, and sunshine the rest of the weekend).

See you all on Monday.

[mmglobal]

forecast for Sunday says 60 degrees and sunny. all 29 lifts... all 91 runs open. gonna be fun! See you tonight!

Mark

[letteski]

For those of you that are skiing vicariously though this thread, I just returned from warming up and Mark and Queenofheart's 2 bedroom 2 bath sweet, full kitchen, living room, fire place and patio. Needed to make sure Mark has a nice place to rest after I ski him into the ground. Good thing the hot tub is right out his front door, he's going to need it.

(If I knew which room was Mark’s I would have short sheeted the bed…there’s always next year...)

[mmglobal]

Well folks… it was terrible. Weather was awful. Doreen and Paulette were not very nice to me. Snow sucked. OK… I know you don’t believe me, so I’ll stop there.

Some of you are new to the online spine community and some of you have known us for years. I don’t think that I’ll be able to find the words to adequately describe this weekend. Paulette and Doreen have become such wonderful friends through the years. More than 3 years ago, I met Doreen for the first time in Straubing and I don’t think either of us imagined bombing down black diamond runs together in the years to come. (Well, maybe we didn’t bomb down the black diamonds… only Paulette and my friend Clark did that… but Doreen and I were able to bomb down the blue squares!)



It was after 1am on Friday night when we got to the room. We’d been unable to find food and didn’t know what to expect for accommodations. We open the door to a warm fire and an incredible condo. I couldn’t believe it when we went to the fridge to find all kinds of snacks, breakfast, beer, coffee, etc… YOU ROCK PAULETTE!

Both Saturday and Sunday were warm and sunny, with excellent spring snow conditions… as said in previous posts, the entire mountain was open. Paulette has a thing about skiing the same terrain, so we covered a ton of ground and had a blast. We skied until our legs were rubber, then skied some more. We’d gotten late starts both days, so we wound up closing the lifts at 4pm.

Can you imagine spending days together with spiney friends and not talking about our backs? On the third night, we did discuss spine a bit, but for the most part, we were just great friends meeting in a wonderful place for a couple of days of fun and sun and snow and food and drinks… what a blast.

Doreen and Paulette had never met face to face, but were already dear friends.

As far as the blustering about who is going to kick who’s butt on the mountain goes… I said on the first run that Paulette was way faster than me, and the only way I’d beat her down the mountain was to be more stupid than she is. I did get a chance to prove who is more stupid… I could vaguely hear her scream something about being able to go fast AND do some turns, as I was blowing by her.



A good time was had by all…. I can’t wait to do this again!

All the best,

Mark

PS. I have to say something about the appearance of all this fun and smiles and restored lives, etc. I know that there are so many here that are in horrible pain. Some will not have a chance for a recovery like ours. Some have already had a long litany of surgeries and have not found relief. I know that it can be difficult to read and hear about this. Those of you that have worked with me know that I don’t paint such a rosy picture of spine surgery. I know that I’m lucky to be where I am today and I believe that Paulette and Doreen also realize that. However, from the day that I put up the first ‘Life after Spine Surgery’ website, I constantly hear, “thank you for providing some hope” from spine patients all over the world.

Getting back to my office today, here is an excerpt from an email I received this weekend:

I hope you have a wonderful time in Tahoe. Please give Paulette my best. Although she does not know me, I have followed her progress from before her surgery until her video of floating on powder. Truly inspirational. Thanks again.

While I don’t want people to hear, “come and do spine surgery and you’ll be fine”, what I do want them to hear is that for many of us there is hope. After 2 failed surgeries, I never imagined that I’d be able to live this way again. It’s been a while since I’ve stopped and looked around and said to myself, “I can’t believe that I can do these things again!”, I found myself saying that all weekend… not only for me, but for Paulette and especially for Doreen.

I don’t know if they knew, but there were times this weekend when the water running down my face was not snow. This was and incredible weekend and I feel blessed and honored to know Paulette and Doreen and so many more of you. I wish there was some way for us to bottle some of our success and share it with all of you!

[queenofhearts]

Wow! Mere words can hardly describe this weekend.

We did get in a little late....I think we were so excited to be there, we missed the turn off the highway! Paulette is the greatest....ski instructor, friend....you couldn't ask for a better person to spend the weekend with.

If someone would have told me 3 years ago that I would be skiing in such a beautiful place with such great people, I would have told them they were nuts! It's an amazing feeling to be able to be where I am today and not think about my back - I even fell pretty hard and didn't think about my spine at all (probably because I fell on my face - ouch!)

I sure hope this does become an annual event - you can count me in anytime.

Thank you Mark and Paulette for the best time I've had in a very long time!

[rob_zzz]

great stuff - very impressive to see such a hardwared up bunch of people doing such things! Looks like you scored some nice weather too.

[mmglobal]

The results are in... the vote (1) from the judge (me) has been tabulated. Except for the speed contest, some of these were very close. Here are the awards from last weekend:

Best ski outfit: Doreen

Most gracious and incredible host: Paulette

Most outdated and obsolete gear: Clark

Can hold her liquor better than the rest of us: Doreen

Coolest antique retro-gear: Clark

Fastest skier while making a whole bunch of turns to scrub off speed: Paulette

Best face plant: Doreen

Fastest skier: Mark

(As I told them when we said goodbye... the first one to post can make it up!)

Mark

PS... I'd like to post more about the weekend, but what happens in Nevada, stays in Nevada

[mmglobal]

....

Best ski instructor: Paulette

Worst ski student: Mark

[mmglobal]

I watched some of the video that my friend shot...

I feel like I'm making beautiful and graceful turns, but I look like a freak'n cave-man on skis! Paulette... next time, I'll be a better student! If you teach me to make graceful turns, I'll teach you how to not turn. (It's easy... just disengage your brain.)

Mark

[letteski]

Now that I have recovered from our ADR ski trip and made it though a very busy week, I have time to share a few stories with all of you from the trip. We dropped out a side door of the Resort and skied our first run in the trees to the chair lift. After surviving their fist 5 turns, Mark and Doreen were ready for anything. The first lesson was how to put the lift ticket on, technology has changed but Mark friend, Clark, would not have anything to do with that as he clicked into his 1980 straight skis (I wanted to hide). I realized right away that Mark was a true adrenaline junky as he shot by me going mock speed sleight dead ahead. Doreen on the other hand is a beautiful skier with great form and grace. I wanted to give back to Mark for all his support by sharing a few ski tips but he would have nothing to do with that so I gave up on him because his full body rotation did cause the skis to make some turns. We caught the last chair ride up at 4:00, yes this was Mark’s great idea and I should have called it, but instead Doreen sacrificed her face for the group. Good thing she was OK. All and all the weekend was a blast and I want to thank Mark, Doreen and Clark for coming to visit and making my dream come true. The months before my surgery I dreamed of skiing again and sharing my dream with others that have suffered the same situation. I though my life was over during those dark days of pain. So for those of you on the other side, I would say dream your dreams and have faith that you will be able to join us next year for our 2nd annual ADR ski trip.

[Maria]

While I don't ski, have never done so, and not even ever wanted to do so, the posts on this trip sound/look like such a blast I'd just like to be a resort bunny next time 'round~ perhaps maybe next year I'll be able to handle my booze 1/5th as well as biggest lightweight!!!

thanks for sharing the fun~ I keep telling some of my very skeptical friends that ADR can render positive results (not saying it will tho it can and has) that allows people to return to incredible activities~ *fun-ctionality*

[marijo]

Well! I have sped red the thred!! What fun. Now if you ever plan such fun again, can I come? I have never skied, and for me right now it would not be a good idea, but I'm not against learning on the baby slopes. For me that would be a challenge. I really need some excitement in my life, and the idea of turning around the spinal condition, into a good reason for being alive is verfy appealing. I'm up for a challenge as well. Anyway I would be very good at making coffee for the skiers when they got back from a hard day on the slopes. You are all so very optimistic, its contagious. I wish I wasnt geographically so far away from all of you.
M.x

[mmglobal]

Long overdue...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJNLwV8pdNs

[Maria]

If that doesn't boost up the stock in companies manufacturing artificial disc implants I don't know what will!!!!