Tag Archives: winter

Comic: Ski Bums Part 4

This is Pi Day #068 – March 02

The Script

Dad: The weather sure is great for some cross-country skiing.

Kid: i guess

Dad: C’mon. We both need the fresh air.  We’ve been stuck indoors for weeks. We’ll just go to the park.

Kid: then let’s just drive somewhere — that’s kinda outside!

Dad: The point is to do something fun… active… healthy!

Kid: i don’t see how skiing around in circles in our park is fun — it’s just the same thing over and over and over again.

Dad: You literally watch the same episode of that TV show over and over again. That’s not boring?

Kid: you don’t understand anything do you dad?

Comic: Ski Bums Part 3

This is Pi Day #042

“Don’t panic.” – Douglas Adams.

This being (numerically speaking) the forty-second Saturday comic I’ve posted, I had originally wanted to do something moderately geeky in honour of one my still-favourite authors. That it was just Pi Day a few days prior made me think rather I’d defer my science fiction allusions –lower the nerdy factor a few degrees– to later in May when instead I’ll do an homage to, say, Towel Day.

Rather, today I bring you another chapter in our skiing adventures: in an attempt to instill upon the Kid a sense of wonder and awe, thrill and anticipation at the joy and beauty of clipping into a pair of freshly waxed skis and zooming through the set trails amidst crisp white snow, any parent might discover that a kid’s perception of these things differs vastly from their own.

We live in a winter city, and a mere few hours of driving means we can spend a winter weekend in a rocky mountain skiing paradise. I take it for granted, but a few weeks ago we did just that and I shared a chairlift ride with many visitors, from across Canada, visiting from the US, and “we just flew in from London last night” — which is probably why she fell off the chairlift. True story.

Two days of downhill meant we were (admittedly) pretty tired when we spent a third day doing some cross country in the ’88 games Nordic facility, dozens of kilometers of pristine, picturesque trails so beautiful it melted my brain a little bit.

…and one kid who’s little legs were sore and ready to go home breaking the mountain silence with pleas of “waaaaaaaait!”

Short: It’s All About the Layering

This is Pi Day : Bonus #038.1

Hey! Look under there!

I just made you say underwear.

I ran a half marathon this past weekend and in the minus-twenty, brutal weather, bone-numbing cold of it I was trudging along the icy route pondering my own sanity and wrestling with the possibility that I may have misjudged it’s very existence.

Of the four hundred racers, all manner of athletic prowess could be seen — as well as all manner of athletic gear. Tubes, toques, buffs, mitts, balaclavas, headbands, wraps, ski goggles, and more… anything to break through the cold. And it was so cold. One guy who passed me actually — no, really, had three-inch-long icicles dangling from his earlobes. And the race volunteers were dancing, jumping, and never-stop-moving as they reminded us that we runners were all actually a lot warmer than them. Sadly, they were probably right.

Afterwards, basking in the post race defrost, it was a brunch-driven debrief … sometimes literally, as more than one of us was wearing multiple pairs.