Bear on Patrol - "The Incidents" while Racing

Sproing!  Spring Already?

Ahhh Spring - When a certain bear's thoughts (mine, silly) turn to thoughts of skiing while basking in sunlit afternoons, watching the snow melt and dreaming of the fresh berry parfaits to come.

Speaking of snow melting, my wrangler was once asked by this British lady who was visiting Canada to ski:  "What do they do with the man-made snow in the Spring?"

His answer?  "Well, we actually pack it all up in labeled containers that go into storage so that we can put it back on the hill next winter!" (I wish I thought of that)

She seemed happy with the answer until I screamed "NOT!" and started giggling.

"actually....It melts like real snow." my now embarrassed wrangler said.

Oh well. Now where were we?


Olympics - Schmolympics!

So this Spring I caught a little Olympic Fever....

Now make no mistake, I have all kinds of respect for all kinds of people.  I think that it takes a certain amount of courage to be strapped into a portable cave with no real control of where I go or how fast I go because my wrangler likes to hurtle down the hill at astonishing speeds apparently trying to approach the speed of light to slow down aging or something.  WHEEEEEE!

I mean that's all good and stuff, but where is the control, I mean how do I get any say in what happens during all this excitement?

and now they tell me that this is a sport?  I don't think so!

How hard can it be to stand on two feet stuck on long plastic-y slippy things and go down a hill?  I figure with 4 legs it should be a snap!  A SNAP!  I tell you!  The only thing I would be worried about is stopping, but after careful observations, I have concluded that stopping happens naturally because people and bears have bums.

Well, after months and months of begging and pleading my wrangler (Okay 10 minutes, but man did I put the pressure on), I was ready to make my skiing debut!

Being new at skiing and laughing at Danger (HAH! Take That Danger!), I borrowed some of my wrangler's ski gear.  No helmet required because I know what I'm doing!  So I grabbed his skis and headed down the hill for a run.

His last words were:  "Oh my Goodness!  You look killer on my skis!" or something like that.....


Trial Run - Can I get a Do-Over?

So with skiing being so easy, I figure for my first run I'll go down the really steep expert run with some of my friends.  Here they are waiting for me.  There's Don on the left, Courtney in the middle and Céline on the right!



Now I was strapped into the skis, and ready for my first run!  YAY!  Now to join the others....Who put that sign there?  All I need to do is get on the other side of that stupid sign!

The sign says D-A-N-G-E Oh dear....

My Sunglasses fell off! Man is it bright. I'll read the sign later...

Man are these ski things slippy!

Whoa!

I mean like, totally WHOA!

RIGHT TURN! RIGHT TURN!!

Hey Guys!

I'll be right over!  Just give me a secon.... whooooops!

OOOOWIE!



I think I deviated my solarplexus!

I don't remember much after that except that I probably peed a little bit and felt really really woozy!  The next thing I DO remember is Céline running up to me and asking if she could help me!

What?  Why would I need help?  I was perfectly fine!  Nothing to see here!  Move along people!  Sheesh!

She wouldn't have any of that, and started to examine me like we learned in our Ski Patrol training course.

1.  Check to make sure the bear is breathing and has a pulse.  Check!  This might be important because I might be dreaming all this...



2.  She held my head and asked what was wrong.  I was good and told her exactly what was wrong with me.  "I've double-parked my solar-powered Lexus" I said.  She looked at me, smiled and said "I think you've hit your head!"



3.  So Céline checked me out from head to toe to make sure that nothing was really wrong with me, being careful not to move my head. She said I was probably just fine but that I should get everything checked out by a doctor "in case".

and before I knew it, I was being given a ride down the hill in a rescue toboggan with someone holding me in so that they could bring me down the hill safe and sound.  I still felt sore, but the toboggan ride was fun and I didn't throw up!

I was not very impressed with the clinic.  Yeah the blankets were all snuggy warm and the pillows were comfy, but is this any way to treat a patient?  I mean, REALLY?  I was pretty sure that my insurance had extra coverage for a Private Room and Clinic complete with spa treatments and hot-and-cold running cocoa.  Sorry guys but this wasn't gonna cut it!

While I was in the clinic, I got a pretty good view of a race course they had set up on the hill:



and I got to thinking:

Racing - Why Not?

Well after that first run I wasn't gonna let a head bump and a little wooziness stand in the way of my Ski Glory!  No way!

So, I decided to try again, and let's make it interesting!

I rode the chairlift to the top of the hill and managed to sit next to a ski racing coach.  He gave me everything I needed to know.

Here is a picture of someone who is racing (they are just to the right of the red fence-y thingy)




Racing Secrets I learned from a coach:

• Go around the red and the blue stick things.
• When you go around the red and blue stick things, just follow the other tracks to make sure you go around the right way.
• If you fall and you are headed for one of the red fence-y things, they tangle you up and stop you if your bum doesn't work properly to do this.
• The red and blue stick things are bendy and snap back really hard!
• The reason people who are racing go so fast is so that the red and blue stick thingies don't have time to snap back and bop you on the nose!
• If you are bopped on the nose, try not to cry or swear or go into the red fence-y things..
• If you manage to avoid getting bopped on the nose, or do not get caught in the red fence-y things, and you manage to go through all the red and the blue stick things in the right order, you have "finished" and are given a series of random numbers called a "time".
• You have two tries to get a "time"
• The lowest random "time" wins.

I was ready! and I was wearing my lucky sunglasses for well, for.... luck.  Not that I needed it!



....but first, because I figured I would be going super-duper pretty fast, I would check out the fence-y things because I was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to stop me.

I then asked my wrangler to throw me at the fence-y stuff really hard! 

He's a good listener!

I was going so fast everything was just a blur and then I felt like someone was trying to put me through a strainer... and then Sproing!  The fence-y stuff stopped me!

I was going to be fine.

Now for that race.

*sigh*

Well, I was ready!  I was growling, I was INTENSE!  I was all over the hill screaming my head off to get people out of the way!

Those red and blue stick things kept bopping me on the nose faster and faster and faster!  Holeeee!  I didn't have time to think or react!  I just went for it.

I was about to cry or swear or both!  I couldn't take it any more!  So fast... so much nose-bopping pain!

...I think I almost made it past the third stick thingy when...

PAFF!



Oh dear.....

Unfortunately my second try was just too dangerous to show anyone on the internet. I don't even want to talk about it!

So after the second try,

...I was being given a ride down the hill in a rescue toboggan with someone holding me in so that they could bring me down the hill safe and sound.  I now felt terribly sore, I was sure I left my solarplexus behind in that fence-y stuff but the toboggan ride was fun and I only threw up a little!

It was a good thing the blankets were all snuggly warm and the pillows were comfy, because I had a rough day! I also decided that I would leave racing to the people who were good at going down the hill on two feet on skis. My wrangler also ordered safety gear for me for next time but perhaps being carried around in the Safety Cave going near the speed of light wasn't so had after all!


I think my solarplexus made a complete recovery.

Bear on Patrol - "Typical Day"?

In the Beginning....

*yawn* Good Morning!

OMG Would you look at the time?  I'm scared to.

What do you mean it's six in the morning?

SIX IN THE FREAKIN' MORNING?  - ON A WEEKEND??

Who gets up then?  ^SNORE^

Wha?  Huh?  Budidonwannagetupanouttabed.....no, tooearly.  Mustsleep. *mumble*

Okay, whosgonnamakecoffeeanitbetternotbeme! GRarrrrrr!  Grumpy Bear!  Outta my way!

Yeah, mornings are so not pretty.  Not where I live anyhow.  I never was much of a morning bear.  In fact, if you would kindly remove mornings from the day, I would be much happier.

After Coffee, Shower, Breakfast and a 20 minute drive

I am not even sure how I got here, but apparently I get to ski today.  My first day as a Bear on Patrol!  It's still morning, and the chairlift hasn't even started yet.  As my wrangler was one of the first in the door, it's up to him to make the coffee for everyone else!

Now I'm not faulting him for poor coffee skills, but some things are sacred and should never be trusted to amateurs.  I know, because while I was mostly asleep this morning, HE made the coffee.  I am still trying to figure out how something that is normally so good can taste like it was filtered through moldy socks! *shudder*

Note how I keep the chocolate nearby too. The mark of a true coffee artiste!  That's a tin of hot chocolate! OH BOY! I usually put a bit in my coffee to help mornings along! 

Ahhhh, that's better! Nothing like a cup of coffee while you put your jammies back on an relax to enjoy the morni..... WHAT? There's more to do? You're killing me! I just made coffee. What do you mean I have to share the coffee with everyone? Good Grief!

And now I have to go where? OUTSIDE? But it's cold out there! They are making snow! It's so cold.... I don't want to go outside! I'm going to radio for help if you keep threatening me!

*sigh*  Well, next thing you know I'm riding the chairlift up to the top of the mountain.  I was right, it was freezing up there!  January and it's sooo cold.  When it's this cold, they can spray water into the air and it falls down frozen, sort of like snow.  My friends around the world laugh because they think it's silly that we have to make snow in Canada.  I laugh back at them and say we have to make so much snow because all of their hot air keeps melting it.



The only problem with making snow this way is that sometimes it makes it really really really foggy!  So foggy that I get lost at the top of the hill, and being a small bear, that can be a big problem.

After a few minutes of shouting as my wrangler left me up there lost and alone while he took a run down the mountain and left me behind  (Me?  Complain? Hardly.), I was picked up and put back into my portable cave where I pretty much stayed until it was coffee break time.  I had the portable cave heater turned up to Full-Blast and it was still pretty chilly (except for my bum which was toasty)!

At coffee break time I got to meet a very nice, tall man who sort of looks like a skinny Santa Claus, which is funny because his name is Nick!  Nick is the Patrol Leader.  I think he got that job because he is so tall, that people can always see where he's leading.

He put me on his head and I almost hit the ceiling!



Nick told me it was time to start toboggan training.  I know --you would figure that since I went to the hill and did some skiing that I would know everything (which I do - just no one believes me).  Apparently not.

Down to Business

First, there is no pretending here. Tobogan training is really hard for a small bear. The toboggan weighs about 100 lbs. That's well.... that's like well, 170 times more than I weigh!  If I got run over by that it would HURT!

The instructors would have none of that, so they strapped me into the handlebars of the big blue toboggan and told me to bring it down the hill. Only there was a small problem, well more like a big problem!



So I asked if there was something I could do that was less tricky and more suited to someone my size. They quickly came up with something much better. They said I could be an injured skier (I only had to pretend I was hurt --which I am really good at from all of the training I took in the Fall). What better thing for me than an acting job!

Because I am so small though, I needed an actual person holding me. "Extra weight" they called him. I was brilliant though. I was all groaning and acting sore all over, and "don't touch me that hurts"... I was especially convincing when I was acting scared because the hill was so steep and scary. Here are the highlights of my performance:





...and I didn't even need to call in the stunt double!

Toboggan training went so well that I passed no problem.  In fact I was told that I had a unique acting talent that the world wasn't really ready for.  Unique talent!  Imagine that!



And so we come to this....

Well, it was now 4:30 p.m., and time to hand over everything to the night crew.  So we all headed back over to the Ski Patrol room after we made sure that no one who was really hurt was left stuck on the hill.  They call this part Evening Sweep although I didn't see any brooms and we left the snow sort of messy.

The end of the day also means handing in your radio.  Here I am at the sign-in book handing back my radio.

I loved having a radio.  It was pretty much the saddest part of my day to have to hand in that radio.  Oh the conversations we had and the secrets we shared!  I did find it a little strange that the Patrol Leader Nick and pretty much everyone else looked relieved when I handed in my radio.  Maybe they didn't like all of the times I used my radio to ask if the coffee in the Patrol room was fresh?  One day I'll ask them.

Now for the last order of business, we have a sign to remind people that they should be skiing - all day which is a lot, and that they should have a lunch too (although I didn't need reminding about lunch),  like so:



I didn't have the heart to tell them that it looks like a traffic light.

After a long day of skiing, we all wait in the Ski Patrol room while we make sure everyone that signed in is back safe and sound.  Then a few quick announcements, and then the moment we are all waiting for.  You see, as Ski Patrollers we spend all day in out ski boots, even at lunch.  We do this so that if there is an accident on the hill that needs lots of people to help we can get there fast!  I got a ski boot exemption because my wrangler pretty much carries me, and a bear in ski boots would be silly! Everyone else is waiting to see this:



and then we tell stories about how great we were while drinking sodas, and then go home and eat pizza!





.....Next time I'll talk about "The Race"....

Bear on Patrol - Introduction

I Love Skiing!

Bears and mountains have a long history.  Just think about the song "The Bear Went Over the Mountain".  That song is old, and has to do with a bear going over the mountain repeatedly, and only seeing the other side of the mountain, which is fine by me, if the mountain is Gros Morne... 



but the issue is really all of that climbing!  Rather than climbing all over a mountain which can take a very long time and hard work, why not wait until Winter and ride to the top in a chair or a Gondola and ski down it instead?  Much easier and more fun!


There, I've said it!  There's no going back now.  I, Biff the Bear, love skiing -- almost as much as I love coffee, cocoa, chocolate,any combination of the above, pizza, beer, and lots of other yummy things including cookies, cake, pie, candy, and well, compared to all that, well.....skiing is a close second.

Many people (at least 2) have asked if I hibernate during the long Canadian Winters.  I tried that but my wrangler is always up making noise, and to be honest I an probably too full of coffee to ever get to sleep!  I love staying awake in Winter though to fully enjoy the following benefits:

1. Hot Cocoa and sugary foods - and lots of them are required to keep you warm and keep you going while doing Winter Sports.  Here I am enjoying some snacks and cocoa which were part of my Winter Emergency Survival Pack!
   
   
2. Why would I want to miss any of the splendid Canadian Winter while being carried around in a climate-controlled portable cave?  In fact my wrangler just started carrying me around in a new safety cave! (although the mini-bar was full of Dora the Explorer band-aids, it was still a sweet ride!) 
   
   
   
3. I will will also let you in on a little secret.  I have learned that there is something about Canadian Winters that make female people all cuddly, which is way cool!  Who would want to be sleeping??
   
   
   
   
   

So for those obvious reasons (and the fact that my wrangler is a member too) I thought that joining the Ski Patrol would be a good thing to do!


For those of you who follow my posts, you will be relieved to know that I passed my ski patrol exams from the Fall!  


Stay tuned for a few more posts about my ski season on the patrol.

Getting Around

How I Get Around

I travel a fair amount in any given year.  In fact I love to travel.  Traveling is so liberating!  So many places to see, and things to do, and berries, chocolate and pizza to eat and coffee to drink and cookies to break with the hammer of acquisition so that I can have a piece!  PHEW!  that's hard work!  Really hard work, and I don't even want to THINK about all that hard work, so let's talk about how I get to travel instead!


The Basic Portable Cave

All stuffed bears know that if you are going to travel, you do it in style, and you make a statement.  Not just any statement, but the sort of statement that goes: "Hello people, I am a stuffed bear and you are not, and you could not possibly believe how relieved I am because let's face it you could never pull it off quite like I can!"  I find a bright orange portable cave usually sets this tone nicely!



The portable cave is a clever device invented by traveling stuffed bears that looks identical to a backpack.  People think it's a backpack and they pick up the portable cave and carry it on their back and there you have it, I'm being carried around!

Portable caves are great because often the better ones will have all kinds of cubby holes for things like your MP3 Player, iPhone, camera, cookies, coffee mug, jam and marmalade collection, blanky, all kinds of useful stuff!

This usually only works for small distances especially if you are good at ticking off the person carrying the portable cave!  Also you have to put your foot down if the person carrying you around wants to put their stuff in the cave too unless it's lunch, and you get dibs on their lunch.

For Longer Distance, there are other options:


The Aeroplane

While there are many plane "enthusiasts" out there that get all teary-eyed and mushy-in-the-head about planes, I can't stand them!  They are one of the worst ways to travel ever invented by people!

First they make you go to this building several hours before your plane is supposed to leave because they make you wait an hour for everything!  Things they like to make you wait for include proving you have a ticket, proving you have a ticket and you are who you are, proving you have nothing metal or that blows up with you (I don't really like this bit because they make me go through the x-ray machine with my portable cave and it leaves me feeling ...  err, exposed), buying coffee, actually getting on the plane, and for the plane to take off once you are in it.  It's a good thing that planes move so fast because otherwise it hardly seems worth the wait!

Then when you are actually on the plane you either get crammed into a plastic bin with everyting else bumping into you the whole trip or stuck where everyone has their stinky feet stuck under the seat cushion.


The Inter-City / Tour Bus

I only used this a couple of times and it was pretty much okay but not great.  Busses remind me of something that is not sure if it wants to be a plane (cramped seats) or a train (you can get up and walk around)  or a car (with the rubber wheels).  Busses are generally avoided by bears because we don't like the idea of sloshing chemical toilets much.  What if I fell in?  YUCKY!

That being said, I have taken the bus to neat places, and I can't really complain that much because it sure beats walking!


The Glorious Train!

I guess you can tell which way is my favourite!  The Train silly!  I especially like trains because they are big, and offer you plenty of places to go and explore and look for cookies.  Trains are cool.  The go fast and slow, and they have big windows and stuff, and you can sit and watch the world go by.  And cars have to wait for the train when it goes across the street!  Now that's power!  They don't wait for stuffed bears crossing the street, that's for sure.

People on trains are generally not grumpy except for this one man who was rude and kept asking the staff for beer because he was in First Class.  More beer wasn't going to help.  He should have asked for cookies.


Some of my favourite trains:

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  The Cookie Train!  - this train was run by a British railway company.  I got to travel first class on the train and that meant all the cookies you can eat and tea you can drink!  I ate sooooo many cookies that I got a tummy ache and felt a little sick.  The tea made my belly make "splooshy" noises.  Eventually I recovered and did it all again.
  
  
  
  
  
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  The VIA Train - Business Class - Now this is a sweet way to travel!  Canadian business class trains rock!  First, when you get on the train they give you a hot towel to freshen you up.  Then they give you cookies or chips and a drink.  Then they give you a hot meal with more wine, and deshert!  I got all kinds of deshert, like ceesechake, and taple mart, and chocolush chake, once they tried to foo me wiff carrot crake but I knew beller!  Then more wine, and finally a shoclud.  More wine, and then itch time to get off the mashec brain which they will glassy help you wish.  A weird chocolate-wine cloud followed me!  Eventually you recover from the shock.
  
  
  
  
  
• The Spidey Train - It's really a VIA train, but it was painted with Spider Man.  Pretty cool, but sticky with all that webbing.  I think at the end of the trip they had to remove all kinds of animals that got stuck to the train.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Train I got to Drive! -  Yup, I got to drive a train in York, England.  How cool was that?  Okay, so it wasn't a very fast train, or a very big train, and I didn't even make toy cars stop, but you've got to start somewhere, right?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Sleepy Time Overnight Train - Okay this was pretty cool.  I had a room and everything and got to sleep on the train.  I claimed the top bunk! 
  
  Only thing was the train rocked around quite a bit and all kinds of fast trains went by making whooshing sounds.  Scary at first, but then after a while I sort of f.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz    ...huh?   Oh yeah, trains.

Big Boats 

Bears like Big boats!  The bigger the better!  There is a perfectly good reason for this, but my reason is that the bigger the boat, generally, the further you are from the water, and I am allergic!  Also bigger boats seem to have more yummy food.

This boat had no food except what we brought with us.  I consider this a small boat.




This boat was slightly bigger, and had pretty good food on it.  You can tell because I am further away from the water.  The coffee was also really good!  A bear tried to get on this boat, but they didn't want another bear on the boat, they said one bear per boat!  I was glad, 'cause he looked hungry and would probably eat a lot of food.



This boat was one of the hugest boats I've been on!  I knew this because I had to look really really far down to see the water, and sometimes I couldn't see that far.  It had an all-you-can-eat dessert and berry bar!  A bear could LIVE on a boat like this!  They finally kicked me off the boat the third time across, so maybe not.




The Ski Lift

I like ski lifts.  They make skiing much easier.  Imagine if you had to make your wrangler climb the mountain every time you demanded to go down the hill really really fast in your comfy portable cave!  They would get very grumpy and probably tell you to "Stuff It" because they are tired.  Hey, just sayin!  Ski lifts come in many types, but the three basic kinds that I like the most are:


The basic chairlift.  These can be a little scary for a bear just heading out for the first time, but as long are you are securely tucked in the porbable cave you will be fine.  This is the same as sitting in a chair at home that is, I don't know up to 100 feet off the ground and attached to a cable and that swings and bounces a lot.  Just like that chair at home, right?  Right!

The small cabin Gondola.  These are even more comfy because a lot of people go in them and they have a floor and doors and a window.  This is more like riding a sky couch!  Picture a couch in a small cabin that is I don't know, up to 100 feet off the ground and attached to a cable and that swings and bounces a lot.  Just like that couch at home, right?


The large cabin Gondola.  These are weird.  Say you are on the bus at rush hour, and it's packed full of people.  Everyone is standing 'cause there are no seats.  All of a sudden, the bus starts rocking and shooting up into the sky,  You are very very high above the ground and looking out a window at tiny trees and very big rocks way below you.  Every now and again you go over something like a giant tower connected to the ground and the bus rocks and sways and everyone leans and goes "Whoa!  WHOA!" when this happens.  Just before you crash into a concrete bunker at the top or bottom of the mountain the bus slows down a lot and rocks even more.  You are happy to be leaving the sky bus, but want to ride it again!


Top Secret Bear Mail

Okay. I can get into so much trouble for revealing this that you have to promise to keep this totally secret between you and me, Okay?  Promise?  Okay....

Stuffed bears have an arrangement with the World Wide Postal Network.  

We can use the postal network to essentially teleport anywhere there is a post office

Like this,

and this....



BUT... there's more.  I don't know if I should be telling you this but, well, here goes...

If you are really really nice, and ask the people at the post office politely, sometimes, you can be teleported to an oven mitt.  Why an oven mitt?  Because they are close to ovens, and every bear knows that ovens cook good food like cookies and pizza!  Just make sure that the oven mitt you ask for isn't in a drawer or the wash, and you'll be next to an oven in no time! 

Due to security concerns I can't show you how oven mitts work, you'll just have to take my word for it every time you go to make cookies or pizza or pie and some of it disappears before you get a chance to have any yourself!


So there you have it, how us bears get around!

Cheers!