At 5:25:03AM Pacific time on January 30th, 2009 a 4.5 Magnitude earthquake took place 15 miles from downtown Seattle.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/uw01301325.php#details

I survived although the empty water bottle on my nightstand fell to the floor only to be crushed by my foot when I awoke.

Me?  I slept right through it :)

I used to ski.  I used to be a pretty good skier.  I used to race, spend weeks in the mountains, teach, coach and work at a ski hill.  At some point I stopped as I got busy, I got stuck in the flatlands and after spending all that time in the mountains I just couldn’t get interested in skiing in “the ditch” anymore.

That was roughly 10 years ago but the other day, on an off day while travelling with work, myself and a co-worker decided to go skiing at Cypress Mountain just outside of Vancouver B.C.  We originally had plans to go elsewhere but a bartender told us to go to Cypress and they are hosting the Freestyle Skiing events at the 2010 Winter Olympics so it must be good.  And it was!

First off it was a BEAUTIFUL day.  While it was foggy all week in Vancouver, the mountain is over the fog and made for some amazing views and a bright, clear sunny sky.

Anyway back to the skiing…  10 years is a long time not to do anything.  A lot has changed since I last strapped on a pair of skiis.  My last skiis were 207CM long and pretty much rectangular blocks with curled up, pointed tips.  The skiis I rented were 160CM, looked more like an hourglass than a ski.  But I strapped them on, looked at my co-worker Rick and asked “Are we men or are we little boys?”

Rick looked at me an said “we are men!”  So off to the top of the mountain for us!  If you are going to go out, go out swinging right? 

Well it took about a half a run to work out the kinks and figure out how these new skiis work but after a run it was like the good old days!

Just like riding a bike…..

The rest of the pictures are posted here http://flickr.com/photos/rbuike/sets/72157612850426926/