Tag: Good Friend

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I Lost My ID At The Airport And Went Through Security

I am setting at PDX (Portland International Airport) near my gate for a flight that leaves later today. I arrived this morning for quick work related business. Somewhere at the security checkpoint at Phoenix International Airport and boarding the plane to PDX I lost my ID.

I didn’t find this out until I was in my Rental car getting everything ready to drive off. It turned out to be a very stressful day. Obviously rental car companies will not allow you to drive off without a drivers license. I have to thank my good friend Mustafa for coming down to the airport to get me and take me to where I needed to do my official business.

He brought me back and I approached the TSA officer and told them I lost my ID at Phoenix. They took me aside, teased that the rubber hoses were over there, and asked to look at what I did have.

I pulled out everything in my wallet with my name on it, he looked it over and then I found my Costco card that had a picture on it. A crappy picture but it was something. That was it. No further pat down, not special baggage checks. I supposed bad guys don’t walk around with worn out credit cards, Costco cards, voter and library cards. He also quizzed me on some items in my checkbook.Despite the bad reputation TSA gets, I have never had a bad experience with any of the officers.

If they didn’t find my drivers license in PHX, I have a real pain to go through to get a replacement. That’s a story for another blog post.

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It Hurts

I’m tired and I’m in pain. My butt and my arms hurt. Despite my pain I had a good time because today I made a feeble attempt at snow boarding. I already know how to ski, more of a advanced beginner – no where near a professional, I thought I could use that experience to snowboard. It turns out that the experience of each foot having a board strapped to it is far different then having a bigger board strapped to both feet at the same time.

When I first learned to ski I fell down a lot. Having to pick yourself up a couple of hundred dozen times in less then 8 hours with muscles that don’t get used a couple of hundred dozen times in less then 8 hours is where the pain comes from. I suppose if I exercised more (or fell less) that wouldn’t be a problem.

Speed equals control, more or less. The faster you go the more you can control your skis. But if you do loose control your going really fast into a tree or something. When your first learning to ski it’s scary to go fast because you (or at least me) are afraid of loosing control, so you want to try to take is slow. Then there’s that whole balance thing, however I believe that you only get good at that with practice. So your slow and you have no balance. You fall a lot. It’s the same deal with snow-boarding. But balancing on a snowboard is different from balancing on skis (as I learned the hard way). I had no balance and was afraid to go fast. And I fell a lot.

I went out with a good friend from work who is also learning to snowboard. He’s a bit farther along then me as in he doesn’t fall nearly as much. He has been going out with his 7 year old son who also went with us today. Since we spent our time on the bunny hill we didn’t need to buy a lift ticket because you can hike up the hill in snow board boots with relative ease (relative being the key word). His son did get a lift ticket and as he passed me up while I was lying on my back he said if I need help just holler. Uh that’s ok, I’m nice and comfortable here.

Ski Santa Fe was the location of this trip and it costs $32 to rent the snow board and boots.