Break is over. I had my first day back at work today, and right now I am supervising the dorm and trying to prepare for classes tomorrow. I had a day of some of the best skiing ever yesterday, almost three hours at Waterville Valley on perfectly groomed hard snow. And Waterville groomed into April last year, so I might get on snow again this year, even though I have to work both days this weekend and won’t be able to ski for at least two weeks. And I can’t ski three weeks from now because that is my first running race.

Somehow being on break has given me less time to write. Mostly this break I have been trying to unwind and catch my breath before going back to work and working at least six days a week from now till graduation…I have done some skiing on the great late season snow and one day of lift served tele skiing. I have also been working on a problem Paul King gave me at the Ski to the Clouds race; you can check out the problem and my sketch of a solution on the problems section of this page.

I also wanted to share a picture of my daughter who at least once a day goes and finds my Birke bib and the racing hat she associates with it (though I have tried to explain to her that it is usually cold at the Birke and she should wear a warmer hat). I take this as proof she wants to start racing soon.

I really didn’t put this on her, she put both bib and hat on herself!

Sorry if I haven’t written in a while - New Hampton just had finals week, so my life has been a hectic series of review sessions, exams, grading, and comment writing. And for those curious about the resolution of my last post, I did indeed get a paper which rambled on for two pages of Star Wars rehash with about two lines of relevant math, and let’s just say he didn’t exactly get an A for his effort.

With school over for a couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to race in the reincarnation of a wonderful ski race, the Ski to the Clouds. I believe this was started sometime in the 1990s when someone decided that if they run and bike up Mount Washington (often braving dangerous weather in the middle of summer) why not have a ski race up it. So, for a few years, they did. And then they didn’t for a while, as organizational efforts were shifted to the Great Glen to Bretton Woods Adventure. When the latter event (an epic, but wonderful race) folded due to the headaches involved in putting it on, the Ski to the Clouds was reborn.