How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wipeout

My weekend sort of starts Wednesday night when I get through my obscenely long art class and back home from campus at 10:30 p.m. So, starting Thursday, kind of a lot transpired hence.

Thursday: Reverted to the single life, once again.

Friday: Ditched school and went snowboarding with Christian Wagner and James Schramm at the Canyons. Canyons got dumped on about 1 foot plus on Wednesday night, so the ideal day to hit it would have been Thursday. Nevertheless, we were determined to hike 45 minutes up past the lift Ninety-nine 90 and make our mark on the fresh pow. It was worth doing once. I've hiked the Grand Canyon twice with these guys and the company of this hike was just as enjoyable. The descent was 5 minutes of fluffy Utah powder heaven. The rest of the day was pretty standard- searching for last shreds of powder and finishing up in the board park.

There was one noteworthy occurrence that happened while in the board park. So... first boardpark run- check out the jumps. Second run- hit all 5 jumps and stick 'em pretty well. Third run- I catch my heel edge at the top of the first kicker, go sideways, and land square on my back about halfway down the landing. James asked what I was thinking in the air and I specifically recall being pretty calm but thinking, "I am dang glad I have a helmet." He also said that the crowd waiting at the drop point collectively watched me go sideways in the air, disappear behind the tabletop nearly upside-down, and exclaim in unison, "oh F---!" I'm guessing it was about a 10-12 foot fall. So, that was my Friday. I feel pretty lucky to have walked away with only a slight headache and a good story.

Saturday: Fafard 5k in the morning for my friend Brett Fafard, who has testicular cancer. James told him the day before that we were boycotting the race because we didn't believe that he actually had testicular cancer. He agreed with us and said he was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to pop out and say "Ha! You got punked! You don't have testicular cancer... and yeah, we took your nut." In the end James and I decided to go anyways so our friends wouldn't hate us, even though this whole chemotherapy thing we're pretty sure is a facade.

Later that day, on top of snowboarding, falling ten feet onto my back, running a 5k, we all went to progressive power tumbling gym for some more self-mutilation. Here I successfully gainered off a trampoline directly onto my head. James and I have already named that trick "half-flip to retard," so don't even try to copy that. It has been patented. Oh, and my friend Mike got 8 stitches in his foot after doing something similar. Following the tumbling gym I did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day. And it was great.

Sunday: I guess the weekend has finally wound down because the most startling thing that happened today was when I flinched awake during my mid-church nap and almost kicked over the folding chair in front of me. That's why I sit in the back. Less people ask to share my Cheerios that way too.