Sledding

Utah has some of the best powder snow for skiing on the entire planet. Many people know that as well as many avid skiiers. The winter Olympics held here was the center of many world records for winter sports and events still continue to be held in the venues created for the olympics. However, skiing is also an expensive sport, one which many, dreaming to be involved in, only get a few token chances to participate in, but even rarer are the times they actually get on the slopes.
For the poorer of us there is the perennial favorite of sledding. Here in the Salt Lake Valley where I live, there are many places for sledding and many of them set up particularly for that purpose. One is not far from my house in the West Valley city park where a large burm about 30 feet in altitude give or take, gives some moderate hillside space for sledding. We have been there twice in the past week alone and I plan on returning while there is snow ont he ground to sled on.
Another popular venue is Sugarhouse park which is quite a bit more fantastic for sledding and tubing than our little hill. One can reach what would really be maximum speeds for sleds and tubes and actually be moving down the hill at that speed for more than a few seconds so one can really enjoy the ride. Not for the faint of heart or fragile of body, I have not yet sacrificed my kids to this sledding idol as I have not wished to bring broken bones into the history of playtime injury in my family.
I have in my youth gone sledding at flat iron mesa park in Sandy, just southeast of my home about ten miles. Long steep hillsides also adorn this park but whether they are still open for sledding or not I do not know. Quite steep, they would be candidates for speed trials at sledding. This park incidentally is also excellent for kite flying in the spring as it captures the canyon winds and the view from its western edge of the valley is quite breathtaking in the right circumstances.
Sledding, a perennial favorite, is one way in which parents who wish for thir children to ski or snowboard can get them accustomed to sliding downhill at decent speeds so when they try it upright on waxed boards, it is not a sensation that they are unfamiliar with. Wishing I could ski, I still find more joy in watching my kids take to our nearby hill -- making memories like mine.

Resolutions Bah Humbug!?

A new year is coming which is no news to anyone else, but with it comes resolutions of all kinds. Resolutions or promises to oneself and others to be better int he new year are often overly optimistic and usually involve bars set too high, leading to a quick and often messy abandoning of those goals. I for one have a weight loss goal and I now have the tools I had requested to do it. I won't assign any numbers to what I want to lose, I just want to do better. Sounds good, right?

I guess there is also a danger to setting the bar too low. All of us need to progress right? And many of us need to progress faster than we are currently progressing. I think it would be best to start with one of the more impactful areas of our life which for me comes back to weight loss. So many of the areas in my life would go better if I just lost weight. I am talking a lot of weight too not just a problem ten pounds keeping me away from my favorite pants. I am talking about 150 lbs total. I weight 350 so I am not unreasonable in my desire. Do I expect to lose it all this year? No. If I could get down to 275 this year and then get down to 200 by the following year, I would be doing good. So I am going to go for that. I will resolve to lose 75 pounds this year/get down to 275 pounds. That would be life changing in and of itself. This isn't a resolution I can break in the first day or so as it is an ongoing effort toward a goal at the end of the year and it just gets harder if I procrastinate but not impossible unless I make no progress till around September.

I will keep a log here and just give a total weight at the end of each of my posts throughout the year to keep everyone updated.

I have other resolutions as well and they are of a similar nature in that they are progressive over the year and not of the "screw up once, that's it" kind of goal.

Let me know of your thoughts if you have any. I would be glad to hear them.

New Blog Address

I am starting this blog to replace my old one listed at http://genealogymark.blogspot.com which I will no longer post to.