Curling is a dangerous sport (and other winter adventures)

On Sunday, some people from housekeeping and guest services, along with a few others from a variety of departments, went to Invermere for some curling. Curling is one of those sports that you wouldn't think would be very interesting but, upon closer inspection, is quite a neat little game. I would equate it to lawn bowls, with the obvious differences of the lawn being sheets of ice, the balls being stones, and the people sweeping to help the stones along.

Anyway, during a few practice games, I got a bit too enthusiastic about sweeping the ice, and slipped over, falling on the stick, with the stick hitting me square on the ribs. It's been hurting ever since, and was probably not helped by the fact that I took on some more physical activities this week.

On Monday, we had the weekly broomball game where, quite spectacularly, we lost 1-0. Drama was added to the game late in the first half as I scored a goal that was soon disallowed because the ref couldn't see the goal too well (which I thought was a bunch of crap). I was pretty angry for the rest of the game, especially after the other team scored. By the end of the night, the pain in the ribs was intense.

I wasn't going to do anything on Tuesday, but ended up going out to buy some new bindings for my board and tested them out for a few runs. A couple of weeks ago, I had a huge crash on a run rife with moguls. I flipped over a few times and ended up landing on my board. The front strap of the back binding (probably the weakest part of the bindings) ended up snapping, and I had to ride down to the bottom with one dodgey binding. It wasn't really too bad because it was the front strap, and I guess it was bound to happen eventually, seeing as I got those bindings about 6 years ago. Anyway, the new bindings ('06 Burton Cartel) feel so much better than the old relics that I used to ride with (Burton Custom from ages ago).

I wasn't going to do anything on Wednesday, but again I strayed from my plans and went ice skating on Lake Windermere. Cara, my supervisor, knew somewhere to borrow some skates for free, and it was free to skate on the lake, so this helped my current financial situation. Oh, and it was lots of fun to go ice skating again, and with a bunch of friends too. The only downside was that the ice was a bit uneven. That, and I was quite tired by the end of it. Read as: ribs hurt like hell.

They were very sore again today after a few hours of Nordic skiing (aka cross-country skiing). A few of us that went ice skating yesterday decided to give Nordic skiing a try, and we went on a couple of the easy trails, which weren't all that easy due to a few big dips. There were several spills but nobody was seriously hurt and the general consensus was that it'd be great to go again some time.

One of the many great views witnessed while Nordic skiing

Today is also the end of my 3-day weekend, and I now have 3 days straight (possibly more, depending on next week's roster) of work. Fun times. I applied for a different position within the department that has slightly better pay and a bit more consistent hours, so I hope I get that. Otherwise, I'll probably be applying for a transfer to a different department as soon as the 3-month probation period is over (around the start of March) because my current position just isn't getting me as much money as I would like.