Halloween - TRICKED! - October 30, 2010

Life Flight has an incredible Search & Rescue service called "The Hoist."  It is used when a patient is located somewhere that it is not possible to land the helicopter nearby and it would cause Search & Rescue to take serious time to extricate the patient. 

The helicopter hovers over the patient and the Paramedic leaves the helicopter and is "hoisted" down to the ground via a long cable.  The Nurse is the Hoist Operator and they communicate via hand signals. 

The Paramedic then stabilizes and prepares the patient for transport.  Either a "seat" (if the patient is not seriously injured and they can sit upright), a "net" (looks like a hammock) or a "bag" (looks like a big, red, person-sized duffle bag). 

The helicopter then lowers the cable back down to the paramedic who hooks up with the seat/net/bag and the the cable. 

The Paramedic and the patient are then hoisted up to the helicopters door frame.  They fly (outside the helicopter) to the command post and are then hoisted back down to the ground. 

The Paramedic unhooks the cable.  The helicopter then lands nearby and the paitent is loaded into the helicopter for the transport to the hospital. 

It's a pretty neat service.  And of course, they have to have training.  I got to be a 'hoist victim' a few years ago, but James never has.  Usually, hoist training is on a weekday - during work hours.  TODAY IS SATURDAY!  So James and I went to hoist training.  The hoist helicopter (left) and another duty helicopter (right) at the parking lot of Little Dell Reservoir.

James is getting a safety helmet placed on him by Paramedic Paris Napoli.

Paramedic Cathy Cooper is doing the training review for Paris (in the helmet and preparing to catch the cable).  James is in the net.  Ready for hoist.  The net is one-size-fits-most.  James is just tall.

Here comes the helicopter over the reservoir.  Past the pick-up site for a visual of the scene.  And back to the parking lot.

And landing without hoisting James.

 And taking off again to go back to the Life Flight hangar for maintenance.  There was some kind of fluctuation in the engine guages on the helicopter.  The pilot (Denny Patterson - who also took our wedding photos) wasn't comfortable with that - since it affects hovering and hovering is important for hoisting and safety is important for surviving.  So he aborted the hoist and aborted hoist training and James was THIS CLOSE to being a "Hoist Victim" for Halloween.

There they go - The far one to the hangar for maintenance, the near one to a scene in Big Cottonwood Canyon for an actual patient.  Good timing.

So SAD to miss hoist training.  So GLAD that James' life was not endangered for training purposes.  So HAPPY to go on a Saturday afternoon drive out to East Canyon Reservoir with James - still a bit of snow on the ground from the last storms.

Go Jazz! October 28, 2010

There is absolutely no room in the budget for Jazz tickets this year.  Especially not the cheap-o nosebleed seats.  James would rather watch the TV at home than watch from so high up.  Sheesh, no appreciation for the ambiance of being in the arena.  But I can see his point.

Lucky for us, we didn't have to give up Jazz games completely. 

My co-worker, Cindy, has season pass tickets to the Jazz games and she gave us tickets that she couldn't use one night.  This is the same Cindy who gave me her tickets to the January 28, 2005 Jazz v. Seattle Sonics game.  I invited a total stranger named Jimmy Cordova to that game.

Today, one of the vendors that sells to Backcountry.com gave them some Jazz tickets and James scored a pair.  And we learned that he can get Jazz tickets through backcountry's Gold Points reward system.  Maybe we can go to more games than we thought!

Our favorite parking area is watched over by this pretty piggy.  Doesn't she look happy! 

Today, we discovered that she's happy because she's got new neighbors!

Go JAZZ!

A Fall Tradition - October 20, 2010

December 19, 2009




October 20, 2010

The 'clown suit' saga - October 20, 2010

This is the one-piece that James scored out of the SCHWAG pile at work for being nominated for DC Steezy.

 He told me about it and a couple of full face helmets that were also in the SCHWAG pile and decided to wait a day before choosing.  The next day, he double-checked with the managers and the people over the SCHWAG pile before choosing it.  He knew it was a pricey piece of merchandise and wanted to be sure it was okay that he took it home.

Here it is again - in BSU colors! Backcountry retails this one-piece gortex suit by Norrona at $948.95- YIKES!!!! It better be bullet proof - right!?

Some of the BUYERS (who work out of the Park City office) happened to be at the warehouse a couple days after James picked up his new clown suit and James was chit-chatting about ski pants with one buyer.  And James told her about the Norrona suit.  He had pictures on his phone, so he showed her the suit.  She laughed and told him that one of the buyers would be so jealous, that it was a limited edition suit and that the other buyer had been trying to get one of those suits!  And she asked James if would forward the picture to her email.  So he did.

The next day James got an interesting email from the head buyer.  Basically telling James that he shouldn't have that suit, that it shouldn't have been in the SCHWAG pile, who was James' supervisor? and James needed to bring the suit back.

James didn't reply.  He just forwarded the email to his supervisor and to all of the warehouse managers that he knows.  And to the guy over the SCHWAG pile that he'd double-checked with before taking the suit.  Since it was the end of the day, James came home and was tempted to get his name embroidered onto the back of the suit - just because!

The head buyer wasn't waiting for a reply.  He also emailed the SCHWAG pile guy, all the managers he knows and any other higher-ups.  So there was a big meeting or lots of back-and-forth emails with talk about getting the suit back because it was on a Purchase Order for eight of these suits that was supposed to arrive later in the season.  Talk about compensating James somehow for the suit.  Talk about if the suit had gone through all the proper channels to get into the SCHWAG pile or not...

Here it is again in red!

Finally, by lunchtime, James got an official - YOU CAN KEEP THE SUIT - from the head honcho of the warehouse.  Basically, James didn't do anything wrong.  He had a pick from the SCHWAG pile for being a nominee for DC Steezy.  James picked the suit.  The suit had been put into the SCHWAG pile through all the proper channels - including an okay from one of the buyers to put it into SCHWAG.  All fair & square.  No need to embroider his name on the back.  Unless he really wants to?

Later, one of James' manager friends says to James, "I heard the bad news, you get to keep that ugly suit!"  I do like the multi-color better than the solid colors and I'm glad to know that I won't lose him on the mountain!

Now there are tons of rumors about ... Was there REALLY a purchase order for these suits or was the buyer just trying to score a free suit from Norrona and was ticked off because HIS free suit ended up going to a warehouse grunt?  And we can't find anything on-line about it being a limited edition version of the suit.  They're being sold on the Norrona website for 949 Euros.  (Google tells me that 949 Euros = $1,325.94 US dollars - so backcountry's $948.95 price tag is a great deal!)

Hmmmmm.  James had better stay well away from the Park City office.  Or maybe he should wear the one-piece into the office to pick up a gold pass for skiing sometime this winter!

Oh, and James decided to apply for the supervisor position after all.  Is it a good or bad thing that James' name has been brought up a lot this week?  We're hoping to hear about an interview in the near future!

Sunday Drive - October 17, 2010

First, we drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon.  And ended up hiking a ridge from Guardsman's Pass.  We got a great view of Brighton from there.

There are a few little lakes on the Heber side of Guardsman's - really pretty view in that direction too!

And I'm glad we brought our hats along - it was overcast with a little bit of a breeze. I was plenty warm while hiking, but it was cool when we stopped.

We didn't want to go home yet, so we decided to drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon next. This patch of trees is across the canyon from the base of Alta Ski Resort.

And another picture of those same trees - from a little farther away.

Winter is coming!  Keep the snow dance going strong!

Happy Anniversary! October 10, 2010

4 years!  Here's to 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x infinity more!

Hooray for Fall! October 10, 2010

We've been doing some exploring...

Saturday, September 25, 2010 - Oktoberfest - Snowbird, Little Cottonwood Canyon.  This was a beautiful day.  So warm and sunny!

I didn't get a picture of the moose (plural) we saw.  There was a bull moose and a momma with her two babies in a pond near the parking lot.  There were mountain security people shooing all the people away from the moose and into the parking lot traffic. As we were walking along the parked cars, the momma and her babies splashed out of the pond and headed into the parking lot in our general direction.  We turned and walked between parked cars and before I could make up my mind to climb underneath the closest SUV, they headed away again.  James told me he would have protected me with his body, attempting to redirect her by shoulder-to-shoulder contact - can you imagine James v. Momma Moose!?  Glad it didn't come to that!

Besides a nice drive up the canyon with my sweetheart, we explored the Oktoberfest shopping (Kuhl had an outlet tent with some fantastic deals - James got 2 pr pants for his winter wardrobe.  Hoping they'll have another sale before summer - would love a pair of their capris for me!). We stopped in the food tent, briefly, to listen to the Polkatronics... But the prices were too high for any sampling - $5.75 for a piece of German Chocolate cake! $9.50 for a bratwurst!

And we finished our drive by wandering up to Alta to check on the last of the snow.

Sunday, October 3, 2010 - Big Cottonwood Canyon.  During the Sunday morning session of General Conference we decided to drive up our favorite canyon to check on the progress of the fall colors.  Beautiful!

A really lovely background to listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the messages from the Lord.

Friday, October 8, 2010 - Big Cottonwood Canyon.  As James and I contemplated his school schedule, we both felt strongly about the need for recreational study breaks.  So while we scrounged up tuition money, we also scrounged up money for a 10-pack at Solitude Ski Resort.  They usually put all 10 passes onto one card, but for $25 more you can have two cards with 5 passes on each.  With school and flying and everything else, I would have been surprised if James could have found 10 ski days this winter.  Between the two of us, no problem!  We drove up the canyon to check on the fall colors and to pick up our ski passes. This is Solitude's village and a children's fishing pond near the Disc Golf course.

It was the first really cool weather that included rain in the valley.  So we weren't surprised to find SNOW at the higher levels.  This old cabin is in the Brighton "circle"

We stopped on our drive down the canyon to check out Hidden Falls.  This is one of the locations where I took Kurt & Carlee's engagement photos - ages & ages & three kids ago.

We also stopped there last spring with my cousin Michael (March 21, 2009) after a good ski day.  As we explored, the guys found a GEOCACHE and wrote their names in the log book.  Guess what?  The cache and the log book with their entry was still there.   

Saturday, October 9, 2010 - took a break from exploring to do homework.  Love it!  Hand-me-down floral couch from a family James helped move.  Cooler/coffee table with hospital pillow for cushioning.  Soccer jersey from Kathleen's trip to Ireland, camo-pajama pants from Christmas in Idaho (thanks Mom!), and hospital non-slip socks.  (He's probably doing homework in this picture (with such a serious expression) - but maybe he was updating his fantasy football team or watching You-Tube videos of small airplanes landing on non-existant landing strips in Alaska.)

Sunday, October 10, 2010 - Mirror Lake Scenic Byway (Uinta Mountains) We took a study break and wandered our way along this pretty drive.  Enough snow for snowballs on top of these mountains.  We made a long loop of it and drove past Snow Basin (no snow there) and stopped to visit GandG Price for a half-hour-or-so. 

Happy Adventuring!