Disabled Sports Eastern  Sierra is holding a fundraising event that’s going to be an absolute HOOT! It’s called Slide-A-Thon, and consists of a free day of skiing, lunch, and the option to compete in various challenges such as a GPS scavenger hunt, a consecutive chair challenge (skiing off of each chairlift on the mountain in order) and others. Demonstrations will be given with the specialized equipment we use for our disabled students. People can enter as individuals or as teams and costumes are encouraged. I cannot wait! My team is called the Fuzzy Sliders (sounds more like the name of a cocktail that needs to be invented). Today we donned our fuzzy bear costumes to share what we’re up to with the local news. If anyone wants to join in the fun, I’ll gladly sponsor you to do so… come play!

What I did at work today!

Front Row: Katherine, Lee, Gilbert, Carmela, Loomis, Maggie & Zach. Back Row: Lisa & Stacey

This past weekend we had a special guest clinician at DSES. Carmela is a blind skier who competed in Olympic racing events for Italy and the United States. She and her husband Gilbert taught us how to guide blind skiers. We practiced leading Carmela and Gilbert through the maze and onto the chairlift and skiing down the mountain. Then we took turns skiing with our eyes shut and being guided by one another.

Guiding a blind skier involves providing a constant stream of verbal information to the skier over the inside shoulder loudly enough to be heard through wind, snow and other noises. The verbal information needs to contain directional information as well as rhythmic information to indicate the turn shape (large or small turns), the tempo of the turns (fast or slow) and other information such as pitch change and snow conditions. While providing accurate verbal information, the guide also needs to be skiing his/herself, watching out for obstacles and other skiers, making decisions about direction and terrain, and maintaining the correct distance between the blind skier and themself. Guiding Carmela was an incredible experience. She and Gilbert were extremely patient with me…. especially when I got us lost several times (throw in navigating a mountain I don’t know well on top of trying to guide and I was hopeless).

Carmela also initiated great discussions with us on topics like what our beliefs are about blindness, how we feel around blind people, and what questions we’ve always wanted to ask. I learned an incredible amount, and in just three days all of the participants gained proficiency in guiding blind skiers.

Acronis True Image Home makes an image of your computer hard drive in case it crashes and stores it onto an external drive. If the drive crashes, you don’t have to reinstall all of the programs again… you just use Acronis to restore everything. Friends – please don’t forget to back up your files… especially the sentimental ones like photos.

It’s fun getting to be a super-star to someone. I get to be just that in my grandma’s eyes. Yesterday when I stopped by her house, I set the clock on her VCR which had been blinking since her power went out a few days ago. As far as she is concerned, what I did is on par with discovering a new element or building a solar-powered rocket ship. She told me how smart I am and lavished me with praise. It’s so wonderful to be loved.