I’m sitting in the airport, about to depart to do something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time. For a few years now I’ve been thinking about doing some skier-x. I started thinking about doing it when we had our king of the mountain races back when I ran the UofM SSC. At the end of every trip we’d line the best skiers and snowboards up at the top of the hill and race to the bottom, no rules. I did pretty well and I thought about trying skier-x, but it was always towards the end of january..well into the season. For various reasons none of the local events were convenient enough to do. I wasn’t really ready to go out of my way to do it. This November I started thinking about skier-x again and looked for events. There was the big, official, Jeep King of the Mountain event in Telluride Colorado in December and there were some small local events around the midwest later in the year. A friend of mine said why not just go big or go home? Forget the local events, do the JKOM in December so if it works out you have the whole rest of the season to go. I wasn’t 100% convinced, but that night I registered for it. A few days later I went down to talk to the great people at Pierce Skate & Ski in Bloomington. They didn’t have any SX specific experience, but they have a lot of ski racing experience. I ended up walking out with a new set of Rossignol world cup GS skis and bindings. I guess I was doing it. Over the course of the next few days I booked a flight and lodging. That was just over 1 week ago.

I was pretty blown away when I looked at the list of registrants. Basically some of the best skiers in the world are competing. What the hell, as long as I don’t get hurt I have nothing to lose. I’m not convinced I won’t come home in a wheel chair, but knock on wood.

I’ve been training quite a bit lately, but I really stepped it up over the past couple weeks. Even in Vegas I somehow made it to the gym every day.

About time to go.. I’ll post more after the first day of competition I guess.

I know I’m a little behind on this one, but I’m only now recovering and regaining my wits. 6 days in Vegas is enough to crush even the most battle-hardened partyer. Where to even begin?

Tuesday - I flew in Tuesday afternoon, dropped my bags at the hotel and headed to Pubcon. I never even made it, as I stopped off at the Renaissance and immediately got drinks. We had a great meal at the Wynn before heading to Pure where Rubicon hosted a table. Suffice to say 5 bottles later, we were pretty lubricated. I do remember bargaining with the limo drivers out front to give some of our friends a ride home. One moron kept insisting that he’d do it for free, but any Vegas veteran knows where a free limo takes you. I got one guy down to $40 for a stop at the Wynn and then the Palms. Not bad.

Wednesday - For some reason this night is a lot more blurry than it should be. I woke up pretty late, hit the gym, and then spent a few hours at Pubcon. The show floor was a pretty big joke. I was actually wondering if they had a secret room with more booths. Anyway.. the fine folks at Rubicon again hosted (and definitely made a name for themselves) a party in their suite at the Wynn. Like Shoe said we were planning on playing poker at midnight, but somehow midnight came and went and we were still up in the suite. When we finally did leave, I ended up walking around the Wynn with a bottle of champagne that I proceeded to finish by myself.

Thursday - I really have to give a shout out to Purpose INC SEO for their Poker tournament. Not only was it exceptionally well-organized but I thought it was a great networking event. The very nature of the tournament-style poker game meant you had to move around tables a bit and meet new people. Plus, when you went out there was nothing else to do but chat with other people who busted out. I made it about half way before busting out. Definitely check out the Name the SEO contest and score yourself a t-shirt. I normally don’t pick up t-shirts like this because I won’t wear them, but they were so cool I snagged 2! (Don’t be mad DK). The only bad thing was that Shoemoney took second place which meant we were there all night. I had promised a friend who is a host at a club that we’d bring in a crew, so we didn’t make it there until 3am. John Reese met up with us there, and we stayed until 8 or 9am before grabbing breakfast and crashing, HARD.

Friday - I set my alarm for 1am so I could wake up and make a decision on the Pubcon. While I barely had the energy to make it, I reasoned that I could go to Pubcon for a few hours and still make it back to the hotel to hit the gym and sleep before dinner at 10pm with a bunch of friends from Minneapolis who were in town to see Roger Huerta kick some ass. I went 2/3 on that plan. Spent a few hours at Pubcon, made it to the gym, but no sleep. I met up with my friends at N9ne Steakhouse at the Palms for a ridiculously good dinner. After that we went to Pure again, and needless to say had a great time. Another long night.

Saturday - This was the day I had been waiting for. I was originally planning to go to the Ultimate Fighter 6 Finale fight at the Palms, but the guy I was supposed to go with kinda flaked out at the last minute. No big deal I knew it would work out. Lucky for me, my friend Jay who came down from Minneapolis to see the fight had an extra ticket. Not only was the Pearl at the Palms the ultimate venue to see a fight, but Minneapolis fighter Roger Huerta absolutely beat some ass. I’m really looking forward to seeing Huerta become the lightweight champion. Also, I wish they weren’t in the same division, but props to Kenny Florian for being one of the coolest athletes I’ve ever met. This was the second time I had talked to him (first being 77 in Cincinatti) and he’s never too good to take a minute to chat. After the phenomenal (maybe best fight I’ve ever seen) fight we went up to Moon for the after-party. I have some great pictures from Moon, but I’ll have to upload them later.

All in all what a great trip to Vegas. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few things, so I’ll probably update this post. You might be wondering why the hell I would take the time to go to the gym while I’m in Vegas. More on that later…but for now I need to pack my bags again.