HipAeroNerd

I’m sure you’re picking up the pattern of our trip, but just in case, Jeff and I were up early and on the slopes by 9. We got in another great morning skiing and a fun Elevation lunch with our new friends. After lunch, I allowed Jeff to convince me to take the gondola to the very top of the mountain and ski down the back side. At the top, there was an panoramic view of the area, including Yosemite National Park. Jeff and I skied down Road Runner, which was a ten-foot wide cat trail on the side of a cliff. This is not my idea of a fun time. I had to snow plow for 5 minutes until I could get to a different run. Jeff took off down this black diamond trail, which he said, "Didn’t look to bad". I skied down part of the way before seeing a narrow, steep canyon with boulders and giant moguls. I decided that I didn’t feel like dying, so I took of my skis and walked back up to the cat trail. As I was in full sun, it was 50 degrees, and I was above 10,000 feet. I was sweaty, out of breath, and, as anyone who knows me well can guess, angry, by the time I got back up. I had to go down that cat trail snowplowing for another 5 minutes before I finally found a decent trail down. The insides of my feet hurt from snowplowing so long. When I finally got to the bottom, Jeff took one look at me and said, "That doesn’t look like a happy Tom." I said no and headed to the lodge. I was done with skiing.

After a quick shower and costume change, I was back in the Village for my last Apres Ski with the usual suspects. I ran into Mark, a cute 35-year old from San Francisco, who made a comment that encapsulated how I was feeling by the fourth day. He said when I arrived, "I’m so glad you’re here. I’m tired of being social. I’ve met enough people. Now I just want to hang out with the one’s I’ve decided I like." Amen sister.

After happy hour, we grabbed dinner and Jeff continued to get loaded. He was done by the end of dinner. Saturday’s party was at the Canyon Lodge, so we walked to the gondola to ride up the mountain. We arrived to find the gondola not running; they were forcing the drunk queens to drive again. Being the most sober (again), I took John and Jason’s car, along with another lost boy, and we drove up to Canyon Lodge. This party was even bigger than Friday’s, which I didn’t think was possible. The dance floor was bigger than my condo!

I decided that it was the last night, so I might as well go out with a bang. The vodka was flowing and I was dancing. I should pause here a minute and explain to anyone that doesn’t know me well that I don’t dance. Maybe three or four times a year I begrudginly do it, but I’m always self conscious and don’t really have a good time. I don’t know if it was the vodka, the elevation, the realization that I probably won’t see most of those judgmental queens again, or the cute tv producer, Josh, with whom I was dancing, but I let loose and had a great time. At the end of the night, Jason and John had to pry me off the dance floor. That was probably the most fun I have had in a long time. As it was the last night, I was not about to let the end of the DJ’d party be the end of my night, so a few of us went back to village and had more margaritas. Finally, when it was time for the last bus back to our condo, I had to say goodbye to Mammoth, the skiing, the new friends, and the memories.

Despite the 7 hours of drinking (see Day 2), I woke up feeling great and, even more importantly, woke up without altitude sickness. Jeff and I were on the chair lift by 9am and got in some great skiing. It was amazing how much different I felt, and how much more fun I had skiing. We tried some more challenging runs than the first day. This one, Slot, started out a lot of fun. It was challenging, but do-able. As I went down a little further, I noticed a group of about 8 people standing on the top of a ridge. That is never a good sign. There’s usually some reason they aren’t skiing down. When I reached the ridge, I saw why. There was a narrow, steep section full of huge moguls. While I was developing my game plan for getting down, this wife began yelling at her husband, which brought some humor to the situation. I fell on my ass about 10 times trying to get down, but I made it. I continued on the rest of the run, which was fun.

After this, we decided it was time for the Elevation lunch at the top of the mountain. Nothing too exciting happened, but Jeff and I chatted with our new friends, before hitting the slopes again to ski a couple more hours.

After skiing, we prettied ourselves up for the Apres ski event, which was even more well attended. By the time we got there at 5, the bar was so full that we couldn’t find a table. We grabbed our new friends John and Jason, and went across the street to LuLu’s to have our own happy hour. John and Jason are a couple that have been together 4 months that live in Houston. They both have slight southern accents, though they deny it, and are super sweet and a lot of fun.

After our own happy hour and dinner, we decided to head up the mountain to the first DJ party, which is at McCoy Station lodge at 10,000 feet. Our Elevation guide advised us to get there early, so we heeded that advice, and planned on an 815 arrival. To get there, we needed to take the gondola from the main lodge up the mountain. However, the bus doesn’t run to the main lodge that late. At this point, I was the most sober, so I took one for the team and volunteered to drive. We rode up the gondola in the dark (which was really cool, although a little freaky), and when we arrived at the top, we were informed that we were the first guests and that they were not ready for us. Finally about 820 they let us in, and we got our drinks. We were there by ourselves until 845 when the second group finally arrived. The party was really cool, and I was surprised at how much DJ equipment and lights they brought up the mountain for us. By 10, the party was packed. We drank our red bull and vodkas (we needed energy!), danced and chatted. I was in the zone and having a great time, but Jason and John, who’s car I drove, wanted to go. Although I was the "sober" driver, it was their car, so I begrudginly left, though Jeff did not. I was in bed by 1130 and got a great night sleep. Jeff got home around 230. (I’ll let him tell his own story. I’ll just say that his night involved a condo we nicknamed the brothel, because there were 8 boys staying there (officially), and every night there were a couple other "guests".

Jeff and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 730 so we could try to be on the slopes at 9 to enjoy the snow before all the other skiers destroy it. Some may call me a slavedriver for waking up early and engaging in heavy physical activity, but to them, I simply say "bah".

At this point, I should mention that Mammoth Mountain is really tall. Our condo was at an elevation of 8000 feet, the top of the mountain is 11,053, and most of the skiing is between 10,500 and 8,500. The reason I mention this is the air is really thin. I read that one in five people get altitude sickness when they first get to Mammoth. Unfortunately, I was part of that 20%. I had a headache and felt nauseaous the whole first day. Even more tragic, it caused me to not really enjoy the first day’s skiing. The snow was decent considering the conditions (50 degrees during the day and high 20s at night), and the runs were challenging, but I just wasn’t feeling it. After four hours of trying, I decided to call it a day, go sunbathing, and then take a nap in the hopes that the next day’s skiing would be much better.

After my nap, the altitude sickness had gone away and I was ready for the first Apres Ski happy hour. More queens had arrived since the previous night, and there were about 100 of us at the happy hour. While I was at home getting well, Jeff made some new friends, Jason and John, at the Elevation lunch. We met them at the happy hour, along with a group of lawyers who live in LA now, but attended law school at Georgetown, and their gaggle. We also met a guy, John, who trains the dogs of rich people in Beverly Hills. His Tuesday client was the family that bought the imfamous Menendez house.

For a few hours, we drank, made new friends, had some dinner, and drank some more. The first day, I skied 4 hours and drank for 7, which I realize makes me sound like a lush, but contributes to a pretty damn good day.

I’ll skip by the 12 hour journey, which involved the Super Shuttle at 430am, a first class flight from BWI to LAX, and then a 5 hour drive thru the California desert to the mountain resort city of Mammoth Lakes, CA. I met my friend Jeff, who now lives in Joplin, MO, at LAX. Catching up with him, as well as singing along with ABBA, Scissor Sisters, and Erasure helped get me in the mood for the week of gayness, as well as make the 5 hours (almost) fly by.

We arrived at our condo (see photos) at 5pm, just in time to take a quick nap before heading to the first elevation event. We got to Lakanuki, a tiki bar, about 8, which was an hour before the official event began. (And who said queens aren’t punctual.) I had a delicious ahi tuna sandwich for dinner and began watching the boys start to arrive. It was fun trying to guess who was with Elevation, and who was clueless. It was a small crowd the first night ,of only about 75. Everyone left their attitudes down at the lower elevations and was super friendly. There was one boy in particular, whom we shall call Pretentious, who although it was clear thought very highly of himself (and rightfully so, as he was smokin’), chatted with us for a while (though it was mostly about himself). Jeff and I made friends with several of the hard-core skiers (and drinkers) who got there early. After 3 hours of meet and greet, we drove back to our condo and turned in so as to prepare for our first day of skiing.

My friend Jack made a video from India. It is amazing,,,

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2350896521290378697&pr=goog-sl

The swastika is an ancient Hindu, Jain, and Buddist symbol. As a Hindu symbol, it is one of the 108 symbols of Vishnu and represents the sun’s rays without which there would be no life. But how did the Nazi’s adopt it? A detailed history of the swastika can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika.

Way back, the Arayans moved from present day China to India and eventually to Europe. These ancient Arayans spoke what linguists have termed the Indo-European language. Essentially, it is the predecessor language to German and Sanskrit. This is why German sentence structure is identical to Sanskrit.  The swastika, from the Indo-European language, continued to be used by the Hindus, Jains, and Buddists in India. When Hitler was looking for a symbol for his Arayan race, he chose the ancient Indo-European symbol, and then perverted it. Interesting!

You may be asking what public bathrooms have to do with the caste system. Actually, its not just public bathrooms, its a sense of community. In India, there is no sense of community, like one would find in most places in the US. In its place, there is family. Most Indians do not donate money to charities, but wouldn’t think twice about giving their children money to buy a house. There are definite advantages to having stronger families. However, clean public bathrooms, or public areas in general, are not one of them. Since there is no sense of community, there is no reason to keep public areas clean. A walk thru any city or town in India will quickly show this. There is garbage everywhere. People defecate on the side of the street or the riverbank. Even in the nicest office building, the bathroom is putrid. The origin of this phenomenon is interesting: the caste system. Because one’s neighbor may be a member of a different caste, there would be no interaction. Therefore, no sense of community is fostered. Hopefully, as the effects of the caste system slowly disappear, so will its negative effects.

India is a country that has always had a scarcity of resources. Per capita, it is one of the poorest countries in the world. As such, the people were constantly competing for everything, from food, water, and housing, to education. The Supreme Court just a couple months ago passed a law that schools could not interview pupils under 5 for admission. Children as young as 3 had been subjected to gruelling entrance exams and interviews while trying to get into the best preschools. After hearing this, things started to make sense to me. I will use my professor as an example here, but we have all had an Indian coworker who acts in this manner. My professor is constantly saying that he attending India’s "elite" institutions, that he ranked 86th out of 500,000 on this entrance exam, that his brother and sister own a house worth USD $500,000, etc. Another example is the coworker who starts every comment at a meeting with this credentials. While there is no excuse for arrogance, we fierce competition for scarce resources in India is what breeds that behavior.

DISCLAIMER: There are many, many Indian Americans who are not arrogant like our professor. I realize I have made an overgeneralization, but I think we all will agree there are enough Indian Americans who display these behaviors to make this exercise interesting.

Arriving into Indira Ghandi International Airport in Delhi is an experience. As soon as you step off the aircraft, you see the black, missing, and delapidated ceiling tiles, giving you a first glimpse of the poor infrastucture of the country. The road from the airport to the hotels is even more striking. While I have seen poverty before in other developing countries, this is the worst I have seen. There are people living in shanties on any open tract of land. In front of brand new shiny glass office buildings, there are tents and shanties, with women washing their clothes in the sewer water. There are cattle grazing on the medians of the highways and occasionally wandering into the traffic lanes. Delhi is one of the wealthiest cities in India. I cannot even imagine what the poor areas are like.

After arriving at the hotel, I quickly hired a driver and headed out, trying to beat the 100 degree heat with nearly 100 percent humidity. My driver was very friendly. He was studying computer science in the evenings. He took me to all the sites I wanted to see, negotiated with the entrance people so I was not overcharged, and provided a very basic tour of some sites. However, as happened to me in Egypt, he kept stopping in stores on the way between sights. "Just look. Ten minutes. You don’t have to buy." The drivers get a commision when they bring customers to the stores. Even if you ask not to be brought there, they tell you, "My company requires it so that you have the opportunity to purchase anything you need." By the end of the day, with temperatures approaching 100, I just wanted to jump in the pool and cool off. I finally told him I would tip him an extra 100 rupees if he would take me straight home.

Since
I had a 12 hour layover in München, I dropped off my carry-on in a locker in
the Lufthansa lounge and took the S-Bahn into the city. I traversed the city’s
gardens, palaces, and the gayborhood for about four hours. It is such a
beautiful city. There are trees and flowers everywhere! The only thing as
pretty as the city are the German mens.

In
one of the streams, there is an area of whitewater where there were four,
muscular, German men in skin-tight wet suits, leaving nothing to the
imagination, surfing. I never thought of Germans surfing, let alone in a stream
in the middle of a city in Bavaria!

I
have decided that I will start German classes when I get home. I hate not being
able to understand what people are saying to me. Its so embarrassing. When I
was in Spain this past March, I had wanted to practice speaking Spanish, which I think I do
fairly well. However, everyone kept speaking to me in English even when I
continued speaking Spanish to them. I speak very little German (for the time
being). Consequently, I speak English to everyone here, yet they keep speaking
German back to me. Why!