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No, this post is not exciting. When exciting doesn't happen, exciting doesn't get blogged about. (Note to my sister (not one of the younger three): I decided upon a solution to your always appreciated, uh, constructive grammatical criticism. Anything you perceive as incorrect I get to defend as "writing style". Kind of like a few sentences ago where I ended the sentence with a preposition. And like these sentence fragments.)

So anyway. I e-mailed a few people regarding my cell phone number change, but here it is just in case. 613-299-2947

Finally a local number! We were getting tired of paying up to 55 cents a minute just to talk on the phone. Apparently (if you're a reader of fine print you might know this--and you might also be part of an embarassingly small minority) the rules say that if you're not in your local calling area (Toronto for us), you pay long distance for incoming calls. Plus the usual airtime. As reasonable as that may seem (???) we got sick of funnelling our retirement fund straight into the Bell Modility coffers, so today I went to town and got my number changed. This is supposed to cost me $15 at the store plus another $10 on my next bill. I didn't pay anything at the store, but I shall withhold my ebullience until I see what they decide to charge on my bill.

We're locked in until June so until then we're not getting a landline. I wonder how many people have tried to live without a phone (in the last few decades I mean). How bad can it be? Who needs phone service anyway? I have e-mail. This isn't the 90s; in fact, it's hardly even the 00s anymore! It used to be the case that most people have e-mail; for those who don't, just phone. Soon enough people should be expected to have e-mail; phone service could be optional and for those without, just e-mail.

Grumble grumble. Utilities just cost too much, that's all.

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I went snowboarding with a friend last week Tuesday evening. It had just snowed all day and conditions were absolutely beautiful. And the silence was golden: I couldn't remember when I'd last gone down a slope and not heard the grinding against a hard pack of ice or groomed snow. It was glorious.

When conditions are that good, one dares to be more acrobatic since falling doesn't hurt so much. This was fine in theory but I proved it wrong only once, but then the top of the lift where the chairlift disposes of you is generally an icy spot. I have no idea what really happened, but suffice it to say that my disembarkment was less than graceful; I caught an edge, twisted and landed on my hip. I have never felt that exact form of pain to such a degree (um, if this past Saturday doesn't count), and I was pretty sure I'd broken something. Well, I don't think I've ever broken a bone and that wasn't about to change. I managed to enjoy myself for a couple more hours, but the next day I could hardly walk, let alone traverse stairs. That took a few days to get over.

On Saturday, the friend and I conned our wives into coming with us to a ski hill further from Ottawa (still only about 90km). This mountain was higher and further in the boonies so I expected more snow. Was I wrong! That big melt we had a bunch of weeks ago affected this place worse than it had affected Ottawa. And then they didn't get as much snow since. They have snowmakers on the hill but either they didn't read the instructions or the weather just wasn't ever right. This mountain had very little snow cover and reasonably thorough ice cover. Which is not good for boarders. The girls lasted until lunch time, after which they rented skis to salvage what they could of their day. Both had plenty of nasty falls in the morning (in those conditions there are no good falls), and their knees were literally purple. I fell only once but that was once too often that day; it was the second time I had felt that form of pain to that degree (and it didn't help that the fall involved my then-nearly-recovered hip). This mountain may be okay if conditions are right, but it will have to snow 10 feet before we feel any kind of eagerness to return there.