MEANWHILE, BACK IN CALGARY...

He opened up his email.

“Congratulations Tim - you are our winner this morning! You may claim your prize during business hours at CHQR, corner of 3rd Ave. & 6th St. Remember the tickets are for next Tuesday. Thanks for listening. Stirling Faux”

Wow! This has never happened to him before!! He faintly remembers groggily waking up and hearing about some trivia contest on the radio. He doesn’t know what motivated him to crawl to the computer and whip off a quick email to the radio station with what he thought was the answer. WHAT A WEIRD NAME FOR A TALK RADIO HOST? He could have just as easily forgotten to hit “send” as he stumbles into the shower…

The three of them left their snowboards near the front entrance. His two colleagues went inside to buy lift tickets, while HE got caught up fiddling with the lock. Finally, after his security piece conceded, he went to get his lift ticket. He looked up. WHAT A WEIRD SIGN? It seems that one can buy lift tickets upstairs, around the corner or outside. With the other two out of sight, he decided to go outside. He was immediately accosted by a row of automated machines, begging to be fed a credit card in exchange for a lift ticket. “Hey, are you planning on buying a lift ticket?” He turned around and faced a stout Asian dressed in a matching fluorescent snow suit. Without waiting for an answer, this human torch led him to the first available machine. Behind the glaring fashion statement, this person produced a magic card – it gave an incredible discount on lift tickets. Even before he finished swiping his own credit card into the machine, the man with the strange bright glow was gone, leaving only a searing afterimage that one gets from staring at something too bright for too long.

He finds himself hurling down the mountain at speeds never felt before. They call this place Lake Louise, but he doesn’t remember seeing any bodies of water. There are amazing views of the mountains, though, as evidenced by the three times he had to make sharp turns at the last minute to avoid crashing into amateur photographers who decided to stop right in the middle of the run. Still, it was an amazing day. Lots of fresh powder in the glades, no flat parts (a snowboarder's arch nemesis), and no line ups at the lifts (it was a Wednesday, after all). He also has his first experience with a rope tow - except this rope tow is the longest that he's ever seen and in fact is what take you to the highest point. WHAT A WEIRD WAY TO GET UP THE MOUNTAIN? Except no one ever showed him how to use a rope tow properly. So, he hangs on, grabbing it with both hands. Hmm. He's only gone up a few meters and his arms start to ache. He can also feel himself losing balance on his board. He finds that he can't hang on and lets go, tumbling off to the side into the soft embrace of a mound of snow. Meanwhile, a snotnosed snowboarding kid goes by with the rope tow tucked between his legs. The kid has a smirk on his face...

And so, he now nurses a sore body as he taps away on his laptop, wondering if there is any creative advantage to writing in the third person…