You know the saying “When in Rome, do what the Romans do“, well the office guys and gals are all talking / thinking / breathing College Basketball as there is some big tournament starting today. There are 64 teams and they all play each other over the course of 3 weeks. It’s a knockout championship and there can only be one winner. Typically there is some form of a rivalry going on in the office in the form of a fantasy basketball competition via the CBS Sports Website. $20 to enter, 26 players in the office and $400 prize money.

When there is money to be won, those who know me, know I will enter regardless of actually knowing the sport in question. Basketball is one such sport. I have never followed it, but a chance to win $400 is worth following it for the time that I am here.

So they got this thing called a bracket on the CBS Sports website, which is a grid of all the teams, who they are playing, and it shows the winners and losers, and ultimately who will play each other in the final and it all works on points I think.

I had the computer pick my fantasy winners and losers and I changed a few of the winners to make it more personal. I looked at the names of the teams and decided who would win or lose by their names. Very scientific as you can see.

They started playing at 12pm today and after the first round of games, guess who is tied in 1st place (out of 26 fantasy basketball fanatics – ha ha ha)?

After a canceled flight on Sunday and a missed flight yesterday, I have finally made it to New York early this morning. The plane in the photo was not my booked American Airlines flight. I thought it was until I reached the desk and they told me my flight had already left 2 hours earlier. Have you ever experienced that feeling?  (Not recommended).  It’s sickening, especially when I had gotten to the airport about 5 hours earlier and had been sitting in the lounge waiting for my flight unbeknown that it had already left. I didn’t even hear them calling me over and over and over again. (oops).

Anyway, American Airlines were jolly good and accommodating, and even got my suitcase hand packed on the plane. When I got on the plane, there was hardly a sole on board, so I got to sit in an area with loads of legroom and no one on either side of me or behind me (and no screaming babies).  The service on AA was outstanding and I was very impressed with them. The flight in was a bit bumpy, but all good. Getting through customs and immigration was a breeze, it must have been the friendly South African accent that they warmed too. I didn’t really see JFK airport.

I am staying at the DoubleTree Metropolitan hotel in Manhattan. It pretty good, I got a nice big room, with a wonderful view of another hotel room’s shower room (hehehe)!

What a day, what a week! Our Courchevel ski holiday came to an end with a lot of laughing. I will explain shortly…

We woke to another cold and cloudly morning, well that’s what it looked like from our balcony. It had snowed overnight and everything had a thick layer of snow on it. It must have snowed quite a lot as our balcony was piled up with snow.

We planned a couple of blue runs that would take us down to Courchevel 1550, ones we had not done yet and decided to get to the slopes an hour earlier than we had been, to get as much skiing in as possible.

It was as if the weather wanted to give us one last day of perfect clear blue skies, because as we were walking up to the starting area, the clouds lifted and we saw the awesome mountain slopes in all their splendid glory. The slopes glistened in the sun like sparkling diamonds. I will insert a few photos when we get back home.

The weather was deceiving though! The second we started to ski down the mountain, it soon became apparent that the air temperature / wind chill factor was not ideal. We later heard it was a chilly -10C at 1850 and above 2000m around -15C. It was miserable on the open chair lifts. The cold bit into any visible skin, which was the face. In hind sight a balaclava would have been the perfect solution.

We did some super fast blue runs and used our Panasonic FT1 all weather camera to take some stunning HD video and photos. It even managed to capture one of us wiping out (no names mentioned…too much pride at stake). Talking cameras, one cannot fault this camera. It worked brilliantly in the snow, and was in a couple of big crashes and its durable body survived all the knocks we have thrown it. Not to mention it was fully submerged in the Orange river in South Africa less than three months ago and survived the desert heat in Namibia. I also carried our gorilla-pod camera stand and we able to attach it to a few chosen locations allowing us some ‘together’ photos.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Courchevel 1850 has an airport. Well just above the landing strip is a gorgeous restaurant / meeting area with tables and chairs, and even deck chairs. So it was here we stopped for a mid morning hot cup of chocolate and customary beer. If it wasn’t for the ice cold wind and snow everywhere, you could almost believe you were sitting on a beach somewhere. Fantastic scenery.

This particular restaurant / meeting point must have been special because they had their very own DJ (not in da house, but ON da house).

He had his decks and everything set up on the roof and he was belting out tracks. I was thinking he could have caused a mini avalanche just above his head, but he didn’t seem too bothered.

At around 2pm we had enough. Our feet and legs were tired and we had done most, if not all of the green and blue runs through the course of the week. Quite an achievement we thought, considering this was our first week of skiing. We handed in our rented skis and went to have lunch at one of the many brilliant restaurants. Courchevel 1850 is not cheap, but we managed to find affordable places to eat.

Our final bit of fun was hiring a helmet and ’snow bob’ or plastic sledge for €5. Courchevel has its very own luge course running from 1850 down to 1550. It winds down a 2km mountain pass with loads of hairpin bends and sheer cliff drops and ice barriers. The entire course has huge fir trees lining the road. The sledge is plastic, has a seat, a foot holder, two pull brakes on either side of the chair, which are used for breaking and steering. The course is steep and icy in parts with bumps that cause one to fly through the air. The second you start its impossible not to laugh. If you are following close behind someone the ice sprays up from their sledge, so its imperrative that one wears snow goggles. There appears to be no limit on how many people can be on the course at any one time and this adds to the fun and laughter as people are passing you or sliding into the hairpin bends at breakneck speeds or crashing in front of you and it is just the funniest thing ever. Everyone becomes everyones friend for that moment regardless of nationality or language. We did five or six runs. After a while it became quite painful on the coxis and knees, arms, hands, head, back etc if one is accident prone…(ha ha ha). The helmet is a must have item. I came off on a straight after going airborne and crashed and rolled a few times, hitting my head in the process into the ground. Having a helmet definitely saved a severe bruising or concussion.

So it is all over until next year. We will definitely be going back to Courchevel 1850. It has so much character and choice, and it is hard to fault. Perhaps if we win the lottery between now and next year, we can afford to stay at the €35000 per week Chevel Blanc hotel.

The above photos were taken on my Nokia N900, resized and cropped on the N900.

In the five days that we have been in Courchevel 1850, we have had clear blue skies, rain, overcast with snow and today we had total white out. We watched the fog/mist roll into the valley this morning and thought it would lift by the time we got on the slope. How wrong we were?

Visibility was about 10m and it made skiiing very difficult. Nevermind that we were tackling blue slopes, it was the ‘not knowing what was ahead of us’ that caused concern at times, especially when the slopes dip off or drop steeply. Added to the fog/mist it began to snow. We got lost a few times and even got split up once, which was a little scary. Thankfully we had walkie talkies at hand.

Today (Thursday) was much like yesterday, we were determined to do as many blue runs as possible, so plotted out our route beforehand. We started at 1850 and took the Jardin Alpin lift up to a blue run called Biollay. A short run down to a six seater chair lift at Pralong. Then up the top of Pralong and down past the Altiport (airport). Believe it or not they have a tared runway where light aircraft and helicopters take off. Quite popular as aeroplanes are taking off and landing all day in rain or snow.

Once past the airport there was a lovely long blue run through the forest to Prameruel. We took the Roc Mugnier chair lift up to the Grande Bosses blue run. By now it was snowing quite heavily and it made skiiing a pleasure.

We skied all the blue routes and eventually ended back at Bel Air, this magnificent meeting point / restaurant on top of the mountain. It was cold and we hoped to sit indoors but the place was packed with people, so ended up sitting outside on the deck in the snow. It was then we noticed the snowflakes. They say all snowflakes are unique. Well, we filmed loads (we shall insert some macro shots of some snowflakes at a later date). The snowflakes were impressive. We had a lovely hot meal and then headed back towards the altiport, where it was really foggy. Even the lifts had been stopped. We took a few wrong turns and ended up having to take lifts back to the top. Frustrating when one is only trying to go down.

We never got to sled down to Courchevel 1550. That is now planned for Friday night.

As the weather was so bad we headed back a little earlier and decided to go and watch a film at the cinema. There was only one film showing and it was Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey Junior as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Dr Watson, what a brilliant film?

There were parts in the film that had not been researched that well for example; there is one scene that Holmes and Watson are under the Houses of Parliament in the sewer and Sherlick Holmes is running after someone and suddenly they end up on a construction site, that is Tower Bridge. Not exactly close to each other. But we enjoyed the film and the cinema was awesome, with lovely large chairs and beautiful, clear, surround sound.

Day 3 was a lot like Day 2, whereby we skied all the green runs in the area without crashing or falling over. It was time to try out a blue run.

We met a very passionate rugby loving Welsh man (aren’t they all) named Daniel at our hotel on Tuesday night. Actually he was the chef. While we watched him eat a delicious looking Italian dish (we had not eaten dinner at this stage so thought it was mighty rude of him for not offering), he told us about “a simple blue / green run” that goes down to La Tania, and he said if want to ease into blue run, this would be the one to try.

So bright and early on Day 4 after “Deep Heating” out all the aches and pains and after a nice full breakfast of ham, salami, croissont, pain au chocolat, bread, cereal, coffee and orange juice, we skied down to Plantery and rode a chair lift up to Loze. At the top we took the blue run named Crete. Once you drop down the hill there is no turning back.

I won’t lie when I say, “I was pooping myself going down that first blue run”. It felt steep and icy and one wrong move would have meant a fall, but it never happened. Jo was tackling the slope in her usual zigzag manner and winning. We eventually came across the green run that took us all the way to La Tania. We even started to brag that it was too easy and that there were too many beginners blocking up the green run (ha ha). A clear sign that we had progressed.

At La Tania we rode a ski lift up to Praz-Juget and then rode an open chair lift to Col De La Loze. At 2305m it would have looked spectacular had it not been for the pretty chilly cloudy weather with snow flakes falling everywhere. From this starting point there was only a blue or black run to choose from and since we don’t have a death wish yet, blue it was to be!

This run took us down to Chenus. It was fairly steep but thankfully straight and allowed us to do some speed skiing. By now we were becoming accustomed to what lay ahead in terms of the blue runs.

From Chenus we dropped down to Verdons and then down to Courchevel 1850. It is a great feeling skiing into 1850. The welcome area is large and there are hundreds of people unclipping and walking up to the three large lifts. All the restaurants face the slopes and it is just a bustle of people and activities. There is also a tunnel that takes one under the road and down further slopes and runs.

I tell you once the bug has bitten one doesn’t want to stop. Now we looked for longer blue runs. Even the pains and sore feet and blood clotting feeling that had slowed us down the days before had gone. Wednesday, was by far our best day of skiing.

Tomorrow we are tackling the sledge run that runs from Courchevel 1850 to Courchevel 1650. A 200m drop over a 2km winding pass.

We awoke to a bright clear blue sky morning. Unbelievably bright because of all the snow covered mountains surrounding Courchevel 1850. We had a very filling breakfast of croissant, cereal, yogurt, orange juice and coffee. One thing we can’t fault is the breakfast. It’s brilliant and the ideal way to start the morning.

We picked up our skis from the underground locker and walked up to the slope. It felt hot as there were no clouds so we quickly remove any extra clothing. We have these brilliant little backpacks that are light and they have a water bag in them. The bag holds about 1.5 litres in them and are ideal for drinking on the slopes. We did a nice long green run starting at the top of Jardin Alpin running down to Courchevel 1850. At 12pm we met up with a new ski instructor called Jean Ives, with 40 years of experience.

He followed on where Stefane left off yesterday. We did a few more snow plow turns, then a few curve turns, left and right turn jumps, which were tricky to say the least. Then we learnt how to turn keeping the skis parallel. Jean Ives was again very friendly, patient and helpful. We would definitely recommend private lessons for beginners alike.

After the lesson we took a timeout at the Courchevel centre, where they have free WIFI, so extremely useful for catching up on email and blogging.

We then took the Verdons lift up to Verdons and left our skis and poles against a fence. We then hopped onto one of those great big square ski lifts that holds about 50 people and rode up to the top of Saulire. At 2738m the view are pretty spectacular or incredible or awesome! Of course there are people dropping off the edge to ski or snowboard down it. We call them insane. Ha ha.

We had a very late lunch in the restaurant on top of the mountain. A self service joint where everything was ridiculously over priced. We have discovered that beer or coke, regardless of the size of the bottle or can is exactly the same price. At this place it was €5 each. On top of that we had spaghetti bolognaise and two beef hatches with chips. It cost a wopping €40.

After been robbed we headed back down to Verdons and opted for another green run called Renard where we put everything we learned from Jean Ives to the test. It was great fun carving through the snow. Neither of us managed to fall once. We headed back to the hotel satisfied of great days skiing. The hot shower back at the hotel was a welcome feeling to our aching legs and feet.

Afterwards we went back to meeting points at Courchevel 1850 and watched a fantastic show on the snow to music, lights and fire. They had skiers flying in on paragliders, hang gliders with flashing lights and all the ski instructors coming down the mountain holding fire lights. Quite spectacular. The show ended with a great big fireworks display.

Finally we ended the evening at a pizza restaurant. It was reasonably priced and the ambience was very romantic. Walking back to the hotel an evening wouldn’t be rememberable if there wasn’t some sort of accident or drama. Ha ha! Jo was telling me she had not hurt herself yet when suddenly she slipped on the ice and in the process of falling on her arse she managed to punch me on the nose. We are still trying to figure out how that happened?

Jo and I have only skied once before for 3 days, so can hardly brag we know what we are doing. So we paid for a two hour lesson and met up with our instructor at midday. His name was Stefane. A friendly sole with 30 years experience working at the Courchevel ski resort. The mind boggles what he must have thought of these two Bowens battling to turn in the snow, but he was patient, very helpful and friendly and set our fears a side.

Two hours seem to pass really quickly but we managed without falling to go down three fairly long green runs with little problems and in the process learnt all about turning, the pressures involved on the inner and outer leg, how to stand on your ski’s and how to ski with some confidence. Actually both of us did really well, if I have to say so myself.

After we said farewell to Stefane, we had lunch at a restaurant that specialized in crepes. You definitely can not visit France and not eat at least one off their 101 custom crepes.

Lunch gave us a chance to relax the feet and legs as they get quite sore compressed in the ski boots.

After lunch we braved Vedons, which was another green run, but a little to icy and a bit too steep. There were a lot of skiers and snowboarders on this run, but after the initial concerns and one or two tumbles, we grew in confidence.

Our last run entailed using a drag lift, which is basically a pole that has a small mini wheel at the base. One slides the pole between your legs, using the mini wheel as a seat. The pole is connected to a big pulley and it pulls or toes you up the hill. All very easy until you reach the summit, which is particularly steep for some reason. Sadly this part caught Jo out and she let go too early, which resulted in Jo eating the snow and her skis nearly taking me out as I passed her lying sprawled on the ground. (ha ha).

The day turned out to be a great learning experience and we look forward to the week ahead. Our goal is to tackle a blue route with confidence.

Finally our evening was rounded off with a 3-0 thrashing at tenpin bowling, with the victor being Mike.

Will definitely sleep well tonight.

Thanks again to Last.FM I have just discovered a brilliant band called Stroke 9.

Stroke 9 formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989. The band has since recorded five albums and toured extensively in the United States, Canada and Europe. Fueled by the commercial success of the hit song “Little Black Backpack,” their third album, “Nasty Little Thoughts,” went gold in 2000. The single “Kick Some Ass” from their fourth album “Rip It Off” was featured in the movie “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

I’ve been listening to the album “Rip it off”… bloody awesome!

I thought I would see how many applications I can open at one time on my Nokia N900 since it’s supposedly one of the best devices for multitasking.

To make it a little more interesting, I have open various applications namely;

• My browser bookmarks page,
• a couple of (IM) instant message (three separate screens)
• two fairly large websites with lots of images (www.wilkinsonsworld.com) and (www.expedia.com – I did a search for holiday appartments in New York city),
• RSS Feeder application showing the latest headlines from Maemo, Twitter and BBC News.
• Twitter website,
• My blog (lookatbowen.com – edit comments screen),
• Application manager showing all available applications,
• Media box – 3rd party multimedia player – was listening to Clive Cussler – Dragon Audio Book,
• File Manager,
• Conversations window showing various IM and SMS messages,
• SMS screen to my Mom,

The N900 so far is working like a dream. No sign of slowing down, so I thought I would open a few more applications.

• OVI store website, did a search for Firefox and downloaded it,
• FAQ screen is a help screen for something,
• The default media player playing Counting Crows.

• Firefox browser showing our website,
• File Manager application showing the screens above and below,

• Witter (a twitter application),
• Vagalume (Last.fm player).
• MaStory (blogging tool).
• Email announcement.
• SMS announcement.

One awesome feature of the task bar is that each of the mini screens are a real-time image of the actual application. It is bloody awesome!   At this stage I was running out of things to open, and after calculator the N900 finally started to show signs of slowness. Well it was a very clear sign – an error. (ha ha).

• Calculator,
• Calendar,
• Address book,
• Notes,
• Buddy list in Pidgin,
• A game of chess.

I think I have made my point. I challenge any iPhone owner to show me a similar test!

Happy birthday Pete. We hope you are having a very special day. Maybe you can steer the ship to a tropical island just for the day.

Are the rumours true? that your ship mates got together and bought you a razor, so you can shave that thing off your face!

All our love,

Mick and Jo