Orgiastic display of heternormative dominance and commercialism that it is.  A longstanding, annual tradition, in fact.  Though if memory serves I celebrated “it” last year by studying.

This year I celebrated by drinking a lot of coffee and watching both Meet the Press and This Week, both worthwhile, especially because of Cristianne Amanpour’s foreign expertise and in spite of Peggy Noonan’s mawkishness.  David Gregory has matured into his role of host nicely, while Amanpour has up to now struggled (and this I haven’t watched in a while).  With the Egyptian revolution she’s come into her own, and I am very optimistic that she will fairly soon become as good or better a sunday morning host than any of the legends.

I then continued the celebration on a norpine tour of the greater Blacktail Mountain area.  It had everything: 1000′ plus skins, 1000′ plus steepish treed descents (found one 1300′ shot that was very, very nice, virtually hiding in plain site of all those driving up to ride lifts), flat fireroad trail breaking, low angled forest cruising, and some kick and glide on a few k of groomed track to finish out the day.  A reminder of several things: why fishscales on fat skis are fantastic for the human powered skier, that tip rocker demolishes breakable crust, that short skis are good for modest speeds and tight places (I found a nice little 200′ couloir with stable wind drifted blower and launchable pillows), and that the continued presence of resort skiing as the standard for judging ski gear performance is a truly profound distortion.

For the record, I’m rooting for the Packers, because if they win I get free chips and salsa when I go buy another vegetarian burrito at Qdoba.