The Last Run of the Day

Until 2005 I had never broken a bone. Well, except when I played football in middle school high school - I think I have broken every single one of my fingers. But that doesn't really count. Its not like they put casts on your fingers. The coach just tapes it to the next finger and says "Now get back in there!"

It was Veteran's Day, Nov 11. So pretty much the whole base was off work. Me and my two friends from work, Jason and Sean decided to go snowboarding for the day. Now where we live, there are at least a dozen places to snowboard within a 1 hour radius. But this time we decided we wanted to try someplace new. After some research on the internet, we found a place in Austria about 3 hours away called Moltaller Glacier.

The drive into Austria is always beautiful. The Apls are an amazing sight anytime of the year. And since this was only November there wasn't much snow except for on the peaks. We left the Aviano area around 6:30 am and it takes about an hour and a half to get to the Austrian border.

There should be a saying among the Austrians and Germans that goes something like; "Where's the sun? Its in Italy!" Sometimes its so true. It was a beautiful day as we drove from Aviano to the the northeastern border. As we made our way through the mountains, the temperature dropped a little but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Right before you get to the Austrian border you have to go through this tunnel, its kind of long, but not as long as some others. We might have been in the tunnel for about 30 seconds. When we enetered the tunnel it was a bright sunny day. When we came out the other side it was cloudy, rainy, and windy and the temperature must have dropped about 20 degrees. Yep, we were getting close to Austria...

Even though it was colder, there still wasn't any snow. We still had an hour to drive, but the lack of snow was starting to make us worry. Their website said they had snow...

We approach the town and we still couldn't see any snow. There were a few peaks off in the distance that were snowcapped, but they weren't even in the direction we were supposed to be going. We decided to press on anyway.

We make our way up the windy road and reach the ticket office. Kind of a weird scene. A ticket office that sells ski lift tickets, dozens of people in ski gear and NO SNOW in sight. Well at least we weren't the only ones there. We bought our tickets and went to the lift. This ski lift was more like a tram or a train car. It took us inside the mountain and up for about 15 minutes. When we got out there would surely be snow, right?

Wrong.

Still no snow. No. To get to the glacier we had to get on another lift that took us up over a peak. And there it was... plenty of fresh beautiful snow. Gotta love Austria.

We spent the next 5-6 hours or so snowboarding. Even though its Austria - a winter sports paradise, there were still only 4 or 5 runs open. Jason and Sean are pretty good snowboarders but I'm from Texas. I've only been doing this a couple years, so I just do my best to keep up and not fall too much. By about 3pm, we'd had enough and decided it was time for the infamous last run'.

I had been down this run about 4 times earlier in the day. There was this one part that flattened out and every time I would lose my speed and get stuck. I'd have to get out of one of my bindings and push myself on with one foot. Not fun. Skiers whiz past you or push themselves forward with their poles. Snowboarders have no poles, so we just have to try to gain enough momentum to keep us going through the flat parts.

So this time I was gonna make it! I was gonna go fast enough to carry me over the flat part. I was screaming down the hill. I knew I was going faster than I should have, but if I just focused, I'd be okay.

Well, I don't really know what happened, but the next thing I knew I was tumbling. Tumbling fast. I was tasting snow. My hat and goggles went in different directions than I did. And when I came to a stop I felt a sharp pain in my left wrist. I knew it was bad, but I was still in tact enough to get my hat and goggles off the snow, put them back on, gather myself and finish the run.

Jason and Sean passed me, asked if I was ok and then went down to the end of the run to wait for me. My wrist hurt bad, and I was starting to get dizzy. We usually like to end a day of boarding with some schnitzel and a beer, but I didn't know how bad my wrist was. I tried to suck it up. We went into the restaurant, I couldn't even hold anything in my left hand. I sat down and took off my gloves. My wrist looked funny to me. Nothing extremely noticeable, but just not right. I sat down and tried to eat but I had no appetite. I tried to drink my beer, but my body was telling me not to drink it. I was getting dizzy and my vision was blurring. My heart was racing and I was breathing fast. I couldn't make myself relax. It was a really weird feeling. Something I'd never felt before.

Then the dizziness started to wear off and the pain started to subside. Finally my heart slowed and I started breathing normally again. I don't know what that was all about, endorphines? I'm no doctor, but something inside me made the pain subside enough for me to endure the 3 hour ride home.

Susan took me to the Italian hospital in the city of Pordenone. The X-Ray showed 3 broken bones in my wrist. They put me into a cast that went right below my elbow. No driving, lifting, running, or anything like that.

A couple weeks later, I went to the Air Force orthopedic surgeon. He looked at my original X-Rays and said that I was lucky. For one thing, he said my arm should have been casted over my elbow. Secondly he said that if I would have went to see him earlier he would have performed surgery and put all kinds of nasty pins, plates, and screws into my arm. He said my break was very complex and had a high possibility of re-breaking or not healing properly.

So he told me that he was going to take my nice little comfy Italian cast off and put on a huge long American one, and I was gonna like it. After he spent the last 10 minutes scaring the crap out of me with all the metallic objects he wanted to insert into my arm, I smiled and said, "Thank you, sir!"

So I spent the next 3 weeks in a cast that went over my elbow. I couldn't straighten my arm. Couldn't drive, run, jump, practically nothing. For someone who's usually pretty active, it really sucked.

The biggest impact it had was that it kept me from going to Middle East. Now all my friends, including Jason and Sean, are there and I'm still here in Italy. To you that might sound like a good thing, but I'm very disappointed. Anyone who's ever been in the military will know how I feel. I was looking forward to going with my friends and doing my duty... with them,... where it counts. But oh well, I'll get my chance.

I got the cast off on Dec 21. And I can't describe how good it felt. For the next 2-3 days, the best feeling in the world to me was to rub, scratch, or massage the skin on my arm that was covered in plaster for 6 weeks. So now, my wrist is still a little stiff and sore, but I'm back to doing things almost normally again. The doc said it might be months before I have all my strength back, but it'll get there eventually.

Just yesterday I saw my ortho surgeon, Major Bartle at the base gym. I was on a treadmill and he got on the one next to me. After he finished talking to another one of his former patients who was also working out, I nodded to him to say hello...

"Hey Doc", I said.

"Hey there! How's the wrist?"

"Good, almost back to normal".

"Well remember to take it easy, and don't do anything crazy", he said with smile.

"I'll bet you see all your old patients up here, huh?" I asked.

"Only the tough ones".

What do you do in the Air Force?

I get this question a lot.

I spent my first year at Aviano in a workcenter called ACE - Air Expeditionary Communcations Element. Our mission was to always be ready to deploy to any location on the globe and establish computer, telephone, radio, and satellite networks on short notice.

To help illustrate, I've attached a link to some pics from a training exercise we did last summer. We affectionatley named our little exercise site "Camp Duck Butter". -- Don't ask.

Camp Duckbutter Photos

Kicking off 2006 in Budapest! - Part 2 - Lucky Penny

In case you didn't know - Budapest is freakin cold in the winter time.

We arrived in Budapest late on Dec 30. We pretty much went straight to bed and got up early the next day, all rested up and ready for the New Year's celebrations. Only problem - we didn't have any plans yet. The hotel we were staying in was having a gala, but Susan and I quickly ruled that out. We're in Budapest, why would we want to hang out with a bunch of Americans? Especially ones that we see now and then on the base?

Dec 30, 2005 9:00am

We spent the day of Dec 31 sightseeing with a tour guide. This guy was really cool. He played the bass guitar in a band - wish I could remember the name of it. We saw all the touristy sites in Budapest - the castles, Hero's Square, the famous bridges... This is a super cool city. The worst thing about it was the cold. There was snow on the ground and ice on the steps. The sidewalks were slushy so walking was a chore. But even with all this, it didn't take away from the spectacular arcitechture of the city. I defintely want to go back when its warmer.

2:00pm

Now since Susan and I decided not to attend the gala at our hotel - we weren't allowed to stay in the hotel that night. This was no problem because other arrangements had already been made. There were actually some other people on the trip that didn't want to go to the gala either. So Nicole, the trip organizer, found a guy that rents out apartments. Susan and I followed this guy - his name was Peter - to our apartment for the night. We walked from one of the main markets along a street towards the Danube river. The buildings we were passing were fairly nice, althought maybe a little old. Most of them were 6-8 stories high. The doors were big and solid looking - most of them made of wood. There were little cafes and convenience stores along the way. We also passed a few streets that had restaurants, bars, pubs, and shops. Susan and I took note of these streets and hoped we could remember how to get back to them. Peter was walking fast.

We were about 100 yards away from the Danube river when Peter made a sharp turn into a building. He pulled out a key and opened up the steel gate that led into a hallway and up some stone steps. The feel of this building was old and sturdy. Who knows how long its been there? We were in one of the oldest parts of the city so it must be farily pricey to live there. But nonetheless, the building seemed dark and musty. The entryway kind of opened into a courtyard and so the cold seeped right in. The walls were cracked here and there. It seemed like a building that was very high society when it was built, but not quite so much anymore. There was a lift in the center of the entryway, but not anything like you'd see in a fancy office building in Dallas! It was basically a cage that rose from the underground levels all the way to the top of the building. Inside the cage you could see the shafts for the two lifts. No other word came to mind except "rickety". Peter walked up the steps that spiraled around the lift and we followed him up. He said our place was on the 3rd floor - and in Europe that usually means the 4th floor since the ground floor is simply called the "ground floor" and doesn't get a number. But apparentley in Hungary the 3rd floor actually equals the 17th floor. Ok, that's an exaggeration - it was the 5th. But it sure seemed like more than that.

Our apartment was nice and modern looking on the inside. Peter said everything was furnished with Ikea stuff. Hardwood floors. A kitchen, a bathroom, and a living/sleeping area with a nice big queen size bed and a little sofa. We thanked Peter and quickly got ready to leave again to go find our drinking spot for the night. As we walked around the apartment, we noticed that the aprtment seemed 'lived in'. Like very recently 'lived in'. There was prescription medication in the bathroom, socks and underwear in the drawers, and utility bills on the kitchen counter. After an exchange of confused looks, Susan and I shrugged our shoulders and headed out.

Before we left we noticed that all the doors in the building looked almost exactly the same, and we knew it would be late when we returned plus we would be drunk and tired. So in order to prevent us from getting accused of breaking and entering some poor old Hungarian woman's apartment, Susan put a penny on the ledge of the window of our door so we could identify our door when we came back.

3:00pm

We were both starving. We ate a cool little Thai reastaurant. Try finding a Thai restaurant in Italy... good luck!

5:30pm

Its New Year's Eve, we're in Budapest and we have no idea what we were going to be doing that night. After last year's experience in Venice, we wanted to make sure we got into someplace cool. It seems that in Europe, most bars/clubs/pubs have private parties that you can usually get into if you're willing to shell out the cash.

We stopped into a few bars that looked cool. One Irish pub, one place that called itself Fat Moe's Speakeasy, a jazz club, and about a dozen other places that still had availability for their parties. They cheapest one was 60 Euro per person - all you can eat and all you can drink. Sounded great to me! But we decided to check out some other places before committing, and by the time we came back they were full. Oh well...

6:00pm

Every other place seemed to want 70 - 85 Euro (~$100-$110) to get in and that didn't include drinks. I was starting to get bummed. Then we found out about this huge party being thrown by the Budapest Universtiy of Economics - in a warehouse right on the river and down the street from our apartment. 25 Euro and all you can drink. Sign us up!

And now onto the next obstacle... finding it.

It sounded simple enough, but the problem was that there was more than one warehouse AND more than one NYE party. We knew we were in the right general area and we saw a few discrete signs posted on this big huge building in front of us. Then we saw about 4 guys standing at a gate that went into an empty parking lot. The scene was right out of a movie. This winter night in Budapest was dark, cold, and this industrial area was empty and quiet. We went up to them, hoping they understood English.

"Where do we buy tickets?" I said.

They understood! Yay! We followed his directions around the far end of the building, around the corner, up some stairs, and into an unmarked door. What we walked into was some sort of backroom or storage area for a bar. Young people scampered past us while Susan and I just tried to stay out of their way. A couple guys looked at us as if to say, "What the hell do you want?"

"Tickets for the party?"

They pointed to a small door in the corner marked "office". We went inside to find a man standing in front of a desk and two women, one sitting at a computer and the other on a couch. The man asked if he could help us. We asked about the tickets and he told us they were 65 Euro each,

65 Euro? We were thinking it was 25. Must be the wrong place.

"Thanks anyway" I said as we turned to walk away.

We headed back outside into the cold and back across the still empty parking lot. We weren't sure if we were gonna be able to find the right place in time to buy tickets. We thought we might end up paying more than what we wanted to. That would be okay but it sure would be nice to find this 25 Euro one.

6:30pm

Then we passed another huge building. This has gotta be it. We went inside a door on the side of the building. There were only a few people inside, but the room just looked like an empty bar. There were dozens of people - probably university students, running around setting up tables, stocking the bar, etc... We bought the tickets from a guy sitting at a table. He told us the doors will open at 9pm and they are expecting over 5000 people!

Did you catch that? OVER 5000 people!!!!! All you can drink!!!!! It was gonna be quite a night...

6:45pm

A quick stop at another Irish pub to kill some time turned into a fun couple hours, just as most stops at Irish pubs ususally do. We met some Italian guys from Vicenza and watched them entertain the crowd by using ridiculous pick up lines on every single woman in the bar - including my wife! All I could do was laugh...

There were a lot of Italiains in Budapest.

8:50pm

Time to head back down to the warehouse and get in line. Hoping that the Hungarians have more respect for lines than the Italians... We turn the corner and see a huge mob of people trying to get into the warehouse. So much for orderly fashion. So we take our place in the herd. We're shoulder to shoulder, immovable unless the crowd moves. Pushing, shoving, the usual. I'm trying not to get irritated. I really want to have a good time tonight! We get inside, check our coats, and head to the bar. Sure enough, its all you can drink, any drink you want. Beer, liquor, wine, whatever. The inside of this building is enormous. Its looks like an old train station or something. There are three floors and dozens of bars everywhere. Old ticket offices were now bars. Old baggage rooms were now coat check rooms. Old waiting areas were now DJ booths. Mostly techno music at all the bars, but we found one that was playing 80's stuff. We stayed at that one most of the night! : )

There sure are a lot of Italians here...

11:50pm

We'd spent most of the night doing a little dancing, people-watching, and drinking at a moderate-to-fast pace. A few other American guys from our group were with us. Susan went with our friend, Levi to the bar and came back with champagne for everyone. I didn't even realize how close it was to midnight. The bar did the usual countdown thing and 2006 was upon us!

Jan 1, 2006 12:30am

The rest of the night I was mostly preoccupied with the increasingly high possibility that a fight would break out. I was getting pretty annoyed at how everyone seemed to go out of their way to bump into you. But then again, since the bar was filled with probably about 50% Italians, it shouldn't have come as a surprise. A simple trip to the bathroom almost turned into a fight when a guy cut right in front of me and I shoved him right back. He backed off. That's how you have to deal with these prissy arrogant assholes, if you stand up to them they always back down.

I come out of the bathroom and wait for Susan. When she comes out she tells me that the same thing happened to her! And she reacted the same way... that's my girl!!!

1:45am

What are all these Italians doing here?

We headed back to our spot and stopped by a bar to get another Jager and Red Bull for me and a water for Susan. Then this goofy looking guy, obviously drunk comes up to Susan and I and puts his arms around us. He starts speaking some language that I couldn't make out, and he reaches out and tries to take Susan's water right off the table and tries to walk away! WTF???

We just stood in line at the bar for 15 minutes for that water! No way am I gonna let some drunk Eurotrash take it. I grab it back from him but he won't let go. He keeps talking to me like I understand him. I'm telling him to get the F away from us and give me the F'ing water - in English and Italian. Finally a bouncer shows up and stands in between us. And the guy goes away.

As soon as the bouncer went back to his corner, the same guy comes back and tries to close talk me! He didn't seem like he was trying to fight, but I was sure getting there. And I'm pretty patient - even if I'm a little buzzed. Now I have to admit, by this point I was irritated by the crowd, the new year's elation had worn off, I was a little tired, and Susan was done drinking. So whatever this guy was trying to tell me, I had no interest in listening to him. He was a bit bigger than me, but I press my left forearm into his chest to push him back (my left wrist was still in a brace while it was recovering from 3 broken bones - that's another story), and I give him a mush right in his face with my right hand.

Don't know what a mush is? Its not a slap or a punch, its just a palm pressed on the side of the face and then a shove, done with the intent to send the message 'get the F away from me'.

Looking back at it, it may seem like I overreacted. But like I said, it was the culmination of many different factors. The bouncer came back and separated us again. Luckily that was the end of it cause I never saw that guy again. And I really didn't want to spend Jan 1, 2006 in a Hungarian jail.

Maybe since I'm getting a little older, this club scene just isn't as appealing as it used to be. I think I would have been happier to just hang out in that Irish pub.

2:45am

Even though this party was gonna go until at least 5am, it was time for us to head home. We'd had enough excitement for the night. We got back to our apartment a little after 3am and had to find our way back to our room. Confident that we would be able to find our door. Thank goodness Susan put that penny on the ledge! We rode the rickety rusted elevator up to what we thought was our floor, walked to what we thought was our door and looked for the penny...

No penny.

Oooops, wrong floor!

Back down the stairs, found the penny, smiled, and retired for the night. Thanks Abe.

Where we live

Its difficult to try to explain what its like to live in Italy. Whenever I do try to explain it, I feel like I can't convey an accurate description. Pictures are better than words, although in a country as beautiful as Italy, pictures don't do it justice either...

Here are a few photos from our house, our city, and our surrounding areas:

Where We Live

Croatian Vacation - 4th of July, 2005

Yes, we went to Croatia for the 4th of July last year. And no, Croatia is not a war torn country!

I think this trip was one of the coolest things we did last year. The Croatian people were so cool and loved talking to us Americans - not snobby like some Italians! The bars were open late, the beer was good, and stuff was cheap.

Here are some pictures - enjoy!

Croatian Vacation

Kicking off 2006 in Budapest! - Part 1 - Getting There is Half the Fun

It wasn't our original plan to be in Budapest for NYE. We were planning on taking a tour bus to Vienna, but since the travel company couldn't sell enough tickets to fill up the bus, we had to take some last minute action.

We know this woman, Nicole who organizes tours as a business. She's not part of a travel agency, she just happens to have a friend who is an Italian bus driver. They do a trip about every month - all over Europe. We had taken a few trips with her before, and they usually turn out to be an adventure. You'll always get to your destination but there might be a few obstacles on the way. So she has this trip to Budapest planned for NYE and there were still some seats available, so we call her up and sign up for the trip.

So here's where it gets confusing - since we ended up signing up at the last minute, and we weren't even returning from Florence until the day before - Susan and I weren't able to get on the bus before it left. Nicole's plan was to put Susan and I on a train to Vienna where we'd meet up with the rest of the group and go the rest of the way on the bus. That sounded good to us, except that didn't work because apparently almost all of Italy decided they wanted to go to Eastern Europe to celebrate NYE! So all the trains were booked up. Now you have to understand that we are finding out this information piece by piece as we travel from Florence back to Venice, and we didn't even know if we were really gonna make it on this trip. So when we get back home from Florence we talk to Nicole and find out that the rest of the group is already in Budapest.

The solution Nicole proposed went something like this- "This blonde girl driving a gray mini-van will pick you guys up in the morning at 6:30am and drive you to Vienna. She'll drop you off at a rest station on the highway, and Manuel (the Italian bus driver) will pick you up there in a rental car and bring you down to Budapest."

Sounds about right for a Nicole trip!

Yeah we had second thoughts, but hey, why not?

As it turned out, there was another couple in the same boat as us. So there were four of us plus the driver. The van ride to Vienna was mostly uneventful - aside from the blonde driver bitching about being given bad directions, the blizzard in the Austrian Alps, and not being able to find the right rest station. Miraculously, Manuel found the rest station where we were and we go outside to put our bags in the rental car. Parked next to the mini-van was a tiny little Fiat that couldn't possibly be the rental we were supposed to get in. We even joked how funny it would be if that was the car for 5 people to take the 4 hour drive from Vienna to Budapest. Man that would suck - so where's our car?

It was the Fiat.

Seriously?

Somehow we got all our luggage into the "trunk". I think my socks and T-shirt drawer from Boot Camp had more room. We start on our way to Budapest and it should be smooth sailing from here.

Not so much...

After about two hours of clear highways, we saw it -- The line of red brake lights up ahead stretching as far as we could see. By now its about 8pm, dark, and its well below freezing. Luckily there was no more new snow falling to add to the 6 -8 inches that was already on the ground. It turns out that there was like an 18 car pile up on the highway earlier in the day and about 10km of highway was completely closed in both directions. So we sit in traffic for at least 2 1/2 hours. We end up driving thru this little Hungarian town and trying our best to find our way back to our path.

Susan and I speak a little Italian, Manuel speaks NO English, and none of us speak ANY Hungarian. And street signs in Hungary are about as helpful as the ones in Italy. Luckily we found some cops that could comprehend "Budapest????" and interpreted the confused look on our faces as a request for directions.

We finally made it to our hotel in Budapest right around midnight on the night of the Dec 30. Nothing beats a good nights sleep after spending 12 hours driving across central Europe.

To be continued...

Me at the Heidelberg Castle in Germany