How to survive winter without having to eat your soccer team
Winter is once again descending upon Logan like a starving mountain lion on a third-grade-class guinea pig.
I’m sure this upsets a lot of people, but I love winter. I enjoy it because I can watch people who aren’t used to walking on the ice fall on their butts all over campus.
I grew up in the frozen tundra know as southeast Idaho and then I came here, so I have been cold for almost my entire life. If what I understand about cryogenics from the movies is correct, I should live forever.
As such, I’m pretty familiar with surviving a typical winter when it’s so cold that your nose hairs freeze together.
Because I’ve always dreamed of being Jedi Master or a kung fu master – although, at this point I’d settle for a dungeon master – I’ll teach all that I know.
The secret is to keep your knees bent so that if you do slip, it’s easier to regain your balance.
I also recommend always having a pair of earphones in your ears, even if they’re not plugged into anything. This way, you can pretend that you didn’t slip, but rather are rocking out to some lively tune.
This is better because now, people, instead of thinking you’re clumsy, will think that you’re agile and groovy.
The second secret is to just not get intimidated by winter. The more you know about winter, the better off you’ll be.
According Bill Nye or Big Bird or someone crazy guy I met on a bus or something, Eskimos used to have several hundred words for snow.
That sounds impressive, but when you think about it, we here in Cache Valley use many different words for snow, too. We just can’t print them in the newspaper.
This is all well and good if you merely want to survive winter. But what if you want to level up and start actually enjoying this season of seasons?
The best way to enjoy winter is to have a seasonal hobby.
Most people would recommend activities like skiing or snowmobiling.
This is why most people aren’t masters.
Skiing is stupid because it requires money and skill. Neither of which I have in great supply.
The only experience I ever had with a snowmobile was this one time my scoutmaster tied me to the back of one and dragged me around in a toboggan (I got the merit badge, though).
Some of you are sitting there thinking, “Well what else is there to do in the winter?” Some of you are thinking, “I wonder what Angela Lansbury would look like in a bikini.” I happen to be wondering, “Can you drink the stuff inside a lava lamp?”
Group two is a bunch of sickos and I’ll let you know about the lamp thing, but as for the first question, let me assure you that even with the loser hobbies out of the way, there’s still plenty of cool things to do in the winter.
Winter is the perfect time to take up curling or ice sculpting. The snow should make the Loch Ness Monster a lot easier to track down. As for me and my house, we chose to sled.
As far as I’m concerned, the greatest invention since bread is the $10 plastic sled.
The major draw to sledding is that the only skills required are the ability to sit down and having little to no regard for human life. This is why I’m so good at it.
And when I say good, I mean really good. According to my measurements, I’ve actually broken the sound barrier. I can tell, because when I reach the bottom of Old Main Hill, I can often still hear a high-pitched voice screaming in terror behind me.
As with anything in life, you should accept no substitutions. I don’t want to hear about anyone getting suckered into this knockoff sport called tubing.
Tubing is to sledding what foosball is to soccer.
Go out, have some fun. Find an hill. Break some bones. Enjoy winter.
And of course, geek on.
Steve Shinney is a junior in computer science who is
currently working on the
world’s greatest snowfort.
Comments can be sent to
steveshinney@cc.usu.edu.