A day in the life of a Pyro.

Wow. What an eventful couple of days, well exhausting anyhow. I started at the shop on the 31st at 9 am. We took lunch and then I went down to load in the “First Night - Escondido” gig. We loaded in at like 1:30 pm or so and had everything ready to rock pretty much by like 3. Well except for the power situation. They wanted us to do the mains, monitors, band and FOH power all on two 20A circuits. Luckily I found a 50A twist that they didn’t even know existed apparently. So we called lane and told him to bring the cables we needed to use that. All of the shows went smoothly and it sounded good. We finished our last act at 11:30 pm and were able to pack up and be out or there by 12:45 am. The acts were all pretty decent. I got to hear zydeco music for the first time. Very interesting music. I got ahold of Kirsten and found out about the IM she sent me. They were having a party that night and wanted to invite me. They also decided that they were going to go skiing the next day and wanted me to come.

So I left there and went to the Douglas home to catch the tail end of the party there. Mama D got me some hot cider because she said I was turned blue. Which I believe because it was FREEEEZING out at the gig. She then threw glitter all over me and ended up getting me another cup, because mine was now filled with glitter confetti. I met some cool people there. I still had the truck to take back to the shop, so I didn’t plan on staying long. Yeah well…. I kinda fell asleep on the couch there. I woke up a couple of times and said screw it and went back to sleep. Then I got up and left about 6 something. I drove the truck to the shop and dropped the keys inside. Then drove home to get my ski gear. I grabbed what I needed, brushed my teeth and left. I had to go to the bank first to get some cash for the trip, seeing as how I had spent the last dollar in my pocket.

When I got to the Douglas’ house they said they were just looking for my number and didn’t know I had left. We were supposed to leave at about 9 and I was there by 8:45 so everything was fine, but Jenny (A friend of the girls I had met at the party) and I were the only ones who were ready. There were nine of us going: John, Mamma D, Kirsten, Britten, Chris, Me, Jenny, Richard, and Jeff. Richard and Jeff were also friends of the girls I had met just the night before. They were in cheer with them. Richard and Jeff are both deaf, so that made things interesting. I had never really had much interaction with deaf people before now.

Kirsten and I kinda napped on the way up, which was good. I don’t think I would have made it the whole day otherwise. We finally got there, there being Mountain High, only to discover that they were full. They wouldn’t be selling any more lift tickets until 2 o’clock. So we went back to the car and had some snacks and waited it out. Jenny by this time had decided that Jeff was totally hot, and was obsessed with him. That was kinda funny. Eventually 2 rolled around and we got on the lifts. Everyone was doing great. I kept saying we needed to go higher on the mountain on some bigger runs. Kirsten wasn’t too excited about that. One of the runs I pointed out apparently had some trouble with before. Well eventually John, Mamma D, and myself convinced everyone else to go up higher.

Everything was going fine at first. We were all crusin down, and then we noticed that Kirsten and Mama D weren’t with us any more. I guess Kirsten had followed her dad over a jump and crashed Charlie Brown style. John and I climbed back up the hill. Mama D was helping her and then ski patrol came. I didn’t climb up the jump cuz I didn’t want to be in the way. John said she couldn’t see out of one eye. Then I noticed a bunch of blood on the side of the jump. That really made me start to worry. I found out later that the blood was not hers though. Well they strapped her to a backboard and put her in a sled to take to the medical lodge. As the ski patrol took off, John and myself were right behind him followed by Mamma D. Man that guy was fast! We took some Double Diamond runs to down the fastest and he just flew. I was keeping up ok till I caught an edge in an icy patch. A snowboarder ended up running me over. Smashing his board into my face and then tumbling down the hill. We stopped after a couple of rolls and then I asked if he was ok and took off.

We got to the medical lodge just after they rolled her in. They started checking her out and decided to call the ambulance so that they could check her out better. The paramedics got there, and I guess the guy who got there first wasn’t really the paramedic, so he asked all the same questions that ski patrol did and when the main paramedics arrived in the ambulance they asked all of the questions again. Poor Kirsten. While we were there they brought in another kid who was pretty messed up. He started throwing up. While they were loading Kirsten into the ambulance they decided that the boy needed to be life-flighted and put him in the same ambulance.

John and Mama D went to the hospital and left the rest of us all there. Well no one really felt much like skiing at that point so we went into the lodge to get some food. Most of us had chili in a bread bowl. It was actually pretty good. Well we eventually all went back to hit the slopes. We had fun, though my mind was mostly on how Kirsten was doing and if she was going to be ok. I talked a lot with Richard. He is a really cool guy. So is Jeff. Hopefully I will see them some more.

We finally decided that we were done at like 9:20 and went back to the lodge. We sat down for a while and then took our stuff back to the rental department. At 10 they closed the lodge and we had to wait outside. It was funny. We looked like a bunch of kids who’s mommy forgot them. Eventually they showed back up from the hospital. Kirsten was ok as far as they could tell. She had a bunch of x-rays and two cat scans. They gave her some vikadin for the pain in her head, neck, and back. We all piled in and took off at about 11. We stopped at Jack in the Box to get Kirsten and Mamma D some food since they hadn’t eaten anything really. Kirsten started to worry us in the car, because she would get this shortness of breath and couldn’t talk. Well we got back to their house eventually and we said our goodbyes.

Wow, what a long New Year’s, and what a long entry for that matter.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2004 at Jan 01, 04 | 8:40 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.