Author Archives: jilladler PCSkiGal

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Wow. Quiet. Of course it is 1:30 in the morning. It better be quiet. It’s just that I’m actually appreciating the peace. Until tonight I’ve been up working so late that I don’t notice. Tonight I can. One day to breathe. I’ve met all of my latest deadlines and the next is Monday. Tomorrow can be a play day. Unfortunately, Ryan’s not much help when it comes to freedom. Sometimes I’m jealous of divorced couples. Not that I want to be single but the thought of having 2-3 FULL days just to myself even if it’s every other week – no sharing a bed, no smelling farts, no changing diapers or filling sippy cups. Ah Heaven.
Last week, when my acting coach bailed on our session, I took myself to see Twilight instead of going straight home. At first Ryan was peeved and called it lame that I would do this without him- see a movie. But I convinced him he would hate sitting through a chick vampire flick. I was right, btw. I personally found the movie intriguing and silly. The dialogue, acting, and cinematography was weak. The only thing saving the film was the dude who played Edward. The actor is fascinating.
Back to Ryan. By the time I got home – two hours later- he was cool. And he should be. He spends 2-3 hours twice a week playing hockey. I run errands and squeeze in the occasional climb at Rockreation but nothing that regular and rarely at night. Today I announced that I would be taking Wed night. and either Thursday or Monday. But what about us? he asked. We would still sleep together every night (which we didn’t before he moved in) and we would have Friday and Saturday nights to hang. Perfect deal! Now if I can get us both to stick to that.
I find myself glued to my computer, forgetting to even leave the house. That’s not cool for balance or my psyche.
Starting in a couple of weeks, however, I can ski 3-4x a weeks because Sage starts up with her daycare again. That will make Jill a happy camper. I don’t know how people with 2+ kids function. Sage is adorable and sweet but she’s also going a mile a minute, always wanting something from me unless I put my foot down and tell her she must “let momma work” and go play by yourself for while. She does – but then it’s time for a diaper, for a nap, for dinner, etc. I love watching Ryan freak out when I put him in charge for just a couple of hours. He always steps back with a giant appreciation for what I do every day.
Things are going better with Ryan and his ass. He’s lighting more matches and taking it to another room. He’s still farting in his sleep though. Kristen says her man Kirk has trained himself not to and should talk with Ryan. He also takes some kind of remedy but I’m not sure what. I need to get those two together.
Ryan begged me not to wake him tonight, even if he farts. I refuse to lie quietly while I choke. He has to work tomorrow despite the holiday. Why can’t Wall Street close? It’s not like there’s going to be heavy trading. Everyone’s still in a tryptophan coma, no? Or at least in vacation mode. I don’t mind. I get to sleep in and wake up to the bed all to myself. Then Sage and I will get pedis at the Cole Sport Roxy party at noon. I’m meeting Ryan back at the house around 3 to pick up my Hyundai which- after more than a month- is finally fixed. $1800 later, it drives. New transfer case and differential. Ouch. Anyone want to buy a 2001 Santa Fe cheap? I should just junk it. It began as a bad memory. I bought that car a week after Greg broke up with me and a week before he packed up and moved back east without so much as a goodbye note to prove (to whom?) that I was starting a new life. As much as I am over that guy, he stills leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That’s the lowest, most disrepectful, most hurtful thing any guy has ever done to me in all of my years dating. I was a wreck for two months straight (even spent $100 on a phone psychic- that’s how destroyed I was), rebounded with a bipolar alcoholic for six months and then practically hopped in the sack with a new guy every month for a year after that. Until Ryan. I should have bought a new car then. Thrown off all of the dead weight. But now, after seven years, it’s going. Yay!
Look for it parked in a lot at Kimball with a For Sale sign on it. If you live anywhere in snow, it’s a great ride. Just has a lot of miles on it- 154k! I was going places, Man. My new car won’t get nearly that kind of action. I’ve learned to find life closer to home. Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone! Hope you had a wonderful dinner (stay away from Good Thymes; ours sucked) and a blast with friends and family.


We took this outside the restaurant today before heading in to see BOLT. This was the very first time Sage made it through an entire movie without getting fussy. Normalcy is within my reach. BTW, I love kid flicks.

Farting Is Out of Line

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Ryan’s got to stop farting! If he doesn’t, he’s sleeping someplace else. I deseparately need my sleep. For the past four nights, his silent stench has woken me up. I’ll turn in bed, the sheets will invariably lift and, poof, it’s like I’ve stepped into a sewer system. The smell is enough to kill small farm animals. And it wakes me in an angry way. Maybe he’s telling the truth when he says he has no idea he’s doing it. I don’t care. It has to stop! It’s driving me crazy.
Last night, I got so mad. Not only did he fart a zillion times, but he rolled over to my side of the bed to do it. I shoved him back over and he didn’t even grunt. Not fair that he can sleep through this vile act. When he snores, my nudges will wake him and he stops. My theory that if he wakes me up, I’m waking him up doesn’t apply to his gas. Waking him up, doesn’t make the offense go away. It just makes him lift the sheets and release more of the toxic fumes.
Living with a guy, granted, isn’t exactly wine and roses 24/7 but it shouldn’t be backwash and stinkweed either. Ryan’s a sweet guy and he means well most of the time but I’ve never had a boyfriend with gas this bad. During the day, he’s gotten better at not walking over to me and farting. Now he tries to fart in the bathroom or at least out of earshot. But at night, it seems unavoidable and it’s killing me. The couch has his name written all over it. Men, why are you so disgusting?

Glad October’s Over

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What a month it’s been. But as the snow has settled all around and completely altered my literal landscape, so too I hope my figurative one. It begins with a new car…
The transmission gave out all of a sudden on I-80 as I headed home at 10 p.m.- with Sage in the back no less. Somehow I managed to coast from the fastlane to the breakdown lane. I was on autopilot. I went from 75mph to 0 in about 15 seconds. “Gotta go, Dad,” I exclaimed into my cell. “My engine’s shot.” I couldn’t even put my Santa Fe into PARK. It rolled backward. I had to use the E brake. 154k miles on it and yet another major issue. I had just replaced all brakes, pads and rotors and the left ball joint! I let Hyundai tow it off to the dealer while Ryan brought us home. I immediately went on the hunt for a replacement vehicle knowing it was time to retire the Santa Fe.
I vowed my next car would not be a first generation model like my 2001 Santa Fe was. I needed something with stellar consumer ratings, a V6 engine and all wheel drive for my steep driveway and no known mechanical issues. And my budget was set at $10k. HA! You find out quickly that it’s impossible to meet my criteria at that price. Even when you think you have, tack on $800 in taxes, $200 in reg fees and what Utah dealers call a “documentation fee” ($150-400). It’s basically a scam the state allows so car dealers can make some extra cash off the backend of the sale. Sure they’ll negotiate the sticker price because they get to automatically re-add that $400 they said they’d knock off.
I looked and looked. After a week of 24/7 emailing, researching and calling on cars I had about all I could take and was ready to suck it up and buy new out of pure frustration. One of the last cars I looked at (btw, I got a rental car to get around in because I was tired of making Ryan my chauffeur), the dealer swore (three times!) that it was clean- no accidents, no title issues, etc. I drive an hour away to check it out, and he tries to show me a CarFax on it to prove it’s never been in an accident, despite my noticing that the hood had been replaced. When I compare the VINs on the Carfax to the one on the Honda Pilot, they’re different! We call up the right VIN and sure enough both airbags had been deployed. Ba-Bye.
The next day I look at a Kia Sorento and have it inspected by Casey at PepBoys. Love you, Casey. He tells me that for a car with only 39k on it, it’s hammered. The boot was torn from the tierod and leaking. Something that shouldn’t happen that soon. He also says stay away from Hyundai and Kias. He recommends a Ford Escape, Nissan Xterra, maybe a Subaru. Sigh. My hunt and research continue.
That night, I bought a CarFax subscription to spare myself time and energy looking at unworthy cars. I became a quick decipher on junk. Like the Mazada xc90 with the transmission replaced at 27k and several other service records.
Suddenly, there she was. A craigslist post for an ’06 Chevy Equinox, 22k and a 100k extended warranty on it. I called. Kristin was a sweetheart. She had bought the car outright but owed on a truck and needed to make her payments. Would she take less if I bought it tomorrow? Yes. We met and the car was exactly what I was looking for – ok, it was quite a bit bigger than my Hyundai but it got better gas mileage. She worked with me on a price and I left that night with my new car. And best of all, I LOVE IT! One battle down.
I woke up the next morning with no hot water. After three hours with my plumber, I still couldn’t get my nearly new Noritz tankless water heater to produce hot water. As I sat on hold listening to their pitch about ‘hot water on demand’ and ‘never being without hot water’, I wanted to reach in and strangle someone. What a joke!
The tech was helpful in troubleshooting but in the end, the heater was shot. Three more days of nothing but freezing cold water until I could replace the entire unit. What Noritz fails to disclose is that if you live in an area with hard water, you should not even consider a tankless heater unless you have a water softener. If you don’t, the deposits get in there and wreck the heat regulator and you wind up with a $2000 hunk of useless junk. Had my plumber not replaced it for free I would have gone back to a tank system and suffered through a few cold showers every now and then. It did cost me an extra $800 for a water softener but it had to happen. Battle Two down.
With the car and heater things happening, it was impossible to help Ryan move in before Oct. 31. Luckily, his landlord gave him last weekend to clear out but boy was that a chore. His place was disgusting, not to mention needing a truck and storage unit to get his couch, TV and bed put away. I don’t have the space. Here’s the funniest: As he sorted through his clothes, we created this gigantic donation pile. The plan was to take it all to the shelter on the way to the storage place. I suggested we put it outside his apartment door first to see if any of the riffraff in his hood wanted it. Sure enough, not five minutes later did the garbage bags of clothes disappear! It kind of felt good knowing that the clothes went directly to someone in need.
By midnight, we were heading back up the canyon to home. Ryan in his Home Depot one-day rental truck and Sage and I in my new car. Which, by the way, Sage refers to as “new car!” every time we go for a ride. Battle Three down.
Finally, Rocky Mountain Power shows up at my door to move a utility pole- SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF MY BACKYARD. Seems my neighbor wants to do some digging and the pole’s on his property. I have no problem moving the pole onto my property but I do have a problem with how far he thinks should will go. I put the stake where I want it and by the evening, the stake has been uprooted and placed 10 feet away. This back and forth continues for three days until RMP tells both of us to call them when we reach an agreement. That night, I took the stake and turned it into an appropriate marker for Halloween:


The next day, I got a call from a member of our homeowners association telling me that my neighbor has decided to move the pole back a few feet rather than fight me. Battle Four down.
Now, it’s late and with everything back in its right order, I can rest better and focus on my future projects. Stay tuned….

Mommy’s new car

Sports Guide RIP?

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Got the news this afternoon. No more Sports Guide. At least not this year. The publisher said something about a wait and see position “Due to the down turn in the economy that has severely affected advertising sales…We are in the process of evaluating our options for 2009 and will announce our plans as soon as possible.” We’ve tabled the first issue of the winter! šŸ™ They say maybe next year…. we could go exclusively online, come back monthly, bi monthly, bi annually. We don’t know and I don’t want to really say much about this as, well, you never know.
Unfortunately, the writing has been on the wall for some time and Dan (owner of Mills Publishing) wants to stop the bleeding. Despite having a worthy publication that met the needs of a sporty community like Utah, there was no love coming from the advertising department or advertisers and so it stopped making financial sense for now.
I wondered out loud if they would put the mag up for sale (so that maybe someone could turn it around and rescue a state treasure; this pub has been around for 25 years!) and was told no. They “wanted the option of reviving it themselves.” Hmmm. It won’t do them any good though. I once asked a NY magazine consultant to look at some issues and provide feedback and constructive criticism. He said the content was spot-on for our audience but it was obvious the designer(s) had no idea what they were doing and should be fired. Of course, I couldn’t repeat this! šŸ˜‰
Unless someone there spends some serious cash for a consultant, a new designer with magazine experience and without a chip on their shoulder, a website guru and a dedicated sales rep, simply a new editor won’t save them. There will ultimately be no difference and, hence, no moneymaker.
Maybe there’s someone out there with foresight, disposable income and a brilliant business plan that could make Dan Miller an offer he couldn’t refuse?? Ben Warner? John Bresee? Where are you guys?! A Utah pub dedicated to year-round adventure sports, that highlights how-tos, gear, health and community recreation news is definitely marketable. It could easily expand to include the intermountain west and not just Utah. It could thrive like gangbusters on the web and with the right tweaking become instantly viral- expecially if you add video blogs and such. Uh Oh, looks like someone saw the promise. I hear Outdoor Utah Recreation Guide is set to launch their own outdoor rec magazine. A quarterly magazine that’s everything Sports Guide was (and probably more)! http://www.outdoorutah.com/index.php?/Newsflash/New-Outdoor-Magazine-to-be-Launched-in-Utah.html
Sports Guide will continue to have a web presence but we’ll see how far that goes. I wish I knew more about marketing on the web or I’d find the solutions myself. Unfortunately, I have ideas and great editorial skills – if I do say so myself šŸ˜‰ – but need someone else to figure out the sales end. And now I’m without a title. Jill Adler, Sports Guide Editor, no more.
It wasn’t that much work (40 hrs/mo) or that much $$ so I can’t say that I’m going to feel the loss financially. But I’ve been writing for SG for 10 years and editing for nearly five. I’ll miss it. I loved the audience, the work and what it stood for. It displayed a way of life; my way of life and those of my friends and fellow skiers, climbers, hikers, bikers and plain voyeurs. Not enough people turned its pages in enough time to keep it alive. What am I going to do now? Same old. I’m an Associate Editor for OnTheSnow.com and still the freelance writer I’ve always been- Salt Lake Magazine, Sunset Magazine, Flipside Newspaper, Utah Health, etc. On the bright side, I’m back at work on my Utah Dog Hikes book due out by Outdoor Retailer 2009; just had an audition for an IHC commercial with my current commercial running on air as we speak. I’ve got a piece due tomorrow for MSN.com (not nearly as controversial as the Wife’s Bill of Rights piece though!) and six ski states still to cover for Mountain News; many more restaurant reviews and updates for Gayot.com. When ski season starts, I’ll do more ski modeling and broadcasting. Always keeping busy. However, ideally, I’d like to add a regular proofreading gig to the pot to replace those 40 hours each month and keep me garage saling next summer. If anyone knows of a newspaper, magazine, website or manufacturer that could use me to massage their copy, PLEASE, send them to my website. In the meantime, I’m going to take a hot bath in my brand new jetted tub, make a cup o’ hot cocoa and watch today’s recording of “As The World Turns.”

Sports Guide Magazine, Rest In Peace, 10/08/2008.

P.S. This would have been the cover of our next issue. šŸ™ Sorry, Ritchie (Cheski Photography). We tried!

Ryan’s Moving In!

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Ok, so it’s only temporary. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Ryan’s been looking for a place to buy in Salt Lake and in the meantime has run his current apartment into a hellhole. I won’t ever spend the night there (ick). Not to mention he can’t remember the last time he changed his sheets. He actually threw away all of his dishes because after spending months as a science experiment in his sink they were easier to toss than clean.
He’s at my place (in Park City) all the time anyway, I convince myself. What would really be different? Not to mention the Red Sox playoffs have begun so he’ll be up here for sure. But it was always comforting to know that I could send him home to his place and it wouldn’t mean anything more than he was spending the night at his place. Now, if he sleeps somewhere else it’s a big deal.

We had talked about living together but the discussion ends with me saying, “If you want this relationship to last, never move in.” It’s me not him. I’m a pain inthe ass to live with. I like my space, I need to control my space, and I suck as a sharer. I know my limitations. Fortunately, so does Ryan. He enjoys pushing my buttons but he also knows when he’s gone too far and how to make amends. Chinese Food and a big hug.
We’ve lasted this long because of him, not me. He’s terrific and easy going even when I’m a raging bitch. I so love that guy! But we could always take a breather in separate corners.
Then I go and f*^% it all up by suggesting he move in until he finds a place to buy sla he pays for twice a month housecleaning. I don’t ask for much- I guess – because he took the move-out letter to his landlord today. Starting Nov. 1, we will officially be living together.
Yikes! Am I making the biggest mistake of my life? I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the status quo and I could tell that Ryan is scared to death as well; even when he happily cuddled with Sage and announced that he would now see her every day- (like he doesn’t already!)
It’s temporary, I repeat. We did this once before but Sage wasn’t in the picture and Ryan didn’t have a driver’s license. He was stuck at my place, driving me mad instead of driving. I couldn’t wait for him to get out and move down to Salt Lake City.
This time is supposedly just until he buys a place, but we both know that if we’re doing well together he may buy the place and stick renters in, instead of himself. Plus, Sage would sure miss her him once she got used to having him around.
Some may wonder what I’m afraid of. Those are the ones who have never lived with a boyfriend. A boyfriend whose only reference to living with a woman is living with his mother. Ryan slipped up tonight and said, “Maybe now that I’m here, we’ll cook more.” I corrected him that “we’ll” means “me” and “No, I do not plan to cook more.” Nor do I intend to do his laundry or his cleaning. Hence, the cleaning lady that he will be paying for. That’s the selling point for sure. Up till now, our biggest battles have been over the fact that he has lived here four nights a week for more than five years and hasn’t once cleaned a toilet or sink or floor. Pros and cons:
Pros-
I can hit the gym every afternoon if I want because he’ll be here right after work instead of his place and can watch Sage.
twice a month house cleaning
saving money on both sides. He pays no rent and I get help with bills
Someone to cuddle with at night and watch Heroes with
twice a month house cleaning
I can play with the girls on baseball nights while he watches Tv and Sage
Cons-
More Mess
Having to move my stuff around to make room for his stuff
Nowhere to run
Toilet seat up and guy gas
Don’t get the bed all to myself
Well, I better get back to work. Just needed to flush out my thoughts. I feel better now; actually a bit excited at the new challenge ahead. I’ll keep you posted.
BTW, the new issue of Sports Guide is out and posted on our site: www.sportsguidemag.com. Check it out!

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