My dad passed along the story in the local Sun Valley paper about Arnold’s unfortunate accident, which identifies the culprit run:

The California governor, Hollywood actor and part-time Ketchum resident was taken off the mountain in a ski patrol toboggan after he reportedly tripped over his ski pole, fell and broke his right femur near the half pipe on Lower Warm Springs, a gentle ski run marked “Easier” on Sun Valley trail maps.

I think it’s hilarious they took him such a short distance in the toboggan. I suppose it would have been a little more undignified for the governor of California to slide down the hill on his ass, but it would have been a lot faster.

I’ve seen Arnold ski (he blew by me real fast one time and I almost went and “accidentally” sprayed him on a hockey stop, until I recognized him and realized he could crush me like a bug), and that’s maybe four, five turns at most from the bottom of the mountain.

As my dad put it, “That is almost as bad as breaking it in front of [ski shop] Paul Kenney’s.”

That injury would be dad’s from about six years ago, when he fractured his tibia slipping on the ice walking from returning his skis over to the hot dog stand.

To Arnold’s credit, he at least agreed to seek medical help immediately. Dad drove all the way home to Atlanta, then waited another two weeks and eventually had to have the bone reset.

In tomorrow morning’s LA Times there’s an update that finally, among many other things, discloses some of the circumstances surrounding the Governator’s skiing accident:

A friend who spoke to Schwarzenegger after the accident said the governor was “aggravated” about what happened, describing the accident as a “slow fall” on an icy surface.

Schwarzenegger’s press office would not release any details about the accident. But Adi Erber, a ski instructor who was with him at the time, said Schwarzenegger was standing still before the accident, preparing for the final 200 yards of the run.

The governor’s ski pole became caught in one of his skis, causing him to trip and fall, Erber said, describing it as a “freak accident.”

He said the governor was in pain and that a rescue team took him down the hill on a toboggan.

I said it before as a hypothetical, and I’ll say it again now: I’ve taken that ride in the toboggan, and it’s no fun for either party.

Still no word on what run he managed to mangle himself on, but from what it sounds like, he could have done that on any run and still come out feeling just as dumb.

Well, probably even dumber if he did it on some easy slope. But still, I can say from experience that injuring your leg doing something simple in the midst of an extreme sporting experience is, indeed, pretty damn aggravating.

While watching the Salt Lake City local news tonight, I heard the following sentence:

Members of a local family spent Christmas in the hospital after exchanging stab wounds instead of gifts.

Obviously not a funny subject, but the way they worded that made me burst out laughing.

Here in Sun Valley, you occasionally run into famous people.

Usually, it’s just an L.A.-like part of the background noise, like Jamie Lee Curtis ending up behind my dad in line for lunch at the ski lodge, confirming for me that it was Christopher Guest I’d just seen.

Sometimes, however, you actually get to meet someone that amuses you greatly. And that’s where today’s story picks up.

We were having lunch with a couple of my dad and Ray Ann’s friends, when one of the friends turned around, saw the gentleman behind him, and said “Hey Karl!”

A small man with an Austrian accent turned around and said hello, and when the friend introduced Karl to us, he said the words that made me smile:

“This is the guy whose snake ate the blanket.”

I have met internationally famous television and movie stars, but it was not nearly as amusing as meeting the little old retired ski instructor who briefly captured the attention of the world…when his snake ate an electric blanket.

Houdini, the snake, was apparently sick for some time, as you might expect for a snake that ate a whole queen size electric blanket.

However, you will be happy to learn that Houdini is now fine, and back to dining on small mammals instead of large blankets.

Apparently it’s a good thing I wasn’t out on the slopes today, because I would have had to deal with the circus of Arnold Schwarzenegger snapping his femur up on the mountain.

I feel a bit bad for him, as I’m well aware that leg injuries are No Goddamn Fun.

Especially if some poor ski patrol guy had to snowplow down the mountain with him on a sled. I’ve taken that ride before, and it’s pretty undignified for both parties.

I’m not seeing anything about it in the AP story, but the ever-reliable Boise local news was reporting he did it on Arnold’s Run (which is, of course, named after him). Which, if true, is fucking hilarious.

More to come tomorrow, I’m sure.

New Blogger has arrived, and I have just found the way I will be wasting the time I’m spending not skiing (and not working on other stuff I should be working on): Going through my archives and tagging all my posts.

Sweet.

Edit: I’m trying to get the label alignment work right (they should be right below the “posted by Ellen” thing), and it looks great on preview and in Safari, but it’s about 10 pixels lower than it should be on FF for Mac once it publishes. Any geeks want to help me fight through blogger code to make this look right cross platform?

Meet George (70 years old). He managed to ski several runs despite a) a pinched nerve that causes chronic back and leg pain and b) falling once on his own, and c) getting plowed into by a snowboarder.

Because of b) and c), he was sore enough that he was not able to ski today. He, however, has good excuses.

Meet Ellen (25 years old), George’s daughter. She skiied two runs yesterday and then came down because a six-month-old ankle injury was bothering her, and upon taking of her ski boot, had her ankle swell to approximately the size of a grapefruit.

She is still limping slightly, and will spend the remainder of her two-week ski vacation…not skiing. She is duly ashamed of being completely outpaced by her father, who, shall she remind you, is seventy goddamn years old.

—

Coming out of the third person for a moment, I would really not recommend giving yourself an avulsion fracture to anyone.

The orthopedist warned me it’d be at least six months before it was back to normal. Six months and two weeks apparently is not long enough. Bah.

I spent four years living in Chicago, and during that time I was virtually impervious to cold.

I mean sure, there was the time junior year when I rode my bike to class in the howling wind and the -20 air temperature, and I said, “Man, it’s pretty fucking cold out.” But I was tough.

I have lived in Southern California for over three years now. I have gotten used to never having it be colder than 50, even in the depths of winter.

Because of this, I am now the biggest, most irritating whining pussy in the WORLD when it comes to cold.

This was confirmed tonight upon my arrival with my dad in Sun Valley, Idaho. The predicted low: -8.

It was about 10 degrees out when we came back from dinner, and the whining from when we left the restaurant ’til we got back in the house was pretty much ceaseless.

It’s not supposed to get out of the 20′s once this week. I’m so fucked.

Via Defamer, Michel Gondry demonstrates that even semi-insane yet excellent directors can end up with too much time on their hands…or feet:

Seriously, I can’t even solve those goddamn things with both hands, concentrating really hard.

From an email from my old boss at Ellen:

Dude – I am freakin’ sunshine and light. BITE ME!!

This is why she and I got along so well. I need a t-shirt that says this.