Word: skying
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...Armed with my dry-land skis, I could train during lunchtime in Central Park practically every day all summer, and the proposition became significantly less ridiculous. All I had to do was get over the slight drawback of making a spectacle of myself every day. Speeding through the park at the height of summer on strange-looking wheeled units attached to Day-Glo Nordic ski boots and preposterously long poles is one of the few ways to actually attract attention in New York City. It took some time to reconcile my inherently low-key Scandinavian temperament with the whole public...
...love the two-strap harness that holds it securely on my back but allows me to take it off and prepare to fire in just a few seconds. I love the little metal flaps that snap in place over the sights to keep them clear of snow during the skiing intervals. I love the surprising heft of the thing; you pick it up and get the distinct sense that to ski very far with it on your back and then hold it steady enough to hit a four-inch circle at 50 meters is an activity most certainly undertaken...
...ends up being a day of extremes. I do actually finish the 10km time trial, hit a few targets while standing on skis, and employ a ski technique that is much improved over the flailing and falling that took place during my punishing first lesson 11 months ago. This is great, but it is eclipsed quickly by a reality that only the most hopelessly deluded can miss: On any objective scale I still suck at it quite badly. Really...
...every shot, taking 12 seconds to complete the cycle. "What is so fun about this?" I think during a dark moment of the day, as I get lapped by another skier, taste blood in my mouth that is spraying up from my heaving, overtaxed lungs, and catch a ski tip on a tree, causing me to plow into the underbrush and knock my head on my gun barrel. "This is not fun... this is just dumb... stop... please." Finally, the casual clockings we keep in the time trial reveal that I only need to cut my time in half...
...emerged in 1997, a few years after another radical environmental group, Earth First!, renounced the use of violence. Since then, ELF members and sympathizers have waged a stealth war against "those who profit from the destruction of the natural environment." The attacks include a $12 million fire at a ski resort in Vail, Colo.; a $500,000 fire at a timber-company headquarters in Medford, Ore.; and another that destroyed a partly built home in Bloomington, Ind., that the ELF said was part of a development that threatened the local water supply...