If you said "zero", you'd be correct. It was a first, and hopefully a last. It's hard to make money when you're on commission and you don't snap a single frame. So what happened? I finally decided to leave the store and head up to the mountain before 10AM. I got to the top of the run I was , Lost Boy (more like Lost Cause) and I stopped next to this women who, feeling the snow blasting into her face, said something like, this is ridiculous. I said, you want to hear ridiculous?, I'm supposed to be down there taking pictures of skiers. She just smiled. You couldn't see halfway down the slope, about 15 meters.

Instead of working, I did what any sane red-blooded skier would do when it's dumping snow, I skied. I went all over the front side of the mountain. I dipped for one run down The Slot into the backside, but the visibility was so poor, the wind so fierce, and the snow dump so hard that I needed to get the hell out of there.

I brought lunch with me (roast beef and turkey rolled in a tortilla) but I needed something warm so I stopped at Two Elks Lodge on far eastern side of the mountain and had a plate of chili fries. These are not just any chili fries. For one thing they cost 5 bucks, but none of the food on the mountain is cheap. And then the chili wasn't your average, ordinary out of the can variety, this was homemade buffalo chili. Yum.

I made my was slowly back to the west side of the mountain where I work. Now, amazingly the sun out, the sky is blue and clouds are puffy white and I wish I was still out there ripping it up instead of sitting in the Vail library informing you about my day.

Hopefully I won't have to cool my heels in the store until 7, seeing as how I didn't take any pictures today, so I would surprised if I had any customers.