Dear all,

Over that past two weeks, I've had a chance to recuperate and reflect
on a long season. It was a long ride with many highs and lows. The
highs were being on the December World Cup GS tour, winning a Nor-Am
in Sunday River, and standing on the podium at Canadian Nationals.
While the lows were getting food poisoning in December, injuring my
knee in January, catching the Flu in March, and only being able to
train two days since mid January because of my knee. Which is finally
getting the rest it deserves.

All said and done, I'd still consider it to be the best season of my
career and I'm definitely a better skier today than a year ago. I
finished the year ranked 108th in GS and 73rd in slalom.
Comparatively, last year I was ranked 102 in GS and 100 in slalom at
the end of the season.

It wasn't a great season, but it certainly was solid with some
impressive highs accompanying some bad luck. The most upsetting part
is that the U.S. Ski Team does not recognize the year as a success and
have decided to completely drop me. I no longer have any association
with the U.S. Ski Team as I am no longer invited to any camps, cut
from their insurance, and was told to either move on or find training
for the summer, fall, and winter else where. Just for the
entertainment factor, I decided to look online and see where I was
ranked in the U.S. for GS and slalom (subtracting members of the
national team that have retired) and I'm ranked 9th in GS and 5th in
slalom. So why am I pushed out the door? It's simple I'm 25.

If I always listened to the U.S. Ski Team, I certainly wouldn't be
here today. I'd probably be working in a cubical Boston. I am
definitely going to ski next year, I just don't know how or where.
There are a number of us that have been cut: Tom Rothrock, Roger
Brown, Jenny Lathrop, and Justin Johnson. Roger, Justin, and I have
started to talk about our options.

Although I'm very disappointed with the ski teams decision, I'm
looking forward to a new year without them.

I hope all is well, w