After nearly three weeks away from Los Angeles, my holiday sabbatical is over and I'm back on the west coast—but not for long. January's a busy multi-sports month. Next Wednesday, I head to Miami for the BCS title game. (My co-workers have informed me that, along with no cheering in the press box, there is a new Alyssa Rule that includes a ban on handsprings and orange-and-blue socks.) Then it's off to Park City for snowboarding and the Sundance film festival. And finally, the month wraps up in Aspen for the Winter X Games. February had better start working out. It's going to have a tough time following the first month of 2009.

In the weeks I've been incommunicado, I've experienced enough to fill 100 blogs. But I'll spare you all and keep it to three short entries, and a few photos. Okay, shortish.

ENTRY ONE: CRUISIN' CUZZINS
First off was the family cruise to the Bahamas. For those of you who have never spent time on one of these floating malls, let me share a few things I learned on my first cruise:
1. As promised, there is a sports bar on the ship. It serves food until 5 a.m. and makes it possible for you to steer clear of the Denny's buffet at all times. However, the sports bar does not get Direct TV, cable or NFL Network. It shows Fox News and ESPN2. This is not helpful on a Sunday during NFL wildcard week.
2. As promised, there is morning yoga. However, if you show up for the 8 a.m. class, you will be the only cruiser who does so. This means you get your own personal yoga class ... taught by a kid from Canada who signed up for the gig online while drunk. Fortunately, the boat had a fantastic private climbing wall. Much, much more fun.
3. Blackberries and cell phones that work on remote fishing villages in Peru and while underground in the Beijing subway do not work on a cruise ship a few hours off the coast of south Florida.
4. **You should never, ever go on a family cruise to the Bahamas expecting to watch sports, exercise or check your e-mail. Once I figured out this most important lesson, I had a much better time. In fact, best cruise ever.

THE FAM ...

PHOTO CREDIT: CBF

ENTRY TWO: GUEST BLOG ... LINDSAY LACES UP AT WRIGLEY

On Dec. 30, Lindsay took part in the media skate at the NHL's Outdoor Classic at Wrigley FIeld in Chicago. She was one of the first group of folks to tour and skate on the temporary rink constructed at Wrigley Field. Pretty cool. Even her Grandpa Yogi's never done that!

To read Lindsay's official ESPN The Magazine blog, click here.

To read her (way cooler!) AR.com blog, click here.

ENTRY THREE: NEW YEAR'S NO LIMITS. NO KIDDING.

While Lindsay was in Chi Town, I was in Vegas for Red Bull's New Year, No Limits. At about 11:30 ET (8:30 for me), live on ESPN, Rhys Millen became the first driver to backflip a truck. Unfortunately, he did not become the first driver to successfully land a backflip in a truck. During the practice sessions leading up to Vegas, he landed in boxes, so New Year's Eve was the first time he attempted the ramp-to-dirt flip. The flip was great, he had perfect rotation, but he got a little off-axis and the truck bounced off kilter on the landing, then rolled and came to a stop on its side at the bottom of the dirt pile. Rhys was definitely disappointed he didn't drive out of the flip. But, unlike last year, he walked away in one piece. I consider that a success.

Robbie's jump took place at about 12:15 ET, and was just freaking cool. I rarely get nervous at these stunts, but I was incredibly nervous as he took off. I wasn't alone. Everyone agreed that this was the most nervous they'd been at a moto event. And not because of the jump to the top of the arch, but because of the much sketchier jump back down. Kevin Robinson's wife Robin was in tears. "I wasn't nervous at all at Kevin's jump," she said. "But I'm a wreck right now. I had no idea I would be this emotional." Ditto that. But fortunately, Maddo's jump was a total success.

He didn't walk away without injury, though. On the jump down, the impact was so intense that Maddo's brake lever split his left hand to the bone. There was no time for stitches with the media waiting, so the on-site medics taped his hand together, wrapped it in gauze and gave him a few pain killers. Then he did interviews for a couple hours before hitting the ER for stitches. Then it was time to celebrate 2009!

MADDO RIDES TO THE START ...

MADDO JUMPS BACK TO THE RAMP (AND THE FANS) WAITING BELOW. (PHOTO CREDIT: CHRISTIAN PONDELLA-RED BULL. YOU DIDN'T THINK I HAD PHOTO SKILLS LIKE THIS, DID YOU?) ...

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP OF THE ARCH DE TRIOMPHE. I COULDN'T LET MADDO HAVE ALL THE FUN. ONCE WE GOT UP THERE, JENNI WAS GLAD SHE TOUGHED OUT THE CLIMB ...

WATCHING JUMPS WITH THE JUMP MASTER. (BRINGING IT FULL CIRCLE ... GUESS WHO ELSE WAS IN THE BAHAMAS AT SENOR FROGS ON THE SATURDAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS?! TOO FUNNY) ...

Hello. My name is Alyssa. And I am a Gators fan.

Is that all you have to admit here today?

Well, no. I am also a Steelers fan. And a struggling Mets fan. And I have a deep-rooted love for Penn State football.

And is that all?

Well, no. I am also a sportswriter. And I love sports.

Oh. I see. Thank you for your honesty. I know that must have been difficult. And remember: Just 12 steps from today, we will cure you of these addictions. Even if we have to beat them out of you.

This is often how I feel when I am around other members of the sports media. Especially when I am covering football. By this time, any love of the sport of football or specific teams should have been beaten out of me by steroid scandals, mid-season firings, self-inflicted gunshot wounds and Super Bowl MVPs with rap sheets longer than most rappers. Many writers are so jaded on sports that, like your fifth-grade teacher who realized about 15 years earlier that she hated kids, many of my colleagues go to work every day with a scowl. I refuse to become one of those people.

Which is why I love the fact that I work at a magazine where we are encouraged to wear our sports fandom on our sleeve—along with the colors of our favorite teams. At ESPN The Mag, we are expected to be the voice of the fan, and it's pretty tough to do that if we are not fans ourselves. Of course, we put our alliances aside when writing and reporting stories, and we are able to look objectively at sports. (Yes, it's true!)

This is why we can be a fan of our college team, but not of the current coach (as I am not) or of our quarterback for Heisman (as I was not). It is why we can be a Gators fan who votes Georgia our pre-season number one, is blown away by the amazing fans at LSU and wishes every team's front office personnel conducted themselves with the professionalism of the Oregon Ducks. We realize that the closer we get to sports, the more we pull back the curtain, the more we question the actions of coaches and players, the more we risk losing our status as happy-go-lucky fans. But that's okay. As sportswriters, that is our job. As fans, we know that coaches and players and defensive schemes come and go. But we will always have a soft spot (and a pair of team-colored socks) for the school where we earned our diploma and the city where we were born and raised.

That's why I spent the last five minutes of the Florida-Oklahoma game on the field with my editor (and the Gators cheerleaders) and then celebrated a win by my alma-mater with very little guilt. (This was helped by infrequent eye contact with my non-ESPN friends and colleagues.) It is also why said colleagues were able to put aside their status as Gator Haters and celebrate for a minute with me. (Okay, 47 seconds, tops.)

It is also why, on Sunday morning, three days after the Gators victory, I put on my snowboard pants and sweatshirt and jacket ... and then put my Steelers jersey over all of it, put a Terrible Towel in my back pocket (and a Steelers beanie on Lindsay) and hit the Park City slopes. Because sports are supposed to be fun. And I don't plan to change my feelings about that any time soon.

THE PRESS BOX IS A TOUGH PLACE FOR A FORMER CHEERLEADER, NO MATTER WHO'S PLAYING. BUT ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S THE GATORS OR STEELERS.

BUT AFTER THE GAME, AND OUT OF THE PRESS BOX, I WAS ABLE TO SNEAK IN SOME CELEBRATION TIME WITH MY TWO FAVORITE REPTILES.

THE MOST SPIRITED SNOWBOARDER ON THE MOUNTAIN ...

A SNOW COUCH?! WHERE IS THE SNOW TV AND SNOW IRON CITY LITE?!

JUST A REALLY COOL SHOT (TAKEN BY LINDSAY) ... FOR THE RECORD, THAT IS NOT A TOMCZAK JERSEY. BUT IT IS THE CLOSEST I'LL EVER COME TO BEING A MEMBER OF THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS. (THANKS FOR THE JERSEY, TOM!)

While I'm out in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival and a lot of snowboarding (courtesy of my friend Amy and her amazing family home in Deer Valley), here are a few pieces I've written in the non-snowboarding hours.

The Action Sports Report: Jessica Kunzer of Ski Utah and nine folks become the first people to ski all 13 Utah resorts in one day.

The Writer's Notebook - Kevin Pearce: Extra tidbits that didn't make it into my Winter X Games preview feature on KP.

This is Not Shaun White -But Kevin Pearce May be Just As Good: The online version of my mag feature on Kevin Pearce. [Now, I'm not saying I'm good luck, but last year, my story on Gretchen comes out and less than a week later she wins Winter X. This story comes out and two days later ...

Stay tuned for more from Park City, including a day with several snowboard halfpipe women, as they prepare for Winter X Games. And my first day on skis!

MY AMAZING SKI INSTRUCTORS (AND FRIENDS) ABBY HUGHES AND VANESSA PIERCE ...

AT THE END OF THE DAY. THE SIGN SAYS IT ALL ...

Even though the web is infinite, not all of our stories make it to publication. (This week, this one did.) Fortunately, I have my own blog, where I can post extra content that doesn't make it onto our mag website. So check out this Action Sports Report Follow-Up from Park City ...

Last Thursday, I wrote about a group of folks who skied all 13 Utah resorts in a single day. I would love to have tagged along. But, like the other 3.4 million snowboarders in the world, my board and I are not welcome at two of those resorts, Alta and Deer Valley. It doesn’t look like either resort is going to change its ski-only policy anytime soon, so I figured if I can’t beat ’em, I should learn how to ski. How else will I secure my spot on Ski 13, Take Two?

Fortunately, the U.S. ski team is based in Park City, as well as many of the world’s best skiers (and snowboarders). If I was going to learn, this was the time to do it. So last Thursday morning, on the opening day of the Sundance Film Festival, I met U.S. ski team member Abby Hughes, a Nordic ski jumper from Salt Lake City, and ski writer/instructor extraordinaire Vanessa Pierce, who is also the co-founder of shejumps.org, a non-profit hoping to increase female participation in outdoor sports, at Deer Valley Resort. It was time to learn to two-plank.

Let’s just say these women were miracle workers. After a half hour of immobile instruction (“This is how you put on a ski”, “This is how you hold the poles”), I graduated to the bunny hill. Two “runs” later, I was on a chairlift on my way to the top of the mountain. Apparently, I was on their accelerated program. (Or maybe I was keeping them from something less torturous.) By lunch, I was skiing blue runs with my instructors and a couple fairly shocked friends who were also at the mountain. The switch from snowboarding to skiing was much easier than I thought it would be. As for the opposite, I can’t speak to the difficulty of a ski-snowboard conversion. My inkling is that it is tougher. At the end of the day, I was still in one piece and in a fantastic mood. I’d skied a mountain I never thought I would be able to access. I was hooked on skiing.

The next day, I went snowboarding.

**Hughes is a true Olympic hopeful. On April 20, she will wait to hear if her sport will be added to the 2010 Games. On that day, a group of her peers will appear in a Canadian courtroom in hopes of having women’s ski jumping added to the Vancouver lineup. Men’s ski jumping has been part of the Olympics since the first Games in 1924. Now the women want their chance to jump the Vancouver course. For more on that story, click here.

For video of Abby in action, click here.

From Park City to Aspen. Not a bad overnight turnaround. This year's Winter X Games were special for many reasons. Here are a few. (Because I am now doing the Aspen to Tampa overnight turnaround for Super Bowl XLIII, this entry is going to be short and list-like.)

Levi LaValle's double backflip. The moment women's halfpipe finals ended, I ran to the freestyle course to get as close to the landing as possible. I couldn't miss the second first double backflip ever. Especially after writing a book about the first one! Levi had a bit too much distance on his landing, missed most of the transition and was bounced from his sled on the landing, which was clean otherwise. He pulled the trick and should have won the contest.

The women's halfpipe contest was progressive, but had way too many falls. This was the first year the X Games had a 22-foot superpipe, instead of the previous 18-foot pipe. This is what these athletes will compete on in Vancouver, so they need to spend more time in the bigger pipe. Unfortunately, there is only one other 22-footer in the U.S., in Park City, Utah.

I thought men's snowboard superpipe was going to play out exactly as I had predicted in my feature on Kevin Pearce. It didn't, he took second to White. I'm not a judge, but I thought Pearce's run was better. So did a lot of the folks watching at the bottom of the pipe (where I was) and at home.

My niece Karlee, my mom Joy and cousin Lauren all came out to Aspen for the weekend. That was a blast. They got to watch events like VIPs, meet athletes, get autographs and play in three days of constant snowfall. It was fun to show a few first-timers around the Winter X Games (and one of my favorite snow cities in the country).

I finally won the NAVY snowboard! Every year, the NAVY sponsors a booth at Winter X and gives out a snowboard to a male and female who win their pull-up contest. In the past, the top five pull-uppers were put into a drawing and the winner got a board. I was always in the drawing, but never won the board. This year, there was no drawing. The top male and female simply won the board. That was Friday. The rest of the week, I spent time getting autographs and plan to auction the board off for charity. I think I am going to save it and get it inked up at summer X, as well. Stay tuned.

Now, I'm off to Tampa. From snow sports to the Super Bowl ...

LITTLE MISS ASPEN. (MY MOM)

THE CREW WATCHING WOMEN'S SNOWBOARD SUPERPIPE FINALS ...

THE FINAL, WINNING PULL-UP ...

I TOOK THE BOARD, BUT TURNED DOWN THE INVITE TO SEALS TRAINING ...