I started going on ski trips at senior school. I can't remember exactly where but we skied in the Tirol in Austria a couple of times and also went to Val d'Isère in France. When I was 15, rugby took over and there wasn't time to ski any more. I didn't ski again until I was 33.
When I ski, I take both of my legs off and get into a sit ski: a ski with a custom seat that has been molded for me. I use my core and arms to propel myself on snow with help from ski poles.
When I first moved to Vail, it was like I was a little celebrity. You know, everyone knew my accomplishments. I was a young, fast teenager and making waves in the ski world. And it was really cool.
It's good to ski for fun, but I still want to win races as often as possible.
In 2012, I was invited to a ski event called the Hartford Ski Spectacular to learn how to sit-ski for the first time. I loved it, but it was not pretty - I was not good. I didn't know how to stop, so I kept throwing myself on the ground.
I had to think about ankle torsion, where the screws are on the ski, how that affects the forces going into the ski and how the ski bends, your leverage points. It was a challenge. I was having the greatest time, making the mistakes, crashing.
If I was 30th in points and not making races and not being competitive in races, I could understand them saying I'm over-the-hill or I'm ready to quit or whatever.
Charity fundraisers are nothing new to me. In the past, I have taken part in ski races for hospitals, walks for breast cancer, and long distance bike rides for geriatric care.
Being a celebrity doesn't even seem to keep the fleas off our dogs — and if being a celebrity won't give me an advantage over a couple of fleas, then I guess there can't be much in being a celebrity after all.
All my children ski now, they don't have a choice. They have to join mom and dad on the ski hill.
I learned to ski in the Dolomites at the age of five. Ski lifts didn't exist then, so I did everything on foot.
When I travel, I always have about 40 pairs of skis with me, plus a ski technician and a ski coach.
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world.
To me, there are two types of celebrity: there's good celebrity - people that are attracted to the food and working and trying to create something great - and then there's bad celebrity - those who are working on being a celebrity.
But then I hit my 20s and only made two albums, and now I live in a ski resort as a ski bum basically.
I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.