Hey guys, exciting news. I'm adding to my huge winter repertoire by working in rentals, finally! As the season is winding down now my boss Toshi has decided to cut some of our hours in the shop. A move that back fired last time he did it when we had the busiest week this season. But to be fair there are certainly less people on the hill and our takings in the shop are coming down a bit. It's understandable, most people will have their gloves and goggles by now so the shop doesn't need so many of us around. I was quite annoyed at first because less hours obviously means less money. Yes it also means more time to ski but the spring conditions at the moment aren't exactly enticing me out onto the mountain. Plus my dodgy back and twisted knee have kept me off the snow for around a week already. So, i took some initiative and went and spoke to the head of rentals. Jim and Kate (not my Kate but rentals Kate - also known as hot Kate) were the guys who interviewed me ages ago when i first went for my job interviews on the career day. I have met them loads over the season so asked if they had any extra hours going over there. Hot Kate seemed really keen to get me over there as rentals is losing lots of staff over the next few weeks. Jim was a bit of a harder nut to crack but he also saw it as a good thing too. I used the whole "wanting more experience" aspect which is true, rentals was my first choice when i applied for the job, but in truth i could also do with a little extra coin. I went over for an introduction to rentals the other day and set up some skis and a snowboard for Jim to show him i wasn't a complete dunce. He seemed quietly impressed that i knew a little bit about dins and forward pressures in the skis and that i knew how to set up a snowboard considering i haven't really ever snowboarded. I have another proper trial tomorrow morning which I'm looking forward to.
I even got invited out for a drink with the rentals crowd the other night. I know a few of them but it's amazing how a few beers can really relax people and before i knew it i felt like i had known them for ages. Toshi and Hot Kate had already told them i was a midwife so i had to go through all my midwife stories and enlighten a few of the guys who all thought that all i did was stare at moo's all day. No, i told them i stare at boobs too! I ended up getting very very drunk and getting into trouble with Kate (my Kate not Hot Kate - although my Kate is pretty hot too). Oh well.
I had an awesome jam session with JC the other day. We met at his house and before i knew it we were banging out some awesome blues together. JC is a pretty wicked slide guitar player and is really bluesy. He made me sing in front of him too as i was being all embarrassed at first. I sung my 'go to' song which is Comfortable by John Mayer. Even though i had a cold and a sore throat i nailed it and JC seemed genuinely impressed. He wants me to play it at open mic night but i feel it isn't crowd pleasing enough. We also worked on "It's business time!" by The Flight of the Conchords. JC plays the bass part and i play the main riff. We couldn't quite figure out how to sing it at the same time though. Usually the guy playing bass (Jemaine Clement) sings the verses but JC didn't know all the words. I was trying to sing it but found it hard to play the main riff as well. More practice is definitely needed before we break it out for open mic.
It was awesome playing with another guitarist. Especially one who is better than me and who has an understanding of music. Laura (JC's GF) has a music degree and pretty much taught a lot of stuff to JC. So he was like "play that same riff in G" and i was like "Huh?" It took him a little time to figure out that although i play guitar, i don't understand much about music. I of course just read tab so had to keep asking what fret he meant but we figured it out. We then spent a fair old chunk of the afternoon playing rockband on the Nintendo Wii and wailing along to songs. JC is so funny. He hates people being left out so kept trying to encourage Kate to either sing or play drums. Kate being super stubborn flat refused to sing but got onto the drums a few times.
We then went into town to play pool, have a few beers and watch a movie. We got to the cinema to find that the movie we wanted to see had just sold out. So, we headed back to the bar for more pool until the next showing was on. Saw District 9. Hmmm, not exactly an epic blockbuster but an interesting story all the same and some pretty good SFX. Worth a watch if you have nothing better to do, like cut your toenails or something.
The big news this week really is the arrival of Derby Danny and Catherine, our friends who live up in Whangarei. They put us up for a while when we went to visit them earlier in the year and know it's our turn. It's Dannys Birthday too so i imagine we will go for a few shandys over the weekend. They also ski and board so we are heading up CP for a little night skiing and then gonna hit up Remarks for a little session too. I'm psyched as Remarks has been closed most of this week due to high winds so there is nearly 50cm of new untouched snow up there waiting for me to faceplant into! CP has somehow stayed open all week even though we have had high winds too. I think the guy who runs CP is Mr Burns in disguise. We should've been closed loads but he only sees things in dollar signs so when other hills like the Remarks or Cardrona close everyone comes to CP. It means we get paid but it also means we have to deal with lots of pissed off customers who keep moaning that the lifts keep stopping cos the wind is howling. Today for example we got held at the snow centre where you get the bus up the hill for an hour due to wind, then we headed up and it was like a scene from March of the Penguins!! Howling gales and blizzards - no Penguins and certainly no commentary by Morgan Freeman. People still struggled up the hill though as we had 1 lift open. And that was the baby magic carpet on the nursery slope. We opened one lift for 20 minutes which meant we wouldn't need to give out full refunds then they shut the lift and sent most of the staff home! Money grabbing bastards! I would've been pissed to the max if i had paid $93 for that which is the cost of a day ticket. Needless to say i got sent home which i was cool with as i am still recovering from man flu, a twisted knee and my eternal back problems. Really wanting to save myself for when Danny and Catherine get here, especially since the weather is supposed to get better tomorrow and there is a shed load of new snow about. Catherine asked us if we had any spare goggles the other night that they can use when they come down. I laughed as due to that Bolle incentive we have about 6 pairs just laying around at the moment. I even made another claim today! Just for sunnies though as didn't quite have enough points to get more goggles. The incentive finished today so will hopefully get the rest of my stuff over the next few weeks. Dude, i'm gonna look like Bolle threw up on me!
Wow, so i have a free afternoon today. Might watch a DVD or download some porn. Mmmmm, porn. Er, anyway..........................I'll catch up with you guys soon.
Peace
D
XXXX
Monday 31 August 2009
Wednesday 26 August 2009
Apologies...............
Whoa, sorry guys. It seems that the 2 people who actually read this blog were a little disappointed that i missed out last weeks entry. Basically i have been run ragged with organising my onward travels and my 2 days off last week were spent searching for and booking hostels, hotels and cheap cars. It pretty much means that our journey home is sorted now with only a few things to arrange and get confirmed. As soon as it is all finalised, i will let you know. I can say this though, it's gonna be epic! (dunh dunh dunh! - Dramatic sound effect)
So this last fortnight has been filled with the usual merriment and fun goings on that have pretty much been the norm for life in Q town. It is slowly becoming the back end of the winter season. A fact i have noticed in a number of ways. Firstly, out of the blue last week i realised that i am now actually going to work in daylight. No more amazing sunrises over the Wakatipu basin on my commute in the staff bus. It sucks really because it was totally awe inspiring some mornings. Such a shame i share the bus with a load of beanie wearing half asleep hungover teenagers, snoring and twitching despite the loud bassy tones of some random drum and bass spilling out of their ridiculously large headphones next to me. Nah, i slip my ipod on and drift off into my happy place and let the glorious red sunshine warm my cockles. Well, i used to. Now the sun has already got his hat on by the time i get to the foot of Coronet Peak but it does feel nice to have the warm sun on my face again. Yeah the temperature here has climbed too. No more -7 degrees in the morning. Higher temperatures has meant less snow too. Our mountain is still pretty well covered but I'm not sure for how much longer as it now rains instead of snows at our base building so you are riding slush by the time you get to the bottom. The snow that does fall at the top is so wet that it freezes really easily and forms a hard crust or patches of ice which are not fun to ski on.
Last week i did get Kate out onto the mountain for a bit of skiing. She has been either reluctant (Fair weather skier!) or too hungover to ride the last few weeks so it was nice to get her up on the hill. I want to keep her momentum going as she has improved so much this season. She even said she fancied some different runs so i took her all over the mountain. There were a few testing bits but she passed with flying colours. On one of our last runs i stopped halfway down to wait for her. When she stopped next to me i asked her how her first black run was going? She gave me the stink eye big time as she realised i had taken her down her first black run (which is for advanced skiers). That said, she man'd up and finished the run no problem and was then ecstatic she had managed to do her first black run. It was nice to see her so proud of herself and she very quickly forgot about my deception. I knew it was the only way i could get her to do it. If she had known she would've thrown all her toys out of the pram and gone home in a strop! I'm very proud of her too. Although we have been here all season Kate has hardly really skied enough. Her fitness is a big problem and because she doesn't like skiing on her own she will only ski on my days off, which is only 2 days a week. So in hindsight she has done really well to be riding a black run by now. I worked out her "on the snow" time before we came away and it turned out she had only spent around 20 hours skiing previous to getting here. That's less than if you went on a weeks holiday beforehand. So she has done really well. She still moans about it and looks like a sun burnt orangutan after just a few minutes riding but i think that on the whole, she is enjoying it.
Oh, you know i told you about my Bolle incentive? Well, it came through. I got some awesome lime digital Fathom goggles with an Aurora lens (that means bloody sweet pair of goggles worth about $300!) for Kate and some cool little polarized Slap sunnies for me. There was also some other junk like a bag, a cap, a drink bottle and a huge lanyard with a big carabena (climbing latch) on it. Kate's goggles look awesome and match her green coat. The Aurora lens in them is this orange lens for low light but it has a blue coating on the front. It looks gnarly! My sunnies are cool but a little too small for my huge face so i have also donated them to Kate. She is gonna be one cool looking chick, i can tell you. I was a bit disgruntled by not really getting anything in the end (other than a cap and a bag) so i filled out another claim form at work and sent it off. I was unsure if i was going to keep the sunnies before i filled out the claim so agreed to get Blake (Tees BF) some glasses instead. That claim came through yesterday so i know have an awesome free pair of Quasar goggles with an awesome fire red 50 lens (it's a low light blue lens but has this sick red and orange mirror coating on the front) worth about $250 for free! I gave Blake his sunnies last night and he is stoked about them. After Discussion with Tee (who i work with) we decided to claim the rest of the 130 points between us. So i have put in another claim for more goggles and finally a pair of sunglasses that fit my fat face. She is getting some more goggles for Blake and some sweet sunnies for herself. If these claims go through it will have meant that our shop has claimed over $2000 worth of free stuff! Not bad eh? I went into town the other day as one of the pharmacies is a big Bolle stockist and i wanted to try on some sunnies before i ordered. I got chatting to the assistant in there and she was telling me about their Bolle incentive. She said she had 35 points so far. She near fainted when i told her that we had nearly 400 points between just 3 of us! The only reason we don't have more is because Bolle is out of stock of all our biggest selling goggles. I tried on my glasses and left with a very smug smile on my face. I have since been back to try on more sunnies and met her again. She introduced me to the store manager as "the guy with 400 Bolle points." The store manager was very impressed and i again left with an even bigger smug smile on my face (think Tony playing monopoly in France - for those of you who were there).
So hopefully more free shit is heading my way. Gotta love free shit eh? Work is fine apart from i am starting to get a bit over all the stupid Aussies i have to deal with. For the first part of the season i found it quite amusing at just how stupid some Australians are. They are like the Americans of the southern hemisphere. But now, i am getting tired of their dumb shit and if i hear another Aussie explain that they are confused by Kiwi money (our $2 coin is bigger than our $1 coin - like every sane country! Oh but not Australia where their dollar coin is bigger than the $2 coin) i will seriously jump over the counter grab the stupid dick and try to insert my cash register into their anus whilst screaming "read a fucking book you dumb Aussie bastard!!" They certainly have a "the whole world revolves around me" kinda persona. Well, alot of them do but not all of them. Some of them know they are dumb and seem to relish in the fact that they are a joke. They get their own self-deprivating comment in first before i can jump over the counter and insert my cash register into their corn hole. I don't mind that. It's when they think their shit don't stink as they are asking for the 5th time what the word piste means that i seriously want to drag them into my store room and re-enact a scene from Hostel on them. Groan.
We have to be super nice to them of course because without loaded stupid Aussies bringing their strong, but larger than the $2 dollar coin, Aussie dollar, we wouldn't have had a record breaking season. Our attendance at CP is up a whooping 40%. And we are in a recession apparently. Thanks to budget airlines, it is cheaper for Aussies to fly to our ski fields in NZ than it is for them to visit their own! A fact i get told about 74 times a day by stupid Australians!! Grrrrrr!
That said, Kiwis aren't exactly saints either. I near wet myself after hearing a story Billy told me about his mate and a rough bird from Taranaki. This friend pulled this girl in a bar and went back to her place. When he got there he needed to go for a wee so excused himself off to the bathroom. When he walked out of the bathroom, there was the Taranaki girl naked and bent over in front of him by the doorway. She turned her head, took her cigarette from her mouth and muttered the immortal and romantic phrase.........."Just chuck it in Bro." I found this hilarious and have pretty much said "just chuck it in Bro" at every opportunity i have had over the past fortnight. Classy chick huh?
So i snowboarded again too last week. I got my board and boots and enthusiastically hit the big easy slope. Man, it seemed that all my good riding from the previous try had been forever lost in some sort of inter dimensional vortex. I sucked ass on my first run. It was like my first ever run all over again. I struggled to stand for a few feet before trashing myself and landing in a heap. I feel awkwardly onto my wristguards and somehow managed to bruise my ribs. I twisted my knee on another spill and by the time i got to the bottom i was all set to jack it in for the day. I decided to suck it up and go do another run. What a difference! I was back! Carving around like a natural again. Gunned it to the bottom of the run with much higher levels of confidence. After a few more runs i decided it was time to head up to the top of the mountain and do the M1 run. On the lift up i noticed it was pretty moguly (like the dude from jungle book) so decided to do the top of the M1 then cut down Pro am (which was Kates first black run i mentioned earlier). I did the moguly bits OK by just heel edging through them and made it in one piece to the top of Pro am. That's were i realised i was way above my station! Pro am is steep and was super icy. I really struggled. It was a total role reversal too as Kate was now cruising along but having to wait for me to catch her up. I bailed out of the run half way down and boarded over to the bottom of the M1 run with my tail between my legs. When i got to the bottom i wasn't that bothered really. It was a big ask to try a black run after less than 10 runs on the nursery slope really. I was pleasantly pleased with myself that i had even given it a go. I paid for it the next day though as my whole upper body and my left knee felt like Kathy Bates had snuck into my room during the night and called my a "dirty bird" whilst hitting me with a sledgehammer, like that scene from the movie Misery. My left knee is still sore. It is strapped up and i am resting it this week. Well, apart from dodgeball last night.
Our team is officially bottom of the league! YAY!! Last week saw the official unveiling of Billys new bin bag costume. He had fashioned a nappy out of a bin bag and wore nothing else! Needless to say he got a lot of attention from the opposing team. He got hit by about 20 dodgeballs, all leaving nice red marks on his chest and back.
Last night we played again. I was dubious about my knee but was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and got hoisted into playing for another team that were short a few players. So there i was wrapped in a bin bag with the 80's aerobic instructor team called "Vaginamite!" They have a team chant and everything! Probably one of the reasons they are second in the league. Well, we hammered the other team. I was on fire catching balls all over the place whilst moving gingerly around and hitting the other team with my thunderous throws! I played 2 games for Vaginamite and won twice. A completely new experience as my bin bag team have only ever won 1 game. Needless to say my bin bag team got stuffed in our first game but somehow managed a draw, and a point, from our last game of the night. That point leaves us firmly rooted to the bottom of the league but hey, mighty oaks grow from tiny acorns. It is still way too serious at dodgeball sometimes. Last night some dude got knocked the fuck out! Not sure if he took a dodgeball to the kisser or if he fell and cracked his head but he was sparko!! Luckily one of our teams are ski patrollers who are all paramedical trained so they were quick on the scene. The guy was carted off by St Johns ambulance though. He's gonna have a headache today!
Other news is that the 100% pure NZ winter games have finally started. There's been a little bit of a buzz around town but i doubt it is close to what they wanted. It has been marketed as a lead up to the winter Olympics and the biggest winter event in the southern hemisphere (not too difficult though. Up until now i think the biggest winter event in the southern hemisphere was when JC and K dog built a little jump over at the Remarks!!). Yeah so it is looking like a bit of a washout really. The first few events at the Remarks were only watched by a handful of spectators and the first event at CP got postponed a day because there was moisture in the timing cable! Still, I'm gonna try and catch the final day as they have the big air comp at CP and the official closing party with the prime minister there too! I can add to my collection of how many prime ministers i have met. The NZ PM will bring my grand total to 2!
Anyway guys, i will try to not leave it so long next time for the next entry in this thrilling blog. Remember guys, when the world is against you and you are feeling really low, when adversity seems to be slapping you around, when the whole population of the world seem to be in cohorts against you, and just when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel............................"Just chuck it in Bro!!"
Peace
D
XXXX
So this last fortnight has been filled with the usual merriment and fun goings on that have pretty much been the norm for life in Q town. It is slowly becoming the back end of the winter season. A fact i have noticed in a number of ways. Firstly, out of the blue last week i realised that i am now actually going to work in daylight. No more amazing sunrises over the Wakatipu basin on my commute in the staff bus. It sucks really because it was totally awe inspiring some mornings. Such a shame i share the bus with a load of beanie wearing half asleep hungover teenagers, snoring and twitching despite the loud bassy tones of some random drum and bass spilling out of their ridiculously large headphones next to me. Nah, i slip my ipod on and drift off into my happy place and let the glorious red sunshine warm my cockles. Well, i used to. Now the sun has already got his hat on by the time i get to the foot of Coronet Peak but it does feel nice to have the warm sun on my face again. Yeah the temperature here has climbed too. No more -7 degrees in the morning. Higher temperatures has meant less snow too. Our mountain is still pretty well covered but I'm not sure for how much longer as it now rains instead of snows at our base building so you are riding slush by the time you get to the bottom. The snow that does fall at the top is so wet that it freezes really easily and forms a hard crust or patches of ice which are not fun to ski on.
Last week i did get Kate out onto the mountain for a bit of skiing. She has been either reluctant (Fair weather skier!) or too hungover to ride the last few weeks so it was nice to get her up on the hill. I want to keep her momentum going as she has improved so much this season. She even said she fancied some different runs so i took her all over the mountain. There were a few testing bits but she passed with flying colours. On one of our last runs i stopped halfway down to wait for her. When she stopped next to me i asked her how her first black run was going? She gave me the stink eye big time as she realised i had taken her down her first black run (which is for advanced skiers). That said, she man'd up and finished the run no problem and was then ecstatic she had managed to do her first black run. It was nice to see her so proud of herself and she very quickly forgot about my deception. I knew it was the only way i could get her to do it. If she had known she would've thrown all her toys out of the pram and gone home in a strop! I'm very proud of her too. Although we have been here all season Kate has hardly really skied enough. Her fitness is a big problem and because she doesn't like skiing on her own she will only ski on my days off, which is only 2 days a week. So in hindsight she has done really well to be riding a black run by now. I worked out her "on the snow" time before we came away and it turned out she had only spent around 20 hours skiing previous to getting here. That's less than if you went on a weeks holiday beforehand. So she has done really well. She still moans about it and looks like a sun burnt orangutan after just a few minutes riding but i think that on the whole, she is enjoying it.
Oh, you know i told you about my Bolle incentive? Well, it came through. I got some awesome lime digital Fathom goggles with an Aurora lens (that means bloody sweet pair of goggles worth about $300!) for Kate and some cool little polarized Slap sunnies for me. There was also some other junk like a bag, a cap, a drink bottle and a huge lanyard with a big carabena (climbing latch) on it. Kate's goggles look awesome and match her green coat. The Aurora lens in them is this orange lens for low light but it has a blue coating on the front. It looks gnarly! My sunnies are cool but a little too small for my huge face so i have also donated them to Kate. She is gonna be one cool looking chick, i can tell you. I was a bit disgruntled by not really getting anything in the end (other than a cap and a bag) so i filled out another claim form at work and sent it off. I was unsure if i was going to keep the sunnies before i filled out the claim so agreed to get Blake (Tees BF) some glasses instead. That claim came through yesterday so i know have an awesome free pair of Quasar goggles with an awesome fire red 50 lens (it's a low light blue lens but has this sick red and orange mirror coating on the front) worth about $250 for free! I gave Blake his sunnies last night and he is stoked about them. After Discussion with Tee (who i work with) we decided to claim the rest of the 130 points between us. So i have put in another claim for more goggles and finally a pair of sunglasses that fit my fat face. She is getting some more goggles for Blake and some sweet sunnies for herself. If these claims go through it will have meant that our shop has claimed over $2000 worth of free stuff! Not bad eh? I went into town the other day as one of the pharmacies is a big Bolle stockist and i wanted to try on some sunnies before i ordered. I got chatting to the assistant in there and she was telling me about their Bolle incentive. She said she had 35 points so far. She near fainted when i told her that we had nearly 400 points between just 3 of us! The only reason we don't have more is because Bolle is out of stock of all our biggest selling goggles. I tried on my glasses and left with a very smug smile on my face. I have since been back to try on more sunnies and met her again. She introduced me to the store manager as "the guy with 400 Bolle points." The store manager was very impressed and i again left with an even bigger smug smile on my face (think Tony playing monopoly in France - for those of you who were there).
So hopefully more free shit is heading my way. Gotta love free shit eh? Work is fine apart from i am starting to get a bit over all the stupid Aussies i have to deal with. For the first part of the season i found it quite amusing at just how stupid some Australians are. They are like the Americans of the southern hemisphere. But now, i am getting tired of their dumb shit and if i hear another Aussie explain that they are confused by Kiwi money (our $2 coin is bigger than our $1 coin - like every sane country! Oh but not Australia where their dollar coin is bigger than the $2 coin) i will seriously jump over the counter grab the stupid dick and try to insert my cash register into their anus whilst screaming "read a fucking book you dumb Aussie bastard!!" They certainly have a "the whole world revolves around me" kinda persona. Well, alot of them do but not all of them. Some of them know they are dumb and seem to relish in the fact that they are a joke. They get their own self-deprivating comment in first before i can jump over the counter and insert my cash register into their corn hole. I don't mind that. It's when they think their shit don't stink as they are asking for the 5th time what the word piste means that i seriously want to drag them into my store room and re-enact a scene from Hostel on them. Groan.
We have to be super nice to them of course because without loaded stupid Aussies bringing their strong, but larger than the $2 dollar coin, Aussie dollar, we wouldn't have had a record breaking season. Our attendance at CP is up a whooping 40%. And we are in a recession apparently. Thanks to budget airlines, it is cheaper for Aussies to fly to our ski fields in NZ than it is for them to visit their own! A fact i get told about 74 times a day by stupid Australians!! Grrrrrr!
That said, Kiwis aren't exactly saints either. I near wet myself after hearing a story Billy told me about his mate and a rough bird from Taranaki. This friend pulled this girl in a bar and went back to her place. When he got there he needed to go for a wee so excused himself off to the bathroom. When he walked out of the bathroom, there was the Taranaki girl naked and bent over in front of him by the doorway. She turned her head, took her cigarette from her mouth and muttered the immortal and romantic phrase.........."Just chuck it in Bro." I found this hilarious and have pretty much said "just chuck it in Bro" at every opportunity i have had over the past fortnight. Classy chick huh?
So i snowboarded again too last week. I got my board and boots and enthusiastically hit the big easy slope. Man, it seemed that all my good riding from the previous try had been forever lost in some sort of inter dimensional vortex. I sucked ass on my first run. It was like my first ever run all over again. I struggled to stand for a few feet before trashing myself and landing in a heap. I feel awkwardly onto my wristguards and somehow managed to bruise my ribs. I twisted my knee on another spill and by the time i got to the bottom i was all set to jack it in for the day. I decided to suck it up and go do another run. What a difference! I was back! Carving around like a natural again. Gunned it to the bottom of the run with much higher levels of confidence. After a few more runs i decided it was time to head up to the top of the mountain and do the M1 run. On the lift up i noticed it was pretty moguly (like the dude from jungle book) so decided to do the top of the M1 then cut down Pro am (which was Kates first black run i mentioned earlier). I did the moguly bits OK by just heel edging through them and made it in one piece to the top of Pro am. That's were i realised i was way above my station! Pro am is steep and was super icy. I really struggled. It was a total role reversal too as Kate was now cruising along but having to wait for me to catch her up. I bailed out of the run half way down and boarded over to the bottom of the M1 run with my tail between my legs. When i got to the bottom i wasn't that bothered really. It was a big ask to try a black run after less than 10 runs on the nursery slope really. I was pleasantly pleased with myself that i had even given it a go. I paid for it the next day though as my whole upper body and my left knee felt like Kathy Bates had snuck into my room during the night and called my a "dirty bird" whilst hitting me with a sledgehammer, like that scene from the movie Misery. My left knee is still sore. It is strapped up and i am resting it this week. Well, apart from dodgeball last night.
Our team is officially bottom of the league! YAY!! Last week saw the official unveiling of Billys new bin bag costume. He had fashioned a nappy out of a bin bag and wore nothing else! Needless to say he got a lot of attention from the opposing team. He got hit by about 20 dodgeballs, all leaving nice red marks on his chest and back.
Last night we played again. I was dubious about my knee but was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and got hoisted into playing for another team that were short a few players. So there i was wrapped in a bin bag with the 80's aerobic instructor team called "Vaginamite!" They have a team chant and everything! Probably one of the reasons they are second in the league. Well, we hammered the other team. I was on fire catching balls all over the place whilst moving gingerly around and hitting the other team with my thunderous throws! I played 2 games for Vaginamite and won twice. A completely new experience as my bin bag team have only ever won 1 game. Needless to say my bin bag team got stuffed in our first game but somehow managed a draw, and a point, from our last game of the night. That point leaves us firmly rooted to the bottom of the league but hey, mighty oaks grow from tiny acorns. It is still way too serious at dodgeball sometimes. Last night some dude got knocked the fuck out! Not sure if he took a dodgeball to the kisser or if he fell and cracked his head but he was sparko!! Luckily one of our teams are ski patrollers who are all paramedical trained so they were quick on the scene. The guy was carted off by St Johns ambulance though. He's gonna have a headache today!
Other news is that the 100% pure NZ winter games have finally started. There's been a little bit of a buzz around town but i doubt it is close to what they wanted. It has been marketed as a lead up to the winter Olympics and the biggest winter event in the southern hemisphere (not too difficult though. Up until now i think the biggest winter event in the southern hemisphere was when JC and K dog built a little jump over at the Remarks!!). Yeah so it is looking like a bit of a washout really. The first few events at the Remarks were only watched by a handful of spectators and the first event at CP got postponed a day because there was moisture in the timing cable! Still, I'm gonna try and catch the final day as they have the big air comp at CP and the official closing party with the prime minister there too! I can add to my collection of how many prime ministers i have met. The NZ PM will bring my grand total to 2!
Anyway guys, i will try to not leave it so long next time for the next entry in this thrilling blog. Remember guys, when the world is against you and you are feeling really low, when adversity seems to be slapping you around, when the whole population of the world seem to be in cohorts against you, and just when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel............................"Just chuck it in Bro!!"
Peace
D
XXXX
Thursday 13 August 2009
Turning to the dark side?
S'up Yo? Ah, i haven't used that greeting in ages. It was always the way i used to say hi to Boo. It's getting to that time of year again when my brother is always on my mind. Well, to be fair he pops in and out of my thoughts pretty constantly. This September 5th will be the first away from my family and i must admit i am not looking forward to it. I have already sort of planned my day. I am working in the morning as i have a half day, then i'm gonna go ski, maybe catch a bit of night skiing (you get the most amazing sunsets through my vermillion tinted goggles), then head home and maybe walk down to the lake to light my Chinese lantern which i'll send up to heaven for Boo. Wow, the tears are streaming down my face as i am writing this. I miss you so much Bro. I just know that my brother would fucking love NZ. I know i am carrying him around with me but it is not the same as having him here to experience all the amazing things i am. It sucks so bad that i can't even tell him about my adventures. I know he is aware and i guess we will have a good old chin wag about it someday. I guess it's good to have a cry every now and then too. I will be thinking of you all at home and i am really sorry i won't be there with you. Just remember that that pain in your chest you will all feel is LOVE. I miss you so much guys.
Right, back to the business of this blog. I finally snowboarded!! It has been something i have wanted to try for years but for lots of reasons never got around to. When i first went to Bulgaria for Kates first ski trip, i decided i was going to board so it would put me on the same level as Kate but Lewy persuaded us to ski as Borovets has some pretty flat terrain (not good when you are a snowboarder). When i went to Canada for a month i was determined to give it a go then but i bought my skis there and just wanted to break them in, so never boarded. Finally, half way through this season i got onto a board. We have night skiing on Friday and Saturday nights at CP. Last Saturday we all booked ourselves into the ski club lodges that they have up on the hill. CP is a far cry from European resorts where your hotels can be right next to the lifts or actually on the hills. In fact, we only have 4 little lodges. The people who run one of them come into the shop every day to buy the paper and we have little chats with them. They offered us discounted rates so myself, Billy, T and Toshi snapped them up. A few others from other departments also decided to stay too. So we planned to catch some night skiing after work then crash at the lodge, roll out of bed and stumble to work the next day. As T is still learning to snowboard Billy thought it only fair that we boarded as well. I jumped at the chance to give it a bash. Kate came up and met us and Billy and me went to rentals to grab our gear. It's pretty sweet that they give us all our gear for just $8 but i play poker with one of the guys so can get it for free, if i ask nicely.
After work we headed to the hill. Man, snowboarding boots are comfortable! Seriously they are like slippers compared to heavy awkward ski boots. I thought it best if we hit the nursery slope first to learn a few of the basics. A few of the liftys asked what the hell we were doing so we explained we were snowboard virgins. Of course they all chipped in little nuggets of advice. I threw my snowboard down to get myself strapped in and immediately nearly lost it as it slid away from me. First rule of snowboarding? Never let go of your board! I managed to grab it before it slid away and crashed into a small french child (maybe i should of let it). Skis have little brake systems built into the bindings so when they fall off your feet they dig into the snow and don't shoot off down the mountain.
Anyway, i strapped myself in. Billy by this time was strapped in, upright and sliding down the slope. He did 3 really nice turns before taking a tumble. Now, he claimed to have never snowboarded before but after his first effort, i was dubious. Now, everyone told me that because i used to skateboard i would pick up snowboarding really easily so i was pretty confident i would crack it. Well, unlike my first ever go at surfing where i stood up straight away and rode the board all the way to the beach, my first attempt at snowboarding was far from graceful.
Firstly, i couldn't bloody stand up on the thing. Everytime i tried the board slid away. Being on the baby slope didn't help either as it was too flat. Sounds weird but when the slope is steep it's actually easier to stand up as you can push yourself up against the gradient. I managed to eventually get upright just before my toe edge dig in and flipped my forward onto my face. I rolled over onto my arse and tried again. T's boyfriend Blake gave me an awesome tip to help me stand up. He said to grab the edge of the board as i stood to pull myself up. After that i was away. It felt very weird at first as you can travel in pretty much any direction. Skis pretty much go where they are pointed and the same can be said about snowboarding but there is also lots of scope for multi-directional sliding. Without trying i started spinning as i slid along before catching my heel edge in the snow and getting thrown onto my backside. After just 5 minutes i could see why so many boarders break their wrists and coccyx's. When the edges of the board catch on the snow, your momentum flips you forward and almost catapults you to the floor. Snow is supposed to be soft but pack snow is not. It's pretty unforgiving. Something i discovered on my next attempt. I was now standing easily and managing to control a few turns but this meant i was also gaining speed. Half way down the slope i again caught my toe edge and was catapulted face first into the mountain. I was ready for it this time and flung my arms forward to protect myself. I had wrist guards on but all they did was send the shock of the impact up my arms to both shoulders. I collapsed in a heap and when i tried to get up i couldn't feel my arms! I thought i had dislocated something for sure but after a few seconds the feeling came back in my left arm so i immediately tried to grab my limp right arm to coax it back to life. It was another few seconds before my right arm came back online and i tentatively began to move it. Kate was watching from the adjacent run and panicked when she saw i wasn't moving for a while. I managed to roll over and get myself up onto my feet and coast the bottom half of the run. She met me at the bottom to check i was ok, but after a few arm stretches and a double check i wasn't broken, i was off again. No falls, no balls, as they say.
Billy continued to ride pretty well and took a few more tumbles before he got a call from his girlfriend (my next door neighbour Lisa). She had blown him out and had decided to not stay the night in the lodge with us. Billy threw his toys out the pram big time! He got so vexed. Apparently him and Lisa are going through a rough patch anyway and i think this was the final straw. He apologised but preceded to call it a day after just 3 runs, get changed and go home. I was a little disappointed in him really. He should of at least stayed in the lodge with us and drowned his sorrows, the drama queen!
I continued to ride the little magic carpet lift up the baby slope and after another couple of runs i was carving along nicely and more importantly, under control. Blake felt it was time to take it to the next level and actually get onto the big slopes. I agreed and we headed over to the chairlift. Don't worry, i wasn't about to throw myself down a double black diamond (that's an expert rated run - i piss those on my skis!). We got to the top of the meadows lift and i managed to get off without falling. You have to have one foot strapped in so have to ride the board sort of more like a skateboard. Something i found pretty easy. I strapped in and under Blakes watchful eye i headed off down the slope. Now the run is called 'the big easy' but there is a pretty steep bit at the top. I of course took a spill but because it was steep i slid down the hill a bit and actually took Blake out too! We collapsed in a heap together as Kate looked on and pissed herself laughing. She's so helpful. I got back up and carried on making it to the bottom in one piece. Blake gave me a few more pointers. I was carving really well on my heel edge but wasn't doing so well on my toe edge. I think that after my faceplant and near shoulder dislocation i was being a bit too tentative when turning on my toe edge. He told me to just go for it, so i did. When i got to the top for my next run, i linked a few really nice turns before taking a little tumble. Blake decided i was doing well enough to be left to it so he headed off to go ride some more challenging terrain. As Kate pointed out, the big easy run is super gay. See, their she goes again being not exactly helpful. She is right though but i reminded her of her first day on the hill when i rode all afternoon with her on the "Super Gay" big easy because she was scared of the big runs.
My next couple of runs just kept on improving and before long Kate couldn't keep up with me! I was carving around and gunning it along. I think that having skied before i wasn't afraid of the speed and after i figured out how to control myself and the direction i was going, i was away. They were right, having skateboarded before made it so much easier. Blake came back over and was astounded by the progress i had made. He rode with me to the bottom and struggled to keep up. He said i was carving like a pro. I doubt it very much but was pleased with myself. T couldn't believe that I was at a similar level to her after just 2 hours, and she has had numerous lessons and has ridden for 6 weeks! Ha Ha! (laughs in the style of Nelson from the Simpsons)
I was pretty tired after my efforts as snowboarding uses very different muscle groups to skiing. We got changed and headed over to our lodge. It was pretty basic but Kate and I had an 11 bed dorm to ourselves so it was all good. In the morning we got up and Kate hit the slopes for first tracks (meaning she got to ride the hill and the freshly groomed runs an hour before everyone else) while i went to work nursing my aching body. My shoulders were fine but my wrists and knees were pretty bruised. It was great fun and definitely something i want to do again. Don't worry i don't think i'm turning to the dark side just yet, i love my skis too much for that, but i can hear Darth Vader beckoning me.
Other news this week is that i have been asked to volunteer at the NZ Winter games. They are a huge event that is gonna be massive. Especially since everyone is gonna be using them as a warm up for the Winter Olympics which are in Vancouver in February. I have been asked to help out for the Mens freestyle half pipe in Cardrona, which is out near Wanaka. Not ideal for me for a number of reasons so i have respectfully declined. They have also offered me some of the ski racing at Coronet, which i am considering. It might be a pretty sweet day. We have had the USA, Canadian, Japanese and NZ ski teams at CP for a while now so i am keen to see those guys in action. I'll see how it goes.
Also this week, i finally completed my Bolle incentive, which i think sounds a lot like something from the TV show Lost with its 'Dharma initiative'. Bolle are a company who make goggles and very pricey sunglasses. They gave us a sales incentive where if we sell a pair of goggles we receive points based on how much the goggles are worth. If we get 60 points, we get a choice of any sunglasses and goggles for free. Well, between the 3 of us in the shop we have amassed around 400 points already this season! Not bad eh? So i finally got round to filling out the tedious forms and sending them off. I have decided to give the goggles to Kate as Bolle are quite small and i struggle to get them over my huge cheek bones. I was gonna order her the top of the range "Screams" but she didn't like them so went for the next level down "fathoms" which are still worth $250. I went for the cheap and nasty sunglasses as i reckon if i had a pair of $300 dollar sunnies i would immediately lose or break them. I have enough points to claim again though so still might get a really nice pair of goggles and sunnies which i can always ebay or something. I have already got a nice pair of free sunglasses from the Dirty Dog rep and am holding out for more free shit from the Icebreaker (really nice expensive Merino thermals) rep. Gotta love free shit.
Dodgeball was eventful as ever this week. We lost twice, again, to the English tea party team and a team of randoms who couldn't be bothered to dress up. It has started to become a bit of a farce really. Well, a load of us running around in bin bags and womens lingerie is definitely a farce but the organisation and refereeing has become a joke. It has taken a lot of the fun out of it as teams are just blatantly cheating. We hit a guy 3 times this week and he still refused to leave the court. So we claimed our losses as moral victories instead. I did see some pretty funny stuff though. One of the teams are all dressed in camouflage, with one guy actually disguised as a tree with real branches and everything. The guy in the tree outfit was standing at the side of the court chatting when a dodgeball hit him straight in the scrotal zone! He dropped like a sack of spuds and it was a good 5 minutes before he recovered. I also saw a girl get smacked in the tits by a dodgeball thrown by a mime artist. I resisted the urge to offer to rub them better but i bet she woke up the next day with a pretty swollen hooter!
Anyway guys, i will love you and leave you. Hope the blog is still keeping you entertained.
Peace
D
XXXX
Right, back to the business of this blog. I finally snowboarded!! It has been something i have wanted to try for years but for lots of reasons never got around to. When i first went to Bulgaria for Kates first ski trip, i decided i was going to board so it would put me on the same level as Kate but Lewy persuaded us to ski as Borovets has some pretty flat terrain (not good when you are a snowboarder). When i went to Canada for a month i was determined to give it a go then but i bought my skis there and just wanted to break them in, so never boarded. Finally, half way through this season i got onto a board. We have night skiing on Friday and Saturday nights at CP. Last Saturday we all booked ourselves into the ski club lodges that they have up on the hill. CP is a far cry from European resorts where your hotels can be right next to the lifts or actually on the hills. In fact, we only have 4 little lodges. The people who run one of them come into the shop every day to buy the paper and we have little chats with them. They offered us discounted rates so myself, Billy, T and Toshi snapped them up. A few others from other departments also decided to stay too. So we planned to catch some night skiing after work then crash at the lodge, roll out of bed and stumble to work the next day. As T is still learning to snowboard Billy thought it only fair that we boarded as well. I jumped at the chance to give it a bash. Kate came up and met us and Billy and me went to rentals to grab our gear. It's pretty sweet that they give us all our gear for just $8 but i play poker with one of the guys so can get it for free, if i ask nicely.
After work we headed to the hill. Man, snowboarding boots are comfortable! Seriously they are like slippers compared to heavy awkward ski boots. I thought it best if we hit the nursery slope first to learn a few of the basics. A few of the liftys asked what the hell we were doing so we explained we were snowboard virgins. Of course they all chipped in little nuggets of advice. I threw my snowboard down to get myself strapped in and immediately nearly lost it as it slid away from me. First rule of snowboarding? Never let go of your board! I managed to grab it before it slid away and crashed into a small french child (maybe i should of let it). Skis have little brake systems built into the bindings so when they fall off your feet they dig into the snow and don't shoot off down the mountain.
Anyway, i strapped myself in. Billy by this time was strapped in, upright and sliding down the slope. He did 3 really nice turns before taking a tumble. Now, he claimed to have never snowboarded before but after his first effort, i was dubious. Now, everyone told me that because i used to skateboard i would pick up snowboarding really easily so i was pretty confident i would crack it. Well, unlike my first ever go at surfing where i stood up straight away and rode the board all the way to the beach, my first attempt at snowboarding was far from graceful.
Firstly, i couldn't bloody stand up on the thing. Everytime i tried the board slid away. Being on the baby slope didn't help either as it was too flat. Sounds weird but when the slope is steep it's actually easier to stand up as you can push yourself up against the gradient. I managed to eventually get upright just before my toe edge dig in and flipped my forward onto my face. I rolled over onto my arse and tried again. T's boyfriend Blake gave me an awesome tip to help me stand up. He said to grab the edge of the board as i stood to pull myself up. After that i was away. It felt very weird at first as you can travel in pretty much any direction. Skis pretty much go where they are pointed and the same can be said about snowboarding but there is also lots of scope for multi-directional sliding. Without trying i started spinning as i slid along before catching my heel edge in the snow and getting thrown onto my backside. After just 5 minutes i could see why so many boarders break their wrists and coccyx's. When the edges of the board catch on the snow, your momentum flips you forward and almost catapults you to the floor. Snow is supposed to be soft but pack snow is not. It's pretty unforgiving. Something i discovered on my next attempt. I was now standing easily and managing to control a few turns but this meant i was also gaining speed. Half way down the slope i again caught my toe edge and was catapulted face first into the mountain. I was ready for it this time and flung my arms forward to protect myself. I had wrist guards on but all they did was send the shock of the impact up my arms to both shoulders. I collapsed in a heap and when i tried to get up i couldn't feel my arms! I thought i had dislocated something for sure but after a few seconds the feeling came back in my left arm so i immediately tried to grab my limp right arm to coax it back to life. It was another few seconds before my right arm came back online and i tentatively began to move it. Kate was watching from the adjacent run and panicked when she saw i wasn't moving for a while. I managed to roll over and get myself up onto my feet and coast the bottom half of the run. She met me at the bottom to check i was ok, but after a few arm stretches and a double check i wasn't broken, i was off again. No falls, no balls, as they say.
Billy continued to ride pretty well and took a few more tumbles before he got a call from his girlfriend (my next door neighbour Lisa). She had blown him out and had decided to not stay the night in the lodge with us. Billy threw his toys out the pram big time! He got so vexed. Apparently him and Lisa are going through a rough patch anyway and i think this was the final straw. He apologised but preceded to call it a day after just 3 runs, get changed and go home. I was a little disappointed in him really. He should of at least stayed in the lodge with us and drowned his sorrows, the drama queen!
I continued to ride the little magic carpet lift up the baby slope and after another couple of runs i was carving along nicely and more importantly, under control. Blake felt it was time to take it to the next level and actually get onto the big slopes. I agreed and we headed over to the chairlift. Don't worry, i wasn't about to throw myself down a double black diamond (that's an expert rated run - i piss those on my skis!). We got to the top of the meadows lift and i managed to get off without falling. You have to have one foot strapped in so have to ride the board sort of more like a skateboard. Something i found pretty easy. I strapped in and under Blakes watchful eye i headed off down the slope. Now the run is called 'the big easy' but there is a pretty steep bit at the top. I of course took a spill but because it was steep i slid down the hill a bit and actually took Blake out too! We collapsed in a heap together as Kate looked on and pissed herself laughing. She's so helpful. I got back up and carried on making it to the bottom in one piece. Blake gave me a few more pointers. I was carving really well on my heel edge but wasn't doing so well on my toe edge. I think that after my faceplant and near shoulder dislocation i was being a bit too tentative when turning on my toe edge. He told me to just go for it, so i did. When i got to the top for my next run, i linked a few really nice turns before taking a little tumble. Blake decided i was doing well enough to be left to it so he headed off to go ride some more challenging terrain. As Kate pointed out, the big easy run is super gay. See, their she goes again being not exactly helpful. She is right though but i reminded her of her first day on the hill when i rode all afternoon with her on the "Super Gay" big easy because she was scared of the big runs.
My next couple of runs just kept on improving and before long Kate couldn't keep up with me! I was carving around and gunning it along. I think that having skied before i wasn't afraid of the speed and after i figured out how to control myself and the direction i was going, i was away. They were right, having skateboarded before made it so much easier. Blake came back over and was astounded by the progress i had made. He rode with me to the bottom and struggled to keep up. He said i was carving like a pro. I doubt it very much but was pleased with myself. T couldn't believe that I was at a similar level to her after just 2 hours, and she has had numerous lessons and has ridden for 6 weeks! Ha Ha! (laughs in the style of Nelson from the Simpsons)
I was pretty tired after my efforts as snowboarding uses very different muscle groups to skiing. We got changed and headed over to our lodge. It was pretty basic but Kate and I had an 11 bed dorm to ourselves so it was all good. In the morning we got up and Kate hit the slopes for first tracks (meaning she got to ride the hill and the freshly groomed runs an hour before everyone else) while i went to work nursing my aching body. My shoulders were fine but my wrists and knees were pretty bruised. It was great fun and definitely something i want to do again. Don't worry i don't think i'm turning to the dark side just yet, i love my skis too much for that, but i can hear Darth Vader beckoning me.
Other news this week is that i have been asked to volunteer at the NZ Winter games. They are a huge event that is gonna be massive. Especially since everyone is gonna be using them as a warm up for the Winter Olympics which are in Vancouver in February. I have been asked to help out for the Mens freestyle half pipe in Cardrona, which is out near Wanaka. Not ideal for me for a number of reasons so i have respectfully declined. They have also offered me some of the ski racing at Coronet, which i am considering. It might be a pretty sweet day. We have had the USA, Canadian, Japanese and NZ ski teams at CP for a while now so i am keen to see those guys in action. I'll see how it goes.
Also this week, i finally completed my Bolle incentive, which i think sounds a lot like something from the TV show Lost with its 'Dharma initiative'. Bolle are a company who make goggles and very pricey sunglasses. They gave us a sales incentive where if we sell a pair of goggles we receive points based on how much the goggles are worth. If we get 60 points, we get a choice of any sunglasses and goggles for free. Well, between the 3 of us in the shop we have amassed around 400 points already this season! Not bad eh? So i finally got round to filling out the tedious forms and sending them off. I have decided to give the goggles to Kate as Bolle are quite small and i struggle to get them over my huge cheek bones. I was gonna order her the top of the range "Screams" but she didn't like them so went for the next level down "fathoms" which are still worth $250. I went for the cheap and nasty sunglasses as i reckon if i had a pair of $300 dollar sunnies i would immediately lose or break them. I have enough points to claim again though so still might get a really nice pair of goggles and sunnies which i can always ebay or something. I have already got a nice pair of free sunglasses from the Dirty Dog rep and am holding out for more free shit from the Icebreaker (really nice expensive Merino thermals) rep. Gotta love free shit.
Dodgeball was eventful as ever this week. We lost twice, again, to the English tea party team and a team of randoms who couldn't be bothered to dress up. It has started to become a bit of a farce really. Well, a load of us running around in bin bags and womens lingerie is definitely a farce but the organisation and refereeing has become a joke. It has taken a lot of the fun out of it as teams are just blatantly cheating. We hit a guy 3 times this week and he still refused to leave the court. So we claimed our losses as moral victories instead. I did see some pretty funny stuff though. One of the teams are all dressed in camouflage, with one guy actually disguised as a tree with real branches and everything. The guy in the tree outfit was standing at the side of the court chatting when a dodgeball hit him straight in the scrotal zone! He dropped like a sack of spuds and it was a good 5 minutes before he recovered. I also saw a girl get smacked in the tits by a dodgeball thrown by a mime artist. I resisted the urge to offer to rub them better but i bet she woke up the next day with a pretty swollen hooter!
Anyway guys, i will love you and leave you. Hope the blog is still keeping you entertained.
Peace
D
XXXX
Thursday 6 August 2009
Thoughts from the back of the bus
I decided to title this blog "thoughts from the back of the bus" as I'm considering it for the title of my debut album. What do you reckon? I am of course getting ahead of myself as per usual but last night Kate and i were thoroughly entertained by our friends JC and Laura at a local open mic night. It seems JC, although a spitting image of the messiah, can play a mean guitar and can wail too! They were pretty good. JC went mental and played this awesome slide guitar tune that had the crowd going. I was very impressed. They of course tried to get me up on stage, both knowing that i play a little guitar too. My very modest and very unpractised self though decided i would just spectate. It has been an age since i had the time to just sit down with my guitar and "noodle" as we say. I haven't learnt a new song for months and the last song i learnt (and recorded) was 'Lever pulled' by John Frusciante. It's an awesome tune but i was no way confident enough last night to play it in front of strangers, even after a few ales. So i respectfully declined but in conversation after their set we all suddenly realised that between me, Laura JC and Kieran (whose nicknames are too long to mention, oh ok. He's secret-shithead-K dog, naturally) we would get together and jam. I have only ever played guitar with 2 other people though. My old mate Pocky (the plumber from Northolt golf club who had a crush on my mum! Yikes!) and the guy in the guitar shop in Auckland who kinda played over me while i was demo-ing the guitar i brought. So I'm pretty psyched about playing with these guys and maybe getting up on stage to belt out some tunes......................maybe. If i don't get total stage fright and foop (when you try to fart and poop comes out, also known as a shart) myself! I'm sure we will discuss it further at some point.
The rest of my week has been filled with the usual merriment and fun. We had a staff night skiing night the other night (phew that was a lot of 'nights' in that sentence!). They closed the hill at 5pm as usual but us staff got to night ski. They also threw in a free BBQ and had 2 buck beers! It was amazing! We had the whole mountain to ourselves. I have never had so much space on the pistes before. I of course skied awesomely! Especially after shotgunning 2 beers straight off the bat before we even started, thoroughly impressing Billy. We hit an area of the hill called 'the exchange' before the light got bad as it was still caked in snow. It seemed a popular place as there were quite a few of us hitting the jumps and drops. There was even a camera man filming some of the crazy snowboarders doing backflips and 720's. Billy (who likes to perform) decided to try his first 360. He over rotated and "ate shit" as we skiing types call it. He was all right though. I decided to hit the same jump but probably should've maybe scoped it out beforehand. It was a near vertical lip that i accidentally near back flipped off, landing neatly in a heap on my back! No harm done, except jerking my neck and aggravating the whiplash i got earlier in the season. After a few runs we headed down to the base building and grabbed Billys kayak. Yes, you read that right. Billy is a mean kayaker and decided he would bring it along and slide down a few runs in it. Now kayaks are not really designed for that sort of thing so i was employed as a safety measure to ensure Billy didn't accidentally fly off a cliff or crash into anything. It seems snow kayaking is similar to sexual asphyxiation in that they both require spotters, especially after that whole Michael Hutchance debacle!
We got a few weird looks and some whoots and hollers from our colleagues as we loaded up the kayak on the lift and headed up to the top of meadows, which is the learner bit of the mountain. Our first run was off piste. Pretty much the same line i took when i slid down the hill dressed as Shred the Kea a while back. It went fine except the kayak didn't run too well in the deep snow. So we decided to take it over to the M1 which is a bigger, steeper, groomed run. Billy got settled into his kayak using me as a front break to stop him from slipping down the hill. As soon as he was set i moved away and whoosh, off he flew. He was flying! I had to straight line it down the hill to keep up with him. I skied along side him as he made futile efforts to steer the boat away from the edge of the run and imminent doom. Now, we sort of left out a few details in our careful planning for this boat run. Nothing big, oh except how to stop the bloody thing!! The bottom of the M1 run has a curve in it with a quite large drop off the side. A curve that Billy was failing to negotiate too well in the now out of control kayak. In fact he was accelerating straight towards the drop. I responded quickly and dived onto the back of the boat, grabbing Billy and cunningly using my skies to steer us away from the drop and nicely around the curve. We hit the steep bit off the run but with me now steering we coasted nicely to the bottom, stopping short of the base building. We were greeted by some more whoops and hollers and immediately jumped up to go do it again! The cameraman, heard the commotion and decided to tag along this time.
We jumped back on the lift with a small crowd of followers, got to the top, got Billy settled into the boat and set off. Billy was far more confident this time and decided to perform for the camera, doing a few 360 spins as he flew down the hill. I tagged along in my role of spotter making sure no one was in any immediate danger. A guy following us decided to do a huge carve and covered Billy in snow which i think put him off as he suddenly veered towards the cliff again. In a flash i was, quite literally on him, jumping onto the back of the boat and steering us to safety. We rode the rest of the run together with our cameraman snowboarding next to us capturing it all on film. We got to the bottom to be greeted by rapturous applause from our colleagues. It was dead good!
After a quick pause to get some alcohol into me and a sausage from the BBQ, we headed back up the hill again. This time though we left our skis and the kayak behind. This time we carried snow scooters! A company that rents them in town brought them along for us to use so after a very brief demonstration on how they sort of work, Billy and i dragged them up to the top of the mountain. I had used snow bikes in Canada but these snow scooters where very different. You strapped your feet in to the board and gripped the handlebars for dear life. I travelled a mere 6 feet before stacking it big time and cracking my head off the handlebars! Luckily, i was wearing my helmet but it did my already aching whiplash neck no help. It took me ages to get the hang of it and i fell, a lot! It didn't help that the rest of my colleagues saw us snow scooter riders as targets and were constantly cutting us up and spraying us with snow. I'm pretty sure that little Jane (who works in the shop at the Remarkables) took me out the worst. She cut right in front of me, yelled sorry but laughed as i tumbled to the deck and slid along the snow causing it to all shoot up my jacket and giving me what is affectionately known as "snow belly!"
It was such a good night. The CEO, James Coddington, or Cod face as we call him, was there serving drinks and all the managers were helping out running the lifts and cooking the BBQ. It is a shame really that they don't do it more often. We do have a staff tubing (big rubber rings that you race down the mountain!) night at the Remarks next month so that should be pretty cool.
Talking of the Remarks, we actually skied there yesterday for the first time this season. It is tiny compared to Coronet but offers so much more. There are loads of bowls and chutes, tons of off piste stuff and of course it has parklife. Parklife is a collection of snow parks (like skateparks, but on snow) with loads of things to jump off and jib (like a grind in skateboarding) on. One of the parks is called the stash. It's so ghetto! It has all these logs to jib and even a hut to ride over. I decided to leave the hut for now as the 20 foot drop to a steep landing looked a little too extreme for me. Billy has done it and it does look super gnarly. Maybe later in the season. So i spent the day with JC and Kieran jibbing logs, boxes and tables. It was awesome.
Kate loved it too. As the runs are pretty short you can hurtle down them without getting quad burn (muscle ache in your thighs). I impressed myself with my downhill racing style and gunned it down a few slopes super fast! Kate even went over to the shadow bowl on the opposite side of the resort, an area that is quite advanced. She stacked it on a thin little run and i feared it would knock her confidence but she was fine. Well, until we tried to walk back to the bus on our way home.
At the Remarks you have to walk down the nursery slope to get to the bus. It's not steep obviously but in trainers, it's pretty slippery. So i toddle off to get the bus then hear this massive crash behind me. I turn to find Kate in a heap, covered in all her gear. She did a proper you've been framed style legs both slipping out stack! Luckily it was right in front of everyone on the nursery slope! I went back to help her up but as soon as she stood up she kept just slipping down the hill. I managed to grab her skis and she eventually righted herself and we made it to the bus. I imagine she is gonna be black and blue this morning though. I'm just gutted i didn't get it on film. £250 is a lot of money in NZ!
No dodgeball this week as the hall was double booked but we did make it into the local paper. They ran an article about the NZSki dodgeball tournament and mentioned our team, Bin Ladens Ball Bags, in the article. Pretty sweet. They also mentioned when and where we play so i imagine there may well be a few more spectators this week. I just hope we give a better showing than our pathetic effort last week. We're not bottom of the league though. That title goes to Victorias secrets which are the team all dressed in ladies lingerie. Nice. Well, except for the dudes.
Anyways, I'll chat to you lot later.
Peace
D
XXXX
The rest of my week has been filled with the usual merriment and fun. We had a staff night skiing night the other night (phew that was a lot of 'nights' in that sentence!). They closed the hill at 5pm as usual but us staff got to night ski. They also threw in a free BBQ and had 2 buck beers! It was amazing! We had the whole mountain to ourselves. I have never had so much space on the pistes before. I of course skied awesomely! Especially after shotgunning 2 beers straight off the bat before we even started, thoroughly impressing Billy. We hit an area of the hill called 'the exchange' before the light got bad as it was still caked in snow. It seemed a popular place as there were quite a few of us hitting the jumps and drops. There was even a camera man filming some of the crazy snowboarders doing backflips and 720's. Billy (who likes to perform) decided to try his first 360. He over rotated and "ate shit" as we skiing types call it. He was all right though. I decided to hit the same jump but probably should've maybe scoped it out beforehand. It was a near vertical lip that i accidentally near back flipped off, landing neatly in a heap on my back! No harm done, except jerking my neck and aggravating the whiplash i got earlier in the season. After a few runs we headed down to the base building and grabbed Billys kayak. Yes, you read that right. Billy is a mean kayaker and decided he would bring it along and slide down a few runs in it. Now kayaks are not really designed for that sort of thing so i was employed as a safety measure to ensure Billy didn't accidentally fly off a cliff or crash into anything. It seems snow kayaking is similar to sexual asphyxiation in that they both require spotters, especially after that whole Michael Hutchance debacle!
We got a few weird looks and some whoots and hollers from our colleagues as we loaded up the kayak on the lift and headed up to the top of meadows, which is the learner bit of the mountain. Our first run was off piste. Pretty much the same line i took when i slid down the hill dressed as Shred the Kea a while back. It went fine except the kayak didn't run too well in the deep snow. So we decided to take it over to the M1 which is a bigger, steeper, groomed run. Billy got settled into his kayak using me as a front break to stop him from slipping down the hill. As soon as he was set i moved away and whoosh, off he flew. He was flying! I had to straight line it down the hill to keep up with him. I skied along side him as he made futile efforts to steer the boat away from the edge of the run and imminent doom. Now, we sort of left out a few details in our careful planning for this boat run. Nothing big, oh except how to stop the bloody thing!! The bottom of the M1 run has a curve in it with a quite large drop off the side. A curve that Billy was failing to negotiate too well in the now out of control kayak. In fact he was accelerating straight towards the drop. I responded quickly and dived onto the back of the boat, grabbing Billy and cunningly using my skies to steer us away from the drop and nicely around the curve. We hit the steep bit off the run but with me now steering we coasted nicely to the bottom, stopping short of the base building. We were greeted by some more whoops and hollers and immediately jumped up to go do it again! The cameraman, heard the commotion and decided to tag along this time.
We jumped back on the lift with a small crowd of followers, got to the top, got Billy settled into the boat and set off. Billy was far more confident this time and decided to perform for the camera, doing a few 360 spins as he flew down the hill. I tagged along in my role of spotter making sure no one was in any immediate danger. A guy following us decided to do a huge carve and covered Billy in snow which i think put him off as he suddenly veered towards the cliff again. In a flash i was, quite literally on him, jumping onto the back of the boat and steering us to safety. We rode the rest of the run together with our cameraman snowboarding next to us capturing it all on film. We got to the bottom to be greeted by rapturous applause from our colleagues. It was dead good!
After a quick pause to get some alcohol into me and a sausage from the BBQ, we headed back up the hill again. This time though we left our skis and the kayak behind. This time we carried snow scooters! A company that rents them in town brought them along for us to use so after a very brief demonstration on how they sort of work, Billy and i dragged them up to the top of the mountain. I had used snow bikes in Canada but these snow scooters where very different. You strapped your feet in to the board and gripped the handlebars for dear life. I travelled a mere 6 feet before stacking it big time and cracking my head off the handlebars! Luckily, i was wearing my helmet but it did my already aching whiplash neck no help. It took me ages to get the hang of it and i fell, a lot! It didn't help that the rest of my colleagues saw us snow scooter riders as targets and were constantly cutting us up and spraying us with snow. I'm pretty sure that little Jane (who works in the shop at the Remarkables) took me out the worst. She cut right in front of me, yelled sorry but laughed as i tumbled to the deck and slid along the snow causing it to all shoot up my jacket and giving me what is affectionately known as "snow belly!"
It was such a good night. The CEO, James Coddington, or Cod face as we call him, was there serving drinks and all the managers were helping out running the lifts and cooking the BBQ. It is a shame really that they don't do it more often. We do have a staff tubing (big rubber rings that you race down the mountain!) night at the Remarks next month so that should be pretty cool.
Talking of the Remarks, we actually skied there yesterday for the first time this season. It is tiny compared to Coronet but offers so much more. There are loads of bowls and chutes, tons of off piste stuff and of course it has parklife. Parklife is a collection of snow parks (like skateparks, but on snow) with loads of things to jump off and jib (like a grind in skateboarding) on. One of the parks is called the stash. It's so ghetto! It has all these logs to jib and even a hut to ride over. I decided to leave the hut for now as the 20 foot drop to a steep landing looked a little too extreme for me. Billy has done it and it does look super gnarly. Maybe later in the season. So i spent the day with JC and Kieran jibbing logs, boxes and tables. It was awesome.
Kate loved it too. As the runs are pretty short you can hurtle down them without getting quad burn (muscle ache in your thighs). I impressed myself with my downhill racing style and gunned it down a few slopes super fast! Kate even went over to the shadow bowl on the opposite side of the resort, an area that is quite advanced. She stacked it on a thin little run and i feared it would knock her confidence but she was fine. Well, until we tried to walk back to the bus on our way home.
At the Remarks you have to walk down the nursery slope to get to the bus. It's not steep obviously but in trainers, it's pretty slippery. So i toddle off to get the bus then hear this massive crash behind me. I turn to find Kate in a heap, covered in all her gear. She did a proper you've been framed style legs both slipping out stack! Luckily it was right in front of everyone on the nursery slope! I went back to help her up but as soon as she stood up she kept just slipping down the hill. I managed to grab her skis and she eventually righted herself and we made it to the bus. I imagine she is gonna be black and blue this morning though. I'm just gutted i didn't get it on film. £250 is a lot of money in NZ!
No dodgeball this week as the hall was double booked but we did make it into the local paper. They ran an article about the NZSki dodgeball tournament and mentioned our team, Bin Ladens Ball Bags, in the article. Pretty sweet. They also mentioned when and where we play so i imagine there may well be a few more spectators this week. I just hope we give a better showing than our pathetic effort last week. We're not bottom of the league though. That title goes to Victorias secrets which are the team all dressed in ladies lingerie. Nice. Well, except for the dudes.
Anyways, I'll chat to you lot later.
Peace
D
XXXX
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