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
Thursday, 13 August 2009
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
Friday, 31 July 2009
Pretty sounds and awesome sunrises
Another awesome week is under my belt. I had 3 days off so took advantage and skied my little ass off! On Friday Kate was suffering from my late night poker win at Surreal and decided to stay in bed for the day so i met up with JC and Kieran at Coronet. Before winning at poker and also winning a seat at an invitational cash game (which i will tell you about later) i brought some new heat moulded foot beds for my ski boots. After a hard day riding on Thursday my feet were killing me. My feet were loose in my boots so i had been tightening them all day and they ached like a bitch. What a difference though on Friday! I skied all day and my feet were fine. So much in fact that i even stayed on for night skiing with JC. Billy also tagged along and we found some sweet little drops to jump off. Billy did an insane 180 spin off this big drop which is probably the most gnarliest thing i have ever seen. I dropped off it too but didn't spin. The landing was pitched black but i had a "Fuck it, all in!" moment (when Kate plays poker and moves all in sometimes she says "Fuck it, all in!"). I was super stoked that i did it. Hopefully it will inspire me to get on with being a bit more gnarly. Well, without hurting myself, of course. I did manage to take out a small Japanese lady though! I hit this jump but she was in my landing area, just waiting in the middle of the damn slope. I tried to avoid her, but only because i thought she was a girl called Alice that we were riding with. I clipped her and spun her as she fell. She was fine though but i was a bit annoyed that she was just standing in the middle of the slope in the bloody dark. Stupid cow! I probably shouldn't have been flying around myself but at least no one was hurt.
On Saturday we all rode again at CP (Coronet Peak). On my first run me and the boys headed off piste over by one of the runs called Greengates. As i started my run i saw this thing out of the corner of my eye and heard this strange squawking! I had been dive bombed by 2 bloody Keas! Keas are the green alpine parrots that live down here and are one of the most intelligent animals in the world, apparently. The guys saw everything and pissed themselves laughing. The Keas flew away and i escaped unharmed. I had probably inadvertently skied over their nest or something. Ooops!
When i finished for the day i dropped my gear off at the shop where i received a nice surprise. Our CEO had left us thank you letters for all our hard work over the school holidays. Pretty standard stuff but it was a nice touch. Shame there wasn't a cheque attached.
I had my first day at the Remarkables on Wednesday. The bus up to the Remarks is a notoriously sketchy road but i didn't even blink at the 200 foot sheer drops of the edge of the road as i was hypnotised by the most amazing sunrise i have seen so far. I tried to get some pics but the bumpy road made them really blurry. By the time the bus stopped to put snow chains on, the sunrise was pretty much up. The Remarks is a very different resort to CP (Coronet Peak). For one, it's an old building and all the lifts are quite dated. The shop there is tiny when compared to CP. It took me about 5 seconds to find my way around and familiarise myself. The stock is pretty similar to ours but the customers were very different. The Remarks has a few terrain parks and a lot more snowboarders and "Snow Bros" go there. CP seems to have a lot more old fashioned skiers and snowboarders. Don't get me wrong, we have our fair share of dudes at Coronet but there were tons of them at the Remarks. My first day was a good laugh and i actually felt more comfortable in the tiny shop. It felt a lot more intimate. We had a pretty quiet day but the best thing is that the bus for the Remarks stops at the bus stop across the road so i was home in record time!
Home in plenty of time to get myself for another dodgeball session. It seems all our tactics and momentum from last week were very very lost! We got spanked in our first game against the Buzz Lightyear team from rentals. Even with our new team member Eillis from food and Beverage. She's an Irish girl who is insane! She was diving all over the place and was the only girl on our team to actually catch a ball! We huddled after our first game and reinforced the tactics which worked so well for us the previous week but it was to no avail. We got annihilated by the transexual lumberjacks in our next game! (Not a sentence i thought i would ever type)
It seems we need to try harder. I may have to watch the movie again to get some hints, and some more quotes.
Thursday was my day off and instead of going skiing Kate got us two free trips to the Doubtful Sound! It basically saved us $700!! The Doubtful Sound was amazing. Mainly because of the scenery but also because out of The Milford Sound and the Doubtful, it is the least popular because it's further away, so it was nice and quiet. It meant that just 20 of us rattled around in a boat that could carry 140 passengers and that we were the only boat on the sound. Kate went to the Milford sound last time she was here and said it was packed full of boats and that planes and helicopters were buzzing around overhead. It's difficult to describe the scenery that is there. Sheer face mountains caked in moss and trees that have hundreds of waterfalls cascading down into the ocean. It's famous for it's wildlife too with regular sightings of giant bottle nose dolphins, fur seals and rare little blue and great Fjordland crested penguins! Kate was buzzing as you can imagine but we only saw fur seals, which technically were there out of season. Go figure.
The weather was typical of the area. Doubtful sound get 200 days of rain a year and Thursday was no exception. It pissed down. It meant that there were hundreds of waterfalls falling down the steep mountains which dropped straight into the sea. It was also snowing on the tops of the hills and although the cloud was low it was absolutely beautiful. I got some good pics. Because the cloud was so low and it was pretty grey, Black &White pics were the way to go. Shame as it is so green there but the light was terrible. It was a long day too and i could see why the Milford sound is more popular as we had a 2 hour coach trip, then transferred to a mini bus, then an hour cruise across Lake Manapouri, then an hour on a coach before a 3 hour cruise through the sound before doing it all again to come home. It was well worth it though. Especially since we got it for free!! HA HA HA (Evil cackle!)
Back to poker. Thursday night at Surreal was my last chance to win my way into the card sharks invitational cash game. Carlos, Mike and Kate all had seats to it and i felt a little left out. Mike and Carlos had multiple seats and had offered to sell me theirs but i was confident that i would win my own seat (I was a little drunk). Anyway, long story short, i ended up smashing everybody and winning my seat, as well as a $50 bar tab. It was probably the best i had played in a long time. So today (Saturday) we headed over to Surreal to play the cash game. It was quite weird playing not only at day time but also playing sober. I went out pretty quick getting beat by quad 10's to my full house. I wasn't mad though, quad 10's is an awesome hand! Kate fared better getting to final table and finishing 5th and pocketing $30. Not bad considering it was free to play, as long as you had an invitation. It was like a who's who of Q town poker but a girl from Arrowtown ended up winning and pocketing $300. Good fun, and we both have seats at the NPPL cash game in a few weeks with a pot of $1200! Wish us luck.
So, a pretty eventful week in all. Skiing, the Remarks, Doubtful sound and poker. Typical NZ week. We have also started looking towards our onward travels. We only have a few more months in Qtown but have been looking at options for after we leave NZ. Pretty exciting stuff which may or may not involve a 10 week road trip through the USA and Canada. Sweet huh?
Anyway guys, I'll keep you posted. Take care y'all.
Peace
D
XXXX
On Saturday we all rode again at CP (Coronet Peak). On my first run me and the boys headed off piste over by one of the runs called Greengates. As i started my run i saw this thing out of the corner of my eye and heard this strange squawking! I had been dive bombed by 2 bloody Keas! Keas are the green alpine parrots that live down here and are one of the most intelligent animals in the world, apparently. The guys saw everything and pissed themselves laughing. The Keas flew away and i escaped unharmed. I had probably inadvertently skied over their nest or something. Ooops!
When i finished for the day i dropped my gear off at the shop where i received a nice surprise. Our CEO had left us thank you letters for all our hard work over the school holidays. Pretty standard stuff but it was a nice touch. Shame there wasn't a cheque attached.
I had my first day at the Remarkables on Wednesday. The bus up to the Remarks is a notoriously sketchy road but i didn't even blink at the 200 foot sheer drops of the edge of the road as i was hypnotised by the most amazing sunrise i have seen so far. I tried to get some pics but the bumpy road made them really blurry. By the time the bus stopped to put snow chains on, the sunrise was pretty much up. The Remarks is a very different resort to CP (Coronet Peak). For one, it's an old building and all the lifts are quite dated. The shop there is tiny when compared to CP. It took me about 5 seconds to find my way around and familiarise myself. The stock is pretty similar to ours but the customers were very different. The Remarks has a few terrain parks and a lot more snowboarders and "Snow Bros" go there. CP seems to have a lot more old fashioned skiers and snowboarders. Don't get me wrong, we have our fair share of dudes at Coronet but there were tons of them at the Remarks. My first day was a good laugh and i actually felt more comfortable in the tiny shop. It felt a lot more intimate. We had a pretty quiet day but the best thing is that the bus for the Remarks stops at the bus stop across the road so i was home in record time!
Home in plenty of time to get myself for another dodgeball session. It seems all our tactics and momentum from last week were very very lost! We got spanked in our first game against the Buzz Lightyear team from rentals. Even with our new team member Eillis from food and Beverage. She's an Irish girl who is insane! She was diving all over the place and was the only girl on our team to actually catch a ball! We huddled after our first game and reinforced the tactics which worked so well for us the previous week but it was to no avail. We got annihilated by the transexual lumberjacks in our next game! (Not a sentence i thought i would ever type)
It seems we need to try harder. I may have to watch the movie again to get some hints, and some more quotes.
Thursday was my day off and instead of going skiing Kate got us two free trips to the Doubtful Sound! It basically saved us $700!! The Doubtful Sound was amazing. Mainly because of the scenery but also because out of The Milford Sound and the Doubtful, it is the least popular because it's further away, so it was nice and quiet. It meant that just 20 of us rattled around in a boat that could carry 140 passengers and that we were the only boat on the sound. Kate went to the Milford sound last time she was here and said it was packed full of boats and that planes and helicopters were buzzing around overhead. It's difficult to describe the scenery that is there. Sheer face mountains caked in moss and trees that have hundreds of waterfalls cascading down into the ocean. It's famous for it's wildlife too with regular sightings of giant bottle nose dolphins, fur seals and rare little blue and great Fjordland crested penguins! Kate was buzzing as you can imagine but we only saw fur seals, which technically were there out of season. Go figure.
The weather was typical of the area. Doubtful sound get 200 days of rain a year and Thursday was no exception. It pissed down. It meant that there were hundreds of waterfalls falling down the steep mountains which dropped straight into the sea. It was also snowing on the tops of the hills and although the cloud was low it was absolutely beautiful. I got some good pics. Because the cloud was so low and it was pretty grey, Black &White pics were the way to go. Shame as it is so green there but the light was terrible. It was a long day too and i could see why the Milford sound is more popular as we had a 2 hour coach trip, then transferred to a mini bus, then an hour cruise across Lake Manapouri, then an hour on a coach before a 3 hour cruise through the sound before doing it all again to come home. It was well worth it though. Especially since we got it for free!! HA HA HA (Evil cackle!)
Back to poker. Thursday night at Surreal was my last chance to win my way into the card sharks invitational cash game. Carlos, Mike and Kate all had seats to it and i felt a little left out. Mike and Carlos had multiple seats and had offered to sell me theirs but i was confident that i would win my own seat (I was a little drunk). Anyway, long story short, i ended up smashing everybody and winning my seat, as well as a $50 bar tab. It was probably the best i had played in a long time. So today (Saturday) we headed over to Surreal to play the cash game. It was quite weird playing not only at day time but also playing sober. I went out pretty quick getting beat by quad 10's to my full house. I wasn't mad though, quad 10's is an awesome hand! Kate fared better getting to final table and finishing 5th and pocketing $30. Not bad considering it was free to play, as long as you had an invitation. It was like a who's who of Q town poker but a girl from Arrowtown ended up winning and pocketing $300. Good fun, and we both have seats at the NPPL cash game in a few weeks with a pot of $1200! Wish us luck.
So, a pretty eventful week in all. Skiing, the Remarks, Doubtful sound and poker. Typical NZ week. We have also started looking towards our onward travels. We only have a few more months in Qtown but have been looking at options for after we leave NZ. Pretty exciting stuff which may or may not involve a 10 week road trip through the USA and Canada. Sweet huh?
Anyway guys, I'll keep you posted. Take care y'all.
Peace
D
XXXX
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.
Another glorious week has passed and as i sit here typing i am starting my first of 3 days off. It has been a pretty eventful week. Work has been cool as ever except that i discovered that the reason we have had our hours slashed this week was because this is usually the quietest week of the season. No need for extra staff, so it kind of worked out as a money cutback thing but also spun as a "Big thank you for all your work" type thing here's an extra day off, go have fun. Well, it seems that the global recession may be truly on the way out because instead of being a nice quiet week in the shop we have in fact tripled our predicted takings! It has been hella busy. In fact the last two days i have worked not only have we taken huge amounts of money and tripled the projected takings but also beaten the season record for takings. And all without any staff! Nice one NZSki! I have been running around like a blue arsed fly for the last few days. It has been relentless, and all whilst my boss was enjoying his days off. We have had till crashes, irate customers and queues running out of the shop but it has meant the days have flown past and our stock has been depleted to record lows. I would still take a stressful day in the shop over a stressful day at Queen Charlottes hospital any day though. At least no one died!
No one can tell me why it has been so busy but it seems a combination of bad weather and the Australians all staying on past the end of school holidays looks like a probable cause. When i say bad weather i mean lots of snow which is actually pretty good for a ski resort. We have had around 17cms of snow in the last 3 days alone. Wet and sleety in places though hence we have sold shit loads of goggles and face protection (bandanas and neoprene masks as oppose to crash helmets) .As i am typing this it is absolutely cats and dogs outside and as i have said before, rain in town usually equals snow up on the hill. We had planned another day riding with JC (Jesus Christ), Laura and Kieran but when i just mentioned it to Kate she seemed less than enthused. It is cloudy out but the mountain looks relatively clear on the webcam. (www.nzski.co.nz if anyone wants to see where i work. Coronet peak remember).
Last night saw the start of our company dodgeball tournament. Yes, you read that right. The shop have joined forces with the custodians (cleaners and information) and i am now an official dodgeballer! We had our first team meeting on Tuesday night to sort out our costumes as every team has to have a theme. We are called 'Bin Ladens Ball Bags' as our costumes are fashioned from bin liners. I guess half of the team being custodians, we had to have trash factored in somehow. My costume is a fetching bin toga, finished off with a green plastic bag belt, complemented with a full Windsor knotted white bin bag tie and a green bin bag bandana. Very fetch! The rest of the guys have similar plastic creations. I think Richards is best though with his bin bag Borat style man-kini! Billy is getting swoons too as his is just a bin bag kilt and no top. His six pack glistening as he throws dodgeballs at small girls on the opposing team. Women love that shit eh?
So we all met at the Q town events centre last night. Our team consists of 10 players, 6 dudes and 4 dudettes. We struggled to get enough dudettes so poached Kate from F&B (food and beverage) and Ashleyne from rentals. The other two are T and Lindsay who work with me in the shop and the other guys are my old mate Billy and the custodians Richard, Rob and Dickon (yes that is is real name and yes his parents must be evil!). We got our numbers wrong and tried to drag Blake (T's fella from ski patrol) to play but he was not having it. Well, not this week. I think he's gonna play next week though. The other teams filtered in and i was in fits as i saw their costumes. We had teams of ninjas, transexual lumberjacks (complete with cut off jeans, shirts tied at the waist and wigs), 80's Aerobics, cross dressing English tea party (summer dresses and tweed jackets), mimes, Buzz Lightyears, Super heroes, Hip hop dancers and Victoria secrets models (even the dudes wore lingerie!). Our management team didn't bother and turned up in shorts and t shirts and were promptly booed!
Our first game was against the team of ninjas (complete with cardboard swords and nunchuks!). We hadn't really talked tactics and it showed when the ninjas thoroughly trounced us 2-0. We walked back to the bleachers with our bin bag heads held low. I then got the team together and we had a tactical meeting. We decided that we would leave most of the attacking to the boys as the girls threw like, well..........girls and the other team kept catching their balls which not only knocked out our player but reinstated one of their own team. So we decided the girls should dodge and pick up the stray balls and hand them to either me, Billy, Rob or Dickon (as Richard also throw like a girl). We also wanted a more even rotation of players reinstated. When the girls got knocked out they formed an orderly queue and went back into the game in the order they were knocked out in. It meant us guys had to wait at the end of the line. This meant that at the end of the game we were left with one guy and 3 girls who all threw it like pansies and reinstated more of the other team. So we decided to go boy/girl/boy/girl when we got reinstated to even it out.
Happy with our tactics we went into our next game against Victorias secret with more confidence. It helped too as we won 2-1 and one of the games we didn't have a single player from our team eliminated! I did feel bad at hurling balls at women in lingerie with angel wings and tiaras but the predator instincts in me took over and i really got into it. I need to work on my accuracy a bit though. Especially since one ball i hurled hit the back wall and rebounded into the crowd of spectators, injuring a small child. But who the hell brings kids to a dodgeball tournament anyway? Some parents, eh?
The tournament has 14 teams and we play on a Wednesday night. It is a league so i will no doubt have more thrilling dodgeball related tales to tell. "Touche!" (As Ben Stiller might say in the movie)
Hey, remember i have been going on about how Christmassy the town is at the moment? Well, it may have something to do with there being an unofficial Christmas Day on the 25th July here. I have started to see lots of signs in bars beckoning people to come in for Xmas drinks or Boxing day (26th July) meals. All seems fun. We have been invited to drinks at a Xmas eve party tomorrow night. Kate and Laura said they might go dressed as Christmas trees. I mean, who wouldn't?
I am still managing to play a few games of poker a week too. This week saw the start of the NPPL (National pub poker league) take over one of the venues we usually play in. It was way better organised and i had a great time finishing 2nd. Winning a $30 bar tab, a hat, a medal and an entry to a $1200 cash game in 5 weeks! Well, to be fair everyone who made the final table got entered. It meant Kate, Laura and Kieran made it but JC didn't. Plenty of us to rub it in though, ha ha. It also meant i got entered onto the NPPL website where i receive ranking points. I am currently ranked number 2 for the venue we played in. Not that impressive when you consider it was the first time we played there. We have both been such consistent players these last few months and it's a shame we haven't been to any NPPL nights. Who knows where we'd be ranked.
Anyway guys, i'm off to have a bit of brekkie then hit the slopes. Sweet as (as we say over here).
Peace (as i say all the time)
D
XXXX
No one can tell me why it has been so busy but it seems a combination of bad weather and the Australians all staying on past the end of school holidays looks like a probable cause. When i say bad weather i mean lots of snow which is actually pretty good for a ski resort. We have had around 17cms of snow in the last 3 days alone. Wet and sleety in places though hence we have sold shit loads of goggles and face protection (bandanas and neoprene masks as oppose to crash helmets) .As i am typing this it is absolutely cats and dogs outside and as i have said before, rain in town usually equals snow up on the hill. We had planned another day riding with JC (Jesus Christ), Laura and Kieran but when i just mentioned it to Kate she seemed less than enthused. It is cloudy out but the mountain looks relatively clear on the webcam. (www.nzski.co.nz if anyone wants to see where i work. Coronet peak remember).
Last night saw the start of our company dodgeball tournament. Yes, you read that right. The shop have joined forces with the custodians (cleaners and information) and i am now an official dodgeballer! We had our first team meeting on Tuesday night to sort out our costumes as every team has to have a theme. We are called 'Bin Ladens Ball Bags' as our costumes are fashioned from bin liners. I guess half of the team being custodians, we had to have trash factored in somehow. My costume is a fetching bin toga, finished off with a green plastic bag belt, complemented with a full Windsor knotted white bin bag tie and a green bin bag bandana. Very fetch! The rest of the guys have similar plastic creations. I think Richards is best though with his bin bag Borat style man-kini! Billy is getting swoons too as his is just a bin bag kilt and no top. His six pack glistening as he throws dodgeballs at small girls on the opposing team. Women love that shit eh?
So we all met at the Q town events centre last night. Our team consists of 10 players, 6 dudes and 4 dudettes. We struggled to get enough dudettes so poached Kate from F&B (food and beverage) and Ashleyne from rentals. The other two are T and Lindsay who work with me in the shop and the other guys are my old mate Billy and the custodians Richard, Rob and Dickon (yes that is is real name and yes his parents must be evil!). We got our numbers wrong and tried to drag Blake (T's fella from ski patrol) to play but he was not having it. Well, not this week. I think he's gonna play next week though. The other teams filtered in and i was in fits as i saw their costumes. We had teams of ninjas, transexual lumberjacks (complete with cut off jeans, shirts tied at the waist and wigs), 80's Aerobics, cross dressing English tea party (summer dresses and tweed jackets), mimes, Buzz Lightyears, Super heroes, Hip hop dancers and Victoria secrets models (even the dudes wore lingerie!). Our management team didn't bother and turned up in shorts and t shirts and were promptly booed!
Our first game was against the team of ninjas (complete with cardboard swords and nunchuks!). We hadn't really talked tactics and it showed when the ninjas thoroughly trounced us 2-0. We walked back to the bleachers with our bin bag heads held low. I then got the team together and we had a tactical meeting. We decided that we would leave most of the attacking to the boys as the girls threw like, well..........girls and the other team kept catching their balls which not only knocked out our player but reinstated one of their own team. So we decided the girls should dodge and pick up the stray balls and hand them to either me, Billy, Rob or Dickon (as Richard also throw like a girl). We also wanted a more even rotation of players reinstated. When the girls got knocked out they formed an orderly queue and went back into the game in the order they were knocked out in. It meant us guys had to wait at the end of the line. This meant that at the end of the game we were left with one guy and 3 girls who all threw it like pansies and reinstated more of the other team. So we decided to go boy/girl/boy/girl when we got reinstated to even it out.
Happy with our tactics we went into our next game against Victorias secret with more confidence. It helped too as we won 2-1 and one of the games we didn't have a single player from our team eliminated! I did feel bad at hurling balls at women in lingerie with angel wings and tiaras but the predator instincts in me took over and i really got into it. I need to work on my accuracy a bit though. Especially since one ball i hurled hit the back wall and rebounded into the crowd of spectators, injuring a small child. But who the hell brings kids to a dodgeball tournament anyway? Some parents, eh?
The tournament has 14 teams and we play on a Wednesday night. It is a league so i will no doubt have more thrilling dodgeball related tales to tell. "Touche!" (As Ben Stiller might say in the movie)
Hey, remember i have been going on about how Christmassy the town is at the moment? Well, it may have something to do with there being an unofficial Christmas Day on the 25th July here. I have started to see lots of signs in bars beckoning people to come in for Xmas drinks or Boxing day (26th July) meals. All seems fun. We have been invited to drinks at a Xmas eve party tomorrow night. Kate and Laura said they might go dressed as Christmas trees. I mean, who wouldn't?
I am still managing to play a few games of poker a week too. This week saw the start of the NPPL (National pub poker league) take over one of the venues we usually play in. It was way better organised and i had a great time finishing 2nd. Winning a $30 bar tab, a hat, a medal and an entry to a $1200 cash game in 5 weeks! Well, to be fair everyone who made the final table got entered. It meant Kate, Laura and Kieran made it but JC didn't. Plenty of us to rub it in though, ha ha. It also meant i got entered onto the NPPL website where i receive ranking points. I am currently ranked number 2 for the venue we played in. Not that impressive when you consider it was the first time we played there. We have both been such consistent players these last few months and it's a shame we haven't been to any NPPL nights. Who knows where we'd be ranked.
Anyway guys, i'm off to have a bit of brekkie then hit the slopes. Sweet as (as we say over here).
Peace (as i say all the time)
D
XXXX
Friday, 17 July 2009
2nd biggest earthquake in NZ history!!
Right, first of all we are both safe. On Wednesday night NZ had their second biggest earthquake ever recorded. 7.8 on the Richter scale!! To put that into perspective, the earthquake that hit China last year and killed over 50,ooo people was only 6.2! Luckily for us our quake hit in the Doubtful Sound in Fjordland, which is the least populated area of NZ. That said, the Doubtful Sound is only about 100km away so we felt the tremor quite a lot.
We were both cuddled up on the sofa when it all started to shake. I thought Kate was jiggling her leg so told her to stop. She thought i was shaking the sofa so told me to stop. She got up and still accused me of shaking the couch. I told her i wasn't moving and that it must be an earthquake. Her face dropped and we both simultaneously said "Shit! What do we do?" We both looked at each other then turned to watch our heater move across the front room floor. Then it all stopped.
It was well weird. Kinda scary too and eerily quiet. I always imagined an earthquake to have rumbling noises. It was also amazing too that there was hardly any damage and no one got hurt. There were a few news reports showing CCTV footage of local supermarkets with all the foods falling off the shelves and tales of land slides. They issued a tsunami warning to Australia too but apparently the biggest wave was only 17cm over the average height. Their have been 12 earthquakes and over 200 after shocks since the big one but i haven't noticed them. I have to admit that being in an earthquake is not something i want to do very often.
I actually spent a whole day on the mountain the other day. We headed up and met up with our friends Laura, JC (Jesus Christ) and Kieran. Kate even kept up with us on a few runs. Well, until we took her down a run called Sarah Sue. It was very narrow and there was a drop off on one side which kept catching her eye. She didn't enjoy it and ended up heading down for a mulled wine. I had a great laugh with the guys and was amazed at how much air Kieran was getting! The guy was flying around off everything. I started to get my confidence up and hit a few big jumps and dropped into some huge bowls. After a while my right foot started aching and i called it a day. When i got home i looked at my sore foot and noticed that i had split the ball of it. Not sure how though. I wonder if i had a small stone in my boot or just split it on a landing. Either way it is flipping sore. I'm gonna rest it for a few days and see how it feels. Hopefully we will get some more snow too as the mountain needs some. It is well covered but is really hard and crusty. Some nice soft snow will certainly give me even more confidence with jumps as well.
Other news is that Kate won a poker tournament the other night. As well as a $50 dollar bar tab she is also entered into a $500 cash game in a few weeks. It means that between me, Kate and our friends Mike and Carlos we have won a tournament in town for the last 4 weeks. I unfortunately missed out on a seat for the cash game as i won a week before the entries started. Mike has 2 entries though so may give it to me which will be cool.
We also had an awesome day yesterday. We went to the Onsen hot tubs over at Arthurs Point. Kate got it for free as she finally used her "frontline staff" letter. People who work in frontline staff get loads of free stuff. They just have to ask for it. So i had to pay but it was well worth it. The hot tubs are in these little private rooms with retractable walls and roof. So we jumped in, retracted the roof and enjoyed the scenery out over the Shotover gorge and the shotover jet boats flying around the river below us. It was so relaxing and certainly helped my aching muscles after all the skiing the day before. We then went to the cinema in the evening and watched The Hangover. It was hilarious. I must admit that it has been the best couple of days i have had since we arrived in NZ.
So next week i drop my hours at work and then start mixing up my shifts with the Remarkables. I met quite a few more people from the Remarks at this weeks jug night so hopefully i won't be too green over there. Jug night was a lot of fun this week. I am so jammy in that i get the day off after. We went out with the admin and custodian departments to a restaurant called Joes Garage. It was a nice place and it helped that Billy knew one of the guys who works there. He also is in negotiation for them to sponsor our works dodgeball team. We are having a big tournament and wanted to be the Average Joes Garage team like the Average Joes Gym team from the film. After Joes Garage we went to Montys which is a bar i detest! Well, usually i do cos it is always super busy. On Thursday nights they have the 'ression session' where beer is only $3. It was cool this time though as there was a big crowd of us. Billy, richard and me then went and crashed the Guest services departments jug night over at Rattlesnake. It felt great to be back at Rattlesnake. The poker tournaments there have stopped but it was great seeing the barmaids again. Especially since they gave me free beer!! By the time i got to meet up with Kate and the gang for poker at Surreal, i was pretty hammered. Oh well, i got a nice lay in the next morning and plenty of time to recover.
So i am still having the best time, I just hope there aren't gonna be anymore earthquakes!
Peace y'all.
D
XXXX
We were both cuddled up on the sofa when it all started to shake. I thought Kate was jiggling her leg so told her to stop. She thought i was shaking the sofa so told me to stop. She got up and still accused me of shaking the couch. I told her i wasn't moving and that it must be an earthquake. Her face dropped and we both simultaneously said "Shit! What do we do?" We both looked at each other then turned to watch our heater move across the front room floor. Then it all stopped.
It was well weird. Kinda scary too and eerily quiet. I always imagined an earthquake to have rumbling noises. It was also amazing too that there was hardly any damage and no one got hurt. There were a few news reports showing CCTV footage of local supermarkets with all the foods falling off the shelves and tales of land slides. They issued a tsunami warning to Australia too but apparently the biggest wave was only 17cm over the average height. Their have been 12 earthquakes and over 200 after shocks since the big one but i haven't noticed them. I have to admit that being in an earthquake is not something i want to do very often.
I actually spent a whole day on the mountain the other day. We headed up and met up with our friends Laura, JC (Jesus Christ) and Kieran. Kate even kept up with us on a few runs. Well, until we took her down a run called Sarah Sue. It was very narrow and there was a drop off on one side which kept catching her eye. She didn't enjoy it and ended up heading down for a mulled wine. I had a great laugh with the guys and was amazed at how much air Kieran was getting! The guy was flying around off everything. I started to get my confidence up and hit a few big jumps and dropped into some huge bowls. After a while my right foot started aching and i called it a day. When i got home i looked at my sore foot and noticed that i had split the ball of it. Not sure how though. I wonder if i had a small stone in my boot or just split it on a landing. Either way it is flipping sore. I'm gonna rest it for a few days and see how it feels. Hopefully we will get some more snow too as the mountain needs some. It is well covered but is really hard and crusty. Some nice soft snow will certainly give me even more confidence with jumps as well.
Other news is that Kate won a poker tournament the other night. As well as a $50 dollar bar tab she is also entered into a $500 cash game in a few weeks. It means that between me, Kate and our friends Mike and Carlos we have won a tournament in town for the last 4 weeks. I unfortunately missed out on a seat for the cash game as i won a week before the entries started. Mike has 2 entries though so may give it to me which will be cool.
We also had an awesome day yesterday. We went to the Onsen hot tubs over at Arthurs Point. Kate got it for free as she finally used her "frontline staff" letter. People who work in frontline staff get loads of free stuff. They just have to ask for it. So i had to pay but it was well worth it. The hot tubs are in these little private rooms with retractable walls and roof. So we jumped in, retracted the roof and enjoyed the scenery out over the Shotover gorge and the shotover jet boats flying around the river below us. It was so relaxing and certainly helped my aching muscles after all the skiing the day before. We then went to the cinema in the evening and watched The Hangover. It was hilarious. I must admit that it has been the best couple of days i have had since we arrived in NZ.
So next week i drop my hours at work and then start mixing up my shifts with the Remarkables. I met quite a few more people from the Remarks at this weeks jug night so hopefully i won't be too green over there. Jug night was a lot of fun this week. I am so jammy in that i get the day off after. We went out with the admin and custodian departments to a restaurant called Joes Garage. It was a nice place and it helped that Billy knew one of the guys who works there. He also is in negotiation for them to sponsor our works dodgeball team. We are having a big tournament and wanted to be the Average Joes Garage team like the Average Joes Gym team from the film. After Joes Garage we went to Montys which is a bar i detest! Well, usually i do cos it is always super busy. On Thursday nights they have the 'ression session' where beer is only $3. It was cool this time though as there was a big crowd of us. Billy, richard and me then went and crashed the Guest services departments jug night over at Rattlesnake. It felt great to be back at Rattlesnake. The poker tournaments there have stopped but it was great seeing the barmaids again. Especially since they gave me free beer!! By the time i got to meet up with Kate and the gang for poker at Surreal, i was pretty hammered. Oh well, i got a nice lay in the next morning and plenty of time to recover.
So i am still having the best time, I just hope there aren't gonna be anymore earthquakes!
Peace y'all.
D
XXXX
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Shred the Kea!
Wow, what an awesome week! It all started with the close of the winter festival on Sunday. They had a rail jam at CP (Coronet Peak) with some of the best local skiers and boarders. It was a shame the weather was really cloudy but we managed to see a few guys absolutely wreck themselves on the rails. One guy broke his shoulder and another landed on his back from a 10 foot drop off an uprail. The comp got stopped for a while so we decided to go home and beat the crowds on the bus home. It was so cool seeing world class freestyle skiers like Jossi Wells and cool boarders like Nick Hynne. I was a bit star struck but these guys are totally awesome riders.
It has inspired me to get a bit more into the freestyle skiing. I'll maybe avoid the rails and stuff though as i don't fancy busting myself too badly. I'll just keep riding and hitting my little airs and doing my fancy little reverts.
The highlight of the week was being asked by the admin department to be one of the resort mascots for the afternoon. They came into the shop and asked if me or Billy could help them out. Billy decided he would do it as it did sound like a bit of a laugh but when the time came to go he bottled it so i jumped in. I went to the admin dept and got helped into the huge green Kea outfit. A kea is a local parrot that is notorious for being mischievous. They already chewed/pecked their way through an electrical cable which shut down one of our chairlifts earlier this week. We have two mascots. A Kea called Shred and a kiwi called Spike. A guy called Dave from rentals was in the kiwi suit. We joked about as we were getting dressed and it turned out he is from Yeading! Literally 2 miles from where i was dragged up. Small world huh? Once we were in our suits with our big heads on we were unleashed on the public. We had a minder who guided us around as the visibility was so poor in my costume. It was also about 500 degrees centigrade and as i pranced about for the kids i damn near passed out a few times! We worked the crowds over by the Skiwi kids area, high fiving the kids and dancing about and throwing snowballs. It was a right good laugh. We were not allowed to speak in the suit and under no circumstances could we take our heads off. This became a real problem for me as i was so hot.
We thought it would be a laugh to head up one of the chairlifts so we rode up one of the lifts called Meadows. When we got to the top we stopped and greeted the kids as they came off the lift. I was in bits as we caused so much carnage! Kids were concentrating so much on waving at us they were forgetting to get off the lift in time and causing big pile ups. Even the adults were trashing theirselves. I went over to help a big guy up and managed to fall down a big hole. I struggled back up as my minder wet his pants laughing. We decided to head back down the hill to the base building by walking down one of the steeper runs called the M1. As we walked over to the run we couldn't help but slide on our arses into this big bowl. As i tried to climb out of the big bowl i lost my footing and slid off down the mountain. I tried to fight it for the first 100 feet but it was pointless so i just rolled onto my back and enjoyed the ride as everyone on the chairlift pissed themselves laughing at me. It was actually quite a lot of fun, that was until i hit a patch of little fir trees and ended up smacking my balls off them! They didn't slow me down though and i gained speed as i headed over toward the nursery slopes. It all happened in slow motion but as i neared the slope i dropped off this big dip and smashed into the back off a snowboarder. I got up, helped her up, shrugged and just run away. I couldn't speak after all. It must've been such a surreal moment for her. One minute she's just chilling out sliding down the slopes when all of a sudden she gets totalled by a 6 foot 6 fluffy green parrot who just shrugs and runs off! I was cackling away to myself at the shear stupidity of it all. I had to stop after a few hundred feet as i nearly collapsed from heat exhaustion. When i stopped i noticed Spike the kiwi and our minder heading towards me in fits of hysterics, well i couldn't tell if Dave was laughing in his kiwi suit but our minder definitely was. They had seen me slide off down the mountain and both been really concerned, especially when i hit the trees but couldn't help but laugh when i smashed into the snowboarder. When i got back to admin and told them what had happened they laughed but were worried that i had hurt someone. It was all OK though in the end. I would defiantly be the mascots again but i would no way be the damn Kea again.
Work is becoming so much fun. I'm meeting loads more people. I'll probably be known as "the midwife" or "the Kea" from now on but i really don't mind. Town has calmed down a bit since the winter festival ended and it has really started to feel like Christmas. Weird as it's July but town is all lit up, it's cold and everyone is strolling around in beannies and big coats. I'm super happy. It helps that work has changed my days off to the same as Kates and after the school holidays finish in two weeks my hours drop down. It means less money but loads more time skiing. This week has been so busy. Full of stupid Australians who haven't seen snow before and spend all day shouting at each other! It meant that i didn't get a ride break for a few days. Well, i could have gone up for some runs but the lift lines were crazy long so i woulda spent most of my break in a queue. It'll all calm down in a week or so and I'll be back skiing everyday again and jumping off stuff, YAY!!
Tonight we're heading into town to meet our friends Laura and Jesus Christ to have a few drinks and play poker til the wee hours as i am off tomorrow. YAY, drinks and poker!!
Anyways guys, I doubt my career as a mascot is gonna be fruitful so i guess i'll just keep up the retail job. I must admit that i lucked out so much with my job. We get busy just like everyone else but i work with some great people and we all look out for each other. All the other departments are getting slammed! Guest services, rentals, lifts and food and beverage are crazy busy and having to work like dogs to run properly. We are busy but we still have quiet periods and time to have a laugh. I love my job!
Peace y'all.
D
XXXX
It has inspired me to get a bit more into the freestyle skiing. I'll maybe avoid the rails and stuff though as i don't fancy busting myself too badly. I'll just keep riding and hitting my little airs and doing my fancy little reverts.
The highlight of the week was being asked by the admin department to be one of the resort mascots for the afternoon. They came into the shop and asked if me or Billy could help them out. Billy decided he would do it as it did sound like a bit of a laugh but when the time came to go he bottled it so i jumped in. I went to the admin dept and got helped into the huge green Kea outfit. A kea is a local parrot that is notorious for being mischievous. They already chewed/pecked their way through an electrical cable which shut down one of our chairlifts earlier this week. We have two mascots. A Kea called Shred and a kiwi called Spike. A guy called Dave from rentals was in the kiwi suit. We joked about as we were getting dressed and it turned out he is from Yeading! Literally 2 miles from where i was dragged up. Small world huh? Once we were in our suits with our big heads on we were unleashed on the public. We had a minder who guided us around as the visibility was so poor in my costume. It was also about 500 degrees centigrade and as i pranced about for the kids i damn near passed out a few times! We worked the crowds over by the Skiwi kids area, high fiving the kids and dancing about and throwing snowballs. It was a right good laugh. We were not allowed to speak in the suit and under no circumstances could we take our heads off. This became a real problem for me as i was so hot.
We thought it would be a laugh to head up one of the chairlifts so we rode up one of the lifts called Meadows. When we got to the top we stopped and greeted the kids as they came off the lift. I was in bits as we caused so much carnage! Kids were concentrating so much on waving at us they were forgetting to get off the lift in time and causing big pile ups. Even the adults were trashing theirselves. I went over to help a big guy up and managed to fall down a big hole. I struggled back up as my minder wet his pants laughing. We decided to head back down the hill to the base building by walking down one of the steeper runs called the M1. As we walked over to the run we couldn't help but slide on our arses into this big bowl. As i tried to climb out of the big bowl i lost my footing and slid off down the mountain. I tried to fight it for the first 100 feet but it was pointless so i just rolled onto my back and enjoyed the ride as everyone on the chairlift pissed themselves laughing at me. It was actually quite a lot of fun, that was until i hit a patch of little fir trees and ended up smacking my balls off them! They didn't slow me down though and i gained speed as i headed over toward the nursery slopes. It all happened in slow motion but as i neared the slope i dropped off this big dip and smashed into the back off a snowboarder. I got up, helped her up, shrugged and just run away. I couldn't speak after all. It must've been such a surreal moment for her. One minute she's just chilling out sliding down the slopes when all of a sudden she gets totalled by a 6 foot 6 fluffy green parrot who just shrugs and runs off! I was cackling away to myself at the shear stupidity of it all. I had to stop after a few hundred feet as i nearly collapsed from heat exhaustion. When i stopped i noticed Spike the kiwi and our minder heading towards me in fits of hysterics, well i couldn't tell if Dave was laughing in his kiwi suit but our minder definitely was. They had seen me slide off down the mountain and both been really concerned, especially when i hit the trees but couldn't help but laugh when i smashed into the snowboarder. When i got back to admin and told them what had happened they laughed but were worried that i had hurt someone. It was all OK though in the end. I would defiantly be the mascots again but i would no way be the damn Kea again.
Work is becoming so much fun. I'm meeting loads more people. I'll probably be known as "the midwife" or "the Kea" from now on but i really don't mind. Town has calmed down a bit since the winter festival ended and it has really started to feel like Christmas. Weird as it's July but town is all lit up, it's cold and everyone is strolling around in beannies and big coats. I'm super happy. It helps that work has changed my days off to the same as Kates and after the school holidays finish in two weeks my hours drop down. It means less money but loads more time skiing. This week has been so busy. Full of stupid Australians who haven't seen snow before and spend all day shouting at each other! It meant that i didn't get a ride break for a few days. Well, i could have gone up for some runs but the lift lines were crazy long so i woulda spent most of my break in a queue. It'll all calm down in a week or so and I'll be back skiing everyday again and jumping off stuff, YAY!!
Tonight we're heading into town to meet our friends Laura and Jesus Christ to have a few drinks and play poker til the wee hours as i am off tomorrow. YAY, drinks and poker!!
Anyways guys, I doubt my career as a mascot is gonna be fruitful so i guess i'll just keep up the retail job. I must admit that i lucked out so much with my job. We get busy just like everyone else but i work with some great people and we all look out for each other. All the other departments are getting slammed! Guest services, rentals, lifts and food and beverage are crazy busy and having to work like dogs to run properly. We are busy but we still have quiet periods and time to have a laugh. I love my job!
Peace y'all.
D
XXXX
Friday, 3 July 2009
Jug nights and mild concussions
Wow, how fast did this week go? Answer, hella fast! Time flies when you are having fun i suppose. The winter festival kicked off last weekend and there have been loads of events and things happening around town. Last Sunday we headed into town to watch the birdman competition which saw loads of nutters jumping off a platform in fancy dress into the very cold lake which was then followed by the drag race. Sounds kinda normal eh? Well, no it was a load of dudes in drag running around a race track on the lake front. It was packed but we managed to meet up with Mike and Aya, watch the festivities then go for a few drinks. We played pool, got our drink on and had a right laugh. Kate started to feel the effects of all day drinking and got the bus home. So Mike, Aya and me carried on drinking and then went to a poker tournament at the Revolver bar. Mike and Aya got knocked out pretty quick but i went on to win! It was sweet. I won a $50 bar tab and 2 tickets to the big night out pub crawl which are worth $50 too. Not bad for a night out. Mike and I then got invited to a cash game at the guy who runs the poker nights house. It was like a who's who of Q town poker but by 4am i was out and ready for bed. What with working full time it will probably be the end of a lot of the poker games we have been playing in town. Because the winter is here the town is full again so a lot of the bars we played in are doing different things instead of poker. Probably not a bad thing but it means we won't get many chances to see the regulars any more. That said, quite a few of them have popped into the shop and said hello and we will still play regularly at the surreal bar which will probably become even more popular due to other tournaments finishing for winter.
Work is still totally awesome. I have really settled in too and am already into the daily routine of the shop. We even had a stock take which was pretty hard work but we managed to do it and won't need to do another one for at least.............. a month! Groan.
Thursday night was Jug night. When someone cocks up at work or makes a pratt of theirselves they get fined a jug of beer, which they then have to buy everyone on jug night. For example, a girl on the bus home last week kicked over a bottle of wine which spilled down the aisle. She was fined 4 jugs!! Now as there are only 4 of us who work in the shop we don't really have a jug night but get invited out by the other departments. We don't fine each other jugs either, well at least it seems that way so far. Billy and T (who i work with) are so nice, I'd feel bad about "jugging" them. So for our jug night we tagged along with the admin department and went for a Japanese meal and a few drinks. It was very civilised and i was tucked up safe in bed by 11pm. I did have to work the next day though so cut me some slack.
The next morning the bus journey in was a bit eventful. Half the bus was still drunk and the other half were asleep. I sat and eavesdropped on debauched stories from the previous evening. We sold a fair few panadol and ibuprofen tablets in the shop too. Ha ha!! It may be different by the time the next jug night rolls around as i have managed to wangle the next day off. UH OH!!
Another thing has happened at work which i am a little concerned about. It seems my secret is out. I am now known as "The Midwife." Most people don't even know who i am but they know that some guy who works in the shop is a midwife, and they know it ain't Billy! In fact a few guys have even come in to the shop to confirm the rumours. One of the admin girls came in to talk to me about it saying that it was cool that someone actually had a skill. It was nice but made me feel kinda old. My new neighbour even came into the store to chat to me about lady bits. Sort of odd i suppose but i haven't talked about lady bits in so long so i actually enjoyed it. What can i say, i know a lot about lady bits.
The only other thing this week was me cracking my head on a pretty bad tumble on the mountain. My own stupid fault of course. It snowed for the first time in weeks so i was keen to get out on the hill. At the bottom of my first run i skied over to the beginners lift called Meadows and started doing spins into switch skiing (skiing backwards) but hit a pile of new snow which stopped my skis in their tracks. Unfortunately, the rest of my body kept travelling and i cracked the back of my head on the snow. Now snow is not always as soft as you think and i was seeing stars for a few seconds after. When i got back to the shop and told Billy and T they made sure i was OK. T's boyfriend Blake is a ski patroller and always tells T about the accidents that happen on the hill (we've had numerous broken bones and a few spinal injuries!) so she made sure i wasn't concussed. Needless to say i am now wearing my helmet, well............not right now, that would just look stupid but i am wearing it when i ski now(so relax Mum). Billy has also got himself a helmet on my advice. He has also started wearing a similar beanie to me and Kate thinks he is trying to emulate me. I'm sure he isn't. He seems a strong minded guy and probably just liked the style of hat i wear. If he starts skiing with a bandana over his face(like i do), chucks on a bit of weight and starts to belch the alphabet, i'll start to worry.
Tomorrow sees the end of the winter festival with a big party on the hill and a rail jam which we are going up to see and meet a few friends. In a way I'm happy that the festival is coming to an end and that the town might calm down a bit. The hill will still be busy as it's bloody school holidays here. Stupid kids! Little gits flying around on the mountain jumping off everything and being lippy. Man i sound old!
Anyway guys, if anyone wants to email me to let me know how things are at home, feel free (hint hint).
Peace
D
XXXX
Work is still totally awesome. I have really settled in too and am already into the daily routine of the shop. We even had a stock take which was pretty hard work but we managed to do it and won't need to do another one for at least.............. a month! Groan.
Thursday night was Jug night. When someone cocks up at work or makes a pratt of theirselves they get fined a jug of beer, which they then have to buy everyone on jug night. For example, a girl on the bus home last week kicked over a bottle of wine which spilled down the aisle. She was fined 4 jugs!! Now as there are only 4 of us who work in the shop we don't really have a jug night but get invited out by the other departments. We don't fine each other jugs either, well at least it seems that way so far. Billy and T (who i work with) are so nice, I'd feel bad about "jugging" them. So for our jug night we tagged along with the admin department and went for a Japanese meal and a few drinks. It was very civilised and i was tucked up safe in bed by 11pm. I did have to work the next day though so cut me some slack.
The next morning the bus journey in was a bit eventful. Half the bus was still drunk and the other half were asleep. I sat and eavesdropped on debauched stories from the previous evening. We sold a fair few panadol and ibuprofen tablets in the shop too. Ha ha!! It may be different by the time the next jug night rolls around as i have managed to wangle the next day off. UH OH!!
Another thing has happened at work which i am a little concerned about. It seems my secret is out. I am now known as "The Midwife." Most people don't even know who i am but they know that some guy who works in the shop is a midwife, and they know it ain't Billy! In fact a few guys have even come in to the shop to confirm the rumours. One of the admin girls came in to talk to me about it saying that it was cool that someone actually had a skill. It was nice but made me feel kinda old. My new neighbour even came into the store to chat to me about lady bits. Sort of odd i suppose but i haven't talked about lady bits in so long so i actually enjoyed it. What can i say, i know a lot about lady bits.
The only other thing this week was me cracking my head on a pretty bad tumble on the mountain. My own stupid fault of course. It snowed for the first time in weeks so i was keen to get out on the hill. At the bottom of my first run i skied over to the beginners lift called Meadows and started doing spins into switch skiing (skiing backwards) but hit a pile of new snow which stopped my skis in their tracks. Unfortunately, the rest of my body kept travelling and i cracked the back of my head on the snow. Now snow is not always as soft as you think and i was seeing stars for a few seconds after. When i got back to the shop and told Billy and T they made sure i was OK. T's boyfriend Blake is a ski patroller and always tells T about the accidents that happen on the hill (we've had numerous broken bones and a few spinal injuries!) so she made sure i wasn't concussed. Needless to say i am now wearing my helmet, well............not right now, that would just look stupid but i am wearing it when i ski now(so relax Mum). Billy has also got himself a helmet on my advice. He has also started wearing a similar beanie to me and Kate thinks he is trying to emulate me. I'm sure he isn't. He seems a strong minded guy and probably just liked the style of hat i wear. If he starts skiing with a bandana over his face(like i do), chucks on a bit of weight and starts to belch the alphabet, i'll start to worry.
Tomorrow sees the end of the winter festival with a big party on the hill and a rail jam which we are going up to see and meet a few friends. In a way I'm happy that the festival is coming to an end and that the town might calm down a bit. The hill will still be busy as it's bloody school holidays here. Stupid kids! Little gits flying around on the mountain jumping off everything and being lippy. Man i sound old!
Anyway guys, if anyone wants to email me to let me know how things are at home, feel free (hint hint).
Peace
D
XXXX
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