So long K-Dog

Wow, what a hectic week! Danny and Catherine have been and gone now. We had a really nice time with them as ever. We took them up to Bobs Peak on their first day to have a few races on the luges. Great fun although it was freezing and there was snow and ice on a few of the bends which caused quite a few comedy crashes and skids. We then went out for the evening and ended up getting really REALLY drunk! Danny did his party trick which he only seems to do when he stays at our place which was wet the bed. He did it before when we were in the flat in Northolt after a few too many. We were fine with it and i of course found it hilarious. Things were pretty tame after that with our alcohol consumption. We had an awesome few days skiing too. The first day at CP was a little marred by our monumental hangovers but we still got in a few runs and managed a bit of night skiing too. We went to the Remarks the following day and had probably the best weather we have had all season, a total blue bird day. The snow was amazing and completely over shadowed my comical falls on the big box and the nursery slopes. I had to work the next day but the guys hit the slopes at CP again. I think they were aching after 3 solid (almost) days of skiing but they had a ton of fun and the mattress in our spare room avoided getting too soaked in Dannys wee.

My Brothers birthday was a good day. After an awesome bluebird day at the Remarks we headed into town. We wandered down to the beach to light our lanterns. I lit mine and before long it was soaring high into the atmosphere. Kates lantern was not so graceful. I think she let go of it a bit too soon and that it wasn't completely full of hot air. It climbed a little before taking a bit of a nose dive toward the lake. It recovered but never really got much higher than the tree tops of Q town gardens. It seemed to crash into the woods before going out but it was dark and we couldn't really see. We joked that it probably would start a massive fire but it all seemed fine. I also joked with Danny and Catherine at how the last time we lit lanterns for my cousins wedding it was in the newspapers and on local radio shows as reports of UFOs. Well, we made it into the local paper too! Today's paper has an article asking for answers to a strange light seen hovering in the night sky on Saturday. It was me you fools!! HA HA HA!

It seems the Winter games have truly left our town. But not before one of the biggest sports stars, Shaun White (the flying tomato and the Michael Jordan of both snowboarding and skateboarding) shouted at Kate from a van. She was walking into town when she heard this guy shouting at her from a passing van. She wasn't sure who it was but could see his flowing ginger locks blowing in the wind. When she got to town she looked in the local paper and noticed a picture of the guy who shouted at her, Shaun White! She has had a evil ear infection for the last week or so and wasn't sure what he shouted but thought it might have been something about collar and cuffs! Shaun White is super ginger so i reckon he was probably shouting his support of ginger power but i think it's way funny to think of a sporting legend asking my wife if she had matching pubes to her ginger hair! Good on ya Shaun!

Dodgeball also finished this week. We had an epic 3 game session including a playoff game to finalise the placings. We were missing Billy so drafted one of the rental guys, Talis to help us out. It was a stroke of genius on our part as we annihilated the first team and won 2 points. That pretty much doubled our whole haul for the season! We also won the next game too which got us right into the mix in our fight to not finish last. We then had our playoff game against the CP food & beverage team, yesterdays muffins. In front of a huge crowd we managed to squeak past them and win our 3rd game of the night lifting us into 4th from bottom in the league! We were stoked! The lifty team from CP ended up winning, finally knocking the Shaolin Shadow boxing ninjas off the top spot. The Vaginamite team i played for a few weeks ago ended up coming second so i claimed a hollow second place. No, we were super happy that our team finished so well.

So what next for the remaining few weeks of the season? Well, to keep ourselves busy at work we have developed an assassination game. 12 of us are playing and we are given hits by our game co-ordinator "M" which we then have to assassinate by putting a "U R DEAD!" sticker on them and shouting bang! There are safe zones where you can't get killed and the game will run for a week or so. I have already made 2 hits. Both of my victims (Kate the custodian and Tee who i work with in the shop) just walked into the shop, straight up to me before i stickered them. I felt bad for killing both of them but i'm sure they will get over it. My next target might be a bit more challenging as it is Talis, the dude from rentals who helped us play dodgeball this week. He's a massive Aussie dude so i will have to use all my cunning and also avoid getting assassinated myself. The paranoia is already starting to set in. I imagine i won't last too long.

Work is super quiet at the moment. I was so bored the other day that i made a robot. As you do. He is called HOD (Head of department) and has a little beanie and a "winter crew" yellow staff t-shirt. He is a snowboarder too with his own little snowboard and cool bindings. Toshi pissed himself when he saw it. I have put him on the shelf behind me in the shop and have already had a few cool comments from staff and customers. Hopefully he will watch the shop for me when i go for ride breaks and watch my back so i don't get assassinated.

We also had a really cool staff night tubing event at the remarks this week too. We got ferried over to the Remarks in one of the big buses and all shit ourselves on the road up. As the bus was so big the driver had to swing it out over the edge of the road so he could swing it around the tight corners of the mountain road. A few times a few of the girls squealed and there a few "fuck me!" moments. We made it safely though and got a free BBQ, 2 dollar beers and some awesome tubing action. Now it seems that at every staff night event this season a few people have decided to get naked. They did a naked bungy jump at our staff night there and did some nude skiing at our staff night skiing at CP. I had missed all the nudity up until the tubing night. In fact i got some cool pics of one of the Remarks liftys with her huge wangers out! She jumped onto a naked dude and they slid off down the track in their tube. At the bottom the guy fell out and slid naked along the snow. The crowd went mental and all pissed themselves at this, myself included. It was made funnier by someone nicking the dudes trousers! HA HA.

So the season is very much winding down and there are only a few weeks left of snow. More staff are leaving all the time and the weather is getting warmer and warmer. Some trees are starting to blossom too. All quite stunning but also quite sad. Especially since we lost a member of our posse yesterday. Yes, the K-Dog has had to go home to Aus. We sent him off with a bang though. Yeah we know how to party in style, by playing......................BINGO! Wednesdays are bingo night at the skycity casino. Yeah, OK kinda lame but we won $50! It was a good start to the evening and we ended up drinking barmaids, which are huge glass tanks with a tap so you can pour your own beers. K-Dog also tried to jump the stream that runs through town. I convinced him he would piss it. He tried and failed, pretty much soaking himself in the process! Good work fella! We will miss you K-Dog. I will miss your silky smooth 360s and extracting lots of your chips from you at poker. Keep in touch dude.

On a happier note the rest of our little posse are moving in with us! JC and Laura are having lots of problems with their housemates and landlord so we have extended our lease and we are gonna sub let them our spare room. It'll be a blast and i can't wait to get some more time with JC and our guitars.

I didn't manage to start in Rentals this week as everyone seems to be disappearing so i have had lots of extra shifts in the shop. I went into rentals yesterday and sorted out a few things with Jim and i start officially in rentals on Monday. It also looks like i might be able to work like 7 days a week if i want to. I mean it would suck but the money would certainly help our further travels. I guess we'll just see what happens.

Anyway guys i am gonna get back to what i do best which is laying on the sofa scratching myself and pestering Kate.

Peace

D

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Becoming a rent(als) boy

Hey guys, exciting news. I'm adding to my huge winter repertoire by working in rentals, finally! As the season is winding down now my boss Toshi has decided to cut some of our hours in the shop. A move that back fired last time he did it when we had the busiest week this season. But to be fair there are certainly less people on the hill and our takings in the shop are coming down a bit. It's understandable, most people will have their gloves and goggles by now so the shop doesn't need so many of us around. I was quite annoyed at first because less hours obviously means less money. Yes it also means more time to ski but the spring conditions at the moment aren't exactly enticing me out onto the mountain. Plus my dodgy back and twisted knee have kept me off the snow for around a week already. So, i took some initiative and went and spoke to the head of rentals. Jim and Kate (not my Kate but rentals Kate - also known as hot Kate) were the guys who interviewed me ages ago when i first went for my job interviews on the career day. I have met them loads over the season so asked if they had any extra hours going over there. Hot Kate seemed really keen to get me over there as rentals is losing lots of staff over the next few weeks. Jim was a bit of a harder nut to crack but he also saw it as a good thing too. I used the whole "wanting more experience" aspect which is true, rentals was my first choice when i applied for the job, but in truth i could also do with a little extra coin. I went over for an introduction to rentals the other day and set up some skis and a snowboard for Jim to show him i wasn't a complete dunce. He seemed quietly impressed that i knew a little bit about dins and forward pressures in the skis and that i knew how to set up a snowboard considering i haven't really ever snowboarded. I have another proper trial tomorrow morning which I'm looking forward to.

I even got invited out for a drink with the rentals crowd the other night. I know a few of them but it's amazing how a few beers can really relax people and before i knew it i felt like i had known them for ages. Toshi and Hot Kate had already told them i was a midwife so i had to go through all my midwife stories and enlighten a few of the guys who all thought that all i did was stare at moo's all day. No, i told them i stare at boobs too! I ended up getting very very drunk and getting into trouble with Kate (my Kate not Hot Kate - although my Kate is pretty hot too). Oh well.

I had an awesome jam session with JC the other day. We met at his house and before i knew it we were banging out some awesome blues together. JC is a pretty wicked slide guitar player and is really bluesy. He made me sing in front of him too as i was being all embarrassed at first. I sung my 'go to' song which is Comfortable by John Mayer. Even though i had a cold and a sore throat i nailed it and JC seemed genuinely impressed. He wants me to play it at open mic night but i feel it isn't crowd pleasing enough. We also worked on "It's business time!" by The Flight of the Conchords. JC plays the bass part and i play the main riff. We couldn't quite figure out how to sing it at the same time though. Usually the guy playing bass (Jemaine Clement) sings the verses but JC didn't know all the words. I was trying to sing it but found it hard to play the main riff as well. More practice is definitely needed before we break it out for open mic.

It was awesome playing with another guitarist. Especially one who is better than me and who has an understanding of music. Laura (JC's GF) has a music degree and pretty much taught a lot of stuff to JC. So he was like "play that same riff in G" and i was like "Huh?" It took him a little time to figure out that although i play guitar, i don't understand much about music. I of course just read tab so had to keep asking what fret he meant but we figured it out. We then spent a fair old chunk of the afternoon playing rockband on the Nintendo Wii and wailing along to songs. JC is so funny. He hates people being left out so kept trying to encourage Kate to either sing or play drums. Kate being super stubborn flat refused to sing but got onto the drums a few times.

We then went into town to play pool, have a few beers and watch a movie. We got to the cinema to find that the movie we wanted to see had just sold out. So, we headed back to the bar for more pool until the next showing was on. Saw District 9. Hmmm, not exactly an epic blockbuster but an interesting story all the same and some pretty good SFX. Worth a watch if you have nothing better to do, like cut your toenails or something.

The big news this week really is the arrival of Derby Danny and Catherine, our friends who live up in Whangarei. They put us up for a while when we went to visit them earlier in the year and know it's our turn. It's Dannys Birthday too so i imagine we will go for a few shandys over the weekend. They also ski and board so we are heading up CP for a little night skiing and then gonna hit up Remarks for a little session too. I'm psyched as Remarks has been closed most of this week due to high winds so there is nearly 50cm of new untouched snow up there waiting for me to faceplant into! CP has somehow stayed open all week even though we have had high winds too. I think the guy who runs CP is Mr Burns in disguise. We should've been closed loads but he only sees things in dollar signs so when other hills like the Remarks or Cardrona close everyone comes to CP. It means we get paid but it also means we have to deal with lots of pissed off customers who keep moaning that the lifts keep stopping cos the wind is howling. Today for example we got held at the snow centre where you get the bus up the hill for an hour due to wind, then we headed up and it was like a scene from March of the Penguins!! Howling gales and blizzards - no Penguins and certainly no commentary by Morgan Freeman. People still struggled up the hill though as we had 1 lift open. And that was the baby magic carpet on the nursery slope. We opened one lift for 20 minutes which meant we wouldn't need to give out full refunds then they shut the lift and sent most of the staff home! Money grabbing bastards! I would've been pissed to the max if i had paid $93 for that which is the cost of a day ticket. Needless to say i got sent home which i was cool with as i am still recovering from man flu, a twisted knee and my eternal back problems. Really wanting to save myself for when Danny and Catherine get here, especially since the weather is supposed to get better tomorrow and there is a shed load of new snow about. Catherine asked us if we had any spare goggles the other night that they can use when they come down. I laughed as due to that Bolle incentive we have about 6 pairs just laying around at the moment. I even made another claim today! Just for sunnies though as didn't quite have enough points to get more goggles. The incentive finished today so will hopefully get the rest of my stuff over the next few weeks. Dude, i'm gonna look like Bolle threw up on me!

Wow, so i have a free afternoon today. Might watch a DVD or download some porn. Mmmmm, porn. Er, anyway..........................I'll catch up with you guys soon.

Peace

D

XXXX

Apologies...............

Whoa, sorry guys. It seems that the 2 people who actually read this blog were a little disappointed that i missed out last weeks entry. Basically i have been run ragged with organising my onward travels and my 2 days off last week were spent searching for and booking hostels, hotels and cheap cars. It pretty much means that our journey home is sorted now with only a few things to arrange and get confirmed. As soon as it is all finalised, i will let you know. I can say this though, it's gonna be epic! (dunh dunh dunh! - Dramatic sound effect)

So this last fortnight has been filled with the usual merriment and fun goings on that have pretty much been the norm for life in Q town. It is slowly becoming the back end of the winter season. A fact i have noticed in a number of ways. Firstly, out of the blue last week i realised that i am now actually going to work in daylight. No more amazing sunrises over the Wakatipu basin on my commute in the staff bus. It sucks really because it was totally awe inspiring some mornings. Such a shame i share the bus with a load of beanie wearing half asleep hungover teenagers, snoring and twitching despite the loud bassy tones of some random drum and bass spilling out of their ridiculously large headphones next to me. Nah, i slip my ipod on and drift off into my happy place and let the glorious red sunshine warm my cockles. Well, i used to. Now the sun has already got his hat on by the time i get to the foot of Coronet Peak but it does feel nice to have the warm sun on my face again. Yeah the temperature here has climbed too. No more -7 degrees in the morning. Higher temperatures has meant less snow too. Our mountain is still pretty well covered but I'm not sure for how much longer as it now rains instead of snows at our base building so you are riding slush by the time you get to the bottom. The snow that does fall at the top is so wet that it freezes really easily and forms a hard crust or patches of ice which are not fun to ski on.

Last week i did get Kate out onto the mountain for a bit of skiing. She has been either reluctant (Fair weather skier!) or too hungover to ride the last few weeks so it was nice to get her up on the hill. I want to keep her momentum going as she has improved so much this season. She even said she fancied some different runs so i took her all over the mountain. There were a few testing bits but she passed with flying colours. On one of our last runs i stopped halfway down to wait for her. When she stopped next to me i asked her how her first black run was going? She gave me the stink eye big time as she realised i had taken her down her first black run (which is for advanced skiers). That said, she man'd up and finished the run no problem and was then ecstatic she had managed to do her first black run. It was nice to see her so proud of herself and she very quickly forgot about my deception. I knew it was the only way i could get her to do it. If she had known she would've thrown all her toys out of the pram and gone home in a strop! I'm very proud of her too. Although we have been here all season Kate has hardly really skied enough. Her fitness is a big problem and because she doesn't like skiing on her own she will only ski on my days off, which is only 2 days a week. So in hindsight she has done really well to be riding a black run by now. I worked out her "on the snow" time before we came away and it turned out she had only spent around 20 hours skiing previous to getting here. That's less than if you went on a weeks holiday beforehand. So she has done really well. She still moans about it and looks like a sun burnt orangutan after just a few minutes riding but i think that on the whole, she is enjoying it.

Oh, you know i told you about my Bolle incentive? Well, it came through. I got some awesome lime digital Fathom goggles with an Aurora lens (that means bloody sweet pair of goggles worth about $300!) for Kate and some cool little polarized Slap sunnies for me. There was also some other junk like a bag, a cap, a drink bottle and a huge lanyard with a big carabena (climbing latch) on it. Kate's goggles look awesome and match her green coat. The Aurora lens in them is this orange lens for low light but it has a blue coating on the front. It looks gnarly! My sunnies are cool but a little too small for my huge face so i have also donated them to Kate. She is gonna be one cool looking chick, i can tell you. I was a bit disgruntled by not really getting anything in the end (other than a cap and a bag) so i filled out another claim form at work and sent it off. I was unsure if i was going to keep the sunnies before i filled out the claim so agreed to get Blake (Tees BF) some glasses instead. That claim came through yesterday so i know have an awesome free pair of Quasar goggles with an awesome fire red 50 lens (it's a low light blue lens but has this sick red and orange mirror coating on the front) worth about $250 for free! I gave Blake his sunnies last night and he is stoked about them. After Discussion with Tee (who i work with) we decided to claim the rest of the 130 points between us. So i have put in another claim for more goggles and finally a pair of sunglasses that fit my fat face. She is getting some more goggles for Blake and some sweet sunnies for herself. If these claims go through it will have meant that our shop has claimed over $2000 worth of free stuff! Not bad eh? I went into town the other day as one of the pharmacies is a big Bolle stockist and i wanted to try on some sunnies before i ordered. I got chatting to the assistant in there and she was telling me about their Bolle incentive. She said she had 35 points so far. She near fainted when i told her that we had nearly 400 points between just 3 of us! The only reason we don't have more is because Bolle is out of stock of all our biggest selling goggles. I tried on my glasses and left with a very smug smile on my face. I have since been back to try on more sunnies and met her again. She introduced me to the store manager as "the guy with 400 Bolle points." The store manager was very impressed and i again left with an even bigger smug smile on my face (think Tony playing monopoly in France - for those of you who were there).

So hopefully more free shit is heading my way. Gotta love free shit eh? Work is fine apart from i am starting to get a bit over all the stupid Aussies i have to deal with. For the first part of the season i found it quite amusing at just how stupid some Australians are. They are like the Americans of the southern hemisphere. But now, i am getting tired of their dumb shit and if i hear another Aussie explain that they are confused by Kiwi money (our $2 coin is bigger than our $1 coin - like every sane country! Oh but not Australia where their dollar coin is bigger than the $2 coin) i will seriously jump over the counter grab the stupid dick and try to insert my cash register into their anus whilst screaming "read a fucking book you dumb Aussie bastard!!" They certainly have a "the whole world revolves around me" kinda persona. Well, alot of them do but not all of them. Some of them know they are dumb and seem to relish in the fact that they are a joke. They get their own self-deprivating comment in first before i can jump over the counter and insert my cash register into their corn hole. I don't mind that. It's when they think their shit don't stink as they are asking for the 5th time what the word piste means that i seriously want to drag them into my store room and re-enact a scene from Hostel on them. Groan.

We have to be super nice to them of course because without loaded stupid Aussies bringing their strong, but larger than the $2 dollar coin, Aussie dollar, we wouldn't have had a record breaking season. Our attendance at CP is up a whooping 40%. And we are in a recession apparently. Thanks to budget airlines, it is cheaper for Aussies to fly to our ski fields in NZ than it is for them to visit their own! A fact i get told about 74 times a day by stupid Australians!! Grrrrrr!

That said, Kiwis aren't exactly saints either. I near wet myself after hearing a story Billy told me about his mate and a rough bird from Taranaki. This friend pulled this girl in a bar and went back to her place. When he got there he needed to go for a wee so excused himself off to the bathroom. When he walked out of the bathroom, there was the Taranaki girl naked and bent over in front of him by the doorway. She turned her head, took her cigarette from her mouth and muttered the immortal and romantic phrase.........."Just chuck it in Bro." I found this hilarious and have pretty much said "just chuck it in Bro" at every opportunity i have had over the past fortnight. Classy chick huh?

So i snowboarded again too last week. I got my board and boots and enthusiastically hit the big easy slope. Man, it seemed that all my good riding from the previous try had been forever lost in some sort of inter dimensional vortex. I sucked ass on my first run. It was like my first ever run all over again. I struggled to stand for a few feet before trashing myself and landing in a heap. I feel awkwardly onto my wristguards and somehow managed to bruise my ribs. I twisted my knee on another spill and by the time i got to the bottom i was all set to jack it in for the day. I decided to suck it up and go do another run. What a difference! I was back! Carving around like a natural again. Gunned it to the bottom of the run with much higher levels of confidence. After a few more runs i decided it was time to head up to the top of the mountain and do the M1 run. On the lift up i noticed it was pretty moguly (like the dude from jungle book) so decided to do the top of the M1 then cut down Pro am (which was Kates first black run i mentioned earlier). I did the moguly bits OK by just heel edging through them and made it in one piece to the top of Pro am. That's were i realised i was way above my station! Pro am is steep and was super icy. I really struggled. It was a total role reversal too as Kate was now cruising along but having to wait for me to catch her up. I bailed out of the run half way down and boarded over to the bottom of the M1 run with my tail between my legs. When i got to the bottom i wasn't that bothered really. It was a big ask to try a black run after less than 10 runs on the nursery slope really. I was pleasantly pleased with myself that i had even given it a go. I paid for it the next day though as my whole upper body and my left knee felt like Kathy Bates had snuck into my room during the night and called my a "dirty bird" whilst hitting me with a sledgehammer, like that scene from the movie Misery. My left knee is still sore. It is strapped up and i am resting it this week. Well, apart from dodgeball last night.

Our team is officially bottom of the league! YAY!! Last week saw the official unveiling of Billys new bin bag costume. He had fashioned a nappy out of a bin bag and wore nothing else! Needless to say he got a lot of attention from the opposing team. He got hit by about 20 dodgeballs, all leaving nice red marks on his chest and back.

Last night we played again. I was dubious about my knee but was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and got hoisted into playing for another team that were short a few players. So there i was wrapped in a bin bag with the 80's aerobic instructor team called "Vaginamite!" They have a team chant and everything! Probably one of the reasons they are second in the league. Well, we hammered the other team. I was on fire catching balls all over the place whilst moving gingerly around and hitting the other team with my thunderous throws! I played 2 games for Vaginamite and won twice. A completely new experience as my bin bag team have only ever won 1 game. Needless to say my bin bag team got stuffed in our first game but somehow managed a draw, and a point, from our last game of the night. That point leaves us firmly rooted to the bottom of the league but hey, mighty oaks grow from tiny acorns. It is still way too serious at dodgeball sometimes. Last night some dude got knocked the fuck out! Not sure if he took a dodgeball to the kisser or if he fell and cracked his head but he was sparko!! Luckily one of our teams are ski patrollers who are all paramedical trained so they were quick on the scene. The guy was carted off by St Johns ambulance though. He's gonna have a headache today!

Other news is that the 100% pure NZ winter games have finally started. There's been a little bit of a buzz around town but i doubt it is close to what they wanted. It has been marketed as a lead up to the winter Olympics and the biggest winter event in the southern hemisphere (not too difficult though. Up until now i think the biggest winter event in the southern hemisphere was when JC and K dog built a little jump over at the Remarks!!). Yeah so it is looking like a bit of a washout really. The first few events at the Remarks were only watched by a handful of spectators and the first event at CP got postponed a day because there was moisture in the timing cable! Still, I'm gonna try and catch the final day as they have the big air comp at CP and the official closing party with the prime minister there too! I can add to my collection of how many prime ministers i have met. The NZ PM will bring my grand total to 2!

Anyway guys, i will try to not leave it so long next time for the next entry in this thrilling blog. Remember guys, when the world is against you and you are feeling really low, when adversity seems to be slapping you around, when the whole population of the world seem to be in cohorts against you, and just when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel............................"Just chuck it in Bro!!"

Peace

D

XXXX

Turning to the dark side?

S'up Yo? Ah, i haven't used that greeting in ages. It was always the way i used to say hi to Boo. It's getting to that time of year again when my brother is always on my mind. Well, to be fair he pops in and out of my thoughts pretty constantly. This September 5th will be the first away from my family and i must admit i am not looking forward to it. I have already sort of planned my day. I am working in the morning as i have a half day, then i'm gonna go ski, maybe catch a bit of night skiing (you get the most amazing sunsets through my vermillion tinted goggles), then head home and maybe walk down to the lake to light my Chinese lantern which i'll send up to heaven for Boo. Wow, the tears are streaming down my face as i am writing this. I miss you so much Bro. I just know that my brother would fucking love NZ. I know i am carrying him around with me but it is not the same as having him here to experience all the amazing things i am. It sucks so bad that i can't even tell him about my adventures. I know he is aware and i guess we will have a good old chin wag about it someday. I guess it's good to have a cry every now and then too. I will be thinking of you all at home and i am really sorry i won't be there with you. Just remember that that pain in your chest you will all feel is LOVE. I miss you so much guys.

Right, back to the business of this blog. I finally snowboarded!! It has been something i have wanted to try for years but for lots of reasons never got around to. When i first went to Bulgaria for Kates first ski trip, i decided i was going to board so it would put me on the same level as Kate but Lewy persuaded us to ski as Borovets has some pretty flat terrain (not good when you are a snowboarder). When i went to Canada for a month i was determined to give it a go then but i bought my skis there and just wanted to break them in, so never boarded. Finally, half way through this season i got onto a board. We have night skiing on Friday and Saturday nights at CP. Last Saturday we all booked ourselves into the ski club lodges that they have up on the hill. CP is a far cry from European resorts where your hotels can be right next to the lifts or actually on the hills. In fact, we only have 4 little lodges. The people who run one of them come into the shop every day to buy the paper and we have little chats with them. They offered us discounted rates so myself, Billy, T and Toshi snapped them up. A few others from other departments also decided to stay too. So we planned to catch some night skiing after work then crash at the lodge, roll out of bed and stumble to work the next day. As T is still learning to snowboard Billy thought it only fair that we boarded as well. I jumped at the chance to give it a bash. Kate came up and met us and Billy and me went to rentals to grab our gear. It's pretty sweet that they give us all our gear for just $8 but i play poker with one of the guys so can get it for free, if i ask nicely.

After work we headed to the hill. Man, snowboarding boots are comfortable! Seriously they are like slippers compared to heavy awkward ski boots. I thought it best if we hit the nursery slope first to learn a few of the basics. A few of the liftys asked what the hell we were doing so we explained we were snowboard virgins. Of course they all chipped in little nuggets of advice. I threw my snowboard down to get myself strapped in and immediately nearly lost it as it slid away from me. First rule of snowboarding? Never let go of your board! I managed to grab it before it slid away and crashed into a small french child (maybe i should of let it). Skis have little brake systems built into the bindings so when they fall off your feet they dig into the snow and don't shoot off down the mountain.

Anyway, i strapped myself in. Billy by this time was strapped in, upright and sliding down the slope. He did 3 really nice turns before taking a tumble. Now, he claimed to have never snowboarded before but after his first effort, i was dubious. Now, everyone told me that because i used to skateboard i would pick up snowboarding really easily so i was pretty confident i would crack it. Well, unlike my first ever go at surfing where i stood up straight away and rode the board all the way to the beach, my first attempt at snowboarding was far from graceful.

Firstly, i couldn't bloody stand up on the thing. Everytime i tried the board slid away. Being on the baby slope didn't help either as it was too flat. Sounds weird but when the slope is steep it's actually easier to stand up as you can push yourself up against the gradient. I managed to eventually get upright just before my toe edge dig in and flipped my forward onto my face. I rolled over onto my arse and tried again. T's boyfriend Blake gave me an awesome tip to help me stand up. He said to grab the edge of the board as i stood to pull myself up. After that i was away. It felt very weird at first as you can travel in pretty much any direction. Skis pretty much go where they are pointed and the same can be said about snowboarding but there is also lots of scope for multi-directional sliding. Without trying i started spinning as i slid along before catching my heel edge in the snow and getting thrown onto my backside. After just 5 minutes i could see why so many boarders break their wrists and coccyx's. When the edges of the board catch on the snow, your momentum flips you forward and almost catapults you to the floor. Snow is supposed to be soft but pack snow is not. It's pretty unforgiving. Something i discovered on my next attempt. I was now standing easily and managing to control a few turns but this meant i was also gaining speed. Half way down the slope i again caught my toe edge and was catapulted face first into the mountain. I was ready for it this time and flung my arms forward to protect myself. I had wrist guards on but all they did was send the shock of the impact up my arms to both shoulders. I collapsed in a heap and when i tried to get up i couldn't feel my arms! I thought i had dislocated something for sure but after a few seconds the feeling came back in my left arm so i immediately tried to grab my limp right arm to coax it back to life. It was another few seconds before my right arm came back online and i tentatively began to move it. Kate was watching from the adjacent run and panicked when she saw i wasn't moving for a while. I managed to roll over and get myself up onto my feet and coast the bottom half of the run. She met me at the bottom to check i was ok, but after a few arm stretches and a double check i wasn't broken, i was off again. No falls, no balls, as they say.

Billy continued to ride pretty well and took a few more tumbles before he got a call from his girlfriend (my next door neighbour Lisa). She had blown him out and had decided to not stay the night in the lodge with us. Billy threw his toys out the pram big time! He got so vexed. Apparently him and Lisa are going through a rough patch anyway and i think this was the final straw. He apologised but preceded to call it a day after just 3 runs, get changed and go home. I was a little disappointed in him really. He should of at least stayed in the lodge with us and drowned his sorrows, the drama queen!

I continued to ride the little magic carpet lift up the baby slope and after another couple of runs i was carving along nicely and more importantly, under control. Blake felt it was time to take it to the next level and actually get onto the big slopes. I agreed and we headed over to the chairlift. Don't worry, i wasn't about to throw myself down a double black diamond (that's an expert rated run - i piss those on my skis!). We got to the top of the meadows lift and i managed to get off without falling. You have to have one foot strapped in so have to ride the board sort of more like a skateboard. Something i found pretty easy. I strapped in and under Blakes watchful eye i headed off down the slope. Now the run is called 'the big easy' but there is a pretty steep bit at the top. I of course took a spill but because it was steep i slid down the hill a bit and actually took Blake out too! We collapsed in a heap together as Kate looked on and pissed herself laughing. She's so helpful. I got back up and carried on making it to the bottom in one piece. Blake gave me a few more pointers. I was carving really well on my heel edge but wasn't doing so well on my toe edge. I think that after my faceplant and near shoulder dislocation i was being a bit too tentative when turning on my toe edge. He told me to just go for it, so i did. When i got to the top for my next run, i linked a few really nice turns before taking a little tumble. Blake decided i was doing well enough to be left to it so he headed off to go ride some more challenging terrain. As Kate pointed out, the big easy run is super gay. See, their she goes again being not exactly helpful. She is right though but i reminded her of her first day on the hill when i rode all afternoon with her on the "Super Gay" big easy because she was scared of the big runs.

My next couple of runs just kept on improving and before long Kate couldn't keep up with me! I was carving around and gunning it along. I think that having skied before i wasn't afraid of the speed and after i figured out how to control myself and the direction i was going, i was away. They were right, having skateboarded before made it so much easier. Blake came back over and was astounded by the progress i had made. He rode with me to the bottom and struggled to keep up. He said i was carving like a pro. I doubt it very much but was pleased with myself. T couldn't believe that I was at a similar level to her after just 2 hours, and she has had numerous lessons and has ridden for 6 weeks! Ha Ha! (laughs in the style of Nelson from the Simpsons)

I was pretty tired after my efforts as snowboarding uses very different muscle groups to skiing. We got changed and headed over to our lodge. It was pretty basic but Kate and I had an 11 bed dorm to ourselves so it was all good. In the morning we got up and Kate hit the slopes for first tracks (meaning she got to ride the hill and the freshly groomed runs an hour before everyone else) while i went to work nursing my aching body. My shoulders were fine but my wrists and knees were pretty bruised. It was great fun and definitely something i want to do again. Don't worry i don't think i'm turning to the dark side just yet, i love my skis too much for that, but i can hear Darth Vader beckoning me.

Other news this week is that i have been asked to volunteer at the NZ Winter games. They are a huge event that is gonna be massive. Especially since everyone is gonna be using them as a warm up for the Winter Olympics which are in Vancouver in February. I have been asked to help out for the Mens freestyle half pipe in Cardrona, which is out near Wanaka. Not ideal for me for a number of reasons so i have respectfully declined. They have also offered me some of the ski racing at Coronet, which i am considering. It might be a pretty sweet day. We have had the USA, Canadian, Japanese and NZ ski teams at CP for a while now so i am keen to see those guys in action. I'll see how it goes.

Also this week, i finally completed my Bolle incentive, which i think sounds a lot like something from the TV show Lost with its 'Dharma initiative'. Bolle are a company who make goggles and very pricey sunglasses. They gave us a sales incentive where if we sell a pair of goggles we receive points based on how much the goggles are worth. If we get 60 points, we get a choice of any sunglasses and goggles for free. Well, between the 3 of us in the shop we have amassed around 400 points already this season! Not bad eh? So i finally got round to filling out the tedious forms and sending them off. I have decided to give the goggles to Kate as Bolle are quite small and i struggle to get them over my huge cheek bones. I was gonna order her the top of the range "Screams" but she didn't like them so went for the next level down "fathoms" which are still worth $250. I went for the cheap and nasty sunglasses as i reckon if i had a pair of $300 dollar sunnies i would immediately lose or break them. I have enough points to claim again though so still might get a really nice pair of goggles and sunnies which i can always ebay or something. I have already got a nice pair of free sunglasses from the Dirty Dog rep and am holding out for more free shit from the Icebreaker (really nice expensive Merino thermals) rep. Gotta love free shit.

Dodgeball was eventful as ever this week. We lost twice, again, to the English tea party team and a team of randoms who couldn't be bothered to dress up. It has started to become a bit of a farce really. Well, a load of us running around in bin bags and womens lingerie is definitely a farce but the organisation and refereeing has become a joke. It has taken a lot of the fun out of it as teams are just blatantly cheating. We hit a guy 3 times this week and he still refused to leave the court. So we claimed our losses as moral victories instead. I did see some pretty funny stuff though. One of the teams are all dressed in camouflage, with one guy actually disguised as a tree with real branches and everything. The guy in the tree outfit was standing at the side of the court chatting when a dodgeball hit him straight in the scrotal zone! He dropped like a sack of spuds and it was a good 5 minutes before he recovered. I also saw a girl get smacked in the tits by a dodgeball thrown by a mime artist. I resisted the urge to offer to rub them better but i bet she woke up the next day with a pretty swollen hooter!

Anyway guys, i will love you and leave you. Hope the blog is still keeping you entertained.


Peace

D

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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

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

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