Again, sorry to the 2 people who actually read this blog for my delay with this post.
So, it's all over. Coronet Peak has closed for the 2009 season. What a last few days though. I mentioned in my earlier post that the season wasn't going without a fight but this week it went crazy. Like a heavyweight slumped against the ropes almost about to get knocked out the season suddenly sprung back to life and hit the close date with a left hook and won the world title. What I'm trying to say is that 2 days before we closed we got hit by a massive winter blast which dumped 25cm (yes, 25cm!!) of awesome dry white powder on us. On Thursday i worked as a lifty and was trudging through knee deep wet slush but on Friday i was trudging through knee deep amazing snow! What a difference a day makes. It was epic!! So cool being a lifty on a powder day too as all i did was ski my ass off with the other lifties. It was so much fun. The last week at work has been a sombre affair. I did 4 shifts as a lifty as Toshi decided to cut my hours to just 8! So lifts embraced me and i was a proper lifty for the week. Actually running the lifts too. A lot of responsibility but so much fun. I got to shout abuse at stupid Australians who were too gormless to realise that a massive chairlift was about to scoop them off. They don't have a clue i swear to god. It almost made up for being told how their coins are different to NZ coins about a hundred times a day for the last few months. Almost, but not quite. I did take out my frustration on a few unsuspecting clients though by hurling snowballs at them. Managed to hit a few perfect shots too. I have discovered that the perfect snowball shot is not a hit to the face or anything but a shot to the back of the head. It is relatively safe, it looks hilarious and they get snow all down the inside of their jacket. Perfect shots are the way forward.
My shift in the shop last week was cool as i took in my guitar. It has been super quiet and in a drunken conversation earlier in the week i had promised Dicks i would bring it in as he hasn't played guitar for 18 months. We had an awesome little jam session. At the end of the day there was me, Dicks, Richard and Gemma all sitting on the counter singing "your beautiful" by James Blunt. We kept stopping for the really high pitched chorus so i said i was gonna play it one more time and we all had to go for it. So there we were singing our heads off but all stopped again at the high pitched bit. Except Richard who gave it all he had. Eyes closed, fist clenched in a boy band style, looking to the heavens. What he hadn't realised was that Dicks was holding his radio to Richards mouth and had just broadcast him singing across the whole mountain!! I nearly wet myself when i realised what he had done. My next day as a lifty a few of them were talking about some dude warbling over the radio the day before so i told them the story and they thought it was pretty funny too. Sorry Rich.
After work we all went into town for a few drinks with the rental crew. I still had my guitar with me and we all ended up serenading the staff in KFC. We were a wee bit tipsy but they seemed to enjoy our rendition of "your beautiful." Didn't give us any free chicken though the tight bastards. To be fair we probably cleared out the restaurant. Oops.
So the last week has been filled with more merriment. I have started to fall back in love with poker again so we played a few times last week. It's amazing how much better i do when i am enthusiastic. I got 4th the other night which i was well happy with. We then went to Frankton for a tournament that we haven't been to before. I imagine we will go again as my housemate Laura smashed everyone and won her first ever tournament. She played awesome and took out some big names along the way, including me! Revenge will be sweet and swift though. Ba hahahahahahahahah! (Evil cackle)
We also hit the links this week. Yes, actually played golf! Kate, me, JC, Laura and Dicks all bowled down to the little nine hole course in Frankton. Not really what i'd call a proper course but still better than Northolt. We hired some clubs (2 sets between 5 of us) and went round in a big 5-ball. Totally illegal in the UK but here they didn't seem to mind as long as we didn't hold up play. Laura had never played before and JC had only been to pitch and putt so i thought it would be a nightmare but it was really fun. I played OK on the front nine and was 6 over. Not bad considering i triple bogeyed the 2nd hole. The guys struggled a little and after nine i thought we were pretty much done but to my suprise they wanted to go around again. The pro in the shop had told us we could do 9 or 18 holes for the same price so we did the full compliment. The back 9 was brutal though as the sun dipped behind the hills and the wind began to howl. It was freezing by the time we finished and the beer in the pub after was greatly needed. It was a hoot though and definately worth doing again in the next few weeks. Seems a few of the guys from work are keen to join us next time. Maybe we'll make up a 12-ball or something. They don't seem to mind.
Sorry, so yeah yesterday was the final day. There was a summer theme so we all wore shorts and flip flops or hula skirts. A few girls wore bikinis over their uniforms, which i liked a lot. I worked in the shop but managed to get out for a 2 hour ride break. Told Billy i was nipping out for a bit and just disappeared. He has done it to me all season so i don't feel bad. It was awesome. At one point there were about 20 of us. All staff on our ride breaks. We went to the greengates area of the hill and ripped it to shreds! By the time we got to the bottom there were only 5 of us. We seemed to lose most of the guys who i imagine went over to the exchange, which is a really sweet bit of the mountain. Our other housemate JC met up with us and we went back up. I got a bit emotional on the lift up as it dawned on me that these were going to be my last few runs at Coronet. I wasn't crying or anything but i had a moment. When we got off the lift JC and I led the less experienced guys through a sweet powder run. A few of them loved it but Gemma hated it. She hasn't really skied off piste before. I gave her lots of encouragement and she did really well but in the end i had to lead her back to the groomed run. When i got there i saw this massive drop off into what looked like a sweet bowl. As it was the last few of the season and i wasn't bothered about breaking my leg i decided i would jump of it. I nailed the landing and was super stoked! I met back up with the guys and told them about the drop. JC wanted to hit it with me so on the next run i led him to it. The other guys just watched as i launched myself off it. It was probably the biggest air i have gotten. I was so happy. Nailed the landing again and rode away clean. Actually felt like a pro!! Ah yeah! I then pretty much straight lined it down. I over took everyone in sight, even one of the ski patrol, and those guys fooking gun it! I stopped at another little lip and waited for the guys to catch me up. I surveyed the mountain from my little vantage point and let it all sink in. When the guys caught me up i launched myself off the ledge and rode in. As last runs go it was amazing. I walked in, dumped my skis and got changed. I then reflected on the season all afternoon in the shop. Billy finished on a half day so i was in the store all by myself. A few of the guys from all over the resort came in to see me and gave me a few sneaky shots of vodka but mostly i just chilled. When we closed we all headed up to the deck for a BBQ and free booze. It was so much fun. Our boss congratulated us all on the best season they had ever had (i think it had a lot to do with us in the shop selling over 500k! - mainly Bolle, LOL!). We all danced and drunk then some dude decided we should all race down the hill on trays so most of F&B climbed up the hill a little and slid down on their little trays. A few guys stacked it big time (Richard included) and suddenly realised that sledding in shorts and flip flops is never really a good idea! After we drunk the bar dry we all headed into town for a proper big piss up. It was awesome. I felt i had united a lot of the mountain as lifts, rentals and some of F&B were with my usual little posse. One of the lifties asked me if i could be her midwife too which for me is the ultimate compliment. I told her to fuck off!
No i should of for comedy value but it was such a sweet thing to say. The team leader of lifts also asked me if i wanted to be a lifty next year. I said if i was in NZ I'd be there. I also got told that i was an amazing skier by one of the patrol. I always thought i was OK but for them to say that, again i was emotional. I have worked so hard on my skiing this season and it looks to have paid off. When i mentioned it to a few of the guys they all agreed. Spence from Lifts said he thought i was awesome which made my head swell even more. I think a lot of it has stemmed from the last few days of really good snow. I have gone from some anonymous guy only known to a few who hides out in the shop all day to a recognisable bloke who now everyone knows. They have seen me flying around the hill all season but haven't known who i am, until now. With the snow being so good and it being the end of a long season i have pretty much said "fuck it!" and gone for everything i have seen. I am proud that i have. Carpe Diem and all that (nods towards heaven).
Last night was also Richards last real chance of getting his ESPB (End of season panic bonk). Rich believes that as the season comes to a close people will panic and all start shagging each other. People will either lose their inhibition, or realise they have no more chances to pull the cute guy from work and just go for it. He is a really nice and witty guy but for some reason he has not had much luck with the ladies. Everyone in Q town is boning each other but sadly Rich has missed out. He is quite a camp guy (being the youngest male and having 4 older sisters, maybe?) to be fair but he is lovely. I think he is one of those guys who is forever in the 'friend zone' though. Me, Gemma and Dicks have all tried unsuccessfully to be his wing men/women but all we managed to get was Jo (who is smoking hot btw!) from rentals to sit on his lap for a picture. Pretty lame effort really. I guess there is still a little bit of the season left (Remarks is open for another week) and i imagine we will hit the town a few more times so never say die Rich.
So, i have a few more shifts in the shop. Ironic that this week I'll be working more in the shop than i have for the last few weeks and we have closed already. We have to pack up the store, stock take and all that which will be super dull but it is much needed beer money. After that i intend to go hit the Remarks for their last few days. Hopefully the warm weather will stay away for a little bit longer so the 30cms of snow they have had will stick around. I have one more challenge left for season. One of the parks at Remarks is called the stash and it has a hut which you can ride up to, jump onto then get a massive air off. It looks gnarly. JC broke himself on it a few weeks back which has scared me off a little bit but maybe on the final day i might (just might) do it. Gulp
So this week will be full of meaningful reflection and self analysis on how the season has been. Nah, we'll just get pissed i reckon. Rich still has to get his ESPB after all.
Peace
D
XXXX
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Thursday, 24 September 2009
The season is refusing to go down without a fight!
Sorry if my last blog entry was a wee bit emotional. It's a horrible time when someone dies but at the moment i am also struggling getting my head around the fact that the season is coming to a close. Not without a fight though. The weather has taken to winter again and the hills are once again covered in awesome dry powdery snow. I worked as a lifty again the other day and spent most of the day on my skis. As I'm only helping out I'm not given too much responsibility so can nip off for a few runs every now and then. What a difference in the snow. We've had warm, wet slushy snow for the last few weeks which I'm not a great fan of but this new dry snow is awesome. Like it was a few months ago.
This week has been filled with lots of goodbyes, not just to my Grandad but to a lot of folk on the hill. It seems that so many people are slipping away from Queenstown. Off to pastures new. Wow, next week will be the hardest as the mountain finally gets round to closing. We close on the 4th of October but there is talk of trying to stay open a little longer. Doubt it though. The mountain is too quiet. It'll be good for me as it means more money, more skiing and hopefully more time with my friends. We shall see. We've had our end of season ball. It was at one of the fancy hotels in town and had a 'ties and tiaras' theme. I went in jeans and a t-shirt with the tie i made out of a bin bag that i used to have for dodgeball, naturally. I was amazed at how many people smartened up. I hardly recognised a lot of staff. To be fair we are all scruffy and live in our beanies so to see some of the girls in fancy ball gowns was really cool. We had a live band and i got my groove on (but only after a lot of beer!). They had a big slide show with pictures of the staff from both CP and the Remarks. I was in one pic (with a metal wire through my nose which i had forgotten got photographed) which got a few laughs but i was most proudest that HOD, my little cardboard robot was also in it too! It seems he has become somewhat of a celebrity on the hill. I added to my collection of cardboard things by making a cardboard Kea the other day too. It is similar to the Kea that is the logo for the stash terrain park at the Remarks, except mine has a real gold necklace. Well cool.
After the ball we then went to the after-party at Revolver, which is one of the best bars in town (nothing to do with them putting me in a snowboard DVD with Shaun White of course). After way more beer and dancing i staggered home. I had the following day off work and it wasn't long before i was getting text abuse from both Billy and Tee in the shop. They were very hungover and were annoyed at me for keeping them out late. Light weights!
I also had my last jug night of the season (i think) last night so again had to get drunk. As our department is stupidly small we started off with a few drinks in the Pig and Whistle, then crashed the rentals jug night, which was later crashed by the food and beverage dept too. Carnage ensued as the pub were doing $7 jugs of beer and $6 Jager-bombs. Needless to say i don't recall much of the evening but I'm sure i had a very good time. A while back I remember hearing a rumour about a guy who got fired from work because he was caught wanking on the staff bus. I thought it to be some sort of urban myth but found out that apparently it was actually true and the guy had been working in rentals! He was a weird guy anyway called Will. He had the most unusual social skills. Well, wanking in public kinda confirms that i guess. The rentals guys also told me that he also got caught wanking in an Internet cafe in town and by his room mate one morning. Sounds like the guy has serious problems. What a wanker!
The assassination game is still running. They are down to the final two though. One is Anna who is the defending champion from rentals, and the other is Camilla who is this tiny little thing from F&B. Amazing how good girls are at this game eh? I got killed spectacularly but also controversially. Dicks invited me to the pub the other day for a few after work drinks. I agreed not knowing that he was my assassinator and that I was walking head first into a trap. But then Dicks got killed at work so had to give his target (me) to his killer. When he got to the pub i was relaxed as i knew he had been killed and was out of the game. What i didn't know was that he texted my assassinator and told them i was in the pub and ripe for the killing. Needless to say i was ambushed and got killed. But after discussion with out game coordinator, "M" my kill was deemed illegal as there had been co-operation between someone who was already out of the game. Apparently you can't get together and plan hits. I was fine with it all though and was actually glad to be out of the game. Dicks did feel bad, but only for about a minute.
Funniest moment of the week this week has to be was when i was working in the shop with Match. He's Dickons house mate and works mostly at the shop at the Remarks. We were talking about our cameras and showing each other some of our snaps. I have hundreds which i need to upload to Facebook at some point by the way. Toshi was also eaves dropping on our conversation. So i was looking through some of my snaps when i came across an awesome pic of Dicks playing Frisbee golf from the week before. I said to Match "Hey I've a great picture of Dicks on here." He was serving a customer but said "Oh cool, I'll have a look at that in a minute." Toshi, who was still listening to us then freaked out and said he thought it was very inappropriate for us to be looking at pictures of Dicks in the shop, especially in front of customers. It took a while for the penny to drop before i realised he thought we meant penis's and not our friend Dickon, who we call Dicks. I back tracked well and managed to explain to the customers that our friend is called Dicks and that were weren't actually looking at willies. They saw the funny side of it, as did Tosh when we explained ourselves. Oops.
So, another week has gone past. The sword of Damocles that is the end of the season is dangling precariously above me. I see it and feels it's presence. So many of my friends are looking forward to the end of the season. They are either fed up with it all now or are looking forward to their summer jobs or their onward travels. I should be too but as i have said before, i have met some truly amazing people here and i will feel sad when they go. I am super happy that we decided to stay an extra few weeks in Qtown and i know i should also be ecstatic about my onward plans but it is all closing in. This whole sabbatical is coming to an end. I still have until April before i set foot on Englands shores but i am just so happy right now. I don't want it to ever end. I am at a stage in my life where for the first time in a long time i never want the days to finish. I don't even hate working either. I got to a stage back home where every perspective shift filled me with doom. I am still amped about working. I love it. Maybe just because it is still so new and different but it seems that just as i am truly loving it, it is being taken away. Maybe for good. I sure hope not. HUGE DRAMATIC SIGH.
Anyway dudes, I'm off to go look at more pictures of Dicks.
Peace
D
XXXX
This week has been filled with lots of goodbyes, not just to my Grandad but to a lot of folk on the hill. It seems that so many people are slipping away from Queenstown. Off to pastures new. Wow, next week will be the hardest as the mountain finally gets round to closing. We close on the 4th of October but there is talk of trying to stay open a little longer. Doubt it though. The mountain is too quiet. It'll be good for me as it means more money, more skiing and hopefully more time with my friends. We shall see. We've had our end of season ball. It was at one of the fancy hotels in town and had a 'ties and tiaras' theme. I went in jeans and a t-shirt with the tie i made out of a bin bag that i used to have for dodgeball, naturally. I was amazed at how many people smartened up. I hardly recognised a lot of staff. To be fair we are all scruffy and live in our beanies so to see some of the girls in fancy ball gowns was really cool. We had a live band and i got my groove on (but only after a lot of beer!). They had a big slide show with pictures of the staff from both CP and the Remarks. I was in one pic (with a metal wire through my nose which i had forgotten got photographed) which got a few laughs but i was most proudest that HOD, my little cardboard robot was also in it too! It seems he has become somewhat of a celebrity on the hill. I added to my collection of cardboard things by making a cardboard Kea the other day too. It is similar to the Kea that is the logo for the stash terrain park at the Remarks, except mine has a real gold necklace. Well cool.
After the ball we then went to the after-party at Revolver, which is one of the best bars in town (nothing to do with them putting me in a snowboard DVD with Shaun White of course). After way more beer and dancing i staggered home. I had the following day off work and it wasn't long before i was getting text abuse from both Billy and Tee in the shop. They were very hungover and were annoyed at me for keeping them out late. Light weights!
I also had my last jug night of the season (i think) last night so again had to get drunk. As our department is stupidly small we started off with a few drinks in the Pig and Whistle, then crashed the rentals jug night, which was later crashed by the food and beverage dept too. Carnage ensued as the pub were doing $7 jugs of beer and $6 Jager-bombs. Needless to say i don't recall much of the evening but I'm sure i had a very good time. A while back I remember hearing a rumour about a guy who got fired from work because he was caught wanking on the staff bus. I thought it to be some sort of urban myth but found out that apparently it was actually true and the guy had been working in rentals! He was a weird guy anyway called Will. He had the most unusual social skills. Well, wanking in public kinda confirms that i guess. The rentals guys also told me that he also got caught wanking in an Internet cafe in town and by his room mate one morning. Sounds like the guy has serious problems. What a wanker!
The assassination game is still running. They are down to the final two though. One is Anna who is the defending champion from rentals, and the other is Camilla who is this tiny little thing from F&B. Amazing how good girls are at this game eh? I got killed spectacularly but also controversially. Dicks invited me to the pub the other day for a few after work drinks. I agreed not knowing that he was my assassinator and that I was walking head first into a trap. But then Dicks got killed at work so had to give his target (me) to his killer. When he got to the pub i was relaxed as i knew he had been killed and was out of the game. What i didn't know was that he texted my assassinator and told them i was in the pub and ripe for the killing. Needless to say i was ambushed and got killed. But after discussion with out game coordinator, "M" my kill was deemed illegal as there had been co-operation between someone who was already out of the game. Apparently you can't get together and plan hits. I was fine with it all though and was actually glad to be out of the game. Dicks did feel bad, but only for about a minute.
Funniest moment of the week this week has to be was when i was working in the shop with Match. He's Dickons house mate and works mostly at the shop at the Remarks. We were talking about our cameras and showing each other some of our snaps. I have hundreds which i need to upload to Facebook at some point by the way. Toshi was also eaves dropping on our conversation. So i was looking through some of my snaps when i came across an awesome pic of Dicks playing Frisbee golf from the week before. I said to Match "Hey I've a great picture of Dicks on here." He was serving a customer but said "Oh cool, I'll have a look at that in a minute." Toshi, who was still listening to us then freaked out and said he thought it was very inappropriate for us to be looking at pictures of Dicks in the shop, especially in front of customers. It took a while for the penny to drop before i realised he thought we meant penis's and not our friend Dickon, who we call Dicks. I back tracked well and managed to explain to the customers that our friend is called Dicks and that were weren't actually looking at willies. They saw the funny side of it, as did Tosh when we explained ourselves. Oops.
So, another week has gone past. The sword of Damocles that is the end of the season is dangling precariously above me. I see it and feels it's presence. So many of my friends are looking forward to the end of the season. They are either fed up with it all now or are looking forward to their summer jobs or their onward travels. I should be too but as i have said before, i have met some truly amazing people here and i will feel sad when they go. I am super happy that we decided to stay an extra few weeks in Qtown and i know i should also be ecstatic about my onward plans but it is all closing in. This whole sabbatical is coming to an end. I still have until April before i set foot on Englands shores but i am just so happy right now. I don't want it to ever end. I am at a stage in my life where for the first time in a long time i never want the days to finish. I don't even hate working either. I got to a stage back home where every perspective shift filled me with doom. I am still amped about working. I love it. Maybe just because it is still so new and different but it seems that just as i am truly loving it, it is being taken away. Maybe for good. I sure hope not. HUGE DRAMATIC SIGH.
Anyway dudes, I'm off to go look at more pictures of Dicks.
Peace
D
XXXX
Friday, 18 September 2009
RIP Big guy
Kinda sad day really. Found out that my grandad passed away last night. Not Bumps (thank god!) but my mums real dad. A man i only met a few times but also one of the nicest guys. I don't know all the details of how he died or even how he lived, which pains me. It's such a shame i never took it upon myself to learn more about him. What pains me the most is how sad my mum must be. She had grown really close to her dad ever since they were reunited a few years back. Mum, i guess it was at least lucky that you found your dad and got to spend time with him and those memories you created will stay with you forever. I hope you are OK and that you can be strong for Matt, Myles, Garry and Liz. I wish i was home to be able to give you hugs and be your crutch to lean on. I've been told that i make a good crutch. Shame I'm not there for Ellie and her broken ankle eh?
I know from my own experience of not having a dad that Grandad must have filled a huge gaping chasm in your life and i am deeply sorry that he is gone again. Just remember mum of all the happy times you guys had together and remember that your children love you very much and are here to give you love and support in your time of need. We will miss the big guy even though we hardly knew him. I will miss him more for the way he completed you and made you feel loved these last few years and for finally being 'your old man.' I love you so much. I am so sorry that i am not there to give you a huge hug and tell you that it is going to be OK. I am thinking of you and sending you massive love from the other side of the world.
It's funny that the only real story i have about my grandad and me is set quite a few years before him and my mum were re-united after god knows how many years apart. I went on a lads holiday to a friends villa in the tiny town of Calahonda on the Costa Del Sol in Spain when i was 18. We drank way too much and behaved like animals, as you do on a lads holiday. Years later when i first met my Grandad he told me he lived in Spain, in a tiny village on the Costa Del Sol called Calahonda! I told him i had been there and described the villa i had stayed in. It turned out that for that fortnight in July 1994, i was his next door neighbour!! I may have even vomited in his front yard!
Isn't it crazy how that there are billions and billions of us on this earth all going about our business and yet it is such a small place? What were the odds of staying in the villa across the street from my long lost Grandad? A man i had only heard rumours about. Talk about six degrees of separation! (in NZ they only have 2 degrees of separation!) I may have passed him in the street. I may have felt a strange tingle and wandered what it was. I may have been on the beach with his children, my uncles, at the same time. How fucking insane is that? Fate? Destiny? Coincidence? Or just the gods playing chess with us as the pieces, trying to mess with our minds? Who knows, eh?
My Grandad is going to be fine. He has my brother to guide him through the whole after-life thing and show him the ropes. Look after him Bruv and make his transition easy, k?
They say that life goes on and sometimes it seems such a shame that it does. How crazy does that sound but it is true. You sometimes want it to pause or rewind it like an old videotape but unfortunately the batteries in the remote have run out. Life is relentless. It goes on whether we like it or not. Our loved ones die for a reason. Hopefully they remind us to live life to the fullest because there is nothing we can do to slow down or stop time. They remind us that life is short and that we have to make the most of it while we can. Yeah it sucks when they go. It can feel like your whole existence is pointless and that you will never feel happiness again but from my own experiences, you will. It's such a shame that death is a huge part of life. We focus so much on death and the end of life that we sometimes forget the whole living part. We slip off into life comas and all of a sudden years go by and you have missed out on so much. Carpe Diem! Seriously, CARPE FUCKING DIEM! People die to remind us to seize the day, to not let our limited time on this planet go to waste.
We remember our lost loved ones and feel sad. Why? Because we miss them. Sometimes we feel that they wasted their lives. I would hate that if i had just popped my clogs. I'd want to be missed or be remembered for having lived life to the full. Had amazing experiences, had kids (maybe), left a legacy or anything that I am proud of. I think back to my lost loved ones and feel happy. Not always, but mostly. Because they have given me so many memories and cherished moments. Given me so much love and allowed me to love them. Imagine going through life and not feeling anything? That would be horrible i reckon. Yes, it is painful when people leave you forever, but they never really do. Just in a physical form. They are still here, you just can't touch them, or hear them or be with them. They have blessed you in giving you amazing experiences, in loving you unconditionally and for just being there when you need them. Yes, some of that will change but try to just focus on all that amazing stuff because that is PROPER amazing stuff! Forget money and power and all that bullshit. Love is all you need. Love is a lot like anal sex. Whether you are a giver or receiver, it's actually truly amazing! Sometimes painful but mostly amazing. Yeah, bum sex and love are very similar. LOL! Sorry but had to slip something funny in there...........just like bum sex again, sorry!
One of the coolest things i reckon is sitting down with my mum and my sisters and just talking about my brother. Remembering times and things we all did. It brings us closer together as a family but also reinforces the memories. You will be amazed at how much you learn too. It usually always ends in tears but not always tears of sadness. I could have seriously used some of that this past September 5th. It was the first time i haven't had that and it showed me how important it was to me. I will always miss my brother, always, but i will never ever ever want to not talk about him or stop remembering him and all the fun we had together.
I will miss you Grandad. I never knew you that well and for that i am sorry. I will endeavour to learn more about you and my heritage and try my hardest to look after my family as i know you will have wanted. Rest in Peace big guy. Thank you for being a father again, you are a good man.
Peace
D
XXXX
I know from my own experience of not having a dad that Grandad must have filled a huge gaping chasm in your life and i am deeply sorry that he is gone again. Just remember mum of all the happy times you guys had together and remember that your children love you very much and are here to give you love and support in your time of need. We will miss the big guy even though we hardly knew him. I will miss him more for the way he completed you and made you feel loved these last few years and for finally being 'your old man.' I love you so much. I am so sorry that i am not there to give you a huge hug and tell you that it is going to be OK. I am thinking of you and sending you massive love from the other side of the world.
It's funny that the only real story i have about my grandad and me is set quite a few years before him and my mum were re-united after god knows how many years apart. I went on a lads holiday to a friends villa in the tiny town of Calahonda on the Costa Del Sol in Spain when i was 18. We drank way too much and behaved like animals, as you do on a lads holiday. Years later when i first met my Grandad he told me he lived in Spain, in a tiny village on the Costa Del Sol called Calahonda! I told him i had been there and described the villa i had stayed in. It turned out that for that fortnight in July 1994, i was his next door neighbour!! I may have even vomited in his front yard!
Isn't it crazy how that there are billions and billions of us on this earth all going about our business and yet it is such a small place? What were the odds of staying in the villa across the street from my long lost Grandad? A man i had only heard rumours about. Talk about six degrees of separation! (in NZ they only have 2 degrees of separation!) I may have passed him in the street. I may have felt a strange tingle and wandered what it was. I may have been on the beach with his children, my uncles, at the same time. How fucking insane is that? Fate? Destiny? Coincidence? Or just the gods playing chess with us as the pieces, trying to mess with our minds? Who knows, eh?
My Grandad is going to be fine. He has my brother to guide him through the whole after-life thing and show him the ropes. Look after him Bruv and make his transition easy, k?
They say that life goes on and sometimes it seems such a shame that it does. How crazy does that sound but it is true. You sometimes want it to pause or rewind it like an old videotape but unfortunately the batteries in the remote have run out. Life is relentless. It goes on whether we like it or not. Our loved ones die for a reason. Hopefully they remind us to live life to the fullest because there is nothing we can do to slow down or stop time. They remind us that life is short and that we have to make the most of it while we can. Yeah it sucks when they go. It can feel like your whole existence is pointless and that you will never feel happiness again but from my own experiences, you will. It's such a shame that death is a huge part of life. We focus so much on death and the end of life that we sometimes forget the whole living part. We slip off into life comas and all of a sudden years go by and you have missed out on so much. Carpe Diem! Seriously, CARPE FUCKING DIEM! People die to remind us to seize the day, to not let our limited time on this planet go to waste.
We remember our lost loved ones and feel sad. Why? Because we miss them. Sometimes we feel that they wasted their lives. I would hate that if i had just popped my clogs. I'd want to be missed or be remembered for having lived life to the full. Had amazing experiences, had kids (maybe), left a legacy or anything that I am proud of. I think back to my lost loved ones and feel happy. Not always, but mostly. Because they have given me so many memories and cherished moments. Given me so much love and allowed me to love them. Imagine going through life and not feeling anything? That would be horrible i reckon. Yes, it is painful when people leave you forever, but they never really do. Just in a physical form. They are still here, you just can't touch them, or hear them or be with them. They have blessed you in giving you amazing experiences, in loving you unconditionally and for just being there when you need them. Yes, some of that will change but try to just focus on all that amazing stuff because that is PROPER amazing stuff! Forget money and power and all that bullshit. Love is all you need. Love is a lot like anal sex. Whether you are a giver or receiver, it's actually truly amazing! Sometimes painful but mostly amazing. Yeah, bum sex and love are very similar. LOL! Sorry but had to slip something funny in there...........just like bum sex again, sorry!
One of the coolest things i reckon is sitting down with my mum and my sisters and just talking about my brother. Remembering times and things we all did. It brings us closer together as a family but also reinforces the memories. You will be amazed at how much you learn too. It usually always ends in tears but not always tears of sadness. I could have seriously used some of that this past September 5th. It was the first time i haven't had that and it showed me how important it was to me. I will always miss my brother, always, but i will never ever ever want to not talk about him or stop remembering him and all the fun we had together.
I will miss you Grandad. I never knew you that well and for that i am sorry. I will endeavour to learn more about you and my heritage and try my hardest to look after my family as i know you will have wanted. Rest in Peace big guy. Thank you for being a father again, you are a good man.
Peace
D
XXXX
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
CP closes!! For 1 day
So we had our first proper closure the other day. Luckily it was on my day off so i never lost any money. HA HA HA losers! No, it was a weird old day really as when i got up it was absolutely stunning outside. I had planned on a nice chilled out day in front of the laptop and maybe a walk or something. When i looked at the snow report Coronet Peak was closed. Up the hill they were having gale force winds but down by the lake we were basking in the gorgeous spring sunshine. It was our first closure of the season. Not bad considering the recent weather. The Remarks were closed for 3 consecutive days a while ago. I chatted to one of the lifties who said that when they re opened the hill most of the lifts were under nearly 6 feet of snow which they had to dig out at 5 in the morning! Sod that, well not quite................I'll elaborate later.
So i woke up to gorgeous sunlight and it wasn't long before the texts started rolling in. A closed day means the first time all CP staff have been off at the same time this season, so after much rushing around getting myself dressed and into town i met up with a few of the guys for a game of frisbee golf. In my rush to get ready and walk into town it hadn't once crossed my mind that the sunshine outside might actually carry some warmth so i rocked up in a hoody, my jeans and trainers. Everyone else was in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops (or jandals as they are called here. Or thongs as they are known in Aus. Or shlops as they are known in South Africa. These southern hemisphere types sure are strange, eh?). So anyway, i met up with Tee, Blake, Richard, Dickon (or Dicks as he prefers) and Gemma for our epic frisbee encounter. It was good fun. Richard, who you may remember throws a dodgeball like a girl, apparently throws most things like a girl. In fact he was so bad at times he even managed to fling his frisbee into the lake. Twice. A feat i feel is actually more difficult than it should be as the lake is no where near most of the holes. To be fair by this time the gale force gusts had hit town and quite a few of our frisbees were ending up no where near our targets.
On our way round we bumped into a crowd of the rental guys who had abandoned their game of frisbee golf and where heading to the pub (at 11.30am), mainly because Talis (the dude who helped us at dodgeball) had also managed to fling his frisbee toward the lake and in an effort to try and stop it floating away, slipped on a big rock and cracked his head. After much heartfelt and sympathetic laughter we carried on our game but craved the pub. By the time we finished neither of us needed much persuasion to head to the bar for a few cold beers. No idea who won the frisbee golf as we all lost count. It was probably a close run thing between me and Blake but at the end of it i just wanted some alcohol. So we hit the bar at lunchtime for a few drinks in the sunshine and i ended up getting home at around 2. Er, 2am that is! It seemed to be a steady stream of people from work meeting up with us as people left throughout the day so there was always someone drinking with myself, Dicks and Rich.
Dicks and I were a little tender the next day at work but nothing too bad. The great thing about the day off was getting to see spring in full bloom. The wind hurled the blossom around us as we feebly chucked our plastic discs in the sunshine. Although i was over dressed, it was so nice to feel the sun on my back. That means though that the small amount of snow on the hills is receding rapidly. We are down to the last few weeks of the season. I'm gutted that it is coming to an end really. Not just because i will miss skiing but because i will miss Q town when we go and will certainly miss all the new friends we have made. I guess this is the norm though with seasonal workers. I can see myself seeing some of the guys again in the future though. Well, i hope i do.
Wow, after all the elation of being told i could work in rentals, i got a crushing blow the other day. It seemed they cocked up all the hours in rentals and it turns out they don't actually need any extra help. So for the second time this season i got told i wasn't gonna work in rentals! It was such a shame as it was my first choice when i applied to NZSki and the rentals guys have been really welcoming. Oh well. I then heard of more hours being available as a lifty. Long story short, i am gonna start as a lifty on Monday. Well, lets not speak too soon. The head of lifts said i need to see him before i start to finalise a few things but it'll mean i can still work in the shop too. There are also some more hours coming up in the shop as Jane from the Remarks is leaving soon and the Remarks stays open a week longer than CP. Hours i might just snap up but will discuss with the other guys i work with. So fingers crossed, the lifty thing will go ahead. Especially since it is such awesome weather at the moment and the slopes are pretty quiet.
The shop has continued to be quiet so i have added to my robot that i made last week. I made a rubber band ball as big as my fist which has started everyone else off on a rubber band ball trend. We are all now walking around bouncing our balls. Mine is the biggest though as i used a whole 500g bag of god knows how many rubber bands. I'm a bit worried that it will get lost or stolen on my days off. My other project was a suit of armour i made for a teddy bear. We have a little toy box in the store with a big white teddy in it. It looks quite cute, until i put it's armour on! Then it becomes a scary muthafucka!! I've put it up on the shelf in the shop next to my robot and again, am getting some positive comments. One girl actually wanted to buy my little robot the other day. I told her to fuck off.
I worked at the Remarks today and am working there tomorrow too to get a few more hours. I really like the laid-backness of the Remarks. It's very different to CP. We had a laugh today when we got a box of goggles delivered to us which had been left in the loading bay of the warehouse overnight and had been savaged by Keas! The little bastards had pretty much eaten all the cardboard but left the goggles alone. It was another bluebird day there too and i was gutted i never took my skis with me. The best thing though about being back at the Remarks is i get to see the topless lifty from night tubing again! I can't help but smile at her everytime i see her. I doubt she knows her boobs are on my blog and are able to be viewed by millions!! Well at least by my mum (lesbian).
Our assassination game ended. I got killed by Anna in rentals who went on to be the last assassin standing. We forgot to work out a prize so she ordered us all to buy her a beer in the pub that night or she would proper assassinate us. The game was a lot of fun and other departments were jealous to not be included. So, we have commenced another game with now over 30 of us playing. It's chaos! We are all hanging out in our "safety zones" and are constantly jumping into our safety positions. You can't be killed if you adopt a Karate kid style praying mantis stance. I argued that it is technically a crane stance, having done a little kung fu but got shouted down by the others. We also added that you can be killed up to 8.30pm which means a whole 12 hours of paranoia and constantly being on tenterhooks. We can be killed anywhere too and there are no safe zones in town. My target hasn't been in all week, making it near impossible to murder her. That said, she is Gemma, my next door neighbour, so if it comes down to the deadline (i have to make my first kill by Sunday), i'll just knock on their door or abseil in through her bedroom window and sticker her. If i'm not killed first that is.
Ah man, just heard the weather report. We are due for a shitstorm of bad weather over the next few days! Damn, and there was me hoping that i could work on my tan when i start as a lifty. Being a lifty will mean i am totally exposed for potential assassination! Maybe i'll go tell them to stick their job up their arse!
Peace y'all.
D
XXXX
So i woke up to gorgeous sunlight and it wasn't long before the texts started rolling in. A closed day means the first time all CP staff have been off at the same time this season, so after much rushing around getting myself dressed and into town i met up with a few of the guys for a game of frisbee golf. In my rush to get ready and walk into town it hadn't once crossed my mind that the sunshine outside might actually carry some warmth so i rocked up in a hoody, my jeans and trainers. Everyone else was in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops (or jandals as they are called here. Or thongs as they are known in Aus. Or shlops as they are known in South Africa. These southern hemisphere types sure are strange, eh?). So anyway, i met up with Tee, Blake, Richard, Dickon (or Dicks as he prefers) and Gemma for our epic frisbee encounter. It was good fun. Richard, who you may remember throws a dodgeball like a girl, apparently throws most things like a girl. In fact he was so bad at times he even managed to fling his frisbee into the lake. Twice. A feat i feel is actually more difficult than it should be as the lake is no where near most of the holes. To be fair by this time the gale force gusts had hit town and quite a few of our frisbees were ending up no where near our targets.
On our way round we bumped into a crowd of the rental guys who had abandoned their game of frisbee golf and where heading to the pub (at 11.30am), mainly because Talis (the dude who helped us at dodgeball) had also managed to fling his frisbee toward the lake and in an effort to try and stop it floating away, slipped on a big rock and cracked his head. After much heartfelt and sympathetic laughter we carried on our game but craved the pub. By the time we finished neither of us needed much persuasion to head to the bar for a few cold beers. No idea who won the frisbee golf as we all lost count. It was probably a close run thing between me and Blake but at the end of it i just wanted some alcohol. So we hit the bar at lunchtime for a few drinks in the sunshine and i ended up getting home at around 2. Er, 2am that is! It seemed to be a steady stream of people from work meeting up with us as people left throughout the day so there was always someone drinking with myself, Dicks and Rich.
Dicks and I were a little tender the next day at work but nothing too bad. The great thing about the day off was getting to see spring in full bloom. The wind hurled the blossom around us as we feebly chucked our plastic discs in the sunshine. Although i was over dressed, it was so nice to feel the sun on my back. That means though that the small amount of snow on the hills is receding rapidly. We are down to the last few weeks of the season. I'm gutted that it is coming to an end really. Not just because i will miss skiing but because i will miss Q town when we go and will certainly miss all the new friends we have made. I guess this is the norm though with seasonal workers. I can see myself seeing some of the guys again in the future though. Well, i hope i do.
Wow, after all the elation of being told i could work in rentals, i got a crushing blow the other day. It seemed they cocked up all the hours in rentals and it turns out they don't actually need any extra help. So for the second time this season i got told i wasn't gonna work in rentals! It was such a shame as it was my first choice when i applied to NZSki and the rentals guys have been really welcoming. Oh well. I then heard of more hours being available as a lifty. Long story short, i am gonna start as a lifty on Monday. Well, lets not speak too soon. The head of lifts said i need to see him before i start to finalise a few things but it'll mean i can still work in the shop too. There are also some more hours coming up in the shop as Jane from the Remarks is leaving soon and the Remarks stays open a week longer than CP. Hours i might just snap up but will discuss with the other guys i work with. So fingers crossed, the lifty thing will go ahead. Especially since it is such awesome weather at the moment and the slopes are pretty quiet.
The shop has continued to be quiet so i have added to my robot that i made last week. I made a rubber band ball as big as my fist which has started everyone else off on a rubber band ball trend. We are all now walking around bouncing our balls. Mine is the biggest though as i used a whole 500g bag of god knows how many rubber bands. I'm a bit worried that it will get lost or stolen on my days off. My other project was a suit of armour i made for a teddy bear. We have a little toy box in the store with a big white teddy in it. It looks quite cute, until i put it's armour on! Then it becomes a scary muthafucka!! I've put it up on the shelf in the shop next to my robot and again, am getting some positive comments. One girl actually wanted to buy my little robot the other day. I told her to fuck off.
I worked at the Remarks today and am working there tomorrow too to get a few more hours. I really like the laid-backness of the Remarks. It's very different to CP. We had a laugh today when we got a box of goggles delivered to us which had been left in the loading bay of the warehouse overnight and had been savaged by Keas! The little bastards had pretty much eaten all the cardboard but left the goggles alone. It was another bluebird day there too and i was gutted i never took my skis with me. The best thing though about being back at the Remarks is i get to see the topless lifty from night tubing again! I can't help but smile at her everytime i see her. I doubt she knows her boobs are on my blog and are able to be viewed by millions!! Well at least by my mum (lesbian).
Our assassination game ended. I got killed by Anna in rentals who went on to be the last assassin standing. We forgot to work out a prize so she ordered us all to buy her a beer in the pub that night or she would proper assassinate us. The game was a lot of fun and other departments were jealous to not be included. So, we have commenced another game with now over 30 of us playing. It's chaos! We are all hanging out in our "safety zones" and are constantly jumping into our safety positions. You can't be killed if you adopt a Karate kid style praying mantis stance. I argued that it is technically a crane stance, having done a little kung fu but got shouted down by the others. We also added that you can be killed up to 8.30pm which means a whole 12 hours of paranoia and constantly being on tenterhooks. We can be killed anywhere too and there are no safe zones in town. My target hasn't been in all week, making it near impossible to murder her. That said, she is Gemma, my next door neighbour, so if it comes down to the deadline (i have to make my first kill by Sunday), i'll just knock on their door or abseil in through her bedroom window and sticker her. If i'm not killed first that is.
Ah man, just heard the weather report. We are due for a shitstorm of bad weather over the next few days! Damn, and there was me hoping that i could work on my tan when i start as a lifty. Being a lifty will mean i am totally exposed for potential assassination! Maybe i'll go tell them to stick their job up their arse!
Peace y'all.
D
XXXX
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
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, Tal
is 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 nig
ht 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 se
nt 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
XXXX
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, Tal
is 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 nig
ht 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 se
nt 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
XXXX
Monday, 31 August 2009
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
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
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Apologies...............
Whoa, sorry guys. It seems that the 2 people who actually read this blog were a little disappointed that i missed out last weeks entry. Basically i have been run ragged with organising my onward travels and my 2 days off last week were spent searching for and booking hostels, hotels and cheap cars. It pretty much means that our journey home is sorted now with only a few things to arrange and get confirmed. As soon as it is all finalised, i will let you know. I can say this though, it's gonna be epic! (dunh dunh dunh! - Dramatic sound effect)
So this last fortnight has been filled with the usual merriment and fun goings on that have pretty much been the norm for life in Q town. It is slowly becoming the back end of the winter season. A fact i have noticed in a number of ways. Firstly, out of the blue last week i realised that i am now actually going to work in daylight. No more amazing sunrises over the Wakatipu basin on my commute in the staff bus. It sucks really because it was totally awe inspiring some mornings. Such a shame i share the bus with a load of beanie wearing half asleep hungover teenagers, snoring and twitching despite the loud bassy tones of some random drum and bass spilling out of their ridiculously large headphones next to me. Nah, i slip my ipod on and drift off into my happy place and let the glorious red sunshine warm my cockles. Well, i used to. Now the sun has already got his hat on by the time i get to the foot of Coronet Peak but it does feel nice to have the warm sun on my face again. Yeah the temperature here has climbed too. No more -7 degrees in the morning. Higher temperatures has meant less snow too. Our mountain is still pretty well covered but I'm not sure for how much longer as it now rains instead of snows at our base building so you are riding slush by the time you get to the bottom. The snow that does fall at the top is so wet that it freezes really easily and forms a hard crust or patches of ice which are not fun to ski on.
Last week i did get Kate out onto the mountain for a bit of skiing. She has been either reluctant (Fair weather skier!) or too hungover to ride the last few weeks so it was nice to get her up on the hill. I want to keep her momentum going as she has improved so much this season. She even said she fancied some different runs so i took her all over the mountain. There were a few testing bits but she passed with flying colours. On one of our last runs i stopped halfway down to wait for her. When she stopped next to me i asked her how her first black run was going? She gave me the stink eye big time as she realised i had taken her down her first black run (which is for advanced skiers). That said, she man'd up and finished the run no problem and was then ecstatic she had managed to do her first black run. It was nice to see her so proud of herself and she very quickly forgot about my deception. I knew it was the only way i could get her to do it. If she had known she would've thrown all her toys out of the pram and gone home in a strop! I'm very proud of her too. Although we have been here all season Kate has hardly really skied enough. Her fitness is a big problem and because she doesn't like skiing on her own she will only ski on my days off, which is only 2 days a week. So in hindsight she has done really well to be riding a black run by now. I worked out her "on the snow" time before we came away and it turned out she had only spent around 20 hours skiing previous to getting here. That's less than if you went on a weeks holiday beforehand. So she has done really well. She still moans about it and looks like a sun burnt orangutan after just a few minutes riding but i think that on the whole, she is enjoying it.
Oh, you know i told you about my Bolle incentive? Well, it came through. I got some awesome lime digital Fathom goggles with an Aurora lens (that means bloody sweet pair of goggles worth about $300!) for Kate and some cool little polarized Slap sunnies for me. There was also some other junk like a bag, a cap, a drink bottle and a huge lanyard with a big carabena (climbing latch) on it. Kate's goggles look awesome and match her green coat. The Aurora lens in them is this orange lens for low light but it has a blue coating on the front. It looks gnarly! My sunnies are cool but a little too small for my huge face so i have also donated them to Kate. She is gonna be one cool looking chick, i can tell you. I was a bit disgruntled by not really getting anything in the end (other than a cap and a bag) so i filled out another claim form at work and sent it off. I was unsure if i was going to keep the sunnies before i filled out the claim so agreed to get Blake (Tees BF) some glasses instead. That claim came through yesterday so i know have an awesome free pair of Quasar goggles with an awesome fire red 50 lens (it's a low light blue lens but has this sick red and orange mirror coating on the front) worth about $250 for free! I gave Blake his sunnies last night and he is stoked about them. After Discussion with Tee (who i work with) we decided to claim the rest of the 130 points between us. So i have put in another claim for more goggles and finally a pair of sunglasses that fit my fat face. She is getting some more goggles for Blake and some sweet sunnies for herself. If these claims go through it will have meant that our shop has claimed over $2000 worth of free stuff! Not bad eh? I went into town the other day as one of the pharmacies is a big Bolle stockist and i wanted to try on some sunnies before i ordered. I got chatting to the assistant in there and she was telling me about their Bolle incentive. She said she had 35 points so far. She near fainted when i told her that we had nearly 400 points between just 3 of us! The only reason we don't have more is because Bolle is out of stock of all our biggest selling goggles. I tried on my glasses and left with a very smug smile on my face. I have since been back to try on more sunnies and met her again. She introduced me to the store manager as "the guy with 400 Bolle points." The store manager was very impressed and i again left with an even bigger smug smile on my face (think Tony playing monopoly in France - for those of you who were there).
So hopefully more free shit is heading my way. Gotta love free shit eh? Work is fine apart from i am starting to get a bit over all the stupid Aussies i have to deal with. For the first part of the season i found it quite amusing at just how stupid some Australians are. They are like the Americans of the southern hemisphere. But now, i am getting tired of their dumb shit and if i hear another Aussie explain that they are confused by Kiwi money (our $2 coin is bigger than our $1 coin - like every sane country! Oh but not Australia where their dollar coin is bigger than the $2 coin) i will seriously jump over the counter grab the stupid dick and try to insert my cash register into their anus whilst screaming "read a fucking book you dumb Aussie bastard!!" They certainly have a "the whole world revolves around me" kinda persona. Well, alot of them do but not all of them. Some of them know they are dumb and seem to relish in the fact that they are a joke. They get their own self-deprivating comment in first before i can jump over the counter and insert my cash register into their corn hole. I don't mind that. It's when they think their shit don't stink as they are asking for the 5th time what the word piste means that i seriously want to drag them into my store room and re-enact a scene from Hostel on them. Groan.
We have to be super nice to them of course because without loaded stupid Aussies bringing their strong, but larger than the $2 dollar coin, Aussie dollar, we wouldn't have had a record breaking season. Our attendance at CP is up a whooping 40%. And we are in a recession apparently. Thanks to budget airlines, it is cheaper for Aussies to fly to our ski fields in NZ than it is for them to visit their own! A fact i get told about 74 times a day by stupid Australians!! Grrrrrr!
That said, Kiwis aren't exactly saints either. I near wet myself after hearing a story Billy told me about his mate and a rough bird from Taranaki. This friend pulled this girl in a bar and went back to her place. When he got there he needed to go for a wee so excused himself off to the bathroom. When he walked out of the bathroom, there was the Taranaki girl naked and bent over in front of him by the doorway. She turned her head, took her cigarette from her mouth and muttered the immortal and romantic phrase.........."Just chuck it in Bro." I found this hilarious and have pretty much said "just chuck it in Bro" at every opportunity i have had over the past fortnight. Classy chick huh?
So i snowboarded again too last week. I got my board and boots and enthusiastically hit the big easy slope. Man, it seemed that all my good riding from the previous try had been forever lost in some sort of inter dimensional vortex. I sucked ass on my first run. It was like my first ever run all over again. I struggled to stand for a few feet before trashing myself and landing in a heap. I feel awkwardly onto my wristguards and somehow managed to bruise my ribs. I twisted my knee on another spill and by the time i got to the bottom i was all set to jack it in for the day. I decided to suck it up and go do another run. What a difference! I was back! Carving around like a natural again. Gunned it to the bottom of the run with much higher levels of confidence. After a few more runs i decided it was time to head up to the top of the mountain and do the M1 run. On the lift up i noticed it was pretty moguly (like the dude from jungle book) so decided to do the top of the M1 then cut down Pro am (which was Kates first black run i mentioned earlier). I did the moguly bits OK by just heel edging through them and made it in one piece to the top of Pro am. That's were i realised i was way above my station! Pro am is steep and was super icy. I really struggled. It was a total role reversal too as Kate was now cruising along but having to wait for me to catch her up. I bailed out of the run half way down and boarded over to the bottom of the M1 run with my tail between my legs. When i got to the bottom i wasn't that bothered really. It was a big ask to try a black run after less than 10 runs on the nursery slope really. I was pleasantly pleased with myself that i had even given it a go. I paid for it the next day though as my whole upper body and my left knee felt like Kathy Bates had snuck into my room during the night and called my a "dirty bird" whilst hitting me with a sledgehammer, like that scene from the movie Misery. My left knee is still sore. It is strapped up and i am resting it this week. Well, apart from dodgeball last night.
Our team is officially bottom of the league! YAY!! Last week saw the official unveiling of Billys new bin bag costume. He had fashioned a nappy out of a bin bag and wore nothing else! Needless to say he got a lot of attention from the opposing team. He got hit by about 20 dodgeballs, all leaving nice red marks on his chest and back.
Last night we played again. I was dubious about my knee but was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and got hoisted into playing for another team that were short a few players. So there i was wrapped in a bin bag with the 80's aerobic instructor team called "Vaginamite!" They have a team chant and everything! Probably one of the reasons they are second in the league. Well, we hammered the other team. I was on fire catching balls all over the place whilst moving gingerly around and hitting the other team with my thunderous throws! I played 2 games for Vaginamite and won twice. A completely new experience as my bin bag team have only ever won 1 game. Needless to say my bin bag team got stuffed in our first game but somehow managed a draw, and a point, from our last game of the night. That point leaves us firmly rooted to the bottom of the league but hey, mighty oaks grow from tiny acorns. It is still way too serious at dodgeball sometimes. Last night some dude got knocked the fuck out! Not sure if he took a dodgeball to the kisser or if he fell and cracked his head but he was sparko!! Luckily one of our teams are ski patrollers who are all paramedical trained so they were quick on the scene. The guy was carted off by St Johns ambulance though. He's gonna have a headache today!
Other news is that the 100% pure NZ winter games have finally started. There's been a little bit of a buzz around town but i doubt it is close to what they wanted. It has been marketed as a lead up to the winter Olympics and the biggest winter event in the southern hemisphere (not too difficult though. Up until now i think the biggest winter event in the southern hemisphere was when JC and K dog built a little jump over at the Remarks!!). Yeah so it is looking like a bit of a washout really. The first few events at the Remarks were only watched by a handful of spectators and the first event at CP got postponed a day because there was moisture in the timing cable! Still, I'm gonna try and catch the final day as they have the big air comp at CP and the official closing party with the prime minister there too! I can add to my collection of how many prime ministers i have met. The NZ PM will bring my grand total to 2!
Anyway guys, i will try to not leave it so long next time for the next entry in this thrilling blog. Remember guys, when the world is against you and you are feeling really low, when adversity seems to be slapping you around, when the whole population of the world seem to be in cohorts against you, and just when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel............................"Just chuck it in Bro!!"
Peace
D
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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
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