Thanksgiving Weekend

Talk about a busy extended weekend; the most over-hyped storm of the season, two Thanksgiving dinners, the Holy War, sliding on snow, and getting a new mattress.  Buy but it's been a good four days off of work, especially with the lifts now spinning. 

Trying to get my legs back in shape after sitting in an office for months on end has definitely not been easy, specifically because the only open runs at Snowbasin are pretty flat.  Not that fun.  But overall opening day was pretty awesome.  There was boot to knee deep powder covering the slopes.  Best opening I've ever experienced.

Saturday brought in the annual Holy War: BYU versus the University of Utah football game.  This year I spent the afternoon watching the game with Andy, Vanessa, and Andy's parents at Maggie McGee's Sports Bar.  I finally got lucky with the Maggie raffle and won the halftime prize; an awesome Utah bomber's wooly winter cap.  I was stoked to get it and sport the colors of my future alma mater as they ended up winning the game by blocking a gimme field goal as time expired.  Good times.

Even better than all this, I finally got a new mattress and box springs.  Andy and Vanessa bought a new bed and decided to give me theirs, which is in great condition.  I'm so stoked to have it and slept great last night.  Now getting it home from Salt Lake City to Layton was quite humorous and daunting.  I mean how many times do you see a Subaru driving by on the highway at 70 mph with a matterss and box springs tied to the top.

Here's some pictures to let you know how it was.

Opening day pow turns

Me at the end of opening day

 

Loading up the mattress on the Subaru

Andy tightening things up

Andy's "New" Office - Small Office Prank Repayment

I've been labeled a "One Upper", a habitual line crosser, and jokester. I never let a prank go without repayment, even the little ones.

When Andy, and a few others that are yet to get theirs, decided to saran wrap my desk (with industrial saran wrap) on April Fool's while I had been out for the day, I just smiled, laughed at the joke (it was good), and made no mention of prank repayment.  Here's what they did.

Then when Andy was out on vacation in Hawaii enjoying his time, not concentrating on work, I made my move. This is how it went down. And this wasn't full throttle on my part just to let you know.

Here's video followed by pics.

Andy's "New" Office from Free 2 Be Productions on Vimeo.

 

  

  

  

My Best Powder Day of the Year

I definitely had an awesome day today. After having a traffic jam heading into Little Cottonwood Canyon, which caused me to be extremely irritable, I eventually had my best ski day of the year. And that has put me into an extremely good, chipper mood.

I could not believe how many people were up at Snowbird. Seriously, half of Salt Lake City must have called in sick to go skiing. My dreams of a desolate Tuesday powder filled resort were smashed. To make it even worse, they all seemed to be in the tram line. There was no way that I could sit in a line and let all this new fresh blower snow get skied out right in front of me. Plus I'm on my sweet Pontoons for the first time and these bad sticks are designed specifically for deep powder steezefests.

Andy and I decided to forgo the tram line, went straight up Peruvian, and then through the tunnel out to Mineral Basin where the sun was poking through. After getting in two runs in some already adulterated snow, we headed back up to go Regulator Johnson. After flying down through that run, our luck changed. We were just getting off of Little Cloud lift low and behold, ski patrol dropped the rope to Road to Provo.

YES!!!!! Only 15 people in front of us on the way to unadulterated powder. "What did you just say Andy?!!?!?!?!?! You have to adjust your sock??!?!?!" So now I'm sitting there waiting on Andy and my legs are just twitching. I'm looking at the powder in front of me, a high priced, very rare commodity, about to be stolen from me, and getting extremely frustrated. That's it, I'm invoking the first rule of powder days:

1. "There are no friends on a powder day."

So I told him I'd meet him down at the first loll, and skated off. Luck hit me again: Everyone in front of me was traversing out as far as they could, and those right in front of me were getting stuck in the deep snow piled thigh high on the usually groomed cat track. This is my sign. I couldn't believe that people where going out far for the lower angle lines. I stopped after about 100 yards, spotted an open, untouched line, and made ready.

I drop onto a 40 degree slope and straightline it for a bit to gain speed. Now that I've opened it up it's time to turn. Turn one: face shot, I smile. Turn two: huge face shot, over my head and into my throat. I'm choking. AWESOME!!!! The face shots were now all coming in over my head. I had to hold my breath and try to keep my mouth closed while the biggest smile of my life kept sneaking through. This is the first time that I've been choked and blinded from face shots. Instant euphoria.

That single run made my entire day and it was only the fourth run of the day.

Oh by the way, these powder skis are awesome! I felt like I was cheating. People around me were tip diving and getting stuck. I was floating through all of it with my rockered tips floating high, keeping me upright.

We really killed it today. I hit a couple of cliffs, got a ton of face shots, got reckless, got exhausted, and just slayed the powder. Here are a few shots from the day.

Cliff Drop (Andy sucks with a camera and zoomed in way too far to see the rest of the cliff, which was only about a 10 footer)


Andy's self portrait of his powder stokeage


A perfect snowflake on my glove: Life is good