so, since nothing is going on today in the world of snowboarding or at least in utah snowboarding, i thought i'd share some pictures of our vacation earlier on this summer.

so, giddy up and look at the pictures, if you are bored...

painting by numbers is easy, especially in gold leaf.

i like this picture...

across the street from where we stay, there is this little bar:

after roma, we drove up to the tuscan coast and went to elba for a friend's wedding. his family have a beautiful house nestled in the mountains, looking down on procchio beach.

the following three pictures are of the sunset... and yes, i was drinking wine all day and all night (think keith richards).

one more glass of vino...

ok, looking a little better. may as well have another glass.

ok, this is my final glass of wine-i'm doing it to "bring in the effect of the light".

ok, i'm starting to spin. bonk! pass out time.

this is what i woke-up to later that morning, not bad:

I had just moved from South Lake Tahoe and was not sure what to expect in Utah besides the usual speak of 3.2% beer and a confused culture within regards to its tainted views towards separation of church and state.

My girlfriend (now wife) and I moved to Park City and bought season passes to The Canyons. We would have checked out Park City, but they did not allow snowboarding at the time-yes, kids, the same place that brags about the Olympics and their world class terrain parks-which is a good thing, because Park City is flat, crowded and icy.

One day I was riding in the park at The Canyons and two fellow shreds approached me. Initially, I thought I was going to get my ass handed to me for something I was not aware of or I was going to be invited/stiff armed to a key swamping party (we are, after all, in Utah). But it was neither of those aforementioned dilemmas.

Kenn and Dave introduced themselves to me and wanted to know if I’d like to shred with them. Before I knew it we had hiked out to a cornice sans avy gear. I was semi-aware that we had entered out into the back country but was not aware of where we were. I made mention that I did not have my hiking gear with me. Kenn and Dave laughed and pointed out all these cornices and lines. Our group was far away, or it seemed a distance as this was my third month into my new home resort, and I was still trying to figure out where I parked my car.

Dave and Kenn assured me that the snow was safe. I remember asking them what the stock market looked like for the next day-they looked puzzled and did not get my forecasting sarcasm. Like fools, we choose our lines and after Dave, I lined up.

Once Dave descended and ran clear across the flats and into safety, he yelled back up, "drop!”. Kenn, made mention of "welcome to Utah" or something cheesy like that. I pointed my board down the run-in and floated a frontside 180.

I landed in dust! I was so blown away by the lack of moisture in the snow, I almost stopped to look at it when that little voice kicked on saying, "go!” and I did. I don't remember much of that run, I rode fakie for a while and half cabed some wind roller thing.

When I got to the bottom I high-fived Dave and watched Kenn loft a very clean backside three tail grab and straight line it all the way down (sketchy!) to us. Dave and I were yelling with support, Kenn ripped that line a new ass, and we were stoked for him.

Well, that was 1997 and this is 2006 approaching 2007. Kenn and his wife have become good friends of ours, as has Dave and his girlfriend of the month. They now all have back county gear and knowledge and ride The Canyons' out-of-bounds areas almost every day of the season. If you stumble up on a huge wedge nestled in the trees, chances are they built it.

I got this picture from Kenn today in an email. He was going though some files and found it. I never knew Kenn had a camera with him that day, let alone took a picture of me popping my first air into the Utah backcountry. I was stoked to get this image, it made me think how lucky we all are to be a part of this lucky life that we all lead. We are the truly wealthy.

We can win medals for our country, but we cannot ride at your shrines (Alta, Deer Valley, Mad River Glenn and Taos) in 2006.

How do we become good enough for you, so that we can become as privelaged and entitled to ride in your ever so sacred country clubs with our families and friends?

Greetings fellow shred-o's,

Sitting here in front of the fire re-adjusting my stance in the hopes that I will able to land a trick that I have been working on for sometime. The glass-in my mind-is half empty, and I probably won't land it even with the new stance but whatever… there will be powder in the morning, and I am really looking forward to this.

I went down into my garage this evening to wax a board for tomorrow’s endeavors. While waiting for the iron to warm, I flipped through my quiver of old boards and came across a tattered sticker that was given to me by Scott 'Upside" Downey. I got this sticker from Scott when I was up at Mt. Hood Snowboard Camp. I applied it to my 1988 thirty-five pound Burton Cruiser 165 below the rear binding, centered of course (it’s an o.c.d. thing I guess) with great pride. “I got this from a pro!” after all.

As I lay on the couch staring out of the bay window the other day, I noticed that something was missing. There was void, the mountain outside of my house-Mount Olympus-was missing. I moved myself off the couch (a rather difficult thing for me to do, I might add) and surveyed the conditons through the window, there was nothing. I turned the light on outside and a beautiful blanket of snow covered my balconey. Huge flakes were falling in blankets, blocking out Mount Olympus.

In a welcomed panic, I amassed my boots, googles, gloves, waxed my board, made sure all the hardware was tight and ready to go, made some calls and tried my best to go to bed by reading some T.P.S. report from work. These reports usually send me into a catatonic state, however all I could think about was riding fresh snow in the a.m. Finally, the T.P.S. report took it's toll on me, and I drifted off.

http://www.chilloutzone.de/screenclean/

Hello all, happy soon-to-be New Year's. For a select lucky few, your parents have, for some crazy idea, decided to cash-in part of their 401K's and take the family on a shred vacation. First things first-thank them! Most people can only dream of visiting such snow Mecca’s, like those of Whistler, Baker, Jackson, the Bird or wherever else it is that you and your family will be going.

Snowboard vacations are not cheap when factoring in plane tickets, rental car/shuttle transportation, hotel accommodations, food, rentals (if needed), lift tickets, après drink and food, and stupid t-shirts that let the world know where you did your first backside 180 Japan Air. You get the point-thank your folks, as you are one of the very fortunate few.