Time for a season change.

Hard to believe it's already March and soon to be April, wow. 2009 is just ticking on by! It's certainly past time for me to get my butt into shape for the busy upcoming summer. The past few months I've turned into a complete snowholic and have been practically living on the slopes. I love it!

Honestly, I don't know how I survived Seattle winters before snowboarding. It makes the winter pass so much faster and every time I hit the slopes I feel like a kid about to burst with happiness. SAD? What's that? All the night trips to Snoqualmie this year certainly paid off because my snowboarding skills have come a long way since my first venture up before XMas. I think I crashed at least 50 times that night and couldn't turn or carve to save my soul. Now I can truck through waist-deep powder, survive most black diamond runs, and even carve some trenches. Woo!

I spent Tuesday at Baker enjoying what may have been the last big powder day of the season. I guess we'll see how the weather cooperates. There's just nothing quite like the feeling of floating over tons of untracked pow, so at least if the season is over, I ended it with a bang.

Now I need to shift gears and get back on the bike. This year I'll be racing for the uBRDO Team Project and I'm excited about the team and the races we'll be doing. I did an early-season BuDu race a few weekends ago at Soaring Eagle and quickly found out just how out of shape I am. Time to get that turned around.

I'll probably start hitting Pacific Raceways next week for some mid-week intensity. That'll get my butt turned around pretty quick. The Indie Series kicks off in April and then in June I head to Fernie for an 8-day mountain bike camp vacation through Sacred Rides. I'm stoked about that one!

Probably the biggest event of the summer for me will be the Cascade Cream Puff, a 100-mile mountain bike race in Oregon in July. I wouldn't be true to form unless I got myself into something way over my head, right? I have a feeling July is going to come along way too fast...

Rallying on the board to near exhaustion is a good evening spent indeed.

Bye bye 2008, you kinda sucked I think.

Since Facebook came along I sure have been neglecting the blog, so I figured what better day to post a quick update than the last day of the year?

Mostly I'm writing this for me so that one day next year I may look back and read this and remember 2008 for being the awful and wonderful year it was. Lots of good stuff happened this year, and lots of bad stuff happened this year. In fact, I consider this to be the single most traumatic and chaotic year of my life I think, but at the same time, I wouldn't have learned so much without the chaos. So without writing a novel....

Big lessons from 2008:

1. Live life to its fullest, because you really don't know how much time you have. I have a bigger fear of regretting something I didn't do, not something I did. Go big and have fun doing it!
2. There are a million guys out there. Not a single one of them is worth losing your soul over.
3. There are a million guys out there. Half of them are assholes and half of them are amazing, kick-ass rock-stars. One of those rock-stars is mine, he just doesn't know it yet ;)
   
4. Believe in yourself and never change who you are.
5. There's no room in life for drama. Shape up or shut up. Life is too short.
   

On a lighter note, I also learned the following lessons this year:

1. Snowboarding fucking rocks, especially when you start carving turns, picking up some speed, and actually passing people down the mountain.
2. Rock climbing is a fun way to terrorize your brain.
3. Pump tracks are highly addictive.
4. Crashing into prickly pear cactus sucks.
5. A year off due to injury healing isn't so fun, so take care of the body! (No more stupid home gymnastics....for now).
   

And of course, what year-end wrap up wouldn't be complete without a list of goals for 2009. I always have a lot of goals, so I'm just going to list the big ones.

1. Carve down Alpental on the board. Hmmm, maybe that's a dream for now....
   
2. Kill it in XC MTB races.
3. Become a dirt studette by doing some riding and clinics in BC. I'm guessing a Fernie clinic and too much time at Whistler will probably result in a budget rearrangement to procure a big bike, but that's a whole 'nother story...
4. Qualify for Boston!!
   
5. Complete a Half Iron.
6. Do some outdoor rock climbing.
7. Find a guy who can keep up and put up with all of this stuff. And maintain my bikes :)
   

Happy New Year!!

Boarding rocks again

Finally made it to Alpental tonight and it was awesome. At first we were pretty worried since it was raining most of the way, but once we got there it turned to snow and the conditions weren't too bad at all. I think the rain scared people away because the slopes were practically empty.

For a while I got pretty frustrated tonight. There's only so many times I can do the same beginner run over and over before it gets dull. I kept struggling with toe-side turns, so after getting some instruction from Eric I finally started to get it. He then convinced me to do the BIG run there. I'm not sure if it's a black diamond run or a blue run, but it's by far the biggest, steepest, longest run I've done yet.

I nearly had a heart attack going up the lift, but it turned out not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I even nailed a pretty sweet heel to toe transition turn at the end - woo! I found out what it feels like to slide on your ass for about 20 seconds, but I survived. I can't believe how badly that run hammered my legs! It was really fun though and I'll definitely be hitting it next time. No more St Bernard beginner's run for me!

I'm off to bed so I can hit Philip Arnold in the AM with the brand new Kona. Can't wait!

Whew...take a breath!

Wow. I feel like months have gone by since my last blog post. I started my new job as a Flash Manager at Intava on the 28th and I love it. I didn't realize how truly bored I was at Classmates until I started working here. My job in a nutshell is to manage a small team of Flash devs, aid in project management, improve development issues, and interview and hire at least one more Flash dev, all while remaining an individual contributor. Fun! I've been up to my eyeballs in work and learning lots of new things, but the crew at Intava are a great group and really fun to work with. I'm starting a Flash project and I'm excited to dive back in.

Aside from that, I went to Baker Saturday to snowboard and the weather couldn't have been better. Blue skies and awesome snow! The drive was a bit long, so next time I think I'll make a weekend out of it, but it was really a good time. I'm getting a little frustrated because I feel like I should be able to carve down tons of runs, but I'm still stumbling with toe-side turns. I have to keep reminding myself that I've really only been out 5 times.

I haven't spent much time on the bike at all. I'm just not motivated to ride 50+ miles. I am; however, thinking of going to Center Cycle and finally getting my Kona so I can jump into Sunday's mountain bike race at South Seatac. Mountain biking I can do. Road, not so much. I think my road season will be pretty limited to Walla Walla and a handful of crits, but we'll see what happens. I'm much more interested in dirt this year! :)

I'm off to catch up on season 3 of Lost so I can start watching this season....

Night time boarding at Alpental

Last night I went up to Alpental for some night time boarding, and it was awesome! There's really only one beginner area there, but it was great because I had the entire run and lift pretty much to myself all night. That was a good thing because I managed to eat shit off the lift every time. At least I didn't need to worry about anyone piling into me. The lift was the fastest one there and the exit ramp was steep. I just couldn't stick it. I added a stomp pad to my board today so we'll see if that helps next time.

The new board rocks! It's so much lighter and easier to turn than a rental board, though the first time I hopped on I nearly had a heart attack because it's so much faster. I ended up doing maybe 6-8 runs last night and finally started getting the hang of toe-side turns. I think I need one more good practice day to get some more confidence and then I might be ready for some bigger runs.

It's amazing how tired I get boarding. I think I could have done more but my body was too sore from crashing off the lift so many times that I finally had to call it a night. I watched Ben and Eric do a few runs, then we hit the lounge for some beer. After two beers I decided I would cruise over a little mini bump to work up to trying a jump, and it was a mistake. I got off balance rolling over the bump, caught my heel edge, and smacked down pretty hard. I got it the next two times but I think I'll hold off on jumps for a bit. I have zero confidence in my ability to catch even 1" of air :) Eric landed a pretty sweet one that was a couple of feet. I'm making that my goal by the end of the season.

I have a pretty nice soon-to-be-a-nasty-bruise thing on my thigh and my butt is pretty sore. Originally I had planned to go back during the day today, but I took the day off and will probably head back out tomorrow instead. Good times!!

Found this awesome YouTube video today.

Great. Another sport.

Just what I needed...another sport. Snowboarding at Crystal was so freakin' cool that now I've hooked myself into buying more sports equipment. Yes, I fell a bunch, but it went way better than I thought it would. I'll have a few new bruises but something tells me I'll be scouting for boots and a board so I can hit Alpental this week.

Snowboarding

Oh yeah, and I'm heading to Crystal tomorrow for my very first snowboarding lesson. I've never skied or boarded, so this is going to be a fabulous experience I'm sure. I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. I can't get hooked on this because I really don't need another sport that requires expensive equipment. Stay tuned for the injury report. I know it's coming...