Farewell and Thanks to Steamboat Springs, CO.

Well friends, this will be my final blog for the Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus. Sorry for the delay but with school, packing, graduation, travelling, and settling back in to Minnesota life, I haven't had much time to blog. However, to close out an amazing two years in Steamboat, I thought I'd write about all those things that have kept me busy finishing out the year, with a few pictures and videos for your viewing pleasure.

Being that this was my last semester before graduation, I only needed a few credits to finish, so lucky for me, I had a super easy finals week. My public speaking class actually ended early with an easy make-up introduction speech. The last Legal Environment of Business class was canceled since all we had was one last online test due on the final Thursday of school, so I got that done early. To be perfectly honest, my hardest "final" was for piano class. I had to learn 6 songs and a solo piece for a recital the class put on. In my opinion, playing piano by yourself in front of a bunch of people who are way better than you are is way harder than an online test.

So when all was said and done school-wise, it was time to pack. Luckily for me, since I was graduating, it was easy to get an extension to stay in the dorms so I had more time to pack. Normally, everyone has to be out by 10am on Friday morning, but I got to check out at 2pm on Saturday after the ceremony. Perks.

My parents and grandparents were able to make it to town Friday morning despite the crazy snow we had been getting. We grabbed some grub at Shack Restaurant on Lincoln Ave. I had actually never been here my whole two years in Steamboat, so it was great to go someplace new before leaving town. Also, they had great breakfast food, so I'd highly recommend it.

From there it was packing time. My parents and I headed back to the room to put my stupid amount of clothes and junk into boxes to bring home. Even though he was already checked out, Bacon was kind enough to come back and help clean. So once everything was good to go, we chilled at the hotel for a bit, and then headed to a delicious dinner at Cugino's on 8th St. If you've never been, GO. It is a crazy delicious Italian food place with tons of choices. I got an olive oil pizza with sausage that was most excellent. It was awesome too because Bacon, his girlfriend Leydon, and friends from Michigan who were driving him home came with, so are crew was rolling deep. Afterward was some more goodbyes, which always suck, but I'll be living with Bacon again next year in SLC, so that goodbye wasn't too bad.

The next day was graduation time. The day started at 9am with the Honors Graduate Reception breakfast, which was nice because there myself and all the other Phi Theta Kappa and Honors graduates received their special tassels and stoles. From there was the ceremony which was really nice. There were some great speakers, both faculty and students, as well as a musical performance from and choir group. My mom was kind enough to film the following footage, so here's a taste of breakfast and the ceremony.



Following the ceremony was a delicious meal in the cafeteria, better than anything we've had all year, then it was time to finally check out of the dorms. As much as I thought I wouldn't really care, it was kind of surreal knowing that I'd never be back there. After saying another goodbye to my buddy and RA Bagel, Crip and I went out for one last afternoon chilling in downtown Steamboat. From there it was a delicious family dinner for my grandma's birthday at 8th Street Steakhouse. Unfortunately, it wasn't $5 steak night like I blogged about awhile back, but still crazy delicious. That night unfortunately was more goodbyes. I headed over to Crips new place (which is actually fellow blogger Bobbie Jo's since they're rooming together next year) where a few of us watched The Men Who Stare At Goats, which is great by the way. After a tough goodbye with Crip Nasty since he might not make it to Minnesota this summer, it was time to crash and get ready for the epic road trip the next day.

Sunday morning started around 8am with a surprising amount of snow. We were a little worried about the driving conditions since there was around 5 in. on the top of the car, which meant much more fell on Rabbit Ears Pass. So we said goodbye to my grandparents who were leaving later and hit the road. Thankfully the road was nice to us and we made it over Rabbit Ears. From there the road trip for me gets a little hazy considering I slept around 7 out the 16 hours. Thanks to my parents for driving a ton of the way. It was until a lot later in Iowa where it was my turn so they could sleep, but thanks to my dad for staying awake and keeping me company.

It was kind of crazy for me when the clock hit midnight and I turned 21 driving into Minnesota. As fun as it would have been to celebrate with my Steamboat friends, I was happy to getting home for my birthday. So we finally rolled up to my house at 1:30am and this crazy wild blur of a 2-year adventure was over.

So now I have the summer to save some money, reconnect with all the MN friends, and try to remember everything from The Boat. Before I go I would like thank a few people however. First off, to my parents and grandparents. Without their support (and money) I never would have made it to Steamboat or CMC> Thanks to Mike Martin and Tim Widmer for the Ski and Snowboard Business Program. I had a great time getting this degree and will never forget all the opportunities, especially the tradeshows. A big thank you to my blog boss, Sara Fowler, for giving me this job and allowing me to keep doing this for two years. And finally HUGE thank you to all of you. Without you actually reading these things, I'm sure Sara would've gotten rid of me awhile ago! So thank you again, I hope you enjoyed reading about my life in The Boat.

Since this year Sara hooked all us bloggers up with video cameras and I proceeded to use it to make snowboarding edits, I figured it would be appropriate to end my final blog with the end-of-the-year riding edit I put together with all the footage. I hope you all enjoy since it took me a VERY long time to put this all together (Sara if you're wondering why my time sheet is so high on hours, this video would be to blame!) Also, the only editing software I have is Windows Movie Maker, which is easy to use but not exactly the highest quality video editor, plus for some reason I couldn't save the movie as one movie so the following is the intro then I split the rest into two parts. But anyway, I had a great time making it and blogging for you, so without further ado, here is As The Crow Flies, my first attempt at a snowboard video. Thank you all again. Peace.

With Warm Weather Comes The Adventures.

My friends recently realized that in a mere two weeks, after two incredible years here in Steamboat Springs, we will be going our separate ways. I feel very fortunate that I'll still be getting to live with Corey and Bacon, but two of my best friends, Tyler and Crip Nasty, won't be joining us. Tyler will be going to school in Seattle, WA, and Crip will be staying here for another year. But anyway, after realizing this, we decided it was time to enjoy the weather and our last couple weeks together.

After going through some options about what we could do on a lovely Sunday afternoon, we decided on a bike/longboard cruise on the sidewalk along the Yampa river. Unfortunately, even though he was going to come, Crip couldn't make it, although he did go on a hike of Fish Creek Falls with his Mom who is visiting, so I'm sure he had a solid Sunday afternoon as well.
So Tyler, Corey, and I started out from Corey's house and caught the path on the far east side of Steamboat by Walton Creek Rd. The path took us under US 40 and met up with the river just past The Ponds condos. We cruised along this path for quite a ways until we came upon a mini dirt jumps track for bikes, so we had to stop. But of course I forgot a camera and my video camera, so this lovely picture at the track is courtesy of my camera phone.



After the dirt jump track, we continued down the path. Our next step after another good 10 minutes of cruising was a couple of pavilions along the river. We took a nice breather here in addition to testing how cold the river was. One of the things none of us have done was raft down the Yampa River, so we were talking about accomplishing this later on this week.

We continued on, making our next stop all the way on the other side of town from where we started at the Howelson Hill skate park to see who was there skating. None of us had our decks but we chilled for minute before continuing on. Our next destination was Backdoor Sports, a place I feel like I've been quite a bit this year. Our reason for this visit was to talk to them about renting a raft for our adventure. They said they did not rent rafts but they had quite a few kayaks. We realized it would be even cooler to kayak the Yampa, so got even more excited.

After Backdoor Sports, it was time to grub. We headed to Little Toots Park by the Steamboat Library and went to town on our homemade wraps with all kinds of sandwich meats in them. While there, we just couldn't help but snag these pictures on these crazy statue, kind of chair things with Corey's better phone camera. Enjoy.


Typical Tyler Tillman.


Myself.


Sir Corey Berning.

After the grub session, it was into town. We stopped by the shop Nine 7 Zero (basically a DC store since they only sell DC gear) off Lincoln Ave. to visit our buddy Joel who you might remember from a couple Big Mac Monday's awhile back. As it turns out, he was very down with a kayak adventure, but couldn't do it on Monday like we originally planned. Plus, Bacon has been on Canyon Orientation this whole weekend and didn't get back until Monday, so to include those two, we pushed the date to Wednesday. So from Nine 7 Zero, we headed back to Backdoor Sports to see if they could reserve the kayaks for us. Unfortunately they said they couldn't, but the girl working was pretty positive there would be plenty available on Wednesday, so we are set to go. I will do my best to take pictures and videos of the trip, but I'm not an experience kayaker, so there probably won't be any videos of the actual kayak since I'd rather not get my video camera wet.

From Backdoor Sports, we cruised to the music store All That Jazz to kill some time before I was going to catch the Yellow Line bus back up to school. While there, we found that Matisyahu has a new album out and it just so happens to be awesome, so I HIGHLY recommend picking up a copy. I then parted ways with Tyler and Corey after an awesome day and headed to the bus stop.

I was lucky enough to be picked up by my friend Caiti after not much time at all at the bus stop, and made it back to the dorms safe, sound, and exhausted. Today was spent finishing up a speech, a little skating, but mostly getting more and more excited about our kayak adventure. But until then, hopefully this blog gave a glimpse at what can be done on a beautiful spring day here Ski Town USA. Peace.

Student Recognition Dinner.

Saturday night was the first ever Alpine Campus Student Recognition Dinner put on but the student government (SGA) here in Steamboat. Myself and fellow blogger Bobbie Jo Thoman had the pleasure of being honored with an Award of Excellence, as well as I was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. Even our Glenwood co-worker Dylan Derryberry was visiting this past weekend and attended with us.

The evening started at 6:30pm with a welcome from Dr. Peter Perhac, Vice-President and CEO of the Alpine Campus. That was followed by a delicious catered Dinner from Fireside Catering. After that was the Phi Theta Kappa induction ceremony, which Corey was kind enough to film for me. Each student was able to bring a guest, so I figured I'd hook a friend up with a free, delicious dinner. But anyway, the following is the footage from the induction ceremony.

Following that was the announcement of the new SGA members as well as the President and Vice President, so congratulations to Jorge and Katie for their win. Then was the Student Recognition Awards where Bobbie Jo and I got our certificates. In order to receive one of these awards, you have to be nominated by a faculty member, so I'd like to give a MASSIVE thank you to Mike Martin and Tim Widmer for nominating me. They were definitely my favorite teacher's here and I will for sure miss them next year in Utah.

Afterwards was the recognition of the student athletes, where our friend Vince gave a great toast to Terry, the ski team coach here at Alpine Campus. I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Terry when I volunteered at the ski races here in town, and also hearing my roommate talk about him, I couldn't agree more with Vince, so here is the video Corey took of his toast.

Lastly was the presentation of the SGAELA (sorry I have no clue what those letters stand for) Scholarship, which went to newly elected SGA President Jorge, so congratulations to him again.

So thank you to the Steamboat Community Center for hosting this, as well as to Fireside for catering. Thank you also to all the faculty who helped organize it and to Fred Hampel and Kate Barnett who are the Alpine Campus Phi Theta Kappa Advisors. It was a great evening and I feel very lucky to have received these honors. Peace.

Luau.

The other night, the Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus RHA was kind enough to host a free and delicious luau dinner for all CMC students at Cantina Restaurant off Lincoln Ave. in between 8th and 9th St.

The evening started off with a trip to the post office. I mailed out my application for a scholarship to Salt Lake Community College. I have to give a HUGE thanks here to Ski and Snowboard Business Professors Mike Martin and Tim Widmer for hooking me up with awesome letters of recommendation for this scholarship, so now we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.

From there we headed Cantina right at 5pm when the dinner started because we were starving and stoked for some Mexican food. Unfortunately, when we got there, there was already a very long line of students apparently more hungry and excited than we were. Cantina had set out a buffet of salad and chicken and beef tacos, both hard and soft shell, with all the fixings needed for some delicious tacos. While everyone was eating, they even had one of their employees singing and playing guitar, so it was dinner and a show. Throughout the evening, they also had a raffle for bags of food and candy, things everyone needs in their dorm room.

So thanks to CMC for the awesome event and thanks to Cantina for the excellent food. For those of you coming out here next year, they've done an event like this both years I've been hear so I'm sure there'll be another one for you next year. Peace.

Big Mac Monday #8: A Wrap On Mt. Werner

Yesterday, Sunday the 11th, was my last day ever riding Steamboat Springs. Mt. Werner is officially closed for the season and I will be heading to Salt Lake City next year.

The season ended in style with a couple powder days, followed by the warmest, slushiest days I have ever ridden. The following Big Mac Monday is a mash up of some footage my friends and I have taken over the past week, including some older footage I forgot about as well as a couple shots of my Minnesota friends and their first experience with powder. The last part of the video is footage from Steamboat's annual pond skim. Unfortunately, Corey and I were unable to enter the contest because as it turns out, there were only 50 spots and we went to sign up too late, so we'll just have to find a pond skim next year in Utah.

There may actually be more snow filled Big Mac Mondays if I head to Copper this weekend for their closing, or even poach Steamboat since they leave a bunch of park features up for awhile, but if things don't work out, then I hope you enjoy this final snow edition of Big Mac Monday. Peace.

I GOT MY IPOD BACK!

By some miracle, I am currently listening to my iPod as I write this blog. In case you haven't read my last blog, I lost my iPod riding powder the other day, but it was miraculously returned to me.

I had given up hope on finding it and was currently thinking about how I would get all 5000 songs back that I had lost, when I got a call from the lost and found at the mountain with the good news. Luckily, I was already out and about in town with Corey and Crip so we were able to cruise right over to the mountain to pick it up. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it on the counter, and after proving that I was who I said I was, it was mine again.

Thankfully they took down the guys information who turned it in so I can get him some sort of thank you gift. It's not everyday that someone would return an iPod instead of just keeping it, so I owe this good samaritan a great deal of gratitude.

Afterwards, we hung outside at Corey's on this beautiful spring day, then headed to see Clash of the Titans (which was awesome). Afterwards, I headed back to the dorms to take care of some homework before tomorrow so we could enter Steamboat's Springalicious pond skim contest. It's only $10 to enter and winner gets a free season pass next year. Even though I won't be coming back next year, I figured it would be super fun to do it anyway, plus I could always sell the pass or something.

Corey, Tyler, Chuck, and myself are all entering and Crip has graciously agreed to record the whole thing, so look for a blog about that coming in the near future. Peace.

A Warning to Powder Enthusiasts.

ZIP. YOUR. POCKETS... let me explain.

Earlier this week on Tuesday and Wednesday, it PUKED snow. None of us here at the Alpine Campus could believe the monstrosity of these recent spring storms.

I was lucky enough to get out and ride on Tuesday with Corey, Bacon, and my friend Mariah in some of the deepest powder I have ever seen. We ended up cruising all over the mountain, with Mariah showing us some of her favorite tree runs that I have never been on before and that ended up being awesome and still untouched even at 3pm.

It continued snowing through the night and ended up dumping around 10 inches on the top of the mountain, making for another crazy powder day. We started the day on my favorite run Hot Cakes down to the Morningside lift on the backside of the mountain. We had planned to take that lift up and hike even higher to the out of bounds runs, but as we were riding up the lift, we noticed that directly to the right of the lift was untouched deep fresh powder, so needless to say, we rode it.

On the second time through, I had paused my iPod on the lift and forgot to play it again on the run. I also realized when we got on the lift that I had forgot to zip the pocket my iPod was in... and that it had fallen out. I legitimately almost cried when I realized it was gone. About 3/4 of my music is not on my computer and I lost about 4200 songs. We took a couple other runs before I decided I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try to find it, so I headed back to Morningside and took the same run a couple more times. Unfortunately I realized there was no hope since there was about 2 ft. of powder on the run, so I sucked it up and gave up the search.

I still love powder and will always ride it but I just wanted to warn the world about what could happen if you do something as simple as forget to zip a pocket, so hopefully this will save someone out there the trouble of losing their stuff. Peace.

Almost Avoided Dorm Disease: Balancing Health and Riding.

With only a little over a month left of school, I thought for sure I could last the rest of the year without getting sick... but I was wrong. I actually posted a blog last year called "Dorm Disease" when I had a bad cold and case of pink eye. Thankfully this time around I only have a cold, but it's not fun nonetheless.

The illness started coming around right after spring break. It was very mild then and I mistakenly ignored it. After stressing a bit about the Academy Snowboard Scholarship I recently applied for, as well as a 7 minute speech and Legal Environment of Business test, the cold made its presence known. So much so that I had decided to cancel plans to go on an adventure in Boulder with some friends the weekend before my MN friends came out, which I was not happy about.

Now the reason for this blog isn't for me to whine about being sick, but I thought I could offer some advice on ways to fight dorm sickness and well as boredom, along with some ways to hopefully avoid it.

I hate to say it, but a lot of time while you're sick is spent in the dorms, which means one needs to entertain themselves the best they can. The best way to pass the time as I'm sure I've recommended before somewhere in this blog is to watch The Office. The Office is by far my favorite show ever and I have definitely spent quite a bit of time watching it over these past few days. Movies are also a very solid way to relax and try to kill a cold.

The other day, I watched A River Runs Through It, a movie based on the memoirs of Norman Maclean. It stars Craig Sheffer and Brad Pitt and is the story of Norman (Sheffer) and his brother Paul (Pitt) and their lives as Norman pursues a career as an english professor and Paul becomes a journalist but also gets into trouble with drinking and gambling. It was a really good movie and I would definitely recommend. The next movie not so much.

Later in the afternoon I watched the movie Eagle vs. Shark. A short summary from IMBD says "Eagle vs Shark is the tale of two socially awkward misfits and the strange ways they try to find love; through revenge on high-school bullies, burgers, and video games." Sounds like it could be funny enough but as it turns out, it was just super weird and awkward. Normally I like that type of humor, such as The Office, but this movie was just weird. It actually won a few Indie movie awards, but I just wasn't feeling it.

Lastly, movie night was finished up with 50 First Dates. Starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, this movie is hilarious and is the story of Lucy, who can't make any new memories, and Henry, the guy who tries to get her to love him everyday. Definitely worth seeing.

However, after that relaxing weekend was when my friends came to town on their spring break. Don't get me wrong, I'm super happy they came and had a great time, but entertaining friends for a few days isn't quite the best way to get healthy. We were lucky enough to get an epic powder day the last day they were here, so that was awesome.

While here, my friend PJ told me of his dream to do a little backcountry hiking and riding one day, so I looked at him and said, "We can make that happen." A good portion of the rest of the night was figuring out how to make that happen. We compiled a list of things we would need, including many of the things I knew were required from my avalanche safety class such as a beacon, probe, and shovel.

Luckily for me, between my friends Chuck and Derek, we ended up with two probes, two shovels, a beacon, and a nice backpack. All that we needed now was one more beacon, one more pack, and two pairs of snow shoes. The next morning we rented the snow shoes and beacon from Backdoor Sports here in town and borrowed my roommates hiking backpack. After checking the avalanche report and seeing that it was only moderate risk, we set out for Rabbit Ears Pass to find the right spot.

After driving only about 10 minutes, we found a great looking spot for the hike. We unloaded all out gear, made sure we had everything, and began the trek. I will admit the snow was not the best since it had been very warm recently, but we were both excited nonetheless. Unfortunately for me, this is where my sickness decided to poke its head out.

The night before we had all stayed up pretty late hanging out and reminiscing, so for starters there was a lack of sleep. On top of that, I felt the beginnings of an ear infection coming on, so my head was not feeling the best. Finally, doing some strenuous hiking in increasingly higher altitude all caught up to me. We reached a point where we could ride down the backside of what we had just hiked, so we decided to take a break. Here is where I began feeling increasingly light headed and nauseous. After eating a bit of a sandwich I bought and drinking some Gatorade, my body gave up and I vomitted it right back up.

As awful as this was I definitely felt better, but no where near good enough to continue hiking. I apologized to PJ and felt really bad about ruining his first backcountry experience, but thankfully he was cool about it and was just stoked to be there. Once my head was feeling good, we rode back down from where we came and called up our other friends to pick us up. Overall I think PJ enjoyed, I guess he'll just have to visit me next year in Utah and we'll go for round 2.

So that's been my life for the past week or so, a blur friends, homework, and congestion. All the advice I can really offer is eat healthy and if you feel a sickness coming on, take care of it right quick because you do not want it sticking around for as long as mine has. Peace.

Big Mac Monday The Seventh: Locals Rail Jam Edition

Hello everyone. Sorry for my absence but things have been a bit hectic recently. On top of being quite sick for the past week, I have been tied down by trying to balance homework, classes, and having more friends from MN in town for their spring break. I plan on writing a bit about the time they were here, as well as how to avoid being sick so you don't find yourself in the situation of trying to feel better while entertaining guests, but for now, I wanted to fill you in on an event on the mountain as part of Steamboat's "Springalicious" last week open.

On Saturday this past weekend, Steamboat hosted a rail jam on the mountain for any local riders to come compete in. A whole slew of people came out including some CMC students. The set up was nothing like what they've had here at Steamboat in their park during the regular season as you will see from the video. The contest was a jam format with both guys and girls snowboarders and skiers. I thought the style of judging with only one bracket with everyone in it was kind of weird, but there were some sick tricks thrown down nonetheless, so without further ado, here is this weeks Big Mac Monday: Rail Jam Edition.

Big Mac Monday #6

Today was a beautiful 40 degree slush-tastic spring day for this weeks edition of Big Mac Monday. BMM#6 features the riding of homies Cody, Chuck, Corey, Bacon and myself, so enjoy. I have to give a shout out and say thanks to Corey for reppin' the latest Rill shirt. Peace.

A Weight Off My Shoulders.

Since spring break ended, I have been working tirelessly to turn in my scholarship application for the Academy Snowboard Scholarship and it finally hit the mail today. For more information on it and so you can have a better idea of what I'm talking about in the rest of the blog, take a look at the guidelines at Academy Snowboards.

The whole process actually started back in January at SIA when I met the owner of Academy at their booth and got to talking about the scholarship and an internship and things of that nature. When I got back from SIA in early February, I looked into the scholarship more and realized it was pretty perfect for me, so I decided applying was a must. The next step in the process took a little while because I first e-mailed Jeff (the owner) letting him know I was very interested in an internship next year as well as asking him where I could find an application, since you can only get them from authorized Academy dealers and there are none in Steamboat. He then got me in touch with Chris who is in charge of the scholarship, and he said he would send one to The Click here in town for me to pick up, so I got very lucky with that.

From there it was a matter of getting all the paperwork I needed and the riding footage required for the scholarship. Over the next couple weeks was when I did the majority of filming. As awesome as spring break was, I was very busy the whole week and by the time it was over and I noticed what date it was, I realized I was dangerously close to the March 25th deadline with not very much done. I thankfully had the edit of my riding footage done but I needed all the paperwork such as transcripts and proof I'm enrolled, as well as a letter of recommendation which I got from the Director of Ski and Snowboard Business (which was really good if I do say so myself!). I actually haven't even gone snowboarding since spring break because I've been so busy getting everything I needed together, so let's hope it pays off in the end.

I was so excited to have the whole thing done and ready to mail, I even took these pictures of everything I was sending.

Everything.

I had to add a little steeze to what I was sending.

So thanks to everyone who helped me out with this, especially Bacon, Corey, and Nate for doing the filming and Bacon again for filming for my video essay. With that said, here is the final video I submitted. I wish my riding was better but I filmed it in not much time so hopefully it still gets the job done. Also, sorry about the song to those of you who don't like rap, I'm really not a fan either but I figured you can't go wrong with some classic B.I.G. Peace.

Spring Break '10 + Big Mac Monday #5

Hello again everyone, sorry for my absence over spring break but what a spring break it was. My friends Ryan and Ryan came into town from MN the first Friday spring break started. Lucky for these ice riding Midwesterners, Steamboat got dumped on Friday night, and they were treated to probably the best powder day of the season. From there they got the full gambit of conditions, from intense fog with almost no visibility, to some solid warm spring riding. One afternoon we made the trek to Frisco to stop by Recycle Ski and Sport to see if we could find them some deals on gear, along with cruising through the outlets at Silverthorne.

Even though they were here Friday-Tuesday, they had the pleasure of meeting my ridiculous friend Nate aka "Nate Dawg" who got into town from TN on Sunday. Nate went to CMC last year and just had to make the trip back to the CO. While he was here, we made the trip to Breckenridge to visit our friends Steve and Josh from last year, as well as our friend Jeff who made the trip from Denver for the weekend. Needless to say, it was awesome to see all those guys and get the crew back together.

Spring break was incredible and filled with tons of riding and catching up on old times, so thanks to all those dudes who made the trip out to visit me.

With that said, I realize I missed a Big Mac Monday over spring break, so without further ado, here is some footage of the fun times that went down in the Rockies. Peace.

Final Semester Midterms.

So I'm not sure if I can use the plural "midterms" because as it turns out with my very relaxed schedule this semester, I only had one midterm... in piano class.

In all honesty, piano is quite possibly my hardest class this semester simply because I didn't know anything about piano before I started and ended up having to be in Piano II because almost no one signed up for Piano I, so they combined the classes.

In addition to playing two pieces of our choosing for the teacher, the test consisted of a number of vocab words including Relative Minor, Key and Time Signature, how to play the I, IV, V, and V7 chords in the key of C, and things of that nature. Overall I think the test went well, I felt pretty confident on the vocab a little shaky when playing since the night before I couldn't practice because when I went to the MPR to play, I got kicked out by the RA's for it being quiet hours.

Besides piano, my public speaking class as well as my Legal Environment of Business class both didn't have midterms, so that has made for a nice, very un-stressful time before spring comes around. Speaking of which, I apologize if there is a serious lack of blogs of spring break next week but I have a few friends coming to visit so I probably won't have much time to blog, but if any crazy shenanigans go down, I'll surely post them. Peace.

Big Mac Monday Special Edition: Two Rails, One Cup.

Today was the first rail jam that I've ever heard of in Steamboat Springs, so naturally I had to check it out.

It was hosted by an awesome local store, Urbane, and sponsored by Skullcandy, Kalvery Clothing, and Ride Snowboards, as well as Steamboat's terrain park/crew who supplied the rails and set it up. The event, dubbed Two Rails, One Cup, was 4-7pm and was a jam format with riders rotating through throwing trick after trick. Some local riders sponsored by various shops, as well as the Nike 6.0 and Kalvery teams were there throwing down. Unfortunately, with the warm weather and lack of snow in a while, the set up was very slow and many riders were having trouble hitting the features. However, good times were still had by all, and I snagged the following pics and footy from the event for this weeks edition of Big Mac Monday. Peace.

Big Mac Monday all stars, Kevin "Big Mac" McClelland, Joel Fletcher, and Eli "Crip Nasty" Hays.

The set-up.

Trying to get artsy.

NCAA Ski Race: Steamboat and Howelson

This weekend was the NCAA Western Regionals for ski racing and I volunteered again to get my friends another pass for over spring break.

The first race was Giant Slalom on Friday at Steamboat, bright and early at 7:45am. The race didn't start until closer to 9, but they wanted us gatekeepers to be there early to go over our duties and get us into position. Thankfully it was a really nice day out unlike last race I worked at which was most awful. The level of racing was really too since the teams in it were made up of many people who were actually recruited from other countries just for racing, so there were some really fast skiers. I unfortunately forgot my video camera this day so here are just a couple pictures from my cell phone camera.

Beautiful view of Steamboat.

My view of the bottom of the course.

My seat when things were slow.

The following night, Saturday, was the race under the lights. The same teams competed in the slalom race at Howelson Hill, but this race was thankfully not until 6pm. Us gatekeepers were asked to get there at 4:45pm for the same reasons. This race was unfortunately much colder since it was at night. I did however remember my video camera so I made this little edit of some CMCers racing, along with a picture of my view of the course. Peace.

The Coat Vote: Results

I WON!

Thank you to all who voted, it was a very close battle but I have won our blogger vs. blogger competition. The final results were four jackets to four jackets so it came down to the total votes and thanks to you I came out ahead, 99 to 94 votes. So thanks again to everyone, if any of you have any suggestions on what I should ask Bobbie to cook for me feel free to share because I can't decide! Peace.

Big Mac Monday The Third.

I am sorry for being a day late on this one, but since I missed last week, what's another day right? It took me so long because I recently discovered the magic of Windows Movie Maker so I had a lot to play around with on this video instead of just the usual Flip Share edits you've been seeing. Also, this is a special Kevin "Big Mac" McClelland exclusive video since this was his first day riding with us after officially being done with ski racing for the season. Enjoy.

The Coat Vote.

I have blog coming soon detailing the shenanigans of a Friday afternoon adventure I had with fellow blogger Bobbie Jo and our crippled friend Eli, or as I've dubbed him, Crip Nasty. As part of this adventure however, we stopped by a local thrift store called Rummagers. As with all thrift stores, this one was full of awesome old and used clothes, which sparked the idea of having a blogger vs. blogger contest. The following pictures are Bobbie and I trying on various jackets we found, some awesome, some ridiculous, but we are counting on you the reader to help us out. After the pictures is a poll where we need you to vote for who looks better in each jacket. The poll will be open for 10 days, until the 25th, so get voting! The loser has to cook dinner for the winner, so you should probably vote for me because I am a terrible cook! Be sure to go to Bobbie's blog as well because she'll have the same poll up, so tell all your friends to vote and we'll for sure let you all know the results. Peace.

Orange Burton: Who Looks Better?
Jake
Bobbie Jo

View Results

Create a MySpace Poll

Blue Blazer: Who Looks Better?
Jake
Bobbie Jo

View Results

Create a MySpace Poll

Black/Leopard Rain Coat: Who Looks Better?
Jake
Bobbie Jo

View Results

Create a MySpace Poll

Black Sessions Jacket: Who Looks Better?
Jake
Bobbie Jo

View Results

Create a MySpace Poll

Boattown Friday.

Friday was an adventure. What was supposed to be a relaxing, chill afternoon/evening on the town with friends turned out to be much more.

The day started not early at all when I decided it was one of those days to not get out of bed until noon. After snagging some lunch with everybody's favorite cripple Eli, we decided it would be a good day to cruise around town, especially since Eli has been going pretty stir crazy in his room with a broken femur. So we met up with our friend and fellow Alpine Campus blogger Bobbie Jo, who was up at the school for some sort of meeting, a began our adventure.

It started off with us purchasing $2 movie tickets in the cafeteria after lunch so because we were going to see Wolfman at 5:30pm. From there we headed to Bobbie's car where our troubles began. Bobbie had left the lights on while she was at her meeting, and being that she has an older car, the battery was drained in no time and the car wouldn't start. So Eli and I headed up to the dorms while she went to maintenance to get her car jumped. As it turns out, maintenance gave her a dead battery jumper so she had to get someone leaving the lot to jump it.

After that already rough start to the trip, we cruised into town to a health foods store on Yampa and 11th called Bamboo Market Health Foods since Eli was looking for some calcium or tea to help with bone growth for his femur. He unfortunately didn't find quite what he was looking for as well as things there are a bit pricey, so we headed down the street to Rummagers, which is one of the three thrift stores Steamboat has to offer. Here is where the idea was sparked for the jacket contest still going on in the blog before this one, which you all will hopefully check out and vote on. So we all ended up buying a couple things for nice and cheap and then continued on around town.

Next stop was one of my absolute favorite places around Steamboat, Off The Beaten Path Bookstore. Bobbie Jo was looking for a book called "Bananas: The fruit that

shaped America (or something like that, I can't remember). They unfortunately didn't have it, and neither did Epilogue Book Store down the road. Even though that was a bummer, our spirits were certainely lifted when we went to Fuzziwigs Candy Shop. This is by far the craziest and most awesome candy store I've ever seen, so I'm sorry I completely forgot to take pictures of it. They have every kind of candy imaginable along with a bunch of toys including my personal favorites, Legos.

From there, we headed to another awesome store in the Boat, All That Jazz. This store is full of music and music attire, as these next few pictures hopefully illustrate.

Mad CD's.

Vinyl's for record collectors.
Some nice sound systems.

Reppin' Skullcandy.

Bobbie Jo couldn't get enough modeling.

After All That Jazz, we decided to take a break from walking around and chilled at Bobbie Jo's place for a bit. From there we rolled to Quizno's where the adventure went down hill. I was drove since Bobbie Jo was sick of driving. When I parked at Quizno's, I tried to pull right up to the curb, but little did I know that there was a hole full of snow between the ice and the curb. After grabbing the food, we were going to park closer to the theater, but our snow hole friend had other plans. We attempted to pull with no luck, even when myself and a kind Quizno's employee were pushing on the front bumper, trying to rock the car out of the hole. Wit h no luck and after my leg became soaked in muddy snow, we decided to just head to the movie and hope that our friend Corey would pull us out after with his Land Rover.

The following are our valiant attempts to get the car out and hole that followed.

Wolfman ended up being really good, even with a freezing cold wet leg. Thankfully, Corey did come to the rescue and we made it out with no damage. The adventure was still not quite over either. After escaping the Quizno's parking lot, we headed to one last stop at Urbane to check out the new stuff they had as well as some deals. While there, I found this gem that I just had to share with the world. It's a collaboration between Element Skateboards and The Mountain, the sick company that makes awesome wolf tees. Enjoy.


From Urbane, it was finally back to the dorms for us. I was completely exhausted and still wet and muddy, so needless to say I went to bed mad early that night. Overall it was a really fun day, and minus the getting the car stuck, I hope to do it all again soon. Peace.

Howelsen Hill Ski Race.

Before I left for SIA, there was a ski race at Howelsen Hill at which I volunteered. I had heard you would get free passes to Steamboat, and I have a couple friends coming to visit for spring break so I wanted to hook them up with passes.

The day started crazy early since I was told to be at the hill at 7:30am. Thankfully, Tyler let me borrow his car so I didn't have to get up even earlier to catch the bus. This is a picture from inside the lodge at 7:30am looking up the race course, followed by a shot of the empty lodge since I was pretty much one of the first ones there before all the racers started showing up.

Once more people started showing up, along with the other volunteers, we got together to go over our duties for the day. We were going to be gatekeepers, which meant we would have to watch a certain section of gates and mark on our gatekeeper sheets if a skier missed a gate and didn't hike up and go through it properly in case there were any disputes over times. It was a simple enough job, but the weather decided not to cooperate.

We headed out to our posts along the course. I was the fourth one down and had to watch five gates. We unfortunately had to use the T-Bar to get up the hill, which I personally hate and are usually pretty awful for snowboarders. Once we were in our spots and were just standing around waiting for racers was when I realized just how freezing cold out it was. The wind was blowing like crazy, it was snowing, and there was no sun to be found. I'm not even sure how long we were outside, but to give you an idea, we had to watch 150 racers between the men and women, and that was only their first run. Thankfully CMC hooked us up with bag lunches after the first runs while we warmed up before the second ones.

Thankfully the second runs didn't take as long since some people got eliminated, although one of the women actually got pretty seriously injured, so that delayed things a bit, but thankfully she ended up ok. It felt especially long for us gatekeepers since we had no idea what was going on from our spots on the course. The following picture is the pit I dug to help block the crazy amounts of wind. Pretty much all the gatekeepers built something similar to this to make it through the race.
So around 3pm, the race was finally over, all us gatekeepers strapped in, and cruised down to the lodge to warm up again. I honestly couldn't even tell you the results since as soon as the last racer was done we were out of there. As rough as the day was, we were all super stoked when we found out we were going to get two day passes to Steamboat for the one day of work since the conditions were so awful and they were so grateful for volunteers, so my friends better be grateful for the passes. With that said, it was pretty interesting being up close and personal to the race, since I've only ever seen races on TV. Plus Bacon is a ski racer and I really didn't know very much at all about racing before doing this, so it was cool to learn. I'll leave you with this little video I put together of some of the racers and to give you an idea of the cold windy conditions. Peace.

P.S. For you loyal followers of Big Mac Mondays, my camera died on Monday when I was going to film, and then I forgot to bring it today, so I plan on filming tomorrow and throwing an edit together, so keep checking back for it.

Just Another Big Mac Monday

I'm very sorry about the lack of Big Mac Mondays, but with SIA I didn't have time to put together an edit. So here is some older footage of the week before SIA that I threw together. Unfortunately it does not feature the skiing of Kevin "Big Mac" McClelland, but I think it came out pretty good nonetheless.

Also, this edit is dedicated to our good friend Eli, who had a very unfortunate encounter with a tree and broke his femur. Hopefully he we will be able to ride a little bit very late season, but only time will tell, so this is for you Eli. Peace.

SIA 2010: The Pictures

These pictures and video don't nearly do SIA justice as to how fun it was, but here is just a glimpse at the products and some events that went down in Denver.

The big blue convention center bear.

A little glimpse at the many, many boxes of product we had to carry into the show.

A few shots of the booth once it was done.

The new boots and bindings display.
Surface Skis is a super legit small ski company out of Utah that Bacon loves, so I snagged a few pictures of there new stuff.
Here's a taste of the new Holden outerwear since you couldn't get in unless you were a buyer.
Another favorite company of mine who has a sick team is Academy Snowboards, so here's a look at there new line.Lastly, here is a little video I put together of a Mountainboarding Stunt Show that took place daily and the mountainboard show.

Sorry I didn't get some more pictures or any at the on-snow, but they kept us interns pretty busy at the show. So hopefully this was a good look into what goes on at SIA and more and more students start to get internships, cause it is definitely worth it. Peace.