Class is in Session.

So even though today was the second Monday of classes, I thought I'd share with everyone how the first week was, and what some of my classes are like.

The first Monday of classes started out with Accelerated Boot Fitting. Like the Accelerated Tuning class I took last semester, Accelerated Boot Fitting means it combines Boot Fitting I and II into one class, so the workload will be a bit more, but it's still manageable. The class consisted of introductions (just like every other first day of classes) and then the teacher, Tim Widmer, Assistant Professor of Ski and Snowboard Business, went throught the syllabus, what we were going to learn in the class, and finished with some history of ski boots and some of the machines we would be using throughout the course to alter boots and shape insoles.

My Monday finished with the class I'm probably most excited for which is Entrepreneurial Operations, taught by Randy Rudasics. The course is going to be a lot of work, consisting of a ton of reading, multiple quizzes and tests, as well as presentations, but because of my future school and career plans, I think it will be a very important and worthwhile class. The final for the course will be a legitimate business plan that each student develops on their own, so naturally mine will be for the snowboard company I want to start.

Tuesday rolled around and I was forced to roll out of bed for the earliest class I have had yet here at Colorado Mountain College which is Business Statistics at 10:30am. To be perfectly honest, I think this class will be pretty dry, but still leave me with some important knowledge for operating a business, such as how to gather and use statistics of market groups and client bases and things like that.

After that was Accounting Principles I. Now I'm not going to lie to you, this class is not going to be fun. Accounting is not exactly a subject I am to highly interested in, nor do I want to have a write a million income statements and balance sheets, but I have to admit that knowing how to do so will be very valuable to run a business, so I guess I'll be sticking it out. Also Pat Turner, the teacher of Accounting Principles I, definitely knows her stuff and has videos posted on Blackboard to help you with the homework assignments, so it is a very do-able class.

Now Wednesday is probably the best day of the week for me... no classes at all.

Thurday came around with another day of Business Statistics and Accounting Principles I, but ended with a 6-9 Ski Business class, Retail and Sales. This class should be pretty fun, seeing as it is taught by Tim again, but also because in it we'll get to learn a bunch of selling techniques and even but on a snowboard sale of a bunch of old snowboards made by previous Product Design classes.

So there you have it, a little look into what my life this semester will be like, so hopefully things will go pretty smoothly. Peace.

Weekend Adventure.

The weekend started out with some fun times at Corey's house after class on Thursday. The following morning, I received a call from my friend Steve who's going to the Summit CMC campus, telling me to round up some people and head to Breck to celebrate our friend Josh's birthday. On top of that, Corey and I needed to go to Fort Collins to pick up Blink-182 tickets that we had purchased off Craigslist.com. Since Corey's girlfriend goes to school in Fort Collins, we decided to turn this weekend into a crazy adventure around CO.

We left Friday afternoon for Breck, and after a crazy car ride of rockin out and a pit stop at Burger King, we arrived around 7 at Steve and Josh's condo. Not being familiar with Breck we definitely took a few wrong turns, but eventually made it. Their condo is a ways up a mountain and was really nice, with two stories, and awesome but tight spiral staircase, and a great veiw from their deck. Another awesome part was that Steve didn't even tell Josh we were coming, so it was sick just showing up and surprising him on his birthday.

After a fun night of reminiscing and getting to see some more friends who used to go to the Alpine Campus but now go to Summit, we headed out to Fort Collins bright and early.

I ended up sleeping a lot of the way to Fort Collins, but we made a pit stop in Golden Springs to see Corey's step mom and so we could take a shower. From there we headed through Denver and made a stop at Whole Foods because we were both feeling some sushi, and Corey new they delicious and inexpensive sushi. So once we were full, we finished out the drive to Fort Collins where we met up with the lady who had the Blink 182 tickets at a Carl's Jr.

From there, we had a lot of free time. Corey's girlfriend was visiting her parents so we spent the day roaming the streets of downtown Fort Collins like a couple of traveling gypsies. We ended up getting some food at a place I've never heard of but now I love it; Spicy Pickle. They had really good paninis and a deal where you could get a half sandwich, chips or salad, and a drink for $5.95, so if get the opportunity again, I'm for sure going back. We then made some stops at a gas station and Wal-Mart, hit up Jimmy Johns for dinner, and then spent the night at Corey's girlfriends.

Now the ride home was an adventure in itself. We started out going the wrong way on I-25 toward Denver before we figured out that we didn't even need to go on I-25 but needed to find 14. In order to do that however, we had to get on 14, then it became 287, then it split back to 14 which is where things went bad. We ended up not seeing the sign for the split back to 14, but we realized that if we stayed on 287, we could end up back to 14 in a little while, so we decided to try it. 287 ended up not being to bad, but we had to take a dirt road off of 287 which was super sketchy. The road took us through the woods, past some creepy houses, and eventually down a mountain. Luckily there were some really cool views, but we were both paying too much attention to the steep windy road to notice all that much. Thankfully we made it back to 14 in one piece, and we're never missing 14 again.

So there you have it. I am now back in the Boat trying to focus on homework after an epic adventure all over CO. Peace.

Alpine Slide

Today, CMC put on an event at the Howleson Hill Alpine Slide for students to ride for free. Bacon and I met up with our RA and another friend of mine from Minnesota and headed over. Howleson Hill is just across the river near the rodeo and the skate park. Basically, it was just a fun afternoon with a bunch of CMC students racing down the sketchy track, and hear are some pictures to prove it.

Hopefully at some point this year we'll get back to the track to try it again, but on top of that I'm just excited to snowboard at Howelson, since they have night riding. Also, Bacon and I raced and I got dominated so I definitely have to get back at him. Peace.

Back in the Boat, Day Two Adventure

Today was my second day back in Steamboat Springs, and I felt like the activities of today were blog worthy.

The day started off around 9:45 when I met my parents outside the dorms, only to hear that the book store, which is where we were planning on going so I could get all my books for class on Monday, was in fact closed until Monday. After that it was time to say goodbye to the parents since they were heading to Colorado Springs to visit a family friend. Saying goodbye was again tough but I was excited at the same time for the coming year hear in the Boat.

After a nice quick nap, Bacon and I headed down to the dining hall for our first meal back in the cafeteria. Luckily it was some delicious breakfast food such as sausage, tator tots, and pancakes, so it was definitely a good start.

We had met up with some friends in the dining hall, and from there went to the Christy Sports tent sale to check out some great deals they had going on, and a friend even bought a new pair of skis and bindings.

We had met Corey at the tent sale, and from there, him, Bacon, and I went to check out the art fair going down on Yampa Rd. It was $5 to get in and the following are some pictures of some awesome pieces they had.

From there, we walked up the street to a store called Urbane where Bacon picked up a sick Spacecraft Bob Ross wallet. I actually wrote a blog about Urbane awhile ago, so if you want to know more, be sure to check it out, but basically it is a really cool clothing store here in town. On the way to Urbane, Bacon and Corey decided to support the local economy by picking up some popsicles from some boys on a ice cream bike shown below.

We continued the adventure across Lincoln Ave. to the farmers market where we got to sample some delicious barbeque sauces and revisited our childhoods by picking up a few snow cones. from there we dropped Bacon off back at the dorms so he could go on a nature hike with the ski team, and Corey and I headed to his place for a little relaxation by the pool and to start cooking up an excellent rib dinner with some friends.

After the hike, Mariah, Bacon, and fellow blogger Bobbie Jo came over to enjoy 5 lbs of ribs with Corey's homemade barbeque sauce with a whole number of delicious ingredients, as well as some delicious corn on the cob.

So basically, I'm happy to be back in Steamboat and can't wait to have more days like this one over the school year. Peace.

Back in the Boat Again

Hello all. I am writing to you from my new dorm room here at Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus. I thought I'd start my new year as a CMC blogger with a little bit about the end of my summer, my trip out here, and what it's like being back.

My summer shaped up great with my last weekend spent in Chicago with my friend who goes to Loyola. We did a bunch of the touristy things such as the Shedd Aquarium, which I loved, went to Millenium Park to see the bean, hung out at the beach on Lake Michigan, and went to bunch of delicious local restaurants. Unfortunately the trip ended with my bus home getting switched from 1pm to 10:30pm, so I didn't get home until 6am the next morning, but the trip was definitely still worth it.

Saying goodbye to all my friends on Wednesday night was tough as usual, and actually ended up keeping me up until 6am which is when we were planning on leaving so I slept quite a bit in the car. My parents and I drove out to Ogallala, Nebraska, spent the night and finished the drive today. We arrived at the dorms around 2pm, hung out around the pool at my parents hotel, and headed up to the dorms around 4pm to move everything in. Move in went very smooth since we were technically late and got to to miss the crowds of the scheduled check in time. After hanging with my roommate Kevin, who we all call Bacon, my parents took him, my friend Corey, and I out to dinner at the Ghost Ranch, which I highly recommend because they have great food and live music, so its a good atmosphere.

After dinner, I said goodnight to my parents and Bacon and I went to hang out at Corey's house for a bit, since he is a fellow second year and is living off campus. After saying hi to everyone there, we came back to the dorms and organized our room a bit more on top of seeing some more old friends and meeting some new ones.

So now we are just chillin in the room, passing out soon after a hectic day. I am very excited for another year in the boat with some great people and I look forward to letting you all know about the goings on here at Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus for another year. Peace.

Spending Money.

This summer for me has definitly been a quest to make some money, and thanks to a friend of mine, I have discovered another way to get a little spending money in your pocket while possibly saving lives. I am talking about donating plasma.

If you don't mind needles on the bigger side going into your arm or getting a finger prick everytime you go in, then donating plasma is right for you. Right now, I've been going to a place in Minnesota called Biolife, although I'm pretty sure they have many locations around the U.S. The first appointment usually takes a while (mine took 3 hours) because they have to do a physical where they pretty much just listen to your heart and lungs and ask you a ton of questions about your history.

From there, the actual donating part takes about an hour once they begin to draw blood. Once they seperate the plasma from the blood, the machine actually mixes your blood with a saline solution and then it is pumped back into your arm to refill your blood and rehydrate you plasma has a lot of your bodies water in it.

At Biolife, the first time you go you get $40 for your donation, and after that if you donate twice a week, the first donation of the week is another $40 and the second is $20. They also give you a convienient debit card, and the money from each donation gets automatically loaded on there when you are done.

So hopefully everyone has some good summer jobs but if you're looking for making some extra dough while helping save lives, be sure to check out donating plasma near you. Peace.

Summer Shred... On Snow.

During the summer, there are many ways to keep one's lust for snowboarding by participating in the other various board sports. Lucky for me, some friends of mine at Coloardo Mountain College told me of a way to snowboard in the summer without paying thousands of dollars to go to summer snowboard camps in Oregon such as High Cascade. I'm talking of course about ice rink snow.

Now yes, you can't exactly build a terrain park such as the one at High Cascade out of ice rink snow, but there is still plenty of fun to be had with it.

My summer shred mission started out with a gray, dull, surprisingly cool summer day in which I had absolutely nothing going on. After being bored for quite awhile, I remember what I heard from friends about setting up some jib features with ice rink snow and I immediately got to work. I started by calling around to numerous ice rinks trying to find out when and where they dump the zamboni shavings. After a number of rinks said they dump it in a melting pit inside the building, I finally found one that was curious as to why I wanted to know about the ice shavings. The conversation went something as follows:

Me: "When and where do you dump the ice shavings after you zamboni the ice?"

Jesse (Ice Rink Attendent): "We have a melting pit in the building we dump it in."

Me: "So no one could come and pick it up?"

Jesse: "You want to pick up our ice?"
Me: "Yea."

Jesse: "For what?"

Me: "Snowboarding."

Jesse: "Snowboarding? Where are you going to put it?"

Me: "Just on the side of my house. There is a little hill there so we were going to set up a rail or something."

Jesse: "Well I suppose I could just dump it outside for you."

After talking to him about dumping times and a few calls to friends with trucks to haul it, we were ready to go.

For those of you in Minnesota who want to get in on some of this hot action, google Victory Memorial Ice Arena for the number and be sure to talk to Jesse because he's a really cool dude. It was his own idea to kick the public skaters off the ice early in order to zamboni a whole extra time just to get us another truckload of snow, so he's pretty legit.

These following three pictures are of my friends Ryan, who we refer to as Dub D or Ocean D, and PJ as we were in the process of shoveling all the snow we could into Ryan and my Lorries' trucks.

After getting a ton more snow than any of us thought we'd get, we headed back to me house to set up our feature, which we decided would be this party table I had in my garage that had a smooth surface and was perfect for buttering. The rest of these pictures are of the fun that insued, and hopefully I've inspired you to bug your local ice rinks to let you shred in the summer. Peace.