First Year is a Wrap.

I'm back home in Minnesota now after a crazy first year at Colorado Mountain College. This semesters' finals were pretty tough compared to last semester so I thought I'd write about how everything shaped up.

Product Design was probably one of the tougher finals of the semester. The first part of it was a presentation where we had to describe our company and show off our products. For the presentation, we had to have all the pages our our catalog done, so that was definitly a lot of work. The second part was a paper about the company, pretty much taking the info from the presentation and putting it into a paper. Being the president of the class, it was a lot of work organizing everything on top of writing part of the paper and making pages for the catalog, but everything came together and we actually ended up with the best catalog Mike Martin has seen in the class, so that was awesome.

Definitly the toughest final this semester was Business Communications. Throughout the course, everyone had to write a 15 page paper on a certain topic assigned by the teacher. Mine was on healthcare and definitly took a lot of work/research to put together. After that, the final final was a 20 minute presentation on the topic of the our paper, which ended up being almost as much work as the paper. Foruntately, I think it went really well, so hopefully I'll end up with a good grade on that one.

Since I had already taken the Tuning final, the only one left was Microeconomics. Luckily, it wasn't a cumulative final, it was just on the last 3 chapters. Like the other tests and quizzes it was again online, so it ended being the easiest final for me this semester, although it was quite a bit a studying.

On top of final tests, I had to think about going home. It ended up being a lot harder than I thought to get all my belongings into boxes and bags and clean the whole room, which was a lot dirtier than I thought. Luckily my dad drove down to pick me up and help me with the cleaning and packing, so after we were all checked out, we had a great dinner at Old West Steakhouse and headed to the hotel to get ready for the long drive ahead of us.

The next morning we started out early to a much longer drive than we anticipated. Once we were in Nebraska, we realized that since we were sharing the driving, we could make the 16 hour drive in one shot instead of stopping for the night and getting back on Saturday. So by 1:30am early Saturday morning, I was back home in Minnesota. I was really stoked to be home to so I could hang out with friends and family for my birthday.

So now I'm home for the next 4 months after an awesome first year in college. It feels great to be home, but I'll definitly miss Steamboat and all my friends there. I'll try to write some blogs over the summer about how awesome Minnesota is, but now I'm going to bed so I can get up early and try to find a job tomorrow, but thanks to everyone for reading and hopefully I'll keep writing these next year. Peace.

The Final Wing Night.

Last night marked the last time for a lot of guys that they'll be going to the Taphouse for 33 cent wings on Tuesdays, so I thought I'd write about it.

It actually started off with an wings appetizer, when RHA hosted a free Red Bull and Wings study session. As expected, no one was actually there to study, but just enjoy free wings, red bull, and a break from studying. Sorry it is pretty weak but hopefully this picture gives you an idea of how popular it was.

Unfortunately, since it was so crowded, my friends and I only ended up getting about 2 wings each, and most of us no Red Bull, so we knew we had to head to the Taphouse for one last time this semester.

We all crammed into Josh's big jeep and headed down the familiar drive to the Taphouse. We were greeted by one of the waiters we have had many times throughout the year, placed our usual orders, and enjoyed the familiar taste of 33 cent wings. All of the guys I usually go with are heading to the Summit CMC campus next year, so for them, this was the last time they would get Taphouse wings. Fortunately for me, I plan on continuing the tradition next year with whoever wants to go.

It was definitly a nice break from finishing up my final Business Communications presentation, but it is now ready to go and I'm sure I'll blog soon about how all my finals went. Peace.

Pictures to Go Along With Back to the Basics Blog.

Here a few pictures taken from Nate's sick iPhone to go along with the blog I wrote recently titled Back to the Basics about skating now that snowboarding is over. Enjoy.

Josh doing a rock to fakie on the spine:

Josh stomping a fakie ollie to rock:



Nate sticking some tail stalls:
Jaryn throwing a huge fakie rock n roll

So there's a taste of our skating adventure and a nice little break from working on stuff for finals, which I'm sure I'll be blogging about very soon. Peace.

The Best Late Night So Far.

Tonight was a special finals week addition of late night dinner, and definitely was the best one yet. It was a pancake breakfast late night dinner with much more than pancakes.


It started off at 8pm in the MPR room in the dorms with an RHA coffee and donut event to help everyone studying hard and late for finals.



Then at 9 like the normal time, late night started, but it was so much better than normal late night. For starters, the food consisted of many breakfast foods besides pancakes. There were quiche cakes, and althought they were excellent, I have to admit they weren't as good as my grandma's quiche. Also, there was a tray of fruit such as cantelope and strawberries along with sweet fruit dipping frosting. There were scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, biscuits and gravy, and as for the pancakes, if normal pancakes weren't good enough, they had ridiculously good chocolate chip pancakes.



On top of the food, local band Jebus was playing providing some smooth jam band entertainment. The singer is actually the head librarian and the lead guitar player was head of the cafeteria, so that was pretty cool. Hopefully this terrible phone picture gives you an idea of what they were like.

Besides the food and entertainment, the cafeteria was decorated up with big sheets of paper on the table with crayons and markers for students to go nuts, which Jeff and Josh took full advantage of.

If all that weren't enough, students could fill out a survey and get a free Nalgene water bottle, and be entered to win buckets of candy, although I'm not sure when they announce the winner.

So there you go, just another event that CMC puts on during late night. Peace.

New Dorms.

Next year, Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus is providing students with the option of off campus dorms, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell you all about them.

Off of Hwy 40 not very far outside of downtown Steamboat, near the smoothie shop Freshies and the Core Trail, is the Iron Horse Inn. The Iron Horse Inn consists of two bulidings with rooms, and the left building is turning into the new off campus dorms for next year. It's pretty cool because it gives you a chance to live off campus but still not have to worry about a lease, especially if you don't stay in Steamboat over the summers. Plus, unlike the Hill Hall dorms, you are able to stay at the Iron Horse over winter break if you need to for a job or something.

Staying in these Iron Horse dorms gives you access to some things the hotel has to offer including a community kitchen, laundry rooms that happen to be cheaper than the Hill Hall laundry rooms, as well as parking and bike storage. Each room comes with a microwave/refrigerator, private bathroom with bathtub, all the necessities of a normal dorm room such as two beds, desks, and chairs, as well as wireless internet, local phone service, and Direct TV.

However, being that there will only be 50 people living in these off campus dorms, it will be tougher to get in, especially since first priority is given to returning and older students, but it would still be worth it to apply for a room. Also, being that you are off campus, students living at Iron Horse are only required to purchase a 10 meal plan for the cafeteria unless you want a 19 meal plan, while residents in Hill Hall are required to have a 19 meal plan.

So there you go, hopefully this gave an idea for another option if you are looking to come to school out here in Steamboat Springs. Peace.

Back to the Basics.

Since the mountain's been closed, some friends and I have finding other ways to shred, so I thought I'd write a blog about a skate adventure we had yesterday.

Before I start I do have to say that there are pictures to go along with this, but I'll post them once Nate uploads them from his iPhone.

The adventure started with a call from Jeff telling me to grab mine and his decks and come down to the mini ramp where some dudes were skating. So I grabbed them as well as Steve's camera and headed down there. Once I got there, we headed down the hill to the skate park in town. We crossed Lincoln Ave., skated down the path along the Yampa River, crossed the birdge, and were there.

It was a pretty popular day for the skate park and quite a few local kids were there skating. When we got there and I pulled out Steve's camera, we found out it was dead, but fortunately, Nate's iPhone has a sick camera so I was able to get some good shots of the mini-ramp before skating myself.

After awhile, Jeff and Steve went to watch some crazy kyakers in the Yampa River, and eventually, once it started getting dark, the rest of us headed out after a fun, long session. We skated down the Yampa trail for a ways and made a pit stop at Soda Springs, which apparently is one of the oldest hot springs in Steamboat, but all it really is is a gross looking, foot wide hole in the ground with a gazebo built around it, but it at least was a nice place to rest. So after chilling there for awhile, we headed back up the hill to school, but the skate adventure wasn't done yet.

On the way up the hill, Nate and I decided to session the mini-ramp on campus for awhile, since we still in the mood to skate. Even though it has gotten pretty dark, the lights in the parking lot light it up well enough to skate. After sessioning that for ahile, and both of us sticking the tricks we were working on, we decided to call it quits.

Fortunately, it was time for late night dinner, so we grubbed out after a long day of skating. Hopefully that gave you an idea of the fun still to be had on board, even when the mountain is closed. And again, pictures coming soon. Peace.

One Final Down.

Tonight was my final exam for Accelerated Ski and Board Tuning I thought I'd let you know how the class was.

The class started out with a few weeks of lectures and practice sessions to get us aquainted with the machines and techniques of tuning. In the tuning lab here at CMC, there are a number of old, beat up boards and skis for students to practice on while they learn how to do different repairs. It wasn't until a few weeks in that we started bringing our own boards, as well as some friends boards, in to tune.

The lectures were given to show a number of techinques for repairing gouges in the base of a board or ski, as well as how to sharpen of dull the edges, and how to wax a board properly. Also, the instructor went over how to use the various machines to tune edges and clean up bases.

Once the lectures were done and we were bringing in our own boards, we could all work on any necessary repairs the baords needed. Some weeks I would just bring in a board to deburr an edge and wax, but a couple of the weeks I fixed some delaminations that were happening to the top sheet of mine and a friends board. Last week I even got to do an edge replacement for a freinds dented edge.

So tonight was the final, which really wasn't to bad at all. It consisted of a 25 question written test with questions ranging from the 10 steps of tuning, to the different types of waxes, to labeling the different parts of a snowboard. After that, the instructor did individual testing where he brought us to a machine and asked 3 random questions about it, such as what certain levers do and how to use it.

However, after the test was still a time to tune, and since I didn't know that, I didn't bring in a board or anything. Luckily, some other students were doing T-bolting on a bunch of boards for Ellis Snowboards, so I got to learn how to do that and help them. T-bolting is the process of putting in T-bolts, which are an extra set of inserts, or screw holes, to allow the user to set their bindings closer together or farther apart than what the factory produced inserts were set at.

So I luckily got to learn how to do that and ended up getting to enjoy some Domino's pizza, courtesy of Derek, the instructor. And now you know a little more about CMC's tuning class. Peace.

Copper Pictures.

Hopefully you've read the last blog about the events of Copper. To go along with it, here are some pictures taken by pretty much everyone, but with Nate's uber sick camera.

Lift Line:

Rainbow box + Peter = mad steez:

Rainbow box + Jeff = sick nose slide:

Jeff Milius, locking into a nose press:

Continuing down the rail, still going good:

This is where it starts going bad:

And this near impact:

Nate Dawg, hittin the pipe, showing off for Rome SDS:

Jeff's lethal Weapon:

Last hittin the pipe, Peter going big:

This is yours truly on a flat rail:

Lastly we have Nate and Peter throwin in the towel on a great season:

There you have it, the end of the season at Copper. Hopefully Peter has a speedy recovery, if you don't know what I mean then you'll just have to read my other blog. There's a possibilty of going to A-Basin this coming weekend and continuing the season for as long as possible but we'll just have to see what happens. Peace.

Now the Season is Over.

After a fun and eventful end to the Steamboat snow season, I thought the riding was done for the year and I could hang up my snowboard for the summer. But I was pleasently mistaken.

Today turned out to be a fairly spontanious trip to Copper Mountain with friends Peter, Jeff, and Nate. Last night, Nate and I had the idea to go to Copper, and when we asked Jeff and Peter about it, it became official. Peter said he would drive there bright and early at 8am the next morning so we all passed out early to get up for one last day of riding.

The day started with a stop at Kum N' Go gas station for some fuel, both for us and the car. We picked up some sketchy gas station food and got back on the road. The drive wasn't too bad, taking about 2 hours, and when we got there, the mountain was already full of people, including many CMC students, eager to get one last day of riding.

I have to give a shout out here to the new love of my life, the lifty girl who never once scanned my pass and eventually traded me hugs for lift access. I probably should have gotten her name, but since we lapped the park all day, I managed to go the whole day without getting scanned, which I thought was pretty cool.

The lift lines ended up being the longest part of the day, with crowds of people at Copper, lines took close to 10 minutes every lap, so thankfully Copper has a really long park line where we could get a bunch of hits in.

So basically we spent the entire sunny day riding the terrain parks Copper has to offer. Nate fortunetaly brought his camera so don't worry, there will most definitely be pictures coming soon when Nate gets them on his computer.

However, very unfortunately, the day did not end so well. Earlier in the day Peter had hit his knee on a tree, so it had been bugging him most of the day. On top of that, on the last hit of the entire terrain park, and possibly the last hit of the day/season, which was an up log rail, Peter decided to throw a switch 50-50 up it to frontside 360 out. Maybe it was the pressure from the camera on the last hit or his beat up knee, but this trick did not go so well.

Peter got on the log fine, but when he began to wind up for the 360, he began to turn slightly. This slight turn ended up causing him to catch his front edge. He ended up falling forward off the end of the log, which remember was facing up, and down the steep landing, right on his shoulder. When we caught up to him at the bottom where he stopped, he said his collarbone was definitely broken.

We headed down to the ski patrol station where they slinged him up and gave him a ride to the hospital. We took the bus back to his car to go pick him up when he was done. After waiting a bit in the medical center, they let him go with a new sling, some vicatin, and thankfully no surgery. This was the second time he broke that same collarbone, but luckily it was more a crack, making almost pyramid shaped under his skin, as opposed to a complete split.

After that endevour, we actually headed back to Copper's main plaza at the base of the mountain to watch a couple songs from DJ SDS9 (or something like that). So after a couple songs, we headed out, grabbed some Subway for the way back, and started the drive with Jeff kindly driving for Peter.

An awesome thing for me about today was that I got to see my friend Chelsy aka Lemon, who had gone back to her hometown Durango, so that was definitely an added bonus of going to Copper for one last day of riding.

I ended up sleeping for most of the ride home, but am now back in the Boat and unfortunately had to get a presentation together for Product Design. But like I said, pictures are coming soon, so check back tomorrow for some visuals of this final shred mish. Peace.

The Luau.

Yesterday evening was a particularly awesome event held by Student Activities here at CMC. I am talking about the Luau held at Big House Burgers with FREE food.

From 5-8, students could come enjoy a ridiculously good FREE buffet of everything from salad to chicken wings, onion rings, fries with awesome seasoning, and of course, Big House's delicious burgers. There were many choices of toppings for these already excellent burgers including grilled peppers, onions, and a really good Hawaiian barbeque sauce.

If all that food wasn't good enough, they were constantly making delicious fruit smoothies as well as dishing out soft serve ice cream with which you could take to the sundae bar where they had a crazy amount of toppings such as sprinkles, cherries, cookie chunks, and heath bar pieces.

On top of that, there was live music from a couple dudes dressed in Hawaiian shirts and raffles throughout the evening for various food baskets. Unfortunately, neither my friends nor I won one, but I did remember to take some pictures of this event so enjoy. Peace.

CMC's Got Talent.

The other evening in the cafeteria in Willett Hall, Students Activities put on a Talent Show Contest for students to show off their many gifts, so I thought I'd let everyone know how that went.

It started off with a warm-up act that was not part of the contest but just to get things started. Faculty member Greg Huey started it off with a hilarious poem making fun of the slang used in the ski and snowboard world.

Following that, Tamara, head of student activities, introduced the judges, who were an advisor here at CMC, one of the cooks in the cafeteria, and the student president of student activites. They were to judge the contest based on thier personal opinions and on audience response. The winner would receive a $100 gift card to any store of their choice in Steamboat.

The acts being judged started off with Shane and dorm RA Josh with a funny dance routine titled Funk McNasty. I don't remember what the song is called but it goes "Hey Tonto, jump on it" or something like that. The dance consist of a lot of spins a walking around the stage, but was pretty fun to watch.

After that, Ryan, also known as Papa Red since he's very tall and a redhead, read a personal poem her wrote in the style of an accapella rap. It was a very hopeful themed poem and also very religious, talking about God being salvation and what not, and was very well written and performed.

Next was Mia, who sang and played guitar for a song she had written for her friend she met this year from South Africa. Unfortunately I forget the name of the song, but it was really cool because a lot of the lyrics were based on texts he had sent her, making it a very personal song.

Next up was another RA here, Scotty, who performed a one man drama piece in which he started off juggling, and then ended up sitting a pretending he was talking to a sad clown about how much worse his day was. He talked about how he lost his girlfriend, his car broke, and he lost his job. I thought it was really well performed and actually pretty funny.

After that was Grant, who played a really long but really sick guitar solo in a sort of bluesy style. It went on for quite awhile but was really cool.

Lastly was another RA Kerry, who did a hilarious parody of the scene in the movie Old School where Will Ferrel does one of those floor routines with the stick with ribbon on the end. It was really funny and actually a lot like what Will Ferrel did in the movie.

So after all those acts, Tamara led the crowd in the applause-off where everyone in the audience got to pretty much vote for who they wanted to win by cheering loud or not. After that, the judges talked amongst themselves and ending up choosing Ryan for 3rd with his poem, Grant for 2nd with the epic guitar solo, and Mia won the grand prize of the $100 gift card with her original song.

Sorry I once again dropped the ball on taking pictures, but there was a CMC luau this evening that I got some pictures from and will write about tomorrow. Peace.

Last Day of Shred.

I realize this is a little overdue but I've been pretty busy doing some final projects and papers for classes, but I first wanted to say Happy Easter to everyone, and let you know about the fun and excitement of the last day the Steamboat mountain was open.

For my friends and I, the end of the riding season was more of an event than just the one day. We decided to ride everyday as much as possible for the last week of the mountain, starting on Monday. We would get up for some breakfast and head to the mountain until we absolutely had to leave, and then barely make it to class.

We did this Monday through Saturday this past week, but were unfortunetly unable to do it as extreme on Sunday. Even though it was the last day of riding for the season, mother nature decided to rain for most of the morning. My friend Nate and I did not get to the mountain until around 11:30, and even then it was still raining a bit. Luckily that didn't stop us from taking as many park runs in the phenominal slush conditions as possible.

Unfortunetly, the mountain closed at 3 that day, but at 1 was a personally favorite event of mine known as the pond skim. I unfortunetly did not enter since there was a $10 entrance fee (although considering the grand prize was a season pass for next year I probably shoud have), but I was able to get a decent view for a good part of the action.

Sorry that these pictures aren't actually that good, but hopefully they give you a little idea of what the pond skim was all about and how popular an event it was.

In order to win, the contestants had to win over the crowd, making for some sick outfits, including bikini girls, suit and tie (the wearer of which I think was running for some sort of office in Steamboat because he had Vote Quimby signs), and various capes and superheroes. The winner of this grand event was actually a pair of skiers named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, who were dressed up in baggy, crazy patterned clothes with a hula-hoop inside to make them look fat. Their total prize was the season pass and a gift bag, so they'll have to somehow figure out how to share the pass.

Even though I didn't enter the pond skim, my friends and I were able to have some watery fun on our own. At the bottom and to the right of the bunny hill, we found a what we referred to as "The Natural Pond Skim", which simply means there was a big puddle and we would bomb down the bunny hill and skim across it. At one pond some fellow skimmers put a pole jam, which is simply a pole at a slight angle, sticking out of the water for people to hop off, making our pond skim way better than Steamboat's in my opinion.

But after quite a few more excellent park slush runs, including getting last call on the main park lift which I thought was pretty cool, we bid farewell to the Steamboat mountain. I feel it was a little bigger deal for my friends Nate and Jeff considering that they won't be back to Steamboat next year, but I couldn't help feeling good about getting my first season in Colorado under my belt. Also, thinking about it now, it's probably best that the mountain will be closed for the last weeks of school, making it easier to focus on finals and such.

But now I am off to another wing night, which will be one of the last 3 before the end of the semester, so hopefully everyone had a good Easter and that this blog gave you yet another reason to come out to Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus. Peace.

Late Night Events.

I just wanted to write real quick about the some of the events that take place during late night dinner in the cafeteria, which takes place every Monday-Thursday, 9-11pm.

Here at the Alpine Campus, there is a an African Drumming class, which is pretty cool in itself. A couple of weeks ago, the school organized for the class to play what they have been learning all semester for the first half hour of late night. It was really cool to see that style of music and I think that a few people may even have been swayed to take the class.

This other event actually happens quite often, including tonight which prompted me to write about it. I'm talking about bingo, put on by Student Activities. It is pretty cool to be able to just chill, eat some burgers, and have the chance to win some cool prizes. Tonight they had various food and snacks such as cookies, Pringles, and Red Bull. The grand prize was beef jerky, a giant bottle of red Gatorade, and a copy of Teton Gravity's latest ski video, who Ski and Snowboard Business Professor Mike Martin actually works for, so that was pretty cool. Tonight was especially a good round of bingo beacause my friend Jeff ended up winning 4 times and got some Pringles, candy, Snack Packs, Snickers, and Red Bull.

So besides late night being my favorite meal of the day for the burgers and fries, CMC has maganged to make it even better by adding cool things to watch/do while you eat. Peace.

The Entrepreneurship Spirit.

I wanted to take a second to tell you all about some friends here at Coloardo Mountain College who too share the entrepreneurial spirit, but are just a little bit farther along then me.

First off, my friend Steve started his own clothing company with some of his friends back in his hometown of Littleton, Massachusettes. The company is Awesome Snowboard Clothing, and they have made t-shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, hats, and beanies. They have a great following in Massachusettes and have even sold their products in Eastern Boarder, which is a popular snowboard shop on the East Coast. Check them out on their myspace at http://www.myspace.com/awesomesnowboardclothing.

The next is my friend Colin. He recently put up flyers around the school for his company Loaf Posters. He takes original artwork from himself and friends and puts it into poster form (I'm not really sure how yet, but he does). He just recently put up the website http://www.loafposters.com and already has some really cool posters for sale. There is a "Future" page on the site that talks about what he wants to do with Loaf Posters. Some things include having artist pages where artists can submit their art to him, he'll turn them into posters, and then the artist can get 80% of the profits if their poster is sold. He also wants to add a site blog, make some stickers for sale, and eventually have a t-shirt contest where artists submit t-shirt designs with the Loaf Posters logo on it.

I swear I had another example but I cannot think of it right now to save my life, so if I think of it, I'll add it.

But there you go, those are some examples of the type of entrepreneurial spirit that CMC Alpine Campus has, and if you got an idea of your own, I'd highly recommened coming out here to pursue it. Peace.

Another Pre-Registration.

School is almost out here at Colorado Mountain College, and with only 3 and a half weeks left, I wanted to write a blog about some classes I'm signing up for for the fall 09 semester.

This registration had me facing a pretty big decision. If you've read my blog about the new Entrepreneurship program here Alpine Campus for next semester, then you know that I am very excited to take those courses. However, I was faced with the decision as to whether or not I would stick with the Ski and Snowboard Business program and finish that degree, or switch to the Entrepreneurship major and potentially switch to the Colorado Mountatin College Summit Campus with some friends, since that campus has had that program for awhile already.

After much meditation on the subject, I decided it would be in my best interest to finish the Ski and Snowboard business program next year and then go to the Summit Campus to finish the Entrepreneurship program, since a lot of the business classes overlap programs. I figured it would be a good choice down the road in life to have completed the two degrees rather than switching halfway through one, especially since I'm still learning some great stuff in the Ski and Snowboard business program.

With that being said, I am going to get an Entrepreneurship class out of the way next semester here at Alpine since I am very excited for it and could always use the credits. It is the Entrepreneurial Operations class, and the description on WebAdvisor (which is where students search for what classes to take) reads:

"Covers the major aspects of small business management to enable the entrepreneur to successfully begin his own business. This course provides the basic concepts of marketing, principles of management, and finance needed to manage a small business. Further, it develops the business plan and suggests methods of obtaining the financing required to launch the business."

For those of you who know my goal to start my own snowboard company, you can imagine how stoked I was to find out about a class like this, and how hopeful I am of the rest of the Entrepreneurship Program.

The next class I'm taking for the Fall 09 Semester could be a little dry but nonetheless, very important for any future business goals one might have. The class is Business Statistics and it's WebAdvisor description reads:

"Focuses on statistical study, descriptive statistics, probability, binominal distribution, index numbers, time series, decision theory, confidence intervals, linear regression, and correlation. Intended for the business major."

Next we another potentially brutal but very important class titled Accounting Principles 1, which as actually a 4 credit class as opposed to the rest of the classes on this list which are 3 credits. It's description says:

"Introduces the study of accounting principles for understanding of the theory and logic that underlie procedures and practices. Major topics include the accounting cycle for service and merchandising companies, special journals and subsidiary ledgers, internal control principles and practices, notes and interest, inventory systems and costing, plant assets and intangible asset accounting, and depreciation methods and practices."

That does it for the strictly business classes that I am taking next semester, now on to the good stuff. I am only taking two Ski and Snowboard classes but they seem like pretty solid classes to me.

The first one is Accelerated Boot Fitting, which means it combines the classes Boot Fitting 1 and Boot Fitting 2 into one semester long class, which means it will probablt be a bit tougher since it covers twice as much material as the other Boot Fitting classes, but I think I can handle it. It's WebAdvisor description reads:

"Covers retail boot fitting. Included will be the anatomy and physiology of the foot, boot design, analyzing and solving fit problems, introduction to advanced footbed construction, and advanced boot fitting procedures including stance balancing and canting techniques and custom inner boot fitting options."

And lastly we have Ski and Snowboard Retail and Sales, not to be confused with the class I already took, Retail and Wholesale. Retail and Wholesale focused on the aspects of running and ski and snowboard retail and rental shop, whereas Retail and Sales will focus on the sales floor aspects of a shop, including sales techniques and such. And as you've probably guessed, here is it's WebAdvisor description:

"Emphasizes the study of the basic principles and techniques of snow sport merchandising, operations, layout, store organization, site location, and customer service with an emphasis on snow sport retailing operations. Enables the student to understand and develop ethical sales techniques and covers the role of selling in the retail process. Areas of emphasis include behavioral considerations in the buying and selling process and sales techniques."

So there you have it, a little glimpse into the 16 credits I will be partaking in next semester. Hopefully this blog gave you an idea of what some of the courses offered here at CMC are and for those of you prospective students, hopefully it gave you more incentive to come here. Peace.

Moustache March.

Hopefully most all of you have seen Bobbie-Jo's blog about No Shave November, but I wanted to talk to you all about another, lesser known, month long facial hair celebration titled, Moustache March.

As I'm sure you could guess, during the month of March, males everywhere are called upon to grow as much hair on their upper lip as possible, creating for some interesting and some awesome moustaches.

Mad props must be given to Kerry, an RA here at Alpine Campus, for growing an epic Fu Man Chu stache over the month of March. Unfortunetly I was not able to get a picture of it before it was gone, but I had to give him props for by far having the best moustache of Moustache March.

Unfortunetly for me, as this picture shows, I do not quite have the greatest of moustache growing abilities, even though my dad has quite the growing abilities, I just haven't gotten there yet.

My friend Jeff here has been working on his 'stache all year long, and was quite something by the time this festival of facial hair rolled around.

So there you have it. Hopefully this blog gave you a little bit of insight into this mysterious holiday and that come next March, some of you will begin to try to rock a 'stache of your own. Peace.

International Club.

I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you all about a cool thing that went on this week here at CMC.

The Alpine Campus (and possibly other campuses) has the International Club. Basically, they meet every so often and put on events to raise cultural awareness. This past week, Monday - Thursday, they put on the Festival Week of Events. Everyday they put on a different event to inform people about various Native American customs as well as some international ones. I have to honest and admit that I personally did not partake in any of these events, but I just wanted to give any prospective students an idea of what the International Club does.

Monday started it off with a Beading Workshop in the MPR here in Hill Hall (the residence hall) where Noreen Johnson showed students various techniques for beading necklaces and various pieces of artwork with simple string and beads.

Tuesday was the ESL Cultural Festival, which was put on by the English as a Second Language school in here in Colorado. This event was open to the public and took place in Willet Hall above the cafeteria and consisted of various booths of different cultures' foods and information about their people and history.

Wednesday had two events. In the afternoon, there was a Solomon Island dance lesson in the gym in Bristol Hall, which was free and open to the public, where people could learn the traditional dances of the natives of the Solomon Islands That night, again in Willet Hall above the cafeteria, they had a showing of the movie City of God, which is an excellent movie, based on a true story, about two boys who grow up in a housing project in Rio de Janiero called Cidade de Deus (City of God). The movie shows their lives and how one becomes a photographer and the other gets mixed up in drugs. I don't want to give anything away but I would definitly recommened it.

The last event, on Thursday, was another dance lesson in the gym, again free and open to the public, where people could learn traditional Ute Indian dances along with drumming techniques.

Like I said, I unfortunetly didn't partake in these events but it seemed like a really cool thing the International Club put on, but I thought I'd let you know about it, and hopefully it gave you another reason to come out to Colorado Mountain College. Peace.

New Program for Next Year.

This is a blog for all those prospective students still trying to decide on whether or not to out to Colorado Mountain College. In the coming year (not including the summer semester) there will be a new program offered here at the Alpine Campus called Entrepreneurship. This was very exciting news for me considering I really want to start my own business one day, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell you what I've learned about it.

Fred Hampel and Randy Rudasics are the head professors for this program, and luckily I have Fred as my Economics teacher so I was able to talk to him about the program.

The Entrepreneurship Program is a 60 credit hour program, however there are 10-13 credit certificate programs you can take for Entrepreneurship, Small Business Finance, and E-Business/E-Commerce, but they are not as in depth.

The following is from an e-mail Fred sent me about the program and what classes will be offered when, since this is the programs' first year.

"BUS-102 Entrepreneurial Operations (the feasibility project course) will be offered at the Alpine Campus each fall semester and MAN-216 Small Business Management (the complete business plan course) will be offered at Alpine each spring semester. There is no course prerequisite for either course. However, ideally a student will have taken some business courses before taking them. Of course, since you are Ski Business, that’s not a big issue for you.

MAN-225 Managerial Finance and MAR-216 Principles of Marketing are two really good courses because the course projects will be geared towards creating specific pieces of the student’s business plan, which come together in MAN-226 Small Business Management. Thus, a student is more likely to create a more sophisticated and complete business plan if the student has used the finance and marketing courses to acquire advanced skills and knowledge and develop his or her entrepreneurial idea.

At present, the plan is to offer MAN-225 Managerial Finance and MAR-216 Principles of Marketing one time during the 2009/2010 school year in a distance format. We have not decided which semester they will be offered. We will know within a couple of weeks."

As you can see, Entrepreneurial Operations is the only Entreneurship Program class being offered in this coming fall semester, but as they work out the details of when to offer the classes, this program will most likely become a very key program in Colorado Mountain Colleges curriculum.

Also, for those of you who are still very interested in the Ski and Snowboard Business Program, you will be happy to learn that many of the classes overlap, making double majoring a fairly good option if both programs interest you.

Hopefully this blog showed you even more of what Colorado Mountain College has to offer, and that you will consider coming out to Alpine Campus. Peace.