Dorm Disease.

Yesterday I awoke to find my left eye all crusted over and red as can be. Yes I realize that is really gross but I wanted to write a warning blog to any prospective students about just how easily illnesses can travel through the dorms and in this particular case it was pink eye. It is pretty cool living in the dorms, basically living in an apartment with all your friends, but if one of those friends gets sick, it can spread like wildfire.

My pink eye started Tuesday morning, so I immediately went to the doctor that afternoon. After a not to bad wait at the Steamboat Medical Clinic, I got right in to the doctor who described my red left eye as impressive. Not the word I probably would have gone with but I thanked him nonetheless. He then prescribed me eye drops and even got me a free refill if I needed or my roommate or someone got it and needed drops too, which I thought was really cool.

From there I went to Safeway and while waiting for my prescription to be filled, loaded up on some other cold fighting devices. On top of my pink eye, I've had a sore throat for a few days and a congested nose for weeks, but while at Safeway, I discovered a miracle worker. Cold-Eeze is a brand of lozenges that markets itself as being "Clinically proven to reduce the duration of the common cold" and this is absolutely true. After suckin on just one in the morning, my sore throat is gone for the whole day, and my nose dries right up. It has yet to completely eliminate my stuffy nose, but I can already tell it is helping.

In addition to Cold-Eeze, I stocked up sickness fighting medicine and materials. I bought an economy size jug of hand sanitizer so I'll actually be able to touch things without completely infecting them. I had already bought some sore throat spray and Nyquil, even though the spray didn't really do a thing for me. I bought some anti-viral kleenexes, which I didn't even know existed, and I even bought some calcium enriched pop-tarts, just to try and make them healthier.

Now I'm not actually sure when this strain of pink eye first started creeping around the dorms but I do know that I happen to be one of the later ones to get it. The reason illnesses spread so easily around the dorms, besides the fact that it is a bunch of people living in close quarters together, is the ventilation system. In a building like this, all the vents are connected, so when one person gets sick, it can spread to the rest of the building through the vents. Now I'm not trying to hate on the dorms, but I'm just warning you so you can make precautions.

I have yet to figure out a way to close the vents, although I'm pretty sure you can't, but what my roommate and I have been doing lately, especially since it has been crazy warm here, is leaving the window open to try and air out the room. Also, even though you can't close the vent, you could turn it way down so as to have it blow less air.

A huge bummer about getting really sick like this is that I've already missed so much class from going to tradeshows that now I have to force myself to class even with an infectious illness. On top of that, I just found out that my roommates girlfriend is coming to visit this weekend, so I'm going to try to sleep in another friends room so I don't infect my roommate right before his girlfriend visits. And even on top of that, I haven't been snowboarding in four days which is probably the worst part. So take a lesson from me and get your germ fighting materials early so you don't wind up in a situation like this. Peace.

Snowsports Promotions Class.

My Valentine's Day weekend after the Keystone on-snow demo show was spent in class doing another demo.

The class Snowsports Promotions is a one credit, one weekend long class, 9am - 5pm , Friday through Sunday. However, this particular class ended up being 7:30am - 4pm everyday because of the project the class was based on. The idea behind the class is to give students a hands on opportunity to learn what it is like to prepare/set-up for an on-snow demo.

The first day, Friday, was half spent in class, deciding on key things like who will do what job at the show, what necesseties people will bring/be in charge of, and things like that. What we were preparing for was to put on a Liberty Skis demo, which the instructor Tim had prepared for since he has some connections with Liberty. The next half of the class day was spent on site at the mountain, seeing where we were going to set up the tent as well as heading over to Christy Sports near the clock tower to learn about the skis and bindings we would be using.

Saturday and Sunday were spent being at the mountain at 7:30am to set up the tent, until 4pm for the take down. Throughout the day, I was able to head out into the weekend crowds of people, trying to hype up our booth and get people to try the skis, as well as act as tech and set people up on skis, to getting to ride a couple runs here and there.

The final part of the class is a reflective paper that is due in one week, simply talking about what we learned and how we think things went. I'm pretty sure this is an elective class, but I'd recommend it anyway because, despite having to get up early, it's actually pretty fun learning how demos run and interacting with the people you bring into the booth.

Tradeshow, Round 2: Keystone, CO.

Only one week after the insanity of Las Vegas, NV with Rome SDS, it was time to do it again. Rome invited me out to Keystone, CO for the on-snow demo show.

Once again, this show had a bit of a rough start to it when we had no idea how we were going to get there. We wanted to be there by Sunday night because we thought we had to help set up the booth Monday morning which, as it turns out, we didn't have to do. But we ended up convincing Corey and Tyler to drive us to Silverthorne on Saturday, since they had stuff to do on Sunday, and hang out in our hotel Saturday night. An awesome thing about this tradeshow, is that the school provides the students who go to this show with housing, so we only had to pay for a hotel for two nights, then we stayed in an awesome condo with a few other students from CMC Monday through Thursday.

Our day Sunday was spent cruising around the Silverthorne outdoor outlet mall, followed by some chillin in the pool/hot tub, then a little jib mission which ended up being busted by the cops after the best set-up was finished, so that was a bummer. Most of Monday was spent getting to Keystone and Steve, Boston (Kyle), and myself trying to clip someones day ticket so I could ride since I don't have a Keystone pass. Finally, some really nice ladies let me have one of their tickets and I got to experience the intimidating awesomeness that is the Keystone terrain park. From there, we spent a long time hanging out in the Keystone square Starbucks while Steve and I waited to go out to dinner with some Rome guys and Boston waited to check in to our condo. Finally, Steve and I met the Rome guys at Dos Locos for some Mexican goodness and after some confusion as to which room we were in, we all crashed, trying to get ready for the demo the next day.

We woke up bright and early, around 7am, on Monday morning. Thankfully, the room we ended up in was within walking distance of the Peru lift, which is where the show was taking place. We got there around 7:30 and helped set up the tents, board set-up tables, and displays. From there, our day consisted of talking to people who were looking to demo boards and bindings and setting them up on the gear. A really cool part about this trade show as opposed to Vegas, was that Steve and I actually got to give a sort of mini pitch to buyers about the products they were trying, so in other words, we got to act as reps in a way. After a long day of that, we hit Dos Locos and once again passed out, ready to wake up early and do it again the next day.

The next two days went the same, even the part about going to Dos Locos afterwards. On top of helping buyers and demoers, I got to ride Rome's boards for next year as well. I was able to try the Postermania and Pusher, which both have rocker technology, as well as the non-rocker Artifact and the Graft. On a seperate note, I decided to get the Graft for the board and the 390's for bindings as the set-up Rome offered me for working in Vegas. That, however, is another great part about Keystone as opposed to Vegas; you get to actaully try out all the product.

So after another fairly hectic week, we headed back to the Boat Thursday night. I unforunetly had another three days of waking up early to look forward to since I had a weekend class which I just finished up today, and am currently catching up on homework still, but check back soon because I do plan on blogging about the class as well. Also, sorry again for the lack of pictures, but no one had a camera out at Keystone. Peace.

Viva Las Vegas.

Sorry to any loyal readers for my absence but it's been a busy week cathching up on school and riding after an epic adventure to Las Vegas, Nevada with Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate.  In addition to that, I just got back from another week spent in Keystone, CO for an on-snow demo with Rome SDS which I will write about soon.

One the greatest things about the Ski and Snowboard Business Program here at Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus is the incredible opportunities they provide. Through this program, they give you the chance to apply for internships with any company in the snowsports industry to work for them at various tradeshows throughout the year. I was incredibly lucky to hear back from Rome SDS and they offered me this chance to go to Vegas with them for the Snowsports Industires of America (SIA) tradeshow, which is the biggest one in the U.S.

The whole adventure actually started out pretty poorly, with my flight from Hayden to Denver getting delayed, followed by my flight from Denver to Vegas being delayed, until I finally arrived at my hotel, The Excalibur, at around 1:30am. Even after that rough day, my first taste of Vegas was awesome. The drive from the airport to the hotel had an awesome view of the strip. I had seen it in movies and such but actually seeing the lights and feeling the energy of the city was pretty incredible. On top of that, the view from our room was epic. It looked out over the New York New York hotel and down the strip towards the Belagio. So after soaking in the city for a bit, I passed right out, ready to wake up early tomorrow to head to the convention center in Mandalay Bay to help Rome finish setting up their booth.

By the way, before I continue, I have to apologize for the lack of pictures. My friend Chelsy had a camera there and was taking a ton of pictures, but unfortunetly, on the 4th of 5th day, she lost it at the tradeshow, so sorry for no visuals.

Anywho, the nest day started nice and early (for me anyway) when we had to be at the convention center by 9am. The day started by meeting a bunch of Rome employees including Ron, who was the one who contacted me about the internship.  Most of the work day was spent getting all the boots and bindings out of their boxes and on display, as well as behind the boots and bindings bar where the sales reps give their presentations to the buyers about, of course, next years boots and bindings line. As a side note, an awesome thing about the tradeshow was that I was able to see a ton of product that's not coming out til next snow season. Also, I found out that they are also pretty much done with the entire 2010/11 product line so I thought that was cool. After the day of work, I even got to contribute to a session where the showed all the ideas for the 2010/11 outerwear line and all the sales reps and even us interns got to write our opinions about each idea. It was awesome.  Being not 21, the nightlife for me in Vegas was nothing to brag about, but after the show, some friends and I would usually wander the strip, checking out all the cool hotels and casinos.

The next day the tradeshow started.  My time at the show was spent, once again, with the boots and bindings.  My main job at the show, besides any tasks Ron or anybody had for me, was to keep the boots and bindings in order and to help the reps during their presentations by grabbing product for them.  Besides that, the next three days of the show are a crazy blur of new product, crazy snowboarders, and free shwag.  A ton of companies were giving out free t-shirts and necklaces and such, so I made sure to load up before the show was over.  On top of that, I got a hat and a pair of gloves from Rome, so that was sick.

My final full day in Vegas was spent again in the convention center, breaking down the booth with the remaining people there from Rome.  Afterwards was the best site seeing night I had in Vegas.  After getting cleaned up from the breakdown, the Rome guys and I decided to celebrate the last night in Vegas, especially since the tradeshow will be in Denver next year, by going to the buffet at the Belagio.  Best... meal... ever.  We walked down the strip from the Excalibur to the Belagio and were able to see the fountain show out front, which was awesome and kind of surreal.  After the meal, we decided to see the sites the best way possible, go up the Eiffel Tower.  I have to admit, I'm fairly scared of heights, so being up there was a little scary but still epic and awesome.  From there we headed back down the strip, played a couple games in the Midway at Excalibur and called it a night.  I said goodbye to everyone, thanked them for giving me the opportunity to go with them, and went to bed to get up at 5:30 for my flight back to the Boat.

I couldn't be happier with how things went in Vegas and am super grateful for the opportunity.  Also, Rome is hooking me up with discounts and hard to get gear, as well as a free board and bindings, so I'm pretty stoked how things worked out.  But now I'm back in Steamboat once again, and again am needing to catch up on homework.  Overall though, interning with companies is by far the best way to get into the industry, and if you're looking at coming out to Colorado Mountain College to do just that, I highly recommend it.  Also, check back soon for how things went in Keystone this past week.  Peace.

Epic Ghost Hunting Adventure.

The title says it all. That's what I did the night I got back from my weekend home.

It was a uneventful Sunday night. Some friends and I had been hanging out in Corey's room, not really doing much, just watching some TV and what not, when my friend Chelsy (who I refer to as Lemon) decided enough was enough, it was adventure time.

After stealthily sneaking out of the room, we threw on some jackets and headed out into the unknown. We really had no clue where we were going or what we were going to do, but dang it we knew it was gonna be an adventure!

We started out by making our way to the overflow parking lot above Willett Hall in a lame attempt to see the cool view from the hill over there, but I soon realized that the cool view was from the very top of the hill and it was quite snow covered so that plan back fired horribly.

From there, we headed down to the lowest parking lot near Monson Hall where some dudes were hitting an insane drop in with a big kicker onto the top bar of one of the soccer goals in the soccer field below the parking lot. It was wild. From there, we headed down a side trail past the soccer field. This was the start of the scariness. The trail led past a shed we dubbed The Serial Killer Shack. It was creepy. It then led past a house and down to 12th St.

The scariness relaxed up as we headed down to Lincoln Ave. to roam the streets and see what we could turn up. We stopped for some classic shots of the weird bronze statues of Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein with some children.

Before we got to far into town, considering it was a pretty cold night, we turned up a side street where Lemon pretended to break into a car. The side street lead to Oak St. where the ghost hunt began to take shape.

When we got onto Oak St., we were near the Tread of Pioneers Museum. Unfortunately, it was closed. We were most disappointed. We decided to start the trek back up to school when the scariness came back in action.

While walking up Oak St., we passed Lowell Whiteman Primary School which we decided used to be an insane asylum, and on top of that, it's attached to an old church with a mini graveyard out in front. It all started when we were looking at it and started walking closer when Lemon thought she saw the outline of person inside a window. "I bet it's haunted!" Lemon said. "I wonder if there's any orbs here."

I had absolutely had no idea what orbs were, so I will explain for those right there with me. Apparently, orbs are little spirits that appear only in pictures. Now, I was incredibly skeptical at first, blaming it on dust or something on the lens or snow but as the photos kept coming, these orbs seemed to be more real. For starters, it wasn't snowing. On top of that, even after cleaning of the lens, the spots were still there, and I doubt there really any big dust particles floating around outside on that cold night. On top of that, there are these two pictures, which I'll post when I get them, that really show there was something up with these orbs. In the first one, a couple orbs were on the right. When Lemon turned to the right a bit, the orbs showed up on the left side of the photo like they were floating in the same spot. It was crazy.

After an intense photo shoot all around the school, church, graveyard, and even back at the museum, we got many pictures of these orbs. By the end, however, we realized just how crazy cold we were and started back up to the school. We then realized just how insanely cold we were, so we called Corey for a ride. He picked us up at the end of Bob Adams, and we told him of the crazy our adventure ended up being.

So there you go. I hope you were able to see the entities in these pictures and that this gave you a little glimpse at the awesomeness that can happen when you're bored in the Boat. Peace.

R.I.P Grandma Malenick.

My first full weekend back in the Boat was spent back in Minnesota. As nice as it was to see family and friends again so soon, I wasn't exactly home under the best conditions.

The last week of my winter break, my grandma, dad's mom, was admitted into the hospital for having multiple heartattacks. She had called my dad, telling him she had some pains in her chest that felt like indigestion but she wanted to go to the hospital. When my dad got there, she had an overnight bag packed and he knew this was very serious.

After she was diagnosed with having multiple heartattacks, she was scheduled for an immediate operation to have a stent put in through a vein in her leg. The operation went very smoothly and she was feeling much better. I was able to visit her on my last day in Minnesota, which was Friday, Jan. 9, and I was very happy I was able to do that, especially now.

On Sunday, January 11 around 1pm, she passed away. It was incredibly unexpected, but thankfully very peaceful. The nurses had come to get her for another test or scan, I'm not qute sure which, but when she got up, she felt very light-headed, laid down on her bed, fainted, and passed away very peacefully, just the way she wanted to.

I got the call from my mom, telling me she had died, while I was snowboarding with my friend Nate. All I can say is thankfully I was snowboarding when she called to keep my mind off it as much as possible. I loved my grandma very much and it was a big shock to here she was gone, but the funeral was very nice, my uncle and oldest cousin gave some really nice sentiments at the service. I even had to get off the plane and go directly to the wake as soon as I landed, but I was just glad to have made it back home for my grandma.

Besides the funeral, I got to see all my friends again which was awesome. We hung out my buddy's house down by St. Thomas University in St. Paul, MN. There was an excessive amount of Halo played and some serious bro time.

But now I am back in the Boat and spent my first night back on a ghost hunting adventure (which will most definitely be another blog very soon). I was very happy to be able to make it home for my grandma and the rest of my family. Hopefully nothing like that will happen again soon, and I'll be able to see everyone again over spring break.

The Winter Break Blog.

I don’t really know where to start about winter break except that it was awesome and I love Minnesota. I’m excited to be back in Steamboat Springs to try out this powder riding I’ve heard so much about, but I just love the bitter cold and the butter run fun the Midwest offers.

I started writing this blog in the Denver airport, worked on it on the shuttle to Steamboat from Denver, and am finishing it up in room back here in the Boat. I starting my semester off with quite a long day which consisted of a 2 hour flight, 3 hours waiting around at the airport, and 4 hours on a shuttle. I’ve been watching my fill of the Office (which, if you haven’t seen it, is the greatest show ever), as well as jammed to the new Jack’s Mannequin CD while writing this. It was great to be able to have a day of riding on Sunday before classes started up today.

My winter break started with a much needed, relaxing night with my good friends from back home, followed by probably the funnest day of riding I’ve ever had with my friend Ryan, who I like to refer to as Dub D, Dirty Dizzle, DFB, Ocean D himself! Together over winter break we learned tailblocks and tail tap rewinds, not to mention we built a mini snow quarter pipe to jib on.

As far the rest of my snowboarding adventures of break, I spent my time at Welch Village, which is near Hastings, MN. Besides the awesome times had there riding with friends, the highlight/lowlight of my winter break was the trip to White Cap. Eight of my closest friends and myself went to White Cap, WI, on the edge of the U.P., MI for 4 days and 3 nights of snowboarding and bro time. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite turn out the way we had planned. For starters, on the way up there, Ryan hit a deer. He, as well as myself and my friends Scotty K. who were both in the car, were very lucky at how it turned out. The deer had just jumped out in front of the truck, so Ryan’s headlight hit the deer right in the head, which was way better than if the deer had been entirely in front of the truck. However, the body did slam into the driver side door, denting it in, keeping it from opening and the window from rolling down.

So after that incident, which happened very early in the morning, we got to White Cap for our first day of riding. It was pretty crazy warm out, so the snow was really slushy, but as it would turn out, this would be our most fun day of riding. After exploring the mountain, we headed back to the house for the night to hang out.

The next day we wished we had the slush back. It had frozen solid overnight and the day itself was freezing cold. Towards the end of the riding day, we did find some fun on a trap box and a cliff jump that my ridiculous friend Joe hit quite a few times.

The third day wasn’t as bad ice-wise, but the last was insanely icy, cold and windy. However, my friends Ryan and PJ did not get to experience these conditions because of the final ridiculous incident of the trip. My friends Joe and Jimmy B. had to leave early the last morning, however, the night before, Joe had borrowed PJ’s keys and yes, forgot to give them back. They were about 3 hours away when we called and Joe realized he had them, so Jim dropped the keys off at a cheese store on the border of Minnesota, forcing Ryan and PJ to spend the day driving to get them, making them miss a day of riding. This is the third year we’ve all gone on a snowboard trip and I gotta say, as fun as some of the times were, this was probably the worst one. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures from this ridiculous adventure, but Joe had a video camera with him so I’m sure a fantastic video will be hitting YouTube in the near future.

Besides friends and snowboarding, it was great to see my family again and hang out at home. Christmas was super fun seeing all the cousins and extended family, not to mention I got some great gifts. We did the usual Christmas tradition of brunch and presents at my grandparents’ house with my mom’s side of the family, then dinner and presents at my house with my dad’s side of the family. It’s a pretty crazy day since I’m the second oldest grandchild on my mom’s side of the family right after my brother, but I’m the youngest grandchild on my dad’s side of the family so that definitely keeps it interesting.

I also unfortunately had to go back to work at Pacsun in Rosedale Mall near my house. I work with some cool people but I would definitely rather have not had to work, but I suppose at times like these I should be grateful I had a job to come back too. Plus it was for sure nice to get a bit of money before I go back to spending way to much of it.

An awesome thing for me that happened over break was I made my first order of t-shirts for the snowboard company I’m going to school at Colorado Mountain College to try to start. That being said, I gotta take this opportunity to make a shameless pitch. If anyone would like one, they could be yours for the low, low price of $15 a shirt! Just send me an email at jake3613@comcast.net with where to send it, and I’ll send you an email back of where to send the money. I have sizes medium, large, and extra large left so act now!

Now that my dignity’s gone, I’ll leave you with this: winter break was awesome even though I had a sinus infection for most of it and still kind of do. I wish break was a little longer but I’m excited to be back in The Boat and ready to ride some epic runs now that the whole mountain is open. I hope everyone else’s break was awesome and I look forward to writing more throughout the semester. Peace.