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Not to keep anyone in the dark our adventure concluded with a race to slc airport to drop the rental car and fly the remaining 8hrs. I don't plan on that drive ever again, well till Tuesday when Zach and I drive to Wyoming, when I'll do 14 of those hours again.

Yakima

Yakima, snow is off the hwy in our brand new Saturn handles like a vette, how gangsta is tbat?

1 night blog-a-thon

While the night of the 24th will be full of scripted NORAD tracking Santa news don't miss you night of tracking yours truely this evening as I attempt to drive 19hrs through the most snowy states in a hertz rental car. My goal will be a post every two hours with live tricia about the towns I'm driving through. Expect less trivia while I'm driving and even less when I'm sleeping. Because nobody will be reading this will be an extension of "who will check this first!"

Current location- tacos guyamas in Fremont, tminus 30mins to departure. Filling up on caffeine and tacos before the adventure. I'll check in again when I've hit the open road, snow should clear around mile 1200, somewhere outside Denver.

Begin

Jordy Jeff and Zach, this blog's for you

To the 3 people I assume will check this first, who will win the race none of you know your in? Zach? There will be a reward, maybe a beer or maybe a burrito, it will be good.

Just finished burning the Sh@#$# out of my feet. I cooked my ski boot liners in the oven at 240 for 10mins, they blow up like marshmallow men, then I gotta jam my feet (with socks on) into them then into the ski boots for thermoforming. They are both red and slightly tender, I hope I didnt just give second degree burns to my feet.

Why am I thermoforming at midnight? because Crystal has gotten 10" since 6pm, another 10+ to fall tonight and still falling all day tomorrow.

heres Seattle, I have yet to see a plow... the city may need to invest in 1 or 2 of those, otherwise there will be more of this going on...
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebigblog/archives/157531.asp?from=blog_last3

Chicken Machines

Who doesnt like the show "How its made," I think I have nanna and grandpa to thank for my addiction to this show as they gave me a book by the same title when i was about 8. But tonight I've come across an episode that opened my eyes, its not graphic or going to make you stop eating chicken, but its the strangest episode i've ever seen. I wish this hadnt caused me to find lots of other food processing videos on youtube... I wont post those.

Chicken Hatchery

We got snow yes we do

Well I'm back from a quick 2 day trip to Mt. Hood, I've never been this time of the year and it didnt fail to disappoint. We skied under direct sunlight and warm temps the 2 days I was there, no small feat for the PacNW this time of the year. Here are a few pictures from the mountain, this was the first day they ran this upper chairlift and for good reason. You see the trenches they dug, those are to keep the chairlifts from dragging on the snow, there must be a solid 30' of snow below the chairs right now, very impressive. I'll write more of a re-cap later, until then these pictures will have to suffice.

just like riding a bicycle

Well its bike to work month, I thought i'd take this moment to remind you all about your impact on this world and just how much good you can do. It really only takes a little to go a long way... I for one am batting 1000 this month, 1 for 1 biking to work. But this is where it ends, I need you all to do your part because I dont think I have that much biking left in me, my little 5.5mile/way ride through downtown beats me up, I get to work sweaty and feeling like I'm going to vomit. Coming home is no different, maybe better because of the afternoon-tune-up i had at work on my10speed '78? Raleigh Grand Prix (dad please confirm the year of this bike) . Racing busses, other bikers, cars and of course the clock to get to work make it fairly stressful. I have committed to my work group biking 5 days this month, this is no small feat for myself. And so I ask you all to bike to and from work so that I dont have to, I cant keep up this pace of 100%, it will be dropping to 50% tomorrow as I plan on driving.

Engrish part deux

So this is the soap bottle in our factory, working on submitting it to engrish.com soon.
























speechless; this lable needs no caption


i'll update soon, Andy

PingPong in a guard shack

So tonight i am in china, Nigel and myself find ourselves bored after leaving work near 9pm, we proceed through the local town to buy some t-shirts, batteries, electric bug zappers were last night, and a coffee thermos. I picked up a T-Shirt for paul, its posted here, hilarious if you ask me.Nigel and I have discovered out natural love for the game of ping pong, so tonight we found an open table in our GuardShack. The 3 people overseeing the factory let us play for about 2 hours, they sure seemed happy when we showed up and played with them for a bit, but not as inviting when leaving 2hrs later, perhaps they expected a short volley session? Anyways we are both sure in the history of our company no westerners have ever met the guard personell long enough to play some games of pingpong, we will try again tomorrow for some competition in there. Now off to bed, its late and I got an uber busy day tomorrow


olaf

Kamp K2

I dont have a lot of time, i'm packing to head to china tomorrow and need to take care of things around my house tonight. Here's a link with a recap from Dave Amirault at Freeskier Magazine of last weeks events, I'll work on mine on the flight or when i'm jet-lagged and not sleeping in hongkong.


http://community.freeskier.com/articles/article.php?article_id=2273

-note: whenever he mentions skiing deep pow and catching fresh tracks, I was probably demo-ing equip at the bottom and not skiing. This isnt to say I didnt catch any epic turns, but my experience wasnt quite the same as the campers. I also got to clean up their empty beer cups the following morning, which is braggable


andy

Marshall the Poodle

I started writing this explaining how many different skis we skied today, how many we reviewed, and most of all how stressful it was... but i'll just skip to saying how awesome Tahoe is. Seriously beautiful part of the country. I expected a lake but this thing is freakin huge. We spent the day at Squaw, another day there and then Boreal for a day, should be great testing/filming weather. Blue-sky and sunny all day when the forecast was rain, weather was in our favor. I'll upload some pictures when I get a chance, I now see why people live here and others vacation here.

Also, the house we're staying in is named after Marshall, a giant Poodle. To commerate "his highness" theres a large picture of him on the wall, weird.

(me) = M.I.A. (a pretty good album too)

So heres a quick update from the life of Andy:

Past: 3weeks ago Jeff came to visit, we toured seattle, ate really well and had some nice nights out on the town. Jeff was also fortunate enough to "come to work with andy" for an afternoon where he was put to work measuring and analyzing skis, thanks jeff for helpin out. Then 2 weeks ago BRodine came to visit, we had an amazing day skiing sat, went out sat night for some great fun, watched some planet earth sunday (buy this dvd set, yes its 60$ but worth every penny to keep funding like this happening for movies like this.) This past weekend I made the annual pilgramage to las vegas, home of my sisters birthday. Myself, Megan and 5 of her friends from SanDiego enjoyed a weekend of sunning, eating and of course a few clubs. While i'm not the clubbing type I had a great time and want to do it again. I also realize theres nothing wrong with 2 guys going to vegas with 5attractive women, JapanJob i'm looking to you to recruit 20girls for our next trip there.

Present: I'm currently in Lake Tahoe for the first time of my life. We are shooting catalog and testing 09-10 ski ideas. Our days will hopefully have sun-filled skiing, goggle tans and well received ideas. Eben and I have been working 16hr days for about the past month getting ready for this, really since I got home from Cabo its been crazy busy for these 3 days.

Future: On Sunday Eben and I fly back to Seattle for a day of rest/preparation for the coming week where on monday its off to Mt.Baker. KampK2 will be in full swing for a week of similar skiing shenanigans, sleeping in RV's and of course socializing with some new friends. The following monday I fly to china for 2 weeks.

I'll be updating with some pictures tomorrow or thursday, until then stay classey, miss you all.


o
l
a
f

New Animal #1

Well I dont have time to write a real entry, so instead I will introduce you to the Musk Deer:

Thats right, tonight I was watching Planet Earth and surprise to me, a Deer with fangs.


















Hope you find this as amazing as I have found it, good night

Whats the happs on the craps?

To fill you in on my life this week here goes:

Monday: Finally resumed 3hrs of meetings on mondays because other engineers are back in the office, so naturally Monday came and went without too much sweetness to report.

Tuesday: Lots of parts for skis being made at work, I burned a hole in the vacuum table for cutting cores and metal, got shit for this from co-workers and explained its because i'm so much more efficient that I light the machine on fire. No fire extinguisher necessary, just a mini bucket of water. Tuesday night little park session at central, rails are comin along there and i'm still very bad at half-pipe, i'll fill you all in on my progress assuming I make any. If anything else this serves as a log to how i'm not progressing.

Weds: Still making parts, no real cool things going on at work. Skiing afterwards with different posse, this work/skiing schedule is really cool and I think i'll take a night off thursday.

Thurs: Didnt bring ski stuff to work but turns out I like going. Quick trip home around 6pm then off to the mtns for a park session till 10:30, moderate improvement in half pipe, still skiing like a girl.

Fri: scheduled for city race league at alpental, then hopefully i can go to a ride park. This will be my inaugural race with the city league work team this week, hopefully I dont disappoint, I'll be racing on next years Line Blends, a nice little twin tip against all the other GS skis.

Sat: off to Cabo, going to be an amazing trip coming back the following sat, You probably wont get any blog postings, and in fact most the people reading this will be in cabo with me, Jeff/Jordy you'll just have to imagine how crappy it'll be down there, probably not even 90degrees.


A pair of my shoes fell apart yesterday, so now i'm wearing pair number 2, which isnt nearly as exciting as pair #1 now blown apart. Also, I think i've exhausted my chipotle gift card I received for christmas, this has been a true lifesaver up here and i'm sad to see it go. Turns out I've been too spendy with the chips and guac. Anyways its midnight, early drive to the airport for my roommate tomorrow, some working then some skiin, then Mexico for a week, then hopefully more skiing. ok, that is all, time for bed.

Lastly for Jordy, I am not responsible for your cute heart shaped whisk appearance, although I wish I had been involved somehow.

2 month summary

Well its been a while, Jordy this ones for you, as I assume everyone else has given up on my correspondence. Anyways, today will be a pictoral summary of the last 2 months of my life, a brief snapshot into the hectic life i've been living.

December 07-
Christmas was spent at home, seeing most my friends and family as well as skiing a little bit.

-Japan Job











In addition to friends we had some family time, and lots of dogs.




















Christmas was great, family didnt get as many pictures as dogs but thats expected, then back to seattle I came for some snow.
Its been a fairly ridiculous winter, most mountains have a 150"+ base and about a foot falls every day, I've had more powder days here this year than I have in my life, and the snow is terrible so anyone out there should stay skiing elsewhere, keep the crowds down here, but do come visit, just to see what your missing. Rodine, I suspect after a weekend here you'll decide your ready to leave Cali in about 4years, maybe sooner.

Shortly after getting back here it was time for work, so our dept spent 3days skiing at Crystal, some pictures below of our adventures.














This picture is the snow we skied everyday, i've never had such consistently good runs as I did that trip. The picture to the right is Eben eating a squirrel, this in itself is a story that will hopefully follow in a future posting.

After this come NFL postseason, some of my friends have seasontickets and I was lucky enough to be invited to the playoff game.














Thats Me, Kono, Rich, Nick, Casey and Katie, super Seahawks fans and fun people in general.

After football came well some more skiing, and of course work. We've been prototyping, Dale made the first pair of skis out of Seattle.
Dales been at this since high school and it shows. Last week I had the honor to have dinner with he and his wife, Sandy. Sandy knitted me the greatest ski hat in the world, complete with decorative ball atop, with sweaters to follow. Dales knowledge in ski making is vast, seeing every pair of skis prototyped and often produced since well before I was born, its actually an honor to have him teach me.

After work comes, well more skiing. Last week Alpental got about 4' of snow, the roads were closed all week and when it finally opened I was there, in its full glory. Skiing 30" untouched with a soft layer below was the payoff to a delayed start to work that day. Here I am, wearing the hat Sandy Gimblett knitted me




















Theres actually been a lot more than just that in my life, but this all the time i've got to write today. I wont take 2 months to post the next one, jordy keep up the good work on yours, much appreciated.

Just a final picture - these are the lines we skied last weekend, we were at the big rockface on the right, didnt have the clear skies or visibility needed to go higher.

in-commucado

Many apologies for the lack of postings, this lame posting will fill you in on my recent adventures, I didnt post this but a friend from work named Rom did, and heres the link to where i was for the last 5 days.

http://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/news/news_id/1761/

killing time

So i've got about 45mins before dinner, I just took a walk through the park so now its time to unwind with some local tv, heres whats showing at 4:15pm on a saturday afternoon in Guangzhou China

Before PETA gets after me about that picture to the left, that creepy crawly crawled into the glass during the night, long after I was asleep, a drunk little cocroach in the morning we woke up to. He was having a nice little friday night and into saturday


Channel
1-6 Red static - I assume its a patriotic thing
7 China pink shirt vs china in blue shirt ping pong, both have short shorts on
8 news, no idea whats going on, some guy moving propane tanks with his bicycle
10 anime cartoons, i'll come back to this later
11 cell phone commercial
12 cell phone commercial, i think its the same one
13 soap opera, 2 cute girls talking about something dramatic, and now their in the doctors office
14 horse racing, yellow helmet is leading at the 1200 mark
17 kite flying by what i imagine samuri's wore in the day, this one deserves a picture, it'll be posted later.
19 british version of blues clues or the wiggles, IN ENGLISH!
24 circue de solei? local version i think
27 old karate movie, mustache wearing hulk hogan haired guy with huge upward pointing eyebrows
29 asian man pattern baldness commercial, hosted by totally bald man
31 scooping of beans, pistachios, and other round objects i dont recognize, now guy in wrangler t-shirt bragging about whats in his bag
33 CMTV, e's in the background as decor
36 ultimate tree house, soap opera occuring in this amazing swiss family robinson looking creation
37 credits of a karate fight movie
44 chinese version of what looks like saved by the bell, but more dramatic
45 looks like the spanish channel sunday programming
47 phil mickelson teeing off in golf tournament IN ENGLISH!
54 walker china ranger, i think, lots of guns, suit wearing guys vs actual army. note to self, bamboo is aparently bulletproof
55 collegiate vollyball
57 monkey dressed guy, seems to be a series show of planet of the apes, riding pony's, and wearing crowns.
64 "cover queen" the local version of proactiv
68 Ernie from burt and ernie puppets on a mans shoulders, giving him advice in song, looks like that e station again. Ends with one of the ernies dressed up in SF Giants baseball jersey.
69 school girls in catholic schoolgirl dress, and guys in male equivalent. leaving school
76 looks like local version of desperate housewives, and guys in sweater vests
77 cirque de soleil is back!
78 karate punch to the adams apple, intro to soap opera
79 Miss Chinese cosmos pageant, this girls talent is gutting a fish with a huge knife, and dancing now... i think i'm going to stop changing channels

82 SpongeBob SquarePants IN ENGLISH! ok now i'm watching this about 15mins after watching and not understanding any of Miss Chinese Cosmos

Now you get the idea of what there is here on TV, its pretty amazing.

Heres some pictures for you visual people















that dragon is about 12' tall, standing i'd be up to about his flames nearest his mouth

Southeast Asia take 3, part I

Well my third and possibly final trip of the year to Asia is underway. A nice little 4hr layover in Narita Japan has left me full of new sushi tastes I’ve not experienced stateside, I guess this is the product of ordering the Deluxe Chef’s Special, it only cost me 3,500 Yen, I’m still not sure how many dollars that is, I’m hoping somewhere around 30$. Uneventful flight seattle to narita, except that I sat next to a doctor who was coughing the whole trip and had bad breath, 10hrs of that was about enough. I still hold my record of going (or rather not going) to the bathroom on a flight only one time in the last 2 years, and that was on a 15hr flight to HongKong. Something about in flight bathrooms make me uncomfortable. I thought I was lost in narita airport for a while, no other humans existed for a good 20mins of my walk, I felt like I was in the movie iRobot, just with how clean and sterile this place is. But alas I’ve joined with my fellow brethren and now sit in a mustard colored leather seat awaiting my ANA flight to HongKong. And let me tell you quick about ANA airlines, they have a camera in the nose of the plane and let you watch takeoff as if you were laying down in the nose of the jet, its on for landing too, a pretty incredible feature.

Its 2am for my body, 6pm for where I am, and soon to be 1030pm when I land in HK. Not sure which one of these timezones I’m in, but I’m approaching the tired one. Japan sure is green, I’d like to make it back in the future to explore it a bit more, they have some really awesome “samurai” tshirts in the duty free shops here but I cant bring myself to spending 20$ per shirt, I’ll haggle a deal in china for something way better.

I feel united with the other gringos I see in the airport. We have a certain unspoken connection, we look at eachother and its like “hey, we could understand eachother if we decided to talk, then again maybe your French so we couldnt” then I continue surrounded by the 90% of other Japanese people who could also understand me, but I don’t feel that same connection.

OK, time to board my plane, nap time for a few mins, then watching some flight of the conchords, then a nice little evening in HongKong. Not sure when I’ll have internet again, somewhere between weds afternoon for me, so Tuesday midday for most of you, this will get posted. Many pictures to follow, I’m going to look like that crazy camera carrying guy this trip.

RedBull soapbox, wow

I'm exhausted, 3weeks in china working 14hr days then a week in seattle working at least the same on this car, i'm ready to crawl into a hole and sleep for a while. Our performance yesterday was great, MattyO drove the car with perfection and was even complimented by Travis Pastrana, one of our celebrity judges. the redbull staff was alerted to "stand by and ready for cleanup" as our car took to the course, aparently a 17' ski wasnt supposed to make it through the turns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DynbFru9VUY
a special thanks to whomever filmed this for us and posted it, kristen?

The race went well and lots of good times had by all

After the race Joe and I headed to Matchstick's premier, joes the one talking to the announcer at the redbull start, i'm right next to him. Still wearing our ski apparel we fit in well at this video. After the video we headed back to Nectar for a redbull post party with dj cut chemist, it was a dance party if i've ever been to one.

Today its rainy and textbook seattle weather. I'm going to catch up on my sleep now, i'll post pictures of this even shortly

quick note, redbull saturday

Part of my busy time has been filled this past month building a soapbox car for work. We are team Skivalanche in the upcomming RedBull SoapBox Derby in seattle. Tonight we check in, and sat we race down Fremont Ave, should be a kickin' good time. The link to our video is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkP0wVLRW6c

We'll post another video after the race, and let you all know how we fared. Also, on Sat please text on your mobile phone "Team 18" to RBULL.

This weekends gonna be sweet