It was nice out today….
Peace..

I have hit kickers bigger than this before, but there is something about this one that freaks me out. It has a super steep runup, followed by a short steep takeoff and loads of flat to clear. It was shut for most of the day as some kid landed short and was there for hours with medics, having apparently broken his back. He was eventually airlifted away in a helicopter, which was not even out of sight before all the local kids were straight back busting crazy flips over the jump. 

Trying to psyche myself up to hit it next time..

It was fun to be back on the skiis again anyway! Thanks to Jakob for taking this pic (too early ).

Jule’s brother Paul is over from Tenerife

Ahh, Christmas, I love it and hate it, never as good as it was as a kid since my fam spilt up and it is usually pretty stressfull, but this year was special in many ways as it was good to spend time with some of the family, old and new. I didnt spend much time in front of the computer recently though but there should be some more frequent updates from now on, unless it starts snowing a lot again, which it needs to as it is getting a little hard. Could well be time to bust out the skiis again.

On a side note, thanks to Kenson at www.cntrl.be for giving me some shine on his website, with his Los tres des 2008. 

So, as one eventful year comes to an end and a new one is soon to begin, I wish you all a happy christmas and best of luck for the new year. Thank you all for stopping by. Cheers.

Just been prepping some of the images for the new -273 shop and thought I would give you a preview.

Kiska xmas party shenanigans with my mum who flew in from San Francisco.
I picked her up from the airport, quick stop at home to grab ski gear, drove an hour and a half through heavy snow, avoiding some dude sliding down the road and ending up in a snowdrift next to us missing us by an inch, parked, walked an hour up a dark path we were not even sure was the right one to end up at a hut to meet up with a 100 kiska people, few hours of eating and drinking then chaos back down on sleds in even heavier snow and meter deep snowdrifts. Then an hour drive home in a foot of snow. Mission!

There have been the odd pieces in the press about the riots and protests in Greece over the past weeks after the cops shot a 15 year old kid, but most of it has been hidden from the world. I emailed my old friend L.A. in Athens to see if she was ok and this is what she wrote back:

It is like war here. Out of control. I am with the anarchists of course. This government is totally useless. Last night was unbelievable. The whole country was on fire.
The media here is trying to cover up 99% of what is happening. But nothing has changed since the 6th of December; everyone is out protesting and fighting. On Tuesday night another 15 year old was shot, fortunately on his hand. It was really dark and it was just luck that he was not killed. You can image what would have happened if he had died too. Things are mad. I don’t know what is going to happen. Everyone has rejected the traditional media. Everyone is informed through the internet and by just… walking around the city. It is unbelievable. You walk to your house and you see things and then you turn on the TV and you hear and see a different story. It makes you question everything that you have believed all these years. Total chaos. Kyveli (her young daughter) had an allergic shock from the chemicals that the police use. We were in the hospital all day on Wednesday. They are illegal to use but the use them anyway everyday since the 6th. They have used over 4 tones!!! They actually run out and they have ordered more from Israel!!

Chaos…

 

This is funny. I translate:
‘You are sitting quietly enjoying your coffee in the centre of Athens … Suddenly you are being attacked by the police!!! What do you do? Simple.. Use your table!!

Κάθεστε ήσυχα-ήσυχα στο κέντρο της Αθήνας και πίνετε το καφεδάκι σας… Ξαφνικά, πλακώνουν από τη μία οι ΜΑΤατζήδες !!! Τι κάνετε ;; Απλό, σηκώνετε το τραπεζάκι !!!!!

People who fly have a different view of the world than those who spend their lives on the ground. A very wise man once wrote a poem while he was flying, and he called this poem “The God’s Eye View,” and he said that this view was entirely different than the view he always had on the ground, which he called “The Bug’s Eye View.”

Out there, somewhere, in the air we fly through, exists an old Persian legend much like this poem about a bug who spent his entire life in the world’s most beautifully designed Persian rug. All the bug ever saw in his lifetime were his problems. They stood up all around him. He couldn’t see over the top of them, and he had to fight his way through these tufts of wool in the rug to find the crumbs that people had spilled on the rug. And the tragedy of the story of the bug in the rug was this: that he lived and he died in the world’s most beautifully designed rug, but he never once knew that he spent his life inside something which had a pattern. Even if he, this bug, had even once gotten above the rug so that he could have seen all of it, he would have discovered something – that the very things he called his problems were a part of the pattern.

Have you ever felt like that bug in the rug? That you are so surrounded by your problems that you can’t see any pattern to the world in which you live? Have you heard anybody say lately that the world is a total mess? That, my friends, is the Bug’s Eye View, and seeing only a little of the world, me might be inclined to think that this is true.

Unrelated but really interesting:
Apeakalypse Now
by Amanda Kovattana

In March when I returned from Thailand, the situation with the subprime mortgages unnerved me. I had heard too many stories from Thai farmers about the impact of personal debt on their lives. How they had to dig themselves out and rebuild a new life while still paying back thousands to the old one at the rate of five dollars a week. This during a currency devaluation that halved the value of everyone’s bank account and an economic slow down that halted construction jobs mid-project. Stop down was more like it.

Workers went home to their family farms. What they did next made me realize that these farmers were rich, much richer than I felt living here in the US. They had land, enough rice stored to feed everyone for some time and skills to rebuild along with a renewed sense of self-reliance. They were also committed to being sustainable in a way that actually seemed possible. The lessons of the boom and bust had taught them to rethink their wants and their dreams of wealth while their immediate needs were taken care of.

The culture shock I felt upon my return was so severe I was in a stupor for a month not knowing how to direct my life. I did not feel safe sitting in a house with a mortgage. I did not feel safe in America itself. I saw a nation of people carrying massive amounts of credit card debt and few practical skills. They had less of a safety net than a Thai farmer. How would they fare in a future that seemed to offer nothing, but apocalyptic scenarios? Peak oil, peak natural gas, peak metals, peak food, peak everything. And climate change already upon us, too. This forward tilted perspective made me feel I was slowly going mad while all around me people continued as if life was normal. Catherine wanted to remodel the bathroom.
Continue reading here…

I had to kind of twist Martins arm to take this photo as he was itching to burn it through the powder a bit further down the path, but it came out pretty sweet. PTSP with a backside 180 indy.

Telemark in a Swedish Motox style from MP.

Martin

Christian

My bro Luke. The snow is gooood right now! Anyone thinking of coming for christmas, stop thinking! It’s funny how insignificant the global economic meltdown feels when the powder is deep..

Manuel getting old school with the tweaked grab.

I wasnt totally sure if I could clear this as there was no kick, a gap and a pretty flat run-up, but it dropped down a lot so I gave it a shot in the afternoon. Green gear sucks for photos when the light is not perfect, maybe time for a better brighter jacket… Christian was betting against me making it, but took the photo anyway. Or maybe because of that! Nice soft powder landing.. mmmmm

I downloaded Google Chrome just now and am using it as I type, and wow, it is really nice. Wont be using firefox or I.E. anymore.

It has been years since I hit a big jump on a snowboard but it was feeling pretty good.

If it keeps snowing like this it will be a good season. The skiis are staying at home for now.

Best powder I have ridden for many years. So deep and light.  Nico and Christof digging in.

Benjamin leaving the powder alone for a minute.

Nico and Cristof

luke checking the pow en-route to St.Anton

In the beauty and geometric complexity of tile mosaics on walls of medieval Islamic buildings, scientists have recognized patterns suggesting that the designers had made a conceptual breakthrough in mathematics beginning as early as the 13th century.

In their journal report, Mr. Lu and Dr. Steinhardt concluded that by the 15th century, Islamic designers and artisans had developed techniques “to construct nearly perfect quasi-crystalline Penrose patterns, five centuries before discovery in the West.”

Some of the most complex patterns, called “girih” in Persian, consist of sets of contiguous polygons fitted together with little distortion and no gaps. Running through each polygon (a decagon, pentagon, diamond, bowtie or hexagon) is a decorative line. Mr. Lu found that the interlocking tiles were arranged in predictable ways to create a pattern that never repeats — that is, quasi crystals.

read more…