Have a good one y’all. Avalanche warning at the maximum of 5 right now here, so might stay lo-key this weekend. Got some nice trips coming up next month.

A film dealing with the relative size of things in the universe.
And the effect of adding another zero.

Our solar system is part of a huge disc shaped collection of stars and planets called the Milky Way. We’re located somewhere on the edge of the disc, slightly above it. But very soon we’ll be moving to the bottom of the disc. This change, from top to bottom, begins on December 21, 2012.

What makes 2012 significant is that it coincides with the alignment of the center of the Milky Way galaxy, our sun, earth, and the large planets.

In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula.

Back on the twins again. Tried to get a few more jump shots but there was too much snow, could never see anything except exploding powder. Thanks to jakob for taking this one of me…

Martin on the Telemarks

Timeless cure for recession blues..

Jakob

Jule was getting the hang of it..

most of the time

More and more snow..

Gerald Kiska (right) turned 50, and since KTM is one of our main clients, Stefan Pierer the owner of KTM gave Gerald a nice old bike.

Jakob put together a short video, featuring Doctor P amongst other things.

Manu is kind of one of my bosses.

I didnt stay too long as I had a lot to do today, but check how much it snowed in the time I was inside!
Off up the mountain tommorow!

Some pics from my bro Luke. Hasnt stopped snowing here for 2 weeks and ANOTHER week solid snow forecast. What a winter!

Egyptians honored Amun-Ra as king of the gods and creator of the universe. They also believed him to be the father of the pharaohs, who were referred to as “Sons of Ra”. The cult of Amun-Ra remained strong throughout Egypt until almost the time of Jesus. The ancient Greeks associated Amun-Ra with Zeus, their own supreme god.

The Egyptians valued gold, not for it’s rarity, as we do, but for it’s color. It was used to represent the power of the sun, and was thought to connect them with the sun god Amun-Ra.

AMEN comes from Egypt’s ancient sun god Amun-ra.

“The Christian church is an encyclopedia of prehistoric cults.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Another photo from last weekend. The snow was so deep it was hard to see most of the time.

Different from my normal cup of tea, but it seems to fit today. Dark blizzards outside. Wolves at the door.
Gives me chills.

[audio:http://derestricted.com/Kings%20Of%20Leon-%20Closer.mp3]

Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad and immigrated to the United States at the age of 12. He was an eyewitness to the Soviet collapse over several extended visits to his Russian homeland between the late eighties and mid-nineties. He is an engineer with a BS in Computer Engineering and an MA in Applied Linguistics. Below is an excerpt from a talk he gave on February 13, 2009:

I can take any pick-up truck and increase its fuel efficiency one or two thousand percent just by breaking a few laws. First, you pack about a dozen people into the bed, standing shoulder to shoulder like sardines. Second, you drive about 25 mph, down the highway, because going any faster would waste fuel and wouldn’t be safe with so many people in the back. And there you are, per passenger fuel efficiency increased by a factor of 20 or so. I believe the Mexicans have done extensive research in this area, with excellent results.

Of course, cars and trucks will not disappear entirely. Here, again, some reasonable adaptations can be brought to bear. In my book, I advocated banning the sale of new cars, as was done in the US during World War II. The benefits are numerous. First, older cars are overall more energy-efficient than new cars, because the massive amount of energy that went into manufacturing them is more highly amortized. Second, large energy savings accrue from the shutdown of an entire industry devoted to designing, building, marketing, and financing new cars. Third, older cars require more maintenance, reinvigorating the local economy at the expense of mainly foreign car manufacturers, and helping reduce the trade deficit. Fourth, this will create a shortage of cars, translating automatically into fewer, shorter car trips, higher passenger occupancy per trip, and more bicycling and use of public transportation, saving even more energy. Lastly, this would allow the car to be made obsolete on about the same time scale as the oil industry that made it possible. We will run out of cars just as we run out of gas.

Here we are, only a year or so later, and I am most heartened to see that the US auto industry has taken my advice and is in the process of shutting down….

One final transportation idea: start breeding donkeys. Horses are finicky and expensive, but donkeys can be very cost-effective and make good pack animals. My grandfather had a donkey while he was living in Tashkent in Central Asia during World War II. There was nothing much for the donkey to eat, but, as a member of the Communist Party, my grandfather had a subscription to Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, and so that’s what the donkey ate. Apparently, donkeys can digest any kind of cellulose, even when it’s loaded with communist propaganda. If I had a donkey, I would feed it the Wall Street Journal.

Read the brilliant, serious and at times hilarious talk from Dmitry Orlov here

Patrick

Jakob’s in there somewhere

Jakob

PTSP enjoying some deeeeep snow.

man that felt good! Cold face.

the snow was deep enough for even an old man like me to charge off stuff.

Quick Glühwein at the top. Both times.

It was pretty fast, I flew off the side twice after overshooting the corner. Jule ended up shooting down the piste rather than the path, picked up speed, couldnt slow down and bailed off the sledge with it eventually ending up 50m downhill in a net.

The GIFT Project is a new construction process from Salomon which reduces the environmental impact of building a snowboard. Salomon has done away with layers of fibreglass and petroleum based resins and has replaced them with locally sourced structural bamboo sheets. Additionally, bamboo replaces the ABS sidewalls used on traditional board construction. The GIFT project results in a 20% reduction of petroleum based materials, 25% reduction of non-renewable materials and a 10% reduction in board weight.

It is good to see companies really starting to push to think about the life cycles of their products and trying to use less resources. As long as we are not all toast in 2012, (scroll down to 2012 geophysical and cosmological speculations) then we certainly need to start using the planet better than we have.
Actually, besides using up less materials, the weight reduction aspect alone is pretty wicked and the flex of the bamboo looks like it’s got serious pop in this salomon ski video.