Snow is Cold

Today I haven’t left the house, I was about to go to the village earlier to speak to Affinity Sports about a rental tech job but then my back started giving me grief so I took painkillers and mooched about! Yesterday I hit this jump hard twice, but there was a big steep run in and a weird takeoff and both times I ended up with my legs rotating upwards. The first time I landed board-ass-back, which didn’t hurt at all, but the second time I managed to get about 6 feet off the ground then landed square across my shoulders on my back, which winded me quite badly and meant that every bump in the ground thereon sent a painful shock up my back! It’s not serious though, I should be back on it next week (as I have to work until Sunday) and I was expecting to not be able to move this morning which didn’t materialise.

Anyway! Enough worrying my mother (don’t worry mother). I’ve decided to try and look for another job as I can’t see myself sticking with the one I’ve got all season long. Also it seems that I can’t take advantage of a lot of the staff discounts which are offered to certain staff because I don’t work in retail, which is ridiculous, and sucks.

Last night went out to Tommy Africa’s and felt very sorry for the girls on the dancefloor who were more or less surrounded by prospective suitors (which I think is a far too nice description of them). I even asked a couple of girls on the bus home what they thought of it! (They said, “yeah some guys can be kinda sleazy”)

Tonight we’ve watched Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, awesome! Oh, and I have a date on Thursday, I’ll keep you posted ;)

See I am capable of not writing an essay…

Wow a whole week since I last wrote on here, can’t believe it. Since last Saturday I’ve worked 5 shifts at ‘the Roundhouse Lodge’ (which you can view at http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/cams/). I was in for four days in a row then, had Thursday off, worked Friday, now have 4 days off then 5 days on. Weird. I was supposed to be doing this thing called ‘fresh tracks’ which is where people can buy a special ticket on top of their day pass or season pass and they get to go up on the mountain at 7 or something, have breakfast at our place, then get out on the slopes before everyone else. This means that we have to get on the gondola at 6.15 in the morning to be at work for 6.45 then work a 10 hour shift. The upside of this is that you get 3 days off a week plus you get pretty much 40 hours, which means mo’ money (potentially mo’ problems), which would definitely be handy considering our shocking wage ($8.49ph, ~£4ph…) and my shocking rent…
As it is I think I’ve worked about 25 hours in the past week because I’ve had a few late starts. I’m going to have a word with my supervisor, Stefan (who lives next door) though, and see if he can get me on the earlies. I’ll hate getting up that early so it’s gonna be a bit of a mish and a fair amount of candle burnage I guess but whatever! For example on Sunday night my friend Alana started buying us vodka shots so we ended up dancing the whole night (was a breaks night with some DJ from Vancouver, pretty rocking, made me miss my muzik and the old ones and twos..) and got back around 2.40 then got up to go boarding early the next day before going to work. Actually that day they sent me home at 2 so I went out for another couple of runs with Matt, boarded all the way to the bottom then realised that I’d hit a rock and bent out about 4 inches of my toeside edge… Noice. Had to stick my plank in the shop for $45 worth of repairs, although to be fair they gave me a pretty good deal and it needed a service anyway after the rock abuse in the previous week or two. At the same time my feet were in absolute agony after just one run (the spines are broken on both of my boots and they’re too big for me it turns out), so I decided to go and get some new ones the day after, which set me back $365, argh!!! On that note, it’s scary how much gear you actually need to do a season rather than a week or two on holiday. For example my snowboard pants and jacket are both rated at 5000g/m2 waterproofness (or some measurement like that), but considering how often it rains here and how wet the snow is when it falls due to our proximity to the coast, you need 20000g/m2 waterproof gear to stay dry. It would have been useful to know that before I purchased a new jacket… Goddammit. Also, the seat of my pants gets wet EVERY time I go out boarding, which means that my botty gets rather cold by the end of the day :) this all amounts to more expenditure, which I can’t really afford!! New credit card methinks

So my job! Wow, it’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever had a job which gives me more job satisfaction… JOKE! Hehe. *BUT* at the end of the day, it’s a job, which gives me money, and more importantly a lift pass!!! This is what I have to remember every time I’m thinking, “f*** this I can’t be assed”. On my second day I managed to forget to shave, which was commented on twice, then the third day I got told off for talking to my housemate Kim!!! What am I supposed to do, ignore people I know?! Anyway I decided to ignore the comments and get on with it (“tow the line” is an appropriate phrase here I believe). All I have to do really is glorified clearing, so it’s not that bad and the people I work with are mostly cool. I say mostly cuz there’s one guy, Pete, who is a “lead hand” from Manchester and is on a bit of a power trip. I reckon he’s just lapped up the corporate bullshit too much, but you can imagine the kind of English guy who thinks his job is important right?

One story of note this week to bore y’all with ;p had to queue for nearly two hours to get into Buffalo Bills on Wednesday night which was a bit shit, especially seeing as we turned up at 9.30!! Ridiculous. We sneaked a cheeky bottle of vodka into the queue though to prevent too much sobering up. The night turned out to be quality which is a relief seeing as we were seriously considering jacking it in. I only went down with Tim as it happened and he left after about an hour because the girl he’s chasing after left just before we got inside so he went off to look for her, mug. Lol. Which left me to fly solo! It was all good though cuz I saw a bunch of Canadian peeps I know, plus a girl from work, Aly (who is quite nice and I went out boarding with the day after), Gemma, Laura and Tania (Canadian girl, v nice), another couple of guys I know who live with Paul, plus some other randoms who I knew from sight so went up and started talking to! Girls mostly, an Aussie girl called Jane and an English girl called Kerri who I think I scored brownie points with hehe. It was quite funny afterwards because I’d ended up talking to these people for a while and didn’t get out of the club until about 2.30, and the last bus goes at 2.15… So I walked to the taxi rank, unearthed my coke that I’d buried in the snow after a visit to Subway earlier in the night, and shouted, “anyone going to Alpine!!”. Not sure what happened but I ended up taking a taxi with some Canadian (and maybe American) boarders, one of which was reputedly Devun Walsh’s brother and another Jeremy Jones, a Burton pro rider, but not sure how legit their claims were! They were going back to a ‘Wildcats’ house in Alpine Meadows (Wildcats is a group of riders who make snowboard videos and generally party hard and wreck stuff) and I was gonna go back there with them, which would have been quality, except I wasn’t convinced by their plan of running away from a taxi. So anyway, we got in a taxi at the taxi rank, drove 200 metres to the supermarket, got out, at which point the guys went in and bought/stole a bunch of food before leaving through the back doors and leaving the poor taxi driver out the front. Then we decided to hitch home cuz it was free, except no-one wanted to pick us up for some reason (at 3am in the ice rain/snow). After about 15 minutes the couple of guys who had fallen behind turned up in another cab which also had this French Canadian chick in it who was abbbbsolutley wasted. On the way I decided I had to get up early and was also worried about what the girl was gonna do so we jumped out at the bottom of Alpine and the guys took the cab on, probably to be run away from further down the road :p anyway I did my duty as a good lad and walked the girl back to her house, well I say walked but it was more like half carried, and then had to resist the urge to invite myself in due to the state she was in hehe. Anyway hopefully I’ll see her around cuz she was hot! Although another one who doesn’t have a phone, what’s wrong with these people! Anyway I got back at 4 then got up at 8.30 to go out boarding with Aly, who was actually much more capable than she made out, so no credit for teaching unfortunately ;) then had to go to bed as soon as I got home because we were supposed to be going out for our friend Jodie’s birthday that night… Ouch. Predictably the night was pretty average cuz I was knackered and couldn’t be arsed to talk to anyone, but we did sneak in a few games of table football in Moe Joe’s and me and Tim beat Matt Rai and Matt Game’s arses hard, boosh!

Worked again Friday, it was raining all day :( like, a lot. So when we went out boarding today the mountains were the biggest ice rink you’ve EVER seen! In fact I would go as far as to say it was the worst conditions I’ve ever attempted to board in. It was totally not fun so we did about 4 runs before packing it in. Hopefully it’ll sort out soon cuz I’m not working til Wednesday and want to make the most of it…

Right well I’m off out in a bit and this has taken me about 2 hours :s sorry if I’ve rambled on again, will try to be more concise in future, promise!

Lots of love

It’s DUMPING outside. It started snowing yesterday evening, has been going all day today and doesn’t look much like stopping. There must have been about 30cms at least so far down here and probably getting on for 50 up top as it was snowing all day up there yesterday while it was raining in the village. Anyway let’s start at the beginning else this will get all out of order.

Yesterday I had my first day of work. Great fun, I had to go get my uniform in the morning beforehand and there was a queue out the door because they were giving out all the vollie ski patrol uniforms too. For some reason they didn’t want to give me my uniform when I’d been down the afternoon before, even though that would have made infinitely more sense. Anyway, I really enjoyed queuing up for an hour which also meant that we (myself and another guy Mahyar who was also on the food safe course the day before) were late there by half an hour. Apparently it was all fine though, so no sacking on first day, bonus. The uniform itself is quite cool, a grey mesh-like long sleeve top and black whistler-blackcomb combats. Shame we didn’t get the outdoor uniform like the bistro workers who have to board to work do though. I think I’m going to try and blag a fleece off them cuz they’re nice north face ones and it would save me a purchase! My plan of attack is to say I’m cold at work and in transit, will keep ya posted.

Training consisted of a guided tour of the premises plus a rundown on the various responsibilities you may be assigned to in addition to the standard table clearing shite, which is always your primary responsibility, apparently. So after we were done with that I went on a table wiping circuit for about an hour before being nabbed to assist with the stocking and merchandising of another section which opened today. So spent most of the time helping the catering manager – Candace – set up a coffee bar! This had the unfortunate baggage of me being kept on for another hour and a half after the other new starters had been sent home, but I didn’t mind as it means more money! Plus it looked horrible outside, blizzard conditions.
Anyway the job looks ok, not sure how I’m going to cope with it but will see how it goes. The people seem cool too, plus I get free lunch every day I’m working, which is not bad. Our supervisor doesn’t really seem to give a shit as long as people appear to be busy, and they even decided it was ok for me to keep my earring in while at work, lol. I have to go in tomorrow as well but have a late start at 11, so that’s quite kush.

After work I went to staff and monged out (literally) at Tim’s until about half 7, at which point we went down to Merlin’s (a bar in the upper village which is owned and operated by Intrawest) where there was supposed to be some party thing going on. We met a bunch of the guys down there too, including Sean with his cast (see below pic).. Anyway it was a pretty standard night out, except for me changing venues 3 times! Went to get some pizza after too as once again had missed dinner, then met a nice Norwegian girl called Line (Leenah apparently) at the bus stop who a very pissed Matt & Dave were attempting to talk to (along with her two friends) when I got there!

Today I managed to get up and out of the house in 12 minutes! I’d arranged to go out boarding with Tim, Jess and maybe Fee and the third text message this morning finally roused me from my stupor. Getting ready *did* consist of rolling out of bed into boarding gear and then briefly brushing teeth before legging it, but I was still impressed with the speediness (tbh I was worrying about Jess getting arsy if I was keeping them waiting ;) It looked set to be an awesome, if not somewhat visually impaired, day so I was keen to get out anyway!

Met up with Fee, Jess and Tim in the village, and after the obligatory faffage we set off. I was appalled when the girls ditched us about 200m down the first run as Jess was demoing a new pair of skis that she wasn’t very confident on, and I don’t think the pair of them were up for our suggestions of what to go and do (explained below), hehe. So, leaving the wimpy girls behind we headed straight for the top (well, as far up as you can go at the moment, which is the top of the harmony express chair) and hit the flute bowl, blind… Hehe. Tim actually had to convince me for a brief second that it was a good idea because the wind was howling over the top of the ridge horizontal snow stylee and I thought that maybe the ‘foehn’ winds might have frozen up the top layer a bit. It turned out to be fine though and once we got past the blind part in the cloud, during which you could see literally no definition, we nailed a SICK powder run down. The only problem with flute is that you have to traverse out down a track to get back to the chair, but today it was worth it! :) After that we hit symphony bowl a couple of times and dropped in off the cornices into the double black diamond ‘harmony wishbones’ (will be a very nice run when you can see where you’re going), which involved launching yourself off an edge into the run below. The first time we took a bad line and it was a bit crusty, and further down we went too far right into the trees and had to hike out a bit at the bottom, which sucked, but the second time we nailed a nice dropoff and a beautiful powder field with trees dotted around before dropping down through the trees underneath the chairlift, which was wicked (did end up in a rock garden at one point where there were loads of big mounds of snow and I was thinking, “Hmm, are those trees? Can I ride over them?”.. Got round the other side of the first one though and it was a massive rock, so cut back out of there!), we got to the bottom smiling, which is always a good sign. Then realised we were late to meet the others for lunch so we headed down ‘the saddle’, which is in a third bowl, glacier bowl, I think. Anyway we couldn’t see shit again so kinda eased down there and then realised we were somewhat below where we needed to be so had to go all the way down to the top of the creekside lifts before we could grab a chair back up to the restaurant. After lunch we figured we’d head back as hitting powder takes it out of your legs even more than normal! Plus all the runs were chopped up so required effort to get down at speed. When we got to the gondola midstation to catch the lift down to the village there was a massive line-up (aargh! Canadian lingo) and we spotted Fred the snowboard instructor who thought it was ok to board to the bottom, so we thought YEAH LET’S DO IT. It was pretty much ok but the snow was soooo wet and heavy it was quite hard going. Plus there were a few streams which required jumping over as well as rocks under the surface to eat your board if you weren’t careful… So yes, there’s a reason why it’s not properly open yet. Anyway I thought it was wicked fun and went all the way to the bottom, which again induced shouts of YEAH! Hehe. We had a quick drink afterwards but it was pretty cold being sat outside (my damn trousers aren’t waterproof enough and keep soaking through on the bum, great another expense. I’m not convinced my jacket is sufficiently waterproof either…) so headed back home for a nice hot shower and hot chocolate, all good. Right now it’s still snowing outside and the others have just gone to make a snowman, I’m just chilling with my rosé ;) later all X

Man down…
We have our first casualty of the season, Sean broke his wrist today in two places and tore his ligaments on his first run of the season. That’s right, his FIRST run of the season. Poor guy man, went out drinking with him last night and he was pretty miserable (and understandably so). The doctors reckon he’d be out for 3 months, but Sean’s plan was to go to Australia and meet up with his girlfriend on her round the world trip at the end of February, so that would mean he’s out for his entire season. He has to have surgery on Tuesday because he’s broken it that badly and then has to do physio after that to heal the ligaments… I felt for the guy because he was going through the same things that I did when I did my back in on my gap year, how it could have been avoided, how stupid it was, how he wasn’t going to go out riding that day…but we agreed that it was just very bad luck as he’d fallen the same way a hundred times before. In fact he was stopping at the bottom of the run to get on the lift and just managed to fall awkwardly on it, not going fast or anything. Anyway he’s waiting to hear what they say after surgery on Tuesday and if there’s any chance that he might be able to get some riding in before he has to go to Oz. At least if it comes to it he has something to go on to though and isn’t going home.

Incidents like that just compound the fact that our bodies are very fragile indeed.. Pretty gutting :/ get well soon Seamus!

Did a shitty food safety course today which lasted 7 hours! They could have fit it all into 4 easily.. Sucked because I managed to leave my phone on discreet all of yesterday whilst I was out riding (lasted a whole hour and three quarters ‘til my legs gave up the ghost, largely brought on by having to hike up to Blackcomb base II to get my goddamn day pass and missing the bus to staff housing..) and missed a call from my recruitment person up at the Roundhouse, Erin (who ends up laughing hysterically every time I speak to her for some reason – maybe something to do with my lack of organisation regarding giving them all of my details, for the second time..), who had phoned me to ask if I could attend a food safety course and to call back. Unfortunately we’d already arranged to go out that night for Di’s birthday so looked like more burning the candle at both ends. As it happened we ended up in Buffalo Bills and the birthday party was at Garfinkels. The reason being that when me & Si passed by there at 9.30 there were only 4 people inside… Hmm.

Anyway, I dragged myself out of bed at 7.30 after having slept for about 4 hours and set off for this thing. I had to call Erin up to say I was attending as she had “tentatively booked me” to do the course – she just ended up laughing at me as per when I explained the story of how I’d retrieved my passport now so I could give her the rest of the information that she needed. The course would have been boring as hell but fortunately my friend Fran was on the same course so we spent most of the day passing notes, giggling like schoolkids and getting pissed off with the way too happy and over-enthusiastic group of asskissing Canadians behind us. I managed to pass the course fine fortunately, most of it was common sense and the test was multiple choice, however I am now a qualified food safe level one, er, person. I get a certificate and everything, bitchin.

Unfortunately I now have to go get my washing, as I’ve hit rock bottom today by running out of pants and socks :)

Looking forward to another early start tomorrow (ahem), hopefully they won’t keep me there too long so that I can get some riding in the afternoon before heading to some kind of staff payday party at Merlin’s straight off the hill! Yeeeh.

Laters X