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A couple years ago, I fell in love in Jay Peak. An otherwise cold, windy and miserable day would also prove to be one of my best. There is something to be said about visiting places that were the setting for important moments of your life. Since November 22nd was set to be opening day at Jay, and due to the personal significance of the resort, I decided to get a car load of bros to go down there and ride.

The unusual suspects of the bro-down in Jay.

The road trip started out early, I picked up Yeti and Brad, and with Yahoo! directions in hand, we proceeded east for what we hoped would be a good day of riding (first for Brad and Yeti, second for me). The drive was mostly uneventful up until the Canada-USA border where we got pulled aside by the customs agent. He asked us if we were carrying more than $10,000 in cash (I wish we had that much scratch). I guess he wanted to search our stuff to make sure we weren't secretly part of the wealthy elite.

Normally a customs search would be no big deal, however, in this instance Brad really needed to use the restroom. So he asked the customs agent "do you guys have a public washroom in here?" To which the agent replied "It makes no sense for us to have public restrooms here because if you were smuggling drugs you could go flush them, or if we say something you don't like you can smear the whole place in poo." (no joke, he said that). Of course that's when we realized that Brad had probably set off a red flag with his request. Fortunately it didn't take long for them to search the car and they didn't make a huge mess of it. Once we were out of visible range of the border, we had to pull over to the side of the road so Brad could take care of business.

Yeti meets his doppleganger. What are the odds of seeing two of the same gaper.

With our urinal emergency behind us, we continued on toward Jay. However, we ended up taking a wrong turn (we turned up VT-105 instead of VT-242). Once that feeling of being in the wrong place set in, we decided we should pull over and ask someone for directions. Fortunately there was a pedestrian up the way. Yeti started joking how it was probably hillbilly with a shotgun. As we approached, we realized that this guy did in fact have a rifle slung over his shoulder. Not to be deterred, however, we stopped and asked him for quick directions. He confirmed that we had in fact taken a wrong turn and kindly directed us on how to get back. We thanked him and made our way. When we finally arrived at Jay, we were stoked to realize that it was snowing pretty heavily.

No sooner had we started unpacking did the gaper hunt begin. The first victim: Yeti. He decided to rock a purple one piece but because he does it in typical Yeti style, it had a certain panache that couldn't be ignored. However, Brad had been instructed before he left to make sure to spray a gaper wearing skier, so he looked at Yeti and said "expect to be sprayed."

Although Yeti's was the first, it certainly wasn't the last gaper we saw. In fact no sooner had we gotten our lift passes did we notice another skier wearing the exact same gaper. An instant friendship was forged.

For our first run of the day, we decided to go with the more difficult of the runs that were available to us. The snow was good but the moguls were large and the visibility basically nil. Which is probably why we hadn't noticed that we had ventured onto one of the closed sections of the run. This is when I fell in the creek (I seem to do this at least once a year). None the worse for wear, I tried to make my way back to the lift except I found the going to be tough (Yeti and Brad were already way ahead of me). That's when I realize that I have about 2 inches of sluch caked onto my base. I finally cleaned it off so we could resume our riding.

Gene Kelly sings in the rain but Yeti and Brad sing in the snow. The Jay clouds strike on opening day.

We spent the rest of the morning shredding up any run that was open until our legs were sore and our finger tips frozen. We decided to head inside for a while to warm up our fingers and take a bio-break. This is when things almost went south. While going to the restroom, Yeti's iPhone fell out of his pocket. He realized it was missing and we spent the next 15 minutes or so re-tracing his steps trying to find it. After asking pretty much everyone in the lodge if they had seen it, and only seconds before Yeti lost it and started throwing tables around, he realized that it had fallen into the hood of his gaper. Crisis averted.

The rest of the afternoon was a lot more of what we experienced in the morning: snow, lots of riding, some freshies, some gapers, more snow, and lots of laughs (did I mention it was snowing). At one point, while marveling at the heavy snowfall, we came upon a guy sitting in the snow, seemingly trying to fasten up his bindings. What was significant was that he was complaining that he wanted to go back to Delaware. I said "But there's no snow in Delaware!" "Exactly" he said which made me wonder what he was doing in Jay in the first place.

Finally when it was time to call it a day, we packed up all of our gear and made our way back toward the border. Four hours or so and 63 litres of fuel later, we made it back to Canada's capital craving massages and sleep. We were thankful to have benefited from the mystical Jay clouds for a truly epic opening day in Jay and to have averted any potential buzz-kill worthy crisis. I was happy to have gone back to a really important junction place of my life. The day was truly epic but at the same time made me realize how much I missed those who could not be there.

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Thunderstorms were pretty non-existent this summer, so last night was the first soaking rain we've had since spring that I can remember. If we would've had a little more cold air, this sucker could've produced well over a foot of snow. Instead, snow levels remained about 9,000 feet and never dropped to the 7,500 that were being advertised.

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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Help a blogger out / Swords will... / Kale's not ready for Fall

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dude, it’s been a rockstar few weeks in minnesnowta. the state fair just rolled through, the republicans had their little convention, and rage against the machine played. yeah, rage against the machine.

i usually tell people that minneapolis and saint paul are like big cities nobody has moved into, yet. they look like big cities, but traffic isn’t that bad (i’m looking at you, bay bridge), and it’s mostly just half-rich white kids getting bored and causing trouble. that safe feeling fully eroded after seeing what the police had done to our cities.

credit (required): http://flickr.com/photos/trevino/

since last saturday, 422 people have been arrested in association with the RNC, with like 280 of them happening on monday. some of those rowdy rousers were the anarchist type, and you know how dumb breeds dumb. a mini riot broke out on monday, and that set the tone for the rest of the week.

the rage concert was ok. i wish i could say it was great, but the acoustics sucked. not their fault, but at $72 a ticket, i want my f*cking acoustics. rage played a lot from the first album, a few less from evil empire, and even less from battle of la. i was ok with that. single encore, then a plea from the band to “leave peacefully, but not passively.” zach encouraged everyone to show discipline, to show the police that we can get down in peace while still saying “f*ck you, i won’t do whatchu tell me.” yeah, it’s ironic, but get over it. it’s still possible.

the papers said we were greeted outside the concert by about 50 riot police. unless they meant “per sidewalk,” that number was a bit low. whatever. point is, unless you’re insanely drunk (i wasn’t), there’s no way you can walk past that many armed and armored police and feel like sneezing won’t get you your sheat beat down.

it took about a half hour before any half-assed protest broke out. the loudest kids didn’t like being told they couldn’t sit in the middle of the street (me: let evolution do its thing). the rest of us just didn’t like the idea of being told you can’t stand on this sidewalk by police in riot gear (and now gas masks). the police stopped us about half way down the block.

credit: http://flickr.com/photos/diversey/

after some fat guy yelling through a loudspeaker about as clear as they do at the airport, the police blockade broke down. someone in the group said “walk that way” and everyone did. and we kept walking, probably about a few blocks, in the road, mostly because it was cleared. as soon as the block wasn’t cleared of traffic, these retired american gladiator cops on schwinns started riding people down, shoving them to the sidewalk, and almost getting a couple of the crowd to push back on them. dude, i know there are good cops, but some of the cops out that night had that look like “say what again mother f*cker.”

somewhere between the schwinns and the cops on super horses, 3 little piggies came riding up on one of those atv golf carts (didn’t see any segways) with that short stubby looking thing that usually shoots tear gas. after we heard the pop pop, we looked for the area with the least amount of cops, ran, and gtfo. police said it wasn’t tear gas, but, they were the ones wearing the gas masks.

hey man, there’s usually not shi*t to talk about in minnesota.

read more about the rage show post-party or the fun around the

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matt albiniak is a sellout that traded days in tahoe for doing interwebs stuff for a route 29, a small candy company in minneapolis, mn. (http://www.route29.com)

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Chas brings to the table excellent contest results like 1^st 2008 Vans Tahoe Cup Rail Jam, 1^st 2008 Honda Session Rail Jam, 3^{rd 2008} Honda Session Slopestyle and is currently in 4^th in the Ticket To Ride World Tour Standings.  Chas’ impressive competitive career has opened the door to the cinematic side of snowboarding earning him a spot with the legendary Standard Films .

PortersTahoe.com is honored to support Chas in his snowboarding endeavors at the local level and abroad.  “I’m super stoked to be on board, the crew at Porters is all about having a good time and sharing their passion of Tahoe and snowboarding. I really feel like I fit in well with everyone and the whole Porters mission. I just want to share my love of snowboarding and inspire people to go out with their friends and get creative on their snowboard “-Chas.  “We couldn’t be more stoked on such a dynamic individual who is down to earth, willing to work hard and be inspirational to all those young kids out there who want to have fun snowboarding,” says PortersTahoe.com Snowboard Team Manager Eric Asistin.

Chas joins the established Porters team of  Andy Finch and Nate Holland along with the young  blood of Brandon Cocard, Bobby Witty and Johnny Lazzareschi.  Go to the PortersTahoe.com BLOG  to stay updated on what’s going on in Tahoe and abroad as the PortersTahoe.com Snowboard Team looks for an epic and bright season

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Twin ninja babies? New 2008/09 ad campaign.. Church party scene!

According to my Japanese news source the best ninja snowboarder in the world is having twins! Two babies! Dam, is there anything Tadashi isn't good at.



Our 08/09 ad campaign has hit the news stands. Yep we're hitting hard this season with spreads in Snowboarder, no biggie.. Keep posted for Dev's ad in the October issue which should be out any day now.

I didn't know the church party scene was so wild.



Someone must of spiked the holy water.
Thanks for sending that over Jeff.

# posted by Furious @ 10:47 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 11, 2008

Dev didn't tell me about this...

Kimball just sent us a revised IS Eyewear commercial



Just got these German peddler shots in the mail.



Coleman showing the Black Forest who's boss!



Caine and Coleman kickin bike ass in Berlin. I hope they have some video on the way.

# posted by Furious @ 1:32 PM 0 comments

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Today is Kale's Birthday!

Or... Today is Kale's B day??



I couldn't decide... If you see him out Tonight buy him a bunch of drinks and introduce him to your younger sister. Happy Bday Buddy!


Classic clips!

# posted by Furious @ 11:33 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Guido Epidemic

Warning: These dudes are for real..







Sorry I posted that.

# posted by Furious @ 10:08 AM 0 comments

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April 22, 2008 I wake up and look at my clock which sais 1:00 PM Whao, how did I sleep till one, and how come my mom didn’t give me crap for sleeping so long? is the first thing that comes to mind. Then my mom walks in and starts rambullshi*ting about how the breaker jumped and i have to many things plugged in. So I go to the kitchen to check the time, turns out it was just 9:48  So I set my clock, then the phone rings. After a short chat on the phone my mom sais “ Dad called he’s coming with the tractor go shovel the decks.” It had finally stopped snowing after about three days of heavy snowing. I didn’t think there would be very much snow, but when I walk out I found myself waddling in two foot tall drifts all the way down the side walk. Once I got to the garage I was standing beside a 5 foot tall drift of snow. Haha, winters back! I think I was the only one who though this big dump of snow was awesome, everyone else was like damn it. While shoveling the snow I take a quick look at my hill in the back yard, sweet there enough snow on it to shred so I make up my mind to go hit it after I was done. Work then play, so I finish up, get my gear and walk to the hill. My little sis and bro were following me but they had to stop since the snow was so deep my little sis couldn’t  get though. So I get to the hill and it turns out that there’s only snow on half of it, so I only had half a hill to shred, but it made it easier to walk up. Once on top and strapped in I head down and get stopped by a big drift. Well that was lame. I go back up and try it again, this time I make it down and hit my little blue barrel.  Then I see my bro coming back and he sais “The snow is so deep you could do like back flips and not get hurt!” I then decided to build a jump and try. So I unstrapped and head out in search for something to build a jump with. (since the last time I built a jump with just snow it was tiny, and took for ever to make.) We look around for a bit and see nothing. So we decide to start building the jump anyway. On the way I spot some bails, perfect!  My bro sais “there some right by the hill we just have to dig them out.” We find the bails no problem. Three square bails made up the base of our jump, we piled snow on it for about an hour and my bro was tired and cold so he went in. I finished up the jump, then pushed and packed the snow in a line down to the jump. Every time I looked back there was always something that needed fixing, but I was starving so I had to go in. Right when I get to the door I see my brother standing there with a grilled cheese and ham sandwich in his hand. He sais “I was brining you some food!” What a sweet little bro lol. But I had already taken my boots off, so I went in and had some soup with my sandwich. It was past two when I got in. Around 3:00 my brother and I headed back out to try out the jump. I walk up, hit the jump and don’t even get enough speed to get over it. I try again, and same thing is repeated. So we shave down a little bump, that I had made to help me go faster, but it just slowed me down. I hit it again and got over, but I just drop of the end. We do an bunch more trial and error, then we get called in by my mom. I didn’t even get a good jump in and it was already supper time. The next day I’m determined to fix the jump. I look around the yard to try and think of something. I walked over to my little sisters fisher price slide, and get an idea. I take the slide part off, and haul the base (Which is 4ish feet tall, 2ish feet wide and 3ish feet long.) to the top of the hill. I packed it down, cover the top in snow and tadah, a steeper hill! I get up, strap in and drop. Problem fixed! I hit it a few more times, go in for supper, then go back out till dark. The next day, my big sistah tried it out. After about 5 minutes of saying “Omg your retarded, who would build such a thing? Are you serious? Your on crack!” she hit the jump. She then hit it a bunch more times. After I convinced her to give me my board back, she made me jump over her. Crazy gurl! The first two times I bailed, I was sure something stupid would happen. But I finally got over it and jumped over her no prob…so I did it again lol. Then she jumped over me, I’ll admit it was a little bit scary! And the day was over. Even though the hills are shut we still shred!        

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