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There is no rhyme to this, yet there may be some reason. I write without a thought and without a care as images and thoughts swirl about my head. This morning was fine, the college skylights were breathtaking.
The sun shone brightly through the melting snow above my head. It bore through a spot here and there but was cast back for the most part by a wall of white. Where it did break through golden hues arose like the light of heaven. I could not help but sit and stare for as long as life permitted me, which was long enough.
There is more, there is always more, for me and for you to find.
The computer is humming, the music is silent and the bed is waiting.



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’ve never been exposed to military life, and I’ve certainly never been in a combat zone - until last week.



I spent a good part of my summer vacation in Afghanistan. Danny Kass, Grete Elliassen, and I spent 10 days in the Middle East, visiting our troops on an "X Games themed meet and greet." Our mission was simple: boost moral. If you’ve ever hung out with Danny, Grete, or I you’d know not only did we accomplish our mission, we went above and beyond the call of duty. It was a small sacrifice compared to what the servicemen and women of the Armed Forces are doing for our great nation.

I went over to Afghanistan with an open mind, to see first hand what was going on and how the troops were doing. I came back humbled and with a true understanding of sacrifice. I mean, I know how trying “the road” can be, but giving yourself for 15 months of your life, away from family and friends, is one hell of a sacrifice and a test of a true patriot in my book.

Our Middle East tour started in Qatar, a small but very wealthy country on the Persian Gulf just off of Saudi Arabia.

Qatar is the hottest place I’ve ever been to - including the sauna at your local health club. The temperatures ranged from 120 degrees during the mid-day heat, and would drop to around 90 degrees at night. Needless to say, we spent the majority of our time in doors soaking up every ounce of air conditioning we could before bolting to an air-conditioned car, and off to the next air-conditioned building.

Other than the heat being almost unbearable, the troops were amazing. The base in Qatar isn’t only a fully-functioning military base, it’s also a rest and relaxation base for solders to get out of the combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan for four days every six months. This was their R&R time. The feeling in Qatar was pretty light hearted. The solders were allowed three beers a day, which loosened them up enough for Danny to olli four of them laying down - including Col. Cotter on his skateboard.



From Qatar we boarded a C130 military plane flight into Afghanistan. Once we arrived in Afghani air space the plane blacked out completely into the night sky. A young soldier with a thick Kentucky accent leaned over and said, “We're going to drop in fast, they have a tendency to try and shoot these things down.” That’s when the realization that I was in a war zone fully hit me.

He was right, too, the C130 plane dropped like a rock out of the night sky from about 20-30 thousand feet up to the runway below. A “combat landing” is one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. My face was glued to the window praying I didn’t see a rocked fire out of one of the many clusters of lights seen below. Thankfully nothing “exciting” as another soldier put it happened.



Once we were “safely” in Afghanistan, Grete fell ill with salmonella poisoning. She was hospitalized and our tour was put into a holding pattern. Not only would Danny and I visit Grete in the Afghanistan Hospitals but we ventured around a met most of the Doctors, Nurses, Staff, and of course the injured and sick. Carmen our guide practically lived at the bedside of Grete, what a guide! My experiences of Hospitals are that they always have an eerie feeling to them, and this one was no exception. My heart sank as we toured room after room. Everyone had a different story to tell why they were there. A group of local Men were all smiles getting routine check ups, so they were able to get a job on base. Then there was an American Soldier awaiting hand surgery after his armored vehicle was rolled during a roadside attack. The most disturbing was by far the small children. One little girl lost her leg from an old Russian land mind, and in the very next room a little boy laid out dressed in bandages healing burns from an explosion. Experiences like these are reinsuring my thoughts and wishes to have peace on earth.



Danny and I carried on and entertained ourselves by exploring the rest of the base. While checking out the base we met a group of armored truck guys who called themselves “The Reapers”. These guys were cool as hell and had story after story to tell Danny and I about their life in the military and their tour in Afghanistan.
While hanging with The Reapers I felt safe - these guys were the bad asses on the front lines. They gave Danny and I a full tour of their armored vehicle, including sitting in the gunner’s chair. Spinning around in that chair armed with a 50 cal and a grenade launcher was quite a feeling.

Grete wasn’t getting any better after a couple of days so Danny and I left her and our tour guide Carmen behind as we ventured to a FOB (Forward Operating Base) named Solerno - better know as Rocket City.

While in Rocket City, the Air Calvary gave us a tour of the Heli pad holding Blackhawks, Apaches, and a smaller surveillance chopper. We took shooting lessons from a sniper and visited an artillery group of guys who are responsible for shooting back at the Taliban after Rocket City is attacked by, well, rockets. Danny and I were reminded that we were at a FOB nicknamed Rocket City at about 2 am by our guide McKnight. I was abruptly awoken my McKnight’s deep voice saying, “come on, get your sh*# on, get your sh*# on, we got to get to the hard building.” I looked over at Danny while he was throwing his bulletproof vest and helmet on and started to do the same.



We all grabbed our blanket and pillow and ran across the street to the hard building, aka a bunker. It was thought that we may be getting attacked by rockets that night so we all spent the night tossing and turning on the concrete floor wearing bullet proof vests and Kevlar helmets. Let me tell you that was one hell of a night. Let’s just say I wasn’t missing my flight out of Rocket City.



After our Rocket City adventures Danny, aka Afghan Dan, and I met back up with Grete and Carmen, did one last signing in Afghanistan and started our trip back home.



Although our trip was short and sweet, I think I got a pretty basic taste of military life in a war torn country. The highs of hanging out with the gung-ho soldiers and their weapons, to the lows of visiting a four year old girl who lost a leg from a land mine are just two extreme emotions I felt in just one week.

Again my hat goes off to the servicemen and women who sacrifice so much to protect this great country we all love.

www.porterstahoe.com


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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

 

Office Booyz theme song??

Monday, March 17, 2008

 

Louif

Friday, March 14, 2008

 

Dickies Back!

Dickies been on a serious trip over the last month or so but he's back! We're trying to get him focused on filming a full part with whats left of the shred season but he's a bit of a loose canon so we'll be happy to get are hands on anything at this point.

Here's an old family video Dickies father Malibu sent us. Enjoy.

Warning: This video is a bit out there and Dickie is in now way a roll model. Don't watch this in front of your Mom or she will call us and complain. Thanks...



There's a couple more on youtube but I can't post them here. Good luck finding them.

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  Read if you want... I was high on Rockstar when I typed this out. So that is why none of it will most likely make sense.

you know what...

 

I've been thinking... I know surprising eh ? haha shut up.

What would life have been like if everything was different ? I don't mean like absolutely everything or else I would be named Wolf, and most likely wouldn't be in the situation I am in currently, I'd already be out on the streets saving people. but here is what I mean, what if certain things in my life were strategically different. Well there is the absolutely obvious, school choices, what I did at school, or the lack thereof. But what I am specifically talking about was when I was living @ 88 Culver Crescent in London.

 

So there was 2 of the 5 that moved in earlier than the rest. You would think that we would be like having dinner together, lunch whatever. But for some messed up reason, we really never did? Which looking back at it now could be because the other half wanted it her way or no way. But that is how she was brought up so there was nothing I really could do to combat that. So that could be why we were two completely different functions items. But now that I am looking back, it really bothers me. It honestly does. Like I could not imagine how much better it could have been if everything could have just been more pleasant in the first couple weeks leading up to signing the lease and then the following weeks of move in days/time. All of the emotional convo's that we did have just me and her either sitting in my room and just chatting for hours, or sitting in her room on the bed drunk off our asses, or me sitting on the stairs and just shooting the shi*t, why could those experiences happen, but we could not just get together and have a meal ? I mean, me and her were the original 2 that would chill in Pre-Health, and then in Residence. But back to the whole meal thing. How many things would have changed if only we got together for meals. Guidelines might have been easier to be set (None were set in reality). When dinner would roll around, I would eat upstairs, she would downstairs. but why ? duh, the confrontations. It was just weird, flipping back and forth. How many confrontations never would have happened if only we ate together once and a while. Only in the final months were we "sorta" closer. We gathered around Pussycat Dolls: The Search for the Next Doll. Yes I watched it and called them all whores. and yes I cheered for Chelsea to win, or the other girl to win, oh well. I know I am not normal, shut it!

I know I also have been talking in circles, but it happens once and a while... and I mean the Rockstar obviously is helping this haha. Let's see. then there was the girl. What was I thinking... and since I am posting this on Deviantart, Fb, Snowboard colonies, along with a couple other places, sooner or later she will prolly read this, if she admits it or not. Was it a right choice, at that point I thought it was because she looked like one of the girls on my brothers baseball team that I, in the simplest terms, adored. This girl was just stunning in my young eyes, and since I knew I never had a chance with this girl since I was so young, I averted my eyes to this new girl, that as I saw it looked like her. and I mean being with her for as long as I did, I don't even see the likeness at all anymore. But I did at the time. oh well. I wouldn't call my life ruined from her, but my life didn't get much easier when she was around. I did enjoy her company, because I never had someone who I could go to that wasn't my mom or brother. Sorry to myself, but it's the truth. I have never had someone whom I could just talk to and let everything go, I could laugh with, talk to for hours about nothing, just sit and say nothing, or play video games and actually not have to teach the person how to play, they would just try and really wasn't that bad. Not better than me, a durr, I couldn't have that now could I ? yeah I didn't think so either haha. So yeah, I never have had someone like that that wasn't blood, and I was at that time, glad I did have it. Wow Rockstar works eh ? haha. I am shaking... Although it could be from the coldness of the room. Back to her. So shi*t was alright, I felt like the protector, and I really liked this new power. and Since she will prolly find this sooner or later (I hope) here goes the big secrets. The friend I said that I argued with about you, and I said that I lost touch with because I didn't like what she was saying about her, never happened. There was no arguement between my good friends back in good ol' St.C. If there was, no girl comes before my friends, sorry, My friends come first, especially the person I was saying I lost touch with. I mean yeah, we do butt heads once and a while when I think she needs to go to College or know that some of her choices are stupid, but shi*t happens, and we have (hopefully) gotten past that past instances. back to the girl. There was a conversation with my one roommate about her though, while I was still in res. I talked to the one guy, and he told me to get out because obviously I wasn't happy. a year later... I didn't listen to him obviously. But time happens. Next, I never wanted you to meet my friends, why people would most likely ask... because in my eyes at least at that time, I thought you were good enough for me, but you would never be good enough for my friends. I know it doesn't make any sense that you would be good enough for me, but not them. I was just I guess embarassed to show them that I had in fact found something out in the "REAL WORLD" that I enjoyed. In the back of my head the entire time I knew I should have been with someone more "fit" or "athletic" maybe a volleyball player or something like that... you people reading this understand right ? The typical girl. Someone who I could take home and be like see, she is my girl, not.... bring someone home and be see, here she is, not here is MY GIRL. just here SHE IS... Obviously this is pig headed of me and I realize this. But for some reason still beyond me, I wanted some sort of companionship. I guess I got that from her ? Don't know about her since she doesn't write like I do, like this for example. Which is really another reason why we don't talk now. She can't talk, it is like a permanent tongue cut... make sense ? not trying to make that a jab at you if you are still reading this. You just could never communicate with me in your own "heart" and "feelings". they were always someone else's feelings or thoughts.

Which brings me to paragraph 3. EVERYONE ELSE'S FEELINGS. wow my hands are cold. keep going. no more Rockstar tonight. It was never you and I, and I think that was one of the problems we had. Since you couldn't say what you thought, at least as much when you would, I would shut you down and make everything you said look wrong. My linguistics did that and I apologize, not like it helped. Back to the topic. Since you couldn't say what you thought and felt, you went to surrounding passers-by, who divulged into lives and lurked for too long for me to be comfortable. Those passers-by were your voice. Wow. I never should have taken that long of a break. My brain isn't in the same mindset anymore. Ok Let’s try this again… Rob Zombie will help me now. So as I was saying, your passers-by were your voice and as I saw it, they were you. I was not with you, I was with them and had to deal with them because you refused to live your life, you let others do it for you, and thus up to that point that is exactly what got you by. With that said. Where is she going now ? Well since she is back in the home city, she has been manipulated from what I thought I had created to keep the head on straight and possibly create an own person. I was wrong, they have sucked the life out of you. You are finished for life now till you finally break away and find out that these people are telling you what to do, what to think. When you were in your first yrs of college, you couldn’t bugger off to other provinces, but what a freakin’ surprise, the second you are forced back to your home city, now you are being spoon-fed bullshat! That’s right BULL-SHAT ! You have been shown that as long as you dwell under the home city, the world is yours and you have no problems or worries. “Just don’t ever leave or we will disown you and leave you for dead on the side of the street” “We don’t care what you think, because you are useless to the world, and will amount to nothing… why is that you ask? Well you aren’t allowed to ask questions, so shut the fack up and get back into your overcrowded room and sit till we tuck you in for bed.”

Wow that felt good to get out FINALLY.  So you can think what you want from that, but isn’t it funny that you “lost all feelings for me as soon as you slinked back to the home city ?” yeah, that’s what I thought too. The brainwashing and hand-feeding has commenced. I guarantee with everything that is holy, that if you were in any other city but the current one, you would still not be “over me”. And why is that, because you don’t know who you are, so you rely on other people to tell you what to say and what to think. Isn’t it surprising that when you were living in the house, and had temporarily lost contact with the reliers, that you were HAPPY, you were enjoying life, you had an honest fun time. I don’t think you can deny that. There were obvious rough patches, but those were because of situations at the house, or your reliers trying to wedge back into the situation and I got frustrated when you were letting them (Calling them every single night and filling them in on daily occurances)… What are you going to do when they finally pass ? who are you going to call then ? one of your other reliers and spill to them. Where will you live ? Since they like the younger half more than you, Younger will have the house. And we all know younger won’t want you hanging around.
You know that you need to get away. I know you do. But unfortunately you will never be able to see this until you stop listening to background noises and see what YOU REALLY WANT. Not what everyone else has told you you want to hear and do.

 

So this was fun. I got a lot out. No clue why this all came up, but it did. Kinda for some reason just pissed me off. Damn people randomly getting on my nerves for no reason haha.

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We're about at the midway mark for the east coast season now. There's not been much of a snowfall, 2 warm spells, and quite a bit of ice. Most people are usual naysayers, saying we've gotten off easy for the winter, but here in NY/NJ area, out big snowfalls come after Valentines Day, and then again in mid March. It's been this way for the past 4-5 years. How quickly people forget.

I've competed in 3 boardercross comps, lost one, got 3rd place in the other two. The guy that took first in the last 2 is a retired pro rider who'd been riding since 1984. How the heck are amateurs supposed to compete with that? LOL He was cool though, so kudos to him.

Going to be planning a late march trip to Colorado this week, so I'm amped about that. Should be good fun. I miss riding in powder. Its been over 5 years now.

I need to start kickin up my tricks and jibs more. I do NOT want to go through this season without some good pics and video footage. I really need to take a day off so I can ride during the day when the conditions are NOT a sheet of ice.





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what i like about this sport is the peace losing yourself in the mountain strap on your head phones take off and its just you theres noone else there your going down the mountain in perfect peace and harmony you dont think you just go you can be with a big group but to you theres noone around its one of the best feelings in the world to let go of all your worries and thoughts and then when you can finnally do this youve found the spirit of the sport what its all about and you can finally lose yourself and see what peace really is

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Could there be a part of you that possible thinks of not so much the future, but the past just as much, if not more? Lets' say your in a pretty deep relationship, and you're not necessarily wanting to get out of it, but you have changed so much to adapt to what is around you, that you don't really know what is real or what may even be a dream, and what if what you're going through somethting that is real, is it possible that you may not have the power to change anything that may be going on, even if you want your life back the way it all used to be before, before you got into that so called deep relationship? But on the other hand, if it is a dream, could you by any chance, have the ability and or power to change it to anything you want? and if so how? Lets say you do have the power to change what is real and what you are dreaming of, how do you know it will be for the best, what if it ends up wrong? And if you do end up makeing a choice on whether or not you change it, how do you know the people in your past would welcome you back and or home, and the people that was in your life before you changed it wouldnt' get hurt by your decision? Is there such a thing as a wrong choice? What if your in a relationship that's abusive in a somesort of way, and your scared to change cause your afraid it'll make him/her mad, would you still try and be brave and change? Say your partener has never acted like that until one day he/she all of a sudden snaped cause of stress or to much drugs, what would you do? Would you sit your partener down and talk to him/her, and try to reason with them, or would you just take it and see if it blows over? And say it does but you still keep your gaurd up cause your not to sure of when the next time if there ever is a next time, you still not to sure of when it may happen again. What if your tryin to get  to someone so you can talk about what's going on, say someone who you feel close to, what would you do then? what if you try to talk to someone, and they say they'll be there for you no matter what, but in the end they aren't and you start haveing suicidal thoughts, what do you do then?

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            I remember watching A Knight's Tale recently, and seeing Ledger before he became A-List famous. He looked eager and young, but you could see that he was really trying to capture a decent performance, and he succeeded. You see the same thing in the Mel Gibson film The Patriot, Ledger bringing depth to what could have been a shallow, one note characted. Ten Things I Hate About You? Same exact thing.

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No matter where I am or what I'm up to, my thoughts are allways in the deep woods of Oz on Mt. Mansfield, Stowe Mountain Resort. Thats how I know that I was trully born to Snowboard...becomming a veterinarian is more the hobby than boarding is. I can't wait for finals to be over with so I can get back to whats important ;).

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