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Daily Barns: Sunday, November 23, 2008
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.
Daily Barns: Friday, August 01, 2008
Late in the season, a common pastime among snowboarders is the infamous gaper hunt. After witnessing this activity in various places, I've been struggling with a very important question: what is the proper pronunciation of the word “gaper”. Everyone seems to have their own take on it and I'd like to take a little time to investigate the etymology of the word.
Conventional wisdom would have you look to a word's spelling to get an idea of how to pronounce it. Using this logic, the most obvious answer for the proper pronunciation is gey-per. If we look to the definition of a gaper, however, we're led to believe that the pronunciation doesn't follow standard english syntatical expectations.
It's like the ghosts of christmas past, present and future.The Urban Dictionary defines a gaper as:
... a skier or snowboarder who is completely clueless. Usually distinguished by bright colored clothes and a gaper gap -- the gap between the goggles and a helmet/hat. Gaper's are known to do the "Gaper Tuck" which is an attempt at being a ski racer by tucking, however, it is done incorrectly with the poles sticking straight up like thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening! Gapers also sit at the bottom of jumps and try and go big off table tops in the park.
From this definition, we're led to believe that the term gaper has its roots in the description of the gap for which they are known. From this, one would assume that the correct pronunciation of the word is in fact gap-per. So the confusion is understandable when trying to figure out how to properly pronounce the term.
The Urban Dictionary, however, also provides another definition for the word GAPER as “an acronym that stand[s] for Guaranteed Accident Prone on Every Run.” This definition has no reference to the distinctive gaper gap which seems to be one of the roots of the word. If we rely on this definition, there is no need to break the rules of syntax and the word can be pronounced gey-per.
Gaper in Other Contexts
The word gaper also has meanings in other contexts. Wikipedia describes gapers as stone heads, often depicting a black man, located on the fronts of buildings in the Netherlands to indicate that these building are pharmacies. The gaper represents the assistant of the travelling apothecary who was the forefather of the modern pharmacist. This assistant would pretend to be a sick man only to miraculously feel better (and perform a dance) after taking the pill given to him by the apothecary. So in the Netherlands, the word Gaper is somewhat representative of a charlatan. This relates to the modern definition of the word since gaper's in ski resorts will often profess to a higher degree of skill than they actually have. This doesn't help in the search for the correct pronunciation of the word, however, since I don't speak the Dutch language.
The simplest definition of a gaper that I have found so far, is “a person or thing that gapes”1. This definition actually provides a phonetic spelling for the word, which is in fact gey-per, as one would expect. This description also agrees with the more colloquial definition of the word as gapers are often seen in the middle of Whistler Village, in their rear-entry boot and neon one-piece glory, gaping at the scenery through the lense of a camera (that is when they aren't seen as a streak of neon laying down wide carves on the cat track).
The Verdict
Following this long and arduous Google search, I think the question of the pronunciation of the word gaper can finally be laid to rest. I motion that the correct pronunciation heretofore be gey-per; don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If they insist on pronouncing it gap-per, refer them to this study which should convince them that they are wrong-headed. Although this study cannot be considered complete by any stretch of the imagination, I'm pretty confident that it is the most in-depth investigation into the etymology of the word gaper that you'll be able to find (I'm not sure if that makes me sad or proud).
Daily Barns: Thursday, June 05, 2008
I woke up the other morning to the realisation that it's already the month of June. Which means that winter is less than six months away. One reason I suspect the time seems to have gone by so quickly is that, by most standards, the weather this spring has been rather sub-par with cooler than usual temperatures and lots of rain (let's save that precipitation for the winter folks). In the spirit of making the best of it, the Snowboard.Com east coast crew decided to end the month of May with a bang (from a boom stick) by taking in a musical.
The city of Toronto has a rather vibrant theatre scene. Which is not something you would expect snowboarders to notice but we can be highbrow once in a while too. Of particular interest, the Diesel Playhouse was putting on an adaptation of a classic cult zombie movie Evil Dead throughout the spring. When I tell people about it, they usually give me a strange "it's a musical about zombies?" look. I'm quick to point out that It can't possibly be any worse than the opera adaptation of An Inconvenient Truth (an opera about a PowerPoint presentation? Really?) Besides, how often can you say you've been to a musical and left covered in fake blood (I assume it's fake). It's like Shakespeare meets Gwar, how can this possibly suck?
The Ottawa contingent of the crew stayed at the Holiday Inn on King street, only two blocks away from the playhouse. Upon arriving, we shared the elevator with some nice ladies who were in town to see the Dirty Dancing musical at the Princess, and they asked us if we were there for the same reason. Based on my general appearance, I found this question somewhat odd. The look on their face was priceless once we told them we were going to see Evil Dead, and it led me to the conclusion that we probably wouldn't to be going down with them (in the elevator you perverts).
The East Coast Crew waiting to get Evil
After scattering to track down food and beer for later, it was time to meet up with the rest of the crew. Since we were all coming from different directions, and not everyone had actually met in person prior to this meet, the logistics of meeting up were a slight bit difficult. In fact, one of my road trip companions, Chris, called my cell to tell me he was going to meet one of the other members of the crew, also named Chris, whom he had never met previously. I said "you don't know what he looks like, how are you going to spot him on a downtown Toronto street?" His response: "He's a snowboarder." That's when it occurred to me that we snowboarders do live at a different pace than most people (skiers too). Especially in a metropolitan area such as Toronto where people seem to be in much more of a hurry and much more concerned about their image than in most places. I actually had faith, due in no small part to Chris' response, that my shred pals would have no problems finding each other. I was not mistaken, I caught up with the rest of the group in front of the hotel and we made our way to the playhouse.
The musical itself was extremely entertaining. Since it's based on the Evil Dead series of movies (Evil Dead , Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness), we were expecting a certain amount of camp, and this stage show was certainly full of it. It was done in the perfect self-effacing way which rendered it amusing rather than annoying. The actors even joked about how Spider-Man 3 was a horrible movie (Sam Raimi directed the Evil Dead movie). The highlight of the musical was the final battle at where Ash slayed all the zombies (sorry for the spoiler). I have never seen so much fake blood used in my life. It was squirting out of the walls all over the crowd. Fun times.
After the show, stoked on being evil, the crew got up to some pre-drinking at the hotel in preparation for painting the town red (with blood?). After getting nicely warmed up, we were off to find establishments to consume refreshments. Yet somehow this feat could not be managed without a tree being transplanted into the hallway to our hotel. Apparently alcohol turns people into landscapers.
After walking around for a while and ducking into a number of pubs for refreshments, along with some other random shenanigans, it was time to call it a night since the bars were closing. On the way back to the hotel, I received a text message from Chris saying that apparently someone was shot behind the princess theatre. They were cleaning up the scene as he was walking to meet his ride to Whitby. All this time, I was expecting that our musical would prove more violent than Dirty Dancing, which our lovely friends from the elevator were attending. Clearly I was mistaken on that count.
Puppet Jesus sitting at the top of the Big Apple in Colborne.
The following morning, we decided to locate a Golden Griddle we had seen the night before to have breakfast before we left. After fueling up on the all you can eat buffet and omelet bar, it was time to hit the road. On the way home, we decided to stop at the Big Apple in Colborne to buy some pies. This is where our trip took on a whole new dimension of cool when picked up an itinerant puppet with long hair, a beard, and some crazy ideas. That puppet turned out to be Jesus (or at least a very striking likeness thereof). The irony in all this is that we found him at a Big Apple which, if memory serves, is the forbidden fruit of the Genesis. Jesus was quick to participate in our road games of "hot or not" and was surprisingly good at it. Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since he is the son of god. In any case, Jesus is dope and he's certainly a good road trip companion, a fan of metal and a darn good dancer. When we first picked him up, he was rather subdued. Nathan even thought he was dead but we knew not to worry, "he'll be full of life in three days." It certainly didn't take three days, especially after a can of Saskatoon Beaver Buzz.
The Beaver Buzz turned out to be a bit of a mistake. Although tasty, it must contain some kind of super diaretic because it made me have to pull off the highway to pee. I was going to wait for the gas station restrooms until Jesus pointed out that the world is my gas station rest room. He's so wise. We finally made it home satisfied with our road trip shenanigans and happy for having found Jesus.
In sticking with my usual modus operandi of never walking away from an experience without learning something, here's what I learned this past weekend:
- Snowboarders are recognisable everywhere. They seem to have a different gate about them.
- Apparently the Dirty Dancing musical, counter to conventional wisdom, was much more violent that the Evil Dead musical... go figure.
- Jesus Saves... road trips. Although ours didn't need saving by any stretch. He sure made it more interesting. Keep your eye open for him, you never know where you might find Jesus.
Phew! Those are important life lessons indeed. Now I'm looking forward to my next live theatre excursion. Rumour has it that Monty Python's Spamalot is coming to Toronto in the fall, maybe I'll check that out. I'll be staying away from the Dirty Dancing musical though, that's much do violent for my sensibilities. In the meantime, I'm rejoicing in the fact that there's less than six months until winter and you can bet that I'm counting down the days.
Daily Barns: Sunday, May 18, 2008
There's a war going on for my mind. The various factions want it for it holds the key to something they seek: my spending power and potentially yours. I'm comforted by the knowledge, however, that if I'm thinking, I'm winning; and right now I'm thinking, are you?
Every day we are bombarded with advice on how we should live. We call this advertising, it's the blueprint for modern life. We need better music, faster cars, greener grass, and bigger penises. Fortunately there are many competing blueprints to choose from. It is still a matter, however, of choosing one of the pre-defined options; free thinking people need not apply.
Snowboarding is one way to stay out of the war's line of fire. It's an endeavour that, while you are doing it, all that matters is you, the mountain, nature and your friends. The snowboarding industry itself, however, is not so pure. This was evident during this year's Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival (and festivals past I'm sure). The most visible things in Whistler village from April 11th to the 20th were: Schick (to look good), GM (to get to the place where you need to look good), Kokanee (to make those people look good to you) and of course Telus (to tell people how good you looked). The most important element of the festival seemed to have been forgotten, or at least was not immediately evident: the snowboarding. If you looked hard enough, however, you would quickly see that it was there lurking beneath the surface.
One of the reasons that I like snowboarding is because I like snowboarders, and by that I mean REAL snowboarders. Not those with fake goggle tans and orders of magnitude more time riding mahoganee ridge than actual play time in the snow. In many ways, snowboarders are much more genuine than most people. They have experienced the harshness of winter head on and walked away with a smile. They might not face this with incredible skill or style, but it does not matter how good they are at snowboarding only how much joy the get from it. Though it may be hard to distiguish a goggle tan obtained in a tanning salon from one obtained while hiking up a steep aspect to earn some turns, if you look into a snowboarders eyes, you should have no problem identifying the true ones from the rest. Rest assured, contrary to the message in their add campaigns, Expedia has no idea how those snowboarders feel about winter. They'd probably just as soon take a vacation to somewhere with snow in the middle of summer than go somewhere tropical in the middle of winter, counter to what is customary.
Although true snowboarders represent something quite contrary to the industry itself, they would be nowhere without it. For this reason, it's important to remember that you vote with your dollars. Make sure when you buy your gear, that you aren't supporting something that you don't believe in. Certainly not because that product has a flashier ad than another. You probably wouldn't let me tell you who to vote for in a democratic election, so don't let me, or anyone else, tell you what to ride or what to wear. By avoiding monoculture, we ensure that snowboarding remains a feeling rather than a look or an attitude. Admittedly, people look up to me for advice on snowboarding, this follows from being a teacher. I always try, however, to make sure to only provide factual information. You should always synthesize any advice with your own needs and desires, otherwise eventually, every snowboarder will be a clone of every other snowboarder. Then the sport will become yet another victim of the corrosiveness of conformity.
Indeed there is a war going on for my mind and it has been for some time now, but the warring factions are engaging in an excercise in futility. The real prize, the item of the most value, is my heart and they'll never be able to take that away from me, I've already given it away.
Daily Barns: Monday, May 05, 2008
The other day as I was minding my own business I got a curious invitation. A colleague asked me if I'd be interested in joining his group for dinner at the Rideau Club that night. So I brushed the hair away from my eyes and gave my beard a scratch (I haven't had a haircut in 2008 or shaved since I was in Whistler) before I said "will they even let me in the door?" It took a while to be convinced, but in the end I decided to accept the invitation. After all it seemed like a reasonable reason to skip yoga class.
 The Rideau Club pre-dates canadian confederation and was established twenty-two months before Ottawa was chosen as the seat of government. The clubs first president was Sir John A. Macdonald who, two years later, became Canada's first prime minister. Those are some pretty lofty credentials for a club so when I was asked, first of all, if I owned a jacket and tie (apparently they won't let you in the door without them) and if I'd be interested in going, I was naturally a bit skeptical that I would even gain entry. Besides, the last time I went to one of these formal parties, I wound up across the desk of the Director of CSIS in Windsor two days later (being interviewed for a job oddly). "This could be interesting" I thought and accepted. It seemed like an opportunity that doesn't present itself too often, and besides I like to slum it every once in a while.
The Rideau Club is obviously quite old. The building where it's located, however, is not. The original building burned down in 1979 so they made a replica of its interior on the top floor of the Sun Life building in downtown Ottawa. In order to get to the club, there's an elevator which services it exclusively (how very elitist). As I got in the elevator, I found it odd that there were only two buttons: one for the lobby and one for the fifteenth floor. Secretly I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a retinal scan machine or some such thing. Nontheless, it was a neat feeling to be in a private elevator to an exclusive club which boasts heads of state as members. I felt like I was going to a Stone Cutters meeting. Maybe I'd get to participate in decisions on world policy, affect the course of human history, and witness historical keggers, beer blasts, beer bashes and steinhoists, followed by the regimented AA meetings. This evening was certainly looking up.
 Once I arrived I was disappointed to discover that no one referred to themselves as numbers that were sequentially assigned in the order in which they joined. Once again the Simpsons had let me down. The coat room, however, did not. That thing was the size of my living room and dining room combined plus within it was the men's room which was equipped with shoe polishers and other gizmos that were cool and useless.
The view from the various windows in the club was quite spectacular. It was a great vantage point to see Parliament Hill, the Ottawa River, random high-rise living rooms (it gave me a bit of a voyeuristic feeling) and off in the distance, the Gatineau hills where my home resort, Mont Cascades, can be found (oh I miss the winter already). In spite of the majestic view, however, there seemed to be something missing. I realised what it was when reached into my breast pocket to adjust my hanky which I made out of a Spanky's Whistler trail map. It was the mountains that were missing. Having just been in British Columbia not two weeks before, I had grown accustomed to seeing large mountainous objects in the horizon; clearly these are missing in Ontario. In the time I spent in B.C. and Alberta, I had stopped noticing the giant masses of rock, earth and snow all around me. I was de-sensitized to their majesty and this thought disappointed me. It made me realise two things:
- Never take what you have for granted. You'll miss it when its gone. This seems to be something that I have to be reminded of every once in a while and I'm now reminding all of you.
- You can take the snowboarder off the mountain, but you can't take the mountain out of the snowboarder. I thought using a trail map as a hanky was a nice touch. None of my companions seemed at all surprised when they realised what I had done. A dirtbag in fancy clothes is still a dirtbag.
So if you ever get a chance to go to the Rideau Club, I highly recommend it. It's steeped in history and is a good place to take stock of who you are and what you have. Speaking of what you have, all you dwellers of the mountains out there, raise your glasses to them, they are precious indeed.
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
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Published by jr_barns: 5:35 AM
Updated On: 5/5/2008 at 7:37 AM
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Daily Barns: Saturday, April 26, 2008
Whistler recently hosted the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival
from April 11th to the 20th. In what has become an annual event for me, I
made my usual pilgrimage to Whistler to attend; an attempt to escape the
concrete, mortar, metal, and glass wilderness for the snowy peaks of
British Columbia.
Upon unloading at the bus loop in the main village, I came to the
realisation that my accommodations were actually in the upper village.
This meant that all my gear had to be hauled to the proper location. I
guess the gods wanted to make sure that I was properly warmed up and
exposed to the nature I was so fervently seeking, so I ended up rolling my
wheelie locker through Fitzsimmons trail (a failure of my geographic
knowledge of the village indeed) to the condo. When I finally got myself
and my gear to Glacier Lodge, it was time to ring up the peeps in order
to exchange greetings, hugs, hi-fives, and tall tales. I tracked them
down at the Longhorn and joined them up for a little après
(après bus trip for me, après snowboarding for them).
The amazing thing about the Telus World Ski and Snowboard festival is
that, although it only happens once a year, there's a sense of
familiarity when you run into friends you haven't seen since the last
festival. It was as though last year's festival never ended and everyone
just picked up where they left off (with the possible exception of the
new faces which were promptly integrated into the group of dirtbags).
Saturday morning finally rolled around and it was time for the long
awaited first runs up Blackcomb to hold congress with the mountain. In
keeping with my usual modus operandi of deep metaphysical self-discovery
on the chairlift (not self-exploration you perverts), I got to thinking
about the struggle between the physical and the divine. I was cogitating
on the true nature of the connection between the body, soul, and the
mountain. The physical connection is obvious (this was on my mind due to
a knee injury sustained the week prior in Banff), but the spiritual
connection was a bit more difficult to pin down.
I went snowboarding everyday that I was in Whistler resulting in my body
being in various states of "ache and pain" throughout, but I felt
content. The crew I was riding with was also changing daily from groups
as large as twelve to being by myself. The same sense of contentment,
however, was always there regardless of how large or small the group was.
This led me to remember a quote from a famous Jedi master in the movie
"The Empire Strikes Back." When Luke asks Yoda what might be found in the
cave, Yoda's answer was "only what you take with you." This is
significant in many ways and is especially evident on those solo freshie
manoeuvres that I often partake in. It led me to realize that whenever
I'm snowboarding, all my loved ones are there with me in their purest
essence (without any noise caused by things so caustic as cliques or
inter-personal drama). This I believe is where the spiritual comes in.
Although Whistler/Blackcomb, the resort, is itself a morass of steel,
concrete, cables and glass, when the p-tex hits the snow, none of that
really matters, all that's there is what you brought with you. Although
the sensations are dramatically physical, the exileration is just as
dramatically spiritual and this is what drives me, and I'm sure many
others, to pursue this congress with the mountain.
Between the crazy parties, the jokes about shi*t-tickets (toilet
paper), the drinking, and the general shenanigans, the occasional runs
on mahogany ridge, the important part of Telus seems to have been coming
together with people we care about in the nature we all love. To borrow
a phrase from a loved one, I left Whistler with my body having that used
and abused feeling, however, I also left Whistler feeling enriched from
revisiting old friendships and making new ones. With that, I can honestly
say that I can't wait until next year's festival. I hope to see you all
there. Until then...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
Daily Barns: Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The winter is upon us once again, and this year it looks like its hitting the east-coast with a purpose. My home mountain (foothill) opened a whole two and a half weeks earlier than usual making me a happy snowboarder. Of course with me, existentialism and snowboarding go hand in hand, I seem to have a lot of thinking time in between my daily activities (on solo chairlift rides for example). Whether this is a good or a bad thing has yet to be determined. In the meantime,
however, you all have to suffer from the ideas that originate from my mental meanderings about angels and my place in this world.
Recently someone dear to me has had to deal with the loss of a loved one. This is never an easy thing, however, sometimes it is more difficult than others and this has steered my usual thinking process in different and new directions, namely the metaphysical meaning of
loss. Through a long and convoluted process of ideas, models and refinements, I came up with some understanding of life and after-life based on quantum theory. I don't want to get into all the details of
what this means (this blog would never end), so a quick explanation using digital images will have to do; this is probably sufficient to understand the principle anyway.
In quantum theory, it is said that the more accurately you try to measure something, the less accurate your measurement becomes. This is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which emerges from the fact that when trying to measure something smaller than the instrument your using, you can never be certain of that measurement. This can be illustrated by using digital photography as an example. These days,
almost everyone has a digital camera of some sort (be it DSLR, quick snap or cell phone). I'm sure most people have noticed, especially those using a cell phone, that sometimes details in images become
blurred or pixelised when they are really small or far away. This is the same principle, you are trying to represent something smaller than a pixel using a pixel. In the end your digital image becomes a microcosm of the real world. If you existed only in the digital image, you would know that something should be in that pixel, but you would have no idea of the nature of that something.
The same principle applies to our own existence. The real world is made up of fundamental particles such as atoms which are in turn made up of protons, neutrons and electrons and so on. Currently the technology exists to measure things in terms of electrons (very small), however, anything smaller suffers from the same pixel effect described previously. So we know there is something there but we cannot understand the nature of that something because we lack the tools and senses to rationalize it. So our own existence is again a microcosm of something much bigger and more accurate than anything we know and understand; much like the relationship between the digital image and the scene being photographed.
Given that our known universe is a microcosm of a much greater and more complex reality, one must wonder what sort of influence these unknown forces can have on what we see. Or alternatively what kind of beings live outside of this plane. Going back to the example of the
digital image, there may be a pixel representation of a snowboarder, for example, but snowboarders do not exist in a digital image. They do exist in the world that was photographed, however, and perhaps this is analogous to the place where our loved ones are when their
manifestations in this world cease to exist. Although we cannot even fathom the full nature of their existence, they are there. Similarly, much like a snowboarder is aware that he is pictured in a digital
photograph, or any other snowboarders busting out rad tricks or kicking up monster rooster tails for that matter, our loved ones must be also be aware of us and that is something that I find comforting.
 There is still the question, however, of what influence these unknown forces can have on our reality. I propose the Tamagotchi model. Much like the digital photo in my previous discussion, the Tamagotchi is a microcosm of our reality. It is not directly aware of our existence in spite of the fact that we can influence its existence. So what if we ourselves are part of a much bigger Tamagotchi? Are the fates pressing buttons that influence our day to day life? When we sleep or more importantly when we shred? The implications of this are profound. Although I refuse to believe that some metaphysical toddler is pressing buttons that mandate how I laugh and more importantly how I love (I'm much too stubborn to allow anyone but myself to tell me that), I don't find it unreasonable to think that the circumstances surrounding those things might be guided by a higher purpose. What the intentions of that higher purpose are, however, are probably quite beyond the realm of our own understanding.
So assuming that our universe is some sort of cosmic Tamagotchi device, it's important to remember a few things:
- Always love. The people around you may some day end-up pressing your buttons and you wanna hope they press the shred button frequently.
- If you do love with a pure heart, take comfort in the fact that those you love are pressing the buttons and, if they aren't looking out for you, they will at least not be dropping the house on you.
- There's a french saying that goes "sans rancune" or without rancor. Ill will and enmity are self perpetuating so don't hold them.
Well I think that's enough deep thinking for me or soon I will be unemployed. It's probably time for me, and maybe other lift-chair philosophers, to shut up and ...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
Daily Barns: Sunday, October 07, 2007
Every day we are faced with a myriad of decisions: paper or plastic, beer or whiskey, left or right hand, cracker or toast; life certainly is complicated. Even in snowboarding, an activity pursued as a means to escape daily life, we are constantly making decisions: frontside or backside, groomers or glades, powder or ice (some decisions are much easier than others). How often, however, are you faced with a decision that will impact your future ability to ride? You might just be surprised at just how often we are faced with just such a choice and by some accounts make the wrong decision. When it comes to making choices about the environment, as snowboarders we should probably tend to those that won't make the planet warmer. We like snow, so global warming should be a severe pain in our collective asses. Although when faced with certain choices, that decision isn't quite so easy. The answer might not be obvious, so how do you come to a decision?
Recently a colleague sent me an article explaining how, by reducing our consumption of meat by 10%, we could reduce our CO2 footprint by up to 25%. The premise being that factory farming practices are responsible for the creation of massive amounts greenhouse trapping gasses via the release of methane from bovine bungholes. Who knew our ability to shred could be so affected by flatulence (fart jokes: they're not just for the juvenile anymore). This idea of reducing one's carbon footprint by eating less meat is by no means a new idea, vegetarians have been arguing this fact for years. There is a gaping hole in this argument, however, which is often overlooked, namely the point of origin of our food.
 I have much respect for people who choose to be vegetarians. In fact, for a period in my life, I myself was vegetarian although it caused me to become under weight and sickly (I'm too lazy to want to spend two hours a day cooking good vegetarian meals that will keep me from losing weight). If being vegetarian works for you, that's great, there are many advantages to a non-meat diet. A smaller carbon footprint, however, is not necessarily one of them. The reality is, that pretty much anywhere where you snowboard there's winter. This means that for a good part of the year, the basic elements of a vegetarian diet are not available locally and must be imported. This usually involves trucks which are heavy emitters of greenhouse gases thus negating the reduction in cow farts.
For more significant reductions in your personal carbon footprint than cutting meet out of your diet, you should look to buying locally grown food whenever possible. I'm pretty sure this would have a much greater impact on the environment in general as well as bolster the local economy. Besides the real culprit is not diet but mass consumerism and the lengths industry goes to in order to support it. By eliminating factory farming, Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market would do what it should and give beef it's proper natural price (which ought to be much higher than it is now). Increases in the cost of beef would be a significant step toward reducing our daily intake of it (in developed countries, people typically eat about 224 grams of beef per day whereas in Africa most people consume only about 31 grams per day), not to mention a decrease in cow farts thus ensuring a continued state of winter.
I realise that this is straying somewhat from the topic of snowboarding, however, this relates back to the old adage of thinking globally and acting locally. This can be interpereted as meaning that the global impact of your daily decisions should be taken into account. For example:
- Left or right hand? Try the stranger, it feels like someone else is doing it.
- Cracker or toast? Here's an idea, avoid the circle jerk in the first place.
- Frontside or backside? Surprise me.
- Powder or ice? Jeeze is there really a decision to make here?
What's important is that these are things that should be kept in mind when faced with choices, namely the more global impact of even the smallest decision. I'd like to be able to keep snowboarding for many years to come, so I'd hate to feel even partly responsible for the disapearance of winter thus negating my ability to...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
Daily Barns: Friday, October 05, 2007
Inspiration is a wonderful thing, it's the origination point of art and encourages people to do the most amazing feats. Where to find inspiration, however, is not always clear and varies among individuals. Do you know where you find inspiration? What inspires you to do the things that you do? Sometimes that inspiration comes from less than obvious places.
The other day I went to the skate park with the Warrinator for our usual lunch-time "get away from work" session. On this day, my partner in crime was intent on doing a particular trick that he had tried many times yet could not find the courage to commit to it (concrete bowls are scary). Over the course of the session, he tried it a number of times and, from where I was standing, I could tell that he had it if he would only just commit to dropping back into the bowl. Each time he would come back to the starting point frustrated at the fact that he just didn't have the balls to do it. This went on for a while until we noticed a new face at the park; a female face. She immediately went over to the big bowl and dropped in a couple times to test it out, then proceeded to get her shred on Jason Jesse style.
 While the Warrinator was busy checking out the new park resident, admittedly not at all unattractive, I decided to take a quick rip through the park. As I was cresting up onto the flat bank to stop, I saw Warren drop into the bowl and hit the trick he had been trying all session without any hesitation. As soon as he got back I laughed and said "Dude! You're in love aren't you?" I can't verify this but I think he might have blushed just a little.
On the ride back to work, we were discussing the new member of the Legacy clan. "You've found your new muse haven't you?" I said as we pulled into the gas station so Warren could buy smokes. "I'll be back in two shakes of the hot girl's knee pads" he said as he walked into the store. As he got back to the car, smokes in hand, I said, "I didn't catch that when you went into the store, did you say two shakes of the hot girl's knee pads or two shakes from the hot girl *on* her knee pads?" This was followed by laughter and much more conversation that was not really relevant to the point of the point of this article; notably:
- Sometimes inspiration can be found in the most unexpected places.
- Other times inspiration is in plain sight and gives you a strange feeling in your pants (as I think may have been the case with the Warrinator).
- Although dangerous, hanging out at the skate park is a great way of meeting new and interesting people. Besides, when Warren and his new girlfriend are naked together, they can compare skate scars: "I got this one when I fell on my face, I like to fall on my face".
Well, that's pretty much all I have to say this week, however, the next time I find my own inspiration you can be sure that you'll be reading about it here. In the meantime does anyone know what that song is during the segment at Turf in Santa Cruz' Streets on Fire skate video? I'm pretty sure it's a Sonic Youth jam. Hopefully the answer will be forthcoming. Until then...
Keep shreddin' the GNAR!
Daily Barns: Monday, September 03, 2007
Recently the AFP reported that China was experimenting on dispersing clouds to prevent rain during Olympic events. Conversely, officials claim that China has already set up an extensive system that may be able to make it rain during the games if needed. Now wouldn't this kind of thing be useful in the winter. Especially after the winter we've just had on the east coast with very little in terms of actual snow fall. A little rain would also be useful in fighting the forest fires that recently ravaged the western United States. On the other hand, this could also turn out to be just another modality to spread disease.
It was August 10th, 2007 when the AFP reported that chinese scientists were "conducting high-altitude tests to eliminate clouds and stop rain [from] spoiling next year's Beijing Olympics."1 This was achieved by dispersing silver iodide and Diatomite into the atmosphere. These two compounds are thought to prevent moisture from forming into rain drops. Silver iodide is used as an antiseptic and diatomite is a naturally occurring, soft, chalk-like sedimentary rock so conventional wisdom would lead us to believe that the process is safe. At the very least, spectators at the 2008 Olympic games have little chance of catching some form of an infection while chinese scientist are pumping the air full of antiseptic. The idea of controlling the weather with chemicals does, however, raise a small red flag in my mind, although maybe I just watch too many James Bond type movie with over the top, megalomaniacal villains.
 The one thing that I find most interesting about this is that silver iodide, having a crystaline structure similar to ice, can induce freezing to the moisture in clouds when disperssed in the air (in China they use old anti-aircraft guns to shoot cans of the compounds into the sky). The first idea that came to my mind when I learned of this was that this seems like a feasible way of making it snow. I suspect that if done properly, this could also be much more effective than arrays of snow cannons on your favourite hill, or even better, combine the two.
Apparently this technique called cloud seeding is not new which makes me wonder why I hadn't heard of it until now. Had I known about this, I would have focused my energies last year on cloud seeding the skies over Vermont and western Quebec instead of wearing my pyjamas inside out and flushing ice cubes down the toilet (which is commonly thought to be a fundamental part of the snow dance). Perhaps the researchers who study this know something that we don't such as: a) cloud seeding is prohibitively expensive or b) cloud seeding is a potential health hazard. In the first case, I feel bad for the people of China who will have to foot the bill for this when the Olympics come around in 2008. In the second case I feel bad for the people of China who will be exposed to cloud seeding and the side effects of this technique, probably even after the Olympics are done and gone. In either case, it looks like I feel bad for the chinese. In the meantime, I'll be accepting donations to the "seed the clouds to shred the gnar" fund in an attempt to raise money, kind of like a snow insurrance policy, to seed the skies if we are again in dire need of snow this winter. I give you my assurances that this fund will be used only in cases of emergencies, namely on days where I'm snowboarding and can't find any freshies. The governing body of this fund will not be elected for obvious reasons.
So next winter when your hitting the slopes and you notice a little precipitation starting to fall. Look up in the sky, you may be getting a random dose of anti-septic for a few fresh lines. One way or the other, the important thing here is to...
Keep shreddin' the GNAR!
References
- China working to make clouds vanish during Olympics, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070810/sc_afp/oly2008chnweathercloud_070810064642, Fri Aug 10, 2:54 AM ET.
Daily Barns: Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Hey all, and welcome to another edition of the Daily Barns. This past weekend was the Snowboard.com "Screw Mother Nature, We're Getting shi*ttered" meet at Blue Mountain in Collingwood Ontario and let me tell you, after this meet we might want to be thanking mother nature rather than telling her to sod off (on account of the complete lack of visible sod anywhere unlike we expected when this meet was originally planned). This was the first meet for me personally where I got to shred the gnar with my fellow ECers and it was a great weekend of progression, laughs, pretzels, skanky girls (not in our crew), riding without lift passes and poaching freshies.
The road trip started for me when I picked up the rest of the Ottawa crew who were riding the Bangbus to Blue (No one is really sure how it came to be known as the Bangbus, but this became its official name). Once Chris (AddictiveEscape), Jeremy (Mr. King), Brianna (atomicsnowqueen), myself, food, booze and snowboarding gear were loaded into the bus, it was time to face the white out conditions on the long drive to Blue.
The drive took about 7 hours total (including a stop at Wendy's to steal trays for beerbogganing and a few pee breaks). Upon our arrival in Collingwood, it took us a while to find the right chalet, "Chef" (crasiestwy) came through for us, he arrived just minutes after we did and immediately knew where to go so he let us in. Once we were settled, the craziness began with a jump building party. Most of the night was spent in the parking lot in front of the chalet drinking beer and doing acid drops (the snowboarding kind, not the small paper square kind) from the second floor balcony. We developed a bit of a fan base including the skanky girls from the chalet next door; they saw us building the landing and asked us if we were planning on jumping from the balcony. We call them skanky girls because with a little more convincing, they probably would have taken their clothes off to watch us do acid drops; however no one from our chalet seemed particularly interested in that. Within an hour, most of the neighbourhood was outside their chalets watching the show with iPods blasting from car stereos and crazy shred dogs doing their crazy thing, it was a good night.
Once we got tired of jumping, we re-appropriated some DVD cables from one of the other chalets (our chalet had a DVD player without cables for some reason), and proceeded to chill out watching shred videos and eating pretzels. Chris eventually passed out on the couch so the pretzels then became projectiles to try to wake him up. The floor was littered with pretzels, so the next morning while walking around in the living room area, the floor seemed a little crunchier than usual. The phrase "f**king pretzels" was uttered on a number of occasions.
Saturday was a day of riding. In hopes of not having to buy lift tickets, we parked the cars at the top of Blue and rode down from there. The conditions were great, I suffered from toe drag on the first run however (this is what happens when you angulate too aggressively) and did at least one complete flip, dragged my backside, got up and rode it out to hoots, hollers and laughs from the rest of the crew. There was much progression on this day too, by the end of it we had the rookies cutting lines in the trees, dropping cliffs and trying terrain park features. All this without buying a single lift pass and there were nine of us riding together that day, this feat still amazes me (thank you to lax standard liftie operating procedures). Once we were done riding for the day, it was time to head back and plan the festivities for the night. This included more front yard jibs, a bangbus jib (videos coming soon hopefully) and even more progression as the rookies all successfully executed trash can bonks. As was the case the previous night, our adoring fan club was there to watch the show and drink their trashy asses silly.
The final day started a little later than the previous. We were all pretty tired and sore for the previous day's riding. There was still one thing left to do however; ride down the Orchard. Since it had been snowing on and off all weekend, and nobody rides the Orchard on account of there not being any lift access, we decided that we would go poach some freshies on Sunday morning. This required some pentagon planning and military like precision. The plan was to park one car at the bottom of the Orchard, pile everyone else into the other two cars to shuttle them up. After the run, the drivers of the other two cars would be shuttled up in the car that was left behind to come pick up the rest of the crew. So off we went, Carrie (Cazza21) parked her car in the P1a lot, and she jumped in the Bangbus for the drive up the mountain. We parked on a dead end street, skated back to the mountain road, then stealthily snuck into the forest. Once out of eye sight of the road, we started hearing the distinctive sounds of snowmobiles. Thinking it was the Blue Mountain Gestapo, we hid in the trees hoping they wouldn't notice our tracks. Once we were confident that we hadn't been pinched, the hike to the orchard began. It was totally worth the effort, we arrived at the top to untracked runs; freshies are so beautiful. Sean (powjunkie) took the lead followed by Jeremy, Chris, then the girls followed by Adam. I was bringing up the rear to make sure everyone made it down since at least half our party had never ridden fresh powder before. I'll tell you, there's nothing quite like riding fresh untracked snow. Even if it's in Ontario and it's on top of a thin layer of surface melt; it's a total Zen experience. After getting my fill of nose presses and spraying the trees on turns, we gathered up at P1a and decided that we should end on a high note. We packed up our gear and made our way out of Blue Mountain to finally take our separate ways home.
This was easily the best Snowboard.com meet I've ever been on which gives me high hopes for Telus this coming April. A special thanks to the entire crew for being the super chill individuals that they are and making the weekend as fun as it was. Here are a few things to remember from this weekend:
-
It IS possible to ride for free even with a large group of riders.
-
Skanky trailer trash girls are willing to take their clothes off to see people do seemingly life threatening stunts; just take inventory and make sure that you actually WANT them to do this before you make the suggestion however, it sometimes sounds like a better idea than it actually is.
-
If you don't have cables to watch DVDs in your chalet, "borrow" them from another chalet. On a related note, I am still in possession of said cables, I'm willing to make a trade; show me what you got.
-
I think all the ice cubes I've flushed down the toilet have finally started paying off. I think mother nature loves us now (at least until this weekend, +8 degrees, aye fawk off).
Anyway, I hope it won't be long before I get the chance to shred with this group again, amongst the finest in the East Coast. I know Carrie is going to Telus and I'm counting down the days until then. So until next time, keep your browsers plugged into YouTube, you must might see us jumping off balconies (those skanky girls promised). Until next time...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Wednesday, February 28, 2007
February is officially coming to an end which means two things.
Spring riding is nigh and ski-school sessions are over. This means
no more group lessons at my local hill, but it also means more random
people riding. This week in snowboarding has been a rather eventful
one for me, I busted my snowboard twice. Most recently I pulled the
heel side screws right out of their inserts
effectively stripping them (I'm e-mailing my snowboard's manufacturer
to complain about that, my board is only three months old). This sent
me on a quest to find some hardware since I lost a screw; the quest
continues but that's not pursuant to the
current blog post.
Having moved my rear binding back by half an inch to use new
inserts, I went to Cascades to test out my new wider stance (if 3cm
makes a difference in snowboard length, 3cm might make a difference
in stance too). After a couple runs, I was casually carving turns
near the bottom of the main blue run when a skier collides with me
from behind. He just clipped me so I managed to sustain verticality
but he went down so I decided to slide down to make sure he was
alright. This is when he started hollering at me for being
irresponsible and that I should be more careful... what? I promptly
recited the alpine responsibility code to him and was strongly
tempted to tell him that if he can't ski in control that he might
want to consider golf; but I held my tongue. He didn't however, and
became rather confrontational with me; I think he actually wanted to
fight me. Now I'm not a big dude but this guy was starting to piss
me off and I was very tempted to put this geezer on his ass; but
again I held fast.
Once he gathered up his gear from his recent “yard sale”, he
made his way back to the lift line with his two kids in tow (Wow!
What a fantastic role model). I was getting on the chair behind him
with my buddy Dana and his friend Perkins. As his chair started up
the hill, he turned around to me and uttered some threats, shaking
his fist at me and everything (See above comments about role models).
I was expecting him to be waiting for me at the top of the lift
(Sigh! beating up a middle aged man was not what I had in mind when I
decided to go snowboarding tonight). Not surprisingly though, once
we got to the top, he and his kids cheesed it pretty quickly and were
not to be seen for the rest of the night, not even by the lifties who
at this point were quite curious about what all the ruckus was about.
Morals of this story:
-
Forget about respecting your elders, RESPECT ME! I'm
probably in better shape than they are.
-
If you're going to act like a tough guy, don't yell threats
from the chairlift then cheese it right after; it will just make you
look like a fool.
-
If you're going to behave like this guy did, be careful to
not confront resort staff; we can clip your pass.
Well I'm off to wait by the flag pole; I've got more crotchety
middle aged men to beat up. Until next time...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Monday, February 19, 2007
Well, last time I posted on here, I called on volunteers for an
experiment to verify the validity of the statement that “forking is
better than spooning”. Reviewing various literature (usually
hidden behind the cardboard on the top rack of the magazine stand)
and peers, there is much evidence to support this notion.
Additionally it was suggested that “spooning” often leads to
“forking” (thanks Joe). So this mysterious philosophic postulate
found on the garment care tag of my Westbeach jacket seems to be well
supported but not yet empirically verified. Even though supporting
evidence is being discovered daily, the nature of research is such
that the more questions are answered, the more questions need to be
answered. So the following is a report documenting the progress of
this latest useless research endeavour.
This past weekend, I purchased a new pair of Westbeach snowboarding pants. West 49 was having a “Going out of Winter” sale, my trusty Quicksilvers are getting pretty shredded in the bottom, so I thought it was time. I bought a pair of Pit Stop pants with a really loud khaki camo pattern (this is sometimes distracting while riding... no doubt the phrase “I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you my pants are too loud” will be uttered by me before the season is through). Judging by historical precedence, I deduced that some form of philosophic wisdom would be handed out by the garment tag on my new duds. This was in fact a correct assumption, right beneath the French care instructions I found the following: “Save a tree, eat a beaver”.
In the modern age of climate change and CO2 credits, trees are an important part of our enviro-economic reality. The unnecessary felling trees is a burden on both the environment and the economy. This I believe is the message being conveyed by this particular tidbit of wisdom. By saving a tree, we ensure that greenhouse gases are being more efficiently processed to ensure more epic winters to come (this should be evidently important to snowboarders). So “save a tree, eat a beaver” is very topical advice from the cunning linguists at Westbeach. Even if we accept this postulate as being true however, we have to determine what effect the state of said beaver will have when it is eaten. Is there any benefits, other than aesthetic, of eating a shaved beaver? What about feasting at 30,000 feet (affectionately known as the mile high club). Have our brave Westbeach philosophers considered the consequences of red wings? What of pink tacos? These and many other questions need to be answered and more research money will need to be spent. I'm currently petitioning Natural Resources Canada for additional funding for this project.
Here's what we know so far:
-
Garment care tags are a good source of knowledge on topical
issues such as climate change and gender roles (The latter is based
on discoveries brought forward by Carrie).
-
Cunning linguists and muff divers may inevitably become the
saviours of our current climate (so say my Westbeach pants).
-
Laundry, although a tedious domestic chore, has proved to be
a great source of amusement. WASH YOUR CLOTHES PEOPLE!
Garment care tag philosophy is proving to be a valuable tool in finding solutions to the problems of our collective day-to-day life. My research budget is drying up however, and this important field of research needs to be explored more thoroughly. If you have any garment care tag philosophies to share, please do so; science shouldn't be bound by budget. Until next time...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Thursday, February 08, 2007
Every once in a while, usually when my friends stop hanging out
with me because of the smell, I take the time to do some laundry.
Recently I decided it was time to wash my good old Westbeach Sunset
jacket. We'd had some good times but it was starting to smell a
little too much like the outdoors so it was time to give it the old
spin cycle. I proceeded to empty out the pockets in preparation for
the washing procedure (faded cash and water logged iPods are not
cool).
With my pockets empty (even those secret inside pockets... I
didn't find any misplaced money unfortunately  ), it was time to
get to the washing part. Step one: find the garment care
instructions tag. This proved to be a bit of a challenge since it
was located somewhere beneath the powder skirt. Once located, I
proceeded to read off the instructions:
Seems easy enough, but just to double check, I decided to flip the
tag over to make sure I didn't miss anything (I only like good
surprises). On first glance, it just seemed like the French
translation of the afore mentioned care instructions (I love Canada)
however, there seemed to be a little extra at the bottom: “Spooning
is good but forking is better”. It took a second for this
wonderful nugget of wisdom to register, so on second reading it
occurred to me that sometimes the deepest of philosophies can be
found in the most uncommon places such as garment care instruction
tags.
Being a bit of a sceptic, I don't generally take what I read at
face value. That being said, this seems like an easy enough
postulate to verify. So I'm looking for research assistants to help
me confirm that “forking” is in fact better than “spooning”.
Compensation is commensurate to my research budget (which is pretty
much non existent once condoms and beer are purchased). Willing
candidates should send applications to:
The Institute for Useless Research
(IUR)
69 Fornikature way
Whorina, Ontario, Canada
IB6 UB9
I hope to be able to further the field of useless social science
and build on what I've already learned:
-
Clean clothes make it easier to keep the friends that you
have.
-
Wisdom can often be found in the most unexpected places,
including washing instructions.
-
Vanilla yoghurt mixed with strawberry pop rocks is a tasty
snack and a nutritional paradox (yes I know this has nothing to do
with this blog but I like being random).
If interested, feel free to contact me, I'll be in my study (the
crapper), or the lab (the chairlift) pushing the frontiers of
science. Until next time,
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J
Daily Barns: Monday, January 29, 2007
Ever wonder how dirty your friend's minds are? Well I recently
came up with what I think is a sure fire way of finding out. I don't
know if everyone is familiar with Booster Juice; it's a juice bar
who's mission is “To provide customers with an incredible, healthy
alternative to fast food that's great tasting, convenient and
nutritious...”. I recently stopped off at one of these juice bars
while helping my friend Tiffany shop for snowboarding boots (I seem
to be the resident expert/consultant amongst my friends). Anyway, as
we were commenting on how tasty our Booster Juices were, it occurred
to me that Booster Juice can be abbreviated to B.J.; an acronym
shared by another notably enjoyable thing. I decided that this was a
good way of measuring how dirty a person's mind is. So Tiffany and I
now refer to them exclusively as B.J.s. -- Where are you going? Out
to get a B.J. How much does it cost to get a B.J.? About 6 bucks.
Wow that's cheap. Not really. Is it good? Fantastic! -- I think
you get the picture. Here's what happened when we decided to test
this hypothesis in the field:
Test #1:
The first test subjects were my friend Gurbir and his girlfriend.
I already know how dirty his mind is and how pure hers is so
they proved to be poor test subjects. Gurbir listened to Tiffany and
I tell him how we got fantastic B.J.s at Bayshore and he never batted
an eye. I think his girlfriend was afraid to ask.
Test #2:
The second test subject was my brother. I had switched my tag-line
on MSN to “We got fantastic B.J.s at Bayshore”, so when he saw
this he immediately asked about it. The conversation went like this:
Bro: “You got a BJ at Gayshore?”
Me: “Yeah.”
Bro:
“From a chick though right?”
Me: “Umm, initially.” (It was
a girl who took the order, a guy mixed the B.J.)
Bro: “Good
enough.”
Me: “I was with Tiffany, she got one too.”
Bro:
“Ok what do you mean by BJ?”
Me: “Booster Juice. What did
you think I meant?”
Bro: “Fag!”
The following is a summary of what we've found so far in our
field testing. This study is far from complete however; more field
work needs to be done.
-
Booster Juice is yummy and can be abbreviated to B.J.
-
Referring to things with intentional double meaning is often
a good way of finding out how dirty a person's mind is.
-
It's fun to see how people react when you tell them you're
going out for a B.J.
-
If you ever wondered how deep in the gutter your friend's
minds are, ask them if they'd like to stop off for a B.J.
So if you're fortunate enough to have a B.J. franchise in your
town, be sure to think of me the next time you go.
If you don't, look into opening one; peddling B.J.s can be quite lucrative. Also be sure to only refer to them as their acronyms, it may be
pretentious but it's fun. Until next time, enjoy your B.J.s and...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Well hello and welcome to 2007. This will be my first blog post of the new year (hooray! bust out the party hats and confetti). In light of the fact that it is now winter, I haven't had as many opportunities to write about my zany adventures. In fact I haven't done much else but snowboard of late. In the last 17 days, I've been snowboarding 15 times. I missed one day because it was raining and skipped yesterday to help a friend buy boots (now she knows how much I care based on the fact that I skipped out on snowboarding to give her a hand). Getting back to the point however; I'd like to share a little story about events that happened last weekend.
I'm a part time snowboarding instructor and was up at the local hill giving private lessons on Sunday. At the end of the day, after a full day of teaching and a bit of riding for myself, I was hanging out in client services to chat with my friend Isabelle, who was managing the private lessons that day, and her sister Julie. While I was sitting there, a woman on the verge of tears walks over to the private lesson counter and says: “I have a problem, it's 3:45 and my son is taking snowboarding lessons which were supposed to end at 3:30 and he hasn't yet arrived at the designated meeting point.” After determining which group he was in, Isabelle got on the radio to figure out where the group was (they were still on the hill). “Sometimes the last run can take a little longer than expected so they're probably still on the hill” I said, I figured she'd be relieved to know that we knew where her child was. Instead she snaps and says “That's unacceptable! He's supposed to be back at 3:30 and you should display better time management skills.” OK, so now not only is it MY fault, but I'm being told by someone who's clearly never gone snowboarding, much less taken a group of 15 children, beginner snowboarders at that, for a run that I should display better time management!? She went on with this for a few minutes and I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying something like “when YOU take a group of 15 kids on snowboards for a run, THEN you can come back to me and talk about time management!”
The thing that struck me the most in all of this is that this lady seemed completely unconcerned about the actual whereabouts of her child and completely concerned with the fact that he was 15 minutes late; like she was late for an appointment or something... time management skills indeed. As it turns out, she had already notified ski patrol that her son was “lost” before coming to ask the ski school. So the ski patrol was already scouring the mountain looking for him (despite the fact that we knew where he was). What's worse is that the ski patrol supervisor got involved and so now the ski school is in shi*t with the ski patrol for not notifying them first. To which of course we responded “that's because he's not lost, he's still with his group.” That didn't seem to matter.
Finally the group made it to the meeting point and as it turns out, they got stuck on the hill because one of the kids got hurt on the last run and, as per protocol, you have to keep the group together when you're dealing with kids so they had to wait around until ski patrol picked up the injured child. Now I wonder how this lady would have felt if it had been her kid that had gotten hurt on the last run and the group decided to ditch him on the hill for time management purposes.
With this fire now somewhat under control (now we have to smooth things over with ski patrol), Isabelle made her way back to client services to fill myself and Julie in on what was going on. Apparently this lady complains every week; nothing is EVER acceptable with her it seems. I feel bad for the child; especially when you consider that the other 14 parents seemed completely unconcerned about the fact that the group was 15 minutes late as long as they were safe and accounted for. Here's hoping that some of that might rub off on our crazy lady.
Here's what I learned (or reinforced) as a result of this incident:
-
Crazy people make for bad parents.
-
Don't preach about time management unless you exemplify it.
-
Life doesn't go like clockwork; if you plan around clockwork,
expect to be disappointed.
-
Governments should consider requiring a license to have kids;
this would certainly benefit the gene pool.
Anyway, I'm off snowboarding again in a few hours. Hopefully my
further adventures will be a little bit more amusing and a little
less crazy/shocking. Happy riding and until next time...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Ask Dr. Shred: Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Dear Dr. Shred, As reported in a recent news article on Yahoo.com, a Massachusetts
sandwich shop is trying to prevent a burrito stand from opening by leveraging a clause in its lease that no other
sandwich shop may open in the same mall. This begs the question: is
a burrito a sandwich?
Captain Condiment
Dear Captain Condiment,
To answer this question, we first have
to define what a sandwich is. According to Wikipedia, a sandwich is
“a food item
typically consisting of two pieces of leavened
bread between which
are laid one or more layers of meat,
vegetable,
cheese, together
with optional or traditionally provided condiments,
sauces, and other
accompaniments.” This is similar to the
manwich which often involves a man (the meat) sandwiched between two ladies (bread) with optional or traditionally provided condiments, sauces and other accompaniments (a fun time often referred to as Wednesday night). The word burrito on the other hand, literally translates to
“little donkey” in Spanish. The word donkey is also used in
combination with the word punch which describes an alcoholic beverage and a deviant sex act involving sodomy followed by a punch to the back
of the head (I don't want to get into the gory details here but if
you want to know, ask Dr. Shred). As you can see, the differences between a sandwich and a burrito
are vast, and all things considered, I'd rather find myself
sandwiched between two lovely ladies than sodomized and punched in
the head. All this to say that a sandwich is NOT a burrito and it
seems that the US justice system agrees
with me.
I hope this answers your question, Dr. Shred
Daily Barns: Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Greetings shredders! For those of you that read my blog
regularly, you may have noticed that lasts week's instalment was
somewhat metaphysical (in the smart stupid way). This week I've
decided to get back to basics a little bit and stick to something
that I know and that I'm that sure more people can relate to.
I'm sure there are many of you who have been in a situation where
you've given your opinion on something and have been told to stick to
what you know and not try to cogitate on things beyond your area of
expertise. Well as snowboarders, I think we are all super geniuses
in our own right. Last week's Daily Barns serves as an example of
what can come out of a snowboarder's coconut, no matter how ludicrous
(in fact the more ludicrous the better). Lukas Huffman is a
snowboarder and generally thought to be a very smart fellow; he's
working on a book/DVD called IR77 which explores the raw side of
riding so it's clearly not uncommon for snowboarders to have good
ideas. What does this all mean? Snowboarders know stuff. The story
I'm about to relate to you provides evidence that when you have a
question, ask a snowboarder, we know everything.
A friend of mine is currently unhappy with her job. We used to
work for the same company a few years ago and since then I've changed
jobs several times. She thought she'd ask my advice on leaving a
company without burning any bridges. Being the nice guy that I am, I
thought I'd help her out in any way I could reminding her that I
don't have much in terms of “industry experience” so my advice
would be strictly extrapolated from logical foundations. She was
cool with that so, fighting my initial instinct to use this as an
opportunity to find out what it takes to get fired, I proceeded to
tell her what I thought would be the best way to plan an “exit
strategy” without ruffling too many feathers. Over the next hour,
we mapped out a plan based on a “difference of ethics” which, if
set up properly, would make it appear as though her departure would
be mutually beneficial for both parties (I should probably go into
politics). I don't want to get into the details of the plan here
since it was pretty long, but let me just say that the word “endgame”
came up on at least one occasion.
With a plan of action in hand, my friend was in good spirits. I
told her however, that she should ask for other opinions; usually if
you take the sum of everyone's point of view, the truth lies
somewhere in the middle. She decided to ask Mr. P, the former VP of
finance and CFO of the company we had previously worked for. This
guy is a big wheel locally in business; a few years ago he was on the
list of top 40 executives under 40 so naturally he'd be a wealth of
experience and knowledge. His advice dimmed her spirits however,
because he effectively told her that she needed to stay put for a
while and that there was no way to part ways on good terms. When she
told me this, I said “OK let's put this in perspective for a
minute”
Mr. P = Top 40 under 40 in business.
Me = Snowboarder
“The decision is a no brainer” I said. In the end,
she agreed with me and decided to take my advice over Mr. P's.
So the morals of this story are the following:
-
When looking for truth, take the sum of all
opinions first; you'll find the answer somewhere in the middle.
-
Ethical reservations are always a good tool to
justify leaving a job and doing so on good terms. Alternatively you
can accuse the boss of giving the receptionist herpes (unless you
are the receptionist in which case it should be the
handle bar mustashio'd custodian).
-
If you have an important life decision to make,
ask a snowboarder we know everything. Maybe Snowboard.com should be
the new Wikipedia... let the knowledge be shared.
I'll leave you all now to ponder about these morals. But in the
spirit of sharing the knowledge (a good friend of mine once told me
that sharing is caring), there should be an advice column run by
snowboarders; I think I'll call it “Ask Dr. Shred.” Send
questions for Dr. Shred via personal message, I'll see to it that he
gets them and will do my best to get him motivated to impart his
eminent wisdom. Please be sure to put “Ask Dr. Shred” in the
subject so I'll know which messages are for him, and which are for
me, and don't feel bad if your queries go unanswered, after all Dr.
Shred IS
a snowboarder and may be too
busy slashing some pow to slash the metaphysical. So until I
receive universal enlightenment...
Keep Shreddin'
the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Thursday, November 02, 2006
For those of you who have been following my blog, you might
remember that a while back myself and a buddy were mistaken, by some
acquaintances, as being a gay couple (See “Why the Fonz Rides a
Motorbike”). This prompted me to stop being lazy and set my mind
to finding a girlfriend (paraphrasing Tolstoï to boot). Similarly,
my buddy Gurbir (who was also wrapped up in this whole “are those
dudes dating” fiasco), set out to find himself a lady friend. This
was not directly a result of said fiasco however; he had a few
nibbles at a singles mixer we had previously attended.
If you recall, this singles mixer was full of cougars (there were
non-cougars there as well, but when they are bat-shi*t insane, the
cougars are more entertaining -- see “Cougar Hunting for
the Criminally Insane”). In order to deal with these
predators, much beer was consumed by me. Which leads to my first
meeting of Gurbir's current girlfriend. I don't remember actually
meeting her that night (although she did look familiar the next time
I did), but apparently in my drunken, stumbly stupor, brief
introductions had been made.
A few weeks went by, things between Gurbir and his new dame were
moving along quite well. He decided that he should invite her out to
one of our weekly Tuesday appy night outings. He felt the need
however, to warn her about what may potentially come out of my mouth
and not to take anything I say too seriously. This is probably wise
as many find my humour somewhat offensive. Well prepared for the
worst, Gurbir's new lady friend seemed to be very cool and reasonably
tolerant of my jokes. She even commented that my humour was in fact
not overly offensive despite the fact that Gurbir had tagged me as
the ISO standard for offensiveness. Swell, I'm now a metric.
The ISO is an international standards body that overseas standard
measurement units. To understand what it means to be the ISO
standard of offensiveness, one needs to be introduced to the concept
of applied commentary. An applied commentary is either an insult or
a complement which has a degree of offensiveness measured in Juniors
(J). The following is an overview of Junior's three laws of
offensiveness and how they apply to the standard measure of one's
vexation.
The three laws of Offensiveness
Junior's First Law of Offensiveness:
-
Every
entity in a state of uniform vexation tends to remain in that state
of vexation unless an external commentary is directed to it.
This is analogous to Galileo's concept of inertia which is often
termed simply “The Law of Inertia”.
Junior's Second Law of Offensiveness:
-
The relationship between an entity's indifference i,
it's level of disgust o, and the applied commentary C
is C = io.
Applied commentary and disgust are vectors (as indicated by their
symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the
direction of the commentary vector ranges from revolt to delight and
is the same as the direction of the disgust vector.
This is the most powerful of Junior's three Laws, because it
allows quantitative calculations of dynamics: how do revolt and
delight change when commentary are applied. Notice the fundamental
difference between Junior's 2nd law and the dynamics of
Aristotle: An applied commentary, or insult, causes only a change
in level of offence
(a degree of offensiveness); it does not maintain its vexatious
properties as Aristotle held for velocity.
This is analogous to the difference between Newton's second law
and Aristotle's law of inertia. Under Newton, F = ma,
but under Aristotle F = mv, where v
is the velocity. Thus according to Aristotle there is only a
velocity if there is a force, but according to Newton, an object with
a certain velocity maintains that velocity unless a
force acts on it to cause an acceleration (that is, a change in
velocity). Similarly, under Junior's Law, an entity with a certain
level of vexation maintains that level of vexation unless
an applied commentary acts on it to cause revolt or delight. Applied
commentary can be either introspective or external. Introspective
commentary is the reason why it can be observed that time heals all
wounds; introspective delight is an applied commentary which affects
changes in disgust. Introspective revolt is self destructive and
stupid.
Junior's Third Law of Offensiveness:
-
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
This law is exemplified by what happens if we tell a guy his
girlfriend is fat. Physical or verbal application of resulting
commentary will be proportionate to the degree of offensiveness of
the original insult. (Note: This type of behaviour is not condoned
by the author of this blog unless the result is humorous or amusing).
That pretty much summarizes the concept of the J units for
measuring offensiveness. Here are a few conclusions and observations
about Junior's Laws themselves and the method that was followed to
elucidate them:
-
Sobriety directly affects one's indifference. The drunker
the guy, the less fat his girlfriend should be, 'nuff said.
-
In general, my friends have a very high level of
indifference, otherwise they don't remain my friends for very long.
-
Further research should be conducted on the implications of
Junior's three laws of offensiveness on the phenomena known as “the
awesomeness factor”.
-
Becoming the ISO standard of offensiveness is both flattering
and vexing and is a potential obstacle in actually finding a
girlfriend.
If you found any of this at all enlightening, or useful, you may
want to consider lowering your threshold for indifference. Since
becoming the ISO standard for offensiveness, I've had to do just that
and reconsider some of the vile things that come out of my mouth.
The whole experience has been positive however; since this change in
attitude, I've started dating a girl who hasn't run out on me after
one or two dates. So until the next instalment of the Daily Barns,
think positive thoughts that your favourite retard will rise above
and strengthen his inter-personal relationships. Until then, pray
for snow.
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Thursday, October 19, 2006
This past weekend was the Toronto Ski,
Snowboard and Travel show. Being a community of snowboarders, I'm
sure most people here were at least tempted with the prospect of
deals on new gear. The EC crew decided that this would also be a
suitable pre-tense for a meet, and since Laura was set to arrive in
Canada around the same time, the need to get together and get
shi*ttered was compelling. The fact that the 11th annual
SBC party was being held on the same weekend was a happy
co-incidence.
The road trip really began for me
before I even left Ottawa. I was at my friend Emily's house drinking
beers (oh wonderful Heineken) waiting for the red-eye departure time.
I made it to the bus terminal happily intoxicated with a camel back
full of Sour Puss in tow (give me a break, I needed some booze for
the bus trip and it was the only thing I could find in the liquor
cabinet that was strong and plentiful). So I met up with JC and we
got on the bus en route to the legislative capital (from the national
one).
The bus ride in itself was amusing,
between sips of Sour Puss, I took the time to flirt with the girl
sitting next to me. It must have worked because I remember her
falling asleep on me; but you can't take my word for it... I was
drunk. Upon our arrival to Toronto, I parted ways with my new friend;
slightly embarrassed that I couldn't remember her name so I didn't
press it (I wish I'd had an application form handy so I could give
her one – see “Why the Fonz Rides a Motorbike”). We got the
usual Toronto welcome: Hummers, dog shi*t (I assume dog), and profane
transients. What I didn't count on was goth kids sporting gas masks
in McDonald's. I'm not sure if those were for fashion or function
and frankly I didn't care to stick around and find out.
We later met up with Laura who was
stoked about three things since arriving in Canada: squirrels, bagels
and Roots stores. This is when I learned that in Australia, to root
means to shag. As Laura was educating me on this fact, she added
that if you ever see someone posing for a picture in front of a Roots
store, ten to one they are Australian.
The ski and snowboard show was
relatively uneventful. I did score a steezy Ronin sweater for a
deal at the show however; 60% off is none too shabby. We left before
the Nitro team showed up but offered to give fifty points to anyone
who punched Marc Frank Montoya (Snow PIG champion) in the face; there
weren't any takers.
Later that night, I met up with the
gang at the SBC party. It was a pain in the ass to get to since the
turn from Lakeshore to Cherry was closed, but once there it was good
times. We proceeded to drink, dance, watch snowboard videos and
dance some more. It was a productive night for me since I figured
out how to dance while holding three cans of beer (drinking from all
of them) without spilling... much. I got wasted pretty quickly
however; since every time I put a beer can down, someone would give
me another. I also learned that it's cold behind the bar at the
Docks; or so I would be led to believe by the waitress' nipples. I
was too drunk to hide the fact that I was ogling but I think she was
flattered (ha ha... I'm such a loser).
I had to leave the party a bit early
because I was out of money for cab fare and my ride was leaving.
Unfortunately I also broke the seal right around the same time so I
asked my buddy to pull over in Don Mills so I could pee; I updated
the rest of the EC crew via text message.
In the morning I had to fight my way
back to the waking and find my way back to the bus depot to get home
to Ottawa; I needed to either do some laundry or show up at work
naked on Monday (the second option was becoming more and more
appealing the more tired I felt). I met up with JC at the bus
terminal and we boarded the 2:30 express back to Ottawa. The bus
jumped on the Don Valley Parkway (or rather parking lot) so this
promised to be a long express trip.
No sooner had we parked on the DVP then
Carrie SMS'd me to find out how our bus trip was going. I said
“We're stuck on the DVP, Toronto traffic sucks balls.” She told
me that I should flirt with more girls on the bus and to fill her in
on all the details afterwards. This sounded like a good idea with
one notable exception, as I looked around I saw nothing but
middle-aged women and I wasn't interested in cougar hunting.
Fortunately, a closer examination of the “passenger manifest”
showed me that there were a few cute girls on the bus. I told Carrie
I'd keep her posted then promptly fell asleep.
A few hours later, we were arriving in
Tweed. Having snoozed a good part of the bus ride thus far, I hadn't
bothered trying to talk to the cute girls. At this point, the
motivation was just not there, so I picked up my phone and wrote the
following text message to Carrie: “FYI. I'm in the bathroom with
Hillary and Maria. They say hello.” Here was her reply: “Haha!
for real! i want details... Oh you're so joining the meter high club
aren't you! and a threesome. You are my idol!” This caused tw
distinct reactions in me: on the one hand I was flattered that Carrie
thought enough of me to be able to pull something like that off; on
the other hand, I was slightly disturbed by the fact that she thought
I was dirty enough to try it... come on I'm a classy guy (ha!). In
the end it became obvious that I was totally making it up since my
updates were getting more and more ridiculous (I told her Hillary was
going toset me up with her daughter).
Here's what I learned at the Toronto
Ski, Snowboard and Travel Show:
-
Hummers are lame (OK I knew this
already but as a snowboarder, global warming is an important issue
to me).
-
If someone asks you for root in
Australia, take inventory of who's asking and always wear a rain
coat.
-
Toronto traffic sucks balls.
-
I seem to have developed a certain
reputation as somewhat of a man whore. While it's flattering to
know that people think I can score with any girl I want, it's
disturbing that they also think I would have a threesome in a bus
restroom with strangers.
The beauty of mayhem is that you'll
generally learn something from it. I'm going to take the lessons
I've learned from last weekend to heart; for the next little while,
you'll find me scouring Roots store fronts for sexy Australian girls,
flipping off Hummers and talking to my image consultants about this
man-whore thing. So until next time...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR
J.
Daily Barns: Thursday, October 12, 2006
Well it hasn't been that long since my last instalment of the (not
so daily) Daily Barns. Following a weekend with little to no
nonsense, it hit me as quickly as my alarm clock shocked me out of my
slumber on Tuesday morning (I hate waking up to go to work). I was
chillin' with my good friend Gurbir (sounds like “grr! beer” yes
that is in fact his real name) and he mentioned something that I
found rather odd. Apparently some people, whom we had met at a party
weeks before, had made the assumption that Gurbir and I were dating
(huh?). Now I'm all in favour of people wanting to be gay, but I
also don't bring my snowboard to the beach (if you know what I mean).
Apparently when you car pool with another dude to get to a party,
it's immediately assumed that your names are Neal Fitzpatrick and
Patrick Fitzneal. Personally this says to me that people need to
watch less Queer as Folk on TV.
In War and Peace, prince Vassili told Pierre not to get married
until he had nothing left to accomplish. I think Tolstoï may
have got it half right; you shouldn't get married until you've
nothing left to accomplish, or until your friends or acquaintances
start to think that you are gay (whichever comes first, like a power
train warranty). As it turns out, I fit one of the criteria, so it's
time for me to put aside my “lone wolf” hide and jump with two
feet back into the dating field (as difficult and painful as that may
be).
In that spirit, I've decided to hold open auditions for the part
of “Junior's girlfriend”. It's really a career making part so
get on it early before you miss the boat.
Junior – more than just a potential boyfriend – is a long-term
partner in crime. Junior understands that his most valuable asset is
his unique perspective on life that often acts as a lightning rod for
hilarity – and his friends know this too.
Junior is currently seeking an adventurous and caring
romance-engineer to join his team. Reporting to the director of
lovin', your primary responsibilities include:
-
Providing moral support to any and all nut-ball endeavours.
-
Supporting pre-intimacy and post-intimacy.
-
Understanding the intimate stage of each opportunity based on
daily intimacy support activities.
-
Discussing and ensuring full understanding of expectations to
provide accurate and realistic relationship goals.
-
Providing regular communication to Junior on project progress
status.
As a successful candidate, you will recognize the humour in this
blog post. You bring a proactive approach that treats problems as
opportunities to learn and improve. You believe in treating Junior
with respect and keeping the relationship fun.
If you see yourself in this exciting and dynamic opportunity and
you share or appreciate Junior's sense of humour, sense of respect
and commitment – please apply online or send your resume and cover
letter in confidence to the following below. Online applications are
preferred and are reviewed daily.
Jerks-R-Us C/O Arthur Fonzarelli
Happy Days, California, USA
123 (o'clock) 4 (o'clock rock)
Get those applications in the mail ladies (it's sad that I have to
specify ladies but if you've read this far, you understand why); this
is one snowboarder with a job that will surely be snatched up soon.
Only promising candidates will be contacted. So until you hear from
me...
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Monday, October 09, 2006
This past weekend was the Canadian thanksgiving; a time for giving
thanks and for eating turkey with family. For me, visiting my folks
for the holidays is a bit of a logistical headache since I live in
Ottawa and my parents are nearly 800 km away in Windsor. Combine
that with the fact that this time I was picking up my sister in
Aurora, which makes the trip a lengthy drive for turkey.
To make the drive more pleasant, I decided to purchase one of
those FM tuners so that I could listen to my iPod in the car. This
way I would have the necessary eight to nine hours of consecutive
music without having to flip CDs. This has
the added benefit that since most of my music collection can be found
on my iPod, I don't have to select which CDs to bring before I leave;
I can listen to whatever fancies me at the moment (mostly).
The weekend was pretty low key and relaxed. Football being an
important part of thanksgiving, I decided to check up on my Lions
(being in close proximity to Detroit makes this easy). Things were
looking good, they were up 10-3 at the half. This is when i decided
it was time to leave. My sister needed to be back in Aurora for
dinner time, so our departure window was quickly coming to a close.
With care packages of leftover turkey in hand, we got in the car and
made our way to the highway 401. That's when I decided that the
soundtrack for our journey should be the entire Bouncing Souls
discography; a glorious collection of 140 songs. So to choruses of
“His name is Lamar Vannoy”, we peeled down Manning road to the
401.
Song 32: I realize that for a road trip, the incidences of
insanity have been pretty much non-existent. This seems odd to me;
something should be done about this.
Song 59: Still no insanity, but we're approaching Toronto, I
decide we should make the requisite stop at Krispy Kreme for 700
calorie per unit goodness.
Song 68: We arrive at Krispy Kreme, my sister goes to the ladies
room to be welcomed by the distinct odour of vomit. Meanwhile I'm
buying a double dozen and I get a couple packs of glow in the dark
stickers... boss. My sister, un-deterred by the vomit, picks a
doughnut frosted like a jack-o-lantern... it's yummy.
Song 87: We arrive in Aurora, Stronach country. Maybe we'll run
into Tie Domi being unfaithful... still no insanity.
I drop my sister off at home, grab a quick bite, check the sports
channel to find out that the Lions in fact lost (jerks) then continue
on my way to Ottawa; first south on the 404 then east on the 401...
still no insanity.
Song 110: I crack open my Monster energy drink. Then stop in
Marrysville to take a picture of the quarry. It looks cool all lit
up at night. I wonder if I could jib it.
Song 112: I start wishing upon the stars.
Song 122: I drive by the Big Apple. Unfortunately it's closed
because I wanted some pie. Plus the giant apple is cool; it makes me
feel like I'm James in the giant peach.
Song 125: Someone in front of me gets pulled over; time to reduce
my cruising speed.
Song 138: Johnny says he's bound by only
six strings to this world. Also, I'm approaching Kingston.
Song 140: I've listened to the entire Bouncing Souls discography.
I'm pleased because it occurs to me that “Here We Go” might be
the best road trip song ever and it seems to be impossible to have
too many “Oi”s in a punk song. I'm disappointed though, because
I still have a ways to go and I'm out of Bouncing Souls. I quickly
deal with this lack of continued Bouncing Souls love by putting on
some Voodoo Glow Skulls... it's El Coo Cool.
I arrive in Ottawa roughly nine hours after leaving Windsor. I'm
sick of driving so it's good to be home, but I'm still disappointed
at the lack of amusing events on this road trip. I did learn a few
things though which is important:
-
The Lions suck! They're still my team but I have no
reservations in stating how much they suck.
-
140 Bouncing Souls songs will get you from Windsor, through
Aurora, to Kingston. Another 30 Voodoo Glow Skulls songs will get
you the rest of the way to Ottawa.
-
Energy drinks are yummy and encourage me to do random things
like stop and take a picture of a quarry.
-
Sometimes I'm boring, deal with it.
So that was pretty much my thanksgiving weekend in a nutshell.
Although it seems the awesomeness factor was also on vacation this
weekend, I enjoyed my time with family, and of course the turkey. I
hope you all had a similarly pleasant weekend. I hope the
awesomeness factor's hiatus is not too lengthy so I'll have something
worth while to write about soon (I'm hoping it will be back for the
Toronto Ski and Snowboard show). Until then, keep your strings only
one turn out of tune.
Keep shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Wednesday, September 13, 2006
On September 7th, my
workplace decided to hold a company golf tournament. Normally I
wouldn't even give this idea a second thought; I'm not a golfer, I'm
a snowboarder, so the idea of playing a round of golf just isn't
appealing to me. It didn't take long however, to be convinced that
this could be a good time. After all, we were taking over the entire
golf course which meant we could bring beer. That's when I realized
the appeal of golf is neither in the satisfaction of sinking that
long distance putt, nor the appreciation of this eminently
frustrating game, its appeal is in the socializing
and my back pack full of tall-boys was a clear indication that I was
in the mood to be merry.
There were about fifty people signed up
for this golf tournament, divided up into teams of five playing
scramble (i.e. everyone on the team takes a shot and the best ball is
used as the spot from which the next shot is taken). Upon discovery
that I could count the number of times I've played golf on the
fingers of one hand, it was decided that I needed some additional
motivation to play well. So the deal was as follows: every time my
shot was not the best one, I had to do ten push ups. The corollary
however, was that if my shot WAS the best one, everyone else
had to do ten push ups (thus the motivation... sticking it to my
co-workers). Needless to say, I was expecting to do a lot of push
ups which was fine by me, it just meant that I was getting drunk AND
getting buff at the same time (I love multi-tasking).
I was already one Moosehead into the
tournament before we hit the first hole. It seemed that this was
becoming a drinking contest as well as a golf tournament. As
expected, I was doing push ups early and often -- the Happy Gilmore
driving technique didn't help me one bit. By the time we got to the
9th hole, I had done roughly 270 push ups and lost count
of the number of beers I had consumed. My director's team was
already finished so he decided to come and see how I was doing
“Pretty crappy” I said wanting to get this over with. I did my
push ups before teeing up my ball and said “watch this.” As it
turns out, this was a tactical mistake as my shot made it all the way
to the green; I believe my exact words when I hit the ball were “Holy
shi*t!”. This being the only shot my director had seen me hit, he
immediately assumed that I was trying to shark my team-mates. This
belief was short lived however, once they told him how many push ups
I had done; all presumptions vanished.
This golf tournament (drinking contest)
turned out to be much more fun than I had anticipated. I got to make
an ass out of myself in front of my co-workers without catching to
much hell. Plus in the process I learned a few things about golf:
-
Having a mohawk on a golf course
is like being a walking freak show in spite of the gaudy golf
outfits.
-
Make sure you're team-mates pay
what they owe. I don't think mine ever did their ten push ups on
the ninth hole.
-
I can't play much more than nine
holes of golf or else I'll pass out from the alcohol (Tiger Woods
must have one hell of a liver).
-
Golf is a lot like dating, the
goal is to get to the hole in the least number of strokes.
Ironically, much as in real life, the more beer I drink the better I
seem to be at it.
So that, in a nutshell, was my recent
golfing experience. Although it was fun, I think I've philosophized
quite enough about sports involving rolling greens, open bodies of
water and sand pits. Bring on the snow, it's time to dress up to
'git down: butter, booter and jib. So if you don't see me on the
links, look for me on the slopes. Until next time,
Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J
Daily Barns: Wednesday, August 30, 2006
In this instalment of the Daily Barns, I'd like to address one of
my pet peeves: people who talk without thinking. More specifically,
people who use canned expressions that they probably heard on
television or something, which gets constantly used often in
completely inappropriate contexts.
Those of you that have read my blog in the past now that I have a
pretty nerdy day job. As such, I'm disposed to fraternizing
with nerds with their own little quirks. Some of them are tolerable,
others not so much: this one is not so much.
One of my co-workers, let's refer to him as captain Long-Short,
has the afore mentioned habit of blindly using expressions. I had a
meeting the other day with captain Long-Short in which I lost count
of how many times I heard the expression: "the long and the
short of it is...". The more often it was used, the more it
infuriated me. I started thinking "what does that mean
exactly?" So in order to tune out during the meeting, I decided
to introspect on that subject somewhat. Here's what I came up with
(cracks knuckles and pulls out an abacus).
Let's take it as a given that
every question has two answers: a long and involved one and the quick
and dirty short one. So when one says, "the long and the short
of it is...", they are implying that both of these answers are
the same. In this case then, the question really only has a single
answer. This is a contradiction.
Let's assume that a question
Q, has a long answer LA(Q) and a short answer SA(Q).
Implicitly, LA(Q) is not the same as SA(Q), thus we
have:
~SA(Q) <-> LA(Q) (1)
If
I ask captain Long-Short to answer question Q, he will give me
the long and the short answer at once, let's express this as LSA(Q).
Therefore:
LSA(Q) -> LA(Q) ^ SA(Q) (2)
or
(LSA(Q) -> LA(Q)) ^ (LSA(Q) -> SA(Q))
(3)
If captain Long-Short answers the question
correctly, then LSA(Q) is true.
Therefore by (3) it can be concluded that
both LA(Q) and SA(Q)
are true. This contradicts the axiom (1) which says that they are
distinct; therefore LSA(Q) is a tautology.
“What have you learnt from this” you
may ask young mathematician? Well the long and the short of it
is that captain Long-Short likes the sound of his own voice and he's
a f*cking retard for making me think this much about a useless
expression (me thinks I should shorten his long). On the plus side,
it seems that not all of the math knowledge that I've acquired in
years of University have been lost to a gaping maw of beer. All this
to say that people need to talk less and do more (often do more
thinking). Less talk more rock as the expression goes.
Speaking of rock; check out what happens when you go on a bender
and let your friends cut your hair.
As
a sign that I can rock as well as I talk, my friends gave me one of
the most rocking' haircuts there is. I
always wanted a mohawk but my mom wouldn't let me get one.
There are a few morals to this story:
-
Sometimes it's wise to talk less and do more (or just talk
less in general).
-
Using the very expression one is lashing out against is
ironic.
-
Beware of letting your friends cut your hair while on a
bender. It's like a box of chocolates, you never know what your
going to get (see the previous moral).
-
Mohawks are awesome and you all should get one; it's worth
the trouble of explaining it to your boss.
On that note, I'll end transmission here. Until next time,
Keep shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
Daily Barns: Sunday, August 27, 2006
This instalment
of the Daily Barns discusses the subject of cougar hunting and the
pitfalls that may be involved in performing this activity. This
study is purely anecdotal but I'll try to
generalize as much as possible to propose a
set of guidelines to maintain some modicum of safety and sanity when
hunting (well there's still a big question mark on the whole sanity
thing on account of the even bigger question mark on MY sanity;
but I digress).
The week before last I was invited to
one of these singles mixer type events. I wasn't particularly
keen on going but I figured that a) I might meet someone interesting
and b) at the very least, I might get a good story out of it.
The event took place on the Thursday so my buddy Gurbir and I made
our way to the Aulde Dubliner (the pub hosting the event) with weapons of ass destruction in hand.
Having seen the guest list for this event, we quickly realized
that we would likely be the youngest people there. So we
decided that the best strategy would be to use our youth as cougar
bait; I think the plan worked.
It only took about 15 minutes
for the first "interesting" encounter to take place.
I was already on my second pint of beer (I was worried about being
bored). This woman, claiming to be
35, but I'm sure is at least a few years old than that (or has done
some pretty serious drugs in her life), came up to us and started
chatting. That's when we found out that she used the guest list
to build files on all the men in the joint (she even knew that I'm a
snowboarding instructor, and even though it's not exactly a national
secret, it's still creepy). She used these files extensively
instead of asking us questions which was weird. The longer this
conversation went on, the more we realized
that this woman was bat shi*t insane ... AWESOME! We eventually
sent her away by convincing her to go sign up for the raffle
for free beer. Speaking of beer, my glass was empty so it was
time to go order another pint.
Once at the bar, I started talking to
another girl. Unlike the previous one, she didn't seem insane
and was genuinely quite interesting. A few minutes into the
conversation however, I get a tap on my shoulder. The president
of the company I work for was at this event and decided to come over
and chat. "Did you know I'm single?" she asked.
"It's not really the kind of question you think of asking the
president", I said. Having now established her
relationship status, we came to the conclusion that I might run into
her at some of these things. Now I'm sure that some of you
might see how this could be awkward, which is exactly how I felt at
first. This turned out to be a blessing though because now I
have the President helping me pick up girls. This is fantastic, the president is my wingman, I must have
done a backside 5 under a lucky star or something. I think I'm gonna
go to a few more of these between now and the start of the
snowboarding season.
Singles mixers are highly entertaining
and often cheaper than a movie. I recommend attending these
events for the sheer awesomeness factor of it all. Here are a
few things to keep in mind if you do:
- Beware
of bat shi*t insane cougars. They are dangerous, especially if
well organized. On the other hand,
they can be really fun to mess with.
- If at all possible, get the
president to be your wingman. It will greatly elevate your
status and serves as a great deterrent for
the afore mentioned "bat shi*t insane" cougars.
Keeping
these things in mind when going on your own cougar hunting
excursion will greatly increase the probability of fun and zaniness. Besides, I wouldn't want any misfortune
to befall you before the first snow fall preventing you from doing
those oh so precious first rides. So until next time,
Keep
shreddin' the GNAR!
J.
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