Ok, so I got to go snowboarding today! WHOOPEE was it a blast, I forgot why it was that I used to participate in this activity with the feverish desire of a 15 year old virgin in a whore house (no not me thank you).
Its been a few years (like 7 i think) since i've been on a board, so i was a little apprehensive at first especially since the board I have it quite big. It's a Burton Canyon and is 181 cm. Now I've always liked to ride the bigger boards, and by bigger, I mean bigger for my body size, something more along the lines of a 163 cm board, but after a couple of runs in the fresh virigin (sorry about the virgin reference again, i'm feeling rather randy, and I don't have the kids tonight, so I may go and try and find some sort of debauchery, or I may stay home and watch porn and eat pizza, not sure yet) powder I knew full well that I was born to ride the long boards.
That being said, let me start over with my day. First stop, the bakery/deli in lakeside...ok, this place was all bakery, there wasn't a fucking corndog to be found in the place, in fact, i'd bet dollars to donuts that they wouldn't have the slightest clue what a corndog is. So I order "the country burrito" it has sausage, eggs, cheese, and potato's, I also got a large cup of the darkest coffee they had (my coffee matches my personality; dark and bitter) on tap. I pay for the food and drink and flop back into my car, ready to negotiate the 13.5 mile drive up the very icy mountain (yes, i'm driving up the mountain with my knees as i'm drinking my coffee, eating my burrito, which by the way had no fucking potato's in it....rotten bastards, and talking to all sorts of very very important people on my cell phone, ok, they weren't important, i was just calling everyone to laugh at them for being stuck in their jobs today).
So I go in to the lodge and find Asia (quite the attractive young gal, had i any balls, i probably would have flirted a bit more with her, but since i hadn't started drinking yet, i was a little shy) she gives me my pass, and i'm back to my car to put on my gear.
This is when I see it, helmets, everyone is wearing a fucking helmet! Skiers, snowboarders, even the fucking pedestrians are wearing helmets. So my first thought was that it must be some special ed. day on the hill. Nope. I would have to say that 75% of the people up on the mountain were wearing helmets, now come on, I can see, and advocate the use of helmets to some degree on a bicycle, but on the slopes...come on people, don't be pussies. And trust me, these folks with their cranial covers were the biggest weenies i've ever laid eyes on, alot of them were actually sno-plowing down the mountain, WITH A FUCKING HELMET ON! Now i've had my fair share of horrific wrecks (yard sales if you will) on the mountain, but never would I ever think about wearing a helmet. Maybe a chin gaurd or something, as i"ve knocked myself out landing in the flats and trying to shove my knees thru my jaw. And thats another thing, not one of these helmets had any kind of chin guard...holy hell man what is wrong with people.
Now i'm sure i'll get all sorts of advocates for safety bitching about this, but to them i say this GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU GODDAMN CRYBABIES.
Now, i'm going to borrow a little something from George Carlin here, he did a bit in his stand up routine once, regarding bike helmets, and he had a great point, part of the reason so many americans are idiots, is that the stupid one's are getting weeded out as children...in a sense, we have effectivly wiped out a small part of natural selection. Now we are doing this on the mountains?
In my 20 years of skiing and snowboarding, i've never seen one head injury, if you can't ski/board within your limitations, you probably deserve to die because you are obviously a fucking moron that should have been killed at an earlier age (i make this assumption because he/she probably wore a helmet on his/her bicycle). Hell, i've riden well beyond what is probably reasonable, but I would never purposefully endanger myself. And i doubt that wearing a helmet is going to push people any further either.
Here is an exception to this rule, if you are a profesional skier/snowboarder you may want to wear a helmet if you are jumping 70foot gaps, or dropping in on a mountain with a face of 60 degrees or so. That, seems reasonable.
Ok, enough on the helmet shit, god, thats just sad. So, the other thing I realized is that tonight i need to make a mixed tape (actually a c.d. but mixed tape sounds cool) because the one I had today was something I grabbed on my way out the door, it had a couple of great songs to ride to, and some others that were total shit. Here is a list of songs I recomend for a day on the slopes (this list is only a guidline for me, chances are, you hate my fucking music)
Alternative Ulster by stiff little fingers: this song gives me fucking goosebumps when it starts off.
Katmandoo by bob seager....just fucking great stuff.
Pepper (not sure on the name of this song) by the butthole surfers.
wasted by black flag, ok really just about anything by black flag is good.
ok, i'm now losing interest in writting out my song list, so i'm going to end this blog thing now,
Hope you all have as much fun as I am tonight (weather its pizza and porn or beer and bar whores)
-chris d.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Of Heat Tape and Men
I am a man. I can build anything. I can fix anything. I don't need directions. I am a fucking idiot.
I bought my home about 5 years ago. It's a manufactured home (which is really a euphemism for "trailer", it is quite nice tho..all sheetrocked, nice appliances....but still a trailer). So, for 5 years now, I have been saying "gee, i should really get under the house (aka trailer) and insulate around the skirting, at least where the water line is at. I think I should do this, because I live in a very cold winter climate, and every year my water line freezes (go figure). And every year I say " shit, winter is here, it's too cold to crawl under there right now, i'll do it in the spring". Well eventually spring tends to roll around and then I seem to muster up some sort of excuse like this "gosh, we've been getting so much rain, it's probably really muddy under there, I'll just wait and do it in the summer, when it's warm AND dry". Well as you probably would guess, summer finally arrives at which point i say something along these lines "it's way to fucking hot to be crawling around under that damn house (aka trailer) besides, the black widow's are now out in full force so I will wait untill fall when it gets cooler out and the black widow's can't move about so quick" Seems like reasonable thinking right? So, before I know it, fall is upon me, and I some how manage to convince myself that "the odds of it getting cold enough this year are pretty minimal, what with this whole global warming thing, besides, if it does look like it's going to get that cold, i'll just take care of it the night before, it should be quick and easy anyhow...it's only and area of about 3foot by 10 foot that needs to be insulated, piece of cake"
What kind of fucking asshole would reason with himself in this manner...I can only think of one type of person....A MAN! Now I know i'm a guy and I shouldn't be bashing us guy's, but damnit, sometimes (not often) we do stupid shit, for example; going out after work to have "a beer" and before you know it, it's closing time on a tuesday night, you are shitfaced, wondering where everyone is, and who is this enormous woman I'm trying to coerce into my bed. See that is a good example of a man being stupid, not stupid for drinking too many beers, and not stupid for taking home anything you could get your dirty horny little hands on. No we are stupid for honestly thinking, that we are only going to have "a beer". Much like i've been very stupid thinking I'm a) going to get my house insulated at a "convient time" and B) that it's not going to get cold.
So, two days ago the weather service makes some claim ( I don't like to use the word prediction, because hell, at least predictions have a chance of coming true) that the temperature here is going to hit at least -16 degrees farhenheit. So I do the unthinkable (now mind you, its already about 15 degrees out, and alot of snow) I listen, not only do I listen, but I go buy a vatt of insulation, not only that, but as soon as I get home, I proceed to take down the skirting (ok, to be honest here, about 2 months ago, I started taking it down thinking I'd be doing this, only I talked myself into believing that it doesn't really get that cold in western Montana, and never really got it all the way back up) and I crawl under the damn house (aka trailer) and sure as shit, spider webs fucking everywhere, now, I'm not scared of spiders, however, my house only seems to have black widow's under it, so thats a little un-nerving. Anyhow, I'm in my arctic work gear crawling around insulating like a mad man (hey, it's friggin cold). It takes all of about 30 minutes to get the whole job half-ass done, good enough to prevent freezing, besides, i'll fix it up right in the spring.
Here is where I provide proof that ALL men are as dumb as I. I get a call from my boss this morning saying that we are too meet at his rental house because he's worried about the water line freezing (yes, it got fucking cold, who would have guessed?). So I meet him at the rental house, and we go under...and start to apply the heat tape to the lines...which by the way...were in the early stages of freezing, you could feel the ice in the lines, and the water was just trickling out of the main line. So we bring down the heater and beging to blast the pipes with heat ranging in the 500 degree area, which is also blasting directly on us, and well, it's really cold out, so I have on all of my thermal work shit!
Finally we get all of the lines thawed, and the heat tape applied and his cellar entrance insulated. The day was mostly uneventfull after that. I think the moral of my story, if I were to have a moral, I suppose you should first have morals before you go making morals out of your stories....anyhow, don't put shit off!
chris d.
I bought my home about 5 years ago. It's a manufactured home (which is really a euphemism for "trailer", it is quite nice tho..all sheetrocked, nice appliances....but still a trailer). So, for 5 years now, I have been saying "gee, i should really get under the house (aka trailer) and insulate around the skirting, at least where the water line is at. I think I should do this, because I live in a very cold winter climate, and every year my water line freezes (go figure). And every year I say " shit, winter is here, it's too cold to crawl under there right now, i'll do it in the spring". Well eventually spring tends to roll around and then I seem to muster up some sort of excuse like this "gosh, we've been getting so much rain, it's probably really muddy under there, I'll just wait and do it in the summer, when it's warm AND dry". Well as you probably would guess, summer finally arrives at which point i say something along these lines "it's way to fucking hot to be crawling around under that damn house (aka trailer) besides, the black widow's are now out in full force so I will wait untill fall when it gets cooler out and the black widow's can't move about so quick" Seems like reasonable thinking right? So, before I know it, fall is upon me, and I some how manage to convince myself that "the odds of it getting cold enough this year are pretty minimal, what with this whole global warming thing, besides, if it does look like it's going to get that cold, i'll just take care of it the night before, it should be quick and easy anyhow...it's only and area of about 3foot by 10 foot that needs to be insulated, piece of cake"
What kind of fucking asshole would reason with himself in this manner...I can only think of one type of person....A MAN! Now I know i'm a guy and I shouldn't be bashing us guy's, but damnit, sometimes (not often) we do stupid shit, for example; going out after work to have "a beer" and before you know it, it's closing time on a tuesday night, you are shitfaced, wondering where everyone is, and who is this enormous woman I'm trying to coerce into my bed. See that is a good example of a man being stupid, not stupid for drinking too many beers, and not stupid for taking home anything you could get your dirty horny little hands on. No we are stupid for honestly thinking, that we are only going to have "a beer". Much like i've been very stupid thinking I'm a) going to get my house insulated at a "convient time" and B) that it's not going to get cold.
So, two days ago the weather service makes some claim ( I don't like to use the word prediction, because hell, at least predictions have a chance of coming true) that the temperature here is going to hit at least -16 degrees farhenheit. So I do the unthinkable (now mind you, its already about 15 degrees out, and alot of snow) I listen, not only do I listen, but I go buy a vatt of insulation, not only that, but as soon as I get home, I proceed to take down the skirting (ok, to be honest here, about 2 months ago, I started taking it down thinking I'd be doing this, only I talked myself into believing that it doesn't really get that cold in western Montana, and never really got it all the way back up) and I crawl under the damn house (aka trailer) and sure as shit, spider webs fucking everywhere, now, I'm not scared of spiders, however, my house only seems to have black widow's under it, so thats a little un-nerving. Anyhow, I'm in my arctic work gear crawling around insulating like a mad man (hey, it's friggin cold). It takes all of about 30 minutes to get the whole job half-ass done, good enough to prevent freezing, besides, i'll fix it up right in the spring.
Here is where I provide proof that ALL men are as dumb as I. I get a call from my boss this morning saying that we are too meet at his rental house because he's worried about the water line freezing (yes, it got fucking cold, who would have guessed?). So I meet him at the rental house, and we go under...and start to apply the heat tape to the lines...which by the way...were in the early stages of freezing, you could feel the ice in the lines, and the water was just trickling out of the main line. So we bring down the heater and beging to blast the pipes with heat ranging in the 500 degree area, which is also blasting directly on us, and well, it's really cold out, so I have on all of my thermal work shit!
Finally we get all of the lines thawed, and the heat tape applied and his cellar entrance insulated. The day was mostly uneventfull after that. I think the moral of my story, if I were to have a moral, I suppose you should first have morals before you go making morals out of your stories....anyhow, don't put shit off!
chris d.
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