Today is March 5, 2010. I began the journey for this new season in mid December with a trip to Colorado. Everything was new, fresh and exciting. Travel is a lot of fun, especially when snowboarding is involved. Free passes, travel paid and with some clever angles, free food is in the mix. I had a lot of energy and numerous reasons to be really excited, from a snowboarding and business perspective.

I have a huge passion for what I do. I never realized it until the drive home, somewhere between Hope, BC and Susanville, CA. When the Olympics come around, there is a sense of urgency to get snowboarding to shine on that world stage. No matter what preparations are made, nothing seems to get you ready to react at the big show. And what a show it is……Shaun White goes into and comes out of Vancouver as “the” snowboarder. Sure, there is plenty of attention sent towards Torah Bright, Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark, Scotty Lago and even those boardercrossers……who doesn’t love Seth Wescott and Nate Holland? But let’s not pretend here. Shaun White is all you need to know and NBC loves it that way.

In the fourth grade I played Charlie Brown in a Christmas play. I fell in love with acting. In the seventh grade I played Tom Sawyer and it was the most incredible experience I have ever had. To be the focus of an audience for over an hour is so uplifting, it has an intoxicating effect. After the play ran for 2 weeks, I spent a night in my bedroom crying. Tom Sawyer was my identity, my passion, my being. Just like that, all of it was gone. Who was I now that Tom Sawyer was gone? I’d have to rely on the person I really am. The insecure and fragile kid who likes to talk shit, covering up all of his internal and external shortcomings.

You would think I could share my Olympic experiences with you through my pictures and stories. I can and probably will at some point, but there just aren’t many pictures to share. The stories are uneventful and even less interesting. I could tie it all into snowboarding and what snowboarding means to me. I could relate my life experiences to sliding down snow covered mountains. But that would cheat you from the truth. The truth that everything isn’t always OK with me. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you are doing, where you are going or who you are with. Sometimes the pain is too strong to ignore. How could this be? I’ve got everything going for me, nothing working against me. I get all the free shit I need and then some. I get to travel under the premise of serious business. I get to snowboard for free. I have an awesome family. Sometimes that’s not enough to carry me through.

People lie all the time. It’s the way the world is. If I lie and nobody suffers, is it still a lie? I’ve had people in this business lying to me for the past 15 years, at least. But that’s expected because my “adversaries” are just trying to pay less and it makes sense they will say and do anything to achieve that goal. I’ve had clients lie to me because they were afraid of how I might handle the situation. They never seem to understand the fiduciary duty I have with them. So they lie. Or stop short of telling the truth. People at companies always want to say they did what they were supposed to do. They sent the product when they didn’t. They sent the payment when they didn’t. They claimed they left a message when they didn’t. If the people at companies lie to me, the clients and I usually are on the same page, knowing we are being fed a line. But that gets turned around when the client is put into a position of not really knowing who is telling the truth. They still don’t know or understand what a fiduciary duty is. I never really worried too much about liars, I always thought they would get theirs as things catch up to them. But the liars seem to have a way of positioning themselves for success. I don’t understand. Read the rest of this entry »

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I travel a lot in the Winter. This year is supposed to be really exciting because of all the big time events, money and pressure on all of those pro riders. After not going anywhere for the months of October and November, I was rested and ready for the road. It’s an Olympic year, so Grand Prix events are cool again. I’ve always thought they were cool. They have the best catering of any event, Eric Webster is the most solid guy you’ll ever meet, he puts on a great show. Additionally, they are trying to accomplish multiple tasks, from a great venue for the riders to making the Grand Prix events “cool” in snowboarder terminology. I’ve always been a little confused by how “uncool” the Grand Prix events supposedly are. The people who run it are totally cool and have a long history in snowboarding. The pipes and slopestyle courses are usually really good and the events are usually very well run in terms of schedule and application of the rules.

Contests are serious business. No, really serious. To put on a Grand Prix with a pipe and slopestyle event, it costs around $200 large. So if you are in the contest business (USSA, Burton, ESPN, FIS, etc.) you don’t have events for fun. It’s a tight margin with profitability off in the distance. Any compromise on margin could turn black ink into red pretty fast. If margins dictate the sustainability of an event, these guys are far more nervous about sponsors paying in and delivering value to said sponsors. Paying sponsors get to hang banners with their logo all along the pipe and slopestyle courses. They get a number of VIP credentials so they can invite their clients to hob-nob with athletes and snowboarding’s elite. These sponsorships run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, especially in an Olympic year.

This is the stuff of big business and big marketing. In previous years it’s been an afterthought to make the actual snowboarding venue a good one. As consistent and good as pipes and jumps are today, they all still get their fair share of criticism. Every event has the same process: some like the pipe or course, some don’t. Discussions ensue. Decisions are made and sometimes there are changes made. By the time the finals roll around, everyone has adapted to the venue and typically rides at their highest level. ESPN will tell you they spent $1 million to get that pipe perfect in Aspen. It is a great pipe, for sure. It’s great to see consistency when that wasn’t the case 10 years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hey man. Merry Christmas and all that. I went riding with the Easy Loungin crew at Northstar the other day. Pretty fun. Those dudes and chicks can shralp pretty tough. I went to Squaw Valley a couple days after that. A lot of times when I go to snowboard I’m not into it. I usually go through a period of wanting to leave every time I go unless it’s pow, then there’s no question. I was pretty tired the day I went with the Easy Loungin crew. I had been working nights and I had gotten myself pretty run down. I plow the snow from Northstar’s roads. I work from 11p.m. until 7a.m., or from 7 to 7 if it’s snowing really hard. I had been on nights for a couple weeks. We stay on nights after a storm because there’s still alot of maintenance and clean-up even though the plowing slows down or is all done.

I’ve had the swine flu for the past three weeks as well. I first got it on the 3rd of december. I’ve been plowing nights and riding on good days or when I had the energy. I’ve had some sweet days. In fact every day I’ve gone out I’ve had a really good time. Even if I am depressed or I don’t want to go up on the hill, if I can just get myself on the lift, I always have a good time. Then I come home and cough and sneeze and hack and suffer. Or, I go to work and freeze and get chills and hack and cough and choke and freeze and get dehydrated and suffer at work all night. That swine flu shit is truly miserable. That is how I am sure I had the h1n1 because any cold as intense, long-lasting and debilitating as this one had to be the swine.

Now I know how those little piggies felt all coughing on the news, and no one even gave them any cough drops. Poor bastards. I bought myself Nyquil and took it during the day after riding so i could sleep. I took Dayquil at night so I wouldn’t fall asleep on night shift. I had Theraflu for day, and Theraflu for night. I had vitamins and cough drops, tea and zinc. I must have spent $100 on cold and flu meds. It helped only a little. I coughed so hard I thought my lungs would come out my nose. I thought my lungs were bleeding. I coughed so hard I got headaches. I hoped a blood vessel would just burst in my head from the coughing spasms and I could just be put out of my misery from a brain hemorrhage. Makes me wonder if I should have gotten a flu shot.

All I can say is that when I was actually riding, I didn’t feel the misery of my swine flu. On the chair the coughing and hacking would resume, but when I was ripping down a run I don’t remember feeling a thing. Strange. I’m sure being out in the cold and exerting myself like that when I was sick and tired from working nights and shredding days while being sick wasn’t helping my recovery. It was hard for me to get caught up on sleep and let the old body recharge the batteries. Sickness is certainly a mystery. All I know is when I’m riding the pain of life goes away. I was actually beating myself down knowing that I would probably end up sicker from riding, but the temporary euphoria was some how worth it. GOD DAMN that was a brutal two to three weeks. Was It worth the hours, days and weeks of suffering for the fleeting moments of bliss? Yeah I guess so. But I’ve decided I want more. I’ve decided to take over the world. This will be an exciting time for us. The fuse is lit. Can I get a witness?

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