snow day (or) forty four steps to our home. it's been a long time, shouldn't have left you, without a dope beat to step to. i'm back. from one of the longer weekends in recent memory. skipped a few days of work, drove a few hours here and there. and now i'm back. back to work. back to living at hong's house (my mom is back from china and is quarantining herself because she's afraid of contaminating people). back to a work week that isn't even a routine yet, because i'm always trimming the hedges off monday and friday.



we went to mammoth this weekend. an eight hour journey on friday night, followed by eight hours of boarding on saturday and sunday (i sat out sunday though) and another eight hours back on monday. the return eight hours was interrupted by a collective skipping of works, an impromptu sleepover and a shopping trip to big bear for forty percent off snow gear. but let's start at the beginning because that's where things start.



we went snowboarding. a duh. the weather was perfect. warm, sunny and cloudless. the wind kept her halitosis to herself and we barely rocked in our lift chairs. the snow was for the most part beautiful. the people were for the most part not beautiful. the times were for the all part beautiful. it's been so long since i've boarded. almost two and a half years if my calculations serve me correctly. my knee hurt. at the end of the day saturday, my knees were humming and clicking in quiet agony. but fuck that, enough whining, that goes for you too.



boarding was dope. we pounded out so many runs in that first three hours. everyone sped along and there were no laggers (except for possibly *ahem* me). lynn and nancy have just taken the titles for "best female boarder" off the shelf. they can ride people. beware. there was a mild amount of trash talking too. about how fast james might go. and then there was a mild amount of shutting up when he went very fast. there isn't much to say about the actual boarding because you either know what i'm talking about or you don't. suffice to say, it was dope. blow by blow account available at victor's.



a few highlights. or actually. the main highlight. otherwise known as "the story that will probably be most remembered from this trip, even though there were many stories and many more stupid funny moments." on sunday, the nice people of mammoth dug out a huge ninety two foot long trench in the snow and filled it with h2o. the aim was for people to bomb down the mountain and powerglide over (via ski or board) and avoid falling into the thirty two degree water. with a little bit of egging and a dinner bet on the line, james and jeff went to do us proud. at first, we were sure that nobody could ever cross ninety two feet of water. ninety two feet is long as hell man. but people started making it. naked people, people in costumes, young people, japanese chick people, they were all making it. the majority of people weren't making it but still, it could be done. i had faith in james and he came bombing down the mountain and for the most part, made it. he splashed around near the end but he made it. jeff was a little more unfortunate. he didn't quite make it. but his dunk makes for a better story. and for better pictures (mammoth). this re-telling is about three percent as exciting as watching the real thing. watching the video (james, jeff, after) is about thirty percent as exciting as the real thing. in short, you missed out. the moral of this particular story is that jeff and james are men. men ya heard? and james protected his manhood from the evil snowball throwing kids trying to peg people. he put his hands over his crotch and hunkered down. he's got jewels in there don't cha know.



there is apparently a new brand of gear that is all the rage in our mini-snowboarding circle. jeenyus. james bought a sweatshirt. jimmy bought a sweatshirt. i bought a hat and a sticker. lynn and nancy admired our gear (and bought their own non-jeenyus related items). on a related reality commerce note, i am now collecting patches. because collecting things is the second best way to waste money on useless things. i don't have a theme quite yet. i used to collect patches of all fifty states. but i lost that collection. i am going to begin anew, afresh, astart, anow. i have a woolly mammoth mammoth patch as the first in my new collection. so i suppose i could collect patches of "places i've been" but that would be dreadfully boring. or i could collect patches of "prehistoric animals riding snow gear" but i have an inkling that those might be hard to find. so i might just have to open up my collection to "cool patches that i like or people send me. *ahem*"



anyhow. i like snow. i like boarding. i like trees. i like hanging out. i like eardrum busting music on road trips. i love gooold. i like avoiding work. they should make patches for weekends like these.