Ch-check it out

Well, I ended up getting that job. They started me off on the same day that they told me I had the job, so it was a bit intense. Add to that the fact that it was a fairly busy day and it all equated to a 12-hour marathon of work. I was actually going to finish at about 7:30, but there was a bit of an emergency at the last minute, which I volunteered to help out in, and I ended up finishing at 9 on the dot, quickly rushing to Laura's going-away dinner soon after, for which I was about an hour and 10 minutes late for. But anyway, I guess it's pretty good that I get paid for 12 hours on a higher rate than what I usually get paid for... and that's just my first day for the week.

The annoying thing is that I gotta work for the next 6 days, making it a full 7 days in a row. It only really sucks because the heavens have finally opened up today and is giving us some insane snowfall, and by the time I have a day off to go snowboarding, all the snow be chopped up. It's a really busy period too, so any new snow is almost guaranteed to be tracked within days of fall. My only hope is that it keeps snowing until Thursday (or it snows HARD on Wednesday).

Road tripping

The Fernie trip on Monday was pretty epic. The resort had gotten 11cm overnight for a 24 hour fall of 14cm, so everybody on the bus was pretty excited to have a great day on the slope, and it certainly didn't disappoint. I rode with Nugget for most of the day, and he's a bit of a crazy snowboarder, so we did some pretty crazy stuff. The most memorable run was the short but oh so sweet ride down one of the Knot Chutes, which were some crazy double black chutes off of one of the ridges. We also managed to get stuck in a creek (with no paddle) after going too deep into some trees. We somehow managed to navigate our way out of there. All in all it was a crazy day, and I was just so tired by the end of the day that I completely skipped jam night.

I went on a bit of a road trip on Tuesday. It was an impulse decision after finding out in the morning that Tyler and Andy were driving Georgie to Calgary (with a slight detour at Banff) so that she could catch her flight home. The general plan was to drop Georgie off then go back to Banff for some sightseeing and shopping. Unfortunately, as we were leaving the Calgary city limits, Tyler's car had a bit of a cough up and the 4-wheel drive gave way. It was still fine in 2-wheel drive mode but they didn't want to risk prolonging the trip so, apart from a stopover at the mechanic at Banff (which was just about closed), the side-trip was canned.

I was meant to go to Lake Louise yesterday but decided not to after feeling lazy in the morning. I got up early, but unlike the morning of the Fernie trip, the snow report on the net wasn't that appealing. It was only about 3cm overnight, and the weather was freezing, so I decided to just surrender my $15 (which is what it costs for a staff trip to another resort - quite a bargain) and chill out at Panorama. I did a few runs, trying out a smaller board that Becky donated to me, and decided to call it a day early on. I ran into Leigh and Ben and we hit the park for the last run of the day. It turned out to be a bad call, as I had a massive bail (caught on camera too) off one of the jumps. Nothing broken, but I got a bit of whiplash and a few bruises.

I'll try to upload that video and some new photos this weekend... if I get the time. It's going to be the busiest period for the resort since Christmas, so it should be a hectic few days in a new position. Talk about trial by fire.