A great winter Season

This ski season has been AWESOME. I can't say how fortunate I am to be in the area I am. I have endless opportunities to enjoy nature and all that is has to offer. I have to say skiing for me this year has been much more pleasurable than last year. After having 2 of my screws removed from my ankle, it's made a dramatic difference. Still have the pain, just a little bit more bearable. I have 3 more weeks of skiing left then the spring time fun begins. I can't wait.

Christmas trip to L.A

L.A is always a great time. I love visiting there. Always good to see my sister and brother n law. We always take lots of pictures and get outside and enjoy the great weather of southern cali. I look forward to going there a couple times every year. We did a lot of playing around with long exposures on the cameras. It's very interesting to see how we all take the same picture with the different settings we individually like. The same picture is quite different from each persons perspective and settings.
We went and bought some cheap neon glow sticks, setting up the tripod and held the shutter open for long periods of time. So cool what you can do with some simple things. That's how we came up with our christmas card. Went with the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil theme. Turned out wonderfully.

So I was watching an episode of Man Vs. Food. And the episode I watched was in L.A. He challenge for that show was the Special #2. There is this great place called Orochon Ramen. I high a high tolerance for spicy food so I thought, this can't be that bad. You get served a huge bowl of simmering hot Ramen noodles. Mostly broth though. You get 30 minutes to eat and drink all the broth. I figured if Adam Richman could do it, I could. HA!! boy was I wrong. The biggest problem was the temperature of it. Yeah it was spicy, but I could bear it. And it was a lot of broth to drink. So filling. I would have to say I ate all the noodles and drank about 1/4 of the broth before i called it quits. My lips were on fire, sweating beading down my cheeks and the urge to vomit was persistent. Now that I think about it, probably would have been better throwing it back up. We did this early in the day. My sis and Eli planned well. I'm somewhat ADHD and always need to be doing something. Well after doing this, I was out for the count for 24 hours. Probably more painful that when I broke my ankles. EEEK. But it was all in good fun and i'm glad i tried it. Never again though.

Hopefully I can continue to put new/cool pictures and video of my adventures. I plan on having a lot of fun this year. As I always do. Enjoy and if anyone wants to ever come out to this great state of Colorado and play, let me know. Great times to be had here.

Thailand!!!

My big vacation for this year is going to Phuket, Thailand. My good buddy Miki asked me to join him and one of his friends. I have this itch to travel the world and I just could not pass this opportunity up. I leave Feb 21st and return Mar 2nd. Not a very long time to get around the country, but I know it will be a blast. We are gonna do some elephant trekking through their lush forest, a little scuba diving which out there, is considered top 10 destinations in the world to scuba. I'm sure it's gonna be a photographer's dream out there as well. 3 more weeks. WOOT WOOT!!!

On a side note, I heard some awesome news from my great friends Ryan and Katie. They are having a baby boy. I could not be more happy for them. I know they will make great parents. So Congrats!

Life is great

So a lot has happened since my last post. I'm pretty bad at keeping up with this. So here goes what's happened over the last 4 months. I've been very fortunate to get my fulltime position with my job back. The only thing was I was splitting my shifts between our Montrose base and our Eagle (Vail) base. At first I was not to enthused about this. Until I found out about the EPIC pass. It's been many many years since I skied. I'd say middle school, maybe freshmen year in highschool. I was curious how well I would be able since having my surgery. I had 2 screws removed from my ankles. Hoping this would make a big difference in the activities I can participate in. So more on the EPIC pass. It's a season pass to Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Arapahoe Basin and Keystone. Some of these world renown resorts. So as you could imagine I was super stoked about my commute to work. I would go a couple days early, work, then stay a couple days after. I've had some of the best times I can remember thus far. Skiing has become a big passion for me again. I made a big purchase. New powder skis and all terrain bindings. This gives me the ability to go do backcountry skiing anytime I want with the joy of experiencing the Colorado Rockies and San Juan mountains. Although danger is a potential, stupidly i don't let that stop me. But i do practice safety as much as I can. I have had 17 awesome days on the mountain so far. Vail being my favorite. I've had knee high powder days and let me tell you, i'm spoiled now. I've gone to Telluride a couple times with my buddies and conditions were less than favorable. I mind as well slap on some ice skates. My most recent journey to Telli landed me with a split open lip, bruised ribs, bruised kidney, bruised back, tweaked knee and elbow. How this stuff happens to me, i don't know. I keep being told I need to slow it down, but as most of you know, this is very hard for to do. I jumped off a ledge, landed and as I made my turn a rock was just buried underneath. This kicked me sideways and I supermanned it face first into a tree. The tree didn't budge. Go figure. I was stuck for about 20 minutes. Couldn't move. I'm all healed up now, but man that really hurt.

As you all know, I really enjoy photography. I am going to be pursuing this heavily in the year to come. Thanks to my sister, I can have a good camera body and I purchased several good lenses. I'm really excited about this. I also just bought a helmet camera. I'm even more excited for this as it's a great way to film my stupidness, as long as it looks good on camera. So standby for some awesome ski vids, mountain biking adventures and surely me on the GSXR screaming down the million dollar highway.

It's all over....for now

Well, talk about a roller coaster ride. I'm back in the states for now. The program is shut down at this point. Hopefully it gets up and running again. Not sure what's going to happen. It's good to be back home but wish I was still there working in a stable/fun job. It had a lot of potential of being a great place. We had a great group of people. The 7 weeks I was there was an experience, no doubt. For those of you planning to go there, do your research. There are 3 sides to every story. The 3rd side, usually closer to the truth. It's a shame it went down the way it did.

Leisure Activity

Things have been a little slow around here with work. So, poor us - we have to find lots of things to do. For instance, go ride ATV's in the sand dunes in the middle of a sand storm or fly little RC helicopters outside and take delayed shutter pictures to show it's flight path as seen above. We play ping pong, go bowling, play tennis or take a stroll out into Baata market. Sounds like a hard life huh? lol. I have learned one important thing, don't take your DSLR camera into the desert with you. I fried my sony alpha. Sand got in it and it fried the electrical system. So today, my goal is to find a repair shop and do some camera shopping. See if i can get a good price on a new one if they can't fix mine. It's starting to getting pretty warm here. It's been averaging right around 100 degrees. And it's only March. EEEK. It's gonna be hot. And there is no rainfall here. So other than that, not much else is going on. Just trying to plan my greece trip still. Got my plane ticket booked and my 1st hotel. It has a great overview of the Acropolis. That is gonna be a rockin trip. Can't wait. That's it for now. Take it easy

Planning my 1st leave in 5 weeks

I've only been here for 3 weeks now and it's time to plan my trip away. I am looking at flying into Athens where I will be meeting up with Eli. We will probably stay in the city for 3 or so days. I've never really done a lot of traveling, especially abroad. I'm glad Eli will be there as he has had the opportunities to do so. There is so much planning to do, but I think we will take it as it comes. Backpack around, bounce from town to town. There is so much to do out there. Just trying to find a way not to spend a butt load of money. Either way, it will be a great experience with lots of great photos. Things in Saudi Arabia are coming along. Just taking it day by day. Noticed there was a huge sign along the freeway that said Korean Palace. A little surprising finding a korean restaurant in SA. I am gonna risk it and try it with one of our pilots. Hopefully it resembles it somewhat. Finally found a good mall here that sells decent clothes that actually fit. Most places, an XL fits more like a schmedium. Jackpot! I know reside in a cabana at the same hotel. This is separated from the hotel and it is poolside. It's pretty nice, not as much storage room though. As long as I have somewhere comfortable to sleep at night. Went out hashing the other day with some fellow co-workers. Hashing is hiking to us americans. We went out to the desert with some low lying mountains or big hills. I'd say there were about 70 people there. All from foreign countries working as expats. Apparently lots of groups like this exist and go twice a week. Thurs/Fri which is considered our Sat/Sun in the states. It's good times. Next up is dirt bike riding and quad riding in the Red Sands and maybe a trip to the Summan Plateau where huge caves exist. With gorgeous stalagmites and stalactites. Lots to do outside of the city, its just a matter of getting out there.