Today’s the first day..of 2009. Time passes way quicker than I thought…guess I should think positively though on the first day of the year. Anyway, last night I didn’t go countdown or anything related but instead I went for snowboarding again (on Cypress)…lol, with Davinder. We went for the “Night Owl” time frame again and since I bought a “Ski Pass” last time I went up I paid $30 instead of the regular $38 It was snowing very hard, and the visibility was marginal but the snow condition was AWESOME. I tended to stop more frequently on the runs just to sit down and enjoy the powdery, soft snow. Even though I didn’t do a lot of runs (did 14 last time) I enjoyed it a lot not only for the soft snow but I also got to try one or two of the blue runs (intermediate level) that I’ve never done before. They were full of bumps and stuff which caused me to fall down for quite a bit but it was fun and tiring. I picked up some new skills like braking when going down fairly fast and making narrower turns. Overall it was a pretty worthwhile trip.

I hate my fucking BlackBerry cellphone, it kept on dying. I put it in my pocket when I snowboard and maybe some moisture or something got into it, some keys stopped responding. I had to open up the casing, had it in front of my heater fan for like 30 minutes, and it started working again. This is probably my 4th BlackBerry phone and yes, it died 3 times for the exact same reason. This thing sucks (as a comparison I put my Canon SD1000 digital camera into my other pocket and it DIDN’T die)

Today I sold my Olympus E-520 DSLR and also the Zuiko 14-54mm lens that I got free with my Olympus E-3 purchase, for $750 (I love Craigslist) I could have sold it for maybe $50-$100 more but oh well, guess it’s still good. The transaction went pretty smooth and the lady actually owns a E-500 looking to upgrade to the E-520, so while she was testing out the cam, her husband and I started a conversation over diesel cars since he also drives a diesel car (one of those old Mercedes Benz). Now I got some cash to pay for my $5xxx VISA bill for the month….

It’s really cold lately….below zero for the entire week, -8C at night yesterday…I didn’t really feel like doing anything other than watch TV / eat snack / sleep…. It’s too cold, I don’t like it.

Anyway, due to boredom I decided to go up to Cypress Mountain for snowboarding tonight… I’ve gotten full gears last year anyway so I thought I should really go up to make their worth. Friend Davinder picked me up with his Porche Cayanne Turbo…that car is really something. Anyway, we opted for the 7pm-10pm “Night Owl” timeframe which costed $36 or so, and got there around 7:15pm. It was surprisingly empty and I was really stoked that I was able to “own” the entire mountain.

But soon I realized it was just too cold - so cold that I knew it would cause damage to the exposed part of my face for sure without a face mask…so I went in a bought a $20 overpriced mask but anyway it was really comfy and it did help a LOT.

My first run was really bad, fell a couple times and twisted my left arm… but after warming up, I started to get into shape in the second run, and was totally fine (as in able to go down really quickly without having to stop) in the third run. I ended up doing 7 runs in total, which Davinder did 5 since his bindings broke apart after the first run and he had to pay $5 to get it fixed so he lost some time. Frankly speaking I was feeling only slightly tired by that time and I thought I could do at least 5-10 more runs. Davinder was stressed and hungry though so we decided to leave for some food.

It was a really good first run for the season for me, I was able to pick up my skills that I gathered last winter. Too bad my friend Boom was back to Korea otherwise I’m sure I can go up with him for at least 5-6 times this year..

Went to Cypress again today for snowboarding. Okay first of all I’m half dead right now due to the extreme tiredness (I can barely sit upright and my forearms are hurting a lot). WELL but I’m happy Davinder, Angela, Allison, and I went up today early in the morning (Allison went up first with her friends and then we met up around noon). The sky was SOOOOOOOOO nice today - unlimited visibility, moderate coldness, and 10cm of fresh powder snow I was shocked by the beautiful scenery I saw up on the mountain. I was able to see where all the runs are, was able to see every trees clearly and the image was so sharp. It got even prettier around noon when the sun shined on the trees. I should have brought my camera with me!

Anyway, Davinder was learning pretty quickly this time (even though he still fell down a lot and we had to sit around and wait for him from time to time). Angela and I were able to pick up some speed this time since I had FINALLY managed to do the toe-side brake. I was certainly still in learning mode but I was able to slowly carve left/right in a zig zag. While Davinder sticked to the green (beginner) runs for the whole time, I actually went down a couple different blue (more difficult) runs with Angela. These runs are certainly steeper but I found the snow to be much more powdery and soft. It was actually quite comfy to fall down on the puffy snow…lol. Allison was pretty good at it too, but then she was with her other friend most of the time. We had lunch at the usual crappy cafeteria, and I had a chicken burger and stole some of Davinder and Angela’s fries XD.

We did a couple more runs after the food. Since we stayed till pretty late tonight, before we left the sun was gone and Angela and I decided to try out one more run to get the feel of “night skiing”. It was pretty fun actually…well it’s a total different feel. It was a great day, I’m satisfied, and tired.

Went up to Mount Cypress with Angela today, Davinder was too much of a coward so he didn’t come (joking =P). I brought my own snowboard, boots, jacket and pants with me (that I spent couple hundred dollars last month on, so I better make practical use of them as much as I can) . We didn’t expect that it would be snowing that hard! I was saying that I wanted to drive my Smart car up to the mountain but looking at the condition I guess I better not even think about that until I install some nice winter tires Some cars even had to make their way back since they were sliding so much. We made it up effortlessly though.

There were more people than I’ve expected, in such severe condition. Well, at least it wasn’t as foggy as 2 weeks ago when I was on the Grouse mountain. We’ve decided to get a “ski card” so that we can save some $$$ next time we go up again. I had made up my mind to practice as much as possible on turning, so that I wouldn’t have to do that zig-zag kind of movement which always stress me out very quickly. After 5 runs we headed off for food. Longgg line up as expected, and crappy food as well. I got a “pork rib burger” with a really gross tasting energy drink…yuck (just thought that I actually was going to need some more energy). We actually did 10 runs today!! I’ve never done that many runs before, but halfway today I kind of got the hang of it so I was feeling less tiring and was able to do a couple more runs.

It was an awesome day! I actually got something out of it which is really all that I have looked for I’m feeling more confident than ever now… Hopefully I can do some night skiing sometimes this week after recovering from the tiredness!

“It’s snowing…holy!” As soon as I woke up and glanced thru the blinds, I saw this HUGE pile of snow…and it’s still snowing…pretty hard. I didn’t expect that it would snow yesterday, it’s totally…shocking! Shocking happy since I was going to Mt. Cypress with Angela and Davinder in like 2 hours!! Let it fall let it fall!

Davinder and I met up at Angela’s place, around 9am. Angela’s got a Subaru Forester (4WD) with winter tires on, so we felt that we were going to be….pretty safe lol. We got there quickly and it was PACKED. We had to walk so much from our parking spot to the place where they sell tickets. Huge line up too, and after about an hour wait we finally got onto the Gondola. The mountain was extremely foggy and snowing pretty hard, so we didn’t get to see much of the “scenery” during the gondola ride…but oh well, it was still fun as it was my first time. It was Davinder’s first time snowboarding (Angela is a pro, and I’ve done it couple times), he had to rent out everything including jacket, pants, boots, board…everything; and since it was snowing hard still, we were forced to buy these much overpriced goggles ($34 or something) ….:(

We had lunch at this burger place, and as expected we got some overpriced (and bad tasting, imo) burgers with some fries and pop. Well, at least gave us some energy to move onto the next few runs. Davinder got too tired from the falling/tipping-over-and-had-to-crawl-back-up-in-a-weird-position routine, so he didn’t go for the runs with us after the food. But anyway it was fun fun fun! (Fun to see how Davinder fell from the lift helplessly….etc) and it was certainly helpful on my leanings watching how Angela did her swift moves! We’ve decided to leave around 5pm since Angela had to go home dinner with family (for the Chinese “Winter Festival”) What a fun, memorable day! (lol Davinder)