THE Wedding!!!

When Skippy and I saw Kate and William announce their engagement last November, we both agreed that we must "save the date". Skippy has always talked about her fond memories of being a week away from giving birth to me way back on July 29, 1981 and watching the wedding of Charles and Diana all night long. Now, it was my turn to enjoy the "wedding of the century!" So, good ol Skip hopped in the Myron mobile and trekked down to Salt Lake to celebrate "THE wedding" with me!

One of our first stops was to go down to Thanksgiving Point and walk through the Tulip Festival. It was beautiful and I kept myself more than occupied by taking pictures, crouching in the dirt to get the best shot and analyzing shadow/sun/dew/kids to get the best shots.

If anyone sees me strike this pose anywhere near a golf course....they better look out, cause it means I'm kicking and stretching and getting ready to launch one of my 200 yard drives. My golf game is actually pretty good, especially my putting and chipping....but this year...oh this year...my driving has improved dramatically! Watch out Seymour Family! The Seymour Family Golf Tournament which will be held the weekend of Allen's graduation will surely prove who the best player in the family is. Best ball wins each hole, and I am banking on winning at least a few. In fact, I plan on playing so well that I will be invited to the Annual Lion's Club Jackpot golf fundraiser in August. So, watch out, because I'm ready to GRIP IT AND RIP IT!!!

Skippy with all of her foresight, thought to bring decorations and traditional English treats to the wedding party! So, we decorated the living room with bells and signs, she brought a cake and brought her wedding knife, she had ribbon from her wedding and she even framed a picture of the bride and groom. We had chocolate covered strawberries, biscotti, Chessmen cookies, muffins and champagne. She even brought confetti canons, which she blew after the I do's! We watched and listened to Fox news as Shepherd commentated and eventually warmed up to the whole affair. At the end he was still comparing the fiasco to a football game and tailgating, but it turned out to be quite entertaining!

My aunt so thoughtfully inquired if I was "taking notes for my big day" and I informed her that I was wearing flannel and that "the big day" probably wouldn't be happening if I continued to insist on wearing flannel :)

So, thanks Skip for another really, really fun weekend!!! It's always a FUN time with you!!!!

I Can't Believe It's Over....Again

Today was the last day of the season at Brighton. There is still a 145 " base and 12 inches of fresh falling tonight (Notice the storm moving in on the bottom picture). Just on the snow they have up there alone, we could ride at least for another 3 weeks! The injustice of the BLM closing them down so early! Thank goodness for Dick Bass. (Owner of the Bird). I'll still be riding tomorrow.

I was up there on opening day this year and had 26 wonderful days at Brighton this season. Some of my favorite things about Brighton include:

• Local bangers "Hey! You're my bartender!" I heard that again today!
• Nice clinic techs
• Chill liftees
• An ever changing and well groomed park
• Sweet tree runs
• Easily accessible back country
• Parking 20 yards from the lift
• My favorite chair lift in Utah; Great Western- overlooks Timp and Big Cottonwood
• Few, if any, tourists

Anyone who ever rides with me knows....I HATE wearing my coat and a helmet. I have not succumbed to wearing a coat yet, but I have to wearing a dome piece. Now, I am going to just throw this out there....no..I am not going to wear it every single day I ride..but I will make an effort to wear it as much as possible. I bought a R.E.D. helmet and they come in all kinds of cute colors, so maybe I will invest in buying a few and if I don't feel like too much of a penis head, then maybe I will wear it. And yes, that is how I felt today. But, by the end of the day, I barely even noticed I was wearing it.

I'll admit, I may have shed a little tear today. I have a hard time leaving "winter" behind. The problem is, is that it is still winter and we could still be riding! As mentioned last week, riding is my favorite thing to do and it really makes me so sad to leave the season behind. But, tomorrow I will hit up the Dirty Bird and all will be right in my world again. :)

Life Is Good

Life is Good

My mom and I both keep a "happy journal". Basically, we just write about things that make us happy. We don't write our whole life stories, just the little tidbits of our lives that are memorable and that make us smile. I have not been writing much lately, because I haven't felt like I have had much to write... So, Skip, here are a few things that make me happy now:

• Biff licking my head and "holding" me
• Mischa's long Mormon Claw bangs
• The fact that Mischa Clarice has her own Facebook page
• Cherry blossoms
• A wedding to celebrate
• Homemade chex mix
• 5 hour energy
• Pink tulips
• Having the right wax on my board
• Pow days in April
• Landing new tricks
• Sitting in the trees, watching the snow fall
• Being able to stay in Utah
• The excitement of finding a new place to live
• Celebrating Allen getting his Masters
• Celebrating the birthdays of all my Aries
• Lhasas
• Concocting my own drink recipes and having people love them
• Deep tissue back rubs
• New riding music
• Multi colored Sharpies
• Writing Arabic calligraphy
• Grass
• Planning my Dirty Thirty party

Oh Happy Day! يا يوما سعيدا!

!!! يالا بنا

I just spoke with my Graduate advisor...and I am on track to graduate in May 2012. So... one more year!

3 More Middle East Political Science classes

4 more semesters of Arabic language

1 Thesis...

I have to take an intensive Arabic Language class this summer so I will be staying in Utah- YAY!!!

I Can't Believe It's Over!!!

Today is the dreaded April 17th..... Closing day for Park City Mountain Resort and Canyons. I managed to withhold the tear that I wanted to shed in mourning of the lifts closing and the end of winter.

There really is nothing I love in my life more than snowboarding. I absolutely love summer, but now that the Sweet Unit is missing its motor, it will be a loooooong summer for Mischa and I. I will have to say that I am very much looking forward to hiking in Park City this summer with her, but it will be a while because there is still a lot of snow and it will take a while to melt and for mud season to pass.

Not to fear, however...Brighton is still open until Sunday the 24th and the Dirty Bird is hoping to be open until.....drumroll..... THE 4TH OF JULY!! They currently have an incredible base depth of 180 inches with more snow to come.

With that said, this was the first year that I had passes in Park City and it was so exciting to explore two new mountains!! My park riding has improved after being able to ride the great parks that both resorts have and my switch riding improved dramatically after riding the super groomers at Park City. My back country awareness and steep and deep powder riding improved after hiking the ridge at Canyons and my tree riding improved after ducking and dodging the tight trees at both places... (although one could say that I still have not completely mastered the tree riding concept because I have a bruise the size of a small animal on my left hip after flying like a bat out of hell and nailing a tree last week...).

I couldn't have asked for a better day today....The entire Salt Lake valley was covered in clouds and it was raining. It was raining in Parleys and it was raining in Heber. I was only wearing a t-shirt and it was sunny and beautiful in Park City! Other than busting out a few scorpions and crashing after a few attempts at a 360 I was happy with my riding and enjoyed watching everyone else in the park.

I am hoping to get about another 2 months in, at least, but this is the beginning of the end. I just have to remind myself that with all the free time I will have from not riding everyday, I can look for a new job and actually become fluent in Arabic!

So, good bye Canis Lupis, Dutchman's, Big Mac, Dream Catcher, Gondola, Eaglet, King Con, Georgeanna, Super Pipe, my "favorite spot" and Monitor bowl. I'll be counting the days for the chairs to start running again! - Hey Canyons....Early November this year, huh!

Clinging to Winter

One day I'm in beautiful, warm, sunny Las Vegas, the next I'm back on the mountain, clinging to the last few days of the season.

When I left the SLC for Vegas on Saturday, it was 80 degrees and sunny. I rolled into town last night and there was snow on the ground, it was 22 degrees and my mailbox was full of powder alerts and back country avalanche warnings. It may be spring on the calendar, but it is still winter in my world!!!

It snowed about 14 inches across the Wasatch which made for a really nice day up in Park City. I found some nice new tree runs off of McConkeys by cutting off of Georgeanna and then again through Parleys Park on my way to King Con. The park was great, no one was in it. In fact, there were very few people at all up there. The conditions were still great and it does not even seem real that the season will be over in less than 2 weeks! I may even shed a tear! I won't be on the Sweet Unit all summer. I will probably be in the library. Oh well....there's always New Zealand if I really get stir crazy!

The Dirty Thirty!

And so it begins...... the first of my close friends to turn "The Dirty Thirty".....

In honor of Lisa turning 30 this past week, I trekked down to Vegas to help her celebrate. I wasn't sure if we were going to be mourning our youth or celebrating our good health and future. I was happy to find that we were celebrating and that she was graciously accepting the fact that she was now out of her 20's. I strongly believe that dating an older man helps to make the one that is turning 30 feel young still. (My dirty thirty is coming up, I better get on that last statement! :)

Unlike many of the women I know, I am not worrying about turning 30. When I was 21, one of the bartenders that I worked with was turning 30. She was absolutely stunning, yet I did think that she was "old". She said that she had never been happier than when she turned 30 because she knew what she wanted and what she didn't, she knew what made her happy and what was appropriate and reasonable to expect out of her life and the people in her life. I have completely adopted that attitude and will remind myself of it daily for the next 4 months leading up to my big day!

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISA!!! You are more beautiful than ever, and you just keep getting more interesting with each passing year!

Like Mother Like Daughter

This past weekend was planned about a year ago when the news came out that Lady Gaga was coming to Salt Lake City. And, guess who was the most excited of all to drive 342 miles to come see her live? SKIPPY!!! We started out our wild weekend Thursday night when I got off early and Skip came with my favorite homemade chex mix, samoa girl scout cookies and Gevurtraminer!! We rented "Love and Other Drugs" and both drooled over Jake Gyllenhaal.

Friday we hit up Park City Mountain Resort for a really great day of skiing! Wind shut down some of the lifts in the morning, but we were able to ski around the open terrain until they all opened. For the most part it was a sunny day and we were both zipping down the mountain! We randomly found one of my favorite riding buddies in the park and then Skippy got lost. I always say that Skippy needs a harness with a leash attached..... luckily from where she wandered off, she only had one option to get to the bottom of the lift. She greeted me about 15 minutes later at the bottom with lots of big waves and a smiling look of relief on her face :) We ate lunch up at the top and had a beautiful view of all of Park City and Deer Valley. It was wonderful!

I think Skip's favorite part of the day was when she did a 360 kick flip in Three Kings.....oh wait...that's not what happened! Skip was hauling ass and went off a jump! It was totally accidental, but she landed it! Way to be Skip!

We took a little detour on the way home and drove down through Provo Canyon (my favorite!) and she bought new dishes at IKEA. After all that, we went to our favorite pizza place, Settebello. We both had a margharita pizza, delicious vino and fabulous blood orange and mango gelato. It reminded us both of our time in Italy and all of the amazing thin crust, slimy Italian pizza. Yuuuum!!! We went to see "Limitless" with Bradley Cooper...who with his incredible blue eyes and perfectly wavy hair, was far from being long in the tooth, like we had referred to Matthew McConaughey as. We both really liked it!

On Saturday, we got up early and drove up to the Canyons. The wind was blowing upwards of 60 mph and the majority of the lifts were closed. We decided to go up anyway and headed straight over to Iron Mountain where Skippy would be able to enjoy some fun runs. It turned out that she loved the Canyons even more than she loved Park City, which was a lot!!! Her favorite were the beautiful tree runs on Cascade. We even explored a completely new bowl...which whetted my appetite to hike a new ridge and drop the bowl, now that I know I would be able to get out of it! Overall, it turned out to be a really awesome day, even though I wasn't able to show her some of my other fun runs.

After that, we went home and got all glammed up and we were off to LADY GAGA!!! My ticket broker buddy totally hooked us up and we had amazing seats. The Scissor Sisters opened which was quite interesting...needless to say. Lady Gaga put on a fabulous show that was full of energy, lots of cool costumes and props, dancing, a piano on fire, claws, blood, lights, smoke, really cut back up dancers, teeth, her love for the gay community, a huge monster, see through tops and a fan base that ALL dressed up in everything from leotards to colored hair, bubbles, panda bears, monsters, death....I'm not quite sure what was happening, but it was FUN!!!

So...THANK YOU SKIPPY! I LOVE YOU AND HAD A FABULOUS WEEKEND! I can't wait for the wedding!!!

I Love This Baby Girl

It took over 2 years but I think me and my baby girl are finally both in love with each other. I have been getting so much enjoyment from her lately; watching her hop and run through the snow, spooning with her while we both lay in front of the hairdryer and laughing at her haircut. Mischa really is a sweet little baby girl. Now, if we can get her to calm down at Grammie and Grampies house so that Grammie doesn't have to chase her with the broom anymore, we'll be in business!

Hello My LOVE!

The 2012 Travis Rice 153.

EPIC Spring Blue Bird Day!!!

I have to admit....I was a Canyons hater at the beginning of the season. But....after having some really epic days up there this winter, I have realized that the Canyons has done me right. I took my friend Josh up there today and we had an absolutely amazing day!!! We tried to hit up Canis Lupis, but they shut the lift down right as we reached the chair! I am completely incompetent at operating the tow rope, so I had to hike back up to the gondola....

Once back at the base, we decided to sit on "The Beach" (cute lawn chairs in a line at the bottom of the mountain) and sit in the sun for a minute. (Picture 1). It was about 45 degrees up there and I was so thrilled to be riding in my sweatshirt. After lounging on the beach, we hit up the mile long park, which was awesome! They really have done a great job with it....little boxes, big boxes, mini kickers, monster kickers, a gong, corrugated tubes and walls, rails, tree jibs...the works. After only rolling through there once, we headed straight for Ninety Nine 90. Both of us agree that dropping "Big Mac" bowl is the best run in Utah. Granted, it is quite a hike, but the view is incredible, the hike isn't too bad and the run is totally epic. Without being dropped off by a heli, this is the best run accessible via a chairlift + hike in Utah.

I really, really love, love, love sitting on this peak overlooking Big Cottonwood Canyon, Park City and Salt Lake. I enforced my 10 minute sitting rule and Josh was even conciliatory enough to let me take a picture of us. (He likes to hike and drop immediately. I like to sit and enjoy the scenery, observe the silence and rest from hiking). The third picture is from the top of Big Mac bowl. We hiked the ridge past Dutchman's and Easter Bowl. We swapped phones and he videotaped me and I did the same for him. I cannot even explain the body high I get from riding this bowl. The top of the bowl was fresh powder from the recent storm. My video shows HUGE rooster tails. Of course, I was riding my magic carpet...my new T Rice, and was flying like a bat out of hell all the way down. I took a picture of my line from the bottom and laughed at how erratic it was compared to the skiers tight S turns. When I got to the bottom there were about 10 people who stopped to watch and almost all were videoing/photographing my descent.

The Canyons is kind of an anomaly. The resort is wide with large proclaimed acreage, but the runs are short and the chair lifts are long. The tree runs can be wonderful and the groomers are average. But....there are some really amazing niche areas; Canis Lupis- the natural half pipe, incredible back country bowl access and a technical park run. I am glad that I gave the Canyons a second chance because it sure has provided me with some memorable days on the mountain this season, and not least of which, my favorite run in Utah!!! :)

Buona Festa Della Donna!

La giornata internazionale della donna, comunemente definita festa della donna, ricorre l'8 marzo di ogni anno per ricordare sia le conquiste sociali, politiche ed economiche delle donne, sia le discriminazioni e le violenze cui esse sono ancora fatte oggetto in molte parti del mondo.

Festa Della Donna means "The Day of the Woman" in Italian. It is tradition to give the women in your life mimosa flowers, or other yellow flowers to celebrate this day. I have been celebrating this day for the past 10 years and it is one of my favorite traditions that I acquired since living in Italy. To the confident, loving, fun, adventurous and wonderful women in my life- Tanti Auguri!!

Take a Swig, It's On Me

Cheers! This is for all the people who wonder why I'm not married, don't have kids, don't have a "real" career...and this is especially for the people who tell me every day what an awesome life I have. Cheers to snowboarding in the best place in the world on a Monday afternoon with a bottle of delicious Park City whiskey to swill on while floating over powder pillows, ducking and dodging trees and branches, alley- ooping in a half pipe, riding rails, catching snow in my mouth, rockin out to my favorite thuggish ruggish beats and having one of the best days of the season.

Surprise Serenity

I have been out for a week with a sore knee, but decided that today was the day for the big comeback. I would not consider myself to be a fair weather rider, but this morning I looked at the snow cams and considered whether I should just stay at home, ice the knee and do Arabic homework, of if I should brave the conditions and head up. I decided that I have had so many beautiful days this winter, that it almost hasn't even felt like winter and that a good snowy day would remind me that we haven't even hit the best part of the season yet!

So, I threw on my snowpants and drove in the rain up to Park City to the Canyons. All season I had been itching to hit up Canis Lupis, the natural halfpipe, and that became my mission for the day. The Canyons have debuted many new features this year on their mountain including a whole new area on Iron Mountain and a heated chair that is covered. I have been laughing about this heated covered chair all season because the weather is always nice when I go up (lucky me!). But, today....oh today...I realized the benefit of the heated covered chair! Instead of heading to the gondola line (which I hate riding) I headed straight for the heated covered chair to try it out. By this point, it was snowing pretty hard with really big wet flakes. I had to laugh at how brilliant and yet how ridiculous this contraption is!!!

Pictured above: 1: From inside the covered heated chair looking out. The empty seat next to me was heated and the orange cover comes down almost to your feet.

Pictured above: 2: Me getting my face ready to go from inside my covered, heated chair. Very warm and dry in there!

Pictured above: 3: From my seat looking at the ones in front of me. Little orange heated pods.

I immediately headed for the farthest chair over, which was Super Condor and was disappointed to find that GNU had a tent set up and they were sessioning the pipe and had it roped off. I went to the bottom and decided to try it again and rode a little ways past them and then dropped into Canis Lupis farther down and it was great!! It's like a roller coaster, I loved it!

I stayed on that side of the mountain for a couple hours finding new fun tree runs and lots of untracked powder. Somewhere along the line I put on the Twilight soundtrack and just mellowed out. Normally I am rockin out to Marilyn Manson, Static X, 50, Sly Boogy and the other thuggish ruggish bones, but today I listened to the Twilight soundtrack, which included a beautiful version of Clair de Lune. I found two really, really beautiful runs. One was off of Eazy Street off of Super Condor. I had on my Clair de Lune and rode through the big snow covered trees, with no one else around. I did that a few times then headed over to Iron Mountain where I found the same type of run.... fresh powder, lonely trees, just me listening to Clair de Lune watching the snow fall so silently, but it was so beautiful. I hadn't anticipated having that kind of day- one that was so quiet, serene, beautiful and zen like. I enjoyed my day so much I couldn't stop. I had only planned on doing a few runs but just kept riding. I definitely plan on having more days like this... I really, really enjoyed it.

Home Sweet Home

I hadn't been to my Home Sweet Home since New Years! I had a random Saturday night and Sunday off so I packed up the kids, the ski boots (he he) and my torn Christmas tree jammies and headed for the border!

I got in about 8:00 pm and Squirrel had his new recipe for romesco ready for my gastronomical pleasure. Skippy, with her "expensive taste in wine" (a comment some lady made to her in the checkout line at Winks, regarding her $6.99 bottle of Fetzer Gevurtraminer)(which is my favorite wine of all time) prepared an awesome salad and pumpkin pie. Yuuum!!!

Sunday morning we stopped by church to listen to Squirrel sing in the choir to a new version of "The Lords Prayer". It is one of my favorite songs and was really happy to hear them sing it. After that Skip and I stopped by McQ's and rented MY FIRST PAIR OF SKIS!!!! I asked for skis in the 153-159 range, with a rocker.....the boys over there paired me with the K2 Burnin Luv 153's. I got really excited driving up to Bogus on that pretty blue day with Skip and our skis! Once up there, Skip asked if I wanted to hit up the Bunny Hill.... HECK NO!!! I clicked into those bad boys, took the lift to the top of the mountain and was OFF!!! It was similar to skiing on snow blades, just longer and a lot heavier. We made it all the way around and to the back of the mountain with no falls and quite a bit of speed! I don't know if I should be so bold as to say that I was "whipping" around the mountain, but I think I might just say that. It was a very successful first day of skiing. I refuse to "snowplow" and only do it a limited amount in the lift line. It drives me crazy to watch ski instructors teach that to newbies. I learned some bad habits when I learned to ride and am hoping to avoid learning bad habits while skiing.

Skip and I had a really, really fun day! The weather was beautiful, the snow was really nice and new and it's always a blast to be skiing with one of my favorite mountain buddies- the Skipmo! The middle picture is of me pretending to be one of the little boys who bomb the mountain by bending way down....we were going pretty fast when this picture was taken and was surprised at how well it turned out, especially given Skip's inability to see what she is actually taking a picture of through her viewfinder!

After a fun and ultimately tiring day of skiing we went home, Skip made funeral potatos and asparagus and we watched the Oscars and she fixed my jammies. Thanks Skip!

So....after trying this whole thing out, I am going to consider purchasing my own pair. A few posts ago I brazenly stated that my "new mission in life" was to learn how to ski. I was disappointed to see how badly skiing hurts my knees, compared to riding which never hurts them. But, in order to really experience the back country, I may need to overlook the pain. Skiing really makes for a different experience on the mountain. I can't say it was better or worse, but just different and I really did enjoy it. I am going to try out a wider pair and then see what I think.... But, contrary to what Josh feared and accused.. I am not going to be a traitor to my riding buddies! Being on one board is my favorite place to be!

Because It's Hilarious!!

Since talking to Squirrel a few days ago, I have been busting out into random fits of hysterical laughter which is usually accompanied by tears streaming down my face and the obligatory text to Jimmy to share in my laughter. Here it is:

"It's like throw- up telling poop; "You Stink!"

Four Feet of Fresh!!

It's a good thing it was a holiday, because with 4 FEET OF FRESH I was not going to be going to school anyway!!! Headed up early (as in 9:00am!) but Little Cottonwood Canyon opened late due to avy control so cars were backed up to the Sev at the intersection of the two Cottonwood Canyons. It took 2 hours to go from that intersection to the Bird parking lot. It was a good thing I had my Rockstar, Gatorade, bag of carrots and a friend from San Francisco who flew in for work, but timed the storm perfectly! (He actually did extensive research on the weather pattern and what day would yield the best fresh pow as well as nice weather).

We hopped on the Tram and headed straight for the Baldy side of Mineral. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I was in pow field heaven!!! 4 feet of fresh, low water content POW!!! I was FLOATING!!!! We took a few runs back there and while we were doing that, about 100 people had lined up on the Road to Provo cat....waiting for that bad boy to open. Right as we were reaching Hidden Peak via Mineral Basin Express ski patrol dropped the flag and it was powder madness!!! We raced down the cat and dropped right at the Wave into a powder oblivion!!! Everyone was screaming and hooting and hollering!!!! It was like a mad dash of people traversing and then dropping like little lemmings!! As I was floating down on my magic carpet, the T. Rizzle (AKA The Powder Slayer) a Powder Shot photographer was posted up and he took some really awesome pictures of me tearing through the gnar! I went down later and purchased two of them! I don't have any pics of me actually in action! I am so excited!!! Plus, Provo is my favorite Bird run! Perfect!!!

After that madness, we went through the black forest and took some amazing deep pow tree runs through Tiger Tail, Thunder Bowl and down to Baby Thunder. AHHHHHHHHH :)

At one point, I was bombing through the trees and somehow my mitten got stuck in the tree and I had to hike up and bat my mitten down, while getting dumped on. We hit up Zoom and then did one more Tram run down through Chips, the Primrose Path and down through a gully stocked up with pow.

I wanted to take more pictures of the amazingness that was Snowbird today, but there was no time for stopping. Charging hard all day long, I finally took off my soaking wet boxers and took a nice hot shower. I love Utah!

All Tatted Up

One of my favorite weeks of the year at work is the weekend of the International Tattoo Convention. Artists and collectors from all over the world converge on downtown Salt Lake to tatt and be tatted. Almost every single person that comes in my bar during this weekend is sporting at least one, if not full face and body tattoos. I don't have any ink myself but noticed that the majority of these dudes had knuck tatts. Most of them say something like; "Live Hard" or "Sexy Lady" or something referring to how bad ass they are, the trials and tribulations they have been through or their impending death. I was feeling quite like the virginal Molly Mormon with my blonde hair and inkless canvas....so I decided that I needed to take the knuck tatt for a spin. My coworker and I considered a few options, and he, knowing how much I love my tried and true Taco Bell 3 crunchy tacos and chips and cheese for $5.13 threw out "Taco Bell." I knew immediately that it was the winning suggestion. And, before I knew it, I Sharpied "Taco Bell" on my knucks, wrote an Arabic saying on my wrist, and was off serving Blue Moon to the comb-over, collared pilots who were wondering "Why do you let these kinds of people in your hotel???" (Delta Dicks). Then, at 10:00 when all the artists and collectors came over after the show, it didn't take long for me to end up in numerous pictures and on numerous facebook pages. Everyone thought I was absolutely hilarious and I had many offers of getting it inked permanently, for free. One guy even said that because of me, he was going to convince someone to get the "Taco Bell" knuck tatt for real. All in all, I love this weekend. These guys are really cool dudes, tip super fat, and bring some excitement to the place. Of all the conventions we see, this group is the most generous and the most polite and considerate bunch of people we have. I'll be sad to see them go, but will remember my temporary knuck tatts....and will be glad that it was only temporary :)

Good Bye Old Friend

It may be that only 2 wonderful summers were meant to be spent on the Sweet Unit. For today, I rolled out of bed recovering from a migraine to find that... SOMEONE STOLE MY MOTOR!!! What kind of sick twisted bastard would steal the fun right out mine and Mischa's summers!!!??? Forget that this thing has been in most of the lakes in Utah, some in Idaho and has had the likes of Josh, Zach, Mischa, Wayne and Spjute, Biff and Axel, Jimmy, Squirrel and Skippy and lets not forget Larry (who once we realized was a pregnant trout was renamed, Lorena). My poor, poor sweet 1964 Evinrude has fallen victim to Rose Park (AKA Tijuana) and possibly the drug infested Salt Lake valley. My attempts at walking around with a flashlight (and my Glock) and looking in everyones cars and trucks, talking with my buddy over at the Quick E Mart, filing a police report,calling every single pawn shop in the valley, looking on craigslist and KSL has proved to be fruitless. So, if you happen to be out at the lake or meandering through the pages of craigslist...keep an eye out for the 1964 Evinrude. Above is a close up of the stolen "unit".

There is No Replacement...

There is no replacement for a favorite riding buddy..... The T Rizzle has tried to take on the role, but he is not living up to the duty. There is no replacing someone who I can chat with on the lifts, to share a flask, to share a beer, to share a lunch, to share gum, to share riding stories, to share new tricks, to share laughs...... riding is not the same when it's just me and T.