sorry, Barenakedladies song stuck in my head.

Actually, it's in one week, not been now...

I'm graduating on Saturday from college.

OK, it's a Community College...and its and Associates Degree in Liberal Arts. But hey, I'm graduating none the less.

So, yeah, happy days. Just need to crank out some flash animations for class, a paper, and some good tests and I'd have upped my older bro in the education department.

In other news. It's nice outside and I don't want to be in school anymore. booo hisss.

because every time I look at my userpage, those videos slow down the loading ^_^

Winter is coming to an end (somewhat) and in my tourist driven area a number of hotels are shutting down for a couple of weeks to maybe not go under during the normal between season lull that happens when the ski season winds down and the summer residents haven't quite deboarded their obscenely large summer estates.

So, of course, I'm heading to the mountain less and less. Yes, I know, I should be out there every spare moment I have because that's what all good ski bums do. I should be working on my goggle tan, getting it that sexy pasty white above the cheeks and tanned on the nose, cheeks and neck...but alas, when one drives a full size van, one realizes that if one doesn't get work, one doesn't pay for gas and one is left hitch-hiking home.

Today I did my first official day of work at the Canoe Outfitter. Me and a coworker spent most of the day moving shit around and sweeping the floors. Then at around 3:30 we had the bright idea of "hey, lets go dig the canoe racks out of the ice and snow and put canoes on them"

We were doing that until about 5:30 tonight (half an hour after we closed). It was hard work, and my muscles hurt like hell. I forgot how strenuous the job could be.

But I showed up today after my morning class and this weekend will probably be my last weekend at the mountain.

I have my check list too:

3 pairs of skis: Armada AR5s (2005), Atomic Pro Carv 2.5s (2000), Rossignal something or another (ebay yay)
1 snowboard: Rome Anthem (2006)
2 ski sets of ski boots
1 pair of ski poles
1 pair of snowboard boots
2 sets of ski pants
1 helmet
3 pairs of gloves
4 spare hats
2 ski goggles
1 set of spare clothes
1 set of thermals
3 spare socks *not three pairs, just three socks...

and then I need to turn in my work jacket and liner. Last year I lost my liner (shh...)

This was my last year at the mountain, since I'm moving to NH this fall. This was my 8th straight season there...I've been there forever it seems, and 8 years is a pretty long time considering the turnover of the snowsports school. My brother worked there before me when he was 13-17 and now nobody remembers him...it was weird, my first few years I was "oh, you're his little brother?" and now when I ask if they knew him or pretty much anyone else who was working at the mountain when I started or when he was still there and I get "who?" or "nope, before my time"

I digress...

So while i was working we had a lot of snow going on today! at one point I joked to my boss that I may have to go to the mountain after all. I answered 3 phone calls all day and one of them was somebody asking if there was still snow on the ground and I'm like "well, an inch just fell in the last hour or so..."

Well, that turned out longer. My fiancee also went grocery shopping today and spent like $276 on groceries. Yay, I can eat like a king! for a few weeks at least.

also,

DANCE WHITEY DANCE!!!

was a lot of fun.

I didn't bring a camera...so here's an artist's representation of the events.

This weekend I drove 3 hours(actually it wound up taking 5 hours with snow and my bad sense of direction) to Sugarbush Resort in Warren, Vermont for my 2 day American Association of Snowboard Instructors Level 1 certification exam.

I left on Friday night thinking I'll get there the night before and sleep in the van. I couldn't find cell service anywhere near the mountain so I couldn't call my fiancee and tell her I made it OK, so I left a voicemail at midnight from a pay phone (which wasn't really a pay phone...since it didn't take quarters, I had to dial my credit card number into it...weird phones in Vermont). Either way I parked my van in a park & ride lot in some creepy little hamlet about 4 minutes away from the ski resort and kept getting woken up by snow plows all night long, as it was snowing.

The first day was awesome. I wound up riding with the chick who actually wrote the manuals for AASI. Since it snowed overnight we just shredded the whole day, and boy was it good riding! So that was our snowboarding ability portion of the exam.

That night I drove out a half hour or so to find cell service, called my fiancee and she told me to get a hotel room since it was going to snow again and it probably wont help me any getting woken up every hour by a snowplow driving by. So I searched until 6:30, driving up to every sketchy looking Inn and Motel I could find that had "vacancy" signs out front. Half the time nobody was even near the front desk, sometimes they said they didn't have any rooms and didn't change their sign (or didn't like the look of me). Finally I checked one of the closest places to the mountain with little hope, but maybe I could use their phone to call someplace else, and they had a room that just opened up!! I was so happy I nearly hugged the girl at the desk!

So I paid $129 and some odd cents more than I really should have or could...but I had the room for the night and a phone I could use to call people with, which is nice when family and friends are worried that you'd freeze to death sleeping in the car. I took a shower and watched some TV and ate a peanut butter and fluff sandwich I made before leaving on Friday. (I made 2 and packed a bunch of granola bars and twizzlers and bought a case of Mountain Dew).

I got up the next morning and they had this amazing breakfast at the lobby area, which I wasn't able to partake in, on account of already being late for the next days festivities at the mountain (d'oh).

I gave my key back (it was a real honest-to-god key too, not one of those magnet cards you see everywhere) and booked it to the mountain, which was pretty close.

Sunday was our teaching day, we all took turns teaching something different about snowboarding. It snowed again, but we weren't able to go rip it up as much since we did that on Saturday. Nothing really exciting happened. At the end of the teaching segments we all got some personal cretiques from our examiner lady and she went inside and filled our paperwork and such and at around 3:30 we all got our certificates and pins and went on our jolly way. I had a few more runs, but after 2 days of pretty hard riding, my body was dead tired and I felt it on my last run, so I came back in and started packing up.

So, I passed the test (I'm pretty sure everyone did) and got a new pin.

I even met a chick who works at a mountain near the college I'm transferring to next semester, and the examiner even told me that it was an great place! I was really excited about that since I was afraid that there may not be much in the way of mountains to work at and low and behold, here's this one that's real close and has even gained praise from a rider who gets paid to go all over the country! Sweet deal. So I'll probably be sending some E-mails soon to their snowsports directors and hiring staff.

I'm glad I got both my certifications this season because I don't think I ever want to go through that bull again. Too much money and too much time wasted on this stuff. I'm unsure if I'll really go any further in the organization as far as certifications...I like AASI's attitude a lot more, and thats what the examiner told me. She had gotten certified in skiing and snowboarding in the first year and then got her level 2 stuff in both and really didn't like the attitude of the skiing programs and kept up with the snowboarding aspects more. I doubt I'll ever be an examiner or even get further than level 2. If I do go further, it'll be when I'm an old fogey and can actually dish out the sort of cash.

So yeah, here's a picture of my new pin. the lettering along the edges just says "American Association of Snowboard Instructors"

Since hotels are apparently more expensive depending on snow being on the ground, I'm going to be sleeping in my van next weekend.

Edit: My car is getting new tires today (2/26) and will be getting some engine work and a recalled part fixed on Friday, I hope they finish it on Friday or else I'm sleeping in my fiancee's camry hybrid.

My snowboard exam was canceled

the morons called me while I was in the middle of teaching a fucking lesson.

I'm pissed, because if they don't already have enough signed up, why the fuck would they even have it on their list of "it's happening" events?

I hate this organization, but I need the certification. So now I can spend a shitload of money to travel someplace I don't want to be or get my money back and be left without the certification. nice.

My supervisor at the mountain sent out an email saying that the AASI level 1 exam that's scheduled for 2 weeks from now may be canceled

If I had known that there needed to be a minimum number of people to take it, I would have held off on signing up and sending in money until I knew for sure that the event was happening. I simply cannot afford to take the exam at another mountain, so I'm boned for getting certified before I move.

If they do cancel it, I'm going to be one unhappy camper with the organization, which I don't much care for to begin with. I can only hope for a last-minute in-house exam like we did for skiing this January, but it may be too late in the season to do something like that. The good thing about one of those is that you only need 10 people, instead of 20 or so to have it.

Responsibility, not quite yet...!

Well I got my acceptance letter from Plymouth State University today. I'm excited, I got accepted into their criminal justice department AND I didn't even have to be put into some "conditional" group.

My fiancee found out the other day online she's been accepted as well!

So, we got into college....again.

It was a lot easier transferring than from right out of high school.