Friday, December 21, 2012

No more Work

Well the Backstabbing and politics at work has reached epic levels. A project with crazy work hours and a Boss who's MIA. And as a result I've parted ways with DraftFCB.

Time for a long break before I decide what to do next.

Perhaps its time to try freelancing.

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Company Xmas Do

An odd party and no mistake.

I guess I'm used to advertising company dos being a bit nuts. The best way to describe this one is quiet.
Not bad a bad thing just a bit low key. Most of the people seem to be sticking in their own groups and departments. I think the theme of the evening was something to do with a reality show based in Chelsea.
So I stuck with a couple of the other developers and chatted to the different people that are on my project and had a lot of the very nice buffet.

One weird thing was our boss turned up a while after never came over to talk to us not even a nod to say hello to his team members.

We all pretty much left with handfuls of mince pies at an early 9:30

Sunday, December 02, 2012

5 years

My good friend Kooch had us all round for a big Sunday lunch at the weekend, a sort of nice get together as its been awhile since some of have seen each other.

I took the opportunity to have a little special moment for which I took a long a nice bottle of Cava and some plastic glasses (I guess rightly that they wouldn't have enough real ones).

Near the end of the meal a made a little speech and raised a toast as I just want to say that weekend it was five years since I first met most of the people around the table (When I first started at Dare) and I wanted to say thank you to them for being good friends.

Friday, October 19, 2012

New Job

So its been a while since I've had that new boy feeling.

This week I've started a new job with DraftFCB.

I now have a daily trip cross town to Victoria which is pretty straight forward and much easier than my old place. It's based round the back of Victoria station in an area I know quite well from my time work nearby for uSwitch.

The job is mainly an umbraco project web project for a single client which is a bit boring but its a nice bump up in pay from before also the office official starting at 9:30 is very nice. As of yet I don't know anybodies names people seem very busy with lots of eating at desks and not a lot of people taking to one another. Also another odd thing is I'm not really joined a team as the guy that interviewed me is leaving so I'm taking his place and the rest of the developers all seem to be freelancers.

We shall see how it goes.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

On the road

15/09/2012 12:00

What a week!

I've had some time off work to finally get my full UK motorbike licence. I been driving around on L plates for ages now and there is a rule in the UK that you have to redo your provisional licence parts every two years. The idea being to get on and get the full licence or possibly just to make things more complicated.

I'm a bit up to a deadline as the theory part was due to run out in October! so I have one shot at this otherwise I have to step back redo everything, my theory test, my hazard perception test and my CBT. 
CBT stands for Compulsory Basic Training, its a day of training which doesn't end in a test but does expire with a valid theory test. 

So I booked a crash course! actually its call Direct Access. Three days off work Tues-Thurs and then the test on Saturday. Based near the Olympic stadium in Stratford.

Its been a hard long couple of days and my little bike has done some serious miles.
First couple of days was on my bike doing things like road sense and bike handling. Then a day on a big 500cc Honda beast to get used to it as it's the one for the actual test. This bike is so huge that it is difficult to right again by yourself if you go over.

The test (at the center in Enfield) is in two parts; one at the test centre to check yours skills like driving slow, emergency stop (proper dangerous thing to make people test on bikes but there you go), driving a figure eight in case you want to join a display team or something. Remember I'm on the big Honda so the slow stuff is tricky, and one part out in the real world.

Actually some of the group only did the first part of the test. I think they had the second part booked for a later date. 

And then as long as you passed all that the second bit is out on the road. One other chap in the group was also doing the second part today and he went out first. Then it was my turn...

Oh my days I PASSED!!

The whole thing went pretty well I knew some of the tricky speed signs in the area and bad junctions but I nearly got binned for a mistake near the end after stopping to let on coming traffic pass parked cars. I was slow to get going again (getting the gears mixed up) and one of the no-nos is impeding traffic behind me. 

But I was saved by a BMW driver being a real BMW driver getting impatient and cutting us (the tester on the bike behind and me) up and so didn't delay him. Anyway once I got back the tester said I would have failed if Mr BMW hadn't have been such an Ass!

The other guy was as really unlucky he had a good ride and then did something dangerous right at the end on the roundabout turn to re-enter the test center and so the tester had to fail him.

Headed back to the training center, afterwards, to pick up my bike and return the Honda. The instructor specifically told me not to get all excited with the accelerator and crash it. I was really buzzing and that much bike can really accelerate. The instructor had to escort the other guy back as he wasn't legal to drive alone.

My bike definitely deserves a service and once the buzz had worn off I needed a rest too.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Time to go

Time for my current employer and me to part ways.

It hasn't really worked out with the new boss and its got a point where he doesn't want to try and fix things any more.

Its sad, but its been a long while so a change would be good.

A lot of my friends have long since left, but I will miss the social, as that is what makes the company really great to work for.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Closing ceremony and that whole olympics thing

OK, so I did get into this whole Olympics thing with everyone else in London.

In fact, like everyone else in the country it seems. I think people round here did think it was a good thing and was going to be a success, just a bit more modest than it turned out. All the grim warnings about transport seemed to be OTT and us Londoners may, in fact, have had a slightly easier time getting to work for a while. The only transport annoyance for me, was the one way system at Canary Wharf tube station.

For the opening ceremony, after failing to get tickets like everyone else, I set the video (PVR) to record and was in the Intrepid Fox pub with a load of friends.

For the closing ceremony, I made more of an effort, with Marjorie, Nick and Big Phil, we went to the Blur gig in Hyde park. The big screens let us sit in the sun watching the gold won in boxing and bits of the closing concert before a very good blow out gig by Blur. Parklife!

And so what was my moment of the Olympics? It was after a day at the GBBF, drinking fine ales and doing well at the pub quiz. We retired to the pub around the corner for another beer and watched Mo Farah win his gold in the running. The noise!! was incredible as a couple of hundred people screamed and cheered and chanted at the TV. I was not surprised afterwards to find, from a sore throat, that I was one of them.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

St Anton

So I didn't last very long before the need to be on the slopes hit once again.

Last week I had a great little week in St Anton, Austria, to finish off the season. Being as its right at the end, the conditions were quite warm and the snow patchy. In fact the resort advertises it as the crystal snow season, the snow looking a lot like big wet bath salt crystals. The skiing conditions were actually still OK with pretty good coverage and a fair amount of stuff to do. The benefits with coming so late in the season is that the weather is warm, for t-shirt skiing and the resort is practically empty, so no packed runs.

Friends on this trip were a couple of mates from previous new years trips Jayne and Rich. Also because we were joining a large chalet we hung out with the other guests, a good mix of ages and drinking abilities!

One of the big apes-ski places is called the Mooserwirt, a big outdoor bar and dance/music place. I'm not sure of the quality of the Austria style techo dance but once the beer is going it seemed very danceable. In fact we've got some great pictures of us dancing on the balcony.

For this trip I tried a new packing approach to skiing and cut everything down to the bare minimum. This worked quite well, with me easily making the airline weights, but became a bit of a problem one evening. We had been enjoying a dance and a jager or two at the Mooserwirt before head back down to the resort and found that the equipment storage lockers had been closed for the night. It would have been OK as we could taken the stuff back to the chalet unfortunately I only brought the one pair of shoes in my packing which were in the locker so had to spend the night in, sans footwear.

One quirk of the booking and flights meant that we had an extra day in the resort so I took the opportunity to have a day snowboarding. Once I got my head around it again, its been 7-8 year since I did a week, it was good fun with some reds and black and some annoying flats.

Another quirk was my leaving bus which was a couple of hours after everyone else. I went for a wander and sat in the sun, while I waited. The whole resort seemed almost deserted, I really did seem to the last person out.

A good trip.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Ouch a bit harsh

Ok so the MOT didn't go too well.

I got double teamed again, mainly I think because of my boss leaving.

Most of the negatives came from the new boss so that doesn't bode well.

Basically they say I'm just coasting and not helping solve problems and 'a bit negative'.

I didn't fight back apart from pointing out my projects did get released on time and the picture they paint doesn't reflect what others say about me. Its all very confusing.

So things are going to get bad with the new boss in control. I like him as a friend but his temper will make stuff hard. I'm perfectly willing to except I'm not a very good worker but I don't operate in a vacuum and the odd bit of encouragement, recognition goes a long way.





Friday, February 24, 2012

Change and maybe an MOT?

My boss resigned last week!

I guess at least he waited until I got back or rather I'm glad it didn't happen while I was away. That would have been more of a shock but it's still a major event. He's off to another agency good luck to him.

So his deputy gets his job and one of my good friends is now deputy CTO.
This means a change of line management and some choas going forward. It's going to be a tricky time as the new CTO is a good guy but can be a bit volitile. I forsee grief the next time something goes wrong whether or not any of us will be to blame.
This all happened without the boss bothering to get around to my MOT (well his mind definately will have been on other things) to discus my future at the company so I guess I'm an irrelevance and wouldn't have figured in any decision making. My MOT will probably be a bit of a non event.

So I did something to cheer me up, I booked another ski trip! I'm off to St Anton for a week in April. I'm really looking forward to it. This maybe an addicition!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Being Home

Man is cold!! and I've been in a ski resort. The country look very in white on the flight in travelling over the home counties, with little white patch works of fields.

So I back and doing chores, the washing mainly. Getting this blog up to date, particular the exam week entry will take a while we've doing a lot of stuff.

Back at work nothing much seems to have changed, a few more people have left but the nine to five is the same. I'm watching everyone still enjoying themselves on Facebook and its making me want to start planning a return trip. In fact, its odd to be sitting still for so long and I've been going for walks around the office and outside to work off some energy.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Exam Week and Results

So we finally get to exam week.

It started with everyone meeting up at the Roundhouse first thing in the morning for registration. So a lot of nervous people, form filling and queueing. The whole skier group of plus a few extra people are logged in and randomly given a form to fill in. Each form has a pupil number and couple of instructors listed on it for the groupings for the next four days. We have a bit of a confer and I find that unfortunately I don't really know anybody in my group but fortunately I seem to have done quite well with the instructor selection. The two instructors are Nick and Chris. Nick I don't know but Chris I know a bit socially (he was on the avalanche course) and everyone that have had him says he's a really good instructor.
The exam is broken down into two days concentrating on skiing skills and two days of teaching practise. We will be assessed over all the days and then find out the results on Thursday after lunch.

So first up is Nick from Wales, who managed to scary us all straight out of the gate by talking about what gets an immediate fail, only to finish the sentence by saying he was joking! The focus is on the basic skiing skills and getting really good parallel turns. The conditions are very good and much to our amazement we have a really good ski day covering lots of ground including and trip into Whistler Bowl!!! to practise doing our steeps. We were quite happy when we finished and were surprised to find out most of the other groups had just been doing drills and not doing much distance. The others were quite annoyed when they found out what we had done.

The day ended with a couple of lectures on teaching and the basic of the Canadian Ski system. That was bearable but the homework reading was very hard as I kept nodding off. At dinner I tried and failed to get anyone to come out for a beer.
The snowboarders also started their exams today but on the other mountain. They were all pretty tried when I saw them and they had to do a lot more homework that us, including making lesson plans.

Day two was also quite a fun day, we had to cover the basic beginner techniques but we had a couple of breaks to go for a bit of a ski. Nick is a phenomenally fast skier and a don't think I've ever gone much faster than the groomer that we did to warm up first thing in the morning. I had gotten up early and done a couple of runs, on the beautifully smooth slopes, as I had assumed we wouldn't be doing anything fast, so I was warm already as so could keep up. Lessons concentrated on teaching from new to basic wedges and speed control. We also did a selection on moguls and steeps including a slow race (going down as slowly as possible in control not stopping) down a hard mogul field, at which I managed to beat Nick (Not a normal thing according to him).

The day ended with more lectures, homework and a one to one with Nick about my skiing. He seemed quite happy about it and said I need to concentrate on getting low and turning with my feet.

The homework in the evening was better and I manged to go out for a few beers with Pete, Ed, Ed and Mike. I think most of the group were getting a bit too worked up about it all to go out but it was good to decompress.

The second half of the week was with Chris, a Canadian who I know socially to have a beer with. The focus was now on teaching the 'Canadian way', What to look for and how to handle a group. We all had a little go at teaching and I did learner wedges, giving the group the 'Hands on knees with poles'. Chris didn't expect too much from the first lot of teaching as they knew we hadn't done it before. We did a bit of free skiing and Chris gave a few more pointers on our technique, and I would agree with the others that he is a very good instructor. A pity we only had him for two days.

There was then more lectures, on what to look out for and fix and homework on teaching kids. Dinner was dramatic as the snowboards only had a three day assessment and so knew their results. We kept meeting up with little groups of them not knowing if they had done well. The results were generally quite good but not everyone was OK. One group, randomly assigned like us, only got half the group through. A case of a very hard examiner.
But mostly they were very glad they had finished. Pete, myself and the successful snowboarders went out afterwards to the GLC, although we left them getting very happy after three beers, after all the next day was D Day!

And so to the last day. Fortunately it was only a half day but what a half day as the weather was snowy/cloudy and the visibility wasn't good. The format for the day was to let all of the group having about 10 minutes teaching for each of us in our group of 7, each teaching a group of 3 and rotating around the group until we have all had a go. In the end I was one of the last in the group to get my turn and the nerves where steadily getting worse and worse. We had to teach either wedges or parallels and because I did wedges yesterday, today I got to teach parallel turns.

So I got my little group and started with a bit of a ski, with Chris the examiner just behind me the whole time watching me. The rest of the group stayed out the way a bit further up the hill also watch me. After a bit it was time to find a good place to stop which was a bit tricky as the slopes were busy with too many other groups doing the same thing. Next I stopped to watch my group ski for a bit and try to work out what needs improving. having come up with something to fix, which is very hard to do as unlike normal skiers the issues are quite minor and hard to spot. Anyway I suggested a drill deciding this time to get rid of poles and picked the hands on knees drill again. This time making them raise up to the zombie pose and back down to touch the outside knee at the end to focus on correct body position. The time went pretty quickly in the end and I don't think I stopped talking for the entire time. Chris said cool and said I didn't need to be so nervous, so it must have been quite obvious. I was very relieved to have had my turn and that was it nothing left to do but finish the last couple of people to go and wait for the results.

Results was a very stressful process with highs and a big low.

First up was some bad news as they read out the people who only passed half of the exam. Unfortunately Alice, from my original group failed the skiing part and had to go up in front of everyone to get a round of applause and get her exam summary sheet to find out what she needs to fix. This was meant to celebrate the part they did pass but it was a pretty humiliating process in the end. It also made the rest of the ceremony a bit odd with trying to comfort the ones didn't pass while being happy for the ones that did (Alice, successful resat her skiing part a couple of weeks later so is now fully qualified).

They then started to read out everyone one person at a time to go up and get their certificates, for fifty people this takes a long time. It was ages until Chris said
'This person has to be at work on Monday' and I thought 'Oh no that's me!' ha ha and I was up and walking to the front before he had even said my name. What a buzz after all these years since Banff going up and getting applauded by a whole room of people.

So, Yes I'm a ski instructor!

We got a little pack with a metal badge and a certificate and the exam summary sheet which detailed several bits for me to work on, like making sure I'm not in too tall a stance and making sure I finish my turns. It fitted in whole ethos of continuous development and improvement.

Now that was all done and dusted we hit the town.

It started to get surreal very quickly as, in the first bar were we all decided to meet, we bumped into the cricketer Freddie Flintoff, who was in town to do some filming. A very nice chap, he was having a quiet drink with a friend not being recognised by the locals. Once the British turned up he got surrounded but took it well and there are loads of group pictures with him. We ended up quite a big group not the full 70 but a good proportion. So the plan for the evening was set with loads of drinks a good time and still quite a bit of adrenalin washing around our systems.

Eventually We all end up in the same night club, and took Freddie with us. There was drinking and singing and dancing and from this point on things definitely got blurry even the photos are fuzzy.
So finally Nic and me headed home and on the way back we searched the town for a some sort of
food and after a long long search we ended up at Domino's Pizza. Finally home at 3AM.

Next morning was an earlyish start fortunately I was mostly packed but still had a bit to do. So it was a case of just jamming it all in and sorting out when I get home.
Guy, the organiser turned up at 10:30am with the bus and so with a big farewell to the lads in the flat, it was goodbye to Whistler, Canada and back to reality.

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Week four - wedges and exam prep

Things are getting a bit more serious now as we head towards the exams next week. Our instructor for this week is another Canadian lady, Jo. She too is a very experienced instructor, who when she's not instructing seems to work at the hospital and plays ice jockey! She also seems to have had the most injuries including bust knees, a broken back and lose of depth perception. Not that any of that slowed her down much!

The focus this week is on teaching and learning how to do wedges correctly. There are a series of steps in the Canadian teaching system which roughly go as; introduce yourself, assess the class, warm up ski, assess the ski level, introduce drills to improve them, reassess and then integrate knowledge into normal skiing. We tried a little bit of teaching to get a feeling for it, and the general feeling was pretty nerve racking.

As part of the qualification we need to be able to take a complete beginner all the way to doing parallels so we need to be able to do wedge (or snowplough) turns. This isn't easy when its been years since you last had to do them. So we went through the steps and concentrated on getting the weight over the outside ski and the correct pivot of the foot. Being able to do this all correctly in the wedge builds a base for when you go back to doing parallel, if you carry the correct feeling across then you will be in the correct position in the parallel turns. I think I learnt quite a bit doing this so I didn't mind doing it, however most of the rest of the group weren't happy as we stuck doing this on the green runs when there was good powder conditions.

We had some instruction about beginners, including how to explain how to put on skis and how to explain how to move around in them. We even went over to the magic carpet area and did some drills in with the learner groups so we could see what issues they have and a bit of learning to detect issues in others.

This week's focus on my technique was getting the feeling of falling down the hill (sounds weird but it means getting far enough over the ski to have good control) on the steeps (making me commit to the turns), more turning the ankle to edge, so much so my ankles were getting sore by the end of the week (really the only niggle apart from being knackered all the time).

Also another fun thing we did was one ski skiing. We left one ski at the top of the Cat Skinner chair and then went down Easy Out on one ski. The idea, switching skiing foot several times, is learn to a turn, left or right depend which foot the ski is on, using just the one edge and not cheating by using the other ski. This helped in two ways; one to get the idea on balancing on one ski, as you should do normally, and two to rediscover the feeling on being out of control on skis so we know how the beginners feel :). Also we tried to turn both ways on one ski, which is a level two skill, we were quiet a sight to see with legs and arms all over the place.

One piece of information from Jo that really helped me this week was the idea of the 10 percents of turning. Basically think of the turn in 10% blocks and have the various acts of turning broken up between them. So get the balance and pivot and edge all working through the whole turn smoothly rather than going all full on edge just at the end. So make it all nice and smooth.

So now we have a couple of days to get our heads together and revise the detail, then it's time for the exams!! (actually the weather at the weekend was nice enough to get a bit of a tan and a few people like Kieran to do some T-shirt skiing!)

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Week Three keep in control at all times

This week our instructor is Kim, a French Canadian lady who seems to like being in the trees alot.
So trees figured alot in the week as we learnt the best ways to travel through them, taking the line below a tree and committing to the turn so your body doesn't get caught up in the branches. The key piece of advice for trees is don't look at them. if you look at them you will ski into them, better to look at the gaps and plan a couple of turns ahead (if you can see for all the trees!)

On the technical side we worked on our turns and I particularly worked on remembering to use my polls and have my arms out in front of me. The correct pose is something like what you would be in if you were getting ready to jump off a low table. With bends at the knees and ankles, weight on the balls of your feet. With your stomach held tight and your arms out in front of you. They call it an athletic stance. We also continued to increase the hardness of the steeps we journeyed into.

The weather this week gave us a huge amount of snow and with the change in conditions we got chance to learn about powder or Pow! skiing. The two main things to think about in pow is to still be centrally balanced on the skis, not to lean back and to keep the skis a bit closer together as they cut through the snow. The general techniques on skiing don't change, be it in powder, or on steeps or moguls or on groomers. Getting the weight on the down hill ski, pivoting, edging and planting the polls are all the same. Powder is great fun and Kim took us to some great bits of the resort to experience it.

On Friday I had a day out with Ed the snowboarder across to Symphony bowl to play in all the trees and the new pow. Symphony had been closed for the past couple of days due to the Avalanche risks and so it hadn't been over skied. We had a great couple of hours messing about in Staccato grove.

The weekend which was still in mostly white out conditions was the Avalanche course. This is separate from the Ski instructing system and focuses on skills which would be useful in more back country situations that are not ski patrolled. We covered the types of Avalanches and how to spot the conditions that cause them. There was some interesting science into the way the snow pack forms and ways they forecast what the conditions will be like. We also learnt how to use radio transponders, probes and snow shovels so we can self rescue in the event of an avalanche. This was quite fun as we pretended to find and rescue buried people.  

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Ice on the way to the city

An early Saturday start saw me on a bus to Vancouver to stay with friends and get away from all things snow for a weekend.

The journey was a lot more exciting than I had planned as the conditions on the roads were very icy. The 60 seater bus actually lost control on one bit of ice and we slid about ten foot with the back starting to slide sideways. That was really quite scary and we had to go really slow so that didn't happen again. A little while later the driver announced that a dangerous pass was coming up ahead and wasn't sure it would be safe to cross, there being a large drop on one side (yes I did think of the Italian job at about this point). Fortunately the bus driver decided to stop and wait for the pass to be cleared and gritted before setting off again and we managed to make it alive to Vancouver with only a couple hours delay.

By the time I got to Vancouver I was still early to meet up with my friends so I decided to have a walk around the waterfront area. I was a complete tourist, taking loads of photos. There were lots of interesting bits and pieces including a huge Lego whale sculpture which was ace!

After that I went around to Emanuel and Yvadney's place. They are old friends from London, I used to work with Emanuel, who moved out to Canada a couple of years ago. I stayed at Emanuel's flat which is very nice but on the 20th floor! It took me a little while to go anywhere near the windows.

Emanuel gave me a tour around his bit of the city including a visit to his office, which is the Canadian branch of the same company I work for in London. It was very interesting to see the office and see how a typical Canadian work place is set up. The city is nice with lots of little touches like leaf prints in the concrete walkways, which were done for the Olympics. In the evening we had a meal, drinks and an opportunity to catch up. I could give them the low down on our friends back in the UK and they tell me about all the odd things about living in another country (they really miss a good fish and chips shop).

On Sunday morning Emanuel and I had a breakfast of kings at the Templeton Dinner. Sitting at the counter, I had two blueberry pancakes, six strips of bacon, three eggs easy, rosemary potatoes, two rounds of brown toast, maple syrup and about a pint of coffee. I didn't need to eat again until Monday morning.

I took my leave of Emanuel and Yvadney on Sunday evening, It was great to see them again and hopefully not so long until I see them next.

Vancouver is a nice place and I think I really need to go back and visit it during the summer as it rained constantly the whole time I was there and so wasn't maybe in its best light, well they do call it Raincouver.

Week Two - Get your hands up

This weeks instructor is called Tim, an Aussie with full set of their skiing qualifications. He skis in a very controlled style with his tight turns pretty constant not matter what the terrain.
Mike joined the group still recovering from his knee problem. My group is meant to be a bit more gentle so he can recover.

The three main areas, Tim had me concentrating on were, keep your hands up (I drop the hand after the poll plant which twists the body), keep the upper body still and turn from the feet (balance and movement in the turn should be coming from the lower body not the upper which throws the balance out and makes the turn a lot harder).

Tim introduced us to some more steeps including a drop into west bowl called Cockalorum which I completely messed up, crashed, lost a ski and slid down the steep (60 degree-ish) slope on my belly for about 20 metres until I could stop myself by using my poles like ice axes. My ski went another 30 metres and had to be rescued by Tim.

The weather was a big mix with days of sun, blizzard, fog and v cold winds. The conditions proved a bit too much for my selection of goggles and I ended up getting a set of Vonzipper Feemon's for 150 dollars! Since then I've no more problems with fogging/icing up which makes for a much better skiing experience when you can see what you are doing.

Away from skiing we have had a couple of good nights out to the Karaoke at the Crystal lounge and generally around town. I've also managed to get to the local climbing wall on Wednesday which was quite good and that old familiar arm burn lasted a few days. They have the same grading system for bouldering but the routes were so overlapping that different colours got very confusing. The centre called the Core is good with about 8 descent size walls to have fun on.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Back to Basics - Week One

So how do you split up 49 skiers into teaching groups?

That was the first order of business on Monday morning.

Guy got us roughly split into 7 groups ranging in how much bottle we thought we had. Dom and Arthur went for the mental double blacks top group, Mike went for a one a bit less than that and I went for a nice easy don't get myself in hospital in the first week group. Nick picked a level similar to me, Ed was off snowboarding and Ben, apparently only booked the accommodation and so went off skiing some crazy off piste stuff all week by himself.

The group I picked ended up quite a good mix and all about the same level. We have
Tansy, Alice, Amy, Chris, Pete, Ciran and Myself. Our instructor for the week is Donie, who is a small Canadian lady, who turns out seem to have taught half of the other instructors.

We spent the week starting to learn the basics again, such as planting your polls, not leaning back, getting you hips and shoulder parallel to the slope in a turn and finishing your turns completely.
We had exercises where you held your polls in out to the sides (to lean the right way), at half way (to get us lower down), at our waists without hands (to get us to bend at the waist) and on our shoulders to get the shoulder line parallel to the slope.

Arther and Dom spent the week coming back shattered and tell us all the mad things Guy (who took the top group) was making them ski down, and loving it of course. Mike didn't have so good a time of it as he twisted his knee and is going to be out of action for a couple of weeks at least.

By the end my group seemed to be getting quite a bit smoother and looking in control. Most of the time we spent on the pistes but we did do a couple of bits of steep towards the end of the week. The conditions ranged from foggy to clear to very windy and cold. We didn't get much in the way of new snow but the base is deep so it was all good groomed runs.

I've been out drinking with most of my ski group and we had quite a jolly time of particularly the Tuesday night Karaoke at the Crystal Lounge. Pete signing 'Bust a Move' is a memory that I hope will remain strong for a long time!

My house mates are not bad for a night out either although as they are all on the 11 week version of the trip they are on a bit more of a budget.

Monday, January 16, 2012

A day out with the Locals

OK one local, Sandra, a friend from way back, who moved out here a couple of years ago.

It was a lovely Powder day but it was also an American holiday weekend so lots people travelled up the ski resorts for a bit of a holiday. Unfortunately this makes for mad queues at all the chair lifts.

Sandra is a boarder and knows all the nice little bits of the resort so we spent the day with some nice blacks and tree and bike tracks (one called blue velvet) on Whistler mountain. Particularly fun was a trip into Whistler bowl which was quite bonkers, steep with deep pow and really no visibility. She also introduced me to a bit of a Whistler tradition, the Bloody Caesar cocktail at lunch which is quite tomato-y and quite spicy. I've not idea how strong it is but it was very nice.

At the end of the day we went drinking at Brandy's and watched the American football. It was also an opportunity to meet Sandra's other half Ryan and some of her friends. They were all very nice and made me feel very welcome.
Sunday was quite! a bit of skyping and I went to watch the half pipe comp

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Whistler and the Alltracks group

So I'm in Canada, in Whistler, sitting in what will be my room for the next 5 weeks.

The journey was good once I had managed to get all my gear from my flat across town by Tube to Heathrow. Air Canada did a good job with the service and one of those seat back entertainment systems. I caught up on a bunch of movies (Margin Call: very good, Lincoln Lawyer: good, Sucker Punch: very rubbish even on fast forward and Puss in Boots: also very good) and had a couple of fairly good meals.

At Vancouver the first thing of note was a huge tank of jellyfish before you get to passport control (no idea why). I was met by Guy, who it turns out is the head Instructor for the resort and really really tall!
and after hanging around for ages for another flight, in the bar watching ice hockey with an American and a Dutch lad, we got a coach to the resort.

The house I'm staying at is in a little quiet corner of Whistler called Valhalla. It's a modern development with a communal hot tub for all the houses in the square (more of a round actually) to share in the middle. Unfortunately the hot tub isn't working due to something to do with heath and safety. The house has all the things you would expect including a big TV, good wifi, microwave and washing machine (so no trips to a launderette, thank God). There are 7 of us sharing, 2 downstairs, Ben and Dom, who are friends from the UK. Upstairs we have two single rooms and a big room with three sharing. Nick, a tall South African and myself have the two single rooms and Arthur, Mike and Ed share the big room. Arthur and Ed are English (Ed is also the only snowboarder) and Mike is a blue haired American from Oregon. My room is huge and I definitely got the best deal in the house. I've got a huge double bed, a bit of a balcony and a walk in wardrobe.

Saturday we had the welcome meeting and in the evening a welcome drink. The most interest information was finding out just how many people are on the course. Once we all managed to get into the Hilton Whistler's main meeting room, there were about 70 of us with about 20 or so being snowboards. Most of the group appear to be either 18-19 and straight out of school or in their mid 20s (my house mates, except Mike (mid 30s) are all in this group). There a few grey haired individuals so I'm not the oldest by a good few decades.

It all seems well organised, the people seem nice, the town looks lively and the weather looks snowy so fingers crossed it should be a good trip.
the size of the group

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Three days work and then I'm off

A good Xmas and new year at my Parents, catching up everyone big and small. Now I'm just got a few quiet, hopefully, days at work and then I'm flying to Canada, Friday lunchtime.

The bags are packed the fridge is nearly empty and my laptop is loaded with music and movies.

Time to hit the slopes

Yay!
On reflection it was quite good...