16:14 and I am sat at my battle station in my boxers and spurs shirt drinking a Peroni with the game on in the background. Today is the kind of day that gives you a story to tell for the rest of your life, I think I am too tired to tell all now, but as always I will try!

First off it has been great!

I stopped off at a 7-11 for a monster coffe and a donut, I was playing cop :) And hit highway 26 It was a totally normal drive, sipped my coffee listening to KUFO FM! This is possibly the best readio station in the world! It proves Portland is a rock town, I have not even heard a sniff of other music! KUFO plays all the good stuff from Sabbath to Pantera, Metalica to Pink Floyd and all the grunge stuff inbetween! But that is a seperate matter. Suffice to say the journey was clear and I arrived at skibowl at abotu 7:30 AM.

So I roll up to my snow covered parking spot and walk in to the taicket office, it was something daft like $40 for the day and then $16 for a year long parking permit for ANY of the Hood resorts . . .

SO it is back to car, sorry SUV, and I strip my bindings off the kink and put them on the Parka. This is a powder morning and I am there for first lift. . . . what would yo do? So I set back my stance by about 1" and low and behold my back foot binding is bust. . . The part of the base that holds the toe strap in is split. I don't care, its under warranty! (mum can you go into my room and look for a big box in the wardrobe by the bin with BURTON on it please, it should also have a sticker on it showing the model name Cartel, is there a warranty thingy in there???) I choose to ignore it, it loos like it will hold up for a while longer! I get my pod sorted out and leg it to lift.

As I get closer to lift I realise it is a 2 man lift . . . with no bar . . . Tonso, now I understand what you were saying . . . . Thata was scary . . . enough said! Top of the lift and guess what . . . NO-ONE-THERE . . . Just me and the lifty and a bout 2.5km of fresh, untracked pow. As day would say . . "Have a nice day!"

So you can see what happens for the next 2.5 hours, up chair lifts, down powder tree runs like I have nver ridden before. I must point out that skibowl is small, I would call it a micro resort. Not all the mountain is accesible by lift, the best stuff needs to be hiked. Thats for another day.

About 10:30 I was dog hungry, and had a chat with the peeps in the cafe, woofed down a bacon burger and a gatorade (you can ge them in blue, I was soo happy!)

I make it back up the hill and thought I best look out for the main park. There are some beginer rails at the bottom by the main hut, a rainbow, long box, quad-bar up rail, box step to lower box. It was like MK had shipped all its best toys out to an area the same size of 1 mk slope, added good snow and had people looking after it, while having a 1/2 price night . . . very surreal!

Anyhow, I found the main park, 3 blue kickers in a row and some bigger rails, I forget what exactly. I wsa feeling a bit tired so not hitting them that quick, they wer smaller then the ones at meadows though. They were good fun, but on the whole a beginners park. I was later told the main parks are at meadows and timberline. Still I had a good time riding them! I also got on wiht by bs180s ollie things, getting better, I rotate enough but I land tail heavy and my head really low, its like as I rotate I drop my head . .. more to work on! My frontsides are real good, need more speed!

This is doing great stuff for my boarding, being out there without having to consider anyone esle makes a big difference to what you do, suddenly you are accountable for your actions, you go and do what you want to. No excuses!!! I have never really ridden much on my own, I have always met up with people. Today was no exception, a Brazillian guy called Phil was into highspeed riding. He was a character, the kind of person Eric would love spending time with! So I had a few high speed runs with him. He cracked me up, it was all a little napoleon dynamite
"You must have been doing 50miles an hour that time, can I have a go real quick" lol !!! (mum, lol means laugh out loud, it's internet speak . . .)

Anyhow, thats about all to report from today, It is the end of the first half of the game and all I can think about is Spurs beat Charlton 3-1 today, thats gives us a 4 point cushion on Arsenal, nothing else matters!

I will be back later, after my beer, wine, shave an shower!!!