i was in so much pain in the morning. Woke up at 7:59 am. Already missed the first bus to the mountain. Quickly got dressed and got some free food in the breakfast room. i was hurting, sore from the day before and hung over from all the booze i consumed. What a horrible combination of pain. But that wasn't about to stop me to rip it hardcore down the mountain. There wasn't that big a line when we got to the Quad lift. i thought the lift would never end...it was so windy that day. i was so cold i had to break out the face mask that i borrowed from rich...probably should get my own, they're key. i kind of look like a ninja, a snowboarding ninja with ninja snowboarding skills...
Manthan definitely doesn't look like a ninja, just a cold indian...lame.
Ugh, did i mention it was cold? Couldn't get the girls to come out again, which was probably better...then we could go as fast as we wanted. My legs were really sore, but after two runs down Toll House while mixing in some other trails...we got some food at the base. Also to let our legs rest. The prices were pretty ridiculous, 8 bones for a burger...but it was so delicious. Should have taken a picture, much better than that lame In-N-Out joint.
We soon headed back up the mountain. Not sure what was manthan's deal but he fell a lot, way more than usual. Probably the effects of being extremely tired. i missed it but he told me he tried to hit some powder and didn't get back on the trail in time and hit a rock...scraped up his jacket, ripped his pant leg, and sprained his finger...silly manthan. Could have been much worse though.
Go big or go home, we ditched the trail and jumped in the woods for the first time. Might not have been the smartest idea...i could barley squeeze between some of the trees. But it was fun, when i wasn't running into trees... About half way through this run we looked at the time and it was 1:15 pm...the bus was going to be at the base at 1:30...what the driver didn't tell us was that he was leaving at 2pm. So we took some faster trails and got at the bus at 1:30 exactly...turned out we could have gotten run in, but might not have been able to walk afterwards so i wasn't too bummed out. We waited until 2pm thinking there were other people coming but there weren't.
Rushed to the room and packed to get on the bus back home. i missed the group photo :'(. Pretty sure i missed the group photo last year too...lemon. i wanted to get on the bus early so i could get seat that wasn't not behind the couple dry humping each other...but i was the second to last person on the bus and the only seat left was...right behind the grinding horny couple...ugh. As soon as a seat opened up i was out of there.
On the way back we watched like 4 movies on the bus. Pretty ridiculous...like a movie marathon. We stopped for dinner, i got Roy Rogers again...this time it was good unlike the Mount Snow trip. The buns on my burger and chicken gold rush sandwich were edible. Didn't get back to my car until 11:30pm, said good bye and honked my horn and headed home. Though i wasn't able to sleep in the next morning...had to drive manthan to his school at 7am the next morning...ugh, can't get a break.
Saturday morning, managed to wake up a little before 7am. Got dressed as fast as i could to make the 7:30 bus ride to the mountain. But of course manthan held us up, couldn't find his contact solution. Turned out he left it at my house. Bastard. So we missed the first bus but that gave us more time to pig out eating breakfast. Ended up getting on the 8:30 bus ride. i guess an hour later doesn't hurt.
Last year manthan and i started on the smaller mountain, but not this time. We headed straight to the top of the big one. The trail we took was called Toll House Road...or something like that, it isn't important. An hour and 20 minutes later we made it back to the base lodge. On the way down there is a church, no pastor for it though...just whoever happens to be a pastor on the mountain leads the service that Sunday. Improved our time by 25 minutes from last year. i believe we did another run before hoping on the gondola to the smaller mountain to meet the girls at 11.
It was snowed all day, pretty much the best conditions ever to snowboard...but manthan and i spent 2 hours trying to meet up with these people. One of the girls has skied all her life and decided to snowboard for the first time...this should be good. She should have taken some lessons, but for some reason manthan and myself thought we would be instructors for her. Soon found out we don't have any idea what we're talking about. We decided to take baby steps and hop on the Magic Carpet. A conveyor belt that takes you up about 100 ft up the lamest slope ever. Some how manthan and i missed the Magic Carpet last year, even though we walked by it several times. Manthan and i decided to graduate the two girls to a real trail and hopped on the lift. Normally it would take a decent snowboarder 2 minutes to go down this thing, but with these two girls it took about 40 minutes. Didn't take long for the one girl Jen to ditch the snowboard and trade it in for some skis. But Katie kept with the snowboard.
After that fiasco we all decided to hit up the fire pit and take up the free s'mores and hot chocolate. Even found a little ice shelter to chill in... Stowe managed to supply the shortest sticks to roast marshmallows on, you burned your hand before browning the marshmallow. Everyone ended up just lighting their marshmallow on fire. If only i had some string i could have lashed two sticks together...you can pretty much fix any situation with a little string or rope.
After hanging around the fire pit for a bit, manthan and i talked the five girls into following us to the big mountain and going down the super long trail we finished earlier. Three snowboarders and 4 skiers, had our own little posse...i hate posses (3:10 to Yuma reference).
Manthan and Jen..
Bridget and her silly face she made a million times during the whole trip...
Beth and Jen...Katie looking like a snowboarder... Turns out that Manthan and i are horrible instructors. About 8 minutes down the mountain, right when it looked like Katie was getting the hang of it she fell off the trail and towards some trees. Scared the crap out of me but she was fine. Walked a bit after that. But she soon hopped on the bored and "ripped it" hardcore down the mountain. Pretty awesome for like the second time out. Maybe i would have improved by that much if it wasn't for my limbo injury... I thought going down the small hill took awhile...going down this thing took forever. It was pretty much all Katie's fault but would have felt horrible if i ditched her. Plus manthan and i promised we wouldn't leave her. While taking my time down i managed to do my first jump! i only got like 5 inches of air, but i'm going to count it because i landed it...so i'm pretty much a pro now and you'll see me in the next winter x games.
Manthan wasn't thinking (as usual) and had us follow down this other trail that doesn't lead to the base lodge. It took us to to a lift where you go up again to another trail that will take you to the base. Of course Katie wasn't happy about that, she ended up walking to the road and taking a shuttle. Manthan and i jumped the lift and snowboarded to the lodge/bar. Took us about 20 minutes, would have been faster if the lift wasn't so slow... After having a beer in the bar, Katie finally showed up. Took her about 30 minutes taking the shuttle. Probably would have taken her longer if she decided to take the lift...so maybe that was a good call. Around 5pm got back on the bus and headed to the lodge we were staying at. i managed to miss the free food. They said it was open from 5-7...turned out it was 5-6. They had tacos, nachos, and quesadillas. Ugh i was so hungry for that too.
The next destination was the Rusty Nail Bar. Before heading in there Manthan and i hit up the Japanese restaurant next door. Ate at his place last year..but instead of just getting sushi i thought i'd try something new and get some chicken tempura. WORST IDEA EVER. Random deep fried veggies and chicken that tasted like ass. i didn't even finish it because it was so gross, and i always finish my meal. At least the spicy tuna rolls were delicious. Manthan wanted to try some sake. That turned out to be a bad idea too, the sake we got was milky looking and gross. i can't remember the last time i had sake...probably will be awhile before i'll have it again. Definitely i won't be having Nigori Sake again. Some random drum banging, looked like a barrel Donkey Kong would throw... After consuming a bunch of water and sake, it was time for me to visit the bathroom. After taking a leak i turned around to wash my hands and was welcomed by this... Of all the places to put a freaky statue, why would you put it in the sink in the men's bathroom? i'll never know, there is probably a person following me around pulling these pranks...started with the big mac.
The damage at the sushi place was 95 bones...ugh that tempura was so gross. Should have stuck with sushi, oh well. Time for the Rusty Nail! Katie challenged me to a game of pool. Of course i won. There was air hockey too, i beat Melissa, Katie, Manthan, and i believe someone else...i'm pretty much a big deal, people know me. For live music there was some lame band, but the lead singer looked exactly like Donal Logue in The Ex (aka Fast Track). Sorry, couldn't find a picture of him in the movie...you'll just have to watch it. There were some freaks on the dance floor. One of the guys, maybe two, dance exactly like Elaine from Seinfeld.
So that was entertaining...the band thought we were taking picture of them, and tried to get us on the dance floor...but all of us were having plenty of amusement watching these people making fools of themselves dancing. We even got to see the making out couple on the dance floor. Not sure what the guy was wearing...had these crazy shoes. The looked almost like boots but really looked like wrestling shoes, and had his jeans tucked in them...he also had his shirt tucked in without a belt...we all know what that tells us about a persons character...
When we finally got back to the rooms, i we welcomed by * vomiting outside the lodge. Apparently after 35 years of partying you don't know when to cut yourself off. :P It was about 11:20 when we got back...i told myself i would just have a little bit to drink and maybe sing a karaoke song...then head to bed. That didn't happen, didn't get to bed until 4 am...ugh i knew i was going to hate myself in the morning.
Finally got some snow again. Looks like a couple inches too! i saw some kids enjoying a snow day, not sure why though because i could have biked in this weather let alone take a bus to school. So i thought it was pretty ridiculous some schools had a snow day.
As i was sitting looking at the snow, i remembered i had my snowboard! i put my boots on and strapped my feet in the board and went down the hill on the side of my house. As i was about to go down the hill i saw a goose hanging out next to the stairs by the deck. What i should have done was brought my BB gun with me and while "snowboarding" down the behind the house, whipped out the BB gun and pull a James Bond sneak attack on the goose. Tell me that wouldn't have been amazing.
Of course if i actually did that i would probably end up in the pond some how, get hypothermia and die. But i did scare the goose back into the pond, i didn't even have to do anything...it bounced when it heard me strapping on boots.
Took me about 5 seconds to come to a complete stop from the side of the house. i then took a boot out of the board and waddled back up to down 2 more times...then realized i looked ridiculous and went back inside the house. That was my fun for the day.
It was a little bit harder to wake up on Sunday morning. Harder for rich and manthan because they decided to drink a lot more than i did. Plus alcohol isn't very good for sore muscles. We did manage to get up though and out the door by 8:10 AM.
The most frustrating part about being in Vermont is the lack of cell phone reception. i saw plenty of towers out there but apparently not for at&t. The only people that got service out there were Verizon and Sprint. Of course the four of us sharing the room all had at&t.
Mike was slow getting out though so it was just manthan, rich, and i. We took the lift all the way to the summit but once up there rich left us for some skiers. Some friend he is. It was just manthan and i on the Long John trail. We tried going down the trail the day before but there are a lack of signs for it and we soon got off it and ended up on a diamond...manthan wanted to go down it but i like not falling so i took an easier trail and he soon followed.
The reason we didn't stay on Long John is because part of it goes up hill for like 80 yards...and there is no way for a snowboarder to get enough speed to go through it. So we unbuckled and walked it. It was nice because there wasn't a single person on that part of the trail. We decided to make snow angels. Right after this little private trail we always ended up getting stuck in this side of the slope next to the trees, there was just no way to get around it, but i only had to unbuckle one boot to get out while manthan fell all the way down to the tree the third time we took the trail and had to unstrap both of his bindings...silly manthan. Sunday went a lot better than Saturday, but i was really tired and could barely hold myself up most of the time. We had to check out at 11am but were still allowed to ski until the bus arrived. Called it the day at 2pm and hit the spa. Sat in the sauna, steam room, and took a shower. After all that just hung out in the lobby next to the fireplace. rich was smart and got a massage at the spa. 25 minutes for 45 bones...not sure if that was worth it but he said he felt a little bit better...until he started hurting again in places that weren't hurting before...but he was late on the bus because of that.
The bus ride home seemed to take forever, much longer than the ride up. Probably because of the traffic or because of the selection of movies (Bridge to Terabithia and Underdog). We stopped at a rest stop to get some food. It was either Nathan's or Roy Rogers...i should have gotten Nathan's. Corn dogs are delicious. i could fill a bath tub with corn dogs and swim in it. Without the sticks of course, that would just be silly if the sticks were still on them.
As always i wasn't sure what to order. i ended up getting the Gold Rush Chicken meal, a bacon cheese burger, and a fish sandwich. Sorry the pictures are so bad, i was really hungry and didn't want to wast time taking pictures. i'd include the fish sandwich but i ate it before taking a picture. Plus it didn't look very good. The buns tasted stale and my fries weren't fried long enough and had way too much salt on them.
After dinner we got on the bus for 3 more hours. Got back to the Ski Shop at around 10pm to be welcomed by a wind chill of 6 degrees. Quickly started my car, grabbed my bags, and got out of there for the 50 minute drive home. Ugh i was so tired. i'm going to be sore in the morning.
i was told to be at the bus at 2pm. At least that is what manthan said and he has a knack for giving people the wrong information about trips. i get there at 1:48 and there is no one at the Ski Shop parking lot. i then called manthan and he said he wasn't allowed to leave his school until 2:30 PM and that the kids on the trip would be let out of school at 2pm.
Rich soon showed up to to keep me company. We decided to check out the ski shop since rich needed new goggles and some ski socks. Kept us occupied until 2:30 when the bus finally showed up. Though we weren't sure if we could get on or not. Plus we didn't feel like introducing ourselves to random people not knowing who was running the trip. We ended up getting the worst seats on the bus, right behind the bus driver where there is a wall in front of the seats with the least leg room on the bus. Then someone gave up their seats across the aisle and one row back so rich and i quickly jumped on those and saved the worst seats for manthan and his friend mike.
The ride wasn't too long, just about 5 hours. One good thing about our seats were the distance from the kids. The only time i heard them was during trivia. rich won a beanie. It was orange and had a face on it. It kind of looked like a guy but could also be a girl. So we just said it was David Bowie. manthan won a hat too, some lame plaid beanie with a jolly roger on it.
Eventually we got to the resort. i've never stayed at a mountain before but its pretty nice not having to take a shuttle from your room. The only bad thing about staying at the mountain is that your tempted to stay in your room awhile taking a break and you don't get as many runs in.
After getting in the room, the first thing to come out was the Bose Sound Dock and iPod....and then everyone unpacked their booze. Mike decided to order a shirley temple...the only manly way to drink a shirley temple is to not drink one. Plus his gay pose didn't help either.
:Last year i went on my first ski trip. It was at Stowe in Vermont. My friend manthan convinced me to snowboard too rather than ski. He said skiing was harder...yeah right. I also took a beginners class so i wasn't totally clueless on the slopes. It helped a lot but what didn't help was that i was totally out of shape and by the second day on the mountain, i had gotten a lot better at snowboarding but didn't really matter because i could barely hold myself up. Pretty much just rolled down the slopes...
The gear i rented at Stowe wasn't that great either. Pretty sure they didn't give me a wide board for my big feet and i would just sink in the snow because i was so heavy. That was probably a good thing so i wouldn't go ridiculously fast and collide with a tree or ski pole.
i have a trip coming up this friday at Mount Snow. A little bit closer than Stowe but i'll be tagging along on a bus with a bunch of kids from an elementary school. Not really looking forward to that 5 1/2 hour bus ride, but i'll bring a flask to make it bearable.
So i don't look like a total noob, i bought a snowboard! One of my friends said they could get me like 20-60% discount on snowboards because they worked at a ski resort...but of course that fell through and i ended up going to a buckman's and paying full price.
There is one thing i'm worried about though, i came back from philly one night after a few drinks...and thought it would be fun to 'limbo' under a security gate....in the process i heard something pop in my knee and i felt this horrible pain...that was back in october...and my knee still hurts when i walk or stand for over 20 minutes...so if i don't blog after a month of my last post, i probably died at Mount Snow.
Here is my sweet snowboard that looks like a dollar bill...okay, its pretty lame but at least its my size.
The first batch of wine i made i labeled with these silly Avery labels that are suppose to be used for envelopes or folders. Then i got those printed labels from the wine store but they were kind of boring and its a pain to put them back in the printer to print the date and alcohol on them, but i might use a few of them for some of the bottles.
i searched around for a bit looking for ideas on how to label the bottles. At the wine store they have some programs and special paper...but its like 60 bones and just adds to my costs. i then found this one website where they mentioned to just print your own labels with some crazy software (which i don't have) and use rubber cement to stick it to the bottle and with a little bit of warm water it will come right off. There is also some spray you can get at a craft store to spray the labels so that the ink doesn't run when it gets wet. But hairspray works just as well so i'm just going to use that.
For a trial run i made a really crappy label, and since i only have 2 different colored sleeves...nothing really matches. Looks like this is the way i'm going to do it. i just have to make a nice label now.
Well its been 10 days since i racked the Cabernet into the carboy. It was time to take another reading. The specific gravity was about 0.991. 10 days ago it was 0.992...looks like the yeast didn't do much in the carboy. i probably could have started the clearing process early but i guess i'll just do it by the books.
i'll check the specific gravity again tomorrow and if its the same its time for all the sulphites and shellfish liquid junx. Then wait 14 days for it to clear before bottling. We're going to try something different with this batch. My dad picked up some blueberry flavoring, and we'll just bottle half of the Cabernet, and then add the flavoring to the second half before bottling it. Hopefully doesn't ruin half our batch of wine. We were going to use real blueberries but apparently you have to also filter your wine...and when you filter you also get a lot of oxygen in your wine and sets it up to just taste nasty after a few months.
Also purchased a wine rack, it holds 110 bottles. Should come in on Thursday. Its made out of Fir wood, we'll probably seal it and stain it with something so it looks nicer and help the wood last longer. Right now we still only have 48 bottles of wine, and with this next batch we'll have 78....of course we'll consume some of the Shiraz so it'll probably take another two batches to fill that rack up.
Apparently, some people doubted the abilities of the Beer Machine. But its brewing strong, there is a pressure gauge on on the kit and when the yeast was first put in it was at 0 PSI. A day later it went up to 5 PSI. Now its been three days and its up to 15 PSI! SNAP! Thats a lot of CO2, and with CO2 comes alcohol! Woot! i just hope this stuff tastes better than Natural Light or Milwaukee's Best (Beast).
The beer machine has been put in the bathroom in the basement, with a little portable radiator to keep the room warm since the basement is pretty cold.
Brother-in-law Steve got a "Beer Machine" as a going away present. Since alcohol is illegal at his new residence....i go it! Nothing like a free beer machine.
The directions weren't well written. It directed to assemble the beer machine, load a CO2 cartridge, and see if there were any leaks. There were none but when i tired the spout the water wasn't coming out very fast. Maybe with some more CO2 it'll work better. After that, sterilized the beer machine with Clorox. i thought that was a little weird but i made sure to rinse it out well afterwards.
Filled it up with a little water, poured in the bag of dried malt, sprinkled in the brewer's yeast and screwed on the cap. Leave it set for 5 to 7 days, then move it to the refrigerator for another 5 days...and BEER! Supposedly dishes out twenty eight 12 oz beers...hope its good.
There wasn't that big a line when we got to the Quad lift. i thought the lift would never end...it was so windy that day. i was so cold i had to break out the face mask that i borrowed from rich...probably should get my own, they're key. i kind of look like a ninja, a snowboarding ninja with ninja snowboarding skills...
Manthan definitely doesn't look like a ninja, just a cold indian...lame.
Ugh, did i mention it was cold? Couldn't get the girls to come out again, which was probably better...then we could go as fast as we wanted. My legs were really sore, but after two runs down Toll House while mixing in some other trails...we got some food at the base. Also to let our legs rest. The prices were pretty ridiculous, 8 bones for a burger...but it was so delicious. Should have taken a picture, much better than that lame In-N-Out joint.
About half way through this run we looked at the time and it was 1:15 pm...the bus was going to be at the base at 1:30...what the driver didn't tell us was that he was leaving at 2pm. So we took some faster trails and got at the bus at 1:30 exactly...turned out we could have gotten run in, but might not have been able to walk afterwards so i wasn't too bummed out. We waited until 2pm thinking there were other people coming but there weren't.
