It was foggy so I thought I’d try some vintage looks.
This tree is right at the top of the Lion’s Express chair. We watched with amusement today as a ski instructor spoke to his class of about 8 kids, all gathered round near this tree. 7 of the kids were paying rapt attention, but the 8th was facing the other way, wacking at the snow covered branches with his ski pole.
What does Flickr.com do when it’s feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
The same thing I do.
screen grab Sat. Jan 12 at 3:45 p.m. pacific time
Back in December I blogged on an item that seemed to slip by almost unnoticed.
Today, the Globe and Mail took notice:
The CBC’s low-profile pre-Christmas sale of its taxpayer-funded international sales catalogue to a foreign buyer is drawing the ire of some of the biggest guns in Canadian television, who question why homegrown distributors weren’t invited to bid.
Even some members of the CBC board of directors privately complain they weren’t properly informed of the sale of a significant chunk of the public corporation’s international sales arm last month to Britain-based ContentFilm for an undisclosed sum.
Things get even more interesting further into the story. The UK owners of ContentFilm have since sold the company to a Canadian based firm, a firm that recently employed a high level exec at CBC.
Looks like the CBC’s new president will have a few things to stick handle.
My friend and colleague Loc dropped a nice little New Years gift on me and the 2 boys. 3 tickets for the Canucks.Islanders game tomorrow.
Oh yah.
Spotted along Commissioner Street on Vancouver’s waterfront.
We had an insane run at Cypress Mountain this morning.
I’ve boarded in foggy conditions before, but nothing like what we encountered this morning on the first run. MB and I were excited to be making first tracks again, but it became immediately obvious after we stepped off the Lions Express chair that it would be slow going.
It was totally nuts. I couldn’t see more than 2 metres in front of me, and subsequently was going dead slow. What I could see was pretty much just white on white. Goggles didn’t help, and other boarders (very few of them) loomed into sight at the last minute.
I quickly discovered that when you can’t see, your sense of balance gets totally messed up (d’oh).
I found myself sliding sideways across the hill when I thought I was going down. I wiped out a number of times on simple turns even though we were on a green run (after bailing off a blue). What if found was that I had no sense of how far I was leaning into the turn, and no proper sense of when to pull out.
Very very disconcerting, and a bit frightening. I can certainly see how people get lost and disoriented in white-outs or heavy snowfalls.
At least it’s not raining.
Looking back towards Guest Services as we walked back to the car
There’s a centuries old New Year tradition in our family.
For generations, Ouimet’s have celebrated the wee hours of the new year with a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich.
This year, like every other, I followed the family tradition to the letter, as handed down from Ouimet to Ouimet
In case you’re having trouble reading the scanned document:
Maybe it was just the way the light played on the cheddar, maybe my eyes were tired, I really can’t explain it. Imagine my surprise when I sat down to eat my New Year sandwich when I looked down at the plate.
Judge for yourself.
Holy Springfield ! Some kind of miracle ! What a way to start 2008 !
I probably should try to sell it on eBay.
Before the fog and snow, we had some mostly clear skies for first lifts up Cypress this morning.
Another awesome day riding.
For more pictures from Cypress Mountain, click any of the photos to go the Cypress set at Flickr.
The heavy snowfall the last couple of weeks is the prime topic of discussion on the lifts. Everyone agrees the conditions are the best they’ve been in years. Even though the season got off to a sketchy start, the last 2 weeks has brought fresh snow almost every day.
For more photos, visit my Cypress set at Flickr.
The Cypress Mountain road this morning, well before the first big hairpin. Early this morning they were stopping cars to check for winter tires or chains, but the road seemed to me to be in better condition today than the last few times we were up.
Loads of powder everywhere. We hit the first lift up again today.
Great snow on Cypress Mountain this morning. MB and I managed to be first into a couple of different areas and enjoyed carving through the powder. There’s a ton of snow and the temperature is just above freezing – so it’s pretty comfortable riding except for the heavy fog this morning.
We head up for opening and usually bail by noon when the lift lines start to get too heavy. Nice to live so close.
For more pictures, visit my Cypress set at Flickr.
First lift of the day, Lion’s Express chair, Cypress Mountain on Vancouver’s North Shore.
You can see how few people are there at 8:30 in the morning.
Our 4th run of the morning, there’s still lots of powder to be found if you can see through the fog.
Self, with the Optio W30 (waterproof) which spends the winter in my snowboarding jacket pocket.
There’s a ton of fresh snow on Cypress Mountain, and it’s still snowing.
Great.
The world is consumed by the holiday spirit.
Hey, lets be careful out there.
California:
Stranded in the snowy California woods for three days after losing their way while searching for a Christmas tree, a father and his three children fashioned a “Help” sign out of twigs on a nearby unpaved road, according to the helicopter pilots who found them. > more
Rio De Janeiro:
Authorities say a helicopter carrying a Santa Claus to distribute gifts at a Christmas party came under fire when it flew over a Rio shantytown. Two rifle shots hit the chopper in Sunday’s incident.
Police Insp. Aldari Vianna says no one was hurt and the aircraft returned safely to base. He says gang members apparently mistook the aircraft for a police helicopter. > more
Paris:
The state prosecutor for serious economic crimes charged the Christmas Tree Growers Association with anticompetitive price fixing and said he would bring the growers to court in the spring. > more
Spokane Washington:
A man dressed as Santa Claus was knocked unconscious by a thrown object that hit his face while he was riding on the back of a truck decorated as a sleigh. Kevin Smith says he never saw what hit him Saturday. Whatever it was, it broke his nose and gave him a concussion and two black eyes. > more
Hope Santa’s checking his insurance, twice.
Ok Canada.
Time to laugh and laugh and laugh at people from BC, yet again…
A new Ipsos Reid poll reveals that six-in-ten (61%) pet owners in British Columbia plan to buy (or have already bought) a present for one or more of their pets this holiday season. This includes 68% of dog owners, 61% of cat owners and 54% of other pet owners (e.g. fish, birds, rabbits, hamsters). Women pet owners (65%) are more likely than men (53%) to say they plan to buy a gift for their pet. Full story here
The Ipsos story has more facts about the kinds of things pet owners buy. My favourite is “13% of pet owners plan to make their pet a special holiday dinner.”
Now I’ll admit that our family is a little abnormal, we don’t go crazy with presents at Christmas, so Ozzie the Cat, cute as he is, is getting nada from St. Nick.
This is a bit of a drag.
Being a west coast cat, he’d really like a new Prius to sit on.
CBC plans to move it’s international sales out of house
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Fireworks International, a division of ContentFilm, today announced an agreement by which Fireworks will acquire the international distribution rights and assets currently managed by CBC’s division responsible for international sales. full story in Broadcaster
The Broadcaster story doesn’t mention how many folks in the CBC ‘division’ are affected by the change. Fireworks and ContentFilm are based in London UK with an office in Los Angeles. From their web site:
Fireworks International, a division of the UK’s ContentFilm plc, acquires and distributes an extensive slate of television programs, feature films and digital content throughout the world. Fireworks’ library of over 2000 hours of programming includes BLOOD TIES, twenty-two hours of mystery drama with a twist of the supernatural; HEAVY Worldwide’s newest comedy and animated series as well as library from the highly successful U.S. digital brand HEAVY.com; kids’ gothic horror comedy series YOUNG DRACULA from CBBC; comedy series THE JANE SHOW and U.S. mystery drama series WHISTLER; along with action/adventure series Gene Roddenberry’s ANDROMEDA, MUTANT X, and RELIC HUNTER; children’s programs BLACK HOLE HIGH, 100 DEEDS FOR EDDIE MCDOWD, CAITLIN’S WAY; plus over 200 U.S. network miniseries and TV movies of the week; and over 100 theatrical feature films, and specials including the 2006 and 2007 Annual U.S. PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS shows.
I believe this may be my all-time-favourite quote from Canada Post…
We firmly believe there
is just one rogue elf out there…
Country music stars in Mexico are being killed at an alarming rate – 13 in the past year and a half, 3 already in December – in a trend that has gone hand in hand with the surge in violence between drug gangs here.
None of the cases have been solved. And all have borne the signs of Mexican underworld executions, sending a chill through the ranks of other “grupero” musicians, who sing to a country beat about love, violence and drugs in modern Mexico.
So you just spent a couple hundred bucks on some super cool Oakley goggles, eh?
You just know they’re going to spend more time bouncing around in the trunk getting scratched up than on your head, right ?
Time to put the DIY back in boarding, don’t you think ?
These babies MB is modeling have plenty of air vents, they don’t scratch easily, and if some random wood splinters came flying at you while you’re doing some sick moves on a double-black-diamond – no worries.
All that and more, for just $9.95 CAN at Lee Valley Tools.
There’s a a ton of fresh snow on Cypress Mountain. Boarding this weekend was awesome.
The wind is really blowing this morning, but it’s staying cold up there (so far) so conditions should stay good. A lot of runs still aren’t open, but another good dump of snow should solve that.
Looks like Coast Mountain has been forced to drop its controversial “holiday week” schedule. This update today in the comments section of my blog post from a driver:
We the drivers were against this from the beginning. Our union immediatly challenged this decision and put it to arbitration. The result is a good one. The holiday week has been canceled and should not rear its ugly head for the rest of our contract. This will probably become a heated issue during our next contract talks in 2010.
Just remember, they did NOT reverse their decision, they were denied from enforcing it. We. the drivers, and our union CAW111 had this thrown out.
All I can say is Horray ! and thanks to the drivers union for pushing this one off the Coast Mountain Table.
We’ve always been able to get basic info on how many views photos receive, but now Flickr is introducing real stats reports. From the Flickr blog…
We’ve introduced a new feature for our pro members: stats!
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you — we’ve launched another of our most often requested features. Yay!
and from the Flickr faq…
[Stats are] designed to give you insight into the ways that people are finding your photos. There are stats available for people surfing on Flickr itself – where the referrer is flickr.com – and stats about people coming from other websites. We can show you the sorts of things people search for on search engines where your photos turn up, and tell you how many views your photos have in a week, or for all time.
Yah. Can’t wait to start making graphs from the Flickr data.