So now I've opened up a new blog site which my main site will soon point to. Why? No ads, and the new site provides you the ability to comment on my posts which may make this slightly more interactive.

Ah, yes, volleyball night.

I played a couple of games at the pro club tonight. It wasn't as good as usual because there seemed to be a couple of weak players there. There is actually a separate court for folks who don't play well, but sometimes people don't understand the format I guess... Volleyball is one of those sports where one bad player can really ruin a game. It's not like basketball where you can choose who to pass it to or just take it to the hoop yourself. A bad player in a volleyball game will be who the opposing team always serves to... If the setter doesn't get a good pass then you won't get any good hits etc.. In a normal rally 3 people touch the ball, if one of them is someone who can't play then it doesn't matter how good the other two are. Also, court coverage gets really messed up if someone on the court doesn't know how to play. So that's why there's two courts. Anyhow, enough ranting :)

Henry asked me to give him a ride to Chaplins to pick up his car. He had some problem with it rattling. Turns out they found a massive set of pliers in his oil pan left there from when he got his oil changed at Jiffy Lube... Even though he gets to keep the pliers he still doesn't want to ever go back there... The pliers were pretty big too, about the size of a wrench. Very heavy duty.

I think the visit ended up costing about $180... Ah well.

Didn't get the chance to go to the gym tonight unfortunately...

I suppose I can say something about Monday though... I forgot to mention that this Monday we went to the Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven concert at The Crocodile Cafe. Turns out that the only difference between the two bands is one guitarist... Who knew...

Anyhow, the show was pretty good, but the encore was not. They played some 30 minute long 'song' that made me wish that I hadn't asked for an encore... I suppose when you get what you ask for you shouldn't complain too much. I liked the song Duty Free which was an Ike Reilly cover.

New StrongBad email...

Well, Tuesday always seems to be my busiest week day.

Every second Tuesday I have a guitar lesson with Geoffrey and every week I have a AA volleyball league game at Tyee.

This week we lost 3 sets to 1 to the top team in the league. It's respectable as I think this is the most competitive AA league in town (all the other AA leagues I've been on seemed much less intense). In this league I get the privilege of playing with some very very capable players including David Dickman (former IE guru) and GerhardS (for those of you 'at the company'). I think Dave's still a bit bummed I missed our Sunday game at the Eastside Catholic High School... It didn't help that I told him I may go to Whistler again next week. I actually think I played fairly decently this week which is good news.

At my guitar lesson we worked on a classical piece called Dance (we of course added enough distortion to make it sound like something from a Yngwei Malmsteen album). The piece changes keys more times than I care to talk about, but mainly sticks to A Aeolian, A Harmonic Minor, E Harmonic Minor and I believe there's a B Lydian thrown in there somewhere for good measure. Or at least for a measure... This week was the melody and rythm, next week we'll be playing Arpeggios over the cord changes.

So a couple of things I forgot to mention about Whistler...

After losing both my driver's license and visa Cheryl called into the lost and found. She gave my name and what I had lost. The person on the other end of the phone immediately asked if I was related to Madame Sauve (for those of you that don't know my mom is a french teacher in Northern Ontario who is always referred to as Mme. Sauve). I though that was quite interesting.

Anyhow... Another interesting thing is that while we were in the backcountry Jen had a pretty bad spill and hurt her wrist. We didn't think too much of it, but after checking with a doctor they believe it may be broken. We'll have to monitor that one...

And for any folks out there who are looking for something to do, try helping the city of Sault Ste. Marie design a better web page. Their current one looks like crap.

I guess the answer was 'To whistler' ...

So I drove up to Vancouver Friday night. Waking up at 6:30am is never something I enjoy, but somehow when it's to drive to North America's premiere ski destination it doesn't feel so bad.

Cheryl and I hit the lifts at around 9am Saturday morning and met up with Jen and Glade at around 11. For those of you who don't know Jen and Glade, they're Vancouverites who tele-ski and quite well I might add. The last weekend we went to Whistler we skiied with them and did the double-black diamond tour of Blackcomb hitting at least 10 of the marked double-blacks. This Saturday we mainly did cruiser runs including a series of peak-to-base runs on both mountains. Turns out if you start at the top of the Blackcomb glacier and race to the bottom you can get down in about 10mins. Same thing from the Whistler peak to the Longhorn bar. You really have to watch out for ski schools and slow folks near the base though (and pretend you can't hear people yelling at you to slow down).

It snowed a good 4 inches overnight so we decided to head up for a second day of skiing. We hit Whistler for some decent snow. Although the visibility sucked in the morning it did clear up in the afternoon, and hitting the Whistler backcountry was something that really made my weekend. We hiked around the Flute/Oboe/Piccolo area and found some decent turns. Although I lost both my driver's license and visa the day netted out to be a success.

Couple of interesting things I found out this weekend... Apparently you can buy a backcountry pass at whistler for around $25... Not sure though, because I can't find the info on Whistler's site (probably by design). Also, Glade may be able to get me a deal on a mountain bike which would be cool. One last thing... Hamburger helper does in fact come with the pasta, and don't be fooled, it may look like it's not enough, but I challenge you to eat it all...

To whistler or not to whistler? That is the question.

I decided to put all my boarding stuff in the car last night, so I'm ready, but I still don't know if anything is happening this weekend in Seattle. It's supposed to be raining around here this weekend, so Alpental, Crystal, and Stevens may not be stupendous.

Due to popular demand I've included the link to my previous homepage.

Ah, the snowboardless weekend.

5" of new powder Saturday, but nobody wanted to go for whatever reason. Alpental would probably have been good enough, but instead I bought a helmet, webcam, Spinal Tap, got a haircut and went to the gym to play basketball. Sounds like I'm preparing for something, but they're all unrelated. At least my bathroom is now clean. Went to a party at Evan's place Saturday night.

Sunday morphed from being the day to snowboard, to the day to do random things. Went to Puetz on Aurora to "try out" some golf clubs... They have a range at the shop, so as long as you're trying out clubs you can hit range balls for free. Cheryl actually wanted to buy golf clubs, so I figured I may as well try out a few at the same time. Looked at some forged Mizuno irons. They weren't forgiving, but felt pretty good when hit properly. Then went out to Golden Gardens to see if there was something to see. The beach was pretty interesting with fire and knife jugglers and some beach v-ball being played. Went home, made a stir fry and then went to Seattle Pacific University to play with my Steel Wall of Doom volleyball team. I hope next weekend is more exciting.