I miss hanging out in the mountains and the ocean. Although I consider myself to be comfortable with domestic activities, I still feel a little stir crazy when I spend too much time indoors.

On Friday, we went out for dinner before Allan’s hockey game on Commercial Drive. The restaurants in this area are so diverse and GOOD. We decided to try out Marcello Pizzeria and Ristorante. We shared the margarita pizza and a tomato cream sauce fettuccine, as well as the focaccia to start. It was super tasty. And, they managed to get our dinner to us in about 10 minutes when we told them we were in a rush, even though they were at capacity. I’d definitely eat there again.

Photo Credit: MarthaStewart.com

Saturday went by in a blur. We spent a couple hours with Trev and Crista trying to find ice, and then finally found some public skating time at Bill Copeland arena in Burnaby. Then it was a mad dash to Granville Island to pick up the groceries for Amy’s birthday party which was also a dinner party. Spent about 2 and a half hours cutting, flattening, and rolling beef tenderloin for the Japanese themed potluck. I made Japanese Grilled Beef Rolls with Scallion Soy Sauce, stuffed with scallions, peppers and/or asparagus… a variation on this Martha Stewart recipe. I didn’t get any pictures but I’ll see if anyone from the party did. This was a new recipe for me, but it was a lot of fun to experiment.

I had a lot of fun! Everyone made some delicious dishes including teriyaki chicken, tempura, and Matcha cheesecake (YUM!). A lot of board games were played, and I’m pretty sure I saw a lot of Asahi beer disappear along with sake.

Sunday morning we had intended to go to Cypress with the free passes but I couldn’t go because when I woke up I was still seriously stuffed up and wheezing from all the cat and smoke exposure at the party the previous night. I hate allergies!

I’m so disappointed I didn’t get to go snowboarding on the weekend. I’m hoping to get out sometime this coming week. It’s supposed to snow!

We popped over to Granville Island again last night and I picked up some more beef tenderloin since we only had a little tease of it last night. I browned the beef in with pancetta, and then braised the beef in red wine, fresh homemade tomato sauce from scratch, and simmered for a while. I also added some fresh basil, spinach, and thinly spliced portobello mushrooms. You can see it here below served on some pappardelle noodles and topped with shaved Parmesan reggiano, bacon, and toasted pine nuts. It tasted really good but I was a bit disappointed it didn’t look better in the photo here.

Well, I gotta run. I’m just itching to get on the ice and I’ve got skating this morning! Hurray!

What did you guys do for the weekend?

Yes. It’s finally done.

It took a little while to edit this all together because of all the different cameras, the length of song, the amount of footage, and how busy I’ve been lately. It isn’t the best edit I could have done, but I think how fun the snowboarding trips this past holiday were comes across, and that’s what matters.

The HD snowboarding movie is cut to the song “Kids” by MGMT. This song was blatantly ripped off from Travis Rice’s That’s It, That’s All.

There’s two parts to the clip… the first is Christmas Day at Hemlock Mountain, and the second takes place over New Years Eve (and Day of course) at Apex Mountain in Penticton, BC. We had great conditions and lots of pow despite the sparse coverage for both trips.

Highlights include Christmas breakfast, lots of powder boarding, some jumps, some noobie boarding by yours truly, some great boarding by Allan, J, and Trev… the New Years Eve countdown, and lots of funny dancing. Oh, and keep your eye out for “The Zoidberg.”

Check out the video on Vimeo. You can also download the full video there to your harddrive if you don’t like streaming video. Let me know what you think!

It does seem like there’s a lot of waiting these days. I have some somewhat significant (bad and good) personal news to share, but it’s going to have to wait a bit.

My photography portfolio book finally arrived and I’m so excited to see it. I can’t wait to get home to see how it turned out. I’ve been editing the Holiday Boarding short mini snowboarding HD movie and it’s about halfway done. I should have it up tomorrow if all goes well.

In my gaming life, I finally finished Gears of War 2 (also finished Horde mode), and Prince of Persia. Both were fantastic. Next on the list: Trying out Left 4 Dead, Too Human, and eagerly awaiting Resident Evil 5.

Hockey/skating is going well in the mornings. I’m really enjoying the progress I’m making, albeit rather slowly. It feels good to skate around early in the morning before most of the world wakes up, and to get some exercise. I wish I was a better skater and I could just focus on the hockey portion, but sadly I’m having to start skating and stop being such a newborn deer As for snowboarding… yes! I am going up on Sunday to Cypress on some free passes which is always nice. Here’s hoping the weather cooperates (I hear that it won’t).

I no longer have my work Blackberry and so I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do about my personal cellphone. I have a really, really old Nokia from 6 years ago and I’m on Fido. The problem is that Fido doesn’t have any Blackberries, just the iPhone. I’m rather anti-Apple so that’s not really an option. Will Fido ever get Blackberries? I could switch to Rogers, but then I’ll lose the $240 Fido dollars I’ve accumulated. Argh. What should I do if I want to get a Blackberry?

In other Vancouver news, EA Black Box laid off 150-200 people today. They are closing down the studio. Also today, Microsoft announced they are going to lay off 5,000 employees. Scary, scary times. Let me tell you — no one is safe.

But I’m not all doom and gloom today… LOST was on last night and it was fantastic.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED LAST NIGHT’S PREMIERE EPISODE OR IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW LOST, I SUGGEST YOU STOP READING NOW.

Last night blew my mind. LOST never fails to deliver on season premieres and finales, but last night was special. I feel like, for the first time, I’m actually starting to understand the series. And I love it.

Best Moments of Last Night:

• Hurley throwing a hot pocket at Ben, and Ben’s subsequent eye squint
• Sayid nailing a guy with a frying pan right into sharp knives in a dishwasher
• Hurley’s gas station shirt
• Hurley’s 60 second recap to his mom
• Frogurt’s epic flaming arrow death (click here for animated GIF)
• Seeing Marvin Candle and Daniel Faraday in the same scene

Points of Interest:

• Richard Alpert gives Locke a compass to be Alpert’s “constant” during the time traveling. In previous episodes, Alpert gave the boy-Locke a test between a number of objects, including a compass. Alpert was intially excited when the young Locke picked up the compass, and was visibly disappointed when he chose the knife.
• The older lady from the end of the episode may look familiar. You’re correct. We saw Mrs. Hawking during Desmond’s time shifting as the lady who refused to sell him a ring for Penny, and as someone who tried to teach Desmond about the rules of time. You can read more about her here: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ms._Hawking
• Also of note about Mrs. Hawking is that she appeared to be doing some time calculations in the room under the church. She appeared to be plotting the locations of where the island has been. In Season 3 producer commentary, she is referred to as a “temporal policeman”… aka a TIME COP. COOOOOL! How cool would it be with a time police war? Mrs. Hawking and Ben vs. Widmore and co. Yes. Please.
• Is Jin dead? I really hope not. If he is I’m going to be REALLY upset. Some bright signs: His name shows up in the beginning credits for both episodes (usually reserved for main characters) and in the recap episode, the voiceover said that Sun “believe” Jin is dead. Maybe he’s not? Although showing the explosion again was almost confirmation that he is dead.
• In Season One, Locke found his legs not working… and in the premiere episode we saw him standing just about in the same place where this happened when he got shot.
• Desmond now an incredibly important character. The hatch implosion un-stuck him from time and fate, and so the rules no longer apply to him. It’ll be interesting to see how him and Faraday play out over the season.

Interesting Theories I’ve Read:

• That the numbers, which were of great importance in Season One, are part of the Velanzeti equation. They predict when the wortld will end. So perhaps Dharma Initiative’s goal was to change one of the values of this equation so that they can prevent the end of the world.
• Is Miles (the creepy guy who can talk to dead people) Marvin Candle’s son?
• The sickness and crazy behaviour that the French lady’s crew was talking about is actually time travel sickness, the same that Desmond had and now Charlotte is experiencing?
• Are the whispers on the island simply the survivors being able to hear themselves, except in the past or future when they time traveled?

MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE!

After three weeks of not snowboarding, I can only partially blame it on my canceled plans. What’s going on with the snow?

Here on the West Coast, we’ve had a tough snowboarding season so far. A late start to the snow, and even when it dumped a couple feet it still wasn’t enough to cover the rocks. Then came the cold front and more snow… but also more avalanches.

But for the past month, where has the snow been?

I feel like so much of my life these days is waiting for nature. Waiting for it to snow. Waiting for sun. Waiting for the right waves and tides and surf conditions.

Since I could run, most of my life has been spent playing basketball and field hockey throughout high school and university. Even activities like golf, waterpolo and ultimate frisbee that I enjoyed weren’t as reliant on nature as snowboarding or surfing.

These days in the absence of snow and the frigid waters and locked down budget, I’ve been turning to skating and learning to play hockey to fill the void. And I love it so far. And I’m going to keep doing it. But it’s just not the same.

There’s something about the wait that makes it so much better. Something about the wildness and randomness of nature that make snowboarding and surfing so exciting and different every time. I’ve found these sports so late in life but yet I feel like they’ve always been inside me and like I’ve been passionate about them forever.

And yet somehow I’ve become a huge nature snob! I should just get out there and snowboard and surf regardless of the conditions. Who cares if there’s no new snow! I could put on a bikini and go snowboarding like Tawcan and his friends did (skiing). Just enjoy the slush or the icy groomers. I could put on a wetsuit and brave the cold and still enjoy the crazy surf conditions right now.

Hm, somewhere along this post I’ve convinced myself to just get out there.

Instead of just waiting for Nature, I’ll go to Her!

I’ve really managed to luck out! As I mentioned a month ago or so, I lost my GoPro camera at Baker in the deep powder. I was really bummed out because it was a great little gadget that allowed me to take some really neat footage.

It’s amazing who knows who in this world. It just so happened that my CEO knew the CEO of the GoPro company, Nick Woodman. So thanks to Nick and Justin over at GoPro, they replaced my camera and the suction cup mount totally free! I’m so grateful to have my favourite little toy back.

The GoPro Digital Hero 5 camera is a miniature digital camera, that you can attach with a number of different mounts to just about anything. Surfboard, snowboard, car, bike, etc. It’s 5 megapixels and it’s got a wide angle lens which is perfect for sports. It can record both photos and videos. If you’d like to find out more about the camera or purchase one, just head over to their website here. (Note: I wasn’t paid or asked to write this post!) Check out some of the photos I’ve taken with it below:

In other news, I’ve been working hard on two projects this month since I haven’t been snowboarding in a while. I’ve finally completed my photography portfolio after working for a year on this thing. I just ordered the hardcover version of my book and I should have it in my hands this week. So excited! If it turns out well, I might offer some up for order online if anyone else is interested.

I also have been working on my video application for http://www.islandreefjob.com. I’m super excited, and I think I could actually do a really great job. Stay tuned for the video. If anyone has any funny/entertaining ideas for the 60 second video, please let me know!

I’ve also been working on putting together footage from boarding over the holidays but it’s taking a little time.

Ah Monday mornings. Back to work! I hope everyone is having a good Monday morning so far, and I hope you all have an even better week! Best of all, LOST starts again on Wednesday. I can’t wait!