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!

Well, I’m back from Apex Mountain and we all had a great time there snowboarding for New Years!

I can’t believe it is 2009 already. 2008 was a year full of ups and downs, surprises, excitement, and many happy moments.

In 2008 I…

… rang in the New Year’s at Disneyland, finishing up an amazing one-month-long surfing, snowboarding, and scuba diving road trip throughout the States to Portland, San Francisco, Tahoe, Death Valley, Mammoth Mountain, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Snowbird Mountain, Idaho, Mission Ridge Mountain, and Washington…

… went snowboarding at Big White, Whistler, Cypress, Mt. Washington and Apex…

… parted ways with the first video game company I worked for… and moved to a new, dynamic video game company…

… took a three week trip to Costa Rica for some warm water surfing and travelling…

… went camping, partying, and surfing in Tofino dozens of times…

… caught some seriously large Halibut going deep ocean fishing…

… enjoyed grocery shopping at Granville Island every week…

… traveled to Korea for business…

… and Japan…

… started to learn to skate and play hockey…

… sold my Nikon D80 and got my grubby little hands on a new camera set up with the Nikon D90…

… started working on an HD snowboarding movie project…

… went to Trevor Linden’s retirement night…

… completed my AST-1 Avalanche Training course…

… went to Apex to finish 2008 and welcome 2009!

I couldn’t be happier with how this past year has gone. I feel like I’ve learned a lot, tried new activities, grown as a person, realized how wonderful my friends are, made some new friends, and saw lots of new places.

Plans for 2009:

• Take more photographs of people, improving my fashion and portrait photography
• Grab better, more steady footage for HD snowboarding movie project
• Travel somewhere warm
• Travel somewhere cold
• Keep apartment clean and tidy
• Cook even more
• Do something active at least once a day
• Not worry about what anyone thinks of me!
• Finally finish Gears of War 2 because I’ve been a complete slacker

Thank you to my friends, family, loved ones, and coworkers who have filled the past year with so many laughs, hugs, discussions, activities, and happy moments! I hope you all have an amazing 2009.

Today, Whistler opened. I’m a little peeved at them for opening a day earlier, but that’s okay. I still love you, Whistler. I’ll still be there for you tomorrow for the opening of Blackcomb and some more chairs and terrains. Sure, it’s only a 55cm base and I’m going to scrape up my already scraped up snowboard. But at last, the long wait is over.

There’s something deeply satisfying about digging out my snowboard jacket, pants, gloves, helmet, goggles, and underlayers from the closet… wiggling my toes around in my stiff snowboard boots… and unzipping my board in its bag to make sure it is as fabulous as I remember.. and then laying it all out on the floor by the door so I don’t forget it tomorrow morning. Make sure my camera batteries are charged. Check. Make sure the lenses are clean. Check. Make sure I’ve got my 2-for-1 Whistler Blackcomb tickets from the Warren Miller movie printed, check!

I thought a good way to start off this season would be to recap where I’ve been, in terms of snowboarding/skiing resorts. It’s not as big as some people’s lists, but I’ve really enjoyed every mountain I’ve gone to… each one is so different.

MOUNTAINS I’VE BEEN TO OVER THE PAST 2 YEARS

1. Whistler Blackcomb

2. Cypress Mountain, Vancouver

3. Seymour Mountain, Vancouver

4. Mount Washington, Vancouver Island

5. Apex Mountain, Penticton

6. Big White, Kelowna

7. Manning Park, near Hope

8. Mount Baker, Washington

9. Mission Ridge, Washington

10. Squaw Valley, Tahoe

11. Mammoth, California (Yup, that’s an avalanche)

12. Snowbird, Utah

13. Steamboat, Colorado

(Yes believe it or not, I used to be a skier just one and a half years ago!)

In the next two years I hope to visit…

- Alaska
- Jackson Hole, Wyoming
- Alberta
- More interior BC for catboarding
- Somewhere on the other hemisphere (New Zealand, Argentina etc)

One can only dream!

Where have you been, and where do you dream of going?