Linkstew

The best letter ever written to the airlines - scroll down past the poker talk to the scanned images. Very funny.

Our trip to Mt. Bachelor (near Bend, OR) over new years was pretty awesome, and it was all thanks to Mr. Rick, who hooked us up with free frequent flier plane tickets and took care of all the other travel arrangements. All we had to do was get up early enough to catch the flight.

For reference, here are large trailmaps of the main mountain and the northwest mountain.

• Date(s): Wednesday, December 31st, 2003 through Sunday, January 4th 2004.
• Who: Rick, Tyler, me.
• Wednesday, December 31st 2003:
• This was just a travel day, but unfortunately, the only tickets Rick could get us left SFO at 6:50 am. Trisha being the saint that she is got up at 5 am and drove Tyler and I to the airport and then went to work and slept in her car for awhile. We got to Portland and met up with Rick, and then we all got on another plane and got to Redmond, OR around 10:30 am, only to discover that they took Rick's bag off the flight because they thought he wasn't on it. So the plan we had hypothetically discussed of going to Mt. Bachelor for a half day was dashed when we had to wait around Redmond for a couple of hours for Rick's bag to come in on the next flight. So we got breakfast at "Big O's Family Diner" (insert geeky joke about complexity here) where I had a pretty tasty omelette, and then we went back to the airport where we played cards until Rick's bag showed up.
• We got to Bend and checked into our hotel sometime in the early afternoon, and after sitting around for awhile we went to get an early dinner at the Deschutes Brewery Pub -- except Rick managed to lead us to the actual brewery instead of the brewpub. Of course, when I got home later that week and looked at the bottom of the 6 pack box of the Deschutes beer we had in the fridge, the distinction was quite clear...
• After hanging out at the brewpub for awhile, we headed back to the hotel and watched tv for awhile before going to bed a little after midnight... or so we thought.
• Friday, January 2nd, 2004:
• Though the clock was set correctly, the alarm was not, and we woke up at 7:20 am, which meant we didn't get to the mountain until 9 or 9:30 or so. It was a beautifully clear day that morning, and though the summit wasn't open when we got there, the northwest lifts were open, and the summit was quite visible so we had high hopes for the afternoon. We skied on Outback and Northwest that morning before heading back to the Sunshine Lodge for lunch.
• After I had some problems with the powder and my stance on the first day, I decided to move my stance back a spot, which resulted in a much improved riding experience. Remember folks: powder = lean back.
• Despite my adjusted stance, I still managed to take a few head first tumbles when my nose sank in a powder pit. But twice on Friday I managed to do a full forward flip in the powder, land on my board, and keep going. It was completely unintentional, and I clearly ate powder doing it, but the first time was right under the lift
• Since I've been desiring a Burton iPod Jacket, I figured I better decide if I actually like riding while listening to music. So I spent awhile that morning experimenting with listening to my iPod while riding. Unfortunately, I was trying to use the Apple provided iPod earbuds (I was afraid of falling with my normal earbuds that actually protrude into my ear canal), but they continually fell out of my ears, making the test next to worthless. I liked it alright when everything was working, but the earbuds falling out of my ears and the complication of having to unzip to adjust anything made the experience less than ideal.
• As we were returning to Sunshine Lodge for lunch, we saw a line of people at the summit lift (it wasn't actually running yet), and at the lodge we overheard someone say that the summit was open. "Yay!" we said. Unfortunately, by the time we finished lunch, conditions had taken a turn for the worse again and they had re-closed the summit. As it turned out, we happened to be eating lunch during the one hour that the summit was open in our four days there. Damnit.
• We spent the afternoon taking some runs on Pine Marten and Red Chair before calling it a day.
• That night we got some Mexican take-out on the way home before hitting the hot tub and calling it a night.
• Saturday, January 3rd, 2004:
• Rick once again failed to set the alarm (this time he set it to PM instead of AM), and once again we woke up at 7:20, but we got to the mountain a little earlier this time. However, it was snowing pretty seriously again, so the summit was again closed.
• We spent pretty much the whole day taking runs on Outback, because it was a little windy for Northwest. Heck, the top of Outback was a little too windy, which made getting away from the top of the lift awfully hard.
• I was nearing exhaustion by mid-afternoon on Saturday, so we called it a day a little earlier. Unfortunately, on the traverse back to Sunshine, I ended up going a little too low and ended up back at Pine Marten instead of Skyliner as intended, and on my second attempt from Pine Marten I accidentally fell into a wide flat bowl full of deep powder which took me quite a long time to crawl out of. By the time I made it back to the car, I was dead on my feet.
• We decided to go out one more time for dinner, but when we arrived at the random place we picked out of the phone book we found it smelled like smoke. Instead of eating there, we retreated to downtown Bend and wandered randomly around for a few minutes (by which point we were quite cold, on account of it probably being about 20-25 degrees out) until we came across a place called "On the Rocks." They had 24 beers on tap (at least 18 of which I like or probably would like), a very cute waitress, and for Tyler's benefit they were showing a football playoff game. Rick and I both had their "Garlic Tomoto Chicken Pasta" (which had chicken, sundried tomatoes, broccoli, and zucchini in some sort of white wine/cream cause), and we both thought was excellent. Basically, if I ever go back to Bend, this place is high on my list of places to go back to. And if you're in Bend, I highly recommend it.
• Sunday, January 4th, 2004:
• Rick finally set the alarm to the correct time, but failed to set the volume to any sort of useful level at all, so once again with the waking up at 7:20. Except half-awake Tyler heard Rick say "eleven twenty" which woke Tyler up pretty damn fast.
• Despite being totally exhausted at the end of Saturday, we somehow found some extra energy for another day.
• Rick and I both decided to demo gear so we could just have our boards packed, so I demoed an '03 Salomon Forecast 156 with '03 Burton Mission bindings. Honestly, the board felt a lot like my Custom, though maybe a little stiffer. I think it felt more stable once I got used to it, but I still had some problems because my stance was too far forward (which made for a serious problem in all that powder) so I kept falling forward on my head. The bindings still felt like Missions, though I think I liked them a little better than my stupid '02 Missions that I hated.
• It was stormy again, so one more time we spent some time in the northwest.
• I finally took a couple of painful falls on day 4: First, jumping off of a catwalk, I ended up fairly horizontal to the ground, and when I landed my left arm was extended and I kind of caught it and hurt my shoulder. It still hurts some, but thankfully at this point it mainly just likes popping all the time.
• Second, while traversing through some trees I found myself a little out of control on the board I wasn't used to. When I tried to stop, my toe edge slid out, and I ended up falling on my face and sliding into a tree. I ended up hitting the tree with the side of my calf, and I ended up laying face first downhill in the snow with the nose of my board caught on the tree. Tyler and Rick found me like that, pretty much unable to move. It took me quite awhile to scoot my way out of that damn tree well.
• After those too falls, I was pretty tired and hurt and feeling none too confidant, so I stuck to Pine Marten for the rest of my afternoon and called it a fairly early day around 2:30.
• General comments about Mt. Bachelor:
• Even though we never got to ride the summit, there was still a lot of terrain to explore and like there. The biggest problem we had with the mountain was probably just that there were a lot of flat spots. This was especially a problem given that we were practically drowning in powder at times. I wouldn't be surprised if it snowed an average of a foot a day while we were there. This meant that losing speed in a flat was a big problem -- because you'd get STUCK. Which happened to each of us. A lot.
• We particularly enjoyed exploring the northwest lifts (Northwest and Outback), and there was a lot of fun terrain to be found over there. If you can't get to the summit, that's where I'd recommend you go -- and that might not be a bad place to warm up in the first place.
• Instead of having a liftee visually screening lift tickets and badges, they had an entirely electronic system. Season passes had RFIDs in them, so you just walked up to the turnstile and it would let you through. Day passes had to be fed into a ticket reader that would then authorize you to pass through the turnstile. This allowed them to do things like have "point tickets" which assigned points to lifts, and as you rode lifts you used up your points. It also allows them to enforce their half day passes, and makes passes transferable to the locals who want to come up for an afternoon (every day kids asked me if I was done for the day). Overall it was a neat system, but it was kind of irritating to have to stop and feed my ticket into a machine every run -- especially when it stopped liking my ticket one day, or when my ticket string got tangled up in my jacket another day and tried to suck me into the machine.
• Other random notes:
• I bought some new Volcom Double Decker pants to replace the too-big pants that were my first item of snow gear. The new pants served me quite well, kept me drier than my old pants, didn't require suspenders, and are generally more stylish than my old pants. Best of all, instead of needing suspenders to keep the pants up, I now just need a belt. The only real problem I had with them is the velcro to adjust the waist size kept seriously scratching the back of my left hand whenever I tucked in my shirt.
• My new Flow bindings are awesome. I may devote an entire post to them later, but suffice it to say they were worth every penny. Not only are they much easier to get in and out of than my old strap in bindings, but once I got them adjusted, they performed much better, too.
• I believe this trip increased the number of planes I've been on from 5 to 9, so I still really find flying in a plane to be a novel experience. Looking out the window most of the trip wasn't that interesting because there were a lot of clouds, but lookign down at Portland was pretty cool, and I really liked looking at the bay area. On the morning flight, I was able to spot Berkeley campus. On the return flight I was really confused because the plane went past Oakland and then flew south to north along the bay. I was finally able to orient myself when I found the San Mateo bridge, which looks just as strange from the sky as from the bridge. If anyone knows, I'd really love to know the design decision behind why that bridge turns the way it does.
• Lessons I learned on this trip:
  1. Don't let Rick set the alarm, because he clearly doesn't know how.
  2. Don't "park" somewhere just because that's where your car got stuck, because you will have to deal with it later.
  3. I never thought I'd say this, but yes, there is such a thing as too much powder.
  4. Don't have anything to do with a Chevy Cavalier. Ever.

One neat thing is that after the trip, I didn't really feel sore and achy, despite having to work my way through all that powder. Granted, I was outright hurt in a few places, but even that hasn't lasted too long. It's nice to know that I'm getting stronger, which makes me look forward to riding that much more.

The Heavy Drinker's Guide to Iowa City.

Hm, how about I get drunk and pass on the plane on the way to Iowa City, and then I don't have to get off the plane? Yeah, that'd be alright.

So I described the concert as consisting of "Mink Car material and their standard concert staples," and to prove this, here's a breakdown (defining concert staples as things that were either on Severe Tire Damage or that I've heard every other time I've seen TMBG in concert):

• Mink Car - 9 songs (Out of 17 on the album. But thank god, they didn't play Mink Car, Working Undercover, or Edith Head. I can't emphasize enough how important the lack of those three songs is to me.)
• Standard Concert Material - 16 songs
• Other - 3 songs (Fingertips, Boss of Me, and Robot Parade)

But I reiterate that this did not bother me, and only makes me want to see a non-tour show more.

Second, with the help of alt.music.tmbg, I've reconstructed more concert quotes:

• As another part of the long intro to "Yeh Yeh", Flans told us that "This song is going to be featured in an upcoming monolithic Chrysler ad campaign. Of course, we drive the Ford product." But Linnell came back with "I hope there aren't any Chrysler executives in the audience. We... advocate Chrysler for others." This was especially funny, because during The Sun, everything on the sun was a gas, including "Chryslers, Fords, and GM Products."
• As a part of the intro to Lie Still, Little Bottle introduction, Flans was explaining The Stick, and Flans shared that "We're working on getting a Shure endorsement." After some confused shouting from the crowd, Flans clarified that "No, no, Shure is a microphone company. Shure microphones kick ass. *pointing at mic on the end of the stick* This is a Shure mic; see how it has the characteristic round end? These things are indestructible; Everything else we've used just stops working after about three or four bars into this song." (I remind you that The Stick, with it's Shure microphone on the end, is pounded repeatedly on the stage, to great effect.

Third, I wanted to touch on intensity versus new material. As I've mentioned, the concert was super intense, and the band was really into it, and Linnell was even smiling except for when he was glaring at the girl trying to give him a note (Linnell is notoriously afraid of fans. (I was so grateful for John when Dan (Miller) took the note when he was on Keyboard duty while Linnell was playing the sax.)) Uh, anyway, this was the second concert of this tour, and they'd been cramped up in cars for several days, and this is what I'm blaming the intensity on. But because of that, there was no road material (new songs written while on the road (Such as Working Undercover for the Man (I heard that when only half of it was written. They stopped halfway through and Flans said "We should write a second half for that song... Maybe we'll finish it for Los Angeles." (To which the crowd bood mightilly (San Fransisco does not like Los Angeles (Los Angeles, on the other hand, mostly ignores San Francisco and doesn't understand what the big deal is)))) or songs which were fresh in the rotation because they were tired of what they'd been playing for the whole tour. So what I'm saying is, there's a tradeoff to be had with tour concerts, but you don't get much choice in the matter unless you're willing to invest in plane tickets, because they do the tour in whatever order they feel like (Well, probably whatever order the manager feels like, but them's details).

Update, 2006-09-26: Comments have been disabled on this post due to excessive comment spam.

"Who's trying to open the door," I wondered when I heard a key jiggling in the front door. "Albert's in his room..." And then my other other other roommate Michael got home. "Oh yeah, Him."

Which was really convenient, because Saturday when I was cleaning up from dinner, I noticed a pot on the stove. "Hey, I wonder what's in that pot?" So I looked, and there I saw what was once pasta, along with a lot of what definitely was no longer pasta. *blink* *blink* I quickly put the lid back on the pan and decided I'd deal with it later. It'd been sitting there since Michael left, so I figured a few more days couldn't hurt it. But conveniently, he's back.

When he left? Oh yeah, he left on September 1st to visit the DC area, and then Missouri, and then New York. So that Pasta had been sitting there for at least two weeks. It's not a pretty sight.

*blink* *blink* New York?

Yeah, it's funny you should mention that. I got home on the evening of Thursday the 13th, and there was a phone message from one of those airlines saying "Your flight has been canceled." And I thought to myself "That's funny, I didn't have a flight... Oh yeah, Michael! Wait a second... Wasn't he supposed to be in... New York? Hmm..." So I mailed Keith (who Michael was visiting in Missouri) and got an update and Michael was safe and sound.

Which is good, because that means he can clean his pot of stuff formerly known as pasta.