Joyce Beak, 1921 - 2006

Rest in peace Nan :'(

Yay! I didn't fail Business Accounting!!

Not a long rambling update this one. I just wanted to reassure you all that as well as enjoying myself here in BC I've also managed to do some studying.

I just got my mark back from my last mid-term exam - Business Math. Now this is significant for me for two reasons. Firstly (and a couple of you will know this) I like maths. I've always liked working things out in my head so I'd like to think I'd do okay in Business Math.
And secondly, in a recent (practice) test I only got 30% which is obviously a fail and a bit of a shock to the system! So for this exam, I was just praying that I'd get better than a "D" which is the minimum pass mark.

So, what did I get? D? C-? C+ maybe? Well no, actually I got A+ !!!!!!!!!!!
Needless to say I was happy! So my grades for this set of exams were:

B, B, A-, A+, A+

Not bad even if I do say so myself!
Hmmm, maybe I should go skiing to celebrate!!! LOL!

Later dudes!

Bend zee knees!

Skiing's a funny thing. Sometimes it's easy and you just flow down the mountain in a vision of smoothly controlled precision....

......and then there's days like today. Arms flailing, legs in every direction and generally very entertaining for everyone watching from the ski lift!

This is the view from the top of Grouse Mountain. You may want to click on the pic to get a better view





So what went wrong today? I'm not really sure. Yes the trails on Grouse are steep and yes, the conditions were difficult. In fact there was even a sign at the top of the double-black "conditions are marginal" it said. I think what they really mean is "this trail should be closed but we know you idiots will ski it anyway so its open just for you loonies!" So anyway, after a couple hours of struggling in the "marginal conditions" it started to rain (at the bottom/snow at the top)

This is the famous view of the city from Grouse - see countless Ski, Snowboard and Bike DVDs to see what I mean















But then a funny thing happened. Even though conditions were getting worse (the heavy snow was getting still heavier with the rain) my skiing improved. So I stayed, and over the next hour or so I got better and better (and wetter and wetter!). By the time I left, I was ripping down the steepest, narrowist bits like someone who actually knows what they're doing!




















So why am I prattling on about my skiing I hear you ask? Well there is a moral and here it is.... LEAN FORWARD when you ski. From snowplow to double-black, it works. Nobody likes a back seat driver so next time you go skiing, do yourself a favour and lean forward.

Later dudes.

Spendor Sine Occasu

....or if you dont speak Latin, "Beautiful British Columbia"
I could tell you all about the coat of arms, what the flowers are, why the sun was moved from above to below the union jack and even what the lion on top is wearing but maybe I'll save it for another day.

Yesterday I went on a trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island with the "Language Buddies" - did I mention them before? Its a group of Native English speaking and non-native-English students who get together to talk and practice the languages. Anyway, they do trips every couple weeks - regular readers may remember the Chinese new Year a few weeks back.

We met early and piled on the bus - a genuine North American School bus - like being on TV!















Ferry ride was about 90mins but there was plenty to look at if you didn't mind freezing your ass off - the temp was around zero!















Awww, pretty...















They regularly get whales swimming through this channel on their way to, err, well somewhere I guess! Hmm, maybe I should do more research before writing these??!!















Actually, I cheated here. These two were on a poster in the ferry terminal! hahahaha















I'll have to come back in summer, the islands are gorgeous















although the public transport is quite backward!!!

Once in Victoria we went to the wax museum.....did you know Madame Tussaude started off moulding the dead faces of execution victims from the comfort of her prison cell?















Jesus......















....it was Super!




















and just a little bit morbid! (one of these heads moved to scare the tourists - well it scared me anyway!)















Next was the proper museum across the street. Quite interesting to learn a bit about BC history - did you know even now more than half the BC income is from the lumbar industry?
Their "guest" exibit was all about the Sixties with most of it about The Beatles but not suprising really as its by Linda McCartney. They even had John Lennon's yellow submarine - although I could swear it was a Rolls Royce?




















Last stop was a tour of the Legaslative building (parliment to you and me) which again was interesting but personally I could have done without the constant comparisons to the American congress etc.















Some of the buddies waiting for the tour - smile!















This is where all the magic happens..... well they argue a lot and make laws anyway!
















And that was it. Back on the bus and head home. It was a great day so thanks to Lisa, Leanne and Andy for organising it and looking after us.

.....and no. I dont think Victoria seemed British - aside from the London Bus!
But it was beautiful, so I guess we'll let them keep the coat of arms :-)

Fresh snow and film festivals

It rained a load last night........which meant it was snowing up top!
What else could I do but go out and play.....





















I stayed local and went to Cypress and there was indeed 4 to 6 inches of the fresh stuff. mmmmm powder! It was a bit wind blown so there was a bit of crust in places but not too much of a problem for my lovely new skis!
















t'was a lovely day to be in the mountains. Being a week day there was hardly anyone there so it was normal to have a whole run to myself. Sweet.
















I dont really know why but some of the runs were shut - including my favourite two - the longest black and the steepest one. Ah well, just had to rip up all the others instead!!





















The trees up top were pretty. Fluffy.




















And I've now worked out that if you have no person to ski with - ski with an ipod! I downloaded some new stuff last night so I had my own soundtrack all day. Skiing's pretty rythmic... turn, turn, turn, turn etc so music is great to ski to. Turning in time to the beat, it makes it even better! I love my ipod....thanks Ma, Tim and Sis.
















And tonight it was the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival Biking night. After a short demo by none other than Ryan Leech, we saw previews of Roam (from the makers of The Collective) and the Red Bull Rampage Retrospective. Plus, a fantastic unicycle film ("Defect" I think) and a couple others. It was very good. I cant wait to see Roam.

Well, its late so I'd better get to bed. I've gotta get up early tomorrow to meet up for the College outing to Victoria (on Vancouver Island)!

Nite folks

I'm soooooo tired.....

.....from soooo much skiing yesterday.

Moi, Dennis, Timo, Andy and Earl on his knees (again)
















I think one of the best things about Vancouver is the fact that you can drive 90 mins and you're in Whistler. Very do-able as a day trip - as I proved for the 4th time yesterday! I picked up Earl, Andy, Timo and Dennis at 6.30am and we were there around 8 (although by the time we rented gear, got a lift ticket and fed Earl is was more like 10am on the lifts!)
















It was very sunny but -12 which meant for a frozen face once we picked up a bit of speed - which we did quite a lot today. The weather did mean lots of sunny photos though as you will notice. This is Andy, he's in his 20's, comes from Indonesia and thinks -12 is FREEZING - he's probably right!















This is me trying not to fall off the edge of this black run into Whistler bowl - the run itself was in the shade so very icy and the odd light where you couldnt see the bumps - and it was very steep as you can see....
















This is the view up the same run from the chair lift. The one above was taken at the top of the little dip, just to the right of the sun in this one. This lift was interesting - just as you get almost to the top of the HUGE cliff, you have to lift the safety bar to get off - I insisted on keeping it down until we were past the cliff!!





















In between lots of black run madness, we did one of the longest runs ever - Peak to Creek which drops down from the same high point as above right down to the lowest on the ski area - 5020ft or almost a mile of vertical drop. Sweet. Here's the view from around half way, - Peak to Creek goes right from the, err, Peak along behind the ridge and down to the left in the picture - we had just turned off onto Big Timber - a black which goes down to the same place. Yup it was that good we just had to go again!
















We had our timing working for us today. We managed to jump on the last lifts right back to the top again just before they closed :-) Then had our final run down the mens downhill course - the one they're using for the next Olympics. Here's Timo (Finland) standing in front of the sign for the downhill















And thats about it. We did a little window shopping - its compulsory with so many shops this good and headed home. We stopped at Squamish (half way home) to eat. My first time in a White Spot - mmmmm food!

Right, better get back to the math - I've got the exam at 8am tomorrow! Eeek!

Grrrr! Exams!

It's not much fun being a student in the middle of mid-term exams. I've had three so far with one more tomorrow (Friday) and one on Monday - Accounting at 8am - oooo I can't wait! Well actually I can wait cos I'm not doing so great with it - it's not that I can't do the math - its more like I'm too slow at understanding the double-dutch questions and working out which equations to use. BUT I'm optimistic - you have to be right?

On a more positive note, I've had a B and an A+ in the two I've had back so far which I'm very happy with - lets just hope I can keep it up!

After one of the exams (on Valentine's Day) I de-stressed with a bit of a ride on my trusty Foreplay - Gees (as Barb would say) I love this bike! It rocks on The Shore. Mind you, only a couple more weeks before my new ride rolls in :-]

So here's a pic by Barb of me on the new section of Corkscrew...




















The past week or so has been beautiful weather here. Not a cloud in the sky makes for fantastic sunrise/sets - and I get to see both on my daily commute - Vancouver really is a beautiful place (when it's not raining!!!). They say its going to be -6 tonight with windchill sending it down to -16 brrrrrrrrr!

Well, back to study! Later dudes....

Just nippin' up the road

I haven't done a lot of exercise since I got here so I thought it was about time. To ease myself into it I decided to take a quick ride up the road. So I got on the bike and headed up the hill....

....and 95 minutes of climbing later I arrived at the top - about 3000ft above where I started! Mad dogs and Englishmen eh?

This is the view from Deep Cove lookout, about 2/3 of the way up.
















Much more fun on the way down though! :-)

A(nother) day in the mountains

It wasnt raining again today (that's almost a week now folkes!) In fact this was the sky this morning.
















I picked up Andy (from school) at the Quay at 9am along with Dennis from Gemany and we headed up to Cypress. This is Mount Strachan, which is one of the two mountains that make up the ski area.
















This is the view from the top of Mount Strachan, looking in the same direction as the pic above. As you can see, we're not that far from the city - although 5000ft above it!















We had a fantastic days skiing - well I was skiing the other three were snowboarding - yes three. Did I forget to mention Earl? He's Andy's usual (Canadian) snowboard buddy who met us there and kind of became our unofficial guide for the day.
















Earl was a great guide cos he took us down almost every run on both mountains - even the "double black" ones - despite the fact that Andy wouldn't try to turn on the steep stuff! And beleive me, there was some pretty steep, steep stuff! This is the run off the (almost) top - one of my favourites.















And this is the view when you come out of the trees on "Slash" - another favourite!
















I almost hit a HUGE stump on slash so I thought it was a good time to stop and do the tourist thing - take a photo!
















But all too soon, the day came to an end - well, we were all pretty tired after 5 hours on the mountain. I managed to drag Andy and Ethan up for another run from the top while Dennis went for a beer. Here's Earl (looking pensive so he said) and moi. The really observant among you (yes, I'm talking to you SARA!) will notice I'm wearing a really old bike jacket but it was perfect for skiing today. (Apologies for boring the pants of everyone there for a second)
















So we joined Dennis for a beer and headed off. It was just getting dark so the view of the city was pretty cool. You can just make out the white peak of Mount Baker in the USA just above the horizon on the left of the pic















So thats it for another ski day in BC - my 5th so far and even if I do say so myself my skiing is getting much better. I've been trying to ski the bumps but when you point down the hill they come sooooooo fast but I'm getting there, slowly. I think I need to go shopping though - for a helmet - I'd never thought about it before as you dont really ski in the trees in Europe but here in BC its pretty normal. Maybe I'll have a look before the next ski day.

Oh and for anyone (in England or Menorca) that isn't sure, BC stands for British Columbia
Later dudes....

In response to popular demand here is a Groundhog!

The boring commute. AND vote now for my summer plan!!

Same old scenery on the daily commute - well at least you know which way is home... head for the mountains!
I live about a quarter of the way up the right hand one - Mount Seymour















So I have a decision to make. As you know my plan is to spend a year studying here. The actual plan was to do the studying in two semesters, Spring (Jan-Apr) and Summer (May-Aug) and find some work or bum around for the last few months up to Christmas when my visa runs out.

Well, it seems I was not told the complete truth. The classes I need to finish my course are probably not going to be available in the summer! So this leaves me with some options:

1. have the summer off and finish the course sept-dec (watch out world here I come for a four month summer holiday - if only I could get an old double decker?!) (yes yes, showing my age!)

2. do the courses that are available in summer and finish off sept-dec (lots of time on my hands to ride, ski, swim or whatever all summer with a light college load but have to stay locally to attend the classes!)

3. try to do the missing courses at other colleges in Vancouver - a bit messy - could have me attending 4 different colleges!!! Get to meet lots of people though going to 4 different places!!

Well, I wont know which classes are available until mid march so until then I'll be looking into the other colleges............... and flights all over the world - want to meet me somewhere exotic - suggestions on the comments please!

CASH PRIZES will not be awarded to anyone.

SO WHAT SHOULD I DO? VOTE NOW!

The sun is shinin', time for ridin'

I guess it doesn't actually rain EVERY day here in winter. This morning I woke up to brilliant sunshine through the window so although it was tempting to blow off the whole day of study and go skiing I compromised and went for a ride. Fortunately Barb wasn't working so we headed up Seymour with the hardtails for a quick lap.

It felt sooo good to be ripping down the trails again - its been a month since I rode my bike!
Here's Barb at the Lookout - Harley doesn't like her photo taken so is making a sharp exit!














Thanks Barb.

Thur Feb 2nd - Happy Groundhog Day

Yes that's right, it's Groundhog Day!

Today's the day when the world (ok North America) waits patiently for the Groundhog to emerge from his hole to see if winter will last another six weeks OR there'll be an early Spring.

Well, he came out and did not see his own shadow so it's an early Spring for Canada - although the most famous Groundhog - Puggsatorny Phil (you can bet the spelling needs work on that one!) did see his shadow so the US will have more Winter - hahaha!

What the hell is a "Groundhog" anyway!!