12.27.2011

I am right at the heart of a 13 day straight stint at work. I am pretty tired, but pressing on. Holidays are tough for resort employees, and, right now, I am feeling the blow. It is tough, but there is money coming in, which is a really good thing, and it isn’t like I can’t complain about the work too much. I mean, I get to go out and ride my snowboard all day, that isn’t a bad thing. My only work related complaint is our class sizes. Teaching 10 first-timers how to ride is bad for the people taking the lesson and equally bad for the instructors. Everyone would have a better experience if we could trim those down a bit.

Christmas came and went. I stayed busy, so it wasn’t horrible, but I did find myself missing home quite a bit. My family is really great and I really value being able to spend time with them. I don’t know if I can do Christmas away from home every year.

We still haven’t gotten any snow, but I am really not that upset about it. As much as I would like some good powder riding, I am a park rider at heart, and the minimal park northstar has set up is better than anything I have ever experienced. I am seriously loving it. Actually though, I haven’t even rode northstar’s park in over a week. I have been hitting up boreal after work though, and I really like it. The features are all huge, but that is good for me. I need to be forced out of my comfort zone sometime.

The people out here are interesting. I am meeting a lot of different people with different life stories which is really interesting and I am almost never alone, but it is difficult because everyone just likes to party so much. It is hard being the kid that just wants to go home and play silly games and go on sober adventures with people out here. I haven’t really found that community I desire yet, which kind-of bums me out.

I guess though, having said all of this, things are going well. I am still enjoying my time and getting this whole ski-bum thing out of my system. I don’t know if I can do this forever, only time will tell, but I can say that I will enjoy it while it is happening. I am trying (unsuccessfully) to not think too much about the future, and to just enjoy life in the moment. If I only take one life lesson from this adventure, I want it to be that; to just enjoy life now.

Living.

“What if, you know, what if we just give in to it, and say this is what (life) is, then it gets good, and its fighting it that makes it so bad.” – Through Painted Deserts (Donald Miller).

Donald Miller’s books never cease to blow my mind. I always feel like they are written just for me, and I seem to always read them at the perfect time.

I’ve been thinking about life a lot lately. Life and happiness, and what it means to be happy in this life. I feel like I am in a constant pursuit of happiness, which I don’t feel is uncommon. Every decision I make is in hopes that I can finally find the life that makes me happy. As it turns out, I am a hard person to please. My lifestyle is really good. I travel to cool places, only work jobs that I am passionate about, and spend a lot more time doing things I love than doing things I don’t love. I have made drastic decisions for no other reason than to cut out things from my life that make me unhappy. Dropping out of school and moving to the mountains isn’t something that was a necessarily safe move, but it was one I felt like I had to do. All of these decisions and movements in my life to pursue happiness have led me to where I am now, and things are, all in all, going pretty well for me. I am pretty happy. I may even be happier than most. Still, however, I live with this constant and unavoidable feeling of wanting something more. I live with this feeling that I am still not doing it right. I am still constantly stressed financially, I still don’t really like having to get up early and go to work, I desire a strong community, and I miss things from back home. I still wonder what I am doing wrong. And it is when I worry about these things that I start trying to create these elaborate plans to fix everything in my life. I am obsessed with 5-year plans. I think less about how great the day that I am currently living is than I do about what I want to be doing 365 days from now. I can’t enjoy my life the way I truly desire to, because I am too focused on improving these small little details. I get told by many people that I am spontaneous, but, in all honesty, I couldn’t live in the moment if my life depended on it. And, really, my life does depend on it.

“I don’t want to think about life anymore, I just want to live it.” (Ibid)

I want to live and to love, and I want nothing more. I don’t want to worry, I don’t want to stress, I don’t want to know what I am doing tomorrow, and I want, more than anything, to be ok with that. I want to be able to wake up, look outside my window, and be truly thankful to be alive, truly thankful and truly happy with the life I am living. It shouldn’t matter if I have $2 or $2000 in my bank account, it shouldn’t matter if I know what I am doing next week Wednesday; all that should matter is that I am alive.

So, with all that being said, in the coming months and years I hope to make decisions that some may not understand, some that may turn out to be huge mistakes, some that put a smile on my face. I don’t know what these will look like, I don’t want to know, but I am hopefully taking strides to destroy these five year plans. Taking strides to live in the moment and enjoy the day, and to not worry about tomorrow. There are too many unhappy people in this world; I don’t want to be another one.

11/29/11

Today was a really good day. I didn’t go up the mountain; instead, I decided to sleep in. It was the first time I have slept in since I moved out here and it was really necessary. I went down to the skate park and cruised around there for a bit. Snowboarding stresses me out, but skateboarding centers me. I put too much pressure on myself to be good at snowboarding, but skateboarding is still really pure for me. It is just fun. It was also nice to be away from snowboarders and around skateboarders for the day. They really are a different breed. It has been really warm here all week, so I was able to come home and just sit on my deck for a couple hours and read. So good, so perfect, really. Now I am just feeling good. Everything is good.

I finished up training this week and got to teach my first lesson on Saturday. Because of the warm weather, ski school has been pretty slow, and it has been difficult for me to get work, but I am going to continue to bother people until I finally get on the schedule full time. Other than that I have just been doing a lot of riding. It has all been pretty great. I need to start making some money soon though, which is sort of stressing me out at the moment.

So yeah, I am one month in, and things are going well. I still feel like there is a lot I want to do here, and I am hoping I can get it all in. Time is flying right now. I do miss things back home, but I am trying to remind myself that I will be there soon enough, and until I get there I should ensure I have as much fun as possible.

11/22/11

 Tahoe is sick. It is probably one of the most incredible places to live in the world. The weather is perfect. 20’s at night and 40’s every day. Sunny 300 days a year. Great snow, Great Mountains. It is hard to complain. This is a really great way to live a life.

I started my training yesterday. Yesterday was more classroom type stuff, but it was still pretty interesting, but also kind-of boring. Today was on snow, so we kind-of got to explore the hills a bit. That was also fun, because it was snowboarding, and snowboarding is great, but we pretty much just stuck to green runs, which is whatever. I am having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I am a Vail resorts employee. It is a great company to work for, but it is still a multi-billion dollar corporation, that is solely profit motivated, and they don’t try to hide it. Some of the things said during training make me really upset, too. Like for instance, they were proud of the fact that they raised their prices to keep lower income clientele out to improve the experience for their higher income clientele. I really can’t stand behind a company that takes pride in that, but I mean, it is a really great company to be a part of. Right now, I am really conflicted on that whole issue, and I am anxious to see how I feel about it as time goes on. I am sure it will be a fine experience over all, but yeah, those weird political beliefs of mine are always standing in the way.

I really like riding at Boreal. Night riding there reminds me of being home. Small resort. Local focused. Super great vibes all the time. I wish I could just work there, but it would probably be really silly for me to move all the way out here to ride a resort smaller than Boyne. That northstar season pass is a big deal for me. And they give me a lot of money.

I don’t feel like I have much to say. This is good. All is well. I live in the mountains. I snowboard every day. Sometimes I go to Reno which is a pretty fun little city. I am meeting people, a lot of nice God believing folk who really value community. Which is nice, because I really value community, and I want to value community with them. I hope I can find some non-god believing folk who also value community, because I really like being part of those communities too. I am working on this. It is an interesting project. Making friends in a new place is an interesting experience and something that I am still trying to figure out how to do. I am going to a lot of random shows and spending a lot of time and money at that food coop. I hang out with snowboarders a lot too, which is pretty cool, but I need more in my life than snowboarders.

This is a pretty weak blog post; I am a pretty weak blogger. But yeah, this is the latest on my life. Now you know.

I moved.

I moved to the Lake Tahoe area. Specifically, Truckee, CA. It is absolutely beautiful here. The water, and the mountains, and the snow, and the rocks. It is hard to fully take in. I’ve wanted to do this for a really long time. To move to a place that is completely different from one I have ever lived in, to snowboard a lot, and maybe even to find some freedom in a lifestyle that is completely different from the one I was previously pursuing, one that is completely different from the “American dream.”



This is the lake.



Today marks my 2^nd week anniversary of being here. I flew in with my dad and had my car and my possessions shipped out to me here. I got a job as a snowboard instructor at Northstar-at-Tahoe, and moved into an apartment at the base of the mountain.

This is my apartment.

So far things have been going well, but off to a slow start. I’ve gone snowboarding quite a few times at a resort called Boreal. Their terrain park right now is better than anything I have ever ridden in Michigan and we are only a couple weeks into the season. I went to the skatepark that is 10 minutes away from my house once. It is pretty fun and flowy. I have never lived so close to a concrete skatepark, and it is going to be really nice to have around. There are a lot more nearby skateparks too that I cannot wait to check out. I’ve gone into Reno, NV a couple times (the nearest city) in search of community and friends that care about more than just snowboarding (not to say there is anything wrong with my snowboarding friends, there is just more to my life than the shred). I joined a cool food co-op in Reno. I had mixed feelings about it, but the people who run it seem rad (both meanings) and it seems like a good way to get my foot into the door of the activist community out here.

Last Friday I found this cool show space called The Holland Project and saw a ton of Reno’s finest bands play. I really enjoyed that place and plan on going back. It is weird, when you have already been established in a local music scene for so many years to move to a new city with a new scene where you don’t know anyone. All of this is a new experience for me and it is pretty fun and exciting, but also, it makes me appreciate a lot of what I had back home. A couple months ago, I pictured moving out here could be this great new start for me, where I could have the chance to get back involved in music and things I relate with my interest in music, that I had drifted so far away from back home. I still kind-of see it as that, but I didn’t think it would make me miss back home so much. I want to see familiar faces at shows, and know where to go with your friends after shows. I am sure I will develop that here, but for now it is just weird and I fear that I am not outgoing enough to really make the friends I hope to in such a short period of time.

In other news, Northstar-at-Tahoe opens Friday, and I can’t wait. It is going to be so great to ride some of the longest runs of my life which also happen to be right outside my door. What else? I cut my hair shorter. My dreads aren’t so out of control anymore.

This is me being half done.

Anything else, hmmm? Oh yeah, I like a boy. He seems to like me too, which is nice. He lives in Grand Rapids though, which is terribly inconvenient at this time. We Skype a lot, which is super uncool, but I still like it a lot. I miss him, and friends, and family, but I will be home soon, and until then I am going to try to have the best winter of my life.

This is the most recent picture of codi and I.

Artprize 2011.

It is safe to say that I know nothing about art, but it is also safe to say that I have strong opinions and that I know what I like and dislike. I believe that these personality traits make me overqualified for judging Artprize. So here it goes. I broke down the top 10, and here is who deserves to win:

(starting at the bottom)

10th Place- Rain


Ok, so maybe I just don't get it, and I am sure it took a lot of hard work and it means a lot to the artist, which is great, but to my untrained eye (which, once again, qualifies me as a judge) it just looks like a bunch of spinning paper hanging from the ceiling. Rad.

9th- "President Ford Visits Artprize."

Alright, so this one is really well done. It looks just like the guy. It is honestly art, but at the same time, it is honestly a huge gimmick. Seriously, the only people in the world who care about President Ford are people from Grand Rapids, and the artist was from freakin' Montana. I mean, maybe the artist is a huge fan, but to me it just seems like a way to pull at the heart strings of the Grand Rapids people and score some extra votes. Props on being good at what you do, but next year, create something that has meaning to you.

8th- Mantis Dreaming

Yeah, I don't really know. This one just doesn't do much for me. It is pretty cool that it is made from recycled trains or whatever, but yeah, It just doesn't stand out in my mind. That doesn't mean its not cool, there is just some heavy competition in these parts.

7th- Rusty

Probably the main reason that this one falls so far down on the list for me is that I am just really annoyed at how much everyone else seems to love it. Yeah, it is really cool, but it isn't THAT cool. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if someone decided to trade their newborn baby in for a replica of this thing. People love it a little too much for comfort. Oh, and I was going to stop there, but no, I am going to keep going. The artist's statement leaves me super confused. Great. It is a self-portrait, what does that even mean? I doubt you look anything like this dog. AND back to annoying people, stop pointing out what it is made out of in awe, "Oh look, license plates!" GREAT! That is what art is, it is stuff that is made out of other stuff. Shut up about the dog already!

6th- Grizzlies on The Ford

At first this one ranked pretty high in the annoying gimmicky category for me, but then I realized they are chainsaw wood sculptures or whatever, and the guy was from the area. That is pretty cool. I bet it takes a lot of talent to do something like that, and it is pretty impressive that the artist was able to include so much detail. Nice work Yo, tough competition though.

5th-Crucifixion

At first my gimmick meter was going off pretty hard with this one, but then I read the description about it being actually made for a church and the artist just not having time to do something just for artprize, and that put me a little more at ease. After 2 years straight of this artist putting in immaculate glass collages, or whatever they are called, it is no secret that she is super talented. Like, look, at that thing, it is pretty rad. Unfortunately, however, I can't put my gimmick vibes completely away, and this gets stuck at 5th.

4th-Metaforest

There is a couple reasons I really like this bad boy. It is cool that it is a permanent installation, and it will be making our city look better for years to come. It was also pretty sweet that the artist enlisted the help of the students at the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology. I guess the piece has something to do with empowering the youth through the arts too, and I really feel that the artist means it. When I went to see this piece, I watched him interacting with some rambunctious youth, and he was nothing but encouraging and inspiring to them. I think he really made those kid's days, and I am a sucker for that kind of crap.

3rd- Under Construction

I don't know why I love this so much, but I just can't help it. Every time I go near the BOB I can't stop staring at this human statue. It makes it even better that this dude is a local AND he is good at what he does. I think it is about time that we got some performance art in the top 10. What this guy is doing cannot be easy. He has been out there all day every day, making peoples day (yep, i said that). I have a feeling he would still be up there doing this every day with the same energy that he has now even if he wasn't in the top 10. Give this dude some money.

2nd- Ocean Exodus.

This is another guy who has submitted some pretty impressive crap two years in a row. This man can carve wood! This piece is smaller than last years, which will probably hurt him in the long run (which is stupid, but it is artprize), but it has some super amazing detail. This is real art. I could not ever do this crap. I like having this guy around too. This year and last year I just hovered around his work for a little bit listening to him talk. He is cool, give him some money too!

1st- The Tempest II

This thing blows my mind. It was one of the pieces that first caught my mind, even before the top 10. The picture does not do it justice but it basically all this hand cut paper that is arranged in such a way that it creates this weird multi-dimensional dream scape. It is the best. It deserves to win.

And that concludes my artprize write up. You are very welcome. And if you disagree with me, don't worry about it, I am not going to vote, because voting on art is stupid, so, when it all comes down to it, my opinion does not matter.

P.S. That dude with the magnifying class burning the wood at the BOB really deserves to win. I take back everything I said up to this point. Go watch him, it is crazy.

I am Troy Davis.

                It is official. On Wednesday, September 21^st 2011, a potentially innocent man was executed in the state of Georgia. Honestly though, at this point, the word “executed” sounds way too kind. The word “murdered” seems to me a much better fit. After all, that is all his death records reveal. The word “homicide” surely stands out more than any other word on that piece of paper, except, perhaps the name: Troy Anthony Davis. Davis was accused of killing an off-duty police officer of 20 years ago. The police officer was white, and troy, black. They may have looked different, but the cause of the death was the same: homicide. Since the murder, Troy has spent his life on death row. Four execution dates and one hell of a fight later the state finally succeeded. Troy Davis was executed four hours later than originally planned, at 11:08 PM. The Family of the slain officer looked on during the procedure hoping it would bring them some sort of peace of justice or… anything at all.
                What complicates the case is the doubt surrounding Davis’ guilt. Since the guilty verdict, 7 out of 9 witnesses have recanted their testimonies (one of which even reportedly claimed to be the actual guilty party). Members of the Jury have even stepped forward to voice their doubts surrounding Troy’s case. The case has garnered international attention, all calling for another trial.
                 Regardless of whether or not Troy is actually guilty, I am left with feelings of both deep sadness and strong anger. I wonder what went wrong to bring us to this point. To the point where we believe the best way to fight homicide is with more homicide. All we really seem to know how to do is perpetuate this violent cycle. While I understand the sadness of the family, I have to wonder what kind of people believe they will find peace only after another human being loses his life. Have we really fallen that far? Have we forgotten that inside each of us is a beating, bleeding heart? Have we forgotten that we are all created in the image of a God whose love and forgiveness for us goes beyond all understanding? Is it not much more beautiful to hear stories of redemption through forgiveness than stories of revenge through murder?
                But unfortunately it was not just the family of the officer that felt the best way to deal with their broken hearts was revenge. Today we seem to see that train of thought everywhere we look. This is the reason for these endless wars we find ourselves caught in. This is the reason neighbors don’t talk to neighbors. This is the reason kids all of the world have guns in their hands. We are trying to fill these empty spaces in our hearts with revenge, and we are drifting farther and farther away from love. We are drifting farther away from reconciliation. We are drifting farther away from peace. Our communities are falling apart and our world is full of pain and anger, and unless we can learn to forgive and love, our world will continue to crumble. This blood is on all our hands. We are all responsible, and the path to a better world starts with us. We must choose to fight evil with love, violence with forgiveness, pain with relationships, because as long as we sit by and try to find redemption in violence, we will not make it very far. We need to end this cycle.