Hawaii trip booked!

With work slowing down for a split-second I booked a last minute trip to Hawaii for Amanda and I. We're staying on Waikiki beach, Oahu at the Princess Kaiulani hotel. I found the fare on www.travelzoo.com. This site is great for finding good travel deals.

Does anyone have recommendations on places to see on Oahu? I'm new to the islands.

Highest snowbase of the year

Mt.Baker has announced it's highest snow-base of the season. With over 100" of base they are going to be in full operation this weekend! On Easter Sunday I was there at 8am waiting for the lifts to open. The morning was great with knee-deep snow and no lift-lines. I launched some sweet drops and carved many virgin turns. It got a bit wet after lunch and the lack-of wax on my board made it very tiresome to ride. Hopefully the freezing level will be good this weekend and we get some nice blue-bird powder days.

Stevens Pass may open and, surprisingly, Snoqualmie is back in operation.

Concrete and powder

I've signed up for my first motorcycle track-day of 2005. It's in late May at Spokane raceway. Cam and I are heading down there and I'm excited to kick-off the season. I've seen some videos and pictures of the track and it looks fun. I have to figure out how I'm going to get my motorcycle around for track days this year. The choices are either buy a pickup-truck, get a vehicle with a hitch for a trailer, or rent something to carry it around. I'm not sure yet. I test-drive a 2005 Nissan Frontier but I'm interested in a used pickup truck. In related news Mottie sent me an article on a fuel-celled motorcycle.

Work is still busy but I've acquired a new 20.5" Dell LCD which helps my eyes survive. Today is sunny and I hope to setup the slack-line outside for a few minutes.

I can't believe that the mountains received some more snow. Mt.Baker is reopening on Thursday and it will be amazing as they have had a huge dump. If anyone can make it I'd suggest going.

Wakeseason approaches

Well I'm eagerly waiting for the wakeboarding season to start. Hopefully the weather will continue to be amazing this spring. I've already got the training video 'Higher Education Volume I' but now I'd like to buy some other videos to get pumped. www.totalvid.com has some free previews which is helping me decide. I get a kick out of 'Shock and Awe' which uses military vehicles to pull boarders on the Pacific. Maybe I'll order one online before I actually purchase the DVD. I wonder... is there any site that does a 'rent to own' thing?

Dan posted some pictures from last Saturday's ride to Leavenworth. The ~250 mile ride was very sunny and only cold at the top of the passes where there was still snow on the sides of the roads. We passed Stevens Pass and Snoqualmie ski hills which look as bare as the middle of summer!

RIP 2004-05 snow season. On the plus side every ski shop is having 50% off sales. If you're going to buy gear for next season get it now. Ebay also has some amazing deals on snowboards at this time of year.

Check this out: Stevens Pass has announced a letter is being sent to 2004-05 seasons pass holders concerning next year's season. What will it say? I had a mid-week seasons pass which was only used twice.

Slacking

Sunday I woke up to another beautiful sunny day. Since I had nothing planned (except procrastinating on my taxes) I decided to get a slackline setup. Slacklining is a rock climber pastime similar to tight-rope walking except on a slack line of 1" wide webbing. Here are a couple of pics of me trying it for the first time last year.

After searching the web and finding some interesting resources I headed off to REI and proceeded to buy the gear. Long story short I learned to tie knots for the first time and got it set up in the back yard. I can walk up and down the line now and am working on staying up longer. My stabilizer muscles are killing me!

Here are pics of people doing the same thing very high-up (highline):

• Redrocks
• Alps 1
• Alps 2

I think 3 feet off the ground is good for now.

Another week OVER

Well it's Friday and DAMN am I happy. This week I've been working like a dog. Actually, how hard do dogs work? They just sleep all day. Amanda visited Seattle last weekend for a test and we went for a ride to the Ballard locks and Golden Gardens. Here are some photos.

Tomorrow Cam, Dan and I are riding out highway 2 to Leavenworth and back along highway 97/I-90 to Seattle. We'll be back around dinner if all goes well. The weather is supposed to be fantastic! Speaking of motorcycles, checkout the new blue-tooth enabled helmet from BMW. I want one.

For you cat lovers... here's something to waste away the afternoon.

Life on other planets

Here are a couple of cool links before the weekend. Discovery.com has a neat article about possible life in the oceans of Europa (Jupiter's second largest moon). Many scientists are skeptical about finding life in this solar system but one article I've read explains how some extra-solar planets (we've found about 30 so far) could be suitable for multi-celled organisms. I hope we locate them in my lifetime because then I might be able to believe that we're not the only sentient creatures in the universe. I'd like to think if we kill ourselves off that space won't just be a bunch of burning gas with rocks floating around.

Also, a millionaire who's already got 62 world records, such as floating in a hot-air balloon around the world, has just completed the first circumnavigation of the planet by plane without refueling (click here for the article). I wish I had enough money to try something like that. He said the hardest part of the journey was 'not having enough space to bring along my xbox'. Ok he didn't say that... but I might have.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Shoot me an email if you have time!

Jesse in Taiwan

Jesse's been in Taiwan for some time now and it looks like he's having a great time. So far he's posted 435 photos on my site. He's meditated in Temples, DJ'd at clubs, visited the top of the world, and ridden a ZEBRA! What's next for our fearless adventurer? Keep checking the photos to find out.

If that wasn't enough for you I have more pictures of strange and interesting places. Check out the pics from a trip Amanda and Christine did to Nanaimo a month back. Here they are.

In local news, it's finally raining in WA... but now it's getting warmer and the mountains are not likely to get much snow. At least I made it to Stevens pass snowboarding on Sunday with Paul and Chad. The conditions were very spring-like: lots of sun and low coverage. Chad bailed hard and hurt his ribs the first run but he fought it off and rode the rest of the day. Paul hucked huge 3s and I worked on my frontside-boardslide and landed some large half-cabs.