2005
Happy festivus everybody! (for you Seinfeld fans) The big news of the day.......it snowed 8 inches at Timberline in the last 24 hours! woo hoo. The drought is over, the ski season is saved! Well not exactly, but we'll take the 8 inches. Not enough to snow to re-open Mt. Hood Meadows or ski bowl yet, but it's a start. I heard there are currently zero ski areas open in the state of Washington right now. Today we had a high school slalom ski race at Timberline in the canyon on the west side of the mile (I'm asst. coaching one of the teams).......and there was a USSA race up on Palmer today too. Hill space is at a premium with lots of race entities fighting for limited hill space. Our high school ski racing league may head south to Mt. Bachelor or Mt. Ashland for some races in February where there is more snow. How far is Tahoe from here? Not much MHSSC news to report........John Rust is back from Antarctica working at the lodge full time with Mike. The current tasks are mailings to ski teams across the country, updating the website, and overall camp promotion. We hooked up Mike's new computer and started experimenting with burning DVD's of the new camp promo video. We are still working out the bugs as we are all rookies at this task, but we are close to figuring it out. Brandy is gonna edit a "camper-staff" training video. One of the camper-staffers (Spencer) from last summer wrote the script, I shot the video, and Brandy will edit it together. It will cover such topics as "filling the coke machine with ice" and "plunging the toilet".Other staff updates: Ridgely's daughter Lisa turned 30 this week. And she's getting married on June 17th! (congrats). Yeah, little Lisa Reece is 30! Hannah Tsai won the Brazilian Nationals slalom race! Hannah went down to Chile with her team for some training and then did two races for fun. Brazilian National Slalom Champion!
Jamie Hinderliter is in New Zealand......I know lots of you are on her "new zealand trip update list".....but here's what she wrote last week: Bula friends! That is Fiji for hello! We have made it safely here FINALLY after long travels, although I believe we arrived with a big sign on our backs that says "Please rip us off". Had a little trouble at customs, but things are good now. It was rainy when we got here but now it is about 34 degrees celcius (which is metric for lethargically hot) and very humid. By the time I realized the sun had come out I was already sunburnt! But now we are here, and we have a room for 4 days on the southern part of the island just out of Sigotoka (or something like that). Love to you all, hope your lives are going well!
April 6, 2005 update
Good afternoon MHSSC'ers! I just heard on the news that Homer
Simpson's "Doh" just made it into some famous dictionary. I wonder if
"MHSSC" can become a real word someday. Can I buy a vowel?
Ok, first I should address the "april fools" joke about Mike "letting me go" (aka fired).........It fooled about 93.4% of you based on what I've heard back from some of you guys. So it qualifies as a successful prank. 3 or 4 of you guys wrote me back immediately after reading just the first e-mail I sent........followed by a "you jerk" sort of return message after realizing it was a spoof upon reading my 2nd e-mail......Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the messages to the masses that you guys wrote following the april fool thing:..
on the phone and find out what the hell you were talking about.
Day... You had me going there for a little bit..until I read your next e-mail...haha
the snowcat driver and would drive the cat up to lower Palmer and set up a grill and sell buggers or how about the party of all parties, when my lane won the contest of best kept lane and we won a free meal at Timberline. Let it be said that we missed nothing, we ate everything in double and finished with champagne. Becky walked over to Mike with the bill the next morning with all of our heads tucked, all he did was raise his eyebrows and never spoke about it,
however as far as I know he never had that contest again. Those first few years as a racer were some of the best years of my life (after my kids). But best of all was the coaching by Mike, I remember him going over his drill list with us over and over, we never could get the carved vadel down, but Mike kept at us. Later when I finally figured it out, I went through the same frustration trying to teach my students the same stuff. It gave me touch with the ski that I never could have come close to otherwise. I could go on for a long time here, but I'll end with my first day on Palmer. Steve Futerneck and I had just drove in from Jersey, and were looking from the parking lot at timberline and thought Palmer looked flat and small, after the long ride up we realized our mistake and had some great skiing. We were eastern boys and had never skied in the west. We saw the attraction of Zig-Zag and went past the signs with out reading them. Zig-zag was flat no suncups, we went flying down, how fast I'm not sure, but were going for a long
long ride. With know idea how far below the lift we had wen, I got a real funny feeling in my stomach and came to a very quick sudden stop. Steve had the same feeling and we pulled up to a cliff that we almost skied over that meant death. Welcome west boys! We had a long hike back up to the lift and we both felt like someone above had told us to stop. I won't go into the nude skiing a large group of us did, let just say thank god I was in better shape then then now. Best to you Robin!!!!!
"Let go", no way! Then again, after 19 years.............it's about time to get a life. Still, what's camp without Robin? I was just describing you to my wife the other day.
April 6, 2005 email part 2:
Other than that, still working with youth at the public access TV station in NYC
feel a sense of ownership for the direction and success of the camp in the future. I'll still be a part of the Mt. Hood family, and I definitely plan to visit and be an integral part of further developing a positive mutual relationship between HCSC and MHSSC, so you will be seeing a lot of me in the future! Thanks to everyone at MHSSC for welcoming me and making me feel needed and good luck to all of you now and forever! I'll see you all on the hill!! Have a great Spring and Summer!!
Brandon Sequoia Rothauge
last night (Saturday). Me and my friend Andy went up there because they told us that it would be worth our
while. So there we are, nominated for best powder. Chan-ching. The golden snorkle award is ours, along with a new par of 193 Head Monsters which are 103 under foot. The we get nominated for best huck. One of our friends, Julian Carr, decided to jump off of a 140 foot cliff, and ski away. So we won that too. We also won the Cold Smoke Film of the Year award. We scored $600 and it was presented by the Conrad Anker (spelling?) guy. He's was Alex Lowe's partner for a long time and after Alex died he married his wife. He's hardcore. So now you can say that you have an
award winning filmmaker shooting video for you
April 17, 2005 update
Helloooooo Newman.....Camp update:
It's still snowing up there on Palmer. The pacific storms that started rolling
in, on about March 24, haven't stopped. Most of the snow that falls overnight
in Govy melts within a day or two, but it's just getting deeper above Timberline
lodge..What's new at camp? Lodge #2 is getting some attention these days. Terry McLeod came this past week to work on the foundation
footings.........assisting Terry was Mike, Rust, and snowboard coach Luke......The inspector came twice and I think left satisfied with the progress
after his 2nd visit. Those guys had to work in snowy cold muddy conditions,
while I was in the warm cozy lodge answering the office phone. The new
cleaning ladies cleaned the kitchen like it's never been cleaned. They were
scrubbing places that probably have never been scrubbed. When you cooks show up
in June for session 1, you won't recognize the place. Nick Colavito has also
returned to MHSSC after his season of competing and coaching down in California,
and at Nationals in Colorado.
ahhhh, yes, the blue bus...
i have been pretty busy this winter - ski season has been pretty epic - and i haven't done much of anything with the Blue Bus. i bought my burning man tickets and scan the JRS for DMV updates, but not much else. however, i am still committed to bringing the bus to Black Rock City! i see its trip into the Deschutes river as its baptism and re-birth into the burning man world. the bus has a lot of history and a spirit that will never die. (for those of you unfamiliar with this story, shoot me an email.)
soon i'll be hanging up the skis and pulling out my playa-dust covered camping gear. looking at my summer plans, the earliest i can get to Hood River, OR, for an extended period of time to work on the bus is mid-august. my timing will be very tight and the work load huge. hopefully, we can gather the troops and all get this thing together before then.
first, it would be great to get a handful of us to visit with the Blue Bus early on during the summer to get it road-ready. this may require getting a preliminary budget together. we’ll need to:
- make sure it runs and that it is street legal
- get registration / insurance lined up
- transfer the title
fortunately, as long as we pull most of the seats out, we will not need any special license to drive this thing. i don't imagine we will have too many seats in this thing. i see soft fluffy couches and silly sparkles. knobby egg crates. mmmm.
once the blue bus is up and running, we should put together a budget and work on the design. once we have a design, we can submit an application to the Department of Mutant Vehicles - http://forms.burningman.com/dmvq2k5/. this is due by July 15. other info is at http://www.burningman.com/on_the_playa/playa_vehicles/dmv_2004.html.
something we may want to consider is driving it down to SF so more people can be involved with the project. it would require finding a piece of land to park it on and a couple of daring test pilots to give it its first real ride from Hood River to SF. mid-summer Blue Bus prep parties would be a blast!!!
as long as we get the guts of this thing together, anything is possible...
- interior lounge/bar
- 2nd floor stage
- large shade structure
- generator(s)
- sound system
- lighting
one option i have been considering is adding the element of fire into this project. a man in Hood River has done several large scale art projects with fire for burning man. it might be fun to see if this guy would be willing to give our bus some flare, if you know what i am saying.
obviously, if we get a stage together, we would need performers. it would be awesome to find a handful of performers and artists that could perform and help with the design of the sound system and stage. bands, djs, fire spinners, etc.
we'll need ideas for the exterior or even a general theme. cover the thing in glow sticks or stuffed animals or turn it into a giant smurf. (thanks davey.) the only guideline that we need to follow is to keep part of the Blue Bus blue. this is per request of the Mount Hood Summer Ski Camp director and long-time owner of the Blue Bus, Mike Annett. he has been somewhat of my adventurous mentor. back in the day, i imagine he was probably on par with Hunter S Thompson.
so, anyways. let me know if and/or how you would like to help with this thing. feel free to send this email to anyone you feel would be interested in getting involved with this project. (or if you are on this mailing list and want off, let me know, you fool.) some people have already contacted me about donating disco balls and speakers. much appreciated!! i like flashy things and music.
enjoy,
cmac2000degreesF (aka aqua man)
were at had a playground, which was awesome.Before I left the US, I had heard that the kiwis are crazy, but to me, they mostly seem normal. The kiwi geology students are a bit intense, but cool nonetheless. However, I have met a few particulary bloaky kiwis. I have now, on multiple occasions asked kiwis to put away their knives inside of moving
vehicles. On one occassion it went well, on the second, quite a bit worse. James (large red-headed, beer-drinking, rugby-playing bloak) was playing with his pig-hunting knife in the van on a bumpy road. Now this van was set up so
that two of the rows faced each other (one of the rows faced towards the rear of the van) and I happened to be sitting so that I faced James. To make a long story short, I asked James to put away his knife as it made me
uncomfortable, he thought I was being ridiculous as did another one of the kiwi girls and continued playing with it, trying to get a rise out of me. I ignored them all, got carsick from sitting backwards on a bumpy road sitting across from Shanky McGee and ended up experiencing perhaps the most awkward van ride of my life. But James (AKA Shanky McGee) apologized a few days later and now Shannon thinks he has a crush on me. So I've got that going for me. As soon as we returned from our field trip, Shannon and I went with my flatmates to the west coast (AKA the wet coast) for a few days in the bush for Easter break. We have referred to our trip as "Two Kiwis, Two Irish and Two Americans". By the time we arrived on the first day it was too late to do the 18km hike in, so we visited the Fox Glacier, which was pretty cool, and then camped at the trailhead. Keep in mind, my flatmate, Joe, has never tramped before. Shannon, Emma and myself slept in the tent with him on the first night and he woke us up in the middle of the night flailing all 6'4" of his lanky body, claiming that there was a rat in the tent and that he had been
bitten. He then changed his story to say that it was a opossum, and considering that his feet were right next to my head, (he can be annoying so the girls were sleeping in a way to be as far away as possible), I told him that was ridiculous, that I would have noticed a opossum next to my face. He then proceded to shine a headlamp in our eyes for a few minutes, searching frantically and talking very loudly. Then we were finally allowed to resume our rest.
We expected rain for the three days of our tramp, so we were delighted when the weather cleared up late afternoon of our first day. From that point on our tramp was pretty nice--minus the sandflies and constant wet feet from
fording stream after stream on the first day. There were hotpools at the hut which were awesome, but enjoying them during the day was almost impossible because of the ravenous, ankle-biting sandflies. Have I mentioned the
difference between backpacking in the states vs. NZ? Fording rivers is a highly common practice--especially on the first and last days of tramps, making it virtually impossible to have dry feet at any point. I also think most of the trails in NZ are designed for average Kiwi height--which is actually about 5'9", making me pretty much a midget here, so for me, tramping is like climbing a ladder that stretches for kms and kms. Well if you've read this far, congratulations. I am working on putting more pictures up on the web--they are at
http://community.webshots.com/user/hinderjm in the geology and welcome flats albums. Hope everyone is doing well, and it's always great hearing from all of you! To all you cyclists--good luck in the upcoming weeks and keep me
posted! Jamie
Session 1, 2005 update
Hi kids,2 sessions down, 12 to go..........well 12 more sessions in an ideal world of non-melting palmer snowfield. What happened session 2? I offered $1 to Nolan Willard (camp cook) to eat two bites of milk soaked cheerios that were sitting in a bowl in the dining room dishes tub ALL DAY LONG. He took me up on that offer and came very close to vomit world. But he got his dollar. Terrain Park digger staff Thomas O'Rourke dislocated two of his fingers when he landed wrong after hitting one of the big jumps in the terrain park. He did self cure by pulling his fingers back in place (sounds painful)........Asian tourists mobbed counselor Emily Longfield at the top of the magic mile chair posing with her for many photos. Palmer chairlift broke down Thursday morning........Timberline brought up 3 snowcats for up-hill transportation until they got the lift running again (around 11am).......They had 2 ride-inside cats, and one cat that had the t-bar like rope/paddles that pulled 10 people at a time up the hill. Worst case scenario is when a guy up front of the rope, eats crap and takes out the people behind him.........that happened! Rogan and Rust had to do major spread eagles to avoid serious knee injuries as camper after camper slid thru their legs during the gaper-fest crash. (me without my camera!).........We had 4 1/2 days of sunshine despite a sketchy weather forecast prediction at the beginning of the week. Friday the fog rolled in mid-day. We actually skied 3 inches of new relatively light powder on monday morning........it was sweet! I teamed up with Tim Feeney in a dart match at Charlies on Wednesday night vs the team of Rogan/Scotty. Team Rogan/Scotty had a HUGE lead, when I took over the match with 3 straight bulls eyes (I had great coaching by Tim Feeney......he kept saying "hit the bulls eye", so I was just following orders).........the action moved over to the pool table when Rogan won the game with one strike of the ball on the break as he sank the 8-ball. Lots of staffers showed up the last couple of days: Greg Curran, Shawna & Fritzy, newbie counselor Jay Panther, Mike Syrovatka......Videographer Jeff Moore got a phone number from the cute female lift operator. way to go Jeff! Bill Whalley had laser eye surgery on Tuesday. I think his eyes are still in the healing stage, not quite 100% yet. Speaking of Bill Whalley, he corrected me from the last update.........he's been a camp counselor for only 7 years (not 8, like I had written).........Vance and Eva are headed to Norway this month and then come back for Stefan's wedding. Yes, Stefan Lemley is getting married! where does the time go? I swear he was just 2 and a half years old, in diapers pounding rocks in the dirt at smith rocks with John Mulligan. Former staffer Britta Sorensen finished her 3rd marathon this past Sunday in San Diego in 3:55:02. way to go Britta! John Rust betted me $1 that Reno, Nevada is further west than Los Angeles, CA. I lost $1. that's all I got.
Session 3, 2005 update
Session 4, 2005 update
Hello All,
Session
5, 2005 update
Hi Kids,
BREAKING NEWS
NICK COLAVITO IS GETTING MARRIED ON 4TH OF JULY! Nick told me
yesterday on the chairlift that he plans on marrying girlfriend Sabrina
in Reno, Nevada on Monday, July 4. Sabrina has a 2 year old
cute-as-can-be-daughter. Nick said 99% sure this was going to
happen. I'll follow up next weekend with this breaking story. Employee
of the month for June 2006 goes to MHSSC cook Elliot Halverson! Elliot does a great job in the kitchen. Mike Annett told
me this yesterday about Elliot: "Elliot makes my job
easier".............Congrats Elliot. You win a free trip to
Hawaii, $10,000 cash, and you double your salary.........see Mike for
details. Others receiving multiple votes for EOM: Bill
Whalley, John Rust, Jay Panther, Darren Owen, Tim Feeney, Wink Maslow,
Jeff Moore, Shawna Riley, and Emily Longfield...........And
another 10 staffers received 1 vote. That means a lot of people must be
doing a great job. Snowboard coach Luke Wendel got his car towed
from the Timberline parking lot on monday. The road crew was repainting
the yellow line down the t-line parking lot, set up some cones to
discourage people from parking on the yellow line.....In my judgement
(and Luke's judgement) the cones weren't a big enough notice to say
"don't park here".....Luke had a $250 fee to get his car back.
ouch! We had 160+ kids at camp last week. It was raining
sunday night for Orientation, so we couldn't meet on the soccer field
for Mike's big camp meeting.......so the snowboarders/freeskiers
met in the basement as coach Chris Hargrave did the basement
meeting..........and Mike did his usual meeting in the dining
room with all the ski racers. Videographer Jeff Moore was
inches away from being hit with an errant ski that went flying thru the
air over his head, when one of the racers wrecked hard just above where
he was filming. Should videographers wear helmets? Bill Whalley video taped one of the best MHSSC wrecks I have ever seen on Friday in
the terrain park. His skier did a crazy cartwheel looking jump landing
super awkwardly........he broke his arm in two places. This kid
told me it was the 3rd time he's broken his arm. The first sign
of rocks are showing up near the top of lanes 5-6...........lift lines
have been long......monday we had very wet mist going on.....(is there
such thing as "dry" mist?)............Tuesday, fog in and out.......the
rest of the week was sunny and nice. I won $6 from a camper in two
games of "H-O-R-S-E"..........but then this same kid beat another kid in
HORSE for 10.......so he came out ahead $4. He told me he has a
gambling problem. I made it to age 40 today..........technically I
think I was born around 2pm, pacific daylight time, so I'm still 39 and
a half for another 4 hours, 36 minutes. I'm still out of the loop
regarding all these $7 b-day gifts many of you have been mailing me (or
delivering in person)........what's the deal? I heard a rumor that
Terry McLeod is the ring leader in all this. I don't know what it all
means (yet)......why $7?Some sent even more. Bill Whalley gave
me $6 and a box of chocolates. I feel like I won the lottery.....and
they are paying me in $7 increments. Any suggestions on what to do
with all this money? (please don't say strip club)..........anyway,
thanks so much for all the b-day stuff. I'm a little embarrassed to be
getting all this cash. I plan on spending my b-day evening at the
Portland blues fest down at Portland's Tom McCall waterfront park.
Blues fest is always a good event........If you have nothing going on
tonight and are in the area, come on down.........7pm-11pm or so. My
cell: 971-570-3171. We didn't plan an exact meeting time or
place.........but I'll say 8pm by the furthest south end beer
stand........if you were facing the river, it would be the furthest beer
vendor to the right. http://www.waterfrontbluesfest.com/ The blues fest website is a
little confusing.........some stuff says "sold out"........ignore
that........it's $5 to get in. Good food, good music, good people
watching. Robin
Session 6, 2005 update
BREAKING NEWS:
I still don't know for sure if Nick Colavito got married
on 4th of July in Reno. So far, I've only talked to his voice
mail. BUT...........someone did for sure get married on July
1: Heidi Gamma is now off the market. She married
boyfriend Dan. In Heidi's words: some more details on our wedding: we
got married on the 1st of july in Carlisle near Boston, Dan's
home. we are going to live in switzerland, in my hometown
Andermatt. Dan is building skis, big freeride skis made by hand.
you can check out his homepage: www.birdos.com
Last weekend Darren Owen was traveling in a car with some buddies in Portland. Their car was rear ended by a drunk driver traveling approximately 80 miles per hour.......Darren's car was going about 45. From what I heard, this driver had 3 previous DUI convictions........there was a baby in his car........after he hit Darren's car, he sped off, pulled into a random driveway, grabbed the baby out of the car and headed toward his girlfriends house on foot, a few houses away down the street........There happened to be police officers on the side of the street that saw the whole thing. Darren has been summoned to court as a witness. Darren suffered some pain in his back and neck but was able to work this past week on the hill.
On Thursday
as we sat at the staff table after skiing, Emily Fitzgerald said "hey, there's a cow out on the highway".....yeah, some
random big cow was strolling down highway 26 outside the lodge.
About a 1/2 dozen staff members ran out and chased it down the
highway. On Tuesday, some camper stood on the challenge course
"leap of faith" for 45 minutes before finally jumping. 45
freakin' minutes! It's hard to just stand on that thing for 10
seconds........I heard counselor Dave tried every
possible coaxing skills to get this kid to jump.......Shawna
Riley ate a peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwich for
lunch. On the 4th of July counselor Fritzy did his own
firework show for the campers up on the soccer field.........We
had 2 rain days this past session. 2 days of not even riding
the lift up........I can't remember the last time we lost 2 days
in a 5 day session. On Wednesday's rain day, they took kids
surfing at the oregon coast with Bill Whalley/Brian Seim,
movies at the mall, smith rocks climbing with Rust/Florjan,
and Terry took a van load to the sports club in Tigard.
Friday's rain day seemed to take forever. We waited until 10am
at t-line lodge before the Timberline officials finally told us
to go home.......Then we gave the kids the option of paintball
in Molalla Oregon, or movies. There was a Chrissy Haas sighting at Charlies bar and grill on 4th of July. Several
staffers joined me at the blues fest to ring in my 40th b-day
last weekend. It was good clean fun. (Satori) .....and
thank you all for all the b-day gifts!! I'm thinking I should
invest the b-day funds to a ski trip to Utah this winter.
Former mhssc cook Jeff Tait has made a MHSSC comeback! Jeff is back at MHSSC coaching his team from Windham. Jeff is back after a 9 year hiatis. It was Kees
Nederhand's birthday on Thursday. If you didn't know, Kees
Nederhand was a camper in 2002 who skied into the rocks on lower
palmer and was killed. Kees would have been 16 years old (I
think) There is a memorial site near tower 8 on Palmer. Brandy and some of the campers brought fresh flowers to the
site. Jamie Hinderliter is back in good ol' USA. In her
words: Just wanted to let you
all know that I have arrived back in America, safe and sound
(minus the small incovenience of being jobless). I've finished
putting up most of my pictures on the web:
http://community.webshots.com/user/hinderjm2 Vance Lemley is back from
his trip to Norway. In Vance's words: Just back from
Norway. What an awesome trip. We went all the way to Russia.
We saw reindeer in the streets of some small villages and spent
three days above the artic circle and 24hour daylight. Tom
Sell is now coaching the US ski team. In Tom's words: I took a job with the men's world cup
Sl/ GS squad. I started on the 1st. The opportunity to work at
the World Cup level is one I can't pass up.
Some former
MHSSC staffers have birthdays coming up.
Tom Sell: July something.........not sure. the 9th?
anyway, happy birthday Tom
Trumbull Barrett: July 10
Shannon White: July 11.........Shannon will be 29. Happy
birthday all! If you haven't done this already, please click on
the link below and enter your birthday for me. Don't worry it is
quick, and you don't have to enter your year of birth:-). http://www.BirthdayAlarm.com/dob/6561296a5227229b408
Welcome new MHSSC staffers to the staff e-mail list: Jeff
Tait, Tommy Eckfeldt, Zeke Davisson, Leo
Menard, Brien Seim.........and Tom Silva re-instated!
Robin
Session 7, 2005 update
We are half way thru summer........at least on paper. Will the snow
last thru Sept. 3? nobody knows for sure. We had 150 or so campers
last week........It drops to around 80 campers next week...........Then
40 the week after that..........and so on.....Our intention, as of now,
is to continue camps till the bitter end. High Cascade snowboard camp
and Windells camps also are scheduled into the latter weeks of August,
so that should motivate the people at Timberline to push snow where it's
needed to keep the lift running. Right now, skiing is great. There
are rocks in the usual places, but it's still excellent training, and we
can still easily ski all the way to the bottom of Palmer. ..........Here's a few highlights from last week: Jamie Hinderliter returned to camp to work for a couple of sessions. She made a
spectacular off-balance catch in right field at the picnic softball
game.....Bill Whalley broke the 2 year old record distance
basketball shot at the lodge this past week........he made a spectacular
shot from the 3rd post on the catwalk, breaking my old record from the
2nd post.........Jeff Tait was determined to break the record
from the 4th post with about a hundred attempts, but was only to hit the
rim a couple of times. Counselor Jay Panther got a wicked bad
bloody nose on the hill on friday.........so much blood = dripping from
his nostril, that he was almost able to write his name in blood on the
snow. (all caught on video).......Nick Colavito did indeed get
married on July 4. Congrats Nick! It's not nice to kick someone =hen they are
down........but..........here's a story from last week. (Keep in mind, I
only heard this stuff 2nd hand, so the accuracy of the story might not
be completely true) We had a terrain park digger, age 17) on our staff
that continued to get in all kinds of trouble during his 3-4 week era at
MHSSC ( i.e. smoking pot, drinking alcohol, being rude,
etc.)......anyway, Mike wanted him out of =amp in a timely
manner.........the kid refused to leave campus......So Mike came
to the staff dinner table and asked Sage and 12-week Dave to: "I need you guys to help remove Bob (not his real name) from the
property"..........so Mike's newly appointed body guards went outside to
help with the situation........."Bob" ran up to the soccer
field..........Mike confronted him by saying "Bob, you've been in
trouble since you got here........you were caught drinking and smoking pot last
week"......and Bob's response was "no, I did not get caught drinking"..........anyway, Mike called his parents and soon thereafter he was escorted to the
portland airport. And Scotty told me this story about white water
rafting last week...........On their way back from rafting, one of the
kids decided to toss his bologna sandwich out the bus window at a car
traveling in the opposite direction. This kid had good sandwich tossing
skills as the sandwich almost hit the driver in the side of the
head........the angry driver turned his car around and chased the bus
down..........Scotty, the bus driver, was unaware of anything
that happened and couldn't figure out why this guy was tailgating the
bus.........anyway, Scotty finally pulls the bus over and the kid
was busted...........I think they made him do camp dishes as part of his
punishment.
former mhssc staff updates:
Tory Amorello says "hi" to everyone. She misses camp and is recovering from a bout with mono and hopes to maybe come back to camp next summer. The tough part of summer is over.........we had 4 HUGE sessions in a row (140-170 campers per week).............as Mike said "we can do 80 campers in our sleep"............the staff is getting smaller starting this week............ former staffer (late 80's) Kathy Penney (Bonner) celebrates her 33rd birthday on July 21. Happy birthday Bonner! thats all for this week. Robin
Session 8, 2005 update
Timberline closed for the year yesterday.........NOT. But the rumors of Timberline's closing date are running rampant. I'm jumping on Mike's statement: "we'll have camp thru Sept. 3".......Actually Timberline did close yesterday........but just for the day. There were significant lightning storms putting on a pretty good show Friday morning on the mountain. So we immediately went to rain day plan "C"......which is Movies in Portland, paintball, and surf trip to the coast with Bill Whalley. Lightning struck the magic mile chair torching some fuses and causing repairs to be necessary (bad English?) It was very hot mid week.........Even to the point of me stripping down to shorts thursday morning at 9am up on the glacier. More warm weather is in the forecast this coming week.
BREAKING NEWS:
Bill Whalley's basketball distance record shot accomplished last week was SHATTERED on Thursday by stud of the week Jay Panther. Bill set the record last week with a swish from the 3rd post on the lodge catwalk. About a 1/2 dozen staffers were making multiple attempts at the record from the 4th post...........when Jay decides to chuck one up from the 7th post.......SWISH! For those of you that don't know Jay, he's a newbie staff member this year......counselor/freestyle coach. He finished 10th at nationals in moguls last winter.......and this week he decided to try ski racing for a couple of days. He was shinning slalom gates in his first attempt. I'm pretty sure he's already faster than me thru a slalom course after one day of training. Video man #2 Jeff Moore put together an awesome resume video for Jay to help attract sponsors. The following staffers graciously contributed to the "replace Bill Whalley's broken blender" fund: Sage, Emily L., Greg Curran, Tim Silver, Brett Andrews, Jason Hey, and 12-week Dave. Mark Stegall, snowboard coach, is scheduled to make his MHSSC comeback this coming session. Chris Hargrave is taking a snowboard trip south of the equator for a couple weeks, so Mark will help fill the void. 12-week Dave spooned last session. Whom did he spoon with? I don't know. Jeff Moore got a significant hair cut last week. And Fritzy shaved his face........I don't recognize him anymore. Jeff Moore squirted me with a squirt gun on monday........and 10 seconds later I destroyed his toy gun. So if any of you decide to squirt me with a squirt gun, expect similar results. Scotty Veenis trained all week with his Park City teammates, including world cup slalom fastest 2nd run @ Kitzbuehel Ted Ligety. Both those guys ski wicked fast.
Former staffer news:
Maja Kvopkova had a baby girl on July 15! Congrats Maja!!!!!! In her words: I graduated from SNC in May 2002, got married to Valerian Gornyitzki in May 2003 (he is also from Slovakia, he works here in Carson City, so we live in
Tahoe area still). The biggest news: We had our first baby girl last Friday! Yes, Anna Valeria Gornyitzka was born 15th of July at 11:07am; 19 inches; 7lb 5oz....She is doing well, so do I. Say hi to everybody in Govy and spread my great
news, that I am happy :-)
Jenn Otten is in China......in her words: hey...im in china...word! its wierd.
The MHSSC picnic was in Hood River last session. I played hooky..........I heard former staffer Holly Kasun showed up for a visit. Sorry I missed you Holly! And Vance Lemley is in town too visiting mom. Florjan and Rust took him rockclimbing at area 51.....(alien's landed there?) Bryan Rooney's wedding is this coming Saturday in Vail, CO. Hopefully he sends me a wedding photo that I can pass on. From Barrett Stein in Australia: I skied a foot of powder today and will play golf tomorrow. The courses here suck, but they only cost 10$ australian dollars, about 7.50 US.
Robin
p.s. thanks again for all the birthday $$.......it's still rollin in 3 weeks after the fact..........
Session 9, 2005 update
Good evening, First of all, congrats to former staffer Bryan Rooney. He got married today! Send me a wedding pic Bryan. Speaking of weddings, another former staffer, Troy Grace, also got married. Troy worked at camp in the early 90's. Ff you know Troy and want to see the wedding photo he sent me, reply back. Troy is living in Southern Cal. We had 53 campers last week.........and 35 staffers! I think we have 30 or so campers these next 2 weeks........and the number of staff goes way down starting tomorrow. Mark Stegall made his MHSSC return this past week. Mike Evian ate a piece of moldy bread for $2. He said it tasted like bread......no big deal. Some little kid spilled his waffle & bacon off his plate to the floor on thursday morning at breakfast. He picked it back up, put it on his plate (syrup dripping everywhere), and I told him it's ok to throw that out and get another waffle......he said "5 second rule" and continued on with his breakfast. Snowboard racer Jon Winslow was climbing around on the fireplace inside the shelter at the camp picnic on Wednesday.....he went to set his cell phone and keys on top, but there was a hole up there.......his keys and cell phone fell down the tiny hole....about 8 feet down. After an hour or two, Bill Whalley was able to rescue the cell phone via a long stick, with two forks bent funny duct taped to the end of the long stick......he managed to stick the cell phone cover and pull the phone to safety. The keys are still in the hole. We might try using a magnet next week. Counselor Brett Andrews attempted a 360 off the jump at the bottom of the mogul lane.....he landed 3/4 the way round, and did this spectacular crash off the side of the landing hill.........unfortunately the camera wasn't rolling. I witnessed John Rust throw 10 bags of salt in a matter of minutes on Friday. I wish I timed it. You couldn't hand him bags fast enough. We measured Jay Panther's basketball record shot at the lodge........His camp record shot was approximately 88 feet from the basket. An NBA and NCAA regulation b-ball court is 94 feet long.........High School hoops gyms are 84 feet long. I dusted off the hot dog machine that had been wasting away in the depths of the basement since the lodge was built (1997?)......and we served hot dogs as part of Thursday leftovers night dinner. They were quite popular......you can only do 9 hot dogs at a time on this machine, and the first 9 were gone in under 8 minutes. The snow finally melted at the very bottom of Palmer. The snow ends about 50 yards short of the bottom loading ramp as of Friday afternoon. Some of the girls from the U.S. ski team trained slalom on lane 1 last week. Nolan tried eat a 12 egg omelet friday afternoon......it was too much food. I beat Marjan in a couple games of "H-O-R-S-E" on Thursday...for $1 per game. I ended up taking my $2 winnings to the kitchen when I dared Mike Evian to eat the moldy bread, as mentioned above. So I broke even for the afternoon. Chris Hargrave is in Las Lenas right now on a snowboard trip. In his words:
Session 10, 2005 update
Good afternoon, 10 weeks down, 4 to go. I still haven't seen Star Wars yet. Session 10 was mellow. 3 race coaches (plus Tatsu), 1 mogul coach, 1 snowboard race coach, and 2 snowboard freeride coaches on staff last week. The chairlifts open at 8am these days, so we added an hour of sleep to the schedule, which is nice. The cook staff has shrunk to 1 person as of yesterday. Nolan, the only cook left, is holding down the fort in the kitchen while Elliot is out of town for a week. John Rust is headed to Smith Rocks for session 11 for Smith Rocks rockclimbing camp. 3 girls from Hood River signed up for smith rocks. Rust is taking counselor Dave Curran with him for the week, leaving the counselor staff down to 3 next week. Speaking of John Rust, he's the EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH for the month of July 2005! Congrats John! The voting was very close this past month......Bill Whalley took the Silver medal with Sage Dunham and Brett Andrews tying for 3rd place in the voting. Feeney, Jay Panther, Darren Owen, Dave Curran, and Ryan Enfield all received multiple votes too. Great job everybody! Terry McLeod won a bike race last week against "the top group". Terry races bikes 1-2 times a week in Portland. Emily Longfield is good at ping pong. She beat me. dammit. Actually we split 2 games, so no money exchanged hands. Craig Bowden is currently in his car driving west. He has a new job coaching at Rowmark ski academy in Utah. He says that once he gets there, he immediately jumps on a plane to Chile for training with Rowmark. Craig says "hi" to everybody. I just learned that Lynne Annett retired from teaching this past spring! Congrats Lynne! I think I was the last person to know..........Lynne (and Mike) plan to travel a lot in her retirement........hang with the grandkids too. I think she mentioned Hawaii and Brazil as trips to be had in the coming months. Somebody put orange peel in Terry's backpack, and he didn't remember eating an orange for lunch. Some of the coaches are beginning to download the Palmer chair at the end of the day.....It's about a 5 minute walk from the end of the snow on lower palmer to the top of the magic mile. I've been to approximately 240 camp picnics, but I saw something new last week. About a 1/2 dozen campers dressed up like nature (ferns and tree branches), and did weird stuff.......including chasing a deer across the softball field.
Session 11, 2005 update
Here's your session 11, 2005 update: Yellow Jacket bees have taken over the camp.......yes, bees are running the camp.......they even go white water rafting. Ok, they haven't really taken over, but there is a significant yellow jacket hive near the office trailer. We called last week "nice camp".....everybody was "nice" to each other up on the hill, putting burnout on the back burner for a week. Nolan was the only cook on staff last week..........he's been working 12-14 hour days, putting food on the table for 30+ people every meal. Elliot comes back from his weeklong trip to the east coast, so perhaps Nolan can get a break this coming week. We only have 3-4 campers signed up for session 12.........3 racers and a snowboarder. Timberline closes the lifts on August 18, which gets us thru Thursday of this session. Friday, we are hoping they will run snowcats for us. More on that in next week's update. Michelle Annett made a guest appearance at camp last week, as she and a friend joined camp for white water rafting day. Emily Longfield did double duty last week, as she coached a group of newbie racers......John Rust took the week away from the slopes and traded it in for Smith Rocks rockclimbing camp. Rust took 12-week Dave with a group of 3 camper girls to Smith rocks.......Rust varied up the trip........they met the MHSSC rafting crew on Tuesday for a trip down the Deschutes River........then he took the 3 girls to Frenchies Dome for climbing on Thursday, and finished up camping and climbing at Buleau (sp?) on friday.......... We took on a new female counselor this past week.....Caitlin Laman from Portland filled in for counselor Dave. A raven hit Darren in the head as he was riding the palmer chair last week. Tatsu's van grazed Emily's car up in the timberline parking lot. Damage was minimal (I think).....With only 3-4 campers signed up this coming week, Mike took advantage of the empty lodge by renting some rooms to a high school x-country running team. They are here to train on the surrounding trails. I crashed the Martin Tichy wedding up at Timberline lodge this evening. I wore a name tag that said "wedding crasher", which got some good laughs. It was a beautiful wedding on the back deck of Timberline Lodge hotel with the sun shining on the mountain. I didn't stick around for the reception as I didn't want to push my luck. About 40-50 guests. They have a fancy dinner going on now, and Feeney is wondering if the party will make it's way to Charlies later tonight. anyway, that's all I got for now. until next week........bu-bye
Hi all, Robin Cressy here, from Mike's computer.
BREAKING NEWS:
Camp is over for summer 2005. Yes, it's true. For the first time in camp history, we shut down early. The attached photo shows the palmer snowfield as it looked on Friday, the last ski day. Actually the lifts closed on Thursday, but we hired Timberline to run a snowcat for our group of 3 racers, 1 snowboarder, coaches John Rust, Luke Wendel, Darren Owen, 2 camper-staffers and 1 video man (me)..........The snow is still good for training on the first couple of lanes.........they probably could have kept the lifts open if it was financially feasible, but there wasn't enough business up there to pay the bills. A high school x-country running team rented the lodge last week as we had lots of extra room to spare. They took advantage of all the trails in the area and got the benefits of running at altitude. They even hired me ($5) to do some video of their athletes for video analysis purposes. Another first at camp (I think it's a first anyway) Mike wasn't at camp for over a 24 hour period. In my 2 decades, I don't recall Mike ever missing a whole day, where he wasn't at camp for at least part of a day........until last week. Mike traveled to Sunriver Oregon to watch Lynn, Jennifer and Michelle compete in a tennis tournament. In fact, I think he was gone for a full 2 days! A dog pissed on John Rust's backpack on the top of Palmer on thursday.....bad dog! (sorry John, it was too funny not to mention).......Bill Whalley ate a tablespoon of cinnamon/sugar combo for a $2 payoff. I also lost a $1 to Tim Feeney. He bet me that I couldn't make 11 shots in a row on the broken b-ball bent hoop.......I blew it on shot #5. But I got my $3 back with a game of HORSE with 2 campers and Bill Whalley.....to keep my undefeated streak of HORSE intact for the summer. A european ski clothing company came to the top of palmer for a few days to do a photo shoot of their new clothing line. They spotted our very own Emily Longfield at the top of palmer and asked her if she would be interested in some modeling work. So she took advantage and got in a couple days work.......$50 per hour I think is what they paid her. And no, she doesn't plan on making this a career choice. Just about everybody on the staff has gone home.......Elliot left on Saturday. Bill Whalley left on Sunday. Feeney left today. Fritzy is getting his car ready for a drive across the country......he's taking Nolan and Tommy with him......I think they are leaving tomorrow (tuesday) if he gets his car in order. That leaves myself and Darren holding down the fort. Terry is coming back to work on the new lodge next week........
Session 14, 2005 update
Hi kids, Hey check out the attached photo of Palmer Snowfield taken September 6. Jeff Moore took this snapshot from the t-line parking lot. Hard to believe we were skiing there just 17 days before this pic was taken. I've only seen Palmer with less snow one time....and that was in the month of October a couple years ago during another dry year.
A few housecleaning items to clear up before getting into the meat and potatoes of the newsletter. I know some of you have not received a MHSSC staff newsletter from me since session 9 or so. At that time, my internet service provider changed their e-mail policy that restricted the maximum number of people in a group e-mail was reduced to 25 people because of SPAM issues. I now have 166 staffers from past and present on my current list, so when I tried to send my camp updates to you 166 people, I'd get the
reject message: "too many recipients"........Soooooooooooooo, for a few weeks, I tried sending updates from Mike's computer at the camp lodge. That worked for about 75% of you, but for some reason, the other 25% weren't getting the updates. So here it is a month or so later, and my new strategy is to break up the 166 people into groups of 20, under the new max rule.......So instead of me sending this to one big group in one simple e-mail, I gotta send the e-mail to 9 different smaller groups..........get it? If you didn't receive updates from sessions 10-13 and still want to read them, reply back and I'll resend them to you directly. Here's what happened session 14. Ok, it wasn't really session 14, as there was no actual camp. (see attached photo to see why there was no camp) But there were a few of us helping Mike and Lynne shut down for the summer. Terry came back to work with Darren up at lodge #2. I don't think we've named the new lodge yet. Or does it even get a name? The entire campus is called "the Lodges at Salmon River Meadows".........So is it just "lodge #2"? Should we have a "name the lodge" contest? I think Windells snowboard camp has a building called "Bob". Anyway, the new lodge is shaping up. They were doing work on the foundation, getting ready to do the cement floor I think. Speaking of construction, I ran into former MHSSC coach Mike Byrne the other day. He was doing masonry rock work in Govy. Mike B. has left his imprint on several Govy buildings including MHSSC lodge #1. Pierce Louis made a surprise visit during the last week of camp. Pierce was there to pick up Craig Bowden's bicycle stashed away in the lodge. Speaking of stashing stuff in the lodge, how many of you have ski gear or related stashed at the lodge. Perhaps we should keep some kind of inventory list of what's there so we don't end up selling your gear at the ski swap or giving it to GOODWILL like we do with unclaimed items from the lost and found boxes. Let me know if you have stuff at the lodge, and approximately where in the lodge it is. For you snowboard era people, remember that coin change machine we had set up there? Well it's one of the stashed items that's been collecting dust in the lodge basement since day 1, and I asked Mike if we should just chuck it? He said "no", let's try to sell it..........It's so old, I know it wouldnt' know what to do with the new school dollar bills. Anyway, I got to thinking: hmmmmmmmmm, I wonder if anybody emptied the money from this thing 17 years ago, when it was last used"..........So I found the key, opened it up and money poured out! Seriously! $30.75 worth of quarters were in there. The paper money tray was empty, but we had all those quarters. We (Me, Terry, Darren) took the money and invested in a nice dinner with Mike and Lynne at Mt Hood Brewery. Charlies Pin update: For you MHSSC super old timers, you probably didn't know that Charlies Bar in Govy offered a deal 5 years ago, where you can purchase a Charlies Pin for $50, and with that pin, everytime you come into Charlies, you get your 2nd drink for free.......one free drink per night. These pins expire on December 31, 2005......BUT.......those with existing pins can renew for another 5 years for the low low price of $75. They are saying that if you wanted to renew and want to keep the same pin number, then you must tell Charlies your intentions before Nov. 1. And for the newbie pin wannabe's, the price is $100. Former staffer Eric Baldwin says "WEAR YOUR SUNSCREEN". Eric recently had some skin cancer removed from his arm. Eric says they got it all, and it's no big deal...... Employee of the month for AUGUST........Because several of you didn't get to vote because of my internet issues mentioned in paragraph #1, this is your last chance to vote. If you worked at camp in the month of August, please vote for who you think deserves to win the award for August. So far, the only people that have voted so far are: Myself, Elliot, Jon Winslow, Nolan, Terry, Bill Whalley, and Darren. If you voted but don't see your name there, then vote again......I probably accidently deleted your vote from my inbox. Ineligible to receive votes: Robin, John Rust, Mike & Lynne, so don't vote for them. I'll accept votes until Tuesday Sept. 13. so vote NOW! Reply to this message to vote. It's that easy. John Rust is now in Saas Fee Switzerland for Europe MHSSC camp. John took two adult campers with him this year. I'm hoping John sends me an update from Switzerland so I can keep you guys up to date. Last week, Darren and I went to watch Terry bike race in the Portland area Velodrome. Cool thing to see in person. The walls of that thing are WAY steep, so you gotta know what you are doing or you will eat shit! And the bikes for this event have no gears or brakes. So no coasting and no braking. Terry was in the lead for a middle portion of the race.......he ended up finishing 4th that night. Jeff Moore made a short guest appearance last week. He flew into P-town to pick up his new car and immediately drove to Mt Hood to take that photo
before heading to Utah. Long day for Jeff.......went from Los Angeles to Portland to Timberline Lodge to Salt Lake City in one day. Craig Bowden is headed to Austria for training with Rowmark ski academy. Craig started his new coaching job just a few weeks ago, but has already travelled to Chile and now to Europe. He's looking for housing in Salt Lake City in case any of you have connections. I wrote WAY too much. One last thing: If you want to be removed from getting these camp update e-mails from me, let me know, and I'll nuke ya. You aren't hurting my feelings if you want to be removed.
HEY! I haven't been at camp since Sept. 3, so I don't really have much actual MHSSC material to write about. But here are a few nuggets of random stuff: If you live in Texas or Louisiana, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! Another hurricane is about to hit you! Don't you watch TV? Big ass storm about to whoop your ass. Were any of you on this MHSSC staff list affected directly by Hurricane Katrina? If you have any Katrina stories or yet to be determined, Hurricane Rita stories that you'd like to share with the reading audience, send them my way.........Brad "Tex" Hatfield? are you in a safe place? Anyone pay $5 for a gallon of gas yet? John Rust is back from the MHSSC Saas Fee ski camp in Switzerland. John had 2 adult campers with him this year. He said they had mostly good weather, losing 1 day of training due to inclement weather. Rust said they trained mostly slalom, and they shared training with a group from Sun Valley for some of the time. They also rented bikes for a couple days too. Rust said former MHSSC legend John Mulligan was there.......he's the ski tech for Kristina Koznick (sp?)........MHSSC Employee of the month for August 2005 went to Bill Whalley! Congrats Bill! Bill will be receiving $50. Taking 2nd place in the voting was Darren Owen, and Nolan Willard took the bronze! Great job everybody! 5 other people received votes. A few staff updates: there was a Jack Suireveld sighting recently! Janet Lorton, saw Jack in the Tahoe area, and said he's doing "the pilot thing". Maria Schilling is running in the twin-cities 10 mile race this weekend. Run Maria Run!
Good evening MHSSC'ers past and present
BREAKING NEWS:
p.s. Robin's movie picks of the month: "Sideways"............."the Terminal"..........these are at your local video store. Both probably in the comedy section.
Greetings from Oregon, Here's another wonderful MHSSC staff newsletter for your reading pleasure. There's no real sign of winter here yet. We've had some rainy days this fall, but too warm for any significant snow on mt hood (see attached pic). Mike and Lynne are vacationing in Brazil right now. John Rust is holding down the fort at the lodge.
From Jay Panther: Hey Hey, school is great. I am double majoring in finance and information systems with a minor in math. I am so bummed, there is no snow here yet, last year we were preparing for our first days, this year no snow.
From Ryan Zacharia: I was at the gym today and Seal's "Crazy" started playing on my iPod. Immediately I thought of the MHSSC promo video circa early 90's. For all the new technology and affects out today, I still find that video most effective (and it always gets me giddy about the
season). Just wanted to let you know that. And, for an update on the Zacharia family. I am a senior at Cornell
University and will be working at Citigroup in investment banking next year. My brother is a third year at Columbia University School of Physicians & Surgeons, where he is going for a residency in neurosurgery.
From Tom Sell (coaching U.S. team nowadays) Well, I survived my first World Cup race today, and I have to say it was A LOT of fun! We had 2 in the top 10, with Bode and and Ted Ligety 8th. Bode won the first run and Ted won the 2nd. Bode was a victim of bad light for his run and ended up 2nd to Herman Maier. Rainer Schoenfelder was 3rd and Benjamin Raich was 4th. I haven't had the jitters at a race in a long time, but watching Ted move from 64th to 8th, and waiting for Bode did the trick. The crowd was pretty good, around 20,000. It was incredibly loud, even halfway up the hill where I was standing. The KMS boys were there, unfortunately I didn't get to see them, but they did get to hang out with Mary, Peter and Maria. For the MHSSC crowd, I also had a Florian sighting, he was there taking a break from training with the Park City crowd.
From Zvi: Here's what I've been up to. attending the University of Vermont, majoring in History, while simultaneously trying to take care of the prerequisites for physical therapy grad school.... waiting for winter, hopefully VT has a good snow year. Hoping to chase storms for a month from late Dec. - late January in the west/Rockies. Not much else to report. Zvi
Happy Halloween from Oregon, Here are a couple of Halloween links for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy...
Robin p.s. Eric Baldwin says "hi" to everyone.........and he told me that Nicole Duea is expecting baby #2.........
Hi all, Richard Pryor has left the building. He was great. If you've never seen the movie "Silver Streak", I recommend it. I also liked him in the movie "the toy". But anyway......here's a MHSSC update. Lots of snow here in the pacific northwest. The TV news just said mt hood's snowpack is at 119% of normal. There's even significant snow in Govy. Govy not only has the new streetlights and sidewalks, but now has a new big lodge-type building right next to Hucks. I heard there will be different stores in this lodge including a produce store........Yes, you'll be able to buy an apple in Govy. First time ever! If you have a charlies pin, it's time to renew. For you old timers that remember Charlies bar, 5 years ago, they created a "pin" that is good for a free 2nd drink every time you visit Charlies. Buy one drink, get a 2nd one free.........but you can only do that once a day.....the 3rd, 4th, 5th drink (etc) are not free. The cost was $50 for 5 year pin.......they all expire this year and the new pin is $75 to renew and $100 for a brand new pin holder. Now you know everything about the charlies pin. here are some staff updates and staff hello's:
For you surfing fans, I just got back from a world class big wave tow-in surf contest off the oregon coast. My job was to run around with a camera and interview the surfers on the beach before they competed and again after they got back to the beach when they finished. it was fun, and all the surfers were nice and not camera shy. I guess these guys are famous, but I know nothing about surfing. Yeah surfing in December! who knew? that's all for now.........Christmas MHSSC camp is happening soon. Robin