I posted pictures from our trip to Winter Park over on DallasSnowboarders.com. Our photo album isn’t the most intuitive software around, but they’re there regardless. Enjoy.

So we had a fantastic time in Winter Park. The snow conditions weren’t the best – we had a lot of dust on crust. However, more of the mountain was open this year than when I went two years ago. I didn’t perform as well as I had hoped. I wanted to try a 180 on the jumps, but I wasn’t able to figure it out. In fact, I really wasn’t even close. However, falling twice made me realize just how much I am going to have to exaggerate my body movements. After crashing on both 180 attempts, I crashed on the same simple straight jump I had landed time after time. It was the end of the third day, and frankly I was trashed.

Halfway through the trip, I did find something interesting to play with in the future. I’d been thinking about this thing they call butter. Something to the effect of riding up on the nose and spinning around such that you land switch. I leaned forward on the board while I was thinking about it and felt the board start to come up and around real smooth. Suddenly I realized I was starting to do it when I didn’t intend to and tried to straighten back out. It was too late, and my hesitation made me wipe out. However, I was surprised and how naturally it was starting to happen.

So the bus ride to Winter Park was hell. The condo was laid out great, but was falling apart. I had to rebuild the shower door and later Roger was hanging the handle back on the stove. When we locked our keys inside, Cyn was able to pop the door open using her driver’s license. I can’t complain much, the place had a kitchen and we ate good. We even had a turkey on Thanksgiving day. I must say, the group I was with was great. Everyone was all over things like cooking and cleaning up dishes. I also met lots of other neat folks including a rider from Dallas who got started at 36 and has been riding for 5 years. He was really comfortable on the board and impressed the group time and again.

So, finally, about the iRide cap mentioned in the title of this post. Cyn noticed a cap in one of the ski shops that she had to point out. How about that, someone else snagged the name “iRide” and put it on a cap with a snowboarder! Granted, the iPod-esque logo was predictable… however, Ride does not really imply snowboarding any more than a mountain bike or rollerblades. I have to wonder if someone visited my website before creating these hats? Oh, and for the record, iPod didn’t inspire my journal name – that was actually a fluke. Anyway, check out the cap in the photo for a grin.

It’s the day of the trip – finally. It’s always been the day of the trip, in my mind. It’s approaching on 11:00. I was up early this morning. I cooked myself a yummy breakfast, washed all the dishes, cleaned the counters, washed up the laundry, and took out the trash. I’ve got most of my stuff packed aside from the food items. I’ve printed my map to the bus stop. I’ve got snacks set aside for the trip. Folks should start showing up in a couple of hours.

I can’t decide on taking the laptop. If I bring it, then I have a place to dump photos and movies off of the camera – meaning I can take a lot more video than I normally would. I would also have lots of movies I could watch in the evenings. Having the movies almost encourages me not to take it. If there is Internet access from the resort, it sure would be nice to post a photo and update while I’m there. I guess I’ll decide at the last minute.

Of all the things to be haunting my mind, I keep thinking about someone who’s not going with us. Anyway, I’ve still got to pack up the cooler when my friends get here with their stuff and then I’m ready to hit the road. Another weird thing haunting my mind, I don’t feel like I want to come back. I haven’t even left yet, and I’m not looking forward to coming home. At least I got the apartment cleaned up a little before we left. I suppose I could use the next hour to wash all my bedding. It sure is nice coming home to clean sheets.

One more day of work, and then tomorrow I leave. Only somewhere between 6% and 10% of Winter Park is likely to be open. I was hoping for a little bit more snow, but I’ll still have just as much fun. Just checked the weather. Wunderground thinks there’s a 20% chance of snow on Thursday and Friday. Weather.com thinks there’s a 10% chance. If you noticed, next week it starts ramping up to a 40% chance. I’ve noticed over the years that the big dumps like to come right AFTER Thanksgiving. It’s funny how it works like that.

I’d like to thank everyone that comes by my journal, but most of you are google searchers. I sometimes wonder if anyone is subscribed to my RSS feeds. Maybe I should start playing with that Feedburner stuff. You know, I just recently started seeing revenue on this site from the google ads. This week I’ve raked in nearly $2. That’s like $8 a month! That almost pays for a GoDaddy hosting account. This encourages me to talk about things that would attract ad clickers. Although, if I did that, I’d be a sell out. But, I guess having the ads in the first place kinda makes me a sell out… Last month I got about 5,500 page loads and I’ve already had more than 5,000 this month. My traffic ramps up during the season, and my more frequent posting seems to be increasing traffic. I wonder if any ‘real’ sponsor would be interested in replacing my google ads with something a little more targeted? That sure would be nice as I’d feel a lot better about promoting a product I actually like rather than random text ads assigned by google.

Anyway… off to work for one last day… and tonight I finish packing.