POPS CAME THROUGH

three walls of brick and a plywood entryway. don't know how old i was then, but that fort is better than the one i built when i was thirty-fun. is mike wearing moon boots? is my shirt purple???

JANK FORT

i haven't built a fort in forever. it's probably been since like mid grade school. however, i do remember having some pretty kick-ass forts back then. we're talking 'bout: kids got the whole summer off, let's do work, mini-construction site, team effort type forts. one time we built a single story brick hut with a plywood roof in the woods across the street from my parents house. i don't know why all them bricks were in them woods but we utilized 'em good. holy shit, we must have pioneered green building back in the mid 80's by recycling all that crap! i smoked my first smoke by that fort. DORAL's man, but that's a whole 'nuther story, yo. anyways pops might have some pics to share of that fort, he was pretty impressed by our amateur masonry skills. btw, HAPPY B-DAY POPS, QUIT FIGHTING IT, MOUSTACHE REVIVAL.

there was one kid in the neigborhood that had crazy carpentry skills. david t. i think he's like some pro water skiier or something now, like traveling europe and doing tommy bartlett style shows. anyways, he had a 3 or 4 story tree fort that he built. i'm pretty sure i helped a little bit, but my woodworking skills were as sucky back then as they are now. i remember being on the 'top floor' of that fort and getting pretty spooked cuz you were at least like 20 feet off the ground. keep in mind that this was like 5th/6th grade and i was like 3 feet tall or something. all i remeber is david t. was the shortest kid in class and i had like a mean 1/2 inch on him. well, one day david t. must have been adding another floor to the fort and got a little too close to heaven, cuz somebody struck him down to the ground and blursteded his spleen.

here we are now, some 15 to 20 years later and i'm still terrible at building stuff. proof. me and xteam trucked a lot of wood to one of our favorite snowmobile/snowboard zones and attempted to build a fort rivaling those of our yesteryear. we failed. after trying to vizualize the super-rad fort that could be, we decided to shut-up our brains that were overthinking the whole fort-building mission by chuggin some rah-yeahs and screwing some shit to the trees. no floor, no roof, most of the wood was rotten from the get-go. i think we'll be lucky if it lasts this season, but who cares, it's still better than nothing and we had a good time building it.

glorified snow fence

i don't see nuthin'. nope, nothing to see here.

detailing the truck.

PINSTRIPES!

snow, dammit, snow. grr.

'hi there!'

i followed this car home today. the doggie was pretty stoked on the nice day we were having and was taking adavantage of the downed drop-top by air chomping at every car, mortorcycle, pedestrian that came within 10 feet of it. it jumped halfway out of the car trying to attack a crotch-rocket that passed by. it just kept pacing back and forth in the backseat praying something would come within slobbering distance.


-drive by action shot. 'damn you papparazzo!' dog flipped me the bird just after i got the shot. driver gave me a funny look.

i suck at salmon fishing about as much as i suck at hunting. skunked again on sunday. caught nuthin but salad. dudes next to us landed 2 humpy's and gave me some tips though. maybe it's time for an after work session this week. ain't givin' up yo!

GNAR GNAR

i went mountain biking for the first time ever today. i mean ever ever. i've never even ridden a mountain bike around the city, never owned one. hell, i've only owned 2 bikes that had gears and those were just bar bikes. anyways, got a call from a bro this afternoon wondering if i'd be down to go mountain biking, like real deal mountain biking. i was pretty stoked to try it out so i agreed even though i knew i'd be in over my head. there was a 3 man posse that included two vets (matt & snowman) and a rookie (me). started our 3 mile ascend at around 7:20 and got to the top around 8:00. pedaling up hill was hard, my butt was instantly sore and my legs are apparently useless. got a rad cramp in my calf and almost puked up the pulled pork sandwich i had for lunch. the sun was nearly setting by the time we got to the top and we were in some pretty thick woods so visibility wasn't that great which added to my stress about what i had got myself into. the vets gave me some tips on braking and body positioning, which probably went in one ear and out the other because about 200 yards into the descend i endo'd and body checked a tree with the collar bone that i broke 3 years ago. i got a little spooked but hopped back on the bike, charged, and then ate shit again probably a few 100 feet down the trail. in all, i probably wrecked like 4.5 times. some crashes involved getting bucked off the trail by roots & rocks or just flying down trail face first. i'm told that this wasn't a very tough trail but the lack of light, my inexperience, and trying to impress the vets with pathetic attempts at mobbing are probably why i beat the hell out of myself and the bike. after safely returning to the truck i was informed that the bike i had been running into trees or flipping over costs something shy of $5K. jeebus. high fives, burgers, and beers were had in fall city. rad time dudes, thanks! here's some pics:

getting ready to drop-in


halfway down. pic w/no flash (rueffnkiddinme?). note glow-in-the-dark legs.


same shot as above but with a flash


the only reason i look kinda tough in this pic is because i spent 10 minutes drying my tears with my shirt.




in other news: got a summer jamzzzz cd from T&H the other day and i finally gave it a listen today. purdy durn good dudes. THANKS!!!! #'s 9 to 12 (i think) are my favorites so far.


time for bed, got to get up in 4 hours to go hit the rivers for opening day of SALLYMON SEASON!!! man the Pacific NW is pretty damn mega.

skunked by sallymons

got out of town this weekend. this time oneshot and i headed up to the deception pass area of whidbey island to try some salmon fishin' in the saltwater. logged several hours fishing at 4 different spots. caught some stuff but not what we were targeting. i guess the humpys haven't come in too thick yet. we witnessed 5 silvers get landed. some of the beaches were pretty mellow and some were approaching shoulder to shoulder battle fishing. battle fishing sucks. apparently if you have a beard and wear flannel people think you know what you're doing when it comes to fishing. i fooled a lot of people this weekend.

i netted this crab and it was pissed! started hissing at me.

it cooled out though and we bro'd down

onshot caught this bullhead. apparently there area fresh and saltwater bullheads.

rock sole, i think. kinda like a flounder. i caught 3 of these.

don't touch.

neat


secret fishin spot. pretty peaceful, except for the T-pain the rich people aross the water were blasting.

i better catch a dang sallymon soon!

gone

i'm down to one truck. this one got donated today. it was in the same parking spot for 18 months without getting a ticket, until last thursday. 14 of those months i lived at the house it was parked by so i got to keep an eye on it daily. i guess the people who now live in that house didn't like it sitting there for the last 4 months. turkeys called it in to the cops.

it ran, just didn't drive. i think the main thing it needed was a new clutch. already had 223k miles though, didn't seem worth it. drove that thing from and to wisco twice, plus countless mountain adventures. it got in 4 accidents (only one my fault). the latest accident got me $1600.

umm, a post about a truck, eh? yeah, things must be slow.

test

HAAATTTTT

it's pretty hot here. way hot by seattle standards and surrounding areas have been hitting temps of 105++degreezz. i ain't complaining, it reminds me of home. so that means time for a retro shred post!

APRIL 10th to 12th:

Put some miles on my splitboard that weekend. skinned out to a yurt SW of rainier (south of ashford) on the mt. tahoma xc trail/hut system. trip was 5 dudes and a lady: fwankie, gretch, sweeney, zeke, heis-man, und me. most of us had splitboards but one dude had to use gaper skis. getting to the yurt was tough cuz our packs were heavy with booze and it's mostly uphill to get to the yurt. took about 4.5 hours to cover the 6 miles to get to the yurt and it took 1.5 hours to get back to the car. we killed 4 bottles of whiskey, 1 tequila, 8 bottles of wine, and some busch. i am slow and the other people were superhumans, before this trip i thought i was in ok shape. darn friends are too young or just too mega. daytimes were spent trying to shred on some melting snow in the clouds. actually we had on/off flurries for most of the weekend, but no accumulation worth noting. on the last night we made a fire using snowmans roadflare technique. it was wet on our way out, pouring cold rain wet. i am very slow at splitboarding. here are the pics.

muddy trailhead

i will be back

das yurt

mega cliff

MT GRIFFIN (went up and down that turkey a few times)

natures most perfect kiddie park!! this log was sessioned by gretch & heis-man. they kilt it!

gear upon gear. note cute gaper skis on left

x

lunch time!

fk yeah!

MOMMAZ BOI!

i really look forward to checking out the other hut in this system. it's so fun to shred for a whole weekend and not see another soul. it was such a good time with some good friends. i just hope i'm better at scrabble by next winter...