Lance and I are heading to Missoula, Montana this Wednesday for Snowbowl’s annual Freestyle competition. Training is Thursday & Friday, and the events run Saturday through Monday. Lance is planning on competing in the Moguls event and possibly Aerials and/or Slope Style. Lance competed in last year’s mogul event. The last 3 photos of >this< album show the terrain. Those buildings at the bottom of the photos is where we lodge for a whopping $38 a night. Pretty sweet deal.

Stay tuned for event results and some new photos. Until then, here’s a peek at one of my favorite shots of Lance from this season. This was taken a couple days ago at the White Pass terrain park.

Who’s a big boy?

Props for the hops. Wish us luck.

We made our first journey to the Packwood Palace today. The main roads were bare and wet. Over all an eventless trip. Christina couldn’t make it up this time though, so I wanted to get some photos up here for her and everyone else to check out. Enjoy.

Some elk snow grazing on the Cowlitz in Packwood.

Skate Creek Road with Tatoosh showing through the blue. This is the last mile or so of the trip.

A close up of the mighty Tatoosh Mountain.

Neah decorated this old snowboard a few weeks ago and Christina helped her bury it at the front of the driveway to mark our cabin. Pretty wicked. I think Lance wants to jib it.

The plows do a wonderful job blocking the driveway. Fear not. Lance and I shoveled the entire way up.

Mmm...I'd say there's a foot or so of snow. There should be 3 steps on the porch.

I'm pretty sure Speedo was not McLovin' it. Don't worry. He thawed.

Maybe I’ll get some shots from the slopes posted tomorrow. Be safe in the low lands everyone. I hear there’s a full fledged blizzard headed for Olympia. Oh yeah. Winter is definitly here.

Woooooo! Winter is here. White Pass received almost 2ft of fresh goodness over the past 24 hours. As of this morning we’ve got a 42″ base to ride. I can’t wait to get up there this weekend and let the season begin!

In other news, most of the Western Washington low lands have been getting their fair share of snow as well. My office, in downtown Olympia is at sea level on Budd Inlet. We don’t usually see anything more than slush falling down here but the past few days has been nothing but snowfall and accumulations. Pretty wicked.

December 17th, 2008

I don’t usually drive the Celica in the snow. It pretty much drives like a poorly designed sled. And I’m not talking about snowmobile sleds here, I’m talking about the kind we used to ride down the driveway.

December 17th, 2008

Those are the cranes at the Port Of Olympia on Budd Inlet. Sea level…look at all that delicious snow.

December 17th, 2008

Overlooking the marina from my office balcony. People live on some of those boats. Snow pirates I bet.

December 18th, 2008

I’d say there was around 6″ of snow at the house when I left for work this morning. I left the sled at home, but I did throw a shovel in the van just in case.

December 18th, 2008

It’s a little calmer at the office today. This is a shot of Budd Inlet, looking directly west out the office window. People make out in that raised gazebo all the time. Heathens!

December 18th, 2008

Purty-full.

December 18th

And finally, a view of the state capitol building in Olympia, WA from my office balcony. Glorious, no?

Whoa ho ho. Look at this. I’ve been working on this website off and on (in equal parts) for about 2 months now. Despite the challenges, or maybe because of them, it has been a fun project. This is the sort of project that requires focus, attention to detail, patience, dedication, good music, an occasional beer and a really sweet mohawk. Tonight the music is courtesy of TV On the Radio - Dear Science. The mohawk has been gone for a while and a single bottle of Rolling Rock will have to do.

There were times during the project when I wondered, “Will I ever write that welcome message?”. I’ve attempted this project many times over the years, but have never felt as close or satisfied as I am now. Why? I’m not exactly sure. I think it’s because this time, I started with a design I found visually appealing and forced everything else to conform. Yeah. That must be it.

This site is dedicated to you, my friends, my family, random internet wierdo. Enjoy your visit.

If you would like to be notified of changes (blog updates, new photos, etc..) just hit the Subscribe link up top, or click here.

Until next time.

Aaron

Blog: I am pretty pleased with the integration of Wordpress into my site. I’ve managed to get the most recent blog post (you’re veiwing it now) out of the Wordpress directory and onto the home page. I’ve decided to not allow logins or registrations for the time being. I will allow comments without registration. On the note of comments, I need to investigate how they are handled and displayed. I’m not entirely sure I like how it’s setup at the moment, but this will be a project for another time. I think it’s time to move on to a couple of other sections.

Photos: I haven’t put enough time into figuring out how I want to handle my photos. I don’t even really have a concept in mind yet. With the blog in place, I might be able to integrate my Photos via Wordpress. I’ve always liked the yawnarific idea of a daily photo. I may use the Wordpress install for that and use the Photos section of the main menu as a means of sharing some of my favorite photos I’ve taken over the years. If I go with a photo album format, I’d really like something easy to navigate and very well organized. I might have to investigate how I can tag photos so they are searchable by content.

Music: This section of the site really lacks concept. It’s been a while since I’ve played or recorded any of my own music so I don’t know that I need a section of the site dedicated to it. The original thought was I would put anything music related in here. I’d like to share some of my musical interests on the site, but I think I can handle this within Wordpress now (kind of like album reviews).

There are a few place holders hanging around the site here and there. I’ll tackle these in order of priority. I’m still trying to keep with my deadline of having the site ready by the end of November. Just in time for snowboarding

Aaron

This post has been modified to contain my personal To Do list for the site:

• Add a link back to main blog page from Archived and Searched sections.
• Customize the 404 page (maybe make it notify me when it’s triggered?)
• Hitcounter…not sure about visibility
• Further Automate subscription notifications
• Enable RSS on WordPress (really just need link)
• http://www.toadly.com/blog/?feed=rss2
• Format the Search box in the “Other Tools” section
• Create categories
• Delete all these bogus posts
• Link Most recent blog post to replace home page content
• Check all existing Page Titles - should read “toadly: title”. Many pages are wrong.
• A lot of the static pages have default Sub Menus. That’s lame.
• Investigate “keep alive” script to keep initial page reload times low
• Set default pages on subfolders (”/photos” for example)
• Some pages are missing the subscribe link