Results 276 to 300 of 301
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11-05-2018, 08:22 AM #276
I have been called "Einstein", "Doc Brown", the white "Don King", and the radio DJ in for "The Little RascalsInternational Silver Screen Submarine Band", but never a Brooklyn Jew (although, I have been nominated as an Honorary member of the tribe)
“How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world? I don’t know, go ask Rory Gallagher”. — Jimi Hendrix
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11-05-2018, 08:28 AM #277
Woke up
Got out of bed
Dragged a comb across my headMove upside and let the man go through...
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11-05-2018, 08:46 AM #278
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11-05-2018, 08:47 AM #279
Cut THAT HAIR !!! Gotta love the Marker hat on Yauch. I wore that hat OUT
Bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste goood.
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11-05-2018, 11:37 AM #280Registered User
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- Mar 2008
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- northern BC
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- 31,081
Of course its still possible to just ski and not work, I know a lot of mostly younger folk doing forest tech/fighting fires/planting trees all of which pay off differently year to year due to market forces
the question is how much harder/easier is it to not work/ski bum at any given point in historyLee Lau - xxx-er is the laziest Asian canuck I know
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11-05-2018, 11:42 AM #281
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11-05-2018, 12:01 PM #282Registered User
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- May 2018
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- 296
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11-05-2018, 12:06 PM #283Registered User
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
- Location
- Verdi, Nevada
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- 15
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11-05-2018, 12:21 PM #284www.dpsskis.com
www.point6.com
formerly an ambassador for a few others, but the ski industry is... interesting.
Fukt: a very small amount of snow.
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11-05-2018, 06:01 PM #285
Seems readily apparent then, that yes, one can become a ski bum today.
Plenty of 'em right here.
Wanna experience it In Real Life?
Then plan on meeting some at BBI19@ Alpental and/or this season's Franchise /satellite event is in the greater Salt Lake city-Wasatch Metropolis; the BBI19UT.
And you know both of those areas are gonna deliver some really hardcore ski bums this year.
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11-06-2018, 06:26 AM #286Registered User
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- May 2018
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- 296
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11-06-2018, 09:31 AM #287
This is a tough thread to respond to, because I feel like I owe it Stories, real stories, not some little #metoo. I've tried twice to start in, and failed to get it down.
First, thanks to all of you who brought your stories, keepers of the faith. Sometimes I have a tough time with this forum, because I want it to be some kind of remnant of a connection to a core....and one wonders if that perceived core is gone, or ever was; but also if this forum is or would even be a connection to it. It's elusive and fucking complicated, but this thread gives me faith that you all are out there and that we're all one thing and we have some kind of tiny, weird bond; which is reassuring out here in The Vast Wilderness of aging in post-ski life.
I went for it.
Skiing meant a lot to me, it was my refuge as an awkward tween, it was the only thing I was good at as a high schooler. I knew I was going for it at about age 15. I studied, literally....there was a huge archive of Ski and Skiing at the college library in town. There was an archive of Powder at the US Ski Hall of Fame 20 miles from home. I recorded every ski event I could find on TV, ESPN had world cup events, there was the Bud Pro Mogul Tour and pro racing still existed. Every ski movie at the video store....I slept in a sleeping bag so I could get used to camping, I put ski pictures and Steve Casimiro Intros around my bed space and I had a ski dream almost every night for months. I set up a tuning bench in our basement. Nobody else in my family skied, I learned from my friends and from books and from a Swix tuning manual I bought at a ski shop in town. I made mistakes. I tried to ski on waxed skis I hadn't scraped. I set DINs wrong and had horrific prerelease wrecks...buddy and I caused a huge landslide sand skiing at the pictured rocks national lakeshore, we were super lucky neither of us got crushed or buried or swept into the lake. We banged around on 200cm straight skis skiing tight trees in the woods. I got a pair of 218 Fischers and started skiing moguls with them because that's what Plake did.
So I was going for it, there wasn't really any question.
Real life calls, space reserved for the rest.
continued:
There were so many weird living situations.
Tiny one-room vacation cabins for a couple of winters, one with a roommate I got site unseen. Making $700 a month and paying $300/month in rent. Hitchhiking back and forth to work. Little travel trailers. Tenting it, stealthy tenting, luxury tarp-compound tenting it. I dragged a big couch out into the wilds for a summer woodsy bed. On a cot up a ladder in the attic at my forestry job. The back of a few different pickups. Rooms....I rented a room in an old-school hispano Taoseno house, I rented a room in a farmhouse with a farming widow, with the horses and chickens and all that stuff. Ski bum houses, 4 of us had a single wide trailer for awhile...7 guys in a 1 bedroom apartment that was almost like a hotel room, I had a cot in an actual closet and thought I had it dialed because 5 dudes were on the floor in the room and I had my own space.
Another place we piled into the bunkhouse upstairs of another small cabin, like a box full of puppies. I had my very own spot at the top of huge 3-story A-frame in Taos ski valley with 4 other guys. I rented a room with non-skiing strangers in Sandy, right on the football field for Alta High....my bedroom window was even with the press box on the other side of the field. It was like living in a stadium.
I lived with a home-owner girlfriend with all my stuff in a storage unit for years.
I almost bought a house a long drive from Taos Ski Valley for $50,000 (I thought it was so much money because I had looked at a place in Tres Piedras for $25,000.....good God), and lived in it with a buddy during the time we were trying to work the deal out.
Apartments....I rented a partition off the side of an aging gangster's house in a compound in Ranchitos near Taos. I had a tiny apartment that was sectioned off a different house across town, paper wall away from young active gangsters. One late night the police came through my door guns drawn, looking for the guys next door.
Finally, I took advantage of that time when they were just giving out loans to pretty much anybody and I bought a little house in an iffy neighborhood in Salt Lake and immediately rented a room to another skier. Ski bums living next door to a meth dealer, then there was an actual pimp and 2 hookers.
again, it's all gone. Literally this moment is me leaving to assist my wife with a clogged toilet and walk the dog. I'll be back.
The bummiest times were just after high school. I got kicked out of my childhood house after I graduated....my mom sold the house, married her boyfriend, and moved into his house. I stayed with friends, I stayed in tents, I had a lifeguarding job for awhile at a camp that came with a place to sleep. I had keys to a cabin 25 miles out of town. I ate fish I caught, I ate raspberries and blueberries and later I ate a lot of apples. I about drank myself to death at parties in town and slept on those couches. It was chaos. I headed out to Colorado in the fall.
In those days, all that really mattered was skiing. I was 18, and living that way was a pretty natural extension of high school. Whatever else was going on, if I could ski every day I was good. The rest of life was often really difficult. I wasn't eating much, I was living in a world of 25 year olds who had a lot of things sorted out....decent vehicles, reasonable places to live, hookups. I just found the best skiers I could find and tried to hang in there skiing in big ratpacks....learning the terrain. It was just a blur of wonder and humiliation and hunger and loneliness, punctuated by occasional glory on the mountain. I was 6'3" and 150 lbs at most, maybe at times down to 130. Once a month I would drive into Gunnison to do laundry and I'd eat at McDonald's. I remember those times, because it was just....like....holy shit, fucking food. Salt, fat, meat.... ahhhhhh. I was literally starving.Last edited by ill-advised strategy; 11-21-2018 at 10:49 PM.
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11-06-2018, 09:32 AM #288
space reserved for story time
I used to stalk the continental breakfast at the Grand Butte Hotel in Created Butte, wait till just the right moment and move through smoothly, efficiently...nothing crazy, filling pockets...and I’m gone!!!
Sometimes that’s all I had to eat, or that and noodles.
I ate condiments....you get the paper boat for a hot dog and just heap pickles and ketchup and onions....if The Gods are smiling the place will have a hot cheese dispenser. I ate taco bell hot sauce packets.
You know you’re hungry when you can just crunch through a dry uncooked package of ramen noodles. Diring my heyday they went from just chicken to creamy chicken...ooh la la. Then came the spicy beef. Living it up.
When I forst moved to Taos you could get self-serve chili at Wendy’s for 99¢...I think it may have only been one day of the week for the 99¢....but I would go in there and eat like a gallon of sketchy cheap taoseño fast food chili for a dollar.
Later, when we had mre’s and fire camp food on my first crews I would quickly gain like 30-30 lbs just eating normal meals, stoked while non skibums complained aboit the awful food...haha I was stoked!
When I finally got a job for $1300/mo salary and started eating macaroni and cheese and generic cereal I thought I was in food heaven.
That job let me trade shop work for food. The gorgeous cook at the lodge next door would come over in her tight thermal top with these plates of expensive ski resort restaurant food and her core shots...I’d make her skis perfect.
Somebody started bringing me bacon from the breakfast buffet at another lodge...his skis always looked pretty good too.
It was a solid couple of years after high school of living literally hungry, going hungry instead of working more so I could ski myself stupid.
I hadn’t really thought about the hunger in a long time...that’s probably why I’m like one of those pound dogs who overeats. There’s a deep part of my brain that's just like: eat it all! We’re starving!!! LolLast edited by ill-advised strategy; 11-21-2018 at 10:50 PM.
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11-06-2018, 09:44 AM #289
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11-06-2018, 11:40 AM #290
Ya, there are quite a few different definitions of "bum" and I don't think it really matters. A couple of the kids I skied USSA Freestyle against went all in and moved west going after the pro skier dream, either competing as adults or trying other gigs in the ski industry from working at resorts to product reps. That said, the best of the best came from VERY wealthy families, most notably the family who bankrolled most of USSA Central Division Freestyle and fielded two different world champions bearing their last name. Fantastic people, loved the opportunity to ski with them and stayed at their house for a week long camp. Their kids went on to be big time movie producers and other high roller jobs after skiing.
I retired from competitive skiing at age 18 because I knew those others who went all in were way better than I was. I had a great time but wasn't as good as they were. Hoping to retire in the mountains in about 15 years and be a REAL ski bum LOL..Go that way really REALLY fast. If something gets in your way, TURN!
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11-06-2018, 12:10 PM #291
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11-06-2018, 12:13 PM #292
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11-06-2018, 05:38 PM #293Registered User
- Join Date
- May 2018
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- 296
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11-06-2018, 07:11 PM #294
Not trying to hijack, more to add a little spice.
Every ski area has its Characters, got any.
At Park City we in 1986 we had several. Larry the Legend, John Haney, Carl Dollhausen (sp?), Brad Makeoff.... They were there when I moved there and AFAIK, some may still be there and keepin on.
When I moved to Big Sky it was a much smaller community but there wasn't a shortage of Characters and in fact there were even more of them.
Rick Danger and Rick Danger aka Sick Rick, Biff, Chaz the Paperboy, Stewart (TBI), Packy, Lonnie and Mary and Kelly and Mel (family act). There are still hard cores left around but it seems like for shorter reigns and then they are gone.
So it goes.
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11-06-2018, 10:42 PM #295
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11-07-2018, 07:46 AM #296
Also in the 70s, everybody smoked cigarettes EVERYWHERE!
Go that way really REALLY fast. If something gets in your way, TURN!
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11-07-2018, 10:03 AM #297
Disco might have sucked, but that's where the women were
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01-04-2019, 08:04 AM #298
bump
just add Ramen noodles https://www.facebook.com/GrewUp70s80...2274011547360/Bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste goood.
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01-04-2019, 11:56 AM #299
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01-05-2019, 02:00 PM #300
I never labeled myself as a ski bum though looking back now I definitely pulled it off here and there. Ill Advised did a nice job verbalizing it, I can picture myself in many of the scenarios he described. I worked my ass off in the summer so I could ski all winter. When I decided to scale back on the summer gig it evolved into typical winter ski jobs-night janitor, snowmaker, cat operator, sandwich artist, lift op, ski patrol. Yep did them all, all had their perks, all had their suck. Spent more seasons in more places then most. Nomadic for many many years, chase the snow all winter, head back to the water for the summer.
For me my bumming adventure began without me even realizing it at the time, and all you old timers around here got to be a part of it. Back in the Powmag days when I was just trying to survive the winter in my truck. Looking back on things the tranny going out in my truck that season was the best thing that could have happened. Sucked all my savings and led me to the forum for advice and help. Total group of strangers came together in a really fucking cool way. I got to ski the mountain west for 3 months straight with no money and no job.
The first month I connected with a dozen or so mags. strangers that housed/fed/ and took me skiing, never asking for anything in return. Some mags just up and sent me gas money, total strangers, to random post offices in randon towns, just to keep me moving along. All just happy to be a part of one man’s journey. Even while it was happening I realized it was special. Now nearly 20 years later I can say without a doubt it means more to me now then it did then. That season was the first Summit (or whatever you guys call them now), 50 or so mags showed up in SLC. Splat got a little blurb in that issue of Powder about us. (I still have a copy somewhere). You want to assemble a crew of ski bums, question if they still exist, or if it is even possible, then look no further then this board right here. I have skied with many of you, sublet houses from you, jumped of rocks with you, logged 100 day seasons with you, had beers, swapped stories, passed on gear to those in need, etc. We all got the ski bum in us, some are active, some retired. As for me, I have been taking a little break. Three kids does that to you, I am 5 years away from getting lost in the mountains permanently but I’m loving every minute of right now and wouldn’t trade it for the world. See you bums on the hill. EZ
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