Where on Earth is Mark - 27 December 2006

Hey all!

I hope you all had a brilliant Christmas and are looking forward to an exciting new year.

As usual it has been a while in coming but please read on for my latest exciting update of what I’ve been up to and where it happened…

Sloppies in the Rockies!

Where there is water there are boys playing in it. This is how NOT to land a 360… :-)

Goodbye Fernie

In my first season in Canada the end of the season came far too fast and left everyone wanting more. I was dreading the end of this season, well I needn’t have worried - Fernie let me down gently…

Long before the season finished the snow stopped falling and the slopes went hard as rock. Even that was short lived. Yup, spring happened and it was sloppy city. I did make one nice discovery though; big fat powder skis make short work of the worst pug. They’re also brilliant for water skiing! The highlight was the 10m pond that formed by one of the main lifts.

After months of awesome powder it all come as a bit of a shock.

After a few more hostel parties it was time to move on. The car had sprouted an alarming amount of rust so it was time that moved on as well. I thought I’d lose an awful amount on the car with the amount of rust it had – so instead of trying to sell in the end of season buyers market it in Fernie, I visited some friends in Calgary to try my luck there.

The first few people who looked at the car weren’t interested, they said it had way too much rust and was too expensive, it wasn’t looking good. So I was amazed when a dealer turned up and paid the asking price after barely looking at it – it seems that Accord Wagons are something of a rarity, even if rusty bits are falling off them! The following day I got told off by another dealer who said I had way under priced it and he was annoyed that I hadn’t given him a chance by under pricing it! All very bizarre.

Flatmate and I enjoying the more serious side of Brighton!

The Summer

After all the visa hassles I had last summer with Her Majesties Imperial Immigration (dis)Service I decided I’d better get it sorted and get legal. The authorities did their best to dissuade me and encourage me to work under the table again. I had to jump through so many hoops that I considered turning pro. A bunch of the hoops were located in New Zealand so my “cheap” flight across the Atlantic turned into two one way flights via New Zealand… Still it was good to visit everyone again, even though I’d only been there a few months prior!

I finally arrived in London a month later than planned to take up reins of the project I’d been working on the previous year. It was a mess, they guy who had been entrusted with looking after it hadn’t and had even managed to get himself sacked. So all the traction that had been gained the previous year had been lost and my plans of further developing a system that had been working for many months were dashed. It was going to be an interesting summer…

My home life was far more interesting, I found myself a room in a massive three story flat in North London in one of the more arty areas. My flatmates were an eclectic mix and it was in a constant state of flux. While I was there I lived with a fringe theatre producer, a performance artist,

It’s hard to get a good shot of a BBQ, but you get the idea!

two video editors, a landscape architect, a web developer, an electrical engineer and a cricket journalist. The nationalities were even more diverse: Serbians, Italians, Spanish from the Bask Country, French, Greek and briefly an Englishman and an Australian! During the heat of summer it meant that there was a continuous series of BBQ’s and parties.

Unfortunately for the 9 to 5ers (mainly me) most of the other flatmates worked irregular hours and irregular days, it was not unusual for a Wednesday BBQ to finish in the wee hours – or daylight. For the first time in my life I was one of those people who were first in bed.

One of the Serbian flatmates was invaded by a contingent of relatives and friends from the Motherland and I was fortunate to spend a lot of time in their company. It was fascinating to learn about the recent history of Serbia from an entirely different perspective. Suffice to say I’m going to visit in the near future! Exit Festival here I come!

It was a wonderful summer and all too soon it came to an end. As I type this it is Boxing Day, it is cold, damp and slate grey outside. Cue my next adventure!

The Orient

Wile in Canada I had seen a number of ski and boarding DVD’s that raved about a country that was supposed to have snow that even the gods were envious of. I was aware that this country had snow but no idea that they had a snow industry. It had all the hallmarks of a well kept secret. Unfortunately it is a secret no longer. The word is out and Japan is now a ski destination, the 06-07 season is the first time that ski package holidays to Japan have been available from the UK. I figure that if the snow is so good then I’d better get there before the place gets completely overrun. So in two days I’m off to find out how good the snow really is and how to say Happy New Year in Japanese!

I hope you all had an awesome Christmas and Best Wishes for the New Year!

Take care,

Mark