I decided not to go into work and instead i slept in a bit, then organized and packed up the Trooper and drove down to Emily and Brian's house in Honesdale, PA. That's Ben and their dog Sophie up there.

Brian's parents came over and we hung out and watched the Superbowl.

The next morning i drove over to Elk Mountain for the AASI Moguls clinic. Elk is a nice little mountain that reminded me a little of Sandia Peak. It has that "small resort" vibe, unlike Okemo.

Ted and Burleigh were the clinician and understudy, respectively, and there were 10 of us in the clinic. I did NOT ride well on the moguls.

Day 2 of the clinic. By the afternoon, we'd changed our tactics in the bumps and i was riding a little better, but still, the overall impression was that my riding is not up to level 3 standard, which answered my question as to whether i would try for my level 3 certification this year.

After the clinic, i drove uneventfully home to my happy dogs.

Icicles off my porch.

More views from my porch.

The signpost again. Notice that the arrow to "Okemo Summit" is completely pointing in the wrong direction.

Sky and clouds (not snow!) from behind the SSB (Service & Support Building, where the Signshop is).

The barcodes of winter.

I don't know who made those tracks or why he or she only went that far.

The inside of my woodstove.

Olive oil in a casserole dish.

Got my new Never Summer snowboard today. My first choice on the pro-form was a 158 Evo. My second choice was a 158 SL. I had been called and told that they were out of top-sheets for the Evo, but would i mind getting one with a blank top-sheet? Sure! So i was expecting a blank Evo, for which i had designed my own custom graphics which i was going to print out at the Signshop. It was a bit of a bummer to open the box to find that it was a stock SL.

I took the SL out for its first runs today. It performed very well, especially in the pipe, so my bummerness of not getting the Evo began to wear off.

Valentine's Day. I worked a LONG day, leaving the shop at about 7:00 PM, which is when i took this, the only picture of the day.

I took the dogs on a nice hike along some snowmobile trails in the middle of the day.

That evening, i rode up the base lift with all of the torchlighters, then parked myself at the bottom of Wardance with my camera and tripod. After the torchlight parade passed by, i slid down behind them and set up the tripod again to take some pics of the fireworks.

The torchlight parade is much cooler to be in than to watch.

The wall of my livingroom.

An ice-encrusted bipod outside of the signshop.

Took three pictures today.

Jeff Alexander hooked me up with a free Bern helmet today. Pretty comfy, and it's the audio version, even though i don't own an MP3 player.

I left work early and drove over to Japanese Auto Clinic in Clarendon to drop off my truck. The brakes had been vibrating badly for a few days. When i got there, Carolee, who's a Snow Stars supervisor at Okemo was just picking up her car. Her husband gave me a ride home, so i didn't have to take the bus as i had been planning.

More snow. I rode the bus in to work today and got a ride home with KC.

Not the same floor, but possibly the exact same chair (there's two of them and i have them both) as the photo from my non-silver photography course in college.

I took the bus North to Clarendon to pick up my truck in the morning.

Icicles on the side of the SSB.

New board, new helmet, a little air. Photos taken by Nick, courtesy of Photos By Reflex. I'm all twisted up because i was looking at the photographer as i took off from the jump, and since he was on my back side, i had to turn a bit, but the board still went straight.

Sitting in my driveway, having just arrived home from work. Yes, it's snowing again!

The maintenance guys were shovelling off the roof of the SSB.

Teco barks for joy when i come home. Seera grabs the nearest thing in her mouth and jumps for joy.

Hard at work between video shoots for WAA. Photo taken by Nick, courtesy of Photos By Reflex.

After a morning shooting video, i took the trash and recycling to the transfer center, walked the dogs up to frozen Elfin Lake, then drove by Japanese Auto Clinic so that i could get 4 lugnuts put on my tires. I had one of those special locknuts on each tire, but we couldn't find the piece that's used to tighten them, so i had been driving around for a few days with only 5 lugnuts on each tire.

Mmmm... wood floor...

Early morning gas stop at the Citgo station in East Wallingford.

Walked the dogs out along the tracks. Everything's frozen.