My run training has been going well recently, and my runners are due to be replaced, so I decided to start looking around for prices. I’m currently using Mizumo Wave Creations and they’ve been working well for me, so I figured I’d just get the same ones again. Recommended Retail Price in Australia is $250, but I’d seen them in Rebel Sport for $199.

In a bid to save some cash I decided to do a bit opf WBR (web-based research) and ended up buying from Runner’s Warehouse in the US: a pair of Wave Creations plus a pair of the lighter Wave Precisions, plus shipping to Oz for $230. Bloody bargain!

On a related note, Sydney’s Apple Store opened last week and their global Senior VP of Retail was asked why Australian consumers get ripped of by Apple’s pricing. He claimed that Apple’s prices are fair, which is horse shit. I’m looking to replace my 15” Macbook Pro, and there’s a 29% discrepancy between the US and Australian price - fair enough, 10% of that is GST, but that still leaves an almost 20% markup at a time when the exchange rate is 0.95. Mr. Johnson claimed that he had “never once - and I receive hundreds of emails a day from customers - had one email [complaining] about our pricing.”

So, I decided to send him one: >Hi Ron,

I read with interest your claim from June 19th’s Sydney Morning Herald, that in 8 years you “have never once - and I receive hundreds of emails a day from customers - had one email about our pricing.” If that is indeed true, then I’m happy to be your first.

Simply put, you’re ripping us off. I’m a software developer who has owned Macs since the early 90s a work exclusively on my MacBook Pro and I tend to upgrade to the latest version approximately every two years. I love all things Mac and as such, keep an eye on the goings on in the industry. More importantly, in the last couple of years I have been directly responsible for converting 20+ friends from PCs to Macs and all of them wonder why they didn’t switch sooner. My point is that I keep a regular eye on prices, as, if I’m not buying for myself, there’s a good chance I’m trying to convince a friend to switch.

I’m due to upgrade now and am looking at the better of the two 15” MacBook Pros: AUD$3400 vs US$2500, or at today’s exchange rate AUD$2619, so the Aus version is 29% more expensive than the US version, so if we allow 10% for GST, there’s still a 19% discrepancy to explain. Let’s remember that the laptops are manufactured in Asia, so there shouldn’t be a significant difference in delivery to Aus vs US. Also, I’m sure Apple has negotiated a uniform per unit price regardless of the end destination of the laptop. Every other manufacturer passes on currency savings to the consumer, except Apple. Yes, you make a token gesture with a $100 here and there, but, based on exchange rates, your laptops in Australia should have improved in price against the US by over 20% in the last few years and this clearly hasn’t happened.

I’d be interested in hearing your explanation for this.

regards, Donncha Redmond

I doubt I’ll get a response, or that the PR minions will even forward the letter to him!

Looks like the US is holding Iraq to ransom to try to ensure it gets to keep a strong military presence in the country to look after its oil supplies.

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

The threat by the American side underlines the personal commitment of President George Bush to pushing the new pact through by 31 July. Although it is in reality a treaty between Iraq and the US, Mr Bush is describing it as an alliance so he does not have to submit it for approval to the US Senate.

Iraqi critics of the agreement say that it means Iraq will be a client state in which the US will keep more than 50 military bases. American forces will be able to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government. American soldiers and contractors will enjoy legal immunity.

So much for “liberating Iraq”.

At last week’s Congress, FIFA agreed to sign up to WADA’s drug testing protocols and English players are not happy about it.

Availability requires that sportsmen and women must “provide accurate, current location information”, requiring that for an hour of every day they are accountable for their movements. This has become a huge issue for 30 top English players, who are mobilising against what they consider would amount to house arrest for the prescribed hour.

Michael Beloff QC has provided counsel to the PPF over what grounds it might have to mount a legal challenge to Fifa’s new rules. Initially the players hope to negotiate with the international game’s ruling body over scrapping the pool, insisting that football is not a sport at risk of doping.

They are claiming there’s no risk of cheating in a sport where you can earn $250,000 per week! Are they serious?

Finally, we’re out. Five years after being signed up to the Iraq War against the wishes of its populace, Australia today withdrew its troops from Iraq.

The Defence Force in southern Iraq formally handed its commitment to the United States and lowered the Australian flag above Camp Terendak, at the US-run air base Tallil, at a ceremony yesterday morning.

The handover, which fulfils the Rudd Government’s election commitment to withdraw Australia’s combat troops from a deeply divisive war, was based on an agreement between Australian and US commanders.

The Independent has an interesting piece on how various parts of the world are coping with the rapid increase in oil prices over the last two years.

British pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. European hauliers and fishermen whose livelihoods are under threat. Palestinians forced to fill up their cars with olive oil. Americans asked to go down to a four-day week.

All around the world, in a multitude of ways, the soaring price of oil is hurting rich and poor alike. For the lucky ones, it is simply a matter of changing their lifestyle. But those most vulnerable to the price of oil have been driven on to the streets in angry protests, which raise a fundamental question: what can we do to survive in a world where a barrel of oil costs $127 (£64)?

The good news is that demand from consumers is decreasing, but that’s more than offset by increases in industrial demand.

Over the last two months, I’ve been making a bit of an effort to finally shed the bonus kilos I’ve acquired over the last 7 years. I’ve attempted this in the past, only to fail, but this time I’ve met with more success. How? By following the Atkins diet. Here’s the deal…

Summary
Mar-19: 90.5kg @ 22.5% fat
May-18: 82.8kg @ 17.3% fat
I also had two periods where I went off the diet during those two months - one was Jacqui’s birthday, can’t remember the other one.

What did I do?
One word: Atkins.

Why Atkins?
I’ve always been sceptical of “diets”, regarding them as something that chicks do for a couple of weeks before stacking the weight back on, so I’ve always favoured the ‘increased exercise and healthy eating’ approach myself. However, it never works. Sure, I’ll lose a bit of weight, but it’s usually only 2-3 kilos and I’ll stay at that weight no matter how much training I do (up to 10hrs a week at times) and, as soon as I stop training, I gradually revert to my old weight. It has been like that for the last few years, always returning to about 90kg, so something new had to be done.

I’d read really good reviews of a book called Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes which examines the question of why the population of the western world are turning into fat bastards when we’re constantly reminded to eat healthy etc. It’s a thorough examination of the history of research into obesity, how a low-fat diet came to be the recommended one, and how our bodies process food and register hunger. It’s 460 pages of science discussion, followed by 45 pages of notes and 65 pages of references & bibliography: in short, it’s not a diet book, however I found it extremely interesting.

Its conclusion is that fat doesn’t make people fat, carbs do, due to their effects on insulin. Body can only store fat when insulin is present in bloodstream. Conversely, there are about 30 hormones which cause your fat cells to release fat, and all are less effective in presence of insulin. The standard western diet is high in carbs, particularly highly refined carbs, which have the greatest effect on insulin. The result is that you eat, your blood sugar spikes, insulin spikes, you store the meal as fat, but then insulin stays higher than normal (since your diet is so high in carbs), so your fat cells don’t release as much fat as they should, your cells don’t get the fuel they need and then your body thinks it’s hungry. Also, excessive carbs can also cause most of the western civilisation diseases - heart disease, kidney/liver failure, diabetes etc. You’ll have to read the book for the rationale as it’s too detailed to go into here.

Low-carb diets have been recognised since 1700s as the most effective way to lose weight fast and keep it off. The most well known is the Atkins Diet now, but Atkins didn’t invent it, he just refined and marketed it. Back in 1740s it was known as a Banting diet, after a dude called Banting who popularised it.

Anyway, that’s what got me thinking about giving it a go. The book also goes into detail on the science of why the diet works, so I now understand what’s happening too.

Here’s a v. quick summary (and it’s mainly US-centric with its data):

• older civilisations, prior to meeting western culture: incidence of diabetes, heart disease, etc. extremely rare, regardless of diet composition. some islanders in pacific had diet composed of up to 90% saturated fat (all fish & coconuts), and Inuit traditionally ate only meat & fat: no veggies etc. cause that’s all they had. Again, extremely low incidence of traditional western disease
• about 35 years since the US was told that fat was bad, and low-fat diet recommended
• since then the US has got fatter
• nutritional data shows that people eating on average 150cals more per day than in 70s
• however, they are eating less fat and more carbs
• they are also exercising more, since aerobics/jogging boom took off in 70s. before that, people didn’t really exercise for leisure
• your body can actually get all its nutritional requirements from only red meat!
• it’s almost impossible to overeat on just protein and fats. One study had volunteers aim to eat 3000cals/day for a couple of months. Those eating protein & fat struggled big time to manage it. Those eating carbs as well had no problems reaching the target, and when told to eat as much as they could were able to pack away up to 10,000cals/day consistently!

How does it work
Details of Atkins at their website. Read all 4 phases so you understand the whole thing: most people who criticise Atkins are taking aim at phase one - which you only have to stay in for a minimum of two weeks.

Basic Idea
Your body can burn either alcohol, carbs, or fat for fuel, in that order of preference. Therefore, if you go out for a big meal and then go on the piss, your body is going to store the meal as fat and burn off the alcohol instead. So, you want to force your body to burn fat, therefore you can’t eat any carbs or alcohol.

First two weeks (phase-one) are ‘extreme’. Only 20 grams of carbs per day, i.e: 80cals/day, yes eighty: NO rice, bread, pasta, alcohol etc. However, you can eat as much meat, seafood, eggs, cheese and leafy green veggies as you like. The limited carbs force your body to switch to burning fat. This takes a couple of days, so at some stage in the first 5 days you will feel shit, weak and a bit dizzy if you stand up too quick: this is your body making the switch. Once the switch is made, your body will keep burning fat preferentially unless you start feeding it loads of carbs/alcohol again. Basically it will munch its way through your fat stores.

I weighed myself every morning and recorded my fat percentage. I was also writing down everything I ate as part of ensuring I ate less than 20g of carbs, and on average I was only eating 1600cals/day - which for someone of my size and weight is at least 400cals less than the recommended minimum. However, I never felt hungry and wasn’t starving myself. I ate decent meals, and snacked if I was hungry, but protein & fat keep you feeling full for longer, so I was never hungry.

What did I eat?
A typical day was a fry-up for breakfast: a couple of sausages, rashers and some eggs, or else an omelette with chorizo & mushrooms etc. Lunch was a salad: ham & salami, some cheeses (brie, bocconcini, jarlsberg etc.) with some rocket salad or something. Mayonnaise (the real stuff - whole egg mayo) is OK too. Dinner was a big hunk of meat, with some veggies and maybe some goat’s cheese for some flavour.

Notes
For every gram of carbs your body stores, it also stores 4g of water. So in the first two days you’ll lose over a kilo - that’s all water. Also, as soon as you start eating carbs again, you’ll put over a kilo straight back on as your body stores water again, so factor that in if you are aiming for a goal weight.

Once I switched to fat-burning mode, I was losing about 300g/day, all fat.

You won’t be able to do any intense exercise for a while. When I first started on the diet I couldn’t run anywhere without feeling shit and a bit dizzy, but now I can run 14k easily enough, but at a nice relaxed pace. I doubt I could manage sprints or high intensity stuff, because the fat-burning process only works aerobically. It will not work without oxygen, so any exercise that requires your anaerobic system isn’t going to happen.

You’ll fart and shit less ;-) mainly because your body is using everything you give it. Also, your breath may end up smelling. It’s a by-product of fat-burning, so it’s a good sign that the diet is working the way it should. Mine did, so Jacqui says, but I haven’t noticed anyone shying away from me or standing well back, so it’s obviously not reeking. A couple of sugar-free mints can sort it out if it happens to you.

Common Misconceptions
Atkins is really bad for your heart: not true. The low-fat diet is based on the fact that heart plaques (which cause heart attacks) are full of cholesterol, so doctors concluded that high cholesterol causes heart attacks. However, we now know that there are many different types of cholesterol, some good (HDL) and some bad (LDL). Eating saturated fat, which used always be one of the bad fats, results in an increase of LDL, but also increases HDL by the same amount, so the net effect is zero. Pretty much the only bad fats these days are trans-fats, which are the man-made fats. However, if you have a history of heart-disease in your family and are tempted to give Atkins a go, play it safe and get your cholesterol checked before you start, and maybe again after about a month and see how you’re going.

Ketosis can kill you: not true. Ketosis is a perfectly natural state where your body is burning fat. If you eat your evening meal around 7pm, and don’t eat before going to bed, then when you wake up you are almost certainly in ketosis as your body will have used your stored carbs overnight. If your body wasn’t designed to burn fat, then why would we store it? People commonly confuse ketosis with the far more extreme ketoacidosis, which is a symptom of Type 1 Diabetes or severe alcoholism.

If you like sciencey books and are interested in nutrition, I’d highly recommend Taubes’ book. I’ve another couple of weeks to go. I was about 78kg when I first arrived in Australia in 1999, so I’m aiming to get under 80kg again. 75-80 is what I consider my ‘normal’ weight should be. After my birthday this week, I’ll do another two weeks of the diet and that should be it.

One of the arguments of global warming deniers is that CO₂ levels have been higher in the past than they are now, and that therefore it shouldn’t be a problem. Reuters has a good article which explains why this argument is false: it’s not really the absolute amount of CO₂ that’s the problem, but the rate of change. We’re currently pumping CO₂ into the atmosphere about 14,000 times faster than any stage in the last 600,000 years.

The average change in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 600,000 years has been just 22 parts per million by volume, Zeebe said, which means that 22 molecules of carbon dioxide were added to, or removed from, every million molecules of air.

Since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, ushering in the widespread human use of fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 100 parts per million.

That means human activities are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere about 14,000 times as fast as natural processes do, Zeebe said.

And it appears to be speeding up: the U.S. government reported last week that in 2007 alone, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 2.4 parts per million.

The natural mechanism will eventually absorb the excess carbon dioxide, Zeebe said, but not for hundreds of thousands of years.

Richard Dawkins, responding to the question “What if you’re wrong?” neatly encapsulates why religion is bullshit: after all, if the foundation of your entire spiritual existence is largely an accident of birth, how can it be the one true anything…

I’ve been playing a regular Sunday golf game with Danny, Simon and the Kiwi boys for the last couple of weeks, and have been playing pretty badly really. I’d managed to shoot a couple of sub-100 rounds before I left Canada, which was a breakthrough for me so I was hoping to continue in that vein. However, playing at Woolooware, I’d shot 103, 109, 111, 111 since coming back and it was pissing me off.

While in Canberra to visit John we had a game at Yowani Country Club and I managed a 99, and since then things have been on the up. Last Thursday I went out to Woolooware with Danny, Simon and Nathan and shot a 93, with 6 pars, eclipsing my previous best ever round by three shots, and on Sunday followed that up with another 99, so hopefully I can now expect to regularly shoot under 100 and can focus on getting under 95 regularly, with a view to cracking 90. If I can just stay out of the trees on the first few holes of the back 9, I should be sweet.

Well it’s been quite a while since I posted anything, but things are starting to settle down now. Myself and Jacqui finally found an apartment to rent, five weeks after arriving back from Canada! We moved in two weeks ago and the place is slowly starting to take shape. It’s quite a bit smaller than our previous place in Vaucluse, so we still have to get rid of some stuff that we don’t really have any room far. Once that’s done all will be well, as the place is still a bit cluttered at the moment.

I had hoped to get iiNet’s Naked DSL installed, but it turns out that our apartment doesn’t have a phone line connected to it! In 2008!! Anyway, we could get the landlord to pay $300 to get a line installed, and then wait another 2-3 weeks to resubmit a new Naked DSL application, but since both myself and Jacqui are working from home at the moment, waiting 4-6 weeks to have internet wasn’t practical, so I signed up with BigPond’s Cable Internet instead. We should have that up and running later this week.

Also, I nearly burnt the place down a few days ago. I’d got the gas connected, so I decided to make a coffee with my stovetop coffee pot, but I forgot all about it and went off to the supermarket to meet Jacqui and do a grocery shop. I wandered around, filling up the trolley until I got to the coffee aisle and remembered “Fuck, I left the coffee pot on the gas”. Ran all the way home (just as well our new place is close to the shops, eh?) to discover coffee pot on fire. Thankfully it’s almost all metal so there wasn’t enough flammable material to cause anything serious, so all I had to do was open the windows to let the smell out and reassure the cat that things were OK.

Great story this morning about a dolphin “who rescued to stranded whales”:http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/save-the-whales-how-moko-the-dolphin-came-to-the-rescue-of-a-mother-and-her-calf-795025.html in New Zealand. The two “pygmy sperm whales”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_sperm_whale had been discovered by locals, and repeated efforts to free them had come to naught.

"They kept getting disoriented and stranding again," Mr Smith said. "They obviously couldn't find their way back past [the sandbar] to the sea." He was beginning to contemplate killing the pair, to save them from a slow, painful death, when Moko – as local people have named the dolphin – arrived. Moko, who often plays with humans at Mahia, approached the whales and guided them 200 yards along the shoreline and out through a channel into the open sea.

Had a perfect start to the day today: up early, down to the beach for a run, then a swim in perfect azure water, then coffee and toasted banana bread for breakfast, before heading home to start work. Can’t get much better than that!

Also, yesterday I finally got around to uploading my photos from “Tiff & Nick’s Wedding”:/albums/35.

George W. Bush, as promised, “has vetoed a bill”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/10/usa.humanrights which would have outlawed the CIA’s use of waterboarding to torture suspects.

Bush said that any attempt to restrict CIA interrogators would weaken them in the fight against al-Qaida. He claimed the CIA had used its own secret methods to foil several attacks, including plans to attack Heathrow, to fly a plane into the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles and to hit the US consulate in Karachi.

In the UK meanwhile, there are growing demands for an independent inquiry into the use of UK territory by the CIA’s rendition flights after it emerged last week that flights had landed at Diego Garcia.

Last month, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, apologised to MPs, admitting that contrary to "earlier explicit assurances" two flights had landed at Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean territory where the US has a large airbase. He said the flights had refuelled there, and each had had a single detainee on board who did not leave the aircraft. British and US officials have refused to give details about the two detainees other than that one was in Guantánamo Bay and the other had been released. Miliband said he had asked his officials for a list of all flights on which rendition had been alleged.

I’ve been back in Sydney for three weeks now and have been looking for an apartment all that time. Since we left 15 months ago, the rental scene has gone crazy, mainly due to ever-increasing interest rates. The Reserve Bank raised the cash rate to 7.25% last week and, since the credit crunch increases the spread between the cash rate and the rate at which the banks can actually borrow from each other, most banks plan to “add their own extra increase”:http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23335011-36418,00.html on top, meaning a variable rate mortgage will cost at least 9%.

Most first-time buyers are wary of entering the market in these conditions and are looking to rent instead, increasing competition for an already scarce resource. Sydney is “full”, with 99% occupancy of rental properties, so there have been times in the last two weeks when we’ve gone to view a place and had up to 70 other people show up as well! On the plus side, I did make it on to national TV when a news crew showed up at a place we were viewing to do a piece on how bad the rental market is, and I could be seen walking in to the apartment in the background. Fleeting glimpses of fame…

Anyway, we have applications in for two places, so hopefully one will come through with the goods.

When I landed in Singapore Airport, en route to Australia, I stepped out of the plane into temperatures of 29C. 10 days previously I’d been lounging in Banff and the thermometer read -34C! It’s going to take some time to adjust!

220 years after arriving, Australia’s government will today finally “say sorry”:http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-nation-apologises/2008/02/12/1202760301358.html for the wrongs committed against the Aboriginal people; for taking their land, for stealing their children and for what at times was almost state sponsored genocide. In response, Aboriginal representatives performed the first ever welcoming ceremony before the new Parliament opened today.

The text of the apology is as follows:

"I move: That Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history. The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country. For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry. We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation. For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written. We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians. A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity. A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed. A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia."

That’s it, my season is over. I’m in Banff now with a couple of days to kill before flying out of Calgary, ending a 14-month sojourn in Canada. After leaving Fernie, I went up to “Kicking Horse”:http://kickinghorseresort.com/ to meet up with Tom, Dave, Rob and Paul for a few days riding there.

Unfortunately, the resort has gone down in my estimation since last year. It’s still got awesome terrain, and great steeps off the ridges, but their lift system is useless and they still can’t get a decent internet connection set up on the hill. For some unknown reason they don’t run the one chair which lets you access the good terrain on the front of the hill, forcing everyone to use the gondola, so on days when there’s a bit of new snow, you may have to queue for 45mins to get up the hill. They also like stopping the gondola during the day so that they can do avalanche control, stranding everyone down at the bottom of the hill. Why they can’t either do it in the morning before the resort opens, or just prevent access to the bowl which they’re currently bombing, leaving the others open, is beyond me.

Despite all that, we still got some good riding in over the four days, so it was a decent end to the season. Right now I’m sitting in Banff and it’s -34C outside incl. wind chill, so Canada seems determined to give me a proper winter send-off!

I’ve uploaded new photos as well: “Australia Day”:/albums/33 - “Fernie”:/albums/32 - “Kicking Horse”:/albums/34

The last week in Fernie was awesome; it just didn’t stop snowing! In six days there was only one morning that we woke up without seeing 30cm+ of fresh, champagne powder which had fallen overnight, and by the end of the week 176cm of new snow was on the ground. What this meant was that myself, Nathan and Floody were up early every morning, queuing for first lifts and just ripping around the mountain, enjoying waist deep powder by the end of the week as evidenced by the photo of me cruising through the Cedar Bowl.

Dell, our retiree neighbour, who has been in the area his entire life, proclaimed it the best week of snow in 30 years, and I’m not about to disagree. Certainly, it’s the best snow I’ve ever boarded in, and the perfect send-off from Fernie.

So, this is what happens when you weigh around 90kg, you attempt a 360° jump and you wipe out badly… you smash the base-plate on one of your bindings! Luckily Burton have a lifetime warranty, so when I get back to Oz I should get a free replacement. In the meantime, I bought a second-hand replacement which will see me through the remaining week of this season.

I nominated myself as the only member of Team Extreme as I’m the only one who smashed some gear trying new stuff, and yes, I accept that Team Crap could also apply!

After a week without snow, yesterday it returned with a vengeance. We awoke to 27cm of fresh overnight, and it just kept going, so this was the scene which greeted myself and Nathan this morning… 44cm overnight, for a total of 71cm in the last 48hrs. Best of all? It’s Monday, so no weekend crowds.

We made it up bright and early for fresh tracks, so I decided to hold my video camera for the first run, only to have it marred by a knobhead skier who decided to pull a hockey stop into my path, sending me flying. Before I’d stopped sliding he was abusing me in lots of colourful language, and when I pointed out that it was he who pulled the sudden swerve and stop into my path, he pointed out that he was stopping to wait for his young daughter. Nice anger management and vocabulary he was teaching her there!

Anyway, holding the camera sans glove wasn’t the smartest thing to do in -23C, so I’m still dealing with slight frostbite six hours later. The first few runs were pretty sketchy, as a couple of days ago I’d moved my bindings forward to a fully centered stance to make it easier to change back and forth between regular and switch. That change was haunting me on a monster powder day as the front of my board just wanted to dive under the snow, so when we decided to switch to the new side of the hill I dipped into rentals and moved them back. After that I was ripping through the powder, landing nice jumps off cat-tracks and all was well with the world.

I’ve only 5 days left here in Fernie before heading off to Kicking Horse to meet up with Tom, Dave & Rob, and shitloads of powder is the perfect send off!