Saturday Jan 28th- day 22

Snowboarding today. On the bus in to Uni at 8:30, the driver reckoned that the main road up there was shut due to "a biiiig avalanche"! But we head off on a coach anyway from the University. We go via Microsoft in Redmond to pick up a couple more people. The Microsoft HQ are pretty massive, although it's hard to tell exactly how big. It makes me wonder how it is that a geky guy called Bill can have become the richest man in the world. I mean, I'm sure he's a smart cookie and all. And he does a lot of good work for charidee. But I get the feeling that Microsoft are actually pretty ruthless- they seem to squash the competition fairly systematically, and find ways of forcing people into using their stuff. I have been trying all week to get hold of Microsoft Office, and finally yesterday managed to order it (I get a 50% discount as a member of staff here). But it's hard not to use their software. I mean, who doesn't use Word and Excel as word processors of choice? You have to use them to play along with everyone else.

We approach Snoqualmie Pass, and have to stop to put tyre chains on. But the road has been reopened and we make it up to the Snoqualmie summit where there is snow, snow, snow everywhere. A good two feet or more as far as the eye can see. Which, as it is snowing hard, is not very far. I potter about on some reasonable slopes, but in trying to go from one trail to another, get stuck waist deep in powder. This, with a board on your feet, is something of a problem. It takes a good 5-10 minutes of struggling to get my feet high enough to unstrap the board and wade out of the powder! I wasn't ever going to get stuck, I just would have been a bit thin by the time they found me in July. Just my little joke there to make it all seem gnarly and hardcore, which it wasn't really, dudes. Here's a picture of me in the snowdrift.











And here's a picture of me speeding through the powder.











As you can see, it was really snowing hard! ;-)

In the afternoon, I had a lesson off a nice American guy called David. There was only one other student, an English guy called Benedict. He works for Microsoft and was a good boarder, although he did have the habit of doing spectacular faceplants at regular intervals. He has braces on all his teeth. I expect he got tired of people staring at his teeth (Americans have good teeth and think, often rightly, that Brits have mouths full of crooked, rotting blackened stumps). Anyhow, teeth not withstanding, we have a good afternoon, and go through some brilliant areas of deep, light powder. It' a pretty amazing feeling, which I guess you will only understand if you ski or surf, to be gliding along, making tracks through feet of perfect snow.

In the evening, they turn on the lights on the slopes, which is a bit surreal, but good fun also. I took this photo at the top of possibly the biggest half pipe I have ever seen. Believe me, it's bigger than it looks...

I watch a fair few guys go down it, and no-one was getting much air above the sides, even the hotshots. I would like to tell you how I caned it down, doing 360s and board grabs all the way. But I think you might see through my web of deceit. It was a monster, and I don't think in my next lesson that David will succeed in getting me some big air off that baby. Dude.

On the coach back, we watch a DVD- "40 year old virgin". Not so sure about it, but it got a lot of laughs on the coach. Perhaps due to hysterical tiredness. I get home at 10:30 and leave my keys in the front door in my haste to lay my head on the pillow.