Blog: 2009
back to NZ
So you jump on one of the longest plane rides of your life to get to NZ, (good 12-14 hours) and jump off in aukland. Yes! back in NZ. Then through the wonders of the Aukland airport you're ushered into the longest customs line you've ever seen. because every international plane lands in aukland one after the other. So you wait a good hour and a half for customs. sweet. grab your bags and go. oh wait. another line. they need to xray all your bags to check for food, seeds, etc. Ok out of that line. sweet we're out. oh you need to transfer to a domestic flight? wait in that line over there. then finally make your way over to the domestic terminal. it's a pretty awesome trip to get here.
I had our new assistant coach Kris decoste and teammate sarah conrad on my flight out of LAX, then in aukland met up with a few more people from the team. Quick flight to queenstown, a meal at Furgburger (it's a must in Q-town) and we were on our way to our house in Wanaka. It's a fairly big place but is a bit of a zoo. we've got all the canadians staying under one roof. I think it's 13 people in total.brad martin, Dustin craven, kris and myself are in one room with bunkbeds. it's pretty sweet. we got enough room in there for all of us to chill and get away from the living room. and it's right near the lawn bowling so we've been getting into that in the afternoons. and i can see why it's an old person's game. it's a little slow.....
We've had 3 perfect days up at cardrona so far. The hill is closed and it's just the people that are there to shred the pipe. The kiwis obviously, a few polish riders, aussis, shaun white and us. it's a pretty mellow scene. Danny Kass and some of the japanese team just showed up also.
My ankle is feeling pretty good while riding. Just been riding super mellow to get my ankle back into it. but everyday is a little better and i'm bumping up the riding each day. So hopefully in a day or 2 i'll be up at full speed and trickery.
we're now on 2 down days due to rainy, cloudy crappy weather. We're spending the time on our super slow internet, gym, frisbee-ing, hot pools, video games, stretching. whatever picks your interest.
We should be back on snow tomorrow and the weather is looking sweet for the next little while.
later
jl
i've seen this a lot in my life and always wanted a shot of it. early morning hike up a freshly cut pipe.
customs in aukland
packing..
Just came home from vancouver island a few days. the surf was on. awesome last weekend of summer. temps dropped and the weather turned stormy and snowed in the mountains! seems like fall is here. The surf was super fun, and my ankle was holding up good. Had some good sessions with the adanac crew (www.surfadanac.com) they hooked me up with some sweet sunglasses upon hearing that still don't have an eyewear sponsor. adanac is hooking up the canadian surf stars (pete devries, noah cohen...) with sick traction pads, limited edition glasses and clothes.
now packing up for 3 weeks back in NZ. semi-private pipe sessions are going on up there as the rest of the hill is closed for the season. hopefully it'll be good! never been in NZ to shred in oct. only surf. so we'll see.
jl
game on!
finally got my MRI results back. looking pretty good. little bit of damage, but most likely old stuff from a life of snowboarding. So aside from a few aches left over my ankle is pretty much good to go. getting back into my normal life. Lots of time in the gym these days. that didn't change much with the ankle. just changed what i could do.
Going surfing to check out how my ankle is gonna feel standing sideways and getting torqued on. then in october we're heading back down to NZ to ride some more. can't wait to ride again. so my life should get exciting again here.
later
Game on!
whew. MRI came back pretty good an my ankle has been getting way stronger since being home. So still some sore spots in there but its pretty much good to go. going surfing this week,
woodworking
my grandfather first introduced me to woodworking, cause that's what he did in his spare time. And my dad taught me some more. And i love designing and building stuff.
It's a great way for me to get cheap furniture or do reno's on my little house.
So since i've been asked about it a fair bit recently i'm going to start posting some shots of some pieces i've made over the last few years.
logo for Kevin Sansalone at Sandbox Films
table i made for my friend's Cancer Fundraiser
pine and cedar shelves, with carved snowflakes
bar top made from salvaged fir, with cedar dovetail keys
fir/cedar rocking crib for my nephew, same piece of salvaged fir as the bar top
jewellery box for a present, made from reclaimed cedar
i hate hospitals!
Finally getting closer to knowing what i did to my ankle. I've had 3 rounds of xrays, a ct scan and a MRI. still waiting to hear on the MRI results but the CT scan came back good. I didn't crack any bones, which was a big concern with the mechanism of my injury. So, now waiting to hear if i bruised the bones, pulled any ligaments off the bone or just really super sprained it.
So lots of physio right now. i've gotten the OK to jump a little bit and ride my bike. My good mtn bike got stolen so i'm road riding on my very first mtn bike, which is 20 years old. Never thought i'd train for the olympics on it. it's got hockey tape holding the seat together, the bars, gouple gears don't work, seat doesn't stay straight, frame's a little bent. it's so sweet the thieves didn't dare take it when they took all the other bikes from my garage.
So if you're around squamish and see some dude with a fro, pedalling like crazy on an old fully rigid mtn bike, probably in sandals, that's probably me.
and if i'm screaming, it's cause the brakes hardly work on that bike.
nz photos.
Had to leave NZ and skip out on surfing the south island. one of our team physios basically told me to go home and get it checked out here. she knew i wouldn't take it easy while surfing. So i'm home now and the internet works so i can put up a bunch of photos from from my trip in NZ.
frends keir dillon, jack mitrani, danny davis, scotty lago and the head gre-nerd, danny kass
danny kass gets some interesting grenade logo placement on danny davis
shaun white, first hit first run 830am. cardrona
the famous "el gato loco",brad martin's mexican wrestling alter ego
perfect, peeling ankle high barrels lake tekapo. oh to be 2 inches tall!
the look out onto the canyon swing. soo much fun.
brad getting strapped in for his first bungy jump
brad, after watching the first person hit the canyon swing.
bob rae glacier
my kind of sign.
the hurt ankle brigade. me and luke mitrani up at the world cup finals
trennan paynter. trenn is coach of the cdn ski pipe team. aka coach to the stars (sarah burke, justin dorey and a whole slew of other ski pipe slayers)
the triple up birthday party (korey wright, myself and our MTV filmer tom). some of the team with party favours that tor (the danish coach) brought over.
me and the canadian girls.
i was expecting a little rock from the previous sign. not something the size of a house tetering on pepples.
possums are not native to NZ and are shot on sight because they kill all the native animals. so the farmers skin them to collect the bounty and leave the carcas on the side of the road for the hawks to eat.
stream
lake wanaka
dead center of the frame is one of my favorite places in NZ, which happens to be one of the best right point breaks there. and with 9000 foot mtns as a backdrop, it's unreal. magnamanu, kaikoura, east coast of the south island. unfortunately dead flat the day i flew out of NZ.
XXtreme thursday in NZ
wed night was my 5th birthday in wanaka. along with korey wright and our MTV filmer tom cheno. (watch for "over the bolts"). the party started as a pockluck dinner/warmup for kareoke night in town. the whole night was super fun and pretty late. i'll have some pics up soon as i'm just about to jump on a plane to LAX. but i got the video done of the next day, XXtreme thursday, my last day in nz. the last part of the video is the canyon swing. one of the funnest things i've ever done. it's a ginornous 100m swing that has a 60m freefall.
enjoy.
going home hurt. lame action
i've been pretty optomistic about being able to ride in the world cup this week. but after a few attempts at riding, a bunch of different taping methods on my ankle. it's just too sore to ride. So one of our team physios has basically called me home to get it looked at. no more nz.
tonight we've got our 5th annual Wanaka birthday party. team bahamas' Kory wright and my birthday's and we just found out our MTV filmer's birthday is today also.
we've got an "extreme" day tomorrow which should be awesome. especially since i've been pretty sedate for the last week and a half. bungee, jet boating and the canyon swing, which is a 300 foot pendulum swing through a river canyon. then i'm off to canada.
the world cup finals are today, so i'll try and get some footage to put up on here sometime this week. and when i get home and the net works normally, i'll put up some more photos of the trip down here and our day of jumping off stuff.
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