2006
January 1, 2006 update
Hi kids, Happy New Year from Oregon. It's been raining like
cats and dogs here in the pacific northwest the last couple of weeks, even up on
the mountain.....but the temperatures are dropping and snow is in the forecast
all week. MHSSC had two Christmas camps these last couple of weeks. Tim Feeney was called to coaching duty for the freeskiers that signed up for session 1.
Session 2, Rust brought the 7 campers down to portland for Chinese food and a
portland trail blazers game picking me up on the way to the game. Blazers lost,
but it was an entertaining game that went down to the final seconds. Speaking
of blazer games, I also saw Scotty Carlis at the previous game vs his
Philadelphia 76ers. Carlis is an official oregonian now, working at U.S.
outdoor store in Portland. Last week I rented the MHSSC lodge for a party/mockwedding/ski
race I put together for the Aloha/Southridge high school ski team alumni. (see
attached photo of the mock wedding).......two of my former racers are getting
married for real this coming July and have asked me to officiate their
wedding.......and so we decided to surprise them with this mock fake wedding at
our little alumni party. For new years eve, I skipped the usual party and
instead did the midnight run in downtown portland. It's a 3-miler that started
at the stroke of midnight. Many of the runners got dressed up in crazy
costumes. Along the route were many bars with new years' party-goers cheering
us on. It was pretty warm out last night and the rain took a break. I had
nobody to kiss for new years, so this was a good alternative event for myself.
And I managed to get myself on Channel 6 news for a few seconds.......just
waving in the background with other rowdy people........no interview or
anything, so I can't count it as part of my 15 minutes of fame. Last week, when
I was at the lodge, I had the privilege of playing "extreme ping pong" with Mike and Lynne's grandkids, Simon and Sierra. They got skilz! Mike and Lynne are
headed to Australia soon for a nice vacation. that's about it. Happy New
Year!
January 12, 2006 update
Hi all, It's rained 24 straight days in Portland, and there's no end in sight as the storms are stacked up in the Pacific all the way to Japan. Although Govy only has a few feet of snow on the ground, the amount of snow piling up on Palmer these last few weeks is impressive. Mike & Lynne left for Australia yesterday for a well deserved vacation. Rust, Feeney, and myself will try to hold the fort down in their absence (mostly Rust)......As I left the MHSSC lodge today, I immediately got my car stuck in the 10 inches of fresh snow in the parking lot........Rust watched me shovel snow around my wheels for about 15 minutes and my several failed attempts to drive away and then he says to me: "I can get that car moving in two seconds"........I doubted him........but he was a man of his words. He gets in the drivers seat, and worked his 2 second magic. I might still be there shoveling if he didn't save me. So Rust wins the employee of the day award! Shot in the dark, but anyone out there looking for a vacation rental condo in Whistler/Blackcomb? It sleeps 4, the dates available are January 27 thru February 4, and the price for the week is $1,000. Reply back if this is something you or somebody you know could use. Did you catch the Bode Miller interview on "60-Minutes"? Good stuff, and some publicity (some of it good, some controversial) for our beloved, mostly ignored sport. For you old timers, I sold my old Red VW bug last week. It's been mostly a parking lot ornament the last 5-6 years. It almost still ran........the guy who bought it managed to get the engine running (temporarily ) in my parking lot when he came to buy it......but he opted to have a tow-truck come and get it fearing it wouldn't keep running all the way to its new home. I came away with $350 cash plus another guy bought the ski rack for another $50...........this $$ paid for my new snowtires for the other car (re-read paragraph 1 on how my new snow tires worked today)..........Craig Bowden is coaching at the winter olympics! One of his Rowmark athletes is from Lebanon (the country) and will be competing in Italy next month at the winter games. Craig says he'll be at the opening ceremonies. Last week, I became an ordained Reverend. Oh yeah! Call me "Reverend Cressy"...........Why, you ask? Two of my former racers I coached on the Aloha/Southridge high school ski team are getting married next July and they wanted me to officiate their wedding ceremony. So in order to legally do this, I had to go to some website, fill out a few things, and minutes later, they e-mailed me my "Reverend" credential certificate! So I can officially marry people......at least in the state of Oregon. ok, this is starting to be a long e-mail, so I'll end it here.
Hi all, It's rained 24 straight days in Portland, and there's no end in sight as the storms are stacked up in the Pacific all the way to Japan. Although Govy only has a few feet of snow on the ground, the amount of snow piling up on Palmer these last few weeks is impressive. Mike & Lynne left for Australia yesterday for a well deserved vacation. Rust, Feeney, and myself will try to hold the fort down in their absence (mostly Rust)......As I left the MHSSC lodge today, I immediately got my car stuck in the 10 inches of fresh snow in the parking lot........Rust watched me shovel snow around my wheels for about 15 minutes and my several failed attempts to drive away and then he says to me: "I can get that car moving in two seconds"........I doubted him........but he was a man of his words. He gets in the drivers seat, and worked his 2 second magic. I might still be there shoveling if he didn't save me. So Rust wins the employee of the day award! Shot in the dark, but anyone out there looking for a vacation rental condo in Whistler/Blackcomb? It sleeps 4, the dates available are January 27 thru February 4, and the price for the week is $1,000. Reply back if this is something you or somebody you know could use. Did you catch the Bode Miller interview on "60-Minutes"? Good stuff, and some publicity (some of it good, some controversial) for our beloved, mostly ignored sport. For you old timers, I sold my old Red VW bug last week. It's been mostly a parking lot ornament the last 5-6 years. It almost still ran........the guy who bought it managed to get the engine running (temporarily ) in my parking lot when he came to buy it......but he opted to have a tow-truck come and get it fearing it wouldn't keep running all the way to its new home. I came away with $350 cash plus another guy bought the ski rack for another $50...........this $$ paid for my new snowtires for the other car (re-read paragraph 1 on how my new snow tires worked today)..........Craig Bowden is coaching at the winter olympics! One of his Rowmark athletes is from Lebanon (the country) and will be competing in Italy next month at the winter games. Craig says he'll be at the opening ceremonies. Last week, I became an ordained Reverend. Oh yeah! Call me "Reverend Cressy"...........Why, you ask? Two of my former racers I coached on the Aloha/Southridge high school ski team are getting married next July and they wanted me to officiate their wedding ceremony. So in order to legally do this, I had to go to some website, fill out a few things, and minutes later, they e-mailed me my "Reverend" credential certificate! So I can officially marry people......at least in the state of Oregon. ok, this is starting to be a long e-mail, so I'll end it here.
Robin
P.S. If you worked @MHSSC in 2005, we'll
be mailing your W2 forms soon so you can do your taxes.
January 30, 2006 update
Good afternoon......Just a few things
to mention plus a photo of mid-way station of palmer (taken by Logan,
Timberline staffer)..
Congrats to former MHSSC staffer Brooke Miller......in her words: My boyfriend Jon and I got engaged on New Year's Eve! We were down
in Bend skiing at Bachelor. He almost did it on the hill, but he was too
worried he would drop the ring in the feet of powder. The other exciting
news is that I'm headed to China tomorrow for 3 weeks. I'm going to
visit my sister, who is living there and teaching english. We're taking
3 memory cards for our camera so I should have lots of pics. Only bummer
is I'm missing all of this great snow. Oh well, with the way it's coming
down, we'll be skiing in May!
Brooke
Did anyone besides myself and Maja Kvopkova see Tom Sell on OLN yesterday during their broadcast of the Men's slalom in
Schladming, Austria? One of the American skiers just crossed the
finish line, and they pointed the cameras at the american coaches
standing on the hill: Tom and some other guy. Tom was on the
screen for a solid 1.7 seconds! So you can subtract 1.7 seconds
from his 15 minutes of fame. For those of you MHSSC staffers that
will be in Torino for the Olympics, I would love to hear your
stories about your experience there. Mt Hood is still getting
hammered with snow. Portland is close to record rainfall for the
month of January. We did have two sunny days a week or so ago, but
since then the rain hasn't let up and more is in the forecast. As
you can see in the photo, there's some snow on Palmer and if things
continue on the current weather trend, we'll be skiing to the
parking lot in late July. There was a 13 year old ski racer wander
outside the ski area boundaries at mt hood ski bowl yesterday
afternoon. Today they found him ALIVE near still creek road. He
said he fell in a creek and was pretty wet, but he huddled by a tree
to try and stay warm and get some sleep.....he was suffering from
mild hypothermia, but fine otherwise. http://www.katu.com/stories/82893.html There's a chance I
might be getting my old VW bug back.......I think I mentioned in the
last MHSSC update that I sold it to some guy....we'll when I sold
it, I forgot to sign the title card when I handed the buyer the
title card.....a few days later I was trying to hook up with the
buyer guy so I could sign it.......anyway after sending a few e-mail
in his direction, I finally get a return message back from his wife
that said: "My husband got deported back to Mexico..........and his
brother stole the car" (bad family feud thing).......The wife said
if anyone should get that car, it should be me.......there's a
little more to the story then that, but that's the gist of it. We
haven't called the police or anything to report the stolen
car.....but with me still not signing the title, the car is still in
my name......and the wife told me that her husband fixed the car up
so it runs again! So......the saga continues.....If I get the car
back, that's fine, but if not, no big deal. Mike & Lynne are still
in Australia.......they attended some tennis matches of the
Australian Open. They get back later this week I think.
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February 10, 2006
MHSSC staffers! The NBC
camera's know to point the camera at the talented Slovenian with MHSSC
connections, during opening ceremonies in Torino. For you MHSSC old
timers that don't know Andrej Jerman, he coached at MHSSC for a
couple years and is Izi's younger brother. he'll be competing in
the speed events for his home country Slovenija. Here's a pic
from the TV screen. Good luck Andrej!
February 11, 2006
MHSSC'ers! The NBC camera's also caught a glimpse of Craig Bowden! Craig is coaching a female ski racer from Lebanon and he marched at the opening ceremonies. Craig's brother Peter Bowden Tivo'd the opening ceremonies so he was able to point me in the right direction in searching for Craig on my VHS recording from last night's broadcast. Soooooooooo, check out the attachment. That's our own CRAIG BOWDEN with his famous grin in the upper left hand side of the screen. NBC didn't quite center up on Craig, but I did my best to get the best frame of Craig during his 1.47 seconds of screen time and make a photo out of it.
MHSSC'ers! The NBC camera's also caught a glimpse of Craig Bowden! Craig is coaching a female ski racer from Lebanon and he marched at the opening ceremonies. Craig's brother Peter Bowden Tivo'd the opening ceremonies so he was able to point me in the right direction in searching for Craig on my VHS recording from last night's broadcast. Soooooooooo, check out the attachment. That's our own CRAIG BOWDEN with his famous grin in the upper left hand side of the screen. NBC didn't quite center up on Craig, but I did my best to get the best frame of Craig during his 1.47 seconds of screen time and make a photo out of it.
Here's an e-mail Craig sent to me
today......
robo - here is a brief
update. cool stuff. bumped into andrej at dinner tonight. he is a
little dissappointed he is not skiing faster, however, he hopes things
come together for the DH tomorrow. Izi will come and watch tomorrow.
i'd like to meet up with the SLO crew, but i'll be with my one female
athlete training DH on the other side of the mountain. we'll see how
it goes. the opening ceremonies were AWESOME!!!!! i was blown away.
walikng and waving and hearing a crowd of 35-40,000 people cheering is
unreal. the show was pretty cool. we are treated like royalty here.
and this place is beautiful. sunny skies, warm temps, big mountains,
and nice people. good stuff. today we slid around on the hill for a
short bit to check out the women's DH. we begin training tomorrow.
(bummer that we will be training during the men's DH, but, hey, can't
complain too much.) looking forward to racing. craig
And this message from Andrej Jerman:
Hi! Well, I can
give you updates until next Suterday and that is the last day I'm
here. I'm staying in Olympic Village in Sestreire where are also all
atheletes who are competing in alpine skiing, nordic skiing and so
on. It's one of three Villages in the Olympics. So far I don't have
any complains about anything. Maybe is only transporation that is a
little in a strugle, but I guess that is the Italyan way.As you
could see, I was participating at the opening ceremony and it was
realy cool feeling. It was my first, because I didnn't go in Salt
Lake. When I was marching around the stadium I really felt that I am
one of many atheletes that are competing at the Olympic Games. It is
one of a kind feeling. About my skiing in DH training runs. I can
expres my selve in one word: I SUCKED! But I hope it was only the
trainging runs and that tomorrow everything will work. Today I meet
with Craig who is coach for the Lebanon team. It was a nice surprise
to see him. Urban is also here as a part of the Canadina tema and
yes, Izi is comming tomorrow for the DH race. That's it for today.
Take care and cheer for me. Andrej
More updates from "Torino"........or is it really "Turin"?
From Andrej Jerman: In combined I was 19th. I must say, that it was less that I expected before the race. The only problem to my failure was my downhill race. After DH I was only 21st with more than 2 sec behind. I still don't know exactly what went wrong, but I thing that wind caught me at the start, because I lost more than 4 tenths in only 11 seconds. That fore I was really disappointed after the first event and it was really hard for me to motivate for slalom race, because I knew I can't achieve any decent result anymore, because however downhill supposed to be my the strongest event. With my slalom I have to be very happy, because it was good. Especially my first run was nice and before the second slalom run I was still holding 15th place. Second run was set a little bit to fast for my slalom knowledge, so I will have to come to Mt. Hood this summer to improve it.
February 14,
2006
Here's the latest updates from the MHSSC olympic peoples...From Andrej Jerman:
Here's the latest updates from the MHSSC olympic peoples...From Andrej Jerman:
I'll be
competeing also in SG and COMB. Combined is on Tuesday and
SG next Suterday. Today I finisihed as 28th. Compering to
training runs, was this the best I coulod expect. I did my
best and thererfore i don't have to blame myselve for
anything. Before the Olympics were my expectations higher. I
have to be satisfied with that. I hope for better resutls in
next races. Andrej
From Craig Bowden:
not too
much to report. you can tell mike that his food is loads
better than the food in the olympic village. the vans and
buses here are a little better, though. when we travel, we
are escorted by the police. it's like you're the president
or something. the police move traffic out of the way, block
intersections, and yell at other cars. when we left the
openiong ceremonies, 9 buses were hauling ass through torino.
however, 20 mins later, we discovered that the police were
taking us the wrong way. funny stuff.
And more on Craig's athlete
that he's coaching:
chirine njeim is the lebanese skiing
machine. she came to the US 7 yrs ago and has competed with
rowmark. she is a good skier. check out the article posted
on the rowmark website (www.rowmark.org.)
i was just fortunate to be
at rowmark when she was heading to the olympics. the
director is also the women's head coach, so he was not able
to leave his program duties. and i got the nod. good gig.
i'm living in the OV at sestriere. nice place. it is just
like Govy but totally different. good vibe. the coaches and
athletes get hooked up. we have passes that let us go just
about anywhere. pretty nice. chirine will be competing in
all 5 events (DH, DHK, SG, GS, SL) so we don't have much
time to check other events out. but we hope to.
From Tom Sell:
Robo, Here
is my Olympic update: I am not there yet. Greg and I are
with the SL /GS guys in Madesimo, which is about 3 hrs
from Torino. We are doing a training camp away from the
madness. Heres the glamorous part: 120 man hours of hill
preparation befor the guys got here. United lost our
injection bars so I had to drive to Villach, Austria to
borrow 2of them, It is an 8 hr drive. I talked with the
big boss there at 5 pm, and hopped in the van to go pick
them up the next morning. Got to Villach at 2:30 am,
picked up the bars at 8 am, Hauled ass back to Madesimo
and got on the hill at 4 pm to start watering the hill
till 9pm. Coaching at the olympics is so glamorous. I
get to drive the bars back to Villach on Wednesday. We
go to Torino on the 17th, GS on the 20th and SL on the
25th. Don't forget to cheer for Ted tomorrow in the
combined! Tom
February 16, 2006
More updates from "Torino"........or is it really "Turin"?
From Andrej Jerman: In combined I was 19th. I must say, that it was less that I expected before the race. The only problem to my failure was my downhill race. After DH I was only 21st with more than 2 sec behind. I still don't know exactly what went wrong, but I thing that wind caught me at the start, because I lost more than 4 tenths in only 11 seconds. That fore I was really disappointed after the first event and it was really hard for me to motivate for slalom race, because I knew I can't achieve any decent result anymore, because however downhill supposed to be my the strongest event. With my slalom I have to be very happy, because it was good. Especially my first run was nice and before the second slalom run I was still holding 15th place. Second run was set a little bit to fast for my slalom knowledge, so I will have to come to Mt. Hood this summer to improve it.
Andrej
From Tom Sell: (I asked him what an
=injection bar" was).
We go to sestriere on the 17th, so
I get to spend 8 days at the show.
would have been fun to see the ceremonies and the speed
events, but we
are tech coaches. Hopefully all our grunt work pays off. We
have 2
coaches here, along with 2 service guys, a physio and
somebody from
sports science. Lots of staff for 3 athletes. An injection bar is basically a pipe with nozzles to inject
water into the
snow to harden it. You hook it up to the snowmaking hydrants and walk down the hill injecting every foot or so in a zig zag pattern. Takes some time, but the snow comes out great. I may have a day off after the GS. I'd love to go see a hockey game or some speed skating. We'll see. Hope all is well there. psyched to see all the snow at Hood. Tom
snow to harden it. You hook it up to the snowmaking hydrants and walk down the hill injecting every foot or so in a zig zag pattern. Takes some time, but the snow comes out great. I may have a day off after the GS. I'd love to go see a hockey game or some speed skating. We'll see. Hope all is well there. psyched to see all the snow at Hood. Tom
Ted Ligety, Olympic Champion!
Yes, Ted was a MHSSC camper about 10 years ago, Mike told me
today. He was training with Scotty Veenis with
Coach Marjan
Cernoj last August on our lane with a few more elite skiers
from the park city ski team. Ted is the
first ever former camper/Olympic Gold Medalist.
ok, which one of you old timers coached Ted at camp? Vance? Tom? Florjan? Rogan?
A: Kevin McDevitt...
Non-olympic stuff:
Bill Whalley made a guest appearance at MHSSC today. He's in town for an optometry school
interview (Pacific University)
Lori (Biddulph) Deisroth is weeks away
from becoming a mom! She's due in March.
Grant Wilson....He just wanted to be mentioned in the update......so there
you go Grant!
February 20, 2006
Good evening MHSSC'ers. Here's what Andrej
had to say after his final Olympic event, the Super-G:
Andrej:Hi Robo! I'm done
with the Olympics 2006. My last race was super-g and I was placed as
28th. Not too briliant!! I did my best but I just couldn't get
higher. I guess, the hill wasn't made for me allthough that is not a
good excuese. When I analyze, I see that I lost most on the flat
sections. However, my best position is 19th and from that point of
view I improved from last Olympics in Salt Lake. I had a very good
time that I spent in the Olypic Village and meeting new and old
firends. See you 2010 in Vancuver, BC
Andrej
Jumping on the Ted Ligety bandwagon
here at MHSSC:
Photographer Brian Robb,
looked thru his MHSSC photo collection and was able to locate action
& group photos of Ted Ligety. Ligety was in Kevin McDevitt's group in 1994 (see
attachment), and then skied in Vance's group in
1995. These are copyright photos from Brian, so don't be selling
them on ebay! Ted is the little kid 3rd from the left standing in
front of Kevin McDevitt. Former staffer, Debby Russell is in that photo too.
And this from Greg Timm: I coached Ted at camp, sort of. I said, "hey" and then I said "good recovery". That counts as coaching, right? I know...I'm the man!!! I shot a video piece of him and Scotty, also, training slalom. That counts as coaching, too, right? Tell Mike I want a big bonus now!!
non-olympic update: I saw k-staffer Sage Dunham at mt hood ski bowl this past weekend. He was there racing in a slalom event. It was COLD that day.........east coast cold. And Tom Wirth won a race at Mt. Bachelor using his old-school straight 1993 skis. In Tom's words: LOL - No one will give me Free Equipment!!! - Last free shit was in 93, Still works in 2005!!! Cheaters w/ those new fancy Skis!!!
that's all for now
And this from Greg Timm: I coached Ted at camp, sort of. I said, "hey" and then I said "good recovery". That counts as coaching, right? I know...I'm the man!!! I shot a video piece of him and Scotty, also, training slalom. That counts as coaching, too, right? Tell Mike I want a big bonus now!!
non-olympic update: I saw k-staffer Sage Dunham at mt hood ski bowl this past weekend. He was there racing in a slalom event. It was COLD that day.........east coast cold. And Tom Wirth won a race at Mt. Bachelor using his old-school straight 1993 skis. In Tom's words: LOL - No one will give me Free Equipment!!! - Last free shit was in 93, Still works in 2005!!! Cheaters w/ those new fancy Skis!!!
that's all for now
February 28, 2006
Hi all, Gold Medals for the Americans in alpine skiing go to none other than two MHSSC camper alumni! Brian Robb was able to find MHSSC photos of Julia Mancuso to go with the Ted Ligety pics. here's the link on the camp website: www.mthood.com/ligety_and_rahlves.htm
Hi all, Gold Medals for the Americans in alpine skiing go to none other than two MHSSC camper alumni! Brian Robb was able to find MHSSC photos of Julia Mancuso to go with the Ted Ligety pics. here's the link on the camp website: www.mthood.com/ligety_and_rahlves.htm
Mike and Lynne are leaving for
another vacation starting Friday for 10 days or so, so if you need to talk
to them before they leave, this is your warning.....I think they are headed
to Palm Springs? And plan to play a lot of tennis........Rust wants
to hear from you coaches about your availability for coaching this
summer. Snowpack on Mt Hood is 112% of average right now even despite a
relatively dry February. We are back to a wet weather pattern for the next
week or so. Irene Slisky, (adult camper hall of fame) just got
married on Valentines Day! woo hoo! how romantic! She said it was a small
wedding up there at Squaw Valley. And old-time staffer Steve Heuer took a trip to Vail recently and was able to track down old-time staffer Brian Flanagan. Anywho, Brian is married and is a business
partner in a boot fitting business down there. that's all for now
Robin
March 9, 2006 update
MHSSC'ers! .I've
just been informed (via Leo
Menard) that Scotty Veenis won the Men's GS at the
NCAA championships in Colorado. Scotty is a freshmen racing for the
University of Utah. Way to go Scotty! Here's a paragraph I copied and
pasted from the ski racing.com website:
Veenis, on the other hand,
didn't think an NCAA title was in his future. “We had a few days of training
here, and I wasn't skiing that hot,” the Ute freshman said. “But then it
felt good out of the start first run. It just clicked.” Still, he wasn't
counting his chickens before second run. “Everyone out here is pretty fast.
People can make big moves up. But I just thought I needed a clean run with
no mistakes. Everyone has to battle these conditions. The less mistakes you
have, you'll be in there.”
Leo Menard finished in 20th, racing for Bates
College. (way to go Leo!)
And here's an update from Darren Owen.......Darren is private coaching an up and coming mogul competitor named Pat Deneen.
Message #1: HI FROM RUSSIA,
THIS IS SO COOL, A VERY DIFFERENT WORLD. WE SKIED
TODAY. PATRICK IS THE BEST SKIER OUT THERE. I HOPE THE JUDGES THINK SO.
WE HAVE ONE MORE DAY OF TRAINING. THEN TWO BACK TO BACK DAYS OF
COMPETITION. THERE ARE MANY COUNTRY'S REPRESENTED RUSSIA,
FRANCE, SLOVAKIA, KAZAKHSTAN, FINLAND, CANADA, USA, SWITZERLAND,AND
SEVERAL OTHERS I AM FORGETTING. I WANTED THIS IN MY SKI CAREER FOR SO
LONG. I CANT PUT INTO WORDS HOW MUCH THIS TRIP MEANS TO ME. RUSSIANS ARE A BIT COLD, SO I AM TRYING TO SPEAK
SOME RUSSIAN WORDS, (YOU KNOW) PLEASE, THANK YOU, MY NAME IS DARREN. THE COACHES FROM THE US SKI TEAM HAS BEEN SO COLD
TO PATTRICK AND I. THERE ACTIONS JUST HURT THEM AND MAKE US STRONGER. PATRICK IS SHOWING ALLOT OF COMPOSURE AND
MATURITY. I AM ALSO NOT RATTLED BY THERE ACTIONS. AS A MATTER OF FACT I
HAVE NEVER BEEN SO CONFIDENT IN MYSELF AND MY ABILITIES. WE ARE A GREAT
TEAM. I HOPE ALL IS WELL. DO.
Darren Owen Message #2: Junior World Championships in Russia:
Greetings family and friends, Today was one of the best days of my life!
I am in Russia coaching At the junior world championships in Russia.
Today was the duel mogul event. My boy Pattrick Deneen placed third
and an athlete I coached for 8 years Jay Bowmen Karrigan took
second. What an excellent day. To see two athletes I care about so
much do so well at the world championships makes me so proud. What
can I say, a very emotional day. Russia has been so good to me. Now the sight seeing begins we are going
to st petersburg tomorrow for three days with all the US mogul
skiers. LIFE IS
GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! see you soon.
DO
for you semi-old timers: Janet (Lorton) Moran had
baby #2. Welcome Blake Daniel Moran to planet earth on February 28. 7lbs,
7oz. Congrats Janet! You rule at being a mom. For you super ol' timers: Ray Dicius is sending his step-son to camp this
summer. On the camp application Ray wrote: "I want the key to the cookie
room".......(snow bunny thing)........Camp update: It snowed about 2
feet at the lodge last night. Luckily Feeney gave
me a 37 second lesson in how to use the snow-blower........so I was able to
carve a path thru the deep snow and get my car to the highway. Mike and Lynne are vacationing at Palm Springs.........they
said they hit snowbird/alta? on their way down and had dinner with Jon and Kristen O'Brien. They are watching a tennis
tournament as well as playing everyday too. Rust noticed that everytime Mike and Lynne go on a trip, the snow piles up at mt
hood. There was a rumor yesterday that olympic silver medalist snowboard
boardercross Lindsey Jacobellis (sp?) was a MHSSC
camper 5 or so years ago, but so far we haven't been able to confirm
it......She's the girl that did the "method grab" of her board and crashed
before the finish line, thus taking 2nd place. 1984 Gold Medalist (Men's
DH) Bill Johnson showed up at the Oregon High School
Ski Racing STATE Championships last week at our awards banquet. He showed
off his olympic gold.....let us touch it and everything......He was there
signing his new book: "ski to die".........congrats to Ted Ligety......heard
he won a world cup GS........guess he's not just a slalom specialist.
that's all folks......
April 1, 2006 update
Hi all, After 20 years at MHSSC, I've decided to move on to a new job..........ok, just kidding.......that was last year's april fools joke. I considered making up another story for April Fool Day, but couldn't think of anything good. Timberline is hovering around the 200 inches of snow mark at the moment. I heard they just opened up Palmer for spring skiing. There's still a bunch of snow at MHSSC lodge so maybe we'll be sledding down the zip line hill for an afternoon activity for session 1. Last week, longtime MHSSC adult camper Grant Wilson, broke his Pelvis in two places while skiing at Mammoth. In his words: First day (of a ten day ski =rip), third run, skied directly into the aptly named Rock Garden! Tobaggon rides are WAY over-rated.
Hi all, After 20 years at MHSSC, I've decided to move on to a new job..........ok, just kidding.......that was last year's april fools joke. I considered making up another story for April Fool Day, but couldn't think of anything good. Timberline is hovering around the 200 inches of snow mark at the moment. I heard they just opened up Palmer for spring skiing. There's still a bunch of snow at MHSSC lodge so maybe we'll be sledding down the zip line hill for an afternoon activity for session 1. Last week, longtime MHSSC adult camper Grant Wilson, broke his Pelvis in two places while skiing at Mammoth. In his words: First day (of a ten day ski =rip), third run, skied directly into the aptly named Rock Garden! Tobaggon rides are WAY over-rated.
MHSSC Mogul coach Darren
Owen update from the U.S. freestyle Nationals:
I am at the US Nationals In
Killilgton, Vermont. Another great day in the life of a ski
coach! Patrick skied so well. In the qualifying round
Patrick Qualified in 5th place and crushed the field by a
full second. In the finals (16 skiers), Patrick placed 5th
and again smoked the field including the winners by a full
second or more his score may have been a bit low (judged
sports). We are =till so pleased with his performance. We
focus on performance not results. Another emotional day. For
those of you connected to my mt hood family, Jay Panther qualified 10th and finished 12th he skied very well. Jay is one of the athletes I coach in the summer he is from
Reno. Today is my birthday Pattricks performance was a great
gift. We earned it together. Sunday is the duel mogul event
Pattricks best event we are hoping for another great
performance. On a personal note coaching fits me I know this
is what I should be doing with my life at this
point............LIFE IS GREAT!!!!! Hope you are all well.
DO.
Jamie Hinderliter is in Portland this weekend for a bike race.........the event is
happening right across the street from where I live, so I will
go cheer for her.........Spring camp session 4 just wrapped up
yesterday. There were 3 snowboard campers. New snowboard coach John Bulish took the group this week. that's
all I got...........don't forget to adjust your clocks ahead for
daylight savings time.......Robin
April 22, 2006 update
MHSSC'ers! Only 5 more weeks until
summer #28 gets started. Wow 28 years....and still going strong!
Where were YOU 28 years ago? What's new for summer '06? Coaches
windbreakers......Rust ordered up some jackets for the coaches to
wear on the hill......I haven't seen them yet, but I think the camp
logo will be on there, and probably "mthood.com". Remember the
hotpink/green/blue coach jackets from the late 80's? I wish I had
an old photo. Brian Robb? I bet Vance still has his. We have a
new stand-up freezer in the kitchen........pretty exciting news
eh? We've be trying to get somebody to pick up the old dead freezer
as it still has scrap metal value. So far we haven't found any
takers. want metal? http://portland.craigslist.org/zip/152731500.html
breaking news: Bode Miller just switched to Head
skis........... As you can see, I'm lacking any real significant
material for this update. Not much to report this time of year.
The snow is melting at the lodge, so my prediction of session 1
tubing at the camp lodge is quickly fading away. Hey, I saw Geoff
the charlies bartender yesterday at the Govy post office. He says
hi. Oh, and that new lodge thing that was being built across the
street from Charlies looks like it's in operation. I drove by and
peeked inside......there's an actual little store with real food.
For the first time in Govy history, you'll be able to buy a piece of
fruit within city boundaries. I wonder if the Village Store will
step up it's offerings? Possible Gondola from Govy to Timberline in
the future. Here's the link including pictures: http://www.collinslakeresort.com/tramway.html Here's a
excellent Salt Lake Tribune internet article about Jon O'Brien and
his freestyle program in Utah: http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_3728919
Hey, anyone have a somewhat decent computer that you'd want to
donate to camp? That dining room computer for the campers use, is
STILL the slowest computer in the world despite being upgraded to
windows XP and hooked up to satellite internet. No more video
trailers...........Lodge #2, up behind the trampolines, has a
basement, and walls, and a roof....and will soon have
electricity.......which means we can do video analysis up there for
3-4 groups. ok, I'm done.........nothing to see here......feel free
to delete this immediately. Florjan's sleeping bag is still
missing. If you want to be removed from the MHSSC staff e-mail
list, put "remove" in the subject line........... have a nice day
Robin
May 20, 2006 update
Good morning MHSSC peoples, One more week until session 1. Timberline is ready. The lodge is ready. The chipmunks are ready. The big black carpenter ants are ready. Mike and Lynne are ready. Are YOU ready? I don't really have much to report about camp........but here's some stuff about former MHSSC staffers: Guess who's getting married? Former head cook, snowboard extraordinaire Pierce Louis. He says his wedding will be in Oregon this coming September. Congrats Pierce! I have another mhssc wedding announcement, but at this point it's just a rumor..........stay tuned...Kim Jong Yun stopped by last week for a quick visit. He's still working and living in South Korea. He's doing great. Want to be a babysitter? Josee Lacasse is looking for a Govy babysitter for her two kids this summer: In her words: I need a babysitter the last two weeks of june and the last of July. From 6:30am till about 2pm. Approx. $300/week. If interested, let me know, and I'll pass your contact info to Josee. Michelle Annett is preparing herself for the Lake Chelan Triathlon in July. swim, bike, run! you go girl! Hey it's Mike Langdon's birthday tomorrow! woo hoo. He turns 24.
For a really cool helicopter game:
Good morning MHSSC peoples, One more week until session 1. Timberline is ready. The lodge is ready. The chipmunks are ready. The big black carpenter ants are ready. Mike and Lynne are ready. Are YOU ready? I don't really have much to report about camp........but here's some stuff about former MHSSC staffers: Guess who's getting married? Former head cook, snowboard extraordinaire Pierce Louis. He says his wedding will be in Oregon this coming September. Congrats Pierce! I have another mhssc wedding announcement, but at this point it's just a rumor..........stay tuned...Kim Jong Yun stopped by last week for a quick visit. He's still working and living in South Korea. He's doing great. Want to be a babysitter? Josee Lacasse is looking for a Govy babysitter for her two kids this summer: In her words: I need a babysitter the last two weeks of june and the last of July. From 6:30am till about 2pm. Approx. $300/week. If interested, let me know, and I'll pass your contact info to Josee. Michelle Annett is preparing herself for the Lake Chelan Triathlon in July. swim, bike, run! you go girl! Hey it's Mike Langdon's birthday tomorrow! woo hoo. He turns 24.
For a really cool helicopter game:
I think my high score is six
hundred and something........which isn't very good.
Robin
Session 1, 2006 update
1 week down, 13 to go. Here are a few highlights from
session 1. Day 1: Sunny weather, icy Timberline road, perfect
winter-type snow. We trained on the magic mile as they were
still chipping ice off of Palmer until mid-morning. 5 coaches: Rust (ski racers), Jon
Winslow (snowboard race), Mark Stegall (snowboard freeride), and Darren & Bill shared the mogul/freeski duties this week. The sun stayed with
us thru Wednesday........Thursday, some light rain, some fog,
some light wind........Friday, POURING rain. Can you say
"glove juice?". Oh man was it wet yesterday. One little kid
was so wet and cold, I heard him say "I can't feel my legs, can
I go in?" ........see attached pic of John Rust........photo
was taken BEFORE we went out.....he got THAT wet between the
parking lot and the WyEast Day Lodge.
We had 16 staffers working session
1.........all of the male species. Bill Whalley had to double as "girls counselor" for the first 4 1/2 days
until Chelsea Stamer showed up. A
little brown frog was seen hopping around the lodge basement. I
thought it was a slow chipmunk until I got a better look.
Since we were the only camp on the hill, the palmer ravens were
all focused on our set of backpacks full of delicious lunches.
The ravens have gained the skill of unzipping backpacks, and
flying away with sandwiches. And counselor/cook Dan
Tsai had his lunch stolen by Timberline Lodge
mascot Bruno, the St. Bernard. Sage Dunham had 3 top-15 finishes in the golden rose ski classic last
weekend.......Sage ate a HUGE 9 scoop banana split last
sunday........he also had his wallet stolen from GoodWill store
in Sandy (then later found with all the credit cards, but minus
the cash).....Sage bought himself a fur coat and a cowboy
outfit.........so Sage had an eventful first week. Mark Stegall is in the process of rebuilding the
two skateboard halfpipes.......they moved the smaller one to a
different location, so the volleyball court could be used once
again. Bill Whalley, Brett
Andrews and Elliot's little bro have taken on the task of buffing out the existing mountain bike
trail and extending it to some new destinations. Terry was busy working on the new lodge this past
week. You can check out lodge #2 at this link: http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm We have a new
snowboard videographer, Ryan Anderson,
from Schweitzer. Greg Timm had his ACL
surgery this past week. He's hoping to be off crutches by
mid-late June. Last I heard, Nolan Willard is undefeated in ping pong this summer.
Even though Emily Longfield doesn't
start working at camp until August, we'll continue with the
infamous "emily questions". Here are this weeks' questions:
1. Would you ski naked in the rain
in front of 43 campers for $1,124.94?
2. Would you rather have a sex
change or have your legs chopped off?
3. If you were on a deserted
island, would you rather have an ice cream machine or an endless
supply of healthy vegetables?
The helicopter game is gaining
popularity. Here's the link to the game: http://www.addictinggames.com/helicopter.html
And here are some high scores that
have been achieved:
Bill Whalley:
923 on a fast computer, 1491 on a slow computer
Craig Bowden: i got like 800 pts. i rule.
Emily Longfield: that game is seriously addictive. 939
on the 4th try. OKay it was more like the 15th. I...I can't
stop. Please helico--helop---HELP me.
Eric Baldwin: 1481...NEXT
Jason Hey: first
try in that helicopter game i got 1216
Jeff Moore: First
flight of the day... 1102. I'm catching up buddy...
Jocke Nord:
1,368
Robin Cressy:
1,292
Movie recommendations for the week:
Dave Curran's pick: "King Kong" (2005)
Elliot Halverson:
"waiting" (2005)
that's all for session 1........
Session 2, 2006 update
HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, BREAKING NEWS: The male counselor
staff are all trying to grow mustaches. Ok, not exactly
breaking news, but I forgot to mention it last week. Perhaps a
photo to come in a few weeks to show their progress. We have an
all new female counseling staff this year.......you can see some
of them as well as other new employees on the staff page of the
camp website: http://www.mthood.com/staff.htm (scroll down to see the
counselors section) I have several more staff bios and photos to
upload on the website, so that page will be updated sometime
soon (I hope)....We had 29 campers for session 2...........I
think we have 100 or so coming for session 3, so things are
about to get busy real soon. Last week we had 3 sunny days, and
2 COLD wintery type days.........no snow falling from the sky,
just a bit cold, some fog, some wind.......nothing too
major. Just about the entire camp made a run (or two) out on
the zig zag glacier. Feeney, Rust, and Darren lead us
out there for a couple runs on the silky smooth snow, off the
cornice and traverse back to the chairlift. The camp picnic
was at Hood River down at the Marina. Feeney showed off some of
his kite-boarding skilz. Terry road his
bike from Govy to Hood River. Dan Tsai took a knee to his thigh in a picnic football game and could
barely walk the next day. I came ever so close to hitting a
deer on the way home on highway 35, post-picnic. ..
Session 2 Emily Questions:
1. If you had to pick the age
you would die, what age would you pick? (funniest answer
we had at camp from Mark Stegall:
"I already passed it")
2. If your friends and
acquaintances were willing to bluntly and honestly tell you
what they really thought of you, would you want them to?
3. Would you accept $10,000 to
shave your head and continue your normal activities sans hat
or wig without ever explaining the reason for your haircut?
Josee Lacasse (former MHSSC coach who now runs her own camp) is looking
for a babysitter for her two young children during the weeks
of her ski camp.......
June 17 - July 1, and then
again July 9 - July 30. Location: Mt Hood
Inn.......mornings/afternoon time period. Pay approx $300 a
week?.......But don't quote me on this......here's Josee's contact info if you or know somebody who might be interested
and to get more information about the gig: josee.lacasse@att.net
For you wine
lovers........this from Emily Longfield,
who is currently living in wine country: If you know of any wine enthusiasts,
or perhaps pass this on, I can get all labels in the
Foster's portfolio half off, (Beringer, Penfolds, Lindemans,
Rosemount, Stags' Leap, Little Penguin, see http://www.fosters.com.au/enjoy/wine.htm for more) So if anyone that is around in August that wants a
case of good wine, let me know.
An update from last weeks'
camp update: Jon Winslow did indeed
beat Nolan Willard in a game of ping
pong.......so Nolan is no longer undefeated. And Jocke Nord couldn't stand to be in 2nd place in the helicopter game, as
he took high honors with an amazing score of 1520. Here's
the link one last time: http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf that's
all folks.......
Session 3, 2006 update
Good afternoon MHSSC'ers,
First of all, welcome the following people to the MHSSC
staff e-mail newsletter list: Liz Edmunds, AJ Crocker,
Mallory Hale, Evan Mikkelson, Ryan Anderson, Dan Tsai,
Carter Casner, Emily Sampson, Tommy O'Rourke, Louise
Robertson, Lyndsay Strange, Alexandra Andrews, Dave Stearns,
Lauren Levanovich, Greg Curran, John Mulligan, Sean
Mailey......If you don't know who these people are, you can
see some of them here: http://www.mthood.com/staff.htm Rain, wind, fog,
sunshine, mist, thunderstorms........we had all those
things last week. I don't remember a moment in Govy last
week when there wasn't moisture in the air. Govy rain
forest! The campers still had a productive week despite
the conditions.......we only lost 1 complete day of
training........as you can see from the attached photo,
snowboard coach Mark Stegall took
advantage of the weather stand-by to do some creative dryland
with his group, just outside the Wy'east day lodge. The
did an all-camp bowling trip to Hood River for the afternoon
activity on monday......too wet and cold to do anything
outdoors......and yesterday during the rain-out no-ski day,
the kids had options of movies/mall, indoor rockclimbing,
and paintball.......Bill Whalley and Jeff Moore took some of the camper
stayovers to the oregon coast for surf camp today. Fritzy narrowly missed hitting a deer in one
of the camp vans......I didn't get the complete story, but
the van ended up in the ditch....no damage done to the van
or the deer......or the driver. New cook Bryan
Calcaterra ate a carpenter ant in the kitchen.
The ant was crawling around near the kitchen phone........I
was trying to corner it.....when I jokingly said "you should
eat it"......so he grabbed it, put it in his mouth.....the
ant bit his tongue, and he proceeded to chew it up.....One
of the campers broke his arm in two places when he crashed
hard on the skateboard ramp. Another camper took a knee
(his own knee) to his chin over on the trampoline.....lots
of blood, two chipped teeth, and a trip to the clinic. One
of the girl campers had a crush on cook/coach Nolan Willard. AJ Crocker's snowboard race group created their own t-shirts with these
colored pens....and one of those girls wrote: "I LOVE
NOLAN" on her t-shirt. I don't think she got the nerve
up to actually go up and talk to him all week though. New
ski race coaches Carter Casner and Polly Hopkins both celebrated their
22nd birthday last week.
Camp session blog page: http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm (you can see the
staff group photo there from the picnic) Camp sweatshirts
can be seen here: http://mthood.com/clothing.htm
Session 3 "Emily Questions"
1. Would you live in a
treefort by yourself for 3 months if you would then receive
free food (all you can eat) for a year? While in the
treefort, you'd have no TV/computer.....but you'd have all
the necessary things to live but you'd be without human
contact.
2. Would you sacrifice your
life to keep all the pets alive in the United States? If
you say no, all pets in USA die immediately.
3. Would you prefer a $5000
gift card at a ski/snowboard shop or at an ice cream shop?
4. If you were on a deserted
island for the rest of your life and could take two MHSSC
employees with you, who would you take with you?
5. If you had to marry someone on the MHSSC staff, who would you marry?
that's all for this
week..........
Session 4, 2006 update
Hi all, Session 4: 140 campers, 52 staff......How many french toast can 192 people eat? .....and Session 5 is when camp gets BIG.
Hi all, Session 4: 140 campers, 52 staff......How many french toast can 192 people eat? .....and Session 5 is when camp gets BIG.
It was a tough week to be a
MHSSC staff member........4 injured staff
1. Elliot
Halverson: broken collar bone.....ski jump
victim
2. Lauren
Levanovich: broken fibula (lower
leg).......ski wreck
3. Tim Feeney:
lower leg stuff as a result of a kiteboarding mishap: still
limping around, but ditched the crutches after a day
4. Luke Wendel:
knee injury: just happened yesterday, so hasn't been
officially diagnosed yet.
Campers didn't escape injury
either.......one concussion, legs injuries,
illness........home sickness........is there a pill for
that?
We did have 5 beautiful sunny
days on the mountain......it was even t-shirt weather on
friday. Hawaiian shirt day for coach Mike Hay. Bill
Whalley was dunking a red school ball at the
picnic on Wednesday......I think he even surprised himself.
After several close misses, he dunked in 3 in a row.
Counselor Evan Mikkelson was 5-10
minutes late for his Oregon Commercial drivers license test,
and was denied from taking the test......After a 13 year
break, former MHSSC staffer Eric Price has returned to camp as a coach for team Franconia. Eric is
now thirty-something, married, 2 kids, doing well. There
was a territorial dispute down in our MHSSC terrain park
between our guys and Windell's camp.....nothing like a
little friction between camps to keep things exciting.
Speaking of our terrain park, 3 of our campers when boat
shopping at the Chevron food-mart. An inflatable small
raft to be more precise......to be used where? In the
river?......No.......these guys thought it would be a good
idea to take it to the terrain park, and hit the big
jump.....loaded with all 3 of them.....see attached pic.
Of course, there is video.......funniest home videos
anyone? Former MHSSC moguls coach Jon O'Brien was on the mountain this week......he had a group of his
home program athletes ripping it up in the moguls out on
Bean's lane. We had a partial power outage at the lodge
this week........which affected the cooks the most.......no
bacon making abilities (oven)......and they had to relocate
the waffle irons to some outlets that still had power.
There was a pan-handler in the t-line parking lot,
attempting to wash peoples windshields for cash, to try and
raise enough money for a lift ticket.......giant black
flying ants have invaded camp......run for your life! have
a great week.........
Session 5, 2006 update
Greetings and
Salutations,
BREAKING NEWS:
Former MHSSC coach Izi Jerman, is getting
married........TODAY! Izi made a guest appearance at the camp picnic on
Wednesday........he's now in Tahoe to get married to his long-time girlfriend,
who's name I cannot remember......best man is his brother Andrej. Congrats Izidor! last week was a blur..........180 campers, but a big
chunk of the people were teams that did their own camp within our camp, so it
didn't really seem like 180 people running around. Maybe the MHSSC
cooks felt the most stress because all 180 people plus 40-50 staff showed up
for meals on a daily basis. Stratton mogul team, Killington ski team,
Team Franconia (including Franconia coach, old timer Eric Price making
his MHSSC comeback after 13 years away)...all had teams here. It
was REALLY HOT here early in the week.......over 100 degrees in portland
for a couple of days straight, so we had pretty soft snow....lots of salt
thrown on the hill. Still enough snow to be skiing all the way to the
parking lot, which is nice. Random thing #1: Been following the Duke men's Lacrosse
team sexual crime allegations case? One of my MHSSC sources has told me
that one of the accused Duke players is a former MHSSC camper.........how
random (and mostly insignificant) is that? Random thing #2: if you drive your car to the camp
picnic each week, you can buy a Wildwood Park yearly parking pass for $10....or
pay $3 per visit.....you do the math. Random thing #3: New Mike/Lynne rule: staffers cannot
eat food in the lodge dining room that campers don't have access
to........things like cheeseburgers, chicken fingers, nacho's etc........MHSSC Counselor Evan Mikkelson is 0 for 2 on trying to
take the Bus driving test (CDL: commercial drivers license).......1st
attempt, he was a few minutes late and they didn't let him do the
test.........this week, they got there plenty early, but the bus HORN did not
work.........Evan said the horn was working BEFORE the test, and then again
AFTER the test.........but during the bus inspection, the horn
failed........so NO TEST. It's time to vote for MHSSC employee of the month for
JUNE 2006: Here are the rules: you can vote on-line by replying to this
e-mail (votes must be cast before next weekend).........or I'll be
taking your vote in person early this coming week. Who can vote? Anyone who
worked at camp during June. You cannot vote for the following people: Mike or Lynne Annett, Robin Cressy, or John Rust......also ineligible
are the part-time diggers and camper-staff. Go here if you need some help
in remembering who worked: http://www.mthood.com/staff.htm I'll announce the
winner in next week's update. What does the employee of the
month get? Recognition by all, a pat on the back, and a certificate
on the wall for all to see........and perhaps a free blizzard milkshake
at dairy queen.
Emily Questions for this week:
1. On an airplane you are talking pleasantly to a
stranger of average appearance. Unexpectedly, the person offers you $10,000
for one night of sex. Knowing that there is no danger (no diseases)
and that payment is certain, would you accept the offer?
2. Would you prefer to be blind or deaf?
3. for $1,000,000 would you be willing to never again
see or talk to your best friend? (no e-mail or instant message either)
Have a great week......Robin
Session 6, 2006 update
Hello MHSSC staffers, past and
present! 6 weeks down, 8 to to.
Still skiing all the way to the parking lot as of yesterday
afternoon....but it's getting a bit thin near the bottom of
the canyon......short lift lines all week except
yesterday.....kids were getting in a ton of runs. MORE STAFF INJURIES: Counselor/coach Louise
(Lou) Robertson took a bad fall off the mogul
lane table-top jump yesterday and likely broke her collar
bone. Speaking of broken collar bones, MHSSC cook Elliot Halverson had surgery on his collar bone yesterday. And since we are on the topic of injuries, Tim Feeney reaggravated his ankle
injury in a physical game of "jenga" (yeah, true
story)........Counselor Fritzy put on a firework presentation for the
campers on the 4th of July up on the camp soccer field. And there was plenty of firework related
explosions going on in govy all week..........Terry suggested I try some earplugs to get some sleep. Counselor Evan Mikkelson ate a live inchworm
at the camp picnic for $2.65. He said it was chewy,
but not a lot of taste. I hustled 3 campers plus staffer Mike Evian for $1 apiece on the
basketball court (H-O-R-S-E) Some of the staffers did
an evening jumping session/photo-video shoot in the MHSSC terrain park
on Wednesday night. I heard people went BIG! (including Terry McLeod doing helicopters off
the big jump)........Employee of the month for June 2006 went to Mark
Stegall. Congrats Mark! Mark received 17 votes (out of a possible 45 people that
voted).....2nd place went to Chelsea Stamer.......and
tied for the bronze medal was Brett Andrews, Tim Feeney, and Emily
Sampson. Honorable mention goes to: Bill Whalley, Lou Robertson, Elliot Halverson, Nolan Willard, Dan Tsai, Lenny iimpossible last name), Evan Mikkelson, Leo
Menard, and Bryan Calcaterra.
Great job everybody! Former MHSSC head coach Tom Sell was
on the mountain this week............coaching the U.S.
development guys over on the west side of the chair.
Speaking of past staffers......here are a few updates and
"hello's" from people:
Scott Bell:
I just finished my masters degree in Accounting last month
from the University of Denver and am studying for the CPA
exam at my families place in Northern Michigan. I have
a job starting with Ernst & Young in September in Denver and
am looking forward to progressing my career. Other then
that I have been skiing, biking, and traveling a lot over
the last two years. I would really like to visit Mt
Hood sometime soon because it has been way to long. Tell
everyone at Hood hello and I wish them well.
Bridgette Shipley: Bear attacks Bridgette! In her words: I was on top of a
ladder and a bear ran underneath it and due to the fact he
was fatter than he thought, the ladder knocked over and I fell on me elbow, shoulder and knee.
Bruised a bit and broke and dislocated my elbow...bear ran
away (he felt bad).
Barrett Stein: I do miss the mhssc family so please say hi for me!
Barrett Stein: I do miss the mhssc family so please say hi for me!
Steve
Heuer:Well,
I finally finished all my work on "Superbikes" on the
East Coast. Did Florida twice, Kentucky, Tennessee,
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Was my first
time to New York City. Totally cool, but darn glad I
don't live there. I do look forward to going back
sometime. While in Pennsylvania, we had some time
to kill, no pun intended....ha, ha, and found this
shooting range out in the middle of nowhere. I got to
shoot an Uzi, M1 Carbine, AR-15 sniper rifle, and an old
military .45 hand gun. They had all kinds of cool and interesting
weapons there. Was a total blast. The targets were
approx. 30 yards away and I was quite a good shot :-)
Next up, it looks like a travel show in Boyne Highlands,
Michigan and I leave for my India journey July 24th.
Hope all is well. Hi to all.
Lots of "Emily Questions" this week:
1. Choose your method of death from these choices:
car wreck, drowning, falling out of the sky, hanging, electric
chair, killer bees, eaten by alligator.
2. Would you resort of cannibalism to stay alive? (bodies
already dead, like in the movie "Alive")
3. Would you snort cocaine 5 days in a row to avoid getting
robbed at gunpoint?
4. Would you give a 10 year old camper a bottle of
vodka for double your MHSSC pay with no chance of getting in
trouble?
5. Would you make out with your brother or sister for 3
minutes for 13 months of free gas?
6. Would you rather give up driving a car for life or give
up TV/Internet?
7. Would you hitchhike naked from the camp lodge to Govy
for $11,928.43? (Feeney said he'd do it for $100)
8. Would you rather spend 1 hour in the MHSSC trash trailer
or have to eat 7 salmon fish eyeballs?
Remember the Emily question a couple weeks ago about which 2
MHSSC staffers you'd want to be on a deserted island with?
Many of you picked Mike Annett as one of your two
fellow castaways.........Mike is like the professor on Gilligan's island.....could
probably make a radio out of a coconut.......
A mt hood poem by coach Bob Robicsek:
Summer Snow
You
can see the pure whiteness of it
Visible from miles away in all direction
Rising above the brown and green
Majestically…spiraling upward toward the heavens
So lonely against the bright blue sky
Glistening under the hot glow of the summer sun
Defying the seasons and the verdant lushness at its base
And every summer day a thousand red and blue sticks
Arise upon its brilliant slopes like so many birthday candles
Celebrating its whiteness and its defiance of summer….
As hundreds of faithful worshipers in bright colored suits
Glide down its steep inclines, carving neat parallel lines
With each turn celebrating the endless winter that is Hood...
R. Robicsek July 7, 2006
Visible from miles away in all direction
Rising above the brown and green
Majestically…spiraling upward toward the heavens
So lonely against the bright blue sky
Glistening under the hot glow of the summer sun
Defying the seasons and the verdant lushness at its base
And every summer day a thousand red and blue sticks
Arise upon its brilliant slopes like so many birthday candles
Celebrating its whiteness and its defiance of summer….
As hundreds of faithful worshipers in bright colored suits
Glide down its steep inclines, carving neat parallel lines
With each turn celebrating the endless winter that is Hood...
R. Robicsek July 7, 2006
Attached
is a photo of Izi's wedding from last week at
beautiful Lake Tahoe (and brother and best man Andrej)
Have a
wonderful weekend
Robin
Session 7, 2006 update
Good evening, sorry for the
lateness of this update........couldn't get on my computer
until just now.......We had an eventful session 7. The
end of session 7 means we are half way thru summer.
Thursday of last week was the last day there was enough snow
to ski all the way to the parking lot......although I heard
that Darren Owen and Rogan Connell skied over a few select
rocks on Friday to make it all the way to the bottom an
extra day. (no, they weren't using demo skis)
BREAKING NEWS:
(ok, it's sort of old news now, as this happened 7 days ago)
Somebody STOLE the MHSSC two-tone van........yeah, I'm not
joking. It was stolen right out of the MHSSC lodge
parking lot in the middle of the night. We called the
police and
everything........BUT........Scotty Veenis happened
to be in Gresham, doing a little car shopping (his last car was
totaled on his trip out here in a multi-car
accident.......no injuries)....anyway, Scotty did not know
that the van had been stolen, but he remembered seeing it
parked at a Gresham Restaurant near one of the car dealers
during car shopping...........We called the restaurant and
sure enough it was still there. Bill Whalley went
down to
pick it up.......No damage done.......Keys still in it!
Last camp vehicle to be stolen was the infamous blue bus in
1986......somebody was pretty sure it was those evil Idaho
boys) took it for a joy ride and then parked it in a
different spot in Govy in the middle of the
night......anyway, there's your camp flashback for the day.
Former staffer Cara Rudio is
coming for a visit this Thursday.......she plans a trip to
the glacier and maybe to Charlies too. We had a
scary trampoline accident on friday night. Girl took a
bad fall.............there was fear a possible broken
back......she rode an ambulance, then life flight helicopter......but
it turned out she just had a wicked bad bruise. She walked
out of the hospital later that night. (3am actually)
Expensive bruise!
Myself and fellow camp videographer Jeff Moore were both involved with two separate
weddings this past weekend, both of us playing the role
of "officiate". Jeff (a prophet) married
off two of his friends down in California. He said he
wasn't given the wedding vows until two hours before the
actual wedding, but he winged it pretty good without much prep time. I was more
fortunate. I (Reverend Cressy) had a full week
to practice the vows.........and as you can see from the
attached photos, I did some practicing at the camp picnic, marrying
off Chelsea and Sage, followed by a quickie wedding for Alexandra and Spencer. Sage has already mentioned "divorce" so he can claim half of Chelsea's paycheck (she's
been racking up the hours of late) (*picnic wedding
photographer, Rogan Connell) And friday night at Charlies,
I did some more wedding practice by marrying off a half
dozen more couples........beer makes people do things they
might not normally do! Coach Emily Sampson was married two different times (to two different
men)........one of which, was all excited for "the kiss"......too excited, actually. Tim Feeney was also married twice on friday night.
Congrats everybody, I sent in the paperwork for you guys.
The real wedding I performed was at Timberline
Lodge........two former skiers that I coached on the
Aloha-Southridge high school ski team fell in love, and tied
the knot...........Mike's famous MHSSC pizza was the main
dish at the wedding reception. anyway, that's all for now.........Robin
Session 8, 2006 update
Hey! It was HOT this week,
especially on friday. t-shirt on Palmer hot. Darren Owen and Scotty Veenis both said they had never remembered it being that hot
in Govy EVER. 100+ in portland. Former MHSSC coaches Jack
Suierveld that's Jack in the attached photo) and Alex
Mitchell made an appearance at camp last week. Jack was
here coaching one of his adult athletes at the annual summer
masters race.......and I think Alex was here with his kids
campers) although I only got to chat with him for about 14
seconds so I didn't get the whole scoop. Former staffers Brandy Powell and Cara Rudio also made guest appearances. Olympic
gold medalist and former MHSSC camper Ted Ligety stopped by the lodge too. He played a little tennis
with Scotty and some others on Mike and Lynne's clay court. Counselor Dave Curran was bleeding all over the glacier on monday. He was skiing a
slalom course when the gate got wrapped around his leg, when
whipped up and hit him square in the chin.......he kept
saying "ow".......along with some other choice words.
blood was pouring from his chin.......deep cut. He needed
10 or so stitches to patch him up.
There was a small flood at the
Creel condo (staff condo)........I didn't get the whole
story, but apparently a pipe burst and water went
everywhere........peoples bedrooms were soaked.
There was also some theft issues at Creel early in the week
(some snowboards and other stuff were taken)...........not the
ideal place to be last week! You can see some Bill
Whalley surf camp photos here: http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm the end Robin
Session 9, 2006 update
Good afternoon, 9 sessions down, 5 to
go..........stage 1 of "burnout" is denial.........stage 2
is acceptance. Stage 3 is skipping the picnic to
sleep......then going to Charlies till 1:34AM. A few
weeks ago, former staffer Eric Price returned to work
at MHSSC after a 13 year break......well that record was
shattered this past week, when 1982 coach Ken Kronberg, came back to coach this past
session. A 24 year break between MHSSC shifts!
I actually remember Ken from back in the day.......1982 was my one and
only year as a camper. Some facts about MHSSC 1982......the
name of the camp back then was "Eastern Downhill Camps".
Head coach was Sim Thomas. Also
coaching with Ken Kronberg that year were Vance Lemley, Karen Lemley, Fred Loesberg and a few others. Tom Sell was a
camp cook. Jennifer Annett was
about 13 years old, Michelle Annett age 10? Mike Annett often drank multiple
cans of the softdrink "tab" and he was
the on-hill videographer (in addition to being camp director). Another
former coach (early 90's) Alex Mitchell (nickname "skippy") came back as a camper this past week.
He joins Paul Richardson as the only two
former MHSSC coaches to return to camp as campers. Alex was here with his two kids. Also happy birthday Alex!
yesterday) ok, enough of the flashback.........here's
what happened last week: MHSSC cook Jay
Belanger and myself saw a black bear running across
the highway right near the bottom of timberline road.
Former camper Ted Ligety skied on our lane
5 slalom course on Tuesday.....course set
by Eva Gonzalez. Ted blew out of the
course at gate 17. There was a transient sleeping in
the Govy post office on Wednesday morning (4:49am).....he
was all rolled up in the post office floor carpet. Next
time I'll take a picture. He was snoring away. Rainer
Hertrick is a local guy who just passed the
1000 ski days in a row.........yeah, he has skied 1000 days
in a row! Actually it's up to 1002 as of today. I don't
know his whole story, but I've heard a few things:
he's a groomer at Timberline. If Timberline is closed
due to bad weather, he will ride his motorcycle up the
gravel road, hike up a bit and ski a short run. And when Timberline
closes after Labor Day weekend, he'll be grooming at
12:01am, he'll get out of the snowcat, take his one run,
then head to the portland airport and fly to South America
to ski the following day.......so with this plan he has
about 47 hours, and 59 minutes to get back on snow. I heard
that he had to attend a family reunion one time (nowhere
near snow), so he bought a bunch of cubed ice from the local
7-11 store, and spread it out and skied on it at some park.
I have no proof that this story is true or not.
Bad week for injuries this week........broken bones,
concussion, sprained ankles.........Counselor Dave Curran (the guy who was bleeding all over the glacier last update) broke two bones in his arm in a
slalom wreck. July is quickly winding down, and
that means it's time to
vote for MHSSC employee of the month for JULY, 2006. Who
can vote? Anyone who worked at camp during July '06.
Who can you vote for? Anyone that worked at camp in July 2006
(ineligible to receive votes: Mike and Lynne Annett,
Robin Cressy, and John Rust).........you can vote by
replying to this e-mail if you've gone home already, or I'll
be gathering your ballots on Sunday/Monday of this week.
Emily Questions:
1. One a HOT summer day, you get off the palmer
glacier, walk thru the Timberline parking lot, you notice a
dog
suffering badly from the heat inside a locked car. What
would you do?
2. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly,
would you change anything about the way you are now living?
3. How many times during the day do you look at yourself in
the mirror?
4. If you could prevent either an earthquake in Peru that
would kill 40,000 people, a crash at your local airport that
would kill 200 people, or an automobile accident that would
kill a friend of yours, which would you choose?
Counselor Brett Andrews was looking
business sharp on the hill yesterday.........and check out
the mystery insect. Jeff Moore and Emily Sampson do their best Napoleon Dynamite impressions. And check out the
close-up of one of those annoying fly-bee insects that buzz
in your ear up on Palmer. Can anyone identify this
bug? It hovers like a hummingbird, they don't sting or
bite, and they
are pretty annoying. That's Jay Panther upside down off the mogul lane table-top jump.
Robin
cressyvideo dot calm
Session 10, 2006 update
Hi, The MHSSC staff continues their
injury streak. Add Nolan Willard to
the list of broken collar bones. On Thursday morning, Nolan caught an edge in the public lane and went down HARD on his
shoulder. A week ago Friday, CIT (counselor in training) Lindsay Ratliff broke a bone and
tore a ligament in her foot/ankle. Terrain Park digger Sara injured her knee in the park on
Thursday afternoon. Andrej Jerman,
who went back to Slovenija a few weeks ago, broke his wrist
in a mountain bike wreck. Andrej needed surgery (check out
the attached photo Rogan sent me of Andrej in his cute little hospital pajamas). Rogan is
currently visiting Izi and Andrej in Slovenija. Rogan told me that Izi and is wife are expecting
a child in February. Yeah, Izi is going to be somebody's
father.
Counselor Dave Curran, who broke his
arm session 9, told me that his arm does NOT require
surgery, but he is done for the summer.....not coming back,
but he wishes everyone well. Besides injuries
and people having babies, here's what happened at camp last week: Carter Casner was driving the van
back from activities when he hit a bird (a grouse?). This
now dead grouse was stuck in the van grill.....ewwwww!
I heard a rumor that another coach took this poor little
dead grouse and was grossing out campers with it.......a
gross grouse. Adult camper Grant Wilson (guitar
and vocals) and coach Terry McLeod (on
bass guitar) put on a free concert at the camp
picnic..........mostly Beatles and beach boys tunes. John Rust took a group of coaches caving at Mt. Adams. Mike Annett finally purchased a Charlies Pin. What is a charlies
pin? At the charlies bar in Govy, you can buy a pin for $100,
which gets you a free drink buy one, get one free, once per
every 24 hours) for the next 5 years. Mike resisted the
charlie pin opportunity for 5 plus years, but on tuesday
night when he left the bar, he found $75 cash sitting right
next to his truck.....SCORE! $75 was more than
enough for the down payment on his new pin! He went in
the next night to make it official. Chelsea Stamer was the winner of the MHSSC employee of the month for July
2006! Congrats Chelsea! Chelsea ran away with the
voting.....it was a landslide win. Taking the Silver medal
was Jay Balinger (sp?), and earning
the bronze was Nolan Willard iinjury
boy).......Lots of people received votes, which means a lot
of people are doing good work. Mike offered up $75 congratulations money for each of the last 4
winners of the MHSSC employee of the months (dating back to July 05). Still plenty of snow up on
Palmer for this time of year. There's still a public halfpipe
on the upper magic mile. There's still gate
training on lower west Palmer...........And we can still ski
down the mile canyon to within a couple hundred yards of the
parking lot. I'd guesstimate that about 80% of the
people on the hill are skiing/snowboarding down at the end
of the day, 20% downloading.........The mogul lane has rocks in a
few places, but they may move the moguls further west where
there's more snow. Lift lines have been short for the most
part.
Emily Questions:
1. Would you accept
$1,000,000.00 to leave the United States (or your own
country, depending on where you are from) to never set foot
in it again?
2. Do you think the world will
be a better or worse place 100 years from now?
3. You are given the power to
kill people simply by thinking of their deaths and twice
repeating the word "good-bye". People would die a
natural death and no one would suspect you. Are there any
situations (Bin Laden?) in which you would use this power?
4. If you could wake up
tomorrow
having gained any one ability or quality, what would it be?
5. Would you like to be
famous?
In what way?
The attached photo of the guy
with the skis on the back of his motorcycle is Rainer Hertrick,
the guy who has skied over
1000 days in a row.
Next week (session 11) is the
2nd annual NICE camp. It's that
time of the year when people are a little grumpy, burned
out, ready to go home, etc. NICE camp is all about
being nice to each other.........complaints kept to a
minimum. Treating everybody well, helping each other out, going the
extra mile.....for a whole week! that's all folks.
Robin
Session 11, 2006 update
BREAKING NEWS:
Mt Hood is on fire! Run
for your lives! Ok, the actual mountain is not
on fire.........but there are a series of forest fires on
the east side of the mountain. http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_081206_news_hood_f=res.5a8faa.html
Highway 35 is closed because of
the fire danger (between Mt Hood and Hood River)........so
we can't go to our usual spot for cliff jumping (afternoon
activity).......yesterday the wind shifted a bit and we got
some smoke/fog condition up on Palmer, but other than that,
we aren't really feeling the affects. You can see a
photo I took of the smoke from palmer on Thursday morning here: http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm You can also
see a photo of Mike about to hit the softball at
wednesday's
picnic if you scroll down that same page a bit.
There was a rumor on the hill that actor Ben Affleck (sp?) was skiing on Tuesday. FALSE rumor. But I
heard the guy on the chairlift looked like Ben
Affleck. Bill Whalley climbed up frenchies dome
in flip flops on
Thursday, winning a $1 bet with Jeff Moore. I continued
my unbeaten streak in H-O-R-S-E (haven't lost a game since
2003) by hustling 3 more suckers on the lodge b-ball hoop.
$1 a game......anyone want in? John Rust was coaching rockclimbing all week at smith rocks climbing
camp. I heard he had 4 campers for the week......Terry
McLeod filled in as head coach on the hill.........we did
dual GS on friday to end
the session on a fun note. Counselor Liz Edmunds passed her
Commercial drivers License test this week! great job Liz! At the camp picnic, I noticed Liz and Evan Mikkelson UNDERNEATH the camp bus, studying for
the test.....Liz wanted a close-up view of the brakes.......I guess you need
to know some of that stuff for the test. 3 more
weeks of camp left..........the staff is starting to
dwindle........the number of campers is starting to
dwindle........but there's still a 12 month supply of
bologna in the walk-in fridge.
Emily questions for session 11:
1. If you were at a friend's house for thanksgiving
dinner and you found a dead cockroach in your salad, what would you
do?
2. If your friends and acquaintances were willing to
bluntly and honestly tell you what they really thought of you, would
you want them to?
3. If you were able to wake up tomorrow in the body of
someone else, would you do so? Whom would you pick?
4. If you went to a beach and it turned out to be a nude
beach, would you stay and go swimming? Would you swim nude?
Robin
cressyvideo dot calm
Session 12, 2006 update
Hi mhssc people's, Butterflies
have taken over the glacier!.........run for your life.
Millions and Millions of butterflies are flying around the
mountain.......where did they come from? Where are they going?
What is their purpose? Besides the flying insect invasion, here
are a few session 12 nuggets: Jeff Moore did his first
trampoline back flip ever......with the help of coach Tim Feeney and the harness. After Wednesday's picnic, a few of us went to
"the shack" in Welches for some Kareoke (sp?).......brave enough
to get up there to sing a song were Tim Feeney, Carter Casner,
and Emily Longfield. We had a somewhat injured camper (stubbed
toe?) trying to "slide" down the public lane down to the magic
mile.......Lenny (k-staff) volunteered his services to
piggy-back this injured kid down the hill. I heard it was a
sight to behold. Speaking of Lenny........he tried to hustle me
on the basketball court. He was shooting baskets with this
camper girl after dinner one night..... she couldn't miss a
shot. Lenny offered to put up the $1 for me to play her in a
game of H-O-R-S-E.........Of course I did not know she was a
"ringer"........so I took on the challenge.......taking a line
from the movie "Searching
for Bobby Fisher",
"you can't hustle the hustler"........yes, this girl could shoot
the ball from the outside, but she can't make a bank
shot..........no contest, easy money. NEXT! At the session
12 sunday night coaches meeting.......we'll I can't say
everything that was said, but Tim Feeney said it best:
"following this coaches meeting, we all need to attend the
sexual harassment training seminar".........that's all I can say
about that. Former staffers Peter and Craig Bowden made a guest
appearance last week. Peter was here on vacation, and brother Craig is here coaching with Rowmark, along with Pete Deisroth and Dave Kerwynn. Jason Kim, former k-staff, made a return to
MHSSC after a 6 year break, and coached last week too. We were
short a mogul coach last week, so they dragged Tim Feeney out of
the office for a week of mogul coaching. Feeney can still rip
it up in the bumps. After hearing rumors that there was going
to be a "Rocky 6" movie, (rumors that I thought were sure to be
false......I mean Sylvester Stallone is about 60 years old,
isn't he?), sure enough there is going to be another Rocky
movie......titled "Rocky Balboa". The trailer looked
good......supposed to hit theaters around Christmas time.
Here's a link to the trailer http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1445131&sdm=web&qtw=640&qth=400
1 more session of kids left.......followed by adult camp (bring
your own beer)..........the mt hood forest fires are still
burning.........600 acres and growing........20% contained, last
I heard. Highway 35 is open again with a few restrictions.
so anyway...........the other
day when I e-mailed you guys those 3 photos of the mt hood
butterflies, I decided to also e-mail them to Portland local
TV news station KGW...........I mentioned in my e-mail to
them that it wasn't breaking news or anything, but thought
they might show one of the photos on the air as they
sometimes do during "weather" segments. Didn't really
expect anything......until I get a text message on my cell
phone from my sister saying she just saw my photos on the
11pm news (they said my name! woo hoo)........then the next
day, I get this call from the KGW reporter saying they want
to do a full-on story on this migrating
butterfly.........they sent a satellite truck up to
timberline and did 2 live reports.....and re-used my photos
in their story.........the link to the 5pm version is
below.........not sure how long the link will work, so check
it out NOW!
http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/makeASX.php?title=www.kgw.c=m/082306_butterflies5.wmv&adurl=adcontent/HealthNet.wm
Next thing I know, Brian
Robb (photographer) tells me that the Oregonian
(main newspaper in Oregon) ran a story on the
butterfly on the front
page of Thursday paper.........let me know if
anyone sees the mt hood butterflies on CNN or
MSNBC.......I'm going national baby! Anyway,
I'm milking this butterfly thing for all it's worth.....I'll send out a real camp session 13
update tomorrow.......Robin
Session 13, 2006 update
good afternoon MHSSC'ers, Here's what happened last
week..........add TWO more staffers to the injured list.
K-staff Michelle Schmitt partially tore her Achilles Tendon on
her last ski day of the summer. She actually skied down at the
end of the day, downloaded the magic mile, walked over to a seat
to take her boots off, when the injury occurred. Yeah, taking
her boot off! She goes home to get an MRI to see what her next
step is. Snowboard video guy Ryan Anderson injured his lower
leg (possible fracture below the knee) in a freak snowboard
wreck on Tuesday. I guess if you are going to get injured, it's
better to do it at the end of the summer. Feeney grabbed the mic a handful of times.
Even I broke my "will never will do kareoke" claim and sang the
theme song to Gilligan's Island. Some girls at the bar were
singing "girls just wanna have fun" when all of a
sudden Mike Annett started singing along too! He won't win a grammy or anything, but it was entertaining nonetheless. He
said he has that Cindy Lauper CD in his truck (I'm not
lying).........Counselor Allison Higgenbotham celebrated her
23rd birthday on friday. Courtney Vermass ran in the Hood to
Coast relay race yesterday/today. From what I know about this
event, teams of 12 people take turns running three different 5-7
mile chunks of the course from Timberline Lodge to the Oregon
coast. 168 miles total (give or take)....Tim Feeney celebrated his 28th
birthday on Wednesday. We returned to "the shack" for some Kareoke (sp?). Hey, August is winding down and the
staff is dwindling down to about a dozen people (4-5 coaches, 3
cooks, 2 counselors, 1 video man, 1 new lodge construction guy,
a camp director, and his wife........and it's time to
vote for Employee of the month for August. If you
worked in August and have already left camp, then reply to this
e-mail with your vote. Who do you think did an outstanding job
in August. If you can't think of who to vote for, this link
might help you pick a person: http://www.mthood.com/staff.htm Remember that you had to have worked
in the month of August to be eligible to cast a vote, and you
must vote for somebody who worked IN august, 2006, so stop
voting for random people who worked 3 years ago or their
pets......Ineligible to receive votes are: Mike and Lynne,
Robin Cressy, and John Rust. Mike Annett missed a couple days of
camp this week...........I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's the
first time in camp history (only counting the summer camps),
that Mike was physically gone from camp for more than 24 hours.
He's in Bend, Oregon playing in a tennis tournament with family
members. He would have missed some days at camp last summer,
but Timberline closed on August 19 last year, and he kept the
streak intact. Anyway, it's good to see that Mike can leave
MHSSC and the building won't burn down or anything crazy. 1 more week of camp left. It's
adult camp..........I think we have about 25 adults signed up,
lots of new people of those 25. Still a ton of snow
left.......some people are still skiing down at the end of the
day. Heard it's about 1/4 mile walk to the parking lot.
The fires are still burning on the
east slopes of mt hood.........they expect full containment in
early September. No structures have burned and none are in
immediate danger. correction from last weeks update:
It was Bill Whalley that helped Jeff Moore do a backflip on the
trampoline, not Tim Feeney as I had written. Bill Whalley is
now living in Forest Grove, Oregon getting ready for Optometry
school. He's officially a local now. (forest grove is about 20
miles west of portland).....that's all for this week.
If you want to be deleted from this mhssc staff newsletter,
let me know. I won't be offended in the least. p.s. don't forget to vote for
employee of the month........do it NOW NOW NOW!
Session 14, 2006 update
GAME OVER! Mt Hood Summer Ski Camps' summer season #28 has come to an end. Last week was adult
camp. We had 21
adults, mostly newbies that had never been here before. We had
a small snowstorm mid-week that closed the lifts on Wednesday.
But instead of heading to the mall, we rented a snowcat and did some
training in the mile canyon for a couple hours.......yeah,
still enough snow on the mile for a 30 gate slalom course, and a
decent sized jump for the mogulers and snowboarders. I shot a
couple photos and sent them to KGW news and they aired them on
their 5pm newscast. Here's the written story at this =ink along
with photos of Rust/Terry slipping the course,
plus one of the adults hitting a jump:
Unfortunately one final staff injury
to report: Allison Higginbotham injured her wrist
early in the week while snowboarding off of a box/rail.
Her arm was in a cast as she drove home on friday to get further x-rays/MRI. There was a crazy sequence of events
at the camp lodge on Sunday afternoon (camp arrival
day)........there was a propane explosion in the kitchen that
singed the hair off of Nolan Willard's arm. Apparently the pilot light had gone out, so
propane gas was filling the kitchen.......anyway, there was a
pretty big
flame that engulfed Nolan and lucky he only burned some arm
hair.......and it let off a significant "BOOM"
sound......Literally 15-20 seconds later another "BOOM" went
off.......an automobile accident happened just outside the lodge
on Hwy 26. A car heading west hit a truck that was pulling
out of the chevron gas station.........both vehicles were
totaled, but nobody was hurt. It was a crazy 20 seconds with double
unrelated "booms"...........Jon O'Brien made
a guest visit this week.........he brought 3 of his Wasatch
(sp?) mogul athletes with him for a week of training.
Wednesday's camp picnic was the smallest
in my 21 years at MHSSC. Out of the 21 adult campers, only 3
showed up at the Wildwood picnic for burgers/beer.......the
majority of the people went on a wine tasting tour in the
Columbia Gorge or golfing in Hood River that same
afternoon/evening. Actually the picnic was attended by about
5
staffers, plus the Jon O'Brien's crew, so we did do some damage to the brownie tray. MHSSC employee of the
month for August sent to Jay Balanger! Congrats Jay! Jay won in a landslide. There was
a tie for the Silver Medal: Stu Halverson and Rick Millett tied for 2nd in the voting.
BREAKING NEWS:
Go check out the latest edition of SKI RACING magazine. (Sept
13 issue). There's an article on mt hood summer training and
photographer Brian Robb supplied several MHSSC
photographs for the article:
Page 4: table of contents page: Jason Hey GS pic
Page 6: Jay Panther coaching a little girl
Page 18: former MHSSC coach (now
with Timberline) Ben Roberts tossing
salt
Page 19: Sage Dunham ripping a GS turn (the red/white blob underneath Sage's left ski
is Robin Cressy!)
Page 19: John Rust group photo which includes Alex Andrews and Greg Curran
Page 20: another Rust group photo,
including
former MHSSC coach Alex Mitchell
Page 20: Patrick Deneen (sp?) getting crazy air
Page 35: Andrej Jerman GS turn
Although summer '06 is over, there's
a small crew staying behind to help Mike continue work on
lodge #2. Jon Winslow, Mark Stegall, Rick Millett, Tommy O'Rourke,
Nolan Willard, Jay Balenger, and Stu Halverson are staying to do
lodge construction.
Fall camps start September
21.........when Palmer re-opens for the fall season. If I
get my act together, I'll send some session 14 photos in a future e-mail, hopefully sometime
soon. If any of
you want to share your favorite memories from summer 2006,
please reply back and I'll pass them to the group in a
future staff newsletter.......Robin
September 10, 2006 update
Good evening, Just a few things to pass along..........I've been sorting thru all the digital photos I took this summer and if I have any photos of YOU, I'll be e-mailing them to YOU and YOU only.......some of these same photos I might have already e-mailed to you individually during mid-summer, so some are repeats.....keep in mind, about 1/2 of the photos were taken using the 1998 panasonic vhs-c camcorder (super low quality), but if you have adobe photoshop on your computer, then you can probably make them look decent by adding some contrast and perhaps tweaking the brightness and color.
Favorite 2006 camp memories from Chelsea Stamer:
Good evening, Just a few things to pass along..........I've been sorting thru all the digital photos I took this summer and if I have any photos of YOU, I'll be e-mailing them to YOU and YOU only.......some of these same photos I might have already e-mailed to you individually during mid-summer, so some are repeats.....keep in mind, about 1/2 of the photos were taken using the 1998 panasonic vhs-c camcorder (super low quality), but if you have adobe photoshop on your computer, then you can probably make them look decent by adding some contrast and perhaps tweaking the brightness and color.
Favorite 2006 camp memories from Chelsea Stamer:
oh and i dont know if i
can narrow down all of my favorite camp memories to
just one...but the one where spencer fell out of his raft at oak springs
and proceeded
to leave his boat of screaming girls while it floated down the
rapid and run up the bank of the river, into the road and then back down the
side of the
back to his boat of screaming girls..HAHA
Here's a Bill Whalley surfing story from about a week ago:
Here's a Bill Whalley surfing story from about a week ago:
Surfed with Mark Sat afternoon/evening,
and saw a shark fin. It was about 50yards away and based on the
fin the shark was pretty good size 8-12 ft maybe. I quickly
turned around and paddled towards shore, I was definitely a bit
freaked out. Especially since I was out by myself (mark was
somewhere down the shore, and it was super foggy so I couldn’t
see him). Later
Bill
http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/spo/203228217.html=/DIV>
Update from Chris Hargrave:
I had an amazing summer
working =ith High Cascade. I found that I fit very well
with their team and enjoy =he freedom of coaching more than
I thought I would. While I miss =hssc life has taken me in
a direction that I am truly enjoying. I would like =o say
thanks to everyone at camp for being a part of my life and
career and I =m very appreciative and thankful for all the
fun times and opportunities =here. My consulting is
starting to grow and I have added some very talented =iders
to the list that I will be coaching for the next few
seasons. I am =oing to be based out of a small resort
called dodge ridge this season if anyone =ants to come slide
on some interesting terrain stop by. The best part =bout
what I am doing right now is all the travel, this season I
won't be anywhere =or longer than three weeks, unsettling
but exciting. I just got back from =as Lenas Argentina and
had an amazing trip. Three days out of 16 were epic =now
days with short hikes to amazing snow and pitch that put the
fear in me again. If there is anyone who is considering
south america as a destination for a summer, stop thinkning
and start acting you will have =he time of your life. I
hope that evryone had a great summer and I look =orward to
bumping into people at charlies or on the hill again next
summer.
October 13, 2006 update
Hi all, Lyndsay Strange sent me a few pics from summer........see attachments.........
Michelle Annett is somebody's wife! I don't have a photo (yet), but Michelle got married to her new hubby Travis on Saturday. It was a short and sweet wedding ceremony on top of Beacon Rock in the Columbia Gorge. Friends and family joined in at Michelle's house in Vancouver for the reception. Honeymoon in Italy.
According to Sage Dunham,
the mt hood butterfly story made it to NPR: I also heard about the
butterflies on NPR, so you really got the ball rolling!
Courtney Vermass and her teammates had a successful Hood to Coast event. She
maintained 8-minute mile pace on her 3 legs for her team.
Sean Mailey celebrated his 28th birthday last Tuesday. Hey check
out attached picture..........this was the lane assignment board at the top of Palmer on August
29.....pretty creative eh?
that's all for this week...........would love
to get more of your camp 06 memories.........Robin
p.s. I can't remember when exactly I started
sending out these MHSSC staff update e-mail newsletters
(1999 perhaps?). But I'm sort of hoping that somebody
out there on the list of names has been saving all my camp
updates on their computer (or perhaps piling up in their
deleted items folder since 1999)........Bill Whalley sent me all that he had on his computer (2004-05)......If any of you
have my old MHSSC updates from 1999 to 2003, let me
know.......Maybe I'll write a book?
September 19, 2006 update
Greetings from the pacific northwest.........Here is what's new at camp...........I've only been back to camp briefly since camp ended Labor Day weekend, so I don't know too much. But I've heard that progress is being made up there in a few areas...........the 2nd lodge is getting framed this week........I think I heard that the 2nd floor is "up" now. Or is that the main floor?.......it's the floor above the basement. Next time I'm up there, I'll take a photo. The two skateboard ramps have dome-type covers on them now.........you can see a glimpse here: http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm
Greetings from the pacific northwest.........Here is what's new at camp...........I've only been back to camp briefly since camp ended Labor Day weekend, so I don't know too much. But I've heard that progress is being made up there in a few areas...........the 2nd lodge is getting framed this week........I think I heard that the 2nd floor is "up" now. Or is that the main floor?.......it's the floor above the basement. Next time I'm up there, I'll take a photo. The two skateboard ramps have dome-type covers on them now.........you can see a glimpse here: http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm
Fall ski camps start up soon.
Mt hood
has received a series of small snow storms in the last week or
so. The mountain looks white from my house.
Got a call from long lost MHSSC
staffer Matt Murphy. Matt was the
only MHSSC coach in camp history (to my knowledge) that coached
ski racing, moguls, AND snowboarding at MHSSC.
Multi-talented. Matt told me that he's married
now and has a son named "Finn". He no longer works in the ski
industry, and has some other business opportunities going these
days. Here
are his websites:
And from Steve Heuer.........(late
80's staffer):
I'm having another show/sale
of my still photos coming up. Just wanted to give
you a heads up that I'm showing/selling my Vietnam, India,
and Nepal photos on the 22nd & 24th. I'll have 20 images
from last years Vietnam trip and 22 from the recent
India/Nepal trip. All 11x14 in size. The location is at
the south east corner of Venice Blvd. & Abbot Kinney. The
flyer is enclosed. Please feel free to pass it on. Friday I'll be
inside showing on a wall in the gallery and Sunday I'll have
a tent outside. Sunday we are going to be mooching off the
big crowds that will be around for the annual Abbot Kinney street
Fair
Oh, and my friends are
playing at =he Abbot Kinney Fair. They will probably be last
up around 6pm. They are the band ="Venice" http://www.venicecentral.com/ and
are really phenominal. Kind of an Eagles, Beach =oys, vibe.
Lots of harmonies.
Today, I tossed out the first camcorder I ever owned....(see
photo attachment)....I think I paid $1,200 for this full size
VHS =anasonic gem in 1988. I plugged it in today, put a tape
in and tried =o record........wasn't happening! Do you have =nything
in YOUR closet that should be sent to the land fill?
Well, I'm out of stuff to write...............(could you
tell?)...............Robin
September 20, 2006 update
I had a couple errors in my last e-mail.The CORRECT Matt Murphy website address: www.11visual.com
I had a couple errors in my last e-mail.The CORRECT Matt Murphy website address: www.11visual.com
And Chris Hargrave was another MHSSC coach that coached all 3 disciplines:
ski racing, moguls, snowboard.......I
sent some MHSSC crash video clips to "whacked out
sports"..........it's a new TV show on NBC..........at my
house, it airs on Sunday nights 9:30pm, NBC...........I sent
them about 3 minutes of the best crashes ever captured on
the palmer snowfield.........I'll let you know if they plan
to use any of my clips. In the past I've been
rejected by "America's funniest home videos" so I'm not holding my breath on this one. Long
lost MHSSC staffer Sean Sullivan (late
80's, early 90's?) sent me a message the other
day......here's a Sean Sullivan update:
I have skied less than 10 times since leaving Mt. Hood way back
when. Graduated from San Diego State in '94 with a degree in
Exercise science. Was coaching volleyball and tried to get
into college but eventually gave that up and love to
managing sports events. Moved to Dallas in '98 to work
for a company
that did sport tours. The one that you might know is "Hoop It
Up" and did that for 3 years. Meet my now wife in Dallas during
my time there and then move to DC and went back to school for
IT. My wife got transferred to UYC and we moved to Hoboken, NJ
(just over the river from NYC) in late 2001. Got married and
bought a house in 2003 and now live in Stamford, CT. Had our
first son in March and his name is Drew. I try to read each
email and relive the easy years of my life when the only
worry was if you could grab more the 4 cookies and
not get caught. Please say HI to the Annett's and all the others from my time.
Craig Bowden celebrated his 30th birthday on Monday........oh yeah! he's in
his 30's! Also, a
week or so ago, I asked if anyone could send me back some of
the old e-mail newsletters that I've sent since 1999,
and a handful of you responded! thanks!
September 23, 2006 update
Good evening, Here are a few more updates from MHSSC staffers from past and present including another staff broken collar bone (that's 3 this year):
Good evening, Here are a few more updates from MHSSC staffers from past and present including another staff broken collar bone (that's 3 this year):
From Andrej Jerman:
Good to hear that jet another
summer is vver and that business was good. I'm letting you
know, that I was already skiing =nd that my wrist is
curently doing realy good. I still have same problems with =ovment
and stranght is not jet as at was, but still I'm realy happy
that thinks =ent that well. Like I said, I'll be ready for
the season.
Holly Kasun: She recently moved to Amsterdam to begin her new job with Nike
as an eCommerce marketing manager.
From Joe Reis: Taylor
and I just got back from the Rolling Stones "Bigger Bang" opener
at Gillette Stadium (home of those awesome Pats, who are
looking forward to Denver this weekend!). As this is
the start of their North America tour, I would recommend
going to see them for any of your Stones fans out there. Great setlist
with some older gems that don't get airplay. First
ever concert for 13 year old Taylor - any concert he sees from here on will pale by
comparison. Check it out if you are so inclined.
From Lyndsay Strange: i
have a news update for you... i broke my collar bone!!! haha i
cant believe it, especially since i dodged that bullet all
summer. But i was longboarding and got down really low to turn,
went over some lose gravel and ate it, hard. I guess you could
say the concrete won. But luckily it wasnt as bad as lou and elliot's.
I chiped the bone where it attatches to the sternam in the
middle and separated my shoulder and sprained my wrist. look at
these left hand typing skillzzz. I'm getting alot better though.
it happend monday, so hopefully by next week no more sling. just
wanted to let you know since i thought it was ironic i did it
outside of camp. Im just glad its the fall and not middle of
winter!! Also i think one of my favorite memories from camp is
when i first learned how to snowboard, i was going through the
park and managed to take out not only myself but run into jon
winslow and rick between 2 jumps. hilarious.
Injury update From Michelle Schmitt: I did, in fact, partially
tear my achilles tendon. I don't have to have surgery and I am
finally off crutches, but it won't be completly healed for another
two months. I am now in Corvallis getting ready for school
to start.
Ridgley Reece's daughter Lisa had baby #2: From
Ridgley: Lisa Deann Reece
Deleon, had her second daughter at 3:45 PM Monday,
September 18, 2006 at South Lake Tahoe. Besides her husband Christian, her12 year old daughter Courtney was there, the first to see her new little sister, then of course Grandma Ridgie and auntie AnnE.
September 18, 2006 at South Lake Tahoe. Besides her husband Christian, her12 year old daughter Courtney was there, the first to see her new little sister, then of course Grandma Ridgie and auntie AnnE.
Scotty Veenis is taking "swing dancing"
at school.
From Shannon White,
bragging about her sister Allison White,
the actress: Speaking of former MHSSC'rs...just saw my little sis in the Geary mainstage
production of Tom Stoppard's play
"Travesties" last night!!! This is San Francisco's
Broadway!!! Allison was
asked by ACT (The American Conservatory Theater) to join their
core company
for the 2006/2007 40th Anniversary season - very cool!!! I'm very proud of her...she is truly amazing
to
watch...a multi-talented lady: from her humble beginnings on the stage' @ Charlie's!!!.......was it a Guns and Roses cover Al?
October 13, 2006 update
Hi all, Lyndsay Strange sent me a few pics from summer........see attachments.........
Here are a few staff
updates...........Barrett Stein:
I am selling real estate for the Telluride Real Estate Corp. TREC) and we are listing some of the coolest houses I
have ever seen, www.sunnysideranch.com . Our group is also involved with a
brand new Greg Norman golf course www.cornerstonecolorado.com
. From the property you can see 14,000 foot peaks and the
desert in one swoop.
Chelsea Stamer: i went to yoga last night
and it was amazing
Jerry Oh: I'm in medical school now in my old age at the Univ of Illinois
Chicago.
Jack Suierveld: I am quite
busy with flight lessons and now have 7 students working on
their private pilot certificate, and others that are using,
(abusing?), me for mountain flight work, recurrency training,
biennial flight reveiws, tailwheel aircraft endorsements, and
emergency maneuver training. All this along with some part time
work doing finish carpentry and cabinets to fill in the gaps.
Julie Janus: have been trying my hand at training for
Okinawan full contact fighting. I take karate out of my
brother's garage, but his school has links into a traditional Okinawan
school. We have a tournament in November so I've been
training (i.e. letting the 17 year olds kick the crap out of me
every week since they've been doing this for half their
lives). It's something new, though, so it's been
pretty fun. And all the stretching and leg
strengthening has actually really helped my knees for
running. Have a half marathon the end of next
month and really haven't noticed much knee pain.
Mark Stegall,
who's been working at the camp lodge since camp ended......he
finally left town this week.....
Hey I
fell off a wall today about 6' onto rocks. I bounced but it
wasn't fun, I'm already feeling it all over. It could have
been a broken arm easily. Drink lots of milk, it does a body
good.
Spencer Raymond freshman at Syracuse University)
I made my
Syracuse radio debut today.
I gave a weather update on WAER during a break in All Things Considered.
I'll be working the
board once a week during ATC and Fresh Air giving weather, stock and
other updates. It's started to get a bit colder here. Nothing near the
supposed sub-zero temps that I guess will happen soon, but 55 degrees is freaking out the Puerto Rican on my floor.
I'm working at CitrusTV(.net) (the student TV station) almost
everynight. I've be doing the audio board mostly. I
made it into the news department, in addition to working in the control room for
Sports. I'm now a general assignment reporter for the Friday newscast.
I spent last weekend at West Point playing in a water polo
tournament. We lost all our games, but it was still good times. I played
OK. I'm currently leading the team in scoring with 20 goals in 8
games. OK, enough bragging. school is good, sorta tough but not
really. I'm getting by. My bike got stolen. Apparently there's a big ring
of mobsters who go around and steal bikes. I replaced it though,
with a sweet, red road bike wth a generator that flips onto the back
wheel to power the lights. It still baffles me to see all these people going to school
here. Looking across the quad and seeing hundreds of people walking
around or hanging out really places me in college. It's great. Now I
should say something like, It really makes me want to learn and expand
my mind. OK, it does that a little. I have seen some great
speakers so far. I'm really impressed by
the caliber of speakers SU is able to bring in. So rar I've seen Al
Gore, a researcher from a media consulting company, the Miami Bureau
chief for Newsweek, and a senior VP for programming from ESPN that
was a cool talk). Gonna be in NYC this month? Well
then come by Colombia
University Oct. 28 and 29 to see the NY championship water polo tournament. We'll be playing in it. That's all from Syracuse
for now. I'm gonna go do some laundry. Peace, Spencer
Steve Heuer: He just had artarthroscopic surgery on his knee. He
got a piece of his medial meniscus trimmed that was slightly torn.
And this from Will Wasson: big news.
After years of research google has enlightend me. Ted Nugent is on the tshirt of the guy in Dazed and Confused.
from Bill Lumburgh: http://www.bullshitjob.com/officespace/goahead1.wav
Happy birthday to Michelle Annett.......Oct. 14
I just went and saw the movie "Jackass
number II"..........I give it a "B-"........pretty
funny........kinda gross.........not a must
see. Not worth a full price $8.50 theater ticket..........wait
for DVD release.
Bill Whalley is bowling for free on Thursday nights..........free for Pacific
University students.
My new high score for the
helicopter game is 1330. http://www.addictinggames.com/helicopter.html
have the best weekend EVER...........Robin Cressy
October 17, 2006 update
Hi kids, In today's newsletter:
Hi kids, In today's newsletter:
**camp update
**Some more staff updates for
your reading
pleasure
**the helicopter game
**Bill Whalley's new penguin game
**and my first attempt at youtube.com
Camp update: I
went up to the lodge
yesterday and took a couple photos of the new lodge under
construction. You can check them out here: http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm
Fall camps have been happening each
weekend............mostly ski racers (Rust coaching), but there has also been at least 1 freeskier
(coached by Feeney), and snowboarders (Stegall coaching).........and heard a rumor that Brandy Powell will come
down to coach some fall camp snowboarders that signed up. Mike has been focusing his attention on
the new lodge. Luke just showed up to do some painting. Feeney is filling in the gaps. So
things are happening up there. Lynne told
me that daughter Jennifer Annett Bard won Nationals in Tennis in Hawaii. you go girl!
Andrew Lynn update: Figured I would send you an update
too...I am still working in the youth media scene in NYC - working
with teens and younger kids to become media literate and make
videos. I work
at the public access TV station here. http://www.mnn.org.
My department is http://www.youthchannel.org.
I develop curriculum. You can see all the other audio/video/animation stuff
ive been doing on the personsal tip at http://www.breathingplanet.net and http://www.stillweridethemovie.com
I ride my bike about 20 miles each day... Bout 9 miles to and from work. My board riding in
the
past couple years has been limited to hiking smugglers notch a
couple times
for a fix of pow pow.
From Chris Cota: Yes,
I would like to make a Mt Hood comeback. On the Pro
Leisure Tour, of course. But I do miss
it.............still in shape; had a full summer of Mtn
bike/motocross racing, surfing (yes, you CAN surf in Northern
Michigan!) But I'm probably too old to ski at
camp. speaking of old........had dinner with Tom
North last year. It was fun catching up with
him. And as for Joe Reis.............we
speak every couple of Sundays while making breakfast for the
kids. I have a music studio here on the farm. My kid Josh is
one of the most talented young drummers I've heard in a
long time. He plays with me in the studio.........works
out the drum parts, then teaches my drummer how it's
supposed to sound. Joe Reis' son Taylor is a rock guitar
prodigy.......so we're trying to work out a meeting here on the farm for a recording session
sometime this year. That will be great!!!! Say hi to all the usual suspects.
From Emily Sampson: School
is busy,and hard. I try to see Rogan on a
weekly basis and eat many meals with Carter. We like to take
walks down memory lane, all the good times at MMHSC. There is a
freshman here who's brother and sister went to camp. Apparently they
know me, I don't remember them...oops. Field hockey is going okay.
We're a very unlucky team. We play better than our record shows which
is a huge bummer. I was Bobcat of the Week one week for a game
against Amherst. That was pretty exciting. Hope all is well! Can't
wait for the snow to start flying...in another month and a
half...
from Mallory Hale: Got the last update and i thought i should tell everyone a little
update about me...I am at school at the University of Vermont. A
girl went missing last weekend and was found today- October
13th which is really scary. She was found dead about 20
minutes from
campus today, which was really sad. The story has been all over
the news here and i guess in the rest of the U.S. as well. On a
better note, school is going really well. I cant wait to start
ski season, all though i'm a little afraid of east coast skiing,
seeing as i've only skiied in Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico and
Utah. I've been keeping really busy with school and rugby. Yes
rugby I am offically on the Vermont women's rugby team playing
as a flanker...if anyone knows what position that is. We are
tied for first for womens club rugby in the east. We play
Norwich University tomorrow, the team we are tied with, so
hopefully we will come out on top! Well thats all i have to
say. Time for bed before the big game.
from Paul Richardson: Not much new here, still a stockbroker, it's been 15 years
plus now. I am playing tennis and loving every minute of it.
I bought a new road bike last year and became additcted to
the riding. I am taking my pilot's license now, this is just
a hobby though, no plans of making work out of it. The rest of the summer we
spend at our cottage and go boating all around georgian
bay.I have never lost a propellor yet, and that bay is
notorious for hazards. My kids are 9 and 12. I took
my son out to Calgary where we rented an RV and
travelled around the rockies for four days. That was all
fun, beef jerky, and apples was pretty much all we ate.
The thing was a dutch oven on wheels.
helicopter game........Bill
Whalley's new high score is 1597. Emily
Sampson claims her college roommate scored a 1228.
Speaking of wasting
valuable time, Bill Whalley pointed me to this penguin game.......http://www.logan.ws/games/penguin.asp
My high score is
319.8.......beat THAT! Be sure to have the
volume up for this one......really annoying penguin sound.
Are you guys into youtube.com? I really didn't know
what it was until recently.......so today I made my
first attempts at uploading some video. This first one is of
Terry McLeod doing some 360's in the park.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4uxCsL2Sq8
And this 2nd video is some
of the best crashes in camp history including the
infamous Ryohei (Yohay!) back flip gone wrong and Janet
Lorton's 1992 GS slide into the camera person (not me). Warning, Warning Warning:
one kid said the "F" word after his wreck. ok,
you've been warned.
Do any of you guys have stuff on youtube? If
you type in "mt hood" in the search box, you'll find
over 100 videos to look at. Some even have ties to mhssc. Robin
October 25, 2006 update
Good evening, thanks for making my youtube palmer crash video the most viewed video in youtube.com history (I just made that up, but 251 people have watched it in less than a weeks time) http://www.=irthdayalarm.com/dob/6561296a5227229b363
Good evening, thanks for making my youtube palmer crash video the most viewed video in youtube.com history (I just made that up, but 251 people have watched it in less than a weeks time) http://www.=irthdayalarm.com/dob/6561296a5227229b363
A few MHSSC staff =pdates........
Jennifer
Annett =ard (she was in Hawaii for her
tennis tournament and during the big earthquake):
It =as
something like this....
4.5 National Championship Big Island Hawaii- =op teams from the US and Carribean
We finished first in our pool and =ualified for the semi final match scheduled to take
place on Sunday at =:30 am. We rolled out of the van at 7:05am and the 6.6
earthquake hit at =:07 while we were still in the tennis court parking lot. It was a =BR>pretty safe place to be. A lot of jarring, rocking and jolting =or about 30 seconds,
but no major damage. The 5.8 aftershock hit about 15 minutes later, I was inside
the pro shop and =ade a quick dash for the door to get outside. We were about 10
miles =rom the epicenter of the quakes. We had to move from one resort =o
another to play our matches. The semifinal match finally started =round 10am. Our
team had won the first set in all 5 matches when = somebody in the crowd started
yelling "5 MINUTE TSUNAMI =ARNING". We have no idea where this came from,
but everyone panicked, =ropped their racquets and fled the area to higher ground.
We =till don't know where the false alarm started, but it was pretty =nnerving to say
ht=p://www.scene.co.nz/cms/top_stories/2006/08/art1000179.php
4.5 National Championship Big Island Hawaii- =op teams from the US and Carribean
We finished first in our pool and =ualified for the semi final match scheduled to take
place on Sunday at =:30 am. We rolled out of the van at 7:05am and the 6.6
earthquake hit at =:07 while we were still in the tennis court parking lot. It was a =BR>pretty safe place to be. A lot of jarring, rocking and jolting =or about 30 seconds,
but no major damage. The 5.8 aftershock hit about 15 minutes later, I was inside
the pro shop and =ade a quick dash for the door to get outside. We were about 10
miles =rom the epicenter of the quakes. We had to move from one resort =o
another to play our matches. The semifinal match finally started =round 10am. Our
team had won the first set in all 5 matches when = somebody in the crowd started
yelling "5 MINUTE TSUNAMI =ARNING". We have no idea where this came from,
but everyone panicked, =ropped their racquets and fled the area to higher ground.
We =till don't know where the false alarm started, but it was pretty =nnerving to say
Violet Anderson (ok, she's
really not a MHSSC staffer, but a long time
adult camper)
I just got back from BMW camp in South
Carolina. Wow. We got
professional coaching and got to drive 7
different high performance Beamers in all
different conditions (track, off-road,
racing on wet highly-polished concrete).
I think they underestimated my
competitiveness cause they joked about me (a
woman, hah) being fast then I got second
place in the Motor Cross competing with a
bunch of men. They have this totally
rugged 4-wheel drive course
where you can drive over a huge teeter-totter.
I'll let you know if I find any other
interesting camps. One other comment if you send
this on... I introduced the coaches to the stivot
turn concept. I tried it in a head to head race on a wet oval track. I lost.
I learned that skidding a car sideways into
a turn is really slow so don't try it at home. And
yea, we could drive as fast as we wanted, all
day long. Violet
Leo Menard: here are a few highlights
of my 4 months thus far in NZ. I skied 18
days during their "winter". It was pretty sweet for a
while, but the snow melts really fast here. It rained at Mt. Hutt next to the Austrian all event
skiers. Benni Raich, Herman Maier, and Michael
Walchofer were the stars. Also made the paper here. They mistakingly thought
I was on the U.S Ski Team and printed an article
with my picture on the cover of the Sports section. ht=p://www.scene.co.nz/cms/top_stories/2006/08/art1000179.php
Rogan sent me this link about Andrej Jerman: http://www.carniola.org/2006/03/the-ethical-dilemma-of-tina=mazes-hotness.htm
which will lead you to this link of "hot jocks" =ncluding
Andrej:
Feeney and Luke Wendel went to the Portland Trail Blazers preseason game
with me last week........we upgraded from my endzone super-nosebleed 5 rows from the
top seats to 2nd row from the top sideline seats (upgrade?)...........Luke got his game ticket
free with my mad ticket scalping skilz. Blazers
were down 24 to 5 in the first
quarter.......Feeney says to
me "it's gonna be a long season for your blazers".........but
they battled back and ended up losing in
overtime 114 - 110. Fans get a free taco bell chalupa when
they score more than 100.....CHALUPA!! (even when
they lose the game) Robin
November 8, 2006 update
BREAKING NEWS
Troy Grace is somebody's father! (see attached pic).
Troy's words: Born August 12 06 Elle Sahalie
Grace Best thing i have ever
done.
Michelle Annett is somebody's wife! I don't have a photo (yet), but Michelle got married to her new hubby Travis on Saturday. It was a short and sweet wedding ceremony on top of Beacon Rock in the Columbia Gorge. Friends and family joined in at Michelle's house in Vancouver for the reception. Honeymoon in Italy.
Not breaking news:
Bill Whalley found a random video clip of
himself eating a camp meal on youtube........a mhssc camper
posted this. it's nothing too exciting, but if you
have nothing better to do for 8 seconds, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTRxHRnzDO0
from Tory Amorello: I'm teaching freshman English...it's pretty weird to be
in the front of the classroom. Sometimes I catch myself
doing teacher-ish things like shushing people or
demanding better focus and wonder what has happened to me. I
suppose I'm learning a lot, but I will be relieved then I can
start skiing -- coaching is a lot more comfortable for me than
classroom teaching is. It's been snowy around here and the word
is that Aspen/Snowmass plans to open the weekend before
Thanksgiving maybe. I'm looking for some tele gear to get in
the backcountry but I'm on a heinous budget and it's a struggle. If
anyone's giving anything away, I'm shamelessly begging for it!
Jennifer Otten blog: http://travelpalooza.blogspot.com/
Heavy rainfall has been pounding the pacific
northwest. Enough rain to close highway 35 between Hood River
and Mt Hood. I heard on the news that water was pushing debris
onto the highway at white river canyon. Mike, Rust, and Feeney all told me they were amazed at the high river level of Hood
River (the river, not the city)........freezing levels have been
too high for snow, but that is supposed to change.
Mike and Lynne are off to south america today
for a well deserved vacation. I think they are spending the
majority of their time in Argentina. Robin
November 18, 2006 update
Good evening, The temperatures have dropped and Mt Hood is looking white again. Timberline is scheduled to open tomorrow with a 38 inch base. It even snowed a few inches at camp.
Good evening, The temperatures have dropped and Mt Hood is looking white again. Timberline is scheduled to open tomorrow with a 38 inch base. It even snowed a few inches at camp.
Thanksgiving camp starts this
weekend. Michelle Schmitt & Joe
Sulpizio are scheduled to come work/ski and help Rust out. And Feeney and
myself will help fill in the gaps while Mike and Lynne are still
south of the Equator. Terry McLeod is
coming for a PSIA clinic. Brandy Powell is coaching too.........so we have all kinds of mhssc'ers
showing up soon. I put up a new snowboard freeride promo video on the website. It shows off the new box and rail
features of the park from last summer. Go here,
then click on the "snowboard freeride video clip" button. It's
a Windows Media Player video, so you MAC users might have
issues. Bill Whalley randomly found
this mustache video on myspace.com that includes footage of
former MHSSC
staffer Pierce Louis...here's the link: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vi=s.individual&videoid=1275170444
This from Kristen O"Brien: Jon just took a dozen of his top athletes to Copper
in CO to get on snow. http://www.goodsearch.com/
=EM>Kristen O'Brien
=EM>Kristen O'Brien
And this from Steve Heuer: In case there's any MHSSCers in the
L.A. area on Dec. 1st, here’s the 411 for the next showing/sale
of my still photography. If you go to the phresh/art site, you can see a sampling of the images I’ll be showing. http:=/www.phreshartdaily.com/showprofile.php?uid=93 I
also highly recommend coming and seeing/hearing my friend
Michele Moreno perform. She’s got a truly fantastic voice.
that's all folks.........RJC..............p.s.
has anyone seen the movie Borat?" worth seeing?
December 1, 2006 update
BREAKING NEWS: (via Brian Robb/Rogan Connell)
BREAKING NEWS: (via Brian Robb/Rogan Connell)
MHSSC's own Andrej Jerman finished in 12th place in today's Men's World Cup Downhill at
Beaver Creek, CO! Andrej came from back of the pack wearing bib
#44.
Bode Miller won the
event, and 3 other American's finished in the top 10......USA!
Mt Hood is off to a nice start to
the 2007 ski season.......currently a 83 inch base at Timberline
Lodge. Highway 35 to Mt Hood Meadows is still under
construction. They hope to open the highway by
Dec. 15 so they can open the ski area. Great pics
of the highway 35 devastation
here: http://skihoo=.com/cs/blogs/daveriley/default.aspx you'll
have to scroll down a bit to see the highway pics. Robin
December 12, 2006 update
Hi all, You may have seen the story about the 3 lost climbers on Mt Hood on the news. 2 from Dallas, Texas, and 1 guy from Brooklyn. They've been up there since Thursday. You can read more here:
Hi all, You may have seen the story about the 3 lost climbers on Mt Hood on the news. 2 from Dallas, Texas, and 1 guy from Brooklyn. They've been up there since Thursday. You can read more here:
The weather has been
pretty brutal, so rescue workers are dealing with a huge challenge.
Highway 35 (between Govy and Hood River) was finally
repaired and re-opened last weekend, so Mt Hood Meadows
was able to turn on the lifts and greet happy skiers and
snowboarders. MHSSC Winter session 1 starts up
next week. Ever wondered what it's like to be a
"camper-staff" at MHSSC? Click this link, (exciting stuff,
including toilet plunging and a cameo by Mike on how to make a bed) Narration by Spencer Raymond.
The first one Darren Owen sent me of his athlete Patrick Deneen getting big air on Thanksgiving day.
In Darren's words: This is a
D spin two rotations off axis. location Vail pass notice I 70 in the back
ground. This kid rips!! Happy Hollidays! DO.
ground. This kid rips!! Happy Hollidays! DO.
The second photo is of Emily Longfield holding the book: "The money
book for the young, fabulous and broke". In Emily's words: It's
definitely a great book that I will refer to for the rest of my financial future, most likely.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about their financial life. The intended audience of this book is for people in their 20's and 30's, but I got a ton of great info out of it and I'm forty-something........you can find it for about $16 on overstock.com or amazon.com. To read book reviews click this link.
The 3rd photo was of the
world class tow-in surfing contest off the Oregon Coast
held on Friday. I was on the video crew for this
event........they are hoping to put a 90 minute
documentary together and get it on
HBO.......I'll let you know if and when it airs. that's all folks Robin
December 13, 2006 update
Hi again, some quick hitters from former MHSSC staffers:
Hi again, some quick hitters from former MHSSC staffers:
From Brooke
Miller:
Report from Mt Hood Meadows:
We hit the mountain Sunday--there's plenty of snow,
all of lower Heather Canyon was open, and even Showoff which
usually takes another month to get adequate coverage. I was
able to ski for almost 4 hours despite still
recovering from a dislocated ankle back in August
which put me in a cast for 6 weeks (soccer injury!) Happy Holidays!
From Julie
Janus:
My brother just
released his first fiction book (has 2 published non-fiction books already on
technical stuff). Can you plug it in your next MHSSC
update? Figured people may not appreciate me replying to all, but an
update from Robin, why - who wouldn't want that? The book is a
humor/sci-fi book (along the lines of Douglas Adams who
wrote hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy). It's available online at Amazon (Trick Lever Hens by Scott Janus). I haven't read
the final draft (get it today) but the manuscript was
really good. Makes an excellent Christmas gifts for any MHSSC staffers out there
trying to finish up their shopping.
From Paul
Richardson: Well I have lost the battle. My
kds will not be on the world cup. My son is really good at
running and my daughter is on the basketball and volleyball
team. I have resigned from my private ski club, but keep
the kids in lessons at our local hill.
From Grant Wilson: 
December 30, 2006 update
Hi mhssc'ers!
Hi mhssc'ers!
BREAKING NEWS:
Andrej Jerman had a 4th place finish in the Men's downhill in Bormio, Italy on
thursday (only =.43 of a second from 1st!), then followed it up
with a 9th place finish yesterday only ..83 of a second from
1st!). He's had 3 top 10 finishes in world cup downhills.
Emily Sampson picked this week's youtube video of the week.......titled "cat
falling"......go get a good laugh here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g811Eo7K8U&NR (poor little
cat!)
Uros Pavlovcic is working for the Buck Hill ski team in Minnesota this winter. brrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Kaylee Porter: I am ski
racing this year for the University of Montana team.
photo from Scotty Bell......in Denver
I thought you would
appreciate some pictures
from the biggest snowstorm I have every seen. Enjoy the New
Year!
Happy new year........anyone have any new years resolutions?
Anyone get anything good for xmas? I got rockem sockem
robots.......seriously! (action toy from the 70's that is
making a comeback). ~Robin