@LeRiethmiller

Summer is here in Summit and it feels good. Real good. 

I’ve traded my board for my clubs and terrain parks for slinging golf carts at the Breck golf course. Rad, I know. Anyhoo, the above quote is from arguably the best golf movie Hollywood has to offer (Tin Cup is pretty good too BTW), Caddyshack.

Mind you, I’m not a very good golfer. Yet. I thought I had a bit of game, but when you have a swing full of flaws and unrealistic expectations early in the season, you begin to realize you’re far from getting anywhere in golf. And that’s the beauty of this game.

Three weeks ago, a friend of mine came to play Breck and shot a high score in his eyes. I shot a few strokes higher and was pleasantly surprised with my view on it.  Fast forward to today and said friend lit it up today with an 80. He knew he had game and was frustrated about his efforts that day. Today it was the exact opposite. Striking the ball with solid contact, getting up and down, and not getting into trouble was the difference. 

Me? Exact opposite. Trouble off the tee, trouble in the fairway, trouble on the green, trouble with drinking my coffee quick enough before it turning into iced coffee..You get the point. Still, I tried to remain positive and for the last three and a half holes, I got somewhat of my game back. 

Golf is great like that. I try to relate it to riding in the park. Some days you have it, others you don’t. However, with golf, I seem to not have it more times than not. Which is fine with me. It’s a long summer and I would love to see what kind of progress I can make. 

Sure it’s frustrating as all hell and can almost make a person quit after nine - but the one good shot you make keeps you going. Until I quit having that one good shot, I’ll keep at it. 

It’s been a while since I last posted - work and life sorta get in the way. Anyway, it’s spring here in Breck and that means epic park conditions (mostly). 

Park Lane and Freeway are filled with a slew of features for everyone, Keystone closes two weeks before Breck, and the big melt has already started. Whew. Needless to say it’s going to be a mess for most of April unless we get a bit more snow to help us out. 

With the bad comes the good. Mornings like this happen once a year for me, if that. 

The jump line in Park Lane is the best it has been since I’ve been here and while Freeway isn’t what it was, people are starting to get the feel of it. We’ll probably start moving and changing up the rail lines in Park Lane this week because let’s face it, it’s been a minute.

Back to spring for a minute. While it’s my favorite time of the year during the shred season, it also means I need to start looking for a summer job. I met a lot of new people this year (Hooray!) and by doing so, quite a few more options have come into sight with summer. Can I do NZ or Australia? Probably. Should I? Who knows. Financially? Nope.

I’m also at a point with my current job where I really can’t go any higher. It sucks. Love the job but at the same time I feel very underappreciated. Oh well. I really don’t want to leave Breck right now, but if something too good to be true came my way..Yeah, peace. 

How’s your bracket?

Today marks the end of day three of shooting for Matchstick Productions. MSP brought along Bobby, Russ, Jacob, and Gus for a bit of private park and unique features. This is sort of big for us because we’ve never really done shoots within an open park with features not setup fr the public. 

Feature number one is the transfer. Measuring around 86’ish to the closest knuckle, Bobby and company were sending it to about 120’. 

Needless to say, this was being sent. 

The other feature we setup for MSP was a canon rail. We used a 40’ish long 4x4 rail and put it on jump three in Freeway wedged into the takeoff. Added was a gap takeoff before it. It’s our obligatory cannon rail used in a few of our major Comps (Dew Tour, etc). The jump itself is of true Freeway length. Do the math. 

Today was pretty weird weather wise so the the crew stuck to our new rail line in Freeway.  

This weekend for me really opened my eyes as to what I can realistically achieve on my snowboard. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was my crew; probably a mix of both. As I sit here and type out this is after a long day lapping Park Lane, my goals have sky rocketed. Thus a new start. 

I finally sacked up and did what I’ve been envisioning for about two weeks and the results were exactly what I had dreamt. Who woulda guessed? Like, it was easy, too easy. Maybe it goes back to my crew of friends. Actually, it does go back to that. Without them I’d be just going through the motions and not progressing. There’s no pressure on us to get outside of our comfort zone, but mainly to just help each other realize what we can accomplish. 

Today was just fun. Smiles from the start to the moment I walked out of City. And it’s only going to get better

I caved in. Simply put. After years of telling myself, ‘Darren, you don’t need to be that guy who documents events and happenings that really mean nothing to anyone but you’, I have a blog. I won’t call it a blog, but more or less a paperless means of keeping some sort of history of myself. 

So here we go. Enjoy it. Or don’t. I really don’t care.

Happy shredding.