Death of someone I knew

I have a web site that tracks avalanche deaths and near misses at or near jackson hole mountain resort. (http://www.jacksonhole.ws) However I never thought that this would happen. I was looking at the accident that happened at Mammoth where three patrollers died trying to rope off a vent fissure, and they mentioned there'd been more deaths than usual in this season. I put in a search for "skier death" and Doug Coombs came up and...

I did work for Doug and Emily when I lived in Jackson. Created a web site and brochure for his business. It was great working with them and they had such wonderful photos. He died with another skier in La Grave, Switzerland, something about falling over a cliff. Details don't seem really clear because of the distance I guess.

Everyone else who has died in these ski/snowboard accidents were people I didn't know, and it's like reading the headlines in the LA Times. You get numb to it. But when it is someone you know, it's different. Very different.

Prolonged benching

Being out of the snowboarding game for so long as made me a little batty, and one of the things that helps is going shopping. For clothes. I've managed to purge most of my rayon, vinyl, acrylic, polyester and dry clean only clothing. But not before replacing them with 100% cotton or hemp/cotton clothes. They're nice. I got some new shoes in the mix as well. Everything I got was either on sale or at a thrift/resale store, so I probably still didn't spend what I would have on snowboarding. Close but not quite. I've also taken in a classical guitarist (Ana Vidovic), found a new non-profit coffee house downtown, gone to art openings, and of course still watching too much tv. I also have been slaving on some web designs and working up prices. One of these days in the too-soon future is taxes. ugh.

Saturday evening my car had not even been parked for six full days when I tried to start, and the battery was dead. It did this all winter, but I figure hey it's cold. No more exuses. This car is starting to suck. The warranty goes out and the thing falls apart, not even 43,000 miles on it yet. The electronic double-click to open all the doors doesn't work either, that just started today. Piss. It's a vw jetta. I think i'll get something simpler next time.

So after my friend jumped my vehicle late at night in the rain after the Vidovic performance, I went for a drive. I missed a turn and kept going into a residential area, where i came across this really nice tree: It was raining and very dark but I played with it in photoshop til it gave me the same impression that it did when I saw it in person.

Friday night we checked out a new irish bar in town with an unpronounceable, and therefore unrememberable name. It was really nice inside and reminded me a little of a place in South Coast Plaza I used to go to for a little upscale noshing. A couple guys we knew came in and hung out with us but didn't say where they were going afterwards. I spose there is no obligation but it does remind me of being in jr. high school.