Grouse Grind

The Grind is open as of today!! Woo Hoo! Now you can hike up the mountain, and then strap on your snowboard to come down ;-) I'm gunning for a sub-45 min time this year (came close last year). I gotta get this darn knee to heal though...doctor says I've got some bruised tendons from last week's bike ride. Which explains why, I've been watching so much TV lately.

American Idol 3: Elton John

If you missed last night's show, like me, here's Debbie's lowdown on last night's showdown.

Elton John is truly on a level on his own. Last night's show was pretty bad and in my personal opinion, one of the worst shows (on a whole) in the past 3 season. These people tried oh-so-very-hard but didn't really pull through--I mean, the only one that can do Elton is Elton, last night's show was just an average karoke (sp?) night. Here's the rundown of the performances:

Fantasia--She was pretty good. She's bit arrogant and starting to bug me but that's my problem not hers. She can sing anything and in the words of Ms. Abdul "makes it her own". I'm not sure I liked how she came from the audience but I understand that she wanted to interact with them. It just reminds me of Ricki Lake or Geraldo walking up and down the aisles during their talk shows.

JPL--um, I thought he was all over the place vocally. I agree with Simon that he needs voice lessons to add some texture to his voice. I think he'll stay though b/c some crazy women really dig him.

Jon Stevens--ooooooo.....awful, kid, awful. But you know what? I thought he was worse last week. He tried and he tried to show he had some stage presence and that he was having fun and I'll give him that but he was bad last night. I don't know what the capital H-E-double hockey sticks happened last week b/c he should have gone but he SOOOOOO deserves to be in the bottom 3 tonight. He royalled sucked the last two weeks.

Camile--She was bad too last night. Now, I've said this over and over, i love her voice. I think what her problem is is that she picks awful songs for herself. It's all about song choices and she makes really bad decisions. She could go night.

Diana--I like her lots too but she wasn't in the zone last night. She kept coming in and out. After her performance we found out she was under the weather. She wasn't awful but pretty bad considering her track record. it just wasn't her best performance.

George Huff--Good. One of the bright spots of night for me. On the opposite side of Camile, George has made great song choices that reflect his style and ability as a singer and performer and it shows through. He needs to keep it up.

Jasmine--I thought she was good last night. She is most definitely a balland crooner. I think she picks songs that suit her voice and style too but I think she's a bit safe. She needs to change it up slightly and do something a bit different to knock people off their feet like Fantasia does.

Latoya--great. While I think Fantasia and Latoya are the top 2 right now the way they carry themselves is very different. Latoya carries herself more professionally than Fantasia. She style and a graceful elegance to her--she's poised whereas Fantasia is a spunky, energetic, almost like a diamond in the rough.

Jennifer--I thought she was absolutely the best from last night. Best song choice for her vocally and her best performance of the competition. I hope she continues with this success. She has always been on the verge of being eliminated so I hope America cleans out their ears and listens to her. On another note, my brother was saying how he likes her voice but doesn't like the way she moves. I told him, I think it's the high heels. I don't think she's moves gracefully across the stage either in high heels but if she's got a lower heeled-shoe I think she could move around with more fluidity.

Bottom 3 picks for me are: Camile, Jon and JPL. I think it will be between Camile and Jon though. I'd prefer it would be Jon but Camile hasn't proved to anyone yet that she belongs to be there.

Me vs. The Mountain

Having been blessed with yet another glorious sunny day, i decided to go on my first mountain bike ride of the season yesterday. So RT, WW, WL, and I met up at Mount Seymour base camp at 3:30pm (just off Northlands Golf course at the base). After getting all geared up, we proceeded to make the climb up the main trail. Most people actually "shuttle" up the mountain (one person leaves a car at base, while another drives everyone with their bikes to the top -- it helps to have a pickup), but us pain-lovers decided to go for the gusto and do it the hard way. So began the ride up the mountain, with WL leading the way, and WW&RT bringing up the rear, with me in between. Normally, we'd only go about 400m, to the entrance of Old Buck Trail, an easy, X-country trail. This time, though, WL suggested we go up to a trail called Ned's Atomic Dustbin. He said it was just "a little bit" further up the trail. Well.. actually it was a whole lot of "little bits" strung together, and WW and RT were clearly getting a little impatient (and tired). Meanwhile, my lower back was killing me, and my legs were feeling really heavy... I jokingly told WL, that he'd be getting a few weeks of silent treatment from his friends for making us do the climb. But, we stuck it out, and about an hour later we made it to mid-mountain.

By now, it was 5:30pm, and it was gonna be getting dark soon. We weren't able to find Ned's trail, and instead found Pingu which i vaguely recalled doing last year. The entrance of the trail featured a "pleasant" one-foot drop -- just to get us in the "mood". We all managed to get through it ok, and so we were all pretty pumped. Our minds (and bodies) quickly changed its tune though... While the trail is wider and more scenic that the ones on Burnaby Mountain, I soon remembered why Pingu is was one of the more challenging trails around, with its numerous dropoffs, curving ladders, and long skinnies. RT had the first "incident", when his brakes locked up during a landing..and went he flipped over his handle bars. Now, I didn't get to see it first-hand, but I can imagine. RT always seems to manage to fall without anyone seeing him, and if he does he gets up really fast, trying to appear if nothing happened. But I didn't laugh, cuz i knew i was in for a doozy of a fall -- and sure enough it came about 20 min into the ride. I cleared this curved ladder section, but upon landing my front tire caught the face of a big rock stuck in the ground. My bike came to a grinding halt, and thanks to wonderful laws of physics, my body kept moving through the air. For a brief moment, I was airborne, and touched down rather ungracefully on my forearms and chest. Fortunately, my body armour protected me from serious injury , but i had the wind knocked out of me. My knee also hit the ground, and until now its pretty tender (i suspect i bruised the underside of my knee cap). Needless to say, I was pretty shaken up by that fall, and i was tentative the whole way down..and decided to walk many sections, that i otherwise probably would ridden. I did manage to clear this 30' foot long ladder skinny across a stinky wet bog. THAT was a rush. WW tried to clear it too, but ended up walking most of it until the last section. She fell, but fortunately she didn't end up in the pond (which smelled like rotten eggs). Of course RT, was their to pick her off the ground (albeit with some light laughter :) ).

ANYWAYS...Pingu turned into Pangor's trail which wasn't any easier..but we realized that we'd best not doddle as darkness was starting to fall upon us. Plus, some of us were getting really hungry and cranky. So we started hauling some a$$ down the trail (mostly with our bikes in our hand ;-) ). The trail was becoming somewhat unfamilar, and we just knew we had to keep heading down. We eventually came upon a T junction. WL and I had to make a call, and we decided to head RIGHT. EHHHH! WRONG!!! After a couple minutes, WL asked a hiker who'd happened to be running the opposite way for directions. Sure enough, we were supposed to head left. [What is it with guys and not being able to ask for directions, huh? sheesh!!! ;-)] We finally made it back to the parking lot at 6:30pm. We were sooooo happy to have made it. It was such a rush to be able to finish...especially after riding uphill for an hour, where you not only have to fight that little voice inside telling you that you should turn back, but also testing your patience, stamina and the strength of your friendships too ;-) However, next time we're gonna start a earlier in the day, so it won't be such a race against time (and darkness).

Admittedly, the mountain served me a can of proverbial whoop a$s yesterday -- it definately got the better of me . And I'm paying for it today. Nevertheless, we all had a AWESOME time, and I'll be back for more.

Here's to the 2004 freeriding season! Ride on!