The four seasons

Even though winter is officially about three weeks away, it is very wintry here in Bend of late. It is so great to have snow on a regular basis. The changing of the seasons brings with it so many other great changes. I've been particularly enjoying the seasonal change to dark beer. Being back in the land of good beer (in SD a "good" beer is often considered a domestic light beer with a shot or two of tomato juice mixed in, thus making it a "red beer"), provides so many different choices. I sampled a beer from Cascade Lakes Brewery called Santa's Little Helper, and one from McMenamin's called Kris Kringle. This is an great trend, combining two of my favorite things...Christmas and good beer. Plus, the word has gotten around work that I can tune a mean pair of skis, and I take payment in six packs. So with a few covert deliveries, and well-timed use of the shop's equipment, I will be able to keep the fridge well stocked. The first payment? A sixer of Jubelale. This year's recipes is better that last's, the yearly art work on the label is decent too. Bottom's up.

A Disturbing Trend?

At Mt. Bachelor, the lift tickets are credit card sized pieces of thick weather-proof paper. Embedded in them is something that trips a sensor at the entry to the lift line. This sensor then activates a gate that you move through, thus removing the need for employees to physically check the validity of guests' passes. This system is supposed to save the resort money and streamline the life lines. Since Mt. Bachelor Inc. is cheap and unorganized, many employees do not have their employee passes yet (basically the only reason to work there). To alleviate this, the cashiers give employees such as myself senior, 70+, passes to use for the day. Theoretically, you can carry your pass in your left jacket pocket and still trip the sensor. Unfortunately for me, the pass issued to me today did not seem to trip the sensors at the entry gate as well as it should. So, having my pass in my left jacket pocket, I had to engage in some risque hip grinding with the sensors in order to get them to open the gate. If the sensor and I were on the dance floor I would either be scoring some major points or getting a slap in the face. Even though it was inconvenient, the hip rubbing while on a board made for some good entertainment. So this is the second time in the last few months that I have unintentionally gotten friendly with an inanimate object. At least I wasn't in a Smokey the Bear costume this time.

The snow was fantastic, knee deep and dry. I knew it was a good day when my goggle straps froze to my sideburns. There were many great runs and a few good crashes. I got applause and hoots and hollers from the lift for one.

I also got a job offer from the snowboard shop that kept yanking me around a couple weeks ago. So now instead of having the problem of being unemployed I have the problem of having one too many job opportunities. Better than too few, I guess.

To tip or not to tip

I have deplored the recent growth of "tip jars" at various establishments. I have no problem tipping generously for good service. But I limited my definition of "service" to include only the traditional services one would receive at a sit down restaurant, a bar, or perhaps when getting a haircut. I figured that I had to be sitting and relaxing while someone served me in order to warrant a tip. In other words, why should I tip at the typical coffee joint, for instance, when I have to stand at the counter, find a seat, and then go back up and get my coffee when it is ready. The customer is doing most of the "serving." This being said, I still do tip occasionally at coffee joints etc... when there is good reason to (or maybe it is just that I allow myself to be guilted into it by the tip jar sitting prominently right in front of me).

The reason I bring this up, is that my boss at work has put a tip jar next to the cash register in the shop. The jar is actually a plastic Mt. Bachelor coffee cup on which he has written "Tips - so you don't fall down." I guess that people are supposed to read that and tip me so that I don't purposely mess up their skis or boards thus causing them to fall down. I have greatly appreciated the little extra money the tip jar provides. I can now justify eating out occasionally or spending that few extra dollars here and there. But am I really providing a service that I am not already getting paid for? Am I contributing to a trend I deplore? I probably am, and I should tell myself to "shut up and do your job without whining about tips" just like I always thought about employees at establishments sporting unwarranted tip jars. But for now, I am enjoying the extra cash (let's here it for greed), and in my own little world sticking it to the management of the mountain, who is responsible for my lowly compensation.
Maybe tips should be proportional to the creativity displayed on the tip jar itself.

Turkey Day

The spread turned out quite nice. I've never appreciated how good real stuffing is. This year was the first that I attempted to stuff the turkey. It turned out great, stuffing rules.
The after dinner festivities included watching The Day After Tomorrow with Dennis Quiad. This is probably the worst movie I have seen in a long time. This is really saying something since I am very easily entertained, and not very critical when it comes to movies. The lesson of the movie...stop global warming or the entire northern hemisphere will be engulfed in hurricane-like Arctic storms that can cause "the temperature to drop ten degrees a second!" Wow, that would suck. Assuming a starting temperature of sixty degrees, absolute zero would be reached in 51.967 seconds. Shit, that's cold.

Drunken Cooking III

I've heard of the joys of drunken blogging, and now I can enjoy them too. I am celebrating Thanksgiving today with my brother, Brian, and his friends Jasper and Sam. There has been lots of cooking, drinking, and tom foolery - especially with the resident labrador Charlie. Our first round of car bombs was finished by 9:10, the second by 9:45. Now, the turkey is in the oven, the music is playing, and plans are being made for squash, green bean casserole (we were inspired by Austin's casserole last year), pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, and cranberries. We even stuffed the turkey for real this time. Yum. Happy Thanksgiving!
Me climbing yesterday at Smith Rock
This pic is from last year, but it is being repeated today, only in a new location.

Dead End Jobs Have Their Benefit

Given the qualifications one must posses to work at Mt. Bachelor (see last blog post) it shouldn't have surprised me that the motivation of the employees and quality of work that they do is less than stellar. Example: today a young guy that I work with brought his board in to work to tune it up. He was excited to do this since tuning your own equipment during slow hours is a perk of working in the shop. So he got a few minimal instructions from the head shop guy and went about grinding the base of his snowboard on the base grinder (think huge belt sander turned up-side-down). Unfortunately for his board, he was a little too excited and proceeded to grind the base completely off his board and expose the wood core, thus ruining the board. For those of you not up on snowboard construction, think of it as getting only one set of tires for the life your car and then peeling out until they blew, making your car unusable. This is just one example of many that demonstrate the promise of Central Oregon's young adults. The upshot is I look like a freakin' genius. By simply not being a total dumb-ass while making even the slightest attempt to stay busy I am perceived as a model employee. Let's hear it for low standards.

To give said employees credit, they know where all the dives in Bend are to get cheap drinks. At the last place I visited I had the choice of PBR on tap, in 16oz tall boys, or High Life on tap. A drunk middle aged female redneck poked me in the butt with her pool cue, then I left.

Working in Coal Mine...

...but for a fraction of what coal miners make. I finally found a job in anticlimatic fashion. I decided to stop by and talk to someone about jobs when I was at the mountain on Tuesday. I was hired on the spot simply because I agreed to take a drug test. Apparently the bar is not set too high at Mt. Bachelor. Last year everyone who passed the drug test was hired. I feel great to be included in such an exclusive group. My new job will be tuning skis and snowboards. I enjoy this work, but can't help being depressed about being paid $8/hr. I am pretty sure I made that much in high school. The remedy...remember why I came here (to snowboard not make money), and stick it to the mountain any way I can (give everyone I know free tuneups whenever I can).

Through the process of looking for a job I have come to a conclusion similar to my conviction that most people's IQ decreases substantially when they get behind the wheel of a car (I am also prone to this at times). My new conclusion is that there is a certain percentage of the population that when given the power and responsibility to hire people consciously or unconsciously turn up there ass-hole meter. Why is it so hard for people to call back and simply say "we don't need any new employees at this time?" The amount of time and stress this simple phrase could have saved me is immense.

One more rant: Not only have I been very pissed off at Wells Fargo of late due to their handling of some large deposits I made, they now put commercials for their various services into the scripts for their automated phone systems. So not only does it require speaking to several different people to change your address on different accounts or services they provide, but now you have to sit through their self-promotion. Up yours Wells Fargo.