Worky Work Work

Bloody hell. Nothing to report, except we're both working.

I haven't been on the snow since Christmas Day.
Looking forward to next week when I'm going to have the whole freaking week off and ride.

I'm sure someone else is looking forward to their one day off this week (Sunday).

Time to go to work.

The day that was......

HAPPY FESTIVUS!!!!!!! I hope you all told eachother what you really think this Christmas and took turns wrestling till the death in the inaugural 'Feats of Strength' challenge.

We had a white Christmas. Apparently that means it actually has to snow on the day. So if you already have 4 feet of snow outside, that doesn't count, it's not a white Christmas.

Well I worked today, alongside Whistler's finest. Management gave us choc chip cookies for our efforts. I had some terribly angsty customers and it was hell busy, and I didn't get out of there untill 3:30pm. That's an 8 hour shift selling tickets and wearing reindeer ears kids!!!

Got home, laid into the Gin pronto. Made a lovely call to Papic, someone's mother was not at home (again)

So anyway. Merry Christmas All! Hope you had a fantastic Day. Would be grand if you were here enjoying our Northern Christmas with us, but alas you're not, and where you are it is no doubt too hot and you all got pissed before you got to the pudding! YAYA!

All our love, be good, if you can't, be good at it!

Kat

Merry Non-denominational Holiday Season of Goodness

Hello kids, and merry non-denominational holiday greetings from us all here at Team Turd.

By now I guess you're full of food, and possibly onto your second function for those with multiple families. Hope you didn't eat too much turkey.

Anyway - we both hope you have a fantastic Christmas - I will be presenting the Pork Report tomorrow to advise on the status of Operation Brine Soaked Pork.

Someone sends lots of love, and I do too. Until tomorrow....

Edit: My Christmas present from StarChoice is a dodgy HD satellite box. Now I've got none of our recorded shows, no working guide, can't record anything and a new box on the way that might take over 10 days due to the holidays. Ripper.

Edit 2: Her Worshipfullness will be posting her own holiday greetings tomorrow. Please await the royal address.

Pork, Work

So nothing too exciting for me to report snow-wise.

After my terrible effort on the morn of Kat's Alpine Adventure™, the two old ladies of the RV park (myself an Elke) had a quiet day on the slopes on Friday.

Our neighbour Andrew had been off talking to some photographer guy who shot one the snowmobile tours here in Whistler. Apparently he was keen for me to come down as well, so today I headed down there for a full day of shooting families on snowmobile expeditions, and riding around at high speed.

It was kind of weird working again, I feel a bit reserved about it - we shall see how it pans out.
Money will be helpful however.

Today I started work on Christmas dinner. I am preparing the pork as outlined in this recipe.

Here's a few of the ingredients to the left.

There are a few things that are new for me in this recipe.

Firstly I've never soaked any meat in brine before roasting it. Apparently it adds moisture to the meat and stops it from drying out during the cooking process. Coupled with the fact that this particular piece of meat is going to be roasted on the Weber, I hope it will be pretty special.


Secondly - mace. You can see it in the square container to the right. Until I read that recipe I had never heard of it.

On the off chance that you don't, it's the covering of the nutmeg seed. It smells like nutmeg to me, but more delicate....

When it's not ground (like I have) it's called a "blade" of mace. Very good.

So here's the brine mixture cooking up on the stove.

Apologies for the shitty picture, I can't be bothered spending 30 minutes getting it right tonight :)

Next up is the succulent piece of pork that will be sitting in the fridge for the next few days.

Technically it could probably sit outside, but I'm not sure whether it would be a good idea for a piece of pork to be outside, tempting the bears.

Anyway, it's in the fridge now.... I'll take a picture of it just before cooking.

I was interested to read this article in The Age - see I TOLD you Bradley Murdoch was innocent!!

Off to work again tomorrow. Phew. Bedtime.

Me Vs the Mountain

Yesterday was a bit of an adventure. I finished work in the early afternoon and headed up Whistler with Andrew (our newly acquainted pommy next-door neighbour) We did a few powder lines, followed by a few tree runs and all was going well. Andrew spotted a single track off piste in the trees and we decided to check it out. The powder was waist deep, and after riding through some trees I was already questioning our decision to go there.

There was no real path and the trees were pretty dense. There didn't appear to be a decent line. Andrew pushed on and I followed. Then it got hell steep really quickly and we were flying through thick forest. I came to a ledge and had to grab onto a tree to slow myself down. It was too late to turn back, there was no way we could trek back up through waist deep snow on the side of the mountain. So I went for it. I saw the ledge more clearly as I approached and I shit myself. The first drop was about 3 meters. I swear I closed my eyes as I threw myself down. I made it, stunned and a bit rattled. I turned once and just as I had recovered mentally, there was a second cliff. This one was about 4 meters and it had a rock face. I thought I was in alot of trouble, but I had no choice but to drop down. Again I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. I made it, no injuries but as I dropped into the powder, I set off a mini avalanche. Shit myself again.

The scary stuff was behind us, we were both ok, but now we had to find a path to get down. We were still really high up and it was steep and trees were everywhere. I could see across to Blackcomb and it looked like we were headed into the valley between the 2 mountains. We slowly made it down. Turn by turn, heaps of faceplants and stacks. Lots of stuck boards, branches, logs and drop offs that you don't see until you fly off the end of them. We were doubting we would find a path out and it was getting frustrating....

But then we found something. A man made sign in the middle of the forest. We found a cat track. YEAH!!!! After surveying the area we decided which way to head, and then we saw that it was a 4.5 km hike back to Whistler along the track. It wasn't steep anymore, the track traversed along the side of the mountain, very slowly going downhill. We rode a tiny bit and tobogganed on our boards but mostly hiked back in thigh deep snow. Not pleasant.

It was getting dark, we nearly fell into a couple of creeks which again we couldn't see until we were almost in them. I was riding for a few hundred meters until I got stuck and had to unstrap my bindings. I had one leg out, and as I tried to stand up my free leg sunk into deep snow. I twisted awkwardly as I fell in. My left leg which was still strapped in took the impact and my knee twisted, shit it was painful.

The hike back was long, and tiring but after some time, we heard a lift running in the distance. We finally made it to a clearing and were able to ride down part of a run down to Whistler village. We could see all of the lights. We had travelled almost 3/4 of the way down the mountain by this stage and it was only a 200 meter ride down to the village. I couldn't believe we made it.

We started the descent at 2:15pm and made it to the village in the dark at 5:35pm. Beer time. A bit spooked but feeling pretty good. A day later, and my knees are screwed and I can't walk very steadily but I should be ok after a few days off.

KAT OUT.

Stay tuned...

...for Kat's Off Piste Adventure.

Drinking and Snowboarding Don't Mix (or an Ode to Old Age)

So as I said, we've met out new neighbours - they're very nice, and are on a similar world tour as ours - although with a much bigger budget!

Seems like they've had an interesting life and an interesting trip - they sailed from Europe on their yacht and are planning on sailing to NZ next year. Imagine how cool that would be.

Anyway.

We had a few drinks (well a lot of drinks), some dinner and played a bit of poker with them last night. I suck at poker by the way.

This morning poor Kat had to get up at 05:30 again to go to work. I dragged myself out of bed at 07:30 to hit the slopes. Possibly a bad idea, as the visibility was terrible, and so were my skills. I'm sure that there's an inverse ratio between amount of beer consumed, and skills the next day.

I've managed to hurt my left shoulder during a nasty fall in zero visibility - and it went steadily downhill from that point. I've retired at lunchtime - in this case, discretion appears to be the better part of valour.

Really feeling under the weather today - going to hang around the RV this afternoon and do some housework....

Today is my mum's birthday - must be good to be 21 again. Happy Birthday!!

Time for a shower. Please enjoy, I will be!

*yawn*

Proper blog post will be there for you tomorrow morning. Promise.

Have to go get food, having dinner with our new neighbours - like civilised human beings - how very odd!!

Shredded Anniversary

Well as you might guess from my lack of posting, I've been pretty busy on the snow this week.

Snow - Friday
Kat was lucky enough to be free, and a more snow had fallen - so we hit the mountains. I had a great day, although there were still some icy patches on the steeper parts of the runs. Someone had issues with their goggles and didn't have a great day.

Snow - Saturday
Goggles fixed, and 20cm of fresh new powder. We rode from the very top of Whistler, all the way to Creekside. I have no idea how far that run is, but it took over an hour. Boy was I tired when we got to the bottom. We had a couple of beers for lunch, and then went back up the mountain. I was actually a bit pissed and tried to ride down to the Whistler Village. At half way I gave up....

Mental note: Three large beers for lunch is not a recipe for good riding.

Someone had sore toes, and took the easy (read: sensible) option of riding the gondola down.

We had a couple more drinks and some sausage for lunch. Yum. I was ready for bed at this point though....

Anniversary
Yesterday was our 2 year anniversary. How time flies when you're confined to a wheelchair.

Just kidding. Someone organised lots of very nice stuff for the occasion, someone did not.

Unfortunately it seems that I am the bad partner in this relationship.

Anyway. I dragged myself out of bed and we went to Araxi for dinner. I was half asleep when we got there, and still full from the sausage - so it took a while to get into it. It was a very nice dinner actually - but MAN is their wine list expensive....

Christmas
My mum sent us a package for Christmas!

I haven't seen a package tied up with string for so long, and it looks very cool

I haven't opened it yet, but I'm not sure whether it will last until Christmas day...

Poo Valve
The replacement valves have arrived, but one looks too big! I have to go outside and check... I'll do that this afternoon.

Edit: Nope, looks like the right size - I foresee some repairs this coming weekend.

Enjoy Monday kids!

Shafting, Snow, Boots, Work

Hah don't get excited, it's not me working - Kat has been putting in the mid-week hours this week, and is working quite a lot next week I believe. Ahh income, it's a beautiful thing.

There is allegedly a possibility that I will also be doing some work over Christmas, but we shall see.

There was a nasty vibration above 50km/h on the Jeep yesterday morning when driving Kat to work.

Imagine my horror when I looked at the differential/drive shaft mount and saw that I HADN'T BOLTED IT IN PROPERLY.

Thankfully no damage, and 30 minutes of lying in the melting snow later it was fixed, and seemingly fine....

Given we both have new boots we decided to sell the old ones on eBay.

Imagine the combined horror when Kat's boots went for USD0.99.

Thankfully the guy who bidded was kind enough to offer $40 for them when I told him that we couldn't sell em for that price, so perhaps everything ends well on that front too.

Snow Update
FINALLY it has been snowing. Yesterday was ok, today was much better again.

When there's powder on the ground I'm a lot more fearless than when it's a solid block of ice, so today had a good couple of hours. I'm saving myself for tomorrow, which should be an awesome day..

I'm now riding pretty confidently and a LOT quicker than before. Tomorrow I'd like to ride from the very top of the mountain all the way to the base. Not sure how long it would take, but I'd say about an hour. Next week I might hit the n00b slope and try riding switch.. that should be frustrating fun.

Shafted

Lordy wordy, the stupid drive shaft is assembled, clipped and mounted back on the Jeep.

Despite putting all the pieces in a zip-lock bag I managed to lose one of the lock washers - oh well, can get a new one tomorrow.

The ordeal is over, for now.

It's snowing tonight, so tomorrow it's up the mountain I go.

G'night.

Shafty Shaft Shaft

Continuing with my series of Things People Don't Really Give A Shit About (With Pictures) I present to you the current status of Operation Driveshaft.

Well here's the end that goes into the front differential. It looks worse than it is, most of that gunk is just grease and dirt stuck in the grease. You can see the universal joint clearly (that's the piece that's a cross which has two bearing caps in the yoke, and two free). On the top you can see the restraining clip (in the depression in the yoke) which we will talk about later.


This is the other end. It's technically called a double cardan joint, although you may see it referred to as a CV (Constant Velocity) joint. It has two universal joints, and a centering ball. This end is attached to the transfer case.


Here's one of the old u-joints that we removed. As you can see, I didn't do a great job of getting everything off without the needle bearings going everywhere - good thing I'm not using them again.
Actually they didn't look in too bad shape... never mind, can't hurt to replace them.


I took the next two photos after cleaning the assembly, to remind me how it all goes back together. Didn't stop me from assembling it back to front though. Grr....


Here's a shot of the disassembled joint. You can see the centering socket in the middle, and my trusty can of PB Blaster. Don't leave home without it.

This is the centering ball. Irritatingly this was a non-repairable centering ball/socket assembly. Thanks, Jeep.

Well all seems good right? WRONG! Despite the stoic assistance of Madame Katherine, we cannot get the last two restraining clips back in. Today I will pull it all apart again and pray that one of the needle bearings hasn't fallen into the top of the bearing cap. ARGH!

Let me assure you that given a proper workshop I feel capable of doing every single job I've attempted in the snow in about 1/10th of the time. For future reference, a picnic bench is NOT my recommended work surface.

Tonight I'm attempting to make Char Sui on the Weber. Am a bit nervous about this, there are big expectations to live up to - those of you who have had the privilege to eat at Château Clark in Sandringham know what I mean.

Until later,

Señor Grease Monkey

Reason, Snow Pictures

No snow yesterday, so some pictures instead.

Some snow.


Some snow, but I made it blueish.


Long shadows.


One of the mountains - I've made it look like a photo from the 70's or something though.


Sunlight on the snow.


I like the way the afternoon casts shadows on the snow - looks kind of like sand, or another planet.


Speaking of other planets, this could be Venus!


Or is it Uranus?


This is the path back to the camp ground, the sunset was casting a great light.


Today I started to rebuild the Jeep's front driveshaft. Getting it off was easy, but getting the universal joint out of the front was pretty darn hard.

With a little help from Kat I've installed the replacement. Tomorrow I've got to pull the CV joint apart and rebuild that. Not sure how well that will go, but we'll see!

Now for something a little unusual - I've been hard at work with Reason, and I'd like you to have a little listen to this (right click and save) - feel free to let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Water water, nowhere.

It would be great for one week to go past without having to fix something.

Yesterday the water pressure was a bit low in the morning, and as I wandered to the toilet I heard the sound of a babbling brook. Wait, that's not a brook, it's flowing from the stinking water hose!!

Seems like when I drilled out the ice the other day I nicked the inside of the hose, and under the pressure it had ruptured. Great.

So we got a new hose, pulled all the insulation off the old hose, and re-wrapped the heat tape on the new one.

All good.... or so I thought.

It seems however that I neglected to put the thermostat for the heat tape outside of the little sheltered box where the tap is. So this morning, frozen water again.

Nothing too dramatic, it seems that the metal joins freeze first (I guess metal is a good conductor of heat) but this time the filter has also frozen a bit - it's sitting in the sun at the moment.

Thankfully I've restored water, boy I love cold, numb hands in the morning.

Don't think we're going up the mountain today - it was so icy yesterday, and there's not been any new snow.

I'm pretty excited actually - I've heard of a new project that rogue and cannibal will be doing in the new year.... stay tuned.

Irritable Poo Syndrome

Last night I had really strange dreams.

I was here, in the Marketplace car park, trying to start the Evo so I could sell it to an old friend.
It wouldn't start of course.

I also (for some reason) required a contact lens for my left eye.

I don't know what it all means, but sometimes my subconscious needs to just go and get sorted out.

Poo Valve Update
I figured that today since it was above freezing, and not raining, would be a good day for messing around with poo. First I cleared a small work area in the snow, and then drilled three holes into the exposed plate. A few test yanks implied that the valve was still frozen shut.

Out comes the trusty ceramic heater (I'm pretty sure though that using household appliances outdoors in the snow isn't recommended, so don't try this at home kids) and I apply 5 minutes of heat to the valve.

I clamp on the vice grip, give it a tug, and whoosh, the valve opens, and a delightful spray of urine and faeces flow both down the pipe, and out of the valve. Yum, poo flavoured snow!! I quickly move the tarpaulin out of the way (it's got poo water on it though) and do a little poo avoiding dance.

It's a good thing I have a clear elbow so I can see the poo flowing. If you've never done so, I recommend you don't bother - although there IS something surreal about seeing semi-dissolved toilet paper and brown water flowing through the pipe.

So now all I need is some replacement valves, and we're opoorational!

Snow Update
Visibility on the mountain today was like 5-10m. Wasn't feeling confident to fly down the hill while unable to see any of the features of the landscape, so... hopefully tomorrow will be better!

TV Update
Some shows to keep an eye out for if you haven't already - ReGenesis and Life. Life just finished its season here in Canadia - ReGenesis is a few years old I think, but not too bad.

G'night!

Stuff

Some things I forgot to mention, that have now lost their meaning a bit. Oh well.

Yesterday a snowmobile rider was attempting to be a hero and jump off a large pile of snow. This was all good until he fell off, and had to chase the snowmobile across the snow. Unfortunately he caught up with it before it hit the trees. Funny nevertheless.

Kat was walking to the laundry, and slipped. Not that funny, but when her next step was thigh deep in the garden, and she was lying in the snow - very funny. I had to help her up, because she was stuck. If only I had my camera....

Someone has a new hatchback Subaru Impreza. It looks like a combination of a Focus and a Civic. My only question, where do I mount the huge wing?!

Jeep Updates

I'm nearly mentally prepared to do this and this to the Jeep. I've gotten some u-joints, and a grease gun in aid of this.

The pad heaters I installed on the oil pan and the battery sure make a difference. It starts MUCH better now and comes up to the lowest operating oil pressure much quicker.

I think I'm going to replace the thermostat we put in when we were in Florida, as up here we could sure do with a bit more heat...

Snow Update

Last night I shovelled about 60cm of snow off the roof of the turd. That was fun. In the process I cracked the plastic housing of the forward air conditioner. ARGH!!

Thankfully there were vents where I cracked it, so it's not like I have ruined the integrity of the unit.

We also dug a little driveway for the Jeep.

While we were out there, Kat had a great idea for a photo - the ice on the branch of the tree.

They didn't turn out very well as I don't have a tripod, but still... the idea is there.



I must try to re-take this shot some time.

No mountain today. Just rain. Poo.

Bogged!

Holy crap over the last day or so it's dumped around 60cm of snow.

To give a sense of scale without pictures....

• It was knee deep.
• The snow was nearly up to the top of the Jeep's tires.
• The boards were completely buried.

I dug up the scraper, got most of the snow off the Jeep, dug up the boards, and was ready to go.

Unfortunately I've learnt that it's best to clear a path for the vehicle, as there was so much snow it was basically up to the floor pan.

So there I was, lying under the Jeep, getting the snow out from underneath the diffs, and trying to clear a path for it. Alas, even in low ratio 4WD it didn't want to come out. A bit of rocking backwards and forwards did it in the end though. The Kipper would be proud.

This afternoon we will be purchasing a big snow shovel, and I'll be getting on the roof to clear the snow from it. I win.

Despite the immense amount of snow, the mountains were closed due to high wind, and for some strange reason it was raining. We managed a couple of runs in the knee deep, wet powder before adjourning for the day soaked through.

I am pleased to report though that I am nearly at the point where riding is an unconscious activity.
I am not attempting to ride while unconscious though. I'm hopeful that by the end of this week I'll be ready to tackle riding switch.....

Please enjoy!

Transfer Case

Well I thought I was going to go back to bed this morning, but despite being a bum it seemed to be a waste of the day.

So a few coffees and a bit of procrastination later, I decided to change the fluid in the transfer case of the Jeep - I've noticed some fluid leaking from it recently and wanted to fill it - I'll check it again in a month or so and see exactly how bad it is.

It's so cold that my giant socket set (and the spare wheel) had frozen solid to the carpet in the Jeep. It's kind of crazy.

I still have to drop the front drive shaft off to see whether that cures the sqeaking, and I still have to tackle the poo valve. I figure since today it never got above -10C I have an excuse. Allegedly it's going to snow tonight and all of tomorrow but somehow get to +8C on Monday and +7C on Tuesday - I figure anything above freezing is a good day for poo valves.

Been feeling really tired and kind of ill today. Dunno what that's all about.

Until tomorrow's scintillating update!

Early Morning Handyman Shit

Well it sure was freakin' cold last night. The forecast said -16C, looks like it got to (or below) -10C.

Got up last night to have a whizz, and lookee there no water. Kat has gone to work this morning without a shower. Lucky her.

I was going to go back to bed, but I thought that while I was up I may as well attend to the water situation. I thought it would be the inlet that froze up last time, so I pulled that off.... and to my surprise it was completely ok....

So then the well known process now of removing each segment of hose to fine out what's going on.

To my surprise it was the ONLY uncovered piece of hose (right next to the tap) that was frozen about 10cm deep. I tried a screwdrive, no luck. Next the drill came out - and I bored right through the ice..... (I noticed a few plastic shavings in my drill bit too... but never mind that).

So we have water. It's 08:13 - and I've already been outside with vice grips, a screwdriver and a drill........ what's life coming to!

I think I might go back to bed now.

Bitches Boots

Holy crap is it Friday already?

Well the wireless network around here has been down randomly for the last couple of days - but it appears that they've done some upgrades, and I'm now cruising along at around 50k/sec.

So...

Snow Update

Ahh man this week has kind of sucked. I went to get fitted for new boots. Turns out that the stupid motherfuckers at Trigger Brothers fitted me with a boot one size too big!!!

No wonder my feet have been killing me. Reluctantly I purchased a new pair of boots. You can see a picture of them to the left. If you are a very astute reader, you might glean that they are made by Thirty Two. If you are even more astute you'll figure out that they are Lashed boots. To reach the pinnacle of astute-ness you will realise that they are the WOMENS lashed.... my teeny little feet can apparently fit well into boots for bitches..... pity they didn't have 'em in pink.

Well the boots are HEAPS more comfortable. Then the bindings were too tight. The pain. THE FUCKIN' PAIN. Today I think I had the setup sorted... I look forward to Monday - when I'm gonna fuckin' RIP THE SHIT up. Yeah.

The Mechanist

Well I've been procrastinating about the poo valve. I've got some bolts, and tomorrow will attempt some drilling. It's going to be a bit of a challenge to align the holes correctly.... Hopefully I can pull it off.

Today I fitted the engine and battery heaters to the car - it's been freakin' FREEZING here this week. Tonight it's -7 already..... and it's 18:32...