Lei

Chocoholic

A piece of mint chocolate lay half eaten on the floor. Not too far above is the open hand of an outstretched arm of Lei passed out on the couch. Fingers covered in chocolate, his guitar sits beside the couch with the amplifier still on. The strings are all stained not from sweat or drinks but more chocolate. You could still here a small buzz coming from the amp. In the days and weeks that led up to Xmas, the amount of chocolate grew and grew. A box from friends. A box from work. A box from the relatives. A box from the store just because they were irresistable. Make that three boxes. I was weak. Then finally on the eve of one of the biggest holidays of the year, fate stepped in to teach him a lesson.

The smeared gob around his mouth was no longer the rich, sweet mixture it once was. Now it was just mostly dried powder stuck to his skin, maybe even high in cocoa still. Though probably not quite the eight-five percent content as stated on the wrapping. On this evening, Lei died from chocolate overdose.

*snaps out of his dream*

I'm so tired. My biological clock is all out of whack these days. Getting up super late only to rush out to meet friends or take care of some small errand at the nursing home. Then there's the tiny bit of gift shopping to do. I watched Gambit pick out his gifts for his family while I proceeded to almost finish off purchasing what remains of the chinese zodiac Swarovski crystals. All that is left is to find the rabbit. Finding this last piece may prove to be rather difficult.

At the xmas party, the gift exchange was a bit of a flop though funny still. The set of four martini glasses I bought turned out to be only three. I never checked the contents of the box and just wrapped it up blindly. On the receiving end of things, I got one of those battery operated massagers in the shape of a big bee. The four legs vibrate when you press the nose. This is almost identical to what I put into the gift exchange at last years party. I guess you could call it karma...

I wasn't much in the mood to celebrate this year. On the eve of xmas, I picked up a small gift set consisting of eye liner, lip gloss and finger nail polish. A friend recently suggested the lip gloss and nail polish set. Remembering back to the image of the young girl's eyes when I first saw her. The rain had ruined her make up and the mascara had run down her face. I wanted to get the eye liner in the set.

This would be the only significant gift that I would buy or give this year for someone being deprived of what many people have. It was quite late but I drove out to the house anyways. There it was still, way up on the hill protected by tall trees. My truck was parked at the bottom of the road. The bottom of the drive way. There was nowhere else to go from here but up the long driveway and to the house. Walking up the long set of stairs I saw no one in the windows. There was also no sound from inside the house yet the xmas lights were on.

*ding dong*

The blurred image of a person appears through the old stained glass. The kind you'd find in a house built some thirty or forty years ago but not the classical type with different colours held together by those lead beads. The door opened and an old woman appears.
"Hi, can I help you?"
"Hi, my name is Lei. I'm the person who helped Jade when she got into some trouble a few weeks ago. She came to my home that evening... I wanted to give her a gift."
"I'm sorry, she doesn't live here anymore."
"Do you know where she is now?"
"She was sent to Saskatchewan."

I left and drove back home. I felt stunned, shocked... I felt empty and at a loss. Xmas day, I was invited over to a friends house in the evening for their annual gathering. Just to spend time together and have a few drinks. They would bring out the good stuff like the hundred year old bottle of cognac we had last year. This time I felt tired and didn't want to drink.

----------------------------------------------------------

Gambit is flying back later today. Another couple of friends are flying today also. I booked my own flight to Montreal today. Leaving on friday at midnight, I'll barely get there in time for new years eve. A week to forget and start fresh. A week to explore the old city and its streets. A week to take some pictures again.

A Word from the Editor

It's less than a week before this years xmas,
and all through the house, not a blog could be seen,
not even a word.

Liferaft is busy, Sausalito too,
gotta pay all those bills, the new place needs fixin's,
Make time for some sweat and ice skates and pucks,
Needs to be fit and get a personal trainer too.

Tsubame is stumped, time is short,
he needs to save up, before he leaves shore,
photos and photos, he needs to take more,
a young woman waits, for he is engaged.

Gambit c'est ici, Pour un visit seulement,
La premiere il est malade, la clock est tickin?
plus de l'annee passee, plus dee marche c'est fini,
Pardon le francais, il's alle au montreal.

Winter is cold, chicago is chilly,
yet brightly she is, among the stars up high,
No more teaching? No more majura?
Back in the big city, good luck and good night.

Is all forgiven? Have we all sinned?
Study those verses, keep praying n praying,
Good luck with your sister, I'm not sure what else to say,
Hope for your family and all the best to them.

The year is gone, so is my job,
So I sat around, watching life go on,
took many pictures, practiced a language I did,
There were many new faces and adventures abound.

This blog has been fun. Don't call me a geek.
Hope you all enjoyed, the pictures that I take
the companies that I stake, and the words that I place.

A merry bloggin xmas to you folks!

Add - A - Leaf for a Sagging Rear End

Do you have a sagging rear end? Are you embarassed when people see it in public? Well you're not alone my friends. There are many of us out there with this problem but there is a solution and that solution is simple. It need not be expensive because we are not talking about thousands of dollars in major operations. For around three hundred and thirty dollars I got mine fixed. Thats right.

I found this place out in Abbotsford a while ago but didn't do anything about it until the other day. All the offices in the big city literally charge an arm and a leg for this simple procedure but out in the small towns and countryside, you don't have be afraid of the price tag.

I drove out there late in the day and the staff had agreed to stick around to wait for one last job. No overtime. Amazing... Everyone was waiting as I pulled up. They told me to park my truck inside and right away they started to work. Normally, customers wait in the customers waiting room but since I came late, they let me hang where the staff take their breaks. There I saw an unusual piece of work. A three winged old airplane made completely out of beer cans.

Propeller, wings and all, it was a work of art. Hey, this buds for you...

Plus, it wouldn't be a shop without the Makita girl. Another work of art. I suppose I could have sat around and stared at the poster for the next couple of hours. This would then be the end of this blog article but I suppose I should go on.

So I decided to watch the staff work on my truck. To add an extra leaf to the leaf springs on the rear axle, they had to remove and disassemble the old one.

With the original ubolts and nuts being corroded, they used a welding torch to cut off the old hardware. This made for an interesting little light show.

Notice in the picture above that the original leaf spring set consists of two long thin pieces combined with one shorter, flat and thicker spring bar. The procedure will add another long thin piece to the whole assembly.

Everything is made right there in the shop. Shelves are stocked with preformed leafs to build sets for any vehicle required.

The height from the ground to the top of the outer edge of the wheel well is recorded for reference. I have asked that the new spring set up give me the same height as the front with a maximum of an extra inch if it is set higher in any way. The old leaf springs had deformed from age and being overloaded losing over an inch of clearance.

The driver side was relatively easy. Here the leaf spring has already been modified and partially installed back in. The old leafs were rearched in a machine and a new leaf was added for extra payload capacity and stiffness. Note the red shock absorber in the picture which was the replacement for the old Monroe sensitrak shocks.

Meanwhile on the other side, they struggled to get the original leaf springs off. Even after the welding torch was used to cut off some of the old nuts and ubolts, the front pivot was nearly impossible to free.

As a result, they had to remove the old bushing and put in a new one. A large press is used here to force the new bushing into the curled up end of the leaf spring.

My truck wasn't the only one being worked on. Another larger truck was in for a 6" lift job. The owners needed extra clearance to install larger tires.

On the workbench, the young labourer fixes the leaf spring from the passenger rear end side. He takes apart the set, re-arcs each leaf in the arcing press behind him and adds a new leaf in between the old ones. The new one is custom built on the spot. Our friendly shop journeyman is in the process of cutting off the excess threading with an angle grinder. The bolt is used to fasten all the leafs together and keep the four leafs centered. Notice the the new leaf which is sandwiched between the two thin leafs. Can you see it?

It's all manual. While one person holds the newly modified set, another person uses a large hammer to bash the clips back so that they hold the stacked set of leafs together.

If I had ordered a completely brand new set of custom leaf springs for a larger vehicle, they might have looked like this. All finished and painted to look nice. Well not quite. I would only have four pieces compared to what looks like twelve leafs sandwiched together here.

In the end, opting for the 'add a leaf' procedure increased my payload capacity by about 500 pounds, the rear suspension became much stiffer, the whole rear end sat higher by almost two inches, and the overall handling was greatly improved. A bonus for faster cornering and better high speed stability.

Note that earlier this year in an earlier blog entry, I explained how the rear shocks were replaced. The two combined procedures now completes the restoration of the rear end suspension.

Be sure to come back for the next installment of Auto Digest when we look at air filters.

The Next Day

"Uh huh... that's good... I just wanted to know if the new hot water tank was installed yet. Thank you Margaret..." I hung up the phone. I sat back and looked at my computer screen. Last wednesday I stopped by the nursing home late at night and while I was there and walking by the boiler room, I decided to take a look at the hot water tank. Upon first inspection, I noticed that the access panel to the pilot light was barely hanging on by one hook. The other side was corroded and had fallen apart. The tank still worked but the outer structure didn't look good. The next day, the company that performs the annual heater service happened to be by and noticed the same thing. When the report was relayed to me, it came as no surprise. We needed a new tank. We upgraded to fifty gallon tank from the original forty gallon tank. Apparently, sixty gallon tanks are no longer being made.

The event from the other evening with the girl was still on my mind. I didn't get the officers name or card but still needed a way to get the purse back. So I searched for the surrey police department's non-emergency phone number. A woman answered and gave me everything that I needed. The officers name, a file number as well as other information concerning the two girls foster home and parents.

I made another call to the foster home where a man answered.
"Hello, is this the foster home of Kim and Jade?"
"Yes... How can I help you?"
"Yesterday evening Jade had gotten herself into some trouble and came to my house for help."
"Ahh yes. I'm sorry about what happened."
"Well after they left, I went out and found Jade's purse. So I just wanted to return it to her."
"Are you sure its hers?"
"I can't say for sure as there was no id inside. Just the other usual stuff girls carry in their purse."
"It might be Kim's. I'll let them know when they come back home today. If they're out in the evening, they sometimes call back to let us know where they are."
"I can give you my number. I can also drop it off at your place."
There's a pause on the phone before the man continues. "I can't give you the address right away because this is a foster home but I'll give her your number and let her know later on this evening. Plus, I don't know if you're ever in this area. Where are you located?"
"I'm in North Surrey. I do come down to your neck of the woods on occasion. I have a friend down there that I visit sometimes."
"Alright. I was just wondering, so what did Jade tell you happened?" he asked me. I gave him a quick summary of the events of the evening to which he agreed was told him before we both hung up.

As I sat there, my mother came back downstairs.
"I don't want you to let that girl back in if she comes back again"
"Huh? Why?"
"She was just here."
"What? She was just here and you shooed her away?" I was rather disappointed with my mother.
"I told her to go away. Don't let her back in. She's trouble." She walked away before returning.
"I saw on the news about some teenager who went to some mans house. He let her in and she later went to the police to say that the man assaulted her. That girl last night is evil."
Oh brother. This is just stupid having to deal with my mother's way of thinking. It's as if I was going out with a woman that my mother hated or something. It's just like the movie "WaterBoy" which was just on the other evening. In it, Adam Sandler's mother does the exact same thing to him because of the girl that he's trying to go out with or vice versa. Except that I'm not trying to go out with this fifteen year old girl who just came out of nowhere.

The narrowminded and selfish ways of my mother didn't matter though. A few minutes later the phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Hi. This is the foster home of Jade and Kim."
"Yes, I recognize your voice."
"I was thinking and decided that I should just give you our address. You're rather far from our area and I don't know if Jade will get out there again."
"Well actually, she was just here. The problem is that I didn't know that she was. My mother just turned her away without telling me."
"Oh. I'm sorry. We'll make sure she doesn't bother you again. We can also give you her social workers office address because it's closer to you."
"Please don't feel that Jade can't come to our house if she needs help for anything. Contrary to my mothers view, I don't mind at all. If she's going to come out here again, just make sure she sets up a time by calling me so that I will know when she will come around again."
"That's ok. Here's our address and the social workers address...."

I went ice skating the next day with Ro, Marty and Claudia. Burnaby 8 rinks had a public Xmas skate in the morning.

Claudia is Ro's niece and didn't know how to skate. When I got there, she was hunched over with one of those metal cages to hold onto. She just fell all over the place. Ro didn't know what to teach her as she herself never learned how to skate formally. I also need to teach Ro her how to skate backwards. Here, Ro zooms by.

Marty can barely skate forwards by himself. So that left me to become the teacher. Here Claudia attempts to stand still at right while Ro looks on.

I didn't know this but these days, they have figure skates with molded plastic boots such as the blue one's which Claudia is wearing. One buckle and your set to go. By the end, Claudia could sort of scratch herself across the ice without needing something or someone to hang onto.

I went to badminton this evening. Everything was going smooth until the very end when the gym was about to shut down. My playing partner took a swing and hit me in the face. He's a younger fella and wasn't very good. Now I'm sporting a cut across my nose. In all the years I've played ice hockey, I've never had any facial or head injuries as I've had in these couple of months since I've taken up the simple sport of badminton. I look like I got into a hockey fight.

Angels

My dinner is cold. The sauce has turned to a gel and I need to nuke it in the microwave.

A half an hour ago...

*knock knock knock*

*knock knock*

It's 11:09pm on a sunday night. I bet it's the tenants next door wanting something. The knock sounded kind of heavy like that of a man. When I finally made my way from my desk to the front door, the knocking had stopped. Through the peep hole I could see no one so I opened the door still expecting one of them to be standing off to the side or something. Instead, there was no one. I stepped out, looked around and saw a young woman climbing in the half snow covered bushes. They acted as a barrier between the neighborhood street and the train tracks.
I called out "Hello... Hello?"
The young woman turned around and came back.
"Please help me. Please help me." *sob sob*
"Whats the matter? What's going on?" I asked her. "Where did you come from?"
"You have to help me! My friend is back there on the train tracks. This guy named David cut her throat. He tried to get us to take cocaine but I didn't want to. Kim just told me to run so I ran." She stumbled forward putting both hands on my shoulders almost collapsing. Her hands were wet. My white t-shirt was now all damp and stained from her. She was completely soaked from head to toe. Who knows how long she had been messing around outside in the cold wet rain and snow.
I put my winter jacket on and started collecting some items, my cell phone, gloves, my work shoes.
"Come on. Let's go out and try to find your friend." The girl was sobbing pretty much the whole time and was drunk. They had been drinking and now she stumbled around just inside the front doors of the house. I didn't fully realize how drunk she was until she went to stand by the end of the staircase and dropped down on the pile of items which my mother had left on the floor. I pulled her up and sat her down on the stairs before leaving her to collect my keys in a room nearby.
"Hey you. Please don't leave me. Come back." I returned having almost everything that I needed.
"It's ok. I'm not going to leave you. Everythings going to be alright." The flashlight was in my truck so I quickly went out to get it. Through the open front door she cried out for me again.
"Please help me. Don't leave me here. He's out there and he might hurt you!" I didn't really care if the guy was out there or not. I just felt that I had to do something. I came back in and sat beside her on the bottom of the stairs. She continued to cry and started telling me about her mother and everything that happened.
"Do you have any kids?" she asked.
"No. I have no children."
"Do you have a wife?"
"No. I'm single right now."
"My mother and I argue alot and she kicked me out of the house."
"Where do you live?" I asked her.
"I live in Washington, Saltan."
I was shocked. How did she get up here then and where is she supposed to be staying at? I dialled 911.
"Emergency, how can I help you?" said the voice on the phone.
"Hello, a young girl came to my house in a very distraught state. She's" I got cut off.
"Who do you need? The police or an ambulance?"
"I need the police."
"Thank you." I was put on hold. A few moments go by before I hear a voice again.
"Hello. New Westminster Detachment."
"Hi. I have a girl here in an extremely distraught state. She says that her friends throat has just been slashed."
"What is your location?"
"#####... Surrey"
"Hold on a minute sir." The line paused again but longer than before. Now I'm thinking, great, nice response for an emergency service. A girl could very well be bleeding to death and I'm on hold and being transferred for the second time.
"Hello. Surrey Police. What is the nature of your call?"
Once again. "I have a young girl here who came to my house. She claims that her friend had her throat cut open and is lying on the train tracks nearby."
"Is she still there with you now?"
"Yes. She is."
"What is her name?"
"Would you like to talk to her officer?" I gave the phone to the girl. As she talked to the officer, I found out her name was Jade. Born in 1990, she was only fifteen years old. Her long and wavy dark brown hair was damp and she was a bit thin. The light rain and snow had gotten her eye makeup wet making her eyes look sunken in against her white skin. She had an Avril Lavigne look. After answering multiple questions on the phone with the officer, she handed the phone back to me at their request.
"Sir, we are on our way there. Can you keep her there until we arrive?"
"Yes I can."
"Please stay with her." So there we sat. Occasionally she would lose her balance and fall over sideways all the while continuing to cry and talk about her situation.
"I'm so sorry. I never want to be drunk again. Is Kim alright?"
"Is that your friends name? Kim? The one who you said was cut on the throat by the guy?"
"Yes"
"How many of you were there?"
"Just my friend Kim and I and the black guy called David. I hate him. My friends said that they had a bad feeling about us going with David."
"Sometimes you have to go with your gut feelings or intuition Jade. Learn to trust it."
"I never want to get drunk again." Jade continues to sob away, huddled in my arms. I remember when my brother told me about his male psychiatric nursing school. About how they were trained to talk to patients who were very agitated, sometimes angry or even a bit out of control. I needed to keep her talking to try to calm her down.
"How long have you been in Canada?"
"My mother and I argued alot so she kicked me out."
"Where's your father?"
"I've only known my father in the last two years..." She mumbled a bunch of other stuff which I couldn't understand.
"Where do you live now? Did you and your friend just hitch hike up here today from washington?"
"I live in a foster home in White Rock. My mother doesn't want me. Oh I hope my friend Kim is alright. She's on the train tracks dying probably. I wish I was dead." Jade started to bang her head on the handrails.
"My purse is out there still! I lost my purse."
"Can you show me where your friend was on the railway?"
"No. I don't know where it is."
"How about the purse? Do you know where that is?"
"No. I don't know where anything is."
"What were you doing here in this part of the neighborhood?"
"This black guy named David picked us up at Surrey Central. We had all been drinking and he asked us to go with him."
"How old is he?"
"He's fifteen."
"Where does your friend Kim live?"
"She lives in the foster home with me."
"How old is she?"
"She's a couple years older than me."
"So what were you two doing in Surrey?"
"We came down to party with some friends. We thought it would be fun. This David guy tried to make us take cocaine but I didn't want to. I was already more drunk than Kim. David was drunk too and now look how everything turned out. Oh I hope I die!"

I held her head against my shoulders and one of her hands in mine.
"Don't worry. You're safe here now." Just then my phone started ringing.
"Hello sir. Is this Mr. Lei?"
"Yes."
"We want to inform you that a young woman was just picked up at a Shell gas station near you. She has a cut on her head. We believe this girl is the other member of this party but want to make sure. Do you know where it is?"
"Yes I do. Thats just a couple of blocks away from my house."
"It sounds like she's the one."
"Thats great. So she's fine then? She's not seriously injured or anything life threatening?"
"No. Please continue to keep the other girl there at your house until we arrive."
"Thank you. Will do."
I closed my cellular phone and immediately told the good news to Jade.
"Jade. The police have just found your friend at the Shell gas station nearby. She's ok."
"Is she going to survive?"
"She made it there on her own two feet and only has a cut on her head. She's going to be fine."
The crying didn't stop but she was happier now.
"Oh thank you. You saved me! You saved me! Thank you. You saved me!"
"It's alright Jade. All I did was make a phone call. Everything is going to be fine now. Your friend is safe and so are you."
In her half drunken state, this conversation repeated itself more than once. She kept falling back into the thought that her friend was dead and that her mother didn't want her anymore. And all I could do was hold her and tell her that everything was going to be fine over and over again.

The sound of a car pulled into the driveway. It was my mother. She opened the door and saw the two of us sitting together at the bottom of the stairs.
"Who's this?" my mother asked.
"She came to our house asking for help. Her friend was attacked on the train tracks by someone."
"Jade, this is my mother." I asked my mother to get a large towel and come back to watch Jade. I still wanted to go out to the railway.
A few minutes later two police cruisers showed up. As I saw this through the distorted glass on the front door, I thought it was weird that it should be happening at all. When I had come home earlier in the evening, there were two police cruisers in front of the house already. I did not know why they were there the first time and my first thought was that maybe there was a disturbance from the house which I have rented out to an addiction rehabilitation sosciety. I opened the door and two officers were there.
"Hi. Are you Mr. Lei?"
"Yes. The girl is right here." I pulled up Jade to get her on her own two feet and brought her to the door.
"She can't walk very well. She's a bit intoxicated."
The tall thin officer looked at her. "Oh she can walk just fine." I sensed that the officer may not have had much sympathy for the girl.

I watched the cruisers sit outside for a while before finally leaving. I wondered if they would look for the girls purse and my gut feeling was that they wouldn't. I got my flashlight out and put on my jacket.
"Are you going out?" my mother asked hearing the noise I was making at the door.
"Yes."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm just going out to have a look."

Outside, I found the footsteps from her small sneakers in the snow. They lead from the doorway across the lawn and onward to the other side of the street where I first saw her. There they ended in the bushes. Twenty feet to the left is a dirt path which leads to the railway. It was only partially covered in snow. I walked on the short trail and soon found the familiar footprints coming down from the train tracks and into a small clearing in the bushes. There they ended and seemed to go nowhere. Back up on the railway, I found the foot steps and two others which seemed to follow hers. But these were also mixed up with some other older looking footprints. Her's and two others looked the freshest of the bunch.

They all seemed to go southward along the railway for about four hundred metres meeting up with 96th avenue. From there her friend Kim needed only to walk up a small hill one block and she'd be at the Shell gas station. And that is what she did.

I walked back northward along the railway seeing nothing on the sides resembling a purse. Maybe the David guy had picked up the purse as Jade fled and tossed it far away after going through it? Maybe her friend Kim had it with her? The two other trails run off the railway and towards a couple of nearby cul-de-sac's. I followed along these side trails but found no footprints resembling Jades. Where could she have gone? Going back to the small circular dead end clearing in the bushes where the two sets of footprints were, I pointed my flash light down and looked more closely this time. There in the center was a purse. I knew it was hers. It had a 'XOXO' branding like the Louis Vuitton bags. Inside was the usual, makeup, a package of cigarettes, a lighter, and more make up. Typical female accessories.

In a small zipped up compartment was a piece of paper and a key chain with two dices. I opened the piece of paper and found four names and phone numbers on it. The area codes were all from other locals. Jade was telling the truth about her mother moving to Washington. There she married an american and ditched her daughter. Father meanwhile was nowhere to be found.

Shaken, Not Stirred

I got sick last tuesday and wednesday. Good thing the mandarine class is over because I would not have enjoyed it. I did make it to the last photography class only to see that I got a really low mark for one of my assignments. The reason was that I didn't label the slides with a description of the light source used. The teacher was good about it though as she said that she'd let me relabel the slides to have her remark them.

Then I continued to get sick for the rest of the day. Body aches all over, coarse dry throat, a small fever throughout the evening. I plopped myself on the couch and watched reruns of MASH. Images of Captain Pierce and MacIntyre drying martini's from their inhouse distillery. By next day noon, the worst of the symptoms had subsided. It was now thursday and I decided to skip badminton. Instead, I had purchased a ticket the to the 9th Annual Martini Challenge which was being held at the Storyeum in Gastown. I went with Susan and Jason whom I originally met at a softball game during the summer. Jason brought another friend, Conny and she brought two of her own friends.

The event was a blast. Approximately fourteen restaurants or bars from around town were there for us to sample their special martini's. The best was one from Ocean's Restaurant that served a drink with lychee in it. Another one was served with champagne which had a nice crisp taste to it. Three exhibitors were no shows unfortunately. I recognized some old faces from UBC. A woman who is now a teacher at Windermere. She showed up with a coworker of hers as the two had decided that since they were both the only single people on their school staff, they'd come here and mingle. Jason liked her.

Meanwhile, I ran into my good clubmed party friend Farzad. He was there with his sister and a group of thirteen others. His sister's friend was responsible for booking the swing band that played that night which was great. Conny and her two friends started the dance and soon others joined in. Amazing for three girls who couldn't drink much. Conny herself had an exam to write the next day too. Meanwhile her friend Cynthia proceeded to hit me at least ten times throughout the evening as we chit chatted and whatever. And she hit me hard. Silly girls.

Here Conny, Cynthia and Farzad dance to swing music.

I think the martini's helped me get over whatever it was that I had.

That night, I only managed to get around three hours of sleep before getting up to go snowboarding with some other friends. I forgot what time I had told Marty I'd pick him up. It didn't matter as he got up late having been woken up by his girlfriend who arrived before me. Then it was off to Ro's place. The four of us piled into my small truck, snowboards and all before driving off to Cypress Bowl for the first ride of the year. It snowed the night before and was still snowing lightly. Perfect conditions to start off the season and reacquaint ourselves with the mountain.