from the twisted minds of snm
No fireworks this year, which was good in a way, since it had become rather tedious in previous years. Instead, we lit the street on fire! With booze! Not good booze, thank you – this was some horrid old Ballantine’s blended scotch that had turned cloudy with black sediment. No drinky? Burrrn!
Hey, it’s that time of year again. Wonder how things will be this time. I imagine the earthquake and tsunami will be an underlying theme this year. I’m doing this live again, so this post will be continually updated over the next several hours as the program progresses… Continue reading ’62nd Annual NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen’
OK, I barely got up in time to rush up to Koko Head District Park to snap some hatsuhinode pics. When I pulled in I was greeted by an almost full parking lot, WTF! When I last did this, I think it was two or three years ago, the place was deserted. This trail has become too popular. I’m thinking something is going to come to a head, last I hiked about a month ago, the trail is taking a pounding. Anyway, I got set up just in time. I’ll post up the pic later, have to go through & process still yet.
OK, updated with my pic of this year. I unfortunately didn’t have time to properly set up the GoPro time lapse, oh well, next time!
OK, we finally caved in and visited To Thai For restaurant in Kaimuki. It is in the space along Wailae Ave where Verbano used to be. We had reservations with the name & the prices seemed a bit on the higher side. The Scatman insisted however that his Thai friend picks it as one of his select few that he will eat at. The interior has been lightened up from what it used to be so feels much more casual. It was pretty busy, service pretty good.
Instead of going full family style, we ordered a pork Larb to share and then we each got individual entrees.
You know it’s going to be a good snow day when you have to use the bootpack just to get from the ticket window to the gondola base!
I caught the first bus to Sapporo Kokusai on Monday to get a last riding day in before leaving. The bus lady said that if the resort was closed, the bus would return to Sapporo – after all, it was so early that the employees probably hadn’t shown up at the resort yet, so there was no way to check this early. Everyone was apparently sleeping in late, as I had the entire bus to myself on the drive over. Still, the bus lady got on the PA for the announcements: She could have just come over and told me directly… Continue reading ‘Choke-tastic’
You either have to stay the whole season or be really lucky to get an awesome powder day in Niseko. When I got there on Friday, the snow was falling heavily, but the high winds that are typically associated with the storms that bring in the snow closed the resorts for the day. The winds were nowhere near as bad as the time I was there several years ago and got blocked on my last riding day, so at least the snow was accumulating instead of blowing away to cover the surrounding farming plain. Continue reading ‘Typical Niseko’
Of course, having the word “desert” in the name is a dead giveaway that the Danner Desert Acadia GTX boots were not originally designed for snow use, but the Gore-Tex liner kept my feet dry and warm with just regular mid-weight wool hiking socks in -10C weather. My feet were warm even standing for extended peroids of time in deep snow. The Vibram Sierra sole worked fine in loose snow and on packed snow, but on freshly snowplowed roads where the black ice had been exposed, they were crazy slippery. Granted it’s ice, but my Danner 453 hikers actually had more traction on the same surface. I’m not going to even get into whether siping the sole blocks like snow tires or using a harder/softer compound would make them work better in a winter environment. I’ll be looking into whether Lowa or someone else makes a snow/ice Gore-Tex boot. Continue reading ‘Slippery Boots of Death’
OK, it’s been a month and I figure I should talk about some of the stuff from our latest Salt Lake City, Utah snow trip. Guess I should start off with this image. What’s going on here? It’s for what we have come to call the MJ gloves.
For years I’ve been using a pair of polypro stretch gloves I picked up at a convenience store in Japan under my main snowboarding gloves. Reason being is that I often have to take off gloves to work my camera gear, but without any type of covering the hands quickly get frozen. Liners that come with gloves are warm, but too bulky and/or too loose fitting so don’t stay on hands. My Japan liners started to get a bit ratty with holes starting to appear, so I got a pair of USA made wool stretch gloves that work well too. On our latest trip spotted these liners in REI. Yes, the universal intial reaction was, “oooo, shiny!” This model was touted as this companies warmest, with the metalized gold fibers woven in supposedly spreading and reflecting warmth back to the user. It features a pocket on the back of the hand to slip a chemical hand warmer pad too. Continue reading ‘SLC Reviews & Dirt Bag Tips’
The JMA forecast is usually pretty spot-on. Derek says they have some crazy supercomputer that yields far better results than whatever the NOAA uses. I fly out to Sapporo via Nagoya tomorrow and will be in Niseko on Friday. It should be smack dab in the middle of five days of snow. If all goes according to the forecast, there will be a day-and-a-half of new base and several more continuing days of snowfall in store. Will I finally be able to ride Niseko on something other than Krunk? Just so long as the winds stay moderate, I may actually luck out… finally.
Finally pulled the broken CV shaft from the rally FX. Well now, 100 hp by current autostandards is no huge supercar figure, but 100 horses is still 100 horses. It seems it’s still enough to shear an axle shaft apart. There might have been some kind of flaw in the metal. Actually the right hub seems to have all kinda of problems. Thats the side I blew the shock and strut top mount bottoming it out. When I went to take the half shaft out, I discovered the main hub axle nut was loose again, and in fact had sheered the safety tabs on the cap. The bottom ball joint also required barely a push on wrench to loosen and after I took off the castle nut for the steering arm, I put the extractor on the joint and as I tightened it with my fingers to line it up, the joint popped loose. Nuts! I pulled the hub assembly and I’m going to take it to Ken to replace the bearings. I’m going to also order the ball joint. New, not reman, Empi CV shafts are on order but it’ll take close to 2 months.
Oh, and while were on the subject of the rally FX, I’d like to give a shout out to Pacific Paradise Towing. Used them twice now and really like them. It’s a small family run service, dude is really cool. They cover island wide, in addition to standard truck (nice & aircon) they also have a flatbed if needed. They take credit cards. Their number if you ever need a tow is 677-8850.