Nick Porter on what it means to drop anchor in the upper motorhome lot of Stevens Pass Ski Resort:

Daniel its not bad at all, if you dont mind a couple bulls like us running around your china shop.

Season has begun!
We rode mostly grooms all weekend and true to form, Tye Mill (frontside) was the best for hot laps and random freshies. We did play around the GunTower area and that was ok, the real surprise though was secret stash above the Lots. I nimbly dodged two serious creekholes that I didnt see until I was right on top of them but otherwise that area is totally ready, we had fun back there.
I didnt break out the NeverSummer yet, I want my sea legs back on fully before I strap into that beast. I did ride last years Custom X to its capacity though. Fresh wax and that thing screams down anything I point it towards, a totally sweet ride. I wiped out in the trees pretty bad below the gun shack this weekend but really I had no business being back there where the cliffs are. It is what it is, I rode out alive.
About the near legendary vodka tap: 3.5 gallons of vodka flowed through that thing in 3 days. I think the problem is obvious! At least in a bottle you can measure your cosumption, but it is legendary and thats kinda fun.
Im headed back out Wednesday night and wont be in Seattle til sometime after the first of the year. Its gonna be really quiet around the blog, watch twitter I guess, or come up and ride?

And now for annoying crypto-speak about vodka:

If you said “REALLY REALLY RAD. I WANT.” here is your #protip: it aint that good. Trust me I know. Save your money for Smirnoff instead. By “save” I mean drink twice as much for half the price. I wont blow your cover but I will publicly admit that your blog is brilliant, even if I cant share it with the world.
ForestHipster has spoken.

Now lets Get Some, press play:

The Hood Internet vs Lykke Li by hoodinternet

Looks like Denis Leary has another book coming! I cant wait. I gave away a dozen or so copies of his last book, it was really good!
Killin It with Paul Crik discusses why Drinking is Nice.
Keith Olbermann is back, making this week even better!

In less than 36 hours I am assuming post as first mate aboard sailing vessel Wandering Star, Seattle on a three day sail around the Sound. Captained by Jerry Ceis and including the freshly minted, honorary pirate: Dave Henderson.

Cabin boy: as yet unknown.

my favorite part of this post was adding the tags.

The knee is doing well given all the attention ive been giving it. Will be on the stick all week for sure which means everyone will start calling me House, just like last time this happened. Back then I didnt know who House was, now of course I do. I dont mind the association one bit.
Late last night I stepped out with some homies for dinner and drinks at Mission here in West and today of course I couldnt resist the call of Tony Hawks Treasure Hunt so Ive been using the leg to some degree, but carefully. Using the stick for walking is decent, but using it to shake at things and remind people I am disabled is double decent. People stare at me, I look at them and remind them Im disabled. People walk past me to fast and I tell them to slow down, Im disabled. I really like being disabled. If someone is staring at me from across a room, I pound my cane on the floor with a thud and mouth silently: “wtf”. There are more stories about my communicative disability behaviours in public but I think my mother has been hanging around here lately and I would hate to tarnish any goodwill she may have towards me: your favorite social luminary. Ask anyone who has been around, they will tell you a few doozies. Dont ever ask me for spare change if you see me with a cane, or tell people you work in hotels when you really dont. I will viscerate you with my stick. My blood red stick, which i hold dear and close.
I dont think I will ski next weekend, at least to any degree. We will see how it holds out, stay tuned.
Anyone know where I can get the blue placard for special parking? I need 3 total.
Thanks for reading, thanks for caring.
Hench.

Before all of that, I spent a number of years deep underground in a hard rock Silver mine straddled just below the Montana/Idaho border and its the same thing with the scent of that place: wild and unforgiving, yet warm and authentic. We would sit in the shack every morning before dawn and wait for the skip to take us a mile and half underground and in those moments I never forgot the sharpness of surly miners next to me with a chaw tucked under the gum, a coffee in hand and a room full of lunchbuckets that all smelled of the same thing: blasting powder and precious metals. The door would open, admitting a winter blast and amidst the good natured cursing at the latecomer, the alpine air gripped your lungs as you hunkered against it….stirring the air and mixing deeper into the smell of real labor..the smell of this great Country.

This is silver/ore miner ######### whom I shared both shifts and cigarettes with for a number of years, taken by my dear friend Sadie Lortz.

Even then as a young buck I knew it was something special, to me: something rare. Ive never met a finer bunch of boys than the outfit over at Lucky Friday Mine in Mullan, Idaho. For all the times I should’ve never survived down there, they took me in and taught me just about everything I know about how to live your life not just with grit alone, but also with care. I always figured that those are the days that saved my life, those are the years where I came up, some of you Ive known since those days and you can bear witness to that. I watched alot of young thunderheads go through that joint when I was there, and none of them came out well, the mines have a way of sorting out the idiots; some days I hated that hole more than anything I’d ever known but I always hung in there and I never once took for granted my status as “the kid”; every day I was lucky to learn from the likes of the the lifers down there. I will stop now before I wax reminiscent and start talking stories.

Nowadays, once in a while come Winter I wake up late in the night in my motorhome to the rumble of front end loaders clearing out the thoroughfare in the motorhome ski lots;  so I shrug into my coat and stumble outside to stand in the wild mountain air that smells that special way only at those late hours, blended with the diesel exhaust of the loaders pushing snow and it takes me back, I lean against my rig in the darkness and smile at the goodness of life, then slip quietly back to bed…happy to have lived this far, happier still that I’ve known that smell the way its meant to be known and that it will forever swirl quietly around my beating heart.

We are heading deep into the the high country tonight, caravanning our wagon train headlong into the blizzard. This marks day one of the Great Blowout, stay tuned to TwitGrinder for all your favorite booze soaked details.

See you all on the other side.