Quarter 3 Post 2- Abkhazia.

Bergeri, Eric. "Absolute Abkhazia- Seeking Powder in a Country that Doesn't Exist". Transworld Snowboarding January 2009: unknown-unknown.
(i dont know the starting and ending pages cuz its my brothers magazine and he took it to his house before i did the MLA citation)

Darius Heristchian, Victor De Le Rue, Per Loken, and some guy named Remi went to a place called Abkhazia to snowboard. Abkhazia is a country that doesn't appear on any maps, except in Russia, because the rest of the world doesn't recognize it as its own country. It's a small peice of land on the Black Sea coastline and was once part of the Republic of Georgia that used to be part of the USSR. When the USSR collapsed in 1991 less than one fifth of Abkhazia's population was ethnic Abkhaz. Georgia gained its independendence when the USSR collapsed and not too long after Abkhazia did too. Ever since then Abkhazia and Georgia have had constant tension between them. Georgia tried to take over in 1992 and in 1993 they were pushed out after killing several thousand people and creating 250,000 Abkhazian Georgian refugees because their houses were completely burnt down. nstead of snowboarding the whole time they were there the guys spent most of their time wandering around and sight-seeing. The way they describe the place makes it sound horrible. The writer says "Scars of past wars were everywhere- bullet holes on building walls, the remains of the Georgian's burnt-down homes." Abkhazia is a poor country with a bad economy which probably explains why they beleive its bad luck to rebuild any Georgian buildings, they simply don't have the money to do it. I'm really thankful that I live in a place like the US and not Abkhazia. It would be so hard to live in a country that's been pretty much destroyed and never rebuilt. Living in constant fear of being attacked and taken over again would be the worst way to live. A taxi driver the guys met on the trip described the war by saying "One morning I woke up and my neighbors were not my neighbors anymore, buy my enemies." I can't imagine everything changing that fast. I think the worst part is that shortly after they left, the country broke out in war again, before they could even start cleaning up the one from over a decade ago.

Quarter 3 Post 1- Avalanche.

De Le Rue, Xavier. "Backcountry Basics- Live To Tell". Transworld Snowboarding January 2009: unknown-unknown.
(i dont know the starting and ending pages cuz its my brothers magazine and he took it to his house before i did the MLA citation)

Last year in Switzerland Xavier De Le Rue was filming with Standard Snowboard Films. He was riding on a mountain in the backcountry on snow that he just assumed was safe to ride. When he was on the upper section of his run he noticed the snow starting to crack but that didn't bother him. In those situations he just rides fast and figures he'll get out safe. But as he kept going the snow cracked more and more until it was just one giant avalanche. Xavier was wearing a special ABS backpack with airbags that you can deploy in an avalanche. He pulled the release cord on the backpack and the airbags deployed. He slid down the mountain over a mile. The airbags kept Xavier ontop of the 6 meter deep snow and although he was unconscious when he was found they saved his life. I think that if you're going to be snowboarding or skiing or hiking or doing anything in the backcountry during the winter you should be wearing one of these backpacks. This avalanche easily could have killed Xavier but because of the bag he only suffered from a torn ligament in his knee, some of the blood vessels in his eyes popped from the pressure, and snow was caught in his mouth and nose causing him to go unconscious, but thats a lot better than being dead.

3, 2, 1- attack!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/sports/playmagazine/112prodigy.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&ref=playmagazine

Baby on Board (Figuratively Speaking)


'“3,2,1— attack!” and then Lexi rides switch onto the pipe, sliding to the end and throwing in a 180 on the landing, every bit as smooth as Harriman.' Lexi and Chase Harriman have some things in common. They both love snowboarding and they're both good at it, their differences? Lexi's a 9 year old from minnesota and Harriman is a 22 year old Tahoe local, and they are both hitting the same rail. Lexi was sponsored by Burton at age 7. I'm pretty sure she is the youngest pro rider anddd she's a girl. In the article it talks about her family being on vacation in Tahoe. They set up a jump in the backyard of where they were staying, it wasl ike 8 feet tall and lexi's maybe 5 feet tall. it seems like everything she does is over her head no matter what. They also went to a junkyard to hit a rail with 2 other guys that were like 20 and she was hitting the same rail as them perfectly. Lexi is so good she's even been compared to Shaun White, one of her nick names even includes Snow White, of course referring to shaun. Rene Hansen who used to work with Shaun White says that he has “never seen a girl at that stage be that good. . . . Right now, if she continues on her path, she will be the best women’s snowboarder who has ever lived.”.

Quarter 2 Post 8

"Newfoundland: A Comedy of Errors"
by Julia Milan
Transworld Snowboarding Magazine

This article was pretty cool cuz it was like 3 different sections. The first was like a short screenplay of what the trip was like... sort of. and the second part was a story on how the people in the article got "screeched in" and the third part was a little ad for Ski Resorts in Newfoundland. The screenplay was kinda wierd, like it would make more sense and be funnier if you knew the people. The people were Scotty Arnold, Chris Grenier, Trevor Andrew, Deuce and Jofo, the team manager, and Scott Serfas. it starts out with them eating breakfast, renting a car and not really doing anything. Then they get in the rental car, drive to another town and snowboard, then Trevor Andrews AKA Trouble and Scotty Arnold AKA S-C-O-T-T-Y and Chris Grenier AKA Dirty G have rap show at some club and then thats it. The second part about screeching in is this wierd ceremony thing they do in newfoundland where visitors become honorary locals by being spanked, saying traditional newfoundland sayings, kissing a fish, and drinking an ounce of rum. The last part just was like 4 sentences each on Marble Mountain and White Hills ski resorts.

Quarter 2 Post 7

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0106091vail1.html

In Vail there was a couple skiers, a dad and a kid. And they were getting onto a chairlift but the seat of the chairlift was folded up so that there was just a hole. So when the dad sat down he fell through. When he fell his pants got caught on the chair pulling them off and his ski got stuck in the chair so it held him up. The kid was fine and he didn't fall through or anything. The kid also had a real cool coat. Vail Resort said in a press release that the man was only upside down for 7 minutes but the article says it took 15 minutes for ski patrol to respond and get him unstuck so i dont know how long it actually was. I think that the lifties probly thought that it was really funny to watch. If they were like young 20 year olds like all the ones i've seen then they probly thought it was hilarious. i feel really sorry for the guy but its still really fun.

Quarter 2 Post 6

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/WaterCooler/story?id=3769405&page=1

There was a boy who called police about his mothers driving. He said that she was swerving all over and acting wierd. He also told the operator that she had had some drinks at a restaurant and thought that they may have been affecting her. His mother kept yelling at him to hang up and the operators could hear that. She took away and ended the phone call a few times. The boy kept calling police over and over and told them what they needed to know. One time the mother hit the boy to get the phone away. The mom is being charged iwht driving under the influence, assault and reckless endangerment. She has been found guilty of driving under the influence before. The police are calling the boy a hero because he kept him and his sister safe and anybody else that could have been hurt by his mothers driving.

Quarter 2 Post 5

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/WaterCooler/story?id=3863734

In Vermont there's this lady with Celiac's disease. Her name is Patty Cooper. Because of her Celiac's disease she has severe osteoprerosis and has a helper animal to help her out. Instead of being normal and getting a dog she got a minihorse. She said she got it cuz it has a longer life span and it also has a gluten-free diet. Because of her Celiac's disease she can't eat gluten cuz it will make her sick. She lives in an apartment and her landlord said that she can't have the horse if she's going to live there. She filed a human rights complaint with the human rights trust of virginia. She hopes that they will allow her to keep her horsie. The landlord is just worried about where he'd store the hay and the horse droppings and cuz there are 23 other units that all have to share like the same yard and stuff.