Mount Baker, Dude

We are heading down to Mount Baker, Washington State to spend new year in this mountain cabin with friends. Should be a good old time - snowboarding, snowshoeing, hanging out, visiting the local pub and enjoying some tasty vegetarian fare.

Me + M wish you the very best for 2008! Happy New Year!!!

5 Star Striker Time

Everybody loves a bit of Striker time, so we were excited to attend Strikers annual Boxing Day Dinner in Seattle. Striker really kicked it up a notch this year and brought out the '5 Michelin Star' culinary skills and prepared a delicious meal for everyone. Good times hanging out with Striker, Chicago Style and Ms Basque. After the party we headed over to our old neighbourhood - Queen Anne to spend the night at Chicago & Basque's fab craftsman home. Chicago Stlye has been busy building a wine cellar, so we tapped into the private reserve kicked back in the living room discussing the years events, old times and new ideas.

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Following morning we headed out for coffee at El Diablo. I had a ghost in my coffee or something...

Powderhound Session 2008.1 - Cypress Mountain, BC

The season kicked off the 'split-pea-soup, extra thick sessions' on Wednesday night with a new member to the Powderhound Posse - Mr Flemish Economist. We headed up to Cypress after work, driving from clear city skies to dense mountain fog. Oh well, we battled on.

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The snow was amazing - super powder and the runs empty! Despite the limited conditions we had a thoroughly good time with the run of the night being the 'Panorama' on Black Mountain. The night wasn't without some creepy moments - as we slipped down in the darkness away from the lit areas it became confusing where to go. Sometimes guess-work, sometimes a group would come by knowing the way ... 'follow them!'. After four hours of hard boarding, we called it night and headed back down the mountain stopping off part way to check out the city lights of Vancouver ... both in agreement that was a great 1st night to the season.

(movie coming soon)

iTouch

Technology is beautiful. Rareley an evolutionary piece emerges, but when it does ... you power it on and your experience evolves. I have to tell you, I bought a iPod iTouch and it`s UNBELIEVABLE - OMFG it`s amazing. I`m truly blown away.

(pause) awe (/pause)

I've had some funny experiences with my 4.5 year old pod. Our friends kids down the street say 'oh my god it looks so old' What? it's an iPod! I brought it out at a works party to play some tunes and 'woah,look at that ... old skool'. What? it's an iPod!

It's been a funny old 4.5 technology years since I ventured into unknown waters and bought an iPod. They're now ubiquitous and the Apples market cap is somewhere around ... $160Billion. Back then (4.5 years ago) the concepts that floated around my office was - convergence - the idea of disparate technologies forming into one. Wow! wouldn't that be kool - a mp3 player, pda, cell phone, movies, photos, documents. Here it is and with great design. ... go buy an iTouch right now -- it's amazing.

wow

Winter Wonderland

It was a clear morning so we decided to head up into the North Shore mountains and check the snow out. A couple of big storms that rolled in over the weekend dumped a ton of snow so the whole place looked like a 'winter wonderland'.

Afterwards we headed back down and over to Capilano Lake. There's an epic dam there and fab views of the 'Two Lions'.

Our Christmas Tree

Amidst our jetlag haze we awoke super early the other morning and decided to put up our Christmas tree and decorations. Here's a picture of the festive kormacurry headquarters...

kormacurry

Calzone Atrani

Cooking with M time! We're back in the kitchen continuing my culinary lessons.

Tonight's dish - Calzone Atrani, named after a lovely little town on the Amalfi coast.

Tonight's ingredients - spinach, feta cheese, mushrooms, red peppers, basil, olives and fresh tomato sauce.

Post dinner results: mmm-mmm-mmmm - tasty.

Calling All PowderHounds !

It's time to head up into the mountains for the 2008 season.

Back In Vancouver

... it was a long day. The plane was over 3 hours late, and the flight was 9.5 hours. I`m sick - time for bed.

Flying Out Of Manchester

Largs & Isle Of Cumbrae

Super Sunday - we headed West to the Irish Sea and checked out the fishing village of Largs. A lovely little town. After checking the place we jumped on a ferry and headed out to the Isle Of Cumbrae. A short trip to a short island, midway between the mainland and the Isle Of Arran. It reminded me of the Vashon ferry.

LandING at the island we caught a bus to a town (oops forgot the name). We checked out the oldest cathedral in the UK. In fact, we entered just before mass and was entertained by the local choir troop belting out the most mind blowing intricate harmonies. The lead was quite a bossy dude and kept resetting the performance. Out came the hymn books and the smiley ladies. I was all for staying, the rest wanted to go.. One small problem ... they'd locked the door on us!!! LOL HAHAHA.

Foe the remainder of the day we walked all around the island, checking out the seals (noises), checking out the rocks, the real estate prices (reasonable) and the sweet shops (yum).

Late afternoon we headed back to Glasgow, then back down to Manchester -- which concludes our Scottish weekend epic. Here's a video of our adventures ...

Malaga

Back in time to Malaga. Here's a movie from our Malaga trip .. enjoy.

Loch Lomond & The Trossachs


Got an early start today, we all piled in the car and headed over to Loch Lomand. The weather was fair and our spirits were high .. we all rolled up our sleeves for some good adventrues. The Loch was lovely - surrounded by barren hillsides and dotted with picturesque villages it really is a jewel. We adventured about before breaking for lunch. I had the heart-smart option - deep fried veggie burger. Yuk! The pot of tea was delicious however.


After lunch we headed into The Trosachs. Lordy, lordy the nature was stunning and epic. We stopped off at numerous viewpoints and braved the wind and rain to take photos. We passed Highland cows, waterfalls, hillsides of fir and heather. Wonderful.