Viva Glam

I have been in Jindabyne for the past week and last night at the LJ Hotel was Viva Glam. An event put on by a friend of mine, Manuela Bertchold. It's a ridiculous dress up party with proceeds going towards scholarships for local winter sports athletes.

I only decided to go at about 5pm last night, so with 3 cardboard boxes, a roll of duct tape, half a roll of aluminium foil and half a coat hanger I put together a terrible robot costume.

Some of the costumes were awesome, including a Lego Man, a troop of penguins and a Care Bear. This is a photo of me and my mate Scotty who was obviously dressed as a Navi from Avatar.


The conditions up here haven't been great so I havent been snowboarding all that much, fingers crossed that that changes soon!

JW

Hut Jam Returns

Thats right The Mountian Dew Hut Jam, my favourite event of last season, is coming around once again and promises to be bigger and better than last year. On the 31st of July Mountain Dew and Buller are putting together an event like no other with 15 companies putting foward two man teams to represent them on the unique jibbable hut set up.


Darragh Walsh and I will be waving the Nitro flag again this year and can't wait for it to come around. A few sneaky team brain storms and training sessions up at Perisher may be in order. So if your up at Buller, or thinking about coming up that weekend, it is definately worthwhile checking this one out. Lets just hope the weather iholds out better than last year.

If you want to know more click on Pop Mag, Snow Life or the Mountain Dew Australia blog.

JW

A Happy Snap.

I was just browsing through some photo's on my lappy and came across this one.

It was taken by photographer Tim Lloyd towards the end of last season up in NSW. I have to give props to Patto who scoped the spot.


JW

Early Season Fun

Up here at Buller where I have spent the last 3 weekends we have been battling with the snow gods a bit. With very little on the ground and rain trying to wash away the little we do have.

Bourke St. has been open everyday since opening with a little park at the top, which is a pretty awesome effort. However after lapping Blue Bullet 1 for a few hours it gets a little repetitive. repetitive. repetitive.

But as the saying goes 'where theres a will theres a way' and although Bourke St. had done its dash we went looking for fun else where. Whilst walking around the village I found a road closure gate lying around and with the help of my Old Man (Lance), and friends (Bryan, Drew, Micky and my sister Ellise) we managed to get it set up as a little up bar and shot a few happy snaps.

This is what it looked like on one of my practice hits.


I'm heading up to Jindabyne on Saturday for 3 weeks so should get some fun riding done up there. So as always keep posted for updates.

JW.

Click It.

isft. website is up and running. Check it out.


iskifortommy.com

Peace

JKW

i ride for tommy.

At the beginning of last year whilst I was laying in a hospital bed in Colorado I called my sister, Ellise, to tell her that I had hurt my kidney and to get her to let Mum and Dad know that I had done myself a mischief. I called again 20 minutes later to let her know I needed to go to the ICU in Denver and I would let her know when I got there. In the 20 minutes between phone calls Ellise had been informed that one of our freinds that she was very close to, Tom Mathias, had passed away. Suddenly being in hospital was the least of my worries, it was devestating...

Tommy was a national level alpine skier and a tremendous athlete who I have only few but very fond memories of. It was on the 6th of January 2009 that Tommy sadly died from malignant melenoma.

A not for profit organisation called 'i ski for tommy' has been initiated and directed by friends of Tommy to raise awareness of malanoma and raise funds for the Victorian Melenoma Service (VMS) by encompassing Tommy's love of winter sports.

The 'isft' website iskifortommy.com will be up and running soon, selling merchandise to raise funds exclusively for the VMS.

Until then you can get more information and show your support by 'like'ing the page on facebook @ facebook.com/iskifortommy and you can also follow i ski for tommy on twitter @ twitter.com/iskifortommy



Thanks for reading. Opening weekend is less than 2 weeks away so check back soon for some snow related posts.
JKW

Home, for now.

It's been about a month since I got home from the states, so I thought it was about time for an update about my 'uber exciting' life at home...

Pretty much all I have been doing since I got home is working throughout the week and catching up with friends on weekends. However I have done a few things which I thought might be worth a mention.

Trade School
As some of you may be aware I started a plumbing apprenticeship with my Dad in September of last year. After seven days of trying to catch up with my jetlag and friends I started my first block of trade school [I do 5 days a month, Thursday - Wednesday]. It is quite a bit different to regular school. So far I have learned how to weld and cut with Oxy-Acetelyne, aswell as service water with 'non-ferous' (plastic) materials. Thrilling stuff.

The Footy!
Being that I spend most of my time away from home, especially during the winter, it is not often that I get to catch a game of football. On the first Sunday that I was home, after attending two 21st's I went to see the mighty Melbourne Demons's smash the Richmond Tigers with my parents and grandparents. A nice family afternoon after 4 months away from home... We also went to see the Dee's lose to West Coast yesterday... sad.


The Moo.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Groovin' The Moo Festival in Bendigo. For those of you who don't know Groovin' The Moo is a festival that tours regional area's in Australia.

The line up pretty flippin' sweet. Stand outs for me were Vampire Weekend (I was about 20 rows back in the mosh pit so couldn't see much more than their trademark chandelier's but it was still epic), Bag Raiders (I got my dance on, they played one of the best DJ sets I have ever heard), and The Funkoars (some good old Aussie Hip Hop - Trials also played some snippets of songs he had produced for Drapht and Hilltop Hoods). It wasn't quite as good as last year (De La Soul, Hilltop Hoods, Art vs Science, Mammal and Ratatat among others) not so much because of the acts, it just seems there were alot more people there this year (it was The Moo's second year in Bendigo and it had some hype after the success of last year).


Thats about all the exciting stuff that I have done over the last month or so. We have had the first couple of snowfalls at Buller already, nothing substantial but good to see. I will try to put up some posts between now and winter if I do anything noteworthy, so keep an eye out.
JW