The life adventures of a Chilean Millionaire

After my Grandfather's passing a few months ago I headed back to Austin with 1 thing in mind, work. Well, that changed to work and a puppy. Meet Lola...

Jump to now... August 22. 

I'm on a 3 week snow shred SBX training mission to Chile with a number of other athletes from North America and 2 coaches. So far we have ridden Nevados de Chillan, Corralco, and are now at El Colorado for the next week and a half. Snow was stellar for the first few days instantly hopping into a powder day and then first flight of the season came by way of the South America's Cup in Corralco... Tomorrow we get to start training on the track here, looks pretty good but needs a little hand work.  

A new chapter, back on the road

Well the beloved STI finally went, after months and months. It took less than 3 hours to get the new ride, a 2007 Audi A3 quattro. Needless to say the great state of Texas didn't make life any easier on me. 

I spent a week to 10 days off in Utah freeriding with Jonathan Cheever and Maria Ramberger and just trying to heal up before I took off for Colorado. With the lack of snow in Tahoe all plans of racing at Squaw were eliminated, giving all of the SBX family another few weeks to go , "now what". 

Back to the automobile dilemma... 

I left Utah on March 1 headed to CO to take some more time to freeride and just enjoy snowboarding for what it is and have fun with friends. On the way the STI was sold in Fort Collins and later that afternoon I purchased the new car in Denver. TEXAS wouldn't let me do a plate transfer without seeing the car first, in fact, they wouldnt even register the car without a safety inspection. What's a safety inspection you may ask? Let me explain.... does your vehicle have headlights? taillights? blinkers? seatbelts? do your brakes work? horn?.... I had to drive 2000+ miles for 8 minutes in an inspection station to make sure I had a working horn! I could have flown down, taken 1/4 of the time, and still registered my car. Texas, you need to get your shenanigans together, if I still lived in Wisconsin I could have handled my plate transfer over the phone.

The next journey sees me travel, with Kellie in tow, 7200 miles in the next 25 days. Colorado twice, Banff, Big White, and all the fun places to hit on the way back to Austin. Stay tuned, the fun continues!

Another Day, Another City

Right now I’m sitting against the window of an old school S80 aircraft, a businessman sitting to my right, a child yelling in the background, and I have consumed myself in doing work. Well, let’s face it, my work is a lot better than most. I just flew back to my summer home to check up on my company, take a few meetings, and overall make sure things were running smoothly. Now I’m headed back to what everyone really wants to be doing, playing in the snow and having a good time while getting paid.  In the past 30 days I have been to Canada twice, Colorado, Utah, and Texas. 2 trips by plane, 2 by car… my preferred method of travel. 

Riding this season has been a little sub-par by my own regards.  Out of all the competitions so far going out in the first round or having qualifying crashes has not been great on self-esteem. The last races at Big White Resort near Kelowna, BC were almost cancelled due to adverse weather conditions where even after athletes had qualified to race visibility was down to less than 75 feet at points. Needless to say not ideal when your friends and acquaintances are going to be at an intimate distance of 6 inches or less with razor sharp snowboards attached to your feet sliding along at an average speed of 40mph.  At the end of the day I had bruised ribs and a bruised shoulder. Both were hit twice, once on a day 1 crash. The second time while I was working through a heat and was taken down in turn 7.

With the Granite business still going strong I’m headed back to Salt Lake City for a few weeks to get back on snow, then it looks like a fun shot to ride Aspen for a day or 2, some more CO snow, and then the rest of the competition season. Canada could come into play at least twice more as well as Colorado and a set of rescheduled NorAm races TBD. Look for more upcoming pictures and blog posts, hopefully this car will go and a new Audi can be thrown in the mix to close out the season.