POOR DECISIONS MAKE GOOD STORIES

So its me, two guys on mushrooms, and one girl with her dad's truck. We're in Whistler, and with a full day to kill, we decide to go up to the hot springs near Pemberton. It's about a 100km drive, of which roughly half is by logging road. I've been there numerous times in the summer, but I've never been in the winter. Without letting anyone know where we're going, we decide to go for a soak in the springs. Poor decision #1.

This winter hasn't seen a lot of snow, and I figured the constant traffic to the spring would have kept the logging road relatively clear and drivable. Once we arrived at the turnoff to the logging road portion we see that it's icy but completely clear of snow. The girl we were with was driving and she takes the corner at an above average speed (but not unreasonably fast, I would've probably done the same) and we loose all traction and slide right into the ditch. Just as we hop out of the truck to access the situation, a tractor drives up right behind us and without much conversation the driver of the tractor throws me a chain, we hook our truck to his forks, and just like that were out of the ditch in under three minutes.

At this point I realize the truck clearly doesn't have winter tires, and is a rear wheel drive. I figure the drive might take a little longer because we would have to drive more cautiously, but we would still be able to make it to the springs. We decide to continue on our way to the hot spring. Poor decision #2.

As we continue down the logging road, the snow on the ground gradually becomes deeper and deeper. About 20km in, we re-access the situation. We've gotten stuck twice already although it wasn't anything major, and the road has become less of a road and more of a bunch of powder with two tire tracks for us to drive in, kinda like this:

I, along with the other two guys, expressed that we were indifferent to continuing or turning back. The girl driving points out that if we turn back now then the last 70km would have been completely pointless. She hasn't had any previous experience driving on snow covered roads and despite feeling a little uncomfortable driving, she chooses to continue. Poor decision #3.

At around kilometer 41 we arrive at a steep hill and the truck clearly can't go any further. I recognized the area and I knew the springs were at most another kilometer away, but at this point the girl driving begins having an emotional breakdown. And so after about 2 hours of driving we decide to turn around and go home. Our first wise decision.

Unfortunately turning around is much easier said than done. The truck is stuck on a narrow and steep section of road with about 30cm of snow on the ground, and a drop off on one side. I wouldn't turn around here in the summer if I had to. And the icing on the cake? There is no cellphone reception here. Awesome.

First thing, I tell the girl that we need to back the car down to a less steep section of road, a maneuver that she is currently too emotional to accomplish, so I get behind the wheel and back the car down and few dozen metres. Next, we needed to clear enough snow off the road to be able to pull a 25 point turn. Of course we didn't bring shovels so we used two snowblades and a pair of snowshoes. This was the best idea I could come up with, the girl kept whining about how the car would get more stuck and that we would never be able to get out of here, along with a lot of other things that didn't help our situation out a whole lot. She was having a very tough time keeping a calm head. I ignored her and focused on getting the car turned around because I knew it once we were facing back the way we came, she would calm right down.

Once we cleared enough snow, I got behind the wheel and went for the turn. The truck turned about 45 degrees on the steep slope and as predicted, became more stuck. Now the girl had been pretty emotional up to this point, but when she could see that the truck is now more stuck than it was before, she really started to freak out. Once again... not helping our situation. I continued ignoring her. One of the guys on mushrooms also starts to freak out. Also not helping our situation. The two of them decide to walk up the hill to find a more open place to turn the car around. The hill they walk up is the reason we are trying to turn around in the first place. I tell them "Awesome! Good idea!"

They left and I finally had some time to think clearly without anybody whining down my throat. The truck doesn't have enough traction to drive out of this. It has to be dragged or pushed into place so that it could drive along the tracks created by other drivers. I definitely remember wishing a guy would drive by on his tractor again. Then the one guy who stayed with me came up with the most brilliant idea I've heard all day. He suggested rocking the truck back and forth and sliding the front around. At first I was a little skeptical, but after trying it quickly just the two of us we were able to move the front about 5 inches. Once the other two came back down to the truck and heard our plan, they calmed down and started helping out. By now the mood got a little brighter I was able to get these two shots of our progress:

Although these photos clearly show the predicament we were in, the definitely don't clearly describe the mood everyone was in about 30 minutes earlier.

Once the car was finally turned around, we made our way back home without another incident.

A MOMENT OF REFLECTION: A lot of shitty decisions were made that day. I will be much better equipped the next time I try going up there in the winter, and I will tell someone that I'm going up there before I head out. ....holyfuck.

BEEN UP TO NO GOOD

A couple days ago I had a pretty boring day that ended in me sneeking into a construction site with a few friends and climbing up a crane. It was terrifying for the following reasons:
1. It was insanely high up.
2. There was a cop parked 15 metres from the bottom of the crane with his lights on; who as it turns out was just checking the ID of a guy biking by.
3. There was another construction site across the street. In that construction site there was a guy in a safety vest staring at the top of the crane. He was on the phone talking to someone when we started climbing down.
We got out of that place pretty quick. I was able to take this before we left:

HOME BREW POTENCY TEST

So we started brewing our own beer recently, and a few nights ago I volunteered myself as the guinea pig to test out how alcoholic our beer turned out. We bottled our beer in 500ml plastic bottles, and after each one that I finished, Raphy would administer a few drunk tests and record the results (along with comments) in an excel sheet. The "simon score" was this test. Here is said excel sheet:

THINGS THAT BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

This epic dank blanket fort in our living room.

DINNERS

Now some people in the house have been surprised by how much I eat, and have asked me to take pictures of my dinners for a week. After much anticipation, here it is:

Day 1. Left over yams and potatoes, cucumber, beans, leftover lasagna, all sprinkled with cheese, with ketchup and sour cream.

Day 2: More leftover yams and potatoes, a sliced up red pepper, a fried hot dog, cooked egg white and an uncooked yolk on top, sprinkled with some kind of greens I found in the fridge.

Day 3: I was really hungry this day and ate most of the food before I remembered to take a photo. It started off being chicken, more of those leftover potatoes, way too much sauce of some kind, cooscoos?  maybe some kind of stir-fry? and of course cucumbers on the side to make me feel like I'm eating healthy.

Day 4: Ten perogies, a pack of noodles, sliced peppers and baby carrots, and a couple pieces of bread.

Day 5: Perogies, russian salad similar to potato salad (except WAAAAY better), a tomatoe, and buckwheat on the side. A true meal from the mother land.

Day 6: Hella mash potatoes, salad, beans on beans, and some carrots.

Day 7: Omelate with slices of hot dog, a bunch of pasta and sauce, and salad.

LIFE IN A HOUSE FULL OF JEWS

Let me explain my current living situation. I live in a house with eight other students on 28th and Granville. They are all friends I made at the Jewish summer camp that I have been attending for the last three years.

I've been procrastinating about writing this post for a while because of school, but here we go, this is my house:

This is my room! I share a room with Madi, plus we have a guest bed in our room. We also have a fireplace for some strange reason.

This is the master bedroom bathroom. There are no showers that aren't connected to rooms, so there are three people other than Me and Madi that also use this shower.

This is Rachelle's room. She is currently taking care of her dog Charlie while her parents are vacationing somewhere.

This is Finn's room. You can't see it but there is a hallway IN HIS ROOM that leads to a bathroom. There are a few things in this house that are strangely designed, that hallway is one of them.

Zach's room. He has samari swords on his wall. #swagferdayz

In the other double room we've got the honerable Isaac Kool and Brandon Awesome.

 

This is the view from the front door. Stairs go up to the upstairs bedrooms, to the left is the living room and to the right is the dinning room.

The living room!

The dinning room! The table you see is one of two that I built for the house. Both tables are 4ft by 8ft to accomodate the nine people living here plus the endless stream of visitors that mooch off of us. In the two weeks we have been in this house, he have had only one dinner with just the nine of us. Today we had seven extra people over for dinner. Three are friends of Leo's, one is Raphy's girlfriend who is over most of the time, and the other three are a group of Australian travellers that are staying with us for three days while they figure out where they're going next.

 

This is our kitchen plus a breakfast table. Our kitchen is gigantic. Its awesome.

Im not sure what to call this room. Its like a chill video gaming spot with a comfy couch. Also to the left is our second fridge because there is no way all of our food could possibly fit in one fridge.

This is our awesome garage! On the left at the top is all our bikes, they hang from the ceiling and are easily taken down with the ladder. Its awesome because they are out of the way but easily accessible at any time. In the middle there is a circle of couches and bean bags where people can get together and smoke hookah. There is also a hanging hammock seat type of thing in the circle of seats. To the left is our squat cage and bench press courtesy of summer camp! I also found four mirrored sliding doors for two of the bedroom closets and put them up in front of the workout equipment. It has basically everything I ever use at a gym. I basically have a gym in my garage. ALSO! There are official gymnastics rings that are attached to the ceiling which we work out on!! They are up in the photo and you can't see them but they hang directly in front of the workout equipment.

This is Leo's room. It has the smallest floor area out of all the rooms, but the tallest ceiling in the house. It was quickly decided that a loft bed was a definite necessity, so I made him one! His room has three stories, the first is the bed, the next is his study area, and the lowest level is a crawl space which is accessed through a trap door in the floor. This room went from being unwanted by everyone, to one of the more awesome rooms in the house.

Raphy's room is very orange, as you can see. He recently traded a bed frame for his textbooks so that he wouldn't have to sleep with his matress on the floor. Trouble is that the bedframe didn't come with cross sections to lay down so that your matress would be elevated. He is still sleeping on a matress on the floor except now a bedframe runs around the perimeter of his matress. I'm not sure what he is doing with his life.

A big thanks to the Fairmont Hot Springs ski hill for donating this wonderfull chairlift sign to our lovely home! We hung it in front of the main bathroom that visitors use.

Zach mentioned a few days ago how he came to the realization that we live in the best possible situation that students could possibly live in. The only way it could be better is if we lived in a tropical location or a 5 minute walk away from the beach. I strongly agree with what he said, this place is awesome. I am thankful that I made the decision to live here and I see myself staying here for the next few years to come.

JEWISH SUMMER CAMP

This will be my last summer here. Nothing shocks me or surprises me anymore, which is what made me fall in love with camp in the first place. I'm falling out of love.

That's not to say nothing fun has happened at all. So far I've bathed in 40 litres of cheese sauce, stolen three locks of hair (one from a dog,) shit in a bag, dyed my hair blue, and gotten completely naked and painted clothes onto myself.

ALSO! I've also recently found a new cliff jumping spot on the island. The drop is about 40-55 feet depending on tides. After more than a month of doing absolutely nothing remotely close to the things we did in Fairmont, the 50 foot drop into the ocean was amazing. When I landed in the water I looked up to see my friends jumping down and I remember having a feeling of uncontainable joy. I screamed and cheered as they wailed their way from the ledge into the ocean with me. I found it impossible to contain my excitement and I loved it. The rush lasted the whole day, and it made me feel happier about being at camp. It made me realize that being at camp is only going to be as fun as I make it. This was a huge thing for me to realize. From this point on until the end of camp I've made a commitment to myself to always actively seek out activities that will bring out contagious uncontainable joy in people.

Aside from camp life, I'm really looking forward to living in Vancouver starting in September. The seven of us here have been talking about it a lot recently and the general vibe is very positive. It's going to be awesome, get stoked.