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What's better than seeing Michael Jackson? Seeing a MJ coverband where Michael is a bit overweight and can't do the moon walk! Now fill the room with cougars and you've got a show! Mike still rips out thriller like nobody's business and has more costume changes than Madonna. If you know a better way to spend $20 please let me know.

We headed back to beautiful Breck for another New Years. On the way (kinda) we stopped off in Crested Butte for some backcountry riding. Our hut trip got canned because of avalanche danger, so we opted for day trips which worked out even better cause we didn't have to miss the Chargers cream the Broncos!


For most, it's hard to justify the effort of trekking several hours into the backcountry for 1-2 runs. But for us, well most of us, it was worth it! We got at least knee deep pow the whole way down and the terrain was awesome.








We also got in a few days or resort riding before drinking ourselves ridiculous for the New Years.





I guess this is how you recover after a night of boozing when you have 9 people in a 2 person hotel room and can't get in or out of the door.

As of December 2008 I am officially done! The ceremony was last Spring - that weekend is forever dubbed Spring Break 08 because of rampant drunkenness and shenanigans.

Back to Europe. Tough, I know. After some thought I've decided to follow the usual routine and post some pics as I go. I don't take as many pictures as I used to, but there are still a few worthy of sharing. Check 'em out here.

When you've got a 10 hour layover in NYC, why wouldn't you just stay a few nights? That was our solution. I can't say that we really did any site seeing, unless the inside of bars and clubs count...? I did manage to snag pictures in Central Park, in front of the cool Apple Store, and this was as close as we got to the Statue of Liberty (I call her the Big Green Bitch).

St. Maarten was a booze-induced blur, but here's what I remember. We had a kick ass room - Bly, Mike (aka Platoon), and myself - that bordered the pool and the beach, complete with a sick patio and AC that we kept blasting at all times. Ours was on the lowermost right in this picture. The others are taken from our patio.











We explored a number of beaches and towns in our beater Jeep which we of course off-roaded and turned into a pond when it rained. At Orient Beach (also known as Caribbean Wiakiki Beach) we rented a Hobie cat. Wind was really good, but the swells were a bit two rough to really get the boat keeled over. Platoon took a dip while trying to hang off the high side pontoon.











The view looking from the French side to the Dutch side was pretty cool so we parlayed our drinking for a few minutes to take this photo.





Since we mostly drank and laid on the beach, the only other photos I have are from diving. Here are some of the highlights from my first ever wreck diving.

Managed to get some more of our Costa pics from Nick and figured I'd add a few representative photos. The activities of the last three days are pretty much summed up by the following picture.





And of course a few other choice shots.








And for a bit of balance here's a pic on our surf excursion down to Marbella and Avellana.

What started out as horrible weather and even worse fishing got steadily better over the week. The first day we caught almost nothing, but by the end of the week we were flush with over 1000lbs of fish and shrimp. Some of the highlights include Kevin fishing with dollar bills. Nobody thought it'd work, but he caught the first 2 fish on our boat.








On the third day I hauled in a 55" halibut and a decent size silver salmon (my grandfather is holding my salmon). Pulling that bastard fish off the bottom was a chore and when I nearly had him up, he ran on me, pulling line all the way back down to the bottom -- hence my cursing.








We had a great take shrimping the next day bringing up 56lbs of tails. Of course we had to rip the heads off of all of them.





And we spotted a couple whales throughout the week.





All in all, not a bad week. But I am glad to be back to sleeping past 5AM.

A quick jaunt to the zoo offered an opportunity to hang out with some of the wild life. Can you guess which ones are domesticated?

You know those shirts that say something like: "I went to this awesome place and all I came back with was this stupid t-shirt." Well that's kind of how I felt this morning -- the last few days were a blur. I'm sure I had a ball, I just don't know that I can remember all of it. I'm just glad John managed to take some photos along the way to document the fact that we were actually there. Our resort was incredible; we had a two story villa that could have slept heaps of people. There were howler monkeys in the trees and iguanas everywhere. We also found out that racoons are apparently a tropical animal -- at least at this resort they are. And what villa is complete without a hot tub bathroom that looks like something straight out of Scarface.








I can't say I remember seeing a sunset in person over the 6 nights we were there, but John caught one.








The only place I actually got photos was underwater. The diving wasn't spectacular but we did see puffer fish, a white tip shark, an eel, and an octopus. The equipment was a bit shady and the dive master let some of us run our tanks way lower than I've ever seen before. We also made it out for a day of surfing a little ways down the coast. The jeep ride out was more exciting than the surf: we drove through flooded roads and over bridges that I'm sure were just a few 2x4s. All in all, a great time that now requires a vacation to recover.