thanks sterling!

if you get a 60 day visa before coming in, you can extend it to 6 months pretty easy. I did that for 6 months, left, then came back (and could do another 6 or infinite, but ill be moving on)

there's 3 of us total, which is nice. I get one side of the boat, captain and wife on the other. There's a friend of theirs coming when I leave and I guess he sleeps on the couch anyways (its nicer when on passage, not as low to the water with so much movement). So they said I can stay longer if I want. But I should wrap things up and get back to business. My partners have been great when I've been away in helping out making sure nothing goes to ****.

crewbay.com to find the boat. I feel pretty confident at due diligence. It's part of the job with staking, finding roommates, whatever. They actually didn't do any checks on me afaik. I'm sure to write fairly long emails in the first few exchanges so you can kind of get a feel for people. Actually doing the same with my next housing situation which will be in japan. Will likely send him money as a deposit sight unseen and feel fine about it. Most people are idiots who get themselves in bad situations. I at least significantly lower than chances of that happening. Look for social media presence, history, talk to references, etc. They'd been sailing indo for 4 years, living here for a combined 20 years, and captain just knows his **** and is the kind of guy who can fix anything. Felt fine joining up.

I pay $20 per day, which is a bit expensive imho, but whatever. Happy to help out and help support these guys to live their sailing dream. Grateful for being able to come aboard as well. We split fuel and food. Pretty tough to spend more than 1k/mo regardless, which was basically rent alone when living in bangkok.



yeah man its an awesome place, just first world niceness. hostels were insanely cheap as well. A bit of a mind**** since they use dollars and its like 30% more expensive, so when I see $20 for a meal and its not an amazing steakhouse or something, I'm really taken aback and can't get myself to pay that (even though its only $15 or whatever, still. nittttttt). Don't think id be able to live there. Getting tickets for skating down the street, eating food in the wrong place, drunken antics, jaywalking, whatever. I saw so many signs where the fine was just straight up $1000. It's $5000 fine if you have a lighter in some places, like wtf.

well, can't even do a full update, just no way I feel like writing that much to cover everything that's been happening. This trip does make me halfway consider better documenting some of my experiences in both words and photos. Just so much craziness. Could write a book just on the people we've met. This restaurant in kumai we walk into and the owner telling us that their 5 year old son only speaks english - yeah right, we smile politely. He comes out and the kid is fully on the spectrum, speaks pretty perfect english, won't respond to his parents in the local language, and is watching a bunch of weird horror movies. he shows me his favorite video on youtube:



Nobody in this town speaks english and has no idea what's going on. poor little psycho autistic bastard. not gonna be an easy life for him.

Basically every place we come to, a fisherman cruises up to gawk at the white people and we end up becoming their friend. An hour later we are sitting in their house with 15 of their relatives, or wading thru jungle mangroves as they take us to lakes filled with jellyfish, chainsmoking cigs with them on our boat... Yesterday we went into town to get some veggies and asked the first guy if he knew where we could get a moto-taxi. "Keys are in mine, just take this one!" he says with a smile as he walks out to go somewhere else with his friend. WTF? We take his bike for an hour and come back, spent $1.30 filling up his gas tank and he was stoked.

we've been doing lots of fun stuff almost everyday.



first dive we went on (I just snorkel, divesite was a 5m deep pier). The crew/captains/owners of the boat were super hyped to get this photo. Weird to me, I never thought much about what's called macro photography underwater, which is just getting really close to tiny ****. Have heard of these before, called nudibranches. These ones are having sex, so its a nudiporn shot. har har diver funnies. Derawan islands



One jellyfish lake we went to. Both were saltwater lakes isolated from the sea, so these jellyfish lost their ability to sting since they had no predators. Came to this lake twice and one other one, super unique places. Professional photographers are funny, my impression of the lake looks nothing like their photos, but they want nice backdrops so they trap a bunch of jellies, take em to the edge where there's pretty roots and coral, then take the pics there.



This doesn't do em justice either, but I haven't gotten around to uploading any gopro footy. Basically there's 4 types of jellyfish, these ones are called golden and are easiest to spot. Another clear jelly that scared the crap out of me because you don't see them until they are wrapped around your face, but they're cool. Box jellyfish which is insane to me since those are deadly anywhere else in the world. And some other weird one that chills upside down, tentacles up to do photosynthesis. They feel nice once I got over my fears, and sometimes you look around and there's 30 of em surrounding you. Surreal experience.



tons of turtles around at a lot of places we went to. Everytime I got in the water we'd see one. I used to be scared of these, but they the homies now. The lady of the boat had an amazing experience with one:

so she never ever ever ever wants to dive unless she has a camera. jellyfish lake and the sun isn't perfect for the shot and she's like fuuuuuuuuuck. all she wants is photos. Anyways they went diving with these turtles and there was a really old one there. She took a pic and flashed its eyes, it was all old and looked like the light hurt it so she was like sorrrryyyy and reached out and scratched its leg.
then the turtle just chilled out, all happy, and she started scratching its back. She put her camera down to just pick up more coral and scratch the turtles shell for like 10 minutes underwater. the turtle just loved it.
she said it was so amazing, came up and she was just crying
chilling with a giant ass old turtle and scratching its back while it loved you and wanted to snuggle. hot damn nature, let's be friends.



I'm kinda pissed I didn't get a pic on this. its weird being with pro photo people - like you know they could take the sickkkest photos of you, but you also know that they absolutely despise the selfie culture insta ducklips type stuff - and I live with them so don't want to come off as too much of a basic insta hoe.

setting sail tomorrow for a 4-5 day passage, and then back to reality soon thereafter. oh well, really would like to play some poker, surf, and just made more plans for the next 6 months that should be fun.

Sailing is cool. I've finally past the point of being a bit bummed on the occasional monotony of it and learned to appreciate it for what it is. I never really get bored and haven't at all on this trip either, but I feel less of a sense for the need to be productive. It's completely okay if I plan 6 hours of my day around laying in the sun and then watching the sunset turn into the stars. stop trying to force things and just let things unfold. patience is a big thing for me to learn I guess



Maratua Island. Turtles come here to sleep all day, so anytime I snorkel over to the beach I pass over em just chillin out trying to get some zzz's

Finished up my time in Indonesia. Skated a lot, partied once in awhile, read a bunch of books. I learned a bunch of new stuff skating which I'm hyped on, but was pretty mellow overall the last few months.

In tokyo now, and will be living in Japan for the next 5 months or so until the snow is gone. Nice to be in the first world again - sometimes. I get pissed when everyone waits for the light to change before crossing the street (at like midnight to cross a 1 lane alley with zero cars in sight). Stuff costs real money, which I'm doing okay with, but still freaks me out a bit. Random people tell me not to skateboard - not cops or security guard, but random ass mister miyagi's come up to me and cross their arms telling me to stop skating, trying to take a bite out of crime. Most of the expats I've run into around here seem like absolute losers who just fit in well to this culture where everyone is polite and introverted anyways. I guess that's similar to lots of asia, just seen it more here thus far than anywhere else. Food is great everywhere so far, but haven't gotten too experimental.

Seems weird not being in a relationship for so long now, but I think it will be a healthy break for me. I doubt I'll be getting much action in northern japan, where I'd expect mostly aussies on holiday and the only potential being broke snow-bum expats or the occasional japanese girl there with family. Neither scenario seems too appealing. It's a tough mix in my head - do you want to be with a really cool chick that is into all the things you are? You have more in common and share more experiences that way, but the stuff I'm into has like zero femininity, so you end up losing a lot of that side of things.

Super girly feminine chicks just make my brain explode though, with the constant photos, fashion, materialism, and lack of depth. Met a really cool skater chick in Bali a few months ago, but realized within hours there was no way I could actually be with her. Her knees are all torn up from skating, her mind is about at the same level as my 16 year old skateboard homies who just wanna smoke weed all day and gossip about ****, and she's just too much of a dude for there to be any sexual attraction. But we get along super well and do the same things together. Not sure where the middle ground is that I'm trying to find.

Anyways I'm just gonna focus on snowboarding, poker, and reading for awhile.

Once you get into these first world Asian countries where everything is super comfortable, you get a higher influx of these losers who make it their long-term home (because it's so comfortable and they don't need to worry about growing from that point).

Maybe a break at the moment is good, just to re-collect and start formulating for the new year. A self-imposed female moratorium of sorts. Too easy to get thrown off one's horse of stability chasing dresses and tight heinies.

I definitely feel you on the "wondering what the perfect middle ground is," because we've foregone traditional lifestyles which most people only go about for a short time, so it's not always the easiest to meet someone with motivation, intelligence, and other basic attributes you might otherwise meet in traditional lifestyle environments/settings.

On the bright side, when Costanza gave up sex for a bit, he became fluent in Portuguese, so you might come out of this a literary savant. Enjoy Japan and definitely interested to chat about it soon!

Best,

Big Body

That's funny I had the opposite happen when I went to Japan. I was expecting to see a lot of otaku-type dudes and seemed to run into a lot of tough military guys. I also realized there's no way I could live there for any extended period of time. People's fronts are so massive you can just feel the social repression; this is not a place where happy people live. I used to have a massive hard-on for Japan cuz I love all their excentricities and anime and obv japanese girls make my weener feel funny, so that was sort of a slap in the face. I still think its an amazing place for a relatively short stay. Hope you have a blast mate, make the best of it.

btw, around where are you staying in Tokyo?

Isnt Bali expense to live for expat losers?

Normal culture shock. The more unique/ different the foreign culture is to your personality and own culture, the longer and more challenging culture shock becomes. Asian culture and customs are very weird compared to the west.

Not to derail too much but I'd bet an overwhelmingly large percentage of single expats are weirdos/ life losers. Asian countries just tend to attract the most extreme ones.

It's also important to keep age in mind. For example, most 'normal' expats eventually assimilate into whatever foreign culture they've chosen or they go home. At least to the degree that they don't go looking for expat meet ups or whatever bs.

It's going to be next to impossible to find a partner/ companion that's 30+ years old and somewhat normal/ balanced that has taken a similar path to yours.

makes a lot of sense wrt the comfort factor attracting different types of people in asian cities. When the 'travel' issue comes up in conversation and I mention latin america, most expats and locals in asia are like 'oh wowww, I want to go to brazil, is it safe?'. In general my answer is that they'd get eaten alive, but its plenty safe for someone with a bit more awareness.

I haven't been on much of a heinie chase for the last couple years it seems. Meet a girl I like and date them has been my MO. I actually hope to come out of this moratorium with renewed vigor for slaying indiscriminately!!

yo man, I'm in Asakusa - which I thought was a bit too mellow at first but then went to the other side of the metro. It's fairly crackin around here, with big markets setup and a bunch of stuff to do. Definitely re-examining some parts of society after being here. I feel bad because they seem like such good people, but there is that heavy sense of repression as well. Most people seem like hiso thai's that are just bored, jaded, polite, introverted, and overworked. 50+ people on the metro just staring into their phone. Probably great for me to be here before I go back west - makes me miss latin america that much more.

Went skating the other day and another example of it - nobody over like 15 years old at the skatepark, I guess they are grown up and working 80 hours a week already. The kids who were there were treating it like intense soccer practice and training for the olympics. Not much aimless creativity and fun, but more practicing the same line or tricks over and over and over while their dad films them on a camera phone. Gosh how skateboarding has changed - wreaking havoc and running from the cops used to be half the fun.

expensive? no, bali is dirt cheap, and attracts pretty much an opposite crowd. I guess me saying losers is a bit extreme, I'm an introverted dork half the time as well - but bali is like the cool kids, hipsters, instagram influencers for the most part. Then there's surflife bros and super yoga hippys on the other extremes, plus lots of different categories of tourists. I think its just such a popular place that you can find a bit of everything there. Bali still such an amazing place to me

yeah, agree with this as well. So many weird customs here that just trip me out. lots of places you go to eat the people don't even talk to you, just point at a screen and you order from there and give them receipt. You don't hand them money to pay, but place it in a tray and they take it from there. No drinking, eating, or smoking while you walk. I normally walk around and smile and strike up the occasional conversation, get nods or flirty looks -- but people here avoid eye contact for the most part.

As far as finding a 30+ partner with similar lifestyle, sooooo rare. The ones I meet are like struggling artists or trying to sell bamboo straws online or teaching english or some other variety of busto

I'm in a sharehouse of ex-pats now that is: 3 indian guys who work, some type of asian girl that doesn't talk, an indonesian lady who works at a hotel and has been here for 12 years, and a french guy who keeps to himself and does delivery for uber-eats. Pretty sure there's 2 others as well that I've just never seen come out of their room. Just a very mellow group from what I'd expect out of an ex-pat share house in any other city.

sounds like I'm complaining but I really love visiting here so far and have been out cruising around the city everyday. Feels like I'm just listing out all the crap that exemplifies what I don't like about it here, but its pretty awesome to visit. Future posts will be hucking myself off cliffs into neck deep powder, ahhhh can't wait to snowboard again!

my camera phone is all blurry now bc I tilt-smashed it. so no jappy lady or random tokyo pics

and your sole source of income is grinding MTTs?

haven't played MTTs much in years, mostly just study these days.

Learned backflips again snowboarding! haha its been 15 years since I've tried that, they were even easier than I remembered. Want to get frontside and backside rodeo 5s (backflip 180 basically) next. It's weird snowboarding again, last time I rode was 3 years ago for 1 day, and before that was 2009 for a couple days. Some park tricks feel off, but mostly snowboarding is great because its so easy to be fairly good riding at least. Had to get some new gopro stuff, and plan on filming a bit. Went out one day but got ****ty angles, so gonna try mounting it to my head and see if that's any better. Made a quick edit of some of the ocean stuff I was doing previously




Life is nice here, a bit expensive setup costs but apart from food and rent, I don't spend a dime

last day of the season was yesterday for me. got in 66 days of riding and 684 chairlifts taken. haha cool they keep stats. Have a bit of footage and pics I'll share once I go thru editing more. The last month was just spent in the park, and I'm pretty happy with the progress I made in such a poorly made/maintained park. Finally got rodeos down solid, although not on anything huge. No 720s either which was a goal, but oh well.

https://gyazo.com/5cc662c20477b04966fa61fccc277801

bs540 melon

Strapped on the gopro and helmet for a few days at end of season to get some park footy. Put together a little edit of it. I feel very lacking in skills, balls, and just overall ability, but gotta remind myself this was my first time riding since 2008/2009 season, this is the worst maintained park ever, and not too many people around to push me to huck harder. Anyways I'm stoked, and seriously considering snowboard season next year as well.

Haven't really skated at all this year. Mini ramp a few times in japan, rode down the street in california and it feels so hard. I'm realizing that skating is slowing down for me as I get older, I haven't even been streetskating or filming in years.

I'm in mexico now. Want to stay for 6 months maybe and no real clue what city to pick or even begin with. Tijuana is tempting, lots of friends in the area I haven't seen in years, the city is great in so many ways. Will see what happens, lately just been staying at moms house in huntington beach doing absolutely nothing and it's great. No idea why but I've been sleeping like 10-12 hours every night for weeks. Nice not to sleep on damn japanese fake floor beds maybe! And I've been taking liberal advantage of the whole weed delivery thing as well. Prices have dropped more than 50% since I lived here for similar quality, and top shelf flowers seem to have infinite more selection although I'm both a nit and a lightweight so just sticking with whatever gets me high for now

so, been crazy confused and lost recently about what to do/where to go. Currently in Mexico just staring at google maps for days on end. Surf life down here might need to get put on hold, as I didn't realize rainy season just started and most spots have some pretty torrential downpours for the next few months. ahhh surfing is so gay, gotta be in the perfect spot to be able to do it. Large-ish city where I can live in a nice area and be able to walk to the beach easy isn't the easiest thing to find. God bali is so nutted, really just want to run back there but don't want to turn my back on latin america.

if any surfers have tips for warm water, decent city, easy to get to the breaks I'm all ears. Likely will just go to a major mexican city until I figure out whats next.

threadsaver? haha



natural onsen in tokachidake, hokkaido, japan. Water was insaaaanely hot.

Excited to be back in a normal timezone and be able to play poker anytime, so at least there's that!

Sooo I am mexican again. feels good. Visited rosarito for a week and a half which was great to see old friends and connect with some of my stable partners who I had basically never met before. First day there was sunday, I grinded sats for like an hour, was OI, and my old roommate was single tabling from his phone and down to go 'get lunch'. 10 hours later I'm at a random bar in mexico doing coke in the bathroom. ohhhh mexico.

Living in 2nd biggest city here, Guadalajara. Beach stuff just wasn't working out for me, although I do need to take a few trips and explore what might be possible in the future.

Guadalajara is great, overall its just nice to be in a country where I speak the language again, after 2 years in asia and awhile in brazil where I struggle. Originally I thought the skate scene here would be amazing, and while there are a lot of skateparks, a lot of em are just weirdly designed crap under a bridge, and others are 30 mins+ to get to. Regardless I've been skating a lot, dating a lot, and working a ton for some reason.

Trading dat corn has been treating me very nicely, although it really is something you need to stay on top of. I'm learning a ton more about how to put different stats/patterns/and hidden volume anomalies together to really give me a lot of confidence in trades rather than just pointing to 2-3 stats that say oversold and longing there randomly (which honestly ain't that bad either, just prevents you from seeing a lot more of the potential that's out there and ur gonna miss a ton of spots.)

Back in a normal timezone seems like both a blessing and a curse. We've been working super hard with the stable in identifying the best games for 2019 poker environment, and as a result of that are playing across a ton of different sites these days. So 'peak' timezone barely means anything now, as there's really only a 4-5 hour period of the day where I can't reg MTTs. Any other time and I play baby enough stakes where I can always find plenty of action. Been crushing it this year with winrates almost squeaking into double digits. Feels good to still 'have it' after not playing much the last couple years, but I have been studying a ton and reviewing mass amounts of hands from students, so makes sense that the game wouldn't pass me by or anything.

I found a nice apartment here after a few days of searching around. Almost moved into a really rad house with a couple other locals for like $350/mo, but he pulled out and said it wouldn't be available until the end of the month so I found another older penthouse in a great spot. Older mexican guy I messaged off airbnb asking for a discount, we did it off-site and he didn't even ask for security deposit. Seems like a really chill dude and said I can stay as long as I want. Paying $500 which a couple friends said was too much but I'm not even gonna argue with it, I'm happy.



big living room, nothing special. Might get a desk and better chair since I have tons of space. Big ol tree outside the panorama window and I like watching the birdies frolic


Have a patio from my bedroom too on the left hand side, nobody can see my wiener when I'm naked, and the pointy church looking thing back there is a church I think, but another big place with bars and restos and a skatespot right behind it.

Have a nice modern kitchen with a 6 burner stove and big oven which was a big selling point. Shower is small and fits 2 very uncomfortably which is a minus.

Food here has been fairly incredible. Basic mexican stuff I guess but I'm enjoying it and lived off tacos for a couple weeks before I found my place. Found an amazing bar/brewery that has a bunch of locations and everything is $1. Tacos, tostadas, sandwiches, beers, shots. It's a bit loud but can still talk. Go-to date spot.

Got a fauxhawk, so bummed on that ****ing barber. that is not a fade, now I look like a flamboyant latino football player.

Rainy season here is real, holy **** like an hour a day the storms are so intense. We got 2 feet of hail last week randomly - I was drunk at a house party and didn't notice until USA friends told me it was even on the news. Last night we got trapped inside a bar with all electricity out and had to shut the big metal doors the wind was so bad


this is behind my house, and lots of other streets blocked off from giant trees falling the same. so gnarly.

Feels a bit too much like normal life here and great city that I don't think I'm taking enough advantage of. Went to a parkour class today ($3 lol), parkour is gay as **** but I want to learn all the flips. Got way better at both front and backflips today, but the other stuff was just dumb. Gonna try a straight up acrobatics class next week which seems more refined to what I'm looking for. That's all for now folks! Prob not many updates to come for awhile unless people are interested in guadalajara. Come winter I'll likely be moving somewhere cold to snowboard again. Canada or Austria high on the list.

Trading corn---are you trading corn futures?

Guadalajara is a sweet spot--enjoy. Also, curious if you see any evidence of the drug cartels. My wife has become spooked of Mexico due to the headline news in the States.

love me some corn, but no its just nerd crypto jargon for bitcoin, the 'top crop' king of cryptocurrencies.

US headline news is more slanted and politically driven than most would imagine. I'd like some drugs, but no haven't seen a hint of anything cartel related.

Another thing I didn't address yet is women. GDL has notoriety for being the best looking girls in mexico, with more european influence and not as much indigenous. Yeah, sure, but its no colombia or even brazil. Girls here been soooo flaky lately, my god its lame. Have had some action but my first one I was seeing didn't want to get a summer job so went back home during uni break, another I ask "so tomorrow at 5pm works out for you or better for the weekend?" She responds 'yes, see you there', and then tells me the next day she thought that I meant Saturday. Confirm we will go out the next day, and then they have work, or a friend coming into town they forgot about until last minute, blah blah ****ing latin america. Invited a girl to some theater show orchestra thing because she told me she was into that music, then she says she had to pay some bill and she's embarrassed if I pay for her. Tickets are $6. It has been nice that every girl immediately shares all expenses, but I really just don't care about paying when every date is less than $20 for food, drinks, etc. Step your game up ladies!

I did go on a funny date where a girl asked if I wanted to go adopt a puppy with her. Snap call



going to that theater thing with her now since other girl just stopped responding. My goal is to not just scoop up a girlfriend my first tinder date, and actually spend a month or two exploring options.

I've found girls in CDMX to be a lot less flaky than Colombians. It's probably just the type of girl I go after. Usually into yoga/healthy living, with a post-grad degree and well-traveled. I think those types are far more likely to be a bit more "westernized" in the sense that they respect other people's time. If you date the more traditional girls who might only earn $5-10 for a full day's work then they're probably super flaky anywhere you go in LatAm.

You're spot on in regards to looks. Mexico is probably middle of the road as far as looks go in LatAm, so even a place notorious for cute Mexicans still won't hold a candle to places like Colombia. I've found that you have a much better shot with the highest tier girls on Tinder here in Mexico than in Colombia though. For that reason I prefer the girls in Mexico since I don't really go out to drink much and mostly do online dating.

Regarding safety: I've been here for a little over a year and been to 11 states and never felt the least bit threatened or like I was near narco activity. I visited Michoacán which is one of the states more well known for narco activity and didn't see anything. The only thing is occasionally you'll see a couple Hummers or super nice sports cars and think "yah, those are probably narcos". Really though, activity seems to be concentrated in certain areas, usually at entry or exit points in the country (i.e. Lázaro Cárdenas or Culiacán on the Pacific Coast or cities along the USA border). You'll be fine in most of the big cities and tourist areas if you keep your noise clean and have street smarts.

Thx--I've never had trouble anywhere in Mexico or elsewhere & assumed it was overhyped like so much of everything on the "news". Perception of danger is such a random thing with no basis in reality---Nevertheless, I've got a snowballs chance in hell of convincing her to go to back to Mexico. Whatever, the Big Island is a solid backup plan.

also--lol corn. Nice.

I understand why your wife would be spooked ChickenNuts. News have plenty to do with it in my case as well, and before my trip I also researched online and found sources like this that consider the country to be high risk. Proceeded with my trip anyway and didn't encounter too many problems. Not sure if that has anything to do with me being a man, wouldn't how it would be for a solo female traveler.

So, a bunch of life stuff happened, as it tends to do especially when you get older. Holy **** its been a hell of a ride the last year or so. Anyways that's the reason for not posting in forever.

Ended up dating the adopt a puppy girl, lol exactly what I said I did not want to do. Oh well, had a good time. This is us going to Tequila, Mexico on a really nice daytrip to do some drugs and walk around. Actually went here with Fossilkid a few months earlier, but we toured the tequila factories which was also rad.



The dog was awesome and prob the reason I stayed in that relationship, her name is maya and I taught her how to swim and took her on a lot of hikes.





Took this pic right after that theater show that I last posted about (well, girl took pic. she's social media/photographer something), philharmonic orchestra and was a really nice time. Downtown Guadalajara is pretty cool, I don't go at night very often but ended up hanging out there a lot in the daytime, as I was taking acrobatics lessons to prep for snowboard season.




Thanksgiving with my new family/brothers. Kid in the middle I was his mentor growing up and we've fallen out of touch. He's doing great now which makes me proud, 3rd year med student going into orthopedic surgery, and he really knows his ****. I try to hang out with him a lot when not studying. I also miss being in asia where I'm the tallest dude in the room, haha



Mostly been doing this, my first time living in the USA since black friday, whoa! Still close enough to mexico to hop down there when needed. Things are a pretty up in the air at the moment, gotta wait till corona dies down until I can get a real plan going for travel and where I want to be. Most likely Lake Tahoe/Northern California for another month as its getting beautiful up here, I bought a mountain bike and fishing pole




When all the resorts shut down I just hiked the backyard a bunch, made another video of that but don't want to saturate the thread with too much snowboard stuff unless people are interested. When the fresh snow was gone, it was just literal backyard sessions where I made a few rails and jumps. Really was expecting so much more progression this season, which is the reason I was going to acrobatics classes. Just started doing some flips and 540s again, then BOOM, season over. oh well.



Been a ghost town up here mostly which I don't mind. Riding a bike to the lake is maybe 20 minutes, and lots of cool trails all around.



And that's mostly all caught up with what's been going on with me, apart from work/poker/trading which is running about at EV I guess.

Been messing with the gopro a decent amount lately. Summertime now pretty much officially as we got our last bit of snow last weekend and no more is expected. This was my backyard not too long ago:



So much fresh powder, already missing that. Had to drive to higher elevation to snag a bit more snow, but was worth it to jump around after a few months of resorts being closed:



It was like 70 degrees that day, really wish I would have gone on a colder day/colder snow/faster = MORE AIR! But was content to get a couple small jumps in.

I bought a mountain bike as I mentioned in the last post, and found a really cool trail a few minutes from the house. Had to drive to another part of the lake today to go to the dentist, so hit up the skatepark there as well. I should film more skating, it just all feels so standard to me with not much new stuff or progression. Anyways, there's a bike park next to the skatepark as well, so tried that out also. Mountain biking is so terrifying - ANYONE you talk to who's been doing it for awhile has shattered their kneecaps, broken arms, legs, collarbones, and worse. Honestly I don't even want to try and get good, but it's been fun learning and staying active:



Taking off from here shortly and will be back in the 3rd world soon enough. Likely Nicaragua to surf/fish/spearfish for a month with my uncle, then mexico to hang out until Asia opens back up

finally setting in that the world will never be the same, and the freedoms I've had to travel around the globe for the last decade have all but come to an end. blows. I skipped this last snowboard season since so many things were up in the air - and now a new problem has become finding housing. Rich people with vacation homes are generally thriving even harder economically since covid hit - and while I've also benefitted greatly from that - it also means that there's not much housing available in resort towns anymore since the well to-do owners have moved out of the city since they can work from home. Gotta figure out what I'm doing come winter...

So in the last year I went down to guadalajara, partied a lot and had some bad relationships, lol. It's been over a year and feels like I've had too many pictures/don't want to go thru em all to find a couple good ones, but I've been trying to actively film a bit more with the gopro so will drop a couple edits:

Made a little skate video


Went to Yucatan with one of the girls and made a video of cenotes and touristy crap.


Then Mexico did some weird lockdown stuff and I GTFOutta there to Brazil, where a few friends were all gonna be chilling for awhile as well. Spent 6 months, met up with one of the students from our stable which was great, and surfed alot. Also got fat for the first time in my life! My goal was 140 and I got to just under 150, but was feeling bloated and just not great, so back to normal now. I love Brazil so much, and am gonna be buying a place there if the world doesn't go to ****. Florianopolis is super fun, where I spent most of this last trip, but it has too many obstacles for long term living as well - so Rio de Janiero is my go-to spot in brazil.

Went skydiving for my first time, a couple times. Super rad and worth it but loses quite a bit of the extreme novelty shock appeal after the first time.


California for a bit afterwards which wasn't too bad, just a bit weird staying with my friends family there and being limited in things to do.

Now I'm in Mazatlan, Mexico - so this is the largest city in Mexico that's on the beach, has waves, and no wetsuit needed. Trying to keep it going with this surf life thing and living across the street from a nice little break. Travel stuff is a bit insane and you need to show vaccine card to walk into 7-11, grocery stores, taco shops, hotels, etc.. So I photoshopped a card for myself but you could literally just google 'vaccine card' and show em the first image that pops up and they wave you through. Feeling quite lost in life and wish the world was open, but overall am super damn fortunate to have zero struggles beyond that.

https://youtu.be/N45cMFOQeos

if the yucatan/playa del carmen/tulum video link doesn't work can maybe click directly to it - something about copyright content

Really hope you're wrong on this one (as wrong as my buddy Mark prediction about rona back at the start) cuz this was my time to start travelling and then baam. I've been predicting (hoping) this **** will end "in the next few months" but now I'm accepting that it might take longer (next few years maybe), just hope it does eventually.

That said, it seems like you were able to do a bunch of travel anyway during the pandemic so I guess not all hope is lost!

I bet things will go back to normal. But it might take a while.

I also planned to be driving around the world right now.