Today we hit a major milestone here at Freeskier, well, I hit a major milestone. The official public beta release of Freeskier.TV, our new online streaming video content channel. The beta release only shows this years upcoming trailers, future releases will allow you to select from multiple channels of content like full length movies, exclusive behind the scenes freeskier video, athlete interviews, event coverage and audio interviews. I'd like to go into it more, but I've got to keep some things secret for now. We're planning on blowing everyone out of the water with this.

For now, head over to Freeskier to check out this year's newest movie trailers and a sneak peek at Freeskier.TV.

Please excuse our lack of internet presence today while MMP and all adjacent Dave Amirault based web properties are moved to a new server and IP address. If you're not a nerd, this is what that last sentence just meant to you.

MMP will be down for a portion of today to allow for the geeks that control my web server to move it to a newer, faster, more reliable server.

For those of you sending me e-mail, the mail server issue has been officially fixed and I'm now reliably getting email. Please bear with me today while the geeks do their thing to make MMP more reliable.

Easily one of the funniest things I've seen in a long, long time. I wanna roll with Bob Saget!

Update: Just got an interesting e-mail from Chris alerting me to this gem of a website... Bob Saget Is God.

Thanks to Brendo for the link.

Well, folks I just emerged from a behind the scenes nightmare. MMP, and the other sites that are hosted on my webserver almost vanished into the vast depths of cyberspace today. As many of you are aware, I'm really busy with my new job/life. I travel non stop, work long hours, and are usually busy after work doing miscellaneous things. Today, I noticed that my dave@ozskier.com account hasn't been getting e-mail for the past 3-4 weeks. Normally, this e-mail merges into my dave@freeskier.com address and it is all merged into one inbox to keep my e-mail more organized and simple. I cracked open my mail app and sorted my e-mail from the past month by address... No e-mail to the dave@ozskier.com box. That is odd, typically I get 10-20 e-mails a day to that address. 5 of which being spam, 10 being comments to approve for MMP and the other 5 being general BS from friends. Come to think of it, nobody has responded to any of the e-mails that I have been sending either. Splendid.

So, I figure there is something wrong with my webserver. I crack open the ol' address book and give the people a ring... Number disconnected. Hmm, odd. Maybe I have the number wrong. I head over to their website, the client login is taken down and all phone numbers and e-mails have been removed. Now I start to panic. Thankfully, several years ago I asked for the exact geographic location of my server so I would know where it sits. I then headed to google maps and found the location, the businesses in the building and found the company that owns my actual webserver. Time to get tricky on these mo-fo's.

I knew that the people that I was paying my web hosting were a 3rd party, and apparently they had skipped town and folded the business. Don't worry, they were still charging my credit card, ugh. And since my e-mail has been down for the past 3 weeks I was not getting ANY of the e-mails associated with the demise of the company. Thankfully the new people I'm hosting with apologized for the problem, recognized it as their fault, corrected the problem and as a thank you increased by monthly hosting to a ludicrous number and pretty much gave me unlimited bandwidth for MMP. The icing on the cake is that it is now $5 bucks cheaper per month. Sweet.

So, if you've been sending me e-mail to dave@ozskier.com for the past month, I didn't get your e-mail. The e-mail address is up and working now in a separate inbox just in case there is another problem. MMP is here to stay and won't be going anywhere... Just to be sure I did a full site backup this morning to my local computer to be super safe.

So, that's it. MMP was almost wiped out this morning thanks to some shiesty ass-hats who skipped town and screwed their customers. If you sent an e-mail over the past month, send it again. And I will go through my outbox and re-send the dozens of e-mails that apparently nobody got thanks to this freakin' mess. You know, they were nothing major just stuff about my trip, e-mails to family and other non Freeskier ski related stuff.

MMP is with a new host and safe for now. Needless to say, it was a very stressful morning.

So, this past weekend in Park City we had a casino night. Fake money natch, c'mon it was in Utah people. We were each given $250 in chips to start the night out and could play poker, blackjack or craps. At the end of the night, for every $100 in chips you had you could exchange them for a raffle ticket. There were some pretty sweet prizes, round trip plane tickets, a sweet pair of Atomic Super Cross skis, DNA jacket, free lodging in town, lift tickets for friends, etc.

During the course of the night, I somehow managed to parlay my initial $250 into $1200+ worth of funny money and ended up with 12 tickets for the raffle. I don't know crap about gambling, however I do know that in order to win big you have to gamble big. Thanks to some extremely lucky hands of blackjack with $400+ on the table I managed to get the dough. Now, if this was my money I'd be betting like a pussy, $5 and maybe the occasional $10 hand. However, when it isn't my money and there aren't any consequences like not being able to pay rent, I go balls to the wall.

So, long story short when it was time to select the raffle winners I ended up winning the $270+ dollar DNA Jacket and the sick ass pair of Atomic Super Cross skis with bindings. People there were pissed that I somehow managed to win all the sweet prizes and they were winning things like keychains and Park City t-shirts. Well, that's the breaks folks.

This past weekend I was fortunate to enjoy a trip to Park City, UT compliments of the folks at Ski Utah. It was an amazing weekend of good food, copious amounts of drinks, great company and of course water ramp training at the Salt Lake Olympic Center. I spent Saturday at the center hitting the jumps and hucking my meat.

I landed this trick 10/10 on the ramps. Now I just need to get the balls to throw it this winter. It shouldn't be a problem, seeing how here in Colorado we have a ton of powder and none of that east coast boiler-plate shit.

Robby B. was on the check in this past weekend and sent me this fantastic image. He was at some bodega-ass store in beantown and happened to snag a pic of Frito Lay's latest product... Nobby's. Only in Boston could you get a Nobby for 99c. Fantastic.

They may want to head back to the focus groups for the name of this new product.

Ligers, game two, tonight. We're 1-0. The Key Bank team got slayed last week, 6-2 and we're looking to keep the winning streak going. Wait a minute, is one victory a streak?

Last week I got a RBI and a run. Tonight, I'm predicting 3 runs and 47 RBI's. Ryan is going to be pitching, really looking forward to seeing him strike out the entire set. He's been talking up a big game. Let's see how he does under pressure.

Update: We lost 4.-3. Ryan rolled a great game and I got two RBI's, however the girls on our team just couldn't pull it together and they made a ton of errors and didn't run through the baselines. Not too smart to slow down on your way to first base when you could potentially be thrown out. UGH.

Freeskier's very own editor extraordinaire, Tom Winter, was recently married on the beach in sunny So-Cal... No, this isn't a picture from his ceremony. However, he did send me this photo for MMP.

Imagine this, you spend months if not years preparing for the biggest day of your life. You've planned everything, the catering, the music, the location, the travel schedule, etc. However, the one thing you didn't plan on were your wedding pictures being ruined by that beached whale in the background strutting around with her top off.

I think I just puked in my mouth.

Wow, way to be an ass.
This is an interesting sign that The Duke and I saw in Fort Collins on our mosey on back to Mike's humble abode. These people had a regular raised ranch home on a street and random horses walking around in their front yard. Sure, they had a fence but it wasn't like they had this enormous ranch. It was just a plain old house with a fenced in front yard, except they had horses galloping around. Random.

To top it all off they had this sign on the fence to deter you from touching their pet. Ok assholes, you don't just stick a random horse in your front yard and expect people to not come up and wonder what the hell is going on. It isn't like you live on a farm or ranch or anything.

If you're wondering where I am or why my phone isn't answering it is because it is dead. I went running with it this past weekend and got caught up in one of our fantastic 20 minute intense rainstorms. My phone got hosed and is now out of comission. Getting the treo activated would have taken an act of congress and a change to my plan since it is a dataphone so I'm just waiting for my replacement handset. It should be here tomorrow.

Always pay for the $5+ a month insurance on your phone, or put it into a plastic zip-loc bag when you go running.

In a completely unrelated topic, I'll be doing a major MMP update tonight detailing The Duke's visit to Colorado. Stay tuned. Been insanely busy in the past couple of days.

Little known fact, I miss home... Lots.
So, in order to rectify this situation I am coming home during the week of July 4th to visit everyone. Unfortunately, since it is the week of the 4th the airfare was retarded ($600+) to get the dates I wanted so I had to adjust my vacation dates a little. So, without further adieu here is my flight schedule...

Departing Colorado: Sunday, July 2nd 11:40 PM
Arriving in Boston: Monday, July 3rd 5:30 AM

Departing Boston: Monday, July 10th 9:40 PM
Arriving in Colorado: Monday, July 10th 11:59 PM

I wish I could have been in town for the weekend before the 4th of July, but it just didn't seem to be worth the $300 price difference for a day and a half back home. Since I know everyone checks MMP I would suggest you send me an e-mail or text message so we can make some plans to crush copious amounts of rocks.

See you soon.

Words coming soon...
All you need to know is that for the past two days, I have been working on the 2006 Women of Freeskiing issue for v9 of Freeskier Magazine. We've been hanging out with Jessica Soblowski, Ingrid Backstrom, Wendy Fisher, Grete Eliassen and Sarah Burke... The best women freeskiers on the planet.

On a 1-10 scale, my job is an 11.

This post is dedicated to putting the "P" back into "MMP".

This is what happens when you get girls with very open sexual preferences drunk. A couple weeks ago I took this photo around 3:30 am at a friend's party. Let's just say there was Jeagermeister and Red Bull involved.

Leave it to me to document this special occasion for all you loyal MMP viewers.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, these are bluetooth sunglasses. Tired of holding your phone while you have your sunglasses on? The people at Zeal have concocted these monstrosities so you can simply press a button on the frame of your glasses and talk away.

With these shades not only can you look like that pompous asshat Bono, you can be a total ignorant asshole and be talking on the phone while looking like him! Thanks Zeal!

It seems that I now have some sort of monthly Utah requirement. I've been there once a month for the past 4 months. This time I'll be headed back to Park City for a weekend of schmoozing with the good folks at Ski Utah. This fantastic weekend will allow me to do something I haven't done in a couple years... Water ramping at the Olympic center.

For those of you that don't remember, let me fill you in. Water ramping is off season training for ski jumping. You ski down an artificial slope, off of a jump and into a pool of water that they bubble with air so your impact is softer.

So, the last weekend of the month I'll be in Park City, getting my jump on. Pictures and video will be taken, so stay tuned.

As some of you may be aware, I've moved to a pretty sweet house for the summer right under what are called "The Flatirons". These are enormous mountains that have very sleek and rocky faces and rise up out of nowhere. They're pretty much the geological showcase of Boulder, and I live right under them... Seriously, this is the view from the end of my street. I'm only two houses from the end of the road. Under the mountain there is a gigantic state park, hiking & biking trails, rock climbing and mountain lions. It is a pretty sweet place to live. You can't really argue when you can wake up, look out your window and see a view like this.


Now that you know my address, feel free to send gifts, death threats, anthrax laced letters to government officials and other items of nonsense.

Normally, I disagree with everything that President Bush has to say. However, this has got to be one of the best headlines I've ever seen related to him. It is 100% true. If you're an immigrant and come to the United States you should learn the fucking language. I'm getting really god damn sick of hearing spanish everywhere I am going. Guess what, if I moved to Mexico I would learn Spanish so why the hell should immigrants not be expected to adopt our culture and assimilate into the population?!?!?!

And no, the United States government should not pay for immigrants to learn our language. We've got enough stuff to worry about and the budget is strapped as it is (thanks war in Iraq). If you come to this country, don't be looking for a handout.

This brings up my next point. If we're going to deport immigrants I say we design and create an immigrant cannon. This device would allow the United States to load in immigrants and shoot them out of a cannon back to their country of origin. How sweet would that be? Nobody would be jumping the border when they're running the risk of being FIRED OUT OF A CANNON!

Just a thought.

Working in the publications industry does have its advantages. Today, we got in the latest issue of Cigar Aficionado Magazine featuring Chuck Norris gracing the cover. I predict sales to go up 1,000,000% for this issue simply because Chuck will terrify people into buying the magazine. Newsstands will run out of this mag in a matter of seconds. They should have just raised the per issue price for this edition to $30.00, people would have paid.

I opened the magazine, however was too terrified to read the article in fear that it would somehow deliver a roundhouse kick to my face. Tomrrow I'm bringing a catchers mask into work so I can sit down and flip through the pages of this heroic and iconic article.

As poor college students you resort to odd ways to recoup some of your finances in ordr to pursue your vices. For the residents of North 205 we chose to create the "Deposit Closet". Essentially we transformed our common area storage closet into a safe haven for empty beercans. At a whopping 5 cents per can we found this to be a very profitable way to throw down a party once a month.

Every 4-6 weeks we'd haul the contents of the deposit closet out to Ruby the Subey and fill her up to the gills with moldy, smelly, rotten beer cans and head down to State Liquors to trade our empty rocks into delicious 30 packs of Busch Light.

I know what some of you are thinking, yes, we did make quite a bit of money doing this. On this particular trip we had to take two cars because the three of us were not going to fit into Ruby the Subey. We managed to fill three shopping carts over capacity and traded everything in for around $70.00. That is roughly 1,400 beercans traded in. Wow.

We never took the money and invested it into anything, bought food or paid our debts. We did what any kind hearted neighbor and college student would do. We bought as much beer as we could for $70 and thew down a party of epic proportions.

God bless you North 205.

Well, the Colorado ski season has officially come to a close with A-Basin turning the lifts off this past Sunday. I know what some of you are thinking...

Waah, waah, poor Dave. He can't go skiing anymore.

Well, you're right. Colorado is done for the season and in keeping with the time honored tradition, A-Basin had a pond skim to cap off the season. Check out the pics, that thing literally IS a pond. It is chest deep in the center and is this massive pond that forms near the summit of the mountain.

So, being the mental case that I am I decided to throw my hat into the ring and go across this bohemoth. Yeah, I made it.

Here it is folks, photographic evidence of the only thing that Rusty has ever cooked using a stove or convection oven... Jello shots. This picture dates back to a better time, senior year to be exact. Most of you MMP regulars will recognize the kitchen of the legendary North 205.

Make sure you have a look at the right hand of this photo, there are at least 10 boxes of empty jello boxes... That is a recipe for disaster folks. There is no doubt in my mind that this was yet another fantastic Tuesday night in North 205.

To this date, this is the only thing that Rusty has ever cooked on a stove. Nice work, fresh.

As some of you know, my cousin Ryan has a blog. I check it a few times a week to see what the hell is going on in his digital life. So, today I log in and notice that he has changed his "About Me" section.