Thursday, March 27, 2008

Secret Movies in Mtn Lab 1.5 + NZ Rally Clips

I had to spill some beans so you could enjoy some secret clips in the DC movie.


www.transworldsnowboarding.com/article.jsp?ID=1000057823
(blogger won´t let me add links to the page, so you´ll just have to copy-paste to read it)

Also did a little mini shred mission again by my parents house. This spot would be fun to ride with some pow and a snowmobile.
Peter Ström getting jibby with it.
It made me think about doing a snowboard movie
that´s completely shot in Sweden. That would be awesome. There are some many things to do.. I wonder who would fund it?

Here´s a mellow rail that I back lipped

On a sidenote, I had one of the best meals last night when me and the fam went out to eat. I took the more dull plate with raindeer filet while my mom went for the horse filet and OMG, it was so tasty. Top 3 cuts of meat ever. So don´t be afraid to order the horse.

And for those of you who didn´t watch the behind the NZ rally car behind the scenes clips on the DC site, here they are on youtube.

Original part


Behind the scenes


Hope all is well out there, feel free to comment once in a while. I know there are hundreds of readers out there everyday:)

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

More nice weather

Went to Vallsberget in Piteå for some x-treme shredding with sis and some friends. Even some Skellefteå people came up. Planned on eating at the Paltzeria, but it was closed.
Lift tickets are 9 euros, that´s cheap. It´s pretty weird here that you can ride the local mtn for 13$ a day (compare to a small hill in the US @ 40$), gas cost close to 9$/gallon (compare to just over 3$/gallon in the US) and then there´s the booze prices. A drink at a bar in the US is prolly around 5$, here count on 18$. Sweet. Oh and I just bought avocados here, they are cheaper than in San Diego... where they grow on trees, literally.





I haven´t been on alpine skiing since 1989 and cross country skiing since 1995. Today I strapped in and took a short trip with mom on the ice.



My friend Peter and I had a minishred today too. Some massive airs were documented. You could catch air three times per run.





Sunday, March 23, 2008

Easter Stuff

A few days ago I went to Kiruna with my dad when he got a taxi order at midnight. It´s 350km one way and there´s one city in between here and there, so pretty deserted. We had like 5 min to prepare for it too and since nothing is open (gas stations etc) we had to make food etc.
By 5 in the morning we were on our way back. We took a little detour by The Icehotel in Jukkasajarvi. It was -26 (-15 fahrenheit) and windy there, so cold.
Made it back to Luleå by 9 o´clock, the rest of the day was spent sleeping.

On Friday I went to Kåbdalis with some friends from Piteå. It was fun, good weather but really winter-ish. Not your normal slushy easter riding.
There was an ice fishing contest here as well, check em out in the background.

John borrowed a board for the day and this is what happened. Never seen that happen, ever.

Here´s my move of the day. I´m very proud of it.


Friday night turned into a going out night in Piteå. Saw some familiar faces, it was a good time.Moonshine and mixers.

Saturday was also going out night, ended up in Piteå again and it was a pleasant night. Had a burger at
Sune´s before walking back to my Piteå couch/home at Markus, Marie, Hemi and Siri.

For some reason I ended up on the Piteå party pic page. I only know one of the people in the pic, so I don´t really know how this happened. I do know that my hair looks horrible and that I was barely drunk, although the pic might indicate otherwise :)


Piteå city.

Hope everyone had a great easter.

Oh, here´s a video from a DC party at the Palms in Vegas. Not a shabby hotel room.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Skellefteå weekend.

It was a pleasant weekend in Skellefteå. Hockey game and booze on Saturday. Then some lagging and then some more hockey. Lots of friends are having babies now, happy for them. It´s just a little overwhelming when 50% of the 25-30 year olds have babies at the same time, maybe I was exaggerating a little, more like 45% :)

Drove back to Luleå last night, saw a huge semi on the side of the road.

Easter is coming up, I should fly back to Cali asap. Just need to book that ticket.
Wish things were different.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Long Tuesday


8.15am - Gothenburg.
Took a picture of this Benz at the Lanvetter airport in Gothenburg. The sticker on it says "Drive Swedish". Last I checked Mercedes was german, with a hint of Usa. Who knows, maybe they moved their offices to Sweden for tax reasons now when Sweden isn´t officially the country with the highest taxes (Denmark just past).
Had a mocha at Espresso house. Possibly the best mocha in the world. The day before I bought two within an hour. While sipping on the first one I was blown away by it´s tastyness so I had to walk back to the same place and buy a new one. Totally worth 12$.



11.10am - In Stockholm.
Having a burger at Max. Overlooking the stressed out people trying to check in their luggage with a Scandinavian Airlines computer.



1.10pm - In Umeå.
For some reason SAS thought it would be a great idea to delay my flight for two hours and cancel another flight to a city near where I was going. They were short on planes they said. So we made a stopover in Umeå for an hour. Very strange. Dropped off some people (who´s flight got cancelled and now got to car pool, or is it called plane pool?.. with our Luleå flight). Picked up some more passengers before heading to Luleå.
You´d think the airline would at least give you some soda or food for delaying you two hours on purpose, but no. Tea was still 3$ and you couldn´t get out of your seat for the entire flight. Oh and I got a middle seat since they changed the planes around at the last minute. With three hours of sleep the night before I couldn´t wait to drool on the person next to me.
Our plane had become a gypsy style Greyhound bus. The flight still cost half a students monthly salary and I got to spend half my day sitting in a plane with no food. I did take a bottled water from them without paying, it was funny.
The old Pierre would have freaked out over an incident like this, but over the years I´ve learned to put these hurdles behind me. When you fly over 100 times a year and rent a car every week and each time you get fined for heavy bags and the price of your rental car NEVER ends up being what the estimate was you just have to live with that you´re not going to make it to 40 if you worry about these things. Some wise person once said "Pick Your Battles".


4.30pm - Luleå.
On my way to pick up my sis and drive down south to watch the first play-off game SAIK have played in 27 years.



5.20pm - Piteå.
We were contemplating possibly eating in Piteå, but the smell from the plant was too gross.



8.10pm - Skellefteå.
At the arena.
Spirits were high and I had just eaten my second burger at Max for the day. Before making a quick stop to see 5 week old Ester Burman. She was adorable.

SAIK won the game 2-1 against the highest ranked team in the league. Six more possible games to go.

Made it back to Luleå around midnight. Couldn´t sleep (been happening a lot lately) I finally dozed off listening to Dan Brown´s "Deception Point".

--------------------------------------------------------------



The Max burger´s restaurant at terminal 4 in Stockholm was voted 3rd best place to eat out of all the airports in the world. Here´s why:

No wonder Mc Donalds have tried to have stores up where I grew up but always failed. I think they´ve tried like 10 times now.., there´s one left. Max just keeps expanding. The only thing they should do is to bring back the cardboard trays the burgers used to come with. And please keep the cutlery visible, that´s right, we eat our burgers (usually) with a knife and fork.



This was the lovely airplane door that got my palms dripping. The noise and air that game through when they started up the engines freaked me out. I was really close to asking them to let me off. But then again, why put all other passengers through that inconvenience just because I was scared of dying, I mean flying? Figured it would be a good view from 2000 meters when the door would blow out. Thankfully that didn´t happen.

Me and sis at the game. She was impressed with the energy at the arena. She´s only been to Luleå Hockey games and they are playing lousy at the moment. The whole team, everyone from the management to the fans are a mess.
It´s funny how a bunch of sweaty jocks can make a city come alive. I think it´s fascinating. I disliked hockey players (and still do to some extent) growing up cause they hated on us who skateboarded and acted like insecure wolfs with no alpha male.
But as long as there are people like Peter Forsberg and Niklas Lidström out there there´s hope for hockey.

What game is complete without some Lord Calvert in the WC?


The SAIK fans. They love hockey, they really do. I can´t think of anything that gets me half as exited as they are at this exact moment.



I´ll probably drive down to Umeå on Friday to watch the swedish snowboard championships. And then go see the third play-off game in Skelleftå on Saturday.
Right now I need to sleep and think about my future.

Norrlands Guld Beer Commercial

My friends David and Ted put together this commercial. It´s shot on the RED camera, not that you can really tell on a youtube clip with CG effects.

The thing he´s riding on it called a "spark" which translates to kick, like in a kick-bike. It´s a very common form of transportation in the north of Sweden, maybe Finland too?



Some pics I took from the shoot in the Vitbergs backen / White Mtn Ski Resort backcountry.


Thanksfully someone posted a clip on youtube of Staffan Ling trying to get down the mtn on a "kick" from the classic swedish movie "Sällskapsresan 2 - Snowroller". Fast forward 40 sec into the clip

Monday, March 10, 2008

Pics from this week, in random order.

This is a new film studio that´s being built in Stockholm. It´s a pretty impressive project. I also like the fact that that have tiny pieces of steel on the facade that they sprayed with horse urin to make it rust.


Here´s another really impressive building project. My friend Vincent´s two story apartment that he´s been working on for years. It´s almost done and it´s sick.
Check out his photography at: www.vincentskoglund.com


Here´s a dutch skater named Wieger Van Wageningen. He´s now a WESC activist and is spending some time in Sweden. Apparently he´s not skating for Plan B any more. Maybe Enjoi?


MUGG JÄVEL. Means, kind of: Fucking Toilet, Bloody Toilet, Satan´s Can... kind of


Sunset in Göteborg / Gothenburg.


This is the first model house at a new water housing development in Stockholm. Pretty cool project. Spendy houses..


Rainbow in Örebro, aka Pennybridge.


Slussen in Stockholm. Creepy subway/bus station. It´s also the "slut station" for some buses.


By the water in Old Town.


Lake in the northern part of Stockholm. It should probably be frozen this time a year, but it´s been warm for a while.

Doctors and ice hockey.

Went to see some friends in Gothenburg on Saturday with a quick 2 hour trip to Örebro to watch some skating at the Millencolin Open.
Here´s a good run from Mika Edin:
www.tacky.se/skateboard/video/vis_video.asp?id=74613


Sat night was fun too. A lot of Skellefteå people and mojitos. But on Friday we were over a dozen Skell-bor in the Stockholm club called "Morfar Ginko". Even three girls form my high school class showed up. Add me, David and Petter B we basically had a reunion.

Going to the doctor now here in Gbg. Just to check up on my tumor stuff, in case something didn´t go well.

I couldn´t upload any pics cause I didn´t bring a cable (why doesn´t cameras have wifi?).

Oh and like the museum rat I am I was so hyped to check out an exhibition of one of Sweden´s most skilled architects Gert Wingårdh. But the museum are closed on Mondays... lame.
Here´s some of his work:






My friend David Benedek had a contest this weekend in Garmisch, Germany. From the photos I´ve seen it looked like a successful event.

Pics from www.twsnow.com, photo credit Nick Hamilton


Transword has a photo gallery here:
http://www.transworldsnowboarding.com/gallery.jsp?ID=1000021341&imageNbr=1


Going to Skellefteå to watch SAIK play the first play off game of the season on Tuesday. That should be a good time.