Look Out Shaun White

As some of you know, I have become quite the fan of snowboarding during our time here in Kazakhstan. Besides just being plain fun, it's also a great way to spend time with students who also enjoy it.

Last winter we had the chance to go snowboarding about six times. By the end of our season, which was cut short by a broken leg (not suffered while snowboarding, I might add) we had more or less managed to get the hang of things. I'm not saying that we were doing double backflips like Shaun White or anything - although I am now the owner of a pair of Shaun White Collection snowboarding socks, so I'm sure I'm only a day or two away from that - but we were able to ride down the mountain without nearly killing ourselves.

This small motion picture was shot on our second day of snowboarding last year. To give you a little background on things I need to tell you about our first day of snowboarding. We were in Virginia with Jen's family. Neither of us had ever been on a snowboard, but we decided to give it a try and even signed up for lessons. Our instructor attempted to teach us everything there is to know about snowboarding in about 30 minutes. Needless to say, we never made it out of the training area and were never managed to stay vertical on our boards for more than about five seconds. We eventually switched to skis, which Jen had some success with and I nearly killed myself and others with, but that's another story for another day.

After we moved to Kazakhstan, which gets a lot of snow in the winter, we decided that if we were going to survive the winter with any kind of joy we should learn to snowboard so we could at least enjoy the snow from time to time. Two of our friends, Alexander and Dima, helped us purchase snowboards. Then Alexander and Alexey took us to the mountain a few weeks later for our first snowboarding "lesson." 

The lesson went something like this ... 

"See that training area over there? You can't really learn anything there. I think we should go up to the top of the second lift," Alexander said.

"No, it's kind of flat up there. They might get stuck. Maybe just to the top of the first lift," Alexey said.

Jen and I look at each other with wide eyes. 

"Are you guys sure?"

"Yeah, we're sure," Alexey said. "It's how I learned."

So, we rode to the top of the first lift. Alexey gave us a few pointers on keeping our balance, and told us to practice at the top for a while and then try to make it down the mountain, and that he would come back and check on us from time to time. Then he zoomed off. Alexander had already left. Being total beginners, we spent the next two hours or so trying to make it down the mountain, something we can do now in about 10 minutes. From time to time we would see Alexey, and he would tell us to keep trying that it gets easier and then zoom off again.

He was right. We eventually got the hang of things, after many spills and more than a few sore muscles. So, feeling confident on our second trip up to the resort, I agreed to let Jen video me riding down the mountain so we could show our parents. I hadn't fallen in a while and was getting a little cocky and quit paying attention to what I was doing. As you will see, this was a big mistake. Hope you guys enjoy the video.

Grilling "In" in Kazakhstan

Hard at work grilling lunch.

For guys there is just something about cooking on an open flame. I'm sure it goes back to the days of the Joe Cave Dweller who went out and killed a dinosaur and then carried it back home and cooked it over a roaring fire, while his adoring wife looked on in amazement. That's one theory anyway.


Maybe it's just that guys like meat and fire. That could be it. Either way, one of the things I've missed most while we have lived in Kazakhstan is cooking meat over fire - commonly known as grilling unless you live in the North where the Yanks call it barbecuing. Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of finely grilled meat. This love men have for cooking meat over fire is global and the Kazakhs do a fine job. Shashlik, which is just meat of any kind grilled on a stick, is a delicious meal. 


But buying your grilled meat just isn't the same as getting out there and starting the fire and hearing the sizzle when you plop the meat down on the grill. So, I've had withdrawals. Because of our housing situation, grilling out isn't really an option for me.

The homemade grill.

So, a few weeks ago, I decided to grill in. Jennifer and I went to the market and purchased some high-quality horse-meat hot dogs. (Given the situation, mostly the cleaning that would follow, this is the best I could do on the meat.) Then I came home and went all McGyver by rigging up a grill. I took the grate from our oven and flipped it upside down on our stove. Then I cranked the gas all the way up on the stove so that they flames would reach the grate and tossed on some hot dogs.


In just a few minutes, Jennifer and I were sitting in front of the computer - that's how we watch things here in Kazakhstan - enjoying a hot dog and a college football game. It was like little America in here, and I had my "cooking-over-fire" fix.