"What's with the name?"

So for those of you that stay involved in my life you've most likely heard me talk about my colorful friend Bittner, I'm only gonna use her last name because even though I don't think Bittner is too concerned about any type of privacy infringement I don't want any of you creepers trying to find her and beg her hand in marriage.  She's wild horse not to be tamed and a force not to be reckoned with!  Let me paint the picture of when I first came across Bittner.  It was the first weekend in December of '09' and the whole crew went to Lutsen Mountains for the weekend.

I <3 Lutsen.

Lutsen is by far my favorite place to snowboard in Minnesota.  It has the longest runs, the best apres ski stuff (even though Papa Charlie's is an evil overpriced monopoly), and like Duluth has an amazing view of Lake Superior.  But unlike Duluth when you're looking at the lake all you see is a few cabins and the rest is all nature at it's finest.  No ugly shipping industry or crusty Superior, WI on the other side.  When we go to Lusten it's usually a group effort and we pile as many to a car as you can and cram into the 2-for-1 priced condos like Jews in a closet during the Holocaust.
This particular weekend was especially special!  It was the opening weekend for Lusten and my buddies at Damage Boardshop were putting on their annual rail jam.  There was also a good line-up of music going on at Papa Charlie's for Saturday evening.  There was probably about 20 or 25 of us there solely to show some Damage love and to party our pants off which is what we always do when we're together, and by the end of this night most people didn't have any pants on, our shirts because they had puked on them.  I won't mention any names but the morning we left there were about 3 people that were in absolutely no condition to snowboard, let alone perform the basic functions of daily living.

this was before we even headed to the bar...

Back to my story though, Bittner...  I don't think I saw this girl one time during the day which is strange because she had on either a gold jacket or snowpants.  Not the kind of yellow gold that is a school color, no the gold that shimmers and makes you think of go-go girls and pimps with lots of rings on their fingers.  The first time I saw Bittner it was probably about 10°F and she was wearing a mini-skirt and knee high boots with fur.  Now I'm not one to judge (well yes I am), but not this night... I don't think we even bumped into each other at the bar.  No, Bittner and I came into acquaintance at about 2:30 in the morning after she sat in the hallway for 45 minutes with two of my other friends who were trying to get into the condo we were all staying in.  There was a reason why I didn't want them to be able to get in so I wasn't to stoked when they finally jimmied the lock and made their unwanted entrance.  But either way we all were a mess anyways.  Someone decided to throw in a few Jack's pizza's and I'm pretty sure all of us proceeded to pass out sitting up.  All I can remember is thinking to myself "who the hell is this girl? and where are her pants!"  Like a mother I just wanted to cover her legs up give her something warm to drink instead of the piss warm Hamm's she was nursing in between dozing off.  The one thing I couldn't help noticing though was how nice her legs were.  Sort of creepy I guess, but when a girl is judging another girl they obviously look for flaws.. not one little cellulite dimple on this chicks bottom (I later found out she is a marathon runner!) Either way I didn't get very much of an impression on this night at all because it was a short lived one ended by everyone marching one by one to a pass out spot and tipping over.  The next morning everyone awoke cloudy headed and squinty eyed.  It was absolutely freezing outside and I had to make my way back to the other condo where all my stuff was.  Just so happens Bittner did to, but she didn't know where she was and asked me if I could show her how to get back to the other resort.  Walking out into the frigid morning cold in a mini skirt I expected her to say something stupid like "holy shit it's cold."  To which I would have just chuckled and shook my head, but she didn't and she followed me back and I didn't see or hear from her again for a few weeks.  


Every time I saw this girl at Spirit all I could think is "who are you girl with the tight Holden rocker pant, bubbly laugh, shop tees and dirty mouth?"  If I had a dollar for every time Bittner said this one dirty word (that I won't mention because I'm sure at least one of my family members reads this thing) I would have a lot more $ than any of you people make in a week.  But finally one night we ended up chatting at Mt. Du Lac (and taking multiple shot skis together) I decided that this girl might not be so bad after all and I maybe like her.  The rest is history.  

The first time I realized Bittner is the shit was during the first annual PB & J weekend.  After a group of us made tentative plans to do some illegal camping on the hill to save some dough it ended up the only ones going we Barry and I.  Which was fine with me!  After we had a first successful night of camping and not getting eaten by wolves I noticed I had a missed call from Bittner.  Called her back and could tell she was in a car.  She never got the memo that everyone else in the group bailed and she was en route to Lutsen.  I was fine with this and so was Barry, we were actually pretty stoked because even though neither of us knew her very well, we both knew she was entertaining as hell.  After Bittner got there we did some shredding and some drinking and then it was time to set up a tent for her in our secret campsite.  With a HUGE lime green duffel bag and diaper bag sized Victoria's Secret tote we tried to be as discreet as we could sneaking up to our campsite, almost impossible.  After sundown we decided it would be fun to sneak into the hot tubs that paying guests had the privilege to use.  I didn't have a swim suit, but of course Bittner exclaimed "no problem I have 2 with!" Of course you do Bittner.  Both of her swimsuits sewn together barely make a pair of underwear for me, but it was just the three of us so I didn't care too much.  That weekend is one of my favorite weekends at Lutsen and we didn't go to the bar once, or pay for a room.  Fricken awesome!  The next day was filled with a slew of one liners.  It was also the first time I'd seen anyone eat a brick of cheddar cheese and wash it down with Hot Sex.  

post card quality shot of Bittner at our campsite!

So after returning from our weekend we all had to answer a lot of inquiries about whether or not Bittner and I pig roasted Barry, unfortunately no.  But ever since then this girl has been an awesome friend and there when I need her.  She's got lots of wisdom and witty remarks to follow just so she doesn't come off as too serious.  Bittner is a clear example as to why I shouldn't judge flashy looking books by their covers (even though I am right a lot of the time.)  This girl is always down to longboard the lake walk to Lucé for a bloody, run to Spirit for a quick shred session, or party down when the time comes.  She has an awesome sense of humor and could outwit almost anyone I know.

My last night in Duluth all of my favorite people came to wave me goodbye (and get me stupid drunk.)  Bittner left a rehearsal dinner early so that she wouldn't miss any of the shenanigans.  Towards the end of the night after way too many shots sitting in the dimly lit Carmody's pub I looked over at Bittner and said "Bittner give me your panties"

"WHY?!"

"Because I'm going to take them with me on my travels and write a blog about it and call it Bittner's dirty panties, and when I go to really special places your panties will be photographed there and make celebrity appearances in my blog, which will be called Bittner's dirty panties!"

"Okay let me at least go wash them with some hand soap in the bathroom before I give them to you!"

p.s. I have also washed them a few times since they've came into my possession.

...simple as that, and that among many other things is why I fucking love you Bittner.

Dublin, Ireland!

Made to Dublin safely and made sure to have a few Guinness's in the Swedish airport so we could compare them to the ones that we'll be drinking here!

Had an amazing day today touring the Guinness factory, checking out O'Connell Street, and sitting down for some Irish tapas.  I'll be writing a much larger post sometime in the future to tell you all about it...

you wouldn't believe the looks I got from a few gingers while posing for this photo.  

Easy on the starch...

To the untrained eye (or a f*@#ing idiot) this would appear to be a box of some type of edible substance.  It was October 4, 2010 aka National Cinnamon Bun day here in Sweden.  Yes they love their baked goods that much as to make a recognized holiday of it.  No one gets work off or anything sweet, but I indulged in one… okay maybe 3.  But they were the small shitty ones in a bag that we baked at home.  Which leads me back to my point.  My roommate told me that he was going to the grocery store to get some and later in the evening there would be cinnamon buns for all!  So as the night got later and later I was waiting for the aroma to waft into my room signaling the buns were done.  When it was 9:30 I started to get impatient and stomped into the kitchen muttering curses in reaction to the cinnamon buns I was promised not being available.  As I entered I immediately saw the bag sitting next to the stove, “oh alright at least the oven is pre-heating.” 

Well well well what’s this?  The first thought that jumped into my head was powdered sugar.  I have been keeping my eye out for the stuff and haven’t found it yet.  It makes sense, all the cinnamon buns I see in Sweden have some type of sugar on top or white little granules of something.  So I broke the tab on the side of the box and looked in.  Yes it’s white and powdery, that only reinforced the idea that the substance inside this box was sugar.  But just to make sure I lifted the box up to my noise (very briefly I might add) and there was no apparent smell that I could detect.  So again I thought to myself, “Well I guess I don’t really know what sugar smells like” but either way I have had a damn cold since I got here so my sniffer isn’t performing at full capacity anyway.    The brand “El Dorado” is also like a HyTop or Flavorite brand of food, shitty quality-cheap price.

So it kinda looks like sugar, kinda feels like sugar, smells like nothing.  Now for the final test…   touching my index finger to my tongue for some moisture I proceeded to stick my wet finger in the powdery white substance.  As I pulled it out and brought my finger towards my mouth I had a small realization.  This stuff doesn’t really look like sugar actually.  But my brain had already sent the message to my finger, and it was too late.  Once the stuff connected with my taste buds everything made perfect sense. 

THIS IS LAUNDRY DETERGENT!!!!  UGHHHHHHHHH.  Why didn’t I see it before?  The “COLOR”… guess I just wrote it off because so far my experience is that Swedes are not the best graphic designers.  I have also never seen this El Dorado brand anywhere beside the grocery aisle, but I suppose like any other large supplier that produce household items as well.  The way I’ve told this story so far seems like I sat in my kitchen for a good amount of time examining and contemplating, No.  This whole process took about 35 seconds.  This stuff left the worse taste in my mouth.  I immediately turned the sink on and started rinsing my mouth out, then grabbed a paper towel and started scrubbing my tongue.  Hearing all the commotion, my roommate came out to check what the hell was going on. 

The sight of the opened box, and me wiping my tongue off with a dish towel gave Bruce all the tools to put two and two together, because he started laughing at me hysterically.  This is pretty much how are conversation went after that:

Me: “WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU LEAVE LAUNDRY DETERGENT ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER?  YOU KNOW I CAN’T READ OF SPEAK SWEDISH”

Bruce: “Hahahahahahahaha”

Me:”I MEAN YOU LEFT IT SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO A BAG OF CINNAMON BUNS”

Bruce: “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha”

Me: “YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE, WHO USES POWDERED LAUNDRY DETERGENT, IT’S TWO THOUSAND AND F’ING TEN, I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THEY SOLD THIS IN STORES, I THOUGHT THEY JUST USED IT IN CORRECTIONAL PRISONS.”

Bruce: “HAHAHAHA, you hahaha actual hahaha ly ate laundry detergent.

Me: “SHUT UP BRUCE”

Then to top it off the jackass burnt the cinnamon buns…  I ate laundry detergent for nothing.