Going to Hood next week. Hella hyped. It’s my home mountain and been too long since I shredded that glacier.

Here’s a few photos from a couple summers ago on the volcano. There’ll be more where this came from starting August 7th.

Zac Marben peddling his wares like a true gypsy.

Kevin Pearce blasting one at the Abominable Snow Jam.

Unknown-rider-induced face shot.

Pat Milberry turning heads.

Earlier this summer Mike Ranquet stopped by the office. What I thought was going to be a quick interview turned into a two-hour talk about the early days at Mt. Baker, George Dobis and the Mt. Baker Snowboard Shop, Alaska, and how he thinks high backs are holding snowboarding back.

I’m still transcribing our conversation. It’ll be one to read. Keep an eye out for the full-legth interview sometime soon. In the meantime I thought I’d break off a little nugget about Ranquet’s last-minute trip up to AK last spring to film with Absinthe.

How?d you end up going to AK?
Justin (Hostynek) called me and said it was going to be clear for two days and apparently they had an empty seat. So I rode Baker that day, flew up that night and was in a heli at nine in the morning. Then flew two days and flew back out and was back at Baker riding Monday morning.

Any scary falls?
Yeah I took a beating for sure. Like falls with more than one way to die.
(Then Ranquet pulls up a photo on his computer..)

Yeah you can see the rocks I tumbled through right there. It was that section and I just lawn darted. It was really fucking scary, ?cause it?s probably like 30 feet of exposed rock. I just came out of a turn and my I couldn?t see anything from the plume. I was going as fast as I could and then all I could see was knee-high jagged rocks. It wasn?t just some little rocks, but all these massive rocks pointing up. I thought I was gonna die. I did like two or three head over heals and after that I was just waiting to feel the pain. My goggles were fucking gouged and filled with snow. That was the gnarliest part. But all I had was a bruised leg. Somehow I got out of it in one piece. It was so fucking unbelievable. It was good and humbling, that?s for sure.

Went up to Signal Snowboards last week. They hosted an open house of sorts and invited everyone into their factory aka “The Lodge” to shows us what they’re up to.

As it turns out, they’re up to a lot.

They’re cranking out boards these days and according to Signal co-founder and owner Dave Lee, they can barely keep up with the demand.

Dave was visibly excited. Maybe it was the coffee. They make that too. It’s good and strong.

But actually I think Dave was most hyped on their new testing facility out back.

Recently they had a buddy of theirs build them a mini shred slope. And today they hosed it down with a couple hundred bucks worth of ice and had themselves a little rail jam.

A bunch of the Signal team riders were on hand to wow the crowd that was feasting on Wahoo’s fish tacos and ice cream in the relative comfort of their street clothes.

Heads wandered in and out of the factory all day. Signal’s board builders were giving tours to anyone interested. I was interested. I’d never seen a board built before and watching the process was really very cool.

And then to see that here in So Cal, they could step outside and actually test the board, kinda blew me away.

Dave said they plan on expanding their test facilities and from the way things seem to be going for Signal I imagine that’s not all that’ll grow with the coming winter.

Visit www.signalsnowboards.com for more where this came from.

These Days things are pretty strange. The dudes are starting to pull their hair out. Shit’s coming down to the wire and Joe, Gary and Corey are noticably stressed. It’s not because they’re behind, but really just because they care so damn much.

They’ve all started acting a little weird, or, uh…weirder.

Joe found these gloves one day a couple weeks back and hasn’t taken them off since. He’s been mumbling in coherently under his breath a lot lately and sleeping in the office. He said as soon as These Days is done with he’s going to move back in with his parents and get a lot of cats.

Corey is also living in the office. He set up a pretty nice tent, but don’t let the designer label fool you, dude’s living like a true hobo. His little campsite smells of tuna and burnt hair.

Gary wears this mask all day, even when we go to lunch and the girls behind the counter look terrified when he orders. If Gary’s Mom or girlfriend, or any family member reads this, please call your son, he needs your help.

This is it: my blog. I’ll do my best to keep it from getting awkward, but can’t promise anything.

This mag biz is a grind and I can’t always dedicate as much time to things as I’d like. Sometimes you just run out of time. Just ask this guy, he didn’t even have time to get dressed before work at the fast food joint across the street. That made me lose my appetite.