early season - BRIDGER BOWL

Bridger Bowl announced last week that they would be opening early this season. This is the first time that I can remember this happening in a long time. We've been getting enough snow in the mountains that they opened on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Bridger stayed open through the weekend, and will continue operating on weekends until it's official opening date of December 11th. I'm really excited that the ski season is off to a great start. I got a season pass at Bridger this year, and hope to get lots of skiing days in. MSU students receive a $100 gift card that can be used for food and merchandise on the mountain if they buy a season pass. Big Sky and Moonlight ski resorts also offer student discount tickets.

bridgerbowl.com

bigskyresort.com

moonlightbasin.com

"Spirit"

A new addition to campus was welcomed during the 2009 Homecoming week, Spirit. He is a six foot tall bronze sculpture located down the hill from Montana Hall. The purpose of this was to instill Bobcat pride and have a focal point of spirit in the center of campus. The bobcat was selected as MSU’s mascot in 1916 for its “cunning intelligent, athletic prowess, and independent spirit.” The sculpture was named “Spirit” after the first bobcat that was on campus. It was great to be at the unveiling ceremony during homecoming week. The Spirit of the West Marching Band was there playing the school fight song, along with President Gamble, and alumni.

Warren Miller - Dynasty

Couple times a year we have some great ski and board films that come to Bozeman. This week there was a showing of "Dynasty" produced by Warren Miller Entertainment. This film celebrated 60 years of production from WME. It featured heli skiing in Canada, exploration of where skiing is thought to have originated in north west China, beautiful skiing in Norway, and much more. At intermission they gave away a free season pass to Big Sky Resort, a vacation package for a ski trip, and a few other neat prizes. This film got me really excited for the ski season. We've got some snow on the hill, so we should be ready to go pretty soon. This link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PKf6FxP3-4 is for the trailer of Dynasty, check it out.

Gallatin Valley at Dawn

Tuesday Morning, 730am

recycled.fashion.show

reduce, reuse, and RECYCLE! Saturday night was the 2nd Annual Recycled Fashion Show, put on by Engineers Without Borders. Since 2003, the MSU Chapter of EWB has had the goal of bringing fresh water to villages in Kenya. Adequate drinking water is not accessible for school children, much time is spent fetching water many kilometers away, instead of learning in the classroom. Ronald Omyonga, a village leader, requested the help of the national Engineers Without Borders for civil engineering assistance for the villages in the east African communities. Since then, MSU engineering students have been traveling to Africa to put their knowledge and skills to work. It is a really great project, providing clean, accessible water. The fashion show, implemented last year, is a major fundraiser for the group. It is also a great opportunity to see the creative designs that come from recycled materials. There were over 50 entries this year, including newspaper dresses, to a pop can tux. I had a few friends in the show as well. The event was held downtown at the Emerson Cultural Center. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go this year, I misses it last year, and will definitely go again next year. The picture above are the first and second place winners. The couple is wearing a dress and tux made of aluminium cans. On the right is my friend Christina, she is wearing a dress made out of egg cartons and wine corks from Over the Tapas, a restaurant downtown.

Halloween '09

This Halloween my brother, Peter, and I dressed up as Bret and Jermain, from Flight of the Conchords. I live a few blocks from the University, we happen to get a lot of trick-or-treaters in this neighborhood. We had some friends over while we were handing out candy. It was a lot of fun to see all the costumes this year. There was also a Cat game on Halloween, we played the Idaho State Bengals, winning 41-10. It was a great addition to the Halloween celebration. Going downtown and people watching on Halloween is always an interesting sight, there are lots of crazy costumes and people dressed up as anything from Lady GaGa to a raccoon. This Halloween was warm compared to most, being from Bozeman, I usually select costumes that look good with a layer of fleece or long underwear under them. This year I was comfortable in plaid and my cardboard guitar.

Pumpkin Carving

Here are some pictures from this years pumpkin carving adventures. I think I carved a total of 4 pumpkins in the past week, thats a lot of pumpkin seeds. We thought we'd show some Bobcat Spirit and make the Cat logo, and the MSU 'M' Logo. The next ones we carved were Christmas themed. And then of course we did some traditional jack-o-lanterns.