Team News
Freshtival
Oct 16 2006
Dear Venom Kids,
Your are reading words typed by myself, Josh Bibby, so that I can portray to
you the events that occurred at the 2006 Freshtival that took place in
Calgary. Now I need to tell a little side story before we get started, it
is my excuse for why I don't have the most amazing pictures of the actual
freshtival you have ever seen. So, I was in Whistler about a week before
freshtival and I needed to get a ride home, the bus take's 10 hours since it
goes through Vancouver and I was presented with an opportunity to drive a
car, my friends "new" car that had been purchased by her father in Whistler
while she had been residing in Vernon, my hometown. So I took this
opportunity and felt it was a great way to get home and help a friend, so
her dad obtained a 1-day insurance deal so that I could drive the car to
Vernon. Everything was going moderately well accept for a little oil
burning but that's normal for cars that haven't been running for a while,
anyways I made it to cache creek witch is just over halfway home. The car
seemed to be better than ever no smoke, no smell, so I ate some food and
continued on 20 minutes down the road I was driving down a hill and a big
semi-truck was going very slow so I had to put on the brakes. Trouble
struck, the engine light came on and the car turned off immediately, barely
made it to the next turn I could make to get off the main highway, then the
car was smoking a lot more than I had seen before, so I took the keys out,
put it in park and went to take a look. There was really a lot of smoke now
and I thought maybe it was just overheated. Then the engine started all by
itself...I grabbed my bag because it had my passport and camera in it and
thought about grabbing my stuff but decided against it, the pic is about 1
minute after I got out of the car
In this fire, my charger for my camera burned along with quite a few of other
items I owned which I am now currently trying to replace. So I am sorry I
don't have any pictures of the theater or the autograph signing, but I'm sure
all of you have seen pictures of an autograph session or been in a movie
theater so you aren't really missing out, although I'm sorry, but I couldn't
do much about it.
Freshtival 06! went extremely well thanks to Steve from Fresh Sports in
Calgary as well as an impressive list of other sponsors. Mike Douglas was
the lead MC and provided a humorous atmosphere, in a "Dad trying to make
people laugh" kind of way. People you may know who where in attendance were the like's of Seth Morrison, TJ Schiller, Rory Bushfield, Sarah Burke,
Smiley Nesbitt, Ian Mcintosh, Dana Flair, Eric Hjorleifson, Reed
Holm.....and so on, if I left you out I'm sorry I hope we can still be
friends. Josh Dueck made a very powerful speech on the risk of what we do,
we all know that there are risks but I feel that Dueck put it into
perspective for a lot of people that night. He was real and even though the
crown was all really excited for him to be up there he did a good job of
getting everyone serious for a couple minutes while he said what needed to
be said. I will quote two thing's really quickly, both are true, the first is
a little harsh, "Being in a wheelchair sucks, I'm not going to lie". I needed to hear that myself, because he is the same person, and I almost forget he isn't capable of certain thing's sometimes, I almost forget that he can't walk and that means I don’t think about the risk I am sometimes taking on my skis. So it reminds me to be smart with what I do. If you have a bad feeling, it’s probably not a good idea. I am very good friends with Josh and now
know 3 people in wheelchair's from skiing accidents, but there can always be
a positive side to everything. "We cannot change the direction in which the
wind blows, but we can change the direction of our sails" I feel that this
should help all of us see how lucky we are, and remind us to be reasonable
everyday we are on the mountain. I'm not saying go out and don't charge, but
be smart about it.
As for the Parties.....the drinking age in 18 in Calgary so there were
a few people I hadn't seen in the bar's before. Friday night and Saturday
night is where it really cranked up, most of the riders got spread out on
the Friday night but managed to meet up at Sam's Bar and Grill, for about an
hour or so at the end of the night, It was my friend Reed-o's birthday and
Ab-Dog/Abmatronic with his flashy new hairstyle was making sure he wasn't
feeling to lonely.
Saturday night took place at the cherry lounge, where I guess it was called
house music/techno/really got annoying after 5 hours of it type of music was
playing. But we all managed to stay on the top level and try to drown out
the music with our voices. After the cherry lounge a few of us walked
aimlessly around for a while in hope's of finding Steve's house, which he
was kind and thoughtful enough to invite us to his home after the lounge.
After about an hour or so, I think it may have been Steve's wonderful wife
who picked us up and took us to their home. We stayed there for a while and
it slowly thinned out. When Justin Holm and I departed it had turned into a
mellow acoustic guitar jam session with Steve for Fresh and Steve
Hjorleifson. I felt it was a great way to leave freshtival and that was my
ending, I hope you enjoyed it as yours also.
Bibby
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