A Dog’s Purpose?
(from a 5-year-old).

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog’s owners, Ron, his wife Lisa , and their little boy Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle.

I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn’t do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.

As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for five-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience.

The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker ‘s family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away.

The little boy seemed to accept Belker’s transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker’s Death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives.
Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, ”I know why.”

Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I’d never heard a more comforting explanation. It has changed the way I try and live.

He said,”People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life — like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?” The Six-year-old continued,

”Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long.”

Live simply.

Love generously.

Care deeply.

Speak kindly.

Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn things like:

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure Ecstasy.

Take naps.

Stretch before rising.

Run, romp, and play daily.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you’re not.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

There comes a time in life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, and focus on the good. So, love the people who treat you right. Think good thoughts for the ones who don’t. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is part of LIFE…Getting back up is LIVING…

Have a great life.

Hey thanks for stopping back:)

Here is the last 2weeks in Europe with the GBTeam.

Round out Austria as a very slow 5 days with my left knee injury having swollen up pretty good and limping about with a bit of ligament damage giving my pain in my calf. Tried riding the Wednesday for first time in the wicked Mayrhofen Penken Park but was unable to handle the impact of landing. So more rest, Ice, massage and elevation. On the Friday we geared up and drove 8hrs to Geneva, Switzerland to catch early flight onto Granada, Southern Spain Saturday morning.

The team all jumped into a shuttle in Granada onto the resort of Sierra Nevada about an hr outside the city. It was a really beautiful area of Spain with Olive trees covering the land Mediterranean  Sea to the South and large snow capped peaks North of the City. We stayed at the C.A.R. Hotel, which is a HIgh Altitude Training Centre at 2,320 m. above sea level. It is an outstanding facility for all sorts of national and international athletes and federations.

With a what has been a haunting characteristic of this seasons contest the weather for our day of training day came in and covered the mountain in a cloud cover so thick it was a white out with wind and snow through out the day, worst weather to ever to ride in! With no bad weather days considered for sunny southern Spain F.I.S had to squeeze training and qualifying into the same day. I was grateful for extra day of rest and some more physical therapy with Kelly, but lack of training can make or brake a good result. Monday the weather improved with high cloud, so we could see but the 30mph windy conditions had to be ignored. We got a short hour and half of practice before the 2 judged runs, taking the best one to qualify to Semifinals and finals. Once I got out my  knee felt ok being taped up a whole lot, thanks to all the help from Kelly and Alyson.Training started well although with variable gusty wind speed for the long 4 jump course followed by three rail feature was constantly changing. So figuring out speed was tough for everyone and I got worked real good in practice with over shooting the landing and also getting off balance a few times. From these falls my knee was aching a good deal again and had tough final few practice runs before the comp started. The weather and cloud was coming and going changing the conditions constantly and then the sun came out really warming up the course. So being the end of second heat had a long wait before my run, this is one of the hardest parts of competition I feel the waiting and in that time how conditions can change. I dropped with the sun out and wind that was mellow, took some turns  into that first jump and wooph off the lip I was flying coming round to spot my landing I saw it disappearing from below me and ended past the sweet spot, landing heavy trying to power it out dragging my hands was off balance into jump two and skipped it and rolled into three with good speed I launched my backside 900 into space and went way to big and crashed out. So throw that one out and onto run two. The warm conditions had made the snow so fast. Seemed a common factor of judging speed was the key to putting the run together. Second run I relaxed and said slow down dropped and  hammered down the landings going deep in each landing still and putting the three rail features together and sticking my run. I scored a pretty good 64 points top score being about 80. Finished 9th in my heat missing the semifinal by 2 spots and 5 points. Out the 110 riders I ended 32nd best result to finish out the my time on snow in Europe. Happy to have got a good result despite the injury and challenges with weather and lack of training.

Stoked our team mate Billy Morgan secured a 3rd place finish his first Podium on the World Cup circuit and the young Yuuki Kadono of Japan took the win. The ladies slopestyle ended up being cancelled completely to due to the foggy and windy weather that came and went the three days we had at Sierra Nevada. Had  great time though enjoing the amazing facilities of the Car hotel and a day cruising the huge resort with my dad. What a place to visit! Definitely recommend it to any freeride, freeski enthusiast cause the terrain is ideal and so much fun with tons of easy access off piste and we lucked out with lots of fresh snow although was pretty warm unusual conditions that seemed to be the story of the winter. Thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoi the pics from Europe.. Made a road trip out of headed back to UK with my Dad of 2400km drive from Granada, Spain to England. Sadly broke down in southern France, but all went smoothly in the quant village of Gannat thankfully. The French locals were so accommodating and friendly and got some incredible smelly locally made cheese:) We made it back to UK early Sat morning for few days with the Family. Just arrived back at amazing Breckenridge Mountain to ride & film in Breck parks till closing day. Till the next one peace and cheers for subscribing:)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cruising round Europe with the British National Snowboard Team-

Headed out from my base in Breckenridge Colorado to travel Europe with the British Freestyle Snowboard team and hit up the two remaining World Cup competitions of the season.

I Flue to Prague known in Czech as Praha and shuttled 2hrs to resort of Spindleruv Mlyn. First day of practice was cancelled due to high winds. Trained for a few hrs on the one of a kind slopestyle course that consisted of a Hip hit into Halfpipe with rails on either side at the end, into a staircase rail set and one large jump to end. The course was pretty much sheet ice with it being made of man made snow, which made it hard to ride. Competed on friday afternoon in the third and fourth heats with 60 other guys. The weather was variable with wind and snow. During warm up and practice I took a pretty rough fall on the ice smashing my knee into the land. It was super painful. Our amazing Physio Alyson sorted me out though with a little arnica and ibuprofen cream that eased it for my qualifying runs. First run went great till final jump where I over rated my 1080. As I got ready to drop in for second run the sky’s opened, the snow was falling heavy and fast making visibility real poor. Dropped in and went for it.. Top section was ok, missing grab on the front5 in the pipe.. cleaned the rails and got the bs10 on the jump stomping the landing mostly with feeling as I flew through the snowy air. Was stoked to have put my run together. With a bit of sketchy section up top scored a low 60 which put me in 10th. Sadly not enough to make semi finals this time. Ended 12th in my heat and 44th overall out of the 100+ rider field. It was great to get an ok result there in Czech after the last two World Cups in Copper and Stoneham where I had a tough time. Torstein Horgmo took the win.

From Czech we got in the team Van and headed for Mayrhofen, Austria. It was a fairly mellow drive of 7 hrs over back through Prague, into southern Germany round Munich into Austria. So will finish the trip from Austria and Spain tomorrow with a better selection of pics and info to sum up trip in Europe. Cheers for sharing and stopping by and check me out on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NateKern7

Being Fit Without Letting Food and Exercise Control You.

How do you plan on being active outside now Spring is here?

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution is from Tiny Buddha site by Keith Lai

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” ~Unknown

Most people associate fitness with nothing but positive connotations.

Exercising is the alleged solution to obesity and stress.

Eating fresh, local, healthy foods is the age old secret to a long and disease-free life.

But what most people don’t realize is that striving to live a healthy lifestyle can carry some seriously negative consequences if you don’t approach it wisely.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for eating right and exercising, but the moment your life begins to revolve around your fitness, then you’ve already lost.

Sacrificing Your Life to be Healthy

In my early attempts to build a healthy and fit body that I could be proud of, I ruined my life.

My entire life would be structured around my workouts. My meals were planned at exact intervals.

And if I missed any of my workouts or if my meals weren’t up to my standards, I would consider myself a failure and would get incredibly upset.

Back then I took an “all-or-nothing” approach to health and fitness. If I had one “bad” day of eating, then the entire week would be considered a waste.

It was bad.

My perfectionist approach to fitness began drawing attention.

I would go to parties and eat nothing but raw veggies and water. People would question me, stare at me for why I was being so phobic about food.  My own parents began getting frustrated with me because I would only eat certain foods.

My so-called dedication to fitness turned into an obsession, one that overtook my life.

All that exercising and healthy eating was meant to compliment my life, not become it.

When You Take Fitness Too Far

When you weigh yourself every hour…

When you compensate the extra food you ate with even more exercising…

When you get angry because you missed your workout…

When you refuse to have cake at any wedding…

…then you’ve officially taken health and fitness too far.

Exercising and healthy eating are simply tools to help you live a happier and more fulfilling life. They are meant to make the things you enjoy doing even more enjoyable.

We all want to look good. We all want to be fit and healthy, but at what cost?

Finding the Middle Ground

If you want your life and fitness habits to work in synergy, then you need to find the middle ground.

The middle ground is where you can enjoy a piece of birthday cake without worrying about how it will make you look. It’s where you can miss a workout and not sweat it. It’s where you can go a day without weighing yourself.

But of course, finding the middle ground is no easy task.

Finding the middle ground isn’t so much about finding the perfect workout or diet as it is about forging the right mindset.

We all make mistakes. We all fail.

The most important thing to remember is how you failed. You must learn from your mistakes, as cliché as that sounds.

Find out what triggered you to overeat. Was it stress? If so, what’s causing that stress and what can you do to fix it?

Locate the root cause of your slip-ups and do your best to correct them.

A Life Worth Living

In this ultimate battle for health, in this pursuit of the perfect body, we sometimes fail to understand the true meaning of life and what’s really important.

Of course, everyone has different interpretations on the meaning of life, but I think we can all agree on one thing: life is meant to be enjoyed.

Right? If you’re not enjoying life, then what’s the point of living?

If all you think about is exercise and food and how certain things will affect your body, then you’re never going to truly enjoy the things that make you happy?

You’re not living your own life, but instead you’re living a life controlled by something as menial as eating.

That is not a life worth living.

What Is a Life Worth Living?

A life worth living is one where you can experience new foods without guilt. It’s one where you can pick up a fork and put it in your mouth without a care in world on how it’s going to make you look.

This is a life where you can go through the majority of your day without thinking about what time you’re going to the gym or whether you ate enough protein.

There’s just so much more to life than having an impeccable exercise and nutrition plan. When your life and fitness habits are working together in perfect harmony, you’ll find everything you do more enjoyable.

Food will taste better. Sleep will become more restful. And most importantly, an enormous load of stress and relief will be lifted off your shoulders.

How do you approach health and fitness? Do you control it or does it control you?

Photo by aarmono

The UK’s hottest acts will be heading to Europe’s coolest slopes for the first ever Horizon Festival; a hedonistic week of underground Electronic music, set against the breathtaking, snow-covered Pirin mountains of south western Bulgaria. My Bro Seb Kern is helping put this event on and will be there shredding and blasting some rad beats, be sure to check this out and DJ Socom:)

Go here for more info and to book tickets etc!

http://www.togetherski.com/page.php?name=lineup

The man Christian Stevenson aka DJ BBQ was at Freeze in London this past year with his Bad Ass (BA) massive smoker and was filming for his Radonculous Series brought to you by the one and only Jamie Oliver Channel.

I was fortunate enough to get to join him and learn about cooking up some Sweet & Smokey Beer Can Chicken.. Its Aamazing!!

Check it Ouut!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Find the Recipe here:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/member-recipes/3:%20SWEET%20and%20SMOKEY%20BEER%20CAN%20CHICKEN%20WITH%20DJ%20BBQ%20%20/6967

See loads more amazing recipes from DJ BBQ and Jamie Oliver and subscribe to the Channels and mine, Cheers

http://www.youtube.com/user/KernCinema?feature=mhee

http://www.youtube.com/user/raduk8/videos?view=15&flow=grid

http://www.youtube.com/user/JamieOliver?feature=watch

Yo check out the infamous rad W.B.B crew shredding back at the place to be Breck Parks-

They just dropped a new Episode ”We Are Back” feat: Angus Das Goose Leith, Connor Carey, Seb Kern, Jesse Smith, Katie Blundell, Austin Verbeke, Helen Fox, Hot Carl Howden, and Charli Witts put down trick after trick in the Breckenridge park. No sign of WBB regular Scott Penman though, although I have seen him back in action here in Breck so watch this space to catch the next W.B.B. episode of rawness:)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Really wanted to share this breaking news. With Breckenridge having put so much time and money into their park its no surprise the reputation has grown for this to be the best place to ride and train in the park from beginner to the pro level. Being home to the Winter Dew Tour for the past 5 years, it seems all the worlds best skiers and riders are spending more time here each winter. With the fun and  awesome variety of the Intermediate Park Lane and then the Expert Freeway run with the countries best 22 foot Super Pipe and 4 huge kickers. Shaun White joined the Breck Pro Team last year he has made a point of practicing here also. Seeing him wanting to make a return to Slopestyle, he was here beginning of January training for X Games and many of you will of seen that he learnt the backside 1440 triple cork in Brecks Freeway on jump 4.

Now just the other day GB team mate Billy Morgan has done the same with more style, and has joined the elite few doing triple corks, not to mention this is Billy’s second triple cork after seeing him do the triple Rodeo last year. So that said Breckenridge Parks have gotta to be stoked the caliber of their parks has put a stamp on snowboarding and this being the best park and a stomping grounds for the progression of our sport. This as gotta be a great incentive for some of the top brands in the industry like Burton, Monster, Red Bull or the new brand hitting the scene Adidas Snowboarding to sponsor this unsponsored park.

Thanks for stopping by, heres Billy getting radical.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Headed out last Thursday for Southern Utah, to go adventuring on the sleds with Krazy Karl, check out the Bag Jump at BrainHead and take Tundra for surgery.

I was pretty sore from a slam on my hip at Breck from Wednesday so spent day Friday tuning my sled with my father In-law Karl. Also taking the pups biking and to check out the local horses.

Saturday I headed to BrianHead to ride and check out the Air Bag and ride some powder after all the snow. Drive over was nice but arrived and it was well windy and didn’t look good like the Air Bag was up. Met up with Josh Madsen new marketing manager who got me dialed in and we took few runs runs through the terrain park.. The wind died down and guys got the air bag ready to go, I was stoked. Its huge biggest one I have ever seen. As I got ready to go the storm had rolled in and snow started to pour and they holla’d up to that due to the snow it was unsafe, so I had one chance. I dropped in from as high as I could and creeped into the jump, I was going so slow due to all the fresh snow falling, just made it off the jump and did an cab under flip 7.. Came down and it was soft its, real sticky so remember to try land on your side and not feet first. With the all the snow they shut it down again for safety. Bit of a tease but know I will be back to ride it, only one in Utah def head over and check it out. Great training tool at your finger tips each weekend. FInished the day taking some laps and riding some great untouched powder.. Love it there never any lift lines and fun little park. http://www.brianhead.com/winter

Sunday we were set to get out to explore on Cedar Mtn, but the weather had gone from bad to worse we, waited it out and no brake from the storm. The 60 mph winds up top and BrainHead resort was shut down. The storm continued for the day and we made a wise choice sacking it off sadly.

Tan and me headed down to St George that night and took Tundra our Husky in for ACL surgery the next morning at Dixie Vet Clinic. The Surgery on her rear right leg went very smoothly thanks Dr. Brinkerhoff and we visited with her that evening at the over night clinic. She was very sad and crying a lot, was so hard to leave her for the night. We picked her up this morning and have had a long day caring for our darling girl. She has been very sore and vocal, sleeping on and off. Its always great coming out this way seeing our family here and very happy to have Tunrda taken care of. It will be a long 6 weeks of recovery, but excited for her to be back to herself and happy. Tundra has been crying more through the day and think achy from laying on her left side most of the day, so tried a few things and getting her to lay on her back and elevating her leg with support has been working well. Hoping she sleeps a bit more tonight. Headed home tomorrow for Breckenridge.

So real quick apologies for no posts last 6 weeks. My macbook got fried:( Just managed to replace it last week so will be back on the blogs and catching up..

Heres a little update from me since the New Year! Happy 2013 hope all have started it on a positive and high and its going to be a great year.

I have been busy with a few World Cups events, travel and training not to mention dealing with changes in travel plans etc. Lots went down basically in January. So picking things up for Feb.

Heres the latest podcast from TeamGB and shredding here in CO at Breckenridge and Keystone Mtns.

Click here to view the embedded video.

First World Cup in Copper was tough with a few good practices in the comp and pretty good slopetsyle course consisting of 2 rail features with two different options into a triple kicker line. So long story short I got unlucky and fell in both runs, leaving me with a poor result.

Heres the wrap from Copper

Click here to view the embedded video.

Next up Quebec City Canada and World Cup and World Champs at Stoneham resort.

Unfortunately with the three flights to get to from Colorado to Quebec Canada my bags didn’t show up. I missed a days practice but thankfully bags showed and got second day of practice in. Sketchy conditions and icing with not much natural snow having falling and day of contest brought high winds, although the sun was poking through. Ladies qualification was cancelled and we were up at noon. I struggled with speed put and tried my best putting a run together but was unable to hit third jump dew to wind and speed so scoring low and finish bout mid field. Another tough brake but onward and upwards.

Here is Roope boss run and Win at World Champs- great music too;)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check back soon for more from February riding Breck Parks, Dog Sledding at GoodTimes, some bad news for our Husky Tundra and trip to Utah.

Cheers for stopping by ;D