Brooke Geery

Keep Bolts Out of Snowboarding

My friends, we have business to discuss, and it is of the gravest importance. Just like wakeboarding rips off snowboarding, and skiing rips off circus clowns -- snowboarding rips off skateboarding all the time. At some point we must draw the line, and friends, that time is now. This is a proclamation, here and now, that we, as snowboarders, must agree to never, ever use the term “bolts” (again) to refer to a landing. According to the urban dictionary, bolts is defined as everything from a Nazi symbol, to testicles, and when used (inappropriately) in snowboarding, it’s a perfect landing -- not a tail wheelie, hand-drag or buttcheck. But in…
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New School Frostboarding!

[media id=65 width=600 height=360] Back in my day, I had to walk 20 miles barefoot through the snow, uphill both ways, to frost board. And then, we just had grass and dirt mounds to ride. You kids today have it so good with your PVC pipes for tickery. Well, the good news is, I am old enough to live out west where there is already a ton of snow and I'm riding powder! But for you poor suckers back east, this one is for you!
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Tabor Hill Cafe

3766 SE Hawthorne Blvd Date of Visit: November 19, 2009 Price for 2 (with tip): $19 Eating at Tabor Hill Cafe was sort of like eating at your grandmother's house. Well, if your grandmother was a Chinese man, who cooked very basic American food, and also sold bamboo trinkets. Since it's one of those places neither I, nor anyone I know would ever think to go to, I didn't really know what to expect, and I definitely wasn't let down. Perplexed is more like it. The menu is full of your basic American fare, but for some reason is exceptionally thick. When I got to page 3 I realized why:…
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People Still Snow Skate

For a few years there, you didn't really hear about people snowskating. It's like they went underground, and judging by this teaser, learned to film and edit really well. Considering my day job, I feel hating on snow skating might be a bit hypocritical, so I'll let you watch the video and decide for yourself. Ambition Snowskates's first full-length snowskate DVD release "TRUE COLOR." Out now. Check out www.ambitionsnowskates.com for more.
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Nick’s Famous Coney Island

3746 SE Hawthorne Blvd www.nicksfamousconeys.com Date of Visit: November 17, 2009 Price for 2 (with tip): $23.25 We'd actually tried Nick's shortly before embarking on this blog project, and being honest, our review then wasn't good. I'd gotten a burger, because the A Frame outside says "Best Burgers in Town" explicitly and I felt obligated to test it out. Jared got a veggie coney and we both had the mac salad because that day the fryer happened to be broken. We both found ourselves incredible underwhelmed, and never planning to return. But as we now make all lunch-related decisions by this blog, and Nick's Famous Coney Island is one of…
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Hot Lips Pizza

2223 SE Hawthorne Blvd www.hotlipspizza.com Date of Visit: November 16, 2009 Price for 2 (including tip and blogger discount) $10 People ask me all the time if I get free food because of this blog, or at least, if that's the goal. The answer is no on both counts, I am simply doing this cause it's a fun project. But on our trip to Hot Lips, blogging did pay off. It also helped that I knew the person working (through a friend), so I happened to bring up the fact I'd be blogging about our experience. When we were rung up, 3 slices, two drinks and a salad magically only…
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Viewed and Reviewed: Montevideo

I can’t help but feel a little bit bad for all the video companies that actually paid for duplication and are trying to sell DVDs this year. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but there are about 1000 free videos, some of them of incredible quality, just hanging out on the internet. This is not to say that sitting at your computer and dealing with vimeo glitches or your computer taking a nap is anywhere near as good at popping a DVD in and letting it run while you get ready to shred. But snowboard videos have always existed in an over saturated market, so the ample free offerings are just…
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Thai Spoon

1334 SE Hawthorne Blvd Date of Visit: November 13, 3009 Price for 2 (with tip) $17 If there is one thing Portland does not have a shortage of it's Thai restaurants. There are at least 5 I can think of off the top of my head on Hawthorne alone, and for that reason, we'd never tried Thai Spoon before. But whenever it's my turn to drive (yes, we drive to lunch every day and we've both driven to the office so we always fight over who has to drive that day) I always pick a place that's as close as possible. Don't tell Jared about this, since when he drives…
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5 Things I Did This Week

I had a good three-week run of my list of 5 things more important/interesting than snowboarding, and I still plan to do them occasionally, but being honest, I haven't really been paying attention to the outside world lately. Rather I've been perfecting my sales skills, running too many websites, and even doing a little actual snowboarding. But I know my 8 dedicated brookegeery.com readers demand new content, so here's 5 Things I Did This Week. 1. 2009 Alliance Superlatives. In years past this has been a large magazine feature, but as you may have heard, times are tough for print right now. So with reduced page counts, the feature has…
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Barley Mill Pub

1629 SE Hawthorne Blvd http://www.mcmenamins.com/index.php?loc=10&id=313 Date of Visit: November 12, 2009 Price for 2 (with tip): $22 The Barley Mill is the oldest McMenamins pub in Portland, and if you've been to one McMenamins, you pretty much know what to expect. Pub food and good beer served up in whatever kitschy theme that location happens to be dedicated to. The theme here is the Greatful Dead, and the walls and even ceiling are covered with brightly colored junk of that ilk, but I tried not to hold that against them. When you really start to pay attention, there are subtle differences in the menus and offerings at each location, and…
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