ASPEN, Colo.-- Pursuing a dream can take you a number of unexpected places, but a Winter Park man is now a pioneer just for taking a chance at his.
“I work at the Winter Park ski resort as a barista on the base,” Nick Castner said.
But for the part-time barista and part-time podcaster Castner, that's exactly the dichotomy of it.
“We’ve now done about 35 episodes,” he said.
In doing his podcast, The Commonwealth, he thought he should apply for an X Games press pass.
“We picked the X Games for two reasons. First, it is the sport with the most creativity and then secondly, our goal is to take audience to places that they may have never been,” he added.
No podcaster had ever done their show with interviews on the side of the mountain from the X Games. Castner didn’t have the proper equipment to do it, but when he got credentialed, he reached out to a friend for what to get. He placed an order online, and the equipment got to him just in time.
“Like five days before the X Games,” he said.
During his two days on the mountain, he slept on a friend's couch but also spent time interviewing some of the top skiers and snowboarders in the world.
“I read beforehand that there was this Australian Scott snowboarder named Scotty James who raised $40,000 on social media for the Australian bushfires,” Castner said.
James also happens to be one of the best snowboarders in the world. An interview with him led to Castner’s most memorable experience of the games.
"The half pipe event happens and he happens to getting the gold medal. So after he was handed his gold medal and doing his photo op, the ESPN people said, 'This guy for sure wants to interview,' and pointed to me. It was just a very memorable experience and an interview I’ll remember forever,” he said.
He now has a few more memorable experiences to talk about in the coffee shop and, of course, on the podcast.
“The long-term goal is to make this my full-time gig,” Castner said.
And maybe try to top this latest experience.