Week of Recovery

Nope, I’m not referring to the mini-rally on Wall Street. I’m referring to the fact that I’m ‘recovering’ from helping to put on one of the biggest events of our season, the IDPC (Intelligent Design at Park City). After spending most of Thursday through Saturday away from my desk, I’m just about to caught up, so I thought that I’d post a video showing highlights from the event (it really was quite cool – jumps, to jibs, to superpipe, to quarterpipe):

Another day at the office

I spent practically the entire afternoon today in back-to-back meetings and felt as if I were going backwards instead of forwards. However, it’s awfully hard to even think about complaining about a day that starts off like this:

I guess it just goes to say that working for a ski resort is not without some benefits!

(updated 2/13/09, updated the Vopod link, for some reason the one I first put up ‘broke’, please leave me a comment if that happens again)

To Tune or not to Tune?

I enjoy listening to music while I’m skiing on my own. I make sure my Ipod is tuned to a level where I can still take part in a conversation on a chairlift, select a play list that fits my mood, and off I go. I don’t always plug in when I’m riding alone, but I do find that myself skiing with tunes more often than not as I find it can help pass the time on the lift and also add some much needed rhythm to my skiing.

Because I do like to ride with my music, I do often think about the potential downside: is it going to distract someone from hearing another person overtaking them or is it going to make so someone doesn’t hear a snowmobile coming along a trail? I imagine it probably will someday (if it hasn’t already) and that makes me wonder if having music on while skiing and riding is something that resorts will try to limit or is this just something that we all need to be aware of and ski and ride appropriately? Anyone have any positive or negative personal experiences to add to this?

Photo Credit: maxf
(I love this photo because the gondola icons look like little Ipods to me!)

What’s the matter here?

The title of this post doesn’t much relate to the topic I have in mind, but I really like that 10,000 Maniacs song. Anyway, my topic is an issue that is currently percolating in the winter resort/snowboard community. To point, Burton created graphics for two of their current snowboard lines that some consider ‘controversial’. Their Love and Primo lines have graphics that feature suggestively, scantily clad Playboy models and line drawings of self-mutilation. I’m not attracted to either of the graphics personally and while I’m not personally offended by either set of graphics I wouldn’t spend over $400 for them either. Neither am I concerned by the fact that young teenage boys might get their hands on these boards, because I think that it’s a parents’ responsibility to manage what their children buy and possess. The  issue I do have is if employees of a resort are using these boards while on the job which to me is a simple case of employee standards and conduct.

To sum up, I think this is a case where a large corporate company is attempting to create shock value in order to try to stay ‘core’ in their industry. This is a tough line to walk in the action sports industry where many companies have enjoyed great success only to crash just as quickly because their customers decided that their products were no longer ‘cool’. Burton knows how the game works and have been on top for a long time – I don’t think there’s any reason to think they’re going anywhere now.