It’s been, what, something like three months since an update. I’ve been busy. Sorry! And I write that as if somebody is actually reading this after all that time…

I’m getting packed to head over to Europe with Nathan for a BNS ski picking trip, and also for meetings with the Fischer racing department guys regarding the testing program I’ve been working on with them. This is an opportunity to have skis picked at the source - I’ll be at Fischer, Nathan will be working with the Atomic racing department, and we’ll both take a quick swing up to Norway to work with the Madshus guys for a couple of days as well. Drop an e-mail (address to the left), or fill-out and submit this online order form if you’re interested. You ARE interested - I know you are. You just might not realize it because it’s June. But trust me, you’re interested and my family needs to eat.

Time to keep packing.

Nearly 1 meter of snow has fallen on the Callaghan Valley since Saturday morning. New snow testing in March. Gearing up for the final two months of groomed skiing of the season…

So - not too many updates lately. I put up a sort of whiney post about how there wasn’t much to say anyway, and then that got erased when the whole website changed servers. I’m trying to put up some funny pictures of ski testing at the venue, but I can’t figure out the image folders on the new server. Sorry. No humor today. I’m making a token effort, but we just moved house, Amy’s off on her final race trip of the year, and life is busy. Sometime when things slow down maybe I’ll figure all this crap out…

The Elves find it impossible to resist the tub of ski ties.

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That’s 562 pounds of skis going out tomorrow - the final shipment before I leave town for three weeks. I’ll update with news from the road as circumstances warrant.

I processed 409 pairs of skis for grinding in the month of October. This means that the skis get entered into the computer. I’ve just finished the heatbox work on the last of those October skis. 409 is not my biggest month ever, but it’s not all that far off. It’s a bit of a surprise to be running such high numbers after such a recent move away from my original home base. The whole time I was in Vermont the percentage of skis that came to me from VT was very high - up around 60% - with the rest of New England pitching in heavily as well. That has obviously changed dramatically. It’s interesting to note just how fast it has changed. [Read more →]

No- we haven’t got the count down that low. But I did manage to ship out 455 lbs of skis yesterday. That’s 135 pairs, carted down across the border to ship to Americans. Good news for wallspace in the shop. The problem is that I picked up another 80 pairs down at the border. Then a quick trip to the bus station yielded another 12 pairs. And then in the evening Jon Arne Enevoldsen arrived from Canmore with another 40 or so pairs. Treading water…

Every now and again I look around and think “gee, that’s a lot of skis”. Once in a very long while it seems to be enough skis to prompt a count. That was the case a couple of days ago for only the second time ever when Erik and I counted the skis in the shop (not including “trash” pairs. I guess I killed the suspense with the post title. 595 is a lot of skis, especially in a small shop.

Now, to be fair, a bunch of these are team skis (CVTC) and test skis. This is not to say that I’ve got nearly 600 pairs in the shop for grinding right now. But also to be fair, the vast majority of these skis will be ground before they go on the snow.

Erik pointed out the truly absurd aspect of the situation. “595 pairs of skis is OK, but then you have to think that you have a personal relationship with at least 400 of them.” And he’s about right. I know a lot of these skis pretty well. I think I have more relationships with skis than with people.

Pat has recently been cured of his bad attitude about coffee. For the past week or so he has been enjoying a morning cup, along with commensurate quality of life improvements. Erik’s attitude appears somewhat more intractable.

Pat had made the error of thinking of caffeine as a tool to be used during exams. In fact, he seemed to regard it as something less than natural - a crutch, or even a “drug” in the most insidious sense of the word. He has, of late, come to the (correct) opinion that coffee (as distinct from caffeine) is a necessary component of right-living. If the regular comsumption of coffee must be described in terms as ugly has “habit”, or even “addiction”, by those who fail to see the place of coffee in a complete lifestyle, we might be forced to point out that exercise has a decidedly chemical effect on both body and mind. Regular sleep, food, exercise and coffee are all components of a lifestyle. Coffee is a quality of life factor.

I have been confident that Pat had the potential to be cured. I remain confident that Erik might also one day be cured. We once (temporarily) cured Amy’s sister of vegitarianism, or at least modified the definition to include bacon and sausage as quality-of-food enhancing ingredients. Persistance and availability are really all that’s required. The patient must be allowed to find the cure on their own terms in order to appropriately own the outcome. Without that sense of ownership the motivation to continue might fade with the removal of the supply. That’s why I never try to “push” a cure. Just allow nature to run its course.

This attitude toward cures has its place, to be sure. But it’s not a panacea. For instance, it hasn’t done a thing for Pat’s distance skate technique. That might require decidedly more interventionist measures. Talk about intractable…

For a variety of reasons I’ve got a pretty good number of un-skiable skis in the shop. Some of them are warranty returns that I get from the distributor in order to test grinds on “trash” skis before putting final structure on customer’s skis. Others are skis that end up broken in action, or in shipping. And some are skis that just drop-out of use because they’re unsatisfactory - they don’t “make-it” as race skis. I suppose I could sell these to unsuspecting customers, but that doesn’t sit well with me. [Read more →]