What is your Phone Number?

Monday evening, in a desperate act to break the bleak cabin fever I skate skied in the 10 degree snow around a park behind Greg's house. In the process I lost my phone. It was time for a new one and I got one today, same number. If I know you and you have a phone number, please contact me via e-mail or text message (with your name) so that I can re-build my now gone digital address book. Thank you

09/TWENTY10 SKI LOG abbreviated

This will be a continuous log. Last year was 39, could this weekend warrior make it to an even 50 ski days this Colorado season? With a fixed work schedule (including 1/5 weekends working) in the front range, quality is hard to achieve, so quantity rules I'm afraid.

December 7 Skate skiing in city pow behind Greg's house with a gaggle of folk.
December 2 Cottontail Trail behind the house. Cold snap, dog needs walkin', Ellie dog
November 15 Allenspark forest svc rd 116 to the end, solo, met Billy and Holly splitboarders
October 31 Four mile creek, Niwot Ridge, sourdough trail tour, Rob B, Jeff (summit Co)
October 17 Flattop MTN to Tyndall Glacier, Chris M, Jason M

Zero Degrees Effluent

Wednesday morning

Friday Morning

Saturday morning

I help make this from poo-water every day, with a lot of help from coal burners. The photos were taken at the point of effluent discharge from the wastewater plant. Regardless, I still get tired of working 40 hours and again on saturday. This cold snap is inducing some cabin fever, I'm paying attention to national news (Viet-ghanistan) and it's depressing. I haven't ridden a bike since....tuesday?

Fullerizing

It's no secret that I've held a grudge against big industry/over-specialization/high technology/separation of wealth ever since I was mid-engineering diploma. Lately, in my endless search for what to do and why to exist, I've been realizing some of my seemingly natural Buckminster-esque practical utilitarian tendencies. Today I decided to explore a little more.

The first time I ever heard of Buckminster Fuller was in an organic chemistry class, in which each student was required to build a bucky-ball molecule in a computer simulation to move forward in life. The frenzy of simultaneous hard classes rendered this boring. Later I learned that the funny looking dome homes were heavily promoted by the same name sake-less boring. More recently my friend Liz, while questioning my stubbornly self inflicted dirt bag limitations, mentioned Buckminster Fuller as a basis of ethics-hmmm. Two weeks ago I heard the POTUSA talk about re-adjusting the trade (im)balance USA shares with China-hooray-pro action! To his address, he added that he was impressed with China's enthusiasm and value for developing scientists and engineers. He requested Merican Scientists/engineers get more respect and increasingly become role models. This hit me. Have I been soured on engineering because of my social environment? Could be. No matter the context, each time I am identified with engineering, the neck hairs lift, the nails scratch the chalkboard, I take offense.

The modern Engineer has sold its ethics so cheaply as to promote capitalized waste and to F(&k up so much of the living world. Back in high school, everybody encouraged me to get an engineering degree. Being the toddler, I asked why. Duh, because you'll be good at it, and engineers make a lot of money to (barely) afford heli-skiing-extract those resources, don't ask why. With limited faith in myself quickly becoming a happy pro upon graduation, without wealthy grandparents or a trust fund, I decided to attend a state college. Eventually a diploma was squeezed from a NY state college, partially funded by the pulp and paper industry. Not surprisingly, there existed a collective and prevailing attitude of greed among my colleagues in el-cheapo engineering school. Yeah money drives people to work, but to me, it's a futile mindset. Engineers work just as long and hard as the other stiffs, just live from the marginally better leftovers of corporate owners. In this 'land of opportunity' getting rich quick is not all that hard. Dump your ethics, sell drugs or go to wall street and steal with the best of the bankers. You are not really guaranteed to quickly transcend society as an engineer, why bother, if not to take satisfaction in contributing to some social improvement. Clearly, I'm not a believer in purchasing social improvement, or in social Darwinism. Clearly, I'm jaded and have not found a suitable engineering job.

I heard from an old surgeon, that enrollment in medical doc programs is diminishing recently, and that the schools attribute this to ensuing health care reform threatening the salary of the medical doctor. The reactionaries think this is a terrible tragedy, offer no solutions, and live in fear. I like it because I believe the quality of doctors can improve with decreased specialization, and increased purpose. If enrollment gets too low, maybe the gov will actually help fund medical programs and render the whole field less stogey. I wish this predicament were true for the engineers. It could be really nice if engineers could assertively say no without being threatened by 10 eager low bidders jockeying for the position.

Today I searched appropriate technology, then Buckminster Fuller on Vimeo. I discovered his foundation/org. This guy was the ultimate in brilliant practical utilitarians. He was so good at shedding cultural and social pressures to focus intensely on synergistically improving the design of everything material. Fuller, like most genius, was not easily corraled or trained-getting kicked out of Harvard twice. While his ideas never became widespread as he had designed, they definitely inspired many more. On the surface I believe his eccentric genius ways frightened the superficials who run stuff. His belief that individual actions are critical in helping society strikes a chord with me, the registered Libertarian. I've been a proponent of local actions over greater political (national) attention, and I was not terribly excited about trusting in the possibilities of a new POTUSA last year. Slowly, I'm opening my mind to the greater politics. It was just so painful to look beyond my own locale for such a long time. For too long, no national news was reliably good news for me. Ultimately we all just find our place in the repeating cycle of history, at least I hope so.

Berthoud Pass

Been trying to kick the cold for far too long, maybe next week will be less drab. In the meantime, I put together a quick animation that a few folks may appreciate.

GEEKING about SKIS

The backcountry ski world, however crude, has become gear intensive, and is not exempt from the typical complexities accelerated by the outdoor gear industry. Many accomplished backcountry skiers have what is known as a "quiver" of skis, or multiple sets of skis to choose from. This must be beneficial for the individual, but how would starvin marvin or the Chinese (possibly sweat shop) worker, who's back makes many(most) recreational products, think about us spending countless hours choosing from an extensive collection of luxurious stuff to recreate with on a given day? I think they might call us Ninnies.

What I'm trying to imply here is that consuming multiple sets of similar, yet highly specialized equipment is a little excessive in the big picture of the world. Assigning more tasks to fewer products can save a bit of hassle for everybody. By the way, I love that Barack is openly trying to encourage curbing Merican consumption of China product, while increasing Chinese consumption of China product. Call me crazy, at least I'm not alone! Skiing is excessive by nature, and exploits others. I cannot deny that it does something real for me, and I try to make the most of it, hoping it will contribute to some net good. After years of using up and experimenting with half expired gear, I know what is needed and this season is time for new ski equipment. I spent a lot of time shopping and researching, and I'll describe my ski selection process below.

I showed up in Boulder Colorado summer of 2006 with plastic telemark boots, and narrow, 170cm atomic TM22 telemark skis that were extensively used and enjoyed while ski patrolling on the angled ice rinks of central New York. Since I began ski touring for tele turns in front range Colorado, I have developed an appreciation for increased ski surface area, above other criteria.

Shopping criteria 1: surface area
Shopping criteria 2: sidecut radius
Shopping criteria 3: tolerable underfoot width
Shopping criteria 4: not made by slaves
Shopping criteria 5: low weight was also considered

I think it is interesting to note that this is not the order of information that ski manufacturers provide, buyer beware, think of your current resources and needs before shopping!

For years I wanted to try skis made by Voile for several reasons
1 they exclusively make backcountry and telemark and splitboarding specific equipment
2 After two seasons of use, I'm a fan of their touring telemark bindings
3 they make everything in the US, that's, like, close!
4 they use a uniquely small sidecut radius (large sidecut/shape) on their uniquely wide skis. Without actual trial, I think this shape is a novel way of enabling a wide ski to carve turns on firm snow, further enabling a truly all conditions capable ski, and potentially reducing my "need" for multiple pairs of skis.

Evaluating Surface Area:

Most skiers approximate surface area as ski waist dimension and running length dimension. but there are significant discrepancies in sidecut radius now which are significant for comparing surface areas. After using an old pair of atomic powder skis, I found a ski with suitable surface area for my needs. This is great to know, but how do I accurately measure and compare this with newer ski surface areas? This is a number that is not commonly produced by ski makers/sellers. Enter Google sketchup. I measured/estimated the running length, tip width, waist width, and tail width. I plotted these four dimensions in google sketchup, and added an arc for the ski's edge. True this is a lot of work, but crumbs compared to the work of Starvin Marvin. One click later I was able to accurately measure half the surface area of my favorite powder ski. I repeated this measurement for my ski candidates, and had a list of surface areas to compare.

Relative surface areas (1/2 ski surface areas):
180 Vokl T-rock 75565 mm squared (first ski bought in CO)
172 Voile Insane 81929 mm squared (powder ski suggested for my weight by Voile)
183 Atomic Janak 83950 mm squared (runner up)
170 Atomic Heli Star 88594 mm squared (favorite winter chowder touring ski)
183 Voile Insane 93467 mm squared (the winner)

Evaluating Sidecut Radius:
This is a big reason I wanted new skis. My powder boards were fairly straight (36M radius) and very wide in the waist, serving well as high area, spatially compact wild snow planks, but awful for hardpack anything. My favorite hard snow carving ski, or ice skate, was the atomic Tm22 I brought from NY. It's radius was 22Meters. The wider Atomic Janak has a radius of 29M, and the Voile Insane is at 17M. HMMM. A small radius is great for slow to medium speed rythmic tight turns, while a large radius is suited to high speed open turns (rythmic or not). I like tight, technical slalom turns. I'm thinking the wider skis need more sidecut to approach the quicker turning response of the narrower skis. Since responsive and quick tight tree skiing turns are more important to me than the go fast and straight tough guy turns, the Insane's win.

Secretly I think I want a 20M radius. K2 makes such a ski with great reviews(Coomba). While K2 started out as a great US success story, wall street took over, and now K2 is Chinese=failed shopping criteria 4. I'm hopeful that K2's quality/performance has turned around in recent years, their recent backcountry shapes and weights hold some appeal. Black Diamond skis, formerly made by Atomic, are made in China too. Another good US made ski is Folsom Custom skis. I saw their shop in Boulder and I'm impressed with their product. I considered purchasing Folsom skis. Ultimately I decided my custom tailoring budget should first be spent on bootfitting and/or bikefitting.

Tolerable Underfoot Width:
Powder/junk conditions usually favor 100mm + waist for telemark skiing. More is better, but much over 100mm is difficult to handle on firm snow. The 183 Janak and 172 Insane share a 100mm waist size. The 183 Janak may be stubborn with sub-sonic turns, and the 172 Insane just doesn't have the surface area. I compromised and exceeded my 100mm width criteria, and moved up to the 183 Insane with a 108mm waist width. This is still smaller than my 114mm Heli Star waist width.

Not Made By Slaves:
The Janaks were made in Austria (possibly skiers), Insanes were made in Salt Lake City(possibly skiers), hopefully that prevents some "slavery".

Result: I found an irresitable discount on the 183 Janak, and later acquired the 183 Insanes. This quiverless goal failed, because I ended up acquiring both pairs of skis.

Plan of Action: This season will be a quiverless experiment. I will use the 183 Insanes for every descent of 2009/2010. (I'll sacrifice the old powder planks in the early season rock skipping) Performance will not always be optimal, but I won't have to shuffle around as many planks and skins, and starvin marvin may hate me a little less. The testing will include some night resort racing on wednesdays. I expect the Insanes will master the powder chowder and eek out resort skiing all winter just fine. If the Insanes shred the steep spring couloirs with confidence, I'll get the Voile USA tattoo. If not, I may have to practice a self arrest and mount up the Janaks for steep spring descents and mountaineering trips.

The hippies can complain, but I'm a firm believer in "power of the consumer". Realistically consumer choice is how capitalists and Mericans vote (by supporting lobbying budgets and campaign financing) each and every day. There are many reasons to consume closer to the source; environmental ethics/controls, reducing transportation/infrastructure costs and waste, supporting your neighbors, keeping business smaller and more responsible, reducing the global impact of social/economic abuses (aka national deficit and China). It's not that I don't believe in the existence and benefits of a global economy. I use the heck out of a lot of great stuff made in China and many Merican cars suck and shouldn't be made! Let's focus on other stuff we are better at! I believe our culture and nation has abused the benefits of a global economy and it bothers me, and I'd like to see it change. I once worked for Kodak paper and read a company flyer containing two significant articles. 1 Kodak reduced its pollution by some huge percentage (wow that's great news, incredible, how did we do that?) and 2 We outsourced all of our chemicallly polluting film production to China. Oh.

USA Products I'll be using to ski this season:
Voile Skis and Voile bindings
Climbing Skins Direct
Wickers underwear
Scott Goggles
Hava a Hank bandanna

4F

Monday morning low, 4 F I'm intrigued by how crystals can so efficiently pull, lift, suck free water towards any available air space, like inanimate plant life, growing towards the sun. I'd love to capture a time lapse video of that growth.

The surface hoar flakes are fragile.

Saturday was a lazy day for this dog. Overcast, not much snow, two squash to cook, and a short video to post for Will's violin contest. Sunday I had planned to go skiing up I-70. Early sunday AM, plans fell through, and I ventured out for a lone front range(r) powder fest! It's nice having wide rock skis, and it's very nice leaving my house after 8AM for a day of fluffy skiing. All I need is front range company who enjoy human powered tree/glade skiing. A little more snow and a clear day to explore a little more would also be key. Who's up for Allenspark exploration?