badmigraine
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Posts posted by badmigraine
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Different cultures have evolved different manners of conceiving and expressing individual emotion.
Just as it is commonly said that women are light-years ahead of men when it comes to thinking and feeling about relationships, so are some cultures rife with the means of expressing feelings while others rigidly limited.
Look at Italians for example. Not only is it normal to go around expressing deep feelings and opinions about feelings, they also have an entire range of sophisticated as well as vulgar means of expressing them. Watch a couple of Italians at a cafe. Even without hearing them, you can get a good idea of what they are talking about. Hand gestures, facial expressions, body postures, all kinds of things are used to paint the bones of the exchange in colors rich with expressive feeling and individual nuance.
Now contrast that with Japanese conversation. There is a limited range of coded signals that works best when both parties collude in failing to even conceive of the possibility of expressing many feelings, let alone considering how they might actually be expressed if required.
I used to ride my bike around Yoyogi Park on the weekends. There, you could see groups of Japanese college or drama students practicing plays and scripts.
The only kind of acting or expression they knew how to do was (i) normal conversation and (ii) shouting.
The only tool available to these amateur thespians was shouting, and it was used to express any kind of strong feeling such as passionate love, excitement, anger, extreme happiness, etc.
Professional actors in Japan have a somewhat more extensive range of tools available for expressing emotion, but to me it seemed as though the common person's situation when it came to expressing emotion was like a guitar with only one string.
Now that I am back in America, I am disappointed to find that most people here can't authentically display their feelings.
Instead, everything has to be put inside of a kind of wry TV-comedy type envelope, or else colored with juvenile slang copied from the hip-hop/skate/California slacker/jr. high school connection. It seems nobody is confident that their emotions or personal views could possibly stand alone without the safe support of these puerile, trash-culture bulwarks.
It is very rare to find someone who is able to honestly express what they are feeling without resorting to these crutches.
And often, when I do come across someone who has this ability, it turns out they acquired it in some "course" or "group" to which I am now invited--most of us would call these "self-help cults" like The Forum or Scientology or EST or whatever. The person's initially refreshing demeanor quickly becomes a strident, fixed-eye sermon in which I am catchized about integrity, how to have more "personal power" and "what if I told you there is a place you could go where everyone supports you and you can empower yourself to achieve your goals" etc. etc.
Another striking feature of the return to American life is the incredible rudeness and arrogant sense of entitlement fairly emanating from most any retail or service employee. Their attitude is like a glaring thousand-watt sign hanging over everything. You are not dealing with a store or service employee, you are paying money for the privilege of re-enacting all of their issues about everything including their job in a kind of symbolic play. All this just to mail a letter or buy a pen.
It's almost like you have to begin by apologizing, then flatter these people in a sniveling way just to get their attention. I sure miss the good service and pride in any job that I saw in Japan.
It makes me feel like shouting sometimes.
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Here's a thorough long read about the deadly avalanches in British Columbia this season.
http://outsideonline.com/outside/features/200304/200304_thin_white_line_1.html
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I've never lied in my life.
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What's the most I've drunk in one night?
Though I may not be able to beat some of your beer/booze drinking records, I think I can safely say that there is one thing which I've drunk more of in one night than anyone here...
When the Japanese/Columbian dominatrix who was my girlfriend in LA in the early 90's told me to drink a certain special liquid, I did what she said, as many times as she said, just to avoid another whipping!
Those were the days. I can't believe I left that relationship just to go to Japan...
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And she was wearing a black string bikini!!
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I refuse to admit or deny anything.
By the way, did I mention that I dated Lucy Liu a couple of times (lunch dates)?
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Amazing how the US has bungled it so badly that a nation whose corrupt, sadistic leader is despised by his own people and the entire Arab street ( including Bin Ladin!) can seem like the saintly victims while the US appears as the evil bully oppressor.
Leave aside for a minute any issue of whether this war is justified or wrong or what have you: the sheer ignorant incompetence and blockheaded stupidy of the US leaders boggles the mind.
What a total and colossal failure...emasculate the UN, destabilize the entire world order, blow up yet another third-world country of people whom first-world lust for oil has kept in medieval mud-shack peasant conditions, roll back civil rights, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and return terrifying industry self-regulation to logging, oil and agricultural industries...
How can anybody trust these clowns?
And how can such clowns be so powerful?
Finally, how can such clowns get to be President without even winning the election?
More bizarre and frightening than any movie about these issues.
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"Tsumaranai mono desu ga..."
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And Mogs, we have to work on improving the dollars-to-days ratio.
I am hurting after the expense of visiting the Goods.
If I am in the US next winter, I will have this sussed out.
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Kambei, no problem stepping into Flows on the move.
It is a bit trickier than clicking into regular step-ins for 2 reasons:
1.
Your boot has to slide into the rat-trap or footstrap area from behind, instead of coming straight down from above, as in a Clicker, Switch or Burton SI system for example. This was no big deal for me after the first few tries, but I did almost wipe out at first because it is not a movement I had ever done before while skating.
2.
You have to bend down and flip up the hi-back. This was easy enough for me, but I envision falling on my face 1-3 times per season while doing it. It might be harder for a new or beginner boarder to do this, but then again, so would be anything else too.
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And before I forget, senior year Jennifer Beals ("Flashdance") was sleeping with a guy upstairs from me. We'd see her go up the stairs around 3 pm, hear the bed banging, then see her flounce off a couple hours later.
And Jodie Foster was in a couple of my discussion sections of "Freud and Philosophy" or maybe it was some class about semiotics.
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Just to remind everyone who forgot the last time I mentioned it, I went on a few dates with Lucy Liu back in the late 80's when I was a law student and she an undergrad at the U. of Michigan.
The day I first noticed her, we were hanging out at Fuller Pool. And there she was in a skimpy black bikini.
My friend was going to go over to talk to her, but I beat him to it! He was so mad, he took off in the car and I had to walk home.
It was worth it though.
In those days she wasn't famous of course. Just looking like herself and being a lot younger.
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Riding with Mogski can be like riding alone...he goes so fast that unless you floor it you will soon be on your own!
YEAH!!
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snowboard_freak, I have the boardercross ones (stiffest) and the all-mountain ones. I use the boardercross ones because I like a stiff hard fast (remember, I have to keep up with Mogski, a skier!) unforgiving ride where the edges slice as clean as you please and you can see the smooth, long trenches in the snow when you ride back up the lift.
My sis is currently "borrowing" the all-mountain ones, but I doubt she will ever give them back. The first time she tried them, she noticed a difference and now is less wary of ice and hardpack.
Rather than write a lengthy disquisition on how they are and what they do, let me just simply say that they do exactly what the label says they do, no more and no less! Just read the label and you can believe what it says. If you can't make up your mind which ones you want, the all-around ones are a good bet over the freestyle or boardercross ones.
Highly recommended.
The only people I have seen who tried them and didn't notice much difference are people who backfoot/skid their entire turns without carving and slicing and edging round. They are not using their edges much, so hardly notice improved edging leverage and performance.
But even then they noticed it was easier to scrape during their skidding!
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Well, Ocean, if it makes you feel better, getting into Flows in deep powder would involve some brushing out of snow that would soon go back in again...just about every binding is hard to use in that kind of snow.
I would say that having so much snow around that bindings are hard to operate is what technical experts call a "Happy Problem".
I picked up a pair of Burton Rulers today...on sale for $120. They seem to hold the foot down just fine!
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The rented Chevy Blazer wove back and forth over the yellow line as the rolling tink of an empty soda can under the seats punctuated the silence.
It was nighttime rush hour on the fringes of Salt Lake City. After a big dump day at Snowbird, the mood was "pasta/garlic fix".
"I could have sworn it was around here, on the right..." I said, staring out the side window. The Blazer drifted across the line toward a forest of oncoming headlights.
Seventy wandering minutes later, the Blazer coincidentally re-appeared on the same street. This time Mogski is at the wheel.
"I thought it was up here, on the right..." he said, and the rented Blazer drifted across the line toward a forest of oncoming headlights.
It looked like pasta was out of the question, so we gave up on Buca di Beppo and did the only reasonable thing: Burger King.
One of the side benefits of spending 3 hours tooling up and down the streets of an unknown place is finding sports shops with end-of-season blowout sales. We saw a half-acre circus tent full of 80% off skis, boards, boots, bindings, cases, helmets, goggles, etc. We saw two giant metal soccer balls, we found a paintball war shop, and we repeatedly drove past two strip bars and a Hooters without even stopping.
At Gart Bros., a big chain shop kind of like Oshmans, I picked up a pair of 2003 Flow FL-11 freeride bindings, for only $90! That's less than a night out in Roppongi.
I tried these bindings out during 4 boarding days in Big Sky last week and the verdict is, Amazing. I will probably never even bother to look at another make of binding.
Absolutely unbelievable. I should not have waited this long to try them.
There have been a couple of detailed Flow threads on this board in the last year or so, but I just wanted to add my own experience for the record:
INSTALLATION OF FLOWS
No different from installing any other binding. Are you good at screwing?
I mounted them with Palmer PowerLinks, another great product that REALLY WORKS and that you should rush out and buy immediately.
DAILING-IN OF FLOWS
As others have posted, it takes a few runs on the first day to find your preferred strap tension, but this is a piece of cake. It is no more time-consuming than messing about with strap bindings at the top of the hill. I spent about 2 minutes total on the first day clicking the footstrap down 1-2 clicks tighter each run until it was where I wanted it. Even at the too-tight tension, there is no pain or pressure point. Rather, you just have to work close the binding more than usual because you boot won't easily go in all the way. But you don't need to make them this tight.
WHAT YOU NOTICE WHILE USING FLOWS
You notice that you don't notice your bindings anymore. For me, the feeling was one of even, no-pressure-point union with my board. I am really particular about wanting stiff, responsive bindings and until now I have had to crank my straps down super-tight to get the edge control at speed that I like. Even after the top-of-the-line stiffest and bestest Burton and Salomon strap bindings, I had given up and concluded that I needed to move to hard boots/plate bindings next year, in order to get what I want out of the interface.
But thanks to these Flow bindings, I won't have to do that. This is the perfect interface for me.
HOW EASY AND QUICK TO GET IN AND OUT OF FLOWS?
Even faster and easier than most step-ins, because you don't have to look at it and mess about with clearing snow from a small insert plate or ratchet.
You just put your boot into the rat trap, slide down the lift ramp, then as you are going along you reach down and close the back. It takes maybe .7 seconds. I saw jaws dropping all around.
People, I was faster than skiers! I began to get irritated having to stop and wait while they fiddled with their poles!!
Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw!!
Now when I think about poor Mogs having to wait for me to strap in these past 3-4 years, I want to buy him a beer. I reckon if you add up all the time he's spent waiting on me and my straps, it must be about 1 full on-mountain snow day.
Now THAT is tough, even for a friend! And never a single complaint or even a funny look.
Well maybe there was a funny look but the helmet and goggles hid it from sight.
BADMIGS, WHAT ABOUT FLOWS AND BOOTS?
Good question.
On the hill, the Flows are so perfect and seamless that they drop out of your consciousness completely, leaving you with only boot and board tweaks to think about.
As for my boots, until now I had thought they were pretty good. But after I got into the Flows I could see the problem with my middle-of-the-range K2 soft boots: my foot moves around in the boot something awful! No matter how tightly I laced the liner and boot, and even with thicker socks, I could not stop significant side-to-side and heel lift movement inside the boot.
I wondered if this movement had been as bad in my strap binding setup, so I tried my strap bindings one afternoon to see if this inside-the-boot movement still occurred. Yes, it did! I just never got as far as caring about it too much since the straps were so hard and tight around the toe and ankle and I figured this was the sacrifice I had to make to get stiff binding response. Silly me. In fact, I had been ratcheting those straps tighter and tighter to try to eliminate heel lift etc.
This problem has nothing to do with bindings. I just need better-fitting boots.
I'm looking at Burton and Salomon boots, because they seem to fit my feet OK and have a beefy pad on the inner ankle backside to reduce heel lift. Once I get some decent boots, things should improve even more!
How nice that I have this great, indisputable reason to go shopping yet again. Thank you all for reading this far and validating my Need to Shop for Gear.
Mogs, shall we go back to Gart Bros. in SLC and look for my boots? I'm pretty sure we could find Buca di Beppo and have an aglio, olio e peperoncino lunch with a nice dry Chianti and fava beans. F-f-f-f-f-f-fff!
WHAT ABOUT FLOW BOOTS?
It's true that Flow makes boots. I've not yet been able to find them in a shop, but most shop people told me they are somewhat inferior-seeming and lag behind other boots in terms of features and comfort. One shop here said they sent them all back mid-season because they hadn't sold a single pair.
Feet come in innumerable shapes and sizes and so do ankles and calves. Try the Flow boots if you can, they do fit some people fine, but rest assured that any soft boot will work with your Flows. You can still get your most favoritist boot and your dogs will thank you.
BOOT HANGNAIL ISSUE SOLVED
The sole of my old boots was peeling off the back of the heel this season. The Flow binding kind of accelerated the pulling-off of that peeling bit of rubber, like when you rip a hangnail off your fingertip.
To handle this, I cut the peeling section down with nail scissors (it was cosmetic only) and put Shoe Goo on the bottom part to hold it together and now everything is fine.
New boots should eliminate this problem completely though.
INTERCHANGEABLE FOOTSTRAPS
The great thing about Flows is you can put any of their different footstraps on your bindings and change the flex characteristics across the full range from soft-freestyle to stiff-boardercross. I was perfectly satisfied with the FR-11 freeride footstraps, medium-stiff, but for icy and hardpack days when I will be blasting full speed and trying to lay some trenches, I'll probably want the boardercross ones. Switching these footstraps would be a two-minute job at most, and as the footstraps are so light, you can bring alternates on your trip and it's like having two different bindings with you!
My wife is ready to move up to a better boot-board linkage than her K2 clickers give, so she will be picking up some Flows too. I am going to try to get them mail order from the shop where I got mine. $90 is a great price.
IN CONCLUSION
You need these bindings. They will change your life!
DISCLAIMER
The author of this message is not receiving any paid compensation from Flow bindings, Palmer snowboards, Gart Bros. chain stores, or Buca di Beppo restaurant.
The author of this message is, however, available for sponsorship by any of the foregoing fine companies.
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...but not on others?
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Today we got some "Youth size 5" Burton Ruler boots for my wife, for only $68!
The adult ones are $179!
Great news!
Now if she will only agree to wear grown-ups' underwear from Victoria's Secret!
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eruption
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Reading some of the comments here, I get the feeling some posters haven't yet experienced the kind of terrain I am talking about, or they ski/board a different style, or they are still near the beginning of their great lifetime voyage of sliding and haven't yet found enjoyment on this type of terrain. It sounds like this may even be a theoretical issue to some.
Folks, I am not talking so much about extreme backcountry avalanche terrain here. Rather, I am talking about pretty much the same old mountains we ride even in Japan, but you can just come down anywhere you want in the resort area.
You can scoot anywhere, find trees or drops or slopes that are rather steep or enjoyably treed, even get stuck in the trees if you are wanting to do that.
As for lift closures, I don't understand the point. I've seen lifts closed in both Japan and the US, to save resort money, because of high winds, because the served area has not yet been avalanche-controlled.
I've seen the highest lifts at Mammoth are often closed due to wind. I've seen some very exposed lifts at Fernie and Sunshine closed due to horrendous winds. I went to Furano and 1/3 of the mountain was closed every day even though conditions were fine and mild. What does this have to do with anything?
My point has nothing to do with dangerous lifts across yawning chasms (although this is not a bad subject for another post!).
I am talking about regular lifts in the resort area. You go up, and then you come down--wherever you want, instead of being shunted like a lemming into tracked-out groomers with orange ropes all around. Areas that are very steep or challenging are not roped off as "too dangerous". If an area is not patrolled, there is a sign saying so, but you can go in there and ride at your own risk, and should be prepared to pay for any rescue operations. If an area is avalanche-prone, then it is closed until cleared.
As for the point about what portion of a lift ticket goes to powder vs. groomed vs. patrolled terrain, or the argument that the lift ticket price is related to the skiable acreage and frequency of patrol (patrollers are mostly volunteers, you know, and they often only get a free season pass and nothing else), well, heh, are you joking? You must realize that it is a much bigger, badder story than this.
Of course there is some complex relation between all resort costs and lift ticket prices. This relation would change depending on the resort and all of its characteristics, popularity, weather, economic trends, etc. And many, many other factors are involved. Even if we focus on the cost you isolate, wouldn't ungroomed terrain cost less to operate than groomed? Grooming equipment, maintenance, fuel, salary etc. costs a lot. It's usually done EVERY NIGHT.
The resort owns or leases the entire area, so it is more profitable to make use of all of it instead of roping it off. You might argue that the trees and ungroomed areas cause accidents or problems that add to the resort's costs. Well, that's something difficult to prove, but it doesn't seem to be the case here in the US. In fact, there are many more accidents in the terrain pipe, park and on beginner & intermediate slopes.
For most resorts, the main factor in setting lift ticket prices is, What will the market bear?
Another way to say this is, How much will our customers pay? And if it is a snob resort like Aspen or Park City, the answer is A LOT. You will find the prices of sandwiches, coffee, beer and lodging to be proportionately high.
The majority of customers don't even pay the face price. They come in on package deals or discount tickets or coupons or student tickets or week passes or season passes.
That being said, what about these prices:
Alta lift ticket: still $40. We paid $42 per day for the Salt Lake City SuperPass, good at Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, etc. I paid $48/day at Big Sky last week and this included a HOT BREAKFAST BUFFET (I brought ziploc bags and took extra to eat on the lifts as my lunch). We got a great deal on hotel/lifts in Tahoe too. Only the uninformed and the last-minute-purchasers pay $60 and $70 for a lift ticket.
Really, this is getting complicated here.
There is no doubt that we don't see the variety and challenge of terrain in Japan that we do in the US, Canada and Europe.
Why? Because the resorts either haven't developed it, or else it's staring them in the face but they have roped it off.
Why?
I'll venture a guess. It's the "lowest common denominator", kindergarten-supervision schtick we see all over Japan. And, it is the lack of people in Japan (present company excepted, of course!) who would ever ask or want to ski the kind of terrain taken for granted in other places.
Here is another example of the same thing.
When I got to Japan in 1995 the local manager of the Mitsubishi Bank was asked why the ATMs were closed at 5 pm and all weekend.
His answer: "We don't think our customers want to withdraw their money on evenings and weekends..."
The business tells the customer what the customer wants. Anybody notice anything funny about that?
I can only hope the Japanese ski resorts wise up the way the banks eventually did. In the case of the banks, there was pressure from Citibank's 24-hour ATMs and many complaints from salarymen who'd traveled abroad and found to their amazement that an ATM is a thing that works BEST on evenings and weekends.
This Double Black Diamond Club reminds me of the way we used to pull together as a team in high school to petition the school to put lowfat milk in the vending machines, or to allow us to chew gum at athletic contests. There were bushy-tailed student leaders who stroked faculty and administration a lot, got to wear pins and armbands to show their status, achievement or sellout level, whatever you wanted to call it.
Ski resort customers are not ignorant kids to be coddled and browbeaten. In a shrinking market, the resorts should be doing the opposite: studying trends and customer preferences and what their counterparts in other prefectures and countries are doing.
Like most people, at work I had to smoke a lot of weiners every day just to get by. I really don't want to have to do that at a ski resort, so I would never join the DBD club. I wish them good luck sporting that armband in that patch of trees that runs out onto the Beginner Course.
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Yeah, you're right, we have to start somewhere.
But when I first read this article a couple of months ago, it seemed to me to be not only a very small, step, but also a step in the totally wrong direction--a step toward even more unnecessary regulation and predatory, tiered pricing practices similar to that mountain where you still have to buy a 1,000 yen license to snowboard.
I think we should start somewhere else, this approach is all wrong.
First, it perpetuates the rather Japanese myth that it's required to have an elder of unquestionable, liver-spotted authority pretending to take care of you because we all know people can't take care of themselves in this dangerous world.
Second, it purports to charge for something that should be free. Kids, this stuff IS free, at other resorts around the world.
Third, it merely perpetuates the existing paradigm that all areas of the mountain are to be controlled and doled out by people who don't really seem to know that much about what the experience could truly be.
Fourth, it seems the areas grudgingly opened are rather tame and small. Fat chance they'll open anything really challenging, because the old birds up in the shack won't want or be able to patrol it on their 4 p.m. glory run.
This club apparently doesn't require a skills test, just a meeting with a patroller. You pay the money, but for what? Restaurant discounts and the promise that if you don't hand in your silly armband at 4 pm, they will ski down to look for you.
A sign-in system already exists (for free!) in other countries, but only where access is to avalanche or other very dangerous areas. You have to sign in with patrol at the resort's backcountry/unpatrolled access gate, and prove that you have a shovel and avalanche tranceiver. After that, you are on your own.
These extreme circumstances hardly apply to the smallish section of trees described in this article. It runs out onto a "beginner course". You have to go back up to the patrol shack at the end of the day to turn in your armband? Who wants to bother with that on their last run?
I think a better place to start is to avoid paying extra money for kindergarten supervision at clubs like this, and start skiing where you really want to ski. Hike it and start having some fun. Or, duck those ropes but stay out of trouble.
Another place to start: ski elsewhere until some resort actually figures out there is a pretty good market here for people who want to ski/board the whole mountain.
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I've no hope for a better solution or even any solution to this problem in Japan.
After boarding this year at Park City, Snowbird, and Brighton in Utah, at Sierra-at-Tahoe and Squaw Valley in Tahoe, and Big Sky in Montana, the situation in Japan seems even more absurd.
At those resorts, there is hardly anywhere roped off. You go up the lift and come down where you like. If it is roped off, it's because it's a rock field that will ruin your base, or it's an impassable course with a cliff or a long uphill runout.
At some of these resorts, it's hard to make any distinction between the "course" and the "trees"...it's just you and the big mountain.
In Japan, there is a severe lack of challenging terrain for the advanced rider. But when when you look at the mountains there, you can see the good stuff--roped off or not lift-accessed. The patrol suffers from the uniformed fascist disease. And the resorts have no concept of, or desire to offer, the Genuine Goods.
Really. It is absolutely absurd. Advanced terrain in Japan is pretty much a joke.
Now you have to pay somebody extra money to go under a rope? For what? Supervised tree-skiing (supervision = some old guy or an egotistical uniformed youth with scant ski/rescue skills coming down once at 4 pm to see what happened)?
This reminds me of that mountain in Japan where you had to show the staff that you could snowboard, then buy a 1000-yen license to ride...
When I look at resort staff and patrollers in Japan, it is pretty obvious that they just have no idea about what is the ski resort norm in other countries.
Never mind though, because when I look at the average skier/rider in Japan, all they need is what they've already got.
Maybe this is a self-fulfilling prophecy here.
If I move back to Japan, you'll find me hiking the goods, and believe me, I HATE to hike.
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I strongly prefer silence and the sounds of nature...the wind passing through the pine branches, the occasional bird, the subaural hiss of falling snow blanketing the mountain.
Music is distracting and an annoyance to me on the slopes. It ruins my rhythm, prevents me from hearing other people slicing thru the soft snow or scraping toward me on the ice, and adds extraneous/unwelcome emotions, thoughts and images to the mountain experience.
Lately I am sliding in places and at speeds that require full concentration and maximum muscular effort. Unless it is draining, scary or demanding, it doesn't attract me. And when I get to the good places to slide, I want to engage them completely. I just don't have any mental space or desire to adulterate that with music.
If you could have one super power........
in General off-topic discussions
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Come on, guys. X-ray vision? Ever seen an x-ray? You want to see skeletons?
I think the ability to fly would be my choice, but it was a tough call.
For a long time, I thought the ability to defecate in big wads of the local currency would be enough for me.
Say a minimum of about US$5000 per stool, at the current LIBOR rate, adjusted for inflation of course to 2003 dollars.
I drop one almost every day, say 5-6 per week, so even if constipated that works out to $100,000 per week, or $1.2 million per year.
Keep in mind a lot of this would be tax-free too because I don't think a tax inspector has been born yet that would dare to look as far as my just-used toilet for undeclared income.
My legal argument if caught? "Your Honor, this is not 'income', it is 'outcome', as in excreta...therefore not taxable."