Grays On Trays

Earlier today I noted that whoever is running the official Facebook fan page for Welch Village wasn’t, to put it politely, using it well.

I just looked at the page a few minutes and noticed a few other choice items. For example, on December 7, a fan asked “Any more runs open today???” The official reply was “What does the snow report on our website say?”

I’ve been an Internet/e-mail user long enough to know that it’s hard to infer someone’s emotional state from the written word alone, but as I read it, that response conveys boredom, contempt, or both.

On December 8, in response to someone’s question, Welch replied “We will post the weekend outlook by Thursday. We should have about 20 runs or so.” That was a fine response. Then shortly after, the Welch Facebook person added, “I’m sure someone will ask why we won’t have more…”

Get snippy with your customers much?

On December 9, the tone continued to be less than responsive. In response to the question, “What’s your guys plan for opening runs?,” the Welch Facebook manager answered “We plan to open more.”

A better response, of course, would be something like “We’re aiming to open runs X and Y first,” or “We want to open these kinds of runs first” or even “Everything depends on the weather, but we think we can have all the runs covered in ___ days if all goes well.” Instead, the Facebook manager appears to have let the negative attitudes of a few people goad him (or her) into adopting a surly attitude.

And now for the fact that drove me to write this post: Someone at Welch Village has apparently removed some of the nasty back-and-forth exchanges that were previously on the fan page. In one exchange, someone said, in effect, “Hey, why are you insulting your customers?” That’s exactly what I thought. Even if your customers deserve to be insulted, you shouldn’t do it. Nor should you enter into new media if you’re going to whitewash history.

Ski areas are starting to add Facebook, Twitter, and other social media tools to their marketing mix. Unfortunately, putting your name out there in the public sphere can also give members of the public–that is, your (would-be) customers–the opportunity to criticize you.

So how’s a ski area to respond? Somehow I don’t think that Welch Village, Minnesota, has the right idea. Here’s a notice from its Facebook fan page:

Attention Terrain Park Complainers: There are 60 runs at Welch Village that we are trying to open for all of our guests. We are taking advantage of this cold weather to make snow for the entire ski area, this maybe our last opportunity to do so. A lot of our park crew is working long hours making snow this year. We …will block users who only complain about the terrain park and erase negative and abusive comments.

In an earlier post, the Welch Village Facebook manager told customers, “You should just relax about the terrain park.”

Removing negative comments, from my understanding of online PR, is not the way to go. Announcing that you’re going to do it makes things worse. Telling customers to be quiet doesn’t help.

Welch Village has “fans” who defend it, and it ought to let them carry the load, while patiently explaining its plan for preparing the terrain for the season.

My online colleague-in-blogging, Shannon Johnson, author of Shayboarder.com, has been hitting her stride and making a name for herself. What I didn’t know is just how popular she has become.

The other day ESPN.com ran a story, “Chez Shayboarder,” about Shannon and her site. I don’t remember when I first came across Shayboarder–that site started in August 2007, I started this blog in October, 2004–but I’ve appreciated Shannon’s work for several reasons.

First, her writing doesn’t sound like it comes from a high-school dropout. Perhaps that’s one reason it has less of the snowboarding dialect than the typical snowboarding site. (On the other hand, she does use the word “haters” as a synonym for “critics.” Is that a generational artifact?)

Second, we’re both minorities within snowboarding. She’s a woman; I’m a man who has passed his 40th birthday. I can relate to someone being out of the mainstream of the sport.

Third, she knows her stuff, and she’s approachable. I’ve asked for her opinion on gear, and she’s been kind enough to give me her opinion.

A lot of other people have found reasons to like Shayboarder. For one thing, it has had over 800,000 page views in its two years of existence. The Grays on Trays blog, in its nearly 5 years of existence, has received … a lot less.

Perhaps it’s Shannon’s product knowledge. Or more importantly, her attitude. “‘The site is popular because it’s for average riders, whether they ride 10 or 50 days a year,’ explains Shay.” She adds “I think many snowboarders today go online looking for something to relate to.”

Makes sense to me.

I started Grays on Trays back in 2003 because I was looking for, but failed to find, an online resource about snowboarding that was suitable for adults. Everything I could was geared toward teenagers, or even younger children. So the site was born.

Starting the blog in October of 2004 was a logical extension of that.

Since starting the blog, I’ve found some other blogs that are worth checking with from time to time. This isn’t to say that I would write in the same way or with the same style that the authors of these blogs do. In fact, sometimes they write about things that I have little or no interest in, or use a style that I would use.

Still, I recommend checking out the sites listed blogroll if you’re looking for more places to seek out information, inspiration, and stories of snowboarding.

Today I’m going to introduce one site on the roll, Passion for Addiction. The author, Pamela Valure, writes from the Hudson Valley. She works in the design field, so the layout of the blog is appealing. At least I find it appealing: It’s clean and not cluttered with a lot of background artwork, like a lot of snowboards and snowboarding magazines are.

Valure is a certified snowboard instructor, which certainly adds to her credibility, though in the short tenure of the blog she hasn’t written much about techniques. I realize that communicating good technique through the written word can be difficult, and that there’s a limit to its utility. But here’s hoping that Passion for Addiction includes some instructional tips along the way.

Speaking of shopping for snowboarding stuff, be sure to check out the review of online shops offered by Shannon at Shayboarder.com.

For a variety of reasons I haven’t made it out to the snow yet, which means that my “snowboarding” this season has been limited to getting vicarious thrills from other web sites.

Allie, the author behind the blog Vancity Allie, describes herself as “a 24 year-old Vancouver girl who loves and writes about everything ‘Vancouver’ and West Coast.” Snowboarding is one of the topics she covers. (Click here for the snowboarding archives.)

Check out one of her recent posts for some good photos from Whistler Blackcomb, other spots in British Columbia, Steamboat, Mammoth and other destinations I’d like to visit someday.

One reason I started this blog–similar to the reason I started the Grays on Trays website itself–is that I could not find any snowboarding-related blogs that I liked.

Fortunately, things have changed since then. So once you’re done reading here, head over to one of the worthy destinations listed in the sidebar of this site. Look for “Snowboarding blogs.”

I’m always eager to highlight niche outlets that spread the joy of snowboarding. Since the teenage male gets most of the media attention, there’s a lot of room for adults.

Another segment of the population that doesn’t get much attention in the world of snowboarding is women, generally. So here’s to PowderRoom.Net, a U.K.-based site that bills itself as being “for girls who know snow.”

It’s got news, a blog, a discussion forum, and other features.

Most snowboard-related writing on the Internet is drivel. (For that matter, so are most of the magazines!) Some of it, though, is written with style and skill. Take a look, for example, at the blog Writing as Jo(e). Great photos accompany this well-written blog. Of course, Jo(e) ought to write well; she teaches college students how to write.

Most of the time, Jo(e)’s blog isn’t about snowboarding. She writes about her job, family, friends, travels, and on occasion, her adventures on a snowboard. Unfortunately, Jo(e) doesn’t use labels or tags on her posts, so you can’t bring all of her snowboard-related posts into one spot.

Until now. Here are links to Jo(e)’s snowboarding blog posts, complete with excerpts.

Season begins
We are lucky to live within 25 miles of a good ski slope. Winters can be long here – it will be a months before I again feel sunshine against my bare legs – but spending at least one whole day outside in the fresh air every weekend does wonders for the winter blues.

Bonding through Boarding
“I think every part of my body hurts,” I said to my daughter.

Promoted
Suddenly, I found myself in the position of snowboard instructor. Anyone who read my post about snowboarding from last weekend will see the irony in this situation.

About snowboarding Sunday
Coming down the mountain with my right foot in front was much easier. (Apparently I am goofy. Who would have thought?) And getting my body to move the right way was possible because I had figured it out in my head.

Mostly ice
I know that ski lodges in movies have comfy furniture, and fireplaces, and hot tubs, and sometimes famous actors wearing tap shoes, but our ski lodge is nothing like that.

Inside the ski lodge
I know that some of these parents are afraid. They are afraid of getting hurt. They are afraid that their kids will get hurt. They don’t understand the appeal of the ski slope. And yet despite their fears, they listened when their kids begged for snowboard lessons and scraped together the hundred bucks for the six-week program.

Soft snow at last
The great thing about rain is that most people don’t like it. And they go home. For the rest of the day, there were no lines at all at the chairlift. And I didn’t mind boarding in the rain. I’ve always liked hiking and canoeing in the rain, and this was no different.

Crowding the table
When we returned to the table, teenagers had gathered around it, drawn to the cooler and bag of food the way buzzards are drawn to roadkill.

Crossing over
What I’ve found, after five Sundays of snowboard lessons, is that I really like snowboarding. It’s easier on my knees than skiing. And once I made it past the difficult first lesson, I’ve been able to learn pretty fast. I like the movement, the balancing, the speed.

Fresh air and sunshine
It’s always wonderful when your student not only learns the basics of what you are teaching, but catches your love of what you are doing.

On a cold and wintry night
Snowboarding in the dark is an exhilarating experience. Breathing in the icy air of a winter night woke my whole body, the coldness tingling through me. … By the time we drove home, making our way through dark country roads, we were all pleasantly tired from taking run after run. And the frustrating situation with the car had long been forgotten.

Icy winds
It was the kind of day when you make sure your helmet meets your goggles, your goggles meet your face mask, your face mask meets your neck gaiter, and your neck gaiter gets tucked into your coat.

Snowboarding drunk
I tell them that more snowboarding injuries happen when you are tired. And I have statistics to back that up. Most injuries happen on the last run of the day. The kids scoff at this information. Boy in Black explained to me patiently, “Of course, the injury happens on the last run of the day. Because once you’ve got a broken wrist, you aren’t likely to take another run.”

Injured
I got injured getting off the chair lift. Yes. Possible the lamest injury in the history of snowboarding. … For the record, this did count as a snowboarding injury, even if I wasn’t exactly snowboarding when it happened. I mean, my leg would not have twisted in that bizarre fashion if it wasn’t attached to a snowboard.

Jo(e) Athlete
I kept badgering him to help me come up with a rule of thumb so that I would know when I could snowboard again. Finally, he said, “Okay, if you can run up and down a flight of stairs without pain, you are ready to snowboard again.”

Healing
By the middle of this week, I came to the realization that despite all the wonderful snow we’ve gotten this week, I am not going to be able to snowboard this weekend.

Almost
For the last two months, I’ve been conscious, every day, almost every minute, of my right knee, a body part that, to be honest, I don’t usually spend much time thinking about.

Healing
And finally, spring is here. Well, almost here. I’ve still got snow in my yard. But gradually, the knee has gotten better. It doesn’t wake me up at night any more, it doesn’t hurt when I bend it, and mostly, I no longer even think about it. I can run up and down the stairs without pain.

Stretching
The injury had healed but I guess the pain had gotten me into the bad habit of not using my leg, of dragging it about like a phantom limb. The healing, I realized, was not finished. So every morning now, I sit on the floor and put the bottoms of my feet together and start stretching out those leg muscles.

Ready
We are not a household that spends much money on clothing, but I will spend money on good outerwear.

Headed to the chair
The good news is the my knee is fully recovered, and I have no lingering fear of snowboarding. The bad news is that I am terrified of the damned chair lift. A chair lift, I keep explaining to anyone who will listen, is designed for someone wearing skis.

Invincible
With my right foot strapped in and my left foot on the stomp pad, I coasted away from the chair lift and stopped in a patch of new snow. When I finally took a breath, I could feel all kinds of adrenaline surging through my bloodstream.

ef="http://writingasjoe.blogspot.com/2008/01/studentteacher.html">Student/Teacher
We took three runs that day (the lessons are an hour and a half long), and he did fine as an instructor, giving me compliments every time I stopped, just as I had told him to. He seemed puzzled by the number of teenagers who kept yelling my name from the chairlift — or waving to me as they went by. “It seems like everyone here knows you,” he said.

Cold
We’ve figured out how to turn sideways and step off, but then as we go boarding down the ramp, which has been icy and fast, we are only inches away from each other. My self-defensive snowboarding instinct is apparently stronger than my maternal instinct because every time, without even being conscious that I’m doing it, I reach out with both hands and shove my daughter out of the way. “Your own daughter!” Drama Niece said in mock horror, the first time she watched us.

The right kind of snow
When I woke up this morning, my first thought was that it would be a great day to stay home by the fire and eat the party leftovers that Quilt Artist had sent home with me. Luckily, the thought was fleeting. And we arrived at the ski slopes just as the chair lifts were beginning to operate.

The whiteness of the squall
By the time we drove home, several hours later, the winds had died down somewhat, although we had to drive around drifts of snow that hadn’t yet been plowed. The power company had emergency crews out everywhere, tying up the power lines that had come down. I felt sorry for the people who had been safely inside their houses for the squall, who didn’t get to experience its full power.

There are thousands of places where you can buy a snowboard, either online or in a traditional retail store.

I have never purchased anything from Sierra Snowboard, but I came across them through some Internet searches.

What caught my eye are the interactive features of the site. It offers forums, a Wiki, chat, and other features that draw people to the site and build loyalty. It also has videos that describe various projects.

They sell Flow bindings, my favorite.

If you’re looking for new gear for next season, check out the company. You might be able to find something you need for a good price.