The buying part is over

The Reno trade show has come and gone. I am now home contemplating various decisions that I made and packing to go to Utah on Sunday. I brought home some fresh new Head Mojo 94's to mount up and take on the trip, so that's exciting! Negotiations in Reno went well. A few new faces on our sticks will include a Palmer model (won't sell many but it is just SO awesome!), two models of Line skis, Full Tilt boots, POC helmets, and some new clothing lines. John and I had a great time amoung all the candy and brought home some Fischer race skis, the Mojo's, a pair of boots, a POC helmet and various other items. Leaving the building with all our loot we took some ribbing from various sales reps about having to pack up more goodies than them! The trip was mostly business but as is my way I always try to have a bit of fun as well. Tuesday night we went to a WWSRA sponsored party for cocktail and dinner with Brad our Stockli rep. There we closed the place down with "Alvie" from Rossignol, Neil from Sun Valley Ski tools, and Steve Baugh of Scott (as well as the namesake of "Baugh's bowl" in Grand Targhee). At the end the group of us was standing around one of the tables after everyone else had left. When the hotel staff cleared out the mess and eventually took away the kegs we all moved on to the Brews brothers bar. There we continued our Merriment and about 11:30 added Tequila to the group fun. Somewhere along the way I literally bumped into Doug Yeggy. He is one of my closest friends and lives in Chico. Doug was more than happy to join the fun. After a number of rounds of shots we headed up to John and my room for a final session of war stories. At about 2:15 the final hangers on gave in. All except Alvie. He went to have breakfast before bed. What a great group of people there are in the ski industry! A special thanks to Alvie for taking so much abuse about all things French the entire evening. All in good fun of coarse! Tuesday night was all work as John helped me make the tough decisions. A few tweaks will be made over the next month or so, but I now have a picture of the product mix for next year and it will be stronger than ever before. Now there are o few days of work at the shop and then Todd, his father, myself and both my daughters will be ripping up the slopes of the state with the greatest snow on Earth! Hopefully I will get in a few turns with Peter Keelty from Realskiers.com and Tony Hedgecock who is the Western sales manager of Head. Appropriately we will be skiing a Head Mojo 94 (me), a Head iM88 (Todd), a Head iM78 (Todds dad), a Head Wild Thang (daughter Rebecca), and a Fischer Vision Vapor (daughter Jennifer). At least Tony will know that we are comitted to his brand! I'll let you know how it went when I get back.