So much to catch up on...

It has been soo busy at the shop. Every day. So I haven't updated well here.

Sorry.

Let's see. The Olympics are on every day. Awesome to see. The US has done us proud in Alpine skiing and overall. Head skis has surely been dominant and the customers have noticed. Interesting. Advertising does work! Happy for Americans Lindsay, Julia, Bode, and Ted. For Maria Reich and the other winners too. Those that deserved to win did so. Can't say that I am a fan of the NBC coverage but it is still awesome!

The industry is running out of gear! We are getting low on certain items. Our inventory looks like it typically does a month from now. Not really a bad problem to have, but we will miss a sale every here and there. And worse yet let a customer down perhaps. Sorry! I wish I could get more but the suppliers are out too. It has been a good year so far!

We had a demo day with Wayne Wong and the amazing Anton Gliders (http://www.antongliders.com/) scheduled for tomorrow but weather cancelled. Rescheduled for March 13. Our Toko tuning clinic is set for March 15 at the shop. Interested? Give us a call and get signed up. Max number is 30.

Speaking of tuning we got a NEW STONE GRINDER! Sorry to yell but this is pretty exciting. Our old machine had a stone that will not let us stone grind snowboards. Even wide skis available these days are a challenge. The new Grindrite 21Hundred from Wintersteiger is a thing to behold. Twenty two preset stone patterns and we can program in more. We have already added the Head "christmas tree" chevron pattern from their world cup skis. Also the Stockli pattern. Both were too complex for our old machine. And it is so easy to use that pretty much anyone could run it. Automation is expensive but efficient and repeatable. Good stuff. It cost about as much as a Mercedes Benz, but hey, you cant make your Stocklis sing in the snow using a Mercedes!

Another mid winter storm has been going on. I go to Reno on Tuesday with John to buy for next year. We will be there Tuesday through Thursday. By the end our lineup for next year will be pretty much set. Due to the pace of retail as mentioned above, I am not as prepared for Reno this year. I spend as much time as possible each year doing basic business analysis and create "open to buy" numbers for each category and carefully pour through the various options. This year I may have to trust my gut a bit more. I should still hit it about 95% right but will miss a few things. I will revisit it all in the spring and try to fix any mistakes...

Anyway, that's about it around here! How 'bout you? You been skiing?

Blizzard in the Sierra!

Actually it was a very warm day at Sugar Bowl yesterday. Bluebird skies and light jackets. Good snow. For the first time in many ski days I got to ski my personal skis. Awesome day!

In addition to my skis we obtained three models of the Blizzard 2010/11 lineup to spend time on. We also brought a Boone ski from our shop demos. I had not skied the Boone's and recently a number of customers have taken out the demo ski and come back saying it was their favorite ski ever. So I thought I should give it a whirl.

All the skis were great- particularly mine! Steve really liked both the Blizzard 8.7 and the Titan Atlas. They are quite different from each other in feel but both very satisfying. The Boone features an all bamboo core and this makes it very light and very "poppy" or springy feeling. Very distinctive and different than anything else I have skied. Boone is local (from Alameda) and seems to be on to something here! Check them out at www.booneskis.com.

We skied a bit with Steve from Sugar Bowl who is a friend of CalSkiCo Steve. They are friends from Chico State and also both work for Outward Bound. Sugar Bowl Steve skis telemark only. And he telemarks very well. It must be nice to spin a few laps every day while on your lunch break!

I am still mentally sorting things out from the Denver show and the on snow demos in my mind. I tend to dream about skis quite a bit this time of year. This season the dreams seem to involve Fischer wide skis more often than not. The redesigned Watea 101. The new Watea 98. The new Watea 114. Wow. Also the new Line Prophet 115. Rockered skis are for real and will be a big buzz this season.

So the season is "over the hump" from a business perspective. The major holidays have passed. We are more than half way through the resort season. Overall I would have to say that I am pleased. Very pleased. The end results for the year will be good. If the storms keep coming and we finish string, the sales results will be fantastic. The staff has been stellar as usual. Our customers are awesome. Life is good.

And I am excited about next year as well. Since I need to think about next year so much this time of year, I cannot help but speculate. The new products are compelling and well done. I think you will like them. Now over the next few weeks I will place the rest of my orders for the 2010/11 winter. Then in mid March I will have put my orders in and then fly to Salt Lake City to ski with friend for a few days. Until then, keep demoing skis (next week is Salomon) and dial in the order!

We have loaded up the cars, We got the keg in there. They have the skis. It's demo season! After a great trade show in Denver, followed by two days at the Rocky Mountain Dealers ski demos at Winter Park we're off to Alpine Meadows for our regional demo. Two days at Alpine will be followed by two more at Mammoth Mountain set up for the SoCal dealers.

Every manufacturer will be there with their goods. Ski all of next years skis. Try some new goggle models. Whatever you want! It is like Disneyland for us, but serious work too. We fill out test cards on every ski we try. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Then it is back to headquarters to make decisions on what gear we will display for you next year. At Winter Park we got through most of the women's skis narrower than 90mm at the waist. Beneilia and Becky will finish off the category and confirm our test results on the cards we filled out (or possibly disagree with the results we got). We had four skiers at Winter Park. Six at Alpine. Four at Mammoth later this week. That's 14 skier days. There will still be arguments and indecision. We will mop up those questions in the next few weeks with arraigned private demos for CalSkiCo by the reps.

I'll tell you more about the Denver show when I get back. It was awesome. Right now I have to finish packing!