The event is a benefit fundraiser for the Reno Bike Project, a community bicycle shop and cycling advocacy organization, and the Holland Project, Reno’s non-profit youth-run arts, music and culture organization. (Disclosure: I’m on the Board for both Reno Bike Project and Holland Project. These grassroots young orgs are having a great impact on our community and culture.)

The film follows these characters over the course of a year, offering a behind-the-scenes look at their personal struggles and triumphs. Described as a “breakthrough documentary,” the film made its world premiere at the Victoria Film Festival earlier this summer and has won a Jury Award for Best Doc at the Calgary Film Festival, won Best Documentary at the Calgary Underground Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary at the San Joaquin International Film Festival.

Veer examines what it means to be part of a community, and how social movements are formed.
Look at any city in the west with a vibrant arts, music and cycling culture and you have a city being recognized as a ‘best place to live’ now. Men’s Journal just pegged Reno as the ‘next Boulder’. (While I know that’s intended to be a compliment, I’ve passed on many opportunities to live in Boulder because Reno kicks Boulder’s ass on so many levels.)

What’s changed? Our culture. We’ve got a booming cycling-friendly creative culture in Reno that’s getting national attention. So let’s celebrate with a good movie and make sure the Bike Project and the Holland Project have the funds they need to keep our culture on a roll.

Tickets are $10.00 and available online at renobikeproject.com. Doors open at 7pm and the screening will be held at 8pm, June 23rd on the 3rd Floor of the Nevadan Hotel (west side of Virginia Street) at the Club Cal Neva.

Club Cal Neva will be operating a bicycle valet at the hotel valet. Afterwards the film’s writer and producer, Greg Fredette will lead a Question & Answer session about the film and cycling culture. A raffle for bike schwag and accessories will close out the evening.

Sponsors include Twelve Horses, Club Cal Neva, Silver Peak’s new Battle Born Beer, Chrome Bags and Reno’s Jet Lites.

Tickets available at the door, or save yourself the hassle of standing in line and print-at-home by buying online.

reno,bike,cycling

The unexpected loss of Shane McConkey triggered a flood of memories, so I can’t help but to write down a few of those and celebrate what Shane gave us…especially to me: He gave my sport of skiing its soul back. A happy, goofy, innovative, self-mocking, always-pushing-the-boundaries kind of soul. A soul that has rolled like that proverbial cartoon sized snowball continuing to gain size and momentum. A soul that my kids Logan and Cody have connected with. Thanks Shane, you saved my world. You saved skiing. For that, you are legend.

Shane McConkey, a.k.a. Pain McSchlonkey, a.k.a. Saucer-Boy a.k.a. Cliff Huckstable liked to introduce himself as a “professional idiot” and “cliff hucker”. Anyone who ever met Shane knew immediately that he was a guy so genuine and yet simultaneously so self-mocking that you couldn’t help but like him. A humble, yet a sardonic “claimer”. And if you lost him in a crowd at a party he was always the easiest to find. All you had to do was listen for the most raucous group of folks in a corner laughing like a pack of twelve-year-olds.

I was skiing with Keith Carlsen last weekend and as we spilled a little beer in the bar afterwards in Shane’s honor, a certain memory was triggered. Keith, then writer/editor for Powder Magazine said it best many years ago: “Shane is more than just a leader–he’s a ringleader.”

For most folks, Shane will be remembered for his amazing ski-BASE jumping exploits with the Red Bull Airforce. I was lucky, however, by way of being born a few days before Shane in 1969, and skiing in all the right places, with a small group of friends, to witness Shane’s greatest contribution: breathing life back into the ski industry. This is my attempt to fill in some of the backstory.

Go back to the 80’s, more specifically that nexus point when a bunch of ski-racers all graduated high-school circa 1988. I met Shane for the first time via Matt Francis who grew up racing with Shane at Squaw and in their GMVS vs. Burke days. After spending the first 18 years of my life in Crested Butte, I accidentally ended up at the University of Nevada, Reno and was suddenly a Tahoe skier thrown in with Green Mountain Valley Schoolers Matt Francis (now my attorney and best friend), Dylan Westfeldt (friends since ‘83), Brant Moles and Chuck List along with Tahoe natives Martin Gastanaga (in business together since 1995) and Johnny Albrecht (now my brother-in-law). Matt went to GMVS with Adam Comey, Jeremy Nobis, Brant Moles, Chris Paulding, Jason Webster, Chuck List, Daron Rhalves, etc. Shane went to Burke Academy with many more of my racing friends from Crested Butte and abroad. The point? One of the most wonderful things about skiing is that there’s only one degree of separation between us, and Shane connected many of us together.

By 1988, skiing was stale, pretentious and completely lacking innovation and fairly devoid of meaningful icons. It had rotted itself from its core. While Plake’s Mohawk was cool and Greg Stump was putting up a good fight, it certainly wasn’t saving the sport by any means. Along comes snowboarding’s culture of raw youth-driven energy and outlaw attitude and it quickly and efficiently laid waste to a generation of kids that couldn’t find any reason to make skiing a part of their identity nor derive any self-esteem from it. And secretly I couldn’t blame them. Skiing’s culture simply sucked.

Skiing was more serious about its furry jackets, Day-Glo Nevica’s, purple Zinka and handpainted one-piece Willy Bogner suits than pushing the boundaries of the sport and the culture within it. Snollerblades and  “Fire and Ice” represented the peak of modernity within the sport, and thus we all drifted off to college, to race and into the backcountry to skin. We were at the peak of a disenfranchised generation of skiers lost amidst decline of the skiing civilization as we knew it.

Skiing badly needed new heroes. New legends. New innovators. New equipment. New competitions. New filmmakers. And most importantly, it was desperate for a new culture.

All of that came wrapped up in Shane. And Shane came with stickers on his helmet that said, “FIS Sucks” and “Snowboard chicks dig skiers.” Brilliant. Post-modern had arrived.

Shane quit college in 1990, got off the bump-tour, and literally jumped into his Freeskiing career with a crotch-grab. To the near-nascent scene of core skiers “keeping it real”, it was a magical moment: Freeskiing was born and Shane was its ringleader. Having just had his pass pulled at Vail for throwing a backflip in a mogul comp and then streaking the course and getting banned for life, yes, banned for life. Shane began translating his knack for laid-out backflips and fearless straightlining in the Palisades at Squaw into the “extreme skiing” scene. Except he always was patient to correct the press and the community that this was “Freeskiing”, not “Extreme”. Extreme skiing lived somewhere in France and was practiced by technical mountaineers like Anselme Baud.

In 1996 Shane held a number of “secret” meetings with industry athletes and organizers. Freeskiing events were popping up all over the continent, each of them with different criteria and organization. He became passionate that an athlete governed association be created to organize this sport. As if he knew that it was inevitable that the Freeskiing revolution was about to attack the big mountains and hit the parks, Shane McConkey and Lhotse Merriam founded the International Freeskiers Association (IFSA) in 1996. The board members? The world’s best skiers. Simultaneously, Freeskiing athletes Dave “Swany” Swanwick , Adam Comey and Barb Hamblett started Mountain Sports International <http://www.mtsports.com/> to organize big mountain, skiercross, big air and halfpipe tours.

The Freeskiing tour was born. Shane, Comey, Barb and Lhotse jokingly dubbed it the “Professional Leisure Tour” and its Shane-led brand of irreverent-over-the-top-fun-and-sillyness stuck. He managed to win the World Tour more than once, amidst all of his office duties. But the whole idea was not without Shane infested shenanigans. The annual pilgrimage to Reno’s Monster Truck jam post Kirkwood NA Freeskiing Champs. The SaucerCross, naked hula-hooping, and “the Jerk” poaching the Xgames, in a thong, in Crested Butte. Watching South Park Season 1 in the back of Nobis’ Primetime van. Memories. The feeder market for skiing’s future athletes-slash-rockstar personalities came to fruition and Shane was squarely at the epicenter.

Former ski racers Brant Moles, Wendy Fisher, and Jeremy Nobis became Freeskiing Tour champs. Jeremy, in what was then perceived as giving the egalitarian US Ski Racing scene the finger, quit the US Ski Team post Lillehamer Olympics and taking a cue from Shane, took Freeskiing by storm as did Wendy Fisher. But it was the fat skis that Shane and everyone were competing on that led us all to dump our skinny skis in favor for those fat “parabolics”. Suddenly, innovation within skiing was reborn. And with those new fat skis came a entirely new stoke level. You needed these skis to win, to keep up, to ski the envelope that they were pushing. Shane terrorized industry designers to produce fatter and wider skis, until he finally devised a reverse camber concept in his invention the Volant Spatula and introduce the world to “rockered” skis that have gone from curiosity to being represented in pretty much every ski manufacturers line I saw at SIA/Vegas this year. Thanks Shane, powder skiing has never been so much fun.

While all this was going down, Steve Winter and Murray Wais  followed up their cult 15 minute film “Nachos and Fear” with “The Hedonist”, “The Tribe” and in then 1996, “Fetish” starring Shane and featuring many of our friends. We must’ve watched that film 100 times that year. “Fetish”, with some irony in there, marked the birth of the “ski porn” industry of filmmaking and the formal departure of the day-glo dominated days of Warren Miller. All of this silliness was now being documented in new media geared towards Freeskiers. “The Jerk” a.ka. Mark Epstein and Michael Jaquet started “Freeze Magazine”. Shane’s roomate Kent Kreitler and other Tahoe skiers and snowboarders started “Boards In Motion”. And thankfully Keith Carlsen and Steve Casimiro began to change the face of “Powder Magazine”. Shane’s racing friend Rob Bruce started sneaking Shane and freeskiing into MTV Sports. And as the internet rose, websites started to spread the word internationally, especially  via Michelle Quigley’s coverage on MountainZone.com.

And who was paying for all these shenanigans? RedBull. Ever-present and more core to the Freeskiing industry than any-other brand, RedBull landed in the US at Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s US Extreme Freeskiing Chapionships, a sponsorship through Gina Kroft, Shane McConkey and the rest of the Freeskiing junkshow. And Kirkwood right after that. Freeskiing’s brand is so wrapped up in Shane and Red Bull (or is it Red Bull’s brand is so wrapped up in Shane and skiing?) that every time I open up a can of Red Bull, well…I’m reminded of the Pro Leisure Tour.

Up in the Chugach Mountains of Alaska, at the edge of the skiing frontier, a revolution in powder skiing is taking place. In those huge, steep, lawless peaks, guys like Shane McConkey, Brant Moles, and others are laying down steep lines that are straighter, faster, more dynamic, and more graceful than any powder lines we’ve seen before. Using high-performance fat skis that float rather than dive, they’re riding skis like a snowboard, surfing on the snow, and more naturally following the rolls and contours and hollows of the terrain. Steve Casimiro, editor, Powder Magazine, issue 26.4, December 1997.

I think it was ‘98 when I ran into Shane one day at the base of KT. I was just arriving for a half-day and he needed to get to the airport and for whatever reason didn’t have ride so I let him borrow mine. I picked it up later at the Reno airport empty of gas with a half-eaten Big-Mac and an empty Red Bull in the passenger seat. Left on the dash was a partially used $5 book of McDonalds gift certificates and a unopened BBQ sauce. Classic Shane.

Shane seemed to be both omnipresent and omnipotent. And yet despite running into him over the last twenty years on various airplane flights (once on a flight to Salt Lake City I got a lucky sneak peak at the first draft of the game of G.N.A.R.), ski resorts, industry events, competitions, a ‘zillioin RedBull parties, and seemingly always at the Chammy, Shane was persistently in my life – in everyone’s lives — by way of the silly sick insane amazing funny stupid things he did for film.

Starting with Matchstick Produtions’ The Tribe, Pura Vida, Fetish, and Sick Sense, the progression of the off-the-hook skiing and Shane’s intense passion for BASE jumping stunts simultaneously documented and influenced the rise of skiing’s new soul via Shane’s comedy-laden talents. Which, of course, were best documented in 2001’s “There’s Something About McConkey”. Somehow…some way…Shane and the Matchstick crew would one-up their previous exploits. The ski-BASE jumping shots were always jaw dropping, yet every year he had bigger and more incredible big mountain lines and ski BASE jumps. Seeing him play the hapless schoolteacher in “Yearbook” filmed in classroom at my alma mater Gunnison High School  makes me chuckle every time.

Shane’s unique character coupled with his impish-yet-charismatic smile made him THE MAN. Nobody did better Beavis & Butthead impressions than Shane. And Saucer-Boy was characterization of an industry that went awry and Shane made us laugh at ourselves and our own self-absorption. Whether intentional or not, Shane’s “keepin’ it real” attitude and an endless array of pranks and improvised comedy routines firmly established within skiing’s new core culture a credo of never taking itself too seriously. As long as that sticks, skiing will remain healthy.

While Shane evolved into being that ringleader-slash-never-ending-one-man-comedy-routine within a core group of emerging industry leaders to the globe-trotting IMAX/HD, Living Legend, Huckdoll toy, of today, I had two kids. The LoganCody. And it’s been through their eyes, and before my very own, that Shane transformed from simply being a “friend” to “living legend”.

My kids were simply stoked anytime they saw Shane on film, and especially in person. They’ve drawn Shane-inspired pictures for school homework. They “play Shane” on the trampoline and in their little imaginations as they skitter down the slopes. And I believe Shane was just as stoked to see all these little kids so into skiing as they mobbed him at the Chammy or at a movie premiere. It’s that “stoked level” that we should all thank Shane for. Shane was stoked on skiing, and skiing was stoked on Shane.

Last year the kids and I rolled into the Chammy and there was Shane doing a live Sirius broadcast with Johnny Mosley. Before I knew it, Cody bolted for Shane and jumped on his lap and I’m pretty sure hit him firmly in the nuts. A standard respectful greeting for the living legend! Shane, without missing a beat in the interview, pulled Cody’s hat over his eyes and gave him a wedgie and shoved him over to me. After the broadcast, he made sure to push around the kids and shove snow down their pants to their glee. Never an ego. Always a kid-at-heart; that was Shane. And every ski-team parent I’ve met with Shane-adoring skiing kids will tell you the same story.

Two weeks ago, before the loss of Shane, I ripped around the mountain on a glorious powder day with my family. I shook my head and thought to myself about what an amazing turnaround skiing has made, how it’s more relevant in my life today than when I was 18. I marvel at how it’s made for me and my little 4th generation of skiers a never-ending scene of fun on the slopes. Logan, who’s nine now, got to fore-run a junior big-mountain comp earlier this winter (that Shane helped invent) and stomped it and was stoked. Thanks Shane. Cody’s just turned seven and is spinning 360’s in the terrain park and saying, “Did you see that Mom!? Did you see that!!!?”. Thanks Shane.

Because of my kids’ stoked factor, I’ve had no choice but to keep having fun. Armed now with good health insurance, I’m still trying to push my own boundaries, as small and as dwarfed by Shane’s as they may be. When I nailed a new trick on a box rail last weekend – the only near-40 year-old in the kiddies park mind you – I grinned ear-to-ear like my kids do…like Shane did…and gave him some silent props as I looked up and saw a pair of K2 Pontoons dangling off a rider on the chairlift. Now that I’m having more fun skiing than ever before, I can’t help but to wonder what kind of pranks Shane’s pulling and the boundaries he’s pushing in Heaven right now.

Thanks Shane, you made us all better silly skiers. For that you are legend. Rest in Peace.

Tidbits:

• If I got a date or name wrong, my apologies. I know I left a lot of folks out of the story. The 90’s are a blur now. Correct me in the comments.
• I had to cut a bunch of memories, stories and connections. Please fill in the blanks in the comments below.
• Huge thanks to Lhotse, Freeskiing’s authentic First Lady and PR Queen, for helping me fill in some blanks! Some of ‘them brain cells went missng xoxo
• There’s a memorial web site, ShaneMcConkey.org where you can make a donation to Shane’s family.
• Shane’s memorial service is Sunday April 5th, 2009 – 4:30pm, Squaw Valley, CA USA.

There’s an art event Thursday night benefiting a few of the Holland Project Core Members (Toni, Tony, Omar, Nick) and their Artist collective, Sleepytime Projects.  It also features the artwork of other Holland Core and Gallery members (Meg and Mel Berner, Megan Kay, Ahren, Rossi) and Holland supporters (Chris, Erik, Rob, Caedron)

Looks to be an awesome night involving lots of cool local artits and people involved with and supporting the the Holland Project. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

It’s Thursday, April 2nd at the Studio  on 4th @ 7pm.

I’m the last of the generation that grew up bouncing around in the back of a pick-up trucks and riding shotgun without a child safety seat. And despite learning to ski and ride bikes before I could read, it wasn’t until we had the LoganCody that the ever-present helmet-hair entered our life.

“Today, my kids only look normal to me with helmet-hair. That matty-sweaty-knotted hair is a look of health, activity and safety. The LoganCody have an almost ever-present mildewey smell in their hair, and it’s a smell that I’ll probably that I’ll probably remember them most for. I can smell it now as I write this.

Helmets weren’t new to me. We wore helmets for downhill and super-g races when skiing. But that was it. Never for freeskiing. When climbing, we wore them on big walls, ice climbs and chossy mountaineering routes. But never for standard routes and it wasn’t even a consideration for floofy sport-climbs. And they were never the subject of debate when you strapped on the ‘ol brain bucket on for flying hang gliders or paragliders. Still, I rode thousands of miles on my mountain and road bikes throughout the 80′s and 90′s without a helmet as cars whipped by at 60mph or I rattled down 409 or a Tahoe trail on a no-suspension mountain bike.

It’s not like I don’t know the consequences. I’ve had my concussions. I’ve seen sun-dried brains splattered on the rocks at the bottom of a route in Yosemite. I’ve helped transport the brain-dead body of a fellow paragilder that died despite wearing a helmet. There’s not much to protect that lifegoo inside our egg-shell skulls. One good smack and you’re a vegetable. Or dead. Not sure which is worse.

Once the LoganCody arrived to the LaPlante Family Junkshow, it finally clicked with me. Helmets were mandatory. ‘Nuff said.

While Jessica and I joke that if I could surgically install helmets on the noggin’s of our ever-bouncing LoganCody, it’s only a half-joke. Since we don’t own a TV or have video games, the LoganCody seem to always be getting their schralp on with their bikes and skateboards. We buy band-aids in bulk. Someone is always bleeding or at least picking at a scab. That’s our life.

I get pissed off and yell at parents that let their kids hit rails in the park at Alpine Meadows without helmets. Yeah, I’m an asshole. But I can show you the coma-inducing dings in the back of my helmet to perhaps convince you to the otherwise. One bad hit and you’re eating via a foodbag the rest of your life.

Today, my kids only look normal to me with helmet-hair. That matty-sweaty-knotted hair is a look of health, activity and safety. The LoganCody have an almost ever-present mildewy smell in their hair, and it’s that smell that I’ll probably remember them for. I can smell it know as I write this.

Even as late as three years ago I would still typically ski without a helmet. Jumping on rails and boxes to keep up with the kids changed that more than being that “role model” for the kids. Nowadays I can’t even pedal three blocks to Bibo’s coffee shop on the townie without the kids yelling at me to make sure I have my helmet on. While as dorky as it feels riding the red townie, it’s the right thing to do as a Dad.

I wrote a business plan in 1993 while in college to make smaller/stylish helmets that would appeal to kids and wish that I had followed through on that now. High profile deaths due to head injuries are a persistent reminder to shed the vanity and strap on the egg-shell. Yesterday’s unfortunate death of Actress Natasha Richardson following complications from the brain injury she incurred while skiing without a helmet should drive the point home. Her two grieving sons and husband can’t help but ask themselves why she wasn’t wearing a helmet while she was taking skiing lessons.

For the hundreds of hours I’ve logged on skis, bikes rock climbs without a helmet I feel both lucky and like hypocrite to become that much more of an advocate for helmets. While I’m not sure making it the law is always the answer, it surely is becoming a statement of vanity/stupidity to not wear one. Especially if you have kids.

Go ahead and leave me a comment about how “Helmet Laws Suck” and why not wearing a helmet is cool. I’ll still give huge props to Tony Hawk who skates with a helmet. He’s a Dad. He gets it. Athlete icons like Tony Hawk, Shaun White and Simon Dumont who ride with helmets make it easier for us Dads to keep the helmets in the mix. It’s not like I don’t want to sympathize, I just can’t be an idiot anymore AND be a good Dad.

What was once lost will not be forgotten. The Reno-Tahoe AIGA crew cooked up a cool awards party for all the stuff that’s never seen the light of day (and perhaps shouldn’t) or minimally was that design that every judge on the planet would have picked except that one bastard that judged your entry last month.

Bottom line is this is a grand opportunity to bring the stuff that you want forgotten out into the light. Since I doubt anyone will be sober enough to remember it in the morning, it’ll be good times.

As the advertising, marketing and public relations award season comes to an end, what better day than April Fool’s for a satirical take on awards shows? The Emu Awards will have no categories, very few rules and a slightly-less-than-serious attitude.

Bring us your best unselected concept, your strongest unpublished campaign or your uncommissioned masterpiece of design, illustration or photography. Voting will be done by your peers/attendees on the spot and winners will receive … something really bitchin’.

So here’s the deal. Just mount your entries on a board of any dimension (that doesn’t require a forklift). Bring as many as you like, or can afford to enter. We will hang them and supply you with a carefully-determined amount of voting stickers. The entry with the most votes wins. How those votes are earned … well let’s just say aggressive lobbying, bribes or blackmail will not be frowned upon. But neither will honest hard work.

So dig out what may be some of your best work and join us for the inaugural Emus. We plan for this to be our biggest fundraiser for 2009 so your attendance is mandatory. No fooling.

Cheap beer and deviled eggs will be provided.

Event Schedule
6 pm – Check-in / hang entries
6:30 pm – Lobbying begins
7 pm – Voting begins
8 pm – Voting Ends / awards given

Award Entries | $20 each

Event Admission
Members | $20
Student non-members | $20
Non-members | $30
At the door | $40

Twenty  years ago (1988) today, September 24 we started dating. And we never looked back. We met on the second day of college on the campus of UNR with Billy who I grew up with ski racing. He liked you. I poached on that. Sorry Billy. You were the sooper hot Italian Vegas chic who could ride a motorcycle better than most of the boys. I was a punk skier from Crested Butte who wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be in college healing up a blown ACL/MCL/meniscus. Every football player on the athlete’s floor in Nye hall wanted to date you and were pissed that you hung out with a scrawny Knoxed bleached hair computer geek. Your parent’s were concerned about you. I was concerned about your Italian family with names like ‘Uncle Frankie, Uncle Mikey and Uncle Babe giving me the shake-down. I survived, even though you nearly drowned me knocking me out cold on a waverunner on Lake Mead and then sticking me in 110 degree heat ’till I got a heat stroke.

We met a lot of people that September of 1988. From the UNR Ski Team, we met Martin. In 1995, we became partners…and in many ways my second wife ever since LOL. Still partners. I ran into a juvenile-delinquent friend of mine from Colorado ski racing circuit in Nye Hall. Dylan! He was with Matt whom he went to GMVS with. Matt. We started going to Matt’s Mom’s house and we hung out with Justin. Matt and I tried to start a ska band and failed. He hooked up with your brother Kenny and the Mudsharks were born. We met Johnny via the Ski Team. I introduced him to your sister at the Tour de Nez party in 1997 coming back from Jim and my bachelor party in the BlackRock desert where we rolled/totaled Martin’s truck. Nobody got hurt. You rolled with it as usual. Johnny started dating your sister, they got married and now he’s my brother in law and they’ve got Otto who’s a nut just like Cody and they’ll certainly be best friends for life shredding everything they do together. Everyone owes me BIG for that introduction. Never forget it.

I met Lanbone who had a crush on your highschool best friend and we met in September. It’s good to have a doctor in the house. Jim went to highschool with you and your sister. He’s up the street too, married to his HS sweetheart. And Matt and Jim’s kids are our kids best friends. If they all end up friends in 20 years it’ll be a pretty cool stroy arc. And if I listed all the friends we made in September, in 1988, in college, it’d take me forever to write this. We made a lot of friends. A lot are seemingly entering the life-long category.

Fifteen years ago (1993) I graduated from UNR and was all set to go to law school. I went climbing in Yosemite with Matt and decided to not go to law school to stay to hang with you. And climb and fly and camp and ride some more. I got a job at Fitzgeralds Gaming group and started to pay off all those student loans I blew on climbing, skiing, paragliding and biking gear that fueled our time together. You started your last year of civil engineering school. We skied Randonee in the Galena bowls every weekend (and then some) on Ramer classics and helped name the runs. I bought you a new Pieps avvy beacon. We still use those beacons. Maybe we should get new beacons for Christmas? My mom died. We got a cat from Billy BadBones and named him Makita. Named him after the drill I used to make that climbing wall in the back of the house. I got a cell phone so we could go climbing on weekends when I was on call for PR emergencies. Ended up at the Beer Barrel and ran into Martin and we started talking about Mozilla and HTML and a business was born a ‘couple years later.

Eleven year ago (1997) we got married in Incline village and no one got arrested but the party got a “little” out of control. The Young Dubliners played the wedding. Dozens of people crashed our party. Over 200 people ended up with severe hangovers, people passed out in planters and in beaches and cars everywhere. We took our gift money and cruised the shoreline of northern California to mid-Oregon and back camping, climbing, fishing and riding bikes. Ate fresh oysters and crab in Shasta. Best honeymoon ever. We bought our first car that was new and had a warranty. You had my Caddy towed away.

Ten years ago (1998): I made you this video. My father died. We celebrated our first year being married. We partied like it was 1999 for the last time. We went to Burning Man. We threw huge block parties at our new California street house. We have lots of photos of people wearing dresses. We weren’t as broke as we were. Aztech started making money and I think we got our sushi on again. Matt and Melissa got married and somehow nobody got hurt. I did get hurt at the X-Games in Crested Butte saucer-crossing and ended up with a lot of stitches in my face. ESPN played it on TV for two years and you weren’t so proud when people called to say I was on TV bleeding. Good times. Blame Martin and Matt. Not me.

Nine years ago (1999): We had an ‘oops’ late New Year’s Eve in Crested Butte…nine months later Logan was born with the legs and lungs of a kid conceived on the wildest night of the century at 9,500 ft. and now loves the snow and the cold as much as his Dad. You worked until the day before you had Logan. You solo-climbed Matterhorn Peak eight-months pregnant in a day. While I was helicopter skiing in the Rubies with Adam you went and bought us a house in the coolest neighborhood in Reno that most of our best friends now live in. It was 850 sq.ft. and had a garage to hold all our toys. You’ve always been the CEO of the house. I hung up the paraglider and we bought a stroller that we could hike with. We went car-camping which was strange but we quickly adjusted to having lots food to camp with. I learned how to cast a fly-rod with Logan in a backpack and not hook him in the back of the head with a #14 Timco. You dropped your career as a civil engineer for full-time Momhood. A lot of your friends give you grief for not working, but I don’t. Our kids kick ass because of it. We may not be able to afford a lot of nice furniture and other useless stuff for the house because of that, but who cares about furniture when you’re never home. We’re bag people. Always on the go.

Seven years ago (2001): You were pregnant with Cody. His hyperactive impatience began at month seven when you went into pre-term labor. For the first of like 19 times we made trips to the ER. You’re Mom moved in with us while you spent seven weeks on the couch all drugged up to keep the little snot baking long enough to come out in good form. Logan started to ski. With your Mom, a dog, a cat and Logan starting to terrorize the house, we decided we needed a bigger house. I decided I needed a bigger business.

Six years ago (2002): Cody was born. Twelve Horses began to run. We started to design an addition to our house. I spent a lot of time on airplanes and in airports. Still do. We started to go to the Balloon Races which I’m still trying to come to grips with. TommyV was killed in an accident and I realized our kids needed to spend a lot of time in Crested Butte. Our gear moved from the living room to the garage and basement like most people and it seemed really strange.

Four years ago (2004): Logan started finished pre-school. We moved out of the house while Johnny and Kenny built our new home. We survived the last time we ever do that again. Our average helmet per family member went to 2. With cousins Aden and Otto, kids and dirty diapers were everywhere and everything was sticky. Logan began to ski well. Cody began to ski. Neve died.They both began to bounce…and bounce…and bounce…will they ever stop BOUNCING!? We got a trampoline…with a net. Great idea that was…it was yours. We spent our winter at Mt. Rose.

Two years ago (2006): Logan started first grade and his second year of ski team. Cody started his first year of ski team and we bought more helmets and bikes and skis. You watched me hurt myself trying to learn how to ride rails. You ran a half-marathon. We spent two weeks in Crested Butte in the summer and we dusted off the climbing gear. We started to ditch the LoganCody and go for bike rides.We camped. A lot. We started made our second annual flyfishing trips to the Fall River with Lanny, Tim and Matt and others and that’s been our annual get-away from the kids.

One years ago (2007): Justin came back to Reno to shoot a video for a Modest Mouse ‘Little Motel’ song with Cody starring as a dead kid and we missed our first Memorial Day weekend camping trip for as long as we can remember. That was an odd and fun experience. Darin lost the fight to brain cancer and left Melissa and Max and Hudson behind. Logan was in second grade and Cody became a Kindergartner. Makita died. We started BMX racing and our helmet count went to 15. You won your first BMX race. Our gear started living in the house again. We spent 3 weeks in Crested Butte. We’ve still got the same furniture, but all new skis and some new bikes and we spent a killer winter living in Alpine Meadows.

Now: Now we start another 20…30..? Even if it’s half as fun as the last 20, it’ll be twice than most. Nothing’s really changed. We’re still pretty much the same we were twenty years ago, with pretty much the same friends — and a whole lot more, doing the same things we’ve always done…with two booger-eating kids…and I’m the luckiest guy.

I’ve spent about two weeks there over this summer. Between the Utah Transit Authority’s rail system, my bike and some creative carpooling I didn’t have to drive to one meeting, or even to our offices in Draper. It was like living in San Francisco yet surrounded by mountains and ski resorts. Every time I hang out in downtown catching great music shows (like Lucero and Langhorne Slim) I can’t help but think that Reno is but 20 years behind in size yet poised with the opportunity to focus our town’s growth curve with more emphasis on land resource planning, mass transit and all the green-in-between. Where Salt Lake will suffer is that their hockey-stick growth phase occurred during cheap gas and real estate. Consequently their town is a very car-dependent culture where people live dozens and dozens of miles from their place of work.

So back to Reno:

Jason Geddes kicks ass. Not only does he share in my penchant for cowboy boots, shirts with mother-of-pearl buttons and chasing Chukar, but he’s local visionary leader that’s dragging Reno (sometimes kicking and screaming) into a future that I want to live in. A Winnemucca/Gabbs native, petroleum chemist and former State Assemblyman, Jason assisted Chuck Alvey take the patchouli-edge off of “green” in the EDAWN business development and economic diversification dialog and made huge progress in his time there. Currently he’s a Regent with the University of Nevada and serves the City of Reno as our town’s Environmental services Administrator. He’s also married to Cindy Geddes who’s one of the best writers here locally.

Jason got the Green Summit off of the ground last year. The first Green Summit was held in April of 2007 and served as a dialogue between Council, staff, and citizens on what the City could do to make Reno more “green”. There were almost 400 people in attendance. The 2008 Green Summit is intended to be a report back to the community on action taken since the last summit, and a continued dialogue on what the City should have as priorities in the 2008-2009 Green Action plan.

[Side note: Jason works with another great organization in this community, Nevada EcoNET. Every Wednesday night this summer the City of Reno's West Street Market features “Eco-Nights” produced by Nevada EcoNet. Click here to read about it. Props to Lauren Siegel and the City of Reno for putting this on!] 

Here’s the deets on the 2008 City of Reno Green Summit:

Location: Joe Crowley Student Union-Ballroom, University of Nevada, Reno

Time: 1-5pm, Date: September 20

Program:

• 1:00-1:45 Welcome by Mayor and Council and Report to Community
• 1:45-2:30 Keynote Speaker- Rocky Anderson, Former Mayor of Salt Lake City
• 2:30-3:00 Break
• 3:00-5:00 Concurrent Break-Out Sessions –Moderated
• A- Single Stream Recycling and Plastic Bag Bans
• B- Education/Youth Programs-EnAct/Youth City Council
• C- Green Building and Sierra Green Guidelines
• D- Transportation

Keynote Speaker – The Honorable Rocky Anderson, founder of High Road for Human Rights, practiced law for 21 years; representing plaintiffs in antitrust, securities fraud, professional negligence, and civil rights cases. He then served as mayor of Salt Lake City from 2000 to 2008.

His comprehensive environmental programs, including an aggressive climate protection campaign, achieved a 31% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Salt Lake City’s municipal operations.

For his leadership on climate change, Anderson received the Climate Protection Award from the EPA, the Distinguished Service Award from the Sierra Club, and the World Leadership Award from the World Leadership Forum.

Anderson is now working to achieve municipal and regional support for climate protection initiatives and to provide grassroots education and advocacy opportunities in the areas of human rights and climate change.

  Incidentally, here’s some photos I snapped on the ‘ol trusty Nokia N95 while I was roaming downtown Salt Lake City with @leilanis during National Ride Your Bike to Work Week campaign. Obviously I thought it was brilliant!

• First up is a Deanne Stillman book-signing at Sundance Bookstore. Deanne’s latest book, “Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West,” was published today. The event starts at 6:30pm. Click [here] for directions to Sundance. Also, please visit: www.nvwildhorses.com to join a community dialog on this subject.
• After the booksigning, the Reno-Tahoe AIGA (that stands for American Institute for Graphic Arts) is screening Helvetica on the Nevada Museum of Art’s rooftop.

“Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West” Booksigning

Deanne had an article in the LA Times last week. Here’s an excerpt:

Wild horses aren’t free

Failure to enforce a 1971 law endangers the mustangs it was supposed to protect.

By Deanne Stillman
June 2, 2008

It’s not news that America is a cowboy nation, but it may surprise many that we are destroying the horse we rode in on.

Since the early 1970s, mustangs — wild horses — have been protected under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act, spearheaded by Velma Johnston, a.k.a. Wild Horse Annie. In 1950, she saw blood spilling out of a truck on a Nevada highway, followed it, and then witnessed injured and dying mustangs being offloaded at a slaughterhouse. She led a battle to stop the cruel roundups, resulting in the passage of federal protection signed into law by President Nixon in 1971.

Under that law, horses are to be “considered in areas where presently found as an integral part of the system of public lands.” Their management falls to agencies inside the Department of the Interior, primarily the Bureau of Land Management, which culls the herds based on the land’s grazing capacity and what’s required to sustain the wild horse population. But the government also balances the needs of horses against other uses of the range — and that means corporate cattle ranching. Today, instead of being protected, mustangs are in danger of being “managed” out of existence.

At Twelve Horses (where I’m employed) we kinda stirred up the dust on the wild horse issue and did a video podcast and created a social community to foster more dialog on the subject. Here’s the video, and if you will, please join www.nvwildhorses.com and let’s find some resolution to this issue. Our aim to get folks leveraging social media to draw the attention, air out the facts and protect our State’s brand.

Helvetica: Rooftop Film Screening Party at NMA

Thursday June 12, 7pm: Nevada Museum of Art

Join us for a rooftop screening of the acclaimed documentary Helvetica on the 51st birthday of the typeface. We will be serving birthday cake and beverages and the museum galleries will be open prior to showtime.

7pm – Food, drink and museum galleries, 8pm – Showtime

Members | Free
Student non-members | $10
Non-members | $20

Everyone is encouraged to bring a guest, free of charge.

Register [here].

Hearts and prayers out to Serenity Burns, the daughter of Utah blogger @Phil801 and his wife Adria. Serenity has been diagnosed with and is being treated for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. I first heard of this about 15 days ago through the Utah Twittersphere that led me to Jason Alba’s blogpost and then to Phil’s blog where with great detail he has detailed their family’s challenge: help Serenity beat this disease.

(Incidentally, I was excited to see that this past weekend a good friend’s daughter graduated high school. She fought and won a battle with Leukemia when she was seven.) 

I noticed the ChipIn widget Phil had on the side and saw that it had a goal of $10,000.00. It was at ~$1,200 then and I used it to make a donation and thought that it was very easy – especially if you already have a PayPal account.

Today their ChipIn reached over $10,000 which is really awesome and I’m hoping that their goal is revised upwards 10x. While they’ve got an uphill battle to fight with medical costs, the support of the blogging community combined with yet-another great social media application – ChipIn – Serenity Burns will surely walk a high school graduation stage. Just as in the case of Leilani’s GabrielsLife.org, social media is saving lives and helping people out. How cool is that?

If you have the ability to make a donation the the Serentity ChipIn, I’d appreciate it.

It was a long weekend of shooting and we all had an excellent time staying up all night watching Reno native writer/director Justin Francis work his magic. A Flickr slideshow is here.

A year later, Modest Mouse is playing at the Grand Sierra Resort on Tuesday 5/27 the whole Twelve Horses crew is going to support and draw attention to GabrielsLife.org. Modest Mouse is an amazing band in the first place, but this whole experience has made them even more amazing with the attention it has brought to Reno and to GabrielsLife.org.

The Backstory:

Many of you know my best friend / local attorney Matt Francis. We met on the UNR ski team back in 1988. His younger brother Justin Francis is an amazing music video producer/videographer having done music videos for artists like Gwen Stefani, Alicia Keyes, Mariah Carey, the Hives and on and on and on….they guy never stops shooting videos and commercials.

Anyway, he pitched Modest Mouse on shooting a video of their song “Little Motel” in the town he grew up in, Reno Nevada with a script he had written. He asked Cody to play a role in it. If you’ve not seen the video, now would be a good time to watch it so the rest of this blog post makes sense!

Modest Mouse – Little Motel

For obvious reasons, the subject of the video was difficult at best. My wife and I had our reservations about having our son play a role in such a tragic story. I mean, would you? Every time I watch this video I tear up and cry. If you made it through this video and are still dry-eyed, you’re definitely not a parent!

Leilani, Twelve Horses’ Social Marketing Manager, talked my wife and I in to letting Cody doing the video. I work closely with Leilani every day and she’s been a tremendous role model in my life. If you have had the wonderful opportunity to get to know her, then you are undoubtedly aware of the tragedy in Leilani’s life due to Hydrocephalus and the amazing leadership and courage that has led her to launch GabrielsLife.org. If you’ve never read this story or met Leilani, please take a moment to do so and sup[port this organization. Also, there’s a great story that the local newspaper did here: http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080129/LIV/801290331.

Now it’s almost a year later and I’m reading the hundreds and hundreds of comments of how deeply moved people are by this video Justin wrote.

Our family is absolutely proud of being part of a project that has reminded so many people how precious life is and how powerful connections are. Through family, friends and the online social media, tragedy, writing, creativity and friendly helping people have all had an opportunity to inspire each other. That’s cool.

If you’re in Reno Tuesday, I hope to see you at the Modest Mouse concert! We’ll all be there!

***For Immediate Release***

Flavor and Fun Announced for West Street Market

Reno, NV-In addition to fresh food, dining and shopping, Reno’s Redevelopment Agency today provided a better picture of the entertainment and programming in store at Reno’s new urban market, West Street Market. Reno’s West Street Market remains on target to open its outdoor market in July with the indoor tenants scheduled to open in October.

Every Wednesday night at the market will feature an “Eco Market” produced by Nevada EcoNet. Topics include: Bike & Air; Trails & Land; Babies & Education; Beauty, Health, Clothes; Green Buildings; Pets & Wildlife; Cars, Biodiesel & Public Transportation; Art & Burning Man; Garden & Landscaping; Office; Energy & Sustainability; Waste & Recycling; Eco-Tourism; Truckee River & Water.

Friday nights will feature an “Artist Night” with the Holland Project providing programming with the following titles: “Ode to Crafternoon: Not Yer Granny’s Craft Fair; Bazaar Bazaar; Word Up & Vertigo Pre-Party!; Old School Block Party; The Anatomy of Body; Bohemian Circus; All Things Bike!; Recycled Works; Spontaneous Solutions; Spoken Views.

Saturday mornings will feature a Farmer’s & Chef’s Market in cooperation with the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market on California Street.

Special cooking demonstrations will also be provided by locally and nationally known food expert, Jennifer Bushman. Topics include: Kids in the Kitchen; Budding Teen Chefs; Date With Dad; Mommy and the Market; Learn at Lunch; Girls Night Out; Fast Scratch; Uncorked!; Meet the Producers; Seasonal Cooking Demonstrations; Shopping for a Family of 1-2; Harvest; Holiday Cooking.

For more information about West Street Market visit (http://www.cityofreno.com/Index.aspx?page=1517)

Technorati Tags: renobike,nevada,renobike project,holland project,music,arts,culture,community,green,nevada econet,burning man,clean enerdy,market,reno

This was a ski season I’ll never forget. BIG snow in Tahoe. And more BIG snow in Tahoe. New fat skis. New thooperphat skis. Seven a.m. KAAAHHHBOOOOMS as avvy control woke us up to unreal powder.

Dozens of days of good times on the hill with dozens of family, friends and colleagues. Hundreds and hundreds of runs with Logan and Cody. Logan can ski everything now. Cody’s almost there. It’s an unreal feeling to not have to wait for the kids anymore!

The free wifi in the lodge at Alpine Meadows made it a little easier to work/ski/work/ski. And the 450+ inches of snow made it easy to ski and ski and ski and ski.

Sad to see it end, but it’s time to get back on the bikes. Here’s some video clips from today with the LoganCody knuck’n around the hill. ‘Till next season!

Anyway, for those of you who know the little snots, there’s a cool video of the contest. Photos here. Cody’s in the red pants and green sweatshirt. Logan is in all black pants, green sweatshirt. He’s got the yellow Reno Bike Project sticker on top of his helmet. They all got Shane McConkey, Tanner Hall and Johnny Moseley huck dolls and were stoked!