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!

Anyway, in the spring of 2005, the Squaw community got together to throw a prom – not a high school prom, a ski town prom in which all proceeds went to charity. Three years and three Proms later, the Squaw Valley Prom is recognized as one the premier ski town bashes in the country.

I missed last year because of an out-of-town speaking engagement where I actually got paid, but will be up there this year. Unfortunately my attorney and doctor may not make it which is always uncomfortable to me to be out in public without them. <grin>

At least who takes themselves to serious is in Austin for SXSW leaving the rest of us to make silly in Tahoe.

Order up the corsages, make a hair appointment, and find a date because the 4th Annual Squaw Valley Prom, “Enchantment Under KT,” is on again this year! The legendary event will go down at Squaw Valley’s Plaza Bar on Saturday March 8, 2008. Get your tickets on sale at www.squawvalleyprom.com.

Anything and everything you ever wanted to know about launching an entrepreneurial venture can be found at the upcoming Entrepreneur Week (eWeek), March 8-16 in Greater Reno-Tahoe. Events include workshops, seminars, networking opportunities and a week-culminating Entrepreneur Expo.

March 10 – eWeek Kick-Off – Truckee Meadows Community College, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.  Celebrate the start of eWeek Nevada and join Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, EDAWN’s Chuck Alvey, Reno-Gazette-Journal’s (RGJ) Ted Power and the winners of the RGJ Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. Donation and RSVP required.

March 11 – Northern Nevada Development Authority’s Business Resource Forum, Luncheon & Workshops – Plaza Hotel & Conference Center, Carson City – 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.  Hear about state and local resources available to all businesses while learning effective networking techniques and legal tips from HR pros. Featured speaker is Lynnette Hahn, Dale Carnegie Systems. RSVP by calling (775) 883-4413.

March 11 – ActionCOACH – “6 Steps to a Better Business" – Reno – 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

March 12 – NCET’s Wi-Fi Wednesday – Location TBD – 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Be part of the hippest, hottest new networking event for up-and-coming young professionals in the Greater Reno-Tahoe area!

March 13 – EDAWN Business Buzz – The Atlantis – 7:00 – 9:00 a.m. Featured speaker is Ben Casnocha, author of "My Start-Up Life: Best Practices from a Young Entrepreneur."

March 15 – NCET’s Entrepreneur Expo – 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. - Reno-Sparks Convention Center – Free - Open to the Public

· Attended by 500 to 1,000 small businesses

· Access to organizations that can help jump-start a business

· Expert advice on virtually every facet of starting and running a business

· 75 exhibitors – see complete of exhibitor here

· 25 speakers and panelists – see schedule and complete list of speakers here

eWeek events are managed by Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (NCET). For more information visit www.ncet.org.

Griffin Post took home the coveted Tobias Lee Memorial Sick Bird Award. Next up…

2008 Subaru U.S. Freeskiing Series & Freeskiing World Tour Schedule

• Subaru U.S. Extreme Freeskiing Championships, Crested Butte, CO, February 19-23 (World Tour #1)

• Subaru Jackson Hole Freeskiing Open, Jackson Hole, WY, March 13-16

• Subaru U.S. Freeskiing Nationals, Snowbird, UT, March 18-23 (World Tour #2)

• Subaru Freeskiing World Championships and Subaru U.S. Freeskiing Series Finals, Alyeska, AK, April 9-13 (World Tour #3)

Check out comprehensive same-day video coverage on www.usfreeskiing.com.

Need some help making the right  IT decisions in the coming year? Check out NCET’s February 19 “Tech Tuesday” at Great Basin Internet Services (241 Ridge Street, Suite 450, Reno). This is one of the best tech/entrepreneur networking venues in Reno-Tahoe. The Feb. 19 event will  serve up good food & drink and a chance to be part of “The Right Choice in ’08,″ a glimpse at the latest and greatest offerings in the tech market. Give-aways include six months of GBIS Virtual Voice vPBX service including a VoIP phone.

NCET’s Tech Tuesday:

Tuesday, February 19, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
$10 donation at the door
RSVP by Monday, February 18 to Emily Lowe at Emily@NCET.org

More than 60 men and 30 women are scheduled to compete at the Subaru Squaw Valley USA Freeskiing Open February 13-16, including freeskiing champions Cliff Bennett, Kevin O’Meara, Griffin Post, last year’s men’s winner Adrien Coirier and Tour Champion Jess McMillan. These world-class freeskiers will battle it out for $7,500 with the men’s and women’s overall U.S. Freeskiing Tour point leaders taking home $2,500 each.

“Squaw is the perfect venue for a freeskiing contest; awesome terrain, great access, and perfect spectating spots. Not to mention, the local talent is unbelievable,” said former U.S. Freeskiing Champion and Squaw Valley USA local Ingrid Backstrom. "The month of January has been epic here; it’s shaping up to be excellent conditions for a contest. I can’t wait to see everyone charging."

With 34 lifts accessing six peaks, 4,000 acres of terrain, three terrain parks, spectacular mountain views and endless possibilities, Squaw Valley USA is a “must experience” on any snow sports enthusiast’s list.

MSI will be posting same-day video Webcasts on the newly-redesigned www.usfreeskiing.com, which features state-of-the-art video and photo player technology. The daily uploads of video, photos, news and results of each day’s competition action will be available after each day concludes.

For more information log onto www.usfreeskiing.com

Over the last three weeks, Reno-Tahoe’s seen several winter storms. As I write this, it’s cold outside and all the Tahoe peaks are covered in the good white stuff. This year will be Logan’s (8) third year on the Alpine Meadows ski team. Cody (5) will be starting his first year. Yay! Last year, Logan played hooky from school about 13 days to hit every day of ski team plus the few powder days we had. I expect Logan and Cody will be missing a similar amount of school again this year.

Skiing for us is a lot of time spent together as a family. (See post from 2004.) It means 50+ days of being together. The 50+ days of 1.5 to 2.5 hours in the car together is where Logan gets a massive amount of homework and reading. It means a lot of discipline getting out of bed at 6:30am to be on the road by 7:30am to be in the lodge by 8:30am booting up and ready for 9am ski team start. It means a lot of lodge-time playing foosball, wrestling, eating, goofing off and hanging out with friends and other family. It means a lot of time riding the chairlifts with my kids and good wife talking and singing/making up stupid songs. And, of course, it means skiing! Whether the snow is great or the snow sucks, at least we’re skiing!

Skiing also introduces my kids to mentors like Shane McConkey…who my kids idolize as an “educational role model”. Shane can read. He can also ski, too!

Here’s a video of Cody from last January (2007). He was 4 at the time…about a month before his 5th birthday. Juxtaposed to that is a video of Paul Dugan — the Washoe County School District’s Superintendent (who kicks ass BTW) — giving Logan a reading award when he was in kindergarten 2 years a go.

The point: ski for literacy <grin>.

The year-before-last, Rebecca Ryan spoke at EDAWN‘s Directions an did a very eloquent job of outlining the need for social communities in the 20s/30s professionals for a healthy and dynamic economy. She was dead on and EDAWN obviously took her advice seriously.

The RT-YPN evolved from a regional economic development planning process led by EDAWN and involving community to create an organization with a mission to cultivate an informed and involved young professional community. Why? Retention. Businesses (like Twelve Horses) can’t grow if we don’t have access to a large pool of qualified young professionals to help grow our businesses. This is one (of many) reason why I am also so passionate about Holland Project and the Reno Bike Project and why Twelve Horses helped found a local AIGA chapter. Kids. Energy. Creativity. Fun. Parties. It’s a healthy mix for a vibrant economy.

Anyway, the Truckee Meadows needs to retain and attract young and diverse talent and YPN is a great step in that direction. If you’d like to hear more, Robert and Josh interviewed Erin Kuo on the Horsepower Podcast. It’s an excellent listen.

For more information and to RSVP please visit
www.renotahoeypn.com
or call (775) 829-3779

Technorati tags: reno, nevada, ypn, young, professionals, network, social, edawn, recruiting, employees, party

OK, so even tho’ I’m a skier, here’s a snowboarding event that I’m going to try to catch with some of the Twelve Horses crew. The TransWorld SNOWboarding Team Challenge is going down Thursday April 5 and Friday April 6 at Heavenly. Twenty of the best teams representing the best board companies in snowboarding will be fully in the mix with you and your crew. I’m thinking some of the Twelve Horses crew may be there and possibly competing in the “consumer” comp.

In years past, the Team Challenge hasn’t been open to the public, but fresh for this year is the TransWorld Team Challenge Shootout, and an all-time consumer fair. Both events are taking place on Thursday from 3:30 to 9:00 p.m., at the base of the World Cup. Two person teams comprised of top professionals will be competing under the lights in a unique parkstyle event. There will be live DJ’s on hand keeping things properly jumping. It’ll be good. As mentioned, the Team Challenge Shootout will also sport a healthy twenty-tent sponsor village where you’ll be able to get all hands on and geek out on all the latest and greatest gear the world of snowboarding has to offer, and maybe you’ll even snag some prizes along the way.

Friday night at 10 p.m. you can party with all the riders at MontBleu’s Club Blu and everyone is welcome.

Day 1: Thursday, April 5th

10:30am-1:30pm
Game of Team Elimination (PIG): Team Challenge Terrain Park.
High Roller Run, Canyon Express Chair.

2:30pm-5:30pm
Team Challenge ShootOut Practice and set up
World Cup, California Base.

6:00pm-9:00pm
Team Challenge ShootOut event.

Day 2: Friday, April 6th

10:00am-12:30pm
Team Challenge ¼ Pipe Contest: Super Pipe. High Roller, Canyon Express Chair.

1:30pm-3:00pm
Girl’s Rail Jam: Team Challenge Terrain Park.

1:30pm-3:00pm
Men’s Best Trick Head to Head: Team Challenge Terrain Park.

10pm
After Party: MontBleu Club Blu. Guest DJ

The only kind of bindings that release by pulling up are the old 1980s Tyrollia’s. Typical model numbers were probably 2xx, 3xx, or 4xx (e.g., 490). (See inset picture).

Fortunately I’ve got about 16 pairs of skis in the “museum” and had a ‘couple of pair of 490s. Unfortunately, two pair were mounted on pure-breed non-de-laminated 1986-1987 Nishizawas — aqua blue/hot pink. Those are real gems and will be worth 100,000 someday Couldn’t; sacrifice those. I even held on to some matching Zinka!

I did find a pair of old Dynastars and donated them to the worthy cause of creating more ski porn for my kids and I to watch. (We’d rather watch a good ski movie over Dora the Explorer any day.)

If you have a pair of the Tyrollia’s, leave a comment and I’ll email you how to get the binder’s in to the proper hands.