The 'Funnest' Way to Blow Your Hand Off

I know a skillful craftsman who builds boats out of posterboard, balsa and a couple coats of lacquer. These models are faithful representations of World War I era warships. A production company might use them for background minis in a military movie, they're that good. After a day's work to finish each, he's ready to display them at a backyard cookout.



Minutes later, the same family and friends who were admiring their craftsmanship commence tossing explosives toward these defenseless boats (whilst simultaneously tossing back alcoholic beverages).

The craftsman (background right) watches helplessly.

Like a veal calf's slaughter, these boats' destruction is the sole purpose in their short lives; all for the entertainment of the gathered, drunken masses. Their only gratification comes from the (not so) odd, short-fused firecracker that explodes near its launcher's hand or head leaving him (no female was brave/stupid/intoxicated enough to join the gunpowder hurling) in various states of incapacitation.

In the end, tiny cardboard hulls take on water, beer bottles soothe burns and a good-time vibe settles over the onlookers. Another year avoiding major injuries perpetuates this game of chance.

Risk-seeking revelers, rewarded

Northwoods

Wow, I don't even know where to start. When last you heard from this intrepid traveler I was near Pine River, MN sleeping in my aunt's camper (which is nearly the size of my condo). Days passed at the county fair, the Happy Dancing Turtle and the homestead, where we got a chance to canoe, catch up and get acquainted with the world's 'friendliest' Jack Russel terrier.

My aunt and godmother Bonnie next to one of Pine River's oxen.

Another view of the eco-ox

My stay in Pine River didn't last nearly long enough, but Bonnie and Terry had to focus more attention on running their business and I had to head toward the rising sun. The day's drive wasn't that long so I decided on some aimless driving and ambling in and around Duluth, MN.

Cloudy, hilly, watery: sounds like a recipe for livability.

...and they have a cool bridge.

Next stop, Barnes, Wisconsin; another small dot on the map where gravel meets blacktop. Another aunt with impeccable taste in dwelling location.

Day 1 was spent golfing at the world's smallest nine-hole golf course. Actually they only had three holes (on weedy, sand 'greens'), but they had three tee boxes per hole to make up for it. I haven't golfed since dinosaurs roamed the earth and never had an intention of playing the silly game again, but my brother had his clubs and my aunt had some beers, so it was a go. Four holes, two beers, several lost balls and more fun than not later, my brother decides it's time to place a friendly wager. I'd been hitting the ball about as well as he, so I agreed. Lesson #1: never bet on golf when you're borrowing clubs from the bettor. Of course he won. He also won the two double-or-nothings that I insisted on after that. Ouch. Good thing the stakes were small. What a gambler that guy is. Had we not played all that golf, we could have played two other types of golf that day: disc golf and redneck golf (AKA horseshoes). Not to be...

The next morning started off bright and early... for everyone but me. Uncle Mike had to put in a morning at his greenhouse and Aunt Mia, well she's just an early riser. Around 1 we all finally packed into the car and headed even farther north. Meandering, tree-lined roads guided us (back) to the great mass of water that is Lake Superior.

Man on water

Mia and Mike, lookin' like they love each other

Mia says that the shores overlooking the Apostle Islands are her second favorite place on Earth. It's not hard to see why. Clear water, sandy beaches, lush greenery, apples or berries depending on the season (fresh raspberries for us) and a sense of calm that permeates all. An obligatory tourist trap town caters to your kitsch and petro needs. Another quick stop provided smoked fish, cheese and crackers to quell the snack attack. A lazy, five-hour round trip was the perfect way to catch up with my relatives and see some new sights.

Now I come to the realization that a whole section of my North Dakota (!) voyage got forgot in my excitement. Power plant roofs and exploding ships. . . Don't even dream about missing this one.

Oh and for all you vicarious travelers, I spent last night partying in Madison, Wisconsin. The scenery has changed around here but the prevailing attitudes have not. Namely, drinking beer. I revisited a staple beverage from my higher learning days called Spotted Cow from the New Glarus Brewery. To be honest, it wasn't what I remembered. A taste of Portland brew and my tongue is jaded. Tonight, I'm headed to Milwaukee, the good land. Maybe I'll sample their local brew, maybe I'll take a ferry across the magical Lake Michigan, maybe I'll stay find fame and fortune as The Onion's travel writer. Time will tell. If only I could decipher its language...

The Winding Path Through Trees and Around Lakes

I've officially left the prairie of North Dakota for the north woods of Minnesota. They aren't kidding about all those lakes they lay claim to up here. They have one or two around every bend. My aunt lives on Hand Lake right near Wayne Newton and Bruce Lee, not the ones you're thinking, of course. When my time is through here, I'm headed to an equally remote area of northern Wisconsin. Updates will be sparse. Patience, dear readers. I'll have stunning photos when I return.

Great Huzzah!

My insurance actually covered the airlift from Baldface! All I had to shell out was a $75 co-pay. I take back most of the bad things I ever said about KP. Now if I could just find a BofA to deposit this check in... Also in the package of goodies my girlfriend sent me was a jury summons. I'm pretty stoked to do my civic duty and take part in the judgment of my peers. Seriously, I've always wanted to. It was really easy to deffer it to a better time, too. Just called them up and they were accommodating. Finally, the gf sent me three CDs: two road tunes mixes and Jimmy Buffett's 'Songs You Know By Heart.' What a rad chick.

Williston' monument to agriculture will serve as a monument to my girl.

My wheels roll onward and eastward, the plains gradually giving way to Minnesota's forests.

Wide Open Spaces

Some of the most beautiful sights in North Dakota are found in the rugged country in and around the north and south units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, known as the Badlands. Yes, I know that there are Badlands in South Dakota, too. It's confusing, but that's where the 'North' and 'South' distinctions in front of 'Dakota' are necessary. Here are some examples from a hike called the Summit Trail near the North Unit.

Seriously bad land. Odd considering the previous day's weather.

Wild echinacea, other area flora include yarrow and clover.

You can see a yak if you squint really hard.

No caption needed, just check it out full-sized.

What was the previous day's weather? Well, I'm glad you asked. In Williston the heavens bombed down inch-an-hour rain in golf ball-sized drops. In Dickinson (southern ND, but not far from the North Unit), an F3 tornado touched down and sent some houses to Oz. The damage estimate was $20 million and quite a few lives spun around with the storm. In addition, the main power transmission line was damaged and another storm (which is in the forecast) could rob the entire city of power. The days after the storm in Williston were over 90°. This is the land of extreme weather.

Raining so hard it's reminding me to take a shower.

Cats, dogs and talk show hosts.

The hike was super nice. I don't know why they picked the name 'Summit,' but we did change elevation to the tune of 1200 feet or so. The highest point was around 2600' if memory holds. I guess you don't have to be up high to be at the summit, just higher than whatever's around. People like to say that in ND you can stand on your hat and see Canada. Few hills, fewer trees. It's almost true, depending on where you stand.

Next on the trip, I continue my journey east. I'm spending the night in Beulah, ND tonight. Tomorrow, I hope to make it to Pine River, MN to see my aunt Bonnie. Earlier tonight I got a tour of the power plant where my friend works. Pictures forthcoming. Oh yeah and one short post that makes me so happy it gets its own blog even though it's only a couple sentences.

The Great Plains

A long day's drive will get you from Denver to Williston, ND, if you ever have a mind to do such a thing. The only reason you might is to get an amazingly high-paying job with little or no educational prerequisites. Obviously the work is hard. Difficult manual labor outdoors in conditions ranging from 100°+ to -40°. Your title: roughneck. You see, Williston sits in the middle of the Baaken Formation, one of America's great oil reserves, but I digress...

Sights like these get my mind to wandering.

A pleasant surprise for me was the Judge's Chambers restaurant in Broadus, MT. A historic judge's residence now holds 15 tables and serves up some of the best food any 400-person hamlet has the right to nosh (but only in the summer and hunting season). I had a $25-steak that would have cost double that in Portland. Gotta love a low cost of living. On my way out of town, I stopped for gas at an old-fashioned pump and even got free air for my tires. Definitely a throwback. Then of course, down the rest of the mountains and into the heartland.

Clouds that hold immense quantities of rain and will drop it all on you at once

I'm currently busy getting alternately eaten alive by mosquitoes and drenched by torrential thunderstorms. Hence, a lot of time inside with the family. Up until the other day, that was 11 people. Three of those under the age of 7. Sheer insanity. Now we're down to 6, which feels much more manageable. Still, tomorrow I'm looking to get outside. Today it rained something like an inch in a half hour. A slight buildup, followed by violent, machine gun downpour. That happened twice. The second time was so heavy that it started coming in the house from the screened in deck and the nearest screen was 15 feet from the house door. In short, this is not Northwest rain.

Perhaps I can get out and show you some of the sights of a small North Dakota town in my next post.

Never Summer Industries: US Manufacturing

In amongst Rocky Mountain National Park and astride the Continental Divide is a section of the Rockies called the Never Summer Mountains. To find the action sports company that bears their name, one travels east to Denver and looks amongst factories and astride a northerly section of Colorado Blvd.

Don't worry, I found it

I made my way from much farther west on my current road trip. Mountain driving inevitably leads me to thinking about snowboarding, so anything snowboard-related was a welcome reprieve from the 90-100° temperatures outside. Just thinking about that now makes me sweat a little bit...

The San Rafael Reef
Don't think I forgot about you, Utahrds (Utahns? Seriously!?)

Luckily, Never Summer HQ was cooler than the outdoors. When I showed up, snowboard sales manager Mike "Gags" Gagliardi showed me around the offices and introduced me to the folks who make the process work. (I mistakenly referred to him as a rep in the last post, but he's taken on some more responsibilities than I was aware) Tim, Tracey, Jeremy, Micah, and Melissa were some of the Never Summer magicians who took a small amount of time out of their busy work days to show a humble blogger what's up.

In one room: the new longboard line...

On another wall: know your roots.
Before Never Summer, they were Swifts
(now the Swift is a longboard in their line)

When Gags had to get back to the grind, the invaluable Melissa brought me into the factory where the decibels are cranked and instruments of mass recreation are produced every day. Step one, the cores.

This block of aspen and birch will result in 6 or 7 cores

Home of the Flight Core Program

This is almost the last shot of snowboards in the set.
Most of the production on this day was skis and longboards.

Next up, a topsheet graphic. Here, Melissa shows off a longboard base graphic sheet.

Graphics are the one thing that is not done in this facility. NS has a different facility where the sheets are actually printed and put together. It is, of course, still in Denver, which allows for quick turnaround on things like color correction. Jeremy and the rest kicked ass on the graphics this year. I honestly think they have one of the best lines I've seen as far as topsheets go. Check out the photos at the bottom of the post.

You've heard of die-cut bases, this is the machine that does it.
Cutting blocks of p-tex into the patterns you see on bases, this one a pair of Icelantic skis
You might think they're one piece, but all Never Summer bases are die-cut


In the foreground on the left you see the die-cut, Icelantic ski bases.
In the background, edges. Each edge is made specifically for each board.


More building materials. Hanging are wide strips of rubber which wrap the board inside the edge to dampen vibration. On the shelf you see some carbon stringers which add stiffness.

The final, unpictured piece of a board is fiberglass. Never Summer uses three different types of glass in their boards: a two-angle (0° and 90°), a three-angle (0°, 45°, 90°) and a pre-tensioned fiberglass (called STS) that's the same type used in a bow string. Never Summer does leave this STS glass out of one men's and one women's model for a more affordable board. Without the STS, however, NS only warranties the boards for one year instead of their normal three years on all the boards with STS fiberglass. That should tell you how important this one material is to the production of Never Summer Snowboards.

Here you can see a board (again a longboard) finished with the layup process.

All the layers of core wood, fiberglass, rubber, carbon fiber and p-tex are put together on their individual molds with an epoxy that is activated by the heat of the presses. The molds are so important, I wasn't even allowed to photograph them. In the photo above, you can see the aluminum sheet that the board lays on. This is the mold. They are shaped specifically with an indentation that matches the shape of each board. That's how the board gets its shape. The most important asset at Never Summer is the people who work there, but the molds are a close second. Melissa's words...

Here we have some boards out of the presses waiting to have the excess material router-ed or CNC-ed off from around their edges.

Almost done. Finishing touches such as base grinding and edge sharpening go down here.

The blue roller puts on that factory wax, the boards are engraved with a serial number and the boards are ready for a scrupulous round of quality control. With everything fully running, NS can produce over 100 boards a day.

Finished, 1st quality boards are bagged and sent to shipping.
Still in the NS headquarters, this is their most guarded room.

There you have it, start to ship production of snowboards here in the good ole US of A. What better way to celebrate our independence (or close enough) than to check out a manufacturing facility that hasn't sent jobs overseas. Advantages of that choice include faster turnaround from R&D to production, the aforementioned graphics turnaround, and on-site warranty work means a fast turnaround (and trusted quality) in that department, too. Also, fully trusting the factory workers means that defects and seconds find their way to shops less frequently. The staff have a personal relationship with the product that you might not get at a big plant that makes boards for dozens of companies. Call it a constant quality control.

To be fair, NS does make skis for Icelantic and Fat-ypus and they've made any number of promotional snowboards. They'll make boards for anyone who can get together the right package of numbers, from beer companies to car dealerships. The big reasoning behind this is to keep the factory moving and avoid downtime. The less starting and stopping, the more efficient the process runs. Speaking of efficiency, Never Summer operates mostly on a made-to-order basis. While it may cost some time if they have to fill an order mid-season, they make it up with less costly inventory reduction at the end of the year.

Now how about a look at next year's boards. Here you go, ladies first...

Women's Pandora

Women's Infinity

Women's Lotus (Melissa's board of choice)

Evo

Heritage (limited edition of 950 and one sick topsheet)

Circuit


Legacy


Premier F1

Titan (also limited to 950 boards)


Revolver

SL-R

And I think that's the whole line. I hear they make killer longboards, too, but that's a whole 'nuther blog. I'd like to thank everyone over at Never Summer Industries for the welcome. Melissa, thanks for taking time to give me a personal tour. Also one last word about this guy...

Gags, Snowboard Sales Manager and top-shelf dude

Gags started his professional life as a 9 to 5, suit and tie kinda guy working on the east coast and in Chicago. Then snowboarding changed his life. He dropped it all and has worked his way up the industry ever since, starting on the factory floor. His passion for the shred is evident from 'hello.' Oh, and did I mention that he literally saved my ass from hitting the floor when I had a seizure at Baldface? Never Summer is lucky to have that one. Maybe give him a bonus or an extra pow day off or some such.

If you made it this far, you must have found intrigue somewhere in my telling. A couple other sources out there have some great info, too. First of all, this 10-minute tour guided by Jeremy has that certain shine only video can deliver. Also, shayboarder has a write-up similar to my own. She's got a standing with NS somewhere below employee, yet above casual fan. Not exactly sure what. Board tester? Take it for what it's worth. Finally, I've only ridden one NS board, it was the 2010 Premier F1-R and you can find the review here.

Any other snowboard companies doing manufacture west of the Mississippi? Shoot me a line. I might just be in your neighborhood on some random road haul. All others, feel free to comment, complain or suggest...

Gamble Ramble

Ah, Las Vegas, it's been so long since last we danced. This trip seemed strange because now I have friends who live there, so I stayed with them and not on the strip in some gaudy hotel. In fact, I managed an entire trip without setting foot on the strip. This isn't to say I didn't gamble, it also isn't to say that I avoided over-sized hotels altogether. This trip's extra-curriculars went down oh so close to the strip at the new (or maybe not that new anymore, but I have a soft spot for Binion's) home of the World Series of Poker, the Rio. A brief recap for those of you stuck in the days of the bad guy in the black hat: poker is super-hot right now. Billions of dollars change hands, legally, every year at real and on-line poker tables. The WSOP is the largest, most prestigious series of tournaments in the poker world. The winner of each even is awarded a gold bracelet (and a pile of cash), so if you ever hear of a 'bracelet-winner' you can be sure of that person's skills at the ovular table. The only bracelets I own are the ones that tie back my hair, but I've got some friends (poker pros and would-be pros) who try their skills against the best. I've been known to put a couple hundred on the line, but these tournaments run upwards of a thousand bucks a pop. One tournament even costs $50,000 to enter and they play five different poker games to determine a champion. That's not exactly chump change, unless you don't belong. Then you're just a chump for thinking you can hang.

Two more rooms like this and vendors hawking in the halls and you get the idea

Mulit-millionaire pro Gus Hansen (left) and multi-bracelet winner Eric Seidel (right)
The kinds of guys you play against in $50,000 H.O.R.S.E.

I just happened to be rolling through at that time of year. As you might imagine, the cash games were going strong. (as opposed to tournament play, where you're out when your tournament chips are gone, cash game play lasts as long as your own money lasts or until you choose to leave) My reward for parts skill, luck and patience was a couple hundred more than I arrived with. That should go a long way towards paying for this road trip with some fireworks thrown in there for good measure. Thanks for the venue, Vegas. Now if only it wasn't just as hot and sunny there as it was in Death Valley. Seriously, it was 107° three days straight. Hot enough to break a sweat walking from parking to the casino entrance. Problem, the AC was so high in the poker room that it felt like walking into a freezer. Maybe I should have dressed in layers. This is the only region I've traveled to where buying one of those gigantic gulps from 7-11 is actually an idea worth entertaining.

Enough of the past. I'm writing from Glenwood Springs, Colorado and tomorrow I'm headed east. One of the guys I met up at Baldface was Mike Gagliardi, a sales rep for Never Summer Snowboards. Tomorrow he's taking me on a tour of their factory in Denver. That should be a great opportunity for me to se what goes on in there and hopefully ask some questions about the whole process. Check back for that one and live vicariously through my wanderings yet again...