Rome Snowboards

Let me tell you about Rome snowboards!

After doing a ton of research I decided to purchase a Rome Design 155. I almost went with the Rome Mod, but since I already have a Burton Se7en I didn't want another board with a funny tail/nose. Now the Rome Design 2008 model is super light. Not a bit of fiberglass. All Carbon, wood and Bamboo. The closest board out there to it is the Burton Vapor. If you want the full details check out the Rome Snowboard website. It was a hard board to find, for some reason none of the board shops in Portland carried it. I REALLY wanted to look at it first. Finally my favorite shop Sublimity Snow and Skate Got a 158 in. Not the size I was looking for, but Steph (the shop owner) was able to get me the right one.

So How is it? Well first off the Rome website lists it as a stiff board. It is not. In fact is really flexible. At first I wasn't sure what to expect. My Burton Se7en is supposed to be a med. flex and the Design is a lot softer. The site recommends this board for Mountain/Backcountry use. After riding it I know why.

When going down super steep slopes it turns like butter. The light weight super flexible design enables me to turn quicker and smoother. That just what you want when one wrong move could send you tumbling. This is the feel I want when I am in a situation where there are no room for mistakes. I have a ton of control. The fact that its so light makes it feel as if I can jump higher, and it just seems to float over the pow.

The downside? Well because its so thin it is not as strong as your regular snowboard. Its not a board you wanna do rails on. And it is NOT recommended for "street use" Now all boards can break. Im just saying you might wanna be a little careful with this particular snowboard.

Ok so lets get down to why I'm really writing this blog. My Rome Design broke. The tip snapped while I was swooping through a deep dip in the snow. Didn't seem like it should have but it did. I was deeply distressed because I am not that hard on my boards. But there it was broken. Snapped in such a way that repair wasn't gonna do it.

Prepared for the worst I took it back to Steph at Sublimity Snow and Skate and asked for help with the warranty claim. She called the local Rome Rep and sent my broken board off with a smile. I didn't hear anything for some time. I was convinced that there was no way they would cover it.

It would have been very easy for Rome to say "Hey you broke it. Not our fault." I can only imagine how many kids send in boards broken from abuse expecting a free board in the mail. I expect that would get old after a while and any company dealing with that sort of thing would get callus to legitimate situations.

It took about six weeks. Then I got a call from Step and she said my board was back. I went in to find a brand new board! They replaced it with no questions asked.

I am now a dedicated customer of Rome. I will continue to buy from them and recommend their products to all my friends. I love all the tech and design that goes into them. Also the fact that they are a smaller company seems to help to keep them affordable. You really do seem to get a lot for your money. But when it comes to customer service, well... What more can you ask for?

Kids, don't forget to fill our your warranty card. I'm off to the Mount Hood Meadows!

Snowboarding so far for 07/08

This snowboarding season has been great so far. We have gone up to Mt.Hood almost every weekend. We even go a few extra days in on the Holidays! At first the season started off slow. MHM (Mount Hood Meadows) opened on November 23rd with the lightest base of snow ever. Just 17inches. They had the snow makers going 24/7 and had staff pushing snow off the parking lot and edges of the trails to cover the bald spots where the ground was showing. We were all wondering exactly how the winter was going to recover since from what I understand the snow pack starts building a lot sooner than it did.

...But suddenly we got hit with a huge snowstorm. By the next week we had feet of now powder. Since then the storms have not stopped. Every weekend we go up there are several feet of new snow! Needless to say we have been having a lot of fun.

Snowboarding in powder is great but really different. Of course its smoother and gives you a lot more control, but you also have to change the way you ride a little. You also have to make sure you don't stop on any flat spots cause you end up getting "powder stuck". Your board stops and then you start to sink. Its very hard to get up and out of it. Thats a problem skiers don't really have since they can just walk through it. I got stuck in waste deep powder that 2nd weekend and it took all my energy to get out of it. I had to lay on top of my snowboard and paddle out like I was on a surf board. Since then I make it a point to have enough speed to make it through any flat area!

Marni is becoming a real pro. She went from falling down all the time last year to falling down once in a while. Now she is finding longer and steeper hills to slide down and getting better with every trip. It wont be long till she is slipping down some black diamond runs with the best of them.

I'm getting a little better myself. Still trying to work out the jumps. I really wanna fly through the air like a bird and I am almost there. I have been learning how to "drop" of hills/small cliffs, and been getting good at hitting natural jumps straight on. Its a lot of fun when everything goes just right. A little painful when they don't but no worries. You gotta take a knocks to get better.

This photo of Marni and I was taken New Years Day 2008. We try to take a new one every year. At this point I have so many photos of MHM and our snowboarding trips I don't know what ones to post. I may have to stop taking so many and focus on some video. But for now I will post a few more, then later I will put what I have for video up on my YouTube account. One last thing... Sadly I broke my new Rome Design Snowboard. Snapped the front of it going into a dip. I ended up having to walk about a mile and a half back to the lodge that day... Through the snow... That sucked. I am still waiting to see if they will be cool and replace it under warranty. Seems like it broke pretty evenly along the die cut of the base. Fingers crossed. Remember you can click on any of the photos for a full view!

Everything DirectBuy

I just got back from Orlando Florida recently! Spent 11/17th to 11/20th there. I always feel like I am tempting fate every time I get in a plane. As I look out the window and see the ground thousands of feet below I know that humans are not supposed to be there drinking and eating snacks. So I am always glad to be back on the ground.

When we got to Orlando after flying flying 8-9 hours, we went straight to the hotel our company put us up in...

"The Gaylord Palms". It was a nice place. the whole hotel was set up to welcome us for the big DirectBuy convention. Everything was "DirectBuy" Flags and banners, projected lights and logos. No expense spared.



It really gave me a good idea of just how big DirectBuy is now. We recently hit the "worth over a billion dollars" mark as a company. However out here in Oregon it still feels comfortable and personal at our centers. Thats because our owners are great and really take care of us. We also have a great staff and very little turn over.

More about the hotel: It was huge, and out in the middle of nowhere. So we didn't really get to see all that much of Orlando. The food was good and I felt a little under dressed the whole time. I kept thinking "This place is for rich people, and I'm just a poser. But I still had a good time. I had to share a room with my co-worker Damien. He snores. I had a hard time sleeping and since I was 3 hours in the future I had to get up way to early for the presentations.

At the convention we get to listen to motivational speakers that touched on a lot of subjects: Attitude, the corporate business plan, customer service, and everything else you could possible imagine. Some of it was very boring, other times it gave me a lot to think about. They also gave out awards. The first photo below is Clay my boss getting an award for something.



In these photos you can see Damien, Clay, His wife Raylene, and Jeff. That was the extent of our party. I wish we could have taken some more staff. I wish I also could have taken Marni. It was lonely without her.

I don't wanna go on for too long so I'm just gonna post a few more photos.

Closing notes... Florida is to hot and sticky for me. The water is awful and nobody understand what good coffee is. I like colder places with a little more to look at. Florida was very flat. I could post a bunch of photos I took on the way back to the airport, but they would all look the same.

Since I have been back Marni and I went snowboarding! The season just started. Give me a few days and I will post some photos of our last trip! Case-

The Very End -0- Season

So this is what Mt. Hood looks like at the very end of Oct. We are still waiting for the fresh snow. It should be here anytime. But lately it looks more like we will have a late season this year.

That doesn't mean you can't still go snowboarding. I went up there last Sunday (10/28/07). I wasn't sure what to expect. Only 45mins before the lifts opened I was able to get front row parking. The place was pretty empty and I thought there would be more snow. I was also a little apprehensive because I knew there would be no terrain park. What fun is snowboarding if you can't throw yourself off a jump or two? But after driving an hour and a half I decided to go for it anyway.

Half the Palmer snowfield was closed off. Rocks were sticking up everywhere. After our last snow storm we got a wind storm that peppered all the new snow with dirt. Nothing looked that great. But so far I have never been disappointed with a trip up to Timberline.

After taking a few turns I got to the 2nd half of the Plamer. It was little more than a canyon trail leading back to the lift and much to my surprise nature made its own terrain park! A really incredible snow wall! I missed it on the ride up. It wasn't until I was sliding past it that I realized how much fun could be had. Everyone else had the same idea. The photos do not do it justice. It was much larger than it looks, and the angles were sharp.

So hours of fun were had, and I completely exhausted myself. Everyone there was really mellow and having a great time. It was nice not to be around a bunch of snobby pros trying to work on their demo videos.

By the end of the day the temperature heated up and the snow got soft and wet. The drop off of the snow wall was really eaten up providing an opportunity to try out more extreme drops into softer snow. I had some pretty good wipe outs. Someone lost control and ran into me but was able to walk away laughing. I posted the video on youtube.
Click here to Watch Video!

Part of me wants to run up there this weekend, but I think I will wait for some fresh snow. I really wanna take Marni up with me, but she needs less rocks and more open space. I get tired of going alone all the time. We have a ski and snowboard expo in town this weekend anyway. Its should be a lot of fun checking out all the latest cool gear. Its gonna be hard not to buy anything! -Case...

The Last Warm Days...

The last several days in Portland Oregon have been pretty warm and its bumming me out. Just after we had that big snow storm up on Mt. Hood dumping "more snow than adverage" for the year it all starts melting away. The good news is Timberline is re-opening the Palmer snowfield for fall skiing. So Im gonna go up there this weekend and practice avoiding hidden rocks. :)

In other news the construction outside my window is still going strong. I have lived here for over 4 years now and have always really enjoyed the view of downtown and sw Portland. That is until earlier this year some jerks decided to build a 10 story building outside my front window. The noise won't stop and the project is projected to take over a year to complete. Forget about sleeping in. They start banging on things the moment the sun comes up. Recording anything with mics in the studio is impossible.

The good news is that this I believe is the last floor. So after they put the roof on that floor we should still have a decent view of the city. I might as well also get used to people looking into my living room as well. I'll have to put a sign in the window that says "I am watching you"! I think if we sit low enough on our couch we might not see the building, but even now I can see the top floor and there is still no roof. Oh well what can you do anyway. I'll stop complaining.

I still love my home, and I still have a good view of Mt. Hood. Maybe soon they will move that giant crane. (Click on any of these pictures to see the full size image.) All in all it would be really hard to find a nicer place to live. Marni and I would like to move into a house. More room would be nice. But I really wanna wait for the right place. I hate moving. But with all this construction its looking more inviting every day.
-Case...

Intro...

Ok, So here I am. Gonna start a blog so family and friends can keep up. See how it goes. This may be easier than writing individual letters!

If you know anything about me you probably know I'm big into snowboarding. So thats why this first post has a photo of Mt. Hood. It was taken 5/13/07 just after the season ended for Mt. Hood Meadows. Marni and I decided to start going to the Timberline ski area for some summer snowboarding. Its higher up on the Mt. than Meadows. We had a great summer up there and I was able to improve my snowboarding skills. The snow since melted, and the last time I was able to go was Aug. 31st but recently it started snowing again. I am hoping by the end of this month we will get some "turns" in on the slopes. Its hard not to be excited about such things. I know that I am not alone. Everyone up there feels the same way. That is why they are up there in the first place. Getting up at un-godly hours and treading through freezing temps says a lot about how you feel about the sport. Your into it, or your not.

So now with the 07/08 snowboarding season starting both Marni and I will get to try out our new skills in fresh snow. I'm wondering how crazy it will be up there the first opening month at Mt. Hood Meadows. I haven't had the chance to go a full season yet. I have to say I have really enjoyed summer snowboarding. Its a bit wet, but with the big blue skies and half empty slopes its well worth having to change your shorts.

Thats me going off one of the last good jumps of the summer left up at Timberline (8/31/07). Its a real drag having to hike back up the hill every time you hit a jump like that. There was no snow trail back to the lift. To get back you had to hike over moon like hills just to make it back to the main ski route. You don't get that sorta work out at a gym. I expect we will be whipped into really good shape by this time next year. That or I will die trying.

So now with our season passes in our hands we wait for a few feet of snow and almost a whole year of snowboarding. In the meantime I continue to work on my other passion (Bound in Oblivion) You will find a link to the site in the upper right side of this screen. -Case...