It rained sheets of ice cold raindrops all day yesterday.  I spent most of the day inside, wondering if the forecasts mentioning snow could be correct.  This winter already seems to be gearing up for a kind of coldness that I haven't seen in a couple years-- the farmer's almanac predicts that this year's winter will bring colder temperatures and more precipitation than average.  Opening day at our local ski slope is set for next weekend, so hopefully the ski industry can recover from the last few years of warm slush and low revenues.

I'm super excited about the beginning of ski/snowboard season, even if I take issue with the sports sometimes.  Compared to most of my other favorite sports, snowboarding is totally inaccessible.  You have to either live near mountains or drive for hours to get to them, meaning that most people will never know the luxury of taking a couple runs after school or work.  In addition to the geographical obstacles, putting together a snowboarding setup will cost a couple hundred dollars minimum-- the board, boots, jacket, bindings, lift tickets.... contrast that with basketball or skateboarding, sports where one initial investment will keep you participating happily wherever and whenever you choose. 

Then there's the issue of the snowboarding industry, and industry that has been criticized for pushing new fashions on consumers year after year, leading lots of riders to treat the slopes like a fashion-show runway, where the newest colors and designs are supposed to represent some kind of progress or improvement.  It can be off-putting and intimidating, but it's not all bad.  There are a number of programs including Stoked! Mentoring and Burton's Chill program that get kids onto the slopes who wouldn't have a chance to otherwise.  I think it's awesome to expose kids to the joy that is sliding down 1,000 feet of white mush, but it's a shame that for so many people, snowboarding and skiing are just too difficult to really get involved in.  Maybe one day there will be an affordable way for everyone to snowboard, but until then I'll be waking up before dawn, sleeping on floors, and averting my eyes from the newest, flashiest snowboard fashions.  Just one more week...

Yesterday Trina put up a post about NASCAR and their new drug testing policies. I think she's right, it's important that nobody is driving a hundred-mile-an-hour rocketship on wheels while under the influence. A lot of times, when people get to talking about drug testing and sports, they concentrate on performance enhancing drugs, but in some cases those aren't what matter. While I admire the motivation behind the drug-testing policies, I'm concerned about the specifics.

Here's an example: In 1998, Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati won the Gold Medal in Men's Slalom Snowboarding in Nagano, Japan. However, he tested positive for Marijuana after the fact and was temporarily stripped of the medal. The medal was later returned to Rebagliati after an Olympic Committee vote, but it raises an interesting point-- all drugs are not created equal. Marijuana has a particularly long-lasting presence in human blood, urine, hair and fat cells, even if the smoke was second hand, and more importantly, long after a person may have actually consumed the drug. What that means is that when a drug test is employed to see if an athlete has been using cocaine, ecstasy, alcohol, or methamphetamine before or during their competition, the test will also detect any marijuana which the athlete was exposed to over the past weeks or even months. What this does, effectively, is create incentive for athletes to use recreational drugs like cocaine or alcohol, which exit the body in a period of hours or days and leave the user 'clean' relatively quickly, despite their equal (perhaps greater) danger. Drug testing is a prickly issue, and while it's important that athletes aren't trying to turn themselves into superhumans (or drug addicts), the actual implementation of a testing policy is problematic at best.

And while I'm on my critical soapbox, I'll admit that I kind of take issue with motorsports in general. I went to a lot of drag races and demolition derbies as a kid. It was always a great time. If someone handed me the keys to a race car tonight, you better believe I would hop behind the wheel and go. That said, motorized sports embody a lot of negative qualities. They're pretty harsh on the environment, for one thing. A circular track with 30 race cars on it is basically a tornado of car exhaust. There are dialogues going on, however, about ways to make the sports more sustainable, but the fact of the matter is that automobiles are bad for the planet. We'd all be much better off racing on our feet, or bikes, or tricycles, or pogo sticks. It's not as loud, the crashes are less likely to be fatal, and anyone can afford to get involved.

I’d like to take a minute to recognize the ladies who hit the half-pipes. This weekend, the second S3 Supergirl Championships will grace the shores of Huntington Beach in San Diego. It is the largest girls-only action sports event, celebrating the Big Three board sports: surf, skate, and snow. (Yes, there will be snow in San Diego. They are trucking the white stuff in from the mountains and giving the ladies some jumps and rails to shred on their boards.) To top it off, they’re even inviting some all-female bands to rock the event.

As a snowboarder who had the privilege to tear up the slopes with some very skilled (and not to mention totally bad***) female riders on the East Coast, I’m psyched to see the women’s action sports scene thriving in the West. These women are not just some of the best female athletes in board sports; they are some of the greatest athletes around.

And to get you pumped for the event, here’s a sweet vid of skater Vanessa Torres, who will be competing at the event.

I don't think I'll ever forget my eighth grade science teacher, Mr. Gilroy.  He always made apocolyptic predeictions about oil drying up, and about how all of our cars should be running on vegetable oil.  I thought he was crazy.  He told us that it was possible to drive a car that ran on used french fry grease from fast food restaurants and diners.  The only reason, he told us, that vegetable oil hadn't become standard fuel, was because it ran against the business model currently in place for importing, processing, and selling petroleum based fuel.

 

Nowadays, the idea of a vegetable-oil-powered car is getting more and more popular with the general public.  Mr. Gilroy's ideas don't seem quite as crazy any more, now that we're all feeling the increase in gas costs whenever we buy anything that needs shipping.  Granted, it's not a perfect solution.  But it is a viable alternative to using oil as it rapidly dissapears.

  

 

That video is from a project called Grease Not Gas that happened in 2006, when a bunch of Snowboarders did a road trip in a veggie-fueled bus.  I love the way sports can raise people's interests in natural resources.  If you like snowboarding, it's in your best interest to prevent global warming and the emission of greenhouse gases any way that you can.  It's a shame that it's such a tough sport to get started with, cost-wise, but at least the snowboarding community is doing something proactive to maintain the environment.  We may not all snowboard, but we do all breathe the same air. 

 

If you want to learn more about vegetable-oil powered cars, check out Greasecar, one of multiple web sites that offer conversion kits and information.