Benefits of long term posting?

[Odin]

So, to continue,

The TGR forum bloomed and people like Bad_Roo and Basom and Wild/Mildbill and Brownmonkey all entertained us with stories.

Some of the old folks started to drift away.

Facebook happened. I moved a couple times, my friends were on facebook, getting married, having kids, people drifted away, some stopped posting, some even died.

The location focus of the board had a number of different areas throughout its history. Sometimes it was SLC, sometimes it was Tahoe, sometimes it was Colorado, sometimes it was the PNW. It became increasingly colorado when a number of people who posted frequently moved there, and right around 2007 Rob Story wrote a story on the board. It was, for some, the death knell for their participation. A ton of people registered, a ton of people came online. There were a lot of vocal trolls, a lot. The ratio of trolls to not trolls probably remained the same, but there were just a LOT of trolls.

The signal to noise that was already having trouble break through was lost (for some) in the midst of thousands of noobs that flooded the webs and argued about the valid perspective of avalanche risks in colorado and flame wars became the norm, but don't mistake anything..... there were flame wars and arguing before, it is just that some people after 14 years had moved on.

It is at this point that I can only say what I perceive from the outside in. Cause I wasn't really around.

IT seems like people came in, some stayed, some left, some went to facebook or elsewhere. Telemark tips folded and the members either came here or TAY.

Some of us just didn't recognize their friends anymore and left. Some stuck around. To each their own.

Sadly, the archive function of TGR doesn't actually hold on to the old threads and tons of information here is now gone. Numerous stories from basom, Bad_Roo, Myself, Rev Floater, and many more are all just gone. It is what it is, but the community isn't always about the history, but about the people involved.

And knowing is half the battle. Or some shit.

For me, the benefits of long term posting?

I moved away from a place I hated.
I met friends
I met more friends
I got a job from the board
I got better at skiing from the board
I helped other people ski in expensive areas for cheap, and stay at my place.
I traveled the world
I met my wife through the connections I made from the job I got on the board.
I continue to meet people to this day from the board, in completely random ways. Reconnecting in funny ways.
So 16/17 years later, it's pretty crazy, but also pretty fascinating.

and I did learn one very important thing.

99% of the time, the way you act online is a pretty good fucking indicator of how you are in person, just slightly less so in person.

fwiw: The old connections still live. I saw D-Day in Manhattan, Pinner and I hook up in Colorado, I reconnected with tuffy, Had breakfast with ptavv, Had Rusty Nails as my best man at my wedding and my wife and I spent a few days with him and his family on our honeymoon in Italy, the maggots that I remember are (by and large) great people,


and I still make fun of phUnk semi-regularly

Chinstrap


BTW: What the fuck ever happened to Wizard?

[BigDaddy]

Holy shit, great stories from our resident historian. Thanks for taking the time to write it all up. I will have to finish reading it later, but great to have.

[Odin]

BTW: All the above diminishes the photographers and skiers that made this place amazing. Gunderson, Tabke, Townsend, Spector, McConkey, Gaffney, Casey, Neiderhauser, Zbo, Shevock, Gadoury, Allen X3, All the great skiers, riders and people that published trip reports, pictures, and videos, Butters and Altachic, Kush, Punani... the list goes on and on. Buster can ski you into the ground and you don't even realize it.

Heart chute, Big Jims, Hospital Air, Skywalker, Maroon Bells, AK Stoke the list is too long to remember. Hell, there was a year in tahoe where all the stuff that came from there was insane.



Great stuff, great stuff.

[LightRanger]

Possible Restrictions on Route 88...

[::: :::]

this was a normal photo back in the day?
no wonder people are always moaning about it
hope this dude is still alive!

[abraham]

this was a normal photo back in the day?
no wonder people are always moaning about it
hope this dude is still alive!

I would say normal in my time but I'm still new. I remember this though, think this is the right thread/air

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=49052

[Odin]

[Ski to Be]

Great work Odin. Those old names bring back long filed away memories of this place. This thread should be stickied as required reading for Jongs to see what this place used to be about. The signal to noise ratio isn't close to what it used to be for sure. The TRs got to the point of being pro level or they were ridiculed and even those were ridiculed by some. Bringing back the TRs of 3 to 10 good pictures by regular skiers like most of us with well written stories would be a step back in the right direction IMO.

[Odin]

I would like to say one thing cause I saw some one complaining about it earlier.

The photo upload stuff has ALWAYS sucked. ALWAYS. ALWAYS. ALWAYS.

Use something other than TGR's hosters for that so you control them and they don't get deleted when they decide to, but yeah.

[iceman]

BTW: What the fuck ever happened to Wizard?

He has to be dead. I was one of the few who could stand him, he wasn't stupid or mean, he was just completely fucked up about 99% of the time. He was from Cape Cod and we knew some people and places in common. I think it was acostiga, wizard and maybe vinzclortho (wtf happened to that guy, funny dude) when they went on a wild drunken car ride in Boston and ended upgoing the wrong way on Charles Street and wizard just just jumped the fuck out of the moving car, convinced they were about to be killed in a crash. Good times, good times.

[The Suit]

So other than fashion advice from Iceman and great tips on cast iron pan care, what's your reason for staying?

This shared love of Frozenwater

pretty much says it all ...

[Odin]

Was it Basom/Bag tagley/ bill or someone like that with the story about being carjacked in boston? Does anyone remember this story?

[gravitylover]

Wow I had "filed" away some of those stories so deep I had almost forgotten them. I clearly remember the gorillo guts episode now that you reposted it. I remember having stuff sent to my store after 9/11 and then being picked up to be brought into the city by (?) a generous maggette (?) and have somewhat more vague recollections of the shenanigans on the powmag board but when shit got weird I bailed for a bit and focused on my then 3 year old twins and running my ski shop as it morphed into more of a snowboard and mt bike shop. Ice's analogy to the early days of National Lampoon is such an appropriate description of this place in the early days. I lurked for a few months in early '04 then signed up on 4/20 because I figured that was the right thing to do.

[gravitylover]

I think the carjack episode was basom but not sure. There was some wonderful writing going on then, not just the tr's but really creative stuff too. This place used to be a place to practice creative writing and expression so much more than it is now.

Remember the first EC summit? I set us all up with discount tix at Stowe by convincing the marketing dept that we would be proper ambassadors after they were prominently featured in that seasons TGR film. There was one run where about 30 of us got off the gondola a few minutes apart and took off en masse into the trees hootin and hollerin all the way to the bottom making quite a spectacle of ourselves. That night a bunch of us, bas, wildbill, epskis and a dozen or so others, descended on Vinmans house and had a great time. I still remember being surprised at how well behaved we were

[Odin]

[abraham]

Ha that thread from glademaster got revived a few months ago. I had forgotten where it came from. The site to buy shirts still works I think :O

[wyeaster]

.

whoever did that first descent was definitely thinking outside the box.

[wyeaster]

judging from the entry tracks, it looks like whoever went first just pointed them and took a longer drop

[Tippster]

That carjacking thread was about the Roxbury, wasn't it? One of the truly great reads on this (or was it the other?) board.

That iceman match head story got me to sign up to Powmag. I only lurked before that because every now and then the magazine would talk about the forum in that "loose lips" or whatever section in the front section of the rag right after Casimiro's essay.

Buzzworthy needs to be credited for putting that Utah Mini together, and the newly-hatched PMGear showed up with some good raffle gear. Shit, I scored a pair of those gold colored seal-clubbing poles and Xover laughed at me the whole time. I'd met him and PowHo 20 minutes earlier - they let me sit at their table only because I had an Alta hat that clearly wasn't new on my head and a pitcher of good beer in my hand.

One of the single greatest nights of my life was after the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston. I extended my trip for a day, my hotel was out in Medford, and I met up with Basom, MildBill, and eventually VinzClortho at some bar on the water near the museum to drink fishbowl-sized boat drinks. They then took me around town to their favorite haunts, ending the evening in Basom's awesome crib in a sketchy neighborhood to get stoned. Everyone assumed I'd spend the night, they told me I'd never get a cab to take me back. I was out smoking a cigarette and a cab dropped off some girls up the street. I ran it down and got back to my hotel, made my 9:00am flight, and didn't check in with them until I was back on TGR that evening. They thought I'd been kidnapped.

[Game Over]

.

Tyrone Shoelaces

[Odin]

Could be wrong but I think that's Kush. Ron was in blue.

[Tippster]

More fond memories of first maggot meetings from back then:

Meeting Kush, his sister, and her boyfriend for BBQ in NoVirginia somewhere. we sat down and I bought a pitcher. Asked for 4 glasses which they brought. Kush's sister and her SO get all twitchy-looking. I looked puzzled, and Kush says "dude - they're 17. Be cool."

Arranged to meet Lemonboy, who was in town for business, at a dive hotel bar in DC. We called and told each other what we looked like, were wearing. I said I was at the bar and he asked me to have a shot of Jameson's ready for him since he was running late. I'm flirting with the bartender when some dude walks up, downs the Jameson's, and says "Change for a nickle, faggot?"

Got into a bit of an exchange with Yetiman saying something about drunk driving on the board, which ends with him offering to beat my ass if we ever met in person. Fast forward 3 months and I'm in Solitude with iceman. I meet SFB for the first time and he starts laughing, saying he has someone for me to meet. We walk over to the hotel part of the resort and he introduces me to this 200+ pound lumberjack-looking motherfucker and says "Tippster - this is Yetiman. Yetiman - Tippster." We look at each other and I start cracking up, saying "so are you gonna hand me my ass right here or should we step outside?" Glad I'm still FB friends with that dude ever since he bailed on this place.

[iceman]

Was it Basom/Bag tagley/ bill or someone like that with the story about being carjacked in boston? Does anyone remember this story?

That was Gonzo, he was in Mattapan (otherwise known locally as Murderpan). Why in hell he was there I can not recall. Maybe he was with his cousin Honc, not sure.

[iceman]

Ha that thread from glademaster got revived a few months ago. I had forgotten where it came from. The site to buy shirts still works I think :O

Cafepress still works for the shinjuku stuff but it's really hard to find, if I get inspired I'll put up a link if I can find it again.

[iceman]

Tipp Yetiman's still here from time to time, he changed his name, an ill-advised strategy if you ask me but hey.