A chasm has opened inside me, of the sort that can never be re-filled. Brian Frias passed away last Friday, February 20, doing what he loved, skiing with the daughter he cherished. He was taken before any of us had the chance to say goodbye.
My oft-repeated sobriquet for Brian was “My IT Angel,” for it was his facility at building and maintaining the nuts-and-bolts of the website that enabled Realskiers.com to survive. (Without him, we’re now one cyber assault from extinction). But Brian was so much more than a brilliant troubleshooter; he was a collaborator and hands-on spirit guide to the mysteries of how web software works. He is utterly irreplaceable.
I first met Brian when I was working for Head and he was a rep for Jeff Brumbach’s well-respected operation. At the time, part of my job was to rep the brand in my local territory, but it was clear I needed to move in-house at Head Wintersports’ new HQ in Byfield, MA. I tapped Brian to replace me because he knew the territory well and because I knew he was a quality person, someone who could be counted on to do the right thing no matter the circumstances.
But it was Brian’s unflagging efforts to bring Realskiers’ content to life that demonstrated just how far he would go to help a friend who desperately needed his expertise, patience and above all, kindness. He was always there to help me put out fires large and small. Again, irreplaceable.
While Brian could read code as easily as an English professor reads Hemingway, it’s not his backroom navigating skills I’ll miss the most, but his good-natured, low-maintenance friendship, grounded in an old-fashioned sense of honor and mutual respect.
Somewhere I hope Brian is able to ski powder every day, but we’re more likely to find after-life Brian casting a line into pristine waters populated with notoriously elusive prey.
Cast on, my brother, cast on. I’ll see you on the other shore.
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Any serious attempt at bootfitting begins with an assessment of the customer’s feet and lower legs. This appraisal can be as superficial as measuring each foot for length or as detailed as a complete skier profile accompanied by a few basic biomechanical evaluations.
Better bootfitters gather further information from a litany of details that lie outside the scope of the usual foot-measuring device, such as a Brannock. The veteran bootfitter watches how the customer walks, sits and assumes a skiing position, for starters. The savvy fitter can even spot limb-length differences and redistribute pressure around the foot in places no measuring stick can quantify.
If this sounds like a pretty sophisticated skill set, well, it is. Yet many, if not most, prospective boot buyers approach the bootfitting exercise with the same enthusiasm they usually reserve for a root canal. Suspicions are often confirmed when the first boot proffered seems crazily short. Even the most knowledgeable fitter is obliged to re-establish his/her credibility just to move the bootfit process pass square one.
Of Podcasts, Archives & Revelations
According to my tight-knit circle of advisors, idolaters, sycophants and astrologers, I was made for this medium.
Of course, any garden-variety sycophant will whisper words of inspirational twaddle, but the faint note of sincerity I detect in the smarm-storm of platitudes meant to buck me up has proven sufficient to spur me to action. I quickly acquired a very professional looking microphone and a pop filter to knock down my fierce sibilants. To preserve my objectivity, I opted not to take any lessons, follow any tutorials or otherwise prepare myself for this venture. By the powers vested in me as the Pontiff of Powder, I declare myself to be, now and forever after, a podcaster.
I’ll give you a moment to recover.
The Making of a Skier, Chapter XI: Desperate Measures
When Head humanely, if rather brusquely, terminated my tenure in 2001, the ski business in the U.S. was already facing stiff headwinds, a brewing storm that would turn into a full-on debacle when 9/11 disrupted all commerce. I became unemployed just in time for the job market to implode.
I don’t handle inactivity well. I started writing a very long, very dreadful novel, composed a handful of scripts for Warren Miller – and later, Jeremy Bloom – to recite and scribbled batches of brochure copy and white papers for industries as diverse as accounting software, instrumented football helmets that registered concussions and risk assessment based on location.
The pickings were slim, but they wouldn’t have amounted to anything at all were it not for a little help from my friends. Andy Bigford, who I’d worked with at Snow Country, hired me for the Warren Miller gig. A college chum kindly engaged me to write white papers on accounting fraud. But it was Dave Bertoni, an erstwhile colleague from Salomon days, who joined me in creating Desperate Measures: A Training Method for Selling Technical Products at Retail.
