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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In Memorium, Carl Ettlinger
Carl was a giant of a man whose outsized voice roiled every conversation like a burst dam and whose expansive vision reached across the mixed milieus of research, journalism, risk management and education. I knew him when he was at the peak of his powers, as he explained to me when I interviewed him for a “where are they now?” profile in Skiing History. He was able to conduct long-term research on injury patterns as well as analyze the particulars of the current binding market, turn around and package this knowledge into articles for Skiing and Skiing Trade News, followed up by a workshop tour that would bring enlightenment to the grassroots level. No one but Carl could have pulled this off, and Lord knows no one has had the requisite talent, energy and will power since.
But time and tide wait for no man, and Carl’s finely spun web of influence was eventually plucked apart. The loss of his pivotal positions in the press allowed him to slip from public view before we, the skiers of the world, realized we hadn’t taken the time to thank him.
We have the time to thank him now.
So thanks, Carl, for being first and foremost a teacher, for teaching is at the heart of the evangel’s mission.
Thanks for being so damn stubborn. Your insistence on improving skier safety wore through a wall of resistance as tough as Vermont marble.
Thanks for having a heart as big as that melon-sized head of yours. The fuel to your tireless mind was a caring heart that tried to embrace the world.
Thanks for all the stories once the Mount Gay flowed. Who knew we would have won the Vietnam War if only his superiors had listened? I can’t remember exactly how – he wasn’t the only one drinking Mount Gay – but I recall the light in his eyes as he relayed his twisted tales, taking us down successive rabbit-holes of digression that I lost track of at the seventh level.
That’s what I remember most vividly about my many interactions with Carl: his brain so teemed with thoughts he rushed to get them out in a verbal jailbreak that would travel around the cosmos until returning, many lost minutes later, to the subject that had inspired them. That was Carl: too many words for one sentence, too many tasks to tend to and all of it, every erg of his endless energy, devoted to a cause he never ceased to serve.
Fare thee well, Carl Ettlinger. The world misses you already for it will never see another quite like you, whose every moment seemed larger than life itself.
I raise my glass to you, old friend. Mount Gay, of course.
Jackson Hogen
June 23, 2020
Why This Buyer’s Guide?
Don’t read the 2021 Masterfit Buyer’s Guide in Partnership with Realskiers.com for its 62 ski reviews. I should know. I wrote or edited all of them.
Not that the ski reviews aren’t worth the read. But ski reviews on the web are as common as rice, while the Buyer’s Guide contains something no other publication, whether in digital, print or video format, can claim: the most respected, thorough and dependable boot reviews in the world.
This isn’t mere puffery. The Masterfit Boot Test is so well regarded by the supplier community that nearly every brand not only sends its following year’s line-up in four men’s sizes plus three for women, it also dispatches its top designers and/or product managers to a distant North American site for most of the test’s five-day duration.
The Ripple Effect
As I’ve observed in this space before, product managers spend most of their time in the future; the present for them is two years away for the rest of us. So when the coronavirus shut down the 19/20 ski season, it triggered an automatic response in the R&D lobes lodged deep in my noggin: what impact will this have two years down the road?
If I knew the answer to this question with any certainty, I should be running a hedge fund, not scribbling about skiing. But after checking with several of the bellwether players in U.S. market, I have some idea of what’s in store.
