The State of Things

TheSnowWay.com has not been updated since November, over four months ago. After documenting every ski day since 2001, my dedication and enthusiasm for the craft waned last year and vanished this season. I made two early efforts in November to focus TSW on a season of self reflection through trip reports; more of a traditional weblog with ski days being the impetus for each posting. But I could not sustain the effort. Many ski days have come and gone but my passion for blogging has yet to be rekindled.

(more…)

Welcome to the new and improved TheSnowWay.com v5.0. The site’s theme was updated from a hacked version of Kubrick to a significantly less hacked version of Twentyeleven. In the next week or two, you may notice a few additional changes as I dial in the style sheet. This was an unplanned acceleration of the theme change over schedule so please comment to report any bugs you notice. Thanks!

One defining feature of Blogs is syndication. Less savvy readers may not be familiar with how to use feed aggregation. But everyone knows how to use Facebook which has become most people’s default feed reader. TheSnowWay.com now has a Facebook page so you can be notified as soon as a new article or trip report is posted. Please feel free to friend TheSnowWay.com on Facebook.

TheSnowWay.com has been upgraded to WordPress 3.0.1. The software has been fully upgraded behind the scenes. This is important as the software was substantially behind in releases. Look for some new enhancements to the site this coming winter. Ideas for some articles to post during the fall are already brewing.

With a new camera in hand, new shells in the closet courtesy of a Backcountry.com sale, and new gear being readied, I am anxiously awaiting the start of the season. I am also looking forward to providing more content on TheSnowWay.com than last season. Here is hoping for some “snoliage” again to start this season off next month.

While this weekend’s cold shot and probable mountain top dusting will only likely be a tease and hint of things to come, it is hard not to be reminded of last October’s epic ending and look forward to this October’s end in hopes of an early season pounding. First tracks have already been made out West and the bull wheel is already turning at A-Basin. It will not be long before we get ours in Northern New England.

In the meantime, I have continued sprucing up the redesigned web site. The latest updates and additions include a horizontal navigation bar now in place via Menubar plugin (which still needs styling), an upgrade to WPG2 (please report any broken image links, thanks!), an upgrade to WordPress v2.3, a new form on the Contact page via the cforms II plugin, a daily image in addition to the random image, and an edited sidebar that eliminates redundant or needless links. Please continue to pardon the dust as the finishing touches are being made before the snow flies. Because once the mountains are white, I will be damned if I am going to spend skiing time working on design and code!