Racing this weekend in Canmore was fun, I may not have raced that fast, but I had fun. I didn't look at any results lists because I knew that was just going to be depressing. Sometimes it's better just to race and let the effort stand on its own without tying it to a number or a percentage back.

I did get my first reorder for BootBuddies from my first retailer. I felt like a proud mother. My little babies all getting grown up and sold off to be walked all over. tear. I hope they go into the world and do there job well. Which I know they will because every single one of them has been tested in my presence in a boot to ensure perfect fit. Let's just say that our quality control is at 100%.

The SkiTraxx Store is now up and running!

(although there is the kink that you're going to receive two receipts for each order right now. I wonder how we fix that.)

The PINK BootBuddies are going to be ready to ship next week. Red, Blue & Yellow are ready now. And if you're in Canmore you can stop by TrailSports at the Canmore Nordic Centre to pick up a pair.

Excite! Excite!

E-commerce = success!
Next task = figure out when I start that 10k tomorrow. I keep having to convince the controller peoples here to let me into the venue. I must not have my World Cup swagger goin' on.

---
(And if you're a retailer, contact us or go to the dealer page.)

Labels: skitraxx

So you probably already know that I consumer more than my per capita of those Dove chocolates. You know, the ones with the messages written on the inside of the wrapper. I'd been out of them for almost a month (tragic) and I just restocked. Except the ones in Canada, in addition to coming in packages about a quarter of the size of the packages in the US, have the messages written in both English & French.

This has been doubly entertaining (which also means I've been enjoying twice as many chocolates as usual, yum) as I get to try my translating skills on the French version. It always is interesting to me how other people translate things, for example:

"Enjoy retail therapy"
"Ne sous-estimez jamais les bienfaits du magasinage"

Now, aside from the debatable advice this piece of chocolate is giving me, how in the world does a three word phrase turn into an entire sentence when you change it to French. Is that the fault of the translator or is that the fault of the French? If you gave me the French sentence I would translate it into: "Never underestimate the benefits of shopping." (I'm cheating on magasinage, I have no idea what that word actually means.) And I would say, where's the "pas?" isn't it supposed to go ne-verb-pas? They're going to write an entire sentence yet are too lazy to finish the negation.

I've also noticed that the phrases are different too. My last chocolate told me to "wear matching underwear."

Speaking of chocolate, I have discovered chocolate covered banana chips. Um, delicious. I got a bag when I stopped into Nutters, the little local health food store.

When I grow up I am going to have a health food store. Except when you walk in it's actually going to be a chocolaterie. With maybe some organic raspberries for color.

I wonder what advice that unopened Dove chocolate over there has for me...

I am back in Canmore. There's so many sweet ski areas in the world, everywhere I go I'm excited to be there. I have my first World Cup races of the season this Friday and Saturday. I love the buzz of being at a World Cup venue and this should be a big weekend because most of the other countries have their Olympic team here acclimating before heading over to Vancouver.

Of all the things that irk me, uggs worn with mini skirts, dull rollerski ferrules, mosquitoes, non-aviators who wear aviators...

right up there on the list is EXCESSIVE PACKAGING on small products. Seriously, does something have to come in a package ten times its size in order for consumers to think it's worth buying? Or, as in this instance, infinitely larger since what they're selling is a 25-digit membership number.



Don't get depressed, this isn't going to be just another whiny blog. While I don't control the universe (yet) I do control a very small line of cross country skiing accessories. While I was thinking about how to display BootBuddies in stores, I decided that it's important to take your personal values with you into your business life. I hate buying things and then filling up my garbage or recycling bin with the packaging. Therefore...

We are offering the BootBuddy in stores, package free.

Seriously, buy a product, don't pay for the accompanying trash.

Look for your BootBuddies in your local Cross Country Ski shop in a display jar on the counter.

www.SkiTraxx.com

Labels: photos, skitraxx

I have been freaking out about my shoulders lately. Nope, they're not dislocated, or torn, or it-hurts-when-i-move-it-just-like-this, they're not even sore from pull-ups. It's because they're rolling forward, a little more every day. I escaped this particular skiing syndrom for the longest time because I had 7 years of very classical ballet. Which adds up to a lot of time squeezing your shoulder blades together and pulling your shoulders back. Finally, this fall, more than ten years after my last ballet class with Joan Shelton Mason, my good posture started to disintegrate.

I first became aware of it when a massage therapist said, "the front of you shoulders are tight," and pushed my shoulder down to the table from which it immediately bounced back off. WHEN I LIE ON MY BACK MY SHOULDERS STAY OFF THE FLOOR. You have no idea how much distress this has caused me. I am going to be a hunchbacked old lady. AT TWENTY FIVE. It's great for skiing. I'm finally letting my shoulders relax and roll forward and my arms are swinging. But at the cost of my good posture. tragic. ah, the sacrifices we make for skiing.

So I have a bank account. Like most people. When I set up my online banking they asked me for a security word that they would display in the subject line of emails so I would know that the email really truly was from the bank. In this day and age desperate times call for desperate measures, so it seems. This seemed like a silly request to me so I typed in "chickenlittle." Now emails from my bank have subject lines like:

Your Statement is Ready Chickenlittle

which cracks me up.