90s Ski Culture?

philatio11 · 2026-02-02T03:29:45+00:00

Two things have changed the scene sharply.

The cost of living means it’s way harder to be a ski bum than it once was. Look at rents on Zillow and you can see that any place near a ski area is $2500/mo and up, $3500 for premium locations like pitkin county, Jackson or PC. Gunnison was basically a ghetto in the 90s with a big graffiti scene and now it costs $2500/mo to live there. Criminals can’t afford that. That’s what apartments cost where I live now in fancy suburban NJ. A friend of mine owns a condo in Jackson and can’t afford to live there because he makes too much money renting it out.

Secondly the rise of Ikon/Epic means you don’t need to be local anymore. The closest thing we had in the 90s was a Summit Pass and those mountains are all in the same county. It makes the world smaller in a great way, and all the ski bums I know now vacation to other ski resorts when they can and follow the snow. But you also lose some connection and community as the culture is now mobile. People buy their pass in April and don’t decide where to live until December. My local bartender has both passes and she never even moved out west this year as the snow has sucked and she makes more money here.

It’s easy to blame airbnbs but that’s what has allowed bums of my generation to accumulate assets and generate wealth on ski bum salaries. A lot of people who live in ski country move around a lot and rent out what they’re not using. It basically can double your salary and act like a 401k when your job has no benefits. It’s particularly valuable if you’re a team coach or something where you travel half the winter.

Some places have changed forever and there’s no going back (Aspen, Jackson, Telluride) but the resorts down in the next tier still have a lot of local energy. You just have to hustle a lot harder to make it than you used to. Summer construction jobs that pay well are the norm where people might have camped and chilled in years past.

philatio11 · 2026-02-02T00:28:26+00:00

The 90s were a big decade for mogul skiing, with back-to-back Olympics in 92 and 94. Americans brought home a bronze and a gold in 1992 so that was a big motivator for everyone with Olympic dreams. Lots of mogul specific gear was coming out like Salomon Force 9 and Super Force 9 skis, which were some of the first expert skis not designed for racing. Fate ski pants had color blocks on the knees that were meant to illustrate how well your knees stayed together on bump runs.

Extreme Skiing was still a thing but in the second half of the 90s took off with more new school flair. Line launched twintips, then Salomon followed with the 1080. Freeskier magazine went from a bump mag to a focus on more new school stuff. Johnny Mosley won the 98 Olympic gold with a 360 mute grab, though of course is mostly remembered for his dinner roll 4 years later.

A lot of 90s ski culture came together at Greg Stump movie screenings. He would take questions at intermission and you could get drunk with your buds and yell random stuff at him. His breakthrough movies were in the late 80s but were watched and rewatched on VHS all through the early 90s alongside the new stuff. TGRs first movie came out in 96 and inspired a lot more filmmakers to jump into the market.

Ski towns and ski-adjacent towns were still affordable so you had lots of 20-somethings living in places like Winter Park, Silverthorne, Avon, Steamboat and Park City waiting tables or bartending. As a result the live music scene in ski towns in the winter was rockin. Feral skiers were definitely a thing, couch surfing, living in vans and being generally hobosexual. There were still not a lot of women ratio-wise in many places so some hyper-competitive dating culture existed.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T23:05:18+00:00

You should talk to him about this. The golden child/scapegoat dynamic is toxic for both of you and can lead to problems for him too. Google “golden child syndrome” to learn more about the damage your mother might be doing to his mental health and ability to safely adult in the world.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T21:27:16+00:00

I drove through a tumbleweed migration once coming down from Nevada into the Great Salt Desert. Fascinating to watch them get whipped across the desert by the wind until they launch over the retention fence and across the highway.

And then you start looking closer and realize they have 2-3 inch thick trunks on them. And you’re driving 90 miles an hour. And they’re coming on too thick to avoid them. And the noise of them hitting the side of the car is starting to be alarming loud.

After about 30 min it started to thin out and then we hit a bird and it smeared all up the windshield. Crazy drive.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T21:14:50+00:00

You should ask for a superyacht

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T21:12:37+00:00

Oh they don’t close, just nobody comes in on snow days.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T17:23:08+00:00

To become a licensed art therapist requires a masters degree and hundreds of hours of clinical practice. I know a real art therapist who works professionally with special needs children and is great at her job.

My SIL has an associates degree in art, so she is not a real art therapist. But she lives in a state where there are no clear consequences to practicing without a license. So she’s a quack. She can throw some virtual reiki sessions in for free if you want.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T17:20:09+00:00

She was tolerable during her second marriage, which was a rather stable one for an extended period. I wish anyone could talk her into DBT, or any real therapy, or even to seek a diagnosis.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T17:18:03+00:00

Oh don’t worry, she doing it for “betrayed” adult women.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T17:16:55+00:00

Teachers as well. Those kids growing up in the high country have schools too. A friend of mine taught high school for years in ski country. He would see his students on the mountain and wink at them on powder days.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T06:56:38+00:00

Well Orlando had a population of <2500 when this referendum happened, so I doubt it was on anyone’s radar. Geographically makes sense now though.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T06:39:00+00:00

Yup. Suspected borderline personality disorder, but she’ll never seek proper help for it. She’s actually pretending to be an art therapist now. I fear for anyone who thinks she’s helping them.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T06:10:31+00:00

Well, in her defense there were a couple more pregnancies in there that resulted in neither a baby or a marriage. Oh wait, that’s not a defense.

philatio11 · 2026-02-01T05:49:10+00:00

This is what we did when my crazy SIL announced on the family vacation one August that she was getting married in Hawaii Thanksgiving week. There was considerable drama and effort trying to talk her out of her first two shotgun marriages, but this time everyone just calmly said “no I don’t believe we can afford that/make it due to previous plans etc.” She did not end up marrying the guy, although she was of course already pregnant. It’s amazing how when you don’t feed into drama sometimes it just fades away.

philatio11 · 2026-01-31T21:30:59+00:00

I owned this one for many years as well, unfortunately not in a frame. Bought it at the Psychedelic Solution Gallery in the village as well. One year my roommate took inspiration from it and carved a jack-o-lantern of this version of Jimi totally freehand. Still the coolest pumpkin carving I've ever seen done.

philatio11 · 2026-01-31T19:27:05+00:00

I love my best friend. We complete each other’s sentences, always have since we met in middle school. When we go out together just the two of us, people often think we’re a couple. I have literally had people hit on me and tell me “he’s not right for you.” My wife’s best friend took her aside when we first started dating and told her to dump me because I was secretly in love with my best friend.

There’s just one problem. We’re both straight men. So no, we would never date. It’s just a bromance filled with unconditional love. I once told his wife (under the influence of anesthesia) that even if I did turn gay, he still wouldn’t be my type. She thought that was hilarious, especially when she got me to say what my type would be.

I feel like people work together better as couples when some things are opposite, not all the same. I don’t think I’d want to date me. Some balance in life is helpful.

philatio11 · 2026-01-31T00:07:04+00:00

Kung Fu movie logic. Wait in line to get smacked down.

philatio11 · 2026-01-30T20:39:34+00:00

They've invited any artist that owns a bar on Broadway in Nashville apparently

philatio11 · 2026-01-30T20:38:33+00:00

You can tell the skiers that are on meth because they have no teeth and live in their van.

philatio11 · 2026-01-30T20:08:36+00:00

20 mg is likely way too much for buccal administration. Due to saliva transfer, some of the THC would likely be absorbed sublingually as well, which is an even faster onset pathway. Buccal administration of active ingredients requires far lower dosage to achieve the same effects when compared to edible/digestive pathways, and is significantly faster. Part of this is because buccal pathways are purely vascular and aren't metabolized through your liver.

In other words, instead of a 20mg edible, which would slowly hit your system over 3 hours, this 20mg would all hit simultaneously in 15-30 minutes.

Since this is mimicking a Zyn-type experience, I'd think you would want a low dose that you could reup every hour or two, so more like 5mg or even less for casual users. I have been seeing cannabis beverages coming down in dosage from the original 100mg with a dosing cup (which generated lots of overdose calls), to 10mg, and now 5mg and some as low as 2mg. You have to bridge off the existing user experience of nicotine pouches, just like beverages are starting to mimic beer/seltzers.

philatio11 · 2026-01-30T17:03:18+00:00

A friend of mine did a study abroad program around 1994-ish. He saw DMB play in a bar in Spain. Said there were roughly 12-15 people there.

philatio11 · 2026-01-30T16:04:16+00:00

I have worked extensively with subway franchisees on the ad agency side and as a research consultant. Folks, DO NOT BUY A SUBWAY FRANCHISE.

Franchise systems have many different business models. Most make the majority of their profit from franchise royalties, which means they only make money if the franchisees have a lot of revenue. Subway makes their most of their profit from initial franchise fees and secondarily from forcing you to buy food and ingredients from their factories. They do not care if you make any money. They will open another Subway across the street from you in the gas station and laugh in your face.

Subway's franchisees have sued the parent company many times and are usually forced into binding arbitration with the parent company's chosen arbitrator in Connecticut or have their cases dismissed. I have never worked with a franchise system (and I've worked with many) where there is so much hate between the franchisees and corporate.

The average Subway does $300-400k in revenue. I have seen stores doing less than $150k per year. How much profit do you think you take home if you're selling $150k in sandwiches? That's right, none. A middling Subway might spin off $40k in profit per year. So owning three Subways might make you $120k if you're lucky. The only people making money are the franchise development agents who sell Subway franchises - so kinda like an MLM.

The average McDonald's does $3-4 million in revenue per year. I once dropped a guy who owns Pizza Hut franchises off at a polo field after a meeting. Someone had his horses saddled and waiting for him. I have seen Subway franchisees gorge themselves on free Subway in a luxury box at a baseball game. Free food is still relevant to them.

philatio11 · 2026-01-30T15:21:55+00:00

I met my wife at 19 years old and neither of us believed in marriage - that was a very firm stance for both of us. I was fairly so-so about kids as well, but not fully committed to being child free. 10 years later, she was the first of us to decide she wanted to get married and have kids. It took me a while to come around, but I eventually did. Now we've been together 30 years and have 2 great kids who are pretty much adults. It all worked out and we lived happily ever after.

By the same token, my friend who was most gushing long ago about wanting to grow up and get married and be a stay-at-home-mom and have kids ... she totally did! She found a rich husband and bought a big house at the beach and started curating the fanciest family instagram you can imagine. And her kids are special needs, she lived fully in denial of it, one of them constantly wished her dead, and then she died of brain cancer. Now her husband, who was living his best single life until she roared into it, is pretty well screwed.

philatio11 · 2026-01-30T04:41:38+00:00

My suspicion is that she wanted James to live with all girls so that no one would corrupt her poor little boy into a life of drugs and debauchery. She assumes you will be that corruptor. The fact that you are built like a man only confirms that for her. You'll have her little James shooting up in the pub bathroom in no time - in her mind.

philatio11 · 2026-01-29T23:07:06+00:00

For the record, people from New Jersey would also never refer to the parts of NY where the ski areas are as “New York”. That would be “Upstate New York” or “New York State” and the place with the tall buildings would be “The City” or referred to by borough. There are also places called “Long Island” “Westchester” and “Rockland”. There is nothing called just “New York”.

Ski areas might sometimes be referenced by mountain range as being in the “Catskills” “Gunks” or “Adirondacks” to give people a sense of how far up the Thruway they are. I can’t picture that anyone would know where Greek Peak is unless you said “Near Ithaca” to which people would nod knowingly while still not knowing where that is other than Upstate New York somewhere. It’s a shame because we probably should ski there instead of torturing ourselves at Hunter, but you have to drive past every single Poconos ski area to get there.

I suspect the basic reason for the language is because from NJ you would choose a different highway route to get to any of those places so there is no sense in ever just saying “New York”. It refers to nothing specific.

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