The SOL Groove Vol. 1 Num. 2
(November 25, 1996)

Keeping the SOL family informed since last week

HAPPY TURKEY WEEK
Yo, ho, ho, and a big fat turkey dressed in crumbs surrounded by half melted Pilgrim candles to you and yours. Welcome to the sophomore issue of the SOL | Groove. Boy do we have a lot to be thankful for this week.

First off, we were just given our 1997 budget and guess what? The boss man says it's time to start bringing in money, or as they say at Harvard "generating revenue." For this, we're thankful. It means the powermen believe in us.

We're also thankful because we have so many of you on our subscription list, of course, you signed up for this hoping you'd get an overview of what's up in the world of snowboarding and instead you're getting a list of what we're thankful for. What do you expect for free?

Finally, we're thankful that it's winter and that the snowboard was invented. Yep. It's been a long hot summer and the snow is finally here. Praise the Higher Power. Amen.

COMPETE UPDATE
Pramstaller Takes First FIS Boarder Cross

Helmut Pramstaller of Austria narrowly edged Steve Persons of Whitefish, Montana in the BoarderCross event at the season opener of the FIS Grundig Snowboard World Cup on Saturday November 23, 1996 in Kaprun, Italy. Marie Birkl of Sweden took the women's' competition

"It was pretty fast but I thought I could do well," said Persons, who has been battling a back problem with daily stretching exercises and ice-downs. "The big difference from [Friday's qualifying runs] was the visibility. It was foggy and I just made it down in the qualifying without crashing but it was today."

SOME OTHER THINGS WE HEARD
The following news bits may very well be true. Then again they could be complete fabrications. We're going to go with the former because it makes our lawyers feel better. And remember our motto: If it's you, don't sue.

Salomon Snowboards, the most recent ski company to get in on the snowboard action, apparently is going through some financial restructuring. This means that the Salomon snowboard binding, boot, and board guys will be moving the office in France to Massachusetts. Inside sources say the move is not going to be a pleasant one and they are ready to fight it every step of the way. Could this mean that there will be some new openings at Salomon USA? Stay tuned.

Hooger hucker Mike Basich went to Paris last weekend for three days. Reports say he didn't venture to the city of love for a weekend tryst, but probably for a big air contest. We'll be sure to ask him about that next time we talk to him.

Mervin Manufacturing, makers of Gnu, Lib Tech, and Bent Metal bindings had Thanksgiving in the factory last week because they're laying most of their staff off this week. Two hundred turkey lunches complete with cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and a juicy little pink slip. Mervin co-Owner Peter Sarri isn't worried. "We like to look at it this way: we've just enlarged our pro team. We gave everyone a new snowboard, a season pass, severance pay, and they get to collect unemployment. I think most of them are pretty stoked."

Thomas Campbell, world traveling artist and star of those art school Original Sin Snowboard ads will be acting as photo editor of Snowboarder Magazine's revival tabloid Skateboarder Magazine. And who'd of thought the magazine that killed skateboarding in 1978 would return to feast on the spoils 20 years later.

Mike Ranquet and The Green Cowboy (a.k.a. Ian Ruther) got into a little sparing practice at Mt. Baker last week. We're still waiting for the ringside judges to turn in their score cards before we announce the winner. Could this have something to do with Ian's Blunt interview? Who knows.

NEW STUFF ON SOL
Morgan Likes It (11-17-96)

Kathleen Gasperini gets to the core of Morgan LaFonte and finds a hard-charging snowboard chick with a heart of gold, and a mind that open for pretty much anything.

Relationship Field Testing, or Teaching My Boyfriend to Ride (11-17-96)

In her first piece for SOL Monique Cole reminisces about teaching her boyfriend to snowboard, because you know. . . he had to.

Steamboat Opening Day (11-16-96)

That one's pretty self-explanatory, don't you think?

The Snowblower 4.0

Mowing through the snowboard world like a nitro-boosted power blower grinding through week old highway berms. More scoop that you could shake a poop at.

Warp Magazine and Airwalk present Boardaid IV (11-18-96)

The Bro-Cali event of the season returns to Big Bear Lake, California for another round of fundraising, music, AIDS education, and gathering place of the coolest kids this side of the Equator.

PR: Vans, Inc. Purchases Majority Stake in U.K. Distributor (11-21-96)

SOL's AMERICA ONLINE DISK DROP
You may or may not have heard of America Online's new pricing set-up. Starting December 1, users will get unlimited access to SOL and the Internet for the tidy price of $19.95 a month. Why do we care? Well, we just dropped 100,000 SOL | Snowboarding Online disks in the January issue of Snowboarder Magazine and we want you to sign right up. The magazine will be on newsstands by December 12 so go out, buy the magazine and load up the AOL software. On second thought, you don't need to buy the magazine, just rip open the plastic bag and steal the disk. We just want you to sign up for AOL, even if it's just for the day.

TALK BOX CHAT SCHEDULE
Currently, our planned chats have been in the Talk Box on AOL. This is a drag for those who access SOL from the Web only. We know that, but until someone invents the technology to chat on both venues at once we're just going to have to deal with things.

The Talkbox is going off nightly from 5:30-6:30 pm Pacific Standard Time, for those mathematically impaired that's 8:30-10:30 pm Eastern Standard Time.

In the last week we've had pro snowboarders Dave Lee, Bobby Meeks, and several other wonderful snowboard people sharing and caring in the Talkbox.

TECHNOLOGY REMINDER
If you haven't figured it out already, the SOL Search engines are up, running, and fully functional. If you haven't used them, try it by hitting the search button and typing in a word that describes what you're looking for. In return you should get a list of stories on SOL that contain the word or "idea," that you're hunting down. If that doesn't work send us e-mail and we'll make up a really great excuse as to why we don't have they information you need.

MORE STUFF LATER. . .
If, in some bout of insanity, you decide you don't want the SOL | Groove anymore please point your browser to this URL: http://www.solsnowboarding.com/register/unsub.cfm