Welcome to the new fall season of the Snowboarding Online Groove. It's been a while since we last spoke. In fact, it's been nearly six months. And in that time many things have changed. We'd like to think they've changed for the better, but we'll let you be the judge.

If you're new to the Groove you may want to go check out the Groove archive to see what you've been missing:
Archives

Otherwise, here's what's up this week:
THE 1999 BUYERS' GUIDE
This year we have the largest online collection of board, boot, and binding information in the world: 1500 boards, 199 boots, and 155 bindings. If you can't find something to like in here, then you're never going to find it.

TIME TO RIDE
Even if a new board is on the way, it's good to get the old boards all tuned and ready to slide. Here is a collection of tips to help you get the most of your old board.
Waxing Your Snowboard

WIN A FREE GAME FROM NINTENDO
We'll throw up a picture of someone you should know, and then give you clues until someone guesses exactly who it is. The winner will receive a wonderful game cartridge from Nintendo.

TWS MAGAZINES ONLINE
We now have all the content from Snowboarding and Snowboard Life magazines ready and waiting to be searched. If you can't remember where you read something, look it up right here.

NEW TO SNOWBOARDING?
Having a difficult time figuring this whole snowboarding thing out? Don't worry, we've got it all right here in the Snowboarding Online Guide to Getting Started.

GETTING AROUND SNOWBOARDING ONLINE

We get a lot of questions from people who are looking for particular items on Snowboarding Online. As much as we'd like to be able to know where every story is, we can't. We do exactly what you should do when you're looking for a story: we use the SEARCH button in the navigation box on the left-hand side of every page. Click SEARCH and enter the word or words that you're looking for and you'll get a list of all the stories that include those words.

In that navigation box you'll find not only the SEARCH button, but also all the other areas that are most popular on the site including: CHAT, PHOTOS, CLASSIFIEDS, MESSAGES, WEATHER, RESORTS/TRAVEL, SHOP, and CALENDAR.

The last two are especially important. The SHOP button now takes you to several online snowboard shops where you can buy many of the items you see on the website. Simply click on one of the banners and you're linked right into a full-service online snowboard shop.

The CALENDAR button links to a list of all the events, contests, and industry functions that we know about. If you want to know when something is supposed to happen please check here.

And as usual, if you have any questions please e-mail Lee Crane at [email protected].He'll try to answer them. If he can't, at least he'll make fun of you for asking. SUBSCRIBING AND UNSUBSCRIBING TO/FROM THE GROOVE If, in some bout of insanity, you decide you no longer want to be on the Groove list please point your browser to this URL: http://www.solsnowboarding.com/register/subscribe.cfm