Another Reason to Anticipate Winter

Snowboarding is going to claim another victim. Hurray!

Yesterday I was speaking with some members of the extended family. Though we often make a trip to Colorado, we didn't do so this last season. The topic of conversation: whether we would do so during the upcoming season. The conclusion: yes we would.

My sister-in-law turned to me and said "You know what this means? It means that I will have to learn how to snowboard with you."

Her opinion is easy to understand but one I don't share: learning to ride in Colorado is great, but it just isn't worth the trouble if you are going to stay in the Midwest.

She does have some back yard riding experience--two times when I helped her get a rudimentary feel for the experience. But each ride was no longer than ten seconds long, barely long enough to start a turn.

So I am hoping that sometime in the early part of the season, we can get in a day at a local ski area, one with warmer temperatures and some new snow (for a softer surface). That way she can get in some experience making turns before heading out to the real mountains.

She's a good skier, and having her spend a day or two on the board while we are all out west will put me on easier slopes than I might otherwise choose. But I could hardly be happier about the prospect.

Play as Work is Good for You

Snowboarding isn't just fun--it's good for you.

In his column of July 18, 2006, "Farming? Running? It Doesn't Sound Like a Vacation to Me," the Wall Street Journal's Jared Sandberg talks about what makes for a good vacation. He quotes, among other people, Geoff Godbey, a professor of leisure studies at Pennsylvania State University. It turns out that what we do with our non-work time is important to who we are:

To be most satisfying, Prof. Godbey explains, leisure should resemble the best aspects of work: challenges, skills and important relationships. Leisure has its hierarchy. At the lowest level, it's a search for diversion, higher up it's a search for pleasure and, at the top, it's a search for meaning. "It's not that diversion is bad," says the professor, "but in terms of human growth, it's inferior to activities that are more pleasurable -- and they're inferior to activities that are more meaningful."

Scientific evidence, he notes, shows that people who engage in skill-oriented leisure -- crossword puzzles, bridge, chess, woodworking -- score higher on practical intelligence tests. "Leisure is a very important medium for making us stupider or more intelligent," he says. "At the end of your life what you've done with your leisure may be more important than what you've done at work."

So maybe that explains why some people find a spiritual aspect to snowboarding.

And if a professorship of leisure studies isn't a sign of the wealth in our society, what is?

Carol Hymowitz takes up a similar theme in her August 14 column, "Executives Who Make
Their Leisure Time Inspiring and Useful." She quotes a CEO who is learning Spanish in his off-work hours.

He says of his language learning: "There was something very inspiring about tackling a new skill -- and being able to chart my progress ... up the learning curve each day."

Sounds like he's tried snowboarding, too!

Sporting Goods for Women

The Wall Street Journal picks up on the theme of a post from late last season, on the value of sex-specific sporting goods.

In "A Tennis Racket of Their Own," Carmen Fleetwood says that "Sporting-goods makers target women with gear designed specifically for female physiques."

Tennis rackets, for example, may now accommodate for the fact that on average, a woman will have less upper-body strength (not good) but more flexible joints (presumably good). The difference? The weight is distributed more equally throughout the racket, leaving less (proportionately) at the head. By taking some of the weight off the point furthest away from the player's hand, the racket becomes easier to use by someone with less strength. Or at least that's the theory.

Why do these design differences matter?

Comfort. Performance. Less risk of injury. Heavier rackets for women may increase the number of injuries to the shoulder's rotator cuff.

The WSJ says that there may be a bright future for products of these sorts, especially with an aging cohort of baby boomers.

Sounds like a winner to me. As a society and economy we are advancing in our knowledge of medicine and engineering. Why not take advantage of that knowledge? I've been a big fan of Flow bindings, for example, since they seem to require less stretching and bending than many strap bindings--good things for an older body.