Snowboarders are Optimists

Snowboarding and skiing are great aren't they? Well I can only speak for snowboarding myself, but it really is fun. You hop on a board and fly down a slope as fast as you can weaving in and out to kick snow up, keeping your balance avoiding trees and noobs (me). It's a rush and it's something to do in the Winter.

That's the problem. You're only doing it because it's something to do in the winter. You know you'd all rather be wakeboarding or water skiing, or hell just being out in the sun and enjoying temperatures of above freezing. I for one would rather sit in a grassy field with a kite than go on the most epic snowboarding adventure of my life. I won't deny that snowboarding is fun, for a winter activity, but if it was never winter again I wouldn't care and I think there are very few non-professional winter sport enthusiasts who wouldn't agree with me.

You do it simply because you can. It's like that saying, "life gives you lemons so you make lemonade." Well the weather gives you snow so you try and find stuff to do with it because in all honesty snow is a pain in the ass. Yeah sure, that first snow of the year it's fun to go build a snowman or sled down Old Main Hill, but then 3 months later when it snows you're just like, "f**k this." No one enjoys snow 6 months out of the year. Even hardcore snowboarders will say, "Yeah in a perfect world it would snow in the mountains and stay dry in the valley." Well yeah, I won't disagree with that at all. In a perfect world that's exactly what would happen. We'd get the snowpack for the spring runoff (because ecologically speaking, we need snow to sustain our rather large population here in this semi-arid region) and the valleys could stay nice and habitable. Not going to happen. At least not when the foot of the mountain is literally a mile from your doorstep.

Can you imagine if there was no snow on the roads, all year, ever? 90% of all car body shops throughout the state would have to close. How often to you hear about accidents in the summer? Very rarely. Off the top of my head I can't think of a single car accident that has occurred in nice weather or even in a summer rain, unless you count L.A. where people there think a rainstorm means the apocalypse is coming and drive their cars off freeway overpasses. Now contrast that with how many of your friends have been in fender benders or worse, completely totaled out their car from, "I hit some snow." or "I hit some ice." Two of my roommates have messed up their cars due to snow just this month alone.

Yet you have the skiers and the snowboarders, the most optimistic people in the world, insisting that snow is awesome. You're wrong! Snow sucks! No one likes it and no one likes you when you say that you want it to snow. We all know someone like this too. Every October or November you've got that friend who watches the Doppler radar every day that the temperature drops below 40, like it's some sort of interesting optical illusion, just waiting for a green blip. Then it's there and they get all excited. They pull their snowboards out of the closet, they go to the winter sporting goods sales and buy new goggles and jackets. Then one day it snows - about two inches. They're all raving about how the lifts should be opening soon while everyone else is like, "Oh God, it's Winter, here we go again." Then as soon as the local ski lifts open up you don't see them for about 2 weeks, which is probably a good thing because you were going to punch them in the fact the next time they said something positive about the cold weather and the snow anyway.

All right, so I suppose the economy is still rebounding and without the snow those closed body shops would leave people out of work, maybe I'll try to be an optimist about it too. Also the Logan snow plow driver (yes that is singular on purpose) would have to find a new job.