Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

Hey everybody…welcome to my addition to the Rome SDS blog world.  I’m gonna try and make some of my posts a place where you can get some insights on what products members of the Syndicate are using and why.  For the most part, I’ll try and focus on stuff we use on the hill.  It may be Rome stuff, but, like in this case, it may be something from another company that adds to our experience of being a rider.

Back down to business…

Music is pretty important to all the employees at Rome.  Whether it’s Ron playin’ some Dylan, or Cavan needing to narrow down stuff for everybody’s part in NCW, all of us have a deep connection to our music and probably take ourselves a little too seriously as aficionados (myself included).

So this week I got my third iPod.  When iPods came out it was kind of like get this 40gig hard drive that you could fit in your pocket and take anywhere.  In reality, over the years I’ve found different iPods fit different uses.  Today I’ll run through all my iPods and why I have (and use) so many.

My 40 Gig click-wheel

So not my first MP3 player, but my first foray into the Apple side of things.  Before I got this bugger, I really was against iPods.  My biggest problem with Apple is the lack of openness to the products; I still don’t think iTunes is as good as Realplayer used to be at managing music and playlists.  That said, that lack of openness is what makes Apple computers run well (albeit at a premium price).  I bought this refurbished from the guys at Small Dog in Waitsfield.  They have a bunch of riders who work there (even some who used to work at Alpine Options, our dealer up at Sugarbush). Pretty much it being “Recertified” and the price it was at made buying it a no-brainer at the time.

I have my full music collection on here.  Sully (our sales manager) and I have combined our CD collections onto a network drive at the office;  So I have over 9000 tracks on here.  I keep this at the office to give the day its soundtrack.  Sully and I need to have background music on all the time, and we probably annoy the piss out of everybody else on the first floor of the building (and I’m okay with that). We’re probably guilty of listening to Johnny Cash too much.

Since I only listen to music on this puppy, I don’t mind the old-school monochrome screen.
To keep it fresh, I wrote a smart playlist that eliminates any songs that I’ve listened to in the last three weeks.  That makes sure we don’t feel like we’re always listening to the same stuff.  I don’t have too many iPod shame moments with this playlist, but they certainly have happened.

Note the iPod sleeve from the 2007 line.  I love this sleeve.  It’s so simple in its design and doesn’t add any bulk.

My new 4 GB Nano.

I just bought this to keep in my car.  I bought it recertified from Apple for $99 (buying direct ensures that you get the full warranty).  In my old car I had a twelve disc changer but my new car’s stereo isn’t really conducive to being replaced by something aftermarket.  Without the changer, I was always feeling like I didn’t have the right music with me for my mood; also I hated having to always remember to grab my 40gig on my way out of the office.

I already owned a Monster FM transmitter for the car so I wanted to make sure what I got had the full iPod jack.  I probably won’t ride with this because I have my shuffle and I rock the Dragger’s Only, but this would be a good iPod if you were looking for one to connect to your Vagrant or Swagger jacket.  (if you didn’t know, those jackets will plug right into all iPods except the shuffle).

Obviously, Cover Flow is a pretty cool upgrade over my old model, but isn’t that important to me.  As a consumer, you always need to be asking yourself if you really need a certain feature of a product or is just an attempt to get you to spend more $$$ that you don’t need to part with.

Haven’t had this too long, but I’ve been listening to Eagles of Death Metal in the car this week.

My shuffle

This is one of the few products that I remember seeing come out and knowing I needed to buy it right away.  I guess people have that in their head right now about the iPhone, but at $79, or whatever it was when it first came out, it made it just something I had to have.

I totally saw it for what it was: the perfect riding iPod.  The clip helps make sure you don’t lose it.  You don’t have to worry about perspiration hurting it as much with the flash based memory.  It’s also small enough you don’t have to worry about crashing on it.

I use a Highway bag to store my gloves and goggles in; the shuffle fits nicely in that business card pocket so I can find it quickly without having to dig too much.

At one gig, I just load it up with songs that I want to hear when I’m riding.  I don’t really manage my music on the hill that much, so I don’t need a screen or integration into my coat; I just hit play in the parking lot and get on with the job at hand.

Some of my great pow riding memories are associated with songs that have randomly come on at the top of a line (Hurricane and Sixteen).

Sometimes I do forget to charge it, which brings me to an honorable mention…

My MiniDisc player

Before the shuffle, and even when I had my 40gig, I would always ride with the MiniDisc player. I had no problem burning a disc with some riding music and just rolling with a tight playlist.  Like the shuffle, this was cheap enough that I wasn’t afraid to crash on it.

Now, I still keep my MiniDisc player in the bottom of my Highway bag just in case the shuffle has no juice left.  I pretty much just keep a Led Zeppelin mix in it; you can never go wrong riding to Zep.
(The first time I went to ISPO we needed to pump music into the booth and all I had was my Zep disc; I don’t know if Paul can listen to Zeppelin ever again after three days of non-stop Zep)

Fin

So hopefully you enjoyed this tour through my music listening habits in the office, on the road, & on the hill.  Check back over the next few months as we roll through some of the other items we’re using.  By the end of the year I hope to go through all of Rome’s product categories.  As the snow flies, I’ll look to give some reports from where we’re riding and what we’re using in those conditions.

Think Snow.

Some additional music links…

Wolfgang’s Vault Sully and I like to put something on from the Vault when we’re looking to shake things up.  I think Mark Joyce turned us onto this site.   I’m a big fan of the 1977 Pink Floyd concert from the Animals era.

Pandora Sean Larkin showed me this a few years ago.  I don’t really listen to it that much, but I know the guys in Warranty put it on to help mix it up over there.

Tags: Music, What are we rockin'

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 10:22 pm and is filed under SDS Insider. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.