powderfreak

Generation doesn't matter. Circumstance does. All decisions come with negative externalities, obviously keeping the larger economy afloat with unemployment assistance was chosen knowing that there would be a labor shortage bleeding out on the end of it, affecting those who pay low wages primarily. Pretty soon that'll be over but human behavior will never change... circumstance dictates behavior. Just like wages and demand for trades right now. People will head that way because it's seen to be lucrative. I still believe there's a wave of change and reallocation coming in the service industries over the next decade or two.

A couple inches on the Snow Cam last night.

Just budget your restaurant to pay the dishwasher $23/hr with full benefits and health care, line cooks get 6 weeks PTO... you'll find employees . Ducking and running now...

Like the Trail Crew and Snowmaking team at a ski resort. Go spend a week with them and you can barely walk at the end of it. Dragging equipment by hand, cutting trees, moving deadfall, rocks... spend a 12 hour shift moving giant heavy hoses around trails all winter. Those guys have to burn like 2,000 calories a shift .

Picnic tables picked up a couple inches of snow overnight with upslope flow. Rain everywhere else. Hopefully we can Stein it for a while, enough of the wet gloomy weather. Let’s go full Arizona for a month.

A fresh coating of snow on the snow cam board this evening. Good ol’ May upslope precip bubbling up into the Spine.

Oh for sure. Love snowflakes, ha. Not a fan of 44F rain... much rather go find snowflakes or have it be 60+ degrees. Will’s always said that and it resonates... if it’s going to be shitty, might as well see some flakes.

July 4th for VT... it’s not science but the start of the summer tourism season. Celebrate your freedom from COVID regs .

Hiked the dog up to 2,400ft and it’s snowing lightly. Feels like October... not a fan but if it’s going to be cold, might as well see flakes. Can see the snow level by the visibility change under the ridge across the valley.

Further west at SLK... dipping to 37F in the last half hour. The evaporational cooling with these showers is pretty impressive. METAR KSLK 112020Z AUTO 27008KT 7SM -RA SCT031 BKN040 OVC050 03/01 A2993 RMK P0001

Had accumulating graupel too on elevated surfaces and the mulch beds. Temp outside the office got down to 41F in precip, lol. Then sun comes out and it’s 50F again.

Given all the stories over the years, I feel like he’s probably invested way more than that already. Now trying something that might actually be rewarding.

It's the same thing with parents fighting to get their kids into the best schools even into kindergarten. Always looking for the educational advantage. The amount of effort my sister put into finding the "right" kindergarten was pretty surreal to me. But again, I'm sure once you have a kid you are doing literally everything you can to help them gain a competitive advantage in life. That mentality rolls right up through college.

I also feel like there was some sort of desire to a lot of parents to send their kids to college because they didn't get that opportunity. It was out of reach for many parents when they were growing up, then the boomer generation made some money (the economy was good), the suburbs were growing, and all the sudden the conversations of "this is an opportunity that I never had, you need to do it" started happening. For many it was a status symbol... but there were also a lot of people who wanted to provide that to their kids whether they were smart enough or not. I can see how it happens... parents work their whole life to provide for their kids and save up for college. "Son, you better damn well recognize the sacrifices I made to allow you the opportunity for college and to better yourself."

I love that parents are now doing this. I'd certainly do it if and when I have kids. Props to both of you.

The sad thing was it felt more like it was the parents who suffered some sort of shame if their kid didn't go to a 4 year college.... so it was force fed to the kid. Like having a kid take a year off before college or do anything other than go straight into a liberal arts program meant you failed as a parent... at least that seemed like the vibe back then. I know friends who used to say "I'll do it for my parents".... it was an interesting time period back in the 80s, 90s and 00s.

I think this is what's happening now in a lot of the lower wage service industry jobs. Those jobs are stigmatized so much too... "you don't want to do manual labor or serve other humans for the rest of your life do you!?!" That's why you have 50 year old delivery people and why wages, benefits, incentives are now starting to really blossom in some sectors of the service industry to attract individuals. Maybe in 10-20 years that type of benefit package, incentives, bonuses, etc will be applying not only to trades but to service sectors? This winter was the first time Vail Resorts issued bonuses to all levels of employees, straight down to the lowest part time levels (equivalent to a couple weeks of pay for the most part). COVID played a role (thank you for playing this game with us) but I've seen a marked shift in ways they try to attract entry level employees. And it's mostly money and benefits. A decade ago a seasonal ski area employee couldn't get benefits... now it's becoming a thing. Full time year round jobs were coveted for that, I still remember working seasonal for years back in like 2008 until I was "rewarded" with benefits and full-time year round status. Now you get benefits if you want to work 22 hours a week for 3 months.... the cost to the company has to be huge on some of this stuff.

Yup that's how you attract employees... sort of circles back to what I'm talking about in the service industry. In the 1990s I remember it was the absolute last thing you wanted to do was be a tradesman. The people who went to technical schools were treated like 3rd class citizens. Now who's laughing? I didn't need college... paid a ton for an economics degree that I shelved for my love of skiing and being outdoors everyday. But man back then it was such a negative thing if you didn't go straight to a four year college.

It is snowing out right now at 1,500ft. Was graupel and fat drops but just switched to all small flakes. Sure as hell not accumulating but it's legit -SN.

Last year on this date the mountain got a foot up high and we even dynamically cooled to a pasting snow in town in the evening. That was a fun event, like 1.30" water at like 0.20"/hr in a CCB dropped temps from like 50s to pounding paste.

Just had a pretty decent squall blow through the base area here though it was all rain that I could see. It's not warm, ha. Maybe some graupel later with any afternoon convective type stuff under the cold pool. The upper mountain cams were picking up flakes though throughout the morning and the view up the mountain has that milky white appearance of snow above like 3,000ft. Damn thermometer blew off the wall, ha... and the clock needs new batteries.

Yeah we actually had a couple good elevation events up here. Trying to remember the dates but I probably would've lost it if I didn't spend 12 hours a day at the ski area in the snow zone. I think one of those was a good 1+ inch QPF white rain in town that accumulated like 2" of watery white slush... while 1,000ft+ had 8-12" of paste (January I think?). I remember thinking I missed like another couple feet of snowfall this season by like 300ft since a couple elevation events were so close to the valley but just not quite there.

300ft is noticeable for sure. That’s about where you get 1 degree difference of moist adiabatic lapse rate... that’s the 33F vs 32F in an elevation event. See it around here all the time... 750ft vs 1000+ in the valley.... or 1500ft vs 1800ft in the base area. When sitting in marginal temps, 300 feet is like the distance that you really start to notice differences. Find the slop line in an elevation event, and go 300ft higher to winter, ha.

Welcome dude, the more observations the better!

Bats just haven’t gotten it going tonight. That double bobble by Xander was a routine fly in traditional positioning... but the shift had everyone vacating the left side of the infield. Sucks, but I keep telling myself they took 3 out of 4... hard to pull off the 4 game sweep