TOPICS & TIMES:
- Random Review: Babybel Cheese (3:38)
- Jonathan’s Background (6:15)
- Why did you start BLISTER? (18:15)
- Who’s your favorite reviewer? (25.48)
- What’s the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to you? (28:03)
- Who’s your favorite skier? (32:17)
- What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done? (37:52)
- What are you better at than Sam Shaheen? (42:03)
- What gear are you most & least picky about? (44:55)
- How many times have you almost died? (52:05)
- What are your ski preferences? (54:27)
- Dream podcast guest? (57:41)
- Top 3 favorite books, movies, and musicians (1:01:25)
- What’s the best question we haven’t asked you? (1:04:40)
This episode is the 2nd installment of our “Reviewing the Reviewer” series, where we ask various Blister reviewers questions about their backgrounds and gear preferences to give you a more complete picture of the people behind our reviews. And since we like to rank & review things around here, we also give a score to each of our reviewers’ answers, then come up with a cumulative review grade for each of them.
Today (unfortunately) it’s my turn. So you’re going to be hearing about my life, including being charged by a bear; nearly burning my house down; teaching philosophy; my favorite gear in the world, and of course, the things I’m better at than Sam Shaheen.
And we are also putting up a video of this conversation here and on our YouTube channel, so if you want to watch Sam Shaheen in full payback mode, or watch Luke Koppa putting up his dukes, go check it out. (We also posted this week a video of my conversation with J Skis founder, Jason Levinthal, so you might want to go check that one out too.)
these are fun and good.
I mean … Sam is only like a 4 out of 10 good, but still. Thank you.
omg … please post the bear pic!
Am still reeling from the ‘so what age were you when you had metal throwing stars? oh about 5 or 6, my parents were pretty relaxed about that kinda stuff’ So did you have a full Rambo get up too complete with bullet belts, machine guns and flame throwers? Great podcast and enjoyed the video too. Looking forward to Sam being annihilated soon. Predicting about a 40 max ;o) Looking forward to the rest of the crew too.
And I second the bear pic request
I try to glean little bits of learning and wisdom from all these Blister podcasts. Thanks Jonathan for this one, the morsel that turned into a mountain of game change….wearing flip flops in winter.
The podcast was listened to at the end of September. You mentioned the kinda icing the feet effect of wearing flips after skiing. This spurred the thought…rather than an icing effect on feet, how about the adaptive effect of more foot cold temp tolerance through slow incremental adaptation as the seasons slowly change and the temps drop? Having recently begun incorporating some of Wim Hof’s breathing and cold water immersion techniques in the arsenal of increasing cold tolerance building training methods, the switch to daily donment of flips was a natural fit to the program.
Gave it a go… a coupla months of disciplined daily wear of the flips later; seamless adaptation transition through the seasons. Bare feet stay warm in northwestern British Columbia outdoor winter conditions.
Do minus 8 degree C temps and screaming northerly outflow winds compromise the robust barrier of newly formed brown fat foot ensconcing insulation? Nope.
Does pounding monsoon season, plus 3 degree C sideways wind driven rain freeze the feet? Not a chance. Just naturally, efficiently rinses les pieds.
Do the holes cut in my ski boot liners in the name of a ski boot fitting science experiment result in red, tender, frost nipped feet while ski touring at minus 15? uh uh, no way.
Does snowblowing diamond dust at minus 12 have an impact? okay…maybe a little….mighta reached the limits there.
Thus far, the only drawback has been the emotional pain and trauma accrued through the continual skeptical, cynical sideways glances of passerby’s on the sidewalk and the hundreds of questions by inquisitive neighbors in the grocery store lineup. It’s at that point where it’s probably worth drafting up a FAQ card to hand out in order to save the canned response vocal time.
Review of the reviewer’s review of the forward thinking concept of “…flip flops are conducive for all weather…”?
10/10.
I love everything about this post. You are clearly on the right path, swissiphic.