Pete Austin’s Blog

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Leah and I headed down to the Qwest Event Center for this year’s Ski Fever convention today in search of our first snowboard gear. Every year the Ski Fever show comes through both Portland and Seattle but we missed it last year. Plus, last season we only managed to get out to Snoqualmie a couple times so we just rented gear from REI each time. The gear was alright, but it was..well..rental gear. We both had a blast learning to snowboard though so this year we resolved to actually buy our own gear for a little better experience.

I really wasn’t sure what kind of deals we might be able to find at Ski Fever, especially considering thatthere are some pretty good deals available online. I tried asking around to a lot of friends and fellow ski/snoboarders but strangely no one I asked had ever been to the show before. So we just threw caution to the wind and went for it.

The show was actually pretty fun, but at the same time a little overwhelming. Almost every ski and snowboard shop in the area was there with their gear which included new, last season’s, demo, used, and everything in between. In addition there were booths for most every major resort in the northwest and British Columbia. Deals were definitely there, but you had to really work to find them. We spent almost six hours at the show finding our gear. Ultimately we both picked up complete board, boots, and binding sets and spent far less than we would have at any store or online. We got brand new gear and in some cases were even able to haggle the price down a little.

The show included some other stuff like skier/snowboarder celebrity appearances (oh whom I had absolutely no idea who they were) and some events like rail-riding and acrobatics. It added a little to the atmosphere but they weren’t really that great. Almost every booth had some sort of raffle going on and of all the ones we entered I actually did win one of the drawings..a free t-shirt from a resort (yeah). The bottom line is that the show is really meant for the gear and that’s what it does best. Here’s the gear that Leah and I picked up.

My setup:
Ride Decade board
Burton Mission bindings
Burton boots

Leah’s setup:
GNU B-Nice board
Burton Citizen bindings
DC boots

This year Warren Buffett officially surpased Bill Gates to become the richest individual on the planet. It’s hard to imagine just how much money these two men have individually, but what’s even more amazing is the partnership that they have in their philanthropic efforts. In 2006, Mr. Buffett announced that he would be donating almost 83% of his fortune to the charitable efforts of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As such he also earned a place as a co-chair of the foundation. In 2008 he attended the annual meeting of the foundation and sat down with the other co-chairs for a Q&A session from the foundation’s employees. Below is a transcription of his responses to two questions asked of him. It’s rare that you get to see such insight into the mindset of a person as influential as Mr. Buffett. His responses are certainly not what you would expect, and it’s for that reason that I wanted to share them here.

Why did you make the decision to donate to the foundation?

“Since we have small, intimate, discrete group here I’ll make a confession that I normally wouldn’t … I don’t work very hard at my job. At Berkshire Hathaway we have 255,000 people out working and then we have about 19 of us that just fool around at the office and – I like it that way – all I really do is I allocate capital and I align myself with outstanding managers and organizations, that’s all I do at Berkshire Hathaway. I decided two years ago to do the same thing in philanthropy. I allocated the capital and I aligned myself with terrific managers that.. I don’t want to do what they do, but I want done what they do. And all I can say is two years later I feel a hell of a lot smarter than I felt then even.”

How do you feel about your investment in the foundation so far?

“I feel terrific about it. I’m used to evaluating often large projects. When the facts just hit me in the face I have no problem making the decision. This is done exactly what I expected, it will continue to, and in fact it will probably exceed my expectations and it’s a perfect answer of what to do with a lot of money to benefit the most people in the world. We’re two years into it now and I’m looking forward to observing it for a long time.

I have never given up one thing in this world that I wanted in order to make somebody else’s life better. Now, I given up surplus to do it, but so what? I have not denied myself anything in life and I’m not denying myself anything now. Somebody that goes to church on Sunday and puts $5 in the collection plate that otherwise would have meant a movie or an extra toy for their kid, or a different dinner they might order; to me that’s real charity. What I’m doing is just logical. My older sister was on C-SPAN on Sunday with Brian Lam and my sister, who’s 80, is spending 10 hours a day doing what I call retail philanthropy and she gets involved in people’s lives, she helps them, and she was describing all of this. She is giving up some significant things in her personal life in order to make other people’s lives better. I’m giving up a lot of surplus and I’m delighted to do it and society has treated me sensationally, but it’s not real charity, it’s really just sort of the logical disposition of money to a society that’s handed it to me in a crazy way.”

Leah and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary on Monday. Amazing that it’s been a year already. So much has happened in that time, but suffice to say that it was a great first year. Leah and I are just suckers for trying new things so to celebrate our anniversary we decided to have dinner at the Space Needle. I know what you’re thinking – the Space Needle? Isn’t that just a tourist trap with a view? True, it is a touristy place, but what we found out about the restaurant at the Space Needle is that it is not your typical tourist attraction fare. The restaurant is located on the floor beneath the observation desk and rotates giving you an ever-changing view of the skyline and surrounding scenery. It’s a little disconcerting stepping on to the rotating deck at first. The motion of the deck and the rotating view throws your stomach for a loop. Leah and I both felt queesy for about 15 minutes until our stomach adjusted to the motion.

The food at the restaurant is actually extremely good. It’s also extremely expensive. They know that it’s a million-dollar view as you eat and they price accordingly. The fact of the matter is that the drinks were great, food was delicious, and the service was wonderful – even offering to take pictures throughout the dinner as the view behind us changed. It was a great night and a great way to celebrate our first year.

I’m definitely behind in posting what I’ve been up to the past few weeks. Two weekends ago was a camping trip to Central Washington with friends. It was as much fun as one can have camping. Leah and I are just city people who enjoy city life. The highlight of the trip though was Leah’s first time on a jet ski. She handled it like a pro.

Last weekend was a kayaking trip around San Juan island. It was a three hour tour along the shorelines of the island which was relaxing and beautiful but I think everyone in our group wanted to see orcas while we were there and you just are not going to see orcas kayaking around the shorelines. Surprisingly three hours was the short tour (the longer one being five hours). By the time we got back to shore asses were numb, legs were stiff, and every muscle was sore. It was fun though and we managed to get up close and personal with harbor seals, giant lion’s mane jellyfish, and even a bald eagle that perched itself on a low branch and let us paddle right up to it.

This weekend Leah and I are traveling to Michigan to visit family. We’ll actually be crossing over to the Canadian side of the Detroit river to stay at the family condo on Boblo Island. This weekend is also the annual Jazz Festival held on Boblo Island which should be a blast. I’ve got lots of content queued up, but it’ll have to wait until I return from Canada as wi-fi is still a foreign concept in Windsor. And yes, there are pictures from all of this if I could just get the damned shadowbox working on the site. Oh well.