Welcome to 2004

04/07/2010
Spokane, Wa

Like most trends, blogging seems to have taken five or six years to reach our little corner of the Northwest.  Admittedly, we’re skeptical of most trends.  We’re not in preproduction on a new 3D feature about teen vampire wizards.  We always thought that in the battle of fixie versus Ford F350, that brakes and decent handlebars were far more aesthetic than having “SUPER DUTY” permanently debossed in one’s forehead.  And, with all of the natural beauty that the Northwest has to offer, we could never really force ourselves to interrupt our activities to seek out a Wi-Fi hotspot so that we could post our latest thoughts about Ashton Kutcher or Avatar.

But today, a strange shift is taking place.  Perhaps our latest site redesign has us feeling reenergized, overflowing with the unbounded excitement for the potential of the amazing world of the interweb.  Perhaps the rainy winter and low snowpack has left feeling anxious to get out into the world, even if it is on a purely-virtual level.  Perhaps we’re feeling nostalgic for 2004.  Or perhaps, we just weren’t properly immunized against blog fever.  Either way, we’re eager to share with you a bit of what we’re seeing, thinking and inventing in our corporate headquarters as we watch our windows wistfully, one eye on the web and the other on the still wintry summit of Mt. Spokane. 

For now though, we’re just excited to see what new ideas, new discoveries and new friends we may find on our first furtive foray into the world wide wilderness.  From time to time you’ll hear from Mike our resident Marketing Mogul and Industry Insider, from Dave our devious Director of Product Development, from Jeremy our in-house hand model and angler extraordinaire, and from myself, fan of phrase, photograph and fantastic design.  We’ll bring you most anything that piques our interest, so long as it meets our one and only rule- it must fit into a category which starts with the letter “I”. 

From the start, we will have six categories: Inspiration, Ideas, Items, Incidents, Invites and Informal.  “Inspiration” includes those things that we’ve seen from around the web or out in the world that we felt compelled to share.  “Ideas” is the category where musings may meander freely, where one might expound upon the notion of car camping or instruct in the proper preparation of a pot of coffee.  “Items” serves as our introduction to new GSI Outdoors products which are sure to revolutionize the world, or at least change the way you think about getting outdoors.  “Incidents” records the unique happenings around the office; from product testing to prolonged NERF battle.  “Invites” serve as an entreaty to join us, whether online or in-person at trade shows, seminars, industry events or any other function.  Finally, “Informal” is for the random bits which seem to defy classification, but which the world still deserves to see.

We’re approaching our newborn baby blog as an opportunity to grow closer as a family as we nurture it through its first words, the inevitable sleepless nights and those countless accidents.  We’ll be sharing it all, along with photos documenting every moment which we as proud parents so love to share.  But mostly, we’ll just be sharing a bit of ourselves while we watch proudly as our little creation journeys out into that wide world beyond our polychromed walls.  We hope that you’ll enjoy watching our little GSI Outdoors family grow and that you might stop in from time to time to look in on what we’ve been doing, to share your comments or just lurk.  After all, it’s usually best not to disturb the wildlife.

Welcome to 2004

04/07/2010
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