In a nutshell, 'skitchin' means skiing on a shovel. It is a word invented by Jolene's uncle, who works at a ski lodge in the Adirondacks. Her uncle is the guy in charge of the snow making equipment, which is apparently a big deal. They have huge snow machines, each of which is connected to a deep, high volume well. In case one of the wells slows down for some reason, each machine and pump house is interconnected with large hoses. That's where skitching comes in.
Occasionally something will happen to a snow making machine which causes a pressure spike in the hose. The spike causes a chain reaction down the mountain, blowing hoses off of snow makers and spraying water all over the place, which freezes into ice. When that happens, Jolene's uncle and his team run to the first well, dig it out with their long skinny shovels and shut it down. Then they jump on their shovels and 'skitch' down the mountain to the next one, where the process repeats.
The ski resort says that they're not allowed to skitch, because it's dangerous. Jolene tells me that one of her uncle's team skitched off a cliff once. Since all of this happens at night when people aren't skiing, they wear headlamps. On the day of the incident they saw his headlamp suddenly disappear. (Don't worry, he managed to grab a tree, so he didn't die.)
You're probably wondering what this has to do with my website. Well, I had always intended ferret19.com to be a temporary domain. It was something that would work for a while, until I came up with something better. Since August of 2005 when we first went online, I've been trying to think of a new domain... One that embodied everything that is my website. I wanted something unusual and slightly off the beaten path. I wanted something that meant being spontaneous, creative and making the best with what you have. I wanted something that meant seeing potential where most other people would see the mundane.
For months I came up with nothing, or with ones that were already registered. Then in May of 2006 I heard the story of Jolene's uncle and his skitchin' maintenance team. It all fit. A few weeks later, skitchin.net was born.
Now that you know, lets go make some fun.
~Brian