Name: Goat Where do you work and how long: This is my ninth year tuning at the Inn Shop. Besides a good tune, what kind of "home maintenance" do you recommend: Preserving your tune is pretty simple, use a diamond file to de-burr and touch up the edges as needed and wax every chance your get. By getting as much wax into the base as possible you can make the base more resilient, meaning less chance of bad core shots. It will also help preserve the base structure meaning more time between tunes. What would you recommend as a basic home tuning package for someone: P-tex candles for small base repairs, a 12" panzer file or small sure-form and a steel scraper for removing excess P-tex, good side and base edge file guides for consistent edge bevels, a diamond file for de-burring and polishing edges, a 10" mill file for rough edge filing and an 8" mill file for finish filing, a file card and brush for cleaning the files, a wax iron with an accurate thermostat, wax, a plastic scraper for removing excess wax, and at least one medium stiffness horsehair brush to clean out the base structure after scraping. What products do you prefer and recommend: Well, I just tried one of those new razors with the triple blades and it worked pretty well, can't say enough good things about copenhagen long cut, robinson's barbeque sauce if you can find it, and I've always been a ford truck guy. Give up the knowledge son: I like Sun Valley Ski Tools file guides, they're a little pricey for a home kit but they're very accurate, last forever, and can hold any type of file or polishing stone. For waxing irons both Holmenkol and Swix make excellent products with accurate temperature control which is crucial when working with high flouro waxes. I also use Holmenkol wax. Their system uses fewer waxes but by mixing them in different proportions you can adjust for any temperature or snow condition. If you could only use three waxes for a season what would they be: Actually I need a minimum of four, Holmenkol for my skis, sex wax for my surfboard, turtle wax for my truck, and brazilian bikini wax for my back hair. Ouch... No really: For recreational riding I'd use Holmenkol Beta as an all purpose wax and add their Ultra additive for very firm conditions or their SI-33 for wet days. For higher performance my three choices would again be from the Holmenkol line. I would start with their Beta for base prep and training, then for races or competitions where more speed is needed, overlay with their Snow Champ SF 0-10 and adjust it to the conditions with varying amounts of their GW-25 additive. Tell me about "Goat's Milk": I only drank it as a kid. It's also used to make a rather pungent cheese that I don't personally care for. Ahhh, you very funny: That got started with a spring wax mixture I was experimenting with. We found a combination that held up very well to the abrasive spring snow but still ran really fast in the wet slushy stuff. As a joke we started calling it Goat's Milk and now my friends use the name for any race wax I do for them. You didn't think I was going to give you the recipe, did you? How'd you get the name "Goat": My feet are deformed. The toes are fused into two distinct clumps on each foot so they look like cloven hooves at the ends of my hairy legs. Who are some of the "celeb" type people you tune for: In the past I've helped out Scott Gaffney and Kent Kreitler. When Lyndsey Dyer and Brant Moles were in town I tuned their skis. Sometimes Todd Wold stops in for stone grinds on his race boards. My regulars are Anik Demers, Kevin Quin, and Jessica Sobolowski. And of course there's my wax consulting with the eminent Joe Bak. Other hobbies or sports besides skiing: surfing, swimming, dirt bikes, and any kind of work that connects my hands to my mind. Most memorable ski experience: Four days after we lost our friend Andy "Sheisty" Pertzborn to a skiing accident near Mammoth there was a bluebird powder day here at Squaw. I got to KT at 6:30 in the morning to make sure I'd be on the first chair. When they opened I waited for second chair and watched the first one go up with three people and an empty seat for Andy. The most scared you've been on skis: Tomahawking down tram bowl for what felt like a day and a half. I tumbled for so long I had time to think " I hope I stop before I go over China Wall". Top five bands: The Replacements, Sister Seven, James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards, Dire Straits, and Steve Earle and the Dukes (when they still had Bucky Baxter on pedal steel)