Joe Biden: Nice Guy

Hailey Howe is an elementary school student and a school newspaper editor from Austin, who winters and also attends school in Vail.

Last week, she dreamed of interviewing Vice-President Biden because he was in Beaver Creek on a skiing vacation and through a unique set of circumstances, aided by blind luck and the logistics of a small town, she was able to file a report.

Unfortunately, I can't find an online edition of her Texas paper, but the Vail Daily has the tale of her effort, along with a couple of excerpts.

How Does Bob Simon "Let Loose"?

Deep in an article about Olympic snowboarder Shaun White and his previously-secret halfpipe located on Silverton Mountain, after looking at the town's hope that the publicity may help their economy and detailing the laid-back way Mr. White made himself at home, Shane Benjamin of the Durango Herald offers the following paragraphs;

On some nights, White and his friends went a little wild.

"When you have somebody who has that kind of ego and that kind of following, it's probably pretty tough to rein it in at times," Custer said. "And when you combine that with alcohol, it can lead to issues."

Even Bob Simon, the reporter from "60 Minutes," and his daughter from New York City let loose while in town, he said.

"It happens a lot," Custer said. "It's not just with people who have some celebrity status. It happens with a lot of people that come to this town because it's the nature of things. They're away from their home, and it's a tourist town, so they cut loose. They had a good time. And that's what we do up here; we have a good time."

Which naturally leads one to ask; Did the legendary war correspondent and his producer-daughter do anything notable to "cut loose", or did they simply make an impression with their presence?

Related: There's also some terrific video of the halfpipe in use.

Teaching to the Test

Perhaps they're not quite panic-stricken, but residents and leaders of Vail (CO) are concerned enough about their third-place ranking in the annual Ski Magazine Reader Resort Survey, they've had a Town Council retreat to plot strategy and have another scheduled for January.

It seems that for 14 of the past 21 years, Vail was at the top of the list.

The prior two years, Utah's Deer Valley had won the poll and Vail was second, a position they've traditionally held when not in the top spot, but now Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia has slipped ahead.

Initially, there seemed to be some surprise at the rumors and the resort company issued a statement highlighting their internal customer satisfaction numbers, plus they pointed out that there's a myriad of polls. Then, a columnist wrote a lighthearted piece, which good-naturedly focused on the poll's non-scientific nature and now, the city is discussing ways and programs to get themselves back on top.

In my mind, reader's surveys give the consumer a nice little box to read about everything ranked and the local tourism bureaus get something to put in an ad, but maybe in this instance, Ski Magazine and its readers should also take some pride about their power within the industry.