Marco

My daughters boyfriend went the opposite direction this year. He just got his open rating the week before Regionals, and opted to ski in open even though he knew he had no chance of challenging the top skiers. It was difficult for him not to be at the top of the food chain in M2, but how cool will it be to know that you are on the same starting dock with Nate, Detrick, TW, Rossi, etc.

I recently met a fellow baller as well. @oldutskier came out from Texas and skied with us in Colorado a little over a week ago, and then when a slot opened up in our tournament this past weekend, he came out and skied on Saturday, on the last day of his vacation. Anticipating that we wouldn't accept his offer of gas money when he first skied with us, he brought us gift wrapped bottles of Texas's finest whiskey and Deep Eddy vodka. Bryant, you are welcome back anytime!

Congrats to the W1Colorado skiers. They owned the division with the top 4 finishes. That's my little girl in 2nd place

 

Sent you a message @Oldutskier - Check your inbox.

Way to represent Colorado @Drago ! Great skiing Leigh!

A friend of mine had a cracked block because he didn't get it winterized in time. He didn't know it until he started it the following spring. It looked exactly like the picture.

@Waternut - I don't ski with a rear toe plate. My back binding is a D3 Leverage rubber binding. My crash was from stuffing the tip at the ball, and happened so fast that even if I had a toe strap, I think I still would have gotten cut. I'll be wearing a shin guard from here on out once I can get back on the water.

Being a Reflex skier, I would be cautious about putting a beginner on one, unless they wear a shin pad on the rear leg. I should have learned my lesson last year, when on July 6th, I took 8 stitches to the rear shin from my front Reflex boot. I skied with a shin pad the rest of last year, but not this year. This morning, almost exactly 1 year later, had a double release at the ball, and you guessed it...8 stitches to fix the gash. The novacain is just now wearing off. I won't post the photo.

The analogy that comes to mind for me in snow skiing is the concept of rebound. When the ski(s) is at max load (at the bottom of the turn on snow or behind the boat in water), the ski is flexed and naturally releases its energy upward, creating an unweighting of the ski and almost automatically causing an edge change. A good edge change is the result of everything else leading up to it.

Nice! Looks like the view out of the back of my 2001 Malibu when my daughter first started skiing.

I have to limit my skiing to 6-8 sets/week. My usual is 1 set Thursday, 1 set Friday, and two each on Saturday and Sunday. My skiing generally suffers if I ski much more than that. If I lived at my lake full time, I would choose to ski every other day instead of 4 days in a row.

 

I typically don't go to the gym during summer, but am starting back up just for the cardio, as it is getting too hot here to do much high intensity cardio outdoors.

I don't think Roundup is aquatic safe. Rodeo is the aquatic version that we use on our cattails, and it doesn't hurt the fish.

@LeonL- typically we have 30-35 paying skiers or therabouts. We comp the chief Judges, drivers and safety, as well as the promo provider. Our club members pay the entry fee as well to help balance the books. We'll put out a donation jar in case the non skiers (no entry fee) care to donate to the cause. Every year we have hosted a tournament (this will be our 5th at the end of July), we have been within $100 of covering our costs

 

As part of the deal with the farmer we lease our grazing land to, we get a full beef every year, which is more than we can eat, and we typically donate the beef portion of the meals to the tournament. The 4 families that live on our lake and make up our ski club do all the cooking, serving, cleaning up, hosting, etc. It's a ton of work, but all of our guests have a great time, so it is totally worth it. We have great onsite camping, so most skiers camp out for the weekend, making it a very festive atmosphere.

There are still good value tournaments out there. The tournaments we put on are a big party. We feed everyone (usually 75 people, skiers and non skiers) dinner Friday night, breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday, breakfast and lunch on Sunday, not to mention a full cocktail party Friday and Saturday nights. 2 rounds Saturday, separate 2 round tournament on Sunday (used to do 3 rounds on Saturday but switched to 2 so we have time for all the games we do afterwards). PA system with announcing and music, real festive atmosphere. Cost? We just raised it this year to $60/tournament from $50 prior years. We needed to raise the cost so we could break even, which we do (if you don't include the beef we donate from our farming operations).

The report I saw said he was 1 foot from the shoreline, not 1 foot deep.

Thanks @Ed_Johnson - Appreciate the added information. Do your buoys fade much over the 6 months? I haven't noticed any fading on mine over the 2 months they have been installed.

I followed @Ed_Johnson advice (see page 1 of this old thread) on how to paint bubble buoys, and so far I am really happy with the result. The buoys have been in the water for nearly 2 months, and they still look freshly painted. I had to special order a case of the Chevy Orange high temp engine paint, but at $36, it was way cheaper than buying new Bubble buoy skins, and I have enough paint for 3 or 4 more years. The last time I painted buoys with some generic paint and no clear coat, they were faded within a month.

 

Such a tragedy, and my heart goes out to the family.

 

I don't think skiing with alligators is that much of a threat, but I would be more concerned about the Nile crocodiles that have turned up in South Florida.

 

CNN article

Reflex front, rubber D3 rear for me.

I've got one in my '01 Malibu, and to me the pull feels very similar to my ski partners 200 with ZO. My scores are the same behind both boats.

@A_B are you referring to Roger W? If so, he he is still skiing in Fort Meyers. My ski partners have a winter getaway there as well. Roger won Nationals for Mens 10 last year. He's 82 now.

If SensiPro is the same as Sensient, we use those granules at our lake. Haven't tried the liquid though. The granules are amazing. One jug completely colors our lake (36 acre feet). It can be messy to use if applying from the boat if there is any kind of wind though. We put it in a PAM (polyacrylamide) feeder, which is basically a small box with a spring loaded conveyor that slowly applies it at our incoming water source. It will disperse throughout the entire lake in half a day. Great product!

Just get some rubberized, self fusing tape and wrap your handle at the Y. The tape comes in many different brands, and is really tough. Completely protects the rope. Tried to post a link to the tape, but trying to shorten the link didn't seem to work, so just google "self fusing tape".

Now I see the ones you are talking about. I've got no clue...

I think those are Stillwater Ranch and Pleasant Oak Ski Lake, or maybe Liquid Zone, if I am looking at the right lakes on Google Earth. Don't know much about them though. I bet @jimbrake could give you more detail. He skis not too far from there.