gator1

@Horton, thanks.

@crashman: you called it. The cipro I got came from an urgent care doc.

@shaneH: Took me two tries to get through Chem 101. Can't figure out WTF are you saying, can I take NAC and restore my damaged cells, or do you have to do that as you are taking the anti-biotic and NAC won't work after the fact? And where do I get NAC? Is it maybe a key component in oh, say.......a good IPA? Kind of joking, but kind of serious. It seems if I have a beer every night my knees and elbows do better. I know, biased research, but still......

@doonez: Ya, about 2 am this morning it was all over except the cutting, milling, tigging, and crashing. @Horton's answer on "warp" vs "hinge" will set the direction. But either way its gonna be wild. I've still got the fin and fin block left over from the Prophecy I ran over in my truck, so at least I'll start out with $0 invested. And I hate messing with my fin. Fricking BOS is gonna kill me.

@ab, I had the same type of deal. Got a bad ear infection on the way back from a biz trip to Juarez. Pain, dizzy, congested. 6 months of increasingly strong antibiotics, no improvement, but to the point of hallucinations. Took at least 2 loops off PB and bad falls with ribs broke and all the rest. Joint pain, back pain, neck pain. Finally forced my way into a specialist, looked in my ear, guy said hmm, that's weird. Got a long needle nose pliers looking thingy, pulled a cockroach leg out of my ear. Found out later fairly common in Texas and Mexico to have a cockroach crawl in your ear and leave a leg. Guys up here in PNW didn't know to look for it. Don't know how the hell they missed it, but the conversation between me and my former ENT doc was overheard by the rest of his patients in the waiting room. I also believe my elbow and neck problems are left over from that long term antibiotic exposure.

@Horton: The picture shows a fatigue failure at the junction of the fin and clamping mechanism. The mechanics are such that a thinner, more flexible fin would be exhibiting that bend at the junction. Do you think the improvement in performance associated with a thinner more flexible alloy was from the fin essentially "hinging" at the junction where it broke, or due to an increased curvature of the fin as it bent over its entire surface?

@horton, how thick were those super duper aluminum fins that broke?

@6balls is right. I had cipro prescribed for sinus infection. Lucky pharmacist knew about skiing, sent me back to doc. He argued but gave me something else. Older I get and more I see of docs more its clear you gotta manage your own care

Gatormodded stealths. Stiff tongue with the gator mod gives you two layers of protection. Second choice is dualolk plate with gatormod and powershells. The number of gatormod users doubled this year and includes the surgeon who fixed my torn Achilles and dislocated perineal tendon.

Tires are round but the wakes are a lot bigger than the 196 sitting next to it.

I have my dads 1968 CC mustang in my shed, with the 351 Cleveland I put in it, them took back out then put reverse cam and crank in then put back in, all so she'd hold 36 back in 1974. Start it once a year, rewinterize it, and put it back in the shed. Why do I do this?

I run a public company, and sit on the board of another. From my experience, I can give you an answer on what will happen to Malibu as they go from private equity to public. And the answer is:it depends. The good news is even while under PE ownership they continued to field a good slalom boat. PE guys tend to be short sighted and hard core. From this, I believe they were either making money directly off the boat, or viewed it as a "halo" product that helped them make money off wake barges. Lets say it takes 5 engineer-years to develop next gen boat. $750k. Another $250k worth of prototypes to make the math easy. So, a mil to develop next gen. Say they want a 3 yr payback, and say they make 8% bottom line off a $60k boat. $4.8k per boat. So they need to sell 70 boats a year. Say lifespan of major design roll is 6 years. So, 3 years profit given some pretty optimistic numbers I just pulled out of one of my orfi. Ya, I know have to discount it back to today's money, but what do I use for discount rate. Mr. Obama's -.3% real interest rate? But I digress. So, the numbers and PE actions support that they could make some direct money. Maybe. Of course, the investment in the current slalom Malibu could have been made early on, and the PE firm "harvested" it with no intention of a real next gen. That's the bad news. And, coincidentally, the question I'd be asking as an investor about their entire product line. Then, it comes down to the members of the Board, the members of senior management, and the major shareholders. And this is the beauty and horror of public companies: Those 5 to 10 people are going to set the direction of the company, and "we", investors and consumers, won't know for sure what it is, or how well they'll implement it, until well after the course has been set and we're way down the path. So, we're really betting on people. Bummer. But, if I were to bet, I'd put my money on: the past, pre-public performance, has been a harvest of a previous design, and the best slalom boat you'll get out of a public Malibu is a derivative product update. But, that's just me popping off. With almost no facts or history.

@XR6hurricane:yep. And after about 6 passes, the eagles can have it for the rest of the day. Another tournament problem: I unfortunately have the phsych tests and write-ups (commissioned by former employers) to prove I'm pretty much 3 sigma type A personality, stacked on top of engineer approach. Which, if you look at the ballers as a whole, is pretty typical. Taking the prototypical baller personality and asking him to stand around for hours waiting his turn while he could be skiing at his home site is a not something the brand managers would suggest as a good demographic fit between product and target market. "Well, don't show up until right before your turn". Yeah, right. Unpredictable schedules with binary results fit the demographic even worse.

Those who have seen me score 0 or 1 on my opening pass at the two tourneys I've attended in the last decade or so know how bad I hate the traditional slalom format. I became a jumper mainly because you get three tries every time you get wet, provided you don't crash too bad. I never thought about it before, but I more or less quit going to tourneys when I had to quit jumping. It'd change my mindset quite a bit if the format was four tries, best partial pass after a complete pass. I'd trade a 6 rounder two days for 2 round four try one day without batting an eye. And I'd happily pay the same money. I think we tried to fix the sucky "one and done" format with more rounds, and just added cost and time, while not addressing the underlying issue: standing around waiting for a pass with the threat of "one and done" sucks, no matter how many times you get to do it a day. Even If I do well, I've left after the 2nd round, because for me its not how many times you "get" to try it, its how many times you have to try it. I tried practicing one and done for a month leading up to states and regionals back in the 80s, and won some. But, it just turns fun into work. Bragging rights are not worth it. Add in the risk of divorce if I went to enough tourneys to quell the one and done dread, and that's why you'll find me behind my boat for a couple hours every weekend, at my home sites. Ya, ya, ya, I know, lack of mental toughness, not a real competitor, wilt in the harsh light of competition, just go to more tournaments.... Whatever. Bottom line is I, and a number of guys I know, have more fun in the pay for pulls practice runs the night before then we do in the tournament.

And wife says oh you guys are so good and take it so serious Lee's embarrassed to ski with you. Hard to fix that on private site

Another consequence of limited public courses is the intimidation factor. I run into many guys who say they used to chase balls on one of the former public courses around here. Invite them to the lake, though, and they don't show up. Run into them next years Christmas

@xrated there is. Called the gator ball n blast. Two courses in series on the Spokane river then 10 min drive to gator ranch. 1.5 scale "skeet" with e launcher set up on the ridge. Most round things bagged wins.

In a big hotel bar in Hawaii watching a Hulu demonstration with my dad. They'r up on the stage talking about how hard it is to become a Hulu dancer and how few kids are getting into it these days. How it takes years of training and only those knowledgable in the art can tell a pro from a hack. Dad leans over and says: it's just like your stupid skiing: it's really hard but nobody cares. I think society became a bunch of watchers. Adults watch reality tv and the kids are fat and watch video games. We breed competiveness out of them by telling them everyone is a winner.They think a rush is clicking the mouse button.

$45 seems a bit high. $65 k for a 2014 that will depreciate by at least $20k by the time it has 1000 hrs on it. So there is $20 an hour. $6 of gas max. Then lake costs: pumped/purchased water or spring fed? Taxes? General upkeep on grounds? That depends too much on the lake and number of skiers toting the load to come up with a number.

Anybody got a set of snowboard boas they'd sell me? I want to graft them onto my stealths.

@shaneh, Ya, I guess that could be the difference. That or I'm just a major butt head, who hangs around with other antisocial buttheads. Impressive that the ballers showed enough restraint to avoid pointing that possibility out. Good on ya, mates!

@disland: my family used to come to the nationals with me, but that was only because I was a jumper and we all knew the odds were pretty high that I wouldn't be able to drive myself home. They hated the boredom, usually brutally hot conditions, and the wife in particular detests porta potties. Besides my data on the buoy chasers I know in both eastern WA and Illinois, I've been to two tournaments in the last 4 years. There were a smattering of high end motorhomes at each, containing families who were, on the surface, involved in skiing. Those families were, without fail, welcoming and hopeful that I would get back into the tournament scene on a more active basis. It became a bit awkward when I was being pressed for reasons behind my polite non-committal answers on why it had been 15 years since my last tourney, or in the second case, 3 years. I couldn't say "because my wife hates these damn things, and dragging her to one just puts me farther in the ski doghouse". Because, I know for a fact, that a good percentage of the motorhomes were bought to try to bribe the wives and kids to come to the tourney, in a failed attempt to convert the individual obsession into a "family outing" that the baller could get credit for. The guys who are happy posting about their wives skiing participation along with their family are happy and excited BECAUSE THEY KNOW ITS RARE. The guys who ski nationals are a self-selecting group: they got to nationals in part because they have families who enable their addiction. Somebody posted earlier "if there is a guy better than you, he's got more money". In my experience, he's also got a second wife, recently divorced, or is one of the few that happened upon a woman who enjoys heat, humidity, bugs, and boredom. I'm not arguing that such women/families don't exist. I grew up around the Kreugers and Chappels in Illinois. I am arguing they are rare. And I'm not pissed off at my wife. In fact, if she was as into this as me we'd have given up a lot of balance that I'm pretty sure was a good thing. My position, from which the data posted has moved me not one millimeter, is that on the whole, buoy chasing is not a family sport. And if we define buoy chasing as skiing, and the problem we're trying to solve is we want more buoy chasers, then my opinion is that we need to be realistic about a big drawback to our cause. Snow skiing, on the other hand, worked out for us as a big family sport. We have two or three big trips a year, multi-generational, anywhere from 4 to 18 people vectoring in from all locations around the country. Those are really good times. But nobody is there to chase gates.

@jimbrake, next time you're in eastern wa, give me a call, we'll get a set in then grab a beer in LaCrosse. No way any town in CA can beat pickups and guns per capita. Not dissing CA. Just sayin. 15 years ago the high school kids still brought their shotguns to school during pheasant season so they could hunt a bit over lunch.

@jimbrake: No. Everything north of Oregon is terrible, and nobody should consider moving there. Spread the word. Its cold, its dark, people have guns and pickup trucks. Marauding grizzly bear snatch children from suburban backyards, and it rains non-stop. East of the Cascades is particularly bleak, as conservatives roam the inhospitable plains, searching in vain for marriageable females who like skiing and will continue to do so after the kids are born. I thought it was bad, after reading the posts on everyone's ski-centric family my fears have been confirmed.

@ms. Ya. A little late for that now. @Wish, I wonder if @thekrista has numbers on family vs individual memberships? BOS posters in no way represent statistical sample. @jimbrake, yep, its a bummer up here. If you were to catch wind of anybody considering moving this way, be sure to tell them its awful.