Ski

Just FYI for anyone that buys Red Bull and weren't really sure what's in it: Carbonated water, sucrose, glucose, sodium citrate, taurine, glucuronolactone, caffeine, inositol, niacin, D-pantothenol, pyridoxine HCL, vitamin B12, artificial flavours and colors. Carbonated water= water with bubbles Sucrose= sugar Glucose= sugar Sodium citrate= salt Taurine= caffeine enhancer, also a nutritional substance for cats which can help prevent blindness Glucuronolactone= sugar metabolizer Caffeine= stimulant Inositol= sugar Niacin= converts food to energy Pantothenol= vitamin B5 Pyridoxine HCL= vitamin B6 Vitamin B12= vitamin B12 A Red Bull is is equivalent of taking a couple of vitamins and washing it down with a huge glass of Hawaiian Punch with extra sugar and a dash of salt, followed by a cup of coffee. It will make you have to pee; get fat; make you nervous; and, if you put some in your cat's water bowl, keep it from going blind. Not exactly how it's marketed, though.

BTW, Discordial, great job of doing it and sharing it vicariously...KMart's a haul for a day trip.

My wife has forced me to listen to numerous passages from his book (actually written by someone else)...he just doesn't understand steroids. He says that he realizes steroids are a benefit for competitive weight lifters, but doesn't see any benefit for the world ping pong champion, who was banned from the sport for two years after testing positive. He believes that was a travesty. Steroids help the quick-twitch muscles...a ping pong player on steroids would be lethal. That's why it's not just home run hitters on juice, but also shortstops. Just BTW, Bode's one sister's name is Genesis Wren Bungo Windrushing Turtleheart Miller. That's her LEGAL name. His folks used to grow a lot of pot.

It says "any" Mid Week Ticket: "Palmerton, PA Any Mid-Week Adult Lift Ticket $5.00 Off Present this coupon at the Blue Mountain Lift Ticket Office and Receive $5.00 Off any Mid-Week Ticket. Only (1) Coupon per Person. Cannot be Combined with Any Other Discount Offer. Good Mon. thru Fri.-Non Holidays Only Offer Valid for 2005-2006 Season" Can anyone confirm this knocks $5 off of the $27 Mid-Week night ticket? I mean, it says "any", but I can picture getting a hassle with someone saying they meant Mid-Week day or twilight...it would make the drive down on Thursday nights $5 better...

From skiracing.com: Miller, a double gold medalist at last season's alpine world championships, said he had enjoyed watching the normally reserved Maier's wild celebrations in the finish area at Soelden. "I was so amazed to see how Hermann flipped out. It's quite unusual for Austrians, he almost hugged me," Miller joked. _______________________ Adam Chadbourne, who was Ligety?s coach when Ligety first arrived on the U.S. Ski Team, was in the finish area watching the Park City native jump from the 64th starting position to eighth. ?A new level,? said a beaming Chadbourne. ?He?s just taking his slalom tactics into GS.? Chadbourne, who now coaches for Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont, brought 47 Burke athletes and nine coaches to Austria to train at Hintertux. He was sky-high after seeing Ligety win the second run. ?It won?t be long before he wins one of these things,? Chadbourne said. ?He?s making a shorter arc than anybody up there. It?s unbelievable.? _______________ Seven years in the making, a documentary film about Bode Miller?s life is set to premiere on Nov. 4 at the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Directed by Bill Rogers, who runs the nonprofit Coruway Film Institute, the movie is an intimate look at Miller?s career from 1998, when he started near the back in World Cups, to 2005, when he won the overall World Cup title. ?I haven?t seen it yet,? said Miller after Sunday?s race in Soelden. ?Have you?? In fact, the film will be discussed in the pages of Ski Racing's next issue, due out soon.

But sorry for the long-winded rant. Bode needs a PR person to just tell him to keep certain thoughts...uh...thoughts. Saying that performance enhancing steroids used in moderation is a good thing in the long term is nuts, according to the doctors that have published real study results. I actually thought he was joking.

Bode has become a great example of why parents need to set examples and be role models for their kids, rather than relying on superstar athletes...last season's "Bode on the Bus" series showed him doing shots the night before races. Is that a tragedy? No, and neither was former Florida Marlin Manager Jim Leyland chain smoking in the dugout, but could they possible set a worse example for kids? I've heard the arguement that if you drink, then that's just you being you. But I'm pretty sure that Bode gets laid and not many people argue that "Bode on the Bud" should have a segment featuring him on his girlfriend. In other words, people that have a wide influence on kids should use some degree of discretion. I sure wouldn't care if Poconoceancity rolled a blunt at home, but imagine the effect if he did it during class...my apologies for envoking your name, POC, but teachers have a higher level of responsibility with their public image than most other professions, because of their direct influence on kids. Like Bode. The entire integrity of Major League Baseball records is now gone. Maris' record of 60 homers was broken by a cheater: Mark McGwire. Aaron's career HR record of 755 will be broken next year by another cheater: Barry Bonds. A simple receipe: take steroids and you increase muscle mass and your bat speed. And then comes the domino effect: pitchers juice up to keep pace; second level players juice to keep up with juiced pitchers; then minor leaguer's juice to step up to second level Major Leaguer's. College players are juicing and even high school players are juicing. It's out of control at every level of baseball. So the US Congress threatens Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig with proposed mandatory legal penalties if baseball doesn't clean up. Congress even points to the strict International Olympic Commitee policies as a model of "near perfect efficiency". What's this have to do with Bode? Dangerous performance enhancing drugs have become nearly epidemic in some American sports and there's finally a move to begin the clean up, when along comes Bode with his brain dead push to relax the rules. With no apparent forethought to the big picture---that these drugs are actually killing teenage kids and otherwise destroying young lives---Bode gets on his soap box to proclaim performance enhancers no big deal. The "medical community" has determined that steroids as performance enhancers ARE unsafe. Period. They have determined what pain killers are safe and legal: the FIS provides athletes with a complete list. I think it's terrible that British skier Alain Baxter was stripped of his Olympic bronze medal for using a Vick's Inhaler. The product he normally used manufactured in Britain didn't contain the banned drug, while the one he bought in the US did. That doesn't mean you don't have the rule; you just have to use discretion while enforcing it. Anyway, here's the latest from Bode: "I caused a furor in Europe this month after Ski Racing magazine quoted me saying I favored the legalization of doping. There's such a stigma right now about drug testing that you can't bring up anything without people trying to jump on it the wrong way and twist it. I'm going to keep pushing my viewpoint. I think our drug-testing policies are ridiculous and need to change. Just like a cocktail of vitamins you take to help improve your health, I think the medical field should determine what substances are safe and unsafe for people, using amounts at the low end of the spectrum to err on the right side. Don't ban substances that are not unhealthy. If it's going to hurt an athlete or a person, it should be illegal, period. If they come up with safe levels for different drugs, there's a good chance that would help athletes live a better life, be more healthy, prevent injuries and have a better physical condition when they're 50 or 60. I see athletes at that age, and they're totally beat up. They talk about the long-term effects of all these steroids, but they ignore the long-term effects of sport. The long-term effects of being a ski racer are blown-out discs, blown-out knees, blown-out hips. You need to minimize that stuff. If you have to balance it with the long-term effects of steroids, I think that is a legitimate argument. The current system is hypocritical and ineffective. My team and all the other teams are jumping behind this ineffective message that the World Anti-Doping Agency and U.S. Anti-Doping Agency are pushing. It's frustrating to see them do it because of the political correctness of the whole thing. They don't want to stir the pot, and they want to come off as ultra-clean."

And she's gonna stick with that story... Have a blast, 'Mom!

Maybe he'll compromise by getting suspendered pants? The whole idea of bibbed pants started to be obsolete when ski jackets were improved to where they are now. That big, goofy bunch of material over your chest just gets in the way of the jacket doing it's work. Spyder is my personal favorite. Phenix makes great stuff, as does Karbon. One brand that's killer warm and dry is Beyond-X, but I hate the styles (sorry CAT Team kids).

Yeah, they hit you early, but then take a month off...but reopen at Lake Louise, Canada, before coming down to the US. It's like a drumroll building up... And just where the hell have you been, Atomic?

Happy Valley is sure lookin' happier than here. Great pics, Schif!

Results from World Cup opener at Soelden, AU: 1 MAIER Hermann

Click "reply", then click "choose file", then "add this attachment"...is that what you're asking, Schif?

Off for some dreams of turns at Alpine Mountain... We'll getcha, Phil...

Phil, I don't think anyone here minds...it's your opinion. But you sure do spend a lot of time with us after finding your way here. So we think there's hope for you. This winter will be an eye opener for you as you revisit some of your old haunts with some new people. A couple of PASR days and you'll kick yourself for all the missed time. Yep...it was the year before Ty was born and I remember explaining to her mom that it was the only run down from where our lift was going.

It's my experience that skier traffic has more to do with snow quality than anything related to snowmaking ability or grooming. We put two Areco's and three tripods on our main slope at The Hideout and it's skied to crap three hours after opening.

'Dude sure knows his turns. Yeah, and it's Kjus, so it's as old school as there is on the World Cup right now. LeMaster's series pics are the perfect training tool, even better than video. Check this slalom run, where Schlopy is a bit late in the first gate, then nails the second (although Bode would have cleared with his boot buckles):

Skimom's version of pleasant:

What's not to like about Boomer or White Lightning? Two pure headwall runs, one being steeper than anything in the Catskills? There's no runout, so the slow lift is really just five minutes because it's just running you up the headwall and not over a 1000 feet of flats. Let's see, you can park 30 feet from where you put your skis on...it's a cheap ticket. You can do it until 10pm...midweek there's usually about 25 people on the entire North Face area...Boomer never gets scraped off due to traffic... Maybe going to places where you have to know the mountain in order to hide from the crowds is a good thing...I don't get that. I hate crowds more than anything. Sib can attest that I'd follow her around CB whining like a liittle b*tch every weekend for two years because of crowds. Not bashing, Phil I just don't understand. What doesn't get you jazzed about double-wide, groomed empty slopes that are cheap? C'mon, Phil, you aren't just trying to be negative are ya? Or did you just get stuck on the upper mountain greens? I just can't see ANY skier that likes speed and empty slopes dissing two places that offer plenty.

LeMaster's photo montages are amazing. I have a collection on my desktop...

What did you buy, Phil?

Windham is generally considered a little more family friendly and easier for groups of varied abilities to stay together than Belleayre. Belleayre has a series of very steep black runs that run off the middle of the upper mountain. They have a terrific intermediate slope that winds around skiers left, but it takes a lot of snow for it to be open early. They've also added new non-diamond trails recently on the upper mountain, since it would pretty much split up groups. State owned Belleayre is a little like skiing in the 60's. An old lodge with a huge fireplace and nothing fancy. Windham is newer and has more ammenities. You know how at many ski areas you can hit a diamond and meet up with blue square skiers mid-mountain, then ski down together? Belleayre has been notoriously difficult to do that. My wife and I would ride the lift together, then split up for runs. Windham is generally more crowded than Belleayre, but seem to have better grooming and wider slopes. Comparing them to the Poconos, Windham would be more like Blue, while Belleayre would be more like Montage. That doesn't help, though 'cause nobody has ever skied Montage. If you're in the mood for a challenge and a bit of adventure, then I'd suggest Belleayre. If you want cruisers and groomers, then hit Windham. Sunday River has amazing snowmaking thanks to the Otten days.

"Nope... just said I think it blows away anything in the Poconos..."---DMC Some of just don't believe Hunter blows away anything in the Poconos, especially those of us that prefer steeper, empty headwalls. And especially those of us that put a great deal of importance on not just where but who we're skiing with. Remember the days you were hooking up with Pizza and all the other's when June was around?

Montage continues it's reverse marketing strategy to maintain uncrowded slopes. Easier for them and better for us. It was really cool to see the snowy slopes, though...

Yeah, if Belleayre gets a couple of diamonds off the top, then there's no comparison. It sucked when they only had mid-station open and didn't make it clear on their site early last year, but web presence isn't their strong point. Belleayre is cool because it attracts several area race programs of still-closed mountains, so if you stop anywhere, 50 kids fly past you in real tucks. And very few drunk newbies.