Ski

Just for the record, Julia Mancuso was the best American skier this year.

They will go skiing.

Yeah...the motor is wicked slow, which is a bitch for plays at second or home in baseball/softball, but I've always taught that even sports photogs rely way too much on their motor drives. The glass is what blows me away: the Canon 70-200 2.8L USM replaced 6 of my fixed focal length lenses and is sharper than any other lens I've owned.

Teahupoo, Tahiti, is the craziest place...they hold a bunch of surf comps there, but it's as dangerous as it gets. They call it the "Heaviest wave on Earth" because it's a sloped closeout---the waves come in hard and then slam down, with no way of getting up and over the shoulder. It happens because the fresh water runoff erroded the reef in just a certain way...so if you're not really careful, you just get slammed onto a sharp reef. Surfing over a coral reef would be like doing rails over top of a bed of nails, with a bunch of poison urchins hanging around...

Ha, thanks, it beats havin' a real job...

Just sitting around bored, deleting the weekly assignments off my Mac...

I'm looking at it from a selfish way, I suppose. Montage came closer to being shut down than anyone realized. The previous commissioners had been creative with the books, hiding huge losses that went way back. Lackawanna residents had a 50% property tax increase and only a tiny percentage give a flying F about skiing and snowboarding---Montage was one vote away from being abandoned. There's no way taxpayers would have continued to subsidize a million dollar a year amenity they don't use. Now, the owners are doing things never before considered. That's really cool. The more money they put into Sno, the harder it will be for the place to ever shut down. It's like an old mansion that had everything wrong with it---each board and every pipe that's replaced makes it more valuable as a home and harder to tear down. I don't mind that Doug does a little trolling in Sno threads...I'd be jealous, too

Holy shit, electric bumper boats down in the reservoir? A 500 ft vert ZipRider? Sounds like something Nick would come up with after his first adventure with purple microdot. You know, they're just begging for someone to turn them onto grass skiing... Nice find, Schif...thanks! I repeat: we have the best owners on the f*cking planet... Here, btw, is the reservoir:

Shop? Throw money in a one arm bandit? Eat $30 ravioli? IDK, 'Kitten, that sounds like the worst vacation ever.

They are, Doug...lucky for us, though, it won't detract from skiing by dumping thousands of people on the slopes like at Booter.

That's what I heard, too. The water park work that needed to be done prior to last ski season couldn't be started and everything got moved back. The snowmaking system made up for a lot, though, and I'll be happy with an early opening and a late closing next season...with a lift and new trails to follow. I hope Washo finds a tumor.

And I used to think you and Jeff had a special connection...

You mean risk scratching a topsheet on someone's teeth?

Yep, to make sure newbies have to work a little to get there and not just wander onto it. The best way to ski it is to have speed going over the headwalls...but the headwalls have flat entries, so they are totally blind. You can stop at the top of Boomer or WL and wait for the slope to clear, but Cannonball is best skied/boarded top to bottom, non-stop, with no newbies sideslipping...

Well, a racer would wear grape jelly coated plastic wrap if it made them faster and was legal. Function over style x 10.

The last guy who made fun of what I was wearing was that snowboard shop manager...and it was right after he posted a pic of himself wearing a XXXL clown coat with a white hat that had a puff ball. And the Sno lodge was filled with bright pink and lime green one pieces (on guys) during the terrain park challenge. Maybe jibbers and racers shouldn't offer opinions about each other's clothing...neither seems to fully understand the other. I know I don't. I mean, basketball jerseys? Shhhhhhhhhhh...

Wanna take a run, or are you pissed at me, too? I'll keep an eye out for your boots...

Nah, let's talk about Jeff's gay jacket.

Yeah, you don't want to mess with Cannonball. You can pretty much mess with anything else on the mountain---but not Cannonball. The top to bottom blue access is important, but it's got to come from the east side.

We watched them blow the crap out of the mountain where the new mall is from the trails last year. Big booms and mushroom clouds...good stuff.

Stay in a pricey hotel room just for pre-programmed payout slot machines? Are people really that stupid? CB going for the compulsive gambler niche, I suppose.

A real NSA racer instead of some ski shop poser. She rocks, for sure

We have a little over 5"...so I let my dog out to play and he went down to check the ice on the fish pond and, well, there was no way I was getting wet too, so I grabbed the camera...

Looks like temps will stay low until next weekend, so it should be some really good spring season to close Belleayre.