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All of the old posts from my old website bfooter.com.

Coming Soon: State Tournament Recap

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Quick Update… We won… More details and a complete wrap up of Mad-City’s memorable weekend (and mine) in Rapids is coming soon. Until then, here are a couple things to keep you occupied.
One of our locals stations, NBC’s WMTV 15, did a small story about our championship on Monday. Here’s a link to the story and they have a brief video clip available as well (look at the featured video clips column on the right).

You can also go to usawaterski.org and check out their story.

There is also an “interesting” discussion about the results over at showskiers.com.

Finally, congrats to the Beaverland Must-Skis of Beaver Dam, WI on their D2 state championship.

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State Show Ski Tournament

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Yes, state tournament weekend is here. The tournament started up yesterday with some D3 teams, individuals and team jump… For Mad-City, we are off to a fast start. Unofficially, Ann Wittenberg (a Mad-City swiveler) won the state championship for swivel and the Mad-City Jump Team won the team jump competition. So far, 2 for 2 in events we’ve competed in. Although the main event, our show in the show ski tournament, is Saturday morning.

Mad-City takes to the water 3rd on Saturday morning. That means our show will very likely start sometime between 930 and 10am. For anyone down in Mad-City that wants to make the trip up here, plan for a 90 minute drive from the east side of Madison. Directions are very simply. Take I39/H51 north. Then head west on highway 73. Turn right on county U (I believe), then left on South Park Road. Ski site will then be on your right. Parking is typically cheap (about $2) and the tournament itself is free. There is plenty of free parking available in the area as well.

For those of you who want to see a map, here is a link to google maps that will show you the tournament location. I made up the address, but the location is accurate. You can then use it to get your own directions to the site.

One more reason to make the trip… the tournament features the best beer tent in the state. Where else can you enjoy cheap beer and world class skiing at the same time!!!

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POTC2

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Caught Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest tonight. This review will be short, it is late. Overall, good movie, enjoyable. Not quite as good as the first, but going into that one, I had no expectations (it was a movie based on a ride?)

I thought the opening just didn’t start off as quick as the first one. Decent story in this one, although I thought it was a little long again (2 1/2 hour action movies are tough to do). Main complaint is it is all out a part one of a two-parter. Basically, if you enjoyed the first one, you’ll like this one as well. Depp does his job as Captain Jack Sparrow. Bloom (I still see Legalos) and Knightley come along for the ride.

Kudos to the special effect guys… They did a very good job blending in all the CGI with the live action… Looked seamless.

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A Little Quiet This Week

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Alright, all my busy readers scattered around the globe, I’ve been busy working, boating, skiing, practicing for the tournament, teaching people how to ski, making home made pizzas and editting music. Will give a recap of the weeks past events and preview of the State Tournament before I head out for Rapids on Thursday.

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Wear Pants and Meet Jack?

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Here are some random thoughts from throughout the day…

First up, the Tour de Lance, er France I mean. The news today was that American Floyd Landis has taken the lead in the Tour. Besides taking the lead on what they are calling one of the most difficult stages (kind of like Lance kicking but in the mountains), he’s doing it with a bad hip that will need to get not just fixed, but replaced. Which makes this even more impressive. Now I don’t follow bicycling enough to know much more than what I see on ESPN or OLN, but go Landis! [Landis image from FoxSports.com/Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images]

Next up, Do You Know Jack? As in Jack the radio station! Apparently Jack is now two years old as a format and is doing well. What’s the format you ask? You pick a bunch of really good songs from the past 30 years or so and play them in a convoluted order, I mean thoroughly researched order for maximum effect. Besides the huge play list, they did away with the DJs and just use brief voiceovers. The Jack format as it is called is actually very specific. If you want your station to be a Jack you need to follow specific guidelines regarding pretty much everything about your station. It seems to be surprising station programmers that listeners want to hear a wide variety of music of vary styles and contrasts (other than all being good) and very few repeats. Play 1000+ different songs instead of 300 songs focusing in on just the top 40 of those (i.e. play 80 songs and 40 of them are the core rotation sprinkling in the other 260 in occasionally.)

If you live in the Mad-town, you actually get to listen to Jack’s cousin Charlie. If you get XM you can also listen to Jack’s distant relatives Ethel, Lucy and Fred.

Meanwhile over on the race tracks, it seems Ms. Danica Patrick is contemplating a move from the IRL to NASCAR. If she makes the move, she is obviously going to get even more press from the more races. Now Mr. Whitlock over at ESPN believes she should stay in the IRL, just jump to a different team to get the best equipment, then kick ass and take names. After winning a race or two over in the IRL, then jump to NASCAR and repeat. This sounds like a good idea to me. Although if she jumps to a new IRL team, like the Target team, we may get even more Danica time. She’d be a good spokeswoman for Target. For some reason, I just don’t see that many commercials for Argent Mortgage, but I see those damn red dots of Target all the time.

How could she not be a good spokesmodel? [ESPN.com/Chris Carlson/AP Photo]

Finally, over in England, apparently the police force are launching an advertising campaign to get women to wear nice pants when they go out to the bars. Not just pants, but nice pants (Dockers may have a law suit they could win here). From the sound of it, they have a problem with women drinking till they are drunk, stumble out of the bar, pass out drunk in the street wearing short skirts that ride up and expose more than they’d probably like. The kicker is that in addition to wearing nice pants, they are recommending that the women get waxed too! Think I’m making this up, I’m not. Here is the article from Reuters.

[Update] Here’s a bonus story about some really stupid criminals.

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Superman Returns

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So I finally caught Superman Returns the other day. And I saw it on the IMAX in 3-D. Between skiing, work, a 1015 start time and 150 minute run time, it has been difficult to fit into the schedule. But I crammed it in regardless…

Be warned, this review contains spoilers…

Overall, I thought the movie did a good job bringing back Superman to the big screen. Seeing as how this movie has been in development hell for what seems like forever, it was even pretty coherent. I thought they could have tightened up the movie a bit, maybe trim about 15 minutes to make the pacing better, but it wasn’t bad.

I like the fact that they kept some of the cheesiness of Superman in the movie and didn’t make it completely modern. He even says swell. They have the latest cell phones and digital cameras but for some reason still seem to live in a world dominated by newspapers. I loved the whole model train scene. I thought it was actually a double reference. First, to the train scene in one of the original Superman movies and, second, to way the special effects use to be done, using models instead of CGI. It even foreshadowed a little bit.

I thought most of the effects were well done, but there were a couple that were just a little to CGI looking. Nothing major, but it was something I noticed. The plane sequence was very well done. The Daily Planet planet logo falling was also a good sequence.

The new Lois Lane played by Kate Bosworth is great. Definitely an upgrade. Lex Luther played by Kevin Spacey did one hell of a good job pretending to be Gene Hackman, and I mean that as a compliment. Whoever played Jimmy Olson brought the little photographer back to live as well. For Brandon Routh who played Superman, I say good job, but still no Christopher Reeve (its hard to believe that someone from the MTV show Undressed is still doing anything in front of the camera). But given time, he may fit better. It is just hard to replace someone who defined the role. One again, props to the new Lois Lane, Ms. Kate Bosworth (she was great in Blue Crush as well).

The premise of the movie was big enough to be a Superman dilemma and was actually a Superman dilemma instead of some random catastrophe.

Overall, I thought the movie was good. It was fun to see on the giant IMAX screen but the 3D I could take or leave. Don’t think that added anything for me. This is probably a movie I’ll pick up someday. Makes me want to watch the first couple again (which I haven’t seen in forever). From what I’ve heard this movie takes place after 1 & 2 and the others don’t exist.

Still undecided, here’s a trailer…

Finally, the line of the movie…

“I’ve done Superman!”
– Lois Lane

Truly an awesome line!!!

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Show Skiing on TV?

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Yea, that’s how much of a surprise it is… Just a little hard to believe. Well this weekend (it varies, depending on where you live) a show called Discover Wisconsin will be featuring show skiing in an episode called “World Class Waterskiing” and much of it was filmed at the 2005 Wisconsin State Show Ski Tournament.

If you go to the show’s website, it actually has a fair amount of information of water skiing, the upcoming tournaments, show skiing teams, ski clubs, etc. Go give it a look. They even have a picture of Mad-City over there.

Now this episode aired earlier in the year, sometime when it was still cold and I completely missed it, but has been given a second airing and it is this weekend. Check it out.

For the complete schedule of when it is on, you can check out your local guide or click here for more details.

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How to Face Plant Hard

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Face planting in barefooting is inevitable. It is just going to happen. Here is what I did this morning to pretty much cause myself to face plant…

So I get up footing, I’m in the curl and just nail a one foot. Held it half way across the bay, kept my weight balanced over my foot so it just a nice smooth one foot. No obnoxious spray, it was truly a money one foot.

After putting my foot back down, so I’m now back on two feet, I kinda do a “Yea” and bob my head as I do it. Well, my head bob was, well lets just say it was a little too enthusiastic. The momentum of my head bob put my face into the water hard… Completely unprepared for this face plant. Rough water, you kinda anticipate it. Hit some rollers, you know it is probably going to happen. Bob your head as you go Yea to yourself, just don’t expect it.

I did grab the rope and foot 9 more times today, so it didn’t stop me, just slowed me down briefly…

After popping some Tylenol, my headache subsided about 6 hours later.

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Two-a-days, Part 2

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Here I am crossing the bubbles of death. See the nice little rooster tail in front of me.

Hit the lake again right after work with Sandy, Mike, Seven and Lori in tow. Started off with another back-to-back barefoot set in the bay amongst the weeds doing 4 passes. Ended the night with final back-to-back set with 6 passes. That makes for a total of sixteen passes for the day. Meaning 16 deeps as well. Also did a repeat of what I did this morning. Stand up in right curl, lift right foot, cross bubbles of death to left curl, lift left foot.

What do I mean by back-to-back sets? Basically, I foot till the boat needs to stop (because of the shore) and does a power turn and I never need to let go of the rope. Boat idles back out, rope comes tight, and away we go. I timed it in my head tonight and this can take as little as 15 seconds when everything works out alright, but is much easier if they let the rope come tight and let me catch my breath before going. When they do that, it takes about 20 seconds. Still, that is a short break between runs.

Right now, my arms are exhausted. Still want to ski again. Waiting for call backs for tomorrow AM. If that doesn’t come through, I should be able to track down some people for the afternoon. I’ll rest on the next rainy day.

Finally, props to Sandy for joining me in my two-a-day endeavor. She woke up early for the morning set and then came back for the evening set. Here’s a shot of Sandy skiing tonight. Once again, notice the carpet of weeds to her right.

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Two-a-days, Part 1

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Woke up at 530, hit the water at 630 with Sandy and Joey. Good way to start the day. Managed to accomplish a goal I mentioned a couple days ago… Stood up in the right curl, did a one foot on my left foot, crossed the wake to the left curl and then did a one foot on my right foot. More news later, and maybe some pictures too. (Not sure what’s on my camera at this point.)

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