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More Stories from around the Net
McDonald’s vs Hedgehogs. Apparently, McDondald’s didn’t like hedgehogs. Specifically, the lids from the McFlurry were killing them. Seemed the hedgehogs, like pretty much everyone else, like the McFlurry and they would get the heads stock in the lid and then couldn’t get them out. Their tasty treat would be their last meal. After several years of research, McDonald’s managed to come up with a lid design that wouldn’t kill the hedgehogs. What took them five years to redesign a lid. It is just a piece of plastic.
A Star Trek Thesis. Seems you can write a thesis about just about anything. Seems Dr. Baker wanted to analyze the elements of the stories from Star Trek and how they relate to ancient mythology. Now I don’t know that much ancient mythology, just the basics, but even I could see how some of the stories related. I didn’t get a PhD. You can elements from mythology in all kinds of modern stories. Back in high school, I even wrote a paper comparing the role of fate and free while in Oedipus and Terminator 1 & 2. My teacher at the time, a much older lady at that time, hadn’t seen either Terminator movie and actually went out to rent them. I really wish I would have gotten her reaction about the movies. I got an A on the paper.
A Wish Come True. Ever dream about blowing something up? Has your dream ever come true. Well, for one lucky commuter who dreamed of blowing a bridge that was the source of many traffic jams, this wish came true.
A Bad Time to Die. Seems right now in Tirana it is a bad time to die. They might not have a place to put you. As of Aug 29, they only had room for one more week’s worth of dead people. What happens after that? They just going to stack people up in the streets.
Training Camp Survivors. Now that NFL training camps are over, there are 1696 survivors that are traumatized and unable to talk about their experiences for the past 5 or so weeks. The reports are varied, and often confused, but the consensus is the players went through prolonged physical and mental tests that “could possible kill lesser men.” Some of them were even drafted into these camps from serene college campuses. At times, some of the players would be called into the coaches office and never seen again. Sounds like the makings of another Steven Spielberg movie.
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Last Show of the Year…
Last night we had our last ski show of the year. Unfortunately, it was cut short because of rain. The weather didn’t look good to begin with, yet we had our largest crowd of the year. It truly is amazing what happens when you have a little positive local press. We had a huge crowd. Up until we had to call the show, we had a good show going.
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Invincible
This movie came out before the fall season technically started, but not by much. For those that don’t know it is about a football player that pretty much walked on to the Eagles. They held open tryouts and he made it onto the team.
This movie amounts to a football player that more or less has one really big play early in his career. It was notable that he made the team since he didn’t play in college football. Kinda like Rudy, except for the NFL instead of College Football. Rudy was a better movie though.
This movie is alright though. It was entertaining, Mark Wahlberg plays the part well of Vince Papale, Greg Kinnear also did pretty good playing Dick Vermeil. Finally, Elizabeth Banks plays the hot girl friend to be as well. I knew she looked familiar and she had a recurring guest role on Scrubs.
My thought on the movie is although they pulled it off with Rudy, it is just hard to make a movie about a football player that only has one big play, and they didn’t quite pull it off this time. Although he impresses the coaches during tryouts, it sounds like he ends up making the team because off his love for the team. He grew up a fan of the team and bled Eagle green. The movie is predictable, but it was entertaining.
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Crank
Let’s just start this off saying the Fall movie season has officially begun. In case you didn’t know, the Fall movie season is when they dump all the movies that they didn’t think would cut in the late spring/summer against better movies. They also release a lot of horror movies in the fall.
Crank isn’t a horror movie. And, yes, it is one of the others that I just mentioned. Crank is a very stylized movie that I wish they had put more thought into making an entertaining story as they thought about the style. It isn’t out and out a bad movie. It just isn’t very good. Luckily, it isn’t that long.
Some entertaining action sequences, ridiculous chase sequences, and an abrupt ending. Admittedly, I dozed off briefly towards the end, I think I only missed a couple of minutes, but I was just a little confused about how we got there. Not sure if it was just poor story or I did doze off.
Jason Statham played the main character, Chelios, about as well as one could do with the part. Amy Smart is also in the movie and that never hurts. She plays a blonde. That about sums up her character.
The popcorn was good.
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Finally, Some Props from the Local Media
Yes, back when I wrote my Nationals recap, no local media had given us any props. No mentions that we won or that there was even a tournament. Now, three weeks later, both local newspapers had a story about the ski team this weekend. Here are the links…
The Capital Times
The Wisconsin State Journal
In other water skiing news, here is just a good story from Indiana, albeit a short one.
A Skiing Inspiration
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Footstock Results
For everyone that ends up here looking for Footstock Results… I don’t have them here, but I do have a link to them… Just trying to help.
For everyone else, read on. For those here for the results, if you enjoy skiing, you might find something here to read anyway.
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Back to Skiing in 50 Degree Weather
This morning woke up bright and early for some morning skiing. Rolled out of bed at 545 to be at the lake at 645. As I parked my truck at the lake, the temp was still in the 50s. The lake was covered with fog as I walked down to the dock to meet up with Tash. He had the boat ready to go with his two kids bundled up in sleeping bags to keep warm and spot for us.
Once we found some calm water, the skiing was good. Seeing as how I have broken both of my barefoot handles in as many weeks (in addition I broke a team handle) I was using Tash’s barefoot rope and handle. I’ve grown accustomed to my non-stretch rope, when the boat takes off, so do I. Well, Tash’s rope isn’t non-stretch. On my starts I could feel the rope stretch and then once I’d get up on top of the water, I could feel it bungee me forward. It also made the little chop we were going through just a bit more interesting. As I hit the waves, it would stretch just a bit and then it would bungee a bit. Really keeps you on your toes (or literally, on your heals) just a bit more. Wasn’t bad, just vastly different from what I’ve been use to.
Today actually ended up being a two-a-day. In addition to skiing this morning, I did some skiing tonight in our show. Nothing major, a conventional run and a 3-high. However, it was nearly whitecaps. My pyramid was pretty, as we went over the rollers from our boat pattern, I got bent forward just a bit. With the pyramid already up now, I just couldn’t stand up straight so I carried it through bent over. We made it. I’ll post a picture if I get one.
Back to the broken barefoot handles I mentioned… I was out the 18th, tried a tumble turn, caught my should and broke my handle. Then two days later, on the 20th, I did a flyer in the show and that handle broke. Meanwhile, I put my old handle (purchased in 1991) on my current rope and used that for a while. Then on this past Tuesday, the 29th, I went to do a flyer with my rope and old handle. I jumped in, the boat took off, I didn’t really move. My handle in hand, the boat taking off with the rest of the rope. Three handles in 9 days. Both my handles are currently being repaired, one by the manufacturer, one by our team rope man.
Well, that’s it for now… I’m dead tired. Not use to waking up before 7, let alone before 6. Can’t complain though, it was worth it.
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Nationals Slide Show
Ronee put together a nice little slide show… here it is…
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To Catch A Toe…
So tonight I’m out footing on Lake Monona. Out on the big lake in front of the Monona Terrace instead of the bay. Cruising along on my barefeet, bouncing through the little mini-rollers (it was good water, but not great). And BAM, the toes on my right feet catch. Normally while footing, this results in a violent crash typically called a face plant. You go from 40+ MPH to 0 much too fast for it not to be violent. I’ve seen stars after a face plant many times. Not tonight though. Yea, my foot caught and was pushed back, then I kinda dragged it like one would drag a foot while do a hop dock. Then I calmly lift my foot out of the water, bring it back around, set it back down and just kept on going. Caught a toe and kept on going. It’d be neat if I had some picturs, but my camera doesn’t work so well at dusk. And it was at least dusk when this happened.
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Mad-City Wedge 