BallOfSpray Twitter Jeopardy! Had 5 winners this week
5 Skiers won prizes this week playing BallOfSpray Twitter Jeopardy!
@theproskitour @scoke @bevloew @MattP_ and @buoychaser
Each of the winners will receive a copy of the Terry Winter West Coast Visualization DVD. As a special bonus @MattP_ will be receiving a pillow belonging to Marcus Brown. Look for more fun and silliness as we all try to survive winter.
Weekend in Lake County
Gallagher and I are driving home from a weekend of hedonistic overeating and drinking in Lake County, Northern California. As I write this, I am stuffed with the sushi we stopped for in Sacramento. (Thanks to Dave Smart for recommending a killer Sushi place) Originally this was a work trip for Gallagher but she talked me into taking Friday off work so we made it into a newlyweds weekend away.
After work Thursday we drove most of the way from Bako to NorCal wine country. We arrived in Petaluma at 12:30 am and watched silly cartoons until 2. We had two more hours to drive before 2 PM Friday. Unfortunately we slept till 10 so by the time we found some food, it was a scramble to arrive on-time. We made it to the lake side lodge where she was to speak with 15 minutes to spare.
Gallagher gave an hour speech about bugs and little critters to a room full of vineyard farm types and then there was another hour speech about fungus or mold or some thing you do not want on wine grapes. Since I really do not care about fungus, unless it is sautéed and on a steak, I went to check us into our room. The “Lodge” is basically a refurbished old motel on the edge of Blue Lake. The scenery is lovely but there is not food to be had plus the clientele might be a touch trashy. Gallagher describes the lodge as a dog friendly motel that caters to bass fishermen and Cougars.
When I say Cougars I do mean older women who like younger men. After I checked us in, I received a few beers from the queen of the cougars who was setting man traps outside her room. I was safe as long as I repeated words like “Newly Wed”, “Wife” and “Happily Married”. Lucky for me the spore talk ended so I could escape to the safety of a viticulture reception and drink some wine I did not have to pay for. It sounds crazy but the best part was the curried and fried chick peas.
It felt like 10 o’clock but Gallagher pointed out that it was only 5, and she needed dinner. According to the locals, the nearest grub was a good 7 miles away at a place called the Blue Wing Saloon. We had no idea what we were in for but Gallagher was sober so we piled in to my “Dale Jr Blue” GMC and headed down the dark lake side country road. After only one unplanned U-turn we arrived in the town of Upper Lake and found the Blue Wing for a darn good bit of grub and more wine.
Full of wine and yummy food we went to sleep early. The next morning we woke to find the scenery outside was beautiful and the cougars were still in their dens. Motel coffee did not offer much in the way of drinking pleasure or sustenance so we packed up and moved to the Tallman Hotel next door to the Blue Wing in Upper Lake. Gallagher had stayed their before and raved about this place. As a guy, I am thinking “How great can a darn hotel room be?” This 100 year old place is simply awesome - more on that later.
We checked in before the room was ready so we had hours to kill and no plans. We saw all 5 shops in this quaint little down within an hour. We found coffee and a bagel in an oddly NASCAR themed coffee shop and then headed off to a winery that Gallagher wanted to show me called Ceago Vinegarden.
I had heard about this place and the people who run it. If you Google the term “biodynamic farming”, you will learn about something I find as hard to swallow as UFO cults. Since Ceago is a biodynamic facility, silly, ignorant me expected a crusty vineyard run by a bunch of dirty hippies. I soon learned that I was not allowed to use the term “dirty hippie” and that Ceago is one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. Its Spanish architecture is flawless and is the perfect complement to the wooded hills behind it and the sparkling lake in front.
Crazy ideas or not, we were hungry so we ordered wine and a platter of cheese with a baguette. How good can a plate of cheese be? First of all, you have to appreciate that we were sitting on a Spanish-style patio looking across a few hundred lavender plants out to a perfect lake surrounded by rolling hills and, overhead, there was a clear bright blue sky and the warm sunshine. When the platter arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to find dried Asian Pears, dates, olives, honeycomb and sprig of fresh rosemary in addition to two semi-hard cheeses and a triple cream brie. How perfect can a lunch be? If you have never applied the perfect brie at the perfect temperature to a piece of dried pear with the slight afternoon breeze blowing though your hair, you just can not understand.
Full of the some of the finest luxury foods Northern California has to offer, we made our way back to the hotel. Upon actual check-in, Gallagher upgraded the room (on my card) to one with a Japanese soaking tub. How great can a wooden bathtub on your patio be? With mineral water at 104 F, geo-thermo heating and perfect weather, it is pretty darn relaxing. After a bit of a soak, we headed back to the Blue Wing, and, instead of ordering off the menu, we instructed the waitress to tell the chef Mika to make us what ever looked good to him. After 4 courses we wondered if either of us would ever need to eat again. It was all pretty darn good but the scallops with oyster mushrooms and citrus glaze was astounding. With the drive home looming in our minds and a lot of food of our bellies, we found unconsciousness early that night.
Our only plan for Sunday was to get home a decent hour. We “walrussed” around the room until 11 and then headed out for home. Believe it or not, we were thinking of food by the time we got close to Sacramento. I had Gallagher call my old friend and freshman year of college roommate Dave Smart who lives on Sac. All we wanted was directions from the freeway to sushi restaurant, but we got an invite to visit Dave and Dr. Fritz at Bell Aqua. As I expected, this led to 30 minutes of Dave telling stories to Gallagher about my misbehaviors in college. Yeeaaah fun for me! Finally, we got directions to the best sushi in Sac and were on our way.
The plan for tomorrow: No drinking, health food and time on the exercise bike.
Visit http://www.tallmanhotel.com/ and http://www.ceago.com/
World Water Ski Championships 1/2 hour highlight show
World Water Ski Championships 1/2 hour highlight show from Lorne Webber on Vimeo.
Putrajaya World Cup Results
Putrajaya World Cup Results
Open Men Slalom Nick Parsons
Open Ladies Slalom Karen Truelove
Open Men Jump Feddy
Open Men Tricks Aliaksei Zharnasek
Open Ladies Tricks Marion Aynaud
Complete results http://theproskitour.com Or waterski.online.fr
Cambridge Athlete of the Year
Reprinted from http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/
By Bill Doucet
McClintock an obvious choice. Cambridge’s Whitney McClintock cheers during her quadruple gold medal win at the world championships in Calgary. She was named Cambridge Athlete of the Year tonight.
Times file photo
With such an illustrious list of Tim Turow Award nominees, it's hard to call anything a slam dunk.
Then again, no one had a year like Whitney McClintock. The 20-year-old water-skier won seven gold medals at world championships and six more at the Canadian championships, along with various other honours, to take home the Cambridge Athlete of the Year Award tonight at the annual Cambridge Sports Awards Banquet at the Cambridge Holiday Inn.
It was McClintock's second Tim Turow win, as she also took the crown in 2007.
McClintock was up against some lofty local names – Lindsay Carson (track), Lisa Leskien (ultra-marathon), Jackie Brown (freestyle skiing), Nathan Brannen (track), Ryan Ellis (hockey) and Bryce Davison (figure skating) – but no one dragged home the hardware like the University of Central Florida student.
Natallia Berdnikava Pending World Record Video
Thanks to Adam Sedlmajer Tweeting this video http://twitter.com/AdamSedlmajer
PUTRAJAYA WORLD CUP SITE LOOKS PERFECT AS SKIERS ARRIVE
This was a glorious day here in Putrajaya. Hot sunshine and good skiing conditions created the perfect welcome for our World Cup athletes as they arrived from 15 countries around the world. IWWF Homologator Nigel Talamo GBR and Organiser Hanifah Yoong and his team put the finishing touches to the Jump and Slalom courses as the sun set beyond the Putrajaya City skyline.
Enjoying the sunshine this afternoon were Ty and Rick Oppenlander USA, Clementine Lucine FRA, Marion Aynaud FRA, Danyelle Bennett USA, Aliaksei Zharnasek BLR, Herman Beliakou BLR, Nicolas LeForestier FRA, Freddy Krueger USA, Karen Truelove USA, Natalia Berdnikova BLR, Will Furze GBR/MasterCraft, Boris Laval FRA, Anais Amade FRA, Billy Susi USA, Aaron Larkin NZL, Jonathan Travers USA, Nick Parsons USA, Jodi Fisher GBR and Will Asher. Many more will arrive later tonight.
Read more: PUTRAJAYA WORLD CUP SITE LOOKS PERFECT AS SKIERS ARRIVE
Natalia Berdnikova sets Pending World Trick Record
Natalia Berdnikova BLR created history – or at least pending history ! Competing in Central Florida today, Natalia scored 9080 points. This makes her the first woman in the world to ever score more than 9000 points.
Behind this extraordinary performance is a fascinating sequence of events. Natalia was injured a year ago. While working on her recovery, Clementine Lucine FRA also hit the headlines over and over again. We have lost count with the number of pending World Shortboard Records she scored. She did get a confirmed 8840 points to take the World Record – but also scored 8930 points which did not pass the Judges final decision. Certainly, World Cup star Clementine Lucine looked set to break that 9000 barrier. If the Judges confirm Natalia’s 9080 points today, her name will certainly enter the history books.
Story reprinted from IWSF.com
Waterski World Cup Malaysia Nov 6 - 8
Putrajaya World Cup site is ready for the final Stop of 2009
The world’s top Waterski athletes from 15 countries are now converging on Kuala Lumpur’s International Airport for the short ride to Putrajaya. This will be the 29th World Cup Stop in the series. The Timetable and Webcast details for this last Waterski & Wakeboard World Cup Stop of the season have been released today. Both the Putrajaya Stop and overall World Cup season winners will be crowned at this beautiful tropical venue next Sunday evening immediately following the November 7/8 competition.
Putrajaya Corporation and the Malaysian Waterski Federation have provided some of the most attractive site facilities in the world at the Watersports Complex. Towering above the Waterski arena is the distinctive four storey all-glass Media and Judging tower. This will house the RTM TV cameras for national broadcasts, the World Cup Webcast Studio for global transmissions, the World Cup TV team plus the Judges and Officials. The World Cup TV Team will distribute a short TV News edit feature to 300 million viewers by Satellite on Sunday evening. This will be followed by a full edited TV show which will be distributed to 200 million viewers the following week.
U.S. Under 21 Team Wins Gold Medal
The U.S. Under 21 Water Ski Team won the gold medal and four U.S. athletes earned individual medals at the 4th Under 21 Water Ski World Championships, Oct. 29-Nov. 1, in Chapala, Mexico.
The U.S. Under 21 Water Ski Team tallied 7,800.16 points in winning the overall gold medal for the third time. Defending champion France earned the silver medal, scoring 7,639.65 points, and Canada earned the bronze medal, tallying 7,451.64 points in the 24-team field.
Officials: floodwaters headed for southern Bossier
Like a barge navigating the Mississippi, rainwater from Thursday's historic thunderstorm is drifting slowly and inevitably toward the southern end of Bossier Parish, with local officials racing to make preparations. Bla bla bla Yadda Yadda Yadda So lets to trick skiing!
Ward McLain does some trick water skiiing behind a pickup along Caplis-Sligo Rd. in Bossier City. (Submitted by Kim McLain)
More at ShreveportTimes.com
2009 U-21 World Water Ski Champions
Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico - 28 Oct/1 Nov 2009
Men Slalom Travers Jonathan
Ladies Slalom Mcclintock Whitney
Men Tricks Poteau Alexandre
Ladies Tricks Mcclintock Whitney
Ladies Jump Chardin Nancy
Men Jump Worden Zack
Ladies Overall Mcclintock Whitney
Men Overall Worden Zack
