Unknowns ruled my thoughts on the lake as the launch day grew near. Would it be deep enough? Would there be stumps? Shallow areas? Boulders? Shopping carts? Bodies? Would the boat ramp work, would we get stuck in the mud? Would somebody call the cops? I mean, really, there were a lot of variables at play. However, the boat "ramp" (read: cleared area of shoreline) worked perfectly, the lake was deep, straight, and perfect for 2000+ linear feet, sheltered from wind, and amazing. Willows and other large trees lined the shores of the pond, offering near-glassy conditions in high-teens crosswinds. It would be tough to even engineer a better ski lake. There was a dock, a bathroom, hot showers, and everything. What a setup. And the setting? Stunning. Beautiful, tidy park with a skyline on one side and a harbor on the other. It doesn't get better than this, people. Add fall colors to the mix and you get an epic day. I've always thought Milwaukee was a great town (plus, they have the Safe House bar), but this park made me want to move there! Great spot.

So, we launched*, surveyed, dropped in the course (perfect shot the first time, btw), and skied it. We even put mags on the course. I was the only guy in a drysuit and I skied the worst- go figure on that one. Wade hopped into the 47 degree water with a must've-been-.5mil suit on and boldly started off at 32@34, then 36mph. After a few passes, all skiers were cooked. It was just way too cold to do any extensive or serious skiing. To put it in perspective, by the time I got up behind the boat the first time, I had already lost all feeling in my feet. I had no idea how far my foot was in the kicker before my pullout. Crazy cold.

People were pulling over on the highway to see this spectacle. A ski boat thundering down a slalom course on a paddle boat pond in the heart of a large city. People were stopping walking their dogs, jogging, or driving by the parking lot. We drew a LOT of attention and it felt great. It just goes to show how much PR a location like this would bring to the sport. Tons of exposure.

So, all indications point to a pro event here August 6th 2010. If you're anywhere NEAR the midwest, you will not want to miss this event. I can tell you for sure that the location is AMAZING and this is going to be an epic event. It will go down in history (the history of water skiing at least). I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to ski this site. I was the 3rd person to ski on this lake, ever, and I think the first person to fall at 1 ball on this lake, ever. So there. Thanks for having us there Wade, glad to contribute in any way to this event. It's going to be amazing! Here's a photo gallery from the test day. Enjoy, and let me know what your thoughts are about this event!

*I shouldn't have to say this, but look- do NOT launch your ski boat into Juneau Park pond, ever. Extensive research, PR relations and special permissions were required for this test event. As they say, "don't try this at home".

How did I get here? They say repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity. So what did I do? I got a virtual coaching session from Wade Williams at ProSkiCoach.com, and got a new ski. Wade's advice was a breath of fresh air for me and was unlike what I had heard from many other coaches and friends. His advice gave me confidence to try higher speeds, shorter lines, and a new ski. I had to take a couple steps back but now I feel like I've leapt forward.

Why not take a new direction with your skiing? The few steps back is frustrating (as you all noticed in my ski log) but the leap forward has been amazing. I hope to have a few solid 34's in the bag before the season ends, and I can't wait to see what this change has teed up for next year.

I've been spending a lot of time on the trick ski lately. This weekend I nailed a couple of surface 360s for the first time. They were shaky, but complete. At this point I can do a side slide, reverse side slide, full 180, reverse full 180, and the back-to-fronts both ways. I can do a surface 360 (reverse- haven't tried the standard direction). I can also do a 180 wrap on the easy side, have not attempted the reverse. I can ride that 180 wrap indefinitely but I can't quite steer around yet. I just kinda ride to the left. Working on that. Anyway, it's a lot of fun and helps break up the slalom sets.

Just for kicks I rode my old 2002 CDX on Saturday. This ski was absolute money for me from 2005-2007. I could not get it to do anything when I tried it this weekend. It felt like a 2X4 under foot. So, we know that ski has not changed, but the skier has. I think that's a good thing.

• Being open to the boat behind the boat
• Countering in the turns
• Keeping line tension after the 2nd wake, delaying reach
• Level shoulders in turns (and everywhere)
• Not pulling right off the ball
• Keeping front ankle bent, "soft knees"
• Handle toward pylon, during release
• Letting ski finish
• Keeping handle down
• ...Yet, arms straight and relaxed
• Gates, Gates, and Gates

And that's not all of them. I'm sure there are more. Every time I get out on the water, whether it's 0600 on a week day before work, a weekend morning on public water, or an evening set, I usually hit each pass with different thoughts and ideas. Sometimes I'm groggy and tired, sometimes I'm alert. Totally different states of mind all the time. During my set, something will feel good (so I'll chase it), or bad (so I'll ditch it), or I'll feel like I'm on the brink of a new discovery. I've never taken a methodical approach to tackling these things in order. Sometimes I'll come off a set thinking I've figured the whole sport out (see my post on line tension from last summer). Then, as quickly as it came, that feeling will disappear and I'll be back to square one. Fleeting moments of skiing clarity and wisdom.

Further, multiple coaches I've worked with have all had completely different advice. Some focus on the turn. Some ignore the turn and focus only on the wake cross. Some ignore everything except the gate. Who's right? Who's wrong? Who knows!

How do we take everything we've heard— all of our inputs— and formulate a plan that will work for us? What if I'm working on turns, but my gate pull-out and turn-in suck— how will I ever feel proper release into the turn? If I don't work on handle-down, center-of-mass-leading-the-charge, how will I feel a proper pre-turn? There has to be a way. A formula of some sort for each skier to get them where they need to go. Most movements in the course are dependent on previous movements. Right now you hear a lot of "here is what's wrong with your skiing and what you could improve". What order should we work on this stuff?

Do you have a plan? I don't have one at the moment but I'm really trying to work on that. I've had the best there is as far as advice from many coaches, friends, and ski buddies but I've still spun my wheels for the past 5 years. If you have a plan for your progress, share it with us!

I live in the northern suburbs of Chicago, which is probably among the last places you'd want to live if you were a serious water skier. Land around here is very expensive and tight village and county ordinances would make it tough to build a private lake anywhere close to my neighborhood. We also have a long, cold, dark winter as well. If we're lucky, our ski season goes from April to November. Drysuits get used heavily in the spring and fall. We are lucky enough to have a ski club and lake right in town, and some great public water within a 20 minute drive of our house. This area is certainly not chock full of water skiers— we're probably one of only a small handful of houses within a 15 mile radius with an inboard tucked away in the garage.

Well how did I get here? I was born and raised here. In fact, my parent's house is only 2 miles away. I guess I just never really considered leaving, even in my early 20's when it would have been easy to re-locate.

Every time I travel somewhere else— particularly somewhere warm— I think about whether or not I'd like to move there and what I'd have to do to get there. I'd have to pull up some major roots: jobs, nearby family and friends, and everything else. Then, I start to think about what I like about the greater tri-state area, and here's what I generally come up with:

• 1. Natural Disasters: We don't really have to deal with many natural disasters. Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms are about as bad as it gets. No (major) earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires, floods.
  
  
• 2. Air Travel: We have O'Hare, Midway, and Mitchell airport all within an hour's drive. Midway might be a little over an hour depending on traffic. With no traffic, I can be at ORD in 25 minutes. Chicago's central location makes most destinations in the US reachable in under 3 hours, up to 4 or 5 hours out to the west coast. This also helps with shipping- most ground shipping gets here within a couple days due to our central location.
  
  
• 3. Deadly creatures: The cold winters here generally keep down the amount of deadly, nasty insects and creatures around here. The biggest bug you'll encounter here would be a Cicada or Junebug, both of which are harmless. It seems like the milder the climate is, the deadlier the wildlife gets. No thanks.
  
  
• 4. Beautiful Cities: I can hop on a train from multiple stations that are all within 10 minutes of my house and be whisked away in about an hour to one of the most amazing cities in the world: Chicago. I can also drive there in under an hour with no traffic, or in 4 hours with traffic! I can also drive north an hour and be in Milwaukee. Walking to dinner across the Michigan Avenue bridge or watching the a game at Wrigley, the Cell, or Miller park are all awesome experiences and are a major bonus of living here.
  
  
• 5. Family and Friends: Having family and friends close by is awesome. We generally have babysitters ready and willing at the drop of a hat if we ever want to go out to dinner or anything else.
  
  
• 6. Jobs: There are lots of places to work around here, both in the suburbs and in the city proper. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
  
  
• 7. Seasons: I love the changing seasons. I love the crisp fall air, mixed in with the smell of burning leaves. I also love the arrival of spring and those first few snows of winter. Yes, winter could stand to be a little shorter around here, but it makes you appreciate the warmer months that much more.
  
  

2. I'll be riding the trick every time out. The ski was 800.00 with the bindings so that's one reason I want to get use out of it. The other reasons are that it's totally fun, challenging, and everything on trick crosses over to slalom in one way or another. Plus, at some point I'd like to flip on the damned thing since that is about the coolest looking behind-the-boat activity of all time. One day, one day. Trick is a challenge that fewer and fewer people are up for these days. It's such a challenge. It takes so much time and patience to learn, as if it's explicitly hard just for the sake of being hard. Why not learn it yourself? If nothing else, you'll have something to do on rough public water when all you can do is pout with your slalom stick.

3. I'm standing tall and sticking that handle out in FRONT of me on every turn. No more arm-out-to-the-side jive on a 60 foot line. It's over for that habit.

4. I'm skiing back to the handle. Yep, I said it. One of the most basic, generic, overused tips of all time finally makes sense to me. Combined with #3 this tip is deadly in the course. I've heard it a million times but finally felt it at ski school. Put your loose hand on your hip and ski it back to the handle. I sure hope I can feel this one again. I'll certainly try.

5. The gear is not my problem. I had night and day sets on the exact same equipment during ski school. For an entire day I'd think the ski was turning like a school bus but then it would be a lights-out setup the next day. I had my "ski makeover" in 2007 and I think my current setup is still just fine for now. I'm not getting Stargazer either. My 6.5ng setup is just fine for our level of skiing. As tempting as it is, I'm holding off for now. After skiing the amount of boats I've skied, all with wildly differing configurations and speed controls from PP 5.0 to hand throttle to the latest ZO version, I can comfortably say that speed control is not my problem either. I may break out the 2002 CDX just for fun this summer.

6. I'm going to free ski more often. Doing this at all would qualify for "more often".

That's about all for now. Hopefully this illness works its way out over the next couple days so that I can run some buoys next weekend. More as it develops.

And here are a couple other things: Equipment is generally not the problem. On Sunday at skoke's place, and then again on Monday, I recall thinking "man, this ski is just not turning for me". I felt really tail-heavy and just couldn't get the ski to talk to me in the course at all. I thought, geeze, do I move the bindings forward, shop for a new ski, or what? Then on Tuesday the ski was absolutely lights-out— killing the course all day. That mindset of going to the ski initially for the blame is dangerous until you get everything else sorted out, in my opinion. If I had my shoulders and balance and patience sorted in the turns and still wasn't getting what I wanted, then I might look to the ski. I recall also thinking on Monday that Zero Off felt very different and could also have been to blame. Not a chance. I never noticed a difference in Zero Off for the whole trip, after dozens and dozens of passes through the course. Neither did Jeff, neither did Alan, neither did my wife. We skied at speeds from 26-32 and never even noticed a difference in the speed control. Alan had a PB, and Jeff was nailing passes the whole time too. I talked to Jay at length about ZO and he is also a firm believer that for 99% of the skiers out there, the PP vs. SG argument is rubbish. No complaints from this group of long-liners.

What else can I say about Bennetts? Jay is an awesome host and he makes his guests is #1 priority all week. As usual we had a hospitality crawfish boil on Thursday night, and we ended up listening to Jay's hard-knocks stories of getting the ski school started for a couple hours. His industry wisdom and his ability to make his dreams a reality never fail to inspire anyone on the other end of a conversation with him. Anne, as usual, was also a wonderful host who still leads us through warmups every day of ski school. Finally, the facility. What is it about Bennetts that makes you feel so at home the whole time? I can't put my finger on it, but you just feel like you're part of the family the whole time. You get to know all the dogs, the employees, the skiers, and the grounds. Everything is easy to walk to and the whole compound is just plain "cozy". It's a real vacation— no cooking, no driving, no fuss, no muss. Pure convenience the whole time, largely because Jay tries to envision how the guests will feel being away from home for a week and anticipate those needs. Did I mention the hot tubs? There were hot tubs at each dock and right outside our cabins. What a nice touch. I feel sorry for Anne and Jay because they will never be able to see their home from the eyes of their guests. For the full-time corporate employees and weekend warriors, Tri-Lakes is nothing short of a waterskiing Eden. By Friday we were ready to head home, but already planning our next trip. We'll be visiting lots of different ski schools in the future, but Bennetts will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Trick was great, again. I feel more comfortable with the ski every day. I learned 180 wraps on my good side, and did them with pretty good consistency. Working on reverse SS and 180s. Great fun.

More later. I don't want to be the moron on the news who got struck by lighting while typing on their laptop on the porch in a thunderstorm!

The kids- our 20mo old and Jeff's 2 and 4 year olds- have had a blast playing on the porch and on the "beach". The Bennetts staff have been more than accommodating and tolerant of our little 3 ring circus of kids this whole time. I doubt the lunchroom is typically as noisy as we have made it during every meal!

All of the adults had massages today. Intense, serious massages given on site by a local massage therapist for a reasonable rate. Definitely recommended.

Interestingly Jeff, Alan, and Jeff's wife Jenny all figured out today that they have been using an opposite-palm-down grip in slalom! This is something I've never noticed. What an observant ski partner I've been all these years, huh? They are all going to try to switch their grips around and see what that brings them.

Tomorrow we're taking a day off from skiing and doing something else, perhaps going to New Orleans or Baton Rouge. Back to skiing on Thursday. More to come as it develops.

For the first time ever, I started ski school off being extremely sore from skiing at skoke's place the day before. This morning was rough- terrible slalom sets by any measure. I don't think I saw 2 ball the whole day. I just had nothing left in the tank. So, all of those hours on the Concept 2 rower, all of the kettlebell exercises and lifting did nothing for me. I'm about as sore as I could possibly be! We worked mainly on the gate today, getting ultra wide on the boat in the pullout and getting a nice turn-in for the gate. This was good- as I've mentioned before, I just don't work on the gate that much. So, that's exciting. Other than that, slalom has been a struggle so far in 2009. It's like I can't make the ski work for me at all. More to follow on this as it develops. Jeff is killing it so far, slaying buoys left and right. Same story for Alan, who is also absolutely rocking the course. We're having a ball so far, if you will.

Trick is another story. The new D3 Custom X is nothing short of amazing relative to what I've previously ridden. It tracks awesomely and is just amazing overall. I took two trick sets today and I'm learning a ton about it. Most, if not all, of the stuff I'm learning relative to trick will cross over 100% to slalom, so it's a win-win. I just love the short board. I will definitely be logging some serious hours behind the boat at below 20mph this year, fo-sho.

I'm typing this from the porch in front of our cabins, enjoying a cold drink with my friend Jeff, staring out at this beautiful facility. I'm definitely in my happy place. Hopefully the weather holds out for us a little longer- if you check the Zachary, LA weather you'll see what we've got to contend with this week. Stay tuned for more!