LAKAWA

Yesterday was totally sick. The ice surface on the Bear was brutal - it broke my poor old skis.

Those readings look light - Around 2 it was easily blowing 20 and gusting into the mid-thirties or better.

-Coach

Warmest... ice-kiting... day... ever...

No foils out, but John Z and I were out. It was modestly windy in the 15-25 range, but then started raging easily in the 30's around 2pm. Insane!

Got a run in the 60's. We'll see where it stacks up this week...

-Coach

There's still a lot of ice out there - it's just pulled away from shore. I was able to walk out on the NE side of the lake, though.

If you are daring, today is the last day for speed runs!

-Coach

Just prepping for my SPI trip, and remembered some great surf forecast links from my Okinawa trip... Most of the surf forecasting covers the globe, like my favorite site: http://magicseaweed.com/South-Padre-Island-Surf-Report/551/ Even if you aren't going on a surf vacation, it's simply a fun site t...

I can't wait to get to Padre in a couple of weeks... Today's forecast has me particularly salivating: Today Mostly cloudy. Windy. Highs in the lower 80s. Southeast winds around 20 mph early...increasing 30 to 35 mph in the late morning and afternoon. Gusts up to 40 mph possible. Waves 4-6ft. Yummy.

Tighe's camera tip has some merit, but I don't think it's the white balance. When you're shooting in overcast like that, try setting your camera to manual, metering (in-camera) off of something (like snow), and/or just tweak the auto settings to overexpose by 1 stop. Most of the photos simply look t...

'89 Topsails. Ah..... memories... Mine are llloooonnnggg gone. (maybe I should take better care of my gear...)

You have to realize, David's Tiga is - hmmm... - 15 years old? I think he loves it. And he's cheap. :-P The truth is, their are a lot of boards out there in that size range that are great and it's hard to go wrong. If you want to save money and get the most bang for the buck, wait for the swap in Ma...

A 95l board should definitely not be your primary board if your goal is to sail often. It does depend on your size, as well. I'm assuming you want to sail often, so you probably want to start with something fairly large. For an average-size guy (175lbs), you should probably have a 135l (or so) board...

For the number of times I'm likely to use it... I just want to pick up one of those cheap Tony Hawk helmet cams. I hear the quality is decent and, well, I just wouldn't bother to use it that much.

-Coach

I'd love to ride... Not much wind in the forecast, though. I'm hoping for some late-season speed runs.

The snow is pretty much gone, leaving the surface rough but faster. Now we just need the wind!!!

In terms of being a "computer geek", the only reason I stuck with Macs several years ago was because they went Unix-centric with OS X and the BSD core. I can have my shiny OS *AND* my happy command-line tools all at the same time. Hacking away at the command-line is a rarity for most peopl...

Best of both worlds, here - MacBook Pro 17", Core Duo 2 2.33, 2gig memory, running Parallels with Windows XP and Vista(Coherence mode rocks). Since we do a ton of platform-independent web work, I need XP/Vista for apps and testing. Unless you want to play games (which you could dual-boot for an...

Historically, the ice in the cities is out April 7-15th on the more sizeable lakes.

I'd guess people stop riding about a week before that - before April 1st. Although some of us (and even iceboaters) have been on the lake the day it breaks up.

-Coach

Tom - great idea. I should throw a shovel in the car.

The Bear should be great today and tomorrow. Kite Island will be crappy on a north wind... Tighe - even though I have the ultimate 4-wheel drive rally car, something tells me I shouldn't have lowered it. 6" off the ground (in the front, 5.5" at the very lowest) isn't "sitting" we...

Welcome to the dark-side.

-Coach

Dave - a few years ago I would wonder why you didn't get out kiting and windsurfing more... Then I had my first child.

Nevermind, I don't have time to wonder anymore.


-Coach

Tom, I own a nice speed suit from racing downhill and GS in (beer) ski league the last few years... yeah - sailing around waiting for a gust would be the cold part. Years ago I had a nice Spyder GS suit with pads and a warm liner. That suit was awesome! It was super-toasty with layers under it. They...

I just can't see wearing a speed suit, unless you go out for a quick run and then back in... It's pretty difficult to pack enough clothes under a speed suit in order to keep it warm enough. Although, It might be reasonable enough during a 30+ degree spring session... hmmm.....