Pool Session

Well, I made it to my 2nd pool session of the year on Sunday. I went purely as an instructor this time, though, and didn't even bring a boat. I really enjoy teaching, though, so it was easily as much fun as practicing my own techniques. The only problem is that all of the students were first shown a video that outlined the Sweep roll, and I use (and teach) more of a C-to-C style roll. Dennis had to bail me out with my first student because I just didn't know how to explainthe way to keep your center of gravity low in that roll. I think that for the next pool session I'm going to spend some time working on my own sweep so that I can actually teach it properly. In the meantime, thanks to D for helping a fella out.

Lately...

Few posts lately, but plenty going on. I always have trouble getting motivated to put something up if I don't have pics to go along with it, and lately all of the pictures have been on other people's cameras. That said, here's the news.

Fun stuff: Audrey is back visiting from Ireland so we've been doing our best to keep up our standards for fun and crazy during her visits. Last weekend was spent up by my parents' cabin snowmobiling through Northern MN. Sunny, warm weather and freshly groomed trails made it an amazing experience. To add to that, there were two snowmobile rallies that were going on up there at the same time, and one of them included a free concert by G.B. Leighton. So, we rode up to the casino/hotel where they were playing, watched the concert, spent the night, then did some more riding the next day. Really fun weekend.
In addition to snowmobiling, I am getting back into rock climbing. I've gone a couple times in the last month and am finding that I enjoy it more than I did in college. Plus, it's a great thing to do on a frigid weekday evening. Last night I took Audrey and my nephews to Vertical Endeavors to let them have a shot at it. They did great and all of them were climbing 5.8's and above by the end! Really cool.
News-In-My-Life stuff: For the past 3 weeks I've been working as a contract (read: temporary) attorney for a firm downtown reviewing documents. Not super exciting, but I'm working with some cool people and making new friends. At the same time, Pat McGuiness and I are working on starting up our own firm! We're going to be focusing on residential construction/landscaping and homeowners association law. It will be a part time thing at first, but hopefully we'll get enough business to someday do it full time. Wish us luck, and feel free to send us business! When we get a website built I'll put a link up.

Kiting Weekend

This weekend proved to be a great kiting weekend. Saturday Caleb, Jackie, and myself headed out to Calhoun to get some kite time in, only to find the lake perfectly calm. With no winds to fly in, we tried heading over to the skating rink at Lake of the Isles for some hockey. Since I didn't have my skates along, I got to try out a pair of ancient leather skates that had no support in them at all. Anyone who's played hockey with me would have gotten a kick out of it because my ankles were constantly buckling as if I'd never skated before. Mercifully, the wind came up after about an hour at the rink so the three of us headed back to Calhoun. The winds were light, but workable and Jackie wound up getting in some great riding and learning how to squeeze every ounce of strength out of the kite. Caleb didn't have his board along, so got his flying skills dialed on the trainer. Though off to a slow start, the day turned out to be really good.

Sunday had a better wind forecast and Caleb and I headed out to Calhoun again. This time Caleb had his board and I had all of my gear. The winds were light, but enough to zip around with the 15m and even get some small boosts. After struggling to get the 5m to pull him, Caleb gave the big kite a shot and did very well. It's a lot of power to get used to, but he got the hang of it quickly. Unfortunately the hard surface made edging the snowboard more difficult, but he did get some solid runs in and is definitely ready to go when conditions improve. All in all it was great to get out on the lake, really fun to see the newbies riding, and nice to get some rides in myself.