chadx

After looking at all the different solutions to building a rack, the one that seemed to fit my needs the best is like the rack in Pokkis' link. I just put it up today and used the adjustable shelving. Screwed into the wall studs, it is very sturdy. I am going to add more brackets as soon as I get my other board and my wifes 2 pair of skis out of storage. The bottom shelf uses 16" brackets with a shelf. I'll put all our hardboots on that. The top row of brackets are 10" and the next two rows are 12". I wrapped those in poly pipe insulation with the self sticking seem (so they won't fall off). The middle brackets, holding the sport-tube will likely be moved as I mount the rest of the brackets for my other board and two pairs of skis. I chose this set-up because it is adjustable. If I want to move things around, to account for the height of different gear, I can.

Ouch! That's a cruel fate for such a nice board!

F2 says the F2 Speedster RS 168 is for riders 55+ kilo. so that equates to about 121 pounds and up. At 180, you are fine in regards to weight range, but it might be a bit soft depending on your riding style or maybe even just your personal preference. Unless you prefer a super stiff board, you should be fine. To give you a comparison, here is what F2 says about all the RSs. 168 55+ kilo. = 121+ pounds 173 65+ kilo. = 143+ pounds 177 70+ kilo. = 154+ pounds 183 75+ kilo. = 165+ pounds Not that a manufactures weight recommendations help a person pick a board by personal flex preference, but at least they indicate when a person might be too light for a board size (for the boards intended purpose).

I like the part of that ebay posting where it says "just point - shoot and then hall ASS!" I guess it would have more impact if it said "haul ass". Than again, maybe I just don't know what a "hall ass" is. Is that sitting in the emergency waiting room (or hall) and having to wait for too long? So then you get a hall ass?

Carver's Choice brand? I see a sponsorship-request opportunity for someone!

Wow, Jack! I never thought I'd see a reference to the Mpemba effect (pronounced oom-pem'-buh for those curious) that states in certain conditions, hot water can freeze faster than cooler water. http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/hot_water.html I've started putting bomber butter on the head (not threads) and it seems to help tremendously. I can't really see any reason NOT to put it on the threads (considering how threads work, this shouldn't be an issue), but I just never have because the bit 'o butter around the head seemed to cure the false-torquing drag felt by the head rubbing against the plate. Still, check all your bolts each morning. I've only had a bolt come loose once. It was on my way down the mountain (luckily just loose and not completely off) and it scared the crap out of me considering what a wreck that could've become. That was the only warning I needed and now check all the bolts each morning rather than 'whenever I get around to it'.

Are we crossing over to pinhead movies now?

Neil, I was curious about that "one-of-a-kind" claim as well. My guess is it was over-dramatization in advertising. ...unless he meant the chip on the tail. :D I also liked the "Why else ride a 181?" comment. Obviously not a big reader of this board if he thinks a 181 is way too long for anything but powder (or am I interpreting that comment incorrectly?). He probably just signed up real quick to try and advertise for when he got his ebay listing together. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I just looked at that auction again closely. I've seen that board in person! It's at a pawn shop about 9 miles from my house. That pawn shop had all it's boards over at the ski swap at the fairgrounds a couple weeks ago. Looks like it didn't sell there. In the store, they didn't have boots bundles with it. I don't think they had plates on it either. Sorry, just thought it was interesting that I'd held that board in my hands before. I can't remember what the sticker was on it in the store, though, so don't bother asking me.

Yep, it was a pretty good setup. I haven't had that since I lived in St. Louis (over 4 years ago). Since then, we lived in Chicago (downtown) for three years and now finally got out to Montana (three years ahead of our long term plan I might add! Whoo-hoo!) I never had a tank in Chicago and don't have one here, but thinking about putting up a little 29 gallon with some shell dwellers or Julies. I had some Julidochromis transcriptus (my favorite species in that genus) in a 29 gallon. Julies usually choose one of two spawning patterns. Small batches of eggs about once a month or larger spawns every few months. Mine spawned in small batches. The small fry would be seen at the mouth of the cave. I knew a new batch of eggs were there when those fry migrated to the outside of the cave. Then the new fry would appear at the mouth of the cave. When the next batch of eggs came, those fry went to the outside of the cave, and the batch that was outside the cave dispersed throughout the tank. They kept going like that for a long time. Interesting cycles. My St. Louis water was rock hard (over 300ppm) so it was ideal. Totally buffered against pH crash, too, no matter how long you went without changing water. My dad, in Minnesota, got into it after he saw my setup. He was on acidic super soft well water so he did south american species. I got my south american fix from that because I didn't want to mess with RO water, etc. He spawned discus for a while, but got tired of the water changes after a couple year. Now they moved to a different house with no basement so he doesn't have any tanks (much to his relief I think! hehe)

Jim, No doubt there would be a good market for custom structures since there is more flexibility for automation with custom terraria and aquaria and that would be a big draw for people in the 'rich' income bracket that love looking at them but don't know and perhaps don't want to know, the inner workings of a semi-closed invironment. I say semi-enclosed because neither are a true closed environment what with all our feeding, waterchanges, misting, etc. depending on which type of structure we are talking about. Gleb, It would take me about 8 hours to do water changes on all of the tanks. When I was trying to have species spawn or had fry (both of which were most of the time), I did the water changes weekly. 8 hours sounds like a lot, but most of that is spent waiting for pumps to move water from one place to another. I'd basically fill a 50 gallon barrel with water of the correct temperature, add dechlorinator, buffers, etc. that I wanted and then circulated it while I syphoned out the tanks. The syphoning was made easy by using a regular aquarium syphon, which lets you get down in the gravel, to get out all the dietrus, without actually sucking out the gravel. I attached the end of the syphon to a long hose that fed directly into a floor drain in the basement. No carrying buckets for me. Also, the hose was long enough that it never lost syphon from tank to tank. Once I had 50 gallons worth out of a variety of tanks, I stopped the syphon, kicked on a pump in the 50 gallon barrel, and refilled the tanks. I know people that went a step further and had all of their tanks interconnected. Water would be filtered, for all aquaria, in one huge filter. All the tanks were drilled with overflow pipes that returned water to the main filter. The main filter did it's thing and constantly pumped water back to all the aquaria. They could adjust the amount of flow into each tank. Each tank would not overflow, of course, because the water level remained the same with the extra running out the overflow tube and the process started over. To do water changes, they would pull water our of the pump housing, which usually held 30 - 60 gallons and then introduced fresh (treated) water to that. I never liked that setup for two reasons. The first was drilling tanks for the plumping was hard to do without cracking them. Buying tanks pre-drilled (like for salt water or reef tanks) made them too expensive. The second reason was I didn't like all of the tanks to share water for disease reasons. Once I learned more on fish husbandry, none of my fish ever had any diseases, but buying and selling a lot introduced fish of unknown original and I never wanted to risk introducing new pathogens. (One way around this is to have several quarantine tanks that are not attached to the main system). I never named any of my fish Ron Jeremy. (had to tie back to the main subject somehow). By the way, per my previous post about my having had a African pigmy hedgehog 10 or 12 years ago and giving it to my friend's son who took it to school to introduce the little guy to a cute chicky hedgehog that the school had...I never did hear if the two of them had any little Ron Jeremys as a result. One can only hope. I imagine they have to be pretty careful when they are getting it on with all those quills involved.

I agree with the cell phone comment. We've been using cells more and more as well. Though the other person (or you) can rarely pick up as the call comes in, a message can be left, unlike on a talkie. The main time we use our motorolas are when we are skiing in a loose group trying to stay on the same runs. Then we will turn them on because everyone runs at different speeds or sometimes make wrong turns or branch to different runs that we (or they) expect. Handy when coordinating pictures or film, too. But when we are all out and about and broken up into small groups all over the mountain, they get shut off since only 1 out of 10 times will the party have line of site or NOT be out of range over a ridge line or in the lodge. The other time we use them most is actually first thing in the morning when everyone arrives at the slopes. Helps coordinate and find each other in the masses or give a heads up that you just arrived and will be 10 minutes changing before coming outside so "don't head up the hill yet! I'm almost there!" (we get that a lot). hehe. On the mountain, no matter what channel or subchannel we are on, there is always some little kidd playing around or asking repeatedly "Dad, are you out there?" Even worse for me since that usually sounds like Chad. I usually replied, trying to be my helpful self, with "There are a lot of dads on this channel. Why don't you ask for your father by name rather than by Dad". But after 14 times a day, it got old and click, off they go. Then I check my cell phone for missed calls/messages every 30 - 45 minutes. BJ has it right with using a rechargable that also allows for regular alkaline AA or similar. Definitely stay away from AA only. With rechargables, you will save a lot of time, effort, and cost over the years. Besides, the NiCD or lithium work better in the cold. Alkaline lose their juice if they get cold so if you use alkaline, you'll need to ensure the walkie stays in an inside pocket.

About 6 years ago, I was soooo close to getting into the poison-dart frogs. The thing that had me hesitate were the breeding of the required food like fruit flies and/or a variety of other live beasties. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they require live food, correct? Or has someone come up with something dead/processed that they will eat without having to tie it to a thread or feed them with something that makes it look alive. At the time, I already had a fishroom in my basement, so the frog tank would have been in that room (the room was heated rather than each aquiarium). I had about 40 aquariums (and that is not counting anything 20 gallons or less that I used to raise fry. That is only counting 40 gallons or larger). It worked pretty good. Did bulk water changes with 50 gallon drums. Used one blower to run air-driven sponge filters in all the tank and still had left over air. Heated the room rather than individual tank. I raised mainly Lake Tanganyikan cichlids and catfish. Lake T. is an African Rift Valley lake about 350 miles long and 40-80 miles wide. I haven't had any tanks for 5 years now. I've moved twice in that time, so have yet to set anything back up. Jim, What are the prices on those little froggies doing now days. I had my heart set on a specific color of Tincs, but again, I never took the final step.

Him not coming sounds like the best possible outcome. Congrats. ...but I'll fill up the cutter with bar lube and 20:1 just in case.:D

Hmmm, can we go back to the thread topic yet? One or two OT posts is the norm, but this one seems to not be getting let go of. The "Off Topic" forum phoned. It's for you. :lol:

Actually, I have two chainsaws. You are free to procure one or both. It would be worth it just to see you straight-lining down the slope with one in each hand. Two-stroke exhaust looking like the cold-smoke trails from a skydiver. Big Sky Chain Saw Massacre. Me? I prefer to slice the Achilles tendon. It will throw off his carve. He won't be able to weight his back foot. He'll never play the game again. :D

Uhhh, except we didn't evolve riding snowboards (quickly down a mountain in flat light). Yellow or amber are definite improvements in contrast on those flat light days. If you have second or third backup lenses, definitely have a pair of high contrast lenses available (unless you stay inside on those days or prefer to stick with narrower runs or follow a runs treeline). My main lens is mirrored (just to cut down on light. Not for looks) and they are polarized.

New-to-me custom Coiler 180RCIIC with 17.8 waist, 12.5 SCR, and Superboard (dampening rubber inserts) option. Previous owner only put one day on it before deciding SCR was too tight. I snatched it up just after last season ended so I've been staring at it since April awaiting the snow. It joins my 182 Donek Axis and 165 F2 Speedcross. Also added TD2 second board kit and another entire set of TD2. All lightly used, rather than new, to lessen the impact on the already anorexic wallet.

I knew they still did some things in the 90's, but it had lost something. I thought South of Heaven was great and their last great album and then they kind of got lost. I'll have to check out this new one and see if they pulled it back together. I don't mind an updated sound as bands 'mature', but sometimes they lose that special something that drew a person to them in the first place. Metallica is a good example. I pretty much stopped buying albums after ...And Justice For All, which I think was the last of their great albums (OK, Garage Days re-revisited was fun, too). After that, it just became Rock and Roll rather than metal. Still great stuff if you listened to it with that in mind and accepted it, but it you yearned for the stuff that was the reason for listening to them in the first place, it was back to Kill 'em All, Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightening, etc. OK, I guess we can finally let this thread die since the boots were sold. I don't get over to the Off-Topic section much, but this is starting to look like one of those threads. At least it was you, Trenchdigger, that continued the hijacking of your own thread and the product had been sold anyway. Glad you got them sold. As I mentioned in the thread, I can feel your pain. I wore a pair of 27 Suzuka for 4 days and then had to sell them for 26s. Took a pretty good hit on that, but my feet, and the skin on them, were worth it and I'm glad I did it. So much better getting the perfect fit!

SLAAAAAAYERRRRRRRRR!!!! This is the closest Smily they had to head banging. (Sorry, Trenchdigger. I just noticed your avatar change. Couldn't help it. It's my 80s-metal inner demon coming back to the surface...though its never far away)

Currently in Molln, Austria, from what I recall. They haven't been in Germany for years. I did a quick search and found this interesting History blob from when B&M Group was formed (when Mistral, F2, and Fanatic merged). It only goes up to 2000, so I'm not sure what has changed since then. Interesting read, though. History B&M Group The Boards & More AG was set up in 2000 and resulted initially from the merger of three players competing in the action sports industry: Mistral, F2 and Fanatic. As a result of this acquisition, B&M became the world leader in the windsurfing market as well as the leading distributor in the European snowboard business. B & M has also established itself as the No 2. Global player in the Kiteboarding market, which has been seeing a steady increase over the last few years. As of August 1st, 2003, the Swiss KJ Jacobs AG has sold it’s windsurf, kite and snowboard company, Boards & More AG to an investor team led by Yves Marchand. Today, B&M is an international enterprise, with its main subsidiaries in Molln, Austria and Oberhaching, Germany. Product designing, purchasing, logistics, international and national sales, as well as customer service for the worldwide market are controlled from these locations. To these activities are added central services such as IT, finance and accounting, as well as human resources. Worldwide sales are carried out via a network of company-owned sales enterprises, agents and importers all over the world. THE COMPANIES Mistral Sport Group 1976 Ernstfried Prade and Peter Brockhaus founded the company in Switzerland 1991 Klaus J. Jacobs took over the group through the acquisition of ADIA 1996 Incorporation of North Sails 1999 Incorporation of the Fanatic and ART brands 2000 Incorporation of the F2 brand – Mistral Sports Group becomes Boards & More GmbH Fanatic 1958 Foundation of the Schütz Werke 1981 The Schütz Werke establishes the Fanatic Windsurfing brand 1988 Fanatic enters the snowboard business 1989 Fanatic (Ultra Trend) presents its first clothing collection 1999 Sale of Fanatic and Ultra Trend to the Mistral Sports Group 2000 Mistral Sports Group becomes Boards & More F2 International 1981 Foundation of the Peter Brockhaus GmbH in Wals, Salzburg and registration of the "F2 - Fun & Function" brand 1982 Acquisition of the production plant in Kirchdorf/Krems and beginning of a company-owned windsurfboard production (Peter Brockhaus Production GmbH) 1985 Sale of the Peter Brockhaus Production GmbH and the Peter Brockhaus International GmbH to the Perlmoser company. Renaming of the Peter Brockhaus International GmbH into F2 International GmbH. 1988 Headquarters of the F2 International GmbH moved from Wals, Salzburg to Kirchdorf/Krems. Foundation of the F2 International Deutschland Vertriebs GmbH in Munich, Germany. Foundation of the F2 Fun & Function S.A.R.L. in Brest, France In 2000 Purchase by the Jacobs AG. Transfer of the headquarters from Kirchdorf/Krems to Molln, Upper Austria and new corporate name Boards & More GmbH

Sounds more and more interesting with each post. Some demo time would rock. Of course, demo and easy powder don't tend to go hand in hand. Accessible powder goes quick each day and demo camp off piste would be a challenge to control and regulate. Ah well, one more toy to add to the list of somedays.

Nice to see a little more face time, but don't expect the bulk of 'silly' on-slope questions to die off anytime soon. ("Is that like a snowboard?" "Is that one of those wide skies/mono skis/skwals?" etc.)

I like to leave a big mess of bumpy storage wax down the middle of the board. That way I know when I'm not trying/carving hard enough. :D