John Bell

Looks great--I'll take it! I'd have to give you something for it, though. That's only fair. I'll e-mail you my address.

Keopele--Wow, that is super cool. :biggthumpThanks so much! I'd pay for the shipping, of course. Thing is, I'm a lot shorter than you--5/8", 170 lbs. Wouldn't the sleeves hang off a lot? My arms are kinda short. (In dress shirts I wear a 32-33 sleeve.) John

I think there really is a regional difference in how it's perceived. I can tell you that anywhere in Texas but Austin or maybe North Dallas, it would be considered a bit fringe by many people. (I can hear it now: "Yoga? Does that mean you're not a Christian?" ) Here in NYC, it seems like every person I see on the sidewalk is smoking--which blows my mind. Not sure if they're doing yoga here between cigarettes. The hippie-dippy places I've lived (Burlington, VT and Boulder, CO) are of course totally into it. (In Boulder, I got so sick of seeing people do tai-chi in the park I fantasized about using a paintgun on them.) DC? Pretty much just the soccer moms is my impression. Most of the guys there equate going to a yoga class with wearing a beret (of the non-military type). There's no debate that it's great for flexibility and general health. And yeah, some of those yoga chicks look really good, as Sinecure said. But for me as a guy to actually go to the class with all those gals? I'm self-conscious enough when I stink up the gym on the treadmill. The group aspect and the (optional?) metaphysical mumbo-jumbo don't do it for me. (By the way, I sell propane and propane accessories.) But I'd probably do it in the privacy of my home. Hell, I stretch a lot, and I'm pretty sure I'm breathing the whole time; is that yoga? Or do I have to balance on my head and pulsate my chakra? I say, if it makes people happy, that's great. Diff'rent strokes and all that. Just don't do it in a public park, because there's this potato gun on eBay...

Leave the singlet at home --got it.

I promise we'll get out of Waikiki! Definitely up for some hiking--and most of all some serious eating. Might try the kitesurfing as well--looks fun. Esp. if I get a sweet kiteboard like Willy's! (Did you actually try that thing out on the water?!) Wish we could hit the Big Island and Maui, but getting to both is kind of expensive. (We just paid for a wedding and another vacation, so we're kind of going budget on this one.) I will for sure go to Mt. Tantalus, though--and will steer clear of Makaha! You guys (or anyone else) ever need travel tips to DC, hit me up.

Thanks, Andy & Gecko. That is good info to have. We will in fact be at Waikiki with all the other aloha-shirt-wearing, map-studying tourists. But I'll make sure I don't take anything valuable with me to the beach, just in case. Maybe I'll slather on some bronzer beforehand lest my albino pallor make my status too obvious. Good point about the heatstroke. I'm surprised that it would get so hot inside a wetsuit once it gets wet--but I believe you! A rashguard, hat, gallon drum of Bullfrog, and a 2-hour time limit is the new plan. Really appreciate the advice, guys. Mahalo!

Dear gawd. That is just so wrong! Did you hear Keith Richards had a facelift? There was enough left over for a nice carry-on and a pair of hiking boots. Hey, Photodad: When you went after these lifeguard bunnies, did one of them ever say to you: "Get your stinking paws off of me, you damn dirty ape!":D

Fake bake? I'd sooner stuff my Speedos full of dead mackerel, swim out to where the sharks are, and make injured-seal noises. Seriously--bad stuff, those tanning beds. I just saw my dermatologist the other week, and she told me she's seen a huge number of 20-something women with skin cancers because of the fake-baking. That UVB does some *serious* damage. Hope you're the exception, though! But definitely thanks for the Oahu tips! Can't wait to get out there. Yeah, I'm not afraid to nerd it up with the fullsuit. Besides, some of 'em look kinda cool. I saw a great deal on an old-school one with the metal helmet and the little caged window. Stand back, Laird Hamilton!

No personal experience, but this article was interesting: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/travel/02bulgaria.html Have fun!

I bet they called you "Mitt" Romney after that. Or maybe "Edward Blisterhands." (1991, anyone?)

Appreciate the info! :biggthumpI'll check out that shop when the wife and I go there. Irish skin syndrome--that's me to a T, man. Yeah, I thought about just a rash guard, but I don't trust sunblock (even Bullfrog). There's a theory that the UVB still gets through and damages the basal layers of the skin. Plus I could use the extra rash protection on my forearms. We're indeed going to Oahu--Waikiki. Definitely, if you have any good tips, I'm all ears. I took a lesson in January and got up on the board about 3 times. It rocked; can't wait to try it again. OK, thanks again!

I recall seeing surfers in a few avatars here. I'm going to try surfing again next month in Hawaii, but I need to buy a wetsuit. (I know--nerdy, right? Hey, I make chalk look tan. Plus, when I tried it for the first time in January, the nipple friction was a b*tch!) Could any experienced surfers recommend what I should look for in a wetsuit--e.g., brands, thickness, etc.? I don't wanna spend more than $100. Thanks for any info!

I might be interested in the Winds. I live in Midtown. E-mail me if you still got 'em. Thanks.

Photodad, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: Leave my bikini line out of this thread!

DOH! Maybe they could use a real thick slice of the stuff and leave the top half sticking above the "water line" of the hot wax. There ya go! Um, yeah, I avoided chemistry all through school. And physics. Etc.

Weird, wild stuff. A cool thing for a manufacturer to do--Sean, Bruce, Chris, y'all reading this?--would be to take the sheets of p-tex and then soak them in a tub of heated wax before installation; that way the wax would be in there from the get-go. Or maybe someone's already thought of this.

I knew an engineer would chime in eventually. That totally makes sense now. Thanks for all the replies.:D

Interesting. OK, I can see that they'd be more abrasive than they seem to the touch--but surely not more than a hard plastic scraper, right?

With all due respect, I did do a search and did read all about that device. I'm asking about the principle behind wax removal. Thanks.

OK, so the consensus is that after you hot-wax, you scrape off as much as you can, leaving only the wax that has seeped into the P-Tex. But obviously, riding somehow removes the wax, making it necessary to reapply it. So how is it that scraping off as much as you can before riding is good (and that some is still impregnated in the base), but that sliding on snow---which is much softer than a plexiglas or plastic scraper (or a credit card, which is what I use)--somehow removes so much wax from deep in the base that we have to put more on? Am I making sense with this question? Here I am scraping hard with a plastic card to get excess wax off the base--and the whole reason I put any on there is that a softer material (snow) has scraped off the wax that was there before!

Yup, that's the one, Tex. Thanks for posting it. Yeah, God forbid anyone else try this. I have to admire their spirit of innovation, though. Barely. Maybe it would be marginally safer if they were on plates, and the person in back had their angles fully forward (90 degrees) and held on to the person in front to keep their weight from shifting to either side. Sorta like on the back of a motorcycle. But then the front person would just be slinging dead weight around. Pebu: Does marital communication include snapping, scolding, and yelling in fear? Hardyhar. Oh--yes, Apocalypse Snow it is. What a wild video that is.

Thanks, Jack. No lift, but 3-degree cant disk in the rear. 0 in front.

EDIT: Thanks to Tex for finding and posting the link (which I could not get via yahoo for some reason). Here it is up top now: http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/play...26726&src=news Just crazy! Has to be the most dangerous thing in the world. If one dude falls forward and the other one falls backward--ouch. Hopefully the board would snap before they did. What's even scarier is that my wife likes the idea. We have a tandem bike, and she's thinking a tandem board could be yet another marital-communication enhancer. Nooooo!!!!!! These guys of course are not the first to invent this; someone here posted an old early-'80s video that had a tandem board in it, but only briefly. This would be the vid that also has someone hand-gliding while attached to a board.

When you measure your stance width, do you measure from the middle of each binding plate? Measuring that way, I have my TD1s 19 inches (58 cm) apart. My legs are fairly short; I wear a 30-inch inseam on my pants. However, actual distance from crotch to barefoot sole is 82 cm (just over 32 inches). In height, I'm a bit over 5'8" (173 cm). This is my first alpine setup. Thanks!

What I think will be interesting to see will be the cultural shift that is sure to happen soon, where the whole urban hip-hop ethos that pervades the softboot culture will morph into something else. You know it's gonna happen; this baggy-pants thing has been "in" since the late '90s, if not before. As to the demographic, I think you're right, Tex. I'm 35 myself. It could be that I feel a disconnect with Generation Y and their rebel-without-a-belt shtick. Or it could be that I'm older, bored of softbooting, and afraid of what another ACL repair would cost with "coinsurance" this time (instead of the good ole copay) if I try anything saucy on a conventional board. The thing is, I think a lot of hip-hop culture is positive and enriching to American culture as a whole. I don't care for most rap music made after 1984, but I dare you to watch "Everybody Hates Chris" and not laugh your a$$ off. But a whole bunch of 20-year-olds trying to talk like Jay-Z because their friends are doing it is just as ridiculous as a bunch of 55-year-old men wearing black leather Harley gear because they think they're being rebels. Please. The culture is the real reason I think places like Deer Valley don't allow boards. They don't want a bunch of rude, sartorially challenged, annoying jibber types hanging around. I think that if they allowed hardbooters, they would be pleasantly surprised--but I doubt there are enough of us to make it financially pressing to do so. Blah blah blah. Don't say I didn't warn you.