rhaskins

Bob: went to Spirit this morning. Cold, cold wind, surface was concrete. I skidded sideways for half a city block once. I could not initiate turns, my shin hurt terribly. Gave up and went to skis and advil. Saw one hardbooter - I was jealous as the surface was perfect to use hard boots. I have a new set of liners on order, DalBello Golds. Should have them in time for next weekend. How are the Deeluxe 325's? Rick

Divebomber: I see you maybe into bikes. I ride an Ellsworth Jester full suspension, a Salsa Juan Solo single speed, a Surley Instigator built up for downhill - I need a different frame but whatever, and a couple of road bikes (1 single speed). Just got rid of my dirt jumper as I was not using it. I pretty much use all good components, King hubs and headsets, Hope brakes, Mavic wheels and stuff. I love riding in the desert and mountains - its just that I have to drive for 2 days to do that. It was a &*$%er when I could not ride for 6 months because of the broken leg. Hope you don't have issues like that. Rick

compressed whatchamacallit between the bones. It will (should) be ok after a bit. I did that with my wrist - one point landing to concrete, full body extensions. 10 points from the spectators, but I digress. I had to wear a brace on it for 6 weeks. I got a knee brace right after breaking my leg, before I went to the Docs office the next day, it helped ease the pain. It is this one: http://www.rei.com/product/745518 Fits under the pants. Helped me walk correctly for the first few weeks. Rick

Took my shins out for a carving session this morning in soft boots and the pain was intense. Had to quit after 3 runs and pop 4 advil. The pain runs along where the edge of the plastic on the UPZ liners hits my shin. Seems that a certain amount of pain was always there, but my angles on 1 board, 55 and 52 degrees did not cause intense pain, just a constant low pain. When I switched to my Donek FC1, 65 and 62 degrees, the edge just bored into my shin. BUT, startinggate has a set of DalBello Gold liners in stock and they are now on the FedEx truck starting their journey to Minnesota. Two question remain: 1. Why do they sell those crap liners? not only do they hurt, they are COLD. 2. What is the correct way to dispose of those toxic liners? Burn? Acid? Axe? Burial? If I had a Smith wrench, I would do them in right now. Rick

For me, my lower knee hurt. I could rest it for a while, and then go out for a hike or just mountain bike, and it would hurt like hell. I could walk on it just fine. My $40.00 X-ray with my health insurance was a co-pay of $20.00. X-ray is much cheaper than MRI. That was very expensive, and avoidable with a simple x-ray. I iced it, I heated it, I let it rest. With your description, I'd get the x-ray. It will help rule out bone issues if nothing else. That pain you felt was a definate signal of something. BTW, a tibial plateau fracture is a vertical fracture, so the bones are split but still in place. It scared the **** out of the doc when he called me up with the MRI results. he told me something like "don't jump, don't even walk hard. Get in here". The Doc was almost hyperventalating on the phone. I just point this out in contrast with the original diagnosis from the same doc: probably just a little hyper-extended, go home, rest it and put some ice on it. Boy was he wrong. Again, I walked around with the fracture for 3 months before they found it. Messed up my summer. Had to kayak a lot. Now we are up to 4 cents. This internet doctoring is crazy expensive. Rick

I was able to walk off the mountain with my tibial plateau fracture. No one (urgent care, doctor appointment) wanted to x-ray it, everyone thought it was just "soft-tissue" injury. 3 months later it was doing the hurt so I went in to the Doc again, he sent me in for an MRI to look for the "soft tissue" damage and botta-bing, botta-bang, fracture. Then they did the x-ray. x-ray $40. MRI- $700. OUt of pocket expense. As you may get from my post, I was not impressed, nor was I impressed by the cost. I would have saved $660 by having an x-ray right away. I am still bitter about that ****e. I'd go to the doc and get (insist on) an x-ray. It only hurt when I walked on it for extended time or twisted my knee joint. Sound familiar at all? If you have no fractures, you may have some of that "soft tissue" thingies. My 2 cents. Rick

Has anyone ever removed it? I got a lot of pain today caused by one side of the plastic tounge. The liner tounge was centered. I have had a certain amount of pain caused by these liners on my left-side of my left shin since I started to use them this year, but today I had to switch to soft boots because of the pain. I love the way the liners hold my foot in the heel and ankle area, my Deeluxe 325's do not do as good a job. I just hate the plastic tounge digging into my shin. The plastic tounge is stitched in, I can see how it can be separated (probably). Just seeing if anyone has done that with any success. OTOH, I am looking into the cost of Dalbello Gold liners. I just worry about heel lift. Rick

HEH, found them on the way out the door. The heels that is. Rick

I can't find my regular heels for these. I have intec's on them right now. Just went to switch, but no can find. I'll bring them with anyway today. Rick

I have a set of Deeluxe 325's in a size 26 that I can loan to you to try/use until you get a new set of boots. Your liners may fit. I also had a problem today with my step-in's. I am going to post that in the general discussion forum. From reading the posts today, today was equipment breakage day nation wide. Rick

You got a backup set of boots? What size do you wear? I have a spare set of boots, size 26, that I can loan out. Rick

A little superglue and your GTG! Rick (that's why you disappeared today, huh?)

We had 14 hardbooters (1 out of stater that I know of) gather on Xmas eve at Buck Hill, the gem of 35W in Burnsville MN. There are some more north of here also. On any particular day at Buck I will see probably see at least one other hardbooter, on Sunday at least 5. Rick

+1 for Lasik 3 years ago. And why the hell did I not do it years before that? Highly recommended for any place that has cold temps. Rick

To me, the scariest part of that would be piloting the helo. Breeze, water in gas, scratch an itch the wrong way, major ouch. Rick

I think the Temecula Chamber of Commerce wants to talk to you. Rick

What the $#*& you talk'n about, Willis?:D Rick

Hey, I was out there during the winter of 04/05. Nothing but water. And the summer of 06, nothing but burning. I was in Temecula and there was smoke all over the horizion. Daily high of 107 F. Puddles? is that the name of your dawg? Rick

Hence why I said it was "reality tv". Sorry you didn't pick up on that. If you filmed my day and edited it down to interesting content you would think all I did was make filthy and sarcastic comments about other drivers. I mean, really, the way some (most) people drive, how can they ever have sex? Figure out what that means by yourself. Rick

On a related note, I viewed a lot of the episodes of "Ski Patrol" on truetv yesterday. I know, it is "reality" tv, but it was interesting. The attitudes that the SP had to contend with was amazing: young white kids with such a sense of entitlement that they would argue with SP, would take off (where do they think they are going?) and etc. Lots of collisions, lots of injuries, people that would collide and injure someone and then take off. And people wonder about high insurance costs? The code of responsibility was meaningless to a lot of those people. No sense of personal responsibility. For every Shaun White out there there a a couple thousand young men with way too much attitude and very little skill in comparision. I hope I comply with the rules of responsibility, but I add one to the list: do no harm. If you are in the resort business, you have to have insurance to operate. If you are an insurance company, where do you begin to evaluate the risk? I think that the OP has no concept that, but for the risk undertaken by these companies (bought and paid for by these companies in maintenance costs, insurance payments and staff), he would be boarding down the local gully instead of at a well maintained resort. That have to have some simple rules. And enforcement. Oh well. Rick

Bob - made those changes, 6 degrees and my rear knee can move around a whole bunch now, and I can rise and lower. Neat. Thanks. Rick

We were at war! They coulda made me walk the plank if I didn't. Rick

We had an indicator circuit for a DC buss (this was a DC buss panel fed directly from the generators) go out. Lotsa amps. The indicator had a terminal that flashed off. I had to reach thru the back of the panel, which stood about 7 feet tall, 8 ft wide, thru the buss bars about 18 inches and unconnect the failed unit from the front of the panel, pull it out, then put the new one in and attach leads. I was up against the live buss bars all the time. Trick was to buddy up to one polarity and not 2 - hence all that rubber. The chief electrician's mate and I talked it over, and we agreed that if I needed to be pulled out there would be a lot of bacon smell in the air. Yeah, and it was in an engine room so the temp was about 110 or so anyway, in a real constricted space. I was a pile of sweat. OTOH, I stayed out of the brig. Never again. Rick

I have a uniformed attendant come and clean my driveway at nite so it is ready the next morn.

Yeah, but, I'm comfortable with the panel on the right. The UK panel looks awesome tho. Once, in the Navy, we had a critical circuit go out at sea. They wrapped me in rubber (not as fun as it sounds), put rubber gloves on me, put some non-conductive ropes around me with 2 guys ready to yanke me out, and had me work IN (****IN****) THE FREAKING LIVE BUSS SYSTEM to fix the circuit. Still have nightmares about that one. At first I refused as it was too dangerous, but then the Captain came down and had a personal chat with me. I change my mind and did it. But I digress. That US panel looks like the wide open plains in comparision. Comfortable even. And, yeah, the companies with the bucks get too much influence in writing almost all standards. What ya gonna do, eh? Rick