Looking for Warm Weather Fun

Well with no snow in sight I have been looking for the next fun thing to keep me occupied. I plan on doing some wakeboarding this year. My current plan is to take some lessons through Brian Snabes business, WakeBoard Clinic. I met Brian while my son and I were competing in snowboarding in Michigan. He is a Snowboarding coach during the winter and seemed to be good at what he does.

The other activity I started to look at is Kiteboarding. I did a search in my area and found Great Lakes Kiteboarding offered some reasonable clinics to help get started. My biggest concern is if the kite can lift me up since I am a large guy. I was told that they should be able to do that without a problem. Who knows, if I like doing this during the summer maybe I will try kite snowboarding in the winter.

Other things on my list are kayaking, camping, Freebording, jetskiing, and indoor rock climbing.

Well hopefully I can start some of these things soon since I am getting restless.

Cool Dad

(photo courtesy of my friend Tom. The Worlds best photographer. - Is that enough credit for youTom;-)

Michigan Snowboarding is Over for Another Season

Well it looks like all the Michigan snowboarding resorts are officially closed. My son and I attended the Spring Board Meeting at Boyne Highlands on the weekend. It was a lot of fun. They had a rail jam on Saturday and a unique slopestyle competition on Sunday.

The rail jam was a lot of fun. There were a lot of great riders there showing off there sick tricks. As always Bryce did a great job of MC'ing the event. My son was having a lot of fun riding the rails and spinning off the jumps. I was doing the jumps but was not ready for some of the rails so I decided to ride the pipe for a while. It was great spring conditions so the snow was nice and soft which was nice if you fell.

Over Saturday night the park crew worked on the slope and had an interesting surprise for us on Sunday. They converted the pipe into a fun slopestyle type course. There was a small jump, then a jump that launched you onto the lip, you then had a slope to ride back into the pipe and do a big hit on one wall, and at the end there was another jump. There were many of the same riders on Sunday that were there on Saturday. They held a competition in this fun pipe where the people that made it to the finals had to put on a mini board and ride the pipe. It was very cool to watch and ride.

I tried capturing some of the fun on my camcorder while riding. However, I have not mastered pointing the camera at the right height while I ride to get a follow-cam effect so most of the video did not come out as expected. I will try to extract some good shots and share when I have some time.

Well now that snowboarding is done in Michigan I have started looking forward to planning our summer snowboard camp at Windells. Also we plan on taking up wakeboarding, which should be fun. I have only water skied in my life so I am looking forward to wakeboarding and trying some tricks on the water.

Enjoy,
Cool Dad

Last Fix of winter

This weekend my son and I are going snowboarding in Michigan. Yes, there is still some snow up north. Looks like all the resorts are closed except Boyne Highlands. They are opening for one last weekend and there will be a snowboard competition there at the same time. We cannot pass this up. I think I am addicted to snowboarding and need my last fix before I have to put all the gear into storage. Although I am already looking into snowboard camp for the summer. I think I have a problem ;-)

I will try to take some pictures and videos this weekend to share with everyone. It will be run as an open class so it should be fun to see who shows up.

Cool Dad

Experience Xtreme Fun

Hi. I wanted to start a blog so I could share all the fun things that I do with my family. I do not want to be a dad that sits at home and is just a spectator to my kids fun. I believe in experiencing everything that they do. One thing that makes this even more interesting is that my kids do not just focus on your traditional activities (baseball, soccer, etc.). They enjoy the extreme sports (skateboarding, snowboarding, etc.). An example of this is 2 years ago I learned to snowboard with my son and this year we entered snowboard competitions. Doing this has helped me build a stronger bond with my family. Why just be a spectator when you can experience the X-Treme life first hand.

With my son's encouragement I managed to qualify for the 2007 USASA Snowboarding Nationals in Tahoe, CA. I competed in the Giant Slalom and Halfpipe events. I may not have won but I enjoyed myself so much. Being a rider in the events alongside of my son was so cool.

My goal is to blog about the great fun I am having and share with everyone any observations or pointers I may have. I am not an athletic man by any means. But I am willing to try anything new, especially extreme type sports.

Look forward to sharing my experiences.

Life is an X-treme Thrill. Live it to the fullest.

Cool Dad