Random is as Random Does (19 pics 2 gifs 1 vid)

Please do it!

Hella randomness continues after the jump.

Wakeboard Wednesday

I don't drink Red Bull but that does not mean we can't enjoy the bad ass vids they make.  No other company out there puts as much money into promoting fringe sports like ours as Red Bull.  Its brilliant marketing, why spend all the money on ads when you can pay about the same as you would spend on an ad on a sweet video of wakeboarding or sky diving or whatever.

Animals Rule (13 pics 6 gifs)

How I feel in the office most days

Lots more animal pics and gifs after the jump.

Vid Day Monday

Yep, this is the life.

Vid Day Monday

This vid has a bit of everything, slalom, trick, jump, wakeboard, dragging on the boom on your balls...  That last part does not seem like a good idea but to each his own.

vimeo hd waterski from evan halleck on Vimeo.

CRB Gives Thanks 2012

Every year that the CRB has been around we have always taken at least one day a week for a celebration, we occasionally invite over our neighbors from the industrial park compound where we operate, we invite over our friends, we don't invite over our family and sometimes we call  up the strip club and ask them to cater.

They have delicious bacon wrapped crabs.

But, as we come into the holiday season and as we are getting a  bit older and have a few more projects on our plates (bad place for projects), but, it becomes harder and harder to really sit back and reflect and actually give thanks for the things that are awesome.

So, lets run down a few things that we can think of quick off the top of our heads about the last year of waterski.

1) Night Jumps.  This year there was no LA Night Jam, which was a big disappointing around the crb offices, it was the first even like this we had ever seen and were blown away at that time. It got better over time and it was sad when it didn't happen this year.   But, we were able to see in person the Malibu Open and one thing that separates the Malibu Open from anything else we have experienced is that the venue is right in the downtown area of the city of Milwaukee.

If you have a chance to attend, by all means, do it.   It is an absolutly stunning view and the way the lake transforms from a silly duck pond during the week to hosting the worlds best skiiers is really something to behold.

But, the reasoning to be thankful for night jumps, is simply that these are a thing, they are being webcast, there was just one in Chili recently...right??  Chili?  anyways, this is a thing and it is awesome and the more we do it, the more people are going to notice it and attend and give money and that is never not a good thing.

2)  MTV.  ugh, i know.  Christ.  But!  They have a TV show with the Soven brothers.  They are wakeboarders, which means (despite what USA Waterski has you think) is actually water-skiing!

The reason to be thankful, however, is that while wakeboarding does have a bit more of a mainstream vibe to it, the fact that we have some personalities out there that are even worthy of being on a regular tv is awesome.  This will only serve to strengthen the sport as we go forward.  Further more, if you follow various people on twitter, you can see (as long as their skill keeps on progressing) there are a number of kids out there who do so much to promote the sport without even trying that have cool personalities that we wouldn't be suprised to see more shows down the road with these guys in them.

Its a real good time to be a waterskier.

3)  Cable Parks.  No one that works for the CRB has actually been skiing at a cable park, yet.  Thats a very sad state of affairs, we suck.

However, if you think about it, the biggest barrier to entry into our sport is cost.  Boats are expensive, gear is   expensive, gas is expensive.  Its amazing.  But, with the advent and proliferation of cable parks, that barrier seems like it is coming down a bit.  They are all over the place and don't require quite the same spine of money and government involvement that a "regular" ski lake does.

Hopefully, what this does is allow for people that wouldn't normally get on the water, to strap on a wakeboard or slalom ski or whatever and get out on the water and experiance the thrill of what this sport does have to offer.

4) ODBF.  I'm Dig Dug, and am required by my contract to say thanks to fellow poster ODBF for basically taking over the site.  ODBF started the vid day monday and wakeboard wednesday and whatever the hell else goes on here.  Basically, all the pictures and videos is an excuse to not actually type out words.  Because words are hard.

ANYWAYS

Whats fun though, year by year, is what we hopefully all remember about this time of year is that we hopefully actually take a bit of time to really sit back and be thankful for our lives.

The thing is, every single person out there has shit in their lives, family stuff or relationship stuff or addictions or whatever, there are things all over our lives that are troublesome, but, those things we all deal with.  All of us have problems, which is something to be thankful for. Your individual problems are mirrored by alot of other people out there in the world.  So, you aren't alone in that sense.  and that is something to be thankful for.

But, more then that, the fact that we get to lead our lives in ways that so many people would be envious of is awesome.  Not in a mean way or anything, but, take yourself out of your own body for a second and look at  yourself.

Its amazing.

We get to go ski all the time and complain when we don't.  Thats something to be thankful for.  Thats a pretty cool life.                    

Its Cold, Lets Go Surfing (19 pics 1 gif 1 vid)

I don't know much about surfing, but from what I have been able to find about this vid this is either the first time a surf flip has been done or it is not...yea, that brilliant insight is what I found on one site.  Thanks for that guys, so on point with the infoz. 

Lots more bad ass  surf pics after the jump.  Click the link yo!

Vid Day Monday

These guys thought it would be a good idea to get in the water and go barefoot jumping on November 10th in England.  Just for the record its cold in England in November so getting in the water is not the smartest thing to do.  Of course they are barefoot jumping so it is a given they are pretty stupid to begin with.

Vid Day Monday

Something you do not see all that often, Andy Mapple tricking in a tournament.  From the looks of this vid it looks like he has not changed his run since his younger days.  You don't see many people doing this many variations of the line step anymore.

Vid Day Monday

Russian people are awesome drivers...I did not say safe drivers, they are awesome because it appears that they all have cameras in their cars that catch all the fucking terrible driving they do.

Vid Day Monday

Jamie has been right at the top of our sport for several years now, not only is he a bad ass slalom skier but also a pretty cool dude.

Thanks again PJ!

CRB Brings The Sexy (18 pics 4 gifs)

Hella more sexy after the jump.  Well worth the click!

I Want A Cabin (19 pics)

Growing up my family had a cabin we would go to every summer.  This is where I fell in love with skiing and also fell in love with the peace and quiet of nature while floating around on the lake.  There is nothing like a warm summer afternoon on a glass calm lake, and then tearing it up on a slalom ski.  

There is a cool blog from a few years back on the NY Times website that follows a guy building a cabin on a pond in Maine.  Very good writer and a great read.  

More awesome cabins after the jump.

Wakeboard Wednesday (15 pics)

Wakeboarding awesomeness continues after the jump

ODBF Rants Are Fun

The NHL is locked out and that is lame.  The sport seems to have a short memory, they should be the number 3 sport right now, right behind Baseball, who also cost themselves the number one spot with a strike in '96, but instead hockey is behind basketball.  Fucking basketball?  Those guys are a bunch of whining floppers, hockey is a real mans sport.  Fighting is completely acceptable, how cool is that?  Instead of learning from their last strike/lockout where they made sure they would sit at the bottom of the big 4 pro sports the dip shits have gone and done it again.  Its like they are actively trying to drop below soccer or just out right fail as a viable business.

This is a blog about waterskiing right?  Lets talk skiing then!

Waterskiing has seen itself go from ESPN (which is a cesspool now anyways) to OLN to no TV coverage at all.  Contrary to what my boss believes the blame goes up hill in situations like this.  The IWSF is a fucking terrible organization that takes 10 times more out of the sport than it contributes.  USAWS is better...but not by much.  They want new people in the sport, or so they say, and their method of getting new people is to shun the top of the sport and focus on....nothing it appears.  The only real bright spot in our sport right now is the NCWSA and even that is only really bringing in new blood in the Midwest.  The East and West have done decent jobs of building their regions, the South Central blows goats.  The talent and incredible staying power of ULL and ULM are undeniable, the three Texas schools have stuck around and stayed fairly competitive year after year.  But the fact that the south can only field 5 teams consistently is embarrassing.

Unless of course you are former regional chair of the SC region Joey Mc

Don't be a sore loser buddy.  Those kids are absolutely pumped they are going to Nationals and yes, we are a six team region, but our five teams are consistently good, year to year.  I'd rather have five of the best teams in the country with four other schools working to have teams, than 5 mediocre teams and 45 schools will tiny team. 

2012 Western Regionals had 10 teams.  Midwest teams have to qualify for regionals and 16 teams qualified out of 34 teams that competed at their conference tournaments.  The Midwest sent 8 teams to Nationals this year, 6 of which qualified for Division 1.  The South Central Region had 6 teams compete, not including LSU that made it to nationals last year and prompted the Skifly comment board post from Joey above.  The East had...I think 8 teams...hell I don't know because I can't find the final score sheets anywhere.  Why would they post the scores on USAWS or NCWSA websites when its more fun to look at this nonsense and try to guess.

Note to Florida, just because you are in the East and I said your region is doing OK does not let you off the hook.  Every university in your state should have highly competitive teams.  Instead you field 2 teams...its just sad.  USAWS promotes the sport so poorly that they can not even convince college students in the "waterski capitol of the world" to form teams.   

To move skiing forward we need to push youth skiing as much as possible.  But how do we do that?  The same way we got hooked back in the day.  We saw people skiing and said "holy crap that is bad ass, I want to do that", then we begged our parents to spend a fortune on a boat, skis and ski schools.  We saw Sammy, Carl, Andy, Cory and the rest on TV or at public lake pro tournaments and got hooked.  Skiing was in the public eye because there were people pushing it to be there.  Not so much AWSA as private groups that took the initiative and pushed us forward.  AWSA back then was not the driving force are it is unlikely that USAWS will be that force now.  We have seen some positive movement in recent years, some private people getting things moving in the right direction. Lets hope that we can continue on the path that Dana Reed and others have started.

For fun go to ProWaterSkiTour.com and enjoy slalom ski mag...wait...what?  What exactly is Waterski Magazine doing with that URL?   Your guess is as good as mine.

/rant over

Lets watch hockey goalies fight!  Hell yea

Vid Day Monday

I often get guff for taking so long to get ready when its my turn to ski. I blame that mostly on the fact that the water is cold here at the north pole and it sucks to jump in.  To avoid being anything like me you should watch this vid and do the opposite of everything these guys do.

Thanks to PJ McMillan for another great vid!

Do you have a sweet vid you want to see on the CRB?  Hit up the contact lion and send it over!!

Vid Day Monday

Go Pro vid again?  Hellz yea bitchez!  This one comes in from the Chain Skimmers show ski club from Conover Wisconsin.

Chain Skimmers 2012 from Iando on Vimeo.

Vid Day Monday

A couple summers ago a group was trying to bring freestyle jumping back to the pro tour, I did not hear of any events at pro stops this year but did get to see some of the guys go huge at the show ski worlds.  The quality of the skiing at worlds was close to what these guys were throwing in this vid.  Hopefully it will make a comeback again soon.

Slalom World Record Tied

The best round of any record tournament ever was run this past weekend at Swiss Ski School.  Jon Travers ran 1/2 @ 43 off, Nate Smith ran 1 @ 43 off and Will Asher tied the world record with 2 @ 43 off.  As far as I can tell, with the crappy resources our sport has, there has never been a tournament where 41 off was run 3 times in one round.

Screw it, it's Friday (24 pics 3 gifs)

No we are not bears fans

Random nonsense continues after the jump.

The Election is Over, Time to Ski (22 pics)

Skiing awesomeness continues after the jump.

Wakeboard Wednesday

Hella wakeboard skills, pretty sweet vid all around.

Collin Harrington and Friends shred with the Gopro Hero3 from Collin Harrington on Vimeo.

Vote For ODBF

Vid Day Monday

Hella freaking bad ass!  This would freaking rule!

I would probably have a heart attack if I did this but fuck it, sign me up!

Willard with Smokes from Ryan Voight on Vimeo.

Vid Day Monday

A week ago or so we posted a video of Mitt Romney skiing and asked why skiing was associated with the uber rich, then I watched the begining of this vid from Republic Wake Park in the Philippines said "LOL poor people".

Vid Day Monday

A snowmobiler doing a flip over the top of a skydiver...sure why not?

CRB Brings The Sexy

You are welcome.

Tearing Up The Course

PJ McMillan sent us another bad ass vid.  This way is fantastic in so many ways.  First off the skier is our boy, the dreaded one Marcus Brown.  Secondly, well its Marcus so the skiing is hella bad ass.  The vid production is very well done, PJ has produced some of the best vids out there.  And lastly we love cool places to ski and the lake he is skiing on is sweet!

Also this footage would have been used in one of PJs movies but the recording industry is a bunch of hard nosed jackasses and thus it was not used.

Slalom Is All That Is Holy

Ian Perry is a new skier on the CRB radar but after watching this vid and seeing how easy he makes 38 off  at 36mph look he will be a contender in the big dog 34 mph world in the coming years.  Ian turns 35 so will be in the 34mph ranks starting next season.

Thanks go to PJ McMillan for this sweet vid.