I'm not sure how many of you read my thread on BOS in March where I tell the world I bought a house in West Palm Beach. So, ya, I bought a house in West Palm Beach as a project and an investment. It is a beautiful old house that needs a complete restoration. This is the reason I went to Florida 3 times this winter and I am here now.

This trip I am on a mission to hire the contractors that need to be listed on the permit application. I am applying as an owner/builder and not using a general contractor. I plan on trying to run the job myself which should be interesting considering I live in Toronto. I guess I will have to make the sacrifice of having to make multiple trips to Florida, poor me.

Anyway, I skied with Jeff Kepchia again yesterday. He was skiing with a guy who was introduced as Harold. I'm like "okay, nice to meet you Harold" and then Harold proceeds to run down the line and make 3 at 41. Turns out it's Harold Hintringer another Big Dog skier. He and Jeff are skiing in the Texas Big Dawg in a week or two. Harold is skiing very well and should be able to put up a decent score, he was 4th last year.

I felt pretty special putting that rope on the white loop and being in the boat with such elite skiers. There was also a woman named Laurie skiing with us who skies into 35 off. It's always good to ski with people who are better then you so this was definitely the case.

The water temp is 90 degrees. This is the warmest water I have ever skied in in my life. It's really weird to feel the water warmer then the air when it's 85 out. Conditions were good and the boat is a Nautique 200 so I managed to run my 22 off again. Harold had me working on being more upright in my glide before the turn in which is something that I never paid much attention to.

I will be skiing with them again tomorrow and will try to get some pictures

Had a lovely day today at the lake with water well into the 70's and air in the high 70's. Ditching the drysuit a couple weeks ago and the water warming up really does help my skiing. Have dropped my 30 mph pass and am making 100% of my 32's and 50% of my 34's. Today I made 4 at 22 off/34. Just looked at my ski log from last year and I didn't get 4 at 22 until mid September so this is quite a good start for me.

Finally some of this time, money and effort is starting to pay off. I think it helped for me to go to Florida 3 times in the winter. Also spending a lot of time on water ski websites, watching video and reading about technique, has helped.

I had a year (2010) where I did not gain one bouy for the entire season and it was very frustrating. Last year (2011) I vowed that that would not happen again and I did make some decent progress. I think what made the difference for me was really concentrating on every pass of every set on what I specifically need to do in the course. Never letting my guard down and going on auto pilot. I am not a naturally gifted skier so my auto pilot is not to be trusted, ever.

What I need to do is think about my technique while waiting on the dock, think about it again on the set up, think about it in the water after the first pass, again in the water after the second pass and so on. Think about it ALL THE TIME.

The things I personally need to remember are to keep the ski on edge with intensity through the gates and get super wide and early. My turns are fairly good but I need to keep the ski on edge through both wakes and not let off my pull too soon then change edges quicker. I havbe all this condensed into single key words that I try to repeat in my head throughout the course.

I am not a natually aggressive skier so I have to constantly remind myself to keep up the intensity. I even have this thing where I grunt like a weight lifter in my wake crossings to help get that extra "oomph". I'm glad no one can hear me do that from the boat or the shore (I've asked).

I don't know if anyone will get anything out of this rant but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you have to "bring it" to the course every time to see any real improvement.

It was a beautiful sunny day today so I couldn't resist skiing even though the air was only about 55 and the water was 49. (I wasn't the only one, 4 or 5 skiers and a couple of wakeboarders used the club today.)

I have an O'Neil Assualt drysuit which I wore with a heater top under it and my vest over it. The neoprene top wasn't the most comfortable thing to wear under the drysuit but I was perfectly warm and dry in it. The hardest part was the ice cream headache.

I did 2 sets of 6 passes. My normal sets are usually 8 passes but 6 will do for this time o year. I shadowed a bit, ran most of my 30's and a few balls at 32. It was quite windy as well so all in all it was more about excercise and getting the ski muscles back in shape.

The forecast looks decent for this week with a couple of days in the 60's and 70's so I hope to get out again soon.