I'm as good once as I ever was

It wasn't very much fun around here for the later part of the week. The pool filter started leaking last week and I have tried to patch it with any and every means I know of but to no avail. This week it started leaking pretty badly so we just turned it off. Not a good idea in 80-degree weather. It turned GREEN and quick! It was so green, I was afraid the Loch Ness monster might decide to make this a summer home. I ran by the pool store on Wednesday and asked the sevice techs what my options were. Naturally, replacement was one but he said it was probably just an O-ring and would be no problem to repair. He showed me on a new filter what to do and where to do it. No problem, right? Wrong. He showed me on a NEW filter. Not one that had been installed right after Moses did his little water trick on the banks of the Red Sea. The valve body was supposed to just lift up after I had disconnected all the plumbing. It didn't budge. So what does any mechanically-inclined male do? I got a pry bar to "help break it loose 'cuz it's probably just stuck." I helped it alright. I helped to narrow the repair decisions down to one. Replacement. I broke part of the valve body off and it was irreparable then.
Off to the pool store on Saturday to get all the stuff we need. New filter, sand, pipe, joints, glue and some liquid chlorine to maybe jump start the clearing up process once the filter was up and running again. All for the ultra-low discount bargain of around 5 C's. Ouch!! So we get back home about 11 or so and my neighbor comes over and we've got it knocked out in about an hour, even with a rain delay. All through the morning, I've been on the phone 5 or 6 or 26 times with another buddy that's trying to install a ski pole on his bass boat so he can tow skiers and such. He finally gives up on it and says, "I'll be over there in about an hour. I can't figure this out." So I have an hour to kill. Remember how long it takes me to mow the grass now? With my new mower? About 45 minutes!! So I hop on the mower and cut most of the grass before he gets here. The neighbor, the buddy and myself get right on it and by 3:30, he has a newly-mounted ski pole. They're all headed to the lake to spend the rest of the weekend down there. And since my pool filter is running like a new one (I have to make jokes to ease the pain) and the grass is cut...why don't we just hitch up and go too? And that's exactly what we do. We do some tree trimming at their lakehouse for a bit and once it's all done...it's time to test the new pole out.
This is where the title of the post finally makes sense. I put on the skis and waded out to about waist deep water and off we go. The pole works great. I decide to "show off" a little bit and start jumping the wakes and skiing up alongside the boat and stuff like that. We had a friend trailing us on a waverunner so I motioned that I was going to drop a ski and slalom a little. I dropped the ski and he picked it up. So I'm cutting back and forth and throwing big rooster tails and just having all sorts of fun. Did I mention this is the first time this year that I have really got out there and got after it? I skiied for a few minutes last weekend but I was just "knocking the rust off". We're about a mile from where we left from and I'm getting pretty tired so I tell him to swing around and head back. I was cutting back and forth again and the skag (the little blade on the bottom of the ski that keeps the ski under you when leaning really hard) came out of the water and I busted my ass HARD. Hard enough that I needed a moment or 2 to get my breath before going again. It was now also that I realized how tired I was so I decided I would just use both skis for the trip back in...less drag on 2 skis means less effort on my part. Well I managed to make it all the way back to the landing. But I am so sore this morning it ain't even funny. It hurts to walk, to sit, to lay or even to breathe hard. I think that was my one time skiing for the weekend. But I was as good as I ever was. I'm going to have to get some pictures of this before too much longer. I don't know how many more times I can ski like this and still function the next day. I may just retire to the role of Captain and just stay in the boat and drink.
We're headed back today to try to catch a few fish. The shellcracker are bedding and they are tearing them up so we may just do that. And I may have to try it again...once.

Ya'll have a great weekend.