Wakeboarding FTW!

I am now 40 years old. Let's pause for a minute while you pity me.

Yes, it is sad. I now have physical pains that are not healing. More and more often I injure myself such that I have to skip basketball, my favorite sport. I expect to live a long time, so it's going to get more difficult as I do even less strenuous activities. Sad, as I said. Another pause.

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In last week's trip to Lake Powell, we took some of the older people to try out wakeboarding.

Wakeboarding is something I've always wanted to do but have repeatedly failed at. I believe I successfully water skied on two skis once for a few seconds in my early 20s, but it was choppy and just didn't seem like much fun to endure so much just to stay standing. Wakeboarding seems to allow much more variety with jumping and spinning around... and I hear that it's easier, which is attractive because I sure take a beating trying to get up!

The first to get up was Andreas, a young man who already knows how to do it. After him, Andreas (his Dad) tried a few times but couldn't get up. Then Abel and Karin tried; Karin knows how to waterski already, but she couldn't get up either. Then Emily (another teenager) tried; she'd never done it before, and she wasn't able to either. Tough day for wakeboarding.

I wasn't going to try since I was exhausted (from almost constant work and little sleep), but I figured I'd regret it if I didn't. Of course, I failed a few times, but thanks to Rob and Andreas' pointers, on about the third try I got up! It was fantastic! Sure, being up on the water was fun, though I couldn't wait even 15 seconds before trying something and falling down, and that was the last I got up. But the best part was just accomplishing something that had dogged me for so long. So, in the first immortal words uttered after I got up:

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!