Yeouch, What happened Endless? Ski injury?? We thought you're the
invincible guy who'd ski forever.

John,
Yeah, I thought I was invincible too. I thought I had magic knees.
But, towards the end of May, I was skiing at the Bird with some
internet buddies when a snow snake got me after landing a road jump
going over 50 mph. Normally it wouldn't have been any big deal--I
would have simply jumped up and laughed about it. But that morning I
had grabbed some skis which were set for shorter boots. So, not only
was I skiing on a DIN setting of 11, I was jammed into bindings that
were 13 mm too short. I don't know what that made the effective DIN
but those skis weren't coming off for anything. It turned a routine
fall into a tumbling twister of leveraged limbs. I tore my right ACL,
broke a couple of ribs, messed up my elbow, twisted my femurs in their
sockets, got a mild concussion with a visual corona, and thought I
broke my butt. It was not good.
I was going to just wear a knee brace like some people do. But when I
skied the next few times after the accident, I found a few moves I
absolutely can't do with a 3rd degree tear of my ACL.
I skied the 4th of July and had the surgery a couple of weeks later.
They used one of my hamstrings to fashion a new ACL. Standard minimum
time for skiing (assuming good PT outcome) is six months. I'm working
towards continuing my monthly streak at Mt. Hood next month. We'll see
how it goes...