Hi All,

Just curious as to how the Summer Camp was? Did you learn a great
deal? Was it fun? What type of training did you do? Did anyone take
pictures or Videos?  I know that Duncan, my old doubles partner, and
Ashley were coaches. They are two of the best; I hope you really
picked their brains??? :)  I think Duncan did a track walk and I
have to tell you that I would have loved to been there for that.
Learning the drive points, lines from Duncan is something that I
would put to memory.  Duncan is probably one the best drivers in the
world!!!  The kid was born on a sled.

So:

Entrances $100
Exits  $150
Lines  $200

Jim Murphy making it down clean: Priceless!!!  :):)  Just joking
with you Jim....  We love ya man!!!! :)

I hope to see you in SLC this year; we have a great season coming up.

http://tinyurl.com/23zyd9

Any volunteers......

--Larry

> Forms for Club members, USA Luge membership, the Wheels & Start
> Clinic, as well as the Officials Course are attached.

I should have said that these forms have been uploaded to the "Files"
section of the ADK-Luge Yahoo! site, in the "Membership Forms" folder.

First of all, I would like to send my greetings to everyone.  I hope
you're having an enjoyable summer.  However, the warm weather doesn't
keep us from turning out thoughts to the upcoming Luge Season.  I'd
like to bring to your attention the following activities that I'd like
everyone to take note of.

1) The first thing for everyone involved is to renew your Club and USA
Luge memberships.   For the club, that's simply a matter of sending a
check in along with the club application.  For the USA Luge
membership, you'll also need to schedule your annual physical if
you're one of our sliding athletes.   It's not too soon to get that
taken care of.

2) The Adirondack Luge Club annual "Wheels and Start" clinic is coming
up shortly, on Saturday Aug 25 and Sunday Aug 26 in Lake Placid.
It's a great place for new sliders to get the feel for how to drive a
sled, and it's also a great opportunity for our more experienced
sliders to refine their start techniques.   Our guest coach this
weekend will be USA Luge Senior National Team and Olympian Ashley
Hayden.  The weekend will be worth the trip if for no other reason
than to get sliding and training advice from one of the most
accomplished, and fit, sliders in the world.   You'll need to be a
current Club member to attend.  Even if you haven't gotten your
paperwork submitted, an e-mail confirmation as to whether you'll be
attending would be helpful.   Preliminary sign-ups are currently
light.  We need to hear from you to make sure we have enough members
coming for us to hold this event.

3) One of the things we do for USA Luge is to provide a ready source
of officials for National and International Races.   If you're current
an official (thank you for your efforts), the National Officials
Refresher Course will take place on Saturday, September 22 in Lake
Placid.   Please plan on attending, and I'm told that OTC lodging is
available for course attendees.  There is no fee for this course.

4) For those of us NOT currently an Official (and yes, I'm including
myself in that), I hope you'll join me in Lake Placid for the full
National Officials Course, which begins Friday evening September 21
and runs through Sunday afternoon September 23.  OTC lodging is also
available for this course.   The astute reader will observe that this
course overlaps the officials Refresher course, so we'll have a great
social opportunity for all of us that weekend.  There is a $25 fee for
this course.

5) In conjunction with USA Luge, the Adirondack Luge Club will be
taking part in the Vermont All Sports Recreation and Fitness Expo.  We
will be staffing a static display for luge, as well as running the
wheel sleds on the ramp that USA Luge will bring over.  This is a
great opportunity to assist USA Luge in their recruiting efforts, and
it will also be very effective in bring some new young members into
our club.  This expo is being held on Saturday and Sunday October
20-21 in Essex Junction Vermont.

6) One of the areas our club is focusing on for the upcoming season is
to grow our roster or certified Luge coaches.  There is a requirement
for us, as a sporting club, to have at least 3 coaches on our roster.
  We're currently deficient in that regard.   As I've previously
mentioned, one prerequisite of being a coach is to be a National-level
official, so interested member should plan on completing the Officials
course in September.  There are additional training requirements,
including attendance at a USA Luge coaching course.  I'm working with
Fred at USA Luge to see if we can schedule such a course.  This will
be an important step for us as club, and I hope I'll see several club
members take this important step forward.   Recognizing that there are
some fees associated with this training (an ASEP coaching class as
well as the USA Luge Coaches course), the ADK Luge Club maintains a
policy that the club will reimburse those fees to the members upon
successful completion of their coaches certification.

Forms for Club members, USA Luge membership, the Wheels & Start
Clinic, as well as the Officials Course are attached.

I look forward to see you all soon.

Jim Murphy
ADK Luge VP

Hi all,

I will not be able to attend the clinic this year. Some stitches will
not be removed until after that weekend. :-(

I have a room reserved at Schultes if anyone needs it. Please let me
know by Monday August 6, otherwise I will cancel the reservation.

Thanks

--Larry

I did better than I expected.

Overall: 23 out of 36
Chicken: 23 out of 36
Ribs: 13 out of 36
Pork: 22 out of 36
Brisket: 19 out of 36

I was amazed how many points I lost for presentation.
That is something I really need to work on. Overall,
for taste and tenderness I did quite well.

--Larry

--- jim_murphy@... wrote:

> So, how did YOU do?
>
> Jim
>
>
>



      
________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Shape Yahoo! in your own image.  Join our Network Research Panel today!  
http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7

So, how did YOU do?

Jim

I thought I would share my pictures from the I Love BBQ Competition.

Dmitry, and USA Luge did an outstanding job, and have been receiving nothing but
compliments on the BBQ boards I read. Speaking for myself, I had a fantastic
time, and I
learned so much.

http://picasaweb.google.com/larryrodman/ILoveBBQFestival2007

--Larry

and Vinnie - thanks for your help.

--- In adk-luge@yahoogroups.com, "larryrodman" <larryrodman@...> wrote:
>
> I just wanted to remind everyone that the I Love BBQ competition in Lake
Placid is
coming up
> June 29, 30 and July 1. My team is RumplePigSkin, and if you swing by I should
have
some
> BBQ to share. Look for the banner with the two happy pigs!
>
> --Larry
>

Sochi Wins 2014 Winter Olympics, Beating Pyeongchang, Salzburg

By James Brooke

July 4 (Bloomberg) -- Sochi, the Russian Black Sea resort where
President Vladimir Putin has a vacation home, will host the 2014
Winter Olympics after beating Austria's Salzburg and South Korea's
Pyeongchang in a vote by International Olympic Committee members.

Sochi defeated Pyeongchang after Salzburg was eliminated in the first
round of voting today in Guatemala City. It was, according to news
services Aroundtherings.com and Gamesbids.com, one of the closest
bidding contests in Olympic history.

The games give the Kremlin a chance to showcase the country's economic
rebound since the collapse of communism in 1991. Last year's opening
ceremony at the Turin Games in Italy was the world's third-most
watched television program. China is promoting the 2008 Summer
Olympics as a chance to place Beijing in the world spotlight.

For Russians, the country's first chance to stage the winter showpiece
represents the nation's recognition as a skiing, skating and sledding
powerhouse. Athletes competing under the Russian, Unified Team or
Soviet flags have won 293 medals in 50 years of winter Olympics.

``The excitement, grace and beauty of winter sport are part of the
Russian soul,'' Sports Minister Vyacheslav Fetisov, a two- time
Olympic champion and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, said before
the vote. ``Winter sport and the Olympic spirit are part of our
heritage.''

In February, President Putin traveled to Sochi and unveiled an
eight-year, $12 billion program to build skating rinks in the city and
alpine venues in the nearby mountain resort of Krasnaya Polana.
Officials say these will give a permanent boost to tourism, create
Russia's first world-class ski center and provide winter training
facilities for Olympic athletes.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lost access to ski
areas in Georgia and Moldova.

Boycott Bitterness

The Sochi games may also ease lingering bitterness in the nation over
the only other Olympics on Russian soil, the 1980 Summer Games in
Moscow. About 50 nations joined an American-led boycott over the
Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. For some, holding the
games in Sochi is a sign of Russia's acceptance in the international
fold after its isolation for much of the 20th-century.

``The Olympics as a symbol are as important as Russia getting into the
WTO,'' said Andrew B. Somers, president of the American Chamber of
Commerce in Russia. ``It sends a powerful message that Russia is now
part of the world community.''

President Putin wants Russia, the last major economy still outside the
World Trade Organization, to join the Geneva-based trade body before
he steps down at the end of his second term, in May 2008.

Presidential Lobbying

On July 2, Putin flew from a meeting with President George W. Bush to
Guatemala, where he met with a succession of IOC members. His lobbying
campaign mirrored the efforts two years ago of then- U.K. Prime
Minister Tony Blair who helped London secure the 2012 Summer Games.

Russia's cluster concept is similar to Canada's winning proposal for
the 2010 Winter Games. The ice events will be held at indoor rinks in
Vancouver, a Pacific Coast city that sees little snow. The skiing will
take place at Whistler, a Rocky Mountain area that's a 90-minute drive
from Vancouver.

From Sochi, it takes about 45 minutes to drive to Krasnaya Polana, a
village framed by the 6,000-foot peaks of the Caucasus Mountains. A
total of $1.1 billion is going into four ski resorts there.

With seven gondolas planned for the area, Krasnaya Polana represents
the largest concentration of ski industry investment in the world,
said Paul Mathews, president of Ecosign Mountain Resorts Planners
Ltd., a Whistler, Canada-based company designing one of the resorts,
Rosa Khutor.

Private Investment

Vladimir Potanin, owner of OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, is plowing $262
million into Rosa Khutor, building three gondolas, 20 trails and five
restaurants. State-controlled OAO Gazprom is investing $375 million in
Psekhako Ridge, where Putin skied before television cameras in February.

On the coast, aluminum mogul Oleg Deripaska plans to spend $2 billion
on the international airport and Olympic village in Sochi.

Although Putin is to step down next year, private investors plan to
continue to develop Krasnaya Polana as Russia's premier ski destination.

``This is not a presidential project,'' Potanin said in an interview
in Sochi in February. ``It will go on under the next president, the
next president and the next president.''

If anyone is sending money to Edvīns Guršpons in Latvia for a sled (or
anything else) can you
please let me know. I need to send him $40, and the wire transfer will cost $35.
I was hoping
I could put my money in with someone else and lower the costs. Thanks

--Larry

>Dmitry tells me that the three of us are the bad rib
>eating jews :-)


Larry:

I've seen your Rub recipe.  It uses Kosher salt, so that must count for
something.

Murph

I just wanted to remind everyone that the I Love BBQ competition in Lake Placid
is coming up
June 29, 30 and July 1. My team is RumplePigSkin, and if you swing by I should
have some
BBQ to share. Look for the banner with the two happy pigs!

--Larry

Folks:

No doubt you have received some "odd" off-topic messages through this
ADK-Luge group in recent weeks.

Apparently there are folks who, via manual or automated means, join
groups and send out spam messages.

To help with this, I've changed the policy of the group to require me
to "approve" new members requesting membership.  This won't affect any
existing members, but it should prevent (or make more difficult) any
spammers from abusing our list.

Hopefully everyone's off to a good start for their summer.

Jim Murphy

The officials course will be sometime in the fall, August or September.
It's primarily offered by USLA driven largely by the availability of the
proctor's schedule.

The coach's course we can probably have some influence over, if we have a
large enough class to attain "critical mass".

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: adk-luge@yahoogroups.com [mailto:adk-luge@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of dsimkin@...
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 11:10 AM
To: adk-luge@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [adk-luge] Call for Officials and Coaches

I'd be very interested in both.  My problem, as always, is scheduling.  Do
we have any input on
that?
Don

----- Original Message -----
From: Larry Rodman <larryrodman@...>
Date: Saturday, May 5, 2007 6:07 pm
Subject: Re: [adk-luge] Call for Officials and Coaches
To: adk-luge@yahoogroups.com

> Hi Jim,
>
> I am interested in taking the officials course this summer. If we
> can arrange it in the area that would be VERY helpful. Especially
> leaving Amy with the boys for another weekend.
>
> I received my gummies yesterday. I find it hard to believe they are
> the same as what I have on my sled currently. What a difference in
> consistency. When I pull the old ones off I will save to show you
> what happens when you do not take care of a sled.
>
> --Larry
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jim Murphy <jim_murphy@...>
> To: adk-luge@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, May 5, 2007 10:36:02 AM
> Subject: [adk-luge] Call for Officials and Coaches
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>            For those that did not read the entire "long" note I
> just wrote (go
>
> read it).. But.
>
>
>
> Anyone interested in become a USA Luge Official (National and/or
>
> International) , or renewing your certification, please let me
> know.
>
> If you haven't done this, I highly recommend doing it.   Especially if
>
> you're a parent with a young slider in the program.
>
>
>
> Also, we need coaches.  This is a larger step, but one that I can tell
>
> you from spending a week at the screening camp with the kids last
>
> month, is VERY satifying.  I'm looking forward to my certification.
>
>
>
> Please, drop me a note expressing your interest for either being an
>
> official or a coach, ASAP.   The course dates are being set up now,
>
> and there's plenty of preparation opportunities over the summer months
>
> as well.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jim Murphy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> <!--
>
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> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com



Yahoo! Groups Links

I'd be very interested in both.  My problem, as always, is scheduling.  Do we
have any input on
that?
Don

----- Original Message -----
From: Larry Rodman <larryrodman@...>
Date: Saturday, May 5, 2007 6:07 pm
Subject: Re: [adk-luge] Call for Officials and Coaches
To: adk-luge@yahoogroups.com

> Hi Jim,
>
> I am interested in taking the officials course this summer. If we
> can arrange it in the area that would be VERY helpful. Especially
> leaving Amy with the boys for another weekend.
>
> I received my gummies yesterday. I find it hard to believe they are
> the same as what I have on my sled currently. What a difference in
> consistency. When I pull the old ones off I will save to show you
> what happens when you do not take care of a sled.
>
> --Larry
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jim Murphy <jim_murphy@...>
> To: adk-luge@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, May 5, 2007 10:36:02 AM
> Subject: [adk-luge] Call for Officials and Coaches
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>            For those that did not read the entire "long" note I
> just wrote (go
>
> read it)…. But…
>
>
>
> Anyone interested in become a USA Luge Official (National and/or
>
> International) , or renewing your certification, please let me
> know.
>
> If you haven't done this, I highly recommend doing it.   Especially if
>
> you're a parent with a young slider in the program.
>
>
>
> Also, we need coaches.  This is a larger step, but one that I can tell
>
> you from spending a week at the screening camp with the kids last
>
> month, is VERY satifying.  I'm looking forward to my certification.
>
>
>
> Please, drop me a note expressing your interest for either being an
>
> official or a coach, ASAP.   The course dates are being set up now,
>
> and there's plenty of preparation opportunities over the summer months
>
> as well.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jim Murphy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> <!--
>
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>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com

For those that did not read the entire "long" note I just wrote (go
read it)…. But…

Anyone interested in become a USA Luge Official (National and/or
International), or renewing your certification, please let me know.
If you haven't done this, I highly recommend doing it.   Especially if
you're a parent with a young slider in the program.

Also, we need coaches.  This is a larger step, but one that I can tell
you from spending a week at the screening camp with the kids last
month, is VERY satifying.  I'm looking forward to my certification.

Please, drop me a note expressing your interest for either being an
official or a coach, ASAP.   The course dates are being set up now,
and there's plenty of preparation opportunities over the summer months
as well.

Thanks,
Jim Murphy

With the sliding season officially over, I wanted to take a moment and
pass along my thanks to everyone for making the 2007 season a
successful effort.  At the track, everyone arrived promptly, was
courteous to the coaches and track workers, and treated each other
with the kind of support, respect, and camaraderie that I've come to
expect and appreciate in our club.

Off the track, I recently was our club's representative for the annual
Peer Review.  In order to maintain our status as a Sporting Club under
the USLA policies, we have several requirements that we need to meet
annually and these are jointly reviewed by our sister clubs and by the
USLA.  It may seem odd, but none of the requirements for us as a
Sporting Club require that we actually slide on the track (though
that's the primary activity we all enjoy.)  However, in return for
that very unique privilege we have to give something back to the sport
we all enjoy.  Fortunately, all the things we're asked to do are
enjoyable and rewarding on their own.

I won't go into the full set of requirements here (there aren't too
many), but I want to highlight a couple that were noted as areas for
the Adirondack Luge Club to improve upon.  Specifically, these would
be a summer or winter recruiting camp, and our roster of certified
coaches.

I'll start with the coaches.   This is a critical element for our club
and I will be pushing on this hard.  I'll also lead by example, as I'm
beginning my coach training now and I will be encouraging many to
follow along with me.

We have in the past been able to offer club membership to established
coaches, such as Duncan, Pat and Pete, but that is generally not the
spirit in which the USLA policies are written.   We should be
developing and maintaining our own coaching staff.

Now, understand, club coaches are not intended to be a replacement for
the USLA coaches we have at the track.  The coaching course is very
basic, and certainly none of us have the depth of experience that
would replace our USLA coaches.  Instead, we are an adjunct to the
coaching staff.   I'll explain what's required to be a coach, and then
I'll explain how that's used.

To be a coach, you need to complete several requirements.  These are:

USA Luge National Officials Course
ASEP Coaching Principles Course
USA Luge Coaching Course
CPR Trained
First Aid Trained
16-hour Coaching Internship

Let's look at these in order.

The USA Luge National Officials Course is a weekend course, and it
will be given in the fall.   The date and location are currently being
discussed, but I encourage EVERYONE who can make it to attend.   It's
a great way to add support to the sport, a fun weekend together to
reconnect with Luge folks during the off-season, and it opens the
doors for some very interesting opportunities during the season.
It's also a prerequisite for the FIL International Officials course,
which allows you to officiate at the World Cup meets.   With World
Championships coming to Lake Placid soon, I highly recommend that we
move forward in this area.   Ask someone who's an official.  It's not
difficult to become, and I see them having a lot of fun doing it.

The ASEP Coaching Principles Course is a sport non-specific course
that can be taken online at your own pace.  The online course costs
$95, and the Adirondack Luge Club Board voted last year to reimburse
this cost to any member that completes their coaching certification.
(Not just the course, but the whole deal).

The USA Luge Coaching Course is a weekend class given in Lake Placid.
  It teaches you the basics of how to teach luge in the "USLA way".  It
also will give you the tools to help evaluate and promote the sport
with young slider candidates.  You'll understand how the USA Luge
program evaluates talent, and you can more fully appreciate what they
might find attractive in a young slider.  It'll also make you a better
slider, for sure.

The CPR and First Aid training are basic emergency skills – you can
pick these up from your local Red Cross or other organizations
independently.   Of course, these are never a bad idea.

The 16-hour internship is the hardest obstacle, but it's not
insurmountable.   This involves working with the coaches, while they
coach, to see what they are doing, how they work, and to fine tune
your skills.   This can be served during sliding sessions at the
track, during Slider Searches, or wheel and start clinics.   For
example, if we're sliding club sessions on Saturday nights, internship
time could be picked up during the mornings when the junior
development team is sliding.  You could pick up nearly 16 hours by
simply attending a Verizon Slider Search and helping out in that
capacity for a weekend.  I think the options are only limited by your
creativity and schedule flexibility.

Let wrap up this topic this way…

Our future status as a club REQUIRES us to have a cadre of coaches,
trained and current.  We're supposed to have 5, and frankly, I think
we can do it.   The payback for us, as individuals, is that we will
become better sliders, and we will produce a more vibrant club – of
that I have no doubt.

Please, consider this strongly.   The journey will be worthwhile, and
it will be easier if several of us head down this path together.

The other item we need to work on is to hold a winter or sumer
sreening camp.   In the past, Paul Ottenti used to hold screening
camps for the club, but he's no longer involved.  We did a spectacular
job supporting the Ridgefield, CT Verizon Slider Search last year
(thank you BRETT!), however that was a USA Luge event, and not really
in the spirit of us doing an independent camp as a club.  It was,
however, a great training exercise.

We need to hold an event of some kind, intended to introduce the sport
to at least 25 young sliders, and to train them and select some for
follow-on evaluation by the USA Luge coaching staff.   We are required
to recommend 5 young athletes, twice a year, for further national
screening (Sept30 and Mar 31).  This is a great way for us to identify
potential new sliders, and frankly, new club members.

Our ability to do this, and do it well, will depend on our clubs
assets and resources.   One primary resource will be coaches, which
brings up back to the prior discussion.

We will be examining and planning for events such as this.  If you
have any ideas, especially if you're willing to get involved, please
let me or a member of the executive board know.

Thanks for all your support.  I'm very proud of our club, and I can
really see that we are poised to take this to a new level and be a
model club for the others to aspire to.

Through and Down,
Murph

For those that I didn't tell, I'm spending this week up in Lake Placid
chaperoning the Screening Camp for young sliders, aged 11-13.

In a word, it's a blast.

Out of the Slider Search and club system they screen several hundred
kids each year.  Of those, 60 get invited (in groups of 20) to a
screening camp.

Of those 60, 20 get invited to the camp we're at now.  Possibly a
couple (2,3,4 or even none) would get an invitation to join the Junior
Development Team for next season.

I have some very focused, and very responsible young athletes here
with me.  Makes my job as a chaperone much easier.

It's fun to watch the faces of the kids who've never slid the big
track before (their camp was in Michigan at the smaller Muskeogon
track).  It's also nice to see their faces when they go up to Start 4
for the first time.

I have a deeper appreciation for the screening and selection process
for sure.  I also have picked up a number of things that will help my
sliding in the future.

Murph