On a totally different note: The Regionals are here! The Regionals are here!

[icarus]

The Regionals are here! The Regionals are here!

Yes, Out Of Bounds fans, I'm going to watch boys in tight costumes compete Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. No top-ranked skaters, alack and alas, but there are Intermediate Men skaters which should be fun.

The boyfriend has seen fit to remind me that 15-year-old skater boys are not legal. *g*

I sent perfica my updated Out of Bounds outline. She said, "I'm lucky to be reading this without having to write it." She seems well pleased with the direction of the story.

A (small) Out of Bounds update is coming this week.

To get you in the mood, here's Evan Lysacek and a and a really brutal fall. And a very Sheppard-esque look in program to Forever Young (he skates with such power and passion here, a lot better than John). Here he skates in jeans. And talk about a hot starting pose. Muh.

The Regionals, as an FYI, are the first tier that skaters have to win in order to work their way up to the National Championships. The top four skaters from that region move on the to their Sectional in November (the West Coast sectional is being hosted by San Diego this year). Then in January... the Nationals. *eyes agleam*

The schedule this week:

Thursday
12:30 - 1:20 - Intermediate Men's Short Program ... Here the boys have 2:50 minutes to squeeze in a number of tough moves.

Friday - the boys' day
11:25 - Intermediate Ladies Short Program

1:30 - Junior Men's Short Program
1:45 - Intermediate Men's Freeskate ... Here's the finish line, the long program. Medals awarded at 3:45pm.
2:35 - Pre Pre Boys Freeskate
2:50 - Pre Boys Freeskate
3:05 - Pre Juvenile Boys Freeskate

3:35 - Juvenile Girls Freeskate
4:55 - Pre Juvenile Girls Group A Freeskate

5:55 - Novice Ladies Short Program
7:10 - Pre Juvenile Girls Group B Freeskate

8:10 - Junior Ladies Short Program
9:15 - Senior Ladies Short Program

Saturday
12:20 - Open Juvenile Girls Group A Freeskate
12:35 - Junior Men's Freeskate. Medals awarded at 2:30pm.
1:10 - Juvenile Boys Freeskate
1:40 - Open Juvenile Girls Group B Freeskate

2:40 - Intermediate Ladies Freeskate
4:00 - Pre Juvenile Girls Group C Freeskate

I may take wildernessguru to see these Saturday, though he'd really be interested in the Intermediate Men's competition and above. Sadly, he'll be unavailable Thursday afternoon. Still, the juvenile girls are not to be missed. They look like kittens! They're so good, and have such spring, and they're in sparkly dresses! Five on the rink at a time is the best.

I remember a Chinese woman who'd never seen figure skating before walked into the rink this summer. She saw the little girls and stopped. "Ooooh, cuuuuuute!" she said.

Lucky me, my Chinese History class is cancelled for Thursday afternoon. So I get to go. And wildernessguru is making noises about going to the Men's Freeskate at the Nationals. He's a Johnny Weir fan (he loves flamers).


Translation ETA: Thanks to lavvyan's translation mojo, we now know why Lysacek had that brutal fall:

"Oooh, the quadruple [insert skating term I don't know][Icarus guesses toe loop], I think he even hit his head there! I don't understand why he's taken such a big risk here during the qualification in the first place." And then something about him just needing to qualify because he won't get to keep the points, and the commentator wondering if Evan's going to make it through the rest of his program. Then the second fall, "Yeah, I was afraid that would happen. That was a bad fall he took with the quadruple [something][probably toe loop], he's visibly battered. Now it's fingers crossed for Evan Lysacek that he can at least make it through this."

Icarus checks out vid: roaringmice can correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like a quad toe loop he tried. (It's easier to guess than you'd think. The quad comes in only two flavors so far, the salchow and toe loop. The salchow makes the skater look like he's doing an antelope jump, and the toe loop looks like Najinsky.) Turns out that the fall knocked the wind out of him and his leg went numb for two minutes. He pulled into third by improvising and tacking on extra jumps later in his program.

Comments

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

I *would* tell you everything about it. I'd get to go to the PRACTICE SESSIONS! Oy.

It's in Reading, PA, which is maybe a 3 hour drive from my house. I'd drive there crack of dawn, then drive back, same day, in the middle of the night, but I think it'd be worth it.

[libitina]

How does one get to go to such a thing? *whistles innocently*

And if you needed to make it an overnight, Reading is about an hour from me, but not much further back to you.

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

A person I know has two tickets available. They'd normally be $77, but she's selling at $50 per ticket. Wanna go? It's for the Friday.

Or you can just buy tickets. There are cheaper tickets available, but hers are very cheap for being that close to the ice. In addition, you normally need to buy all-event tickets to see the practice sessions. Because hers are all-event tix, but she simply can't be there on the Friday, I get to see her practice sessions!

I'll link to where you can buy tickets through the official site:
http://www.2007skateamerica.com/

The event runs Oct 26-28, Friday through Sunday. You can see the actual schedule here:
http://www.2007skateamerica.com/schedule.htm

And the people competing are here:
http://www.2007skateamerica.com/skaters.htm

[libitina]

Ummm... YES!

You have my email? It's libitina at livejournal dot com. I can send her money.

And do you want crash space? If not, I might look for crash space myself in Reading since I'm going to a wedding the next day in Pottstown, and driving to Pottstown is, oddly, always hellish, so being closer would be awesome. But if you do want crash space, the wedding isn't until 4pm, so there's plenty of time to drive from home. And my parents' home is even closer than my philly home.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*dances* This is so cool!

All event tickets, too. Man...

I can pump your brain for intel afterward, right?

Icarus

[libitina]

This will be my first time seeing ice skating live. It's always been on TV before.

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

It's completely different in person. While some things are harder to see, if you're not right down front, suddenly you can really see why, say, Inoue and Baldwin, who on tv kind of suck, really did win that National championship. It's power and flow and speed speed speed, and that sort of thing often doesn't come across on tv.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it. When I saw Todd Eldredge in person, I was very surprised at how his presence just filled the ice. And Ilia Kulik. He has this child-like spirit that, when he jumps, he just... it's like, "Look, ma, look! No hands!" And he almost stops in midair, his jumps are so high.

I've based Kyle Fletcher a little bit on Kulik.

Icarus

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow! Yes! Let me confirm that I can go, then email her, then email you back. Hold, please. I'll get in touch after dinner tonight, probably around 9pm, with an email to you letting you know that this is a go.

I don't know about the crash space. I want to be back in the morning so I can see my daughter when she wakes up, and take a bit of that off my husband's hands, so I may not crash in PA. I may do the late night drive. I'll talk to him about that, too, at dinner.

[libitina]

I shall await your email.

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

I've confirmed with her that we'll take those tickets. I'm waiting for her response.

If you don't get an email from me tonight, that's only because either she didn't confirm with me yet, or I couldn't send an email! I sometimes can't access my Yahoo email now that I did Yahoo Beta. I'm on dial up at home, and the new Yahoo email doesn't always work. So if I don't email you tonight, you'll hear from me in the morning, when I'm at work and have highspeed.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm green. Absolutely, positively green with envy. You lucky duck. And all event tickets. Oh, man, that's fantastic. You get to go to the practices.

*expires from joy* <--- note

*announces from beyond the grave*

I want details. Lots and lots of lush, gorgeous details -- especially about the practices. Think of it as priming the pump for more Out Of Bounds.

Icarus

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. In fact, I get to see practices for the men. :wiggles eyebrows:

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, now I have entirely selfish reasons to want you to go. I'm very happy to go to the regionals, but it works out that I'm going to miss all the warm-ups. Can't cut Sanskrit.

Icarus