Ok it's not 2012 yet and this is a winter sport, but tomorrow is Nordic Combined and Small Hill National Championships for the 2012 season.  It's been a long, long time since Nationals have been in the Midwest, which is one of the reasons that Nationals are held in the summertime.  Rather than alternating solely between Park City and Steamboat, now at least Lake Placid,  Chicago and any other K70 + that plastic in the future can be part of the National circuit.  

We flew from Denver to Chicago yesterday.  I got in just in time to catch a late dinner with my Mom and little brother.  It's great to be back in the Midwest and see all the other skiers, my family and some of the younger guys from Central.  Today we had official training for jumping and skied a few laps on the race course.  Of all the times I've been to Chicago to jump, I've never cross-country skied or rollerskied.  Nonetheless, they set up a pretty solid course that should be fun to race on tomorrow.  

Dan Englund and Zack Hammill, two of my old jumping buddies from upper Michigan have been taking some sweet helicopter videos of the jumping.  Dan's been working for the last year or more to establish Aerial Vantage Productions, taking HD videos and photos from a remote control helicopter.  Check out this video that they put up.  I'm sure there'll be more to come.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150311554738717

I just put some videos up from jumping this August.  Click to view them larger screen on youtube.  The first, in Liberec, CZ, is probably one of my best jumps ever.  I'm stoked about that, because one of my goals for the summer was to jump better than I have on any hill, on a large hill.  The next video is on Bischofshofen, which is definitely the most fun and highest flying hill I've ever jumped.   There's also a video of Lukas Hlava, one of the Czech special jumpers.  It's a pretty fun jump to watch because: A) he goes very far, and B) he takes a really high line but makes it work for him.  He pretty much disproves idea that you have to keep your chest low.