Christian: If you're interested, the rafting trip is $190, and it's an overnighter from Monday to Tuesday of 6 and 7 August, I believe. Email Jennifer Hemmer at beyondmcgeorge@gmail.com for more info if you're interested. I'm going!
Herzchen: I plan to skate 3-4 times a week in Sacramento (and then exercise on the other days). Each rink and skating club is different (check out my current one at http://www.braemarfsc.org , bwahaha!), but I *think* the one in Roseville is just $10 per hour. You can buy a punch card for $90 for 10 sessions, I believe. Then you just show up at the scheduled time and skate. Ice time costs a decent amount, given I should be skating 2-3 hours a day (doing the math nice and quickly, I believe it'd cost about $600 a month, but I totally don't have that kind of cash, so I'll probably be closer to the $160/month range.
). Then there's coaching fees, competition fees, test fees, costume costs, music editing costs, boots, blades, orthotics (all 3 of those generally run me $1600. I just spent $500 for new blades 
. . .but the cool thing is my boots have lasted almost 4 years, and they're still going strong, so if I pay $100 to get them rebuilt, they should last through law school. . .huzzah!). Anyway, yeah. Skating's wicked expensive. The top skaters at my rink usually blow between $50,000 and $60,000 each year to pay for training and competing. 
