Sunsets in Florida

Published at July 1, 2009 in General. 3 Comments

Hey friend(s)! Not sure if anybody is still checking here from time to time. I’ve realized that maybe at least once a week, while outside around sunset, I say to myself “I love Florida.” It’s awesome here. I finally know why sunsets are so great here. There are two contributing factors. The whole peninsula thing provides plenty of sweet clouds and good storms for the sun to turn pink, purple, red, orange, yellow, and all that good stuff. When the colors show up, you don’t have to go far to see a lake reflecting all those colors, so you get blitzed with color; it’s awesome.

This morning was pretty fun. We shot a new ad for The Wakeboard Camp. We had around 16 people out behind the boat at the same time. The boat struggled to pull everyone up on their wakeboards, but eventually it worked out. The number got whittled down to 11, and I was one of the fallen. I had chosen to bring a wakeskate out for the experiment, and it proved to just hold everybody back due to the small surface area. Shucks! The ad should be showing up in wake magazines later this summer.

You may notice a new link on the side: Explosions and Boobs. It’s possibly the greatest idea for a website ever. And yes, it’s work safe.

Finally, spinning is winning here in Clermont! People are landing all kinds of new rotation based moves on their shred-sticks. Sweet as!

Splinters and Passports

Published at June 3, 2009 in General and Random. 4 Comments

So I’m planning on going to Canada. It will be my first time leaving the continental 48 states. Sweet ay? It still may not happen though, and if it does, I may struggle to get back. Let me explain. I’ve never had a passport, and didn’t even think of documentation I’d need to get into the Great White North. So last week I ordered my birth certificate, then yesterday I signed up for a passport. I got it expedited, so I should get it within 3 weeks. I think I only need my license and birth certificate to get into Canada, but thanks to a new law as of 2 days ago, I may need a passport to get back in. So my plan is to have people here mail me the thing when it arrives.

We’ll see how that all pans out. I’m driving up there with Cam, my French-Canadian friend in a little, shoot, can’t remember, I think it’s a little Toyota something or other. I’m pretty sure it will be fine, but it’s a 24 hour drive. About the first 20 hours are up the US East coast. I plan on trying out a big ol’ Georgia peach.

Next on the docket is my butt. On Monday this week, I was shooting some hoops in the driveway of work, and I had a run in with the pole that is erecting the backboard and hoop and all that. The story at least starts out kinda cool, because I just recently started getting my legs back and I had a pretty good dunk. On the way down from the dunk, my right butt cheek slid down the wood 6×6 or whatever size pole it is. I took some of the pole with me.

Some good sized splinters made it through my shorts, and I couldn’t quite tell at the time if they made it inside of me too or not. I pulled some out of my shorts and went on with trying to be like Rex Chapman and all was well.

Later that night, after eating dinner, I was brushing my teeth and decided to check out the wound. There was a nice little hole (yes, I just made reference to a butt hole, but not that hole). I picked at it to see if there was anything in there, and a couple minutes later, tweezed out a splinter about twice the thickness of a toothpick and about a half inch long.

That was all fine and dandy, but probably 2 inches past that, I could feel another hard object about the same size deep under my skin. Apparently more wood got crammed way up in there (this is sounding more homo-erotic, not so cool) in my butt. Luckily it’s just the cheek, so no vital organs or veins or anything.

Now it’s a couple days later, and it hurts a bit there. I should probably go to a doctor, but I’ve got weak insurance, and I’m curious to see what my body will do to try to get rid of that thing.

So in a few days I’m off to Canada with some wood in my butt cheek and no passport. Sweet!

Things

Published at April 29, 2009 in General and Observations. 2 Comments

Hello there internet people. Spring is here and it feels summer-ish in Central Florida. We’ve been busier than expected at the good old Wakeboard Camp, which is pretty sweet. I can’t remember if I’ve put it on here before or not, and am too lazy to check, but I’ve noticed a funny thing that happens when you work somewhere you enjoy. I end up spending at least three or four more hours a day at work than I am scheduled to work. A lot of that is because I go ride with my fellow coaches, but I also end up just hanging out with the people there.

We get people from all over, so it’s fun to hang out with them. It’s kind of like I’m going to different little hang out spots all over the world, but it always happens about three minutes away from my house. Kind of a neat thing. Just in the past month, we’ve had people from probably seven or eight different countries.

A theory I’ve recently concocted is that many Californians seem to think that California is not one state, but two: Southern California and Northern California. I would add to this that those same folks are unaware that California doesn’t actually end just to the North of San Francisco and Sacramento, but continues on for about another 250 miles or so to the North.

To me, it makes more sense to call the San Fransisco area Central California. Maybe they don’t know what California looks like, I’m not sure. Pay attention though next time you’re around a group of people from California.

Other than that, I’m still me, still riding sideways on the water, still rocking and rolling. Until next time, be excellent to each other!

Another Day in the Life

Published at April 8, 2009 in General and Wakeboarding. 0 Comments

Today was another good day to give the good readers a taste of what it is I’m doing down here.

I got to sleep in a bit today, had the morning off. At 9:30, I left to help Amber, my friend (and super duper pro wakeboarder) from Australia, pack up her stuff and move into her new place. Got done around noon, so I came home, showered, and headed over to work.

I was on the schedule to coach this afternoon, so I heated up some pizza from last night and had some lunch before going out on the boat. Today I had 2 Greek riders, a couple from Indiana, and a dude from Illinois (I think). We had a good time out there. Worked on some tantrums, some 180s, some toeside jumping, and switch riding. During that time, there were as many as 5 boats out on the lake running the same line, since they were all boats somehow tied to The Wakeboard Camp. Kyle and Ben (both super duper pro wakeboarders) had some private lessons to give, then 3 camp boats with 4-5 people in each of them.

After riding and putting the boats away, we all hung out a bit and talked about the rides during the day.

My night ended with going out for a sushi dinner, which Amber bought for me for helping her move, awesome. I went with Amber and Chad (super duper wakeboard coach), my neighbor, and met up with a foursome of people from England and Australia. Had a great time talking and laughing and what not, and now I’m about to pass out.

So, today I ate/coached/talked with and met people from French Canada, Normal Canada, Greece, Sweden, England, Australia, and the good old US of A.

That’s actually a pretty typical day (except the moving part) here in the spring/summer time. I dig it. I’ve never left the 48 continental states, but I get to meet people from all over the world every day. Good fun!

YouTube Fools

Published at April 1, 2009 in Awesome and Technology. 0 Comments

Go to YouTube and watch a video, good times! They’ve got a link to take it out of April Fool’s mode. I think you may also be able to get the same effect at any time if you add “&flip=1″ after the address of any YouTube video. Awesome, I love April Fool’s Day online. I’ll try to update with more sites as I find them.

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