Archive for the 'Sports' Category
And now for an ordered list (because I’m curious of what number I’ll reach) of what has occurred in Billy’s life over the past 30 hours at my dream job:
- Bailed water out of a sunken boat and got it on a boat lift for the remainder of the storm.
- Went home teaching. (It’s a Mormon thing, basically, visited some people.)
- Got up early to tend to said sunken boat and inform the boat owner of what had happened. (The length of this sentence takes away from the un-awesomeness of this one.)
- Organized some liability release forms so our campers could go into Orlando and ride at the cable park. (Work which should have been done by our un-awesome office manager.)
- Figured out a way to repair another boat which had overheated and melted some plastic joints involved in running the engine. (The overheating happened more like 54 hours ago, hence not in the list). This process included three trips to Ace Hardware.
- Replaced the melted plastic parts of second said (how do you say that properly?) boat and began to troubleshoot original overheating problem.
- Ate a sandwich while waiting for a call from the boat shop, it was delicious.
- Answered some emails and voice mails which were neglected by aforementioned office manager, who is on a 5 day vacation…a vacation which was made known to the camp owner and staff on day one of the vacation…yeah, not awesome.
- More boat work, came to a point where more parts were needed, will resume that tomorrow when the parts arrive.
- Helped Ben move his repaired couch back into his house.
- Finished cleaning up the now un-sunk boat and put its seats, lead (to make the wake big), and fat sacs (same idea here) away nicely.
- Got in a functioning boat with Ben and many campers and went wakeboarding…back to really awesome!
- Put that boat away.
- Looked for my shirt and sandals in the dark, since I was down to just shorts at this point.
- Sat and talked with a couple Kiwi (from New Zealand) coaches, venting a bit about the day, having some good laughs.
- Came home, sat down at my computer, hit some keys.
Lots of un-awesomeness, but ended in awesome, yay! If you’re wondering, I found the sandals, not the shirt.
Some wakeboard campers just told me about this site. It’s kind of like Woot.com, but focused on active sports gear. I just bought me some board shorts that are on there right this very moment. Pretty cool site:
So on Friday, we were out on the boat to watch Mr. Ben Greenwood ride. We had a whole lot of weight in the boat, so it was having trouble getting up on plane. I jumped up into the bow of the boat and, with another guy up there, got as far forward as I could. I ended up sitting right on the tip of the bow when all of a sudden I began to lose my balance…the wrong way. I’m not sure exactly my thought process at the time, but I think my survival instinct kicked in and I believe I shoved with what I could against the boat. I did this as I was falling into the water so I wouldn’t be in line with the boat’s propeller.
So I went down in the water and (again, not sure if I’m telling the truth, but I think it’s what happened) I gave a quick paddle away from the boat on the port side. After a few seconds had passed, I knew I was safe, and popped my head out of the water.
I was wearing Ben’s sunglasses before I fell in, and wasn’t wearing them when I emerged from the water. The boat had stopped, so I was halfway between the boat and Ben. I immediately began apologizing for losing his glasses. He shouted “I don’t care about the glasses. What about you? Are you missing any arms or legs? Are you bleeding?”
It wasn’t until then that I really realized the danger in which I had just put myself. I kind of laughed and said that I was totally fine. I got back in and after the water calmed down (some huge boat was joy riding), he had a great ride.
So the moral of the story is: Don’t be stupid like me!
Luckily I had a very smart and aware driver who continued to go straight when I fell in the water. He said he didn’t want to turn either way because the boat’s behavior when you turn the wheel is unpredictable enough to make that dangerous. He did the smart thing by going straight and backing off the throttle after he had passed by me. Good times!