Riding Giants

I started thinking about this blog the moment I left the house this morning. As mentioned before, there's a steep series of downhill roads on the way to work. Going down the hill this morning I watched as my odometer slowly climbed up to 35 mph. My first few times riding this hill I always felt unstable. The crosswinds made my front wheel twitch and hitting my brakes at these speeds caused the bike frame to shudder and flex. Now, after a month of the same hill, I felt like I had mastered it. I leaned forward over the bars a little more to cut the wind and hopefully bring the speed up to 40 mph. Even with a full messenger bag, I managed to squeeze out a few more miles per hour before looking over my shoulder, crossing two lanes of traffic, and leaning deep into a lefthand turn to head east towards my office. This morning was a good one...

Anyways... What I was thinking about flying down the hill was the movie I saw this weekend – Riding Giants. Riding Giants is a new documentary about the history of big wave surfing. The movie chronicles the history of surfing as it evolved from its historic origins in native Hawaii to the 1960's Gidget inspired, surf scene of Southern California. Most of America visualizes surfing for its tanned bodies, mellow culture, and Dick Dale beach tunes. This is where the movie departs from common knowledge.

Riding Giants documents the migration of the first generation of California surfers who moved to Hawaii specifically to ride big waves. Keep in mind, this is the mid-1950's with a "Leave It To Beaver" conservative middle class growing in America. The thought of young Caucasian men with no jobs, living on the beach with the only goal of surfing 8 hours a day was completely foreign to our nation. Jack Kerouac had just gotten in the car...

Riding Giants does a great job of telling us the early adventures of pioneering big wave surfers such as Greg Noll. It follows their progression from Makaha to Waimea Bay in search of bigger and bigger waves. The audience visibly flinches every time one of these guys fall 20 to 30 feet and is crushed by a massive wave. You can hear the gasps as the movie shows increasingly bigger and bigger waves.

The movie progresses into the modern era and discusses the evolution of Laird Hamilton's tow-in surfing. The key to conquering even bigger and badder waves is developing higher speeds at the lip in order to beat the curling wave that is falling over on the surfer. Hamilton solved this in the late 1990's by having a jet ski pull him into the wave while standing on his surfboard. This changed all the rules... Hamilton starts riding 60 to 70 foot waves on a regular basis. The footage is amazing. Hamilton look like a toy racing down a mountainous wall of water. This is truly extreme sport!

And that's what I like about this movie. There is no X-Games for big wave surfing. No million dollar sponsorships or teen idol worship. Guys like Hamilton are simply riding for the rush. These guys are testing the limits of their body and their fear. Also add the fact that Stacey Peralta, Director of Dogtown and Z Boys made the movie and you walk out of the theater with a mellow high feeling that you don’t quite get with the latest blockbuster thriller.

There’s no way going down a hill at 35 mph on a bike even approaches the thrill level that the big wave riders in Riding Giants experience. If I didn’t ride down the hill; however, everyday life would be a little more mundane. If you ever want to try and understand why someone climbs a mountain, surfs a wave, or rides a bike then you might want to check out this movie.

Stop! You'll poke your eye out!

I sat on my glasses yesterday. For the past 14 years I have worn glasses every day of my life. Take off my glasses and I can't read a stop sign from 20 paces. Now my 4 year old Lenscrafters specials are completely flattened with the temple snapped off on the right side. I’m trying to tape them together with some black electrical tape. It's 6:15am in the morning...

Well... what a guy to do but bend them back into place and get to work. I ride into work wearing my Rx sunglasses and debate whether to endure the humiliation of wearing sunglasses all day or trying to hang my standard glasses on my face and hold them in place with my index finger. I take the sunglasses. Noontime finally arrives and I pay a visit to Lenscrafters.

"No, Mr. Hammond, I'm afraid that frame style was discontinued years ago. Besides the computer says that the last check-up you had was in 2000. Would you like to schedules another appointment?"

I'm the type of guy that avoids doctors of all types, especially guys in a chain retail store at the local mall. I decline and leave. Next stop, Costco. They can take me at 3:30pm. Back to the office with my shades on.

At 3:20pm I go racing out of the office and cross town to Costco (getting "crosstown" in Reno is a pretty quick process). While the doctor at Costco quizzes me about the lowest line I can read on the chart, I start to notice the rack of contact lenses on the wall.

"So, how big a hassle are contacts?"

The doctor, probably amazed that he had a patient asking some open ended questions, starts pontificating about the joys of contacts. Within ten minutes I'm holding my eyelids open, starting at a point on the ceiling, and trying not to flinch as the doctor tries to stick an Acuvue Soft Lens in my eye.

"Hold 'er steady… Lots of first-timers have trouble putting in contacts... Especially men"

I'm not sure why men have more trouble then women sticking their finger in their eye but it took me about a dozen attempts. Now, a day later, I'm sitting here typing this without glasses. I’m blinking like crazy and my eyes feel like I've been up all night watching television, BUT I’m not wearing glasses. I’m told that these contacts will get easier to put in over time and the irritation will go away. Maybe I just need to take it like a woman.

Okay... Time to start looking for new sunglasses!

Church of Donuts

Last Sunday while out on the house hunt I decided to take a pit-stop at a suburban Reno Krispy Kreme. After playing dumb at the counter and getting a hot newly glazed donut, I ordered a couple of filled donuts and a medium coffee. Sitting down with the Sunday housing classifieds and my sugary breakfast I noticed a table of 20 something kids with bibles yacking away at the table kiddy corner from me.

Within 10 minutes several more groups showed up with bibles in hand. They all looked to be college aged kids and had no other distinguishing features beyond the bibles they were carrying. Next thing I know a guy in his early 50’s shows up, bible in hand, and sits down with his group of parishioners. This preacher had on a western style green blazer, a cowboy hat, and shiny cowboy boots. He bore a strong resemblance to Billy Bob Thorton…

Now that the preacher had arrived they began to pull together tables and start to pray. I was feeling pretty strange watching all of this and noticed the other Krispy Kreme customers were also starting to become aware of the group. After a short group prayer the preacher started reading from the bible and discussing "God’s intended meaning..." and "What Christians believe...". Needless to say, I was pretty astounded…

Obviously there’s a whole lot of issues going on here.

Why is an old guy preaching to a bunch 20 something kids?

Where are the kid’s families?

Is this a cult?

Why are they holding their service in a public place?

How does Krispy Kreme feel about religious ceremonies in their lobby? Especially since only a few of the kid’s actually had bought donuts?

What about the customers who now don’t have a place to sit since five tables are now taken by the church group?

Would you confront this group?

I offer no answers, only the story and some questions. All and all, a very strange morning for me.