This comes a little late, but I've been thinking about the movies that 2006 had to offer. Nothing extremely groundbreaking or brilliant, but some overall memorable films that tackled some issues, had some fun, and brought the action. Here are my favorites:
1. Little Miss Sunshine
2. Thank You For Smoking
3. Casino Royale
4. An Inconvenient Truth/Who Killed The Electric Car
5. Inside Man
This video happened just as Brandon and I had to leave in order to get him to the airport. Go to the Vans Triple Crown Website to see some more professional shots and videos of this breathtaking event. This day had it all (and we were only there for an hour and a half) -- near death experience, "Let's make sure he's ok!" a broken board washing ashore, several free falls from 10 foot waves into 20 inches of water, crazy good tube rides, cameramen getting in the way, and all around good surfing.
If you know Mark Brewer, you know he's a funny guy. If you don't know him, you will know he's a funny guy. Read This.
In a moment of sheer serendipity, I stumbled across a co-worker who plays disc golf. Turns out there are two of my co-workers who play the monthly tournament sponsored by HDGA (Honolulu Disc Golf Association). There are a group of committed individuals (who perhaps should be "committed") that procure a one-day permit to set up a temporary course on one of O'Ahu's many parks.
The course for November was on the North Shore, and was originally designed by the two co-workers I was to be playing with. I hadn't played (throwing at baskets) in almost two years...this should be interesting.
Playing in a structured, formal disc golf tournament is very interesting if you can get past that nagging-inner-jock-tormenter that is screaming "NERD!"
There were three divisions: 1. Open 2. Am (amateur) 1 3. Am 2 -- Being new, the organizers placed me (graciously) into the low division- AM2.
I finished a solid 10 strokes behind my Am1 co-workers, but won the Am2 division by a full three strokes...not bad, but I should have been competing in the Am1 bracket.
Oh, and the best part...I hit a truck...hard...for money.
There was a closest to the pin (CTP) contest (put in a dollar, and the winner takes the pot). It was on the second hole and I threw my disc with the full intention of just putting the thing in the basket. If you've ever thrown a frisbee 150 feet, you know that aim is sometimes difficult. So, I let the thing go and I think it looks good, but then it kinda keeps going, headed straight for the road and a two stroke out of bounds penalty...Then miraculously, a Ford Ranger enters my peripheral vision and intercepts my disc perfectly blocking it's escape to out of bounds. After avoiding the angry-slow-down-and-look-at-you-though-I'm-not-sure-what-just-happened look from the driver of the truck, I walked over to the pin, looking for my disc. About five feet from the pin, nestled tightly against the base of a 50 ft pine was my beautiful Innova Champion Tie-Dyed Orc (with a slight smear of Ford Ranger gray on the top). I win the pot! That is a plan fiendishly clever in it's intricasies.
Sorry no pictures for some reason...I was too engrossed in the action (read: walking) to pull the camera from the bag.
A video of Nathan laughing at older brother Lucas on Halloween night. Check the backup superman costume/pajamas for the end of the night. BRILLIANT!
And for anyone else that I've had a conversation with about the north shore...
Last Thursday, October 12th, 2006, marked a very important day in my life. It was the day I checked the last item off of my "Things I need to do while I live in Hawaii" list.
After school, I took my board and a more experienced surfer with me to the North Shore of O'Ahu, to a break called "Leftovers" just past Laniakea beach and Chun's reef. The rain added to the drama of the first "winter" swell of the year. The swell was supposed to be on the decline, but as we arrived, there were glassy conditions with 8 ft waves (faces) with the occasional 10 footer poking through (for those of you who don't know...that's big, the waves in my surfing pics are about 2ft).
As I tried to swallow my heart, we grabbed our boards and walked down the volcanic rock decent to the water. Picking our way around the sharp rocks, we walked out to waist deep and put our boards in the water. I immediately sensed that something was different...the water felt thicker? heavier? stronger? no, none of those, just different. Following specific reef avoidance instructions I began the paddle out. Surprisingly, paddling out was a piece of cake. I almost got seasick from the waves rolling underneath, but nothing was breaking over my head. We paddled out to the lineup and I sat up on my board to get the lay of the land. As soon as had I sat up, a 10ft wave jacked up and began to break immediately to my left. As the silence of the gray afternoon was shattered by thunderous crash of thousands of gallons of water, my legs went numb. I decided to paddle out a little further just to watch, and await my impending doom.
So I sat. I watched people successfully paddle, drop-in, ride the wave, bail, and paddle back out all without dying several times and saw my anxiety began to decline (from paralyzed-with-fear to I-think-I-can-feel-my-legs), some idle chatter from my surfing buddy and another fellow DOE employee we met in the water helped.
Slowly, I began to paddle the right direction to catch a few waves with no intention of completing my task. After about thirty minutes I began to think that I could do this. I saw what looked like a smallish wave coming through and started paddling, hard. I got to the point where the wave jacked up and I was looking down the face...(imagine lying on a plank from a second story balcony) and oh wait, there's my surfing buddy straight down in front of me. I'm thinking, "I'm going to land right on top of him" so I take one last look down the face of this wave and pull up, harmlessly sliding down the backside. I saw the flick of spray as Corey caught the wave and then the thing collapsed in a fit of white. "Ummm, he's dead," I thought. Then 20 seconds later, he pops over a wave about 100 yards to my right. Cool, he's alive.
"So, he didn't die and he's just slightly a better surfer than me. I can really do this"...I look over my shoulder and there is a big wave bearing down on me. As I begin to paddle with renewed determination, I realize that the wave is already decending on top of me. I heard myself "eeep" and then feel the blow of the wave hitting me simultaneously from the top, bottom, front, and back. I was flung from my board and slowly became aware that I was being flipped over and over as the wave tumbled toward shore. I covered my head and waited for my body to start floating toward the surface, then swam the remaining three feet. Just asI was thinking, "I really need to breathe soon," I broke the surface, and inhaled sharply like a newborn that just got smacked. I had one second to think, "That wasn't so bad" before I realized that the next wave in the set was about to do the same thing to my hapless body. I managed to hurl myself atop my board and paddle outside the swath of destruction of the next wave, paddle back outside, and try and regain sanity. That's what we (in the surfing community, ha!) call "taking one on the head" or "getting caught inside."
I had a few more near catches, several mistakes, and took at least two more on the head and then I caught one. It was nothing spectacular and it lasted for maybe 5 seconds before I failed to outrun the whitewater and flipped over backwards, but I did it. I rode a wave at Leftovers.
I surfed the North Shore.
I can't wait until next time.
Quick update post.
Sunday morning at about 7am, I stirred to the feeling of my bed being jostled. It got to the point where I almost asked JoAnna to stop tossing and turning because I couldn't sleep. Then I thought, no, she's been up with Nathan...better not say anything...and promptly fell back asleep. I heard the power go off (in that I heard all the fans power down) but it didn't really register because we had been having some decent rain storms here...Lucas woke me up at around 7:30, (whispering) "Daddy, we gotta play games..."
I got out of bed, JoAnna followed. We'd been up in our quiet house long enough to eat cereal and then JoAnna's cell rings. Her mother says (speakerphone), "So, what's going on in Hawaii?" It dawned on me.
"WE HAD AN EARTHQUAKE!!" I said, and awaited the details from someone 5,000 miles away.
Apparently, there was an earthquake on "Hawaii," known as "the big island," just about 200 miles away registered at 6.7 on the Richter scale. There were 40 subsequent aftershocks that registered up to 4.5 magnitude. Mostly minor damage, no fatalities or serious injuries reported. Here on O'Ahu, I guess people had pictures fall off the wall, dishes break, etc...but nothing of the sort in the Horsman household...Lucas said that he felt his bed shaking, but then I asked him if he could see giant pandas running through our backyard and he said yes again....so now I don't know what to believe.
The big thing is that we were without power for 26 hours. No big deal...JoAnna said, "Well, if there was anywhere to be without power, it would be Hawaii." Then it rained all day.
I guess this video needs some explanation since it makes me look like a terrible surfer. We were limited by equipment - I was as far out in the water as the zoom on the digital camera would allow. The surf (as you can somewhat see) was epic yesterday, in the 5-9 ft range, but the bigger the surf, usually the smaller the shorebreak (at least at this particular beach)...So, with my mom acting as cameraman, we shot about 6 attempts and, sadly, this is the best one.
With my mom visiting from Canada, I decided to take 4 days off work this (next?) week. I will be taking advantage of the extra baby care available and getting in some much needed surf-time (especially with the 5-9 ft swell building as I type)...oh, and also spending time with my mom, wife, new baby, and best boy...
Here's what we did today...
First, we went to church (hooray nursery workers!)
Then we drove to the north shore and went to the Dole Plantation to look at the Pineapples...
And ride the train...
And feed the massive amount of Koi...
And pose for cute pictures...
Then, we went up the road to Laniakea beach...
To see the turtles...
And pose for more cute pictures...
And then we fell asleep on the way home...well, not me...I was driving.
What a fun day in Hawaii. Hopefully, by tomorrow night, I'll have an actual video of me actually surfing.
