Not how you land from a triple.

As horrible as this looks both of these riders, Trey Canard on the #41 Honda and Ryan Morias on the #65 Yamaha are both predicted to make full recoveries.  When I first saw this my heart literally dropped. Anytime you see something like this it's awful but being a fan of this sport and knowing a little about these two riders in particular I couldn't have been more bummed. Ryan and Trey are two of the truly good guys in the sport of motocross. I know sports figures shouldn't be role models but I would have no problem with my kids looking up to these two polite and hard working gentlemen. They are both great spokesman and ambassadors for the sport I love and have been a fan of for the last 25+ years. If you've never seen a race, check one out and get to know the personalities a little bit. And when Trey and Ryan return I'll guarantee you'll be pulling for them. Get well soon boys. The next race airs on Sunday @12:00 on CBS.

You can't breathe through Denny's hash browns?

Motocross is my favorite sport. If we grew up together, we either watched, or road tripped to a motocross race at one time together. Those roadies have provided me with some of the best memories of my life. From blacking out the lights on a tour through the Howe cavern's in upstate New York (I can still hear my father telling us to quit it while he was trying not to laugh), to my buddy Hank turning beat red and nearly choking to death on a quadruple order of hash brown's at Denny's. Alright, I need to elaborate on the last one. Denny's hash brown's are the holy grail of breakfast sides as far as my boy Hank is concerned. Forget about the  Lumberjack or some Moons Over Mi-Hammy. Hank could care less about these breakfast staples. It's hash browns and lots of em' He's sitting, knife in one hand fork in the other, business ends of each pointing at the ceiling waiting for the waitress to take our order. My wife (girlfriend at the time) puts her order in, my buddy Steve  orders, then me. All the usual questions come from the waitress. What kind of toast? How would you like your eggs? etc... Then she gets to Hank. And for you? Four orders of hash browns! Dead silence and a somewhat funny/puzzled look comes across her face. That's four orders of hash brown's? Yup, Hank replies in a somewhat annoyed way. You really need to know Hank to fully appreciate this but I think you're starting to get the picture. All he cares about are his hash browns and how quickly they land in front of him. So, ordering is done, and yes we do make fun of him for both his order and the  determined and completely disturbing look in his eyes. The food arrives a short time later, although not nearly quick enough for the hash brown junkie sitting next to me and that's when it goes down. And by it I mean the savagery Hank unleashes on this poor pile of shredded potatoes. He lowers his head about 6 inches from the plate and mechanically starts shoveling this golden brown tater mound into his gullet. Now we're already staring in disbelief and cracking up when Hank's erratic breathing sucks an errant piece of spud down his windpipe. This is where the real comedy starts. He starts coughing. Everyone knows the "something went down the wrong pipe" cough, right? Well, it usually doesn't happen in front of three good friends and a packed Sunday morning breakfast crowd in Denny's. Some other tables start to notice what's happening while our buddy is coughing like he's got the plague and turning a completely unnatural shade of red/purple. The whole restaurant finally goes silent. Except for Hank's relentless coughing and his 3 "friends" who are turning the same shade of red/purple from being doubled over laughing at him. Hank eventually cleared his throat (no thanks to us) and finished every molecule of the quad hash brown order,  scarring any witnesses to this disturbing scene for life. I strayed off my original point from this blog being that motocross is my favorite sport. Now Looking back on this and the endless other stories that have come from this sport I love so much I know why. It's provided me with a life time of amazing experiences often times before the races even take place.

Hello! Buddy the Elf!

The idea for this product and the subsequent company that's growing out of it has been a constant source of fun and challenges to work through. Fun being the key word. Keep it ELF! Huh?  This was my response the first time my brother-in-law and fishing bud Paul dropped this anagram on me. If it's not EASY, LUCRATIVE and FUN why do it? Simple right? Yup. So, keeping ELF in mind, I've been making contacts and moving forward with getting thatdangthing/TDT off the ground. From ordering T-shirts. How many? What color? If you get 48 they're cheaper. To calling lawyers. What's the company? National? local? This is going to cost $$$$$$$$$!? Every phone call so far has resulted in talking to helpful, intelligent people and has raised twice as many questions as I had before I made the calls. So far the whole thing has been somewhat EASY and definitely FUN. This blog being the mostest, funnest part so far. As far as LUCRATIVE that's still up in the air. Thank you to everyone that's helped so far. And if anyone has any small business advice/comments/anecdotes keep them to yourself. Now that was FUN.(sarcasm) Thanks for reading.

Mountain biking to go surfing: The Braindead Bi-athalon

This surf session has been about 1 year in the making. There's a spot that we've been checking for the last year or so that only works on the right size swell with the proper direction and enough size to make it break properly. Even the name of the spot is cool, "Hydraulics". Just sounds like some waters moving when you say it. After the checking of buoys and forecasts and a phone call from my buddy, Chris, it was shaping up to come together for this fickle spot to really line up and start firing. Here's where the mountain bikes come in. The easiest access to the water for this spot is through a private yacht club sailboat launch. And the only hassle free place to park is in a town beach lot about a mile away, enter the bikes. We roll up and check the surf to see, hell yeah, it was clean and peeling! Next step is to ditch the boards over the guardrail and bring the trucks down to the beach lot and suit up. Hop on the bikes, pedal the mile back to the yacht club, ditch the bikes behind the yacht club storage shed and jump in the water. The day was already a classic before we caught the first wave. And yeah, we scored.

Try #2: Happy New Year!

Another year in the books. Fish were caught and ducks were shot. And awful rhymes were used to start blog posts. I guess technically that happened this year. I'm not big on New Years resolutions but I'm resolving to try to be less hackey in my next post. 2011 was a great year despite all the craziness going on in the world around us. Forget about the economic downturn, just save up stacks of cash to purchase any and all product that my company produces in 2012. Consider this my contribution to the sluggish economy. Stimulus shmimulus, just buy some stuff. Preferably from me. Bold? maybe. Obnoxious? Absolutely! Don't need an adhesive, customizable, fishing ruler/sticker? Don't fish? Doesn't matter. Maybe you'll start one day and won't you feel silly that you can't measure that lunker you just caught? This type of marketing is called "transparency" and I'm thinking it's the way to go for  for the new year. Unless it isn't. In which case I'm completely out of ideas and should probably hire an actual marketing company. I'm fired up for the year and whatever kind of trouble thatdangthing/TDT gets me into. Happy New Years everyone and buy my stuff.

The Bill Murray wave/pizza blog post.

Do you go out or don't you? Easy call right? If there's surf, you surf! Unless you've been surfing for a long time and you turn into a jaded wave snob. Here's an analogy for you. Someone asks you if you want a pizza but it's plain and it looks like someone kicked it down the street, like  in the opening scene in stripes. You'll probably still go for it but you may not enjoy it as much as that Bacon, extra bacon and bacon pizza from the local artery constricting pizza joint.  Point being, bad pizza is better than no pizza and garbage waves are better than no waves. Check your attitude and just go out. Jaded usually  doesn't play well in any aspect of life. Just ask John Winger.

Happy day after New Years!

HAPPY NEW YEARS DANG IT!

Another year in the books. Fish were caught and ducks were shot. And awful rhymes were used to start blog posts. I guess technically that happened this year. I'm not big on New Years resolutions but I'm resolving to try to be less hackey in my next post. 2011 was a great year despite all the craziness going on in the world around us. Forget about the economic downturn, just save up stacks of cash to purchase any and all product that my company produces in 2012. Consider this my contribution to the sluggish economy. Stimulus shmimulus, just buy some stuff. Preferably from me. Bold? maybe. Obnoxious? Absolutely! Don't need an adhesive, customizable, fishing ruler/sticker? Don't fish? Doesn't matter. Maybe you'll start one day and won't you feel silly that you can't measure that lunker you just caught? This type of marketing is called "transparency" and I'm thinking it's the way to go for  for the new year. Unless it isn't. In which case I'm completely out of ideas and should probably hire an actual marketing company. I'm fired up for the year and whatever kind of trouble thatdangthing/TDT gets me into. Happy New Years everyone and buy my stuff.