Checking the Swells

By Jesse, himself. | Published: June 13, 2007

I promised this post for last Friday but a new site launch for portcredit.com threw a bit of a tire-iron into the best laid plans.

Having said that I continue to be at once fascinated and terrified by surfing. The shot in the previous post of Greg Long beneath the massive wave captures it perfectly. It look s fluid and peaceful with foamy doom hanging literally over your head.

I will recount the story of Liam and I body-surfing (in very dangerous swells) on Maui a little later. I will save the tale of Carol and I watching some surfers on the Florida coast paddling for hours to get beyond the waves. I will spare you the description of the first time I saw surfers gathering on a beach on Kauai 25 years ago. But I’ll share a link with you:

For a land-locked old guy from Ontario, I can still get the vicarious thrill of waiting for the waves at the Red Bull Big Wave Africa site. The swells are only 4 feet today – no good for surfing. But the big one’s coming. And I’ll be watching.

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One Day I’m Going To Take Up Surfing. Or Maybe Not.

By Jesse, himself. | Published: June 7, 2007

I’ve always imagined that I would like to surf. Until I saw this.

Greg Long rides a wave in Dungeons, South Africa.

Greg Long Catches The Big One

Tomorrow’s Friday – and I’ll post a little more detail about this shot…

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Unbelievable

By Jesse, himself. | Published: May 22, 2007

In my trips to Africa, I have seen many unbelievable things. But this—this footage is beyond any of them.

It tells me two things: first, nature is beautifully unpredictable. And second, the power of documenting man’s environment no longer belongs to conglomorates but is in the hands of everyone. This incredible footage wasn’t shot by a news network or heavily-funded documentarian; it was uploaded to YouTube by a tourist.

Posted in Life, Travel | 4 Comments

Exhileration

By Jesse, himself. | Published: April 30, 2007

There was something incredible about this photograph.

hawking

Theoretical physicist Steven Hawking experiencing zero gravity, all expenses paid by Richard Branson of Virgin, on the Zero G (it cost him about about 100K but regular trips are about $3500; book your seat today.). One of the smartest men in the world experiencing something he only imagined, sponsored by one of the coolest men in the world, who can imagine with the best of them. And suffering from advanced Lou Gehrig’s disease, there’s not a whole lot of great sensations that Hawking gets access to.

Branson seems to be around here a lot these days – in Toronto recently creating an environmental campaign, and speaking at what looked suspiciously like a get-rich-quick-conference, if only for the presence of Donald Trump. Organizing this one really shows his creativity and compassion. It’s a treat for all of us.

I think it was Coudal’s blog that noted the dali-esque nature of the shot. Brilliant.

Dali

Posted in Brogue Craic, Life, Travel | 2 Comments

The Monty Hall Problem

By Jesse, himself. | Published: April 27, 2007

There is a very cool online back-up service called Mozy that I was in the process of researching and signing up for, when I was hit with the importance of Value Added on the web. I happened to have a quick look at Mozy’s blog, and discovered a very cool post about the Monty Hall Problem. Now, anyone who knows me knows that math is not my strong suit. I am functionally math-illiterate, and break out in a cold sweat when I try to get my head around math problems.

As I read the post in question, I began to get that old drowning feeling, but then they had a very cool little app to demonstrate the probability of the problem. And I began to get it. Now, this has nothing to do with Online Backup of important computer data, but it did implicitly tell me that the company I was considering for this service could communicate to me in a way that I could understand. That’s great sales.

Check out their post about the Monty Hall Problem. It’s great.

Posted in CatchAll, Distractions, Marketing | 2 Comments