Android on Crack

Admittedly, some things do not have a story behind them.  Witness the Android on Crack video below.  Disclaimer: there is literally no intellectual value to be derived by viewing this.  That being said, I wish it was another ten minutes longer.  A great way to usher out the week…

You’re Awesome: Brad Ludden

Brad Ludden is a literal superstar in the world of professional whitewater kayaking. He began his affair with fast-moving water as a young boy, ultimately ascending to the pinnacle of the sport. This did not come easily. Kayaking can have an unforgiving learning curve and Ludden’s passage through those trials was not smooth sailing. Admittedly, encounters with confidence-shaking terror proved to be nearly impassable obstacles for Brad, at one point leading him to quit the sport for an entire year. I get this. I have not been back in my kayak since almost cashing in on The Big Thompson River almost two years ago. Fortunately I walked away with only a dislocated elbow, an absolutely pulped lower body and back, hypothermia, and a determination to never stuff myself into a tube of hard plastic on a violent river again (at least, that is how I feel now…). Brad Ludden, however, did find his way back into the current. Flash forward a number of years and Ludden is a professional that travels the world, seeing places that most of us could not even imagine, and tackling rapids that only a handful of kayakers would even dare. His accomplishments are legion though his greatest feat, in his eyes, is his establishment of First Descents, a non-profit kayaking camp for young adults with cancer. Kayaking is unlike any other sport in the world. It is at the same time intimidating, exhilarating, challenging, and inspiring. But perhaps above all else, it is empowering. Through First Descents, Brad Ludden brings that empowerment to ordinary people confronted with extraordinary circumstances and within the boundaries of moving water, opens the horizons of a moving soul. Brad Ludden, you are awesome.

Please take a moment to watch the story of Brad and First Descents.

 

Airplanes and Strange Parents

Excerpt from The Vanishing Point, an original work by Jeff Moore

THERE IS AN EARNESTNESS about a plane taking flight. It is as if the entire collection of metal and wire and moving parts knows that it is defying more than gravity. That it is somehow a fraud, always on guard against the ultimate exposure. When I am actually awake and observing the initial ascent of an airliner, I often find myself anxiously rooting for it to achieve a zenith that will allow it to stop holding its breath and cruise closer to normal. I imagine that as it gains altitude, it looks back over its shoulder and realizes how commitment defines it and desperation drives it to not fail its flock, the passengers. Or that it, too, is terrified at the thought of dropping out of the sky. A self-contradicting aviophobist.

Thoughts like these – coupled with the dreams – make it fair to presume that I don’t like to fly. That is not the case, however. I don’t mind flying at all. The process is a system, no more, no less. Millions of things in a day to day existence are founded upon the integrity of systems. Sure, the system may fail. But agonizing over that statistically minute possibility wasn’t going to help keep the plane aloft.

The reality was that I love to drive. Particularly alone. I’ve gone on trips into remote areas of the country and south of the border where it truly feels as if the map reached a point in the rearview mirror and stayed behind while I carried on. That kind of road-bound unknown is very liberating. I see things and people that ninety-nine point nine percent of the earth’s population never will if only because there really is no reason to. For me, that makes those sights special – the fact that they only are what they are, nothing more. There will be times when I’ll find myself rolling down the macadam without seeing another car or other sign of life for hours. What freedom. Just me and the smooth hum of rubber on asphalt while a veritable time warp is traversed. Be it desert, mountain, forest… At times like those there are no voices for miles. But the terrain itself is speaking to me like Shakespeare.

Leave the office and do…this

We’re coming into the week’s homestretch.  Sometimes that is when we most need a boost.  Take a look at this video short for Corona.  I don’t surf, but this had me dreaming of destinations I covet and the stories that would see me there.