In middle school/junior high school, I got into skateboarding due to the influence of my peers growing-up. I would buy skateboard magazines (featuring Tony Hawk) and would hang these cool posters from them all over my room. I never owned a skateboard, but I wanted to be a "skateboarder". I would try my friends' skateboard, but couldn't get the hang of it.
During the winter time, snowboarding became the "thang". I tried snowboarding in the backyard of the townhouses we lived it, but couldn't stay up!
I've learned that I probably can't do these xtreme sports because of another "calling" in my life. However, I can still enjoy watching it!
Video Games
"Man dies after 50 hours of computer games
-msnbc (Aug 10th 2005)
South Korean left seat in Internet cafe only to use toilet, take brief naps
Updated: 6:43 p.m. ET Aug. 9, 2005
SEOUL, South Korea - A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said on Tuesday.
The 28-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lee, had been playing online battle simulation games at the cybercafe in the southeastern city of Taegu, police said.
Lee had planted himself in front of a computer monitor to play online games on Aug. 3. He only left the spot over the next three days to go to the toilet and take brief naps on a makeshift bed, they said.
"This is short-clip of accomplishing a "jump" after many-many attempts that was videotaped by my friend Chris using his video-camera phone! This was during a Sunday (January 10th of 2010) afternoon.
"snowboarding is fun." Afton Alps - Mighty Midwest Snowboard Camp , from youtube.com "..www.bahprod.com, produced by Bah Productions, LLC for Afton Alps. A Documentary of the Mighty Midwest Snowboard Camp. This is one example of the many professional video services offered by Bah Productions, LLC...
Local Siblings Start Snowboarding Web Site, from Feb 23, 2010 6:44 pm US/Central wcco.com "(WCCO)
Not only is the biggest ski school in the world right here in Minnesota, but it's also completely free.
It's called SnowProfessor.com and it contains free lessons for those snowboarding for the first time or those looking to improve their game on the snow.
It's become so popular that more than 200,000 people have viewed the site. Two Minnesotans spent dozens of dollars and several hours creating the Web site about snowboarding.
"It's a growing sport, that's for sure," said Jill McGary, one of the Web site's founders.
She's been an avid skier all her life, but she traded her ski boots for snowboard boots, opting to teach snowboarding at Hyland Mountain in Bloomington, alongside her brother, Rick Putnam.
The siblings believe the best way to learn is through a certified instructor, but getting a taste of boarding fun might be best online and on their Web site, they said.
It includes several videos that the siblings shot in Breckenridge, Colorado. They spent a full week shooting them, and then they brought them back to the Twin Cities to edit and post online.
"We know not everybody can get to a lesson and not everybody can afford a lesson," Putnam said. "So our videos are there for those people."
There are instructions for a wide-range of snowboarding activities, starting with fundamental first steps.
People who live in the United States and Canada have clicked on the Web site the most. People in Turkey -- half-way across the world from the states -- are third for most clicks.
"We started this site, because we actually couldn't find accurate information online," McGary said.
McGary and Putnam have a knack for making lessons simple.
"I wouldn't be the snowboarder I am today without my brother," McGary said.
She, Rick and their parents traveled to Colorado as kids, starting on skis around Kindergarten.
They hope their work will inspire other families to hit the slopes to make their own memories.
"It's such a good family experience and something you can do your whole life," McGary said.
"
"The second day of Red Bull's Crashed Ice competition in St. Paul, Minnesota began in earnest after a rough opening day that saw the sub-zero temperatures wreak havoc on the ice because it was so cold that the ice became brittle and began to crack and chip. Put another way, it was too cold for the ice.
Think about that for a moment and try not to smile.
The international teams took to the track today for the morning and early afternoon training sessions, which were followed by elimination rounds and finally the team shootout, an event new to Crashed Ice this year.
In the team shootout, teams of three skaters race down the ice, two teams at a time. Thats six, count 'em, six skaters on the track at the same time, the same track that sees single skaters take massive tumbles all the time. Needless to say, its a sight to see, and its really exciting to watch.
Tomorrow promises to be even more exciting, with the finals poised to take over the city at 6:30PM CST. Temperatures will plummet over night to well below zero, but will rise during the day in to the double digits. Nearly balmy conditions, given the recent weather.
Attendance is expected to top 100,000 for the day.
"
"..The fastest 32 athletes from around the world raced during Saturday night’s World Championship, and Kyle Croxall, of Canada, took first place, defending his title.
But even with the massive crowd, there weren’t any big problems.
..."
I attended my second (first was at the Metrodome 2 years ago with Cory) "Monster Jam" this past weekend (Saturday, February 5th 2005) at the Fargodome-Fargo, ND with friends from my workplace. Below are some pictures I took with my camera phone.
Monster Truck going up the ramp over the cars behind the "Big Hill"
Monster Truck rolls around track
Bike is almost landing on the ramp
Another bike is almost landing on the ramp (close-up)
"Thousands of mountain biking enthusiasts gathered in the desert near Virgin, Utah, last weekend for the Red Bull Rampage, a heart-pounding downhill competition for freestyle specialists that's widely considered the Super Bowl of the sport. As usual, the action was incredible, with high speeds, huge jumps, and of course, some major wipeouts. But one of the scariest spills was taken by Cam Zink during his qualifying round.
Zink's plunge was nearly 80 feet onto a flat surface.
As you'll see in the video below, everything was going great for Cam, right up until it wasn't.
"Incredibly, Zink was able to walk away after spending 15 minutes on the ground getting checked out by medics. When he rose to his feet he thrilled the crowd that had been stunned into a hushed silence moments earlier. Incredibly, his biggest injury ended up being two severely bruised heels. In fact, Zink returned the next day in an effort to compete in the finals, but he determined the pain in his feet was too much to handle.
Zink, who's endured five knee surgeries, two broken feet, and a rod being put into his tibia, is well aware of how lucky he is just to be walking. "I was scared for my life," he posted afterward on his Facebook page.
Of course, the show did go on, with Kurt Sorge taking the top spot this year. For more on the Red Bull Rampage, click on the photo below to see Bike Magazine's full story and stunning photo gallery.
"A group of enthusiastic Christian skateboarders want to use their talents to spread God's word. Unfortunately, it doesn't always go as planned. Featured in LifeWay's Fuel curriculum."
-Testimonies
Skateboarding Testimony - Livin it LA
"Strong Testimonies heard from by Pro skateboarders(Lance Mountain, and Christian Hosoi) from the movie Livin it LA. Great movie and inspiring. "
Snowboarding
Snowboarding Extreme
" Snowboarding.Great tricks and jibbing winter season Gołdap 2005/2006. "
"After competing in the Mt. Baker Legendary Banked Slalom, Kelly Clark and friends hike into the woods to a secret riverbed filled in from an avalache run with just enough snow for a mini session."
Whistler
" Ben and Jaro head up to Whistler to spend some time on snow in one of the best terrain parks on Earth.
"Torstein Horgmo on Friday night became the first snowboarder in X Games history to nail a triple cork. The trick, which you can watch below, was landed successfully on his final run of the big-air competition and clinched a gold medal for the Norwegian. Some at the event, held in Aspen, Colo., were ranking it among the top X Games tricks ever performed."
Winter X Games 15: Torstein Horgmo Triple Cork
"Torstein Horgmo nails a triple cork in his final attempt to win Snowboard Big Air at Winter X Games 15 in Aspen."
Shaun White Crash at Winter X Games 2010 During Superpipe Practice
"Also check out my main channel for snowboarding and skateboarding videos!!"
Shaun White vs Kevin Pearce '09 Winter X Games
"Kevin Pearce and Shaun White are pretty amazing athletes at what they do. now comes to make the decision in who is better among the both."
Snowboard Bindings - Function and Types of Snowboarding Bindings "...The Strap Bindings is the original and still the most popular Binding System in Snowboarding. This is because Strap Bindings are not only adjustable and very secure, they are also comfortable. Nowadays, this Type of Bindings is designed to be lighter and stronger..."
"Soul Surfer is based on a true story, about a teenage girl, Bethany Hamilton (AnnaSophia Robb), who has to gain the courage to surf again, after losing her arm in a shark attack. Director: Sean McNamara Starring: AnnaSophia Robb ~ Bethany Hamilton Helen
Hunt ~ Cheri Hamilton Lorraine Nicholson ~ Alana Blanchard Carrie Underwood ~ Sarah Hill Dennis Quaid ~ Tom Hamilton Rated PG In Theaters: April 8, 2010 (USA)"
"
"Soul Surfer," the feature film based on the true story of surfer Bethany Hamilton being attacked by a shark and her journey back to surfing, opened last weekend in the fourth spot on the box office charts - partly a testament to its appealing family-friendly message and a marketing campaign that heavily targeted religious groups.
But even though Hamilton and her family's faith plays a key role in the film, many audiences would be surprised to learn that the question of how to show their religion in the film caused huge debate on set.
"I think to get anything in the film was a battle," said Sarah Hill, Hamilton's youth group leader at North Shore Christian Church, who was played by Carrie Underwood in the movie.
"Basically, what you're doing is you have all these people who want to make a movie about Bethany and they don't know the Lord and they don't have a personal relationship with Jesus. For what we have in the movie it was such a battle."
In one scene, Hill's character is shown counseling Hamilton as she struggles with living as an amputee. She reads from Jeremiah 29:11 " 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' "
The morning they went to shoot that scene, said Hill, who was on set often, "Twelve producers, me and the director were all sitting at the table and they all are just adamant about the Scripture not being in the movie. And they were saying at least let's not have the reference in it."
"For me it was a hill worth dying on to keep God in the movie," she said.
Tom Hamilton, Bethany’s father, said, “In my heart of hearts I wanted as many Christians as we could get to play parts in the movie. They just have a different spirit about them. ... Craig T. Nelson, who is a really strong Christian and goes to our church in Kauai, I called him and begged him to be in the movie.
“A lot of the producers didn’t want to go too overboard because they thought Christianity doesn't always sell well,” Tom Hamilton said.
Kevin Sorbo, who plays Holt Blanchard, the father of Hamilton's best friend, said, "Sony (Pictures, the film's producer) was afraid to throw in the word Jesus. They said you can have God but not Jesus. They were worried about that.
"The studios, you can't really fight them," he said. "Hollywood screams for freedom of speech but only if you agree with them. It's a very two-faced industry."
Sorbo said Sony wanted to take out another scene in which Bethany Hamilton wakes up in the hospital. Her father, played by Dennis Quaid, is shown reading a Bible. He reads to her from Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through him who gives me strength."
Tom Hamilton said the studio rented a house for the family during the filming so they could be on set every day.
“They changed the script a lot,” Hamilton said. “Dennis Quaid would come up to say, ‘Hey, this doesn’t sound right, we need a Scripture here.’ The script was in constant motion, it changed on the set even.”
"They listened to us. We had some pretty heated discussions. Everyone saw how passionate about it we were, getting the message we wanted out there,” he said.
Rich Peluso, the vice president of AFFIRM Films, a division of Sony Pictures, said the studio made no efforts to whitewash the Hamilton family's faith for the movie. He points out that Jesus is mentioned twice in the film and that the family's faith is central to the plot.
On set, he said, "There were certainly lots of discussions," specifically about the inclusion of Hill's character quoting Jeremiah.
"There were some that voiced the opinion that may have made it sound too faith-focused," Peluso said. "The counter-argument was, 'Well, if her character uses those words and doesn't attribute them to the Bible it seems like she's stealing them.' We came to the agreement the best thing to do was to use the Scripture there."
The biggest question the movie's producers were trying to determine was, "How do we have it come off (in a way) that is authentic to the family's faith and doesn't push it too far so that it appears to the viewer to be forced in?" he said. "We didn't want it to appear we were pushing in faith to appeal to the faith community."
The studio made a big push to attract faith leaders to the project, setting up screenings for pastors and ministry leaders. But it's hard to characterize "Soul Surfer" as a Christian movie.
Like the hit movie "The Blind Side," though, the characters in "Soul Surfer" are decidedly Christian. The movie opens with Bethany Hamilton rushing into a beachside church service because the Sunday morning waves were just too good to pass up.
"It's not that it's a Christian movie, it's an American movie," Peluso said.
In 2003, when a tiger shark attacked the 14-year-old Hamilton near Kauai, Hawaii, the story gripped the nation. Just three weeks after the attack, Hamilton was back in the water learning how to surf with one arm. A year later, she won a national surfing title.
Battles over how to portray religious themes in movies are becoming more common, as Hollywood becomes more open to addressing faith and marketing movies to religious audiences but worries about alienating nonreligious audiences or viewers from other traditions.
“After all the back and forth - and there’s always back and forth - it’s always best to air on the side of authenticity,” said Michael Flaherty, the president of Walden Media, which has helped produced the Chronicles of Narnia franchise and other Christian-themes movies.
“It actually is not in your commercial interest to secularize something like that, people will reject it,” he said of “Soul Surfer.” “People think they are making these decisions to broaden their audience but what they end up doing is narrowing it.”
But Flaherty said he thought “Soul Surfer” struck the right balance. “To see a movie where she wasn’t talking about her faith … it would have flopped,” he said. “It’s silly to narrow (the family’s faith). It’s like someone saying, ‘Let’s make a movie about Bethany but not talk about surfing.’”
Today, Bethany Hamilton is a professional surfer. In 2010 she was ranked 23rd in the world. "The shy kid has gone on to have a legit pro surf career despite her massive physical impairment," Joel Patterson recently wrote in Surfer Magazine, "and, in the process, she's inspired uncountable people struggling against cruel twists of fate."
Hamilton has long been outspoken about her Christian faith and the positive role it played in her recovery.
"We work with a lot of films, but the Hamiltons have to live with this for the rest of their lives, so that balance was important to us," AFFIRM's Peluso said. "I think we threaded the needle after a lot of work."
Tom Hamilton said Peluso constantly went to bat for the family with the movie, adding, "There was some give and take, but everything that was very important for us to portray ended up in the movie. We were very happy over all with the movie. We just wanted the real story told.”
Posted by: Eric Marrapodi - CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
"
Soul Surfer- Overcoming Incredible Odds - Movies
"'Soul Surfer' is the true story of how 19 year old Bethany Hamilton lost her left arm in a shark attack and courageously overcame all odds to become a champion again, through her sheer determination and unwavering faith. Bethany (AnnaSophia Robb) was born
to surf. A natural talent who took to the waves at a young age, she was leading an idyllic life on Kauai, participating in national surf competitions with her best friend Alana (Lorraine Nicholson), when everything changed. On Halloween morning, a 14-foot
tiger shark came out of nowhere and seemed to shatter all her dreams. Soul Surfer reveals Bethany's fight to recover from her ordeal and how she grappled with the question of her future. Strengthened by the love of her parents, Tom (Dennis Quaid) and Cheri
(Helen Hunt), and supported by her youth group leader Sara (Carrie Underwood), Bethany refuses to give in or give up, and begins a bold return to the water. 'Soul Surfer'-Inspires Overcoming Incredible Odds: Courtesy of CBN. "
Soul Surfer Music Video - Music Videos
"Music video for Soul Surfer starring Bethany's brother Noah Hamilton. FOLLOW BETHANY http://twitter.com/#!/bethanyhamilton surfing footage courtesy of http://www.ripcurl.com/ Bethany Hamilton - http://bethanyhamilton.com/ Alana Blanchard - http://www.alanablanchard.com/blog/
Song produced by Ola Shaw of W.A.M. Productions"
Bethany Hamilton short documentary by - This Iz My Story
"Uploaded by thiagomac on Jan 26, 2007
This video was made by Anthony from Salvation Skateboards and GX Skater...
That video was made when we went for a Tour in New Zealand 2004
"
Become GX International
"GX International is a ministry of Youth with a Mission. Find out about GX International and the people involved. These are real people, not actors! It's the real deal!! no make up, just keepin' it real, really!
You can find out about GX dancers, break dancers, skaters, media people, tech people and hear our Founder and International director, Bill Lanterman at his best!!"
"This is a promo for Snowboarders for Christ Wellington, New Zealand. We take college aged kids from Wellington to Mt Ruapehu to go snowboarding in the weekends throughout the winter. "
"Garrett McNamara rode what members of his group implied was the largest wave ever successfully negotiated during a tow-surfing session Tuesday off the coast of Nazare, a small fishing town 70 miles north of Lisbon, Portugal. The wave face measured "around 90 feet," according to a news release announcing the feat.
McNamara, a big-wave surfing icon from Hawaii, was riding large waves with Andrew Cotton and Al Mennie when three gigantic waves appeared on the outside. Cotton used a personal watercraft to tow McNamara onto the massive shoulder of one of those rogue waves.
Mennie was siting in the channel on another vessel, acting as lifeguard, and described the event: "Everything seemed to be perfect, the weather, the waves. Both Cotty and I rode two big ones in the 60-foot-plus range and then when Garrett got on the rope a wave, maybe 30 feet bigger, came out of the canyon.
"I had the best seat in the house as he dropped down the face of the biggest wave I've ever seen. It was incredible. Most people would look scared but Garrett looked in control as he went down the most critical part of the wave.
"It was an inspirational ride by an inspirational surfer. After the ride it was as if the sea calmed down. We sat out there and just absorbed both what had just happened and the surroundings."
Guinness World Records lists a 77-foot wave ridden at Cortes Bank in 2008, by Mike Parsons, as the current record. Cortes Bank is a shallow reef that sits 100 miles off the coast of Southern California, and is considered one of the most feared nautical hazard for mariners. Ken Bradshaw, another surfer from Hawaii, rode what was described as an 85-foot wave at an outer Hawaiian reef in 1998. (Wave heights always seem to fall under dispute.)
McNamara's ride will be entered in the Billabong XXL Global Big-Wave Awards, a year-long competition that announces winners in several categories, for the world's top big-wave surfers, each spring. Bill Sharp, director of the competition, said XXL "makes no size estimations until we get down to the finalists."
McNamara had been in Portugal to work with the Portuguese Hydrographic Institute in a study to learn more about how the waves in the deep-water canyon off Nazare reach such unusual heights.
Said McNamara: "I feel so blessed and honored to have been invited to explore this canyon and its special town. The waves here are such a mystery."
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