From the just released 2008 Darwin Awards

AND THE WINNER IS...
Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt ( Paderborn , Germany ) fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally got relief. Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded. The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock as the elephant continued to evacuate 200 pounds of dung on top of him. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves... 'Shit happens'

My God Aqua, this can really happen!!

Rambo

Rambo sets out on another unearthly experience.

Go watch it full screen here http://blip.tv/file/944361
Or Download HQ WMV file here (96MB)

http://blip.tv/file/get/Rambooc1-AnotherDayInParadise455.wmv

How many of you find yourselves constently hovering around this site and refreshing it every 2 minutes to see if anything changed? Hope I'm not alone.

I'm too lazy to search this out, but I'm going to Maui in late July for a few weeks and was curious if there were any OC1 rentals available anywhere. Thanks in advance for any help!

How much did the whole thing cost?

Please break down into sections.

Im just finishing up repainting the hull of a Hurricane. I had to take the paint and primer down to the laminate. In doing so i was surprised to see, what looked like Uni-directional carbon. If that is indeed what it is Im impressed and confused. For starters, I know of no other way than prepreg, to fabricate with Uni. Is this a prepreg laminate? Secondly, the fibers were running at 90 degrees. Why is that? Usually, as with rowing shells, the fiber oreintation is bow to stern for maximum stiffness. Anyone have knowledge of what and why they are doing this?

anybody can share results for first regatta???
link to news paper......?
mahalo nui!

http://www.tahitianpearlprinces.net/en/mike-varney/movie.html

Caution this video will make you want to move to Tahiti full time.

Painteur does Solo, Solo does Painteur ?
It was definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s a humbling experience. If you don’t know what you are made of yet, this one makes it crystal clear.
 I had mounted my 3 cameras on the canoe and lost the first one right at the launch through the shore break. That was of course my rotating cam. Then I re-rigged number 2 and lost a mounting clip which eliminated that one. In the ensuing melee the memory card on cam 3 got knocked loose so all I’ve got is escort footage.
The race had a false start and at 9 am the horn went off and within 15 minutes the ski’s were out of sight. I choose a northerly course. It’s a crapshoot and I promptly shot crap. The first 1.5 hours I was catching bumps and my GPS didn’t go under 6.8 mph. The closer I got to halfway the wind started to die down it got hotter and my speed dumped. At the 14 mile point the cramps started. I had to pull up and stretch. Took my electrolytes and after a couple of slow miles they kicked in and I caught my second wind. That didn’t last too long and even though I didn’t consider quitting, I questioned how my body could go 17 more miles. I probably pulled up 50 times from overwhelming cramps and restarting every time was tough. At times I did 10 strokes and stopped again. Sarah Gilman was outstanding with her support. She advised to keep paddling even if it was slow going. I had barely the strength to stir a cup of coffee. So when I finally came close to the island and the bumps were in my favor I still had no more bacon left to catch them. Out of 40 easy bumps I caught one. Everybody on the escort cheered me on and Sarah kept saying its mind over matter. That became my mantra. In the mean time Dana Adler crept into my view a mile to my left with half my stroke rate and walked steadily ahead. He made a smarter course choice by going south and at that point he had the better line. I was in survival mode and had I huli’d I would never have been able to get back up on the boat.
As I was coming to the last corner about 2 miles out I noticed Danas escort boat slowing down and he was half a mile ahead going slower. The last of my adrenaline started to kick in and mind started finally to beat matter. I basically started a furious all out sprint and I couldn’t believe my own body cooperated. Oh and the wind in the last 1.5 miles had picked up to about 15 mph coming straight at us. That didn’t help, but it cooled me down somewhat. Still my sprint wasn’t enough and Dana beat me by about 20 seconds. My hat is of to him. He took the smarter line and that won it for him.
I had my GPS set to auto-pause when stopped and it showed that I paddled 6:29. So with my official time being 7:20, I lost almost an hour due to cramps.
Basically my name was “Cork” for an hour,...just floating and cursing my cramps, my thong :) and the universe at large.
I have to admit though, it took 3.76 days to wipe the grin of my face!
Love you all,
see...,now I’m getting all lotional.

This vid's for you
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7281538495443281666

Starting on my 5th month of paddling. To my surprise I never had ANY pain or stiffness in my lower back following 2 hours of trolling around. Recently I figured out that my seat position was too far back and moved it up some. Now I am getting the leg bracing and have the leg position I see in all the videos and everything finally feels right when I am paddling, but my back gets stiff. Maybe it will take some time to get used to this (second time out with seat moved up 2 inches) or maybe I have screwed around with the seat too much and pushing with my feet is irritating my back. It would seem if the seat was slightly sloped forward like the top of this symbol (>) it would be more comfortable. My hamstrings are really flexable so not sure what is going on or if this is a normal thing that I will adapt to. If anyone has any suggestion, thank you. I would love to get on a different canoe and take a long paddle and see how I feel. This is where the boat would make a big difference if something was more comfortable!