50 Top 10's for 2007 - Happy New Year!

Time magazine has put together an amazing list of top 10's for 2007. I love top 10's at the end of the year. And it has been a great year for me! Lots of sailing on the SF bay and a trip to the Delta. Great year in biz with the Too Much Fun Club with a ton of fantastic events in the Silicon Valley. My family is doing great and my mom just celebrated her 80th birthday. A good year health wise with lots of running and swimming. Awesome trips to Costa Rica, Bahamas, Yosemite/Tahoe and Hawaii. This was truly one of the best years of my life!! And 2008 looks to be even better! To see all the top 10's from Time, click here.

Here is the top sports moment of the year!

New Fish Speices Found After Tsunami

Check out these very strange fish that showed up after the Tsunami of 2005 in Thailand. These are never before seen specimans that are baffling the scientific community. See them here.

SnowH2uh0

Merry Christmas To All!

Music Box Dancer - Holdman Christmas Display 2007 from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.

Bay Days

I am just returning from a beautiful 3 day sail on the bay. It started on Sunday night about 9 with a night sail. The winds were about 15 knots and there was a sprinkle here and there. Your senses turn on in high gear at night and it was amazing on the bay. As soon as I got in, it started raining. Needless to say, I was the only one out. Monday it looked like it might rain but it did not. Went out for a great sail with an old friend Jason. The wind was in the low teens and made for a nice break from the 30's we seemed to have all summer. We made it over to South Beach and dropped into A-6. Two other sailing buddies joined us for a harvest dinner on the boat. What a nice night. I slept in til about 9:30 and it was raining pretty hard. By 2pm, I had cleaned up the boat and it was clear and breezy! I headed out with a destination of Sausalito. The wind was pretty strong until I hit Angel and then it dropped. I added the main to the jib only configuration and took off for a nice run across the bay. Had a quiet night in Sausalito with dinner at my favorite Thai place. Wednesday I got on the water at 9:15 and the breeze was up again! Had a lovely sail back home in light winds and fighting the ebbing tide. The boat was in fine shape as we had spent the last three weekends working on her. What a great way to start the holidays! Hope you have a cool yule!

Pic of the Weekend

China's Answer to Saving Space

They grow them in boxes and the watermelon takes the shape of the box.

Try a New Sport!

When was the last time you tried a new sport? Here is a list of the 10 weirdest ones from around the world. One you might want to consider is Chess Boxing. You play a round of chess and then jump in the ring for a round of boxing. I kid you not. If you take too long to move a piece due to unconsciousness, you lose. For more on these unique, er, crazy sports,
click here.

Bonehead Move

Mav's Goes Off

As many of you know, a monster storm up north brought some huge swells to Northern California last week. Mavericks in Half Moon Bay and Ghost Tree in Pebble Beach saw some of the biggest waves ever. 60-70 feet waves pounded the coast on a very foggy day. The video of that day has just surfaced and we are proud to bring it to you. Several people died on this day (one surfer and two crabbers) so it goes without saying that the conditions were very extreme. Be careful out there!
To watch the vid, click here.

Pic of the Day

Best Meteor Shower of the Year on the 13th

Here is what astronomers David Levy and Stephen Edberg have written of the annual Geminid Meteor Shower: "If you have not seen a mighty Geminid fireball arcing gracefully across an expanse of sky, then you have not seen a meteor."

The Geminids get their name from the constellation of Gemini, the Twins, because the meteors appear to emanate from a spot in the sky near the bright star Castor in Gemini.

Also in Gemini this month is the planet Mars, nearing a close approach to the Earth later this month, and shining brilliantly with yellow-orange hue. To be sure, Mars is certain to attract the attention of prospective Geminid watchers this upcoming week.

The Geminid Meteors are usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even surpassing the famous Perseids of August.

Studies of past find the "Gems" have a reputation for being rich both in slow, bright, graceful meteors and fireballs as well as faint meteors, with relatively fewer objects of medium brightness.

They are of medium speed, encountering Earth at 22 miles per second (35 kps). They are bright and white, but unlike the Perseids, they leave few visible trails or streaks. They are four times denser than most other meteors, and have been observed to form jagged or divided paths.

Geminids also stand apart from the other meteor showers in that they seem to have been spawned not by a comet, but by 3200 Phaethon, an Earth-crossing asteroid. Then again, the Geminids may be comet debris after all, for some astronomers consider Phaethon to really be the dead nucleus of a burned-out comet that somehow got trapped into an unusually tight orbit. Interestingly, on December 10, Phaethon will be passing about 11 million miles (18 million kilometers) from Earth, its closest approach since its discovery in 1983.

According to the experts, the Geminids are predicted to reach peak activity on Dec. 14 at 16:45 GMT. That means those places from central Asia eastwards across the Pacific Ocean to Alaska are in the best position to catch the very crest of the shower, when the rates conceivably could exceed 120 per hour.

"But," he adds, "maximum rates persist at only marginally reduced levels for some 6 to 10 hours around the biggest ones, so other places (such as North America) should enjoy some fine Geminid activity as well.

Indeed, under normal conditions on the night of maximum activity, with ideal dark-sky conditions, at least 60 to 120 Geminid meteors can be expected to burst across the sky every hour on the average (Light pollution greatly cuts the numbers).

Table Frisbee

Insane

Whale Sharks

The engine slowed down and settled in to idle. It was late afternoon and the intense heat of the day had lowered by a few degrees, the sun tingled on my sunburnt face. Our boat bobbed up and down in the waters of the Sea of Cortez; the city of La Paz just off in the distance. My fellow divers and I looked quizzically at our dive guide, mystified as to why we’d suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere.

The skipper of our boat was staring at our guide, who was in turn standing on the bow, gazing fixedly out towards the waters around us; in curious silence we all followed his gaze trying to find the reason for our sudden cessation. Slowly our guide gestured towards the waters beyond; I turned my gaze but could not see anything interesting, until I noticed faint shadows moving in the water. “Get your gear on,” our guide instructed in his thick Mexican accent, “Whale Sharks!” Evan, my dive buddy, a pool digger from Los Angeles lit up and a wide grin spread across his face. “I’ve been trying to see these things for over ten years!” he shouted excitedly, “This is going to be incredible!” We hurriedly put our wet suits and masks back on as the boat circled back around, and on the guide’s instruction we dropped off the side of the small white boat in to the sea below. Mildly disorientated, it took me a second to gain my bearings, then suddenly I recoiled in horror; I was face to face with a monster. Continue reading here.

Surf Addiction

Hi. My name is Gideon and I am a surf addict.

I have been an addict for 24 years. I can’t go without a very regular fix of surfing. I admit that. I will do almost anything to surf. Lie, cheat, steal. And beg. I’ve quit many jobs, I’ve lost plenty babes and my career is going nowhere. All because of surfing. Yes, it has gotten bad. The addiction has taken over my life to such an extent that I am now living on a boat right next to the lineup. That’s what you call a mainline surf addiction. I am mainlining bro. Every day, all day long.

I did the high school and college thing and kept my addiction under control. There were a few “flare ups”, extended surf trips which almost cost me my degree on more than one occasion. Got lost in the Mexico if you know what I mean. But I got myself back over the border. Back into my suit and tie. Back on track. As a young lawyer I initially kept the addiction under control. In the beginning it was easy to hide the wetsuit rash under my collar. But the post surf sinus drip happens when you least expect it. A dead give away to those who know. Gradually the addiction got worse. I knew I was developing a real problem when I started surfing during my 15 minute morning “tea break”. No time was too short to surf. My surf addiction was a runaway train. Continue reading here.

Can You Say Climate Change?

52 Things You Would Like to Say at Work

1. I can see your point, but I still think you’re full of sh*t.

2. I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce.

3. How about never? Is never good for you?

4. I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.

5. I’m really easy to get along with once you people learn to see it my way.

6. Who lit the fuse on your tampon?

7. I’m out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.

8. I don’t work here. I’m a consultant.

9. It sounds like English, but I can’t understand a word you’re saying.

10. Ahhhh. I see the f ***-up fairy has visited us again.

11. I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.

12. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.

Read the other 40 here.

Pororoca - Amazon River

The pororoca is a tidal bore (a rare tidal phenomenon where the leading edge of the incoming tide forms waves that travel up the river against the direction of the current) that creates waves up to 12 feet high. In this case it occurs at the mouth of the river where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Since 1999, there has been an annual surfing championship held during the pororoca. Brazilian Picuruta Salazar won the last event with on a wave that took him 12.5 kilometers and gave him a ride of 37 minutes on the same wave. Most surfers are happy with a 5-8 second ride here on the west coast! Check the vid!

Have a Great Day!

Start Your Own Sailing Blog

Several people have told me that I inspired them to start their very own blog. They sign up with one of the many free hosting services(like this one at www.blogger.com) and they are ready to go. Then they ask me, "Well, what do I write about?" Good question. Write about what ever your passion is. Mine happens to be sailing, water sports and all things extreme. Figure out what your interests are and go from there. Then they ask, "Where do you find all your content?" I usually do my searching in the morning before the day begins. Many days I don't have any idea where I am headed, but by searching and stumbling thru the web, there is always something to discover. "How do you set up your links so all the reader has to do is click on it?" There is a little HTML code we use that makes it very simple. I can't post it because blogger thinks I am trying to set up a link. Email me at fungod@gmail.com and I will happily send it to you. So that's it! Now you are ready to begin. There are many other aspects like promoting your site, coming up with a great title for your site, getting other bloggers to link to your site, and many others. The key is is get it started and keep finding interesting content that will keep your readers coming back for more! Good luck!

Windsurf Wipeouts

Videoblog - Assault of Kang Yatze

Two strangers meet in an e-mail exchange and decide to climb a 21,000 peak in India. Their plan is to ski down after the climb. This is not your average throw together video travel log. It is a very well designed multimedia prize. Such slick sites like this are few and far between. Check out all the action on 'Lost Bags and Lost Souls" here.

High Speed Slo Mo