I realized that it was exactly a decade ago that I played in my 1st-ever disc golf world championship. Although the tourney overall did not go as well as planned, the final round featured what remains as one of the best throws of my life.
With just a few holes left to play, I let go of a drive on a 330-foot drive that landed softly in the center of the chains. A hole in one at the world championships. It was an especially cool ace because my dad, who had never seen me play before, was actually in the gallery watching me play that day.
To illustrate for those not familiar with disc golf, this essentially would be like standing in a football endzone, and throwing a (frisbee) disc that hits a basketball on the opposite goal post. And even though the event didn’t result in a world title, I had to wait under one year for that dream to come true.
If you do nothing else today, make sure you watch this video.
And if you are REALLY SOOOOOooo busy that you can’t take 4 minutes to watch the whole thing, then start at the 3-minute mark and watch to the end from there.
This item encompasses everything our project stands for:
The best way to save the planet is to keep laughing!
I am a bona fide DFH (dirty effin hippie).
I am coming clean, just don’t ask me to take more than the minimum number of showers required to be tolerated in our modern world.
With that said, now more than ever, the DHF ethos is proving to have been right all along. Organic foods, once a fringe boutique food item, can be found at Walmart. Going green, once popular only amongst frogs, is now cooler than ever amongst image-conscious people and corporations alike. Climate change, once just a theory known as the greenhouse effect, is now a scientific fact backed by 98% of the world’s scientists, and 100% or the population of non-stupid people worldwide.
The final hurdle of our eleventy-bazillion mile barefoot hippie high hurdle marathon in the little fact that even the most granola-filled and hippified amongst us still burn oil. Lots of oil.
The good news is that the solution is simple and has served mankind just fine for millennia: WALKING
The 2nd national park in the U.S. remains one of the nation’s greatest legacies over 100 years later. People from across the globe seek things that cannot be found elsewhere on Earth; few leave disappointed.
Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.
Below I will share a few more photos, quotes, and bits of advice for anyone hoping to visit in the near future.
The memories are still strong. China is the most prolific with such malapropisms, but all of Asia should be given a hat tip for its contributions to the cause of making me wet myself laughing. This is one of my personal faves that I captured (in Rishikesh, India):
Climate change will do more than make life on Earth a bit warmer. Even a 5th-grader can tell you that. The problem with people like James Inhofe is that they are not smarter than 5th-graders.
If things don’t change (for the better) quickly, we are looking at major die-off of the world’s trees. If the trees go, we are not far behind.
The high heat that accompanied the recent drought was the underlying cause of death for millions of pinyon pines throughout the Southwest, according to new research.
The resulting landscape change will affect the ecosystem for decades. Hotter temperatures coupled with drought are the type of event predicted by global climate change models. The new finding suggests big, fast changes in ecosystems may result from global climate change.
I don’t understand all the whining about The Who’s halftime show. I really don’t. Most of the gripes were general “They are teh suck” comments, with a few “he can’t hit the notes” jabs. Let’s hear you do better after 50 years of belting out those notes.
Some even espoused the hilarious hyperbolic notion that it was “Teh Worst EVAH.” To him (and those who agreed) I replied, and I ask all of you: Where the heck were you for the first 38 Super Bowls?
The Simpsons even had an entire episode about Super Bowl halftime shows wherein Homer, notorious super genius, agreed that “every halftime show has been great!” Unless your snark-o-meter is broken, this was clearly meant to ridicule the incredible lameness of halftime shows. They historically were worse than unwatchable, which is why so many other channels designed their own shows (a la “Puppy Bowl”) to draw people away.
Some of you may have heard that there is a new movie out that people seem to really like, called “Avatar”. (It was actually released Dec. 18, over a month ago.)
Others may have heard that there have been people experiencing separation anxiety and withdrawal after “returning to Earth” from the magical lands of Pandora, the setting for the film.
On the fan forum site “Avatar Forums,” a topic thread entitled “Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible,” has received more than 1,000 posts from people experiencing depression and fans trying to help them cope.
This video might give those who have yet to visit Pandora an idea why people find it so enchanting.
With these facts in mind, it’s high time someone founded a support group to deal with the crushing reality that they may never, in fact, get a chance to visit Pandora.
Here is my list of “blue flags“, if you will:
You have thought about taking language classes in Na’vi
You’re hoping to trade in your gasoline-powered vehicle for a flying banshee
Your bedroom is now glowing from “bio-luminescent” paint
The phrase “I see you” is not just for playing Peekaboo anymore
Your vestigial tail feels itchier than normal
You refer to friends & relatives as “sky people”
Your kids now live in the master bedroom; your kids’ tree-fort is now your “Hometree”
And so on
The recovery process from such a state of mind is arduous. It begins by acknowledging that one is powerless over all things “Avatar” and that life (on Earth) has become unmanageable. It continues by turning one’s will & life over to Eywa.
I’ve yet to sift through all 52 pages of the support thread on the Avatar Forums site, but it can’t hurt to have another.
Until we can perfect the cryogenic travel that will enable us to get to the Pandora in the film, perhaps Avatar Anonymous is the only healthy way to deal with the yearning to travel to such beautiful lands & walk amidst its surreal flora.
As it turns out, Avatar is real: Pandora is in Central and South America. So, to answer your burning question, yes, “The Laughing Planet” will (continue to) go to Pandora to shoot video of these wondrous places for posterity.
Just try not to let the blues bring you down afterward.
