“I just have to ask,” said the man on the elevator after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence,”Why?”
“Why not?” I said. I mean, to this question – sometimes – what else can you say? If I had been in full drag and wearing a monkey for a hat, he probably would not have blinked twice. But in that I was just about to surf the Strip, I think that even for Vegas this was a little unusual.
After all, I was holding a skateboard as big as me and a stick that was even bigger. Okay – yeah, granted – I’m not that big, but this is a big board and it’s obviously out of place in the MGM Grand here in Las Vegas. And really, I can’t explain the Big Kahuna Stick even to people who ride. (Some things just need to be experienced…)
Things got a little weirder even when I got out onto the Strip. I rode past one man who wore live parrots as jewelry. People tried to sell me things that really shouldn’t ever be sold. Others offered to buy the board, and the stick, and – well, I think – maybe even me, but hey, this is Vegas, Baby. It ain’t nothing personal, it’s just that everything here has a price.
But for an hour, as I moved slowly north on the Las Vegas Strip and then turned around and came back to the hotel, I was the lone surfer on a neon-lit wave of polished concrete. Wave after wave of people parted around me like bait-fish before a passing dolphin. I passed the Bellagio as the fountains erupted, and the mists from them were like spray from a chlorinated sea. If this wasn’t real, it was the next best thing after ten straight days of outdoor tradeshows, indoors.
When SIA moves to Denver, I won’t miss this town much. But – hey – tonight Las Vegas, thanks for the ride. Thankyouverymuch!
(Elvis has left the building…)
My grandfather Durward was a plumber. In the Forties and Fifties, he took his family all around the West so that he could work on projects as large as dams or as complex as housing projects. For a good part of the year, they lived in a big wall tent. My Dad and his brothers hunted rabbits for Grandma’s stewpot while Grandpa worked. From the pictures and the stories, life was right out of a novel by Stegner, or Steinbeck.
I have some of Grandpa’s tools on my desk. When I’m thinking – as I’ve been doing a lot lately – I sometimes hold these tools just to feel them in my hands. The truth is, I like to hold the tools because they make me think I can figure things out, even when at times the answers aren’t so obvious. I say to myself,”Grandpa was a tradesman who used simple tools to do amazing things.”
Okay, yeah, it’s hokey. But it helps.
To me, today – January 20th, 2009 – feels like the official start of the New Year. In any case, it’s the start of a new era, and I haven’t felt this hopeful in a long, long time. Part of this hope flows from the feeling that – beginning right now – we can match hard work with open-ended opportunity and in the process create something entirely new. Today, “innovation” becomes a by-product of “possibility,” rather than purely a response to “limitation.” Hope is a simple tool with rough, well-worn edges, and there’s no denying the weight of it when you hold it in your hand.
As is the case with most of the country, we at Pemba Serves had a challenging 2008. We had good challenges that came from opportunities and hard challenges that came from setbacks. We weathered each of them to the best of our abilities. We were largely successful, and sometimes – honestly – we failed. We lost good people, and brought some new people onto our team. At times, the opportunities came so strongly it felt like we were drinking from the firehose. Other times, it seemed like we were just in over our heads.
Still, we managed to get some things done. We took on large new initiatives and – surprisingly – achieved most of them. For 2008, we offer our thanks to our partners: We wouldn’t be here without you, and we’re glad you stick with us.
For 2009 and beyond, we have some new things in the works. First and foremost, we want to expand upon the “Done Daily” theme that we began to develop in the latter part of 2008. To this end, we’re going to refine the ways in which we communicate with each other, our friends, colleagues, and customers. (No secrets here: This here interweb thingy will play a part in this.) We’ve challenged ourselves to look at the standard clinic model and see if there’s a way we can do it more effectively. We’re going to find new ways to do what we do with an eye towards sustainability. And, we want to open the conversation about best-practices in our little niche of the outdoor industry.
As always, we’ll have a few WAP’s, too. (That’s “Wild Ass Plans…”) Some of these actually stick, it seems. At the very least, the wild ideas make our work more interesting. Well, at least to us, and that makes it more fun to do what we do.
Fun, hope, good people, and some inspiring goals – not a bad tool-kit for 2009. Now, it’s time to get to work…
After reading Brian’s last few posts about some of the more obscure, harder lines at Devil’s Lake, I wanted to post some old pictures I had of both of the climbs he wrote about.
First up is Jenga. It’s towards the top of the west bluff talus field at Devil’s Lake and is really hard to find. Peter was taking us all around the west bluff one day and we stumbled upon it. He looked at it for a second and remembered that it was, in fact, Jenga. He’d done the FA a few years prior. The name comes from all of the rocks at the base that he rearranged to make a better landing. Said it took him hours to clean up the landing, but the line is completely worth it.
The next couple of shots are of Hefty on the Keymaker. This problem was done in 2003 by Brian Sandona and is still unrepeated. He gave it a tentative V11 and it’s a great contender for hardest climb at the lake. The crux involves a bad left hand crimp and a waist level lockoff. There seems to be more interest in this year(Brian, Nic, Me??) so maybe we’ll see a repeat soon.
Every year around this time I start to get antsy to get outside and start climbing again. This year is no different and I’ve already planned out a couple of trips. I should have my list of 2009 goals next week or so. Hopefully I’ll complete more of the climbs this time….
Special shout-out to the IT guy for braving the snow-covered roads and -12 degree weather to diagnose Brad’s computer problem. Turns out the screen wasn’t working because the computer was sleeping. We can’t really blame Brad, he’s a Mac-guy after all, but it is agreed that he can no longer claim the title of in-house IT support.
