History of the Wetsuit: "I just wanted to be warm"

Yesterday the water here in Southern California dropped a full ten degrees overnight. It went from a bathing suit 66 to a freezing, it-hurts 56 degrees.

According to the lifeguards this is due to the last big-wave swell. It came in with a strong wind and in a few days had blown away the top cover of the ocean, revealing the cold depths.

It was pretty crazy, though, because the cold switch happened overnight. Yesterday it was warm and this morning it was freezing.

56 is so col that not a single person was in the water. Yet the temperature change happened so fast that people were still walking up in boardshorts ready to go out.

I went out and immediately left the water. It hurt!

A few hours later I returned with my winter booties and full wetsuit. This left only my hands and head exposed and I was able to stay out surfing for a long time.

Occasionally, others would join me, then after 10 minutes retreat back to the shore.

This prompted me to learn about the history of the wetsuit and my first search revealed..

 Jack O’Neill

You owe "The Cheese" a debt of gratitude. By developing the wetsuit, he allowed you to surf around the calendar and around the globe. His little shop in San Francisco is now a multimillion-dollar empire, but that wasn't why Jack O'Neill began. He just wanted to stay warm. "I'm just as surprised by this as anyone," O'Neill says. "I was just messing around with rubber."

full bio

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History of the wetsuit

Before the wetsuit:

Surfers prepped for the frigid seas with frantic, almost tribal dances around beach fires, some taking to the water in wool sweaters (occasionally soaked in oil) and/or clunky, immobilizing scuba suits — anything to stave off impending numbness. Waveriding was commonly conservative; the rational being that not falling and thus staying dry was paramount to get radical. Enter Jack O’Neill, an inventive San Franciscan and window salesman by trade whose unwillingness to freeze his nuts off would revolutionize watergoing.

Following numerous aborted stabs at a functional, mobile suit, a bodysurfing friend who was working at a Bay Area pharmaceutical lab introduced O’Neill to a peculiar new rubber-like substance: neoprene. O’Neill quickly ordered heaps of the stuff, began hand sewing it together and, in 1952, started up San Francisco’s first surf shop along its Great Highway. Sales were brisker than the afternoon onshore winds that churned Ocean Beach. Later, he took to the road to market his invention, setting up ice-filled tanks in which he’d submerse his kids for hours to get the point across. Onlookers were stunned and overnight surfing became a year-round affair. O’Neill later moved his headquarters south to Santa Cruz, where both remain today.

full history

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Back to O’Neill

Today, surfing is big business and the wetsuit industry is filled with competitors. Sometimes it’s hard to know what is good, but the O’Neill brand still stands for quality and is available in all the surf shops.

Which is pretty cool, a family company, the inventor of the wetsuit is still involved and still making the best. I think for my next wetsuit I will buy an O’Neill.

If you’re interested in learning more check out the cool website, or watch the video.

Is the Allure of the “Older Man” Fading?

Sean Connery, still damn sexy

A statement in a recent Financial Times article about data mined and analyzed from Match.com took me a little by surprise:

“Women are less likely to e-mail with men who live far away, men who are older than they are, and men who are short.”

Running counter to the “known fact” (as proclaimed by this Askmen.com author) that women are attracted to older men, more and more, we’re seeing the opposite: women going for younger men. Recent examples include:

    • Mariah Carey, 41, and Nick Cannon, 30
    • Demi Moore, 48, and Ashton Kutcher, 33

Even the great and powerful Hugh Hefner is not immune to this trend. The 83-year old mogul was stood up on his wedding day by his 25-year old fiancée, Chrystal Harris (for 25-year old Jordan McGraw).

As someone who went from dating the older, more financially established man to one who is younger but more of my peer and best friend, my reasons for being with the former versus the latter are a lot different. At the end of the day, I wanted someone I could talk to, as opposed to a “father figure” who could financially take care of me.

You’ve got to wonder what the dating and relationship landscape will look like once procreation isn’t the driving factor behind coupling and as women grow in their financial and social status. And in our “youth obsessed” culture, are older men immune?

*Interestingly enough, one of the fastest growing areas of plastic surgery in the United States is facelifts for men.

Is the Allure of the "Older Man" Fading?

Sean Connery, still damn sexy

A statement in a recent Financial Times article about data mined and analyzed from Match.com took me a little by surprise:

“Women are less likely to e-mail with men who live far away, men who are older than they are, and men who are short.”

Running counter to the “known fact” (as proclaimed by this Askmen.com author) that women are attracted to older men, more and more, we’re seeing the opposite: women going for younger men. Recent examples include:

    • Mariah Carey, 41, and Nick Cannon, 30
    • Demi Moore, 48, and Ashton Kutcher, 33

Even the great and powerful Hugh Hefner is not immune to this trend. The 83-year old mogul was stood up on his wedding day by his 25-year old fiancée, Chrystal Harris (for 25-year old Jordan McGraw).

As someone who went from dating the older, more financially established man to one who is younger but more of my peer and best friend, my reasons for being with the former versus the latter are a lot different. At the end of the day, I wanted someone I could talk to, as opposed to a “father figure” who could financially take care of me.

You’ve got to wonder what the dating and relationship landscape will look like once procreation isn’t the driving factor behind coupling and as women grow in their financial and social status. And in our “youth obsessed” culture, are older men immune?

*Interestingly enough, one of the fastest growing areas of plastic surgery in the United States is facelifts for men.

Irreverent and scary: the other comic con movies

Total Recall

Set to come out in 2012 with Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, and Jessica Biel. From Rotten Tomatoes:

“Director Len Wiseman (Underworld) jumps into the remake game with this retooling of Philip K. Dick’s short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, originally brought to the big screen by Paul Verhoeven in the 1990 sci-fi action eye-popper starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Colin Farrell stars as a blue-collar worker whose grip on his own identity breaks down after realizing…”

Star Wars

The Complete Saga – 9 discs on Blu-ray – I know what you’re thinking and I too already own too 7 sets of Star Wars movies. But, you have to watch these trailers, I mean you have to. They are that good.

2011 Comic Con sneak peek — official trailer

Available September 16

Charlie’s Angels

An upcoming ABC series, Thurs 8pm – Three beautiful women, a former Miami police officer, a mysterious street racer, and a well-to-do thief, are given a chance at redemption when they are recruited by an anonymous millionaire named Charlie Townsend to solve crimes while struggling with their own personal problems, love lives and each others’ friendship.

The Raven

Starring John Cusack, to come out in 2012. From IMDB –  IMDB: “A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer’s stories.”

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door –
Only this, and nothing more.’

the full poem

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Pacific Rim

Guillermo Del Toro is a legend in the sci-fi, horror, and monster genres and it’s easy see why. Here is his proclamation’s at the 2011 Comic Con, from The Hollywood Reporter:

Del Toro is working on the robot-monster film Pacific Rim and said of Legendary’s involvement in the project, “It’s a miracle finding a company that has the energy, the ambition, the balls to make movies the way we want to make them.”

The director lived up to the wild cheers that had greeted him in the hall (in Spanish and English alike) by making a promise to his fans: “It is my duty to commit to film the finest f—ing monsters ever committed to film. And secondly – I make the pledge to create the greatest f—ing robots ever committed to film.”

Not much out about the movie, except this one sentence plot and the military insignia picture: “When an alien attack threatens the Earth’s existence,giant robots piloted by humans are deployed to fight off the menace.”

Tintin

It’s an old character being reinvented through animation. Not many probably know of this small time hero, unless you live in France, Belgium, or Germany where he is huge. Perhaps this is solely an international play?

The film does have two names big enough to get me to see it: Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. Tintin comes out this December.

Need a Spotify invite?

Ok, I’m not promising anything here but I am 2 for 2.

Both times I received a Spotify invite in my email pretty fast.

The backstory is that Ashton Kutcher is a big fan of Spotify and he tweeted his fanboy-ism. Then his millions of twitter followers were like, “we want to try!”

The company replied by creating an invite page just for him. The perks of being a superstar.

So, if you visit this site and put in your email an invite could be coming your way (may takes a few hours):

An exclusive invitation to join Spotify from @aplusk

Top Events for the US Open of Surfing 2011

Welcome to the 2011 US Open of Surfing!

The party officially starts today with check-ins for the athletes and the big on-beach retail stores opening up. Though, with a big swell hitting right now most are probably in the water.

If you’re looking to attend I pulled together my favorite, must-see events, check ’em out:

Continue reading “Top Events for the US Open of Surfing 2011”

Geeks on a train

If you ever have a chance to geek-out, don’t hesitate to take it. There is nothing greater, no more pure joy than that.

Ok, maybe there is romance and you’re child being born, but we are talking about geeks here.

Andrew Garfield in his own Spider-Man costume (w/ fanny pack) at the 2011 Comic Con in San Diego

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I revel in these moments and seek them out, like the recent Harry Potter opening night, yeah it was so wizard.

  • The upcoming iPhone 5 release…already making plans to camp-out at Apple.
  • Obsessing over the upcoming Hobbit movie.
  • Even, waking up at 7 am with the dawn patrol to watch the early heats at the US Open of Surfing.

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I am the king of geek moments. You will rarely find me in the VIP line or at the trendy spot but every geek moment I own.

Comic Con is definitely one of those moments with so much to enjoy like reading Jon Favreau’s movie premiere diaries, Snow White battles, and the release of new Spider-Man/Batman flicks.

So, if you’re just dying to attend you have to do this: Geeks on a train.

“Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner makes the 128-mile journey from Los Angeles to San Diego in two hours and 45 minutes…Fifty-one weeks a year, the train takes vacationers south to Sea World or north to Universal Studios. For one weekend in July, though, boarding the Pacific Surfliner is as close as you can come to climbing into the Hogwarts Express at Kings Cross Platform 9¾.”

Then you get on the train…

“This is the first moment you know you’re among your people. What’s bulging in that duffel bag over there? An elvish sword? A Klingon bat’leth? Look at the reading material: comics, manga, graphic novels, a stolen superhero movie screenplay” – click to keep reading the full story by Big Bang Theory’s co-creator.

It sounds like geek dream heaven to me. If things work out next year I will be on this train and I hope to see you there.